Vert-à-Go

I confess that I do struggle against climate dread. Any new news about the environment is very seldom good news, and it is demoralising beyond belief to walk home from the farmers’ market with a bag of locally-grown organic food, only to be blown past by someone chucking a McDonald’s wrapper out of the window of their Hummer.

But we can’t sit around and do nothing, even if somewhere out there our evil twin is itching to replace every ounce of carbon that we struggle not to emit. And the food that we choose to eat can make a real and instant difference to our ecological impact. It’s important to educate yourself about what is in the food you eat, where it comes from, how it is produced, and what impact it has on your health, the people who grow it, the animals who provide it, and the environment. As Wendell Barry puts it, “Eating is an agricultural act.” We need to pay attention to our food, not just be mindless consumers.

Here are a dozen things you can do right now to radically reduce your food footprint. Most of them will save you money and improve your health, too!

1. Eat less meat

2. Grow some food to eat this year

3. Eat seasonal, locally-produced food

4. Eat organic food, preferably locally-produced

5. Choose fair trade food products

6. Only eat fish and seafood from safe and sustainable fisheries

8. Reduce your consumption of industrially-produced/processed/fast food

7. Walk, bike, bus or carpool to the store, market, or restaurant

9. Plan your meals ahead and keep track of leftovers to avoid food waste

10. Drink tap water, not bottled water, and don’t forget the carbon/water footprint of other drinks too

11. Compost your food waste

12. Use more energy-efficient ways to cook your food

…and check out Reiko’s Bento Lab–-just because I guarantee it will make you smile!

(this post is mostly a rerun–but it still says everything that I want to say. Happy Earth Day!)

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.

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.

Saskatoon Community Garden Network meeting

When: Monday 2 March, 7pm

Where: Core Neighbhourhood Youth Co-op, 905 20th Street W, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

For more information: Saskatoon Community Garden Network Facebook group, dana@chep.org

Spotted at Safeway: Earthbound organic iceberg lettuce on sale for $1.47, as well as a 4lb box of organic Chinese mandarin oranges for $4.99 (our spotter got the last box of oranges on display at the 8th St Safeway that day–we’re not sure if they had more in the back or not). I haven’t seen organic mandarin oranges anywhere else, so will try to find out if more are available. Their sale runs until Saturday 13 December.

Saw at Sobey’s today that they had Bob’s Red Mill organic flours/grains on sale, as well as organic pastas by Artesian Acres (kamut linguine, spaghetti) and Eden Organics (mini alphabet soup & curly vegetable pasta). All of these things ranged from 50 cents to a $1 off; I expect the sale will run till the end of the week.

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!

“We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else. The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.”

- Wendell Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating” from What Are People For?

One of the main reasons I decided to grow tomatillos for the first time this spring was because of the incredible tomatillo corn chowder I tried at my sister’s house last year. I simply could not get it out of my head! It is the finest soup I have ever tasted–spicy and profoundly satisfying. It is hearty enough to enjoy on its own for supper with bread, but unusual and sophisticated enough that you could happily serve it at a winter dinner party.

I harvested about 8lbs of tomatillos from my two plants this autumn, so I decided to make a double batch of this soup and stick some away in the freezer. I have to admit that it was a bit of a production–between making a huge cauldron of stock from scratch, assembling the mountain of ingredients, and preparing and roasting the vegetables, it definitely turned into an on-and-off weekend project. But don’t let that scare you off! It is *so* worth the effort in the end.

While my hands were busy gathering and preparing the ingredients (you’d be surprised how long it takes to remove the husks from 8lbs of tomatillos), I had quite a lot of free time to think about what I was making. And it struck me that this soup is actually a pretty accurate microcosm of the modern-day food production and distribution system. The ingredients came from all over the world, via a wide variety of sources, and I found that each and every one prompted a thorny question or decision. What kind of food should I buy? Where should I buy it and how much should I pay? What about growing my own? What impact do my choices have on the environment, and my health, and even the well-being of farm workers living halfway around the world? It’s important to ask these questions and consider these issues so that we don’t simply remain passive consumers of whatever some multinational corporation decides to dish out to us. We must take responsibility for what we eat.

