Cooking With Ideas

Oh My God(dess) -- I Made Dolmades!

So, I went to the second evening of my class on hors doeuvres at the NYWCC (New York Wine and Culinary Center for those not in the know) -- and I made dolmades. The class was a little short on people, so I did one recipe more or less on my own (with a little bit of rolling done by others). I was speedy and efficient and it still took me the entire 2 hours. I asked for help from the chef, who gave me a rolling lesson (oh so brief) but mainly, it was me, all me. And they turned out beautiful, but not quite perfect. Next time?

That voice of confidence is just what I needed to reclaim -- and came from the gift of these classes and these dolmades. I recommend cooking classes for all and sundry whose work does nto have immediate and obvious products -- and whose work cannot be easily and immediately "assessed" for its failure or success.

What are dolmades? They are grape leaves wrapped around various fillings. You can find pre-made dolmades at the olive bar in Wegmans on occasion. And you can find them in various restaurants -- greek and other mediterranean types. Sometimes vegetarian and sometimes not. Often lemon-y. And always little stuffed bits -- the word, in fact, seems to come from Arabic or Turkish or. . . for "to be stuffed." For loads of details, try clicking here or even here where you can find step by step instructions for making them, even including rolling them -- which could mean skipping what I say below, but why do that when. . . .

How do you make dolmades? No, I did not go out to wineries in the area and pick leaves (nor did anyone at the NYWCC though there was some implication that it was possible). Rather, these were made from those bottles of grape leaves you see here and there and wonder what people do with them. The recipe I had called for blanching and then shocking them; 1 minute in boiling water for the first and then very briefly dropping them into ice water for the second. On the advice of the chef, I ignored that step. What was inside? White rice, toasted pine nuts, currants, lemon juice with salt dissolved in it, rosemary, a bit of olive oil. Mix it. Let it sit. Put a table spoon or so into big leaves; less in smaller ones. And, roll them up. Now, there's the difficulty -- either a) go to the site noted above and check out the pictures; b) go for trial or error; c) wrap from the end which would have attached to the vine and tuck the edges in as you go along.

The chef suggested thinking about other things to include -- cranberries at the holidays (whcih soudns odd to me), alternative spices or herbs beyond rosemary (dill, for example), and meats. Yep, dolmades are flexible and dandy.

A comment on plating and other miscellany? Our chef loved plating -- and apparently teaches a class on plating at the NYWCC. He told us a bit about making infused oils (toast some paprika; add canola oil; let it cool and sit for a bit; drain through a coffee filter; and similarly for basil and other oils) and lardons. (Ok, lardons is high falutin' for bacon.) And, he claimed to be the person who knows how to cook mushrooms -- heat the saute pan first to a very high temperature, then add mushrooms. Most crucially, he said: home cooks are missing patience. And so, I plated carefully -- using parsley for a green border and some red pepper skin to make a sort of twirly confetti in one corner. Happy Holidays.

What else was made that night? Tortellini toothpicks turned out to be wonderful but simple; tortellini, sun dried tomatoes, basil leaves, and toothpicks rendered beautiful. Blini with sour cream and chives. Not so easy it turns out to get those tiny pancakes right. (Yes, you can still buy them in little bags at Wegmans if you are having a caviar evening.) Corn cakes with mango salsa. (Rumor has it the team that made these added honey). Empanadas which turned out to be beautiful little half moons of dough and meat. I look forward to making them all. I certainly tried them all that night that I Made Dolmades!

NYWCC
New York Wine and Culinary Center
dolmades

Anticipation -- Or Keep an Eye Out For . . .

When I think Anticipation, I think Carly Simon. Dates me, I know. But there you go. For the lyrics, click here. Meanwhile, though, what do you, loyal and not-so-loyal readers of Cooking with Ideas have to look forward to?

Here are a few things to look for in the next while right here -- -- --

Reviews of two new books, both wonderful in their own way, Eating India and The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken. (The latter, a gift, likely to inspire pasta making, I think). Both were great reads, though Eating India was less swell than the earlier book by the same author reviewed here, and The Lost Ravioli Recipes was, in some ways, much better than the author's prior book reviewed here. Go figure.

An interview or two -- with a chocolate producer in Rochester, NY and with an anthropologist who teaches about food. (We hope.) And maybe with one or two others as well.

