Don Genova's Blog

I guess the following suggestions don't really fall into the 'gift' category, but they can certainly be considered a gift to yourselves, your family and the world, for that matter.

If you’ve been thinking more and more about the way you eat and where you food comes from and the people who grow or raise it, it is now getting a lot easier to make a difference when it comes to making your food choices.

Part of making your food life more sustainable comes from growing your own food…but first some tips for people who don’t have the time or the space to do that:

Buy directly from the producer whenever possible…that means seeking out farmers markets.  If there isn’t a farmers market in your community, or if it isn’t easily accessible, talk about car-pooling with your neighbours to go to a farmers market once a week.  Maybe you could pool your resources as well, as the farmers may give you a better deal if you buy in bulk.  This can work quite well if you want to share buying a side of beef, or a pig, for example.

Buy at the farm gate, or join a CSA, community supported agriculture.  Basically you enter into a contract with a farmer well before the growing season starts.  You pay a set amount, then share in whatever the farmer harvests each week during the growing season.  You either pick up a box every week, or sometimes it is delivered.  Small family?  Some CSA’s offer a half-share.

You can start buying more organic produce, but be aware of where that produce is coming from.  Buying organic raspberries from Chile in January may save chemicals from being used, but the carbon footprint of that product coming from thousands of miles away is large.

Buying in season from local farmers helps them stay in business, but then what do you do when there is 3 feet of snow in the ground?  Live out of your freezer as much as possible.  When I was growing up this is what we did.  My mother canned peaches, pears, apple sauce, froze peas, beans, corn, stored the potato and carrot harvest in the root cellar.  She made pickles and jams and tomato sauce.  What she mostly bought in the winter were things like head lettuce and a few other fresh greens.

You say you don’t know how to can and preserve?  Take a course.  Check with community kitchens, community colleges and high schools to see if they have courses.

If you get involved in a CSA and start buying less processed food and you don’t know how to cook, take a cooking class.  Or start up supper clubs for potluck dinners, great way to share food and pick up new recipes.

We’re supposed to eat more fish to have a healthier diet, but be careful about the kind of fish you eat.  The Vancouver Aquarium, among other agencies, has a website and little cards full of information about which fish and shellfish are ‘good’ to eat from a sustainable harvest standpoint.

Gardening.  No room?  Try to grow something, even if it’s just a few pots of herbs on your balcony.  Get a spot in a community garden.  If your apartment or condo building has a lot of green space in the form of a lawn, see if some of it can be turned into a community garden.  I saw this a lot in Italy, I’ve seen it at housing complexes in the Riley Park area of Vancouver, I’ve seen it on rooftops of condo complexes in Coal Harbour.  Remember the old CBC rooftop garden?

Have a big driveway?  Following the advice of a gardening book, I built two small gardens right on top of my driveway!  I grew potatoes, herbs, lettuce greens, beans, beets, green onions, bell peppers, carrots and more, in a space of just 32 square feet, two four by four gardens.

Try to get your seeds at an event such as Seedy Saturday, or buy from local seed companies like Dan Jason’s Salt Spring Seeds.

Join your local Slow Food Convivium
 INVERMERE
LIONS GATE
OKANAGAN
VANCOUVER
VANCOUVER ISLAND
WHISTLER

Or create one in your own community, or support an association such as Farm Folk City Folk or LifeCycles on Vancouver Island.

Books to help you do this and even just to think about it:

Michael Pollan:  In Defense of Food.  In a follow-up to the highly successful The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food develops the Eater’s Manifesto.  Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Barbara Kingsolver:  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in which the popular poet and novelist details her family’s attempts to get back to the land over the course of a year.  Along that same vein, The One Hundred Mile Diet, by BC authors Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon.

All New Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew, where I got all my advice and instructions for the gardens I made on my driveway.

And an older book from a guy who was ahead of the curve on all of this.  John Robbins, and his book called The Food Revolution.  This is the man who was the heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream fortune, who gave that all up and began traveling around the world talking about how your diet can help save your life and the world.  This book came out in 2001 but the information in it is just as relevant today as it was then.

Some that I haven’t read but I think would be appropriate:

Taras Grescoe, Bottom Feeder, in which he examines fisheries around the world.

…and The Ethics of What We Eat:  Why Our Food Choices Matter, by Jim Mason and Peter Singer.  The authors examine three families' grocery-buying habits and the motivations behind those choices.

