The White House Garden

This just has me doing cartwheels:

Contact:
Roger Doiron
roger@kitchengardeners.org
phone: (207) 883-5341
cell: (207) 807-6364


100,000 Applaud Announcement of a New White House Food Garden
Environment, Nation’s Food System and People's Health Stand to Benefit

(Scarborough, Maine) –100,000 people signed a petition asking the Obamas to replant a Victory Garden at the White House, and recent news reports indicate that they are about to reap what they sowed.

For advocates of sustainable and healthy foods, this harvest of good news was as welcome as the summer’s first red-ripe tomato. “I’m thrilled for the Obama family and for all who will be inspired by their example to grow gardens of their own this year,” said Roger Doiron, founder of the nonprofit Kitchen Gardeners International and leader of the successful petition campaign, “Eat the View.”

Launched in February 2008, Eat the View proposed that the Obamas replant a White House Victory Garden while planting a few extra rows for the hungry. The campaign used viral videos and social networking technologies like Facebook to grow a large support base, attract international media attention and help inspire a larger grassroots effort. In January, 2009, Eat the View won the “On Day One” contest sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, beating out 4,000 other entries and resulting in thousands of messages being sent to the White House in support of its proposal.

Over the course of the past month, the Eat the View campaign has touted the economic benefits of home gardens as part of its pitch to White House staff members. As proof, Doiron and his wife spent nine months weighing and recording each vegetable they pulled from their 1,600-square-foot garden outside Portland, Maine. After counting the final winter leaves of salad, they found that they had saved about $2,150 by growing produce for their family of five instead of buying it. “If you consider that there are millions of American families who could be making similar, home-grown savings, those are no small potatoes,” Doiron said.

Although the White House garden campaign is now winding down, Doiron says the Eat the View campaign is just getting warmed up. “Now that the Obamas are on board, we’re going to be reaching out to other people and identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed into edible landscapes. Sprawling lawns around governors’ residences, schoolyards, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten.”

History of Harvest at the White House
While the Obamas’ garden and the online technologies that campaigned for it might be new, the idea of an edible landscape at the White House is not. Throughout its history, the White House has been home to food gardens of different shapes and sizes and even to a lawn-mowing herd of sheep in 1918. The appeal of the White House garden project, Doiron asserts, is that it serves as a bridge between the country’s past and its future. “The last time food was grown on the White House lawn was in 1943, when the country was at war, the economy was struggling and people were looking to the First Family for leadership. It made sense before and it makes sense again as we try to live within our own means and those of the planet.”


Additional info:

Eat the View campaign website:
http://www.eattheview.org/

History the White House as an edible landscape from 1800 to the present:
http://www.eattheview.org/page/history-1

Eat the View artwork:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739986075/

Testimonials on behalf of the Eat the View campaign from noted national and international figures:
http://www.eattheview.org/page/testimonials-1

Eat the View campaign videos:
http://www.eattheview.org/videos

Bio and photos of Roger Doiron:
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2005/10/about_roger_doiron.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739762927/

Writing When I'm Not Cooking

I'm listing it everywhere. My novel is a quarterfinalist in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. See the details on my writer's blog: ABNA Quarterfinalist!

And if you are so inclined, PLEASE follow the link to Amazon and leave a review for my novel's excerpt. I need reviews to actually win the contest!

Ending Hunger

Here's a successful way to end hunger on a local scale:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=3330

We aren't doing anything close to this in the Bay Area, yet. We have lots of Farmers Markets, a few co-ops, and a couple of urban gardens that supply the poor. We have lots of farms around here. But the poor have inadequate access to transporation, so we need to bring the food to them.

We could do it.

Farm Break

This is too much fun: my CSA has a blog. This is the farm from which I get a box of vegetables every week.

Wait - they have two blogs, and here are the links:

http://riverdogfarm.blogspot.com

http://riverdoghog.blogspot.com

I realize it's probably not as exciting to you as it is to me, but I wanted to share anyway. Everybody needs a farm break once in a while.

Winter Smoothies

My CSA box has included a bunch of oranges or tangerines lately. I may have mentioned (once or twice) that I'm not real big on citrus. I like to cook with it - it lends a "mmm" flavor to so many dishes, or can add gorgeous color and flavor to a salad with walnuts sprinkled on. And I insist that my margaritas be made with real limes.

But peel and eat an orange? Dipped in chocolate, maybe.

So what am I going to do with all these oranges every week?

Make smoothies. Oh yeah, that works.

It also gives me something to keep me eating yogurt most days. I tend to alternate with the seasons - in spring and summer, I eat my yogurt with granola and fruit for breakfast. But when the weather turns cool, I long for hot, comforting oatmeal made with whole milk. The yogurt gets ignored.

But I like to eat yogurt as a defense against yeast infections. The idea of going all winter without having any just doesn't seem right. Plus, with the smoothie, I'm also eating some fruit every day, another thing that falls by wayside in winter.

My Winter Smoothie:
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 large orange or 1 tangerine
1/2 banana
1/4 cup crushed ice

Put all ingredients in a blender and mix.

This makes one glassful, maybe a little more. Calories? About 100, since I use whole milk yogurt.

Chinese Night

Last night's dinner used nearly all my vegetables. I made egg rolls and hot & sour soup.

The egg rolls were a hodge-podge of cabbage, carrots, smoked bacon, ginger, garlic, and scallions, all pulsed in the food processor until they were minced. This was all sauteed with a sauce of cornstarch, sesame oil, and soy sauce, then wrapped in egg roll wrappers. A quick spray of oil on the rolls, and then they were baked until golden brown.

We ate them with easy, at-hand sauces - mustard & horseradish, or rice vinegar & hot chili oil.

The soup - oh goddess, I love this soup. I've had the recipe for a few years, but lost it, somehow. I finally found it again, online here.

I used oyster mushrooms (all I could find except for crimini and button), and the rest of my CSA cabbage instead of bok choy. I also quadrupled the soy sauce, vinegar, and chili oil. I guess I like a lot of punch in my hot & sour soup.

Anyway, it was good. I love the addition of spinach to this soup. It just seems to add the perfect touch of color and nutrition. There's nothing better if you have a cold (which I don't, but the soup was perfect, anyway).

Leftovers? Plenty of both soup and egg rolls. That meal will feed us for a while.

Tonight's Dinner

It's a Leek-Gruyere Tart, based on a recipe from Fine Cooking Magazine. I added beet greens to mine, in the spirit of using up my CSA vegetables.