Neighborhoods

I confess. When Michelle Obama was in Chicago last week, and visited Walgreens, I stood in front of the television yelling at her.

Why was Michelle Obama, of all people, in Chicago-city of neighborhoods, home of the nation's most diverse ethnic population, in the middle of the richest farmland in the world, and leader of the WW2 Victory Gardens movement-standing in some anonymous Walgreens, praising them for importing tomatoes from Chile.

Why was she not walking down Clark Street in Rogers Park, where there are probably 15 locally-owned mercados featuring produce raised locally, and run by families living in the neighborhood. Why was she not on Devon Avenue in the 40th ward, another strip of vibrant local economy? How about 57th Street in her own neighborhood, and home, until the big boxes shut it down, of the famous 57th Street Food Co-op?

The solution to healthy food systems and urban vitality is not another vast parking lot, where private security will boot your car if you so much as step onto the sidewalk to mail a letter, but small, locally owned grocery stores, with sensible inspection protocols, and family management.

After the '68 riots, Chicago let its local economies die. Where once there were dozens of family businesses keeping the neighborhoods, especially the African-American neighborhoods alive, a decades-long shibboleth has been sold us, teaching us that "business" happens on Wall Street or LaSalle Street, over-regulating small businesses while letting the big guys get away with murder and the family silver, and selling our own livelihoods back to us in Big Boxes stocked with the fruits of foreign slave labor.

Once "business" is what your grandpa did, in his shop around the corner from his house, or downstairs from his apartment. You worked there on the weekends and after school, learning how to run a business, a business that you would take over, when your grandpa and your pa got too old. We've let not one, or two, but now three generations of business acumen just die in service to the supposed "efficiency" and low prices of Walmart and its ilk.

Just another reason to be disappointed in the Obamas. Michelle, Walgreen's is not the answer to food deserts or to sustainable economies. Walgreen's is the problem. Bring back the neighborhood pharmacists, tailors, shoe repairs, appliance repairs, and grocers.

A coalition of local food activists agrees with me. They've created the Statement of Local Food Economy. You can sign the statement, too--instructions here.


Root n fruit soup
1 medium parsnip
1 medium white carrot
1 medium orange carrot
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup pumpkin puree
2+ cups water

1 medium purple carrot, sliced
1 medium white carrot, sliced
small onion, cubed

salt and white pepper to taste

Roughly chop and then saute the parsnip, orange carrot and one of the white carrots in about 2 tablespoon butter, until very soft. Add a cup of water and boil under they start to fall apart. Add the pumpkin and another cup of water; bring to a light boil, then puree with an immersible blender (or decant into a food processor if you don't have the blender).

Sautee the sliced onion and carrot in about a tablespoon of butter, until onion is translucent. Add to the puree, and add water until it reaches the desired consistency (personal choice). Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with homemade shortbread biscuits.

You need a farmer to run a farm

Last June, through a miscommunication at Peterson Garden, we put in 12 "farm" plots-- four that we called "Farm4You" and 8 that we designated "Farm2Give." The F4Y plots were sold for $100-$250 to individuals who had time to harvest but not to care for a plot; the F2G plots were installed as teaching plots with all the produce donated to local shelters, community organizations, and food pantries. The original intention was to have as many F4Y plots as we could sell, and 4 demonstration plots (a Vintage plot, a Three Sisters, an Heirlooms plot, and a Bee Plot) from which we'd donate food. One day, in a fit of enthusiasm, I put in 3 more, then took on a fall plot as part of an outreach project.

Because the miscommunication was mine, I felt somewhat obligated to be the one caring for these plots.

Each plot is 24 square feet, for a total acreage of less than 1% of an acre. By way of perspective, an average, commercially-oriented truly family-owned farm is 180 acres, or some 1000 times the area I was taking care of.

While I did end up harvesting nearly 200 pounds of produce just from the F2G plots, I'm sure that we lost a lot of the yield to lack of care and missed harvests, so that produce rotted or dried before it could be picked. Because we didn't have a farmer, whose job it was to nurture these plants, plots didn't get watered, didn't get picked, didn't get pruned.

My lesson from this? As the title says, if you're going to have a farm-- a commercial enterprise providing food to other people-- you need someone whose job it is to grow things, in other words, a farmer. I know how much work goes into a garden--I plant twice that area in my backyard every year. But that's a few steps outside my door, and if I miss a harvest, I can rationalize that I'll just turn that into compost. No one starves or loses income because I let a few tomatoes rot on the ground.

But I feel bad about the yield we lost at Peterson. Good intentions and a green thumb don't make a farmer. What makes a farmer is an investment of time, and effort; it's a job that you do every day, not just when you can get there in your spare time. Not that I didn't already have all kinds of awe and respect for farmers, but this experience has hugely reinforced that.

