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“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: impoverishing peasants, destroying old ways of cooking,
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Jimmy Stewart, cults, and a lot of broken glass: Remembering Straus Family Creamery’s opening day
By Michael Straus Pictures from opening night at Straus Family Creamery, February 4, 1994. (That's me with the goatee.) Straus Family Creamery recently turned 17, and I started thinking back to those crazy times. In 1989, my older brother Albert, who’d been managing the farm and doing some pretty
Q&A with Michele Simon — activist, attorney, badass
It's always fun to talk with someone who has such a sense of purpose that she doesn't feel the need to make nice. Michele Simon is one of those people. Let me be clear: Simon, a public health attorney for the Marin Institute, and author of Appetite
Grow vacancies: Gene Fredericks is thinking inside the city’s big box
They're the bane of urban and suburban areas alike: the vacant, boarded-up K-Marts and Home Depot Expos, squatting like concrete cowpies amidst a landscape of weedy parking lots. But where most people
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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
Q&A with John Scharffenberger: First wine, then chocolate, and now … tofu?
Before founding the chocolate company for which he became famous, John Scharffenberger made California sparkling wine. In both cases, he was one of the first
Ethicurean nominated for Treehugger Best of Green award!
The Ethicurean has been nominated for a TreeHugger.com Best of Green award, in the Food & Health category. The Best of Green Awards recognize "the people, companies
Scorched pastures and lost birds at Soul Food Farm
The Bay Area's well-known, much-loved Soul Food Farm was devastated by a fire last night, I learned this morning from a heartbreaking email sent to friends by Soul Food's Alexis
New book about high cost of a bargain, “Cheap,” lauds Wegmans
And what about those Swedish meatballs?: This provocatively titled review ("Why Ikea is as bad as Wal-Mart") of Ellen Ruppel Shell's new book, "Cheap:
Fujimotos’ departure from Monterey Market a tough blow to local food chain
By Carol Ness Calling Bill and Judy Fujimoto's forced departure on Wednesday from Berkeley's Monterey Market — after two years of family dissension over their vision for the business — a tragedy isn't a stretch. For those who don't know it, Monterey
BAMCO backs Florida tomato pickers in fight for fair labor standards
CIW's Lucas Benitez and BAMCO CEO Fedele Bauccio in Florida. Photo from Straus Comm. release Jane Black reports in the Washington Post that the gigantic U.S. food-service company Bon
Digest – Features: Urban farmer, Brody on HFCS, swill shill
"If your goat is giving birth, it’s not like you can go to work": Friend o'Ethicurean Twilight Greenaway interviews Novella Carpenter, Oakland's most fearless backyard farmer and soon-to-be-author. (Culinate.com) E
When discrimination is more than OK: Time to call our reps about pesticide policy
Update 4/10: We're hearing from our confidential intel sources on the Hill (OK, an action alert I just received) that the deadline for asking your reps to sign the letter mentioned below has been extended until mid-day tomorrow, 4/11. I just called my rep. The feeling of fulfillment is immense... try
John Edwards knows the way to this Ethicurean’s heart
…is through my stomach. Seriously, as obsessed as we are with food politics, we do care about other kinds as well. Yes, the Farm Bill was a disaster, but so was the Energy Bill. And let's not even talk about Iraq or healthcare and education in this country. We're not endorsing anyone based on
Digest – Features: Methyl bromide alive and kicking in Cali, beyond-kosher movement
Do we need strawberries and tomatoes in winter that badly?: Methyl bromide, a common pesticide and fumigant, is not only toxic to humans but harms the ozone layer. So why is the U.S. still using it? And why does California, which has some of the toughest laws governing its use, spraying 6.5 million pounds
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