Category Archives: sustainable

Why I object to Tesco in Stokes Croft, Bristol

Posted on September 9, 2010 | 16 comments

On Tuesday I ate (well) in Zazu’s Kitchen in the cultural quarter of Stokes Croft.

A unique area featuring street art from vintage Banksy
to up-to-the-minute street art attracting visitors from far and wide including Italian food blogger, Jasmine.

“93% of local people say NO to Tesco in Stokes Croft,” says the fresh notice on Stokes Croft’s creative response to street drinking, Turbo Island.

How many Tescos does a city need? There are already 38 Tescos in Bristol according to Tesco – and two within five minutes of the proposed site.

Tesco picked the wrong place to wield its corporate takeover of the high street when it set its sights on the eighteenth-century building at 138-142 Cheltenham Road in Stokes Croft.

Using an intermediary (to deflect suspicion?), it bought the lease on Jesters comedy club and applied for change-of-use to shop in November 2009.

Apparently, one Bristol City councillor said: had he known it was Tesco applying, he would not have agreed. But the application got passed, unnoticed.

Thus Tesco infiltrated the heartland of Stokes Croft, as part of its taking advantage of the recession master-plan. What a double-win for Tesco: cheapness and take-over. The more shops Tesco has, the less competition.

Local shops cannot compete against a supermarket’s marketing millions. Hello supermarket means goodbye local family businesses.

Stokes Croft happens to bring together a powerful group of people: freethinkers, food activists and artists. The area’s independent shops offer a wealth of cultural diversity and quality food – including a long-established Italian delicatessen and organic farm shop – and community.

People know each other and help each other.

The local shops have an informal agreement not to sell cheap-as-dirt super-strength alcohol – the liver-rotting stuff supermarkets sell. It will be the beginning of the end if Tesco moves in.

As Joni Mitchell sung in the Sixties: “They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot… You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

There is still time to stop the juggernaut. All Bristolians have a right to object.

It’s true that current planning laws do not allow a Council to protect its own local shops as the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary: Tesco – the supermarket eating Britain – shows.

However the formal objection process against a shop front still gives plenty of scope for voicing concerns. Tesco front store branding promises cheapness but is a lie. Our local shops are cheaper than Tesco Express, according to a local survey.

I am helping run workshops to help people write their letters. We all need encouragement. I know I did.

The No Tesco in Stokes Croft campaignwebsite has a template letter to email to Bristol City Council. Copy and paste, then top-and-tail with a list of your concerns and your postal address.

The deadline for emailing your objection is the 14 September 2010.

I have also sent my written statement asking to speak at the planning committee on 22 September at Bristol City Council on College Green.

There will be a party on College Green from 12.30 – 2.00pm to celebrate our campaign. Whatever happens, our fight for fair planning laws has just begun.

16 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, organic, producers, rant, sustainable

Tagged Banksy, Bristol, Bristol City Council, No Tesco in Stokes Croft, Tesco

Navajo tea

Posted on August 13, 2010 | 14 comments

Back in the UK, sipping Navajo tea from the greenthread plant.

Crystal had told me about the tea – organic greenthread tea grown near Gallup.

I could not stay for Gallup’s farmers’ market to get some but, luckily, on our way back from the Navajo nation to Flagstaff, I found greenthread tea at a gas station on Route 66.

See the packet of Yanabah tea in the pic above, a shot taken on my first day back in the UK, plus homecoming flowers.

Tonight I sit at home sipping Yanabah tea.

I love the taste, reminds me of nettle tea. Like European nettles, greenthread grow wild, its strength-giving properties still intact.

The warmth and strength of Navajo tea sipped in England connects me to my summer in the US, and two conversations I don’t want to forget.

We visited Anna Rondon on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico with my sister and her husband. Several years ago they had made a film on depleted uranium featuring Anna Rondon, the chair of the Navajo Green Economy mission.

Bear with me while I explain about depleted uranium: a by-product of refining uranium ore, which has been mined in the Navajo nation, it causes radioactive hell for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and the US and UK military.

A green economy provides the Navajo nation with alternative employment to cancer-causing uranium ore mining.

Back to my visit: So here I am in New Mexico for the first time in my life and I have been cooped up in a car or house since leaving Flagstaff that morning.

“I need to go out for a stroll,” I say.

Anna’s daughter, Crystal, gives me directions from the residential street to nearby open land on a rock.

I feel English and befuddled.

Crystal patiently explains: “Follow the trail.”

