The U.S. Department of Agriculture thinks there’s entirely too much brotherly love going on in Philadelphia and says it will shut down a program that for the last 17 years has been offering free lunches to all school children regardless of income. The USDA says it isn’t fair for Philadelphia to be the only city in the [...]
Entries from May 2009
USDA To Philadelphia: Drop Dead!
May 31st, 2009 · 2 Comments · kids, politics
Tags: Congress·school lunches·USDA
Steamed Asparagus
May 31st, 2009 · 5 Comments · Blog
In the past, my preferred method for cooking asparagus was to poach it in a heavy skillet filled with salted water. I liked this method, because I could monitor the asparagus spears as they cooked, plucking out the thinner ones when the were done, leaving the thicker ones to cook a while longer. We seemed to achieve [...]
Potatoes On Steroids
May 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment · garden
We think of potatoes mostly baked and slathered in sour cream or whipped with a big pat of butter. But they start out as a plant. And this time of year the potato plants are making a show of blooming in the garden.
You have to look farily closely to see the blossoms. But our local [...]
Dropping the I-Bomb On Schools
May 29th, 2009 · 5 Comments · kids, politics
I got laid off this week.
Well, it’s just the last two weeks of my food appreciation classes at a private elementary school here in the District of Columbia that I’ll be missing. Apparently they’re tightening belts even in places where tuition is around the same as my mortgage payment, and with only two weeks of [...]
Tags: carbohydrates·Congress·insulin·kids·school lunches·USDA
Compost Powered By The Internet
May 28th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Blog
Recently I received an e-mail from a graduate student in India who had viewed the composting videos I made for Monkeysee (click on “video” above) and wanted more information on how to compost in rural areas. This is what he wrote:
“Hey Bruske,
I saw your videos on monkeysee and believe me they helped a lot..but i [...]
Tags: blogging·composting
Eggs And Mean Greens
May 28th, 2009 · 1 Comment · breakfast, garden
What? You never heard of eggs with greens?
Since we are no longer eating starchy carbohydrates this is my preferred way to serve eggs for breakfast. The greens do an excellent job of sopping up the yolks. And this time of year we get an extra kick–a spicy zing–from brassica greens such as mizuna and mustard.
Unfortunately, [...]
More Chemicals in Our Oceans
May 27th, 2009 · No Comments · Blog
More bad news for our oceans. A new study has found alarming levels of dangerous chemicals such as DDT and PCBs in the brains of marine mammals such as dolphins and seals residing in the Western Atlantic.
“We don’t really know the effect of that level in these animals,” said one of the study’s authors. “The [...]
Will I Get Fat Eating Fat?
May 27th, 2009 · 7 Comments · Blog
According to popular myth, eating fat is a surefire way to get fat, clog your arteries and pave the way for a future heart attack. But is that true? What happens to the fat you eat?
Turns out dietary fat once in your body is constantly alternating between a state of fatty acid, which can travel through [...]
Tags: carbohydrates·fats·obesity
What’s In A Fat?
May 26th, 2009 · 9 Comments · Blog
The kind of fat you eat does make a difference
By now most of you have probably clued into the benefits of the so-called omega-3 fats (isn’t that why we’re all popping fish oil pills?) Omega-3s, found in oily, cold-water fish as well as animals raised on pasture and certain plant foods, such as flax seeds, [...]
Tags: books·carbohydrates·diabetes·fats·obesity·processed foods
Miracle Rosemary
May 24th, 2009 · 1 Comment · garden
Here’s something my wife can get really excited about: watching the little rosemary plant grow out of the stone wall on our front stoop.
You might be wondering how a rosemary plant might have taken root in a crack in the wall. We’ve wondered the same thing. This is the general area of a cement newel [...]
Tags: herbs·seed starting·seeds
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
