Baseball

I went to the mid-Atlantic, home of green grass in April and pretty baseball stadiums.

I caught an Orioles game at Camden Yards against the Yankees out of sheer luck that no one else wanted these tickets.

The Yankees were dumbfounded by the quietly talented no-name Orioles. Fellow contributors Adam, Abby, and I spent some time filling in words for what the Yankees are saying in this picture. Things like, “My neighbor’s dog keeps chewing on my fence,” and “I went to Best Buy and they have an incredible deal on flatscreen tv’s!” Because that’s what millionaires do, right? Feel free to add your own.

This is also about baseball, because after 4 days of searching for my baseball glove with no luck, I tore apart my parent’s garage and found it hiding underneath a basketball.

Nowadays, I just sit around smelling the glove and remembering how awesome it was to be on a baseball field at night. No matter how much school sucked come April, I’d get to play baseball and know that it’s almost summer. And lately it feels like summer. I even took my glove out for a catch and three of us sat around talking about our futures like we were thirteen again talking about being major leaguers.

 

Winter Nearly Did Me In

Aaaand I’m back. I battled a lethal flu, the darkness, the cold weather (still), and frozen ground. Yet it was 60 yesterday. Almost like mother nature is saying, “Hey! Don’t give in! Summer is coming- warmth still exists in the outdoors.” The sun is finally warm, bright, and upbeat.

Apologies all around for failing to keep up my writing the last month, but I’m also working on not forcing a post. I felt spring peeking through a couple times in the past few weeks, but yesterday I actually enjoyed the warmth yesterday. Took a walk (WITHOUT A COAT!) and I did not tear up from the cold wind or worry too much about slipping on ice. While I’m not sure that four months of living in a frozen climate is enjoyable, I think for once I’ll truly appreciate Spring.

Even if that does not arrive until May (yeah okay, still bitter about that one). Major League Baseball started its season and that immediately makes me think of my baseball glove, lively vegetation, and my parents yelling at me for throwing a ball against the house (it’s brick- so what’s their problem?). My glove is incredibly special to me- similar to some kids and stuffed animals or blankets, except this is for my early teen years. It has this awesome smell that I may try to describe in the future. To me, the smell screams everything from cold April night games to 101 degree double headers in July. On the topic of baseball, this is the first time in years I’m excited to watch the Baltimore Orioles. It is probably only because it makes me think of Spring- something I don’t have here. Oh and plus I’m going to an Orioles game! Fellow writers Annie and Abby are making the mecca to suburbia for Passover and why not go to a game at Camden Yards before chowing down on matzah?

Meanwhile, we’ll be in the mid-Atlantic climate, home to awesomely warm and rainy Aprils. And I’ll get to ride my bike and see my favorite hill in Baltimore County, Maryland. I think I’ll have much more to write in the coming months.

 

Sprouted

In an earlier post I talked about growing my own food. This is just the beginning.

The first three wandering onions sprouted and now I have a beautiful light in my room. At a time when the ground is still frozen, the trees bare, and the grass covered with a nasty black snow, it is refreshing to have something living in my room. The lack of floor space in my room is immediately worthwhile by way of a full-spectrum grow light. Now it is sunny outside and inside!

Beyond the instant gratification of being near something living, is the thought that I’m finally motivated to grow my own food like I always wished. In the past, I loosely connected myself with the growing process through purchasing CSA shares and going to the farmer’s market. I maintained a great container garden of lettuces (made out of milk cartons and cardboard boxes), but the lettuces and my enthusiasm typically died out by late July. Similarly to how fellow writers Adam and MermanDan explained their desire to put themselves into the experience or to actually live their lives, I’m finally doing that through onion seeds. It makes me happy to be around plants and to be connected with the process. Growing food satisfies my curiosity of how things work. Instead of wondering incessantly about what it is like to grow an onion and catching its seeds, I’ll be doing it!

 

Cattle Aren’t the Downers

If you read, you may know that a Californian beef company voluntarily recalled 143 million pounds of beef and the USDA said there is a “remote” chance of adverse health effects. Hallmark/Westland recalled their beef primarily to protect their image after the Humane Society released a video of workers abusing a “downer” cattle (cows that cannot stand because of sickness or injury). Students whose schools participate in the National School Lunch program already ate a fair share of the 143 million pounds of beef shipped by Hallmark/Westland in the last two years. Parke at U.S. Food Policy collected some great commentary on this issue.

