An Act of Subversion?

Since I love the idea that I might be a bit of a rebel, I really enjoyed this quote from "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan:

"To reclaim this much control over one's food, to take it back from industry and science, is no small thing; indeed in our time cooking from scratch and growing any of your own food qualify as subversive acts."

Where You'll Find Green

Popular Science put together a list of America's Greenest Cities, based on survey data and stats in 30 categories that basically boil down to how well the city deals with electricity, transportation, "green living" and "recycling and green perspective."

I was happy to find Chicago in the top 10. It might seem surprising to people who are not familiar with the Windy City, but Mayor Daley is a green devotee. The U.S. Green Building Council is headquartered here, and some of our city buildings were some of the first to have green roofs.

Here's the top 10:

1. Portland, Ore.
2. San Francisco
3. Boston
4. Oakland, Calif.
5. Eugene, Ore.
6. Cambridge, Mass.
7. Berkeley, Calif.
8. Seattle
9. Chicago
10. Austin, Texas

Don't Drink the Water

As just one more piece of evidence that we are slowly poisoning ourselves, check out this recent AP report:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031000621.html?tid=informbox&sid=ST2008030901877

The time to care about our water supply is now. Don't think you're safe if you're drinking bottled water, either. In addition to creating a whole lot of unnecessary waste, you're also just drinking tap water that someone spent energy to put into a plastic bottle.

Juxtaposition

It's negative three outside today. I am sitting at the breakfast bar, looking out the window at my rhododendron...or is it an azalea? I'm so bad with flowers, I always mix them up. Anyway, it stays green all winter, but on days like this, the leaves curl up and fold themselves down like they're trying to keep the plant's branches warm. It looks lonely there. And cold.

And as the temperature dips about as low as we've seen this year (I saw a cool graphic on the weather section of the news last night showing how this air originated in Siberia and made its way across the polar ice cap to get here, making this a true arctic freeze), I'm thinking about making my order for tomato, pepper, eggplant and onion seedlings. Because the seed catalogs arrived the same week as Christmas, and I've been drooling over new introductions, weighing the pros and cons of ordering from someone new, or going with the tried-and-true providers. This year, I know that if I lose a plant or two, I can just head out to the farmer's market or the nursery and replace what I've lost with a locally bought seedling, but mail ordering increases my options. The tomatoes and peppers pictured here came from nursery-bought plants last year, after all.

So I think I'm going to go with Burpee's hot tomatoes selection, mainly because I can't resist those white cherry tomatoes (white?), along with Seeds of Change's Farm Favorites, because they added Cherokee Purple to the mix, and I think Cherokee Purple might be the best-tasting tomato ever developed.

For eggplants, I'll probably go with Harris Seeds, because they're the only supplier offering a nice package that marries a traditional eggplant (the big black-purple teardrop-shaped thing) with some smaller finger-shaped eggplants and some white ones.

I'm still debating whether I want to try onions. After all, it's pretty cheap to pick them up at the market...and the varieties you can grow aren't all that different from what you'll find in the produce section. Still, I'm tempted because I've never grown them before...and growing something new is always a treat.

At any rate, it's nice to sit inside the warm house as the temperature dips, thinking about veggies that grow their best in the hot days of summer.

A Tip to All You Aspiring Writers Out There

This is a bit off-topic, but I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and wanted to weigh in on what I think might be one of the laziest writing habits around: beginning a story with a definition.

Yes, as in, Webster's defines "writer" as "one that writes," but we all know that there's so much more to writing than writing.

Please. Use your imagination. Use your creativity. Don't use the dictionary to create your lead.

Rocket!

By now, most people are familiar with arugula, and have eaten it at some point, even if they didn’t realize it at the time. It tends to be a standard in some of those bagged mesclun mixes you can buy at the store.

People have been eating arugula a long time. It’s native to the Mediterranean region, where it grows wild, and people have been eating it at least since Roman times. They ate the leaves, just like we do. They also used the seeds for flavoring oil, and believed the plant had aphrodisiac and medicinal qualities.