A note or two on restaurants in my new category (finally recognizing the inevitable): Above the 49th (which means Canada to the uninitiated)

And, some reflections on making doulmades.

What else? You can just imagine! Anticipation.

Shawnessy Vietnamese

So, the restaurant's name is "Shawnessy Vietnamese" which in itself seemed oddly pan-ethnic to me. (But it turns out to have to do with the name of the neighborhood in Calgary. Yep. For details click here. So, Shawnessy Vietnamese is not, alas, Irish Vietnamese.) Anyway, there it was, in a sort of mall somewhere in Calgary. Who knows where. Inside, a beautiful huge salt water aquarium with iridescent yellow fish and beautiful blue fish -- huge along a wall. And the menu had pictures of spring rolls. So, we ordered spring rolls with shrimp, spring rolls with shredded pork, and an order of lemon grass chicken which came with steamed (white) rice. And, of course some beer: Saigon beer. Was the food good? Yes indeedy. The chicken came with loads of crisp vegetables and a mild but tasty sauce. All of which was wonderful, augmented by the extremely hot sauce and the soy on the table. The service gets criticized on other sites, but seemed ok to me, though we did have to ask for plates to use to share.

The cuisine of Vietnam, of course, includes much much more than lemongrass chicken. But that is what I keep ordering ever time I enter a Vietnamese restaurant. Hmmm. Maybe it is time to move on -- to the subs that were on the menu (and appeared, for example, in a favorite cookbook of mine, Hot Sour Salty Sweet) or even the lovely vietnamese pork dish I regularly produce from Madhur Jaffrey's Curries and Kebabs which traces the diaspora/globalization of curry. Maybe I need to explore -- and cook more Vietnamese -- using recipes from here or here. Hmmm. 2008 -- a new year!

Where is Shawnessy Vietnamese? 16061 MacLeod Trail SE, Calgary, T2Y3S5
How do I call the restaurant? 403-201-3888
Has it been reviewed elsewhere? Yes, try clicking here and looking for the entry on Vietnamese lunch. Or check out Urban Spoon.

Blogs to Watch Out For. . .

I was tempted to call this "The Blogs Your Mother Warned You About" but a) I am not that maternalist and b) my mother never heard of blogs. So, instead, these are blogs to check out, watch out for, and go out of your way to. . . .

First: the F word. Not, not that one. Yes, that one. Food. And that one. Feminism, And that one: Fat. Check out this blog, and find out something about all three. There is some delightful commentary about Project Runway, and a bit here and there on gender and sexuality. Check out "Memo to Santa: Girls Want Bob, not Barbie." Hmmm. Or on colleges as (gasp) the breeding grounds of Satan -- see the piece on The Seventh Deadly Sin.

If you are interested (as I admit I am) in the connection of food, feminism, and RELIGION, check out the Lilith Blog's category "Food is a Jewish Feminist Issue." Or check out this not-so-new entry on what jesus might eat as a mode of organizing life.

And what about eating out? For a specific commentary on the re-appearance of gendered menus at high falutin' restaurants, click here.

Finally, a new Rochester area blog to watch out for: Ra Cha Chow: The Culinary Adventures of a Rockin' Mom in Rochester, NY which is also a new link! How'd I find her? She found Cooking with Ideas and left a comment. Hurrah.

For even more options, use your browser -- and cruise the highlights of the blogosphere. Then let us know what we foodie feminists of the Finger Lakes need to know!

Holiday Public Market -- Rochester

Rochester Public Market is a lively place in the summer. And it was again when I went recently on a Sunday for holiday shopping. There was Santa (driving by at one point when we were trying to cross the street and then later in a horse drawn wagon surrounded by children accompanied by their eager adults) and the smell of pine everywhere. Trees. Wreaths. Conversations with strangers who had spent time in Williamsburg, Virgina seeking (and finding) inspiration for the wreaths they made of boxwood and fir, berries and apples. Wow.

And, of course, there was food. Two new discoveries: Hedonist Artisan Chocolates and locally made biscotti. The chocolates were so tasty when I had a smidgen as a taste test that we went back and bought some for Christmas gifts -- and some for ourselves, already gone. We ate a five piece collection of mainly dark truffles, including a delightful espresso one and a mint-y bit that made me smile. The seasonal truffles include pomegranate -- and the bark involves pistacchios and ginger. As for the biscotti, we're holding out and not eating it, but we purchased three bags -- one ginger, one chocolate and one cranberry pecan. And the name? Biscotti for Everybotti. Lovely sense of humor -- and a woman-made product! For a story about Caroline Ravines, the owner, click here and then, for a blog follow up, here.

