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Speaking up about Agriculture

Written by my wife Jodi, her account didn’t make the migration for some reason.

I meant to write a follow up to my post on the 2010 agricultural report, but I’ve been distracted by writing to my provincial government instead. There is a big rezoning issue going on in my area right now, and since it’s important farmland at stake, I wanted to get involved.

Here is the letter that I wrote to add my voice Continue reading “Speaking up about Agriculture”

Speaking up about Agriculture

Old Agriculture is Dying

I’m typing this on my recently new Aspire One netbook. It’s booted to Ubuntu 10.10 because I dislike the way Windows operates. Between my husband and I we have 4 computers, we used to have 5. I’m also watching him play Little Big Planet 2 on our PS3 and 40″ Sony LCD which I helped choose. Video games are one of our favourite past times. My iPhone 3Gs buzzes in my pocket and it’s a text from a friend in MN. It buzzes again and it’s a twitter mention from another friend in FL. The wonderful little gadget is practically surgically attached to me. I’m young enough that by the time I started doing projects in elementary school that required any research at all computers were necessary. Tech is my life, I am a geek and I love this modern world I live in.

There’s a point to this, it’s meant as a contrast. I also work at a local vineyard/winery which is really just a fancy way to say I do farm labour for a living; I farm grapes. I’m also damn good at what I do. I work hard, I use complicated heavy machinery and I help to produce good crops.

I recently read this 56 page 2010 report on the state of agriculture in Atlantic Canada. Twice. It’s sad, and scary, and heartbreaking for all the reasons it ought to be as local farms are disappearing. It’s also frustrating however in a unique way for people like me. I’m a 25 year old woman who enjoys video games and travel, who is interested in the world’s politics and cultures, who eats sushi and cares about scientific progress. I also care about farming.

I hate to say it but this report frames it all wrong. It wants consumers to care about farming, and about the state in which farmers are currently living. It wants people to know where their food comes from and to buy local. It wants young people like me to give a damn. Why then did it feel like they were sneering at me the whole time? Read it if you can as I get the feeling that it’s not just Atlantic Canada who is having problems in the agricultural sector, but I’m going to try to go through it here and address a few concerns I have. Grab a seat and a drink. (Do you know where it came from?) Continue reading “Old Agriculture is Dying”

Old Agriculture is Dying

Recipe for a French onion sandwich. Not soup, sandwich.

Our good friend Dan linked to an absolutely amazing-sounding recipe for a grilled cheese sandwich. Not just any old grilled cheese sandwich — one that attempts to improve on, of all things, French onion soup by turning it into a sandwich that apparently tastes pretty much like every good thing about the original classic. Hope the author, Kerry Saretsky, won’t mind too terribly if I nick it from her post at HuffPo, so I have it someplace I can stand to be for any longer than five minutes. (No offense, Kerry, it’s just all the antivax and Deepak Chopra nonsense that get me riled up.)

French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Image also credit to Kerry Saretsky, who really knows how to photograph food.  This looks absolutely sinful.

serves 4

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons unsalted room temperature butter, divided
1 vidalia onion, sliced 1/8″ thick on a mandoline
Sea salt
1 dried bay leaf
1 1/2 tablespoons cognac
1/4 cup beef stock
Freshly cracked black pepper
8 3/4-inch slices of sourdough bread, about 1 8″ round loaf (see Note #1)
8 ounces gruyère, coarsely grated
8 ounces Italian fontina, coarsely grated (see Note #2)

PROCEDURE

1. Melt one tablespoon of butter in an 8.5-inch sauté pan over medium heat.
2. Add the thinly sliced onions, salt, and bay leaf. Cook 8 minutes, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until the onions are soft and golden, but not charred. If the onions begin to brown too quickly, add 2 tablespoons of water, and continue cooking.
3. Add the cognac off the heat, and allow to reduce 2 minutes over low heat.
4. Add the beef stock and cook on low heat for 3 minutes, until the onions are soft and jammy, and the pan is dry. Remove the bay leaf and discard.
5. Meanwhile, lightly butter one side of each slice of bread with the 2 remaining tablespoons of butter. Divide the cheese between all the unbuttered sides of bread, and scatter the onion mixture evenly on half of those slices. Then top each piece of onion and cheese bread with a slice of just cheese bread, so the butter is on the outside of the sandwich, and the onions are sandwiched between two layers of cheese.
6. Place in an 8.5-inch sauté pan on medium-low heat, place one sandwich at a time on the hot pan. Toast 2 minutes on the first side, lower the heat to low, and toast 4 minutes on the second, or until the outside of the sandwich is golden and crisp, and the cheese is melted. Cut in half, and serve immediately, with Dijon mustard and a few cornichons on the side.

NOTES

1. You could also use a rustic French farmhouse round loaf.
2. Feel free to use either a mix of gruyère and fontina, or just 16 ounces gruyère.

