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Shedding light on a permaculture farm: Review of “Bioshelter Market Garden”
As small farmers look for ways to cut costs and increase their profit margins, they focus more attention on the energy used on the farm. Whether they implement energy efficiency measures or find ways to produce home-grown energy
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Slow what?: Review of “Slow Gardening”
By now, I’m sure that all good Ethicurean readers are familiar with Slow Food and the tenets of this movement: the pleasure of good, clean, fair food and
For Labor Day: Farmworkers’ Rights Still in the Toilet
Cross-posted from the TEDxFruitvale blog. (Why? Read this.) Today
Bounty hunters: A review of two new local-foods cookbooks
As the local food movement expands and the numbers of small farms, CSA programs, and farmers markets increase, so grows the crop of cookbooks aimed at helping people make the best use of that
“A beautiful bowl of glory”: Rancho Gordo’s Steve Sando on beans, trade, and the tortilla project
Steve Sando (right) with Félix Martinez Gomez and his family, near Cuicatlan, Oaxaca. They grow chilhuacle chiles, essential to so many Oaxacan dishes but rare now thanks to several years of disturbed weather patterns. International trade can wreak havoc on small farmers and the global food culture:
On the trademarking of ‘urban homesteading’: The Original Best Most Complete Post on the Subject™
By Mat Rogers, Director of Agrariana Language and terminology are an integral part of the food movement. Making distinctions between agricultural practices deemed vile and reprehensible, in favor of methods moral and healthful, is a critical organizing
Getting plowed: Kristin Kimball’s captivating “Dirty Life”
Kristin Kimball on her farm in Essex, N.Y. Photo by Deborah Feingold The first time I heard of Essex Farm, I was working a kitchen/garden internship at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont. The school sent me to the Northeast Organic Farming Association’s 2009 conference, where I carefully
Looking for Mr. Goodfish: Chefs aim to expand our seafood horizons
In the chapter on New York in Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe comes down hard on the Big
Book review: Appreciating Elizabeth Andoh’s “Kansha”
Elizabeth Andoh is a prominent figure in my cooking consciousness. Her 2005 book, Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen, opened
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San Francisco sustainable restaurants have a blind spot for seafood
In an ideal world, when a restaurant tells you that it serves “sustainable seafood,” you could have some faith that the claim is true, that the chefs and buyers know exactly what they are getting and the issues around how it was caught. The seafood situation in the famously eco-friendly San Francisco
Tipping sacred cows: Reviewing “Meat: A Benign Extravagance”
Mainstream culture and news abound with broad statements about our food system and the choices we make about what we put on the dinner table. Surely you’ve heard that if you want to save
Two cookbooks give winter vegetables a starring role
The temperatures have plunged below the freezing point, the first major snow of the season has blanketed the ground, and winter is officially here. Baby, it’s cold outside,
Life as a give-a-shit-atarian: On loving peas, beets, and Tom Robbins
Self-identification is one of those never-ending challenges that occupy humans. Even highly self-aware people seem to spend a lot of time defending
I am woman, hear me store: Review of “The Complete Root Cellar Book”
Now that the farming season is winding down along with my energy levels, I find that I’m really grateful that the food preservation method I lean on most for the produce harvested
Cooking outside my comfort zone, Part 2: Fresh chickpeas
Last week, I vowed to escape my farmers market rut and cook outside my comfort zone in honor of National
