Section » Agtivism: Growing, cooking, doing

Unlocking Genetic Diversity with the Backyard Seed Vault Project

By • on April 27, 2010

By Mat Rogers The 1979 children’s book Ox-Cart Man describes a colonial family who spends all year raising a crop and an ox, building the ox’s cart, and making mittens, brooms, and candles. Then the ox-cart man sets off to market to sell the crop and the mittens, brooms,

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Goldman Prize winners fight against CAFO pollution, shark finning and monocultures

By • on April 24, 2010

The Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded to six grassroots environmental heroes from around the world in San Francisco last Monday night. Three of the six 2010 winners are working directly in food-related areas. Lynn

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Monkeying around: Berkeley woman hires out fruit-picking primate

By • on April 1, 2010

I was eating breakfast at North Berkeley's Guerrilla Cafe the other day when I spotted a sign on the other side of

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‘Revolution’ off to contentious and hopeful start

By • on March 22, 2010

The ABC preview of "Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” Sunday night has me modestly hopeful that ordinary Americans — those largely untouched by the movement to improve diet and agriculture — might watch and learn. “Revolution”

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Yes, we can… and we relish it!

By • on March 20, 2010

Last Sunday, I started the day by catching up on email and blogs and stumbled through a link to a recent Slate article panning the art of canning. Deriding it as a "cultish hobby" loaded with "self-congratulation," author Sara Dickerman dismissed home food

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The water wars: California’s salmon vs. agribiz interests

By • on March 15, 2010

By Paul Johnson Chinook salmon fishing has been scaled way back in California. Photo: Zureks/Wikimedia I've been selling fish for 30 years, and I'm pleased that my store, the Monterey Fish Market, has a reputation for

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The ‘femivore’: New breed of feminist, or frontier throwback?

By • on March 14, 2010

Cross-posted from Grist, where I am serving as deputy food editor (part time). Have locavores and feminists -- factions that a few years ago, some

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The pie’s the limit! Get baking for Pi Day, March 14

By • on March 13, 2010

Back in my (much) younger days, I used to enjoy math class. I especially got a kick out of geometry and the formulas used to calculate area, perimeter or circumference, and volume. My mother and I used to have fun with one formula in particular: "What's the formula for the area of a circle?" she would

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The spirit is willing, and the fresh is weekly: Review of “A Year on the Garden Path”

By • on February 28, 2010

For the past few weeks, I've been watching the snow drift down with deceptive lightness, only to accumulate in deep piles (18" and counting here in northeastern Ohio) that have well and truly buried any remotely green thing on the ground. While it's lovely to sit inside and watch winter's show, I also

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Souped-up meals to warm up snow days

By • on February 14, 2010

Every time I've looked out the window this week, I've felt a childlike glee at the sight of all the snow piled up. A whopping 18" dropped in 24 hours last weekend, a few more inches covered that earlier this week, and more is in the forecast. I really sympathize with the folks further south (south!)

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Cultivating community in Ohio: Local Roots crops get sweeter in winter

By • on February 8, 2010

Three months have passed since my last update on Local Roots Market in Wooster, Ohio. Back then, were on the cusp of opening at last. What's happened in the meantime? A

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When times get larder: “Food Security for the Faint of Heart” reviewed

By • on January 31, 2010

The potential for disaster surrounds us every day. The aftershocks of the earthquake in Haiti may seem too big for many Americans to grasp,

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Grow-hio: Midwestern farmers rely on Eliot Coleman’s advice for cold-weather farming

By • on December 28, 2009

As winter approaches, even the most knowledgeable of local-foods-loving shoppers have wondered what fresh produce they will find over the winter months, and the opening of a year-round market here in Wooster has only increased the frequency of that musing.

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Words on the street food

By • on December 14, 2009

A sampler of dispatches from the street-food universe. What this got to do with Ethicureanism? Well, unlike most fast food, good street food is made from fresh, real ingredients by independent sole proprietors. And it fascinates us because it's like the "farming in the middle" conundrum: how can talented

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Food as performance sport

By • on November 30, 2009

Iron stomachs: True/Slant Matthew Greenberg takes on the Food Network again, exploring — with the help of media experts — "why

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