Tag Archives: food

a very locavore thanksgiving

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We had about seventeen people in our house on Thanksgiving Day. Partly because we have no family locally and love collecting stragglers; and partly because my husband will cook enough food for seventeen people regardless of the number of people at our table. Lord love his Southern behind, he is a fantastic cook, even if he incorporates bacon or bacon grease into everything makes (I know, I’m saying it like it’s a bad thing). I truly appreciate our vegan friend who went omnivore on Thanksgiving because she pretty much couldn’t avoid the bacon.

Between our pork-filled creations, the locally grown CNG pastured turkey, and the contributions from friends, our table was literally groaning. It was chaotic, crazy, noisy, and fun, just the way we like holidays.

Yes, that’s Pat Robertson-induced mac and cheese in the foreground.

We had a ridiculous number of desserts, all fantastic. My pumpkin and apple pies were joined by chocolate raspberry pie, chocolate pecan pie, tiramisu, and chocolate torte. NOM.

Now, two days later and five rounds of running the dishwasher, I think we’re almost caught up with the dishes. It was worth it.

thanks.

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There’s a certain small person in my house who has recently become obsessed with writing thank you cards. Especially now that she knows where the notecards, envelopes, pens, and stamps are – and she can reach them, even better – we have been sending out cards on a regular basis. If you haven’t yet received one and I know your address, just wait. I’m sure one will come your way soon.

She’s obviously not letting standard stamp placement or a lack of alphabet-writing skills stop her. Also, I really need a new mailbox.

Now that the crazed sewing of overstuffed annoyed avians has passed, I’m naturally thinking about the next holiday coming up on the calendar. Yes, even though the red cups are out at the big coffee retailer, Thanksgiving shows up first. Believe it or not. It seems like such a maligned holiday, shoved in between the candy-fest of Halloween and the overwhelming sugary comas of cookies and candy canes and gingerbread houses for Christmas. Pumpkin pie doesn’t have the same panache for the general populace (though I willingly took about two dozen pie pumpkins from a friend wrapping up a pumpkin patch, and would do so again in a heartbeat. But I’m well aware that my food choices do not really represent the general public).

And as I’m trying to slow down and enjoy the present a little more, I figured I’d add my chorus to the X number of days of thankfulness lists peppering the internet today. So here goes. I am thankful for:

1) Peanut butter, and the ability to buy it in bulk before the price shoots through the roof (this is a good product to donate to a local food pantry or food bank right now).

I’m obviously not the only person worried about this issue. At least the almond butter is keeping the grocery shelves warm. 

2) Freedom to be subversive in my own backyard. I keep looking for Monsanto hacks out my kitchen window as I attempt to save tomato seeds for the first time this fall.

3) Knowledge passed down (in my family and on the internet) so that I can feed my family year-round with less Big Ag/Big Processed Food influence.

4) The willingness of others to share so that less food is wasted.

5) Sunny days even after the first (freakishly early) snowfall so I could get my procrastinating butt to plant some onions and garlic.

Better late than never, I guess. Not sure why that tomato interloper is hanging out with the onions – guess I’ll see what happens in the spring.

6) The good fortune of being born in a place that a) sinks its claws into its natives and doesn’t let go, so you can’t imagine living anywhere else, and b) has a fantastic natural landscape, good for both leaf peeping and supporting local agriculture.

7) A liberal arts education that didn’t turn me into a mindless automaton, so I know enough about my rights as a citizen to be dangerous and am unwilling to be complacent. As an Occupy Wall Street sign so eloquently stated, poor people are much easier to control. That looming farm bill in the supercommittee is worrying me.

That’s a week’s worth of (mostly) food-related thanks – what are you thankful for?

whoops.

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So I blew it for Hunger Action Month.

So much for 30 ways in 30 days in my house – between a weeklong business trip, the end of the fiscal year, the start of a school year for two different kids in two different schools, a new job for my husband, trying to get fall yardwork accomplished, starting to create Angry Birds Halloween costumes early (so I’m not frantically sewing the day of), and the neverending housework/laundry/dishes/cub scouts/dance class cycle, all my good intentions just fell through the cracks. I didn’t sign a paper plate, didn’t donate a tote bag, and heck, didn’t even make it to a farmers’ market to buy local during the month of September. Ugh.

Sound familiar? Getting sucked into the craziness of everyday life happens to a lot of us with small children – and a lot of us who don’t have the excuse of the little people, too. I don’t know about you, but all this go-go-go crisis mode crap stresses me out, and drives my husband crazy when I turn into the shrew. I’m not easily tamed.

But I digress. Sort of. One of the things I’ve been doing this month (with a long-distance friend) is an online course that has helped me clear my head quite a bit. It’s also further cemented the idea that food policy issues are important to me, and that I need to figure out how to incorporate it into my everyday life (more than I already do). Today, I’m doing that in two ways – writing a long overdue post about the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, and reminding everyone that tomorrow (Tuesday, October 4th) is the 2011 Pittsburgh Day of Giving.  Whaddya know? They’re connected, and both points get me back on track.

Point 1. I referenced my trip last month to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank a few weeks ago. But here are some more visuals that struck me:

Wouldn’t you want to come and volunteer for these lovely, happy people at the food bank?

Look at the sheer size of the containers holding the food handed out in one night.

Again, the sheer scale of the place is amazing. And incredibly disheartening. Because if the food bank hands out this much food, it’s because that many people are hungry in this region.

Everybody’s favorite, industrial strength creamed corn. The food that moves through here is not luxurious. Which is a reason why the Produce for People program is so popular – it supplements these basic food items with fresh produce.

The saddest-looking donation in shop-through (where food pantries can take a gander at smaller donations from grocery stores and the like and see if the people they serve can use it). This birthday cake has definitely seen better days. Still, I’d rather see it donated instead of being thrown away. Kudos to the store that agreed with me.

