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Center for a sustainable future

Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

The World Future Council has published a report classifying North American feed-in tariffs for renewable energies. Only Ontario and Vermont make the grade. All other programs not in the U.S. and Canada happen.

compared Gipe then found the programs in Germany, France, and Spain. Worldwide, the policy in these countries as the gold standard in the feed-design. These programs are in their class to the top and are known to work well.

earned in arbitrary classification system Gipe, France and Germany by 90 points and were both with an “A”. Spain’s program deserves a bit less, 80 points, and received an “A-” (A minus).

The report also examines the proposed legislation in Indiana and California, according to the same criteria. Indiana introduced AB 1190 by Representative Matt Pierce qualified for an “A-” with 82 points. California’s AB 1106 by representatives of Felipe Fuentes and Ira Ruskin introduced only earned 54 points to give the proposal a “D” class.

The World Future Council is a EnNGO based in Hamburg, Germany with offices in Washington, DC and San Francisco, California.’s

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Chelsea Green Full Feed

Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

There was an interesting bit on NPR this week about the rather notable amount of waste that Americans produce from their holiday meals. I’d guess that much of that waste probably comes from tossing out dried up turkey, but we can all be more conscious of not creating food waste. Leftover fresh cooked or canned pumpkin that was mostly used for pie can be turned into deliciously fragrant spiced muffins with currants or sultanas and chunks of dark chocolate. And those pumpkin seeds you might have scraped into the compost? Use them as a toasty garnish. Pumpkin puree can also give waffles or pancakes a seasonal makeover, or, cook it down on the stove with spices and a little agave or sugar to create a quick pumpkin butter.

If you’ve cooked up a little more rice than needed for a stuffing or dressing, plain rice can be quickly transformed into a morning treat for everyone just by adding some coconut milk, sultanas, lightly toasted pistachios and almonds, a hint of agave, rose water and cardamon. Heat the mixture over a gentle flame and serve up steaming bowls with very little effort. This works equally well with any leftover take-out rice.

If you relish thoughts of lazy mornings where breakfast just seems to appear magically for you to enjoy, just think a little bit ahead while cooking for the main event of dinner. Cornbread as a Thanksgiving side or as the primary ingredient for a stuffing offers the opportunity to make a double batch and set some aside for morning muffins. Make them in cast iron for particularly delectable crusts with a little crunch.

Warm the muffins and spread them with cranberry sauce or enjoy with a drizzle of olive oil, sea salt and some of the chopped leftover herbs you bought to make dinner. If you think it’s impossible to enjoy muffins properly without butter or margarine, just give it a try with good fruity olive oil. It’s common enough to dunk bread in oil, but extending that practice to pastries that are typically served with butter works too.

Those with sweeter teeth can transform a batch of batter for cornbread into a rustic morning cake. I like to use the precious berries in my freezer that were frozen at their peak in summer for use throughout the colder months to spiff up a corncake. Blueberries and lemon zest with a dusting of cane sugar can’t really be beat, unless you’ve got some raspberries in the freezer as well.

Mix a few frozen berries into the batter to spread them evenly through the cake, but just drop some on top of the unbaked cake in the pan as well. The batter rises up around the berries and creates little dimples in the sugar-crusted golden top. Any leftover cranberries or sauteed apple chunks would work well in a cake like this too. More adventurous types might even like to try a bit of leftover diced sweet potato, yams or even squash and a good teaspoon of cinnamon with their corncake.

Or maybe your a.m. tooth is sweeter still and your will to extend the cooking frenzy of the holiday even greater. You then are a candidate for some homemade vegan danishes. Especially when I have guests in the house, it feels great to be able to offer something special like this that extends the celebration of the holiday dinner. With amazing seasonal fall fruit like persimmons, pears and apples, the options for fillings are endless. Apple or pumpkin butter make great choices too and a little spread of vegan cream cheese with some leftover cranberry sauce or maple roasted squash sprinkled with nutmeg and cinnamon don’t go amiss either. The tail ends of herbs unused in the Thanksgiving dinner can find a happy home in a sweet cheese filling as well. This is also a good time to break out any jams or preserves you may have made or been given–quince, crab apple, grape–all perfect.

For a light touch at breakfast that is still special, soak some dried apricots in water overnight, split them in the middle and stuff them with a teaspoon of vegan cream cheese, fresh tarragon or mint and some toasted pecans reserved from your pie making ventures. These are a great treat if you’re still feeling a little full from the night before.

