DC real estate ad takes a dig at wealthy farmers

We were alerted by Grist to this ad appearing yesterday in Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, touting affordable condos. (Click ad to enlarge.)

Menu for Hope 4

Cincinnati Locavore is participating in the 4th Annual Menu for Hope! This annual online raffle by food bloggers around the globe raises money for hunger projects worldwide. In 2006 the project raised over $60,000 for the World Food Program. This year the project runs December 10 - 21. Bloggers all over the world donate food-related prizes, and blog readers participate by buying raffle tickets for the various prizes through online charity auction house Firstgiving.

Here at Cincinnati Locavore we're especially excited that funds raised this year by Menu for Hope IV are earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. The Lesotho School Lunch Program is a model in local procurement, buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP through the Lesotho program buys directly from local subsistence farmers who practice conservation farming methods.

Other bloggers in our region participating in the project (along with the prizes they're offering this year) can be seen Monday, December 10th at the Central US Prize Roundup on Kalyn's Kitchen, the Utah-based host for flyover country blogs. For all prizes in all regions, visit Chez Pim. You can see all of last year's raffle prizes here.

And here's the really fun part: by "participating," we mean Cincinnati Locavore is offering a prize. We're not allowed to tell you what it is yet -- Menu for Hope likes to announce all the prizes at the same time on the morning of December 10th -- but we can promise this prize will make any serious cook drool.

Local Wines

From the blog of Wine Girl, this post on two local wineries.

From the website of Kinkead Ridge in Ripley:

The mission of Kinkead Ridge is to produce ultra-premium estate-bottled wine in Southern Ohio (Ohio River Valley appellation), exclusively vinefera, with great attention and care paid to cultural practices and classic winemaking techniques. Our primary grape varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Viognier, and Riesling. Smaller quantities of Petit Verdot, Roussane and Sauvignon Blanc fill out our mix.

From the website of Harmony Hill in Bethel:

The goal of Harmony Hill Vineyards is not to be Ohio's largest winery but instead to carefully select only the finest grapes to produce a limited amount of estate-bottled premium Cabernet Sauvignon wine in the Bordeaux tradition.

King Corn on DVD

Oh, very cool! King Corn is now available on DVD for those of us in corn country who might otherwise not have a chance to see it.

Penny-wise Eat Local Challenge

Back in April, Eat Local Challenge started a new challenge intended to explore the question of whether the average family could afford to eat locally. They started with the Department of Labor statistics on the average amount spent by a family for food each week:

1 person in the family, one wage earner: $68 a week
2+ persons in the family, one wage earner: $121 a week
2+ persons in the family, 2 wage earners: $144 a week
2+ persons in the family, 3+ wage earners: $184 a week

Most participants ended up concluding there was a trade-off between money spent and time spent. Those who were willing and able to spend more time planning and more time in the kitchen could pull off eating local on an average family's budget as long as they ate at home and carried their lunches. A few participants found it difficult to avoid restaurants, and even if they ate in restaurants that sourced locally they ended up blowing their food budgets. A few had no problem staying within the budget at all as their normal weekly food budget is less than the Department of Labor average -- which would seem to indicate that there are at least some folks out there capable of eating locally on an average food budget.

Food Stamp Challenge

The Executive Director at Jewish Community Services blogged on her experience living on a food stamp budget for a week. This interested me because her comments on how hungry she felt and her 'food insecurity' (worries that her $21 food budget wouldn't last her the entire week) reminded me of a common criticism of the local eating movement: that eating locally would be impossible for someone on a limited budget.

But when I looked at her food choices, I had to wonder. She chose highly processed foods such as boxed breakfast cereal instead of something that would have offered her far more calories for the penny such as oatmeal. She chose convenience foods such as prepared spaghetti sauce, bagged 'baby' carrots, hot dogs, pretzels and microwave popcorn. She chose relatively expensive foods that provided very little caloric content such as a bag of organic lettuce (which used up over ten percent of her budget for the week all by itself) and very little in the way of nutritive value (2 2-liter bottles of pop.) Her fresh fruit choices included 4 apples for $3.44 when bananas were 4 for .79 and tangerines were 4 for fifty cents. When faced with a budget of $21 for the week, why wouldn't she simply add a couple extra bananas and/or tangerines to her cart instead of spending a whopping 16% of her budget on what probably amounted to 250 calories? Her shopping cart didn't contain much in the way of budget-conscious healthy standards -- where was the 10-pound bag of potatoes that leapt immediately to my mind when I considered the idea of trying to feed myself on $21 a week? No wonder she was hungry!

Her choices are hers; as she points out in her blog, it's none of my business whether a food stamp user chooses Cheerios over oatmeal. I agree, it's not my business. But it doesn't follow that her hunger is evidence that $21 is 'ridiculously insufficient' to provide adequate food for one person for one week. Her hunger and her food insecurity were the result of her food choices, not of her budget.

