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New Year, Re-Newed Vision
Greetings!
It's an exciting New Year for our Food & Agriculture group. Changes are afoot. We're growing, as a committee, into a broader community-based organization. (We want to play well with others.)
A Food Council is in the making. Essentially, it means bringing more people to the table to share thinking and actions to expand and strengthen our food system here in the Ojai Valley. While we'll still be putting in gardens and having great Tasting Socials, we want to gather kindred souls and develop strategies for developing an ever-more local "foodshed."
This is going to be fun. Kind of like playing Monopoly or Farmville in real life. What kind of foods do we want growing here, in addition to what we already have.....and what exactly DO we have? Does anyone want to try aquaponics? How can we help farmers and the schools get more valley-grown fresh fruits and veggies onto their plates? Who wants to make new friends creating a community garden site? Who'll have the next great food or farming business out at the Honor Farm to add to the CSAs? How can we turn our restaurants green waste into a compost business for someone? Who will train our kids with gardening and culinary skills that lead to paying part-time jobs?
These are a few of the things that play in my head. What's playing in yours?
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Podcast Potluck:
10 Best Local Food Projects in the U.S. & Canada
Here's some inspiration to jump-start the New Year. Five years after writing The 100-Mile Diet, Alisa Smith & James MacKinnon give us a rapid-fire tour of the 10 greatest food projects they've run across lately. The talk was done for Radio Ecoshock in Vancouver BC in November.
We'll be listening to this podcast at my house, while sharing a potluck meal, to get the juices running for new dreams of our own. The idea here is not just about growing more food, it's about building community, making new friends, laughing a lot more and doing what we love to do. Together. January 18th at Dulanie's house (see Upcoming Events).
RSVP: ojaiculinaryclub@gmail.com
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 Spring Workshops
Culinary Club Happenings:
Two new classes are being organized with Cecil Baumgartner, owner of Thunderbird Farm of Ojai (and selling at our farmer's market). One class will be Canning Fresh Fruits from his ranch and the other will be about managing crops.
For vegetarians who would like to learn the safe & nutritious way to eat soybeans, a class in how to make the best Tempeh will be offered this spring by experts Betsy & Gunter Shipley. They will demonstrate at our next Tasting Social.
We need a location for our winter Recipe Swap & Tasting Social in late February. Room for about 25 guests indoors.
RSVP: ojaiculinaryclub@gmail.com
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Pasture-Raised Livestock:
To Meat or Not to Meat
When the Food & Agriculture committee began, we made a choice to encourage a plant based diet in our education and activities. We did this because of the overwhelming evidence that the way meat animals (beef, pork & poultry) are raised in "factory farms" of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) is inhumane treatment of the animals, environmentally polluting, and damaging to our health.
There is, however, another way to raise livestock, that has just the opposite effects. Pasture-raised livestock. This is the old- fashioned method of ranching where (to quote celebrity farmer Joel Salatin) pigs maintain their "pig-ness" and chickens their innate "chicken-ness." They forage amongst grasses, scratch the dirt, spread their manure, eat the bugs, and positively create the fertility cycle on the land. Their meat is hormone-free, leaner and nutrient-rich.
So as a group, we've made a decision to include pasture-raised livestock in our "food pantry." There is a middle ground between factory farmed and strictly vegetarian, and pasture-raised is it. We think it is important to support those ranchers who are doing it right. At our own farmers market we have two purveyors, Watkins Beef (locally raised) and Jimenez Family Farms (Santa Ynez area) that offer this humanely raised meat stock.
There will always be the moral dilemma for some people about eating meat at all. We respect that point of view. We also believe that confirmed meat eaters deserve to know their options.
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Thanks for your continuing interest in making the Ojai Valley a more delicious place to live. Our food system is a vital part of our resilience and strength.
Growing food, growing community!
Dulanie Ellis, Food & Ag Committee
Ojai Valley Green Coalition
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| Upcoming Events | |
Jan 11
free
V.C. Research
Symposium
U.C. Cooperative Ext & U.C. Hansen Ag Ctr. focus on challenges & complex issues of urban & agricultural practices.
Register by Jan. 3
uchansentrust.org
8:30-Noon
Jan 15
$75
Raw Cuisine:
Cultured Foods
A beginners introduction
Santa Barbara
Riviera
Call Amy Bacheller
415-450-5000
1:00-5:00pm
Jan 18
free
Podcast Potluck
Dulanie's House
(see article)
206 So. Blanche
6:00-8:30pm
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| Vegan Dinners | | Angie is offering personal vegan dinners in her home in January for individuals who wish to experience and learn about a vegan lifestyle.
Indian Night
Spicy Mung Bean Pate
Creamy Sweet Potato-Ginger Soup
Acorn Squash with Cranberry-Apple Chutney
Turmeric Basmati Rice with Peas
Adzuki Bean Dal
Berry Filled Baked Apples with Saffron Pastry Cream
angieandhunter@
hotmail.com
640-6832
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| Kris Young's Beautiful Food on the Fly
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Breakfast Wrap
Steamed buckwheat groats (gluten free).
Minced onion
Wheat-free tamari
Flax oil
Green leaf to wrap it all up like a burrito (collard, Swiss Chard, lettuce)
While you're steaming the buckwheat groats, go hunting through your garden for likely delectables to add to your wrap. Chop accordingly. Season with tamari & oil. Wrap in leafy greens.
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