A more dramatic light and fruity breakfast can also warm up your kitchen if it’s anything like mine in these cold New England mornings with the blustery wind at the windows. Fig season has faded, but there are still a few hangers on to be found and the earthy sweetness of these beautiful fruits that is the epitome of fall can be intensified by roasting them with a light drizzle of agave, a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkle of cardamom.

Serve the figs warm with some unsweetened soy yogurt mixed with rose petal jelly or quince jam.

And if all that fails to please, scoop everyone up some of the rewarmed apple crisp you were too full to finish the night before. I like my apple crisp made with cranberries and crystallized ginger, toasted oats and almonds. A little scoop of ice cream can’t hurt either…neither can a good dose of caramel . After all, it is the holidays. Happy breakfasting!

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Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

I know this because a farmer named Jerry wrote a letter to the Des Moines Register recently saying that they are scared.  It would be a “scary scenario for mainstream agriculture” if I got elected as Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, he said.   Francis Thicke is a “true believer in everything organic,” he shuddered.

Running for office is an adventure.  But I never expected to learn that Iowa farmers, who are among the most resilient, shrewd and creative people on the planet, are afraid of a mild-mannered organic dairy farmer with a PhD in Agronomy and some ideas for helping them meet challenges such as peak oil.   So I thought I would write him a letter to reassure him that I’m not scary, because if we don’t get our act together to deal with the real challenges of peak oil, the disruptions caused by climate change, and the growing monopoly power of corporate agribusiness, then we really will have cause for concern.
Dear Jerry,

Don’t be afraid.  This is America, and no one is going to make you “go organic.”  It’s the Big Ag interests that want to limit your choices, not me.   You might save money and protect water quality and the health of your family if you understood how to apply sustainable farming methods that do not require farm chemicals, but you don’t have to.

No one is going to force you to make your own biofuels on the farm from perennial crops that make your farm resilient and energy efficient.  Nor will you be forced to drive a hydrogen or ammonia-powered tractor with fuel derived from wind power.   If diesel prices soar in the next few years, as the Defense Department[pdf] is warning us, it’s your right to pay $6 a gallon or more and keep right on using it.  There may be shortages in our future by 2015, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find fuel at some price, somewhere.

You have the right to keep doing things the way you always have, and not take advantage of science-based ways to bring your costs down and prepare for a future without abundant petrochemicals.  All I am offering is a vision for a thriving agriculture in the absence of cheap oil, and leadership to meet the challenges that we know are coming.   Energy will be a huge game-changer over the coming decade–for agriculture, and for everything else.

Farmers aren’t afraid of organic farming or renewable energy.  Farmers are afraid that crop prices won’t cover their costs, particularly in the face of volatile energy costs and unstable commodity prices.  If someone can offer them a common-sense way to cut their costs, most will want to hear about it.  So just put your fingers in your ears while I’m talking, and you’ll be fine.

While you’re doing that, I’ll be talking to Iowans about the Hydrogen Engine Center in Algona, Iowa, which makes internal combustion engines that run on either hydrogen or ammonia.  I’ll also be talking about parallel technology that is under development right now, to create wind turbines that can make hydrogen or ammonia using wind power. When we can couple these two technologies, we will be able to run farm machinery or automobiles on wind power, with only water and nitrogen gas coming out of the exhaust pipe–a carbon-free energy system.

According to Ted Hollinger, the mastermind behind the hydrogen/ammonia engine, the technology for making hydrogen and/or ammonia using wind turbines is just a year or two away, and Ted thinks that the cost of making hydrogen or ammonia with wind turbines, and using it as fuel in an internal combustion engine, will be less than the current cost of gasoline.

Imagine: A farm with a wind turbine that makes more than enough electricity to power the farm’s electrical needs. The excess wind power is used to make ammonia.  The ammonia powers a backup electrical generator, farm tractors and other machinery. This scenario is very likely in the near future as peak oil forces all fossil fuel costs up.

Is this scary?  I don’t think so.  I think farmers will want this technology, and welcome any government efforts to make it affordable and widely available.