Apple Carrot Bread

1 cup white flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp. orange extract (optional)
2 eggs

2 medium apples, peeled and shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 medium carrot, peeled and shredded (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup + 1T honey or 1/2 cup maple syrup+2T molasses
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350F/175C. Grease or line with parchment, bottom only of 9 x 5 or 8 x 4 inch loaf pan.

Whisk dry ingredients together; set aside. Beat eggs, add and beat in softened butter, honey, and molasses. Add fruit, mix thoroughly, then add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 3 minutes. Stir in nuts. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan to cool. Refrigerate any leftovers. Makes 1 loaf.

Bonding over the compost

There's a new blogger project on gardening with your kids called "Kinder Gardens- Let's Get'em Dirty!" that makes me wish I still had some child victims of my own around to dig in the dirt with me. (The one in the picture turned 21 on Wednesday.)

I've spoken a lot recently with my kids about what they remember about the garden growing up. Surprisingly, they don't remember how much they loved sticking seeds in the dirt, or picking up worms, although my daughter did recall that she liked planting out potted plants. Mostly what they remember, as I wrote about in a prior post is the "forced labor." Although, to be fair, they also both remembered and miss the delicious fresh veggies.

They also have all bonded with their peers over their hatred of feeding the compost, which I find absolutely hilarious, and charming.

Gardening with kids is lots of fun-- you have to let go a little bit, because things get trampled, and planted wrong, and picked early, but that's part of the entertainment.

In this stage of my life, between generations as it were, I pretty much garden alone, but it's made me think about how to get my young adults involved in the garden again. I'd love for them to see it as bonding with the goddess, and with me, and bring them back in for the joy of it.

I could try bribing them with food I suppose, but here's the question: How do you get apartment-dwelling, time-crunched young adults back into the garden?

Ginger carrot scones
from myrecipes.com more or less

3/4 cup all-purpose flour plus 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
>1/3 cup sugar or substitute 1/4 c honey
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup finely grated carrot (about 1 1/2 carrots)
2 tablespoons diced crystallized ginger or 1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 large egg
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk (if using honey, reduce to 1/3 cup buttermilk or sour cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 425°.

Mix together first 5 ingredients and 1/3 cup sugar. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add carrot and ginger and mix until just blended. Whisk together egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in a separate bowl until blended. Add to flour mixture, and mix just until blended and slightly moist. (Dough will be sticky.)

Spoon in large tablespoonsful onto a lightly greased baking sheet (or line a sheet with parchment paper). Bake at 425° for 15 minutes or until golden.

A week's worth of pent-up cooking mojo

After lunch, I started thinking about that big tub of yogurt that I used for my soup garnish, and all those carrots I still have from the garden, and the walnuts that I found. Well, one of the things I've learned is that if you google "recipe: any combination of ingredients", someone has a recipe.

Found this wonderful nutty bread on the Plumpest Peach blog. She credits it to Olive magazine. I've adjusted her metric measures for us diehard avoir-dupois-ists.

Quick carrot and walnut bread

1 1/2 c plain flour
5.8 c whole meal flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2/3 c grated carrots
handful of walnuts toasted
1 1/4 c low-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 c skim milk

Method
Heat oven to 455 F. Mix the flours, salt and baking soda, then stir in the carrot, walnuts and yogurt, followed by enough milk to make a soft, quite sticky dough. Tip onto a floured surface and form a flat ball, put on a baking sheet, slash the top and bake for 30 minutes until risen and cooked. It'll sound hollow when you tap it.

Guinea pigs

The cast, crew and staff of Light Opera Works' production of C'est la vie went the extra mile this week and taste-tested two different versions of carrot bread for me, including my first ever attempt at changing key ingredients in a baked goods recipe. You may have noticed that you don't see a lot of baked goods on here; I'm not much of a baker. All that sciencey-stuff. You kind of have to know what you're doing.

But I took a chance at a pumpkin-carrot bread (remember all that pumpkin and carrot in the larder?) made with honey instead of sugar. The verdict seems to be that this Carrot Pear Bread was the winner, but the adapted recipe was also pretty good. (Don't tell them, but I brought them the smaller, drier loaf. What can I say.)

Apparently, I have now spoiled them, as they are asking what I'm bringing next week. This is why I never bake (although I did find a recipe for pumpkin-chocolate swirl brownies...)

Pumpkin-carrot bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 T cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups honey
1 cup homemade or 1 can of pumpkin puree
4 large eggs
3/4 cup nut or vegetable oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease and flour two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans.

Put raisins in a microwaveable container, just cover with water, and microwave on high for 1 minute (this will plump them).

Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Set aside.

Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil in large mixer bowl; beat until just blended. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Fold in carrot and raisins. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pans.

Bake for 50 minutes, test with an inserted wooden pick (should come out clean). If not done, bake another 6 to 10 minutes and retest. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 2 loaves