Pacific Northwest Blueberry Bonanza, Urban Gleaning, and other almost free food

Jam! Cobbler! Smoothies! Muffins! Blueberry Bites!

We found a U-Pick blueberry place (orchard?) in far South East Portland, spent an hour picking, and got 10 pounds of blueberries, $1/pound.

They were so tasty! I made 5 half-pints of jam (my first attempt at jam, no pectin, using agave not sugar), and ate the rest of them.

They were so good, that we went back a few weeks later, and got 15 pounds! These had much more blueberry-ness, they were riper (some too ripe), and made sweeter, more jam-y jam (6 half-pints, I used honey to sweeten the jam, 1:5 honey to berry ratio). The rest of the berries I froze for the winter, for making smoothies. They are certainly cheaper, and much tastier that store-bought blueberries.

This year I also got free walnuts from someone Eric works with. They needed to be shelled, but they are very tasty, much more tender than store bought. We’re getting plums from the same friend, and I’m really excited. I tried doing some Urban Gleaning this year, but didn’t have enough buddies and only found a few cherry trees and a plum tree by my bus stop. The plums were bitter and didn’t pit well, so I couldn’t freeze or dehydrate them.

Next year, more urban gleaning, and maybe I’ll by an extra freezer to store more extra food.

Gardening this season

What’s more local than an urban CSA powered by bike? Growing vegetables in my own backyard! Since moving in to the new house, I’ve transformed the covered trash pit into a compost-rich bountiful 10’ x 7’ garden plot.

When we moved into the new house, there was a covered patio/thing in the backyard, that we believed was a garden plot that was covered and converted to a patio, or just covered for the winter. In early spring I started demolishing the cover, which, I discovered, was rotted, pressure treated plywood covering a rotted wood frame. Underneath the cover was an assortment of trash including broken glass, parts of styrofoam coolers, ash from the fireplaces inside (with parts of burned things like credit cards, rusted nails and pieces of metal), big rocks, broken pots, coils of old cable, and decomposing netting. The highlight was a folded up piece of carpet 7’ long, buried 3’ deep, diagonally through the garden.

I was expecting a lot of produce from my CSA, so I just planted a few things in the relatively small plot. I planted carrots,

Datura

Tomatoes (from Eric’s Mom, from Germany seeds)

And many volunteer plants from the compost: Pumpkins, zucchini, and squash (acorn-like, but some albino and some technicolor).

The zucchini took over the garden, and then the yard. I started making and freezing zucchini cakes (like latkes).

I also planted parsley and basil.

A week ago, I just cleared out half the garden and planted carrots and lacinato kale for a winter crop.

All in all, I wish I had more carrots, the zucchini and squash took over too much. And I miss tons of fresh peas. So I have big plans for next year, and I’m looking forward to fresh carrots and kale this winter.

Community Supported Agriculture in Portland

This year I’m part of a Community Supported Agriculture call Sunroot Gardens, with my farmer, Kollibri Sonnenblume.

It’s been great to have very local produce, and to have a good relationship with my farmer. Every week I get fresh, beautiful produce from South East Portland, grown in urban Portland, transported and cared for by a farmer on bike.

There are tons of CSA options for the Portland Area, but I chose Kollibri because of his urban, bike-powered gardening (that was competitively priced with other CSAs in the area).

Willamette Weekly Article

Edible Portland Mention

East PDX News Write-up

So far this year I’ve got a very wide range of fresh, delicious veggies each week, from radish pods (seen above), garlic spears, lambs quarters, salad mixes, beautiful multicolored carrots, string beans, french beans, green beans, potatoes, multicolored beets, green onions, red onions, leeks, garlic, basil, rosemary, pattypan, zucchini, spinach, english peas, and even a taste of homegrown tobacco.

I’m also very excited about the Staple Crops project, which is not part of the CSA shares, but an extra project growing grain. I’m hoping to volunteer next year to help the harvest and processing, Kollibri says about the project:

Much attention has been given over to growing vegetables and scoring fruit in the city, and many creative approaches tried out; yet those foodstuffs comprise only a small percentage of the typical human diet, which is heavy on grains augmented with proteins (the majority of it vegetarian). The less-than-an-acre plot we harvested on Saturday is part of one attempt to address this issue.

The only things I’d like to get more local easier is meat (especially rabbit and pork) and eggs, oh, and honey. There’s a meat CSA in Estacada that I am thinking about joining for the meat and eggs portion.

Enjoying Food

First, I just want to say that this posting is a thought experiment or exploration. That being said, please continue reading...

The cover of Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, has a picture of a head of lettuce, with a label that says “EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY PLANTS.”

This is the secret to a healthy diet, translated as follows. First part:
Eat = consciously consume
Food = not foodlike substances, real food, mostly not processed

Not too much = only until you are full

Mostly Plants = less processed crap, more living plants (fruits, veggies, etc).

