Poisoning lawns

At Home Depots, garden supply, and hardware stores across the country alarmingly large piles of things like "Grubex", fertilizers, herbicides, and other poisonous materials in 40 pound bags are displayed. Homeowners are causing untold amounts of pollution, spread of toxic wastes, groundwater contamination, and harm to pets, children, pregnant women, and fireflies - to name a few. 

I see little flags everywhere on lawns - flags meaning "poison is here!". It absolutely infuriates me to see these not only on people's private property - since poison and fertilizer will clearly leach out beyond puny property lines and affect fish, birds, insects, mammals, et al - but audaciously applied to the little strips of grass on sidewalks, which is public property! 

The facts on lawn chemicals are easy to find, but civic authorities, homeowners, so called lawn care companies, and certainly retailers of poisons are for the most part uninterested. The firefly is a sort of canary in the coal mine, and a pretty good rallying point on which to raise issues of other collateral damage in the world of lawn warfare. You can sign up with Boston's Museum of Science to get involved in the welfare of fireflies; this site also makes a good classroom project.

Lawns are a hot topic due to the commercial brainwashing that has taken place since about the end of WWII. Products used in warfare have tended to find a way to be used on lawns - so wars are never really over: the field of battle has merely shifted. Lawns are big business to several classes of manufactures of course, not just companies like Scotts. Real estate markets promote toxic practices by the now commonplace term,"Curb Appeal".  Those who make and use leaf blower machines are only a small, though extremely annoying, sub group of the social obsession hell bent upon achieving the perfect lawn. I imagine a world in which we all grew blueberries instead of supporting this vast and harmful complex of industries.

There are also subtle ways that, though not a direct effect of "lawn care", have almost certainly caused death and/or devastation to some through the simple fact that most of these "lawn care" contractors, with their dump trucks and trailers festooned with the tools of the trade, park right in the roadway! They even put up little red emergency cones, as if what they are doing takes precedence over the safety or right of way of passersby and neighbors. How many bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorists have been injured or killed through this type of rude behavior is perhaps unknown. But I often see close calls as people are distracted from where they are going by the roadside commotion or swerve to avoid riding mowers or plumes of blown debris that intrude into the road. 

Why the police are not called upon to order these folks off the road is simply one more piece of the twisted urban mores that surround "lawn care" and legitimize that done by some that causes harm to the many. The irony is that many of the heaviest consumers of these destructive products and practices never actually sit on their grass to enjoy a picnic, roll in it
with their kids, or see the blades for the lawn.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ( MRSA )

Listening in the car to Terri Gross, NPR's amazing interviewer of interesting people, the other day with Science journalist Maryn McKenna on the show, I knew I had to write something here. Ms. McKenna led me to ponder once again in amazement at the sheer idiocy demonstrated by governments that fail to connect the dots when it comes to food and poisoning the earth(and much more). The basic point is: antibiotics in food production systems are a humongous threat to everyone. Think: chunks of your flesh pussing out and falling off, amputations, nightmarish inversions to what was before health and happiness.

You see, minute doses of antibiotics are given to livestock (other things like the hormone rBHT are used to dose-for-profit) as it has been found that doing so increases the rate and limits of growth. That means more money for the unscrupulous corporations that employ these tactics to beef up profits at the expense of your health and that of the planet. Antibiotics in a treatment size dosage are typically administered to an entire herd/flock even if one or just a few individuals are ill- and perhaps without any testing to actually see if the illness is bacterial. Doctors often do this with people - they recommend megadoses of antibiotics and while their hand hovers over the prescription form I ask for a test to see if the problem is bacterial and get that look. You know which look I mean: "Who is the doctor here?"

Anyway, the end result is logical. Bacteria find a way to adapt and overcome all of this antibacterial weaponry and become immune to it. That means if you or those you love come in contact with MRSA - and it is not the only superbug out there - and it takes hold, you are basically doomed since no antibiotics will be effective against it (MRSA already mutated beyond all the antibiotics it was exposed to). Although, some essential oils like tea tree oil are effective against it! Cool.

So what can be done? Idiocy in policy and law cannot be cured, alas. However, you can buy only meat that is organic and/or raised completely without antibiotics. Becoming a vegan is an attractive option as well. But not a sure thing - MRSA can be picked up in a lot of places (especially hospitals). Be careful handling meat. Wash your hands and have your kids wash hands - a lot. But not with antibacterial soap - these just add to the problem so don't buy antibacterial anything. In particular be careful of raw meats. The path of transmission is likely from them to your skin. Touching public doorknobs and other common objects (e.g. subway straps) is risky. Ms. McKenna advises a personal size sanitizing method (purell or cloths etc). Check out the interview.

Coffee and birds

Do you drink coffee? Do you know your choice of coffee - wether over the counter, off the shelf at the market, or in a restaurant - has global significance? As you inhale those aromas that account for much of coffee's appeal during your next cup, consider how your beans got that flavor. Beginning in the 1970's, traditional cultivation of coffee in the shade of trees began to give way to growing the plants in full sun, on land cleared of trees. Full sun greatly speeds up rates of plant growth and, of course, profitability. However, it is very bad for the soil, water, wildlife, and usually involves more pesticides and other nasty compounds that end up in your cup.