At Kroger's -- not the cheapest option for food buying -- I found these prices:

10 pounds potatoes $3.98 3000 calories
2 pounds rice $1.79 3000 calories
2 pounds beans $1.39 2340 calories
42 oz oatmeal $2.17 4500 calories
1 gallon milk $2.99 2400 calories
1 pound butter $2.72 3200 calories

That comes to $15.04 for 18,440 calories. The average diet is 2000 calories a day, so this is enough food for over nine days all by itself, which means that one week's food if you ate nothing but these food items would cost $11.39, leaving nearly ten dollars -- almost half the budget -- to buy other items. Assuming you're eating these other items, you'll of course end up eating less of the pantry staples, which means they'll stretch even further. At this point, she could afford the pop and the lettuce AND the apples.

Now, this is truly subsistence eating. It would be boring in the extreme, and while 'boredom' is a silly consideration in the face of true hunger (I suspect many people all over the world would be thrilled to be similarly bored with their diets), very few of us would expect anyone to eat this monotonous a diet week in, week out here in the land of plenty. But the fact remains: no one need go hungry or worry about their food lasting the week on a food stamp diet.

But that still leaves the question of whether eating locally is doable for a low-income individual. It would require a different set of pantry staples. Rice doesn't grow in Ohio. Local milk and butter are available only to those who have access to a car, because local milk means raw milk and that can only legally be obtained in Ohio directly from the farm via a herdshare and at around $5 a gallon, which by itself renders it unlikely for inclusion in a food stamp diet. Even dry beans and oatmeal can be difficult to find locally. But down at Findlay Market, smack dab in the middle of Over-The-Rhine, all farmshed vendors are required to accept food stamps.

I may have to try a Local Eating Food Stamp Challenge.

The Farm Lobby

This article about the political power of large wealthy farmers and the profound ways in which their interests differ from those of small farmers, the first of a series of three from the excellent blog Ethicurean, is worth the time and effort even if you're tired of hearing about CAFOs.

Dark Days Challenge/Pepper Chicken and Buttered Radishes

Yeah, I know. It sounds like a bizarre combination for a meal. And there's no good reason behind the combination. It was pure coincidence and unwillingness to delay gratification. (I'd already done my Dark Days Challenge Meal for the week, but I got it in my head to make a Pepper Chicken and ran out to Red Sun Farm and Greenacres for the necessary ingredients, figuring this would be an easy second meal.) Then when I got to Greenacres they had three bunches of radishes. I've been craving buttered radishes for weeks. I snapped up all they had, and that became the side dish du jour.

Greenacres also had all the peppers and onions my heart could desire in early December: Green bell peppers, pimientos, jalapenos, red onions, yellow onions, shallots. (They're growing in hoophouse over the winter, and the gardener says they'll harvest once a week as long as snow or ice doesn't collapse the hoophouses.) At any rate, their peppers were beautiful, and I grabbed an assortment figuring the more flavors the better. At Red Sun Farm I'd picked up garlic and several boneless chicken breasts. The only things I needed to pick up at Pipkin's were flatbread and cilantro.

For the Pepper Chicken, I used more or less the same seasoning mix I use for taco meat:

PEPPER CHICKEN

1 T olive oil
4 chicken breasts, sliced thin against the grain
3 - 4 c sweet and hot peppers, to taste, cut into 1/4" dice
1 1/2 c onions, cut into 1/4" dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 t corn flour
4 1/2 t chili powder
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t seasoned salt
1/2 t paprika
1/4 t cumin
1/4 t cayenne
1 t salt
2 c chicken stock

In a medium saute pan, heat the oil on medium heat. Saute the chicken breasts until just opaque, then remove the chicken to a plate. Add peppers, onions and garlic to hot pan and saute over medium-low heat until onions are translucent. Add chicken stock and seasonings and bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer for twenty minutes until veggies are tender. Return chicken to pan, heat through, and serve on pita or flatbread.

The buttered radishes are a strange concept that I suspect is French in origin, but I like them nevertheless. The combination of butter, pepper, and tender-cooked radishes is irresistible. I'm experimenting with other additions. This version includes dill, but I'm not sure that's the perfect enhancement.

BUTTERED RADISHES

2 T butter
salt to taste
~25 radishes, trimmed
2 t sugar
1 t red wine vinegar
1 T dill, minced
1 1/2 t ground pepper

In a small skillet, melt butter. Add radishes and salt, coat radishes with butter, then cover pan and leave over low heat for 4-5 minutes depending on the size of the radishes. Add sugar and vinegar and saute 2 minutes, then add dill and pepper, remove from heat, and serve.

