Secondly, I’m reading Michael Pollan again. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Which means two things: first of all, I’m eating better (helped along by all the free and cheap produce a la announcement #1).

Secondly, I’m feeling inspired to make a serious change in the way I think about food. (More about my food challenge is below!)

Now, I’ve been here before. Pollan has a way of doing this to me, but I’m not ALWAYS reading Pollan. McDonalds is right next to the Home Depot (seems like my 2nd home, most weekends), and it’s all too easy to grab a 10-piece McNugget and head on my way.

But right now, Pollan has me seriously second guessing that nugget. And the entire food system. And the one staple that makes up an inordinately large part of that food system: Corn.

(click image to enlarge)

You’ll have to read the book for Pollan’s great description of corn sex, and how corn’s reproductive habits (among other things) made it perfectly suited for mankind, how we chose it and it chose us, and how we co-evolved to the point where it seriously rules our lives. Forget about robots, Pollan has me convinced it’s corn that’s going to wake up and take over the world.

You’ll also have to read the book for his dive into corn economics: how politics overtook centuries of common knowledge and agricultural good sense, and how the U.S. government (thanks to the Nixon administration and all thereafter) turned farmers into “agribusinessmen.”

Fast forward to 2011: the pastoral Midwestern farm doesn’t exist. One factory farmer feeds about 130 people (that’s the most productive farmer of all time) — all in corn.

Corn is the glue holds the modern food system — as well as all those McNuggets — together.

It’s also a big percentage of the rest of the ingredients. Corn starch and high fructose corn syrup: those are the most obvious. How about maltodextrin? Sometimes that’s derived from soy, but often it’s corn, and it’s in EVERYTHING, it seems. Same with xantham gum, vegetable oil, food starch and modified food starch, MSG, malt (and malt syrup or extract), dextrose, fructose, sucrose, baking powder, caramel coloring (and flavoring), and more. Just try to find something in the supermarket without corn hiding in it.

Going one step down the food chain, try to find meat or dairy from an animal that wasn’t fed corn. Those products generally aren’t labeled, so you really have no idea. But in general, it seems, assume it was unless you know the farmer yourself.

(note that corn isn’t pulled out from the huge meat and dairy sections…)

My One-Week Food Challenge

Just a little bit appalled by all this, I’ve decided to challenge myself to eat for one week without ingesting any invisible corn. Now, I pretty much accept that this is impossible, but I’m going to do my best.

Also, I’m allowing myself to eat corn itself — as in, the actual whole vegetable. And I might make an exception or two for corn meal, since that’s the next least processed version of corn, and it’s something I could theoretically make myself without too much trouble.

At Farmer Joe’s this afternoon (similar to Whole Foods), I perused the aisles looking for things I can eat this week. Big brand peanut butter is out (corn syrup). So, surprisingly, is grated mozzarella cheese (all contained corn starch or “cellulose powder,” which I can only assume comes from corn).

Adele’s Sausage is out too, along with most breakfast cereals. Beer doesn’t list ingredients (?), but I’ve read it’s often made with corn products, so there will be none of that this week either. Good thing I’ve stockpiled the wine…

I ended up coming home with: Challah bread, bulk granola, bulk dried mango, and several dairy products which probably break the rules, since I don’t know what the animals were fed: organic Kefir, a block of mozzarella, and a tub of marscapone. I’ll supplement this throughout the week with farmers market fare and stuff from my own garden.

Tonight’s dinner: Homemade pizza. I made the dough myself — this is a 5-minute job and much easier than you’d expect! The sauce was my own as well (canned this past weekend!).

I sauteed up some portobella mushrooms in olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tossed them on top along with an onion a friend picked on a local farm, the mozzarella (grated myself, since the pre-grated bags were full of corn), a little bit of pancetta (rule breaker, since the pig probably ate loads of corn), and globs of goat cheese (goats probably eat corn, too).

It took about 30 minutes of prep and 30 minutes to cook. I’d say it was moderately corn-free, save the animal products and the little bit of cornmeal I used to keep the dough from sticking to the stone.

Tomorrow’s breakfast: Kefir with granola or challah with marscapone and a corn-free jam.

I’m already breaking rules, out of necessity — I just don’t have easy (i.e. convenient) access to 100% grass-fed meat AND dairy, even at most of the farmers markets! And of all places, the Bay Area probably has the most access in the country.

This is going to be difficult… I’ll keep you posted.

The chicken coop is still in the works, but the compost bin is done!