Sincerely,

Francis

P.S.  I would appreciate your support

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Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

What's the food like in Cuba, you ask? Terrible, generally. I lost over 5 pounds in my 10-day trip this May. But the good news is that there is a light on the horizon for tourists and Cubans-alike. I can't speak for the food scene before my first trip three years ago, but I immediately noticed that food (as with many other basic comforts like transportation and lodging) had made huge leaps forward from my first trip to Cuba in 2007. Obviously the impact of tourism and the marked economic gains made just over three years (more oil is flowing thanks to Cuba and Venezuela's Oil for Doctors program, there are more cars, houses look in better shape, people are better dressed, no more power brown-outs or black-outs) means that for Cubans and tourists alike, the food has come a long, long way. (This is a cross-post from my blog at www.foodgirl.ca but I'll post the follow-ups here too!)

First I'll address the most obvious question: How can a place with such great urban organic farming have such poor food choices on the plate? As with most things in Cuba, it's complicated. The urban organic farm produce is grown for Cubans, not tourists. Hotels and restaurants operate in the “tourism” industry and must therefore import the food because there's not enough locally produced food at this point to supply the tourism industry's needs. It would put the food security of the Cuban nationals at risk and that's not acceptable. On my trip in 2007, I spoke at length with a chef at a major hotel chain in Varadero and he was the one who explained this to me. “Cubans are used to egg shortages,” he said. “Tourists are not.” Locally produced food is also seasonal in Cuba, so those fresh tomatoes and oranges on the buffet, even, are imports if you are holidaying in Cuba when its not tomato or orange season. Cuban nationals have first dibs on the great organic produce grown on the organoponicos, and that's the way it should be. There's also the cultural barrier to having fresh food available to us visitors. (Remember that the worst part of Cuba's Special Period is still pretty fresh in most Cubans' mind. Almost overnight in the early 1990s, their daily caloric intake dropped by one-third and Cubans, on average, dropped 25 pounds.) Fresh veggies and vegetable-based dishes are just not considered “food” by Cubans yet. They're in love with fried, stewed or heavily cooked meats, with a side of white rice or rice and beans (cangrejo). The slice of cucumber, shredded cabbage and / or slice of tomato is merely a garnish. We ate “relatively” well at the Hotel Nacional, but for the first few meals there I could see in the faces of my travelling companions that they were not expecting the food to be as bland, monotonous or just plain as unhealthy (this is a refined carb-lovin', fried-food-lovin', meat-eating culture and even 50 years of food rationing hasn't been able to break the cycle of heavy, fattening food in Cuba). The bulk of our meals were eaten at the Hotel Nacional, as lunch and dinner were included in our room rates. I didn't take any photos of the food or the dining hall. Sorry. It just didn't occur to me at the time.

Memorable Meal #1: One of the best meals occurred at Hotel La Granjita in Santa Clara, Cuba. We arrived at this resort-hotel late (La Granjita means “the farm” but it was more like a resort hotel with funky hut-like hotel rooms…in fact, it was built similar to many of the Cubanacan hotels I have stayed at previously), tired from a long day of looking at farms, and a day on the bus. Dinner wasn't anything fancy, but the salad plate was actually an enormous plate of shredded cabbage, beets, lettuce, tomatoes and cukes. Then I ordered the whitefish in a creole sauce, and the fish was really quite lovely and delicate in the tomato-y sauce. I believe I even sensed a piece of basil in there. The sides were white rice and baby potatoes. We splurged on a bottle of Chilean Concho y Toro Carmenere red wine and it tasted like manna from heaven. I was already rather tired of the usual beverage selection of Rum and Coke (with lime = the Cuba Libre); very fizzy, slightly bitter lagers (Cristal is the lighter, Bucanero is the stronger, but both taste virtually the same); and mojitos (sugar, rum, mint and soda water). The meal was included in our room, so I don't have the price breakdown of the entrees etc, but the bottle of wine was $20 CUC and everything on the menu seemed very reasonably priced.

In part 2, I'll tell you about my rooftop patio splurge in Old Havana at the Hotel Ambos Mundos. Here, I encountered the most hysterically funny menu translations I've ever seen. But the food was good. In part 3, I'll tell you about the best Cuban meal I didn't have, but a number of the people in my group were lucky enough to have. On a day that I was scheduled to visit the rather famous Havana Vivero Alamar organoponico, they took a trip to an eco-resort and biosphere reserve 51 km from Havana. At Las Terraces, they ate at arguably Cuba's best and most interesting restaurant, El Romero (Rosemary) the 36-seat eco-vegetarian restaurant run by revolutionary Cuban chef (and Slow Food member), Tito Nuñez.