Red Sun Farm & Greenacres Farm

I took a trip out to Red Sun Farm on Grog Run Rd in Loveland today. Red Sun offers a nice option: a self-serve farm store (the photo is theirs from their website) with an honor box. They have pastured chicken, pork, beef, and eggs. Their own garlic and potatoes were available today along with dried lavender and basil.

I also hit Greenacres Farm on Spooky Hollow in Indian Hill. They had peppers, lots of herbs, arugula, onions, shallots. Also three bunches of radishes, which I snapped up because I've been craving buttered radishes. They're growing in hoophouses this winter. The gardener told me they'd have produce unless/until snow or ice collapsed their hoophouses and will be harvesting weekly, generally on sunny afternoons because it's easier to get inside the plastic if it's been warmed by the sun.

Dark Days Challenge/Fettucini and Meatballs in Marinara

This one is a stretch to call 90%, I think. Certainly 90% of the cost of this meal went to local ingredients, but some of the bulkier ingredients weren't local.

The marina is the least-local portion of the meal, and that's my husband's mother's fault, god rest her soul. My husband's favorite meal is his mother's spaghetti, which family legend has it was passed down to her by her husband's mother, an Italian woman who immigrated in 1906. So of course when I married him, I got the recipe from his mom.

Well, maybe old Mrs. Finocchiaro had to make do with what she could find when she moved to South Philly from Sicily as a young married woman, but I really can't believe she strayed this far from her roots:

GRANDMA FINOCCHIARO'S SPAGHETTI SAUCE

1/2 stick Olio
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1/4 c dried parsley
1 T salt
1/4 t pepper
1/4 t garlic powder
1 28-oz can chopped tomatoes + 1 can water
1 15-oz can Hunts sauce
1 12-oz can Hunts tomato paste

Brown the beef in the olio, drain off excess fat, and add the onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Saute 10 minutes and add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer 2 - 3 hours.

When I first saw this recipe, I suspected my (of Swiss extraction & raised in Bucyrus, Ohio) mother-in-law had massively adapted her mother-in-law's recipe to what could be found at the Foodarama (I swear that was the name of our local grocery store) in Dayton Ohio in the 1950s. So the first time I made it for my husband, I tried to take it back to Italy at least a little. I skipped the olio, used fresh parsley and garlic, and used nothing but whole San Marzano tomatoes plus a little beef stock to make a long-cooked sauce.

My husband said, 'This is really good, but it's not my mom's sauce.'

So I relented. Other than starting with a 'half stick of olio' and then draining it off (I just saute the onions and seasonings while the beef is browning in its own juices) I now use The Recipe. It's become my son's favorite meal. Someday I'll probably be handing it over to a daughter in law. Sigh. On the bright side, it's the easiest dinner I ever make, the ingredients are always in my cupboards, and my husband and son are delighted to see it every week. So while I'll never love this sauce, I do love having a go-to recipe for crazy days.

The meatballs have only one non-local ingredient (the romano -- cheese as always is a challenge to find locally.) These are adapted from the recipe used at Maroni's in Northport, NY on Long Island and featured on one of my guilty pleasures, Throwdown with Bobby Flay. It's an odd meatball recipe, with four times as much egg and breadcrumb and twice as much milk as most meatball recipes contain. Maroni jokingly refers to it as 'more of a quiche' and I have to agree. They're probably not for everyone, but they're growing on me. Changes I made: I used half beef/half pork because that's what I prefer (the recipe calls for all beef.) I didn't have enough garlic, parsley, or basil in the house to meet the recipe's specifications and ended up halving the amounts -- for instance, the recipe called for 2 ounces of garlic. Well, a full head of organic garlic weighs less than an ounce. Same with the parsley and basil -- I chopped a mountain of both and ended up with just an ounce of each, so while the recipe called for 2 ounces of each, 1 ounce is what I used. I'll probably try to follow the specified amounts next time, and probably I'll add ground pepper, too, now that I've tasted the finished meatballs.

MEATBALLS VIA MARONI'S

1/2 pound ground chuck
1/2 pound ground pork
4 ounces dried bread crumbs
4 large eggs
4 ounces whole milk
6 ounces grated Romano
3 ounces grated onion
1 ounce pressed fresh garlic
1 ounce Italian parsley, chopped
1 ounce basil, choppped

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a baking sheet lightly with olive oil.

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in large bowl.

Roll meatballs loosely to about the size of a large golf ball and place on baking sheet. Place into preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Serves six (about 3 large meatballs each.)

For pasta, I used the garlic fetuccini made by Rossi's, which is made in Marietta Ohio, about 200 miles from here and probably not with local grains. I'm going to keep my eyes open for a truly local product made with local grains, because that seems like something I ought to be able to find here in the middle of farm country.