Note: Don't read this if you work for CPS or find my other posts disgusting or offensive. Move along now. I mean it.

Self-basting Henry preps for grilling

Tough times call for tough decisions. The California unemployment rate now stands at over 12 percent, and I've been underemployed since April. My cup of beans and rice runneth under, so I'm taking a cue from all those folks who have told me Henry is so cute they could just eat him. In short, I have a modest proposal.

Among carnivores and vegetarians alike, the mere sight of juicy baby leg -- peeking out from the gap between the hem of Gymboree overalls and the top of the Robeez soft sole -- is enough to trigger salivation of Pavlovian proportions. Breastfed Henry weighs about 23 pounds now, and I figure that whether stewed, roasted, baked or even boiled, in a fricassee or a ragout, he'd make a most delicious and nourishing wholesome food. In fact, I'm fairly certain I could get several meals out of him, not counting soup stock.

Babies are high in fat and must therefore be quite tasty. Think about it: the ratio of fat to muscle in babies, especially before they start walking, likely exceeds that of ducks, and we all know ducks are scrumptious. Ergo, babies must be even more scrumptious.

There's also the convenience factor: babies make great, quick and easy weeknight suppers. Though this recipe suggests roasting, I'm a crock pot fan myself. Throw the baby in the crock pot in the morning with some carrots, celery, bay leaf, and water, and presto, by the time you get home from work, dinner's ready.

But let's put aside advantages of taste and convenience for a moment and focus on the most important thing: the planet. Eating my baby is the only environmentally responsible way in which I can address my pantry problem. If you too are a mom, a foodie, and a tree hugger, you can't afford NOT to eat your baby.

First of all, when it comes to eating local, you can't get much more local than your child's nursery (or, for those of you without children, the family-based child care center around the corner). I can feel good knowing that a meal I prepare from my baby has virtually no carbon footprint: I have hauled him myself with a Baby Bjorn for nearly 11 months now, so the only energy expended has been courtesy of my own caloric intake.

Secondly, babies are free-range and cage-free (especially babies that co-sleep). I don't have to worry that my meal never saw the light of day or felt green grass under its feet. I've taken my baby to the park at least three times a week since he was born. One could also argue that he's grass fed, as he just ate grass while crawling toward the swings in Willard Park on Sunday. When you eat your own baby, you can rest assured knowing exactly what he ate and when, down to his last spoonful of organic squash from the farmer's market that you steamed and pureed yourself. If you're really careful about your baby's diet, you can even rest assured that he, and therefore you, isn't tainted by that heinous hydra of the industrial food complex: corn.

Babies are also available all year round, so say bye bye to what I call "out-of-season guilt," the kind that garnishes lamb in November and tomatoes in January.

It's actually hard to imagine a more sustainable food than baby, particularly breast-fed baby. If you eat only organic, local food, and your baby eats only breast milk and organic, local food, wears organic clothes (Think of it! No plastic grocery bags!) and G-diapers, as soon as you've thrown that kid in the crockpot, you've become a model sustainable eater. What other food can you create with your own body and feed with your own body? In food terms, it's a perfect circle.

Save the planet: eat your baby.

End this barbecue season with a bang.

** Disclaimer: No babies were actually barbecued during the photoshoot for this post thanks to an Eye Candy Photoshop filter. Don't try this at home...or anywhere else.

Photos and Photoshop by Wendy Goodfriend

Last month, Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, an outspoken leader on food safety and animal rights, hosted a special screening of the documentary, FOOD, INC. for a roomful of legislators in Sacramento. Thanks to a friend who works at the capitol, I was able to sneak in. It'd been a very long time since I've been surrounded by that many people wearing suits, and discussing public policy is not one of my favorite ways to make small talk (SBX2 3 or SB 135, anyone?). But seeing this important film with a roomful of legislators who were excited about sustainable food and who could actually institute change was one of the most powerful experiences I've had in a movie theatre.

You will soon be hearing a lot about FOOD, INC., a documentary directed by Robert Kenner, winner of both a Peabody and an Emmy for his previous film, Two Days in October. Opening in San Francisco on June 12, this latest release by Magnolia Pictures tackles the unenviable job of educating consumers about the agricultural industry. It's being called the Inconvenient Truth of the food world, and the quality of its production certainly compares well. Super-saturated colors, animation, engaging graphics, a sprinkling of humor to lighten its distillation of immense amounts of information, and a line-up of articulate, passionate speakers all meld into a highly viewable documentary.

