Vert-à-Go

“The frying pan’s too wide…’ –Joni Mitchell, “My Old Man”

I have been posting sporadically lately. In April, my marriage came to an abrupt end and I have spent pretty much the entire time since then dealing with the exquisitely painful unpleasantness that a breakup entails while still trying to go through the necessary forward motions of everyday life with small children.

The final decision came at the end of the entire household’s two-week-long bout with the flu (the worst of my adult life). During the time I was sick, I could barely walk to the kitchen, let alone cook anything. We survived for a week on ginger ale and crackers, soup from the freezer and a cardboard box, poached eggs on toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, and later, takeout Vietnamese noodles. Anything in the fridge pre-dating the flu began to quietly turn on us while we all lay there inert–the neglected vegetables in the crisper, the chocolate milk, the leftovers from our final dinner party.

I didn’t really cook for quite some weeks after the morning of Thursday, April the 9th. There didn’t seem to be an awful lot of point, as I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything anyway. The kids were content enough for the time being with their rather monotonous rotation of 5-minute meals punctuated with fruit and cucumber and yoghurt and baby pita breads, while I ate a cracker here and there and rapidly lost the weight put on last autumn while I was sick with a succession of colds and heartaches. Reluctantly, having been anti-vitamin my entire life, I embarked on an annoying new regime of supplements to boost my decrepit immune system. I can’t tell you what a depressing moment it was to learn that my drastically depleted iron stores would simply never recover just with food alone. Even if I wanted food, it couldn’t help me now.

It wasn’t just that I didn’t have an appetite, however. Along with the music I couldn’t listen to anymore, the movies I couldn’t watch, and the photographs I couldn’t look at it, there were suddenly a huge number of meals and foods that were now off-limits because of the memories they stirred. Seventeen years together, just short of 14 years married–well over 3000 meals shared together. No more. I couldn’t yet contemplate a future of special meals cooked alone and eaten alone after the kids were in bed. I took curry off the menu indefinitely, threw the brown sauce into the garbage and shoved the tiger prawns to the back of the freezer.

Even when I managed to start cooking properly again, the reminders continued unabated. The everyday placemats that were a wedding present had to go. I grimly started separating the dishes: the bowl given by my mother-in-law, the tray made by his friend, the birthday wine glasses and carafe from my parents. Cookbooks were pulled from their cosy alphabetical home and piled into two teetering stacks. His, Nigella Lawson, Gary Rhodes. Hers, Nigel Slater, Mark Bittman. I had almost forgotten how cooking used to be a shared pleasure and how many kitchen items we had given to each other over the years–the pots and pans, the pestle and mortar, the new mixer, the beautiful big salad bowls. Who would take what? Who would start new? Could either of us manage to divorce the memory contained in these much-loved familiar objects and happily go on using them like nothing had ever happened?

I rearranged our table seating so that the empty chair wouldn’t be so obvious, but I still couldn’t seem to prise myself away from the square certainty of number four. I had made and eaten plenty of meals on my own with the kids over the years, but soon realised that there must be a deeper psychological reason for why after 20-odd years in the kitchen, I was suddenly incapable of figuring out how much food to cook for three people. The cold unwanted spaghetti pointed its long thin fingers at me accusingly as I tipped it into the compost hours later. Legions of leftovers lingered long past their welcome. I realised anew that the base amount for most recipes seems to be four people and despaired over the questions, “How do you split an egg in half?”* and “What if two is not enough and four is too many?”

Not quite six weeks later, I’m (mostly) eating and cooking again. I’ve even slowly cleaned out the fridge of the rotten two-month-old reminders of meals gone past. I expect that it will be some time yet before I’m fully up to speed with the new status quo in the kitchen and the table. In the meantime, I’m taking an enjoyably selfish pleasure in eating what I want when I want, and am mainly concentrating on making food to keep us well, make us happy, and create new memories (like my mom’s waffles, which we had this weekend). We’re also all eagerly awaiting the warmer weather that will let us finally get out in the garden and start growing something of our own to eat again. Spring is here, even if it doesn’t feel like it quite yet.

My mother’s waffles

• 2 cups flour (I like to use half whole wheat)
• 1Tb baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tb sugar
• 2 eggs (separated)
• 1-2/3 cups milk
• 6Tb vegetable oil

Mix egg yolks and milk–add dry ingredients–add vegetable oil–then stiffly beaten egg whites.

Serve with syrup, berries, jam, and vanilla ice cream. Personally, I like a bit of bacon on the side. You may think this is rather weird, but hopefully we can agree to disagree.

