book review: the third plate by dan barber

I first encountered Dan Barber when I watched the TED Talks Chew on This collection through Netflix. He's the co-owner and executive chef of Blue Hill restaurant and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, but his talk was something of a precursor to this book.

Now, I've read a lot of food books. A ton of books on food systems highlighting the problems with our current one and people's visions for the future. So while I expected the book to be well written, since Dan Barber's TED Talk was, I didn't expect it to really say anything new.

Well, I was wrong.

I knew after reading the intro that this book was going to be different, and I was not disappointed. The Third Plate has the audacity to challenge the farm-to-table movement - one I personally hold dear - and question what it means to support farms and sustainable agriculture. By "third plate," Dan Barber is alluding to his vision of where cuisine is going for the future. (He came up with the idea as a response to a reporter who asked him where the future of cuisine was going.) The first plate is a traditional American meal of a large, corn-fed steak and baby carrots. The second plate is a farm-to-table plate of a grass-fed steak with heirloom, organic carrots. But the third plate is a carrot steak, with a side of beef seconds (the more obscure cuts).

What in the world is he talking about?

He realized that as a chef cooking in the farm-to-table philosophy of cuisine, he was still cherry picking what he wanted for ingredients - ones that were often expensive to produce and not the best for soil management and long-term sustainability. Our food culture dictates that farmers grow what will sell - not what is better for the land. And it extends to livestock - we throw away many usable and edible parts of animals that we raise for food, all in a quest for more boneless, skinless chicken breasts and beef tenderloins. 

Through four sections organized around soil, land, sea and seed, Barber profiles various farmers, fishermen, bakers, seed managers and more in an attempt to explain what is missing from our current food culture and how we can get on a path toward a more sustainable future.

Barber argues that what we need is a food system organized around the whole system of agriculture - and most perhaps most difficult for us to wrap our heads around - is that we can't always get what we want. He calls on chefs to start cooking with other types of foods that are the most important for soil management - certain grains and vegetables that return nutrients to the soil. In essence, chefs need to create the market demand for the items that the farmers need to maintain their land to sustain its health. The idea is that once the chefs start a trend, it can morph into our home kitchens. Which, if you think about it, makes sense - think about what chefs have done for pork belly and brussels sprouts.

This book has fascinating new ideas and a comfortable writing style - definitely for the person who feels like they've already heard it all when it comes to food systems and sustainability. You'll also get a healthy dose of information about international cuisines and agriculture (including the story of some of the world's only foie gras that is not from force-fed animals). It's optimistic, but logical and realistic, which was a tone I really found refreshing. Gives me hope that there are visionaries who are really getting to the heart of what needs to happen to ensure sustainable agriculture. 

And it really makes me want to try a carrot steak... 

the real threat of antibiotic resistance

It's been awhile since I wrote about the kinds of food issues that get me hot under the collar, for lack of a better phrase. My time for reading up on current issues is severely limited in the summer, for a lot of reasons, but primarily the amount of time spent dealing with vegetables and also running like it's a part time job in marathon training.

But at the end of July, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals
overturned two rulings in cases which had directed the FDA to stop the routine use of certain antibiotics in healthy animals unless drug manufacturers proved the safety of such use. (Source, Majority Opinion, Dissenting Opinion)  

This means that even though the FDA admits that the use of antibiotics in healthy animals to promote growth and weight gain contributes to antibiotic resistance in humans, they can't do anything to stop producers and commercial livestock companies from using subtherapeutic drugs for healthy animals. They issue voluntary guidelines, which are about as effective as me calling Cargill's customer service department and asking them to stop using antibiotics in healthy animals.

Here's the facts.  

• 2 million people in the U.S. alone are infected by antibiotic resistant bacteria each year
• 23,000 people in the U.S. DIE from these infections each year, in addition to the many who die from illnesses complicated by antibiotic resistant infections
• Leading health organizations from across the nation and the world - leading organizations and not just wacky health food hippies - have spoken out against the use of antibiotics in livestock. To name a few - the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Medical Association, American Society for Microbiology, American Academy of Pediatrics. 
• The Director General of the WHO: “Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. The problem arises when drugs used for food production are medically important for human health, as evidence shows that pathogens that have developed resistance to drugs in animals can be transmitted to humans.”

