cakeaustin

In the words of Queen Elizabeth I,

“This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Photo and text below via Obama Foodorama:

Kirschenmann, Jackson and Berry

“1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has what seems like a constant stream of celeb guests, and for people who follow food and Ag policy, a White House visit from Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Fred Kirschenmann is an equivalent event. The trio visited the White House last week when they were in DC for meetings, and Wes Jackson just went on the record with his local paper, the Kansas-based Salina Journal, and he describes the visit. Ob Fo noted recently that the White House Kitchen Garden is a little bit like a green Grand Central Station these days, with all the students and volunteers and visitors going through, including many farm groups from conventional agriculture; what makes this particular event notable is that these particular visitors are pathbreakers in the sustainable ag/environmental community. But please, don’t get yourself in a lather that it’s any indication of Future Policy Directions, as Jackson himself noted to the Salina Journal. (Above: Fred Kirschenmann, from left, Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry in Washington last week).” CLICK TO CONTINUE READING @Obama Foodorama…

As I clicked on a local news station’s website to read a story about Austin food pantries being forced to place restrictions on who receives help, my mouse paused on this little gem (photo to right):

I’ve never been to – let alone, heard of – Sirloin Stockade, but it’s clearly a restaurant with an identity crisis. Obviously, the self-referential carrot cake caught my eye first, followed by the all-American pepperoni pizza, meatlof-ish (?) brick of who can say, fried chicken and so on.

I think it must be like a Golden Corral, or as I refer to it, Golden Feedtrough.

Unfortunately – and, all joking aside – the source of these restaurant chains’ mainstays are in factory farming of  heavily subsidized corn, wheat and soy and of mercilessly confined cattle, pigs and chickens.

It is only a matter of time until the American public lifts fully the veil cast for so long on their food supply. I am grateful for the brave directors of such films as Food, Inc. and FRESH for shedding light on the awful truth: that this 60+ year illusion of endless plenty, having so far surpassed our forefathers’ dreams of a chicken in every pot, must and will come to an end.

My hope is that, by then, enough of us have learned to grow our own food, or have supported the safekeeping of arable land along with those who steward it, long enough and widely enough, to sustain us. As Berry writes, it is only from our relationship with the land, our place, that we learn what is enough.

The current Pepcid Complete marketing campaign invites us and our fellow countrymen to use a heartburn-relief product which will effectively solve the problem of having to “hurt now” or “hurt later”. What it fails to offer is the third, more sensible, healthful and free of cost solution: EATING LESS. Or even EATING FOODS WHICH WON’T TRIGGER HEARTBURN. It’s a simple proposition, but one that manages to elude a large number of the U.S. population: eat foods which your body can comfortably digest, and avoid foods which cause plaque on your arteries, lethargy and lack of joy in life.

This, of course, is a difficult proposition for the many Americans living in poverty, without access to nutritious, affordable food. Organizations such as SFC are working to combat this crisis through programs which put locally farmed food in the paths of food stamp recipients – from neighborhood farm markets which accept the Lone Star Card and WIC vouchers to free cooking and nutrition classes held in the most underserved areas.

Good decisionmaking on the part of consumers is an oft-overlooked variable in the war for decent healthcare in this country. As the Obamas tout the importance of eating well, it will be interesting to watch their message infuse – or fall by the wayside of – the government agencies charged with feeding America. For a start, how about a return to useful semantics? Shouldn’t the goal be “nourishing America?”

In closing, I’d like to give credit to Pepcid for offering sound advice to consumers on not getting heartburn in the first place – seriously. My hope is that more product marketing sites will begin to give credence to the relevance of eating right – before rushing to the medicine cabinet.

The user-generated content revolution predicted by the futurist on staff at my former marketing agency is here. Blogging always seemed natural to me; now, Facebook, quenching one’s undeniable need to share – but Twitter is changing the whole game. Last month’s Time Magazine which a friend passed on to me, made a good case for this, but I see the phenomenon happening at lightning-speed now. Case in point: Seventh Generation is tweeting – about equal numbers of followers and tweeters they follow, in the 6,000 range. They’re getting what any conscientious company would dream of: real-time consumer feedback. This is gold – not only for their PR folks but for R&D as they develop products and improve existing ones.

Now let’s visit our Big Ag friends…how many followers would you hazard a guess mighty Cargill has? 56. What’s more – they’re only following 4. Click over to DuPont. A bit better, at 355. But they are following NO ONE. My favorite is ConAgra, which, despite following 88 and having 148 followers, has YET TO TWEET. Monsanto has a respectable 1,843 but follows 201. What does all of this mean? If I knew nothing else of these corporations, I would infer that they are not listening to their constituents, either because they did not care or because they didn’t have to. I believe it is both.