Serves 4–or a family of 3 with leftovers. Who doesn’t like leftovers?

* To split an egg in half, whisk it gently together and divide it that way. If the yolks and whites have to stay separate, just try using the smallest egg that you have. It really probably won’t make that much difference to the final recipe.

Today, 22 March, is the United Nations’ World Water Day. This year’s theme deals with transboundary water–the lakes and rivers that cross political and geographical borders. This theme is a timely reminder that when it comes to water, we’re all in the same boat. We all need it every day, and we’re all vulnerable to the same problems that can affect our water supply: drought (as climate change reduces snowpack and rainfall) and contamination (by factories, transportation, agriculture, and individuals). We may live on a large and  (for now) seemingly abundant river here in Saskatoon, but that water has to travel a long way to get to us. What happens if and when something happens to the water supply upstream? Forget oil–it’s a water shortage that’s the real concern.

Most Canadians take clean and easily accessible drinking water for granted. But worldwide, 1 in 7 people do not have access to safe drinking water, and a child dies every 8 seconds from drinking contaminated water. It’s not just a problem in developing countries, however. No one is immune from the dangers of unclean water, as the deaths and illnesses in Walkerton and North Battleford tragically demonstrated. Last April there were nearly 1,900 “boil water” advisories in place in small communities across Canada. First Nations communities in particular are vulnerable to contaminated water supplies, due to environmental pollution and lack of proper treatment facilities.

Water supplies are also a giant concern. Although the earth is covered water, most of it is salty and only 1% of it is fit for drinking. Canada has a large share of the world’s fresh water, but we are also gluttons when it comes to water usage. The average Canadian uses an average of 329 litres of water per person per day, which is twice as much as Europeans. In Mozambique, the average person uses 1.3 litres of water per day–that’s less than one flush from a low-flow toilet. We seem to think that we can simply go on using as much as we like of it while dumping whatever we like into it (chemicals, fertilisers, animal waste, and other pollutants) and that it will just keep flowing, clean and pure, from the tap indefinitely. This is a profoundly deluded viewpoint, and it will come back to haunt future generations unless we smarten up and start treating water as the incredibly precious resource that it is.

Here are some links/petitions/events to help you learn more about the ‘hidden water’ you’re consuming, and which can also help you to reduce your water consumption:

• GOOD magazine’s illuminating table of typical daily water usage can show you exactly how you can cut your water footprint. Hint: pick chicken much more often than beef, and grains and vegetables much more often than meat.
• Waterfootprint.org can help you calculate your personal water footprint, and also features a product gallery showing how much water goes into what, complete with case studies.
• Inside The Bottle, a campaign against bottled water, is asking you to sign a petition today supporting public water systems in Canada and around the world. Pour yourself a glass and count yourself in as one of the many people who are choosing tap water over bottled, which is more expensive and uses far more energy and resources to produce.
• Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op sells rain barrels–catching rain water for your garden can make a really satisfying dent in your summer water bill.
• Rethink that trip to Las Vegas–Lake Mead could be within a few years of going dry, which could literally leave Las Vegas high and dry (and Los Angeles too).
• Oxfam Saskatoon is showing two films on Tuesday, 24 March in honour of World Water Day–Sisters of the Planet and Refugees of the Blue Planet. These films will be shown from 2-4pm at the Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts 241) at the University of Saskatchewan.

Today, in honour of my 1/8th Irish heritage (and the very pleasant months I spent in Dublin), I made a pot of soup with some green inspiration. Not so much the colour, (although there is some green in there), but moreso its low ecological footprint (thanks to vegetarian/home-grown/local ingredients).

I chucked the following into water with some canned tomatoes (after sauteeing the vegetables in olive oil with a bit of garlic):

• green lentils (grown on my parents’ farm)
• chopped Swiss chard (frozen, from our garden last summer)
• potatoes and carrots (farmers’ market)
• onion (Alberta-grown)
• celery (US organic)

Once the lentils are tender, season with salt, pepper and a splash of basalmic vinegar. Serve with hearty bread.

Appropriately enough, there was also–finally!–a hint of the coming spring on this greenest of days. On our way past Homestead Ice Cream earlier today, the kids spotted that the OPEN sign was lit. As it is closed for a few months in the middle of winter, they were starting to miss it. So we walked over after dinner for some made-in-the-same-block ice cream–since they were out of Guinness (one of my personal favourite flavours!), I made mine mint chip, of course.

Happy St Patrick’s Day–hope your day turned out as lucky as ours!

