Archive for June 2018
List Of Fast Food Frankenstein Concoctions Unfairly Includes A Cheese Dip From Chipotle?
Chipotle’s location at Stuyvesant Plaza (opened nearly 10 years ago), close to the State University at Albany, is a very busy one
The busy counter at the Stuyvesant Plaza Chipotle with an employee in his black Chipotle t-shirt on line for his dinner
A take-away Chipotle Carnitas salad bowl, deconstructed: brown rice, black beans, and delicious carnitas plus fresh lettuce (option for added cheese and salsa declined): $7.60 of fast food packaged in a brown paper bag labeled As Real As It Gets For 25 Years and noting Bye, Bye GMOs.
The cafe at the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, NY has a delicious hot foods buffet, an excellent alternative to typical fast food operations; our dining directories include listings for cafes at food cooperatives throughout the U.S.
Honest Weight’s deli/cafe also offers made-to-order sandwiches
Much Appreciated: Ingredients are carefully described for the dishes served at the Honest Weight’s Hot Buffet
It was big news for the Capital District of New York when Chipotle Mexican Grill decided to open its first upstate New York fast food operation in the Albany metro area, now nearly ten years ago. The All Over Albany blog post publicizing this news back in 2009 noted that Chipotle’s food is good –and it seems like the company makes an effort to not be evil. And in 2018 the company still seems to maintain its values, which appear to go much further than a modest effort to not be evil. Clicking on Chipotle’s website reveals at the top of its home page a tab labeled Food With Integrity that describes its uniqueness in the fast food industry.
The dictionary definition of integrity is spirits-raising: adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. The commitment articulated by Chipotle on what it means by food with integrity is closely aligned with this dictionary definition and is impressive (particularly for a fast food operation, competing in an industry focused on ever increasing profits for shareholders):
Day after day we’re committed to sourcing the very best ingredients we can find and preparing them by hand. To vegetables grown in healthy soil, and pork from pigs allowed to freely root and roam outdoors or in deeply bedded barns. We’re committed because we understand the connection between how food is raised and prepared, and how it tastes. We do it for farmers, animals, the environment, dentists, crane operators, ribbon dancers, magicians, cartographers and you. With every burrito roll or bowl we fill, we’re working to cultivate a better world.
So it came as a bit of a surprise to see a recent article, The Excesses of Fast Food’s Marketing Binges by reporter Tiffany Hsu in the print edition of the New York Times (6/23/18) include Chipotle in a list of six fast food chains, plus Starbuck’s, which are engineering s0-called Frankenstein dishes and drinks in their test kitchens. (This same article on-line on the newspaper’s website has the more descriptive heading of Meat Wrapped in Meat, Doughnut Sandwiches, Want Some of Fast Food’s Big Ideas?) Reporter Hsu goes so far as to write that these fast-food Frankensteins are meant to provoke; many don’t test particularly good. . . But even notoriety draws attention, which can bring in curious customers.
No surprise to this advocate for local and organic food (and knowing how, where and when your food is grown and produced) that Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Double Down, McDonalds’s McRib, Dunkin’ Donuts’ Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich, Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Tacos, Pizza Hut’s Hot Dog Bites Pizza made the NY Times reporter’s list. And Starbuck’s cookies, cereals and candies inspired by it pumpkin spice latte making the list was not a big surprise. But Chipotle appearing on this list was not so easy to process.
What prompted Chipotle’s inclusion? Reporter Hsu’s answer is its Queso, described as a long-requested cheese dip heralded by the company as an all-natural mix of 23 ingredients without the industrial additives common in other versions which was recently quietly adjusted in response to derision that it was grainy and tasteless.
But how is this a Frankenstein concoction? Too many ingredients might be the reasoning, perhaps, since 23 ingredients to make a cheese dip does seem wondrous. But it does not seem quite fair that Chipotle should be lumped in with the Frankenstein concoctions engineered by the other fast food chains, which Hsu writes, use focus groups, scientific engineering, marketing campaigns, and generous helping of sugar and salt to create the potential hit.
Then again, with nearly 2500 locations, now worldwide (in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as the U.S.), Chipotle has become a huge operation. It will certainly be challenging for Chipotle to please shareholders, desiring ever increasing sales and profits, and at the same time not impair its commitment to food with integrity.
