Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: davenport winery, kansas wines, wine
Let’s play the word association game: I’ll type a word, and you say the first word that comes to your mind. Ready? OK.
Wine.
Did you say France? Maybe California? (Maybe delicious?). When you think of wines, Kansas is probably not the first place that pops into your head. The truth is, Kansas is home to around 15 wineries – producing more than 50, 000 gallons of wine a year. But with the infamous Loire valley of France and the renowned Andalucia region in Spain, why would you opt for a lesser known, harder to find Kansas variety?
Grapes on the Vine at Smoky Hill Vineyards & Winery
1. Wine Tastings
You don’t have to shell out thousands of dollars for a plane ticket to Europe or the West Coast to take a trip to participate in a wine tasting. That’s right, you can put on your velvet and fur, swirl, sniff, and sip glass after glass of wine just a short car ride from your home.
2. Support Local Business and Agriculture
The same way eating locally produced foods benefits the regional economy, buying wine from a local vineyard promotes economic growth. Plus, glass wine bottles aren’t exactly the lightest thing to be shipping around the globe. Buying local wine lessens the amount of carbon needed to bring that sweet blush from the vine to your glass.
3. Meet Your Merchant
True oenophiles should get to know their producers, and those of us who aren’t such big wine-heads should too. Wines vary from year to year, grape to grape, and field to field: only the producers know the specifics of what’s inside their bottles.
4. Break Your Habit
Many of the grapes that grow well in Kansas – surprise surprise – do not grow so well in the major, more popular wine regions of the world. Local producers generally grow sweeter grape varieties, and fruit blends (like the rhubarb wine at Davenport Winery) that are not readily commercially available in liquor stores.
5. Harvest Time
When it’s time to pick the grapes from their vines, local producers can use all the help they can get. A fun activity for a family, a cute date idea, a good way to snack on seriously fresh fruit – whatever your reason – getting out in early fall and participating in a grape harvest at a local vineyard is a one-of-a-kind experience.
A complete list of Kansas wineries, along with links to the vineyards own sites when available, can be found here and here.
Cheers!
–Jennifer Kongs
Filed under: Waste + Recycling | Tags: compost, electric mower, emissions, fertilizer, grass, Kansas, lawn care, lawn mower, Lawrence, mulch, ozone, reel mower, waste, waste reduction
Giant piles of rotting garbage. Rows and rows of it strewn along in perfect piles. No, this isn’t a landfill but a city-owned lot in East Lawrence. In fact, this garbage is never meant to end up in the landfill. It’s composed mainly of lawn clippings, leaves, and the paper bags that we Lawrenciens set out on our curb every Monday after a gritty weekend of yard work. A few months later – after shredding, turning, and screening – it’s a rich, dark compost ready for us to pick up and take back to our homes to spread on gardens, flower beds, or even spread back over our lawns. Now that’s Mother Nature in action, right?
Not quite. As great as it is to keep the natural “dust to dust” cycle going, we’ve altered that cycle considerably, stirring in more fossil fuels than necessary to get the same result. This includes fossil fuels used to collect the yard waste (an extra route driven by trucks each week) and trips by residents to pick up their old waste in its new form.
Although setting out your yard waste for the weekly collection is a great idea, there are simpler ways to do Mother Nature a favor. You can start by mulching your grass and leaves right back on the yard they came from. Mulching, or grasscycling, is like adding free fertilizer to your lawn and helps you avoid the hassle of bagging.
While you are at it, you can cut out additional polluting emissions by using an electric or manual reel mower. Believe it or not, gas mowers like the one in your garage are responsible for as much as 5% of all ozone forming emissions and 17 millions gallons of spilt gasoline each year. Electric mowers, while still powered by a fossil fuel-fired energy plant, produce less carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. A reel mower gets rid of all of that because it’s powered by you. Those funny looking mowers you only see in cartoons may just be making a comeback.
The Reel Deal: Cut down on carbon emissions while cutting your grass with a reel mower. (Source: Wendy Gay, flickr.com)
I’m not suggesting that we should put an end to the city composting program. This is a great service that creates a carefully monitored product that couldn’t as easily be done in your own back yard. And, since the city started collecting yard waste separately from trash in 1993, we’ve diverted 33 to 35% of our waste from the landfill, amounting to nearly 18,000 tons in 2007.