In further recognition of International Women’s Day, I’d like to cross-post something written by Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, on his blog back in October. His post was in response to the New York Times magazine’s special food issue, which dealt with many concerns surrounding food, food politics, and food security. He, along with Dan Moshenberg (a professor of Women’s Studies at Georgetown University) felt that the NYT had missed something pretty basic in all its many and varied discussions of food–women. They wrote a letter to the editor in response (it comes below, after Raj’s introduction).

The New York Times ran a special food-themed issue of its Sunday magazine a week back. It was kicked off by a fine piece by Mark Bittman, who observed quite rightly that the conversation being had in the magazine’s pages reflects America’s new, and healthy, interest in what they’re eating.

Indeed, just a few years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine this sort of interest, and even harder to imagine that the New York Times would countenance the sorts of politics espoused in Michael Pollan’s Farmer in Chief essay, or David Reiff’s subtle dissection of the Gates Foundation’s African Adventures.

I like David’s piece a great deal, not just because I appear in it as a reasonable person, but because he captures exactly what’s wrong about the Northern do-gooder in Africa. For the record, a mistake crept in to the piece – I’ve never actually met Raj Shah – but the piece certainly captures how I feel about the Alliance for a New Green Revolution in Africa.

And yet, despite all that, the issue had one or two gaping holes. Labour didn’t really get a look in and, most important, the entire issue was almost wholly silent on the issue of gender. One doesn’t have to look far to see women food producers and food-makers taking on the inequities of the modern food system. Just today, from their meeting in Maputo, the women of Via Campesina released this declaration. And Dan Moshenberg, who sends much of the finest material to me for this blog, took the lead in writing this letter to the editor which, alas, the editor decided not to print.

Dear Editor,

The New York Times Magazine October 12th Food Issue is a measure of how far the debate around agriculture has come. A few years ago, it would have been inconceivable that Sunday’s glossy section could be devoted to a mosaic of pieces about the politics of food, from belly to bourse, from private purchases to public policy. We still, however, have far to go. One neglected element would have brought coherence to the disparate pieces: women.

Certainly, women were mentioned in the issue. Mark Bittman noted that cooking is no longer the exclusive purview, burden, or task of those called `housewives’. With women pressured or choosing to enter the waged labor force, men are encouraged or forced to cook for themselves and even, occasionally, for others. In her discussion of the ethical kashrut movement, Samantha M. Shapiro recalls the cultural and religious traditions of her own family, in which men would slaughter, skin and butcher animals, and women would purchase the meat, soak and salt it, and prepare it for the family. Michael Pollan urged the next President of the United States to expand the WIC program for low-income women with children.

There’s much to admire in, and much to debate over, these descriptions of women. But women are more than contemporary household cooks (since they are still a minority among paid chefs), more than the stories of how it was done in our family in the good old days, and more than the recipients of government handouts.

In much of the world, and in particular in the Global South, women are the primary toilers of the earth, even if they are a minuscule portion of the owners of land. For example, while women produce the majority of food consumed in the Global South, the OECD has noted that women own 1% of the land mass of Africa. If that seems a little far away, there are plenty of examples of women producing food closer to home - consider the fate of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a farmworker who died of heatstroke in May this year while harvesting grapes in California, the latest in a long line of women casualties in our modern food system.

Women aren’t only central to understanding how food is produced - it’s hard to tell the full story of food distribution and food consumption without them either. The food crisis discriminates against women - 60% of those going hungry are women and girls. Michael Pollan almost touched on this when he noted that in recent months more than 30 countries have experienced food riots which are, more often than not, protests that result from planned and coordinated action by women.

All of these stories, and the big story they add up to, is a story of women. Women farmers, women care providers, women wives, women mothers, women daughters, women aunts, women heads of households, women consumers, women workers, everywhere in the world. If food matters, as we certainly agree it does, then women must be accounted for because, when it comes to food, women count. Perhaps in the next food issue, the Times might move a little further to doing this particular piece of arithmetic.

Sincerely,
Dan Moshenberg
Raj Patel

I initially described this acorn squash as a leftover, but really it wasn’t, because it had never actually gotten as far as being cooked. It had simply sat in a bowl in the counter for three weeks, staring at me accusingly while I tried to avoid looking at it. That’s what you get for buying something you don’t often buy without having a specific plan for how you’re going to use it!