And, well, it's true -- that Sunday it was quite nippy out. So into our favorite, Java Joe's for Kona Coffee (ok, not quite worth the $4 a large-ish cup) and, in my case, a breakfast sandwich on a lovely light roll.

A day of reminder about how lovely it is to live. And what fun to be out and about even when it is winter outside.

NYWCC: Keep on Learning

Some time ago, the New York Wine and Culinary Center opened in Canandaigua. I take cooking classes -- so I was excited. And yet, somehow I never got around to doing the classes. There they were, only 30 minutes away. I had taken classes in Ithaca, Denver, Ottawa. I even took classes in Istanbul and Anguilla. But not Canandaigua. At least not until just recently where, once again, I was spoiled by gift givers extraordinaire. Here are brief reviews of the two classes I participated in this month:

Wine and Chocolate Pairing: This class took placein the educational theater.It cost $20 and was definitely worth it for a fun and informative hour on a cold Sunday. (Ok, especially whensomeoneelsepays forit and goes with you!) If you are very knowledgeable about wine (or chocolate), this class might be below your dignity, but not for me. The pairings are not set up so that they all work -- which means you learn about your own palate, pairings that workand don't, and possibilities. Here's how the class worked: generous samples of 4 wines (in our class's case Wolffer Reserve Chardonnay The Hamptons 2004, priced at $17.99; Pellegrini Cabernet Franc 2003 N. Fork of Long Island, priced at $17.99; Goose Watch Diamond NV Finger Lakes priced at $8.99; and Johnson Estate Cream Sherry NV Lake Erie priced at $18.99) are lined up in front of you -- and a small dish with 3 triangles of chocolate (one white, one mily, and one dark chocolate). First, we discussed wine regions in NY State, tasting guidelines and then we tasted the wines. After that, we moved to tasting the chocolates. And finally, we tasted them together.

A few things we learned: the New York State appellations are Lake Erie, Niagara Escarpment, Finger Lakes (with particular appellations also for Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake), the Hudson River, and Long Island (with particular appellations for the North Fork and The Hamptons). The youngest appellation in NY State is the Niagara Escarpment (which I know better in the Ontario province of Canada and you may too through wines from Niagara on the Lake). The Finger Lakes appellation is the largest with over 100 vineyards. The Hudson River Region has one of the oldest wineries, originating in 1832; the Brotherhood Winery made it through Prohibition because they (surprise surprise) made sacramental wine. In addition to history and appellations, we discussed six S's of wine tasting (hurrah alliteration) which turn out to be sight, swirl, smell, sip, swallow or spit, and savor. While discussing this I learned that whites get darker with age while reds may fade some. The focus on smell was a bit tough for me; turns out my schnozzer (how do you spell that?) is not all that skilled and I am really lacking in confidence in labeling what I smell. The terminology though is probably familiar -- each of the following being broken down into many others -- fruity, vegetal, floral, spicy, woody, earthy, caramelized, and nutty. Yes, I recognized the words (and their many possibilities) from descriptions of wines. And yes, I could tell the wines smelled very different from one another. Yet, could I label those smells? Not really. On the other hand, I do know how to tell whether I am likely to like a wine by how others use such words. . .

Tasting these wines along with chocolate was a real eye opener. Some of the wines tasted much more sour or much more dry alongside chocolates of all sorts while others made one or more of the chocolates taste awful (chalky even). All in all, I learned that some wines which I truly did not like on their own improved with chocolate -- and some wines made even white chocolate, which I usually do not like all that much, taste swell. Yes, chocolate and wine are very fine. . .

My assessment of the class itself? Overall: the "teacher" might have been more knowledgeable, I suspect. But I had a very nice afternoon and took away a more informed sense of the vast variety of NY State wines.

