Now You're Cooking! - What the Growing of Food Can Do!

What the Growing of Food Can Do!

By Jane Weston Wilson

“Why me, why there, and why discuss it here?" Marian Nestle says on her Food Politics blog, on June 18, 2010. She is talking about accepting the John Dewy Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College and to deliver a brief commencement address to incarcerated graduates of the Bard College Prison Initiative to New York State’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility.

Participants in this program started an organic garden and are growing food for the prison with surplus going to local food banks. This is exciting for two reasons: Dr. Marian Nestle, Paulette Goddard professor in the department of Nutrition, Food studies and Public Health at New York University, is one of the clarion voices in the effort to bring attention to the political, social and environmental effects of how we grow our food.

Her book Food Politics is also the name of her blog. Other books are What We Eat, Taking Sides, and Feed Your Pet Right.  She is prolific, passionate and fearless in taking on the industrial food combine. Her service and profession is that of a teacher, an educator, and the award she received is from the great educator John Dewey whose idea of education is “that it was not only important for the individual but that it also has an important social purpose - that of encouraging students to become active and effective members of a democratic society.” 

“In growing a garden and producing food for yourselves and for others under these particular and peculiar circumstances you are carrying out John Dewey’s ideas, better than he could ever have imagined,” Professor Marion Nestle told these graduates.

Bard College has awarded liberal arts associates’ and bachelors’ degrees to nearly 200 men and women inside three long-term maximum and medium security prisons. None of the graduates, not one, has returned to prison after being paroled.

No wonder Marion Nestle said “I was not kidding that no award has ever meant so much to me. It was a privilege to be here.”

More and more we see what can happen when food becomes a part of education whether it is in a schoolyard garden where children learn how to grow, cook and serve food in their schools or a prison where rehabilitation happens through starting an organic garden, cooking from it and sharing the food inside and outside.

Neighborhood youngsters from three schools are learning about organic gardening in our West Side Community Garden through grants that teach them how to start planting seeds in their classrooms, to planting seedlings in their plots in the garden and watching them grow; corn, cucumbers beans wild strawberries are favorites.

Keep reading for delicious, seasonal recipes.

Lots of things are already coming up in our plots at the West Side Community Garden, kale, small and tender leaves, beans, beets, radishes, carrots (I can’t wait to pull my purple carrots, but must be patient.) lettuces, nasturtiums, lots of herbs. If this week’s heat wave is any indication of the rest of the summer, well, I think lots of raw foods are in order; fruits and vegetables as smoothies, small and big salads, side dishes and as desserts.

The Greens Cookbook: Cucumber, Feta, Red Onion and Mint Salad
From the very famous Greens Restaurant in San Francisco
Serves 4

Ingredients:
4 Persian cucumbers, washed, ribbed, sliced lengthwise and then in cylinders
1 medium red onion, peeled and cut lengthwise in very, very thin slices
4 ounces Feta, preferably French, in small cubes
3 Tab mixed herbs; mint, parsley marjoram, chive chives, washed and finely chopped

Dressing:
2 Tab rice vinegar
1/2 of a fresh squeezed lime
2 Tab olive oil
Salt and pepper

Procedure:
1. In a glass or pottery-serving bowl, combine cucumbers and onion.
2. Gently fold in feta. Scatter herbs.
3. Whisk together salad dressing.
4. Add salt and pepper.
5. Garnish with fresh mint.
 
Fruit Platter
Serves 6
My friend Lois always does a big fruit platter for her brunches and lunches and dinners. She uses seasonal fruits and tops it off with unsweetened coconut flakes.

Ingredients:
4 medium peaches, peeled and cubed
4 nectarines, peeled and cubed
4 plumbs peeled and cubed
2 oz frozen organic cherries
1/2 pint blueberries or raspberries, washed, and patted dry
3 to 4 Tab unsweetened coconut

Topping:
Side dish of Greek yogurt

Procedure.
1. In a large, pretty serving bowl combine all fruits.
2. Gently shake coconut flakes all over fruit.
3. Place small bowl of Greek yogurt with serving spoon beside fruit bowl.

Comments

[coach purses]

Poor edward has to do his work after dinner and he couldn’t go with us to play football. Because he dare not go against his mother’s orders. What a pity!