La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
It's been a few weeks since Obama tapped former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to head the USDA. The immediate consensus sounded to me like "it could've been worse" from just about everyone I spoke to, but now there are a number of different opinions online so I think it is useful to take a look at several of them together.
Yes, Bill O'Reilly, I said holiday gifts. The war on Christmas 2009 is ON. A fantastic post today by Kerry Trueman reminded me that it would be nice to showcase a few favorite "foodie" gift items you may be interested in for your loved ones. She quoted something I said in bringing our annual pilgrimages to malls and big box stores into context:
I have been buying stuff for my family members throughout the year, to give them to them at Christmas/Hanukkah. Decorative wine bottle stoppers, Christmas tree ornaments, satchels of lavender, artisan made soap... I've been accumulating them in my closet all year. Now I feel I'm just adding to the load of things my loved ones will some day leave behind...
...Maybe I'm just being morbid, but this sad experience of trying to resurrect my brother with his stuff and utterly failing has affected my view of the holiday season. Instead of buying people more stuff, here are some ideas I've come up with: donations/trees planted in their names, theatre or ballet tickets, art, massages, and food. I would add to the list soaps, lotions, and candles but only if the person will actually use them.
Sorry for my fixation with death but that's what happens when you lose your 23 year old brother and best friend suddenly, and all that is left of him is a room packed to the brim with 23 years worth of stuff. All of a sudden I'm realizing that the best gifts I can actually give my family are kindness, laughter, and love. All of the stuff we often feel obligated to buy just doesn't matter in the long run.
Another favorite gift of mine is food. The wonderful thing about local, sustainable food is that it tastes great so no one minds receiving it as a gift. Last year I gave my family a Family Farm Defenders Fair Trade Gift Box and they loved it. They went on and on about the cranberries so much that I think I'll send them some more this year. For those closer to the left coast, I'd also recommend Jackie's Jams (award-winning jams made from mostly organic fruit from local San Diego farmers), Petrou Foods olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or Spread's gourmet peanut and almond spreads.
Last but not least, this year all of my loved ones who live in an "edible" community are going to receive subscriptions to Edible Communities magazines. It's a family of magazines, each produced locally within the community it's about, telling the story of that area's agricultural and culinary traditions.
Kerry Trueman took the New York Times to task for their recent negative coverage of the locavore movement in her HuffPo piece "NY Times Grumps Dump on Locavores". Well done Kerry! Here's a bit of what she had to say:
The New York Times giveth, and the New York Times taketh away. On the one hand, Nick Kristof's eloquent plea to treat our farm animals more humanely moved me to tears. On the other hand, I've barely got enough digits to count the noxious "let's not save the planet" columns that John Tierney, Stanley Fish, and Stephen J. Dubner have tossed off in recent weeks like rancid croutons.
John Tierney--the thinking man's John Stossel--delivers his trademark contrarian drivel with 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List, in which he gleefully skewers a whole herd of sustainable sacred cows: plastic bags, plastic water bottles, food miles, the Arctic meltdown, and so on.
She also brought up an article that pissed me off to no end, Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores? Well, there's only a very short time within the long history of life on earth that anyone was NOT a locavore. Clearly it worked pretty well when everyone on the planet at locally and seasonally. But the writer of the article made a bad yet expensive batch of homemade local ice cream and because his experience pissed him off, he thinks locavores are dumb. Well, buddy - just because you suck at making ice cream doesn't mean the rest of us can't do our part in fighting global warming and enjoy eating great food as we do it.
Way to go Kerry! Great reply to the New York Times. Now if only their grouchy writers will read it :)
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