Egg-cited about Spring!

Yesterday, some friends of mine brought me some farm-fresh eggs. Over the winter, I've been buying organic, cage-free eggs at the store, but eggs never taste as good from the store. I've missed our farmer's market, so yesterday's gift of eggs was most welcome! The eggs were so beautiful, I had to take a picture of them.

They almost look as if they were colored for Easter: rich ivories, deep tans, and delicate mint greens. It is amazing to see the color variations in these fresh eggs when we consumers are so used to seeing sterile white eggs for years, or only whites and browns if we are buying organic. What a loss.

That variety is such a big part of what our food system has lost. According to the UK Biodiversity Coalition, "More than 90 per cent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers' fields" worldwide. When was the last time you ate orange cauliflower or a purple carrot? Did you know that corn used to have a very high protein content until the geneticists started messing with corn traits in order to improve yield and resistance to herbicides? Now, corn has very little protein and is primarily starch. (For more information, I recommend the enlightening and amusing documentary King Corn.)

When we lose varieties, we lose nutritional value. For example, orange cauliflower gets its color from a high level of carotenoids, from which our Vitamin A precursor, beta carotene, is derived. Purple carrots are purple due to the high levels of anthocyanins, also nutritionally valuable. When we lose these varieties, we lose the high nutritional values, the different flavors, the unique beauty of these varieties.

Some people fear that our loss of crop variety could lead to a food crisis. For instance, very few varieties of corn are grown commercially, and if a disease came along that those varieties were vulnerable to, our entire commercial corn crop could be decimated. It could happen easily; remember the Irish potato famine?

Back to eggs...most of today's commercially sold eggs are gathered from Leghorns, but so many more varieties of chickens for egg laying are available! (See Henderson's Handy Dandy Chicken Chart.) Additionally, store-bought eggs are typically less nutritious overall than farm-fresh eggs from farmers who pasture their chickens (in other words, allow them to either roam free or have a chicken tractor that moves the chickens from fresh pasture spot to fresh pasture spot). Why do we allow a few large corporations to determine the nutritional value and selection of what we eat instead of seeking out the largest variety and most nutritional options?

Buying eggs from a farmer might cost a little more...up front. But you'll increase diversity in the market and be healthier for it...meaning you might just pay a lot less on the back end to doctors for nutritional deficiency-caused illness and disease. I'd rather fork out a few extra dollars on the front end and enjoy the beauty of my fresh eggs!

Not Your Average Spring Chicken

Each spring, one moment seems to stand out from the rest and shout, "It's here! Spring is here!"

Sometimes that moment occurs when I'm walking to my car in the infant warmth, the sun kissing my head and arms. I stand in that moment, arms outstretched, eyes closed, and head tilted back to catch the sun's glorious rays on my face.

Sometimes that moment is the first butterfly that flits past, stretching a quick moment into an eternity on an updraft. My eyes follow the flutterby as it circles me, and I slowly stretch out my hand, hoping it will casually land on my palm, tentacles lightly tickling, just as a butterfly did once at the Butterfly House in St. Louis.

Today, that moment was holding three chicks, one at a time, feeling their tiny claws curl into my palm, touching their warm, soft, downy feathers, hearing their delighted chirping: "It's here! Spring is here!"

In that moment, my heart soared. It is now past the spring date on the calendar, but I never have judged spring by date. But today, in that moment, spring made its appearance.

Clearing the Thanksgiving Leftovers

One of the problems with Thanksgiving is the grocery shopping: I always end up with left over celery. It takes up space in my refrigerator goes bad before I can ever use it up.

In addition to having leftover celery, I recently found baby portobello mushrooms for $1.79 (1/2 price) and button mushrooms for $.75 (regularly $1.99) at Kroger and purchased several packages.

So today was "clean out the refrigerator" day to get rid of leftovers and to process the veggies before they go bad.

I chopped the celery and bagged it and sliced and sauteed the button mushrooms and the baby portobello mushrooms. I chopped the last of the leftover turkey; half went into tonight's dinner (turkey and noodles), while the other half got bagged for future turkey enchiladas. One benefit of sauteeing all those mushrooms was the leftover mushroom broth--which I put in a pint canning jar, labeled, and moved to the freezer, along with all the bagged vegetables. The mushroom broth will make some awesome mushroom gravy at some point in the future.

My next project: cranberry bread and cranberry dessert bars to finish off the fresh cranberries I still have in my crisper...

A (Mostly) Organic Thanksgiving

I believe it was President Herbert Hoover who promised America "A chicken in every pot." Figuring turkey was close enough, I named my free-range, locally raised turkey "Hoover" in his honor. And Hoover was mighty tasty this Thanksgiving!

The fact that I named my turkey has weirded out a few people. And frankly, I would have gone to pet him (or at least see him) before his demise if he had lived a bit closer. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I am currently reading), has mentioned that consumers are very much removed from the "animality" of our food due to our industrialized food system. Our cellophane-wrapped, styrofoam-packaged meats look very little like the animals from which they originally were carved, and we don't even call our meat the same thing we call the animal itself. Pig becomes pork, cow becomes beef or veal; only chicken and turkey seem to maintain any resemblance in name or look, and even then, they are often lumped together as poultry.

Just as missiles and machines and computers have made war morally easier in some ways (it is easier, for instance to send a missile flying overseas at a target where unnamed, unseen foes lurk rather than to look a foe in the eye while you gut him with a bayonet), our industrialized food system has made it morally easier for us to eat meat; after all, as a rule, consumers don't have to look their Thanksgiving turkey in the eye before slitting his throat.