This is part of the larger movement of....well it might be too large of an idea to really have one name. It involves eating good food, enjoying every bite, and knowing and enjoying how it was grown, picked, and prepared for eating.

As you can imagine, it goes by many different names, and shows up in many other movements. Some call it Slow Food. Some called it Community Supported Agriculture. Some call themselves Foodies. Some call it Sustainable Agriculture, or just Gardening or Cooking or Baking.

So what’s the point?

I love food. I love growing it, picking it, cooking it, and especially eating good quality, full of flavor food.

Have you ever eaten a pomegranate? They are one of the most ridiculous pieces of fruit. You dig out these tiny little seeds, and then carefully pop them in your mouth, sucking out the juice and scrapping off the meat with your teeth. With pomegranates, you don’t get a lot of bang for your buck, but you get a divine experience, both tactile and flavorful.

The experience of eating a pomegranate is almost the antithesis of the Big Mac experience. Sure, Big Macs are flavorful, and texturally interesting, and after all, pomegranates are so much work, no one could live off of them. The big difference is in the intention and the awareness. When you eat a Big Mac, you are often in a hurry and pretty much just cramming food in your mouth. I’ve been really hungry before, and I’ve shoveled more than a few times.

So how would it be if you just slowed down and became really aware of what you were eating? Really slowed down enough to taste every ingredient, every texture, to enjoy it, to maybe think about it, where it came from, how it was cooked, who grew it, who cooked it, what your body thinks about it, how you feel after you eat some of it. Don’t you think that would really change your experience of your body and your food?

When I eat green beans in the middle of the summer, I eat them slowly, and I almost think I can feel my body being grateful for them.

But it’s not just about eating slowly, or being aware of what you’re eating, what you’re putting into your body. I can be very aware of a french fry, and still kind of enjoy it as I’m eating it. It’s also about eating mostly plants, and not mostly processed feed corn.

As two guys from the city found out in the documentary King Corn, feed corn is easy to grow, tastes terrible, and is in everything.

Including your hair. It turns out, what you eat can be detected in part by your hair. Different types of carbon isotopes indicate whether or not you have a diet rich in corn or corn-fed meat or animal products. And it turns out, a lot of the carbon in a lot of people’s hair (in the US) is from corn, and not just any corn, but highly processed corn.

This is very very bad for health.

So eat less corn (which is technically a plant, but more like a pure starch at this point) and eat more plants. Plants take less energy to produce than animal products, and we humans are meant to eat a lot of them, from the design of our teeth to the rest of our squishy digestive systems, we are made to eat a whole lotta plants.

For the past year, I’ve been cutting way back on refined anything, especially sweeteners and grains, and focusing on plant matter (with protein on the side). Our bodies get so much grain, especially corn and wheat, that they are really sick of it. For me, it’s mostly a way to balance my metabolism, keeping my blood sugar even. Grain and sugars are quick burning energy, so your blood sugar gets high quickly, the crashes. But with carbohydrates from plants, your body breaks down the food a little slower and more evenly, so you have more even energy.

So try eating 70% plant and 30% protein and see what happens. It’s sometimes called the “caveman diet” or “paleolithic diet”, because without grain, our diet is pre-agricultural. It’s worked pretty well for me so far, I feel much more healthy, and I know I won’t have to worry as much about diabetes in the future if I’m not abusing my body’s ability to manage my blood sugar.

Knowing chemicals in food but not our own neighborhoods

This month’s issue of Orion magazine has an article called Environmental Amnesia, which talks about how people in the US know about chemicals and other dangers in their consumer products and foods but not about the chemicals and dangers in their own neighborhoods. Maybe I should be impressed that US consumers are aware of so many of the dangers in consumer products and foods, like Bisphenol-A, mercury in fish, and the great salmonella tomato scare. But I’m not.

Having just moved, within Portland but to another neighborhood, I am trying to get to know my new surroundings. I’m now in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood (see the map at the top of this page). But I’m having a little trouble figuring out how that helps me strengthen my sense of place. Thanks to a link in the Orion article, I know that in 2002, Multnomah Country (the one I’m in) ranked among the dirtist/worst 10% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of Toxic Chemicals released in the water water by industry. And I know that there are 5 superfund sites, “superfund” because of the large fund that was set up in the 1980s to deal with these toxic sites, that went bankrupt 5 years ago.

Not sure quite how I now feel more connected to the place I live, maybe I need to visit each superfund. Maybe I just need to notice my neighborhood more. So much changes in neighborhoods over time, strip malls are planned over playgrounds, your favorite field has cookie-cutter subdivisions built on it. Who wants to pay attention to those painful changes?