(Frank W. Barrie, 6/28/18)
The New England Farm Depicted In an Artful Summer Exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum in Lyme, CT
Art and the New England Farm at the Florence Griswold Museum in Lyme, Ct will be on exhibit through 9/16/18
Florence Griswold inherited her family’s home, along with its debts, and survived by taking in artists as boarders, who put down roots as the Old Lyme Art Colony
Art and the New England Farm is on exhibit in the Griswold Museum’s modern Robert & Nancy Krieble Gallery, which opened in 2002, and where the permanent collection is also showcased
Cultivated English hay on top (Edward Volkert, 1871-1935); a load of salt hay depicted in the bottom painting (Mathias Allen, 1871-1938)
Flowering fruit trees: Childe Hassam’s Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme (1909) and on the right, The Orchard at Griswold Farm (1916) by Lucien Abrams
John Henry Twachtman settled into self-reliant, rural life in Lyme and painted his daughter feeding chickens under her mother’s watchful eye
Thomas Nason’s wood engravings are artistic highpoints of the exhibit, including A Deserted Farm (1931), which he would slowly rebuild, living out the principles of self sufficiency, closely identified with rural New England farm life
This summer’s exhibit, Art and the New England Farm (May 11-September 16, 2018) at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme (New London County), Connecticut confirms the museum’s importance as a destination for art lovers. Located on the southeastern Connecticut coast at the mouth of the Connecticut River (halfway between New York and Boston), the museum has its roots in the Old Lyme Art Colony, which was at the center of American Impressionism at the beginning of the 20th century. At its height during the first 30 years of the 20th Century, 200 painters passed through the colony of artists.
A brief history on the museum’s website describes a twist of fate. Florence Griswold, the youngest child of a once prosperous sea captain inherited the family home along with its debts. To survive, she chose to take in boarders.
Fortunately, during the summer of 1899, one of her visitors was Henry Ward Ranger, a New York artist looking to establish an art colony in the New England countryside. Under Ranger’s leadership, Old Lyme was, for a time, designated the American Barbizon. With the arrival of Childe Hassam in 1903, the focus of the artists colony shifted from Tonalism to Impressionism and became known as the most famous Impressionist artists colony in America, the American Giverny.
The Griswold family home was transformed into the colony’s boarding house, with the property’s barns and outbuildings turned into studios for artists. Grateful for Florence Griswold’s hospitality, artists painted on the walls and doors of the house, and this extraordinary artwork is preserved within the Florence Griswold House today, making the building itself one of the most important aspects of the collection. Also extraordinary is this summer’s carefully curated exhibit, Art and the New England Farm.
The Florence Griswold Museum is a perfect venue for this summer exhibit. The Griswold family long pursued small scale agriculture, and one acre of the 15 acre property was a cultivated fruit orchard of 40 trees (plum, peach, cherry and apple). The artists who boarded with Florence Griswold feasted on delicious fresh food from the property’s small farm.
Kudos to Curator Amy Kurtz Lansing for the informative and detailed labeling of the exhibit and artwork. Credit and recognition is suitably given to James Kent (1867-1931), the Irish born farm manager and the hired (mostly immigrant) farmhands, for their contributions to the sustenance of the artists colony. Artists must eat, and the Old Lyme Art Colony painters ate very well indeed.
The paintings, wood engravings, drawings and photographs, included in the exhibit, are not only the work of artists associated with the Old Lyme Art Colony. The oldest painting, circa 1800, Ezekiel Hersey Derby Farm by Michele Felice Corné depicts the 110-acre (18th century) model farm in Salem, Massachusetts. And 21st century photos by Judy Friday show what goes on at a small New England dairy farm, Tiffany Farms in Lyme, season by season, in order to produce milk.
A painting spotlighted in the exhibit, Seven Miles to Farmington, circa 1853, by George H. Durrie, is also the subject of a praiseworthy online learning resource developed by the museum (and supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services) to connect art and history in the classroom. The mysteries behind this iconic work of American art are explored with the intent of changing the way the viewer (of any age) sees this Durrie painting.
