Our Daily Bread

This stunning documentary, directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter in 2005, is the best film about our modern agricultural system that I have seen. It has no commentary, narration or interviews, just slow moving static and tracking shots. It proves that it’s better to simply show something and let the audience make up their own mind. That being said, I’d be surprised if many people would come out of a screening of this film and think that what they just saw, our industrialized agricultural system, is a good idea. But another point of Our Daily Bread, I think, is that, like it or not, we’re all a part of this system.

Our Daily Bread is available on Netflix and Amazon. You can read an interview with the director on the official website www.ourdailybread.at.

Cooking Classes via Silver Lake Farms


Not to be missed if you’re in the LA area. From our friends at Silver Lake Farms: Cooking Classes!! Go to the Silver Lake Farms website to register. Here’s the 411:

“Inspired by a funny conversation with CSA shareholders about what to do with celery when there’s no more peanut butter in the house…

All About Seasonal Vegetables

I’m introducing a series of fun, affordable cooking classes designed around cooking with seasonal vegetables – from the garden, the farmers’ market or your local CSA.

We are lucky – very lucky here in LA to be able to grow vegetables all year round. We have cool and warm weather crops and our seasons are long. Some varieties grow naturally every day of the year.

Having a few extra recipes up your sleeve for what to make with seasonal harvests can come in handy, especially if you grow your own at home or support CSA. (Ours delivered celery to shareholders weeks in a row. If you support CSA, you rock!)

I’m introducing the classes at $48.

Shelley Marks is our teacher. She’ll demonstrate the dishes of the day (see below), and get you to prepare them. We have a nice big kitchen in which to work. And eat! There’s a light meal for everyone to enjoy and discuss as part of class. Handouts include recipes and gardening tips.

Bring your favorite apron (a prize for the most retro-chic).

Classes take place in Silver Lake. Email me here if you’d like to register.

Here’s the schedule:

Saturday, Feb 20
2pm – 4:30pm
Easy Pureed Soups with parsnip, carrot, celery and asparagus.

Thursday, March 4
6pm – 8:30pm
Early Spring Garden Supper with beet salad, broccoli soup and fresh pea ravioli.

Class limit is 12 people.

Have a great day and enjoy your local veggies! Thanks for staying tuned.

Tara

323-644-3700

www.silverlakefarms.com

Chumash Plant Wisdom

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Great news for our readers in Southern California (and parts near)! I’ve just found the holy grail of local plant guides: Healing with Medicinal Plants of the West. It’s co-authored by a Chumash healer, Cecilia Garcia and a USC pharmacology prof., James David Adams, Jr., both of whom write for Wilderness Way magazine. It features full-color pictures of plants familiar to you from hikes in the desert and the chaparral, and discusses the recommended use of the these plants from both the Chumash perspective and the western scientific perspective.

I found this book in the wonderful Green Apple book store while visiting San Francisco. It can be ordered direct from the publishers. The title link will take you to their site. It also is available in our Amazon store.

Mushroom Porn

Funny how going to a mushroom fair can enhance your perceptiveness (and not in the way some of you are thinking!). Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have noticed these beauties in my own backyard, as they were deep under a rosemary bush.

I’m no mushroom expert, so don’t quote me on this, but I think they are common blewits, Clitocybe nuda. The spore print was a very light yellow/buff. If they are Clitocybe nuda, they are edible when cooked. I’ll just appreciate them for their beauty.

An administrative note: We’re flattered to have been the subject of a comment spamming attack all the way from Cebu City in the Philippines. Hello Cebu City! I’ve temporarily turned on comment moderation until the spamming folks get the idea that most of the visitors to this blog are probably not interested in dubious investment advisers and pharmaceutical sleep aids. Note to the spammers: ship us some durian and we’ll consider an advertising deal!

Make a Spore Print


Making a mushroom spore print is a fun activity for the kidlings and it’s simple:

1. Pick a mushroom (from the wild or the supermarket) and break off the stem.

2. Put your mushroom, spore side down, on a piece of white paper (or a 50/50 split of of dark paper and white paper to check subtleties in the color).

3. Put a glass over the mushroom and wait 24 hours.

The next day you should have something that looks like the picture above. Spore prints can be used as one factor in identification. The above print is from a specimen of Agaricus bernardii that I found growing in the neighborhood and had identified by mycologist Bob Cummings at Machine Project’s Fungi Fest back in January. Agaricus bernardii is a common mushroom found growing in weedy lawns and is a choice edible according to some. My identification skills are not up to eating parkway mushrooms yet.

Speaking of Fungi Fests, the Los Angeles Mycological Society is putting on the 26th Annual Los Angeles Wild Mushroom Fair this Sunday, February 14, 2010 from 10 AM – 4 PM at Ayres Hall at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden. Mushroom celebrity Paul Stamets will be speaking at 2 p.m. More info on the website of the Los Angeles Mycological Society.

Not in LA? Spend some time reading Mykoweb.com, and excellent and entertaining resource published by Michael Wood, a past president of the Mycological Society of San Francisco.