The Boy, He Suggests We Drink Milk From Grass Fed Cows

"What do you mean everything is made out of corn?"

"Well, what do the cows eat?"

"........corn?"

"And the chickens?"

"Corn!"

"And when the cows eat the corn, their bodies are made of corn, so when we eat the cows, our bodies are made of....."

My boy covered his head and laughed for a bit and threw up his hands "CORN!"

"And milk is made of"

"CORN!"

"And we're omnivores, which means what?"

"It means we eat EVERYTHING"

"YES! And if we eat only one thing it's terrible for us."

"But dad!"

"What?"

"Country Dairy, when we went there for our school field trip....they said their cows only ever eat grass!"

"Really?"

"YEAH!"

"I had no idea."

"Yeah! So maybe we should buy their milk!"

"Yeah...let's do that."

The house I've long admired down the street, the small one with the huge lot that used to have a pile of logs in the back and boxes of wood with a sign on it saying "Wood $3. Good size pieces" -- the one that now has a solar array and a chicken run in the back. It has a sign along side the road that says "Fresh eggs."

This may be just the opportunity I've been looking for to snoop on the home owner's land and talk to him. OH! And buy some local eggs.

Time to make ye olde sauerkraut

Looks like I'll be making sauerkraut over the weekend along with some canned green beans. It helps that I actually enjoy sauerkraut and other cabbage based foods. There's something earthy and basic and delicious about it. It reaches back to some buried Nordic place in my DNA, a thousand years ago. It's a day in the middle of a dark, frozen January in a one room thatched roof stone hut where my stout Nordic wife reaches into a barrel and pulls out a wad of sauerkraut. She squeezes out the brine and drops the mound of saurkraut on a wooden plate with some organ meat sausage or some salted herring or something. There's a crackling fire in there somewhere.

Still not sounding good?

Well, fine then.

Your loss.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Cabbage. So far I've harvested about five heads of cabbage from the garden. I may pull out a couple more come the weekend. That should make a few quarts of the stuff.

I can't help myself. I just like it. Plus I have a fascination with it. It's really pretty amazing how easy it is to make. Guide the natural processes in the right order and you can preserve mass quantities of cabbage all winter with very little effort. It's as though it was meant to be. I eat it raw or cooked, with or without organ meat sausage.

On the downside, making my own sauerkraut has done exactly the same thing for me as making my own bread. Now the store bought stuff tastes funny.

I'll need to make a lot.

You're doing something right when your 7 year old requests broiled trout

I've been on a fish kick lately.

For breakfast I had bluegill caught from an inland lake a couple miles away and a half head of fried, shredded cabbage from my garden.

For dinner we're having broiled lake trout.

Why broiled lake trout? WHY broiled lake trout? Because my SEVEN YEAR OLD REQUESTED it, that's why.

Today is my second time in my life using the Broil setting on our gas range. So far seems pretty simple and very fast. Put the fish in for 10 minutes, at most, take it out, paint it with whatever sauce you've prepared and you're done. Not bad.

I used to fry just about every fish I ate. I have to say, the new methods of preparation I've been exploring have made all the difference. I prepared my bluegill this morning in a light helping of olive oil on a pan with white pepper and parsley flakes. It was awesome. Tonight I'm making broiled trout with a sauce that's made out of lemon juice, butter, parsley flakes, white pepper, and salt. Also awesome.

I've been trying to eat more fish and less beef. And so far I seem to be successfully cultivating a taste for it in myself and my boys. Yum.

Renaissance of the Local Farmer's Market, Doing an End Run Around Corporate America

Here's another example of a tectonic shift in America toward progressive ideals from the grassroots COMMUNITY level as we do an end run around the large corporate interests and the factory farms.

I don't know about you but I find it wildly encouraging to know that farmers' markets are rapidly growing in popularity nationwide. There's something basic about it. Basic and organized. These aren't just disparate farmers selling their zucchini and cherries in rickety plywood stands along dusty dirt roads for a little extra pocket money, anymore (put a dollar in the can, take a couple of cucumbers).

These are mostly local farmers banding together to sell their produce at fair rates direct to the consumer. And to add and extra layer of competition, a growing number are offering organic foods and free-range meats.

One of my favorite stories and a HUGE local success story is of a fourth generation fishing family in Muskegon opening up a new, local market to compete and survive. It was started by one of the younger fishermans' wives who called her stand at the farmer's market "The Fishmonger's Wife" and they sell fresh, locally caught Lake Michigan whitefish right there at the Farmer's Market. It is WILDLY successful and the only market access Muskegonites have to the locally fished whitefish.