The storage facilities in this place are cavernous.

See those blue mixed can stickers? That’s how the goods that are collected from local food drives are distributed. Food pantries will order those from the food bank for the variety. I felt better knowing that the stuff I donate is actually helpful.

This one made me tear up a little. The juxtaposition of the Feeding America poster, the food bank logo, and that lovely drawing was a little too much for me. My kids are lucky enough to not know what it’s like to be hungry – if only all kids could be so lucky.

We are lucky that the food bank is here. It is a sad, sad commentary on the state of our country that it has to exist at all. Which leads me to…

Point 2. You should care about this. Food, shelter, and clothing are the three needs of every human. If you are lucky enough to have an excess of those three, please consider donating to the food bank so that someone who doesn’t have enough of one of those three basic needs can have some more. People who need food assistance aren’t stereotypes you can wave away. They’re your neighbors. Especially in the current economic climate.

The generous folks at The Pittsburgh Foundation have made this incredibly easy. Our city is blessed with a strong philanthropic spirit – and the Pittsburgh Day of Giving, where your donations through their website (this one – over here – pittsburghgives.org – make sure you use it!) makes it even better. You can donate as little as $25, and your funds will be partially matched. It starts tonight at midnight. DO IT. You’ll be up too late making Halloween costumes or folding laundry anyway.

Or, heck, here’s another easy way: the food bank has a Groupon. Who doesn’t love those ridiculously good deals for the consumer (that turn out not to be so hot for the merchants, but not in this case)? You can donate $10 to help with school food programs. You’ve spent more than that on coffee this week.

I’m doing both (or will once it hits midnight tonight). I haven’t been paid (or fed) by the food bank to do either one of these things, or to talk to you about it. As a former food pantry kid, I know what it’s like to be poor. I’m thankful for social safety nets, both government- and privately funded. I’m happy to do it and talk about it because that means fewer kids go hungry. That’s a no brainer.

And, hey, check it out. I may have crapped the bed on Hunger Action Month, but I have World Food Week of Action 2011 to look forward to. And it’s during my birthday week, so I may force my family to do something food-related for my birthday. A little guilt never hurt anyone, right?

produce to the people.

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I had the good fortune to be able to observe the Produce to People program at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank tonight. I’m beat, and still processing all that I learned, but it was definitely one of those experiences I can’t forget. Here’s a glimpse of what I saw.

This doesn’t begin to demonstrate the volume of people or food in the room tonight. This does, however, demonstrate the ways people can be resourceful in getting their food home (we saw many laundry baskets in use). It also demonstrates the ubiquity of the canned corn that helps to fill in the gaps.

This once a month distribution is designed to be supplementary to local food pantry use, providing fresh produce as well as more shelf-stable food. However, 60% of the participants don’t have a home food pantry. Families can take home up to 45 pounds of food, and we saw volunteers maneuvering these carts back and forth for hours tonight.

The Paper Plate campaign asks people to explain to their elected officials how hunger has affected them, and what role the food bank has played in their life. This month, Senator Pat Toomey is the intended recipient of the paper plates – and you can send one virtually. It’s an easy way to make your voice heard and support food security in our region.

love thy neighbor

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I’m gearing up for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank‘s #blogmob tomorrow, and while I’m excited to be a part of this event to raise awareness about hunger in our community, my enthusiasm was tempered a bit on my drive home. NPR, my go-to in-car radio companion, had two stories on food insecurity which pointed out the following statistics:

  • 17.2 million households were food insecure in 2010 – they had trouble putting food on the table, or didn’t know where their next meal would come from.
  • Children in 386,000 households went hungry at some point in 2010.
Both stories also noted that these statistics would have been worse if not for government nutrition programs. One in seven Americans (over 45 million) are in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, an increase of over 10 million since late 2007.

In the richest country in the world, ten million MORE people needed assistance eating in the past three years. While I’m not overly religious, I do try my best to be a good person, do what I can to help others, live a life where I can look myself in the mirror every day. And yet I hear that one in seven Americans need help eating? Where is their help from their neighbor? Where is their ‘brother’s keeper’? Who’s been shirking on the ‘do unto others’ part of the golden rule so that these people – almost 400,000 *children* – don’t have enough money to eat?

Thanks, NPR, for firing me up and making me angry. Thanks, USDA (who I usually nitpick) for releasing this data during Hunger Action Month. Thanks, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, for giving me an opportunity to learn more about the face of hunger in our community tomorrow, so I can DO something about it.

People who know me know I’m a mama bear when it comes to my family. I may have just broadened the reach of my claws.

September is ______ month.

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According to my good friend Wikipedia, September is:

Though all of these are laudable things to celebrate in September (my husband would wholly support bourbon as “America’s Native Spirit”), Wiki missed a few non-national commemoration options for September that resonate with me.  In Pennsylvania, September has been designated Local Food Month by the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA). PASA is highlighting the harvest at its peak, restaurants that buy local, and farms that are opening their doors to people interested in seeing from where their food originates. There’s a calendar full of opportunities to connect with the local food community in western PA. And who can resist carrots as cute as these guys:

September is also Hunger Action Month, and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank is encouraging participation in the ’30 Ways in 30 Days’ campaign to increase awareness about the 1 in 6 Americans who experience hunger. That’s too many.  

I’m excited to be able to take part in one of their ‘Ways’ this month – I’ll be participating in their blogmob this Thursday, and will be sharing my experiences with you. At a time of year when so many are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of produce at markets or in their backyards (including me and those damn tomatoes), it will be a good reminder that not everyone is as lucky as me to complain about too many fresh vegetables. Stay tuned!

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Update: found another one (not in PA, though) – September is also Locavore Month.