Let’s have a look at the ingredients in detail:

• Chicken stock: I made this myself, from a local free-range bird (using mainly local vegetables, but the organic grocery store celery was imported from California). Free-range/naturally-raised animals generally have a happier existence than their factory farm counterparts, and their environmental impact is lower. But a vegetarian meal usually has a far smaller carbon footprint than a meat-based meal and should be our first choice.

• Anaheim chilies: I got the last 3 of Grandora’s Christmas bell peppers at the farmers’ market, and that  was it for their fresh hot peppers for the year–so I had to buy another 7 conventionally-grown Mexican Anaheims from the grocery store. If I’d gotten organised to make the soup earlier in the autumn, I could have used all seasonal local ingredients instead of 70% imported.

• Tomatillos: I grew these myself in the back garden, picked them and put them into a cool room in the basement. Sadly, I didn’t deal with them fast enough and wound up losing about half of them to spoilage. I was so annoyed with myself. Expending all that energy to grow them, only to throw half on the compost pile? It was such an unnecessary waste of food–something that I’ve otherwise worked really hard to avoid over the past year. But have a look in a supermarket or restaurant’s dumpster and you’ll see that this kind of waste is part and parcel of our profligate food production and distribution system. This waste meant a lot more to me personally because I was the one who had grown it in the first place, and I’ve vowed it won’t happen again.

• Vegetable oil: I used canola oil here. But canola is a huge can of worms–83% of canola now grown on the Canadian prairies is genetically modified. Its proponents say it gives them better yields and helps them use fewer herbicides. But these GM crop varieties are also completely controlled by Monsanto, which is hyper-protective of its babies. Regardless of any benefits from a particular GM variety, I feel incredibly uneasy about the advisability of handing over such a huge amount of control over food production to a corporation: “an entity whose legally-defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others”–especially when their market dominance virtually crowds out any other non-GM variety from being grown.

• Onion: I used the last local onion I had, and one that the grocery store advertises as local, but which comes from at least 300 miles away. A supermarket’s definition of ‘local’ (or ‘organic’) is likely quite a bit different than yours.

• Garlic: I used one local bulb that I had on hand, and the remainder came from a jar of minced roasted garlic that I bought earlier this year because it said ‘Product of Canada’. I only later discovered that this likely means the garlic itself was grown in China (like most fresh bulbs in the grocery store) and then imported to Canada for bottling. Food origin labels don’t always tell the whole story about where something came from.

• Salt: I generally use Sifto salt, which comes from the mine in Unity, Saskatchewan. I must say I felt a tiny (if not entirely commendable) twinge of schadenfreude while reading The 100 Mile Diet, where BC-dwelling locavores Alisa Smith and J B MacKinnon bemoan the lack of proper flour and salt during their year-long experiment with local-only eating. We might not have peaches in Saskatchewan, but at least I’m not eating weevil-infested wheat! We should be aware of (and be grateful for) our local food specialties.

• Ground coriander: I’m working on a bag I bought at the supermarket many moons ago. Mysteriously, large quantities of bagged spices in the international food section often cost *way* less money than the tiny bottles found in the spice aisle. You can also often find superior quality rice at a specialty Asian market, or a get a much better deal on locally-produced organic flax seed at the SaskMade Marketplace. Despite their boasts, supermarkets don’t always offer the best value and it pays to shop around to get the most out of your food budget.

• Oregano: If I had made the soup earlier in the autumn, I could have got fresh local oregano at the market, but it was now finished. Usually I would use dried in this situation, but the recipe said the fresh herb was essential, so I bought organic oregano sealed in a plastic box and imported from California. The plastic packaging (which can only go in the garbage here unless you pay for curbside recycling services), as well as the amount of energy required to ship such a highly perishable food all the way here without it rotting in transit, really made me shudder (as did the fact that part of it was already dark and withering and I had to end up composting half of it).

• Jalapeno peppers: fresh from my garden. I picked them in late September or early October, and they kept for a month and a half in the fridge. I’d like to see a grocery store pepper beat the refrigerator shelf life of home-grown produce!

• Potatoes: I bought local organically-grown potatoes. Potatoes rank number 12 in a list of of fruits and vegetables that are most often treated with pesticides/fungicides during commercial production. Pesticide/fungicide residue on food is common, and many of these chemicals are extremely harmful to human health and contaminate the environment. We can and should grow food using more sustainable methods and reduce chemical use wherever possible.

