We Are The Brittens

Boy, I wish that I were a writer. I hope I can do this review justice because the book was amazing! What was the book? It is called ‘On the Future of Food: The Prince’s Speech’, by Prince Charles.

This is actually more of an essay (it took less than an hour to read) and was adapted from a speech that Prince Charles gave at Georgetown University in Washington, DC last May. I’m going to use a lot of quotes from the book, because I’ll never be able to say things as eloquently and it will give you an idea of the ‘voice’ of Prince Charles.

The speech is about industrial agriculture and how our current means of food production is destructive to everything it depends on (the soil). It can’t last. Prince Charles really knows what he’s talking about too. He has bee practicing and speaking about sustainable agriculture for over 30 years. Yes, it has been an issue for that long. “But when practically every economist, scientist, intellectual, and politician ignores or denies agricultural damages that are measureable, massive, and obvious, then we are living just as obviously in an age of official insanity.”

From the Prince’s perspective, we as humans have an obligation to ensure (and increase) the long-term fertility of the Earth’s soil. He suggests a form of agriculture that “doesn’t exceed the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem and which recognizes that the soil is the planet’s most vital renewable resource”.  That’s one of his points that hit me hard, and something I hadn’t really considered. Dirt is a renewable resource. By planting only one type of crop (usually either corn or soy beans) year after year, we’re stripping away everything that is good about the dirt and replacing it with large amounts of pesticide. This has to stop! Surely the bright minds on this planet can find a way to feed the world sustainably. Right?

I really just want to transcribe the entire book for you here in this review so that you can read it. Really, you HAVE to read this! My review won’t do it justice. I’ll post a link to Amazon at the end so you can buy it right away. It’s only six bucks!

Another point Prince Charles makes is the rising demand on water. He mentions that here in the United States, one fifth of all grain production depends on irrigation. For every pound of beef produced, it takes 2,000 gallons of water! Wow!

Let me close out this review with what Prince Charles calls the ‘heart of the problem’. “Why is it that an industrialize system, deeply dependent on fossil fuels and chemical treatments, is promoted as viable, while a much less damaging one is rubbished and condemned as unfit for purpose?”

What do you think? What steps can we, as individuals, take to progress overall agriculture into a more sustainable direction?

Buy “On the Future of Food” on Amazon.com today!

I love Sushi! Jeremy, not so much. When my good friend Laura told me she was making sushi at home I definitely wanted her to teach me. Laura is a culinary champion. She is self taught and fearless in the kitchen. She uses her amazing sense of taste and love of fresh food to guide her inventive home recipes and methods.

Laura has cooked for nearly everyone I know. She sends cakes as tokens of appreciation. Soup when people are ill. Meals when they are in need. And she feeds our whole church congregation once a week. Needless to say, whenever there is a food question people go to Laura.

Jacob and Laura have a serious love for growing their own food. And they are great at it. Every year they expand a little bit more and get amazing results. We will be going to them a lot for advice with our own small garden this year.

Jeremy and I recently went over to the Senecal’s home for a sushi date! The kids played in the yard while we played in the kitchen. We made various types of sushi using veggies, seafood, and avocado. Laura also showed me how to make Miso Soup and pickled ginger.  We also tried warm Sake for the first time. The result was one of the most fun nights for my mouth ever. Eating sushi is really a fun experience. Even Jeremy had fun and has adopted a new view on the exotic cuisine.

Check some of Laura and Jacob’s Asian inspired recipes:

Sushi Rice

• 4 cups of sushi rice
• 4 cup of water + a little extra

Mix

• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1Tablespoon sugar

Cook the rice on the stovetop. When the rice has absorbed the water and is nice and sticky, turn it with a wooden spoon and coat it with the vinegar, salt and sugar mixture. Laura doesn’t really measure much (she can eyeball it pretty well) so these are approximate, eyeball it if you would like. Make sure you put your cooked rice in the refrigerator so it can cool down completely before you start your sushi prep.

Sushi Preparation

You’ll need:

• bamboo sushi mat
• sushi nori roasted seaweed sheets
• sushi rice
• desired fillings (we used combinations of: salmon, red bell pepper, avocado, carrot, and asparagus)

Line your bamboo mat with plastic wrap to help keep your mat tidy. Lay the nori shiny side down. You want the rough texture to be on top. Wet your clean fingers and spread the rice on the nori. Leave about an inch on the top of the wrap uncovered by rice. This lip will seal the wrap. In the middle of the rice, lay your choice of filling horizontally. The first wrap we made we used artificial crab meat and avocado. Now you are ready for the tricky part. Run a wet finger across the lip of the seaweed. Then roll the bottom toward the top holding onto the plastic wrap. Make a roll and secure it with the excess seaweed. Unwrap the plastic and cut the roll into pieces about an inch apart. We also made veggie sushi, avocado rolls, and salmon rolls. The veggie rolls had roasted asparagus, red pepper, and carrot. They were a hit. All of them were really.

