Petition in support of Diana DeGette's food tracking legislation

I received a note from DeGette's office and they are hoping to move their legislation forward this session.
Please sign this on line petition in support of HR 3485

Thank you to Shayna Glick at Slashfood for writing about the legislation and the online petition. Slashfood is a great group blog that covers lot of different food related subjects.

Week Eleven --inside the box

Cilantro, lettuces, eggplant, tomatoes, plums,asian pears, collards, dino kale, heirloom collards, basil garlic and summer squash.

Why consumers sometimes have no faith in govt.

Home > Safest food in the world >

Safest food in the world alert: Texas edition

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Doug Powell

Todd Staples, the Agriculture Commissioner for the great state of Texas, has decided to alienate 488 Texas voters suffering from Salmonella Saintpaul inspired diarrhea that,

“Texans can be assured that we continue to enjoy the safest food supply in the world.”

Staples also finds it necessary to remind Texans that,

“Consumers should always properly wash and prepare all food items, as this is a basic part of family food safety.”

Except this outbreak, from all available evidence, is not a consumer issue, unless people in 43 states are all mishandling produce in the same manner.
read barfblog...it's wonderful

weeks end... what's left

I'm writing an article for a local monthly on what it is like to cook at a winery during the "crush."
One of the cooks is a volunteer who went into the project thinking about keeping to certain goals --one of which was to use local produce but not in the ways commonly seen in Sonoma County.
She wanted to think...way outside the box. One of her most interesting thoughts was to look at what is served during the harvest in other countries --- her menus reflected cooking of many cuisines but used the fresh produce available in Sonoma County.

At the end of week ten ...I had a small "winter" squash and dino kale....and I made curry!

When good vegetables get too big

My neighbor had some giant cucumbers and sliced up...not that tasty..even peeled and seeded but
made into a soup --pretty darn good. Peeled seed and in the food processor....you could go more in the gazpacho direction or add milk, yougurt or some dairy product for a creamier soup. I added tomatoes, lemon juice and chili paste --the most work was peeling and seeding the cucumbers.

Green greens..it's greens I say....

Beet greens are identical to chard. Some varieties are grown for their roots, some for their greens. Use beet greens as you would chard; they are a good source of folic acid.
A favorite recipe is beet greens or chard with canned tuna on pasta. Clean and stem the greens. Cook the stems in boiling water until tender, about seven minutes. Blanch the leaves for a minute. Chop leaves and stems and saute with some olive oil along with minced garlic, diced onions, and chopped Kalamatas or dried black olives to taste. When the stems, leaves, and olives are nicely married, add one or two drained tins of tuna in water (don’t use tuna canned in oil) and mix until all is warm. Add in as much red wine wine vinegar as you like. Add salt and pepper to taste. Use this as a pasta sauce. It’s great on whole wheat linguine.

You say potato and I say organic!

Even though potatoes are the number one vegetable, and even though they can have the highest total amount of pesticides, someone must think we don't want organic potatoes enough to push for them....read more

It also came as quite a blow to find out french fries are not only not good for you --they are also environmentally unfriendly due to the large amount of oil needed to make them. But there is a pretty good oven fried substitute,

3 (8 oz) potatoes, peeled
5 tablespoons vegetable oil or peanut oil
Salt and ground black pepper

Adjust oven rack to lowest position. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

Cut each potato into about 10-12 equal size wedges. Soak potato wedges in a large bowl of hot tap water for 10 minutes.

Pour 4 tablespoons of the oil into a 12×18 inch heavy duty rimmed baking sheet.

Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper over the oil; swirl it around. Salted oil helps keep the potatoes from sticking quite so much.

Drain the potato wedges and pat them dry on a layer of paper towels. Remove as much moisture as possible.

Wipe out the bowl you used for soaking and return potato slices to bowl. Toss potatoes with remaining 1 tablespoon of oil. Lay potatoes in pan with salted oil.

Cover pan tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 5 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake until golden – 15-20 minutes (check at 15). Rotate pan halfway through.

Using a spatula, scrape potato wedges up off pan and flip them over. Bake another 5 to 15 minutes or until potatoes or golden brown all over.

drain. Add extra salt or hot pepper flakes if desired.