With refined flour, sugar and grape jelly, these pancakes wouldn’t appear at the top of my list of healthful foods I would wish for my daughter. But she made them herself, so I count this as a win. Anything that disabuses kids of processed factory foods is a good thing, in my book. Plus, this [...]
Entries from February 2010
Can’t Kill These Greens
February 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment · garden
Our lavender plant was completely flattened by two and a half feet of snow. The rosemary was splayed all over the ground as well. But the greens we planted last fall were unfazed and have bounced right back. Like these “Champion” collards, which received another dusting of snow last night.
I am always amazed how certain [...]
Win-Win School Lunch
February 26th, 2010 · 10 Comments · kids
After I spent a week in the kitchen at my daughter’s elementary school and discovered just how bad the food was, daughter started taking her own lunch. It wasn’t just what I wrote about the food that convinced her. Around that same time, she reported to her pediatrician for an annual physical. The doctor told daughter, who has grown [...]
Tags: school food
Time for a Second Look at Fat?
February 25th, 2010 · 1 Comment · food news
A major new study has the mainstream media buzzing with news that saturated fat does not pose a significant risk for heart disease.
This is something we’ve known all along, and a finding that Gary Taubes published eight years ago in his monumental analysis of fat science, “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” Taubes found that the incessant rant [...]
Tags: diabetes·fat·Gary Taubes·obesity
D.C. School Gardens Link with Alice Waters
February 23rd, 2010 · 2 Comments · kids
When Alice Waters came to Washington last month she met with D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the schools’ new food service director, Jeffrey Mills, to talk about building a model school garden program in the District. Mills was already keen on the idea, so in very short order he asked Sarah Bernardi at Bancroft [...]
More Gardens, Less Sugar, Says D.C. Schools Chief
February 22nd, 2010 · 4 Comments · Tales, food news
D.C. Schools COO, Anthony Tata
Anthony Tata, a former brigadier general and career Army officer in charge of procurement in Afghanistan, is the chief operating officer for D.C. Public Schools, second in rank to chancellor Michelle Rhee. Tata was a close reader of our recent series of articles on the food served in D.C. schools–Tales from a [...]
My Croc at Rooting D.C.
February 21st, 2010 · 1 Comment · Recipes, urban agriculture
My, how the Rooting D.C. confab has grown. Even in it’s very first year, local gardeners overran the facilities and the conclave was moved to the refurbished Carnegie Library, site of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Now in its third year, however, even these new digs look to be cramped. From what I saw, [...]
Tags: fermentation·sauerkraut
Yogurt, Perfected
February 20th, 2010 · 5 Comments · Recipes
I’m always looking for ways to simpifly our yogurt making process. We make a quart each week with milk and cream we get delivered from our grassfed dairy, South Mountain Creamery. Until recently, I used a fairly rigorous process of bringing a mix of “creamtop” (unhomegenized) milk and heavy cream to 200 degrees on the [...]
Tags: kitchen tools·yogurt
Kids Make South African Buttermilk Rusks
February 19th, 2010 · No Comments · kids
A popular snack, buttermilk rusks–karringmelk beskuit in Afrikaans–are South Africa’s answer to Italian biscotti. The dough comes together very much like a traditional biscuit dough. But after the initial cooking, the biscuits are sliced into pieces, and then dried in a warm oven for several hours, or even overnight to crisp them.
Try them with tea [...]
Tags: biscuits·buttermilk·food appreciation·kids·South Africa
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.
