Tomato basil salad- food giants

Both tomatoes and basil are in season. Everything we cook these days has basil from the garden (grown in a pot by the front door.)

One large heirloom tomato cut into 1/2 inch cubes
One five inch sprig of basil chopped fine.
One tablespoon olive oil
One teaspoon balsamic vinegar
salt to taste

Mix and serve with soft crusty bread like Ciabatta.
Except for the salt everything is available at most farmers market like the San Mateo and Belmont Farmers Market.

Safeway carries heirloom tomatoes for $6/- a pound, easily the weight of one large heirloom, versus $2 to $3/- a pound at the farmers market. They also carry non organic largely tasteless tomatoes for $2-$3/- a pound and tasteless organic vine tomatoes for almost $5/- a pound.

Why this anomaly during tomato season? The cost of fuel has affected the cost of food worldwide even in oil rich countries (the majority of who have abysmally poor populations who don't benefit from the national oil wealth- Nigeria the eight largest exporter has a 140M majority living on less than $2/- day.) The farmers market is able to transport locally. So why doesn't Safeway buy locally?

Part of the reason could be the national distribution infrastructure and related federal, state and local support bureaucracies for the food giants that Safeway is part of. Buying organic with the Safeway O brand does not support small family farms. Proctor and Gamble and Nestle, number one and two food giants, produce the O brand for Safeway. The new Anheuser-Busch InBev will be the third largest food company. The problem is that these brands are also responsible for the majority of polluted food organic customers are trying to stay away from! Giving massive profits via a tiny organic line only sustains their polluted food business- and maybe they will learn where the profits are. But the infrastructure and related subsidies have strong partners in the chemical, distribution, and outlet business that lobby to keep changes from happening.

Think of consumption infrastructure as a bridge... one end has dropped off with high gas prices. If we keep going with our present consumption patterns we fall of the edge. GM's business model and congressional perks for SUVs, and the resulting crash of american auto companies are a good case in point.

But there are alternate choices that should have been made and can be made and paths to pursue. The group that aggregates backyards in San Francisco and grows on permaculture with compost at 150 sq ft per family is an alternate. The farming harvesting and delivery is done with bicycles. Cuba is an alternative first from rising fuel prices after the end of the Soviet Union and now with the need to expand local production. Architects are also interested in vertical farms that feed the city from within the city. Local chain grocers should see the need to change their business model before they go the way of GM. $6/- a pound for tomatoes during tomato season is ridiculous.

Garlic Shitake with corn and tofu.

Adapted from Vegetarian by Linda Fraser, a set of recipes easily ported to a solar oven.

1 lb shitake from J&M.
Twist the mushroom stalk at the base to remove.

Mix together-
Chop the clear portion of the stalks.
Trim the kernels of the cob. Cut them off with the knife then use the back of the blade on scrape the cob and remove the part of the kernel that still remained. Brentwood corn made its first summer appearance this Sunday at the Belmont Market.
Chop two cloves garlic fine.
Chopped three spring onions.
Two tablespoons sesame oil.
One small block tofu cut into small cubes. I like Mori-nu organic tofu in a box available at Safeway and Wholefoods.
Salt and black pepper to taste.

Mix well and spoon into the caps. Place in the 5” oval roaster and cook for 90 minutes in the summer position.

Remove and drizzle sesame oil (two more tablespoons) and two tablespoons of soy sauce over the stuffed caps before serving.

Cooking in a solar oven exposes you to sun for brief periods of time which can be good. Since the solar sport is used without the reflector most of the year it doesn't have the intense concentrated reflections that the other ovens do which require sun shades.

Salmont collapse- There's nothing bad for you at the farmers market

So said Michael Pollan at a recent talk at Stanford promoting his new book "In Defense of Food."

We can get fish from Half Moon Bay at some farmer’s markets like the San Mateo City College Market and the Menlo Park market. Pietro Parravano explains that salmon require management of both, ocean where the focus has been, and land based habitats, where salmon are born and die. The land habitats are under pressure from water usage causing the wild fisheries to collapse of the west coast.

“Craig Barbre, of Morro Bay, said he and his wife took their boat to troll off the coast of Alaska last summer and may have to do the same this year. But with soaring fuel costs, there's no guarantee they can make ends meet.”

But given the price of salmon or tuna at the farmer's market people feel that they are doing the environment a favor by consuming farmed salmon. Belmont is only 12 miles from Half Moon Bay yet its impossible to get fish from Half Moon Bay in Belmont. There are three Safeways in Belmont. Farmed salmon from Marine Harvest in Chile are dying of Infectious Salmon Anemia. “Many of these salmon still end up in American grocery stores ...like Costco and Safeway."

The Times article says farmed fish consume “medicated food” which “contained antibiotics and pigment as well as hormones to make the fish grow faster.” The antibiotics are used in higher doses than are allowed in the US and "some antibiotics that are not allowed in American aquaculture, like flumequine and oxolinic acid, are legal in Chile and may increase antibiotic resistance for people." The feed is colorized with "rosy, which has been associated with retina problems in humans."

That these sick salmon could end up in the food supply is not surprising. Downer cows have been in the food supply for a while and the recent big recall only happened because of exposure.

So eat less salmon (or tuna) and get local fish from the farmer’s market or out at the coast. We should be eating less predatory fish anyway, because our mercury tailings from power plants, static removers, florescent bulbs, thermometers, etc. ends up concentrated in the large predators, along with other pollutants, and the government irresponsibly puts a label warning on fish instead of addressing the issues with product manufacture and disposal.