I'm just beginning to get into preserving food at home. I've made jam and apple sauce before, but that's the extent of my canning experience. With our garden really starting to boom and the bounty of produce starting to appear at our local farmers market, I'm starting to feel the itch to make preserving foods a bigger part of my efforts in the kitchen. While I have dreams of making delicious and delicate sauerkrauts, I decided to start learning more about food preservation at the ground level. Enter my new cookbook, Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round, by Marisa McClellan. I found this book on ...continue reading

I find it strange how many people on Facebook have declared how much they loved Food, Inc. I've even received emails about the movie, imploring me to go see it right now. But we watched it a couple of nights ago, and honestly, it was just kind of meh. I realize that not everyone is as educated in the broad array of issues our country faces in regards to our food supply as we might be, but here's the thing: have you read Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation? Then don't waste your time with this movie. I do think that the film would be a great starting point for those who are new to sustainability issues. It shows ...continue reading

It's been over 100º here in California, which is very uncharacteristic for May. Our house doesn't have central air, a fact you might remember from my post about that fateful day when we broke down and bought a window unit. Our house is old and has terrible circulation, which makes it intolerable when the weather gets hot. It's really difficult to force myself to sit down in front of a warm laptop and type when it's all I can do to resist sitting in my air-conditioned car for hours at a time. I've been trying to find things to do that are good diversions from the heat, like going to the river with my dogs or riding ...continue reading

Last week a reader sent me an email to let me know that there is an article about raw milk in the May 12 issue of TIME Magazine. (Thanks, Jody Morris!) Raw milk is a hotly contested issue all over the U.S., with devoted raw milk consumers on one side and food safety regulators on the other. Though I've mentioned my use of raw dairy products several times on this site, particularly for use in recipes, I haven't really stated why I use it or what I think about it. So, here it is, in no uncertain terms: I love raw milk. I love drinking it, I love the way it tastes, and I have personally benefitted from its numerous ...continue reading

Do you want to learn about artisanal cheeses? Are you unfamiliar with the many different kinds of mushrooms available, let alone how to prepare them in the kitchen? Have you ever wondered about the merits of wild versus farmed fish? Do you want to learn more about seasonings? New Good Food will tell you all of these things, and more. This book is one of my newest favorite culinary resources, and it has earned a spot on the cookbook shelf in my kitchen (a great honor, indeed). It's right up there with Joy of Cooking for its range of relevant topics, though it's not recipe-based. New Good Food ...continue reading

Now that I've told you everything about King Corn except anything about the actual movie, I figure it's probably time to write about the film itself. Well, I loved it. But that's not really enough for you, so let's see... From the first moments of the movie, you get the feeling that it's going to have a lot of "characters," real people who are just as disarmingly charming as they probably are in real life. The professor in the first few scenes, who microwaves his lunch of a hamburger patty between two slices of white bread (I'm not even making this up), is just the first of such people; this trend continues ...continue reading

You may remember my earlier post about the movie King Corn, where I told you guys you should go see it. Well, I got my little hands on an advance copy (I know! I'm awesome), and I loved it. The movie was predictably about corn, but actually it was the two guys in the film, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, that made the film so watchable. I kind of wish we could all hang out and drink some beers. Here's an interview they did with Xeni Jardin on BoingBoing TV, wherein they address corn, corn, more corn, and zombies. What? WAS this a movie about zombies? That's something you'll have to decide for yourself. If the movie ...continue reading

If you're like me, you read Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild and loved it, feeling the wanderlust and thirst for adventure that were so precious to Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp. Though the backlash after McCandless' death in 1992 was harsh at best, Krakauer set about to describe the tramp's journey in its entirety at a time when McCandless was known as that dumb kid that died in Alaska. It's clear in the book that Krakauer identified with McCandless in many ways, and as a result the traveler's story became more complex, magical and human at the same time. When I heard that Sean Penn was ...continue reading

I just got a press release in my inbox about a film called "King Corn", which deals with the production of corn in Iowa and its greater impact on the American diet. If you've read Omnivore's Dilemma, you'll definitely want to watch it, since Michael Pollan was an advisor to the filmmakers and his voice can be heard throughout the movie. I haven't seen it yet, but it opens in both San Francisco and Berkely on November 2, so I'll make sure I catch it in one of those cities once it's playing. If you've already seen it, drop me a line and let me know what you thought. To find a city near you where "King Corn" is ...continue reading

I don't remember where I first saw Sprig.com, though I suspect it was in another blog's links section. There are lots of "sustainable" and "green" blogs out there, and I try and keep up with which blogs are saying what. By checking out my favorite blogs and seeing which sites they're linking to, I've found many well-written, interesting blogs. And sadly, I've found many bad ones as well. For me, Sprig falls into the latter category. The site starts of by telling its readers that "Stylish/Sexy/Suburban/Sassy People Are Into Green," with the "S" adjectives changing each time you reload the page. I think they're ...continue reading

I don't remember where I first saw Sprig.com, though I suspect it was in another blog's links section. There are lots of "sustainable" and "green" blogs out there, and I try and keep up with which blogs are saying what. By checking out my favorite blogs and seeing which sites they're linking to, I've found many well-written, interesting blogs. And sadly, I've found many bad ones as well. For me, Sprig falls into the latter category. The site starts of by telling its readers that "Stylish/Sexy/Suburban/Sassy People Are Into Green," with the "S" adjectives changing each time you reload the page. I think they're trying ...continue reading

You can now find The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen in your local bookstores.  It is a nice, portable-sized paperback to fit in your organic cotton backpack.  It is not very narrative; rather, it's a good reference manual to flip through for basic tips on how to live greener, divided into a spectrum of situations in life: Home, Entertainment, Travel, Technology, School, Work, Shopping, Health and Beauty, Sports, Finance, Building, and Going Carbon Neutral.  For example, do you want to know how to conserve a little more water in your home?  Then flip to page 6: "Instead of letting the water ...continue reading

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I really love food. It's true that I'm mostly concerned with health, and I've been known to do things like go on all-raw stints or drink a lemon juice/apple cider vinegar/water cocktail, supposedly good for the liver. Or maybe the kidneys. I even grow my own parsley for use in the I green veggie juice I drink in the morning. While I do all these things in pursuit of health, I have a secret: I am a foodie. I buy chocolate based on the region in which it was grown. My husband has visited the dairy farm that produces the milk we buy, and we make a point to note the different flavors in the milk depending on the time ...continue reading

I really love food. It's true that I'm mostly concerned with health, and I've been known to do things like go on all-raw stints or drink a lemon juice/apple cider vinegar/water cocktail, supposedly good for the liver. Or maybe the kidneys. I even grow my own parsley for use in the I green veggie juice I drink in the morning. While I do all these things in pursuit of health, I have a secret: I am a foodie. I buy chocolate based on the region in which it was grown. My husband has visited the dairy farm that produces the milk we buy, and we make a point to note the different flavors in the milk depending on the time of ...continue reading