I’m channeling Michael Jackson’s version of Oz….just a reminder that I’m now blogging at www.nettlenomad.com.
See you there!
Almost back to Asheville……..
A warm, pre-Hurricane Earl Thursday afternoon greeting to all of you! Let me not mince words: I’m moving my website, so that I can better lord (lady?) over all that is mine. Cue the medieval, quasi-feudal music and check out http://www.nettlenomad.com!
Much like a socially awkward, aggressive adolescent boy, it look like Earl is going to introduce himself in full force sometime tomorrow afternoon. In the mean time, last-minute bread and milk runs were a frequent site today in Cape Cod, and while I understand the practicality of those two items, I can’t help but think that wine, chocolate, salty num-nums and vodka would be on my own list of must-have goods. Whenever I hear of people buying out bread and milk, I’m reminded of two things – Soviet market lines, and a delicacy once described to me by a college roommate, who was convinced that white bread, warm milk and a cup of sugar all mushed together in a bowl was the world’s most ideal comfort food. She claimed that’s what you ate if you were a) rich, and b) lived in Connecticut; I have yet to corroborate that information, but maybe sweet monochrome comfort in spoonable form has a place in the hurricane survival process.
I digress. The Cape was certainly lovely this afternoon, with just a hint of breeze to break up summer’s last heat-stand:
The calm before the storm?
I’m excited to be expanding Nettle Nomad in the coming months, especially since I’ll be rooted again in Asheville, with full access to a kitchen and a bio-region that is blessedly full of interesting folks and vittles. I won’t be going back on the road until December, and I thought I’d put a call for suggestions out into the universe. What would you like to see more of? Commentary? Cool projects? I’m thinking homesteading ideas, green living tips, DIY how-to’s, lost arts (food preservation, canning, fermenting, weaving, natural building), gardening in winter months, farm profiles…….what would YOU like see on this blog?
So make like a hurricane and follow me over to http://www.nettlenomad.com. And thanks for reading; as someone who’s always wanted to be a writer, but who rarely shared her written words (probably explains why I’ve gotten three stories published in oh, ten years), your collective support and commentary has proven very validating. Maybe it’s time to submit more wordsmithing after all……:)
See you on the new site!
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
I think one of the more subtle joys to living in and visiting beautiful places is what happens every time you open your eyes. Beautiful, wild vistas are good for the soul. When I first moved to Wyoming, near the mountains, I remember expressing over the phone to my mother that I would have a hard time living there and being in a bad mood; the view just beyond the threshold of my door, of piercing peaks and blue, blue sky was just too stunning. My words turned out to be slightly premature and naive, but the sentiment remains – encountering natural beauty with every throw of the eye does wonders for me.
We’ve got a full house in Cape Cod this week, with Clover’s parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece and nephew all visiting from Georgia and Boston, respectively. As an only child, I’ve experienced summer stints with cousins, aunts and uncles, but it’s interesting to see the dynamics of how a larger-than-three family works. The children are still pretty young, and I imagine the Cape’s offerings are wonderful for them – beaches to play on, waves to charge and wild bits everywhere in which to seek out little adventures. The house itself is beautiful, full of light and windows overlooking the nearby bay and dunes, and the front yard is home to a thriving beach plum tree. Clover and I are staying summer camp-style, complete with bunk beds:
Call this a "distinguished" look
Being so close to the ocean, it’s appropriate that last night’s meal turned into a seafood fest. Clover’s mother seared scallops with shallots and bacon, and I played around with an old recipe for stuffed fish that quickly turned into this:
Reverse Sweet Potato-Stuffed Tilapia with a Pistachio Crust
2 lbs tilapia fillets, or fish of choice
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
1 cup shelled pistachios, crushed with a rolling pin or chopped into rough bits
1/4 cup panko or plain breadcrumbs
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cumin
salt and pepper
olive oil
1 tbs potato water
For the stuffing:
Bring a pot of water to boil, then add in the sweet potato cubes with a touch of salt. Boil until cooked, for 10-12 minutes. Drain, saving a little water and let cool. Start to mix, adding in the water and a splash of olive oil. Add 1 tsp or so of salt and pepper, the cinnamon and cumin and go to town, mashing until smooth and lump-less.