Does a recall of two years’ worth of beef ensure people are at ease about meat production? Is it possible that the incident changes consumers’ tastes? Maybe this is the time that people realize that cows are not the downers! They don’t walk up to the slaughter house and say “duhhhh, I may have a disease, I can’t walk.” The cattle didn’t ask to be fed grain, something unnatural for their stomachs, stuck in tight quarters in their own poop and forcibly fed antibiotics. The people are the downers! We put the cows and ourselves in this situation and point at the meat and slaughterhouse as the problem. Maybe if tainted spinach did not scare enough people to change, perhaps children fearing a possibly lethal hamburger will.

So how am I excited about this? I decided that it’s healthy for me to come out with the negative and then evaluate the positive of each action. Ah, balance. We’re at a point where our food system is failing some of the time, so maybe this is where it changes! How am I changing? Oh, this is where I get Irrationally Exuberant- I’m growing my food!!

What you see above is a flat of mini pots made out of newspaper. When planting, you can merely unfold the bottom and the newspaper will decompose in the ground. They’re neat and they have onion seeds in them. For once during this five month winter, besides the accumulation of snow or ice, I will see something grow!

Come summer, I will not have to worry about a company recalling the food I ate two years ago. As always, I’ll be posting about the natural cycle of things in my life. Expect to see these onions grow!

 

Red and Black

In the last post I touched on the cycle of a turkey. Today I focus on the life of a beet.

Beets, along with celeriac and radishes are the few vegetables I have problems with finding uses. I can make a soup with celeriac or a salad with radishes, but I wish not to eat these dishes frequently. It’s the sad truth and yet CSA farmers tend to pack in the beets come storage crop season.

I loved beets the first three weeks of winter, but enough is enough! The demand for beets at this point during winter is practically non-existent in this house, but CSA shares are commitments. After much internal debate over the recently unbearable earthy flavor, I needed to make beet chocolate cake. It is the only solution for me to enjoy beets again this winter.

As I made the cake, I thought of the natural cycles involved with my food. The farmer decided last year to purchase a healthy amount of beet seeds as beet plants are favorable for farmers.  They grow quickly and yield both green tops and the bulbous root. Most likely, the beets were planted and harvest within six weeks and then placed in storage last November. My beets sat in a dark storage for months, only seeing light for a moment each week when the farmer opens the door to get this weeks’ share of storage crops. Finally, in early January the farmer looks in his storage and wants all of those red-devil roots off his property! The CSA shareholders receive even more beets. The next day, I pick up my share open the bag and laugh at the abundance of yet more beets.

The beets sit in my fridge for a few weeks until I decide to mix with chocolate to make a cake.

When you combine the two, along with oil, eggs, sugar, baking soda and flour you get a highly bearable version of beets. There is nothing quite like using veggies in dessert!

Oh and to complete to cycle, the beets are processed in my body, I compost the peels for use in the garden, and I give up on creating further exciting stories about beets.

 

The Cycle of a Turkey

Those who were brave and loyal fans of Post-Haste Taste encountered a story on slaughtering turkeys (catch it now before the website disappears)! Since I participated in the axing, plucking, and eviscerating of the turkeys, I did nothing more than freeze my bird. It sat in my fridge through Thanksgiving and any other designated time for individuals to cook whole turkeys, until yesterday.

Yesterday, I moved forward with one more step of the turkey’s purpose. While it sat in the oven for a mere 2.5 hours (it was a small 6 lb. turkey), I thought about the slaughter experience and an educator’s mention of this food experience as an empowering way for kids to learn. He suggested the farm as a valuable place to conduct biology. Students would be able to participate in applicable biology in a realistic setting. While some students may succeed in classrooms learning history, formulas, and how to study, nearly everyone can be empowered through learning humans’ interaction with natural cycles, be it growing plants or slaughtering and cooking turkeys.