I did a lot of research into bin design, looking at models using recycled wood pallets, buying a big plastic bin instead of building one, or building one out of the heaps of 2x4s rescued from the shed.

I settled on this 3-bin compost system, in part because I expect I’ll be able to generate a LOT of compost (I have so much yard waste already), but also because I saw a really well-done version of it on featured on Re-nest.

Mine isn’t quite as pretty — after all, most of the materials  are recycled — but it does the trick! In the end, I spent about $150 on materials I didn’t have or couldn’t salvage, including the wire hardware cloth, two Trex boards (the slats on the front are this composite material — I had enough for two sections, salvaged from another Oakland homeowner’s pile of scrap, but needed more for the third section), one 9′ redwood 2×4, since i didn’t have enough of that length, and all the screws, hinges, and hardware. The Oakland Home Depot and Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore saw my face a few times that weekend…

I don’t want to think about what it would have cost to buy all new material! I guess the message is DON’T! Even if you don’t have salvage of your own, I found several places to buy recycled wood for really cheap. Urban Ore in Berkeley, for example, sells 2x4s at around $2 a pop!

Steve and I managed to build this guy in about two weekends, with a little extra work on his part on his time off during the week.

The PDF design I followed can be downloaded by clicking here.

Have your own compost bin design to share? Or another repurposed yard project? Send them my way, I’d love to share them on here!

And here’s Brendon with a chicken coop sneak peak…

I toyed with the idea of saving these photos, hoping I might do an interview and full story on Kitty Sharkey, who lives on her 4,000 square foot “Havenscourt Homestead” in East Oakland.

But I couldn’t wait — I was too amazed and inspired by what I saw.

Kitty — a 9-5 working woman in love with her 52 goats, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and cats (plus several bee hives) — lives on a smaller property than I do. Her own little 2-bedroom home was bought as a foreclosure, just three years ago. THREE YEARS, and she’s done all this.

What might I do in that time…

Kitty’s front yard is an official Bay Friendly Garden — she tore the lawn out (much as I’m doing now!) and put in low water plants.

The driveway used to run from the street to the garage at the very back of the property — now, just the front portion is for parking, while most of the length is used for veggie gardening! The secret to getting huge plants in containers? Poop, Kitty says. Amending the soil with manure has done wonders for her tomatoes and other vegetables.

Somehow, there are 52 animals on this homestead. That includes goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and cats — but doesn’t include the two bee hives on the garage roof. All that and a hammock occupy most of the backyard. Remarkably, it doesn’t actually smell like a barnyard! Kitty practices the “deep litter” method of maintaining the animal coops and pens, which allows manure to compost in place underneath a deep layer of hay or pine shavings while keeping things relatively odor-free. Whatever she’s doing, it works.

At left, a small tomato plant grows with marigolds to keep away pests (her other, poop-planted tomatoes, are taller than I am).

At right, Kitty addresses the crowd while the goats pull and nibble at the bottom of her shirt for attention. Maybe I should get goats on my homestead… ;)

Despite being old news, it is pretty HUGE news, so I’m counting on a little forgiveness for my not blogging in ages.

The news?

I bought a house: a 1945 bungalow in East Oakland.

And more than that, along with my cute 2-bedroom “cosmetic fixer,” I bought a nearly 5,000 square foot lot.

But it’s been hard to remember that part of the deal over the last four months, while I’ve been caught up in painting, finding and installing light fixtures, running back and forth to the Oakland Tool Lending Library, and doing late-night internet research on everything from how to install a new toilet flush handle to how to safely remove the lead paint shedding off my kitchen wall.

A 5,000 square foot lot. Really, you see, I bought a piece of future urban farmland that just happened to have a great house sitting on it too. And now that the housewarming is over — meaning things inside are tidier, if not actually finished — I can move from the dreaming phase to the doing phase in my garden.

But I only have so much space (or reader attention span?) in one post, so I’ll stick to sharing just the dreams with you today…

Dream #1: Front Yard Veggies

I have no idea what the neighbors will think of this idea, except that I know from my neighborhood listserv that many in the area do plenty of edible gardening. One neighbor — who’s been here 45 years — warned against putting anything edible (or more so, throwable and squishable) in my front yard. At least without a fence. (There was a story of a pomegranate tree they cut down because of the fruits’ tendency to be hurled at the house…)

But my front yard gets the most sun. And I do NOT want to mow any grass (or buy a lawn mower, for that matter). Even more so, I like the idea of showcasing — Rosalind Creasy style — that edible gardening can be beautiful, functional, and community-forming.

There will be no veggie rows. And, probably, no tomatoes (my big front window seems the most likely target). But artichokes? Eggplant? Asparagus? Edibles that don’t necessarily LOOK like edibles? Blueberry foundation plants? I think so.

Though the more I think about it, the more I’m willing to consider building a fence one of these weekends… Oakland, my dear Rosalind, is no Los Altos.

Dream #2: Backyard Chickens

Actually, this one is already in the works! To celebrate my 26th birthday, I gifted myself three baby chicks. After two weeks in a borrowed brooder, they’re getting bigger by the day! The next step is building the coop — I’m hoping to build that and a compost bin mostly out of wood salvaged from the huge shed some of my guy friends demolished a few weeks back. (Thank you Steve and Brendon!)

Dream #3: Mostly Edible Landscaping

So the tomatoes can’t go in the front yard. Lucky for me, I have plenty of space out back for the “ugly” (corn, wheat), squishy (tomatoes, peaches), too tempting (peppers, strawberries), and shade-loving (lettuce, herbs) veggies.

I’m dreaming about: Kiwis and grapes on arbors or a patio pergola. Blueberry and Nanking cherry foundation plantings. Finally planting my peach, orange, and cherry trees, while the fig and olive grace the patio in pots. A backyard hammock, picnic table, cob oven, and fire pit for full enjoyment of said edibles. Ah, the ideas… and more coming, with the help of my good friends Katrina and Ashley of Ashtree Designs!

I have online shopping carts full of future plants waiting for a credit card number at Raintree Nursery and Seeds of Change, and I’ve been scoping out Evergreen and Broadway Terrace nurseries locally. I’m ready.

Dream #4: Wood-fired hot tub

Ok, so it’s not edible. But it sounds amazing. And somewhat sustainable, if you discount the fact that there’ll be smoke (I’ll be able to grill on the heater, so at least they’re dual-purpose greenhouse gases, right?)

I acquired half of a huge (2-3 person) industrial storage tank a while back, from a woman in West Oakland offering rabbit manure compost on CraigsList, and I dream of magically turning it into something like the Dutchtub, which I saw at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show earlier this year.

Dream #5: Monthly Dinner Parties

So far, the hardest part of being a homeowner is that I’ve lost a huge part of my social life. I live farther away from downtown, and can no longer walk to a bar, restaurant, or the weekly farmers market. And I spend my weekends working on the house, rather than going out with friends. So I’m hoping to bring the party to me! And, after reading about all my edible landscaping plans, you probably realize as well as I do how big a harvest I’m going to have…

As for my progress so far?

To summarize: There are 36 stalks of corn growing in the backyard. Gertrude, Virginia, and Sylvia, my lovely lady egg layers, are getting bigger every day. The front lawn is officially torn out as of last weekend (because Steve is an effing rock star), and PDF plans for a 3-bin composting system are pulled up on my laptop, ready to be used this weekend.

Oh, and I am finally — FINALLY — back to Urbivore, with 5,000 square feet of inspiration in front of me, and a long list of ideas for continued posts on food politics, DIY ideas, interviews with urban farmers, and more: the real meat of the blog.

Stay tuned…

But that isn’t the whole story.

Her yard at home might be bare — much to the disappointment of friends and visitors — but that’s because Pilar spends most of her time starting 400 varieties of vegetable and herb seedlings in an old greenhouse — a.k.a. Sunnyside Organic Seedlings — tucked into an industrial zone in Richmond, California.

A neighboring greenhouse hosts the beginnings of an aquaculture system (with a Target-bought above-ground swimming pool full of hundreds of three-inch koi fish), and a third holds 10 or so chickens, including a few accidental roosters who will soon be somebody’s dinner.

Outside, one of her staff, Kenji Warren, keeps a vegetable garden for the Bay Area Rescue Mission — at a volunteer day last week, a dozen volunteers harvested more than 100 pounds of Swiss chard and planted a few hundred cloves of garlic, most of which will be donated to the organization’s food kitchen.

The remaining greenhouses and gravel-strewn lawn on her 7-acre plot give plenty of space for dreaming, she said.

After moving here from another Richmond site early this year, “suddenly there’s room for vision. Before, I had no space to think about anything other than Sunnyside.” Will that mean more chickens? Building an office on-site for her boyfriend’s business? A few more rows for Kenji to tend? Crazy ideas — or at least good crazy ideas — are welcome, she said. So are donations.

In the meantime, she’s happy with all her seed start trays. Walking down the rows of upcycled wire, pipe, and garden hose tables, she points out a tray covered in what looks like short white hairs — these onions are one of her favorites, she said, especially when they’ve just started to sprout.

But organic, heirloom onions, oregano, arugula, and artichokes aren’t the only things she hopes to start here — in addition to selling seedlings, she said, “we’re growing farmers.”

In Richmond, not only are climate conditions ideal, but there’s also high unemployment.

Greenhouse Manager Rebecca Blanck-Weiss explains, “our larger goal is to provide job training for the community through sustainable business and organic food.” That means bringing in local students, maintaining a coterie of volunteers, and donating food and seedlings to various organizations.

Sunnyside’s seedlings are sold at more than 40 Bay Area garden centers, or you can find Pilar manning the stand at several local farmer’s market, including the Sunday San Rafael Civic Center market, the Tuesday Novato market, and — my own personal favorite — the Saturday Grand-Lake market in Oakland.

Interested in volunteering? Follow their Facebook page for more info, but volunteer day is generally the last Friday of the month, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Your time earns you lunch and free seedlings — who could refuse?

In my defense, I have been spending an awful lot of my free time actually IN the garden — while it’s getting chilly and the leaves are falling elsewhere, summer has finally arrived in Oakland, along with a lot of my harvest! Green beans, eggplant, corn, tomatoes, carrots — and while all of that is coming out, new stuff gets to go in: I’ve planted snap peas, more carrots, onions, garlic, and salad greens for the winter. Needless to say, it’s been a deliciously busy month!

But I’ve also been distracted by something of a vice: HBO’s The Wire. It’s entirely not garden related, but man oh man… I can’t get enough of Omar, Stringer Bell, and good ol’ McNulty!

Anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about needs a Netflix account.

Which brings me to the bulk of my post — in between Wire episodes (which I anxiously await  to arrive in the mail), I’ve been scoping out some of the food and agriculture related films on Netflix, many of which are available to play instantly online!

Now, I apologize for anyone who doesn’t have a Netflix account. But I DID already tell you that you need one, so… no excuses. All of you heading into autumn — with harvests already behind you — might appreciate this list of movies for those cold, lengthening nights, as you dream about what you’ll sow next spring!

King Corn
Sarah’s Rating: Four Stars (average 3.7)

Two young guys from Boston move to small-town Iowa to grow one acre of corn in an experiment to learn how America’s most subsidized crop is grown and to track where their acre ends up in the food system. It’s funny, informative, and hey — they even visit the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota (a very memorable stop on my own family’s 1995 cross-country road trip!).

Food, Inc.
Sarah’s Rating: Five Stars (average 4.1)

It’s a classic by now, but this one sticks with me as my introduction to food-related documentaries. The interviews are excellent — you get a sick-of-the-system chicken lady, a salt-of-the-earth all around organic farmer, and of course, my idol (and hopefully future professor), Michael Pollan. If you haven’t already seen it, definitely add this one to your queue (or watch it instantly tonight!).

The Garden
Sarah’s Rating: Five Stars (average 3.9)

Lesser known, but perhaps my favorite of all the food movies I’ve seen, this one follows a low-income, mostly Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles as they create the largest (14 acres!) community garden in the country — before they’re forced to fight the impending bulldozers of the owners and developers. Tragic, charming, inspiring, and controversial, don’t watch this one when you’re looking for a happy ending.

Still in waiting my instant queue:

The Botany of Desire — Oh, Michael Pollan, I can’t resist.

The Future of Food — Delves into the “unappetizing truth about genetically modified foods.”

Food Matters — How the food we eat is helping — and hurting — our health.

A Beautiful Truth — An investigation of the idea that diet can cure cancer and other diseases.

Super Size Me — Eating nothing but McDonalds, the director takes “a hilarious and often terrifying look at the effects of fast food on the human body.”

Mondovino — A French film looking at Big Wine versus family-run wineries in Europe, South America, and the United States.

Julie and Julia — OK, I know, this one doesn’t quite deserve to be on this list. But lots of women who know me and my love of food, cooking, etc. tell me I have to see it, so here it is.

How to Cook Your Life — Part Zen meditation, part cooking class, it’s about “the role food plays in our bodies and spirits.”

In the time between my last post and today, summer has come to the Bay Area, I have begun my search for a HOUSE (!), and I’ve discovered canning.