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Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

Oh boy, am I excited about this! Jenny from Nourished Kitchen just announced that she’s giving away TWO slots in her upcoming How To Cook Real Food e-course to my readers.

Technically, it’s not a giveaway. It’s a scholarship. And like any scholarship, you’ve got to apply. Intrigued? Keep reading.

So, here’s the scoop:

If you want to try for a free slot in Jenny’s How To Cook Real Food online class, you’ll need to write a short essay (between 300-500 words) nominating someone else for a spot in the cooking class. That someone can be anyone you know who would benefit from the class: your mother, your son, your best friend, your sister. Anyone. Of course, you’ll also need to tell us why you think this person would benefit.

Essays are due Tuesday morning at 11am EST. Submit your essay as an attached document to me via email at Kristen AT FoodRenegade DOT com. Jenny, myself, and a few other judges will select the BEST essay submitted by my readers. If it’s yours, you’ll not only have won a slot for the special someone you nominated, but you’ll also win a slot for YOURSELF!

The winner will be announced this Wednesday, May 26th. I may even post the winning essay here (with your permission, of course, assuming you’re the winner).

What You’ll Win:

You’ll win a slot for you and the person you nominate in Jenny’s upcoming How To Cook Real Food cooking class. This is a 12 week class which normally sells for $120. The class begins June 1st, and includes LIFETIME ACCESS to all the course content. In other words, you can set your own pace, revisit course content, continue being active on the exclusive forum for students — FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT.

Imagine it: You, learning how to cook nourishing, whole, seasonal foods at your own pace, in your own kitchen, maybe even in your pajamas. You’ll get video lessons, download recipes, practice cooking techniques, participate in an online forum with your other classmates, and even have the chance to attend live webinars so that you can have genuine, real-time interaction with your teacher and other students.

For more details about Jenny’s cooking class, click here.

I can’t wait to read your essays! Good luck.

NOTICE OF DISCLOSURE: http://cmp.ly/5

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. How To Cook Real Food Online Cooking Class
2. Win A Free Hour of Nutrition And Wellness Coaching
3. Win 3 Free Starter Cultures

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Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

Attorney General Eric Holder urged to enforce antitrust laws to protect poultry growers 

Today, poultry growers from throughout the south told Attorney General Eric Holder that the US poultry business operates through price fixing and production controls that stifle fair competition and destroy the lives of family farmers.  According to the growers, who spoke at a hearing in Normal, Alabama, they are trapped in an unsustainable system that leaves them with skyrocketing costs, poverty wages and zero job security.  As one grower put it, “This system takes hard working farmers and makes them indentured servants on their own land.”

While many of us understand the importance of the nation’s civil rights and environmental laws, less attention has been paid to antitrust jurisprudence.  Yet, it is the source of vital legal protections for consumers and small businesses – at least when the laws are applied and enforced. In the United States, antitrust laws first arose in response to public anger over the control of essential products by groups of related businesses, known as trusts or cartels. These cartels arbitrarily set prices, regardless of a product’s quality, by conspiring to shut out competition.

Since 1960, the amount of chicken meat produced in the United States has grown by 600 percent, supplying an increasingly global market for chicken fingers, chicken nuggets and other fried and breaded abominations.  Meanwhile, four U.S. companies have formed a cartel that controls a majority of all this chicken – poultry that today is almost exclusively raised by people who don’t actually own the birds.

Through a business model of aggressive vertical integration, huge poultry companies in the US own and control the birds, the mills that produce the poultry feed, the factories where the birds are incubated and hatched, the trucks used to transport the chicks, grown chickens and meat, and the factories that butcher the birds and package the meat. Today, more than 90 percent of all poultry in the United States is raised by growers under contract to these vertically integrated poultry companies, rather than being raised and sold by independent farmers.  Not surprisingly, the open competitive market for chicken meat has disappeared.

The contract growers who actually raise the birds earn, on average, about 5 cents a pound for the poultry. To put it another way, according to testimony from West Virginia poultry grower Mike Weaver:

When you purchase a twelve piece chicken meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken or any other fast food restaurant it costs you about $26.99 in our area.  The grower who raised that chicken only received about $.30 cents.

The poultry growers who attended today’s hearing describe an industry that sounds like nothing so much as the old con man’s game of “bait and switch.”