For the fish:
Preheat the oven to 350. Arrange fish on a shallow baking dish or pan, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spoon about 2 tbs of the sweet potato puree onto the top of the fillets, and spread to create and even layer.
In a small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs and pistachio bits. Sprinkle a hearty tablespoon or so of the mixture over the sweet potato, so that your fish goes into the oven looking like this:
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, and serve with a drizzle of fresh lemon.
The finished product
I’m looking forward to today, which, after I finish my tea, is going to involve a dune hike, the beach, and a reading date with Dostoevsky. I’ve decided to reread some of the classic books I loved as a teenager, to see if my perspective on the trials and tribulations of the characters has changed at all over time. The ocean and the Brothers Karamazov will provide me with good company!
What are some of your favorite classics? I used to be borderline-obsessed with the Russians and Soviets – Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Pasternak and Sholokhov (read And Quiet Flows the Don at some point in your life) but I also loved Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native and other pieces from that period.
I’m switching over to my own domain in the next few days, so I’ll update y’all as changes happen!
Posted in Cooking | Tagged Cape Cod, panko, pistachios, Russian literature, stuffed tilapia, sweet potato stuffing, Thomas Hardy | 3 Comments »
They may be the subject of many a horror film, but I love me an abandoned house. Put one in the middle of the Berkshires, add a barn and a neglected orchard planted in days of old, and you’ve got the perfect turf for late morning exploration and fruit foraging.
Clover and I had an interview set up at the New Economics Institute to discuss Berkshares, a local currency system in place in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Local currencies are an interesting practice that both encourages the support of local, small businesses while making sure that money stays within a community. A number of towns across the country have systems in place, some of which, like Berkshares and Ithaca’s Ithaca Hours, have printed currency (completely legal, by the way) while other projects work on a barter and service exchange model – Asheville has a LETS system, and Bellingham, WA operates the Fourth Corner Exchange. The currency and barters can be used at a wide variety of businesses and for services ranging from hiring a lawyer to getting a massage to paving your driveway, and I see the idea of local currency as being a practical way to give weight to the localization movement; spending locally encourages stronger community bonds. All of the aforementioned projects have websites, so check them out if you have a minute!
After the interview, we were driving along a back road when I spotted a decaying roof poking out from a grove of trees. I’ve always been intrigued by forgotten buildings; derelict homes, hospitals, prisons, farmsteads and even the simplest stone ruins all have stories behind them, and I can’t help but wonder what events transpired within their walls – joys, tragedies, bits and pieces of history that have long since faded into the annals of time. I’m a sucker for a good ghost story, and I think that’s what initially drew me to explore these places, and from old church crypts in the English countryside to an abandoned sanatorium perched in the high desert of eastern Washington, my solitary, quasi-archaeological explorations provide me with an immediate link to the past, and also make for interesting camera fodder.
The view from a second story bedroom - how many eyes have taken in these hills over the years?
The farmhouse we stumbled upon yesterday was probably built in the mid-1800′s, and was surrounded by an orchard still bearing apples, pears, mulberries and concord grapes. We quickly set about picking apples, and I was especially excited to harvest the grapes. Concords are a favorite of mine, but the market price usually prevents them from roosting in my basket. I loved that they were thriving wildly in the middle of nowhere, with little human intervention – can’t get much more organic than that!
Historical grapes!
I was interested to learn that the first CSA program started in this region, at Indian Line Farm. I’m a big supporter of community-supported agriculture, and I’ve been heartened watching the idea chug and churn into the mainstream vernacular. Our increasing desire to build connections to our food and the folks that produce it is indicative, I think, of bigger changes taking place across our culture, as people yearn for more authenticity in their lives. From food to family to feeling a sense of true community, I’m seeing more and more individuals engaging in activities and breathing life to sentiments based on something real – real needs, real bonds, respect for the planet and for each other – and this gives me hope that we, as a species, can move beyond destruction and wanton consumption to reconnect with the soil beneath our feet and the people that surround us each and every day. Food is just a starting point, but it can be used as a tool to build relationships, build bridges and heal the land while also potentially healing parts of our hearts.