My roommates and I ate most of the turkey, but the turkey is far from completing its cycle. The bones are now frozen for use in a future stock or broth which can then be used to cook grains or create a soup. Each time I use this turkey, I am forced to reconnect with the bird’s existence and the land it once used. Similarly, students could benefit from a connection between parts of the cycle for a turkey in our food system. From playing with the giblets, to utilizing the feathers, to finally using the bones for soup, students could gain invaluable experiences on a farm and in kitchens! The cycle of turkeys go beyond the “living and flopping to plucked and pink” stage and we can all benefit from that experience. Until next time, when I cook the bones and make a stock!

 

Ice!

When I heard about the Rideau Canal in Ottawa and the 4.8 miles of nonstop ice skating, I was excited beyond belief. I romanticized about commuting on ice skates, skating in a large open space, and being able to play hockey in the middle of a city. Of course, I was just being irrationally exuberant.

Three minutes into skating, I realized that natural ice is not smooth, the canal can be packed, and hockey sticks are not allowed. My ideas were shot down like the hopes of bullish investors on Wall Street

BUT!! There were ice sculptures in front of blue lights for a nice winter feel.

And Gatineau park with some great nordic skiing trails! (no picture) I was so intrigued by Canada after the trip that I spent all morning researching the First Nations, Canadian history, and what exists in the northern parts of Canada. There are so many glaciers and remote places- I feel a need to reach them all! Ever heard of Moosonee? You can only reach the town by train! In Nunavut lies Barbeau Peak, the highest peak in eastern North America which requires a five hour “endurance test” flight just to get to a nearby town! Oh, I set myself up to be let down yet again.

 

Economics as if it Really Mattered

I recently read Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World and am in the middle of a second read of E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, so this post will feature these two economic theories. Neither school of thought gets my vote of confidence (even if I stole this blog title from Greenspan), yet both have some valid arguments that connect at the focal point of my exuberance!

The Age of Turbulence offers some advice for politicians in the coming years. Greenspan highlights two ideas: rapid technological growth increases the disparity of wealth and education reform is essential to narrow vast income inequality. He also throws in a recommendation that we should allow immigration to flow in tandem with a better education system to create a stronger, more educated workforce. Greenspan’s politics for the masses makes some sense if you can get past the complete disregard of people as individuals. His rationale is to find a solution so that the quality of living may rise.

E.F. Schumacher finds faults with a “fix it and go” attitude. Concerning the relationship between technology and the environment, Schumacher observes that once one problem is solved through technology, ten more problems may arise. Schumacher supports his own theory of Buddhist economics by suggesting there is some balance between economic growth and traditional stagnation. He knocks cost-benefit analysis as single-minded and suggests modern economics, “… considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity, taking the factors of production- land, labour, and capital- as the means.”

Oh, can you feel the contempt!?!?!? Does Schumacher’s argument defeat capitalism or could we combine his ideas with Greenspan’s desire for laissez-faire capitalism? Can a free market, driven by modern economic theory and an attachment to wealth, remain balanced with care for the environment and people? Or are we all too irrationally exuberant about our money and easy access to goods?

No one has an answer, but we are slowly moving towards an economic system that recognizes Schumacher’s plea to care for people and their environments. I am excited about the world’s (or well, the rich world’s) recent interest in not using consumption as the sole purpose of all economic activity. The government may still reference GDP as a primary economic indicator, but individual consumers are beginning to recognize well-designed products that respect environments, societies and cultures (read Buddhist economics). For now this movement may be limited to hybrid cars, fair-trade chocolate, and canvas shopping bags, but we are moving towards a more thoughtful economy. Eventually we may realize biking is more fun, fair-trade pricing is not the solution, and that we should probably just grow our own food. While Alan Greenspan may advocate for constantly increasing the standard of living, perhaps the concept of “standard of living” could include some ideas of Buddist economics. Could there be a universal measure for standard of living?