When I retired from teaching in 1993 and was considering the construction of two, 500-foot chicken houses, I was promised a long-term relationship as long as I raised a good bird or followed the company’s instructions.  Initially, I was provided a contract for the ten-year length of my loan.  However, a few years later, the company brought out another version of the contract and said I needed to sign it to continue to get chickens.  Before the end of the initial ten-year term, the company again changed the contract to a one-year term.  I came to realize that the company could change contracts easily by threatening to stop placing birds if I refused to sign. – Kay Doby, former president of the North Carolina Contract Poultry Growers Association

The poultry companies require enormous investments in infrastructure before they will enter into a contract with a grower. But while the grower must take on huge mortgages for periods of from 10 to 30 years in order to satisfy the companies’ requirements, most are only guaranteed work on a “flock to flock” basis – that is, for about seven weeks at a time.    Meanwhile, in addition to their mortgage debt, the growers are liable for waste disposal (and any environmental damage that might result), as well as for maintenance of barns and equipment that the companies can leave vacant and unused for weeks or months at a time – periods during which the grower earns no income.

The companies also “rank” the contract growers against each other to decide whether to terminate contracts or otherwise penalize growers.  The problem is that the companies also control these rankings through decisions they make about the age and health of the chicks and the quality of the feed they provide to the growers, leaving them unable to complete on anything like a playing field.

Mississippi poultry grower Andy Stone described his life this way:

This insecurity hangs over my head each day that I grow chickens. You could argue this and say, No one’s job is secure in today’s economic environment. But the situation is not the same. Their job is a job. Mine is a job with a huge debt attached to it. . . .  The situation in contract poultry growing is out of control. 

The Sherman Act, the nation’s first antitrust law, passed in 1890, made it illegal for businesses in the same industry to make agreements that limit competition. The Packers and Stockyards Act, passed in 1921, made it illegal for a poultry dealer to engage in unfair or deceptive business practices. According to advocates, however, the Stockyards Act is especially poorly enforced due, in part, to the fact that the Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture are jointly responsible for its enforcement.

Meanwhile, poultry growers point to what they perceive as collusion among members of the poultry cartels:

When I started growing chickens in 1995, I bought land and moved sixty miles from where I grew up. I moved to the broiler capital of our state. I did this thinking that if I had a reason to switch from one integrator to another, I could. After a few months into the business I realized that the integrators have an unwritten pact with their “sister” integrators – “You don’t take our growers, and we won’t take your growers.” – Andy Stone

 Equally sinister is the fear of retaliation that can deprive any grower of his or her income. As Kay Doby described it:

Another ugly reality in poultry is that growers are often intimidated by company personnel.  Growers that are here today know they are taking a big risk by being here and especially speaking about how things are done in the contract poultry business.  I had a grower tell me that he was complaining to company personnel about the quality of chicks he received and the answer he got was, “You know, you should just be glad you got a job.”  The grower got the message real quick, since the company he grows for has over 160 poultry houses sitting empty and the growers have no way to pay the loan payments.

According to Patty Lovera of Food & Water Watch, who attended today’s hearing:

Many areas have only one or two chicken processors, which leaves growers few options except taking whatever contract they are given.  When companies have this much control over the food supply, they make all the decisions, and farmers and consumers pay the price.

Today’s meeting was the second in a series taking place this year in which the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Agriculture are hearing public testimony on antitrust issues in agriculture.  The first, held on March 12 in Ankeny, Iowa, focused on issues facing crop farmers.   The next hearing is scheduled for June 25 in Madison, Wisconsin, and will focus on the dairy industry.

You can read recommendations for reform of the US poultry contract system in testimony submitted to the Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture.

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Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

COOKING
On Monday, as a lead-up to the conference, I acted as one of the judges for the Healthy Schools Campaign Cooking Up Change contest, in which 3 high school finalist teams, and two college finalist teams competed to create the best (tastiest, most innovative, and in line with school purchasing and IOM nutrition standards) healthy school lunch.  Any of you who have been following our Time for Lunch campaign and the battle in Congress right now for more money for school lunch know that making a healthy and delicious school lunch for only $1—what’s left after overhead & payroll—is incredibly hard. The kids were articulate and adorable and cooked up some tasty treats! The highlights for me were a chicken breast crusted with pesto and, yep, corn flakes; a cornbread casserole with beans, cheese, and tomatoes; and the winner, a meal that included a tepary bean quesadilla!  You can read an interview with the kids here, and please note that their supremely delicious beans are a Slow Food Ark of Taste product.