Then she adds: “Sometimes we make our own trail.”

On the rock, I feel like a child allowed out to play.

“Sometimes we make our own trail”. Stays in my mind.

I leave the stony path feeling brave. I only take a ten-minute detour but feels like the start of a good practice.

That was the first conversation I don’t want to forget.

The next day Anna Rondon takes us to a Sun Dance in the heart of the nation.

On the way she tells me more about her work building an eco-economy for the nation. New Mexico has the resources to make solar power work all the year round.

She does not use the word “sustainable” to describe her work. On purpose.

I rejoice – I have always disliked that word because a) it has too many syllables b) no one really knows what it means.

We both agree – “sustainable” has become a meaningless word co-opted by corporations to improve their image.

Instead Anna Rondon uses the Dine (Navajo) term to describe how to make a living in harmony with the earth: lifeways.

Native American lifeways have been inspiring the green movement for decades.

So, that is the second conversation I don’t want to forget.

14 Comments

Posted in health, sustainable, tea

Tagged depleted uranium, Dine, greenthread, lifeways, Navajo nation, Navajo tea, radioactive mines

Top Chef DC – real-life reality food

Posted on August 4, 2010 | 16 comments

Back in the UK.

Blog-mind filled with unwritten posts.

Like that Tuesday in Washington DC.

We’d been on the Amtrak train since 5.30am Sunday morning

– passed Gallup and our Dine (Navajo) friends (another blog to come)

– woke that morning in Kansas station where I stretched my legs in the light and sun

– ate three meals a day in the dining car and watched Amerika‘s gigantic land roll by.

Planned to do the tourist thing at Washington DC.

Its railway station heralded grandeur.

But by the time we reached our hostel, we were exhausted.

After two days of train-rocking, all we wanted was stillness.

A night-in.

What a night-in!

Turned out we were in the funkiest hostel in the funkiest part of town.

On a empty parking lot, surrounded by modern neighbours, the 19th century wood-panelled brick house with sash windows (first sash windows in six weeks of US travel!) that had belonged to the National Advancement of Colored People.

To add to the hostel’s homeliness, a shared (modern, paint-white) kitchen.

A good place for gossip: a TV journalist showed us a picture on his phone of David Cameron’s visit that day to the White House.

While cooking my staple stand-by, brown rice, I found a unopened packet of interesting Indian spices and spinach from Trader Joe’s. A previous guest had labelled it: “to share”.

I debated with myself: was it selfish or unselfish to use it?

A young Danish guest urged me to. He said I reminded him of his mother, also a brown rice ex-hippy. (And like my children would have done, encouraging me to think of myself).

Enter the hostel manager, Kevin, who turned out to be a would-be blogger for the hostel (and I about to give a social media workshop when I got back to the UK) and into real food.

So we shared the brown rice and spicy spinach, and Kevin invented a crunchy-soft topping of avocado and peanut butter. Like most home concoctions, its looks belie its taste.

Since arriving in the US, six weeks before, I had been watching reality TV show, Top Chef DC, marvelling how the US, as mired as the UK in obesity and junk food, is as obsessed as the UK with food on TV.

Now I was in the foodie capital, eating the kind of spontaneous, messy, healthy, tasty concoction I would eat at home.

And here’s a picture of my bowl of porridge the next morning – real-life reality food, and my take on Top Chef DC.

Thank you, Capital View.

16 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, recipe idea, sustainable, vegetarian

Tagged Capital View Lofty, hostels, social media, Trader Joe's, Washington DC

Carrot cake at the Grand Canyon

Posted on July 17, 2010 | 7 comments

I ask the Grand Canyon rancher: “What is the trail for the scaredy-cats with no heads for heights?”

Nonplussed, she sends us to the start of the Bright Angel trail.

Looks steep and scary to me.

I do not dare take in the view. Just focus on my feet.

Try to ignore the images of pitching headlong over the edge which my mind is generously supplying.

We see a zag of lightning.

Thunder hollers in the canyon.

Anxiety about heat exhaustion (it was 100 degrees when we started) is replaced by fear of being struck by lightning.

Fat plops of rain fall.

When we reach the Mile-and-a-half shelter, I am soaked. Chilly.

Three US students and a family from Amsterdam are also sheltering. We commiserate over Holland losing the World Cup.

The students have been hiking since early morning.

They witnessed a helicopter rescue for a hiker with a scorpion bite. The helicopter took six hours to arrive, the rancher two.

Not enough money, say the students. The Grand Canyon is feeling the recession.