Summer: It’s gorgeous and warm, I wake up to sun instead of fog, and the bells peppers are ripening red. Unfortunately, it also means strawberry leaves and soy bean pods have burned and all the plants dry out too quickly to keep up! The corn is almost ready though…

HOUSE: Somewhere in Oakland is a potential urban farm with my name on it. Gardening space is a must. Twenty foot setbacks for a possible (legal) chicken coop is a plus. Wood floors, gas stove, bathtub, etc. are icing. Oh, and the neighborhood can’t be too rough. Gotta think about that in Oakland — though the first few pages of Novella Carpenter’s Farm City have me thinking I could maybe trade security for the space for bees, chickens, and a 300 pound pig. Maybe.

Canning: Ah, yes, the real subject of today’s post. I have discovered canning.

I hate to credit a big box store, but… thank you, Albany, CA, Target for putting canning supplies on an end cap, including mason jars, a set of blue plastic canning tools, and a little basket to turn any old (deep) pot into a canner.

The first weekend of canning, I made spaghetti sauce — a LONG process that ended with just 3 jars of sauce. And I spent so much time squeezing 10 pounds of fresh tomatoes that I didn’t get any photos, either.  The juice did yield a pretty awesome batch of gazpacho though, so not all was lost.

The second weekend was far more successful — I picked raspberries from the garden, found heaps of wild blackberries along an Oakland hills road, sliced up a lemon from an acquaintance’s Vallejo yard, and bought 3 pounds of peaches from the farmers market. A dishwasher load of mason jars and a couple hours of slicing, stirring, boiling, and pouring later, I have 5 jars of the best goshdarn jam I’ve ever tasted!

Peach Berry Marmalade

3 pounds firm, ripe peaches
1 small lemon
1 quart fresh raspberries
2 quarts fresh blackberries
5 cups sugar
1 packet pectin
water

Blanch and peel the peaches. To do this, put the peaches into a large pot of boiling water for about one minute each, then transfer them to a bowl full of ice water (to stop the cooking process). This makes the fruit wicked easy to peel!

Pit the peaches and chop them up into small pieces — whatever size you want in your jam. I chopped mine pretty finely. Put the chopped peaches in a large pot with all the berries.

Squeeze the lemon, mix the juice (should be about a quarter cup) in with the peaches and berries , then cut the lemon peel into quarters. Slice each quarter into VERY thin pieces (Think marmalade. Those guys gotta be skinny!). Put the slices and a quarter cup of water into a small saucepan, and simmer for about 20 minutes to soften the lemon peel.

Add the lemon peel mixture, 5 cups of sugar, and the pectin to the pot of peaches and berries. Stir, and heat to a boil (this will take a bit of time).

In the meantime, sterilize your jars — if you time it right, you can run them through the dishwasher so they’re clean and warm when you’re ready to fill them with hot jam. Otherwise, boil them, using tongs to pull them out hot.

After the jam mixture has come to a boil, pour it immediately into your warm jars, and cover each with a sterilized lid and ring (make sure there’s no jam on the jar’s lip, or you won’t get a good seal). You don’t need to put the ring on really tightly — you want to be able to get at your jam later!

A minute or two after you lid the jars and they’ve started to cool, you’ll hear a pop as the lid seals (remember high school physics class? As the jam cools, the air inside shrinks, popping the lid down!! Cool!!). I can tell you from experience — this is the most satisfying part of the process!! (Other than eating the jam, of course.) If it pops down, ya done good! If not… put your jam in the fridge and use it soon, since it’s not totally protected from bacteria.

Let the jars cool — overnight is a good time frame — then pop them in the cupboard or fridge and enjoy! You may need a bottle opener to pop the lid off because of the seal — the dent it makes is also a good reminder later to never use the same lid twice to can!

OK, I have to add another more thing — one potential use for the jam. Sure, use it on toast or smeared over peanut butter. I’ve enjoyed it in plain yogurt as well — but the following recipe takes the cake.

Jam and Ginger Pork or Chicken

2 servings of Pork or Chicken (adjust accordingly)
3 tablespoons jam or fruit (fresh chopped apricots, plums, peaches, etc. are also yummy — add a little sugar to bring the juices out of the fruit).
1 teaspoon ginger (nutmeg makes a great alternative if you use a purely berry jam, but the ginger is awesome with the peach and raspberry)
Splash red wine vinegar ( 1-2 tablespoons)

In a skillet, cook the pork or chicken in your fat of choice (I prefer butter or olive oil) for about 4 minutes on each side. Meanwhile, mix the jam, ginger, and red wine vinegar in a small bowl.

