crazysalad

San Diego Food Bank’s Food 4 Kids Backpack Program Holiday Drive

This morning I packed my 11-year-old daughter’s lunch: a turkey sandwich, an apple, veggie chips, and carrots.  She has a good lunch program at her school, but she prefers to bring her lunch, partly for variety, partly because she gets to choose her favorite foods, and partly, I suspect, because she likes me preparing the food for her.  I love food and share that love with her.  It’s an important part of our family life and we take great pleasure in preparing and sharing food together.

By the time she gets home in the afternoon, it’s been three hours since lunch and she is hungry again.  So hungry that she is cranky and can barely talk to me until I have gotten some food into her.  It’s astounding how much she eats in the afternoon--she has another full meal between lunch and dinner--but not surprising considering she has grown 3 inches this past year.  Her body needs the fuel.   To grow, to do her homework, to even carry on a conversation. 

So I can’t imagine what it must be like for kids that have no food at home.  Literally.  Without the school lunch program they would not have any food that day.  And what about weekends when there is no school lunch program to feed them?

San Diego Food Bank's Food 4 Kids Backpack Program was launched in 2007 to provide food to get chronically hungry elementary school students through the weekend.  Every Friday, participating children receive a backpack filled with child-friendly items such as peanut butter, pop-top canned goods, cereal, juice boxes, fruit cups, raisins, pudding cups, granola bars, shelf-stable milk and macaroni and cheese. Each bag contains a minimum of 10 items.

The children receive free or reduced-cost meals while school is in session, but do not have food available on the weekends or school holidays for themselves and their siblings. Food 4 Kids provides food directly to the children, without requiring their parents to receive a referral to a local food pantry, pick up food at the pantry or prepare it at home.  In order to qualify for the program, students must attend a school where at least 80% of the population receives free or reduced-cost lunch, and receive a referral from their teachers. Each child must also return a signed permission slip from their parent/guardian.

During the 2008-2009 school year, the program served just 200 chronically hungry elementary school children in eight schools located throughout San Diego County.  The need is much greater.  As an example, the pilot program at one school in 2006 served 250 children alone.

The economy has been hard on all of us this year, but it has been hardest on those who were already struggling.  Charitable donations are down, and hunger in San Diego County is up.  Those of us who love food and view it as a pleasure are so fortunate to be in that position. The least we can do is try to ensure the children of our community don’t – quite literally - go hungry. 

With this goal in mind, San Diego’s food bloggers and other members of the local community are coming together to raise funds for the San Diego Food Bank’s Food 4 Kids Backpack Program. 

A little goes a long way: the program costs approximately $7 per week per child to fund, and a donation of $250 will fund a backpack for a child for the entire 36-week school year.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1. Donate online at our First Giving website.

2. Spread the word at your Thanksgiving gathering, your place of business, on your blog, via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

3. Get together with your friends, family or business and sponsor an entire school!  To find out how, call the San Diego Food Bank at 866-350-FOOD (3663)

4. Donate a prize for the raffle.  A full list of prizes can be found on Alice Q. Foodie's site.

5. Come to the Food and Backpack Drive at the Little Italy Mercato on December 12, 2009 from 9 am-12 noon. Alice Q. Foodie and Caron Golden, who are spearheading this event, will be giving away prizes in a drawing at our booth at the Little Italy Mercato that morning. 

We will also be collecting non-perishable, child-friendly food items and backpacks.  Come and meet your favorite food bloggers, drop off your donations and celebrate the Holidays at the Mercato! 

Suggested donation items:

• A medium-sized neutral design backpack, preferably red in color.
• Toothbrush and kids' toothpaste
• Coloring books
• School supplies (pencils, paper, sharpeners, markers, crayons)
• Nutritious kid-friendly foods, such as fruit roll ups; granola bars; boxed, packaged food items like cereal, crackers, or nutrition bars; pop-top canned goods such as applesauce or other fruit; ready-made macaroni and cheese; and other easy, convenient items.  
  

Thank you so much for your contribution. Happy Holidays!