Holiday Hors D'oeuvre: This is a two evening class focused (you guessed it) on hors d'oeuvres. It takes place in the hands on kitchen. The class began with a brief (very) overview of some basics -- how many bites to make per person in various circumstances, tips on how to plan a big spread, less is more, etcetera. We also had a brief demonstration of knife and garnish skills; I particularly liked the red pepper skin twirls, which I will definitely try this season! (They are made quite simply by removing all the "meat" from red pepper and then slicing into small bits and putting in cold cold ice water. They twirl up, making quite holiday looking confetti twirls.)

What else? What happens in this class is that the chefs set out a sign and mis en place for various recipes at stations around the room. Wherever you sit, that's what you make. (Thank goodness I figured this out quickly, because the instructor did not tell us this, and I sat where I wanted to learn about a particular thing. Those who did not get clued in -- or who came late -- had fewer options and less control over what they learned.) What did I make? Palmiers! And what are palmiers? Puff pastry rolls filled with various things --and shaped a bit like pretzels. Tasty little devils which basically involve coating puff pastry with something (the class called for sun dried tomato pesto and we also made basil pesto and added some jalapeno) and then rolling them up -- each side gets rolled up in a cigar-like fashion to meet in the middle. Cool for 20 minutes in the refrigerator, coat with a mix of egg yolk and water, cut into half inch slices, and bake for 10 minutes (or so) in a 400 degree oven. Be sure to grease the baking sheet. One thing I did learn by trial and error: the recipe from the class called for a 6 by 14 inch piece of puff pastry; when we used a smaller piece the palmiers turned out much better. They were crisper and just the right size for a two-bite hors d'oeuvre.

What else did folks make? herbed pita chips (surprisingly good), parmesan and pine nut biscotti with green olives, curry spiced yogurt, cilantro and mango chutney -- and much much more. Perhaps the most interesting thing, though, was hte chrimp mousse the instructor made at the start of the class; raw shrimp, cream, and other items went right into a food processor and emerged to be spread on various things being cooked. But what was truly interesting was what she did with the left overs: wrapped it tightly in plastic wrapped and boiled for a bit. Turned the mousse into a slice-able softish shrimp sausage or pate. Hmmm. Wish I had written down the mouse recipe; but. . . .

Overall: A great social occasion and I learned a bit. If they really want to teach classes rather than get a group together to make hors d'oeuvres, they would should cut down the list of what is made -- make fewer more complicated recipes as a group so the chefs could work with a higher percentage of the participants. But hey, I got to try puff pastry and it actually worked. And I made up a recipe which also worked ( a bit of jalapeno added to some pesto made sans recipe). And now I know what a palmier is.

Next time, who knows! When's next time? The second hors doeuvre class is coming up as I write this!

NYWCC
New York Wine and Culinary Center

Today in Food History

Once in a while, I wonder, what happened today before I was born? (No, not the koan what did my face look like before I was born. Not the sound of one hand clapping. The sound of procrastination?) So, today, I wandered the web to find out what happened in food history on December 15.

Click here for some answers, one of which is that in 1964, this was the day that Canada adopted the maple leaf as its symbol on its flag. Hurrah.

In the course of this exploration, I also discovered that December 15 is National Lemon Cupcake Day. So: celebrate.

I Love Madhur Jaffrey

I cook recipes from Madhur Jaffrey a lot, so when I saw her memoir I wanted to buy it. I resisted for a while, I did. And then I succumbed and bought it. Released in paperback in October, Climbing a Mango Tree: A Memoir of a Childhood in India, is just what its subtitle suggests -- a reflection on Jaffrey's childhood. Author of loads of cookbooks, Merchant and Ivory actor, Jaffrey is perhaps the name those who yearn to cook "Indian" but do not know the subcontinent well, know. That is, she defines, for some of us, the ways that Indian cuisine is one -- despite the immense variety of regional cuisines within the subcontinent and in the Indian diaspora.

This is a chatty memoir, not quite reaching the moments when Jaffrey becomes a globally recognized actor -- or a globally recognized cookbook author/foodie. Monsoons and meals appear and reappear, and mangos. As a person interested in religion, here's one point she makes in regard to what she calls the "peculiarity of India's cuisines":

There were dozens of traits, habits, and traditions that could be used to define regional foods. But such definitions were never entirely satisfactory, as there also hovered over each dish an air of indefinable religious sensibility that could be seen and tasted but eluded pinpointing. This stamp was present even if the dishes had the same names but were prepared by families of differing religions. These families might even have lived in the same cities for centuries. (p. 176)

Hmmm.

