Food Club: Know Thy Food
The Know Thy Food buyer’s club began with a small parenting group in 2008, and has grown into a 900-member food buyer’s club, with hundreds of fresh, sustainable and organic foods available from local farmers, and specialty food distributors. In this video, we meet Rebecca Anderssen, the founder and driving force behind the food club, and learn more about how she began, and see the food warehouse and adjoining cafe in action.
How to Make Squash Soup and Lamb-Stuffed Squash
Donald Kotler of TOAST demonstrates how to make two tasty dishes from fresh garden squash: Chilled Squash Soup and Lamb Stuffed Squash. And he used a power tool. Here’s the link to the recipes in the video on Cooking Up a Story.
Benefits of a Food Club from the Buyers’ Perspective
The food buyer’s club Know Thy Food brings community, transparency and a greater sense of empowerment to its members who are free to choose from a massive catalogue listing of local sustainable organic foods to buy. We ask a few of the club’s members why they would join a food club, and what they like about this one.
Next Week: Householding
- Tuesday
Farm Wife
Virginia Yoder, 84, has spent much of her life on her 50-acre farm as a farm wife and mother. Besides raising six children, Yoder supported her husband by cooking meals, and putting up the excess harvest for later use throughout the year. Join us for an unusual look at life on the farm from a farm wife’s perspective as we tour her food gardens, fruit orchards, chickens, and food cellar. - Wednesday
Householding
Harriet Fasenfest, author of The Householder’s Guide to the Universe, shows us what it means to “household”, and how it’s more than just about canning foods — it’s another way of experiencing life. Find out if householding is right for you, and learn great tips to begin householding in a systematic fashion that matches your individual objectives. - Thursday
Social Issues and Householding
Harriet Fasenfest explains how her love of gardening, of cooking, and her lifelong sensitivity toward social issues transformed into her own brand of political consciousness that helps guide her present life.
The Weekly Roundup
- Carnivores should make friends with their food (Washington Post)
Author reflects on why it’s important to know where your food is coming from. - Zia Queenbees in New Mexico breeds survivor bees to help hives thrive (Organic Nation)
Video shows how Melanie Kirby breeds genetically diverse bees to help hives across the country. - Does Monsanto Man Mitt Romney secretly eat organic? (Mother Jones)
The quick answer is yes. Clinton and Bush were also public supporters of Big Ag while quietly asking for organic food on their own plates. - How to spot a great BBQ joint (Southern Foodways Alliance)
- How to dehydrate persimmons (Garden Girl TV)
And how to use a dehydrator, generally speaking. - British politician says parents who feed kids fast food are committing child abuse (BBC)
And, he also wants schools to teach cooking classes again. - The science (and business) of sowing seeds (NPR)
“With the advent of patenting laws and the ability to patent life, basically, a patent supersedes the rights of a farmer to save his own seeds.” - 2012 Farm Bill will be visiting a lame duck (EcoCentric)
- Find meat raised without antibiotics (Realtime Farms)
Crowd-sourced map. - ‘Bitter Seeds’: The effects of GMOs on India’s farmers (Zester Daily)
Teddy Bear Films look at how GMO seeds make poverty and suicide rates worse. - Portlandia Redux: Hen retirement (Civil Eats)
What happens when your hens are too old to lay eggs, but you are too chicken to eat them? - Consumers choose ‘Local’ over ‘Organic’ (Organic Consumers)
Whole Foods survey. - King Corn: You are what you eat (King Corn)
Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis are best friends from college who have decided to move from the East Coast to the Midwest in hopes of getting a better idea where the food they consume on a daily basis actually comes from. For a limited time, watch this thoroughly entertaining but serious documentary in its entirety on on the home page of Cooking Up a Story. - Foraging wild plants now or after the apocalypse (Zester)
- The dirt on soil (Ecology)
“Without good soil, there won’t be a good crop.” - Stop throwing away free tomato sauce (NW Edible)
“If you are just chucking skins and cores to the chickens you are missing the opportunity to make really excellent – and essentially free – thick, smooth tomato sauce.” - Five enviably well-organized freezers (The Kitchn)
And yes, yours can be glorious like this, too.