This is where Greenspan and Schumacher collide. First, Schumacher’s stab at modern economics no longer applies. While we are driven by consumerism and cost-benefit analysis, new factors are compelling people to think about the implications of their purchases. More purchases are intended for a greater economic or social good, so Schumacher’s Buddhist economic theory is slowly emerging in modern economics. Greenspan bumps into this notion because of his suggestion for education reform. With a greater number of educated people, workers will have more control and independence in their jobs. Schumacher expresses this as part of Buddhist economics. If we revamp the education system properly, similar to what Greenspan suggests, we could move towards a society with workers who are more empowered and consumers who are more educated. A combination of Greenspan’s math-driven economic concepts and Schumacher’s people-focused theory presents a realistic possibility for economics that really matters. If you look hard you can see that change is already happening!

 

Breaking the Bread

Five months in Vermont and I already feel like I’m a Vermont bread expert. While I typically do not focus on bread as much as I do vegetables, it took some time to find the right bread here in Vermont.

I tried all kinds of Vermont bread: deli bread, soon-to-be stale sandwich bread, excellent rustic loaves with a thick crust and perfect soft inside, but it was not until I tried Trukenbrod, an incredibly hearty whole-grain sourdough, that I decided I could live in Vermont for a while. Not only is their bread exhaustingly perfect with an impeccable sourdough flavor matched with delectable freshly grown and milled Vermont and Quebec-grown whole grains baked in a wood-fired brick oven, but their website correctly communicates this strenuously breathtaking process. From the unexplained picture of W.F. Trukenbrod on the homepage to the everlastingly bitter explanation of why their method of baking bread is better and healthier, I cannot get enough of this beast of a bread operation.

Typically, I could find myself annoyed with such a snooty company. I am all for using local foods and having a minimal environmental impact, but I get annoyed when operations that tout their use of local foods and environmentally-conscious missions have products that taste like crap. Luckily, Trukenbrod is freaking delicious. Not only is their mill hand-made in Austria by a famous mill maker, but Trukenbrod deserves to be snobbish about their wood-fired oven, the local grains they mill, and the environmental mission that their company entails. Trukenbrod’s commitment to old-time baking pays off with the most delicious and dense loaf I have ever eaten! If I trust anyone to handle whole spelt and rye flours with dignity, Trukenbrod is the one. Trukenbrod, the only Vermont bread company with the courage to make bread the right way and charge the righteous, hefty price!

 

Matt

I am irrationally exuberant about food, biking, farming, and economics. Bring up fresh sliced tomatoes and I’ll tell you how I like mine grown, sliced, and salted (in Virginia in early September, a perfectly sharp knife with air pockets, and with eleven sprinkled grains of coarse kosher salt). In cities, I check out bikes more often than women. Ask me about agriculture and I’ll tell you it’s my biggest fantasy. Let me talk about economics and I’ll explain how I plan my day around opportunity cost.

My economic mind formed at a very young age when I got frustrated by the idea of banks. People put money into an account and they can retrieve that same amount plus some interest. “Wait a minute,” I scoffed at the idea to my dad, “how do banks make money if you can get the same amount back?” After some explanation of loans, I slightly understood the banking system. Maybe it was merely my fascination with giant steel vaults, but I kept thinking about money and banking.

Whenever I’d pass a billboard or analyze a TV commercial, I’d wonder how each company makes money. If Pepsi pays $3,000 for a billboard, do they recover more than that in sales? If they take out a loan with an interest rate of 7%, what can they do with the money to get a return higher than that? Often, the analysis would be in a fake insular business world created by a ten year-old. I’d try to envision the cash flows of a business by using over-simplified made-up numbers in my head. If a pack of baseball cards costs $2, where does that money go? I’d try to make up numbers for the cost of the paper, printing, and packaging to determine the cost per unit. After a few minutes I’d regain focus and welcome myself back into the real world.

Now if I still have an inkling to analyze companies, I read annual reports but my interests have shifted from business to food. I found cooking enjoyable as it fit well with my practical thought pattern. Heat changes food; change it the right way and you have success! Of course, I could not settle for buying food in stores. I needed to learn how to make the vegetables, meat and grains that I eat. Naturally, I became an agriculture nerd and a local food/sustainable agriculture preacher.

Most recently, I’m combining my passion for food and sustainable agriculture with my practical economic/business mind. I like the never-ending drive to understand how to improve our food distribution system to include more local, fresh food in all communities in a realistic economically-sound manner. It will be less hefty once I actually stop explaining and start writing about the theory…