Here's a wonderful chart from the USDA showing a rapid 17% jump in the number of farmers' markets nationwide from 2010 to 2011, the largest 1 year jump since the USDA started recording these types of things:



Michigan's number of farmers' markets alone grew from 90 in 2001 to 336 in 2011.

You know I love to brag: Muskegon has had a farmers' market for a long stinkin' time and is among the largest farmers' markets in the country. Home is always best of course...but the variety of foods is fantastic. These folks in this pic grow, dry, and sell their own brand of beans (Fun Fact: Michigan is America's #1 producer of black beans):




With the national growth in farmers' markets, the drumbeat of calls for redirecting Federal investment from factory farms to smaller, more local farms is growing louder and with quite a bit more economic force behind it as Americans show their willingness and ability to buy locally produced foods from local farmers.

The Union of Concerned Scientists cited U.S. Department of Agriculture figures showing the number of farmers markets in Michigan grew from 90 in 2001 to 336 in 2011. The group wants the federal government to invest more of its agricultural funding in local markets, rather than industrial farming.

Nationally, farmers' markets more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, growing from 2,863 to 6,132, according to the group.

"On the whole, farmers markets have seen exceptional growth, providing local communities with fresh food direct from the farm," Jeffrey O'Hara, author of the report and an economist with the Center's Food and Environment Program, said in a press release.

"If the federal government diverted just a small amount of the massive subsidies it lavishes on industrial agriculture to local markets, it would generate thousands of new jobs in Michigan, and tens of thousands of new jobs across the country."
Citing Congressional Budget Office figures, the group said the USDA last year spent more than $13 billion to assist large industrial farms while investing less than $100 million in local and regional food system farmers.
A Michigan Department of Agriculture analysis concluded that if every Michigan family spent just $10 weekly on locally produced food, it would circulate nearly $37 million in the state economy, the group said.

From The Detroit News

When times get tough, people don't just SIT AROUND waiting for things to change or waiting for our bickering representatives to fix things...our communities go out and do it ourselves. It would go a lot faster if our elected representatives listened to us and what we wanted and helped us move in that direction. But no matter...when we choose to change, we can make it happen.

Canning My Scant Harvest of Heirloom Tomatoes

I'm afraid my camera is broken, folks. I'm starting to feel a little self conscious that I've been using primarily stock imagery...and I'd love nothing more than to show images of my Lake, my Dunes, my City...

...one thing, this year, I'm a little glad not to have to take pictures of is my organic garden. I expanded it to about 600 square feet this year and planted over 40 heirloom tomatoes and so far, mid August, I've got almost a quarter of a bushel of tomatoes to show for it. Not a lot. I've been whacked by a fungus, and my green beans were attacked by some sort of bugs...I think grasshoppers. My tomatillo plants are producing small fruit. And everythign else seems a bit stunted. So far the watermelon plants look okay and the acorn squash plant is producing some acorn squash. My cabbages are doing okay. I've got about 25 to 30 of those.

Anyway...tonight, I'm canning tomatoes. I've got some amish paste tomatoes and some Sheboygan tomatoes and I'm going to can 'em on up so they don't go bad on me. It will make me feel good to know that at least I canned SOME of my tomatoes, even if it's not the torrent of food I had been hoping for.

Doing Your Heart Some Harm Never Did Your Heart So Much Good

Don't lie. You love your local greasy spoons, and take maybe just a wee bit of pride in the teeny weeny chains that have maybe 3 or 4 restaurants in your local area. Sure, maybe the food isn't ALWAYS "good" in the traditional sense. But it's local. It's familiar. It's home.

The local fast food burger place still uses generic, unbranded hamburger wrappers, has the crinkle cut fries, and the generic cups with the art deco circles and zigzag design, crafted by a graphic designer back in 1953 and just reproduced forever.

But they've also got local favorites you just can't get at the big places like McDonalds, or Burker King, or Wendy's. They've got a fried perch sandwich. They've got their own version of an olive burger. And they still make their own hot dogs with their own recipe from a local source, and their apple pies still come from the restaurant owner's apple orchard handed down from his grandfather.

They're there in the background, and have been your whole life. And you eat there from time to time because maybe...MAYBE there's just ONE thing on that menu that you can't live without. Or maybe, you just go because your grandmother took you there when you were small, and it's comforting to sit amidst the smells and the decor that hasn't changed in decades.