Check out this article from The Sierra Club: “Food for Thought: Beyond Wheat, Rice and Corn” . The introduction describes how arugula was brought from the wilds around Pompeii into the prominence it enjoys on our salad plates today. Actually, the article isn’t about arugula. It’s about the loss of diversity on our dinner plates. It’s a great, and quick, read. I didn’t know this, for example: “Wheat, rice and corn alone account for half of all calories” consumed by humans. Yikes!

But back to arugula…

A mustard relative, the leaves are a good source of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and potassium. Like most of the brassicas, it has plenty of phytonutrients, which can help reduce the risk for some kinds of cancer.

Arugula likes it cool, so it’s on its last legs in my garden right now, though I’ll be able to plant a fall crop and get plenty more greens in September, October and probably even November and December. (With a cold frame, you can really grow arugula year-round, from what I've read.) Once the weather starts to get hot, the leaves get a little less spicy and a little more bitter, as I discovered when I made my dinner tonight.

Arugula is a quick grower and virtually care-free in the garden, so it’s wonderful for first-time gardeners who like the taste. In less than a month, you can pick your first leaves for a salad, a sandwich topping or to stir into a soup. Dressed with a bit of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, it’s absolutely delicious. And my personal favorite way to prepare arugula is to cook a bit of fettucine, then return it to the pot with a bit of the cooking water and stir in some younger arugula leaves, cherry or grape tomatoes and goat cheese over low heat until the greens wilt and the cheese melts. Toss in a few toasted pecans, add a few twists of freshly ground black pepper (tellicherry is my favorite), and you’re good to go. Quick and easy to eat, just like it is to grow.

Arugula is called “rocket” by some people. Who knows why? Maybe it’s because of the way it blasts out of the ground.

John Scheeper’s Kitchen Garden Seeds describes the flavor of young arugula leaves as “mild, but zingy” and “radish-like.” Others describe the flavor as “nutty” and “spicy.”

It’s not just the leaves that are edible. I’ve not yet tried eating arugula flowers, but I plan to pick them as soon as the blooms open this year and try them out. Scheeper’s describes the flowers as “sweetly tangy in salads.” They're not only beneficial to your salad bowl though. They also attract beneficial insects to the garden, as I noticed last year. Hoverflies, in particular, seemed to be drawn to the arugula flowers. So don’t be afraid to let them bloom to their heart’s content. They're pretty, tasty, attractive to beneficials, and--who knows?--you might just create your own garden's wild crop of arugula that returns every year...just like it grows wild around Pompeii.

Daily Suspense

I love this time of year in the garden. It seems like every day brings something new, and I progressively get more and more excited as I wake up in the morning and anticipate my first of many daily walks through the garden.

On the weekend, I usually wake between 6:30 and 7 am, when Wrenna stirs in her crib. Her bedroom window looks down on the garden, so I usually catch my first glimpse from her room after her diaper is changed.

Then I look out the window next to the bathroom, a bit closer, as the garden is right outside it.

Then I put my shoes on and ask Wrenna if she wants to take a walk in the garden. She'll run up to the door saying, "Gar, gar, gar," and off we go. What will we discover?

Weekdays aren't quite as fun. Wrenna's not with me, and I get out the door around 5:30 for those first few glimpses. But no matter which day it is, there always seems to be something to discover.

On Friday, it was flowers. Everything seemed to be in bloom: tomatoes, peppers, the tomatillo, the cilantro (alas!).

On Saturday, it was the Italian Romano pole beans that popped out, and--maybe?--the first celery seedling. (It could be a weed. It's still too small to tell, and since I've never grown celery before, it's hard to identify.)

Yesterday brought loads of new green faces to the garden, with the first sightings of corn, delicata squash, zucchini and mesclun (mostly mustard greens).

This morning, in the pre-dawn light, I saw the first Howden pumpkin seedling popping up, along with Yellow Crookneck squash, Sunburst patty pan squash, and the first of the basil--Sweet Genovese, which has that classic pesto basil flavor. And, I noticed that the tomatillo--whose flowers I only just noticed on Friday--actually seems to be working on its first fruits!

And the cool thing about a work day (hey, you've got to find SOMETHING positive to say about a Monday) is that I'll be away from the garden all day, so when I get home, there could be a whole new round of surprises in store.