But the first of those tried and true 3R’s of waste is “reduce”, and mulching or mowing with a reel mower reduces more than just waste. It reduces the need for fertilizer, cuts emissions, and saves the city money by reducing collection and processing time. So when it’s time to fire up the mower, consider keeping your “garbage” in your backyard and enjoy the benefits of a greener, cleaner lawn.
Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health | Tags: farm bill, kansas city center for urban agriculture, michael pollan, organic, Wal-Mart
Workers package Earthbound Farms lettuce for shipment.
http://blog.americanfeast.com/2006/05/
The organic movement was started as an alternative to commercial agriculture, an alternative to the homogenization of our food crops, to free market domination by corporations, as a way to beat the Man – right? As organics becomes more popular, it also becomes more mainstream and commercialized. Now we are in a sort of tug-o-war: should organic products keep growing, or will this type of unlimited growth compromise the original values behind the organic movement? Using my not-so foolproof Oreo science in Part 1, it’s clear that the commercialization of the organic movement is a complicated issue, complete with blind turns and detours.
One thing is clear: Wal-Mart’s ability to determine market prices for organic products does not sit so well with many farmers who run smaller organic operations. For many farms, including the two-acre plot run by the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture (KCCUA), the price premium consumers pay for their organic produce is reflective of the labor premium they put into the production. These small, intensively managed operations allows for a stunningly diverse harvest from a surprisingly small area; a stark contrast with the expansive fields of lettuce managed by Earthbound Farms.
Volunteers working at KCCUA.
Many consumers, including UC Berkley’s renowned food journalist Michael Pollan, are worried that as organics gets bigger, its original values will disappear, and that “going organic” will be nothing but a passing fad. Already, lobbies for large companies have worked to allow synthetic substances into organic processed foods (like my Oreos).
To lower prices, imported organic produce shipments from China could continue to increase. The environmental costs of food transportation are astronomical, so the benefits of converting tracts of land to organic production methods are arguably outweighed with the amount of fuel burned to ship the food across the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, organic foods produced on a small scale for local consumption are not likely to get any cheaper. The truth of the matter is that the cost of most foods on the grocery shelves is artificial: government subsidy handouts to large farms mean low prices on the shelf. The high costs to the environment and to us as taxpayers, who provide the money for the subsidies, are not represented by the totals on our receipts.
So is the organic movement standing on its last leg? Will Wal-Mart – and other marketplace giants – succeed in devaluing ‘organic’? If you have an opinion, make your voice heard as Congress continues to reformulate the Farm Bill, an incredibly important piece of legislation that determines the placement of those subsidies funded by our tax dollars. You can also head to the Downtown Lawrence Farmer’s Market, where you can meet and greet with the farmers as you buy your produce. We don’t have to sit back and watch the clock, your voice will help decide if the organic movement answers the grim reaper’s knock on the door.
–Jennifer Kongs
Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health | Tags: Earthbound Farms, Lee Scott, Lindsay Lohan, Oreos, organic, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods
Organic Produce at a Wal-Mart.
Credit: bdunnette at flickr.com
I like Oreos. I grew up eating them dunked in milk, making wishes and predictions about my secret crushes as I twisted them in half, eating them in peanut butter after watching Lindsay Lohan do it in The Parent Trap – ah, those years as an impressionable teen. Now, my much older, mature self tries to eat organic foods (meaning I go at least a few weeks between performing Oreo prophesies about potential relationship prospects).
In a recent perusal of the shelves at the grocery store, I noticed a new face of Oreos – besides the colored Easter variety. I saw a fantastic culmination of my love of cream filling sandwiched between two branded chocolate cookies and my attempts to eat organically: the organic Oreo. (In my head this experience was accompanied with celestial lights and singing, but I might be making that up).
Not only are many common snack foods adding a pesticide-free variety to their product lines, but big players like Wal-Mart are bringing organic products en masse to their stores’ shelves. Organic is going mainstream, spreading from its humble beginnings in one-room natural food co-ops to the expansive shelves of national supermarket chains. The terms “organic” and “healthy” now go hand-in-hand, and the increasing demand for organics is pushing farmers to their limits. Just in 2006, demand for organic milk exceeded supply by nearly 10% – there just weren’t enough udders to fill the bucket so to speak.