After the meat has cooked on each side, pour the fruit mixture over it in the pan, cover, and simmer for 8 minutes.

Remove the meat from the pan — you can either pour the fruit over it as a juicy sauce, or reduce it for a few more minutes for a thicker sauce. Both ways are excellent!

The most liberating words a gardener can hear when he or she moves into a new place are: “You can do whatever you want back there.” When first-time gardeners Jen and Geoff moved to North Providence, Rhode Island, they got that OK — and ran with it.

[Last spring, Geoffrey dug up a large square of dirt along the back fence and we bought some garden soil to mix in with the dirt. He found some stakes and fencing in someone’s recycling bin and before we knew it, the outline for our garden was set. In two mounds plus two rows, I fit cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, parsley, potatoes and green beans. We also had a couple of large pots on our front porch for a rosemary plant and another tomato seedling.]

[ The birds took a liking to our green bean sprouts, but Geoffrey made a scarecrow out of clothes we were giving to Goodwill and that seemed to solve the problem. Even the potatoes came through for us, which was a little surprising. Sure they were small, but it’s always fun to eat food that you grow yourself anyway. When the growing season was over we picked all of our parsley, dried it out, chopped it up, and put it into seasoning shakers. I’m still using it! Our rosemary plant is also still thriving.]

[This year we decided to expand our garden by a couple of feet in each direction. Now we have three rows and three mounds. The tomatoes and cucumbers are growing faster than we can pick them, and we’ve gotten some small green peppers and a few handfuls of green beans.

Growing our food has been an exciting adventure for us. I am always looking for new, healthy recipes to try that use the veggies from our garden and we are always talking about what we can improve/expand in the coming years. Next summer we will be relocating farther south and that means a longer growing season! I can’t wait to see what our future gardens hold for us.]

Do you keep a garden you want me to feature? Send photos and a short description of what you’re doing to sftrent at gmail.

With all this packaged, processed food in front of me, I got to thinking — Who made this stuff? And what’s in it??

I’ve been trying lately to pay more attention to food labels and brands. I search for the loaf of bread with the least ingredients (and the most recognizable ones), I’m careful about buying juices that don’t have high fructose corn syrup, and I’ve been trying to educate myself on the unpronounceable ingredients — especially those that are soy derivatives (the last thing I want to do is support Monsanto, monoculture, or the government subsidies that encourage both).

I’ve also been trying to avoid buying products from companies I know do bad things to the environment and their workers (I mentioned Smithfield in my post about becoming a more thoughtful meat eater).

With a prepackaged box of snacks, I didn’t really have a choice on what I was getting — and hungry as I was, I didn’t feel like I had a choice about not ordering it either (I get cranky when I’m hungry!!). So I saved the packaging (except for the can) and vowed to do some research when I got home. Here’s what I found…

GoPicnic Ready-to-Eat Meals

I have to say, I was surprised — and to some extent impressed — by GoPicnic, the Chicago-based company that packaged my meal and sold it to Allegiant Air to sell to me. It’s a small company — all of 11 employees — it’s run by women, and they’re committed to providing food with no partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats), no high fructose corn syrup, and no added monosodium glutamate (MSG).

The company began when somebody realized airlines needed inexpensive, non labor intensive, shelf stable foods — at the time, airlines were losing money on food services. Now, they sell to a few large airlines (as well as general consumers) and have a fundraising program for schools and other groups to sell their meals.

It’s unclear from my research whether or not GoPicnic is owned by an airline or larger corporation, but they do seem to be making some nutritionally responsible efforts.

Old Wisconsin Beef Salami

Old Wisconsin Food Products Company is a subsidiary of Carl Buddig and Company, a privately traded meat processing and packaging company near Chicago. From what I can tell, Buddig is still family operated — Robert J. Buddig is the CEO. That does not, however, mean they are a socially responsible company. Meat packing plants are notoriously dangerous to work in, and Buddig itself was sued (and lost, paying out $2.5 million) in 2004 for discriminating against women and black people in hiring. You’re most likely to see their products in the lunch meat aisle — they sell super-thin-cut packaged lunch meats under the Buddig brand.

Ingredients: Beef, salt, dextrose, lactic acid starter culture, spices, garlic powder, sodium ascorbate, sodium nitrate.

