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Philadelphia 
Fri Apr 23, 2010 at 14:15:11 PM PDT
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( - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Thought this was appropriate to crosspost here because a big part of this issue is clean water, which is an essential part of sustainability and agriculture.
This Earth Day, while an oil rig was burning and sinking and spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico, I joined a small band of protesters during my lunch break to tell the government to stop a similar crime against nature, one that is taking place in my home state of Pennsylvania. There are no offshore oil rigs here, of course, but the new and dangerous method of extracting natural gas through fracking is becoming a larger and larger threat to our water, our land, and our climate. And Pennsylvania is ground zero.
So I took to the streets at a Green Party-organized protest. We stood outside the regional Department of Environmental Protection and made our voices heard.
(Go below the fold for more info on the protest, fracking, and what you can do, including upcoming actions.)
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Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 22:12:01 PM PDT
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Tonight was my first "real" stop on my book tour. That is, it was the first event I've done away from home. And, it was a fantastic meetup of food bloggers from this site around from around the web. Anonymous Bosch gave me a tour of a few parts of the city and of his home and garden today (I've got pictures to share later). Then we picked up blogger Natasha Chart of Change.org, who is busy personally proving why we need universal health care (she's limping around on a sprained or broken foot in quite a lot of pain), and headed over to the home of LeeN. Dinner was provided by LeeN (with a bean salad and home made bread from Anonymous Bosch). It was all vegan, mostly gluten free, and 100% delicious. Best of all, several of the fruits and veggies were grown in the gardens of LeeN and Anonymous Bosch. Yum!
From there we rushed over to the Big Blue Marble Bookstore (or hobbled there, in the case of Natasha), where we met bloggers Debtors Prison, Theran, and Tom Laskawy of Beyond Green and Grist. I was worried about whether or not the bookstore would have a CRT monitor or other things that give me migraines (they didn't), but unfortunately they had Natasha's worst nightmare: stairs.
I gave a talk, which seemed to be well received. There was an elderly lady in the front row who had THE MOST expressive face. I wish I could take her on the road with me and put her in the front row everywhere I go. It's hard to talk to a group of people when they are just totally deadpan because you can't tell if they are interested or bored, agreeing with you, disagreeing, or just totally lost.
Towards the end of my talk, a Q&A began somewhat spontaneously, and I think that went well. I can see how things might get ugly in the future though, if (for example) an animal rights activist and a farmer are both in the audience and both interested in speaking up. In this case one woman asked if we should all stop eating meat. Another man spoke up that he was a farmer. Uh-oh, I thought. If one person thinks that it's never OK to kill an animal and another person kills the animals he or she personally eats, that's just not something that can be compromised on. And that sort of thing is rather close to home - some people REALLY cannot agree to disagree about it. The woman mentioned factory farms and growth hormones, and both the farmer and I said "OH NO! Don't eat that!"
My take on meat is that I don't see any reason whatsoever for anyone to eat factory farmed meat, but if we're talking about humanely and sustainably raised meat, then I'm not going to tell anyone not to eat that. Obviously it should be eaten in appropriate quantities if you do choose to eat meat - not only because excessive amounts of meat are not good for you but also because of what it displaces in your diet (fruits and vegetables). But I'm not a nutritionist and I'll leave it to the professionals to say whether it's good or bad for you to eat meat. And I'm also not God, so I can't make anyone else's decision about whether animals should be killed for us to eat them. Neither the farmer nor the woman seemed too offended by my answer. Disaster averted. I think, anyway.
After the talk, I signed a few books, and then went out for beers at Earth Bread + Brewery with Tom Laskawy. If you're ever in the Philly area, GO THERE. And be thirsty!
Thanks Tom for arranging tonight's event, thanks to Big Blue Marble Bookstore for hosting me, thanks to Natasha and Chris Bowers for letting me crash with them here in Philly, thanks to AB & Mrs. AB for their lovely hospitality all day today, and thanks to LeeN for having us all over for dinner (and sorry we were late and then a bit rushed). I'm sorry I won't get to spend more time in Philly because it's such a freaking great city and it's got a surprising concentration of really amazing people (especially people who blog!). Tomorrow I'm headed to Lancaster. And I'm happy about that because I LOVE AMISH PEOPLE! (Seriously... Witness was a totally great movie, and I read this book about the Amish in my freshman anthropology class in college...)