 

“I like backpack because I can have food on Saturday and Sunday.”

– 3rd Grader, Bobier Elementary

Bulthaup Chef Series

Last week marked the inaugural dinner of the bulthaup San Diego Chef Series, a monthly dinner party held in the bulthaupSD downtown showroom.  

 

The series is the brainchild of bulthaupSD owner Aleka Kim and local chefs Pete Balistreri and Rian Brandenburg, of Tender Greens.   The small, intimate dinner party setting (only 24 guests) allows guests to mingle while watching Balistreri and Brandenburg cook in the nearby open kitchen. 

The meal is prepared with locally-grown, seasonal ingredients and is served, family-style, at three tables set up in the showroom.  Last week's Oktoberfest dinner included local (Poway) beer maker, Lightning Brewery, pouring samples of their hand-crafted, European style beers and a menu that featured sausages, braised pork belly and duck confit.  

Next month's "Celebrating Harvest" dinner will be held Thursday, November 19, at 7 pm.  The menu will include seared sea scallops with brown butter, hand-made fettuccine with rabbit bolognese, slow-cooked short ribs, roasted vegetables, and apple crumb pie. 

A third of the proceeds from each $60 ticket go toward sponsoring the 2010 Cultivating Food Justice Conference in San Diego.  Seating is limited, so be sure to call and reserve your spot today. 

Cafe Influx

Influx (from medieval Latin, influxus, and Latin, influere) - a flowing in (in-fluence), a continuous coming, esp. of individuals in large numbers. 

Influx Cafe, a local cafe in Golden Hill in San Diego (Broadway at 20th) which has a lot of customers continuously coming in to get delicious homemade pastries and cupcakes. 

I like to sit in the seat by the window and watch the cyclist cruise down the hill, under the freeway overpass, and into downtown San Diego.

When the sun gets to be too bright and blinding, the staff will kindly come and lower the shades. 

 

Sunflowers

“Did you see the sunrise this morning?”
the old woman on Dale Street
who gardens with the parrot on her shoulder
asked me as I was walking home from Grant’s Deli
with a baguette under one arm and a cup of boiling Italian roast
burning my palm.

“And did you see the sunset last night?” I asked her.
Under a summer peach and apricot sky
my daughters and I had gone out to our front-yard garden to gather tomatoes—
bagfuls of yellow, roma, green zebra, cherry, heirloom—
and more to share with the neighbors
and handfuls of fragrant basil for our pasta dinner with fresh, no-cook sauce.

The parrot woman smiled.  “We are blessed.”

Recipe for (Almost) No-Cook Tomato Sauce

3-4 tomatoes
A handful of basil
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Pasta

Boil water for pasta.  Cook pasta.  (I like farfalle ("butterfly") pasta with this sauce because the wings in the pasta hold the sauce nicely. 

While pasta is cooking, chop tomatoes.  Tear or chop basil into small pieces.  Slice garlic.  Heat olive oil in a saucepan and add garlic.  Cook until soft, but not brown.  Add chopped tomatoes.  Cook for a few minutes, just long enough to reduce the water (juice) from the tomatoes a little.  Turn off heat. 

Drain pasta and add to saucepan with tomatoes.  Add chopped basil.  Stir and serve.

The Sun
by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen

anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Growing Places 2009

Sweet Relief

It’s another Santa Ana week in San Diego.

On these days when the temperature hits 90 degrees (in October!) and the humidity hovers around 10%, all I want to do is eat something cold. Right now I’m craving one of the ice-cold, homemade popsicles made by Lisa Altmann of Viva Pops.

I met Lisa and her partner, Jack, on their first day at the Saturday morning Little Italy Farmers’ Market.  Lisa makes all of the popsicles herself, using only organic fruit that she buys from local vendors.  Right now, in late (California) summer, she is getting her nectarines, peaches and plums from Lone Oak Ranch, which also has a stand at the Little Italy (and La Jolla) market.

Of course, I love the fact that she uses local, organic ingredients, but what I really love are all the different flavors she offers. Like Mexican paletas, Viva Pops come in a variety of flavors and textures, both creamy (made with milk) and icy, flavored with tart fruits and spices (chile, mint, ginger). 

