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Left: Before composting. Right: Cup at second turn.
Since we started composting this summer, I couldn’t resist the challenge when my drink from Kaladi Brothers Coffee came in a compostable to-go cup made from corn.
I built the cup into the middle of my next pile, then turned as directed. The temperature spiked at 160 degrees (which is almost too hot) and by the second turn of the pile the cup had mostly disintegrated (photo at top right). When I moved the now-cured compost this afternoon the cup was completely gone.
It looks like Kaladi’s uses EcoProducts corn cups (EcoProducts CC16, according to the stamp on the bottom) which the company says “will completely compost under commercial composting conditions in just 45-60 days.”
The cups work as advertised but I do wonder how many of these cups ever find their way to compost piles, either commercial or residential. A more interesting question might be what happens to them in a traditional landfill.
Today is the last day to cast your vote on City of Seattle Referendum 1, which would require a 20-cent charge per plastic or paper bag when you buy groceries.
Opponents say the fee will hurt low-income folks — who are apparently unable to shop with reusable bags, which is all it takes to exempt anybody from the fee. Opponents also say the law is filled with loopholes, one of which is that businesses grossing less than $1 million yearly keep all the bag fees they collect. Hmm, that actually sounds like a pretty reasonable deal for those smaller outfits. But what really got me to spend 90 seconds finding and filling out the darned thing was learning that the American Chemistry Council spent $1 million to urge you to vote against it. I’m heading in to drop off my ballot now.
I’m a huge fan of peanut butter and tomato sandwiches.
(Most people look at me sideways when I say this)
April is a difficult time in Alaska for local food. Palmer potatoes and carrots are available in the grocery store through March or so, but by the time the vernal equinox finally arrives supplies range from low to non-existent.
Gardens are still too wet to prepare and Memorial Day, commonly considered the first “safe” (ie no frost) weekend for planting outdoors, is still a month away.
But the geese are back, the sun is in the sky until 10pm, and our first batch of pea plants are coming up in our arctic entry. These plants will go into our greenhouse to supply us with early peas while we wait for the garden to start producing.
Unfortunately, Labor Day isn’t that far away.
There are zero local ingredients in the fridge right now. I’ll be back shortly, after recovering from actually having to work for a living.
The Well Fed Network has nominated this year’s best food blogs and among the chosen is fellow blogger Laura’s not-so Urban Hennery. Good stuff! Laura blogs about life on a small farm, with stories about raising chickens, building hoop houses for cold weather crops, canning and pickling, and dozens of other ways to eat locally. Vote for your local gal here.
Actually, we’ve decided not to change the name of our blog.
If you carefully read the letter from Greg Conner, of the Seattle company Eat Local, which sells frozen food up on Queen Anne, you’ll notice that he asks us to discontinue use of the phrase “eat local.” Forever.
As writers, words are our lifeblood. We cannot agree to his demands, and we believe the law is on our side.
The “eat local” movement is a grassroots phenomena that has been in existence since the 1960s, thanks largely to chef Alice Waters. “Eat local” is a term that has been used freely by millions of chefs, home cooks, restaurateurs, farmers, writers, and consumers for decades. It has been used promotionally by dozens of companies and organizations including Whole Foods and Patagonia, and by the City of Portland, Oregon, who hosted the first “Eat Local Challenge” that so many people now participate in.
Even we at Eat Local Northwest posted 166 posts before Eat, LLC trademarked the term “Eat Local” with the federal government, on August 19, 2008. They very sneakily did not contact us until after the public comment period had closed and your standard citizen could no longer challenge their right to the trademark.
We’ve sent our response to Mr. Conner and will be sure to post all of the gory details should this not be the last we hear from these folks. In the meantime we are going to refrain from replying to comments, but know that we are deeply grateful to our regular readers, and those coming out of the woodwork, for all of the support.
I’ve received this from the Eat Local folks on top of Queen Anne:
I need to let you know that “Eat Local” is a trademarked term that describes the chef-prepared organic and wholesome meals, frozen for convenience, that are sold by our company, Eat, LLC.
We appreciate the fact that you admire our trademark and see its usefulness in promoting certain products or services. However, using our trademark without our permission may promote confusion in the minds of consumers and infringes our trademark rights.
We welcome the opportunity to work with you to come to some sort of agreement regarding use of our trademark, and would like to invite further discussions in this regard. In the meantime, we request that you discontinue all references to “Eat Local” that do not specifically refer to the meals prepared and distributed by Eat, LLC. If you find it necessary to use the phrase “eat local” to refer to anything other than our products, we suggest you add a phrase like the following:
“referred to as such because of the local origin of the food and not to be confused with “Eat Local,” chef-prepared organic and
wholesome meals distributed by Eat, LLC of Seattle, Washington.”Please advise me no later than January 31st, 2009 that you have stopped using the “Eat Local” trademark …
… Sincerely,
Gregory Conner
So, let’s just begin the discussion right here. First of all, there aren’t many people who read this blog regularly. But those who do know that I do not use the term ‘eat local’ to promote products or services. I write this blog to share and remember things that I cook at home, for my family, and on occasion to share my opinion on a local food issue. This is my freakin’ journal.
It’s kind of weird being pushed around by somebody selling “wholesome, organic, local” foods, but the truth is that I’ve never loved the name, Eat Local Northwest. So what I’m asking for, dear reader, is some creative help thinking up a new and better blog title. And feel free to pass along the word about the ‘other’ Eat Local.
Occasionally you’re confronted with evidence that people knew what was up long before plastic bag bans and Priuses were all the rage. Like today, when my own mother stopped by with a cloth tote bag she’s been using since the late ’70s. Ironically enough, the bag bears the logo of Encore Books, an East Coast chain bookseller that went bankrupt a decade ago — so the stores are gone but the bag’s still in terrific shape. Mom was amused by the flurry of photo-taking that followed. (Pics came out too dark, unfortunately.) “It shrank when I washed it,” she told me. “But it works fine.”
It’s one year since that first taste of Lopez Island beef came to our table, a year since I first posted to this blog. What we’ve learned since is that anyone can eat locally, if they choose. What’s less certain is how big of a difference it makes. Some would say that eating locally is a rarefied pastime, the provenance of the leisure class, and they wouldn’t entirely be wrong. Last week I paid ten bucks for a bowl of creamy homemade yogurt and raw honey, perhaps the best I’ve ever tasted. Pure economics would suggest that my yogurt will never save the world.
But to think that eating locally is simply a matter of revising one’s purchasing habits is to mostly miss the point. During our year of local food, I got a lot of dirt under my fingernails. I tried to take life down to the studs. It was a year of baking bread from just flour, water, and salt. A year of salads picked from the garden. Of preserving plums and pepper jelly and experiments with sunchoke bisque. A year of learning to use every edible part of the cow and pig.
Along the way I learned that proselytizing on the salutary benefits of local food is a waste of time. Turns out that what you say matters a lot less than how you feed yourself and the people you love. And I’ve found I’m no more eloquent than the snap peas fattening on their trellis, our big clouds of basil, the backyard stand of kale. So I’m working at being gentle, on toning down the declarative statements, especially after cooking for those who seem strangely unable to understand what they’re eating.
And so the local food adventure continues, with plenty to try in the months and years to come. I’d like to extend our growing season, for one thing. Search out more local grains and legumes. Raise laying hens. Keep a levain for my breads. I’d like to hunt my own duck, because I like eating them so much.
There’s plenty I’ll keep doing too, like growing chard for the food bank and writing about it. Just in case anybody’s forgotten that people still go to bed hungry, and that local food really might just save the world.
For the year by season, check out twelve months of farmers market reports.