Food is certainly a tool, but it’s also fuel, and since we’re back on the road, fuel needed to happen in the form of something baked, sweet and full of chocolate. While at my parents’ place, I ransacked their cupboards (every returning child’s birthright, methinks) and gathered chocolate chips, pistachios and honey. Since veggies are often in short supply en transit, I decided to incorporate zucchini for good measure, and when I caught a glimpse of a rose bush in the garden, it was clear that this zucchini bread was going to have a Mediterranean feel to it.
Baklava-Inspired Chocolate Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
3/4 cup olive oil (Extra Virgin) or oil of choice
1 cup sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
3 cups flour (I used white whole wheat flour, so choose what fits your needs)
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 – 1 cup chopped pistachios (as many as you want)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Jar or bottle o’ honey (no need to measure it out quite yet)
A hearty handful of rose petals + 3/4 cup water and 1 tsp sugar
Preheat the oven to 325, and grease down two loaf pans. Make the rose syrup – combine the rose petals, water and 1 tsp of sugar in a small saucepan, and bring to a rolling boil. Let boil for 1 minute, then reduce heat to low and let simmer for ten more minutes. Strain the syrup and remove the petals, then set aside and let cool.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs until frothy, then mix in the oil, rose syrup and sugar. Add in the zucchini.
In a second bowl, combine the dry ingredients – flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt and pistachios. Stir well, then add the wet mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour half the batter into the loaf pans, half-way full. Drizzle a thin layer of honey all over the surface, then add the remaining batter. Drizzle additional honey over the top.
Bake at 325 for 60 – 70 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Garnish with additional pistachios, or, if you can get your hands on rose sorbet or ice cream (check Persian grocery stores), you’ll be happy indeed.
I added more chocolate chips with the honey drizzle for a ribbon effect upon slicing....chocolate, mas!
I’m off to Northampton and Amherst, then Boston and Cape Cod. Massachusetts suggestions, anyone?
Do you participate in a CSA? If not, what are some ideas on how to reconnect to our food supply that are both financially and geographically accessible to most folks?
What are your favorite recipes that include vegetables in places you might not expect to find them?
Posted in Community-Building, Cooking | Tagged Amherst, baklava, Berkshares, Berkshires, Boston, chocolate zucchini bread, concord grapes, New Economics Institute, Northampton, orchards, urban exploration | 4 Comments »
Home. I’ve been throwing the term around a lot lately, using it to describe places that conjure up different emotions in me. Upstate New York is the cradle of my childhood memories, and her hills, farms and spiderweb of long thin lakes remind me both of times and loves ones past. This month I reconnected with family and paid tribute to my family’s history in a narrow valley carved by time and the patience of wind and water, and was able to take Clover along on walking story of the town where my mother grew up, a story punctuated by cabins and cousins, frozen custard stands and a Main Street that has done very little self-editing in the twenty five or so years that I have known it. Consistency, stability, it seems, can be found in boarded up windows and small coffee shops that defy out the onslaught of change.
Home is also Asheville, where I’m building my life out of bricks made from shared ideologies, a need for sustainability and soil that might just be fertile enough to satiate my mental and spiritual needs as well as birthing the foods and herbs which find their way into my kitchen. I’ve adopted Asheville, or she has adopted me, and the family that I’m creating in the city through friends, housemates and loved ones has amazing potential for richness.