The other issue with the squash is that I had only bought one of them, which really wasn’t going to go far enough to feed four people in any recipe I already knew, so there it sat. I finally realised that it wasn’t actually going to leap onto the stove itself (although I suppose it might have, if I’d left it another couple weeks). So I turned, as always, to Chef Google. This simple recipe for apple acorn squash soup from BC Tree Fruits* took care of that squash, a few apples that weren’t quite as crisp as they once had been, and part of a huge bunch of parsley that seems to have no end. It also finished off the chicken stock I had in the freezer, which prompted me to make another batch of stock that in turn used up some not-so-crisp celery and more of that never-ending parsley. The crisper drawer is now in much better shape. Only nice fresh vegetables remain and I don’t have to feel a twinge of guilt or apprehension when I open the drawer. A fridge really isn’t any different than the rest of the house–if any part of it gets ridiculously cluttered, then it can become very difficult to concentrate at the task at hand (in this case, cooking).

Food waste really has become a huge issue for me over the past few years, and I’ll soon be starting a series on how to drastically cut down on the amount of food that gets thrown in the (compost, hopefully) bin. In the past it was quite common for me to have to chuck stuff out, but now it’s a pretty rare exception. It’s not that hard to change your habits–some menu planning, inventory-keeping, thoughtful grocery shopping, and liberal use of your good friend Google will all help to get your groceries into your stomach where they belong, rather than the landfill. An estimated 5% of food is thrown out of Canadian fridges–at least–on a regular basis. In Britain, it’s about 1/3rd and in the US, estimates are as high as 40%. I can’t see why Canada’s level of waste would be much different. Cutting back on this unnecessary waste is the easiest way to reduce our consumption and ease the demand for food production, not to mention reduce the significant methane gas emissions caused by decomposing organic matter in landfills while saving you some significant money on your food bills too.

As Alex Renton wrote in the Observer a few weeks ago, there would be no need for GM crops if supermarkets and consumers weren’t so wasteful. The first and easiest place to start is with a warming winter bowl of soup like the one above!

* Those are walnuts floating on the top. They weren’t about to go bad–I just thought they would taste good, and so they did. Next time I will candy them. Yum. It could easily be made into a vegetarian soup by substituting vegetable stock.

Me, I’m greedy about my yard waste. Whether it’s leaves, grass clippings, or the many and varied dead bits from the garden, I throw it all onto my compost heap or pile it onto my vegetable beds for mulch. It’s way too valuable to throw into the garbage, although a shocking percentage of Saskatoon’s garbage cans are filled to the brim with yard waste throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Throwing this organic matter into the landfill is a huge wasted opportunity to help build healthy soil, and also contributes to some of the most harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

If you aren’t able to compost your yard waste on your own property, check out the City of Saskatoon’s Leaves and Grass Collection program, which will expand this year to add 1,000 additional subscribers:

The program will be available to a limited number of subscribers in early May. Participants in the program will receive a green individual roll-out cart to collect their unbagged leaves, grass clippings and non-woody vegetation [ed: tree branches, etc, will NOT be picked up]. The carts will be emptied by City crews every two weeks from May to early November. A schedule of collection dates will be provided to participants in April.

To register, fill out the application form by 15 April. You can also get a form by calling 975-2486. The cost of the program is $40.

If you aren’t in the program but still want to take your yard waste elsewhere for composting, the City of Saskatoon also operates public composting sites starting in April. Unbagged grass clippings and leaves can be taken to the McOrmond Drive Compost Depot (approximately 0.5 km north of 8th Street, next to the off-leash dog area) and the Highway 7 Compost Depot (on the west side of the 11th Street junction) free of charge (watch for the signs).

But don’t forget that composting your own waste is the easiest option of all! For information on how to get started, see the Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council’s informative compost resource pages. Your garden will thank you when you give it a dose of that lovely rich black compost!

First two photos by Danny Pederson-Bradbury

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year (also known as Chinese New Year, although it is also celebrated in parts or all of Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, and Mongolia). I started marking this holiday about a decade ago because a) the winters are very long here in Saskatchewan, and any extra excuse to do something special in January/February seems like a fine plan and b) I love the excuse to cook a big fun special meal for the family.