The rain stops.

We set off on our return journey up the trail.

Miraculously, my mind is no longer furnishing scenes of disaster.

I am no longer hugging the side of the rock.

I am taking in the view. And stride. A miracle.

Time for the carrot cake’s photo-shoot (see pic above).

I baked it the night before, amalgamating and adjusting several recipes found on the web for the simplest.

Here it is before I forget it.

Whisk five small eggs (or four big ones) with 1+1/4 cups of sugar and 1+1/4 of organic coconut oil

Fold in 2 cups of organic flour and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Plus 3 cups of grated organic carrot and some cut-up raisins.

Bake in a greased loaf tin for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Insert a knife to check it is not wet when withdrawn. If wet, the cake is not sufficiently cooked.

Because of the high altitude (7,000 feet) of Flagstaff, the cake took another twenty minutes.

I concocted a separate topping of whisked organic tofu, lime juice and organic agave nectar (the un-organic kind is highly processed and not worth it).

The topping did not come with us to the Grand Canyon.

Unlike the brave carrot cake, that did.

7 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, organic, recipe, sustainable, vegetarian

Tagged carrot cake, Grand Canyon, healthy, organic, tofu topping

You can’t beat US home cooked food

Posted on July 5, 2010 | 6 comments

The US Asia bus from Las Vegas (hot tip: cheaper than the Greyhound) drops me on the outskirts of Los Angeles, at Monterey Park.

I buy a new watch strap and a refreshing green tea with succulent mango seeds from one of the many local Chinese shops.

I ask directions for downtown LA, using my rudimentary Spanish as the lady I ask speaks no English.

Poor people, and workers, on the no 70 bus. I am minority White. Everyone helpful and polite.

Downtown LA with its impressive skyscrapers.

After catching another bus, stressed from travelling in a strange land, I am picked up by my Servas host.

Servas was started after the Second World War to promote peace and understanding amongst nations.

Suddenly, I am whisked to heaven – yoga in the garden, fine wines on the veranda, then supper with soul conversations.

I realise that most of the food I have been eating in the US has been ethnic: Thai, Chinese or Indian.

This is my first taste of traditional American food.

Home cooked, with ingredients from the local farmers’ markets, it is superb.

Traditional July 4 food: barbecued and succulent spare ribs, homemade watermelon rind pickle, refrigerator cucumber pickle (Midwest speciality) and – officially – the best coleslaw I have ever tasted – courtesy of Angie’s father with spicy cayenne and refreshing parsley and cilantro.

The pudding: seasonal cherries picked that day by Angie in Leona valley, a nearby microclimate defying the Californian desert. Plus apricots, a blob of creme fraiche, and the most elegantly thin wholemeal pastry (a feat as such pastry is usually cludgy).

Bless you, Angie and Hans, for giving me sanctuary.

6 Comments

Posted in carnivore, food, health, organic, sustainable

Tagged Leona cherries, Servas, traditional July 4 food, US Asia bus

Vardo, Venice

Posted on July 2, 2010 | 4 comments

I walk the boardwalk from Santa Monica to Venice.

The sky is overcast (yummy, just like home in England). The locals call it June gloom.

I am hungry but nothing takes my fancy.

It looks touristy and, well, not real food.

I can’t get this restaurant out of my head that I had passed earlier.

The sign had said: ethnic, vegan, vegetarian…

I don’t like retracing my steps, or leaving the ocean.

But I am glad I did.

It is rare to find somewhere where I want to eat every dish on the menu.

This is the place for me.

An oasis. Delicate flavours, vegan and vegetarian delights, raw food desserts and all ingredients organic.

I had the aromatic gently spicy dhal and spinach curries and salad, beautifully dressed with homemade vinaigrette.

followed by this sweetheart of raw chocolate with fresh mint and coconut filling.

Vardo means gypsy in Roma.

And suited this gypsy queen down to the ground.

4 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, organic, restaurant, sustainable, vegan

Tagged Vardo cafe, Venice California

In praise of Amtrak

Posted on June 14, 2010 | 9 comments

Supper time on board the Amtrak train from New York to Chicago. Wild rice, trout and a medley of vegetables

The Hudson river (above) was our companion for a good while on the Lake Shore railroad.

Every meal time, we sat with different people. Several asked me about the British health care system. I said: “I bless the National Health Service.”

Socialism has a bad rap in the US but there is nothing to be scared of. It’s simply about society sharing the care of its citizens, especially the vulnerable ones.

This is my first time in the US.