One emphasized detail of Seven Miles to Farmington is the canal in the background, which dealt a blow to New England agriculture by reducing the cost of shipping farm products from the west. In a recent book review of Homegrown Whole Grains by Sara Pitzer posted here last month, it was noted that upstate New York was the breadbasket of America until the Erie Canal in the early 19th century opened up the vast and fertile Midwest to cultivation.
Past farming traditions such as salt haying, dependent on old-fashion methods since harvesters waited for dry summer weather and low tide to gather hay from the coastal marshes, are depicted in beautiful paintings. Working against time to cut the grasses and pile them on to gundalows (flat bottomed scows) that could be floated to a farmer’s land, was labor intensive since mechanized equipment could not be utilized.
And the exhibit demonstrates that at the beginning of the 20th century with the establishment of the Old Lyme Art Colony, local agriculture in Lyme and its environs was in steep decline. The exhibit includes images of New England agriculture as hard scrabble and lonely. Thomas Nason’s wood engraving, A Deserted Farm (1931) depicts farm ruins he purchased and would slowly rebuild while living out the principles of self sufficiency, closely identified with New England farm life. Similarly, John Henry Twachtman bought a 17 acre farm he discovered while touring abandoned agricultural properties. Twachtman’s painting of his daughter feeding chickens under the watchful eye of her mother is notable.
Despite the decline in agriculture with the exodus from New England farms to cities or western lands, there are the inspiring paintings of fruit trees in bloom and an enticing still-life of Strawberries (1888) by Charles Ethan Porter. The informative label notes that Porter’s strawberries were a reliable new variety called The Wilson, which allowed large scale production of the delicious fruit.
Art and the New England Farm is an exhibit to savor. A trip this summer to the Florence Griswold Museum in Lyme on the Connecticut coast is highly recommended.
(Frank W. Barrie, 6/19/18)
Peach Farmer David Mas Masumoto Receives Organic Pioneer Award From Rodale Institute
A serendipity to discover Masumoto peaches for sale at the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, NY after borrowing Mas Masumoto’s The Perfect Peach from the local library
Masumoto peaches ready to ripen up for a couple of days with Mas Masumoto’s The Perfect Peach, borrowed from the Albany, NY public library
After a couple days of ripening at room temperature, a juicy, sliced Masumoto organic peach
The Rodale Institute’s Organic Pioneer Awards honor a (1) farmer, (2) research scientist, and (3) business who are leading the good food movement towards an organic planet.
This year a third-generation farmer, David Mas Masumoto who grows organic peaches, nectarines and grapes for raisins on the 80-acre Masumoto Family Farm, south of Fresno, California, received the honor from the Rodale Institute. Farmer Masumoto in accepting the award noted that he was honored to be part of the Rodale family of pioneers as we all work to build a healthy world and that he shared the award with all those who have worked the soil and organic peaches, nectarines and raisin grapes on our family farm, including all the life above and below the ground—I live in their shadow of wisdom and excellence.
The scientist who was this year’s recipient of the Rodale Institute’s Organic Pioneer Award, William Liebhardt, is a soil scientist, dedicated to understanding various farming systems and their impact on soil fertility. Mr. Liebhardt is a former Director of Research at Rodale Insitute and the former director of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program at the University of California, Davis.
The business which received the 2018 Organic Pioneer Award was Nature’s Path (based in Richmond, British Columbia). Nature’s Path utilizes 5,500 acres of regenerative Canadian farmland (near Duck Mountain in Saskatchewan), has earned Zero Waste Certification for all three of its factories (including one near Milwaukee, Wisconsin), and continues to advocate for agricultural practices that go beyond the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Certified Organic standard. The company’s founder and co-CEO, Arran Stephens has helped shepherd the growth of the organic movement for more than 50 years.
Mas Masumoto has been recognized before for his remarkable accomplishments: in 2013, as the author of nearly a dozen books, he was appointed by President Obama to the National Council on the Arts. And on learning about these awards by the Rodale Institute, this organic and local food advocate decided to search his local library’s catalog for books written by Mas Masumoto, a name that was only slightly familiar to an upstate New Yorker, 3000 miles from the agricultural riches of California.