Those who celebrate this holiday usually have a big feast on New Year’s Eve. It worked out better for us to get together tonight, though, so I got started first thing this morning with the duck that I’d picked up from Pine View Farms on Saturday (that was the morning that it was -47C with the windchill–can you blame us for wanting a party?). After going over the bird and removing the remaining feathers/stems (ducks are notoriously difficult to pluck), I plunged it into a big pot of boiling water for a few minutes, then pulled it out, dried it, and basted it with a honey water mixture. Then I hung it up in the basement and turned the fan on it. It looked weird, but the only way to get a really crispy skin for Peking Duck is to make sure that it’s completely dry before you roast it. I left it to hang for over 5 hours–it’s best to leave it as long as possible, especially considering that you somehow still need to find time to make a whole whack of pancakes to wrap the duck in. I’ve tried a couple different recipes and methods and think there is just no getting round the fact that unless you can find someone to make them for you (or a store–please tell me if you find one that has them, because I’ve searched everywhere!), you’re just going to have to spend 1.5 hours in front of the stove making miniature pancakes if you really want to eat Peking Duck. Which I do, but this is probably why I don’t make it more than once a year.

Pancakes out of the way and covered with a damp cloth, I got started on the pork dumplings. I hadn’t planned on making these and was going to have a simple soup to start instead. But then I read about how it is considered especially good luck to eat jiaozi in Northern China for the New Year–so I threw caution to the winds and added them to the menu too. I didn’t have any wonton wrappers, so ended up making the wrappers from scratch for the first time (I’d actually never made dumplings before either). This was a mildly insane decision, but I followed these nicely detailed and extremely amusing instructions, making the filling out of ground pork (Pine View Farms), ginger, cabbage, and green onion, and rolling out 48 pastry discs (“GO FORTH! MAKE DISCS! TILL YOUR ARMS FALL OFF!”), then filling them, pinching them shut (which locks the luck in, apparently), and steaming them before serving with soy sauce for dipping. They really weren’t hard to make at all, but they just took A. Very. Long. Time. Pre-made wrappers would save time and energy. I would definitely make them again, and would probably even do my own wrappers, but would also put the rest of the family to work to speed things up, assembly-line style.

Back in the 1970s, my mom and grandma took a Chinese cooking class from a friend’s father who shared his yummy recipe for sweet and sour pork (it’s brown, not that scary bright red colour). It has become a family favourite, so I also whipped up a batch of that to go with some side/back ribs from Pine View. This made a lot of meat dishes for one meal, but it also produced a lot of leftovers, so I was able to give some to my grandma so that she wouldn’t have to cook tomorrow. It also meant that I wouldn’t have to cook tomorow, which was good, because by this point, I was starting to get fairly serious kitchen fatigue. I don’t know where the guy in Eat Drink Man Woman found the energy (note: that link is not for the squeamish)!

To go with the rice and spareribs (we ate the two previous dishes as separate courses), I also stirfried a big batch of vegetables in soy sauce, sherry, and sesame oil. Usually I would have done another vegetable dish, but after going all out on the dumplings, I figured we had more than enough food already and could eat salad tomorrow. It’s considered unlucky to cook white food on New Year’s Day (it’s the colour associated with death), so I used green ones instead, including locally-grown pea shoots (and a bit of garlic, shh, don’t tell). I left the pea shoots long because long leafy greens signify long life and are considered lucky too. They were actually quite fun to eat that way; rather like spaghetti, and they tasted just like spring.

The grown-ups drank Tsingtao beer (oops, I forgot to offer the green tea), and for dessert there were baby mandarin oranges (also lucky) and fortune cookies. I had planned to make ox- and goldfish-shaped cookies in honour of the day but simply ran out of time. Rather hilariously, my fortune read, ‘TAKE PAINS TO PREVENT GETTING COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED’. Ok, I won’t cook like that every day, I promise!

Chinese New Year Feast

• Pork dumplings (jiaozi), made with green local cabbage, green onion, ginger
• Peking Duck pancakes, served with green onion and cucumber strips and duck sauce
• Sweet and sour pork ribs
• Stirfried green vegetables (broccoli, organic celery, green onion, pea shoots, garlic)
• plain rice
• Mandarin oranges and fortune cookies
• Tsingtao beer/green tea

Mr Chan’s sweet and sour pork ribs

• about 2 racks (1.5lbs) of pork spare ribs (it’s also nice with chicken wings/drumsticks)
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/4 tsp garlic salt
• 4 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup vinegar
• 4Tb dark soy sauce
• 2 cups water

Mix together. Brown ribs, drain off fat and pour sauce over ribs. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 2 hours.

Christmas can come–the baking is done!

I don’t do a lot of baking in the run-up to Christmas, but there are a few special things that I (or my mom) make every year in the last few days before the 25th. Some of the recipes have been in the family for decades (shortbread), others I got from friends while I was growing up (chocolate toffee bars), and others have become a new tradition with my kids (gingerbread house and reindeer).