This isn't fringe science. There's no real debate in the scientific community that this is a major public health problem. We are running out of antibiotics that are effective in treating many serious infections, and it will change the face of modern medicine if we can no longer stop common infections.   

But our own government organizations - the ones that are tasked with protecting the health of Americans - won't stand up to industry and force them to reduce and eventually eliminate their reliance on subtherapeutic antibiotics. None of us want to revisit the world of our ancestors, where a scratch could easily kill you.

So what do you do? Beyond making public comments when they are open and supporting legislation that would push for stricter regulations?

Stop eating meat that comes from animals raised with antibiotics. 

I realize that I'm blessed to be able to buy meat from local farmers who do not use subtherapeutic antibiotics in their feed. But I can tell you right now that if tomorrow, my sources were no longer there, I'd give up meat altogether.

More and more suppliers are producing meat that's antibiotic free, and prices are coming down as demand begins to grow. If you do one thing to change your diet to support health as well as a better food supply - do this. Save antibiotics for when you have a real infection - and not just when you're having dinner.    


 

garden update: early August

Really the subtitle of this post should be "all the green tomatoes" because primarily, that's what we've got going on in our garden right now.

Yep. And there's more.

These ones look almost like pears or peppers.

This is just a tiny snapshot of the tomatoes we have going on right now. You can imagine the scope of the tomato issue when I show you that this is what the tomato beds look like right now.

Yeah... It's kind of a jungle. We don't win awards in this house for aesthetics, that's for sure. But in just a few weeks we will likely be up to our eyeballs canning tomatoes and making salsa. I'm not complaining because they taste pretty great. The few that have ripened so far were made into the first batch of fresh tomato sauce (which we freeze) and it filled the house with the best smell - like the best of summer.

Beyond the tomatoes, the beans have been producing like mad. This was not even all of what I picked the other night. I had about another two bags of that size.

So the netting we have to keep the chickens out is still askew from me ripping it apart to get in there and pick. I was racing a thunderstorm that night so I was moving as fast as possible. Again, not winning any awards for aesthetics.

None of our cucumber plants made it, but we have had so many cucumbers from our CSA and my grandparents' garden that I'm honestly kind of happy we don't have any more.

One really cool thing though, is this bed of sweet corn. 

It's so tall - and we're seeing some silk. Here come the ears!

It will be pretty awesome to have a few ears of corn from our own backyard. Crazy to think just a couple months ago these were just seeds. 

The chard is also still doing well. Big huge leaves and vibrantly colored stalks.

Last but not least we have peppers. Lots of those coming, of different types. Hopefully right around the time for salsa.

Late August is the peak time for us for gardening and canning, so I'm trying to stay ahead of the game with what veggies we're eating and preserving with a little white board on our fridge. 

How's your garden doing?

Real Life CSA: week 17

Lots of new stuff this week - more and more flavors of summer are showing up, and our kitchen is overflowing!

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. The variety we get with our Penn's Corner CSA has been fantastic. It hasn't allowed me to be sick of any one item, and it really gives us variety in our meals. I know people who eat the same things all the time - like literally the same lunch every day of their lives - and that is just not me. At all. Thankfully this CSA doesn't let you get in a rut with your cooking.

I've also started this week just making up some vegetable side dishes to have as snacks or extras to accompany my lunches at work. You don't have to make a fancy dish to get those veggies in. I bought a pint of golden cherry tomatoes from the Penn's Corner Farm Stand when I picked up my order of Crack (bread and butter jalapenos and honey puffed corn from Clarion River Organics). I ate half the tomatoes as a post-krav maga workout dinner and the other half pint as a snack the next day. Best impulse buy ever (so thanks, Penn's Corner lady who suggested them). 

So let's get to the goods.

When I saw the tomatillos, my first thought was salsa. But because we get such great tomatillo salsa through the winter from the Penn's Corner value added products, I thought I'd look up something else. So we will likely make a tomatillo simmer sauce from Marisa McClellan's Preserving By the Pint cookbook, which is for small-batch canning. Perfect for CSA amounts of vegetables. (Also, I met her at the Pittsburgh Canning Exchange's Rhubarb Social and she's lovely. Check out her other cookbooks if you're interested in canning, or her great website, Food in Jars.)

