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I have written before about buying organic. Wednesday, I received my first box of home delivered organic fruits and vegetables from Capay Organic. I chose their service over others in the area after doing a small amount of research and seeing their wares in person at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

This week’s box included:

• Red chard
• Dino kale
• Leeks
• Nantes carrots (the little bugs bunny ones)
• Radicchio di Treviso
• Baby lettuce
• Minneolas
• Cameo apples (so good we had them for dinner one night)
• D’anjou pears
• Red beets
• Yukon potatoes

Tonight I made leek and potato soup (using those cute purple potatoes which I found at Monterrey Market) and salad of baby lettuce and beets with sea salt.

Now I need to figure out what the hell to do with Kale and Red Chard. Ideas?

The difference in this produce and the stuff you buy at the store - yes, even if you shop at Whole Foods or Rainbow - is unbelievable. I highly reccomend giving them a try. And if you do, tell them I told you.

I was reading in the June issue of Mother Jones an article about organic farming by Barbara Kingsolver in which she wrote:

“I’m always afraid I’m going to get the Mr. Natural lecture,” one friend confessed to me. “You know, from the slow-moving person with ugly hair, doing back and leg stretches while they talk to you.” I know the guy too: standing at the checkout with his bottle of Intestinal-Joy brand wheatgrass juice, edging closer as if to peer into my cart to save me from some food-karma horror.

This made me laugh. I am also afraid of that guy. My choice to live in Berkeley forced me to face my fear head on. I have always had a huge problem with those uptight hippies. People who espouse tolerance but have none. An additional thought occurred to me that the type of person reading the article - ie, the demographic of the average Mother Jones reader - is probably closer to Mr. Natural than not.

But the issue of organic farming is an important one to me. I grew up a farmer’s daughter in Louisiana in the 70s where crop dusters fanning DDT across our horizon was a common site. Our part of Louisiana fast became known as “cancer alley” as the Mississippi River - America’s built-in sewage system - brought more chemicals and waste flowing past us. I know people in these parts that still mix their baby’s formula with unfiltered tap water.

I try to make thoughtful decisions and this includes buying organic. With my children it is a full-blown obsession. The idea that I would give them one cup of hormone-filled milk makes me upset. This is part of the reason I was willing to put up with Mr. Natural by moving to Berkeley. In Berkeley, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a market that sells organic milk.

Living in France it was very difficult to find fresh milk (UHD long-life milk is the rage in Europe), but when you did, you knew it was good. The eggs and dairy and meats were all free-range, hormone free too. But the produce? Availability of European produce seems to suffer from the same malaise as the US. Supermarkets want large waxy-red apples, bright round oranges, giant perfect broccoli. This normally means it was shipped from somewhere far away, even though you knew the farmer on the land next to your house (yes, we lived in a farming village) grew perfectly good lettuce - his was only available on those market days where you were never sure what would be available. Supermarkets are a necessary convenience of modern life. Farmers markets? But I also need to buy cleaning products, toilet paper and cheerios. Who has time?

With kids, jobs, modern schedules we tend to forgo the unreliable for the reliable and as a result we are stuck with what the supermarket wants to sell us. The supermarket claims to want to sell us what we want. So why not more organic? Well, one reason is because organic food is expensive. We see those nice organic beefsteak tomatoes next to the crappy roma ones for half the price and we stop and think; “Maybe I can get away with the crappy ones, after all I am cooking them, no one will notice.” What we don’t consider is the implication this choice has on how the supermarkets stock their shelves. And we certainly don’t consider what it will mean for the farmer that got us those organic tomatoes we claimed to want in the first place.

Going green is risky. It is expensive and take many years to get going. The issue is further complicated by large pieces of policy like the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill makes it possible for highly processed multi-ingredient products packaged in plastic made and shipped from around the world using lots of jet fuel, diesel fuel and human capital to be cheaper than a carrot.

The tangle of issues related to how we eat is immense. But we must realize we live in a time where our food priorities are skewed. It might actually be a good thing if Mr. Natural could save a few more of us from food-karma horror.

From the John Wilkes Encyclopedia Londinensis 1796.
Posted at The Dodo Blog » The Hooded Dodo

From “Digging for Dodos” by Ian Parker (The New Yorker, January 22, 2007):

A Mauritian told me that his elderly uncle still said how glad he was that dodos were wiped out, because they would have disturbed his flower beds and “crapped all over the lawn.”

And:

“Where are you from? Holland? Oh, you ate all the dodos.”

From “Vegetable Love” by Steven Shapin (The New Yorker, January 22, 2007):

George Bernard Shaw is said to have asked, “While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?”

(I am a fallen vegetarian, and that makes me cringe.)

Caleb doesn’t yet talk - though he is 2 and a half. He understands Spanish and English perfectly, hears fine, not autistic, good coordination and makes himself understood pretty well considering. He does speak his own language, which is complex once you get to know it, and involves a few clicking words, which never cease to amuse me (just ask him to say “moon” or “balloon”).

I was a vegetarian for 15 years prior to getting pregnant. Living in rural France as a vegetarian was hard enough, but pregnant, practically impossible. At the hospital the doctors insisted I eat plates and plates of dried meats. When Caleb was 1 and a half, he went to Louisiana with my father and stayed for nearly 6 weeks - getting stuck during Hurricane Katrina and Rita. Southern food invariably involves lots of meat, particularly ham. The vegetarian dishes are even cooked with ham (which to them are just called “vegetables” - but if you are lucky, with ham hock instead of fat back).

So, it should come as no surprise that the first word that Caleb truly says with any real clarity and conviction is “ham.” As in “Have HAM?” “More HAM, pweeease.” “No more HAM.” “HAM food.” “HAM fall floor.” “Bodhi have HAM.” “HAM mmmmmmmmmm.”

With my second son, Tobias, I am working on “tofu.” He is almost there and he is not allowed to go to either France or Louisiana until I am through.