The mango-chile and nectarine-basil were two of my favorites.  My daughter went straight for the chocolate-banana, her favorite flavor combination.  At $3 a pop, they are not cheap.  But for coffee drinkers used to paying that much for a cup of chain-store coffee, I don’t see how you can complain.  The intense flavor and freshness of these pops sure beats those artificially flavored, sugary ice cubes you get at the grocery store.  And Lisa says her flavors will change with the season.  Naturally.

Red Flag Fire Alert

On these hot Santa Ana days, when the temperature in San Diego rises and the humidity falls below 10%, the National Weather Service issues a red flag warning.  This warning means that critical fire weather conditions are occurring: a combination of strong winds, low humidity, and warm temperatures which could create an “explosive fire growth potential.”

It’s been nearly a year since the Witch Creek Fire and other fires burned over half a million acres in southern California, destroyed over 2000 residences, caused a billion dollars in damages and led half a million people to evacuate their homes.

Once again, we are watching the hills and watching the news.

for every drop of water
for every day
every season

give thanks

to the firefighters who risk their lives
to the farmers whose livelihood depends on our support

 

What Kids Eat

Kids Photograph the Food They Eat Over One Day

If you get the chance, check out What Kids Eat, a new exhibit currently being shown at several locations around San Diego.  One hundred kids from 10 schools in San Diego County were given disposable cameras and asked to document what they ate over the course of one day. 

It’s fascinating to see not only what the kids ate, but also what they chose to document.  They are many shots of school lunch
trays, fast food, and junk food (cheetos, soda, candy), but just as many shots of fruit and salads, too. 

The kids (age 8) also answered questionnaires about what they had eaten: “Did you enjoy eating your food today?”  “How did the food make you feel?”

 

My favorite question was “If you could have eaten anything else today what would it have been?”
One answer: “it would be spegtey (spaghetti).”  Another: “it would of been brokly (broccoli).”

Not all of the photos are particularly of great quality (many of the images are blurry, partly the limitations of the small lenses on the disposable cameras and sometimes the result of the camera being close to the object being photographed), but there are some images of striking beauty:

Of equal or, perhaps, even more interest than what the kids ate is what is behind the food: glimpses of people and backgrounds in the photos.  There are shots of siblings, parents, classmates, kitchens, dining rooms, the inside of refrigerators: 

 

I’m fascinated by these photos for the same reason I love Peter Menzel’s books Material World and Hungry Planet. 

They offer a brief glimpse into how others live and eat—but this time the subjects control the camera and choose how they are portrayed, an idea employed so effectively by Zana Briski’s Kids With Cameras in their Oscar-winning documentary film Born into Brothels. 

This exhibit, sponsored by the Sugar Musuem, runs through October 31st at the following venues around the county:

Chula Vista Civic Center Library
City Heights/Weingart Branch Library
City Heights Wellness Center
College-Rolando Library
Grants Market, South Park
Mission Hills Branch Library
North Park Branch Library
Pacific Beach/Taylor Library

If you can, visit the City Heights locations—the Wellness Center and Library are on the same block of Wightman Street (at Fairmont, one block south of University).  If you go on a Saturday morning you can also check out the nearby City Heights Farmers’ Market—a culturally diverse, affordable market that is the first in the city to accept EBT (food stamps) and WIC vouchers. 

Oh, and while you’re there, don’t forget the broccoli.

Tacos &Tastings

 
The evening started off at Hamilton’s Tavern and their second Saturday celebration.  Every month, Hamilton’s showcases a different local brewery and offers tasty (and free!) food-pairings to match that month’s beer selection.  

I was lured there by the promise of tacos from El Camino, the as yet-unopened Mexican tapas restaurant located just a few blocks from my house. El Camino was supposed to open in May of this year next to Rebecca's on Juniper in South Park.  But the butcher paper is still covering the front windows and no “Coming Soon” sign has yet appeared, so the tease of getting a sneak preview of their food was too tempting to pass up. 