Eric Schlosser, co-producer, and Michael Pollan, both ground the film with their journalistic approach. The soundtrack, with its ominous rumbling beneath mass production and the folksy guitar accompanying underdogs, manages to reveal the film's underlying stance, but FOOD, INC. strives admirably to present multiple views. Of course, that's a challenge when corporations refuse to take part in the conversation. (Monsanto, Tyson and many others declined to appear in the film.) The film offers a surprisingly evenhanded treatment of Walmart executives accompanied by Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm. Even more, rock stars of the sustainable food world, such as self-proclaimed grass farmer, Joel Salatin, inadvertently reveal the gray areas of their own much praised business models. After all, how sustainable are loyal customers who drive 400 miles to buy happy, healthy meat?

As someone who has visited feeding lots and blood-slicked slaughterhouses, once worked a very long day in a chicken processing facility, and still wrestles with her decision to continue eating meat, I attended the screening expecting another sermon for the converted. When one of the press contacts reminded me to use all caps whenever I referred to the title of film, I concentrated very hard not to roll my eyes. Yet I there I sat later, stunned by what I was learning.

There's Barbara Kowalcyk, a lifelong Republican who dedicated her life to changing food safety standards after her son died from eating a hamburger contaminated with E. coli and who now refuses to reveal what she eats for fear of being sued by the meat industry. (She doesn't have as much money for a legal team as Oprah does.) There's the fleet of Monsanto "private investigators" who knock on uncooperative farmers' doors to threaten, ever so politely and quietly, to put them out of business forever. There's the seed cleaner ruined for providing non-GMO seeds to his neighbors...and the deals struck by employers of undocumented workers with the border police…and the $18,000 that an average chicken farmer makes for a year of hard work...

But there's also the woman willing to lose her contract with Tyson in order to shed light on an oppressive industry, the farmers banding together, and the scores of other individuals in the film who are working to make a difference in ways both huge and small. It'd be an overstatement to say FOOD, INC. is optimistic, but it does end with some modest suggestions for what each viewer can do to help move us toward a safe, sustainable system. More importantly, its wider release will, like the Obamas' garden, help push the topic to center stage for the public and policymakers alike.

Anyone who needs a good, clear primer on the food industry and the state of agriculture in the U.S should see this documentary. If you're already well versed or long converted, it's an important film to see and discuss with others -- your mom who is addicted to the big box stores, your friends who aren’t convinced that local or organic is worth the extra effort, or your children who have a full life of choices ahead.

For as the film reminds us repeatedly, we cast our vote every time we eat.

Listen Live to Michael Pollan on KQED 88.5FM Wed, Apr 29, 2009 -- 10:00 AM.

Listen to the audio archive of Michael Pollan on KQED's Forum. (archive posts 4/29 late eve)

Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan joins KQED Forum to talk food politics. Find out how he views President Obama's first 100 days in office, and how the food industry is reacting to calls for simpler ingredients. Plus, Pollan wants to know, what food rules do you live by? Michael Pollan's most recent book is "In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto."

Host: Michael Krasny

Guest: Michael Pollan, journalism professor at UC Berkeley and author of books including "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma"

Explore and buy Michael Pollan's books on amazon.com
Follow Michael Pollan on Twitter @michaelpollan
Michael Pollan's website: www.michaelpollan.com
Michael Pollan's Salon article Obama's 100-day report card

Walking through the Ferry Building recently, I couldn't pass up locally foraged chanterelle mushrooms from Far West Fungi. Chanterelles first become available to us in the fall, being foraged from the Pacific Northwest. They arrive with the first rains, and they begin to grow closer to San Francisco as we get into wintertime and cooler, rainier weather. Because chanterelles grow as the result of a symbiotic relationship between fungus and host plant (usually a tree), they are always found in the wild and don't grow outside of a forest environment.

In his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan details foraging for chanterelle mushrooms with a mushroom hunter -- one of several area people who forage for these delicious mushrooms in nearby forests and then bring them to San Francisco to sell to restaurants and stores.

I jump at the chance to buy chanterelle mushrooms because I love their meaty texture and delicious flavor. It's been said that they have an apricot scent, and I think that the flavor is deliciously strong without being overwhelming. They don't tend to cook down as much as say, button mushrooms, so the yield per person is better.

Keep an eye out for chanterelles on local area menus. I usually find them at the local gourmet pizzerias as a pizza topping, and SPQR regularly has them on their menu sauteed with spinach.

When cooking at home, I usually make very basic dishes that show off the chanterelle flavor. Tonight, I'm thinking of using mine in a very basic risotto. In the past, I've sauteed them simply with butter and topped with a poached egg. I also like them tossed with a whole grain such as farro or brown rice.