And then there’s Nyack, the town I grew up in. I was raised here, schooled here by teachers who I often run into each time I return. My parents still live in the house where I grew up, and should I venture down to the local Irish bar, I’m guaranteed face time with many of the people with whom I used to drive around after school, blaring such musical classics as “I Touch Myself” while hoisting a clothing hanger-affixed sign that read, ever so poignantly, “your mom”. Ah, the substance of high school extracurricular activities. Nyack is where I became a hungry reader, chewing my way through the Children’s Room and their yearly summer reading competition, and it’s also where I became fascinated by historical revolutions and resistance movements. It’s where I subjected my 10th, 11th and 12th grade teachers to an unnatural obsession with all things Russian; history, art, literature, current events….. I may not have been cool, but I was thorough in my devotion to the Russophile way, and just to put it on record, I’d like to offer up a little gratitude to Mr. Burns, Ms. Skidd and Dr. Smith for putting up with my arguably narrow academic interests. Thanks folks – I did outgrow most of it, and I promise that if I ever run into any of you again, there will be no Gogol. Or Bukharin. Yeltsin who? I’ll let sleeping former authoritarians and depressive-but-brilliant writers lie.
Here’s the thing about home; it’s kind of like your family, sometimes inspiring love, other times fueling sentiments a little darker. But heaven forbid someone else mess with your kin, your clan.
Or your mom (just wanted to type that twice in one post, for nostalgia). Blood runs thick, they say.
Should such a violation occur, out come the proverbial claws; our desire to protect our families is truly primal, and it doesn’t matter who or what is encroaching upon them near the berry bush – you’re gonna defend your cubs.
Mama Bear just came out of the cave.
My hometown is being developed at breakneck speed, and the trees are coming down just as fast. In the past two years, I’ve seen slope after slope clear-cut of foliage, patches of wild earth that are now host to a parasitic network of shoddily constructed houses. In addition to forsaking the pride of craftsmanship, these houses are beyond expensive, and are jacking up the cost of living for everyday people and creating a community that is less and less accessible to working classes across the demographic spectrum. I am not okay with this. I am not okay with creating even more of a wealth gap in a town that I remember as being reasonably open to the blue collar world, immigrants and historically-oppressed communities. I am not okay with declaring war on the small bastions of green wilderness that we have left in the suburbs, which are already few and far between. I am not okay with throwing away Main Street culture in the name of big box discounts, and I am certainly not okay with displacing animals from their habitats, so that they wander, semi-domesticated, into the the throes of suburbia where we talk about how to “deal” with them, as if the whole situation were their fault. Curious. I’ve yet to see a white-tailed deer operating a bulldozer. I did see this one about ten feet from my parent’s house, however:
My species is swallowing your habitat. Eat my garden - it might level the playing field a bit.
Giving the cold shoulder to developers? Or simply looking for the Lorax to magically appear?
I can’t help but recall driving through the devastation that is an old-growth clear cut. The Pacific Northwest is riddled with them, and the fields and gullies full of severed stumps, dry earth and mangled limbs that once were thriving forests made me sick to my stomach. They looked like war zones, the no-mans’ lands I’d seen pictures of in books. I guess it would be more appropriate to call them too-many-mans’ lands; this is what happens when greed and a lack of respect for the planet band together, build muscle, and use that muscle to pick up a chainsaw:
Clear cutting removes flood buffers, anihilates forest carbon sinks, kills biodiversity and by robbing the planet of her lungs, contributes to global warming. Is it possible to change our habits of resource consumption and alter our relationship with nature to stop these kinds of practices? I certainly hope so. In the mean time, I just want them to stop the wanton development in my hometown, so all ye Nyack quick-buck builders and abusers, please stop cutting down trees. We don’t need more McMansions or a third Target. Homeowners don’t like mudslides and flooding basements, and deer really don’t enjoy being hit by cars while crossing the street to a patch of scrub. Just stop.
Insert transition, so that I may go from environmental soapbox to sorbet. One of the perks to being in my parent’s house is a fully stocked, clean kitchen, which means I get time to experiment. Summer fruit and herb bounty is always plentiful, and I love combining the two; sweet fruit and spicy, pungent herbs make for terraced tasting. The flavors build on one another, enhancing and deepening the tongue’s experience, and so today I made a homemade sorbet out of two stone fruits – fresh peaches and ground cherries – with a touch of thyme. Ground cherries can be found in forests (the non-clearcut variety) throughout the Northeast, and they come in their own little “parchment” packaging.