Lettuce will be the tried and true salad base for this week. Green peppers will likely go on salad, but since we have an abundance of peppers in our house right now from our own garden, my grandparents' garden and the CSA, I might have to figure out another option for those.

These peaches are a welcome treat, since peaches in western PA mostly didn't survive the winter. These peaches were obtained from a farm in West Virginia through the CSA, so I am grateful for them, fuzz and all. Speaking of which - do you eat the fuzz on peaches? I am a lover of the fuzz, but Mark hates it. 

We're going to try something new and make jalapeno poppers - complete with oozy cheese and probably bacon - with this bag of giant ones. We typically don't make junk food out of our vegetables, but there's a first time for everything right?

As for the baby beets, they will be finding a new home, because they are pretty much the only vegetables we just don't dig. Thankfully we know people who love them, so they don't go to waste.

The potatoes will be a side of some sort. I've been craving roasted potatoes with crisp skin for a bit, so I need to make that happen.

Last but not least, these leeks. Which are already gone. I made Mark Bittman's recipe for Chicken Not Pie from the Runners World cookbook last night for dinner. Great recipe to use up whatever vegetables you have around and the leeks really give it good flavor. I threw in some corn that we had and almost dumped green beans in too, but the pan was getting a little crowded. Pro tip if you make the recipe - add more seasoning than it calls for. A pinch of thyme isn't enough by far.

What's going on with your CSA? What are you making? 

other people's gardens: having a garden with an HOA

Having a garden in an urban environment isn't a cookie-cutter endeavor. There are often rules and limitations to work around. In the interest of promoting the idea that you can still garden in an urban environment, despite space or rule limitations, I bring you "other people's gardens" - which is meant to highlight ways that people garden in the space they are in. If you want to share information about your garden, email me at nextgenhouse at gmail dot com.

First up is a garden in a development of townhomes with an HOA. How do you garden when you only have access to one side of the actual building and have rules about what you can do on your property? Meet Amber (my best friend), living and gardening in a townhouse in Cranberry Township with her husband Anthony and two cats, Bruce and Malcolm.   

We love having a garden, but had to be a bit creative with where to have it, making sure to utilize the limited space that we have and are allowed to plant in, thanks to having an HOA. Because we're on an end unit we decided to make a raised garden bed on the side of the house. I started the project, but I'm a bit impatient and might have hammered some screws into place when the electric screwdriver wasn't cooperating with me (I assure you that user error wasn't part of the issue. At all). That's when Anthony stepped in and made it pretty with his mad skills. Here is the garden:

This is the third year that we've had a garden, and we tried this year to plant vegetables that we tend to use the most. We belong to Kretschmann's CSA and wanted to grow vegetables that would compliment our CSA boxes. Over the years we have planted watermelon, zucchini and eggplant along with our staples of tomatoes, peppers and basil. One year we planted pumpkins, but they took over the entire garden and spilled out of the raised bed. Basically that year we ended up with 2 pumpkins out of everything we planted.

This year we decided to plant bell peppers, wax peppers (which are HOT, in a good way), jalapeños, a plethora of tomatoes, kale, cilantro (which is exploding), chives and basil. We did have a rosemary plant that didn't make it much past the transplant to the ground phase. We purchased all of our plants this year instead of starting them from seeds. We purchased the majority of our seedlings from Brenckle's farm on Glen Eden Road (if you are in the area, check them out and support them).

As far as what to plant, because our space is limited, we have learned not to put vine plants in with everything else (those pumpkins sure taught us a lesson). Last year we planted zucchini in their own little space out back so they could grow and spread out as needed.

Ideally, it'd be nice to have our garden in the backyard where there's full sun, but we would have to get permission for it and there is too much adult/kid/dog traffic back there as it borders the common area.  I'd have to spend my days manning the garden and I think my boss would get annoyed by that.