Chanterelles have a hefty price tag -- I purchased a meager amount at Far West Fungi for $20 per pound. But they are meaty enough and substantial enough to be a main ingredient in place of meat, which is how I justify the cost.

Currently, the chanterelles available at Far West Fungi and local farmers markets are being foraged from all around the Bay Area: Sonoma, Marin, and Alameda counties. We can expect to see chanterelle mushrooms for at least a few more weeks, and if it rains then possibly another month or two.

Chanterelles on Bay Area Bites:
Hunter gatherer: Chanterelles in Big Sur

Chanterelle mushroom recipes on the blogs:
Truffled Chanterelle, Celery Root and Potato Gratin
Warm Chanterelle and Pancetta Salad
Farro with Chanterelles, Apples, Apples and Apples

Listen to Slow Food Nation on KQED's Forum.

Slow Food Nation
This Labor Day weekend San Francisco will host Slow Food Nation -- a four day gathering to promote sustainable and healthy food. We talk with organizers and experts in the slow food movement, exploring the connection between our plates and the planet.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:
• Anya Fernald, executive director of Slow Food Nation
• Dr. Vandana Shiva, author of "Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature" and founder and director of Navdanya, an organization supporting conservation, renewal and rejuvenation of biodiversity
• Eric Schlosser, award-winning journalist, author of "Fast Food Nation" and a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly
• Michael Pollan, professor of journalism at UC Berkeley and author of "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto"

Read Amy Sherman's Event post about Slow Food Nation.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned the rising cost of food around the world. It's been a hot topic lately, and reports are becoming more grim. Costs are starting to hit home in our supermarkets, and warehouse retail chains are even beginning to restrict volume (20 pound) rice sales due to supply issues.

Most sustainable food activists believe that the price of food does not reflect its true price, and that subsidies for crops like corn and soy create artificial prices that keep the price of junk foods and processed foods artificially low. This means unsubsidized, whole foods like farmers market products are more expensive but that they are actually the real price of food.

In an article in the New York Times recently called "Some Good News on Food Prices," Michael Pollan and Alice Waters made the argument that rising food prices will equalize the playing field that is our food system -- organic, local, pasture-raised foods will become feasible options when all food prices are high. "Higher food prices level the playing field for sustainble food that doesn't rely on fossil fuels," said Pollan in the article.

As most know, I am an active voice for voting with your fork and making conscious decisions about where your food dollars go.

However, I have trouble with this argument. And I especially have trouble with Waters' claim that food budgeting in this current climate is simply a matter of reprioritizing:

"It is simply a matter of quality versus quantity and encouraging healthier, more satisfying choices. 'Make a sacrifice on the cellphone or the third pair of Nike shoes,' she said."

While many of us are privileged to be able to make that budget decision or reprioritize, we, in the sustainable food movement, are only alienating those who cannot make those choices with statements such as Waters'. Many are having to make very difficult decisions about their food budgets at the moment, and now may not be the time to make them feel guilty about the decisions that they are facing.

I'm not the only one who was rankled by this article. Tom Philpott, in an article at Grist, called the Pollan and Waters argument an oversimplification.

"I have a hard time imagining people who are struggling to put food on the table rambling off to the farmers' market on Saturday to fill cloth bags with the sort of fresh, local, organic produce so beloved by Pollan and Waters (and me). Indeed, higher food prices are likely to send many time- and cash-strapped people in quite the opposite direction."

I agree with Philpott. Now is the time for sustainable food activists to make sure that there is great access to farmers market, great promotion of CSA's, and to continue to talk about sustainably sourcing our food. But it's not the time to bask in the fact that our nation's food prices are reaching crisis levels.

Grace Cathedral is the eponymous "cathedral on a hill" in San Francisco. It's located on Nob Hill, and many of us have been there to see the beautiful Keith Haring altar at the AIDS Chapel, or to walk the labyrinth inside the church.

What I didn't know until recently is that Grace Cathedral hosts a Forum program each week before the Sunday service, and that the program is often focused on current news makers or people of interest.

The Forum, which is available in a podcast archive, often focuses on food issues and I have enjoyed the past season of speakers for that reason. It's a worthwhile podcast to subscribe to even if you pick and choose which speakers pertain to your interests.