This link leads to The Ethics of What We Eat on amazon.ca and the page the book is on will lead you all kinds of different places for more books that will keep you reading for hours on this topic. 

Happy Holidays everyone, and best wishes for a sustainable food life in 2009.

Today on BC Almanac I talked about some of my book suggestions as gifts for this holiday season.  My list was long, and I didn't get to mention everything, but here is my list.  Many of these books are available at Barbara-jo's Books To Cooks in Vancouver, when I get a chance I will also put links from the books to amazon.ca, where you can save lots off of the cover price when you make an online order.

Here we go:

Cookbooks:

Fat, by Jennifer McLagan  -  all about cooking with animal fat, butter, lard, duck and goose fat, suet, etc.

A16, Food + Wine, from an Italian restaurant I went to in San Francisco, authentic dishes from Campagna and beyond, a lot of southern Italian specialties.

The Main, by Anthony Sedlak.  From the Food Network Canada show of the same name.  Easy, approachable cooking.

In the Kitchen with Anna, by Anna Olson, also of Food Network Canada.  A little more challenging, but great classic recipes kicked up a notch with a little story telling and background on the cooking techniques as well.

Bon Appetit:  Fast, Easy, Fresh.  A tome with 1100 quick dishes from the magazine.

The Genius of James Barber, his best recipes, and stories and recipe contributions from some of his best friends in the business. (including me!)

A great standby:  How To Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman.  If there’s anything you don’t know how to cook, this book has the answer.  Now available in paperback.

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.  If you want to splurge on the foodie who has everything…go for this one.  An art book and a cookbook all in one, it is by Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck restaurant in London.  List price on this one is $275!  Some stores or online booksellers may sell for less.  Really a book for chefs, also anything that talks about sous-vide cooking is really a book for chefs, as most home cooks don’t have the equipment you need to vacuum pack and simmer a dish for hours at an exact temperature.

Also for chefs, the A Day at El Bulli cookbook.  Let’s you know what happens at one of the most famous restaurants in the world, in Spain, near Barcelona.  Good luck getting a reservation….live it through the book instead.

The River Cottage Meat Book, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  This is a British guide to using all parts of the animal by a cook who is very popular in Britain for his River Cottage cookbooks and tv shows and newspaper columns.  His nickname?  Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All.

For kids:  Here’s part of a story from a New York Times article by Tara Parker-Pope:
“Of course, there have long been cookbooks aimed at children. But this batch (all the titles here are from this year) is not only unusually large, but also points in a new direction — going beyond cookies and other treats to teach children to cook main courses and side dishes, like roast chicken and brisket.

Jill Bloomfield, who (with Rabbi Janet Ozur Bass) wrote “Jewish Holidays Cookbook” (DK Publishing).

Other new cookbooks along these lines include “Paula Deen’s My First Cookbook” (Simon & Schuster); “The Second International Cookbook for Kids” by Matthew Locricchio (Marshall Cavendish); “Grow It, Cook It” (DK Publishing); and “Yum-o! The Family Cookbook” by the omnipresent Rachael Ray (Clarkson Potter).
 
Meanwhile, Nintendo is heavily advertising a cooking tutorial called “Personal Trainer: Cooking,” for use on its DS handheld game system. It includes videos of cooking techniques and more than 240 dishes from countries around the world.

While much of this new push is fueled by marketing, it does have a worthwhile health message. Studies suggest that when children are involved in meal preparation, they are more likely to try new foods.”

Food History:

Food and Feasting in Art by Sylvia Maliguzzi, for the foodie and art lover.

The Taste of Conquest:  the Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice by Michael Krondi.  What are the Three Great Cities of Spice?  Venice, Lisbon and Amsterdam.

Autobiography:

My Life in France, by Julia Child, about her years there with her husband as a newlywed and new cook.  1948-1954.  Fascinating!  And reveals how she learned to cook.

Eat, Memory, a collection of essays from the New York Times newspaper, edited by Amanda Hesser, a great food writer herself.  But in this book the writers are not necessarily food writers, but they are all writing about a particular food memory they have.

Finally, How To be A Better Foodie, by Sudi Pigott

Packed full of advice on how to just know more about food.  It’s a British book, so a few references that will be obscure for us, but very valuable nonetheless.  Great glossaries explaining chocolate, trends, and bits of animals you’ve never heard of before.