Vert-à-Go

A doomsday email about proposed US food safety legislation (H.R. 875) has been making the rounds, scaring a lot of people and making a lot of unfounded and rather hysterical claims. Here’s the beginning of it, which will give you the gist:

House and Senate are about (in a week and a half) to vote on bill that will OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING (bill HR 875). There is an enormous rush to get this into law within the next 2 weeks before people realize what is happening.

Main backer and lobbyist is Monsanto – chemical and genetic engineering giant corporation (and Cargill, ADM, and about 35 other related agri-giants). This bill will require organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to “make sure there is no danger to the public food supply”. This will include backyard gardens that grow food only for a family and not for sales.

If this passes then NO more heirloom clean seeds but only Monsanto genetically altered seeds that are now showing up with unexpected diseases in humans.

…etc, etc

I have not read the bill myself, but there have been rebuttals to the email’s extreme claims from a number of well-respected sources. Here are a few:

Tom Philpott at environmental news blog Grist asks, “Would new food-safety legislation criminalize organic farming? No.”

Food and Water Watch has a background page to H.R. 875 that tells you exactly what the bill does and does not cover. And a blog post on the subject.

Professor and author Marion Nestle ‘debunks 6 viral myths about H.R 875′ at The Daily Green.

Factcheck.org also has a great post dealing with a differently-worded email, from a decidedly non-panicked backyard organic gardener.

To sum up: although it looks as if it could certainly do with an amendment to protect small organic farmers from the worst expense of new food safety compliance rules, H.R. 875 will NOT force organic farms or backyard gardeners to use specific fertilizers and sprays, nor will it outlaw heirloom seeds. If you receive this email, please reply to the sender with the above information to reduce unnecessary panic.

First Family/Inauguration Cookie Pack from Little Rae’s Bakery

With only 10 days, 13 hours, and 6 minutes to go in Bush’s time in office (but who’s counting?), pretty much everyone is already casting their eyes forward to US President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on 20 January.

So what do we know about Obama’s likely approach to food issues?

• Much speculation has been made over the fact that Obama both read and responded to Michael Pollan’s open letter in the New York Times to the ‘Farmer-in-Chief’.
• Sustainable food advocates have been campaigning for Obama to turn part of the White House lawn into an organic garden, and it turns out that the White House already has a rooftop garden that helped provide both the Clinton and Bush families with very local produce.
• The Obamas plan to keep the current White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford, who creates “original dishes with American flavor” and who shares the Obamas “perspective on the importance of healthy eating and healthy families”.
• Reaction from the left has been decidedly negative to Obama’s pick for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack–a big advocate of biofuels, GMOs, and biotechnology who used Monsanto’s private jet while he was governor of Iowa. Should we be dismayed? Or maybe he isn’t the agricultural antichrist after all?

For more up-to-the-minute info on the “Obama Foodscape”, check out Obama Foodorama. And if you’re in the catchment area for Little Rae’s Bakery in Seattle, don’t  miss the First Family/Inauguration pack of cookies, designed “to honor the entire first family to show our support and hope that when we stick together, when we lean on those closest, we are strongest.” Because the Obamas couldn’t adopt a dog from the animal shelter due to allergies, Little Rae’s is donating a portion of every sale to the Humane Society. It doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

photo by Sandy Pederson of Urban Land Army

September and early October were a complete washout for me on the blog posting front, so I really missed out on commenting on the Canadian election. I will be focusing much more on the Canadian food politics scene in the weeks ahead. But today (along with almost everyone else), I’m looking south of the border for the results of the US presidential election. It’s one night that I certainly won’t apologise for being glued to the TV!

Election Fever Pizza

• plain round focaccia bread (Bulk Cheese Warehouse) I had planned to try making homemade pizza dough today, but somehow forgot to buy yeast. Oops! Next time.
• homemade tomato sauce (from some of my roasted garden tomatoes)
• mild Italian sausage (Pine View Farms), pre-cooked
• green pepper (Grandora Gardens)
• onion (Saskatoon Farmers’ Market)
• mushrooms (Loveday Mushroom Farms, Manitoba)
• jalapeno peppers (my garden)
• part-skim mozzarella (Bulk Cheese Warehouse)

Assemble in the traditional fashion. Bake. Eat (preferably while exuberantly celebrating a major change of administration!).

Red, White & Blue Fool (I name no names)

• 1/2 cup strawberries (Strawberry Ranch)
• 1/8 cup blueberries (K-5 Market Farms)
• 1/8 cup raspberries (Rhodes’s Raspberry Patch)
• 1/2 cup whipping cream or plain (Balkan) full-fat yoghurt
• 1/2 cup full-fat vanilla yoghurt
• berry (castor) sugar to taste (optional)

(all the measurements and proportions for a fool are really up to you–you should really just chuck it together according to your mood and what you have on hand!)

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks and fold in the yoghurt (or just mix the two yoghurts together). Sweeten with berry sugar to taste (if you like). Chop the strawberries with a fork (I used frozen fruit, so there was a fair amount of juice after defrosting. If you want the white part to stay mostly white rather than vaguely…(socialist commie) pink(o)…drain off the juice from all the berries first).  Stir in the strawberries and spoon into glass dishes. Top with raspberries and blueberries and refrigerate for at least an hour. Eat while gloating.

I’ll be opening a bottle of Liberty School (a Californian cabernet sauvignon), and have put a bottle of President Canadian champagne in the fridge. I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll have a very good excuse to pop the cork later tonight!

photo: Little Rae’s Bakery’s election cookie pack

These delicious and topical shortbread cookies are from Little Rae’s Bakery in Seattle, Washington, which turns out the cutest cookies on the planet, as well as a wide range of other delectable baked goods using all-natural ingredients. The election pack of cookies was an instant hit in coffee shops and espresso carts across Seattle and on the first day they hit the streets, they sold out in 45 minutes flat. But the important question is, ‘Who’s winning the shortbread poll?’

As of this weekend, Obama was outselling McCain 72% to 28%. Not too big of a surprise in the historically Democratic Washington State, but still great news for everyone who prefers their politicians (and their baked goods) nut-free! Actor and liberal activist Sean Penn was spotted scarfing one in Los Angeles a few days ago.

James Morse, owner of Little Rae’s, says of the cookie-lovers’ overwhelming vote of support for Obama, ‘”We haven’t had any complaints of fraud, and we haven’t been accused of trying to steal the election or anything of the sort.” A local radio station interviewed an espresso cart owner based in front of Seattle City Hall, who said that a lot of people are buying McCain just to bite his head off–that they were taking a real “visceral satisfaction” in it. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels responded with his belief that ‘people should buy their cookies out of love, not spite.’

Well, here’s hoping we’ll be feeling some love of the true blue variety by tonight!*

Some more photos of the cookies from the Seattle Daily Photo on Flickr.

* The Retail Bakers Association, which says its 2004 Cookie Poll was very accurate in predicting a Bush victory, currently has Obama in the lead at 58%, with McCain trailing at 42%.