I'm a big fan of organic packaging. Mother Nature knows how to recycle.
I’m gonna use this peach, ground cherry and thyme sorbet tonight as part of a savory dish.
Peach, Ground Cherry and Thyme Sorbet
5 ripe peaches, pitted and sliced into wedges
1 cup ground cherries, with the husks and stems removed (you can substitute regular cherries for a vibrantly red and equally delicious sorbet)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, off the stem
In a small pan, combine the sugar, honey and water. Cook over a medium flame until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil for one minute – kindly refrain from stirring as it boils. Remove the pan from heat, and allow it to cool off.
Put the peaches, cherries, salt, thyme and cooled off sweet syrup into a blender, and process until smooth. If you have an ice cream maker, pour in the sorbet-to-be and freeze. If you don’t have one, fear not, for the spirit of DIY (do-it-yourself) shall lead you to an empty metal coffee canister or metal bowl. Add the mixture, cover and freeze.
It’s extra pretty if you serve it with a sprig of fresh thyme!
Blackberry and sage is another killer fruit-herb combination – I’ve made a sorbet version before, and it makes a simple pound cake quite wonderful indeed. What are some of your favorite eccentric flavor combinations?
So tonight, as an ode to my father’s Southern roots and my own adopted homeland, I’m cooking down-home style. There will be collards.
Sometimes, in life, grits (and grit) are necessary.
Has your hometown changed over the years? For better or for worse? How do you feel about development – is it a necessary or inevitable occurrence? And just where is the Lorax?
Posted in Commentary, Cooking | Tagged blackberry and sage sorbet, clearcutting, deer, going home, greed, grits, ground cherries, habitat destruction, Hudson Valley, McMansions, Nyack, overdeveloment, Pacific Northwest clear cuts, peach and thyme sorbet, Southern food, urban sprawl | 5 Comments »
Home. I’ve been throwing the term around a lot lately, using it to describe places that conjure up different emotions in me. Upstate New York is the cradle of my childhood memories, and her hills, farms and spiderweb of long thin lakes remind me both of times and loves ones past. This month I reconnected with family and paid tribute to my family’s history in a narrow valley carved by time and the patience of wind and water, and was able to take Clover along on walking story of the town where my mother grew up, a story punctuated by cabins and cousins, frozen custard stands and a Main Street that has done very little self-editing in the twenty five or so years that I have known it. Consistency, stability, it seems, can be found in boarded up windows and small coffee shops that defy out the onslaught of change.
Home is also Asheville, where I’m building my life out of bricks made from shared ideologies, a need for sustainability and soil that might just be fertile enough to satiate my mental and spiritual needs as well as birthing the foods and herbs which find their way into my kitchen. I’ve adopted Asheville, or she has adopted me, and the family that I’m creating in the city through friends, housemates and loved ones has amazing potential for richness.
And then there’s Nyack, the town I grew up in. I was raised here, schooled here by teachers who I often run into each time I return. My parents still live in the house where I grew up, and should I venture down to the local Irish bar, I’m guaranteed face time with many of the people with whom I used to drive around after school, blaring such musical classics as “I Touch Myself” while hoisting a clothing hanger-affixed sign that read, ever so poignantly, “your mom”. Ah, the substance of high school extracurricular activities. Nyack is where I became a hungry reader, chewing my way through the Children’s Room and their yearly summer reading competition, and it’s also where I became fascinated by historical revolutions and resistance movements. It’s where I subjected my 10th, 11th and 12th grade teachers to an unnatural obsession with all things Russian; history, art, literature, current events….. I may not have been cool, but I was thorough in my devotion to the Russophile way, and just to put it on record, I’d like to offer up a little gratitude to Mr. Burns, Ms. Skidd and Dr. Smith for putting up with my arguably narrow academic interests. Thanks folks – I did outgrow most of it, and I promise that if I ever run into any of you again, there will be no Gogol. Or Bukharin. Yeltsin who? I’ll let sleeping former authoritarians and depressive-but-brilliant writers lie.