And very likely you've heard the story of how the business started. And perhaps you know the people who work there by name. And maybe they call you honey. And possibly they feel comfortable enough around you to step in for you and tell your young kids that no, they don't get pie/ice cream until they eat their food.

Maybe you don't go there often...but if it disappeared, a part of you would miss it.

This week...Mr. Scribbs Pizza is Fifty Years Old. Good god that's some wonderful, greasy pizza.

Happy Birthday Mr. Scribbs.

Why not go out and patronize your favorite local fast food place today? Maybe it'll do your heard a little harm, but you know it'll do your heart some good, too.

Veggie Sloppy Joes that Kids Will Eat

While we watch DC struggle with eating its peas, many of us focus on the more immediate question of how to make own own children eat their actual peas. Or asparagus. Or broccoli. Or green beans. Or arugula.

The answer to the latter is simple: Sloppy Joes.

I've come to appreciate the notion of Sloppy Joe's for dinner ever since I came to the revelation that ketchup and or tomato sauce and or worchestershire sauce makes just about everything taste the same.

I make my slopppy joes with 60% to 80% green veggies, and 40% to 20% ground beef, and my kids not only don't notice....they request it.

Here's what you do:

1. Pull out any veggies you've had sitting around in the freezer or the fridge and chop them up into fine bits: Asparagus, bell peppers, onions, peas, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, etc....

2. Chop them as fine as possible.

3. Dump the chopped veggies into a pan and saute them in a glob of butter.

4. When the chopped veggies are soft, add a fistful of ground beef. Or not. Fry it up until it's brown.

5. Dump in some worchestershire sauce, and then the tomato sauce or ketchup until the whole pan looks like it's vaguely cooked meat colored.

6. Serve it on a hamburger bun. I serve it with beets, because my kids are insane and love beets.

SUGGESTION: For added fun, refer to it as a "Sloppy Pierre" This will hilarious for the whole family, for different reasons.

7. Read a chapter of The Three Investigators and then put your children to bed.

8. Watch a couple episodes of Dollhouse on Netflix, alone or with your spouse.

And that's it! Easy.

I've got one word for you. Aquaculture.

I've got one word for you. One word.

Aquaculture.

Not the marine type of aquaculture with floating cages that breed diseases for wild inhabitants. Rather, the land based fish farms that can help to meet the demand for fish, and the need for healthy food, while relieving pressure on wild fish populations.

Aquaculture.

I've recently been on a kick of finding the relatively small things that can have a big impact on social mobility, and agricultural policy is one of those things. If we're reinventing our economies and looking toward the core principles of Making Things...food production is a critical cornerstone. Why are regions in urban decline reaching toward urban farming? Because it's a fundamental building block of a healthy society and economy.

It also all fits into the whole eat local, buy local, produce local thing.

Now, back to aquaculture. The Michigan agricultural director has recently cited aquaculture as an important means to diversify the state's economy, and grow a little known but very important state industry: agriculture. In many states, including the state of Michigan, moving in to this industry takes only a few minor tweaks to the regulatory framework.

Say, did you know Michigan ranks 2nd in diversity of crops, and leads the nation in the production of all sorts of crops from black beans to tart cherries?

We do! We're an agricultural state. With lots of water. So of course there's a growing interest in farming fish and other marine foods here.


Let met talk a little bit about lake perch.

Lake perch is $14.99 a pound here in Muskegon if you buy it fresh at a store. That's a little strange since people fish for it here. Drop a line into the water for half a second, you'll catch a bluegill. Go ice fishing, you'll catch lake perch. Yet, it's crazy expensive stuff to buy, and the stuff they sell at the store is from Canada. Not because it's bad to eat here. To the contrary, some (not all) local restaurants sell locally caught lake perch.

See...the Canadian stuff is farmed, and can reliably meet demand...and folks here in Muskegon can't seem to get enough of it. Every local restaurant in town has its own fried lake perch sandwich. Whitlows has some of the best, but Handsome Henry's has a pretty fantastic one.

Now...one would think that a place so perch crazy would farm the stuff here. But we really don't. Instead a favorite local food is subject to a constant assault of competing invasive species, and the fish seem to get smaller every year. So to meet demand...we import some of it. It travels hundreds of miles to our plates. Something we could very well do right here

Aquaculture is the confluence of many things that strike my interest: a local food source that reduces the need for transportation, a new industry for a limping economic region, and a sustainable industry that conserves existing ecosystems.