A major civic enrichment for my hometown of Albany, NY is the remarkable and well-used Albany Public Library with its six branch libraries and a main library spread around a small city of 100,000. An electronic search on-line of the library’s catalog, showed the availability of three books by Mas Masumoto: The Perfect Peach: recipes and stories from the Masumoto family farm (2013); Wisdom of the Last Farmer: harvesting legacies from the land (2009); and Four Seasons in Five Senses: things worth savoring (2003).
The decision to borrow The Perfect Peach from the Albany library became a wonderful serendipity. A culinary enrichment offered by the small city of Albany is the Honest Weight Food Co-op. A stop at the Honest Weight Food Co-op’s produce department on the way home from the library made for a shock for this peach lover to see Masumoto peaches for sale. Coincidence or fate, whatever, $15.00 worth of the peaches found their way into the shopping cart. Cold and hard, I put faith in their tastiness with some ripening up on the kitchen counter. Voila! A couple days later, the pleasure of a delicious and organic peach.
With peaches ranked number six on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty 12 conventional fruits and vegetables to avoid, it was beyond wonderful that my hometown food co-op was stocked with the Masumoto peaches and there would be the sweet juiciness of organic peaches to enjoy in the days ahead. And with Mas Masumoto’s The Perfect Peach borrowed from the local library, a delicious peach recipe will be tried before too much longer.
There’s some slight dissonance in enjoying an organic peach from 3,000 miles away. But with the weekly deliveries of a CSA farm share from Roxbury Farm in Kinderhook (Columbia County), NY, a few miles south of Albany, under way for the season, no guilty feelings for this exception to the principle of eating organic and local. As a footnote, on this website, which promotes local and organic, with a spotlight shining on CSA farms, we also offer directories for organic and fair-traded tropical foods (coffee, tea and chocolate) that are sourced from afar.
(Frank W. Barrie, 6/13/18)
Heifer International Incubated a CSA Program, Now Expanding In Arkansas, Which Moved Up Ten Spots On The 2018 Locavore Index
More than 75% of Heifer International’s proceeds directly support its programs and it has earned GlobalGiving Leader Status from Charity Navigator
Last week, we reported on the results of the seventh annual Locavore Index compiled by the Vermont-based local food advocacy organization Strolling of the Heifers. A map of the United States, picturing the results, uses dark green to designate the top ten and brown to designate the bottom ten. The state of Arkansas (population 3,004,279) shows the most pronounced improvement in its ranking, moving up 10 spots from last year’s index to an overall ranking of 35. On the map depicting the 2018 rankings, Arkansas has turned to tan from last year’s brown. Bravo!
A review of the seven different data sets used in the rankings for Arkansas indicates that if it were to improve its farm to school participation, where it is now ranked 51 out of 52 (in addition to the fifty states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico are included in the rankings), it would further substantially improve its ranking.
Heifer International, the non-profit organization, describes its mission as Working with communities to end world hunger and poverty and care for the Earth. The organization’s motto, A Cow, Not A Cup, is rooted in the teach a man to fish philosophy of its founder, Dan West, a farmer from the American Midwest.It works to empower families in three specified ways: by training people in sustainable farming, helping farmers gain access to the market, and helping women develop leadership skills so that they can have access to greater opportunities such as education and entrepreneurship.
For more than 70 years, the organization has partnered with and helped communities in 125 countries. On its website, a world map shows the countries around the world where it has sponsored projects. In the United States, Heifer USA has helped to create two successful farmer-owned cooperatives in Arkansas (as well as similar farmer-owned enterprises in Appalachia). These cooperatives provide shared services such as marketing, packaging, distribution, credit and loan services.
Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative based in Clinton (Van Buren County), Arkansas is a small-batch meat company delivering monthly shipments of responsibly raised meat to the customer’s door. Its vision is to restore consumers’ confidence in their food. And New South Produce Cooperative (formerly known as Foodshed Farms and incubated by Heifer International’s USA Country Programs) is a group of family farmers dedicated to growing great food while caring for the Earth and giving back to the communities of the eight family farms that are part of the cooperative.
New South Produce Cooperative’s fresh certified organic and certified naturally grown produce is distributed to participants in its CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program at 15 pickup locations around Northwest & Central Arkansas. Its summer CSA program is full-up, and it is now signing up participants for its fall 2018 CSA program.
