Subject: RE: Gussow on Nutrition/Food Systems

From: April Sampson-Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 13:32:00 +-1100

I have feared this divorce from the kitchen and from
our food supply for some time
and people here say that in a couple of years 
will be conducting lessons on 
peeling and cutting up the exotic food
known simply in the 80's as the onion!!

We can try two angles -
promoting naturally packaged, fresh fast foods 
such as bananas, kiwifruit, berries, mandarins, oranges etc
and providing ready made organic salad mixes, coleslaw
value adding that improves the profitability of small farms.
April

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From: 	[email-masked][SMTP:[email-masked]]
Sent: 	Thursday, 12 December 1996 3:53
To: 	[email-masked]
Cc: 	[email-masked]
Subject: 	Re: Gussow on Nutrition/Food Systems

Dear Karen,

Thanks for your Sanet post.  

I'm an organic grower with a CSA share membership.  The biggest complaint I
get is that I provide my share holders with too much food!  We designed our
planting schemes to provide our shareholders with 5 days worth of the USDA
recommended 5-6 servings per day of fruits and vegetables.  

Folks simply aren't eating as much as they should of what they should.  One
of the problems is they are "too busy"  Another is that folks simply don't
know how to cook anymore.  I've been running a series in our newsletter on
how to cook.  Basics like cutting up veggies, definitions of cooking terms,
and what cooking methods can be applied to what produce.  Like any other
skill, cooking takes practice.  I'm considering teaching cooking classes next
season.

If you have any suggestions on how to help folks over come their "kitchen
impairments," their "too much effort for just me," or their "I don't have
time," please let us know.

Marcie
Full Circle Organic Farm

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From: April Sampson-Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 13:32:00 +-1100

We can try two angles -

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Dear Karen,

Marcie
Full Circle Organic Farm

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 13 Dec 1996 23:58:20 PDT

Hello Marcie & others:

 (about a CSA veggie box operation that found people where not cooking
the food )

AS>skill, cooking takes practice.  I'm considering teaching cooking classes nex
AS>season.

AS>If you have any suggestions on how to help folks over come their "kitchen
AS>impairments," their "too much effort for just me," or their "I don't have
AS>time," please let us know.

AS>Marcie
AS>Full Circle Organic Farm

What the local veggie box people do is to include recipies with their
delivery on a sheet of paper.   One of the best most relevant cookbooks
for the British Columbia (Western Canada) and Pacific North West (USA)
is 

Steve Solomon's The Maritime Northwest Gardener's Cookbook

Which has for its recipie selection criteria: 
1) major ingredients grow locally, and are available at the same time
of year
2) major ingredients are fresh not preserved - (I'd bend this rule)
3) simple and quick to prepare

(he did not create the recipies but got others to submit them. It is
organized by month.)

I too have this same difficulty with my clients: I design and install
an edible garden/landscape.  But people then realize that even though
they liked the idea of the plants it is a challenge to remember to
harvest and cook the produce.

I think about food alot.  One hope for me is that I'll find a way to
get relevant recipies for more interesting foods: ie American Ground
nut: Apios apios.  Or Arrow root.

I've been thinking if veggie boxes should accually have semi/partially
prepared food.  Ie  organic tofu (not in plastic...) or fresh bread. 
In the winter we could have fresh perogies from real potatoes and
sourcroaut  (spelling).

I'm single, live at least 2-3 too many lives and have been trying to
cook, eat and clean up in under an hour.  Things have been getting a
little simple lately.

Does anybody dream like I do?

I want a permaculture recipie site that is searchable so when ever the
produce came in I could turn it into food just surf and read - then do
then mmm-mmm eat.

I want an encyclopedia of English, Welsh, Scottish & Irish, cooking
with out sugar and cream being in every recipie.  (permaculture- modern
fast simple etc)
I'd benefit from  Germanic & Scandanavian recipies too.  Everything
must be prepared under an hour and follow most of Steve Solomon's rules.

Hmm, I know there is more... so reply and I'll ramble on.

Harold Waldock
The Edible Gardeners
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 13 Dec 1996 23:58:20 PDT

Hello Marcie & others:

AS>Marcie

Harold Waldock
The Edible Gardeners

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From: April Sampson-Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:49:32 +-1100

dGianni wrote:
When I hear people say, "I'm too busy, no time..." etc., etc., I take 
them to mean that they 1) don't yet realize that they need to plan ahead 
and organize the cooking chores (among a few people, if necessary) and 2) 
they aren't yet invested enough in thinking "organics" to make the 
commitment to plan ahead and organize their cooking. To belong to a CSA 
is a statement, but if they don't actually support the longevity of the 
CSA, it's kind of lip service.
>I have been teaching permaculture on the net for quite some time
and this means I really concentrate on committed people, cause you
can't be passive in one-on-one learning.
I have come to appreciate lip service as possibly the beginning of something more
and people grow at different speeds, sudden adoption of a new lifestyle can be
unsustainable, when things go wrong - like the fox eats their chickens, they serve up
there best fruit and the visitor finds HALF a worm after the first bite!
Customer focus has got to important in CSA moreso than other business, find
out what the customer wants, or thinks they want and try to do more than satisfy this. 
at the same time, lead them to greater things.  
Along with teaching HOW to cut up veggies and teaching recipes, I would
develop a focus on STRATEGY: Take the 5-10 minutes to wash, cut prepare,
etc. the evening before. Get help from other household members that are
eating the food. 
>This is a big issue in the older generation, so often I see, HE digs the spuds -
SHE cooks them, everyone needs to find their roots, there connection to
the earth, everyone should the passage from soil to mouth, few do.
 Try to create the situation where all the prep is done
before the hour the meal is expected to be eaten. THAT takes energy and
effort. One reason agribusinesses are able to wipe out small farmers who
defy the synthetic pesticide/fertilizer pressures successfully laid on
by the chemical industry is because they know that mass marketing has 
propagandized consumers to think they want FAST, EASY, COSMETIC food. The 
economic pressures on larger numbers of people mean less time at home and 
more time working.  
>So true!!
STRATEGY in the kitchen is essential to overcome the 
efforts of agribusiness to PESTICIDE THE WORLD! Join the resistance or 
shop at non organic sources, eat processed foods, cook minute rice, buy 
spam...you know what I mean. ;)
DGH
>me too, April
I'd like to follow up with ideas to add to the home page
how about help, suggestions, receipes (cooked and uncooked) Please

http://www.ozermail.com.au/~askpv/index.html

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From: April Sampson-Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:49:32 +-1100

dGianni wrote: