On This Veterans Day

On this Veterans Day, we should all be thankful to those who have served in our armed forces and those who currently serve.

In all wars, soldiers sacrifice: time with their families; health and well-being; sleep and comfort; and far too often, their lives. But in wars past, there was a greater sense of shared sacrifice than there is today, with the family and community members left behind finding their own role in what was called the "war effort". 

During World War II, women were called to work for the war effort. They took on non-combat roles, they worked in the munitions factories, and they became heads of households as husbands and fathers were conscripted.

 But the war effort was bigger than the army and munitions plants during the world wars, both here and abroad. In both the US and England, food was a huge part of the war effort as massive armies require massive amounts of food. With men being pulled off the farms, not just out of the factories, women and children stepped in there, too.

Victory Gardens were encouraged to increase production of fresh vegetables. Women were urged to "can all you can" to provide winter food for the household. Victory Gardens were seen as a way to stretch ration cards, free up food supplies for the troops, and reduce the need to transport food by increasing local production, thereby saving fuel.

According to the National WWII Museum website (linked above), at the height of WWII, there were 20,000,000 Victory Gardens producing 40% of all fresh vegetables grown in the United States. Over the course of the war, that was the equivalent of more than a million tons of fresh produce.

The home front mentality, the sense that we are all part of the war effort, seems largely absent from our country during our current decade of war. Without the draft, fewer families have loved ones serving in the armed forces and there is no organized national effort to save or conserve resources in order to support our troops. Yet in a world where war is increasingly about shrinking resources -- oil, gas, and yes, food -- the war effort on the home front could radically decrease our dependence on foreign oil and imported foods. So today, thank a veteran, drive a little less, and start looking for a sunny spot in your yard for a spring Victory Garden. We can all be superheroes in this fight:

The Full Menu

I have a short list of more serious topics that are waiting for posts, but given the holiday weekend, it seems better to stick with less weighty matters for now. So having teased with last night's post about our dinner at the Requa Inn, I thought I'd post the full menu for your enjoyment. This is fine dining at its finest, with local ingredients, many foraged by the chefs, highlighted to bring out their best.

First:  Alaskan halibut, crispy nori and herbs, wild rice

Second: Smoked trout, beetroot, chanterelle

Third: Kuri squash, chevre, pepperwood

Fourth: Chestnut tart, exotic fruits

Fifth: Matsutake mushroom, stinging nettle, smoked sturgeon

Sixth: Glazed sweet potato (elk for meat-eaters), canario beans, cherries, wild ginger

Seventh: Bitter root custard, caramel, orange

Eighth: Parsnip, vanilla, grapes, candy nuts

If you're looking for a meal you won't forget in a beautiful setting, you can't get much better than this. Into this package, you also get stunning redwood forests, a rocky coast with sea stacks and sea mammals, and undammed rivers for fishing, kayaking, and swimming. How could you possibly go wrong?

Food In Del Norte

We are not a big city. We don't have celebrity chefs opening up Michelin-starred restaurants on every other corner. But we have our hidden gems and I had the great pleasure to eat at one of them tonight. 

My wedding anniversary was last month and I was here in Del Norte County and my husband was on the other side of the country. So now that we're both here, we attended the beer-maker's dinner at the Historic Requa Inn as a late anniversary splurge.

It was eight small courses of complete deliciousness, with surprises on almost every plate. Like the beans in the sixth course. How can beans taste that good and be so creamy? Or the pureed squash in the third course that was served with savory meringues? 

If you live in Del Norte and can afford a once-a-year splurge, there is nowhere better to splurge that the Requa for one of their tasting dinners. And if you don't live in Del Norte, it is worth the trip. The inn has rooms overlooking the beautiful Klamath River near its mouth. It's a lovely place to stay, and the tasting dinners will rival anything you've eaten anywhere.

Chefs Thomas Wortman and Paul Hess outdid themselves tonight and if it weren't for my self-imposed obligation to blog today, I would still be in a complete fog of food happiness. Truly, it was a meal to remember.

Healthy: Remove Soda From Kids' Menus

As we mentioned yesterday, Food Day is viewed by its founders as a year-long effort to improve our food systems, locally and globally. In that spirit, we will continue to post news and information following Food Day's four-word tagline: Healthy. Sustainable. Affordable. Fair.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is the main driver behind Food Day and also works year-round to push for better access to healthy foods. They regularly call for consumers to take action on specific issues.

This week, McDonald's announced that they will remove soda from their kids' menus, after an earlier false start. They join a few other national chains including Subway and Chipotle who no longer directly market soda to children. This is a big step, given how directly soda consumption has been tied to childhood obesity.

But there's more work to do. Most national chains still offer soda as an option in kids menu meal packages. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is asking consumers to take action by sending a message to the CEOs of other national chains asking them to follow suit. You can make a difference: follow the previous link to send your own message.