Miso Soup

This is a great simple recipe! Again, eyeball it.

• red miso paste
• chopped seaweed
• firm tofu

Fill your pot with as much water as you would like. Take a Tablespoon of Red Miso Paste and stir into the warm water. Use more or less depending on the flavor you want. Add desired amount of sliced or cubed tofu and chopped seaweed. Stir until the seaweed has rehydrated. Let all the flavors marry a bit. Done!

Pickled Ginger

This is the recipe for pickled ginger that Laura uses (from about.com):

• 2 lb fresh young ginger (shin shoga)
• 2 tsps salt
• 3 cups rice vinegar
• 2 cups sugar

Preparation:

Wash young ginger root and rub off skin. Slice the ginger thinly and salt them. Leave salted ginger slices in a bowl for about one hour. Dry the ginger slices with paper towels and put them in a sterilized, heat-resistant container/jar. Mix rice vinegar and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil. Pour the hot mixture of vinegar and sugar over the ginger slices. Cool them. Pickled ginger changes its color to light pink. (If you are using old ginger, it might not turn pink naturally.) Cover the jar and store it in the refrigerator.

I love having the smell of apple butter in the air when I wake up. This recipe is so crazy simple. I  never understood why apple butter was as dark as it was until I actually made some. It’s because you cook the dickens out of it!

INGREDIENTS:

•  5 lbs preferred variety of apples peeled, cored, and chopped finely
• 1 cup raw sugar or honey
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/8 tsp. all spice

Combine all the ingredients in the crock pot and cook covered overnight on high (about 8 hours). Upon waking, take the lid off the crock pot and let it cook for an additional hour. This will take some of the extra liquid off. The apple butter should be dark and creamy after you stir it. Then spread it on some delicious bread or whole wheat biscuit. YUM!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tablespoon milled flax seed mixed with 3 tablespoons of water
• 1 mashed banana
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1/2 cup almond yogurt (optional)
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups almond or soy milk (more milk if omitting yogurt)
• 2 cups of chopped fresh strawberries

Heat the griddle on high.

Mix all the dry ingredients with a whisk. Add in all the wet ingredients.

You don’t want the batter too thick or too thin. Add milk to make the right consistency. Fold in strawberries.

Pour onto a greased griddle (you can use coconut oil instead of butter or a vegan butter substitute)

Serve with pure maple syrup.

After two weeks of travel and sickness, I think the Brittens are ready to rejoin the virtual world. The loss of Jeremy’s grandmother had us take a spur of the moment trip to the Seattle area. While we were there we were able to catch up with family and friends and have some great food (and some not so great food). We just thought we would share some of the highlights.

After having to grab a cheese pizza from Pizza Hut at the Denver airport while sprinting to our next flight (It was the only restaurant without a line), we got into the Seattle area and celebrated being in a land of healthy options. We stayed a few days at grandma’s home at Hood Canal, across Puget Sound from Seattle, where we picked fresh oysters out of the bay and grilled them as we admired the view.

After the memorial we spent a few days on the Seattle side of the Sound. Our friends the Krabbenhoft’s were so kind as to let us use their rental property on Lake Tapps and even cooked us a couple vegan meals. It was great spending time with old friends and connecting in new ways with our expanding families.

We had a great time in Seattle with Jeremy’s sister who lives downtown. Kati took us to Pike Place Market and wherever we wanted to go. We discovered a neat little vegan restaurant to have lunch at, The Flying Apron. We all loved it, except for 4-year-old Hannah, who hates all good food.

We pigged out also. We went to places we never get to enjoy here in Florence, like The Old Spaghetti Factory. When you have kids, you just have to take them to fun places like this sometimes. You know?

We had a great trip, but when we got back we were all sick. We all had colds, and Hannah had a nasty stomach virus that lasted seven days. We are ready to rejoin the land of the living and eating well. We are taking another jump-start into the vegan world here, after making allowances for travel and convenience.

Hopefully, next time we will have tips on how to travel with a large family on a healthy diet. But this time, we will have to call it a draw.