The Great Grocery Smackdown! Wal-mart vs. Whole Foods
Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy? An interesting article from The Atlantic.
Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their Lawn
A little off topic from local food, but still interesting from the living lightly standpoint.
Hugh Pickens writes “The LA Times reports that Orange County officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for replacing the grass on their lawn with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants, reducing their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their front yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. ‘We’ve got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,’ said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book. But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require that 40% of residential yards to be landscaped predominantly with live plants. Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery — lavender, rosemary, horsetail, and pittosporum, among others. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards. At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court. The couple could face a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for their grass-free, eco-friendly landscaping scheme. ‘It’s just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money,’ says Quan Ha.“
Here is the link to the slashdot article.
Posted 6 days, 13 hours ago at 12:10 pm. Add a comment
Local Food Showcase Vendor List – March 11 @ Chatham
The Local Food Showcase is really coming together. This fun event has confirmed twice the number of vendors expected during the brainstorm phase. The public and food professionals are invited to mingle with local farmers and food producers, learn from a master canner and see chef demos. This is a great place to find our where to find locally produced food for the upcoming season. It will be fun!
It will be held at Chatham University’s Anderson Dining Hall, March 11 from 1-4 pm.
The public is invited to attend; the entrance fee to the event is $5. For more info contact Penn State Extension, Allegheny County at 412-473-2540.
A list of confirmed vendors follows:
| Herbal Delights | Kretchmann Farms | |
| Latimer Valley Organics | Milestone Specialty Produce | |
| Cherry Valley Organics | Clarion River Organics | |
| Dillner Family Farms | Backyard Gardens | |
| Enrico Biscotti | European Desserts | |
| Frankferd Farms | Friendship Farms | |
| Harvest Valley Farms | Hillspring Farms | |
| Jamison’s Farms | Le Ara Farms, LLC, Wilson Family Farms |
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| Logan Family Farms | McElhaney Family Farm | |
| Najat’s Cuisine | Six Penn /Parkhurst | |
| Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance |
Schramm’s Farm | |
| Standing Chimney Breads | Studio 4 Cooking | |
| Sturges Orchard | The Purple Spoon Jams | |
| Turner Dairy | Curran and Taylor | |
| American Health Group (Farm to Table) |
East End Food Coop | |
| Logan Family Farms | ||
| Grow Pittsburgh | PASA | |
| Keswick Creamery | ||
| yumpittsburgh.com | ||
Posted 1 week ago at 1:58 pm. Add a comment
Pittsburgh ag zoning public hearing part 2
The room was packed with residents who lined up to voice their opinions about the proposed agriculture zoning ordinances. Members of many organizations including Penn State Extension, Grow Pittsburgh, East End Food Coop, Burgh Bees, The Kingsley Association, PASA, Landslide Farm, GTECH and others applauded the City’s efforts and interest in helping to guide the evolution of urban agriculture in Pittsburgh. Concerns regarding permitting fees, and regulations surrounding bee keeping and chicken keeping are at the heart of the changes the urban agriculture community would like the city to consider rewriting. The request was put forth by Grow Pittsburgh, and supported by others in the room, for 4 weeks time to craft ordinances that reflect the needs of the community.
Pop City wrote a good summary you can find here.
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago at 4:08 pm. Add a comment
2/20 Start Up!, a school for local living economy, info session
Attention: Community Oriented Business Owners, Language Instructors, Green Business Managers, Artists, Accountants, Consultants, Real Estate Agents and Urban Farmers:
We want YOU to teach at our school!
Start-Up!
A School for Local Living Economy
Start-Up is an incorporated, instructor-owned school whose mission is to empower the people of Pittsburgh in building locally-own, environmentally- friendly businesses that enrich our local community. Start-Up is partnering with The Kingsley Association to bring affordable business, environmental, and cultural education to the people and neighborhoods of Pittsburgh.
We are inviting potential instructors to an Open House to learn more about sharing your skills through Start-Up!
Start-Up! Open House
Saturday, February 20
10am – 12pm
Kingsley Association
Corner of Frankstown Rd and E. Liberty Blvd
Admission free with RSVP. Register by phone, 412-677-3109, or by email at startupinfo@startup1.org. $2 at the door.
Visit our website at www.startup1.org
Posted 3 weeks ago at 5:24 pm. Add a comment
3/6 & 7″The Food is Elementary” author to conduct training in Pittsburgh
PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Childhood Food Education Training by Visiting Author “Food Is Elementary” Comes to Pittsburgh March 6th and 7th
Program aims to combat childhood obesity through hands-on food education
[PITTSBURGH, PA]– February 10, 2010—The innovative, award-winning Food Is Elementary curriculum is coming to Pittsburgh! This hands-on approach to teaching children about nutrition will be the subject of a two-day training led by author, Dr. Antonia Demas. The trainings will be held March 6th and 7th from 9am to 4pm at the Center for Victims of Violence and Crime, 5916 Penn Circle in East Liberty. They are open to anyone interested in teaching the curriculum in elementary schools as a certified Food Educator.
Based on the USDA Food Guide Pyramid, the Food is Elementary Curriculum teaches children about the relationship between food choices and disease prevention in a fun, practical, and sensory way. The curriculum is the result of the pioneering work of Dr. Antonia Demas, founder and president of the Food Studies Institute (www.foodstudies.org). Demas hopes to teach the 28-unit curriculum to a new generation of Food Educators who will take the lesson plans and healthy foods into elementary school classrooms. Food Is Elementary has won national awards from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Society of Nutrition Education. Currently it is taught in more than 2,000 schools nationwide, including three in Pittsburgh so far.
