Ask the Food Fairy!

I worked my butt off this week, you guys. The wonderful local biodiesel station, Biofuel Oasis, is going to let me provide little snacks for their customers (hopefully on Tuesdays – mark your calendars accordingly!) in exchange for putting out information about PeaceMeals. Woot! So I planned out all the meals for September, so that I could put a stylish menu up with my snacks. That includes gauging how much protein will go in all the $60 box items, aiming for more veggies, pricing all the ingredients, and making sure to include wheat- and sugar-free ingredients where the original recipes didn’t have them. And I made a little sign to put in front of the food explaining what it is, and a snazzy order form with information about what goes in each box!

I am also super-excited about Slow Food Nation this weekend. I have a hard time keeping slow food and local food straight in my head, not to mention sustainable food and organic food. There is so much overlap!

Slow Food USA explains:

Good:

The word good can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For Slow Food, the idea of good means enjoying delicious food created with care from healthy plants and animals. The pleasures of good food can also help to build community and celebrate culture and regional diversity.

Clean:

When we talk about clean food, we are talking about nutritious food that is as good for the planet as it is for our bodies. It is grown and harvested with methods that have a positive impact on our local ecosystems and promotes biodiversity.

Fair:

We believe that food is a universal right. Food that is fair should be accessible to all, regardless of income, and produced by people who are treated with dignity and justly compensated for their labor.

Our Mission:

Slow Food USA seeks to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system. We reconnect Americans with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We seek to inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat.

So, a big chunk of it is that it’s sustainable and healthy for the earth, which includes organic. But also there’s a human rights component to it; in part, working toward having the most easily accessible and affordable food be the healthy sustainable stuff, not the unsustainable and unhealthy fast food made out of mistreated animals and chemical-soaked plants that is currently at the top of our food chain as far as easy-to-get goes.

I support a lot of the same principles here; I focus on the organic and sustainable ingredients and aim for prices that are less than a lot of people spend on groceries in a week. But I could always do better. I don’t, yet, bring my own bags to the store (although I do reuse and recycle the ones I get there) and I do buy non-produce stuff without thinking about where it came from often, particularly cheese. Ah, cheese….

So, I decided that this week’s boxes will be a surprise. I’m going to go to the marketplace and farmer’s market that are a part of Slow Food Nation’s extravaganza, and buy everything for everyone’s meals there. As usual, the $60 box will have about 20 grams of protein per meal and no wheat or sugar, and the $40 box will just be healthy and fabulous in its own special way. (Usually it ends up being vegetarian, since it doesn’t have the protein requirements.)

They say, “All vendors at the Market have been approved by Slow Food Nation staff and curators for their commitment to using good (delicious), clean (environmentally friendly) and fair (socially just) production practices.” I like to imagine them tasting each product: “Hmmm… is this sufficiently delicious to be Slow Food?”

You can click through those links if you want to make any particular requests! And if anyone else is going to the Slow Food festivities, I’d love to hear about it. I may go to visit Alemany Farm, at some point during Saturday (lunch??) and then also to this:

Location: 18 Reasons, 593 Guerrero Street, San Francisco
4:00 – 5:30
“Tools & Tales from Young Farmers.” Young farmers from around the country share stories and sow the seeds for 50 million more to follow their example. Concludes with a tour of a secret backyard farm around the corner. Presented by: Severine von Tscharner Fleming, The Greenhorns; Zoe Bradbury, Groundswell Farm; Brooke Budner, SF Victory Gardens.

Because, you know, as soon as we get approved to buy a house, we are getting us some tiny goats and chickens. And then you’ll see some action! (At least, you will when the cats meet the goats and the chickens. Some action speeding right back into the house!)

And look at the fabulousness: here’s everything else that’s coming up in September!

September Menus

Week One
Surprise boxes made up of ingredients from the Slow Food Nation gathering
in San Francisco this weekend!

Week Two
$40 Basic Box
Organic Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping (7 breakfasts)
Eggs Florentine with Artichoke Hearts and Organic Spinach (4 meals)
Organic Polenta with Savory Goat Cheese (4 meals)
Organic Linguini With Lemon, Garlic, and Thyme Mushrooms (6 meals)

$60 Premium Box
Bouchons Au Thon (7 breakfasts)
Organic Egg Curry (4 meals)
Salt Cod Tart (6 meals)
Wild Salmon Salad (4 meals)

Week Three
$40 Basic Box
Organic Oatmeal with Nutmeg and Raisins (7 breakfasts)
Organic Linguini with Lemon (6 meals)
Organic Spicy Green Beans (4 meals)
Grilled Organic Yams with Honey-Ginger Dressing (4 meals)

$60 Premium Box
Garlic Lover’s Organic White Bean Soup (6 meals)
Organic Side Salad with Edible Flowers (6 sides)
Ceci Bean Soup with Paprika Oil (4 meals)
Curried Heirloom Bean Salad (4 meals)
Local Gluten-Free Bread With Organic Flour

Week Four
$40 Basic Box
Oeufs a la Cantalienne with Local Organic Bread (7 breakfasts)
Organic Pear and Brie Sandwiches (6 meals)
Sliced Mushrooms with Fresh Mozzarella and Thyme (4 meals)
Ceci Bean Soup with Paprika Oil (4 meals)

$60 Premium Box
Baked Organic Eggs with Free-Range Bacon (7 breakfasts)
Wakame with Prawns in Sweet Chili Dressing (4 meals)
Organic Chickpea Salad with Lemon and Parmesan (6 meals)
Artichokes with Meyer Lemon Aioli (8 sides)
Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (4 meals)

Did you know that freezing ginger and garlic not only makes them easier to grate, but makes their flavor more intense?

I have never tried this myself, but I’m taking it on faith from Kay at Kayotic Kitchen, who says,

I keep lots of ginger in the freezer, this way I always have some on hand. It works great! The flavor seems to intensify once frozen, so you even need less to get the same result. It’s also easier to peel and grate when still slightly frozen. Nothing but benefits!

I’ve never bothered peeling my ginger, or had trouble grating either ingredient – but the promise of more flavor is very tempting. I don’t think I’d use less necessarily… I think the idea of more intense ginger and garlic would make me giddly put in ridiculous amounts! We’ll see now if there is a limit to how much garlic I will eat!

We have seven cats. We try to open windows and distribute cat boxes in a, you know, helpful way, and generally the problem with our house is more that the windows that don’t open make it stuffy than that they make it… cat-scented. But sometimes you just need to break out the incense.

So yesterday I stocked up on a new load. I like Shoyeido brand because it’s all natural and it’s all incense, no stick. (And, I just learned, the boxes include tiny biodegradable incense holders.) And they have a ton of flavors, all with pretty names and explanations. This one is “Amethyst – Balance,” from the line they have named after gems.

I just lit this stuff for the first time and I had to share it. It’s cinnamon, sandalwood, and something called saussurea. I was sitting here, steaming four artichokes, microwaving some of the beet green pasta, and sauteeing a smoked chipotle chicken-turkey sausage, and I thought, “Yum! What smells so sweet?”

Turns out it’s this incense. It smells awesome. It’s cinnamony and sweet, as if I were baking snickerdoodles. And oddly buttery. I am going to burn it ALL THE TIME. It really seems like the food-lover’s incense. And the nice thing is that I bet if they actually made food-flavored incense it would be all nasty and artificial (well sometimes they do, strawberry or coconut flavor or whatever – and it is indeed all nasty and artificial) but quite by accident (I assume) these people made some that is all natural and good for you to smell. Also, only $3.49 for 30 sticks, which they estimate is like… 15 hours of burning, and many more hours of smelling.