In the news

I'm sure some of you have seen this already but I found it rather fascinating. A NY Times op-ed piece by a farmer in Iowa, I think, talking about how hard it is for him to simply grow organic fruits and vegetables. Thanks to our subsidy of other commodity crops he actually had to pay a fine for growing food. Local, organic food! This is what people will pay ridiculous amounts of money for at their local Whole Foods, though admittedly Whole Foods may not be pushing actual locally grown produce. Instead the majority is grown by the Big Organic (as Michael Pollan calls them) companies in California. Even out here where the growing season is optimal and the hippie farmer markets ubiquitous it's hard to find actual local, organic produce. Thanks to our weird and twisted laws that help someone who is growing mono-cultures of something we put in our cars. Since when does gas count as food?

And did anyone else see this almost hysterical article about vegetarianism from a Russian newspaper? I think the title was "Vegetarianism proves to be perversion of nature". Wow! I knew I was perverted but didn't think it was because I ate vegetables. Reading this is like being transported back to the 1950s, when eating the roast after church on Sunday was just what you did and no one else did different. I mean, this article actually claims that vegetarians are wasting away with dystrophy, heart disease, and spindly weak legs and arms. If it weren't so ludicrous it would be funny. It's a little scary though that there are still places in the world where vegetarianism is not ok, let alone something out there like vegan-ism or macrobiotic-ism.

In other news, I made a split pea soup in our new pressure cooker. I'll have to post pictures of that soon. As well as steamed broccoli with a miso/ tahini/ lemon juice sauce and quinoa. I have learned the secret to making great quinoa. Take a skillet and heat up some oil and then brown some onions. Once the onions are on their way, add the amount of quinoa you want to use and saute it before you add any water. This cooks off the crazy toxic layer that surrounds the quinoa grains without subjecting you to many, many rinses. If you make quinoa the normal way (similar to how you might make rice) you have to wash it, and wash it, and wash it with a really fine mesh strainer to get rid of that waxy layer. This way you don't have to, i.e. faster, and it tastes great!