Food Day All Year Long

The founders of Food Day view it a little like a mushroom. The events on and immediately surrounding October 24th are supposed to be the fruiting parts of a year-long effort to improve the local, regional, and national food system.

And so, with Food Day 2013 just two weeks in the past, it's time to start looking forward to next year's celebrations and the work we need to do to get there.

On Tuesday, I got to attend a day-long workshop on culinary and agritourism. As I mentioned the next day, going to an Oregon Wild Rivers Coast tourism event made me ponder our place where the Wild Rivers Coast meets the Redwood Coast. It's a beautiful place to be, as we all know, but how can we forge bonds with both regions in a meaningful way?

One possibility is to create itineraries that highlight some of the best that all four counties -- Humboldt, Del Norte, Curry, and the southern end of Coos, from south to north -- have to offer. Food Day starts on a Friday next year, which lends itself well to expanding the offerings into a Food Weekend. 

Travel Oregon is a sponsor of an amazing array of activities that all fall under the name, FEAST Portland. The lineup in Portland is incredible, but I'm taking more inspiration from the "Trails to FEAST" created by the folks at Travel Oregon. These are themed driving itineraries covering beer, cheese, wine, and other specialty foods. They include tips for where to stay, where to eat, what not to miss. Now, I wish (because of the name) they actually LED to Portland and FEAST Portland, but they don't. They're more regionally-based.

But imagine, if you will, cheese trails leading from Humboldt, Rogue Valley, and Oregon's Wild Rivers Coast creameries converging on Crescent City for a cheese making workshop. Or a weekend itinerary starting in southern Humboldt and hitting every creamery and cheese destination from there to Bandon, with tastings, workshops, and tours along the whole route.

This is one of the things we're dreaming of for next year's Food Day celebrations. If you would like to be involved in planning events like this, join us! There are always new places at the table.

Food Safety Modernization Act: How You Can Make It Better!

Food safety has been in the news a lot over the past few years, as we have seen increased outbreaks of E. coli, Salmonella, and other food-borne illnesses. Many of these outbreaks have been linked to specific farms or processing facilities, almost all of them of industrial scale. Food-borne illnesses are serious and sometimes cause multiple deaths during a single outbreak.

Some food safety issues are home-based. It is important for consumers to know how to properly store, handle, and cook raw, whole foods. But most of these outbreaks have nothing to do with what home cooks did or did not do, so improvements in food safety need to focus on food production and processing.

Congress recently passed a bill updating food safety laws called the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), partly in reaction to recent outbreaks. The Food and Drug Administration is currently working to implement the new law and is accepting public comments on two pieces of their new regulations.

Clearly, food safety is an important issue and shouldn't be taken lightly. Neither should it treat all producers and processors in the same way. Small family farms cannot afford to the same kinds of technology as large corporate farms, nor can they survive under paperwork burdens larger operators can handle. Short, local supply chains have rarely been linked to large outbreaks of food-borne illnesses and should be treated differently under the new regulations than industrial-scale farming and processing companies.

Unfortunately, a few key provisions of the FSMA designed to shield small farms from unreasonable (and unwarranted) regulations are not reflected in the FDA's regulations. For example, the FDA has listed farmers markets and CSAs as "manufacturing facilities" rather than retail outlets, opening them up to massive new regulations. Clearly, anyone who has attended a farmers market knows it is about buying and selling produce, not processing or manufacturing food. 

So what can be done to prevent the new FDA rules from hurting small farmers? Comment now! The comment period for two key pieces of the new rules (the Produce Rule and the Preventative Control Rule) is open until November 15th. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has a guide for both consumers and farmers, giving sample talking points and explaining how to submit your comments to the FDA. If you want to support local farmers who stand (very directly, at the farmers markets) behind their product, tell the FDA to recognize the difference between small-scale and industrial agriculture.

Redwoods? Wild Rivers? Both?

I spent today at a Rural Tourism Studio run by Travel Oregon. Today's workshop focused on culinary and agritourism and is part of a four-month series of trainings run by the destination development branch of Travel Oregon. It was a great day and I'm looking forward to going back for more over the next few months.

Today, though, clarified in my mind a big question for our region: redwoods or wild rivers or both? The southern Oregon and far northern California coast is often marketed at the Wild Rivers Coast, running from Bandon, OR, to Klamath, CA, more or less. Del Norte County and Humboldt County, CA are often referred to together as the Redwood Coast or the North Coast or the Redwood Region. Del Norte is very firmly placed in both regions: we have great redwood forests and beautiful wild rivers.

In marketing our area, do we look north to Oregon or south to Humboldt? Or do we try to position ourselves as a gateway to both regions? Some links already exist to both regions. 

(There were other ideas and questions and inspiration and collaboration that came out of today's workshop, but it was a long day, and everything else will have to wait.)