We had flown from the UK to New York.

Going by train from New York to Arizona was initially for green reasons.

It was also more scenic, more convivial, more educational and also allowed more natural adjustment to time differences.

After sleeping on the train, we changed at Chicago. Like New York, it reminded me of European cities.

But the landscape became less familiar after Chicago.

Our conductor on the Southwest Chief gave us hot flannels, a welcome hangover from the days of steam trains.

We sat in the observatory lounge and watched the landscape change.

Agricultural fields of corn (see above), but few houses or people.

You get a lot of land for your money in the Midwest, said one passenger. But, he explained, it suffered from water shortages. There was competition for water between the states and much water went on golf courses.

The conductors had great lines of repartee and wit, such as:

“In a few moments we will be reaching Raton, New Mexico, and time for a brief smoke break. Have a few puffs on that cigarette but don’t wander far from the train or you will become a hitchhiker not a passenger although the good news is – there is another train in 24 hours.”

The landscape changed again after Albuquerque where we stopped for an hour in the intense heat, and an unexpected anti-genocide exhibition,
One Million Bones.

I fell in love with the railroad and big skies, the America of much loved novels.

I felt touched by the people I spent time with hearing something of their stories and why they are travelling: grandchildren, graduation, loss of loved ones.

I also had great chats about food: cinnamon in porridge; beer batter for frying flounders, and lavender and chamomile for restful herbal tea.

I feel sad how people from different countries and cultures can get divided from each other, through the iniquities of a profit-before-people system.

It took us two and half days to reach our destination in Arizona.

It was a privilege.

9 Comments

Posted in food, sustainable

Tagged train US

Eat organic – reduce carbon

Posted on May 5, 2010 | 14 comments

Today I met my friend and ex-Soil Association colleague, Gundula Azeez, for lunch.

She wrote the Soil Association 2010 report, Soil carbon and organic farming.

I confess carbon used to confuse me.

As a journalist, my ignorance is my strength. If I can understand it, so can you.

Gundula kindly went back to basics for a beginner’s mind explanation.

Is carbon good or bad?

Carbon is both good and bad depending on where it is.

When it is in the soil, or locked up in oil and coal, it’s good.

When it’s in the atmosphere, it’s bad.

Carbon-in-the-air i.e. carbon dioxide is something we need to breathe OUT.

In the case of current planetary concerns, rising levels of carbon dioxide (or CO2) create rising greenhouse gases – too much of which contributes to climate change.

(Sentence rewritten following Georgie’s comment below).

Organic farming and the carbon cycle

Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere by breathing IN carbon dioxide.

That’s good.

When plants decay, the carbon is stored in the soil.

That’s good too.

Organic farmers uses this natural cycle to replenish the soil.

According to the Soil Association report, if all UK farmland were converted to organic farming, at least 3.2 million tonnes of carbon would be stored in the soil each year – the equivalent of taking nearly 1 million cars off the road

Not only that – but when carbon is stored in the soil, it does a LOT of good.

That’s because it is stored as organic matter which retains nutrients, soil structure and water.

Organic farmers create more carbon-rich organic matter through their farming practices.

They grow green manures and add compost to enrich the soil.

Soil life

Introducing soil microbes, the tiniest creatures on earth that perform vital functions to keep the soil healthy.

These soil microbes are exterminated by chemical farming practices but are actually encouraged by organic farmers.

Soil micro-organisms are essential to life on earth.

They help deliver nutrients to the growing plant.

They help it decompose when it is dead.

Thus creating more organic matter and its carbon-storage capacity.

Clods of earth

The soil actually clumps – or aggregates – around the carbon to protect it.

This delicious crumbly soil also provides a holding place for water, nutrients and air.

Which is why majority-world countries benefit from organic farming practices because they increase yield, and create water-retaining soil.

This gives developing countries more economic independence too.

They don’t have to pay the West for chemicals to feed the soil because organic farming does it naturally – by using the planet’s natural carbon cycle.

Lunch at Saint Stephen’s cafe

I had sweet potato frittata and salad – pictured – at Saint Stephen’s cafe.

The food is amazing – home-cooked and organic, seasonal, fair trade and local where possible.

Saint Stephen’s church cares deeply about the environment and this is reflected in its cafe food, conceived by one of Bristol’s best cooks, Edna Yeffet Summerel.

Nice to know when I eat organic food that I am enriching the soil and helping store carbon…

14 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, organic, recipe idea, restaurant, sustainable, vegetarian

Tagged carbon, carbon dioxide, organic matter

Bristol eco-village

Posted on April 22, 2010 | 12 comments

Welcome to Bristol eco-village.