I called up Alice and, adventurous foodie that she is, she gamely arrived at my house within the hour and we headed down to Hamilton’s.  Even before we had parked the car, we could see a line down the block.  Apparently I’m the last to know, but these Saturday celebrations are extremely popular and getting more and more crowded every month.  Josh was already inside, having wisely arrived at 3:30, and had managed to secure both a table and a spot in the taco line. 

After a 15-minue wait, we were in, but the crush was even worse inside and it was about 100 degrees in there.  On the pool table in the side room I could see women making tortillas by hand and arranging platters of meat and toppings. 

By the time we had navigated the line at the bar and gotten our drinks, Josh arrived with plates full of tacos.  There were 3 types of tacos: lengua, birria, and carne asada.  The birria was my favorite—juicy and flavorful meat wrapped in tender, fresh tortillas.  

We escaped the heat and headed up to Ritual Tavern.
This month Ritual is celebrating its first anniversary and all through September they are featuring local artisan brewers and winemakers, guest bartenders, and concluding with an Alesmith 5-course dinner on September 30.  (Events aren’t always listed on their website, so if you want to find out what’s happening, it’s best to sign up for their weekly email.) 

But that night we were there to check out the charcuterie plate.  I discovered Rey Knight of Knight Salumi Company at the Thursday North Park Farmers’ Market a couple of months ago and have fallen in love with his salumi. Every week Rey experiments with something different and is more than willing to give samples of the 5-6 things he has for sale every week.  I’ll write more about this in my next post, but I was curious to see which of his products Ritual Tavern was offering.

The plate (left) included three types of salumi (El Fuego, Coppa Molina and Sopressata), feta cheese and olives from “the Greek guy at the farmers’ market,” and Ritual’s house-made mustard. I could have eaten the whole thing by myself, but I was polite and shared with others. 

After we polished that off, our server slipped us some lardo, too.  Apparently it had been served on the previous night’s charcuterie plate and although it wasn’t on that night’s rotation, there was enough of it to give us a small taste.  It was a cut a little thicker than I am used to—more like the thickness of American bacon than the silky, paper-thin slices of Lardo di Colonnata—but it was delicious nonetheless.  I asked Rey about it afterwards and he definitely recommends slicing it thinly.  He uses a truffle slicer and eats it on toasted bread. 

I wasn’t as crazy about the Onion Rings I ordered.  I prefer thicker, old-fashioned breadcrumb-style to these tempura-style onion rings, which were too greasy for my taste.  (I know, it’s crazy to complain about grease after eating a chunk of lardo, but there is a difference!)
 
Luckily, we had something to help us wash it down.  We happened to be there on a night when Brewmaster and consultant Lee Chase was on hand doing a blind tasting. 

I’m no beer expert—I don’t really even like beer that much--but it sounded like fun and a good opportunity for me to educate my palate.  After all, years ago I didn’t like coffee or wine either, but the more I learned about them and the more I learned what it was about them I did (and didn’t) like, the better choices I was able to make when ordering them. 

So Alice and I teamed up and shared one tasting.  For $6 we received a tasting sheet and 4-4 oz. glasses of mystery beers.  The tasting sheet gave us some general guidelines about appearance, smell, taste and mouthfeel and offered some key words (toasty, biscuity, dank, herbal, grassy, spicy, citrusy) that we might use to describe the beer’s qualities.

Despite my limited beer knowledge, I was actually able to make some pretty good guesses, at least as to the types of beers we were drinking.  The first was pretty light and clean-tasting, reminiscent of some German beers I seem to recall from a very hazy period of a junior college year abroad.  The second one I immediately nailed as a wheat beer, not too difficult given its cloudy appearance. I had no idea what the third sample was, but reminded me why I don’t like beer—very hoppy and extremely bitter.  The fourth was pretty carbonated, definitely had the highest alcohol content, with a nice fruity, yeasty flavor I actually liked. 