In October, I went to Grace Cathedral to hear Dr. Jane Goodall speak. While Goodall is known foremost as a champion of animals and a teacher of the ways of primates, she is also an advocate for conscious eating and published a book called Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. At the Forum, Dr. Goodall spoke to the importance of food choices in the overall health of the planet, and I found her message challenging and inspiring at the same time. Dr. Goodall implored the audience to become vegetarian or at least eat free-range meat, saying "It's not widely known the extent to which the intensive farming of animals is damaging the environment. People don't want to know about the suffering and the cruelty that goes on within the intensive farms. "

A month or two later, Mollie Katzen visited the Forum. Katzen is the author of the Moosewood Cookbook and one of the founders of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York. She writes about vegetarian cooking and is credited with helping make vegetarianism a mainstream eating practice. Her interview was compelling due to her ties to the Bay Area, and the fact that she's a great speaker. Surprisingly, Katzen is not a strict vegetarian. She eats some meat, but her cooking is inspired by a fierce love for all things vegetable.

Last week, Michael Pollan visited The Forum. He is currently on book tour for his new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. This was an informative hour, and it serves as an excellent overview of his book and his outlook on eating.

As an aside, my friend and colleague Bonnie Powell of Ethicurean will be interviewing Michael Pollan in a Slow Food event in Vacaville on February 7. You can find more information on the Ethicurean site.

The Grace Cathedral Forum schedule can be found on the cathedral website. You can attend the forum sessions in person for free on Sundays or can download them from the Internet. You can also listen over the Internet in real-time and email your questions to the moderator.

The Forum with Jane Goodall
The Forum with Mollie Katzen
the Forum with Michael Pollan

Hungry Planet takes a look at what the world eats, country by country, family by family. Photos show 30 different families posing with a typical week's worth of food, and details include how much they spend on food, the breakdown by types of food, a family recipe and an essay about the family and their relationship to food. Author Peter Menzel also includes field notes which are a bit like personal journal entries. The countries he visited for the book include places like Bhutan, Mali and Cuba and more than one family in places like China, the US and Japan.

Hungry Planet won a prestigious James Beard award in 2006 and is now out in paperback. If you haven't seen a copy of the book, you can see the photographs over at Time.com. But it's well worth getting a copy. While the photos are most impressive, the book also includes essays by noted writers such as Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan and Corby Kummer. The essays and photos will shock, dismay, encourage and enlighten.

I recently reread the statistic that in America we spend only 10% of our income on food. I don't know what percentage of income each of the families from the 24 countries featured spends on food, but it is interesting all the same to see just what they eat and how much it costs. Often it seems from the pictures that people in the more industrialized nations are not eating as well as those in the "developing" world. It will be interesting to see if the families featured will be revisited to see if and how their diets change over time.

Family Recipe--Great Britain

Mark Bainton's Cheese and Potato Pie

Ingredients
12 oz mashed potatoes per person
9 leaves basil, finely torn (save half leaf for garnish)
3 sprigs parsley, finely chopped (save 1 leaf for garnish)
8-12 oz Cheddar cheese

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine mashed potatoes, basil, and parsley (or other herb of your choice)
3. Cover the bottom of an ovenproof casserole about 1" thick in mashed potatoes; cover with sliced cheese. Repeat, finishing with slices of cheese, so that all the mashed potatoes are covered.
4. Bake until golden brown, 20-25 minutes. Serve with garnish.

Reprinted from Material World Books and Ten Speed Press, Hungry Planet, 2007

Those expecting a brawl got more of a lovefest when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey met with Michael Pollan author of The Omnivore's Dilemma at UC Berkeley last night. The feud, if you can call it that, goes to back to a time shortly after the publication of the book when Mackey took issue with the quality of Pollan's research, his criticism of Whole Foods and what he called "industrial organic". Over the months that passed a series of letters were made public in which each seemed to take the other to task. Those letters can be found here:

Letter 1: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 1 Response: Pollan to Mackey
Letter 2: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 2 Response: Pollan to Mackey

Mackey complained that he wasn't contacted by Pollan before the book was published and tried to argue that all "industrial organic" is not bad. Pollan challenged Mackey on the authenticity of the storytelling present in the store, and on how much produce was truly "local".

The problem is and was, that Pollan and Mackey agree more than they disagree. While Mackey got his chance to explain his philosophy and to announce several new praiseworthy initiatives that deal with fair trade, animal welfare, support for local "food artisans" and loans for farmers and food producers, he admitted that criticism was good, and that it spurred a reexamination of their practices and a rethinking of their approach. Pollan in turn praised Mackey for the new initiatives and for being willing to so thoroughly engage his critics, something few CEO's are willing to do.