This is, of course, not the first book I have read about the food of India that moves beyond cookbook per se. Many of them are listed on the margins in books about food. In some ways, I learned more from others, such as Lizzie Collingham's Curry, perhaps because Collingham's an academic. Or perhaps because I read it first. But this memoir made me yearn for more; I confess (is that what memoir requires?) that I wanted to know much much more --about Jaffrey's history in drama, about how she came to write her cookbooks, about life after childhood and climbing mango trees.

Failing that, I did make a recipe -- the end of the book includes about 50 pages of "Family Recipes." Each is preceded by a reflection on context, family, placein alife story. In any case, I made Saag Gosht, because I love spinach in Indian recipes -- and because I am still working from my freezer where there are various parts of the half lamb I bought from a local person who raises them. Jaffrey's version appears on pages 253-254 of her memoir. But here's what I did, which was more or less what she suggested, altered as noted:

I used a half leg of lamb I had in the freezer which I defrosted and cubed into about 1 inch bits. Not sure how much it weighed but it was bone in.

I then used a blender to make a paste of chopped ginger (I admit I used a bit more than Jaffrey called for, maybe a 3 1/2 inch piece finely chopped), garlic (a bit less than Jaffrey called for -- she called for 6 good sized cloves; I used 5 medium to smallish ones), and 5 tablespoons of water. Then I added (and whirled again) 1/2 tsp of ground turmeric, 3/4 tsp of cayenne ( again, I tinkered; I have some really really hot ground red pepper from an Indian market and so I used 1/2 tsp), and 1 tsp salt.

Then: put some (ok, I did not measure) mustard oil in a frying pan and cook the meat. (I am not very good at this; while Jaffrey does not say to do so, I think I shoudl have put half the meat in, cooked it for 2 minutes and then done the second half. That would prevent the meat from being inadvertently steamed). Also, if you have a secret fear of mustard oil becuase you go to an Indian store and see it and it says "not for human consumption" either screw up your courage to ignore the FDA and eat something wonderful OR use olive oil.) Anyway, once you cook all the meat briefly, put it all back in the pan and add the paste from the blender. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes. Then add spinach handful by handful. The secret here is to have finely chopped the spinach ahead of time; I used about 10 ounces though Jaffrey calls for a pound. And I chopped it fine!

Once all the spinach is in, cover and cook on low for about 30 minutes, checking occasionally to be sure there is still some liquid. (Not a problem for me; there was loads.)

Remove the cover and add some chopped tomato (I did not grate, which is what Jaffrey calls for; in this book, though, I finally learned why she calls for grated tomatoes and how to do it. So I might eventually try it.) I used about 4 smallish plum tomatoes. Then turn the heat up a bit and cook until the mixture is sort of dry and the meat begins to brown. This takes a while.

Add 1/2 cup water, turn the heat to low, and cook another 15-25 minutes until the lamb is tender.

Sprinkle with garam masala and cumin. And serve (with brown rice because you are virtuous and papadums because they are a little self indulgent).

And then when you write it out in a blog, ask yourself such questions as: when does a recipe change from a description of the past to the language of imperatives shaping the future? When you are typing and hungry?Or perhaps ask yourself, what other books by Jaffrey can I buy -- and when can I eat Indian again?

For a review from the Indo-American Arts Council, click here. To situate the book in a more complex geo-politics, try here or, for sheer gossip-worthy bits, click here.

Fesenjun

What's fesenjun (sometimes spelled fesenjan)? It is chicken cooked in crushed walnut and pomegranate sauce. I had it in San Diego at a wonderful place called Bandar -- and I went in search of a recipe. Wow. The sauce was dark and the chicken quite tender. The taste is indescribable. Bandar is Persian/Iranian and I was intrigued by it on my arrival in San Diego -- but I was terribly jet-lagged so let the concierge at my hotel talk me out of it. As a result, I ended up eating in the hotel (bad idea) in my room (good idea). This meal at Bandar, arranged by a former colleague who knows the food because she knows the culture, was great.

So, I wrote and asked: "what was that I ate" and here we are. Fesenjun she wrote. And now I have googled it. Here are some of the recipes for it I found: here, here, here or here.