Rosemary Traill, a certified Food Educator since 2003, teaches the curriculum in Colfax Elementary, Faison Primary, and the Kentucky Avenue School. Traill explains, “Children learn to prepare healthy foods as well as learn about the cultures they come from. The wonderful thing is— it works! Children get excited about fruits and vegetables when they learn about them in a fun way and get to prepare foods right in the classroom.”
Unhealthy diets are a major cause of health problems like obesity, which are on the rise in childhood. The number of children who are overweight or obese has more than tripled since 1980. That is over 9 million children in the U.S. The Food is Elementary program is a practical and direct approach to addressing this problem.
Registration for the Food Educator Training is open until full, but space is limited. Fees apply. For more information or to register, contact Rosemary Traill at 412-741-5167 or at macrorose@msn.com.
Chris Farber, Outreach Coordinator
East End Food Co-op
412-242-3598 ext. 208
Posted 3 weeks ago at 5:16 pm. Add a comment
City of Pittsburgh ag zoning hearing, part 1
Yum is sitting in a packed room awaiting the start of this meeting. The ag community is out in full force. It is easy to tell who is here on the side of bee and chicken keeping. Yum will report back on how things go.
Posted 3 weeks ago at 2:13 pm. Add a comment
Public Hearing for Proposed City of Pgh Ag Zoning Ordinance
Public Hearing Regarding Proposed City of Pittsburgh Agriculture Zoning Ordinance
The City of Pittsburgh, in an effort to help guide and support the development of urban agriculture, community gardens and greening projects, has drafted a set of ordinances. These ordinances are related to production of produce as well as bee and chicken keeping. Penn State Extension, Allegheny County welcomes the Planning Commission’s work and the City of Pittsburgh as a valuable partner in shaping the evolution of urban agriculture.
The benefits of urban agriculture extend past the value of the calories grown and harvested. Creating and sustaining gardens can beautify neighborhoods, create a sense of community and neighborhood pride, positively affect property values and increase food security. Having guidelines in place is a valuable tool to help guide development of urban agriculture activities.
There will be an opportunity for public comment on the proposed ordinances. While the proposed ordinances are mainly positive, some members of the urban agriculture community would like to request that the Planning Commission clarify some areas related to permitting fees, and bee and chicken keeping.
The public hearing will be held Tuesday, Feb 16, 2010 at 2pm, at 200 Ross Street.
Penn State Extension, Allegheny County, is requesting that the ordinance be tabled for a period of four weeks at the February 16th meeting as it pertains to bees, chickens and other non-domestic farm animals, but passed for vegetable production with the exception of permit fees. The request for an additional four weeks of time would be used for the urban agriculture community to come together and propose changes related to the aforementioned areas.
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago at 4:36 pm. Add a comment
2/25 Michael Pollan speaking at Allegheny College
Yum is swooning over the fact that Michael Pollan is speaking at Allegheny College on February 25th.
What: Michael Pollan – best-selling author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food” – will present “The Sun Food Agenda,” a multimedia lecture, on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. in Shafer Auditorium on the Allegheny College campus.
When: Thu Feb 25 6pm – Book signing at 7:30 pm
Where: Allegheny College, Shafer Auditorium
Posted 3 weeks, 6 days ago at 11:29 am. Add a comment
Experimenting with lactofermentation and making greek style yogurt
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- harvesting whey from yogurt
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- Adding whey to quinoa
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- Soaking grains with lactobacilli
Yum learned a little about lacto-fermenting last week, perhaps just enough to be dangerous. Armed with a quart of Seven Stars Farm yogurt from Pheonixville, PA, a work at home day due to the storm, and curiosity, an experiment seems to be in order.
What is lactofermentation? It is the process used to make sauerkraut and yogurt. According to wikipedia, Lactic acid fermentation is a biological process by the little lactobacilli converts sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose, into cellular energy and the metabolic byproduct lactate.
Why would you want to subject your food and body to this? Once again, yum is no expert but the final product is categorized by some as a ‘living food’, helping the gut to digest and assimilate nutrients. There must be some truth to it or why would there be all kinds of commercials for food like activia yogurt? Hmm, that is purely a personal and anecdotal observation.
So what is yum cooking up today? After an excellent meal 2 weeks ago with friends at Abay, an Ethiopian restaurant in East Liberty, yum wants to recreate a yellow split pea dish. The yum family also really loves the quinoa grain as a nutritious convenience food. After reading that whole grains (especially those with lots of gluten) contain phytic acid, which can bind micronutrients and stop your body from absorbing them. This leaves your efforts at healthy eating partially neutralized, with the biggest benefit being dietary fiber. To preserve the micronutrients, lactofermentation fans suggest partially fermenting whole grains.
Where do you find your lactobacilli? In whey, that yellowish liquid at the top of your yogurt. It is also the leftover liquid from cheesemaking if you get funky like that in your kitchen. The picture above shows harvesting the whey by dumping a container of yogurt into a fine mesh strainer nestled in a bowl. This results in a nice quantity of whey to experiment with as well as a fab by product: Greek style yogurt! Yum cannot express how delicious this kind of yogurt is, but it is really expensive and hard to find an organic variety.
The next step in preparing the grains is to add warm soaking water and stir in a couple of tablespoons of whey, then let it sit until cooking time. The split peas will sit until we get hungry enough to cook a late lunch or early dinner, the quinoa needs up to 12 hours, so that will get cooked tomorrow. This feels a bit daring as yum is a food safety freak. The experts promise that the good lactobacilli will colonize the food to our benefit, keeping bad bacteria at bay. The last pic is of the inoculated grains soaking next to the dried grains.
Yum is curious how this will affect taste, texture and intestinal health (I know, TMI). With the amount of whey harvested from the yogurt, we may try to ferment some garlic radishes and ginger carrots this evening.
Stay tuned for verdict on the final result!