The weekend before Christmas, I make a batch of gingerbread house dough using the Joy of Cooking recipe. It makes twice as much as we need for the Lee Valley gingerbread house mold that we use, so I form two discs out of the remaining dough and stick them in the fridge or freezer until I’m ready to make cut-out gingerbread cookies. I like to make reindeer and dip their noses into red sprinkles.

If you’re well-organised, you could make everything on this plate in a morning and afternoon. Because I have two preschoolers who love to help cutting out cookies, I generally take two leisurely afternoons to get it done. All of the other little treats are extremely easy to make–shortbread that melts in your mouth, non-bake 10-minute brownies, and the most fabulous squares you’ll probably ever eat in your life.

None of this baking is Martha Stewart-fancy, but it all tastes delicious and uses good old-fashioned ingredients: butter, sugar, nuts, chocolate. I package up some of it for neighbours, friends, and family, and put out a plate of everything for dessert on Christmas Day, along with a bowl of oranges, a pot of good strong coffee and a bottle of Sauterne, muscat, or ice wine.

Great Aunt Ellen’s shortbread

My mom has made these cookies for years and I had no idea how easy they were. No rolling required–just drop them onto the baking sheet!

• 1 pound soft butter
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1 cup icing sugar

Beat until like whipped cream. Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets. Bake 15 minutes at 350F (I would check them at the 12 minute mark–you don’t want them to have more than ever-so-slightly browned edges and tips).

I got 6 dozen cookies from this batch; it could easily be halved

French unbaked cake

You can make this in about 10 minutes flat, which makes it both extremely handy and rather dangerous.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 Tbsp cocoa
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg (well beaten)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup nuts (I use walnuts)
• 1-1/2 cups graham wafer crumbs (pack them down into the cup a bit)

Melt butter, add sugar & cocoa–cook to bubbling point. Remove from heat, add egg, vanilla, nuts, and crumbs. Be prepared to add more crumbs if the mixture doesn’t seem right, but use a light hand. Press into a square cake pan and let cool. You can ice or dust with icing sugar but it really doesn’t need anything. It’s addictive enough as it is.

Makes about 3 dozen squares

Melody’s chocolate toffee bars

A school-girlfriend of mine introduced me to these–all I can say is thank you, Mel! I don’t think Christmas would actually come if I didn’t make a pan of them.

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
• 1-1/4 cups coarsely chopped nuts (I use walnuts)
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Combine flour and white sugar. Cut in 1/2 cup of the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 baking pan. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes; remove from oven (don’t turn the oven off).

Combine brown sugar and remaining 1/2 cup of butter in a suacepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil for 1 minute. Pour evenly over the baked layer. Sprinkle with nuts. Bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the chocolate chips. Swirl with a knife to spread the chocolate over the top (I find it’s easier to do if you put the pan back into the turned-off oven for a minute or two and let them melt a bit first).

Makes about 3 dozen bars

Looking for a last-minute gift for someone special? Here are some ideas that are sustainable, organic, local, and ethical!

Stocking stuffers (under $10)

• Fair trade chocolate bar (lots of different flavours–try Divine from 10,000 Villages, Cocoa Camino or Endangered Species from Steep Hill Co-op, Herbs and Health, or Dad’s Nutrition Centre)
• Fair trade peppercorns (you can get Orchard del Sol’s from Bulk Cheese Warehouse)
• Mini-bottle of black pansy or red clover syrup (from Bedard Creek Acres, available at the SaskMade Marketplace)
• Droolin’ Devil hot sauce (many delicious Saskatoon-made varieties available at various supermarkets, including Pelican Market on Lorne Avenue, or their headquarters at #5-801 7th Ave N)
• Premala’s spicy peanut spread (it’s yummy straight-up or as a marinade–get it at various supermarkets and their stall at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market)

For bookworms

It isn’t Christmas without a new book to read. Turning The Tide bookstore has some of these titles in stock and will happily special-order anything in for you; McNally Robinson also has some of them too.

• Stuffed & Starved, Raj Patel (an illuminating look at the roots of the global food crisis)
• Everything I Want to Do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front,  Joel Salatin (a funny and inspiring book from the American alternative agriculture guru)
• Introduction to Permaculture, Bill Mollison (the original and probably best sustainable agriculture resource guide)
• All New Square Foot Gardening, Mel Bartholomew (maximise your vegetable yield in a tiny space while cutting your workload–a great practical guide to the square foot gardening method)
• How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman (cut your carbon emissions with the new vegetarian bible)
• Anything by Nigel Slater. Want something to curl up and browse? Try Appetite. Want something you’ll use even after both the covers fall off and it’s spattered beyond recognition? 30-Minute Cook or Real Fast Food will become your fast friends.
• How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher (an amusing and thought-provoking book on how to feed yourself during hard times (first published in 1942). “[It] reads like an issue of Lady’s Home Journal, if the editorial staff were taken over by a philosopher with an empty stomach, a slightly tipsy poet and your mischievous, foxy godmother who once kept many lovers.”