I’ll skip the obvious ingredients — beef, salt, and garlic powder. We know what those are (though I’m curious to know more about the beef).

Lactic acid starter culture: According to one home-made salami recipe, adding “good” bacteria cultures helps prevent the growth of whatever bad bacteria happens to be in the ground beef. The culture produces lactic acid from the dextrose added to the meat, lowering the pH, and the increased acidity makes it hard for spoilage bacteria to grow.

Spices: Like “natural flavorings,” this one is rather mysterious. Spices in salami tend to include pepper, fennel seeds, and garlic. But in food labeling, this is also often a pseudonym for MSG. I can only assume GoPicnic is truthful when they say there is no added MSG in their foods, and that they’ve actually asked. (Apparently, MSG is often mislabeled in order to mislead consumers, so you really never know.)

Sodium Ascorbate and Nitrite: Studies (one in the news just yesterday) have linked consumption of sodium nitrite with cancer in children, adults, and pregnant women (in food, it spawns carcinogenic nitrosamines — this is why processed meats like ham, bacon, lunch meats, etc. should be avoided during pregnancy). Nitrite is loved by meat packers, though, because it preserves meat’s red color (otherwise packaged meats would be an unappetizing gray) and, arguably more importantly, it prevents growth of the bacteria that causes botulism — a prime reason it hasn’t been banned. Sodium ascorbate — or ascorbic acid (vitamin C) — is added because it helps prevent the formation of nitrosamines, reducing this problem. Regardless, the Center for Science in the Public Interest recommends avoiding nitrites whenever possible. Oops.

Late July Organic Classic Rich Crackers

Organic food on an airplane! That movement really has caught on, for better or for worse (perhaps one of these days I’ll do a post about my thoughts on this). Late July is a family owned company based out of a small town on Cape Cod. It was created by the same family that created Cape Cod Potato Chips (they sold that company to Anheuser-Bush in 1985, bought it back, and then resold it — and its $30 million in annual sales — to Lance, Inc. in 1999). From what I can tell, they still own Late July.

Ingredients: Organic wheat flour, organic evaporated cane juice, organic oleic safflower oil and/or organic oleic sunflower oil, organic palm oil, sea salt, leavening (baking soda, ammonium bicarbonate, cream of tartar), soy lecithin, enzymes.

Oleic oils: High oleic oils are those containing at least 80 percent monounsaturated fats. These are fats that may help lower cholesterol levels when they are used to replace saturated and trans fats (no magic bullet, just a better one). Sunflower oil is also high in vitamin E — safflower oil has none.

Ammonium bicarbonate: Pretty simple, this one is what the list says it is — a leavening agent. Your body uses it to balance the acidity levels of fluids and form nitrogen compounds. Excess is converted into urea and either peed or sweated out.

Soy lecithin: A soy derivative, this is a byproduct of soybean oil, extracted either mechanically or chemically (it’s also found in other plants and in eggs; food labels aren’t required to say what chemicals were used to extract it). High in choline — which some people take as a supplement for a healthy heart and brain — it’s used in many foods as an emulsifier. Emulsifiers prevent oils and water from separating (imagine if mayonnaise separated in the jar). It also helps make baked goods fluffier.

Copper Cowbell Asiago Gourmet Cheese Spread

This one was harder to research — it’s an exclusive brand of GoPicnic, and I couldn’t find anything about where it’s produced.

Ingredients: All natural cheddar cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), water, cream, milk, whey, sodium phosphate, natural flavor, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, sodium propionate, guar and xanthan gum.

Sodium phosphate: This compound is a cleaning agent, food additive, stain remover and degreaser (it’s also used orally before colonoscopies for bowel prep, though this comes with a risk of kidney damage). Who knew? In dairy products, it’s commonly used as an emulsifier.

Sodium propionate: This is a preservative, preventing the growth of molds. It is considered safe by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Guar and Xanthan gums: The Center for Science in the Public Interest notes that while most gums are considered safe, they’re also poorly tested. They’re used as thickeners and are not absorbed by the body (unless you believe the wives tale that gum sits in your stomach forever).

Mariani Ultimate Apricots

Though the apricots themselves are a product of Turkey (hardly local), they’re packed in processing plants pretty close to my backyard — Mariani is based out of Vacaville, Cali., and has five plants in the state. At least one of their plants runs on about 25 percent solar power, according to a press release on their website — I suspect that’s more than most food processors can say!

Ingredients: Dried apricots (product of Turkey), natural flavors, potassium sorbate.