• Corn: I used frozen corn from the grocery store. I generally prefer frozen corn to canned, partly because most canned food comes in tins lined with bisphenol A. If I had been more on the ball, I might have frozen my own corn kernels from cobs from the farmers’ market to use later on, but it’s quite a lot of work. Sometimes you really just want someone else to do the processing work for you.

• Cream: I generally buy all my milk from Dairyland, which is processed here in Saskatoon (Beatrice and Lucerne products likely come from their milk processing plants in Edmonton). Why ship milk from local dairies hundreds of miles away, put it in cartons, and then ship it all the way back here again? I’m sure Dairyland is bringing in milk from far away as well, but I still don’t think it hurts to support local food producers and processing facilities.

• Black pepper: I buy my peppercorns from the Orchard del Sol farm in Costa Rica, which emphasises ethical and ecologically sustainable farming methods (including fair worker wages). Many luxury crops such as coffee, cocoa, and spices give huge profits to landowners and corporations at a terrible cost to workers and the local environment. Fair trade, organic, shade-grown products are the most responsible consumer choice–buying them wherever possible creates pressure on ‘conventional’ growers to smarten up and improve their farming methods.

Round the world and home again for tomatillo soup

• 8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 5 Anaheim chilies (or whatever chili/pepper you have on hand)
• 1.5 lbs tomatillos
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 yellow onion (diced)
• 10 garlic cloves (minced)
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 3 Tbsp minced oregano (important that it’s fresh! This makes the soup)
• 4 jalapeno peppers (seeded and minced)
• 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes (diced)
• 3 cups corn (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup cream or half and half
• 1 tsp cracked black pepper
• Garnish: chopped cilantro and sliced green onion (optional)

Heat the stock and keep it warm while assembling the soup. Preheat oven to 400F.

Halve and seed chiles. Remove husks from tomatillos, rinse, and dry. In a large bowl, toss the tomatillos and chilies with a little olive oil so they are lightly coated. Place on a baking sheet and roast until the tomatillo and chili skins are slightly charred (15-20 minutes). Dice the chilies and roughly chop the tomatillos. Set aside.

In a soup pot over medium-high heat, heat the oil and sauté onion until translucent. Stir in garlic, 1 tsp salt, coriander, minced oregano and sauté until golden-ish.

Add the jalapenos, potato, and remaining salt (1 tsp) and stir to combine. Sauté for several minutes, then pour in warm stock to cover. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer until the potatoes are tender.

Add the corn, chilies, and tomatillos; simmer 10 minutes. Slowly add cream and more stock to thin if necessary (don’t let it boil). Simmer and season with salt and cracked pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped cilantro and green onions just before serving.

*This soup freezes well, but reheat it slowly so cream doesn’t separate.*

Serves 8-10

It can be really difficult to find a good dill pickle. Either they’re too soft, or too salty, or the wrong kind of sour, or they’re just plain from too far away. Over the seven years I lived in England–where, inexplicably, grocery stores don’t carry them and most people have never even heard of them–I kept dreaming of those tall glass pickle jars lining my mom’s cold room.

I still haven’t lost any of my enthusiasm for them and have since introduced two small new pickle fiends into the world, so a jar doesn’t exactly last in our fridge for months at a time. I vowed that 2008 was the year that I was finally going to learn how to make them for myself! In August I picked up a couple of bags of small cucumbers (these are available pre-bagged at various farmers’ markets, although I got mine from Sobey’s, who had brought them in from Sovereign Colony near Rosetown). I didn’t have any canning experience, though, so I took them down to the farm to get some long-overdue instruction from my mom. We used her mother’s old recipe–and, I believe, some of Grandma’s old jars too!

Please note that this recipe assumes a familiarity with good canning practices (sterilising jars and following proper sealing procedures).

Olive’s garlic dills

Wash cucumbers. Pack into sterilised jars with garlic and dill. For each quart of cucumbers use:

• 3 cloves garlic
• fresh dill (4 good-sized stems of both leaves and flowers)
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1Tbsp pickling salt

Bring the brine to a boil, pour into jars and seal immediately (no boiling water bath required). Takes six weeks to pickle.