For the gardener

• Salt Spring Seeds Zero Mile Diet Seed Kit (A dozen different seed packets to help you become food self-sufficient–includes Blue Tinge Ethiopian Wheat, Faust Barley, Golden Flax, Multi-hued Quinoa, Amaranth Mix, Heritage Bean Mix, Darlaine Soup Pea, Winnifred’s Garbanzo, Manitoba Soybean, Russian Kale, 20 Lettuce Blend and Mishca Paste Tomato, as well as grower’s guide). $42
• Seeds of Diversity membership (Canada’s heritage seed program for gardeners–the source for information about heritage seeds, seed saving, plant diversity, garden history and your own garden heritage) $30 annual membership
• Sign them up for the University of Saskatchewan Master Gardener program (Become a Master Gardener–learn the art and science of gardening, meet fellow horticultural enthusiasts, and help the community) Registration fee $100 (total fees under $400)
• Subscription to The Gardener for the Prairies magazine $18 for one year, $34 for 2 years
• Urban Land Army’s Land Survey Kit (Looking for somewhere to grow? Want to assess the land you already have? This handy kit from the friendly folks at Urban Land Army has everything you need to get started–essential information, checklists, graph paper, clipboard, and pencil!) US$8

For the eager but underequipped convert

Have they read The Omnivore’s Dillemma and are now raring to go–but don’t know where to start? Help them out:

• Stainless steel compost pail (These are good-looking, easy-to-clean pails from Lee Valley that you can keep out on your countertop) $20 for 4L, $22 for 6L
• Hori hori Japanese farmer knife (I’m told that you don’t really need any other gardening hand tool if you have one of these. I’m hoping for one for Christmas myself, as my trowel disappeared this summer!) $22.50 carbon steel, $29.50 stainless steel
• Stock pot (The best way keep stray vegetables, meat bones, and assorted leftovers out of the landfill? Learn how to make stock–and soup–and nourish yourself at the same time. But you’ll need a big pot like this one from Zellers if you want to make a big batch) $29.99
• How to Boil Water, Food Network Kitchens (Want to quit eating fast food and ready-meals but don’t have the faintest idea where to start in the kitchen? This book is a fantastic primer for the absolute beginner cook) US$16.50
• Follow Vert-à-Go (Don’t miss a single post: RSS it, Twitter it, del.icio.us it, or join us on Facebook) Delightfully free
  

For kids

Start them as you’d like them to go on:

• Kid-sized garden tools (They’ll love helping out with their very own tools from Lee Valley, which are bright enough to spot even if they’re left lying on the ground) $7
• Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: a cookbook for preschoolers and up, Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson (This book from the famous Moosewood Restaurant team features delicious vegetarian recipes that little kids will love. It’s designed to teach them valuable culinary skills in a fun way and inspire a love of real cooking and good food!)
• Get growing kit (Get them started with some easy-grow and satisfying seeds like carrots, beans, and lettuce–stick them in a small light-weight sturdy pail that they can use to carry rain water, harvested vegetables, or leaves/corn husks/other small bits destined for the compost bin) About $7, more or less
• Vermicomposting box (Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op does a worm composting box that’s perfect for people who don’t have an outdoor compost bin–and kids love helping to feed the worms) $50
• Child’s sun hat (MEC’s hat is made in Canada, partly from organically-grown cotton, and has a long flap to cover the neck and keep the sun off during those busy mornings in the garden or the berry patch) $18