Wal-Mart, with its sheer size and purchasing power, can put pressure on suppliers to switch to organic practices. Many small organic farms now produce on a commercial scale. Earthbound Farms, once a family-operated fruit stand, now has 28,000 acres planted with 100 types of fruits and vegetables. You can now buy their packaged salad greens at grocery stores across the country.
The term “organic” and “expensive” often go together, too, implying that eating healthily means paying a premium. (It also means buying the Oreos with a weird “natural” finish on the bag.) Wal-Mart, known for its low prices, has the potential to make organic foods more affordable – meaning you don’t have to frequent Whole Foods or the Merc to buy a variety of pesticide-free foods.
I wonder if one of my Oreos can foresee the future of organics (since they have failed in accurately predicting my love life): Could Wal-Mart, a price-gouging free market bully, suck the breath of life out of the organic movement?
Stay tuned for Part Two – I have to run a best out of three Oreo trials, to ensure accuracy of course.
–Jennifer Kongs
I remember a few years ago I had to write an 800 word essay on an Allen Ginsberg poem called “My Sad Self.” Ginsberg was a weird, depressed dude and after three hours staring blankly at the page I was feeling pretty weird and depressed myself. While on the verge of tears, it finally clicked with me. I was overcomplicating things. Ginsberg’s poem was reflecting the importance of a place – the narrator’s home. This was easy. Ginsberg was telling the reader, in a non-overt way, why New York City matters; why the narrator should leave it behind, why he should love it and why the reader should even care in the first place. It wasn’t any more difficult than that. It was poetry from the gut, and it hit me hard.
It’s the same sort of reflection I found in reading the poetry of the Wakarusa Wetlands, which I guess is sort of like New York City for the Great Plains Skink or the Smallmouth Salamander. I’ve never been real interested in animals. I used to have some goldfish growing up, and for a brief period of time I held a small snapping turtle captive in our front yard. When I see a report in the New York Times on endangered wildlife I get a little sad … but not that much. When a historian lectures me on biodiversity I become drowsy, lethargic and hungry. I’m willing to bet others have a similar reaction. “So they want to build a highway through the Wakarusa Wetlands? Sounds good to me. Lawrence traffic sucks dude. Let’s go lift some weights.” That’s probably a typical reaction from a typical college student.
This is where the poetry comes in. Here’s one example of the poetry that has been so connected to the “save the wetlands” campaign. Others can be found in book Wakarusa Wetlands in Words & Image. Read this and reflect:
Roadkill
If you can’t put a bullet
through it, put a road
through it: that killing
only takes a little longer.
Name the road after what you destroy:
Haskell Highway
or Wetlands Expressway
The Wildlife?
They’ll be fine, stuffed
behind glass
in the steel and concrete
Nature Center, soundproofed
from the road’s roar.
The spirits? Who
believes that claptrap anyway.
not with a gun but
a bulldozer.
shoot, shoot.-Brian Daldorph
Daldorph is throwing daggers, and I can feel it. The final line is brilliant. Daldorph’s poem hits me the same way Ginsberg’s did. It makes me feel the magic of a place and why it’s worth saving. You don’t have to be a committed environmentalist to be moved by it. Like Ginsberg’s poem, the message is not overly complex. It’s simple and makes a point.
The poem is also apolitical, poignant and relevant. In others words, it represents a different type of way to talk about the environment in public. Poetry like Daldorph’s offers a competing narrative to the divisive political sparring that bogs down far too many discussions on environmental topics. In the words of Robert Frost, “poetry is what gets lost in translation.” People want to see and feel something. There’s a reason why everyone knows Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” (“they paved paradise and put up a parking lot”), but can’t quote carbon dioxide emission regulations or fuel economy standards. There’s a simple resonance to Mitchell’s words; the same resonance found in Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image.
A newspaper story loaded with numbers and jargon is just too distant – irrelevant even. There’s a place for factual regurgitation, but it’s not likely to connect with people the same way a verse of poetry does. Poetry is a small way to combat labels like “treehugger”, animal lover, hippie, and lunatic that get attached to those who get close to nature. With Daldorph’s poem you’re none of those. You’re just a human being and sometimes that’s enough.
-Vince Meserko