Sun farmed coffee is especially bad for birds, who need the habitat provided by trees in order to survive. "Traditional polyculture"is the term used to describe coffee cultivation involving not only shade trees but also other crops, medicinal plants, and beneficial plants. This method also uses few if any pesticides and less water while also offering farmers stability by having more than one crop or product to rely on - rendering them less susceptible to victimization by the market.

To guide your choice of coffee, please at least go with USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified, and, if possible, Shade Grown. Just meeting these standards does not guarantee the coffee will be to your liking. Roasting and other factors influence the final cup; so try several kinds until you are happy. Another factor is country of origin: Bolivia, Mexico, Nicarauga, Honduras El Salvador, Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia are countries more likely to produce shade grown coffee. If possible, buy coffee approved by the Smithsonian Institution and displaying their "Bird Friendly" label.

My current favorite is Bolivian shade Grown, Fair Trade, Organic Coffee offered by Trader Joe's as a house brand. Nothing is simple though - "shade" does not have a strict definition and Trader Joe's does not label its source for this or most of it's other coffees...so it is a case of giving the benefit of the doubt, and making a good, if not the best, choice. 

I gave up coffee as a habit almost twenty years ago and now drink it in my professional capacity as a chef to decide what to serve - or as cappuccino with that rare piece of cheesecake. But I do drink tea, and at the risk of being even more prescriptive, let me offer my highest praise for Upton Tea. It's founder, Tom Eck, will be at Stellina Restaurant in Watertown Massachusetts on March 14th, at tea time, to lead a tasting. See the website for tickets. Upton also has a neat series on the history of tea. The current issue, also to be seen on their web site, relates the complex interrelationships between tea and opium. 


Finally, coffee grounds are an excellent addition to the soil; tossing grounds into the compost bin or directly onto your garden is an added value.

Cake

My son was recently holding forth on a subject in the way that only sweet, hedonistic, clever, eleven year olds can, excitedly describing amusingly absurd ideas about online shopping. He likes to look at Amazon.com and other online shopping sites and understands that books and cd's and toys and electronic gadgets can come into one's life (dramatically appearing at the door!) by tapping certain numbers and things onto the keyboard. We were driving home - he from school, I from work. I smiled, feeling that singular and irreplaceable anticipation for whatever wacky and yet scientific thing he was about to say.  He said, "Mama, wouldn't it be cool if when you order something and it came out of the slot on the side of the computer!!!!  Hahahaha {snort}" . He then went on to list an increasingly absurd collection of things that we might expect to see doing this, ending with something very large - a fully furnished house I believe. In between his pretty good to downright beautiful singing (Hannah Montana, Xmas Carols, Oldies, Tchaikovsky, Blues and Soul...) there was time to discuss how his day was, how my day was, what activities we had in our plans, and what he wanted to acquire next. When we had exhausted a subject, he'd turn on his talking book machine and we would listen to stories. Anyway, in the "what to acquire next" segment of one recent ride-home talk, this image of things popping out of the side of the computer stayed with me.

At the time, I told him it was reminiscent of Star Trek's transporter - which was way nizza. He agreed. But I later began thinking about cake. I can show pictures of cakes I have made. But they are just pictures. You can't eat them. You can't smell them. You can't follow that dancing roller coaster of actual flavors - floral, herbal, tactual, spicy, oil of cacao, buttery, wheat glutenous spongey dissolving sugary ( or non gluten starchy cohesion), salt and peppery, sweet around the corner of other flavors while swallowing and tasting even more that are involved with actually eating a piece of cake. Not to mention the symphony - if good cake - of thoughts and adrenal activity (compounded by coffee, tea, etc.) that goes with all this flavor. So my son's idea of things coming out of the computer seemed quite plausible, considering some future technology that supports this. But even more, it seemed essential if I wanted to communicate to others all that my cake is....how deep is the ocean, how high the stars?...my cake is where words end.

I think about things like this when I make them, inhaling the fresh aromas and observing the very specific surface tension of bubbles in a solution of sugar, invert sugar, and water while I whip the egg yolks into a foam, while I follow the change of odor as this solution cooks the yolks while they become an emulsion capable of balancing the amazing organic butter, Scotch whiskey, Tahitian vanilla, and perhaps other additions to my French Buttercream. Or when I create a caramel of cream that browns up an edgy flavor just before adding the milk chocolate and vanilla crush to complicate it to the max. Or when I mix that shade grown Bolivian coffee leftover from yesterday's lunch that I find in the pantry Mr.
Coffee maker with King Arthur, sugar, potato starch, chocolates, eggs and some secret ingredients that end in a batter that is on thin ice - about to fall but on a wing and a prayer deliberately thin to gel to the best moistness (Better than that Duncan Hines dude - way way better) that delivers the goods in every bite. Yeah, I think about this. And the future is all you can hope for unless you have me around to bake a cake for you, because for now, my cakes begin where this text leaves off.