For the SOLE food gourmand

• Fair trade coffee or tea (Try the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from The Roastery, Kicking Horse from Sobey’s, Salt Spring Coffee from Herbs and Health, or enjoy the aroma while choosing from the wide fair trade organic selection at McQuarries) $10 and up for 1 pound
• Fair trade olive oil (Zatoun’s olive oil, available at Turning the Tide bookstore or 10,000 Villages, benefits Palestinian farmers and children in the West Bank) $18 for a 750ml bottle
• Organic wine (There are some good ones now available at the LBS–the Bonterra zinfandel is highly recommended) $13 and up
• Locally-brewed special edition winter ale (Call Paddock Wood Brewery on 477-5632 to see if they have any of their delightful Winter Ale left. Available at the brewery store only) $3.50 apiece or $18/half-dozen
• Divine dark chocolate fair trade after dinner mints (Available at 10,000 Villages, it’s the quintessential square after-dinner chocolate mint–only fairly made) $6.95
• Saskatoon Farmers’ Market goodie basket (Assemble a basket of delicious locally-grown and produced food for an unforgettable meal–how about some artisan bread, a couple of steaks from Benlock Farms, organic potatoes and carrots, cherry swirl ice cream…or exquisite mini-cupcakes…or wild Saskatchewan blueberries…or mouth-watering mini-baklavas?) Sky’s the limit!

Share your bounty

What shows your love better than something you made with your own two hands?

• salsa
• jam
• pickles
• homemade bread
• a box of Christmas cookies, treats–or wrap up a frozen cookie dough log

For the person who has everything

• Give to UNICEF (You can buy high energy biscuits which provide immediate nutrition for girls and boys or water treatment tablets that ensures safe drinking water for large numbers of people, amongst other Gifts of Magic) $20-30–other gifts $10 and up
• 10,000 Villages Gift of Seeds (Provide 10 families in needy areas with vegetable seeds and fruit seedlings) $25
• Donate to the Red Cross Food Security Crisis Appeal (They are stepping up food security programs in 15 African countries) any amount greatly appreciated
• Make a local donation and help hungry kids and adults in your community (Saskatoon Food Bank, CHEP, Station 20 West) any amount greatly appreciated
• Urban Land Army t-shirt (Join the Urban Land Army campaign and show off your allegiance with this nicely-fitted and comfy t-shirt. Everyone needs another t-shirt to garden in, right?) US$18 taxes and shipping included

Happy holidays!

Today was Stop Climate Chaos Day–a day of action coinciding with the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland. Events took place across the country and across the world, spearheaded by an umbrella group of organisations ranging from the Sierra Club, Oxfam, the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and Unicef. But it wasn’t all about marches and speeches. Organisers also urged supporters to hold potlucks and write letters to the editor to show solidarity and get the word out about the need for action to decrease the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. Because the personal is also political, I cooked one of our favourite vegetarian dinners in honour of the day. In September, the UN declared that people living in the west could make a big contribution toward fighting climate change by eating less meat. It has been estimated that halving the average person’s meat consumption would make a bigger difference to CO2 emissions than cutting their car use in half.

I sometimes have difficulty balancing a vegetarian meal so that I don’t feel like I need to eat a bowl of pasta as big as my head to feel full. In my opinion, the true star of the vegetarian world is the humble lentil. Lentils are not only high in protein and fibre–they are also an excellent source of iron (80% of your daily dose in just one cup), magnesium, tryptophan, and folate. When you serve them wiith rice, they become a complete source of protein. They are therefore an excellent meat-free main dish that will leave everyone satisfied.

Monastery lentils have become my go-to dish on busy weeknights and I probably make it once a week. As you might infer from the recipe’s name, it has the added bonus of being incredibly easy to prepare as well as being extremely economical, hearty, and yummy (I think you could easily feed 4 people for about a dollar apiece). You can also easily substitute dried local lentils, homemade stock, or frozen tomatoes for the canned variety, thereby reducing both the sodium content (and its food miles/climate impact) even further.

Monastery Lentils (with thanks to Sam)

• 1 - 14oz can lentils
• 1 - 14oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 can (or 1 cup) vegetable/chicken stock
• splash of cooking sherry
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 celery sticks (if large), sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 2 carrots (if large), sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Italian seasoning (I used dried oregano, parsley, and thyme)
• 1 Tb olive oil

In a large pot, saute the onion, celery, carrots, garlic, and dried seasonings in a tablespoon (or thereabouts) of olive oil until softened. In the meantime, add the lentils, tomatoes, chicken stock, and sherry to a medium-sized pot and bring to a simmer. Add the lentil mixture to the vegetables, bring to a boil, and simmer for about half an hour. Check whether you need to add salt and pepper, then serve on boiled/steamed rice. A small sprinkling of shredded white cheddar cheese is nice on top. I also like a dill pickle on the side.

Serves 4

For more great lentil (and other pulse) recipes, including some by celebrity chefs, check out the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers web site–you can also sign up there to get onto a monthly email recipe mailing list, or buy a copy of their excellent cookbook The Amazing Legume. Saskatchewan farmers grow a lot of lentils, and it would be terrific if everyone in the province ate them at least once a week!