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Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 16:01:44 PM PDT
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A little over a week ago, I wrote on that day's sampler platter:
The USDA is cutting off Philadelphia's "Universal Feeding" school lunch program. The program waives the requirement of filling out paperwork and automatically guarantees free school breakfasts and lunches to children at schools in poor areas. Compared to schools that require paperwork to qualify children for meals, Philly's schools boast nearly twice the participation rate. Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Janey Thornton said it was unfair for kids in Philly to get free food without extending that to children nationwide. Well... why not extend this program to schools in poor areas nationwide then??
As this news broke, PA Representatives Fattah and Sestak and PA Senator Casey met with Tom Vilsack to oppose the USDA's decision. Sestak said at the time he was drafting legislation to continue Philly's Universal Feeding and to extend the program to other cities.
Today, we've got good news! Philly's Universal Feeding Program is saved! And not only that, but we can expect to see legislation from Fattah as well as Sestak to expand the program nationally. Fantastic!
UPDATE: Arlen Specter just introduced this bill that would continue the program through the 2012/2013 school year.
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Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 19:00:00 PM PDT
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Monday morning of the Community Food Security Coalition conference, I was hanging out with my new friend Taj and he said he wanted to go on a field trip. I hadn't planned on going, but the conference rooms all had projectors set up and those give me migraines. Therefore, I decided maybe a field trip would be a good idea. So off we went.
The trip was to a program called Philabundance Community Kitchen. They train adults in culinary arts, providing them with the necessary support and life skills they need to succeed.
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Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 16:00:00 PM PDT
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Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting Reading Terminal Market with a friend from high school who is doing his PhD at Penn here in Philly. Somehow, despite growing up in a town I've heard news anchors call "conservative strongholds in the midwest," we both came out liberal.
The market, founded in the 1800's, allows no chains as vendors - and many vendors are Amish. I took a few pictures while enjoying a coffee there, and drooling over the chocolate covered bananas sold at an Italian bakery.
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Wed Aug 06, 2008 at 06:50:06 AM PDT
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( - promoted by OrangeClouds115)
An article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer is touting the new non-profit organization Common Market here in Philadelphia. Its goal is to link local farmers to Institutional buyers such as hospitals and universities, which evidently is not so easy to do in our current food distribution system.
Farmers and food-service managers said the Common Market could play an important role in continuing the momentum gained by local-food advocates in recent years.
Many high-end restaurants are big buyers of local produce sold at a premium, and farmers' markets are thriving, but the overall impact on the food industry has been slight because it is hard to hook up local farms with local institutions that buy much more than a typical household does.
"The Common Market is a new frontier for locally grown because it's targeting the institutions and some of the other things that just haven't been as convenient," said Lancaster County farmer Steve Groff, who is selling tomatoes and raspberries through the Common Market.
"I can't go to Philadelphia with my truck and make 15 stops with two or three items that I might grow," Groff said.
Produce buyers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and Cooper University Hospital in Camden said they were thrilled with their weekly deliveries of peaches, green beans, cucumbers and other items.
The hospital food purchasers said buying locally was part of their broader effort to serve healthier food.
Mary Grant, assistant director for production services at Jefferson, said she tried last year to get local produce through her main food distributor. "It was a trial for them and a trial for us," she said.
Dealing with the Common Market has taken all that frustration away, Grant said, and to her relief as a purchaser on a budget, "pricing is extremely comparable to the big guys." She has placed $1,000 orders with the Common Market.
The project has been in the planning stages for three years, thanks to several grants from the state and from the Claneil Foundationand finally started up last month. They hope to be financially self-sustaining by next year.
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Sun Jul 27, 2008 at 21:13:51 PM PDT
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OK, on this fine Sunday, everyone is posting the goodies picked up at their local farmers markets over in today's open thread. Well, I picked up some peaches, plums, apricots, tomatoes, several varieties of cucumbers, some asian pear butter, and some lavender honey on my shopping trip. Wish I could share it with you, but the intertubes don't work that way.
However, I had my camera with me, so I can share some pictures, if you follow me below the fold...
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