These pickles will last for at least a year (if you haven’t already eaten them all by then), but we have eaten from older jars with no problem at all. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. I did the second batch back at home using snap lids. One lid hadn’t snapped down like the others by the following morning (until I pushed on it), so I stuck that jar in the fridge for its 6-week pickling phase and will use it first, just in case.

And if you don’t feel like waiting until November for your pickles, or you just don’t feel like canning right now? Here’s a great recipe for refrigerator pickles that can tide you over.

photo by avantgardener4

People take their jam seriously. And why not? Your choice of jam can make or break your morning slice of toast. Having grown up with a mother who made raspberry freezer jam every year, I have a distinct preference for homemade jam. I find store-bought jam to be too cloying, and the chunks of fruit a sad shadow of their former selves. It’s so easy to make your own freezer jam, which doesn’t require cooking, complicated equipment, or any canning experience. It can also be more economical than the store-bought version. And unless (like Frances) you eat it four times a day, one batch of it should take care of your jam needs for the rest of the year.

There’s only one problem with a single batch of jam, though. Maybe you are only passionate about raspberry jam, or do not wish to start your day with anything but apricot jelly. But what if you like to mix it up a little? It could quickly become a big chore to make three or four different flavours, not to mention the fact that you probably couldn’t possibly get through 15 or 20 jars in a year.

A fun way to solve this problem is to start a jam collective–a small group of jam enthusiasts who trade a jar of their jam with each of the other members of the group. This way you end up with a number of different flavours, and also have an excellent excuse to get together with your group this autumn for a swap party. Of course, you needn’t restrict your collective to jam. Maybe one of your friends makes a massive batch of salsa each year, or maybe you were up to your armpits in cucumbers and made a dozen jars of dill pickles–or perhaps another friend has a freezer full of Saskatoon berries, while you harvested 30lbs of Swiss chard. As long as the items are pretty much equivalent in agreed/perceived value, anything goes!

Below is the invitation I sent out to the prospective members of our jam collective–please feel free to use, adapt, and distribute it as you like!

The Number One Ladies’ Jam Collective *

I am planning to form a small jam collective this summer. Each member would make a batch of jam (5-6 jars, depending on how many want to join), and then distribute one jar to each member, thereby promoting greater jam diversity and breakfast delight throughout the year!

A few simple guidelines:

• Either freezer or cooked jam is fine, as long as members agree that they have enough freezer space to accommodate the planned amount.
• Jars do not have to be new or a uniform size–in the case of freezer jam, reusing old jars is encouraged.
• The jam needs to be safely edible, but do not stress about presentation! Martha Stewart will NOT be invited to join this  collective.
• When labelling the jam, please put your name on it so we know who to give credit to when we scarf it down each morning.
• If anyone would like their own jars back for next year, I would be happy to organise their safe return, so let me know.
• Jam-making is open to and should be encouraged in both sexes and all ages! You will create good jam karma if you teach a newbie how to make jam while you make yours.
• Do you know other people interested in joining? Creating your own spin-off jam collective chapter is an excellent way to spread the (jam) love! Pun-filled chapter names are, needless to say, highly encouraged.

If you are interested in taking part, please let me know, along with the kind of jam you would like to make (maybe have a second choice in mind in case everyone wants to make the same thing). If you’re too busy or don’t feel like taking part, no worries! I can easily open it up to other people. You guys are simply the A list.

I also thought it would be nice for us to get together one evening in September or early October to do the trades, have a visit, and drink some wine! Unless your jam is a darkly-held family secret, could you please send me the recipe/product used? I will make up a little recipe booklet that everyone can take home in case they want to try their hand at someone else’s  delightful jam next year.

Thanks and talk to you soon!

Susan

* Our jam collective happens to be comprised of women (hence the name), but it needn’t be. I believe that everyone–male or female, child or adult–needs to learn food cultivation, preparation, and preserving skills. Women should not have to bear the sole responsibility for whether or not a household eats in a thoughtful and sustainable fashion! It is everyone’s individual responsibility, and it will only become more and more important for everyone to have this knowledge in the coming years.