Fair cop: I haven’t made this meal yet, but I have every intention of doing so at the earliest possible juncture.

Recipe for a French onion sandwich. Not soup, sandwich.

Tales From Minnesota 1

You’ll have to forgive the relative brevity of this post — I’m writing it on my desktop, and after years of using my laptop almost exclusively to do my blogging, this feels somehow unnatural. I’ve never liked doing it those few other times I’ve been forced to, but, well, you know, boo hoo. Such a first-world problem, huh? Anyway, this is the first post in a whenever-I-remember-something-cool series about our trip to Minnesota. I promise not to fill it with tales of how amazing our hosts were (because I could do a whole blog of paeans to the Zvans, though that might get old quickly for them), and I’ll try to keep it to the more interesting points.

With Minnesota being so close to Canada not only in temperament, but in general climate, I wasn’t expecting too many culture shock moments. One hit us on the first night out, though, when we went to eat at a pub that serves poutine — Ben and Stephanie’s way of easing us into the trip, and a tasty one at that. The poutine was good, the clubhouse sandwich on rye was amazing, and the coffee-beer hybrid they served from their microbrews was a surprising and epic cap to the meal. So, all around, the first pub-in-Minnesota experience was net positive.

When we were on our way out the door, though, the wait staff that had been waiting on us the whole time approached and asked if he’d did anything wrong — because we had left the tip field blank on the bill, which we’d paid by Visa. He had a kicked puppy dog face on, and while at first I thought maybe he was wheedling for a tip out of some sense that he’d somehow gone above and beyond, I picked up on the cues from Ben and Stephanie that this was out of the ordinary. I quickly made some apologies, called myself a douchebag, and handed him a bill from my wallet — pretty sure it was a twenty, as at that point I don’t think we’d broken any of the bills for our spending money yet. On our way out to the car, Ben explained that wait staff in the States apparently makes LESS than minimum wage. There’s a special hourly rate that businesses have to pay staff that otherwise gets tipped, and most businesses are happy to pay exactly that minimum, with the expectation that they will get 18% gratuity on every single transaction.

That’s right, here in Canada, it’s much different. Minimum wage is minimum wage, and wait staff in places like pubs will make the same as people working at McDonald’s. Tips are generally given in Canada as a way to reward the staff for a good meal and good service, rather than an expectation set by the government as a way of externalizing cost-sinks for businesses. And yet, there are pubs and restaurants throughout Canada. They don’t “go under” just because they have to pay their staff a fair wage. Granted, there are some cases where wait staff will just “phone it in” and won’t do anything to earn any tips, but still, at least they can pay the rent even if they’re just scraping by on the service side of things. I’m seriously surprised that a country as big on keeping money flowing, completely forgets that a higher minimum wage actually benefits everyone in the pyramid, because more wages in the lower-middle class means more money spent on Playstations and fancy clothing and regular trips to have beer at pubs. That’s, thankfully, something Canada seems to have gotten. There’s no discrepancy between tipped places and non-tipped for the minimum wage, and the economy works itself out just fine. No businesses are dying as a result, and nobody’s hurting for cash on the lower tiers of the income scale. Nova Scotia’s minimum wage is $9.20 right now, which is $8.92 USD (yeah, we’re almost on par). In Minnesota, it’s $5.25USD, which is far and away higher than the $2.13/hr USD federally mandated minimum for tipped workers. And the Republicans are slavering to cut it further. Capitalism at its finest.

I can’t emphasize how weird this is to me. I mean, some really fancy sit-down restaurants around here generally expect tips, which go to the chefs or are split amongst all the wait staff, rather than the specific person who got tipped. But I’ve never had anyone chase me on my way out the door because my inattention to the minor culture-difference details may have meant the difference between eating fresh fruit and veggies this week, and eating Kraft Dinner. Which I suppose in that case would be Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Truly a jarring moment. Maybe not the best way to start the trip, but our benefactors went out of their way to help fix that over the week we spent with them.

More on that, as they say, some other time!

Tales From Minnesota 1

Epic weekend was epic

We had a very busy weekend. Way too busy. And with another overnight job unceremoniously dumped onto my lap tonight, I’m thinking tomorrow I’m going to sleep pretty well until Jodi gets home from work.

Somehow we managed to pick the busiest time I’ve seen in a while, to do our groceries, wherein all the old people were out in force to block aisles with their silly-looking two-tier grocery carts while they labored to stoop to get their cans of spaghetti sauce. We got the car fixed — our mechanic replaced the right front strut assembly. And while we were there, I fixed Samo’s computer. And again the next day. Continue reading “Epic weekend was epic”

Epic weekend was epic

Shepherd’s pie

Today’s been a great day so far, and I’m hoping to cap it off with one of my favorite meals, shepherd’s pie.