Lee encouraged us to try to identify the beers by name, but I had absolutely no clue.  We pored over the Ritual beverage menu, knowing that the answer lay somewhere on that list.  However, considering there were over 50 beers to choose from, that wasn’t much help to me.  The only exception was beer #2, the wheat beer.  Since there were only two wheat beers on the menu, at least I had a 50/50 shot with that one. 

And the winners were:
#1 Sam Smith Organic Lager
#2 Ayinger Brau-Weisse Wheat Beer
#3 Oscar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale
#4 Uni Broue La Fin du Monde Belgian-style Strong Ale

So I learned something that night.  I definitely don’t like pale ales—there’s something about the bitterness of the hops that I can’t get past.  And I actually liked two of the beers I tasted—the Brau-Weisse and the La Fin du Monde. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge beer drinker, but at least now that I’m beginning to learn the different types of beers, I won’t feel so overwhelmed when I look up at the board at Hamilton’s or Tornado and wonder what the heck to order.

After Ritual, we headed over to Eclipse Chocolate for dessert and coffee. Not all of Eclipse’s wild combinations of flavors work for me--I’m a real traditionalist when it comes to chocolate—but I always look forward to seeing what owner Will Gustwiller has come up with.  I like the fact that he’s willing to push the boundaries and experiment with bold flavors and ingredients.  Also, he runs his business in ecological and community-minded manner, so I want to do everything I can to support him and encourage more artisan businesses like his.    

That night Josh, Alice and I split the summer seasonal dessert tasting platter.  I went straight for the chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.  The cookie was fantastic--the saltiness of the dough and crunchy cocoa nibs were a good contrast to the creamy gelato.   But at that point in the evening I was too full to eat anything else, especially the grilled boysenberry-goat cheese panini (a substitution for the grilled white chocolate almond-kumquat cake pictured here).

That’s another lesson I’m trying to learn when it comes to food: I don’t have to eat everything.  Better to enjoy one or two bites of something I really enjoy and savor that taste, rather than trying to do too much and regretting it later. 

Sometimes the best course is knowing when to stop.

'The Dying West'

                                                                           Photo: Rob Davis

"Monday, Dec. 17, 2007 | Used to be that Jim Kemp would run cows along dirt paths from Campo north to Mount Laguna and south to Mexico. But then the roads through the region were paved, so he began using them to move the cows from pasture to pasture.

"Now, I shudder just to drive them across the highway," he says, speaking quietly, his voice carrying a hint of Jack Palance gravel.

At 77 years old, Kemp is a remnant of a once-vibrant breed. Cattle ranchers, dusty denim and spur-wearing cowboys, are fading into San Diego County's history. Between 1997 and 2002, the number of cattle farms in the county dropped 40 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since 1975, the USDA says the number of cattle dropped from 61,000 to 22,000"

Continue reading this voiceofsandiego.org article and see the video here.

 

America Unchained

Think about where you spend your money. 

It makes a difference. 

When you buy food, books, or toys, do you go to a local merchant or a big box store? 

When you buy from a locally-owned business, that money stays in your community and gets recirculated three-and-a-half times more than if you bought from a chain store.  That means you are helping your friends, your neighbors, your local farmers stay in business and live in your community. 

I like buying locally because I like supporting my local economy, but the best part is that I get to talk to people who care about what they are doing.  At the locally-owned  bookstores where I shop, the clerks there actually read the books they are selling and can recommend something they think I will like.  When I visit my favorite restaurant, I get a hug from the hostess and the chef comes out to say hi to me and my kids.  At the farmers’ market, Barry from La Milpa Organica tells me that he just saw my mom at his stand at an hour ago.  While he scoops up a bag of his salad mix (the best in San Diego), he tells me about the corn harvest festival he hosted at his farm last week.

Today, for at least one day, free yourself from the American corporate chains.  Better yet, this holiday season, give thanks and support to your local independent businesses by buying from them.  (Thanks to Jeff Mariotte for this link.)

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
... I found out I'm just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
© Don Covay (1967)

For more info on the real cost of the mega-retailers, see Stacy Mitchell’s book, Big Box Swindle, and check out the film, Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop.

Going Local

Crazysalad is back. 