Potassium sorbate: This additive is considered safe, it naturally occurs in many plants, and it’s used to prevent mold and yeast in cheese, dried fruits, wine, syrup, jellies, and cake.

Brent & Sam’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie

Brent & Sam’s is a subsidiary of Lance, Inc. — since a merger with pretzel maker Snyder’s of Hanover this July, Lance is now the second largest producer of salty snacks in America behind Frito Lay. Publicly traded (their stock is trading at around $21 right now), their combined sales in fiscal year 2010 was $1.6 billion. (And they thought they could fool us with the cute small-business looking Brent & Sam’s logo…)

Ingredients: Semi-sweet chocolate chunks (sugar, chocolate liquor, anhydrous dextrose, cocoa butter, soya lecithin, vanilla), enriched wheat flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), sugar, brown sugar, invert sugar, palm oil, butter, whole eggs, raisin paste, fructose, molasses, rolled oats, soybean oil, pregelatinized starch, salt, baking soda, pure vanilla extract with other natural flavors, whey, cream of tartar, ammonium bicarbonate, vegetable monoglycerides, soy lecithin, natural butter flavor, citric acid, beta carotene, vitamin A palmitate.

Sheesh. Recognize a few of those? Did you also notice that sugars (in several forms) are on this list eight times?? (That includes the raisin paste, since raisins have natural sugars.) Writing up descriptions for all these unrecognizable ingredients would take up far too much space on this blog, so I’ll let you test your research skills. But — in Michael Pollan’s terms — this certainly isn’t a cookie your great grandmother would recognize as a cookie. Hers would have had butter, flour, sugars, egg, milk, baking soda, vanilla, and straight up chocolate chips. Cookie shopping tip: if you don’t feel like making your own, buy from a bakery instead of a box. The ingredients will look more like grandma’s — and taste more cookie-like than Brent’s.

Here in Oakland, I was looking for the cheapest possible option — but also something easily mobile, symmetrically attractive, deep enough for carrots, and wide enough to row some veggies.

I needed squares — cubes at least a foot deep.

Ah, the glory of milk crates.

Milk crates come in a variety of sizes (we have 12” cubes and 13”x15” boxes, and I’ve seen ones that are double wide), they’re really easy to move, they’re almost always free, and they can easily be arranged side by side in “beds.” I found most of my crates on Craigslist — I brought 28 of them home one day in my little Ford Escort when I discovered that a gelato shop in San Francisco looking to get rid of more than 100! Now I see them all over the place (I’m still hoping to score some of those double wides…).

While you can’t put soil directly into milk crates (huge gaping holes aren’t exactly conducive to holding dirt), they’re really easy to line. But what to line them with? I considered burlap, for economy’s sake and easy drainage, but I didn’t think it would last long. Instead, I settled on synthetic landscaping fabric. It’s about $25 for a 3×100-foot roll at my local Home Depot –I think I Iined about 15 crates with my first roll.

The only tools you need for this job are a good pair of scissors, thread, and a needle. (You don’t need fancy needles like these, I had these left over from a reupholstery project).

Instructions

1. Cut the landscaping fabric to fit your boxes. You’ll need two identical strips for each box — the width must be 4 to 6 inches wider than the box width (if you bought 3- to 4-foot wide fabric, just cut it in half for most milk crates), and the length must be long enough to fit down both sides and across the bottom, plus a few inches leeway on each side. An easy way to measure is to wrap the fabric around the outside of the crate.

2. Put one strip across the inside of the box to cover two opposite sides. Make sure the fabric fits down into each corner so you don’t end up with a rounded bottom (likely to stretch and tear) when it’s filled with soil. Stitch in the handles on each — or wherever is convenient based on the placement of holes on your crate — to keep the fabric in place.

3. Do the same with the second strip to line the other two sides, so the full box is lined.

4. Fill it with soil! I used a mix that was about one half top soil, one quarter compost, one quarter chicken manure, plus a few tablespoons of dry organic fertilizer. I also added a few worms — we inherited a large family of earthworms when we got dirt from someone else’s yard, and I try to keep a few in each box, since they help keep the soil and plants healthy.

5. Plant! I’ve found that carrots, beans, and lettuces can be rowed in these containers, but that plants like eggplant and squash need a full container to themselves. I have peppers planted diagonally — 2 in one box — and they seem to do well that way. I found a really good resource on companion planting that I use to help determine what to plant with what and which boxes to put next to each other for pest control, flavor, shading, etc.