By naming Hoover, I was trying to get a little closer to my food. Animals give their lives daily to help sustain us, and somehow it just seemed respectful to give him a name. I feel like I owe it to the animal to appreciate its sacrifice, and knowing that Hoover was happy, running around in a grassy area, living a turkey life before becoming my meal makes me feel better about eating him in some bizarre, ironic way.

This summer, I want a chance to at least watch a chicken slaughter, if not actually participate in one. If I can't bring myself to look a chicken--or turkey--in the eye before slaughter, I don't think I have the right to eat it.

In addition to Hoover, most of the rest of the meal was made of organic or pesticide-, hormone-, and antibiotic-free ingredients.

The candied sweet potatoes and garlic-parmesan mashed potatoes were made from farmer's market potatoes. The herbs used in the dishes were insecticide- and pesticide-free herbs from the farmer's market and my own garden, dehydrated and stored in spice jars for use in cooking. The raspberries in the White Chocolate Raspberry Bread Pudding (pictured) were organic, purchased at Meijer. Only the cranberry sauce really wasn't organic-based; I couldn't find organic cranberries anywhere!

More and more, I am moving to organic--or beyond organic--foods. It's easier than people think, and not as expensive as they might expect, particularly if consumers watch stores for organic food sales and then stack coupons.

Onion Chopping Block

You might remember an earlier post of mine about chopping onions. I chopped 5 pounds of walla wallas, leaving the entire house smelling of onion. Fumigation with various de-scenters didn't help much.

I think I found the solution for only $20 at a garage sale--a potting table! The hole in the table portion houses a plastic tub for soil, although I'll be using it for chopped onion. I'll be able to go outside and chop to my heart's content (I will probably don goggles this time) without smelling up the house!

It will also come in handy during planting season as I am starting seedlings and repotting.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back into the Garden...

It was sunny and 70+ degrees today, so I decided it was probably time to hit the garden and yank out the sunflower, okra, and tomato stalks and throw them on the burn pile. I managed to get out the sunflower and tomato stalks, but couldn't budge the okra stalks (picture at left). I had forgotten how thick they get and how tightly they hold the ground, unlike the sunflower stalks, which are a bit easier to remove. My low back was already hurting a bit from lugging boxes of books around inside to put on the Ikea book shelves, so I didn't have much oomph to put into the okra. I'll have to see if I can talk hubby into digging them out for me.

A few days ago, I decided it was time to harvest the last of the green peppers, no matter how small they still were. I had diligently covered them with kitty litter buckets at night and on days when the temperatures were supposed to get near freezing, and they had been uncovered for several days where lows were in the 40s. But then, when I went to harvest them, they clearly had not survived the cold, wet weather (picture at right). The plants were shriveled and brown, and the peppers were a sickly green, wrinkly, and sporting black rotting spots. Only a week before they were green and healthy looking. [sigh] The moral of the story is, I guess, to plant green peppers much sooner in the season. I knew it was a crapshoot when I planted them, but I was hoping to get at least one pepper! At least I have several bags of diced green, yellow, red, and orange peppers I nabbed at the farmer's market over the summer.

Once I had all the sunflower and tomato stalks on the burn pile, I took one last quick survey of the garden. I need to rake the grass clippings and compost a bit more evenly over the garden (a job for another day, because the garden is still a bit muddy). It's a very different sight from the lush, green garden of summer.

But wait...are those onions?

Yes! They are! I couldn't believe my eyes. The cold and wet had taken out my precious pepper plants, but the white onions I couldn't find because of all the other encroaching plant cover were growing up through four inches of grass clippings, and looking pretty healthy at that! I wasn't sure at first whether they were onions or shallots (I never did find my shallots), so I dug a couple up. They were small white bulb onions. The outer couple of layers were slimy and clear--probably destroyed by the cold--but the rest of the bulb looked healthy. They were too small to do anything much with, so I left them to rot in the garden, to provide nutrients for the soil for next season. What amazed me is that they had about 12 inches of green on them from the top of the bulb to the tip of the green! They really wanted to get to that sunlight!

Free Chicken from KFC on Oct. 26...But Do You Really Want It?

You probably remember that not long ago, KFC offered a coupon for a free grilled chicken meal that Oprah promoted. And then KFC ran out of chicken. People who held the coupons but didn't get the chicken meal were promised rainchecks.

Well, in a recent Associated Press article posted on Yahoo News, KFC has a new offer, no coupon needed: one piece of grilled chicken for each customer tomorrow (Monday), October 26. According to the article, "KFC executives are pinning hopes on grilled chicken to build stronger U.S. sales by winning over health-conscious consumers turned off by the chain's fried offerings."

So...if I am reading the subtext of that statement correctly, KFC is implying that its grilled chicken is healthy? I could tell you what I think of that implication, but I think it better if you arrive at that decision for yourself. In fact, you can get the information from the KFC Web site's Nutrition tab. Under Nutrition Guides, click on the link for the KFC Ingredient Statement.

For simplicity's sake, I've copy and pasted the ingredients from that KFC Ingredient Statement below for the grilled chicken--but you are welcome to verify the information. Here is the list:

KFC® Grilled Chicken
Fresh Chicken Marinated With: Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate. Seasoned With: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Secret Kentucky Grilled Chicken Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken Fat, Chicken Broth, Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added As Anticaking Agents.

I don't know about you, but I generally don't marinate my chicken in sodium phosphate and monosodium glutamate. Oh, and then season it with monosodium glutamate, chicken fat, rendered beef fat, and anticaking agents. Yum.

You go get your free, healthy, grilled chicken if you want. I think I'll just cook and eat one of my frozen free-range chickens without MSG and anticaking agents.