Kudos to the two Arkansas farmer-owned cooperatives and to Heifer International which incubated this positive change in Arkansas. It raises the spirits to see farmer-owned businesses becoming financially viable and self-sustaining.
May brown turn to tan and hopefully some day to green for more states on the Locavore Index’s map.
(Frank W. Barrie, 6/8/18)
#1 Green State in U.S. Reaching Out For New Residents
Vermont’s Stay to Stay Weekend Program encourages visitors to learn about opportunities to live full time in the Green Mountain state
Vermont Ranked #1 on the 2018 Locavore Index compiled by Strolling of the Heifers
The enviably green, eco-conscious New England state of Vermont (population, 623,657) has been promoting Stay to Stay Weekends, defined by its tourism office as three-day lodging and networking packages for visitors interested in becoming Vermonters. Future weekends include one in mid-summer, August 10-13 and one in the fall, October 19-22. The purpose is to connect guests to employers, entrepreneurs, and potential neighbors in three specified local communities around Vermont: Bennington, Brattleboro and Rutland.
We have long noted the impressive standing of Vermont as a green state with its strong commitment to protecting the environment demonstrated by the extraordinary number of community supported agriculture farms committed to organic and conservation agriculture while also building community. Our directory of CSAs in Vermont lists a remarkable 60 farms. And a recent exhibit at the Vermont Historical Society, Freaks, Radicals and Hippies: counterculture in 1970s Vermont, rightly emphasized that the American local and organic food movement, now so vital across the United States and Canada, had its beginnings, in some good measure, in the back-to-the-land movement, which was a big part of the counterculture in 1970s Vermont.
The results of the seventh annual Locavore Index recently announced by the non-profit, local food advocacy organization, Strolling of the Heifers are another indication that Vermont deserves its reputation as the greenest state in the U.S. The organization’s Locavore Index ranks the 50 states (plus Washington, DC and Puerto Rico) in terms of their commitment to local food. Seven different data sets were researched and compiled in creating the rankings. Vermont again tops the list, as it has since the first Locavore Index was compiled in 2012.
The rankings for 2018 are not the result of any bias of Strolling of the Heifers, based just north of Brattleboro in East Dummerston (Wyndham County) in Vermont. According to Orly Munzing, executive director of the organization, Strolling of the Heifers is all about the idea that growing and consuming local food is better for everyone. The Locavore Index is how we track and encourage more efforts in every state to spread the benefits of healthy local foods and strong local food systems. The top ten (in order) for 2018 were Vermont, Maine, Montana, Oregon, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Wisconsin and Rhode Island.
A map of the United States (including Puerto Rico, shown as an island off the coast of Florida) uses dark green to designate the top ten and brown to designate the bottom ten with the weaker commitment to healthy local food. Might some states at the bottom of the rankings seek to turn their color on the map from brown to green or at least to a shade of tan? The bottom ten (starting with the lowest ranked state) are Texas, Nevada, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Utah, Alabama, and Illinois.
The seven different data sets used in the rankings are (1) farmers markets per capita (weighted 10%), (2) CSAs per capita (weighted 10%), (3) farm-to-school participation rank (weighted 15%), (4) food hubs per capita (weighted 5%), (5) direct sales by farmers to consumers (weighted 25%), (6) USDA grants for local food production, specialty crop block grants, farm-to-school grants, and farmers market promotion grants, per capita (weighted 20%), and (7) hospitals serving local food (weighted 15%). The state of Vermont was ranked #1 in each category except for farm to school participation where it ranked 9th and in the USDA local food grants category where it was ranked 4th. The state of Rhode Island was ranked #1 in farm to school participation, and North Dakota was #1 in USDA local food grants per capita.
While Strolling of the Heifers is best-known for a weekend of events built around an agriculturally-themed parade, featuring well-groomed heifer calves led by future farmers (that takes place this year June 1-3 in Brattleboro), the group has focused its year-round programs on economic development work in the farm and food sectors, with the specific goal of creating jobs by working to foster small business entrepreneurship.
Need a pick-me-up? Check out the You Tube video created by Caleb Clark of the 2015 Strolling of the Heifers parade.
(Frank W. Barrie, 6/1/18)
