local food

Witnessing the White House garden’s winter bounty

In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related videos from around the Web. ————- The White House has released a new video documenting the drama of Snowmaggedon … and the White House garden: Despite two feet of snow, the White House garden managed to produce an impressive amount of lettuce, spinach, turnips, arugula, and […]

Tom Laskawy Politics

Building a Green Tea Party

A leading thinker on the left recently wrote that elite authorities have failed us and require grassroots input to become accountable. A leading thinker on the right recently wrote that centralized authorities have failed us and should be balanced by stronger local economic, political, and social networks. Now Woody Tasch of the Slow Money Alliance […]

Jonathan Hiskes Politics

The ‘femivore’: New breed of feminist, or frontier throwback?

Playing chicken: Mad Men über-hausfrau Betty Draper and Bay Area poultry farmer Alexis Koefoed. Koefoed photo: Bart NagelHave locavores and feminists — factions that a few years ago, some bloggers believed to be fundamentally at odds — become allies? That’s what Peggy Orenstein suggests in her essay, “The Femivore’s Dilemma,” for today’s New York Times […]

Bonnie Azab Powell Culture

Cleveland, worker-owned co-ops, and new ideas for a flailing economy

Is the way forward for our ailing economy to be found along the banks of Lake Erie? Despite talk of a recovery, the national economy remains in shambles. In Sunday’s New York Times, reporter Peter Goodman brought devastating news: Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing […]

Tom Philpott Technology

Veggies not challenging enough? Try home ‘aquaponic’ gardening

Last year, thanks in large part to the White House kitchen garden, the country saw a resurgence in interest in backyard gardening. But this being America, where one-upsmanship sometimes seems like a national pastime, the vanguard has apparently moved on … to “aquaponics.” The New York Times illustrates what makes this “breeding edge” of backyard […]

Tom Laskawy Culture

Me, on Edible Radio

Sometimes when I’m interviewed on the radio, it’s really awkward. The interviewer doesn’t know or understand the topic and asks a senseless question; or I have five seconds to construct the perfect soundbite and flub it; sometimes both. Other times, I get an interlocutor who’s immersed in the topic, puts me at ease, gives me […]

Tom Philpott Food

USDA’s Deputy Secretary discusses local, organic farming

Cross-posted from Civil Eats. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan It was by no means Kathleen Merrigan’s first trip to the Ecological Farming Conference (EcoFarm). But when the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture stood at a podium to address last week’s annual gathering of farmers, retailers, processors, and advocates, it was clear she had never had […]

Twilight Greenaway Politics

Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: Better school food — can we get there from here?

Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the last of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]

Ed Bruske Food

[UPDATED] While the big cats cower, time to build robust food economies

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty! While the Democrats hide, time to grow our own jobs program.Photo: Kevin Collins via Flickr[UPDATE at bottom of article.] I have a big, strapping cat who’s infamous for darting under a couch and cowering when a dog, even the tiniest, enters a room. Well, a yipping toy poodle has entered the […]