This is my first attempt at writing out a proper recipe for my old stand-by comfort food, which I usually do slightly differently every time as it’s generally a total mishmash of ingredients. This meal is great for substitutions — whatever you need to change, feel free to change, it’ll probably turn out just fine. The only thing I’m a stickler for, is the creamed corn and the Worcestershire sauce — they’re practically mandatory. Technically, this is a “cottage pie”, where we’re not using lamb or veal, but I don’t think anyone really cares that much about the misnomer here.

5-6 large potatoes
1lb ground beef
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce, 2tbsp soya sauce,
3 cloves garlic, minced (can substitute garlic powder to taste)
1 small white onion, chopped fine (optional)
1 can creamed corn
1-2 cups frozen / fresh mixed veggies of your choice
About 1/4 block of old cheddar cheese
Paprika
Parsley flakes

Peel, cut up and boil potatoes. Brown garlic if you have it, then ground beef with onion (I normally omit the onion as it doesn’t agree with Jodi’s stomach) and worcestershire, soya and garlic / garlic powder. Season with salt and pepper to taste as well, and let it all reduce so that it’s not quite so liquidy as it’ll be when you first put in the sauces. (No, I don’t have an exact idea how liquidy it SHOULD be, but it should be reduced somewhat, at least so it doesn’t seem like hamburger soup.) I occasionally use some Montreal Steak Spice, which is just a garlic-and-pepper-based spice mix.

Preheat oven to 375. Mash potatoes as you’d normally prepare for a side dish — I usually use butter, sour cream, garlic salt and cracked black pepper. Add parsley flakes to the mixture. It’s okay if the potatoes are a little lumpy after this, they’ll probably cook down to a nice whipped state in the oven later anyway. Get out an oven-safe casserole dish (I have a big glass stovetop pot that works well in the oven for this), cover the bottom with the ground beef mixture. Add a layer of the veggies, then cover as evenly as you can with the creamed corn, then the mashed potatoes. Top with a dusting of paprika and grated cheddar.

Bake in the oven at 375 for ~25-30 mins. Turn the oven on broil for about 5 mins or until the cheese is melted and starting to form a proper crust. Serve immediately, should serve 4 healthy eaters with some leftovers for lunch the next day.

I totally reserve the right to edit this later. Like I said, my first written recipe, I’m bound to have forgotten something.

Shepherd’s pie

Homemade caramel

I should be in bed right now, but I had forgotten that I absolutely need to make caramel tonight. This is my second crack at it, and as I had promised that I was going to have caramel rice krispie squares for a work potluck on Friday, I’m hoping I won’t have to do it again tomorrow but at least this way if I do have to, I still have that option.

I was inspired by this “recipe” — more like a set of guidelines. I tried making the simple syrup (1 cup water, 2 cups sugar, no stirring), over 7/10 heat (it says medium high) last time, used evaporated milk (unchilled) instead of cream, and used a saucepan. The results were, a gigantic mess. I seriously underestimated “a bit of sputtering” when it turned into a volcano on my stove, leaving sticky caramel goo all over the burner that I had to clean off before I could go to bed. Also, the resultant caramel was more like molasses — it was seriously overdone. And it turned grainy, probably from my using a fork to whisk the milk in. This time, I’m using 5.5/10 heat, a large pot, and putting the pot in the sink before I add the milk, and it won’t be the full cup of milk (now chilled, so it brings the sugar out of the browning temperature better with less) that it calls for. Plus, a plastic whisk will be on hand.

Hopefully it’ll turn out better this time. It’s already starting to smell caramel-y. I’d better go watch it, and I’ll report back when it’s done.

Homemade caramel

Leggo my warp nacelleggo

Today’s been mostly about food, as is appropriate for many people’s Fathers Day celebrations. While I’m not a father, I’m certainly a foodie. My tastes run along the lines of the “common folk” though, my version of a good food day involves homemade mac and cheese with real old cheddar, and a lovely beef stew for supper (which, while slightly singed on the bottom due to not having a proper stewing pot, turned out to be easily the best stew I’ve made in recent memory — even without dumplings!).

But what we had for breakfast is still the highlight of my day, if not for taste, at least for humour.

StarTreggo's!  Click to embiggen
StarTreggo's! Click to embiggen

That’s right, kids! Do you love Star Trek? Do you love Eggo Waffles? Well now you can consume the head of your favorite Star Trek character for breakfast! Catholics take note, this is how you symbolically eat the flesh of your favorite fictional character: use edible dyes to imprint their visage on your tasteless cardboard-like food product. Transsubstantiate THIS! And for those of you who prefer to eat inanimate fictional objects like the Enterprise or a Klingon logo (ow, pointy!), don’t worry, you won’t be left out!

Here’s some more detail.

19-year-old Chekov in his new curly-haired incarnation, plus a Romulan logo
19-year-old Chekov in his new curly-haired incarnation, plus a Romulan logo
The new Uhura sure doesn't take a very flattering photeggograph, does she?
The new Uhura sure doesn't take a very flattering photeggograph, does she?
Leggo my warp nacelleggo