Here’s the thing about home; it’s kind of like your family, sometimes inspiring love, other times fueling sentiments a little darker. But heaven forbid someone else mess with your kin, your clan.
Or your mom (just wanted to type that twice in one post, for nostalgia). Blood runs thick, they say.
Should such a violation occur, out come the proverbial claws; our desire to protect our families is truly primal, and it doesn’t matter who or what is encroaching upon them near the berry bush – you’re gonna defend your cubs.
Mama Bear just came out of the cave.
My hometown is being developed at breakneck speed, and the trees are coming down just as fast. In the past two years, I’ve seen slope after slope clear-cut of foliage, patches of wild earth that are now host to a parasitic network of shoddily constructed houses. In addition to forsaking the pride of craftsmanship, these houses are beyond expensive, and are jacking up the cost of living for everyday people and creating a community that is less and less accessible to working classes across the demographic spectrum. I am not okay with this. I am not okay with creating even more of a wealth gap in a town that I remember as being reasonably open to the blue collar world, immigrants and historically-oppressed communities. I am not okay with declaring war on the small bastions of green wilderness that we have left in the suburbs, which are already few and far between. I am not okay with throwing away Main Street culture in the name of big box discounts, and I am certainly not okay with displacing animals from their habitats, so that they wander, semi-domesticated, into the the throes of suburbia where we talk about how to “deal” with them, as if the whole situation were their fault. Curious. I’ve yet to see a white-tailed deer operating a bulldozer. I did see this one about ten feet from my parent’s house, however:
My species is swallowing your habitat. Eat my garden - it might level the playing field a bit.
Giving the cold shoulder to developers? Or simply looking for the Lorax to magically appear?
I can’t help but recall driving through the devastation that is an old-growth clear cut. The Pacific Northwest is riddled with them, and the fields and gullies full of severed stumps, dry earth and mangled limbs that once were thriving forests made me sick to my stomach. They looked like war zones, the no-mans’ lands I’d seen pictures of in books. I guess it would be more appropriate to call them too-many-mans’ lands; this is what happens when greed and a lack of respect for the planet band together, build muscle, and use that muscle to pick up a chainsaw:
Clear cutting removes flood buffers, anihilates forest carbon sinks, kills biodiversity and by robbing the planet of her lungs, contributes to global warming. Is it possible to change our habits of resource consumption and alter our relationship with nature to stop these kinds of practices? I certainly hope so. In the mean time, I just want them to stop the wanton development in my hometown, so all ye Nyack quick-buck builders and abusers, please stop cutting down trees. We don’t need more McMansions or a third Target. Homeowners don’t like mudslides and flooding basements, and deer really don’t enjoy being hit by cars while crossing the street to a patch of scrub. Just stop.
Insert transition, so that I may go from environmental soapbox to sorbet. One of the perks to being in my parent’s house is a fully stocked, clean kitchen, which means I get time to experiment. Summer fruit and herb bounty is always plentiful, and I love combining the two; sweet fruit and spicy, pungent herbs make for terraced tasting. The flavors build on one another, enhancing and deepening the tongue’s experience, and so today I made a homemade sorbet out of two stone fruits – fresh peaches and ground cherries – with a touch of thyme. Ground cherries can be found in forests (the non-clearcut variety) throughout the Northeast, and they come in their own little “parchment” packaging.
I'm a big fan of organic packaging. Mother Nature knows how to recycle.
I’m gonna use this peach, ground cherry and thyme sorbet tonight as part of a savory dish.
Peach, Ground Cherry and Thyme Sorbet
5 ripe peaches, pitted and sliced into wedges
1 cup ground cherries, with the husks and stems removed (you can substitute regular cherries for a vibrantly red and equally delicious sorbet)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, off the stem
In a small pan, combine the sugar, honey and water. Cook over a medium flame until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil for one minute – kindly refrain from stirring as it boils. Remove the pan from heat, and allow it to cool off.