Welcome.

The squatters moved in on Saturday and already three acres of desolate wasteland in inner-city Bristol have been transformed.

What is dead has been brought back to life.

The beans are planted in the soil – on lined raised beds as the land used to be a scrapyard and may be contaminated by toxins.

The squatters are conducting soil tests.

If contamination is found, the squatters plan some soil restoration, such as feeding with compost tea and planting with nitrate-fixing plants (such as beans).

Here is their reception area where visitors can get more info.

It looks like something out of Mad Max or a similar post-apocalyptic movie – and that’s the point.

Rather than be victims of a future likely eco-disaster, some people would rather prepare positively in the present.

Here is a makeshift green house.

On Tuesday the squatters must got to court.

Why?

Must the land be repossessed by the owners so it may lie unused for another twenty years?

Or can it be restored to life as the squatters are doing, growing vegetables and rebuilding soil fertility?

“We come in peace they said

To dig and sow

We come to work the lands in common

And to make the waste ground grow

This earth divided

We will make whole

So it will be

A common treasury for all

We work, we eat together

We need no swords

We will not bow to the masters

Or pay rent to the lords.

Still we are free

Though we are poor

You Diggers all stand up for glory

Stand up now!”

12 Comments

Posted in eating well on a budget, food, health, peak oil, rant, sustainable

Tagged Bristol eco village, growing beans, growing on wasteland, land restoration, squatters, the Diggers

Easy-to-make spelt loaf

Posted on April 9, 2010 | 43 comments

This is the most delicious bread I have baked in my life, ever – and the fastest.

Spelt bread has three great things going for it:

1. Wheat-sensitive types like myself find spelt easier-to-digest

2. Because it is spelt, you can get away with no-kneading because, as Rose Prince says in her recipe for white spelt, “Spelt, an ancient wheat grain, reacts quickly to yeast”.

3. It tastes fantastic – the crust was seed-crunchy and the inside was moist and held together.

My leading characters:

Organic wholemeal spelt flour from Sharpham Park, Somerset (more expensive than Dove’s Farm but locally-grown and milled)
A small packet of fresh organic yeast from Rapunzel, Germany wrapped in yellow wax paper, bought at Bristol’s Better Food Company, and kept in fridge
Pumpkin, sunflower and linseeds mostly from Essential
A jugful of warm water.

Thank you to Julia for real-time baking advice, the recipe and the loaf we ate

while watching Life In The Fast Lane, about the 1990s M11 road protest.

Julia says you have to use real yeast to make it taste so good, and I did.

See Yeast ** further down for more info including using dried yeast.

Ingredients

1lb 2oz/ 500g spelt flour

½ tsp sea salt

2oz/ 50g pumpkin seeds

2oz/ 50g sunflower seeds

2oz/ 50g linseeds or sesame seeds

17floz/ 500ml warm water

15-20g fresh yeast with 1 teaspoon of honey

a slosh of olive oil (or any oil)

Method after Julia

Add the fresh yeast and honey (1 teaspoon) to the warm water and leave it somewhere warm for 10 minutes to activate the yeast. Feel it gently fizz in your face as you peer into the jug – smells like beer brewing.

Mix the ingredients above – flour + salt + seeds + oil (and anything else such as chilli for a devilish spicyness) – in a large mixing bowl, adding the yeast/water last.

Grease two loaf tins with oil and scatter seeds to line.

Size of tins? One 2lb tin and one 1lb tin did the job for me but you can improvise.

Pour in the mixture and leave it to rise in the tins

– about 30 minutes rising-time.

If you leave it longer, dough-mixture might collapse.

Bake in an oven pre-heated to Gas Mark 6 / 200C / 400F for 30 minutes.

Turn out and eat as soon as it cools.

(The recipe does tell you to return the loaf to oven for 5 minutes after removing it from tin but this did not seem necessary).

Yeast

It’s exciting – a living organism.

If using dried yeast see Xanthe Clay‘s recipe – which is even faster as there is no need to wait for dough-mixture to rise in the tin (although dried yeast does have additives).

How much fresh yeast to use? Rose Prince says use 7g (1/4oz) of fresh yeast for making a white spelt loaf. Julia says use about 15g.

By mistake I used 42g. Read on.

My yeast story

In my ignorance I used the entire packet of organic fresh yeast instead of a third as Julia recommended.