<a href="http://www.earthandtable.com/" title="Earth&Table: Directory of Gardening Resources">Seed Saving</a>: “An economical way to prepare for next year’s harvest, saving seed will also enable you to hand select the healthiest and best-suited fruits and vegetables for your garden’s soil and micro-climate.
A gardener can only save seed from an open-pollinated or heirloom variety, as hybrids will usually not produce seedlings with the same traits as their parents (in fact, they are frequently inferior to them). To begin, select the plants you will harvest for seed early in the season, choosing those that embody the traits you find most favorable. For the rest of the season, take care that these plants remain healthy and pest free, so the seeds do not suffer from stress. Each plant has its own peculiarities for saving seed, but generally, wait until the seed or seedpod is completely dry before harvesting. For fruit, wait for it to become totally ripe, then separate and clean the seeds, then allow them to dry”
And I thought it was just me…
<a href="http://www.umass.edu/umext/csa/about.html" title="Information from UMass Extension: What is CSA?">What is Community Supported Agriculture
and How Does It Work?: “Food is a basic human need. Yet for most of us in the U.S., it is merely an inexpensive commodity that we take for granted. Issues surrounding how, where, or by whom it is grown are not generally the topic of conversation around the dinner table. Considering the current situation in agriculture, perhaps they should be. Food in the U.S. travels an average of 1,300 miles from the farm to the market shelf. Almost every state in the U.S. buys 85-90% of its food from some place else. In Massachusetts, for example, this food import imbalance translates to a $4 billion leak in the state economy on an annual basis. UMass studies have determined that Massachusetts could produce closer to 35% of its food supply. This 20% increase would contribute $1 billion annually to the Commonwealth.
“Increased local food production would add considerable food dollars to the economy of many other states. Meanwhile, the nation’s best farm land is being lost to commercial and residential development at an accelerating rate. At the same time, the retirement of older farmers, increasing land and production costs, low food prices, competing land uses, the lack of incentive for young people to enter farming, and the fundamental restructuring of the national and global economy all combine to make farming and local food production in the U.S. an increasingly difficult task. Community Supported Agriculture represents a viable alternative to the prevailing situation and the long-distance relationship most of us have with the food we eat.”
Are you curious?
<a href="http://www.gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/hail_to_the_chef.php" title="Gapers' Block {Chicago, IL}">Ask the Librarian: Hail to the Chef</a>: “Who cooks for the President? Where did he work before? Is he classically trained? Is it the same guy for every president, or does each president bring his own? Does the President have regular hours or a regular menu, or does the chef just sit in the kitchen all the time and wait for a special order?”
I wondered when this would happen…
<a href="http://www.siggraph.org/s2003/conference/etech/food.html" title="Emerging Technologies - SIGGRAPH 2003">Food Simulator</a>: “The Food Simulator is a haptic interface that displays biting force. It is designed to fit to the user's mouth, where it delivers the captured force of real food and auditory and chemical sensations associated with eating.”
Where does butter come from?
<a href="http://webexhibits.org/butter/" title="Butter : Explore the history & making of butter">Butter : Explore the history & making of butter</a>: “Butter is a culinary treasure as old as King Tut’s tomb. ‘She brought forth butter in a lordly dish’ (Judges 5:25). A jug of wine, a loaf of bread — and butter! Pure butter is produced today essentially as it was in King Tut’s time, though butter made of milk from cows instead of camels or water buffaloes.”
Cooking in the Public Domain
<a href="http://www.bartleby.com/87/" title="Farmer, Fannie Merritt. 1918. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book">The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book</a>: “This classic American cooking reference includes 1,849 recipes, including everything from ‘after-dinner coffe’ — which Farmer notes is beneficial for a stomach ‘overtaxed by a hearty meal’ — to ‘Zigaras à� la Russe,’ an elegant puff-pastry dish. Bartleby.com chose the 1918 edition because it was the last edition of the cookbook authored completely by Farmer.”
This sounds good…
<a href="http://shenanchie.blog-city.com/read/407616.htm" title="shenanchie.blog-city.com Midday Snack">Midday Snack</a>: “Place a flour tortilla on the electric stove element (making sure to never leave it unattended); cook very briefly, just enough to lightly brown each side. Remove tortilla from the element and turn off the stove. Peel and slice an avocado, and place it in strips down the center of the tortilla. Using a fork, mash the avocado until it resembles guacamole texture. Lightly salt and pepper to taste, roll up the tortilla and eat to your heart’s content. The combination of toasted tortilla and mashed avocado will definitely tickle your taste buds”
I’m glad some really smart people are in charge in Washington…
I was trying not to say anything about this whole Mad Cow thing… but seeing this bit of confidence building news just pushed me over the edge.
Investigators Say Cow’s Birth Preceded Effort to Stem Disease: “[Dr. Ron De Haven, the Agriculture Department’s chief veterinarian,] said there was no reason for Americans or people in other countries to question the safety of American beef, since mad cow disease is not found in muscle tissue, which is the source of roasts, steaks and other cuts familiar to consumers.”
At least now we know where meat comes from. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/slant.png" height="18" width="18" alt=":-/" />
Oh… and apparently a cow cannot get <acronym title="bovine spongiform encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> more than an instant or so after birth… because, you know, that cow was <em>born</em> in Canada.
Food Log
Breakfast was a glass of orange juice and two refrigerator cookies. I weighed in at 161 pounds.
<ins datetime="2003-12-29T17:55:00-05:00">Lunch was a ham sandwich on a <a href="http://www.panera.com/familynutritionalprofile.aspx?familyid=98" title="Panera Bread® // Nutrition Information">nine-grain</a> bread I got at <a href="http://www.panera.com/" title="Panera Bread® // Home">Panera</a> and a <a href="http://www.saranac.com/paleale.html" title="SARANAC">Saranac Pale Ale</a>… that I got from <a href="http://www.nittanybeverage.com/" title="NittanyBeverage.com - Welcome!">Nittany Beverage</a>. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/wink.png" height="18" width="18" alt=";-)" /> I had another <a href="http://www.saranac.com/paleale.html" title="SARANAC">Saranac Pale Ale</a> sitting on the front porch while reading the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/home/us" title="WSJ.com - U.S. Home">Wall Street Journal</a> this afternoon. Dinner was chili and a slice of that bread, another <a href="http://www.saranac.com/paleale.html" title="SARANAC">Saranac Pale Ale</a>, and two <a href="http://www.godiva.com/welcome.asp" title="Chocolate Gifts from Godiva">Godiva</a> chocolates. Gretchen made the chili this summer using tomatoes from our garden and froze it. Even months later it still has a wonderful fresh tomato flavor that could not be matched with canned tomatoes or even the little red rocks they sell in the grocery store.</ins>
Food Log
No breakfast this morning. I weighed in at 161 pounds. Lunch was a couple of slices of ham and a stale dinner roll.
<ins datetime="2003-12-28T18:40:00-05:00">Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti with pork sausage and tomato sauce, a small Caesar salad, two glasses of Freixenet Brut, a Godiva chocolate, and several pecan crisp cookies.</ins>