Put the peaches, cherries, salt, thyme and cooled off sweet syrup into a blender, and process until smooth. If you have an ice cream maker, pour in the sorbet-to-be and freeze. If you don’t have one, fear not, for the spirit of DIY (do-it-yourself) shall lead you to an empty metal coffee canister or metal bowl. Add the mixture, cover and freeze.
It’s extra pretty if you serve it with a sprig of fresh thyme!
Blackberry and sage is another killer fruit-herb combination – I’ve made a sorbet version before, and it makes a simple pound cake quite wonderful indeed. What are some of your favorite eccentric flavor combinations?
So tonight, as an ode to my father’s Southern roots and my own adopted homeland, I’m cooking down-home style. There will be collards.
Sometimes, in life, grits (and grit) are necessary.
Has your hometown changed over the years? For better or for worse? How do you feel about development – is it a necessary or inevitable occurrence? And just where is the Lorax?
Posted in Commentary, Cooking | Tagged blackberry and sage sorbet, clearcutting, deer, going home, greed, grits, ground cherries, habitat destruction, Hudson Valley, McMansions, Nyack, overdeveloment, Pacific Northwest clear cuts, peach and thyme sorbet, Southern food, urban sprawl | 5 Comments »
Southern-Style Bruschetta, Sleepy Skullcap and Stopping Burger King from Killing the Rainforest
August 26, 2010 by Rachael
For the love of an orangutan, put down that BK Broiler, and think twice before stopping in for a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee fix: both companies have been tied to the destruction of Indonesia’s paradise forests, where huge swaths of pristine, old-growth rainforest are being slashed down daily to make room for palm oil plantations. In addition to destroying the habitat of the aforementioned orangutans, gibbons and tigers, the clear cutting of this forest is generating huge amounts of pollution, displacing indigenous tribes and contributing to human rights abuses; we’re talking labor trafficking, slavery and, as has been seen time and again in the Amazon, the convenient “disappearances” of local folks who try to speak out against the devastation. I do not want my cake donut to come with a side of murder, and since the post-cutting practice of burning forest remnants has resulted in orangutans burning alive, I feel justified in saying that no potato ought to be fried in a product whose sourcing contributes to flaming, tortured monkeys. At least that’s my opinion.
Courtesy of the Nutrition Research Center. Not sure why they have a pic of an orangutan on their website, though.
As consumers, we’re faced with choices everyday, and our decisions are made based on a myriad of considerations. What’s the monetary cost? How much time will I have to invest to procure a product? Who and what am I supporting through my purchase? With fast food factories like Burger King, the goods are cheap and accessible, and often available in places that are a wasteland for comparably priced, healthier foods. A host of other factors weigh in as well, but I’d like to think that as a society, we’re starting to realize just how powerful the placement of our dollar is; in an age where corporations respond to profit, removing their ability to bask in said profit is an effective means of getting one’s voice heard. Whether you choose to actively boycott a company or simply spend your money where you feel it is more ethically appropriate, consumers have the ability to affect change – ten years ago, how many of us had heard of Fair Trade or truly understood the importance of supporting local economies? These ideas have become more and more a part of the mainstream, and I think that by upping the anti and forcing businesses to be both environmentally and socially responsible, we just might move towards a more equitable culture.
Burger King says “Have it your way!” Tell ‘em you’d prefer the occasional fast food indulgence without environmental destruction:
https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=689
Burger King, I am tired. However, I am not amused. I furrow my brow at you, oh slayer of monkeys!
What are your opinions on ethical consumerism? Do you think that consumers can change the negative practices of businesses and corporations? What are some ways that you try to make your spent dollars reflect your ideals?