It was surprising how unpolished and passionate Mackey was compared to the almost slick and sometimes snide Pollan. Mackey even went so far as to say the backlash against his company and the concept of organic has actually been good in some ways. Still Mackey doesn't like being compared with Wal-Mart, and his philosophy of a more enlightened capitalism and movement towards a post industrial age he calls the "ecological era" puts him on the forefront of progressive businesses.

For his part, Pollan kept the conversation to a discussion more about the future than the present or the past in the discussion part of the program which was entitled "The Past, The Present, The Future of Food". Pollan even envisioned a kiosk in a grocery store that would allow shoppers to scan items and see what was happening back on the farm for a kind of nanny-cam meets corporate transparency, a vision that Mackey seemed to embrace. Perhaps both Mackey and Pollan are ready to put down the gloves and make peace with the past and present (in addition to each other) and to make more room for a focus on the future.

Between my vacation and a work trip to Southern California, my time in the Bay Area lately has been sporadic. The first thing I try and do when I return home to San Francisco is to visit a farmers' market. Farmers' markets ground me. Seeing the fruits and vegetables that are in season reminds where I am in the year, how much time has passed, and how the farmers are doing. The main thing that I took away from this week's trip to the Sunday San Rafael Farmers' Market is that SPRING IS COMING.

Though our produce is still heavily into kale, butternut squash, and root vegetables, the turning of the season has begun. Look hard and you will see tiny little green onions and green garlic. Green garlic looks a little like green onion with a small garlic nub at the end that gradually gets larger and harder as the season goes on. I use green garlic for everything that you'd use garlic for, but you'll learn your own favorite ways to try out this subtle, delicious vegetable.

Asparagus has started to make an appearance, foreshadowing our wonderful asparagus months of March and April. This week, I only saw asparagus at the Zuckerman's Farm booth, but it will soon be available through other vendors as well. Get your risotto recipes ready! If you look hard, you will also start to see glimpses of strawberries at different markets throughout the area.

The young greens throughout the market at the moment are stunning. Just perusing the market on Sunday, I noticed nettles, spring mix, baby chard, baby arugula, rapini and other greens. As we move further along in the year, these greens will be in even more abundance.

I was gone during much of the citrus freeze last month, and expected when I returned that I would not find any citrus products in the market. The opposite is true. While many farmers lost a lot of their crop, citrus is still widely available. According to Julie Cummins, the Director of Education at CUESA, many of the citrus growers were able to pick in advance of the freeze and are now selling their pre-picked fruit. Because the farms who attend our Bay Area markets are fairly small, they were able to mobilize enough workers on very short notice to save a lot of their crop, where the large farms were left with worker shortages and seemed to lose a larger percentage of their crop. This week I could choose from mandarins, pomelos, kumquats, Buddha's hand, blood oranges, and lemons.

Will Brokaw from Brokaw Nursery says that they lost a small percentage of their avocado crop due to this year's weather. Where we'll really notice the lack of avocados, says Brokaw, is next year in the late fall and winter. While we normally could expect Gwen avocados at that time from the nursery's northernmost orchard in Soledad, all those avocados "are toast" and we'll have several months without avocados and will have to wait until January or February 2008 when we can see the Haas avocado crop. Brokaw's guavas and cherimoyas from the Soldedad farm also were harmed, but we can look foward to kumquats, other citrus, and many more months of avocados from Brokaw Nursery.

I was surprised this week to see that Dave Little still has some potatoes from the fall crop. He has a couple weeks more of potatoes to sell, and then will take some time off to plant, returning in the late spring with a new crop. Be sure to check out Dave's cooking demonstration this Saturday at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, where he will demonstrate that even sprouted potatoes are good for cooking and taste delicious.

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Mariquita Farm is a popular vendor at the Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. Julia and Andy, the farmers, put out a fantastic newsletter each week with essays by Andy and farm news. Mariquita has taken a big step technologically and Julia and Andy are now publishing a blog: The Ladybug Letter. If you are an RSS-geek like me, then The Ladybug Letter is going to be a worthwhile addition to your feeds.

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The hottest ticket in town tonight is the John Mackey and Michael Pollan event at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Those of us who follow food politics watched with interest last summer as The Omnivore's Dilemma kicked off a series of letters between the author, Michael Pollan, and John Mackey -- the CEO of Whole Foods. The event is sold out, but you can watch the live webcast courtesy of UC Berkeley. With the number of bloggers who are planning to attend, you will surely be reading posts about the event this week.

Letter 1: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 1 Response: Pollan to Mackey
Letter 2: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 2 Response: Pollan to Mackey