Vanessa Barrington

No Food for Thought

Time: Here's just one tiny piece of a problem that is systemic. We’re all short on time but some of us can afford to make up for that by using money. When the banks of time and money are both empty, you’ve got a problem.

Somebody commented about this on The Kitchn yesterday. I was glad because I’ve been meaning to address it. I wanted to respond there, but had registered previously under an unremembered email address and couldn’t get into the system.

I’m not going to pretend to know what it feels like to be really hungry, because I don’t, but here’s a scenario: You live in a neighborhood without a grocery store. You don’t have a car. The bus service sucks. You have children and you work more than one low paying job. Though your neighborhood doesn’t have a grocery store, it does have 5 or 6 fast food outlets. Many of these places have $1 meal deals. You can’t get to a grocery store and even if you could, you can’t afford the fruits and vegetables sold there and even if you could, you don’t have time to cook them. The food bank is far far away. What would you do if you and your kids were hungry? I think we all know the answer.

I do live in a neighborhood without a grocery store, but I have a bike and a car at my disposal, not to mention money to pay for groceries. I don’t have children to care for. I do work a lot but I’m compensated fairly for it. But still, there’s no recipe today because I ran out of time. Between an intense week at work and back-to-back evening obligations I managed to cook a pot of beans, but I didn’t manage to turn them into the soup I’d planned to make. I am blessed to have a refrigerator with leftovers and other odds and ends so I didn’t go hungry or to McDonald’s

Food Banks are a necessary part of the equation, but they aren't the only answer. The San Francisco Food bank is unique in that it has many highly accessible pantries scattered around the city. And they provide way more nutritious fruits and vegetables than most food banks. What we need are localized community food systems. But more about that another time.

Hunger Challenge Recipe: Cabbage and Potato Casserole

I like to think I have an ancestral way with cabbage due to my Slavic genes. For this recipe I challenged myself to use some of the items the food bank gets a lot of in one dish—namely cabbage, carrot pieces, onions, and cottage cheese. Sounds like a casserole in the making to me! So here we go with Cabbage and Potato Casserole. And it turns out this dish was very comforting and quite tasty, and makes a great lunch the next day if you have leftovers.

Only problem: it’s expensive because it needs eggs to bind it and the cottage cheese is expensive when you purchase it at the grocery store. Also I felt that if there was ever a good use for 2 precious slices of bacon, this was it. And, it doesn’t matter where you shop, bacon is expensive!

It came out to 84 cents a serving, so it’s under the $1 limit. But really, is that 16 cents going to get you a salad or anything really substantial to accompany this dish? Not really. This is when you just have to go to bed early to forget how hungry and unsatisfied you are.

Which leads me to my disclaimer: I originally thought I’d be out of town for part of this challenge and was only going to contribute a recipe or two and blog about it. So I hadn’t really shopped or planned in a big way. Then I became ill, and didn’t go away, and during my time laid up, I started dreaming up recipes. One thing led to another and I decided I was going to do the challenge in a bigger way, but it sort of crept up on me and I’m not really doing it the right way.

I haven’t pledged to live for a week on $21 (I’m drinking coffee and going to work meetings where food is served). I’m also using some ingredients I have in my house and costing out equivalents on the Safeway.com site.

So I need to express my admiration for other bloggers who are doing the weeklong challenge strictly and blogging about their experiences along the way. Read about their experiences on Cooking with Amy and The Inadvertent Gardener.Next year I’d like to try to do the whole challenge to remind myself how very privileged I am.

Cabbage and Potato Casserole
Serves 6

1/2 pound potatoes
2 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)
2 slices bacon, diced
1/2 pound onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
4 cups green cabbage, chopped
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup cottage cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup grated Jack or cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

If the potatoes are small, leave them whole, otherwise, cut them into quarters or halves. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and the potatoes. Simmer the potatoes until tender and remove with a slotted spoon. Add the chopped carrot pieces to the boiling water and cook them until tender. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, sauté the bacon until all the fat is rendered but it has not yet started to brown. Add the onion and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the cabbage and a pinch of salt and sauté until thoroughly wilted. Add the potato pieces and the carrots, stirring and breaking up the potatoes into smaller pieces with the edge of a spoon. Transfer to an 8 by 8 inch casserole dish.

Whisk the cottage cheese into the beaten egg and add salt and pepper. Pour it over the casserole and top with the grated Jack or cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes, or until the eggs are set and the top is beginning to brown. Cool slightly before cutting into portions and serve immediately.

SF Food Bank Hunger Challenge: Enjoy your lentils, but no caffeine for you!

Ok, so this Hunger Challenge thing…kind of fun really. I like a challenge. I like being resourceful and cooking with what’s available. Until I realize: WHERE’S MY COFFEE??