The revolution won’t be televised.

And she calls the magazine Living.

I have idolized Martha Stewart for most of my life. My mother and I have shared many hours enjoying her recipe books together and even when Martha spent time in prison, I turned a blind eye, believing that she had done more good than harm in the world – particularly for women. More valuable than anything else she accomplished was re-acquainting us with our households, our kitchens, gardens and time honored traditions and crafts.

Over the last two weeks I’ve challenged myself again to turn the other cheek, when MSL Omnimedia engaged a fellow Austin blogger in a legal kerfuffle over the name of her website, alleging copyright infringement. The claim is weak, unnecessary and ultimately, garden variety cyberbullying.

Today, upon seeing THIS ad in the June issue of Living, I find the for the first time I’m able to perceive Martha as a mortal. The pedestal is gone.

Noting my ire, a friend raised the question, “How can you be sure she [Martha] is even aware of what ads her staff are running?” I can take the ‘busy’ argument, believe me, but I can’t stomach the founder of a media empire turning a blind eye to an issue facing every adult and child in our country: diet-related disease.

As anyone can see by simply visiting the Wikipedia page on HFCS, this product is hotly debated; its benefits and detrimental effects, rabidly contested by trade orgs such as CRA and ABA.

Many bloggers have covered the TV ads which launched in Sept. 2008. This new wave of print is insidious, and like the McCafe campaign featuring smiling latinas, targets women with misleading claims wrapped with a bow.

To see all variants of the campaign and read the copy – all of which, is naturally endorsed by “experts in their fields”, click here. Peppering the website are soundbites and quotations pulled out of context, such as that from the American Medical Association, which fails to include the next sentence from its official findings published in 2008 stating that further INDEPENDENT research was recommended on the health effects of HFCS.

This photo [via Gawker] wishing everyone a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend, just made my day. If only swimsuits were still this sensible…

I say, show us a little leg

Over the weekend I tried my hand at this for the first time. Don’t you LOVE it when you read down to the bottom of a recipe for the second time and realize the “let sit overnight” factor didn’t really land?

I was thrilled to discover that AgaSweet is a great stand-in for corn syrup. Tangerines from Orange Blossom Farm were my subjects – I reserved the juice for practice as I may enter the Edible Austin Eat Local Week cocktail contest and am feeling citrus.

I’ve long been an admirer of Lucinda Hutson, author of The Herb Garden Cookbook, and have had the pleasure of getting to know her this year. On Thursday I visited with her in her home, enjoyed what was probably to be the last opportunity to tour her famous garden prior to the freeze and marveled at her Day of the Dead celebration decor. The altar honoring Lucinda’s late father, below, touched me a great deal, particularly as I lost Mimi on Nov. 1st. I’ve always agreed with the Latin American tradition of throwing a feast for those who’ve passed. It makes so much sense.

The best surprise was coming upon Brugmansia, my favorite flower, of which Lucinda has at least three in colors ranging from white to yellow to slightly peach. I first saw this flower in Mexico – it is native to South America but does well in other regions.

The last place in the U.S. I’d seen Brugmansia was in The Edible Schoolyard this past July. Although I understand the importance of planting natives, I can’t help but try my hand at tending one of these.

I’m in West Texas for my grandmother’s memorial service. She was one day shy of her 95th birthday.

Among all of the things I’ll remember about Mimi, her stories of growing up on her family’s farm in Oklahoma will be especially treasured. She loved to pick strawberries. Her family didn’t grow them but she and her sister Clara hiked across neighbors’ fields in search of the sweetest wild ones.

Mimi taught me to eat clean. She – and my other late grandmother – used to tell me that something had changed, that “the food isn’t how it used to be. On the farm, the milk and meat was so pure, you just didn’t have to worry the way you do now about things.” As a child I didn’t know what they meant, but now I see they had witnessed the post-WWII shift in national consciousness away from the farm and into the factory. Both people and animals. The marketing campaign aimed at young people who could ostensibly “do better” for themselves by moving off the farm and into cities was successful, and because of it, our country now has drastically less land under sustainable methods of farming and less crop diversity.

Mimi got me to eat my vegetables. I think I ate her broccoli and green beans before I ate my mother’s. There wasn’t any junk food at my grandparents’ house. Mimi clearly saw the link between obesity and diet related disease and was, at times, fairly vocal about it.

We loved baking together – particularly of the pound cake and rum cake variety. I credit her with inspiring me to try new things in the kitchen. To use only real butter. To eat my vegetables first – and to finish them, because there were others in the world who would go without dinner that night.

that you’re better than no one, and no one is better than you.

If you really believe that/ You know you’ve got nothin’ to win/ And nothin’ to lose.