A beagle in a pear tree

As much as I love our new house - it's in full sun all day long, and as you know, that means it gets awfully hot in the house. While our Italian and Portuguese neighbours are insanely house proud (our immediate next-door neighbour cuts his entire front lawn - granted it's 8' x 10' - with a pair of hand shears to ensure a perfect putting green look), it's popular in our area for people to remove their front lawns and gardens altogether in favor of interlocking brick with some sort of ornamental garden or, um, Virgin Mary statue in the middle, or even worse, turn it into a parking pad.

Save our prison farms

When I read about folks engaged in peaceful, direct action, I am filled with so much admiration. My girl Shana sent me the link to the Canadian Save Our Prison Farms website earlier this week. Neither of us had any idea that 1. there are prison farms in Canada or 2. they are in danger of being closed.

Foodprint Toronto

I've been remiss in writing about the Foodprint Project and the upcoming Foodprint Toronto event. Why? I was jealous that I couldn't attend. However, due to being in the middle of a work crunch right now, I cannot take the extra week off as I had hoped. So, guess what? This Saturday, I get to attend Foodprint Toronto with my girl and fellow blogger, Shana.

Discount rate and our future

Humans are special, not because we are made in god's image, and commanded by the Bible to rule over the earth, but because we have the amazing ability to choose a future in which we thrive and develop in a just society while coexisting with a healthy natural world. - Jeff Schweitzer

It's gettin' dry out there

When folks find out I'm American (what, did the bourbon swilling and unwillingness to accept any form of authority give me away?), the conversation often turns to questions of what can global citizens do to help the "average American" get on board with policies, projects and funding that foster renewable energy and fight climate change. 

Who are 'foodies'?

Book review - Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape, by Josée Johnston and Shyon Baumann (review first appeared on rabble.ca).  I have a confession. I don't consider myself a "foodie." In my blog, Folks Gotta Eat, I curate and filter a lot of information related to food, but I'm more concerned with the politics and policies of food security than I am with the latest hip eatery, or even reports of undeniably good pie at some truck stop out on the 401. 

Shana's first harvest

Yes, we had that early feed of arugula planted in April, and then there have been lots of herbs making their way into all our dishes, but they are all kinda "instant gratification crops" as far as vegetable gardens go. I've got a ton of green tomatoes on the vine and a few small zucchinis starting but yesterday I noticed my beets were looking pretty crowded and that some were even peeking out of the soil. So here they are - my first little harvest!

USDA's Shirley Sherrod under attack

I don't know if any of you are following what's happening in the U.S. with Shirley Sherrod of the USDA. It's absolutely disgraceful. I was thinking to just tweet about it and let it go, but when I woke this morning and saw more pieces in the news about the scandal, I thought I should write a little something about it.

The best of NYC

It seems like everyone I know has visited NYC in the last months and decided that it really IS a fabulous place. Duh. I could have told my Canadian friends and family members that, but no...no one listened. Well, here is yet another reason to love the Big Apple. For months now, I've followed a project in NYC called "Not Eating Out in New York: Consuming Less, Eating More." And folks, if you've spent any amount of time in NYC, you know that the entire culture seems to be based around dining out. 

Hospitals fight back

Thinking about climate change

Shana's bbq pizza goodness

Until I can make a wood pizza oven in my backyard (our neighbours have one so it's not outside the realm of possibility but my husband is so annoyingly stuck on things like bylaws and safety he's forbidding it for now just wait till we get a country house) I've perfected the art of making amazing thin crust pizzas on my grill.  The secret to good thin crust pizza lies in a smokiness from the wood and that little bit of char from temperatures no home oven can hope to duplicate (although rumor has it some foodies have rigged up their ovens to cook pizzas on the self clean setting by tampering the locking mechanism but haven't I already mentioned my husband is an anxious sort?) the standard grill can solve both those problems!

Conflict Kitchen is serving up knowledge

The world is pretty darn messed up. I think it probably always was - it's just a question of scale these days. What gets me by (other than massive amounts of exercise and a bit of vino to take the edge off)? I love learning about really cool projects that are trying to educate and break down some of these global barriers we erect. My latest find comes via AlterNet - the Conflict Kitchen.