After a six month-hiatus (what I like to call my unpaid, family leave of absence), I return to the food blogging world.  Thank you to everyone who wrote and asked if I was okay.  Yes, I’m fine.

What have I been doing?  I’ve spent the last six months trying to save my city from alien invasion. 

Those of you living here in San Diego have probably seen them.  They are here among us, all around us, and most of the time we are not even aware of their presence. 

It is only during their reproductive season that they become visible.  Yet we are so beguiled by their beauty, their sunny yellow faces, that we don’t seem to notice that they are slowly taking over our city.  (Either that or we are driving by so fast on the I-5 that we don’t see anything to the left and right of the windshield.)

Scientists who study these invaders call them sisymbrium or brassica, and note that they are a species “characteristic of disturbed places.”  You probably know them by their common, friendly name: mustard. Here I am fighting off some of the attackers:

Seriously, I just needed a break.

Writing the blog had started to feel like an obligation, rather than the joyful sharing of food that it started out to be. 

I had lost my focus, my sense of purpose.  I looked at all the food blogs out there in the blogosphere and wondered:  is my blog really necessary?   Does anyone really care about what I ate for dinner or what I did on my vacation?

What was my blog about?

To me, a good blog should be passionate and serve some higher purpose.  The blogs that I read and love capture my attention through powerful, well-written prose or beautiful images.  They demand my attention and teach me something I didn’t know.  Good blogs compel me to take action; to get up from the computer, to cook, to try a new restaurant, to go out into the garden. 

Although I was kidding about the alien invasion before, I was only half-joking.  Living in San Diego often does feel like aliens have invaded.  Only it is we who are the aliens.  Most of us are not natives here.  Most of the food we eat is not native to this area, nor is it even grown here. 

Maybe you have noticed all the pretty yellow flowers in bloom all over the hillsides of San Diego during the past month.  That’s mustard.  Some stories claim that mustard was originally brought here by European missionaries.  As the missionaries traveled along the California coast from mission to mission, they planted mustard seeds to help them find their way on subsequent journeys.  Or they planted it to feed their draft animals.  Either way, this plant, like the people who brought it here, are now everywhere. 

Non-native invasive species.

While I recognize the inevitability of humans spreading out and taking over the planet, sometimes I take a look around and wonder, what the hell are we doing here?  I have only lived in San Diego 15 years, but already I can see how quickly it has grown in that time.    Everything flat is paved over with asphalt.  The beautiful canyons that are San Diego’s natural landscape are graded and filled in with identical stucco-ed, red-tiled roof housing developments.   

Does it matter where you live?  When you zip past mile after mile of housing developments, fast food restaurants, and strip malls, can you even tell where you are living?  It looks just like Los Angeles or Phoenix or (except the palm trees) any other American suburb. 

Where is San Diego in all this?  What is this place we call home?   

Recently, I spent an afternoon at Batiquitos Lagoon with some students from my daughter’s middle school ripping out mustard plants from this sensitive salt marsh habitat.

After a few hours I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I looked around and all I could see were millions of these mustard plants, mocking me with their bright yellow presence.  This is pointless, I thought.  We are never going to completely eradicate this plant from our shores.

But later, I began to realize something.  Just standing out there along the trail taught me to see the landscape in a different way.  At first all I could see was mustard.  But if you looked around and behind and beneath, you would occasionally get a glimpse of other plants. Low-growing, salt-tolerant plants like pickleweed and salty susan. Pulling out even a few non-natives leaves a little room for the native species to grow. 

I feel the same way about our food supply. 

I realize that McDonalds and Wal-Marts are part of the food landscape now and they are not going away.  But if we can take the time to stop and look a little closer at what was there before, or is still there, hidden in the background--the local, independently-owned coffee shop, the neighborhood diner--we can save these places. 

Why should we save them?  Because I don’t want to live in a world where there is only one variety of apple, one species of turkey, one type of coffee.  I love the beauty and taste of diversity.  I want to know what it is that makes this place unique, worth living in, worth eating. 

That’s what this blog is all about.