Hospitality for the Coming Age

I made these brownies for the Bethany Board of Trustees about a week ago. I’m ashamed to admit, I usually make brownies from a box because I like the texture so much better than brownies from scratch. But these brownies are a winner - chewy and fudgy, and delicious.
The recipe is very easy to make [...]

I made this for book club a couple weeks ago, with frozen rhubarb from last spring. I used honey from Centerville and molasses, rather than sugar, and extra rhubarb in place of sorrel.
This recipe comes from Simply in Season, an excellent cookbook that is a wonderful first step to eating and cooking more locally!

“Michigan Brewing Company (MBC) in Webberville, MI, has enjoyed steady, double-digit growth for several years, expanding its award-winning beer production to 6,000 barrels and a million bottles this year, and recently diversifying into the distilled liquor-and wine-making business.
Along the way, the popular brewery has also makes a pretty convincing case that you can have your [...]

3 December 2008
Tonight we gathered in Orchard Room at Earlham College for the toughest 100 mile radius potluck yet!
We ate very well, with turkey, newspaper-ripened tomatoes, homemade pasta, Japanese omelets, squash bread, chai and so much more!
I brought butternut squash-bean soup, with several alterations. I used anasazi beans instead of black beans, since I grew [...]

3. Peak oil
Where do the vegetables sold in Richmond groceries come from? California, often, sometimes Mexico, Argentina, once in awhile Michigan…. The statistic I see and hear the most is that the food on your plate has traveled an average of 1500 miles to get there. Yikes.
There are a huge number of problems with fossil [...]

I get a lot of blank and bemused stares when I talk about food insecurity. Perhaps people are picturing a silo full of corn saying, “Please don’t make me go out there, I’m SO shy….” Now that WOULD be ridiculous. But the image of bountiful food not leaving storage is one accurate piece of food [...]

Eating locally may feel like an enormous challenge - and doing so 100% of the time really is! I hadn’t realized how well I was raised until I started doing my own grocery shopping and learned how expensive vegetables are at the grocery (especially salad in December, which is still my weakness). So if it’s [...]