Food Banks

As much as I enjoy the latitude to write about renewable energy, green building, recycling, and the whole varied realm of more sustainable living, every so often I can't help but focusing the Green Views from the Peninsula column on food issues.

Last Saturday, my article on the Second Harvest Food Bank ran.  It highlights the fundamental green-ness of all gleaning programs, preventing food from being wasted. Green initiatives, like using hybrid trucks, or solar panels, or high-efficiency refrigerators, are really icing on a very healthy cake.

All over the country, food pantries and feeding programs take on this challenge. If my food bank distributes 45 million pounds of food a year, the vast majority rescued from being plowed under or sent to landfills, imagine what the totals for the United States must be. Staggering as it may be to realize how much food is available in a country where so many can't be sure of their next meal, it helps to know how hard program staff and millions of volunteers work to make certain that as much as possible reach our neighbors who need it.

A Dickens Tea

High tea at Dickens Fair

One of the loveliest things about a Victorian holiday party is having tea in the parlor. In this case, at the Dickens family home. The table was laid with buttered scones, jam fingers, little tea sandwiches, and more.

A proper tea isn't just about the food, of course. Good company is key. We so very much enjoyed meeting the Fezziwigs, Clara Peggity, Miss Georgina Hogarth, Davey Copperfield, and Mr. Dickens and his son. Oh - and Mad Sal - once met, never forgotten. Many thanks also to Thomas and the staff.

Fezziwig Feast

As you may recall, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Ebeneezer Scrooge to a holiday party at the warehouse of the Fezziwigs, a lovely couple who employed him as a young man. Each year, all the workers attended, played games, sang songs, danced to a live band, and enjoyed a feast.

Sumptuous buffet at the Fezziwig warehouse

The Dickens Fair recreates this event, letting visitors enjoy a taste of all the traditional entertainments. Well, except the food and drink. The table is laid to display a spread suitable for a real Victorian holiday party; but for actual edibles one must venture into the streets of London. Fortunately, pubs are plentiful and chestnuts are roasting right on the corner.

Save me, Oatmeal!

That candy jar on the counter. Those leftover meeting treats in the lunch room. The bag of Cornnuts lurking in my cupboard. It’s just too darn easy to graze all day without thinking.

Steel-cut oats with apple chunks

In the late morning and the afternoons during the cool months, I see more and more co-workers leaving our shared kitchen with a steaming bowl of oats. Some are pre-cinnamon and sugared, some plain from a tin of instant, some cooked at home and re-heated in the microwave.

My oatmeal snack is always steel-cut oats, slow cooked at home on the weekend and ready on demand at the office. Since I buy the organic oats in bulk at the grocery, each serving costs less than a nickel. The cooked oats themselves have no sugar and no fat but quite a bit of fiber and vitamins. A cheap, convenient, super food.

But I don’t gravitate towards a bowl of bland virtue, ever. What attracts me so many mornings and afternoons is the lovely texture – a mix of creamy and chewy – and the blank canvas for flavor. Often I am satisfied with just butter and a touch of salt. Or a drizzle of honey, with chunks of fresh apple and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Or a dollop of jam. Or a spoonful of peanut butter. Sweet or savory, only imagination and available ingredients limit the options.

However I serve myself, I’m always grateful for the satisfied taste buds and nice level blood sugar. Best of all, my bowl of comfort keeps me safe from the mindless snacks I don’t actually want but can fall prey to if they sneak up on me when I’m hungry and unprepared.

Gluten-free Pumpkin Pie Crust

Pumpkin pie with pecan crust

When the days shorten, I start to crave orange foods. Roasted butternut squash, baked sweet potatoes, pumpkins in Thai curry . . . and pumpkin pie. Or pies.

This year, I planned to default to simply baking the filling in ramekin dishes. That is yummy, after all. But Basha would not give up on the quest for a crust that would properly complement the filling.  She found a recipe for a pecan pie crust that is not only gluten-free but also low carb and low sugar. And it went really well with the pumpkin and spice flavors.

The only tricky part of making the pecan crust is deciding how small to mince the pecan bits in the food processor. In the end, I had to taste-test two separate pumpkin pies. Both were delicious; but apparently neither was perfect. Before the days begin to lengthen again, I'm going to have to test more attempts. Somehow, I will make it through the season.

Popping Corn

Ever wonder how corn goes from juicy and crunchy on the cob to hard, dry kernels ready to pop? It doesn't!

Popcorn on the cob, drying

Popcorn, a variety of flint corn, is hard when you harvest it. It lacks the soft starch that makes sweet corn such a treat to eat fresh.

If you buy a cob of popping corn freshly picked, it will need at least 2 months of drying time, even though it seems like the kernels are dry and hard already. On the plus side, as long as you store it in a dry place, it will last as long as you like.

When your kernels are ready, you can make gourmet popcorn in the microwave, on the stove-top, or in an  air popper.

Food by the Boatload

When visitors to Venice complain about the high cost of meals there, I don't hear much recognition of the effort it takes to get food into the city. Yes, prices are higher at restaurants that cater to tourists. And yes, the two-tier pricing system, for drinks and snacks taken al banco (standing at the bar) v. with table service requires decision-making that Americans are unaccustomed to.

Boat on Venice canal unloads to produce stand

But the high price of food overall is not a racket, despite the assumptions of many shocked travelers. Four euro for a can of Diet Coke! (Or 1.50 on the street.) Two and half euro for a single avocado! Seems exorbitant, until you consider what it takes for edibles to reach the neighborhood shop or cafe.

Everything that makes it to the city's interior streets  finishes its trip by handtruck, in small loads with a person attached. That person hand-lifted each parcel off of a small boat that fit through the small canals.

What actually surprised me, given the logistics, was how affordable many staples remained. We had an apartment with a nice kitchen, and so were able to pick up rice, polenta, fresh fish, salad greens, and wine on our strolls through various neighborhoods. The comparability in pricing of some basics to grocery prices at home made me realize how much of our food costs go to the overhead that large stores carry. By practicing those savvy shopper skills we often forget at home, we ate simpler, fresher meals that we lingered over and enjoyed tremendously. That really took the bite out of the occasional restaurant bill.