To help you feel inadequate

Okay. I'm a complete sucker for the sweet story of the 11-year old who gardens her little fingers to the bone to donate food to various emergency food programs, or "soup kitchens" as some folks call them. Katie Stagliano of Summerville, South Carolina, is the founder and mastermind of Katie's Krops.

Dear Canada, please grow some balls

If you've been following Folks Gotta Eat for long, you know how I like my water. In fact, I'm drinking some now. Yesterday one of my heroes, Maude Barlow, along with Anil Naidoo, had an important piece on thestar.com concerning water as a human right.

Today's food demons? Salsa and guacamole

Yesterday, The Globe and Mail had a little piece that proves once again that you just can't eat anything you didn't grow yourself. Thank goodness I'm less of a hypochondriac than I am just plain neurotic, or I'd be in real trouble. The problem this time? It seems that the CDC has a new study highlighting the insanely high rates of food poisoning from salsa and guacamole served at restaurants.

Edible Toronto

Okay, folks. If you're concerned about Toronto food security and politics, you might want to head over to Metro Hall on Thursday for this event: The Edible City: Where is Food on the Election Agenda?

Product recall mobile app

Do you ever feel like your brain is hosting an in-house boxing championship match to determine how you should react to a news item? That's how I feel about the USDA's latest press release concerning food and product recalls.

Roadtrippin' with Shana

We don't have a car - I don't even drive, so I never really think about it - the hubs and I both agree with transit at our door we don't need one. However, growing up, one of my parents' favourite pastimes was going for a Sunday drive. They'd pick a destination - a flea market in town, or provincial park down the highway, or heck, even an ice cream from a shop a few towns over - and off we'd go, stopping at yard sales and interesting things along the road on the way.

Nestlé, why are you so f#$%ed?

Ever feel like some things are just inherently f#$%ed? That's how I feel about Nestlé. I used to find it appalling and tragic that Nestlé convinced women around the world that baby formula was better than breast feeding. Later, as I traveled through South and Central America, I was disgusted that the only coffee available in coffee-producing regions was Nescafé. I can't even talk about their bottled water. And now? Folks, Nestlé has raised the bar on predatory practices.

Imperial Cuisine

I love it when my two passions, performance and food, collide. Saturday night, we went to a preview of a fantastic new play created and workshopped right here in Toronto. Produced by Cahoots Theatre Projects, Taste of Empire is having its world premiere at The Market Kitchen - a gorgeous test kitchen/cooking studio in the historic St. Lawrence Market.

No green space for a garden? Window farm!

I originally wrote about a little something called "window farming" when I launched Folks Gotta Eat. For the last few days, I've witnessed them in action, all over Brooklyn in NYC. So, if you didn't make time to dig up your whole back yard this year and get down and dirty, consider starting small, but funky. 

Food politics and fireworks

American Independence Day. There is nothing quite like climbing up to the highest point on the roof deck of a Brooklyn walk-up to watch the Manhattan fireworks, letting childhood memories and excitement wash over you. The 4th of July holiday in the U.S. is about a lot things, but yesterday, I took note of the food politics of the day.

Making time for dinner (part two)

As I mentioned in the last post, we've been an English as a Second Language home stay family for a little over two years. I've also alluded in several posts that my husband can barely make toast, so 90% of the food preparation in our house is up to me. But, I love it - feeding people brings me so much happiness.

Mobile slaughterhouses?

When I was a kid, I used to live for the book mobile to come around the town and host reading circles for the kids. I would stand in line, more than a little impatient, tapping my foot, just waiting for my turn to go inside the book mobile and peruse the shelves. With this in mind, I just learned about the craziest, yet most obvious, solution to the problem of diminishing numbers of small- to medium-scale slaughterhouses. Dun-da-da-da! MOBILE SLAUGHTERHOUSES!

More on slow money

We talked about the Slow Money movement in an earlier post. I found a great podcast interview with Slow Money Alliance founder and author of the Slow Money book, Woody Tasch, on Edible Radio so I thought I would share it. First, let's review why this book/organization/movement are so fabulous.