GROWING
I kept hearing about this beautiful movie, “Grown in Detroit,” and the amazing and inspiring school that lies at the heart of the film.  Tonight I got to see the movie, as part of a conference-run movie night complete with Applegate Farms hotdogs (delish), popcorn and root beer.  I left the theatre with a DVD clutched in my grasp, to show to all of my friends and colleagues, and anyone else who wants to borrow it. Catherine Ferguson Academy, run by Asenath Andrews, the principal we all wish we had, is a public school in Detroit for pregnant teens and their babies.  The school has a farm ( a “big garden with animals” says Andrews), one that teaches lessons in life cycles, business, biology and hard work; that provides revenue for the school and its students; and that brings fresh, delicious food into a community that finds these foods in short supply.  Food is the palette here for myriad learning opportunities—including, as one girl mentioned at the talk-back after the showing, that by taking care of these farm animals she learned about taking care of her own daughter. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Ms. Andrews, the beautiful and thoughtful girls both in the movie and on the panel tonight, and about this movie, which you can see by going to this web site and paying what you can (how cool is that?), or by organizing a screening in your community.

View full post on Blog: Slow Food USA

Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

Omar opens a coconut en route from Manzanillo to Punta Mona

My reflections and photos will have to wait for me to catch up on all that has been left on hold while I’ve been gone, but for the moment, some pressing news and some more personal updates. The pressing first: it’s been raining where we were in the Talamanca region of Costa Rica. Really, really raining. Bridges out, cities closes, mudslides, crops destroyed, people displaced, homes flooded, utter destruction kind of rain. This introduced some difficulties for me and my friends, but our troubles were a speck of dust compared to the struggles that people in that area of Costa Rica and Panama have and will continue to face. The indigenous people who live in the Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica have been particularly impacted. Also, in Yorkin, another area occupied by the BriBri people, the entire water system, septic system, lodge and communal kitchen have been wiped out. Their crops are completely destroyed as well. USAID is providing relief in Costa Rica and in the impacted areas of Panama as well, but if you can give anything to help, it would surely be welcomed. In Puerto Viejo, where we stayed, many places were gathering donations of much needed food and water. The Association of Ecotourism and Conservation (you can contact Alaine at atecmail@gmail.com) has been bringing these donations to BriBri and is continuing to collect for the area. If you’ve ever enjoyed a trip to Costa Rica or Panama, here is a chance to give something back.

me with my adopted kitten, ‘Quilo
at the veg-owned Cashew Hill in Puerto Viejo

In other much less significant news, I’ve been delinquent in posting a link to the interview I did a while ago with the lovely Cathleen of Vegan Nutritionista. She’s been interviewing lots of interesting people from the veg-blog world and I am honored to be included. So, if you’d like to learn more about my vegan philosophy, soymilk preference, travel experiences, baking business, eating for immune system support, as well as my fondness for alpacas and pygmy goats, check it out here.

star anise and port ganache cupcake

And if the interview just isn’t enough, you can come see me this weekend at the Cultural Survival Bazaar in Boston. It is being held December 6 and 5 from 10-6pm at the Hynes Convention Center, 900 Boylston Street. I’ll be there both days with plenty of baked goods for sale.

yeasted sugar cake with muscato poached plums

Also for Boston-area folks, I’ll be teaching some upcoming classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. The first will be a winter desserts class where we’ll make things like the yeasted sugar cake pictured above as well as olive oil and anise cake with blood orange macedonia, spiced fig and apricot compote, black pepper apple galette with salted caramel sauce, and a variety of truffles. It’s being held on Saturday, January 31 from 11:00 am–2:00 pm at 42 Brattle Street in Cambridge. You can register here.

fettuccini alfredo with smoked paprika,
cabbage and green beans

I’ll also be teaching a cooking series where we’ll make a well-balanced main dishes from around the world that really show off all the different ways to incorporate plant-based proteins in your diet, including a chickpea polenta tart, white kidney bean and seitan stew in phyllo cups, fennel sausage and pear pizza, fettuccini alfredo, tofu laksa, cashew cheese endive and roasted beet salad, macadamia kibbeh, and tempeh sambal. It will start on March 9th (the day after my birthday, take note!) and you can register for it on the CCAE website.

Hasta luego, amigos.

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Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf

Car interior

Back seat

A blue truck used for public trans

Blue truck with people in it

View full post on La Vida Locavore – Front Page

Post from: Physician, Heal ThySelf