Because of the angle of the sun on the side of our house, we've learned through trial and error that the tomatoes should go towards the back of the house. Last year we planted them near the front of the house and they grew tall and wide and blocked the sun from reaching some of our smaller plants.  This caused the poor basil to reach out to the sunlight.

We also have a small cherry tree and a blackberry bush, but they are still both very young and don't produce much yet. We just got the first 2 blackberries this summer!

I love watching our plants grow and there is a great feeling when you can walk outside and pick a vegetable or an herb that you need for dinner.

Before we had a garden, I sort of thought it would be overwhelming. There's the watering (this year we bought a weeping hose from Home Depot that really cuts down on the watering time), the weeding (mulch helps keep the weeds to a minimum as well as keeping the ground wet), the pruning and the harvesting. I wasn't sure what to expect on how much time it would take to tend to it. 

So far, it's been totally worth the time put in. I'm sure this is because I enjoy working in the garden and find it relaxing to do the upkeep (and I love that my hands smell like the plants after I've been in the garden). If you're thinking about having a garden but feeling overwhelmed, start by planting one or two things that you enjoy (strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers) and see how it goes. Once that isn't so bad, you can add more.

banner makeover: fox bear designs

If you're reading this on the actual Next Gen House site, you might have noticed the updated banner at the top.  

The animal members of Next Gen House are now accurately represented, having lost our cat Maggie in December and our first chicken in March, and adding our cats Stormageddon (February) and Vader (April).

The original banner and its update were created by Jessica Wysocki, a local graphic designer and artist and friend. Jess runs fox bear designs, her independent design business outside of her 40 hour a week day job. She's incredibly talented and I personally have great respect for her as someone who spends time cultivating her own skills and talents in her free time, even while working and commuting full time. I know first-hand how hard that is. 

Jess has two shops that showcase her designs, at Etsy and Society 6. 

Her Etsy store features not just prints, but those designs on jewelry like earrings and brooches and temporary tattoos. I particularly love this chives tattoo. 

In the Society 6 shop, you can get her designs on a million products. This mushroom mug is adorable.

And then there's this floral sketch, which also would make a cute tote bag or duvet cover (yes, you can order duvet covers! so cool!).

Right now, her Society 6 shop is offering free worldwide shipping + $10 off duvet covers when you use this promo link. You can always access her main site by the graphic on the right sidebar of the blog, too. 

Thanks for giving Next Gen House a facelift, Jess! 

canning and preserving: refrigerator pickles

I spent a good chunk of Saturday playing catch-up on chores, doing endless loads of laundry and generally getting things done. One of those things was dealing with some cucumbers that we had piling up. 

When you boiling water can pickles, you need pickling cucumbers for best results. Typically that should apply for refrigerator pickles as well, but I found last year that I could get away with regular cucumbers if I used Ball's Pickle Crisp. So I took as many leftover cucumbers as I could deal with and sliced them up on the mandolin.

The basic part of the brine for refrigerator dills is white vinegar. I have organic vinegar for food usage (though I wouldn't bother with organic vinegar for things like cleaning solutions or freshening a load of towels).

Some sugar and salt, plus a bunch of pickling spice get cooked down with the water and vinegar to make the brine.

While the brine cooks down, I prep the pint jars with the other ingredients. A halved garlic clove, plus a mix of spices, sit on the bottom, under the packed in cucumbers.

Once the brine is done, you add it to your large bowl of slices and let the cukes sit and soak for 30 minutes. After they've cooled down a bit, you pack them in the jars. (Those white granules you see are Pickle Crisp.)

Ladle brine over each jar so that the pickles are all covered and make sure there's 1/2" headspace on the top. Cap the jars and label them, and you're done! (I've been using the Ball dissolving labels this year, though masking tape has always worked fine for us in the past.)

The pickles take two weeks to be ready, and then are good for about 3 months. After that time, they don't necessarily "go bad" since they are basically soaking in vinegar. They just start to lose their crispness. (Because I'm giving a lot of these jars away, I mark the jars with the best by dates.)

Quick pickling is a really easy way to preserve a lot of types of vegetables, especially if you don't have the supplies, time or inclination to do full canning. Have you done any pickling this year?