I recognize that I’ve now posted two eco-rants and one extremely unflattering picture in the period of a single week. Sorry, folks. I consider the planet to be home, and I’m just not down with trashing my house. On top of that, the lack of kindness (and common sense) with which we treat this place is sadly reflected in how we often treat each other. It’s hard to be compassionate in just one sector of your life; the stuff’s contagious. Here’s to a little more tenderness in the universe, though we may have to enforce it within a iron fist. Kidding. Kind of.
It’s possible that my heightened sense of righteous indignation is the direct result of a severe lack of sleep. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m pretty hardcore insomniac. Two, three hours a night is my average, with periods of no sleep whatsoever that can last upwards of three or four days. These slightly manic periods are a carnival of fun, not only for myself, but for anyone else in a five mile radius – vastly different moods erupt from my mind in rapid-fire succession, and a good friend once remarked that seeing me in no-sleep mode was like watching a circus parade. I’ve been this way since I was about fourteen – I blame puberty - and while I used to revel in the extra reading and study hours I gained, staying far away from Dreamland is not conducive to getting older. I’ve tried a whole forest’s worth of herbs and teas, and the most surefire treatment to date is skullcap tincture. Seriously – if you have sleeping problems, get thee to the local co-op or supplement store, and get thyself a bottle of skullcap tincture. Squeeze the contents of the dropper under your tongue, and you’ll be lulled into a quiet-minded state of sleep. I was given a small supply of skullcap goodness in Ithaca by the herbalist we couch-surfed with, and sadly, I’m already out. Must get more, otherwise y’all might be inundated with more soapbox spiels later on this week
I’ve got another recipe to share, which resulted from a hankering for something from the southlands. I’m starting to get a little homesick for Asheville (and for my own room), so when I found stone-ground white grits at the store a few days back, I figured they might help hold me over until I’m back in grits-and-biscuit land. While you could quite accurately describe this meal as consisting of corn cakes, I’m going to channel the powers of cultural fusion and call it bruschetta, southern-style.
Southern Summer Bruschetta
For the base:
3 cups water
1 cup stone-ground grits
1 tsp salt
1/4 shredded cheese o’ choice
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 tablespoons cornmeal + 1-2 tablespoon breadcrumbs, on a plate
For the topping:
5 small to medium tomatoes, chopped roughly, and patted down to remove extra water
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Vidalia onion, diced
1 peach, cut into small cubes
1 small Cubanelle pepper, diced (if you like mild) or 1 jalapeno, de-seeded and diced (should you embrace a touch of heat)
1/2 cup corn, sliced right off the cob
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne
A touch of cumin, and pepper to taste
For the base:
Preheat the oven to 350. Bring water to a boil, then add salt and grits. Lower the heat, and cook until thick, stirring all the while – should be about ten minutes. Remove from heat, then stir in the egg and grated cheese – stir up until all is well combined. Let cool.
Once the grits have cooled off, take a tablespoon or two into your hand, form into a ball, then flatten into a disk. Press the disk into some of the cornmeal/breadcrumb mixture, then place in a slightly greased baking dish. Repeat until all the grit mixture is used up.
For the topping:
Combine all ingredients, splash in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, and mix well.
To assemble, simply spoon the tomato mixture onto the grit disks. Bake on 350 for 10 minutes, then transfer ‘em onto a skillet for bottom-crisping purposes; 6-8 minutes with a little olive oil over a medium flame should do the trick.
Remember the peach, ground cherry and thyme sorbet from earlier this week? I served each piece of bruschetta with a little dollop of sweet and savory coldness.
It is hard to believe that I did not discover the joy of grits until I was almost 25. Rib-hugging, super-thrifty staple, I salute you!
I’m headed to Providence, Rhode Island for more work tomorrow, then back to Massachusetts for a brief stay with Clover’s family in Cape Cod. I’m looking forward to dunes.
A lovely night to all.
Posted in Commentary, Cooking | Tagged bruschetta, Burger King, deforestation, Dunkin Donuts, Greenpeace, grits, insomnia, orangutans, palm oil, Paradise forest destruction, Sinar Mas, skullcap, Southern food | 7 Comments »