Ok, now this is bad. I’ll admit, I’m not really strictly doing the Hunger Challenge for a whole week. More like developing some recipes (and of course eating them) and sort of doing it in my own lazy, busy way. But of course this whole thing is meant to raise awareness and it has raised my awareness about how awful it would be to give up coffee, wine, tea, anything but water, because every penny I had needed to go to something nourishing. Think about that for a minute. Then go to The Inadvertent Gardener and read posts about day one and two and caffeine withdrawal

Then, awareness duly raised, click on the Hunger Challenge badge on the sidebar of this blog. Every $1 you give buys $9 in food. If the thought of people going without caffeine (or food for that matter) isn’t enough, Amy of Cooking with Amy has donated 12 cookbooks to go to the first 12 donors from this challenge donating $50 or more. Just fill out the necessary info on the donation page and make a donation of $50 or more. Look for a header on the form that says, “Food Drive/Event Information. Use the drop-down box to select “Bloggers Hunger Challenge.” Be one of the first 12 people to donate $50 or more and you’ll receive a free cookbook as a thank-you.

Now, for today’s recipe:

Mujaddara

This is one of my favorite things to make when I want something simple, really good and healthy, and CHEAP. In fact, I make it a lot. We especially enjoy the leftovers formed into rough cakes and fried with an egg for breakfast.

This popular Middle Eastern dish basically consists of three ingredients (lentils, rice, and onions) cooked in varying proportions. This one will set you back 32 to 45 cents a serving, depending on the size of your servings. If you’re lucky you can enjoy it with a little yogurt (which I like) or maybe a green salad or green vegetable of some sort.

Here’s how I make it:

2 large yellow onions, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup regular green lentils
1/2 cup long-grain white rice
Salt

Dice one-half of one of the onions and slice the remaining onions very thinly.

In a medium saucepan with a tight fitting lid, over medium high heat, warm one tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the diced onion and stir while cooking until it begins to brown. Add the lentils and rice, along with 3 cups of water and a healthy pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15 or 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the other tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and add the sliced onions and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are brown and super caramelized. You truly want them on the verge of burnt. This is what gives the dish flavor. This will take about the same amount of time as the lentils and rice will take to cook.

When the rice and lentils are tender, turn off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes to steam. Serve with the caramelized onions strewn on top of the dish.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Breakfast: looks like oatmeal again
Lunch: another peanut butter sandwich unless there’s leftover soup from last night.

Do you want to drive or eat?

Rush hour is not happy hour  8-08-08 5:15pm

I was going to post a recipe for corn chowder, but then I read this. Sorry about the political break. I’ll post the corn chowder in a couple of days.

Speaking of corn: Is it fuel or food? Well, increasingly it’s fuel, along with a lot of other agricultural crops. Politicians and pundits have been behaving as if biofuels are the answer to our fuel crisis and some of them have been throwing the blame for high food prices on newly prosperous Indians and Chinese who want to eat meat (the same crops that are used in biofuels are used to feed livestock). This always sounded to me like demonization, and now this newly released report says it’s biofuels causing the crisis.

Now I know the question above is a false choice, due to the way our cities and towns have been planned. I also know that we are privileged enough here in the US to not really have to make that choice…yet. And I’m not trying to preach because I realize I’m lucky to live somewhere that makes it easy for me to choose to bike instead of driving. I just want to make the point that we as a society need to seriously think about this question. We cannot continue to live and get around the way we have been indefinitely.

Photo Credit: Susan Fleming

Victory over Bureaucracy = Edible Civic Center Garden

It’s pretty amazing to witness the transformation from grass to edible landscape over at the Civic Center. They’ve torn out the lawn, carted it away, and designed these gorgeous circular beds. Saturday, July 11th was planting day and what a wonderful day! These plants are putting down roots in the same spot where the World War II Civic Center Victory Garden sat. At one point 40% of the produce consumed in the US was grown in Victory Gardens. We can do it again!

Victory Gardens 2008 + partnered with Slow Food Nation and City Slicker Farms to create this garden. On September 21st the garden will be harvested and the harvest donated to the San Francisco Food Bank.

It was a great day and felt historic. This movement has been going on for awhile now, but it’s been pretty easy to ignore for those who don’t pay attention to such things. It’s pretty hard to miss now!

This is a start, but I wish the garden could be permanent.

At the height of planting.

Native foods of the Americas bed

Got Biological Diversity? Watch "The World According to Monsanto"

If Monsanto has its way, we'll never ever see images like this in future farmers' markets. (this photo was taken at a tiny market in Shreveport LA). Here's a link to another post I wrote (on the blog that pays me) about the film. Not lazy, just being efficient. Please set aside an hour and a half and watch it. It's important that everyone be aware of this stuff. Make sure you scroll down to the second film link in the post under "editor's note"  as the first one doesn't work any longer.

Building a Better Farm Bill

On Wednesday, I joined the good people from the California Food and Justice Coalition and Food First (where I do some volunteer work) for a lunchtime march to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to deliver a Valentine (lots of fair trade chocolate and a flat of berries) asking her to give us a farm bill we can love.

I think it’s too late for a farm bill we can really love, but there is still some opportunity for a better outcome when both houses of Congress get together to hammer out the final version of the bill, and Pelosi can have an influence. CFJC had a scheduled meeting with one of Pelosi’s aides, so that’s good.

Here are the main items that are up for grabs:

1.    Funding for Community Food Projects (now in jeopardy)
2.    Commodity Reform (I thought it was too late for this, but apparently there is still a chance).
3.    Food Stamp Nutrition Education

For more information There are links here to contact Pelosi and others to speak your mind, if you are so inclined.