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A Plea for Red, White, Blue — and Local

Last September, I wrote about Roger Doiron’s grassroots campaign for a White House garden. Now Doiron, who’s based in Scarborough, Maine, is taking his home-grown ideas to another level — one of stars, stripes and all things patriotic. (Photo courtesy of Foodindependenceday.org) Founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, Doiron has launched (in partnership with IATP Food and Society Fellows and the Mother Nature Network) Food Independence Day, a campaign to make your Fourth of July cookout local and sustainable. Remember last summer’s Eat Local Challenge? The same idea applies: Try sourcing as many of your feast fixins within 100 or 200 miles of where you work or live. In doing so, you’re doing your part to stimulate the local economy, a highly patriotic act, says Doiron. It’s not just the voting public Doiron’s after; he’s circulating an online petition asking for participation from America’s 50 governors, “to lead and eat by

Meatless Monday: Moo Shu, Hold the Oink

Moo shu veg fixins. (Kim O’Donnel) I’ve become a regular at Real Food Has Curves, the latest Web venture for cookbook duo Mark Scarbrough and Bruce Weinstein. Last week, the guys threw something together that I knew would be perfect for this meatless space, something they’re calling Moo Shu Vegetables, a slimmed down version of the Mandarin pork, egg & pancakes classic, but with no less flavor or zing. What makes this dish a league beyond the same-ole stir fry are a few key components: the sauce, the aromatics and the crunch. Hoisin sauce, often referred to as Chinese barbecue sauce, gets an extra boost with sesame oil and black pepper, plus an aromatics trio of scallions, garlic and fresh ginger. Nothing fancy here, but the combination is truly tongue popping. The vegetables in question are all crispers — stuff that doesn’t wilt easily and needs just a short

Comfort Food

There are certain foods that just taste better at home: monkey bread, chocolate chip cookies, and, o

EDF: From Anxiety to Creativity

Jill Nussinow is a northern California-based cookbook author, cooking teacher and recipe developer who teaches people about the joys of buying and eating fresh farmer’s market and homegrown produce. She is the author of “The Veggie Queen: Vegetables Get the Royal Treatment” cookbook and the DVD, “Pressure Cooking: A Fresh Look, Delicious Dishes in Minutes.” Her companion Web sites are Pressure Cooking Online and The Veggie Queen, which includes a lively blog. (Jill Nussinow) I head into this week with unusual trepidation and anxiety. My stock-in-trade is food, and making sure there’s plenty of it. How will I manage without shopping? It’s one of my major activities: I run into “real” people versus my “virtual” buddies. My twice weekly jaunts to the farmer’s market and occasional stops to the natural food store fulfill my “face time”. Will I survive? I discover that there’s more to this challenge than I

EDF Realization: Size Doesn’t Matter

Allen Williams recently traded in his Silicon Valley dot-com career to pursue freelance food writing from Vancouver, B.C. Allen enjoys food exploration and combines childhood farm-style cooking with urban flavors at his blog, Eating Out Loud. When taking a break from cooking you’ll also find Allen sharing his vintage recipe card collection on his hobby site, Recovered Recipes. A peek inside Allen Williams’ pantry in Vancouver, B.C. (Allen Williams) In all honesty, I’ve feared Kim’s Eating Down the Fridge challenge ever since signing up. I found myself lured in by the prospect of making creative MacGyver-like meals but grew concerned about our 520 square-foot condo which we had just moved to a few months ago. The pantry is petite and the refrigerator narrow and not very deep. It’s the smallest space I’ve ever lived in, and I wasn’t sure if it contained enough food to sustain two adults for

EDF: A Report from Poland

Busy mom-of-four Jessica Sirotin, a native of New Jersey, has spent the past 15 years living in Eastern Europe. Currently based in Warsaw, Poland, Sirotin has also lived in Russia and Hungary, and has enjoyed, mostly, every minute of it. (Jessica Sorotin) It would be wonderful to think that changing how and what my family consumes is being carried out in the measured and careful way I had planned. In execution, however, I find myself pressured by both circumstances and my four kids. Nevertheless, I think I have a fighting chance at success. My husband’s family is of Russian/Polish extraction, and in the 15 years we have lived in Eastern Europe (Russia, Hungary and Poland) I have taken to heart many of their ideas about managing the pantry. Even though Communism ended here almost 20 years ago, many people still remember the food shortages and remain very pro-active about

EDF: The Challenges – and Joys – of Cooking for One

A native of Falls Church, Va., Bren Herrerra is a freelance food and travel writer and personal chef based in Atlanta, Ga. She shares her love for Cuban and Latin fusion cuisine in her blog, Flanboyant Eats. Bren tells me she throws back five shots of Cuban espresso daily to wear her many hats. Her latest gig is a biweekly cooking segment on “Daytime” TV. Bren’s green tea ice cream cups. (Bren Herrera) A friend once told me I should treat myself like a queen when it comes to cooking. Her bright suggestion came after my ongoing complaint that cooking for one is simply not fun. I’m single, with no real responsibility for others’ nutrition; therefore, I find myself extremely lethargic, come dinnertime. I find little interest or appeal in cooking for just me. In Latin households, eating is as much about fellowship with friends and family and political

Gazpacho

Summer is officially here and I am absolutely loving the produce.  It was my turn to host the Gourme

When EDF Is Not a Game, But Real Life

In May, when I made a save-the-date announcement on the EDF Facebook Group page, I received an e-mail from west coast reader Jill Blevins, who knows a thing or two about eating down the fridge — and not by choice. “I was homeless with four kids,” she writes, “twice, and know what it’s like to be poor, to think food stamps are a gift from God and to eat down the fridge for weeks straight, hoping the kids would sleep late so I’d only have to feed them two starchy meals.” I asked Blevins, who’s currently based in Oregon (and no longer homeless), to share her candid perspective on making do with what you’ve got on hand. Jill Blevins. (Family photo) Asking me to abstain from food shopping is like asking an anorexic to please cut back on the eating for a while. It’s not the shopping that keeps