I intend to make it as soon as I can (I am out of pomegranate molasses,which is what I assume they mean in these recipes; I did make it from scratch with 100% pomegranate juice recently (just add sugar and boil down) -- so I may try that! Or, I might just need to buy some more.) In any case, watch here for a report on fesenjun in a non-Iranian kitchen! Or, if you are in San Diego, try fesenjun at Bandar.

Bandar
fesenjun
San Diego
fesenjan

Plenty Good

So, one of the wonders of faculty life is exam copies and I just read one: Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally (New York: Harmony Books, 2007) by Alisa Smith and J. BV. Mackinnon. It was q reasonably quick, pretty fun read, though as far as I can figure, the word “raucous” is entirely unwarranted in the title. These are two writers, also partners in life, whose voices alternate in the book, and who are the creators of the 100 mile diet (www.100milediet.org). And, like loads of books these days, this one is linked, I think, to a blog. (This one works much better as a stand alone book than some such tomes, which heft like a book but read like. . . well, something else.)

Despite the erroneous “raucous,” the title does, in fact, represent the book well – the prose tracks the authors’ year of eating foods from within 100 miles of their residence in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's somewhere between a memoir and a manifesto/description, sprinkling useful “facts” amongst the personal/reflective (including some I did not need to know about the authors’ relationship troubles). As is the case with loads of arguments for local eating, Smith and Mackinnon start from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University – and the vast mileage (somewhere between 1500 and 3000 miles) that our food now travels to reach us ; and they remind us that this number has increased about 25% since 1980 (p. 3). And, they rely on the notion of an “ecological footprint” developed by William Rees of the University of British Columbia – a way of figuring out the number of acres of the world’s resources one consumes in a year (p. 7). (I admit it: I am afraid to try to figure this out, given how much I have been traveling via air these days. But for a relevant article, click here.) But this is just where they begin; the book focuses on how they seek to learn by trying an experiment in local eating. In doing so, they eschew puritanical motives for doing so (p. 17) and recognize the ambiguous justice of such attempts or what they call the “essential pointlessness of the gesture.” I can’t remember which of the two co-authors wrote the following (and I set the book free via www.bookcrossing.com on my airplane recently so no longer own it) but I find it apt:

I am acutely aware that efforts like the 100-mile diet are readily dismissed as ‘the new earnestness,’ which is currently enjoying a very temporary cool, and I am not deluded enough to feel that I’m making a difference or being the change I want to see in the world. Both of these contemporary platitudes contain kernels of truth, but both are also overwhelmed by stark realities. . . (p. 17)

I also found comfort in one of the authors’ statement (I think Mackinnon) that the “kitchen is one of the few areas of my life where I feel competent” (p. 47). Somehow that competence comes with a politic, perhaps. a politics that responds to the “double forgetting”: that is forgetting and then forgetting even what we have forgotten. (p. 143). I also recognized something in their discussion of canning; turns out there is a lost etiquette of canning that involves the relative scarcity of canning jars (p. 152-153).

But most crucially, this book made me think about time (see pages 158-159) I have made myself unduly busy these days; perhaps I should re-read Arlie Hochschild’s The Time Bind. Here, in this book, I found that hunter gatherers spend substantially less time per day collecting and prepping food than we do (the source: Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics. For an interesting contribution of his to the land of internet, click here. For his faculty web page, click here.) Our average organization of time involves 48 minutes per day shopping, 7 minutes of religious/spiritual activity, 2 and a half hours per day of television viewing, and 8 minutes of volunteer activity. And it turns out that many people spend as much time today getting to stores to buy convenience foods as was spent a few decades ago making things from scratch. Hmmm. And this not to even mention (but only hint at) the rather horrifying impact of the globalized food market on the lives of farmers everywhere; suicide statistics in India for farmers are presented here as just one stark instance of the hidden costs of globalization of agricultural monoculture (249).

And yet, this book was not didactic. I have lifted up here some of the things I learned that seem empirical. Not sure why. Somehow the book was fun in its entanglement of these with more everyday sorts of things – maybe I felt virtuous by following their tale. Certainly I learned that the pursuit of this experiment was possible, and carried many lessons. The most important of which might be the joy of the taste of the food they found – and the food they were able to know better by knowing it locally.

Other relevant web sites they point to include: locavores.com; eatlocalchallenge.com; localharvet.org; treehugger.com; and slow food.

Alisa Smith
J.B. Mackinnon
100 mile diet
Plenty