To change or not, support our farmers, The Color of Water, impromptu soup, and a wish for peace
December 31, 2023
What’s Going On?
Whew - what a year, both in the larger scheme of things and also, in my little universe that included over a year of weekly newsletters (counting that I started in November 2022), a cookbook, and, less successful, a knee replacement, but I am still hopeful that things will work out with that.
Also, while I have not done any marketing for this newsletter, I am wondering if I should:
Keep it the same and just do more to advertise its existence,
adjust/change the format and subject matter,
or just focus on my food blog and do a newsletter and more via that venue.
Your input is welcome!!!
One thing I do know is that I will be writing another cookbook, this time sharing the recipes I created while doing food demos at the farmers market along with sharing vignettes from my farming friends and writing about local farms and food systems.
And, on that note and in line with my current newsletter format, I have a few things to suggest that you can do to help make our world a better place for all.
What to Do?
On November 15th, the Senate voted to pass a House bill for a continuing resolution, which included an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill. The bill extends the farm bill through September 2024. President Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.
https://www.farmaid.org/issues/farm-policy/the-latest-updates-on-the-2023-farm-bill/
In the meantime, please consider donating to American Farmland Trust (AFT).
Click Help save the land that sustains us! (salsalabs.org) to donate!
AFT also has plenty of actions you can take to encourage your elected officials to support the 2024 bill when it does come up for a vote.
Go to the Farm Bill Action Center - American Farmland Trust and take a few moments to sign one or more of the actions.
Why AFT? Here are some of what they accomplished in 2023 as noted on the AFT FB page on 12/27/23:
✔️ directly supporting over 3,000 farmers with services and support
✔️ training over 8,200 professionals to provide services to farmers and ranchers
✔️ providing direct support to over 950 land trusts and state programs in the country that protect farmland through our National Ag Land Network (NALN)
This is a great organization. You can feel confident in supporting AFT.
What to Read?
I am only half-way through The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, but I am confident that the rest of the book will be as amazing as what I have read so far. Oh my goodness. Amazing. Unbelievable except that it is true. I highly recommend.
Here are a few excerpts from the marketing blurb:
The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn...
The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high...
At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all- black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race...
The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.
Here’s my standard book-buying blurb:
To purchase a used copy of a book, check More Than Words first, then Thriftbooks.
To support the author of the book and independent bookstores, go to Bookshop.org.
You can also visit my affiliate bookstore page on Bookshop.org (where the link from the title and cover pic above will also bring you) to purchase this and/or other books I have recommended.
And, as I always say: there is a good chance you can find what you want at your local library.
What's Cooking?
I had a cooking adventure the other day. Steve was going to have a ramen - you know, ramen noodles with the albeit tasty flavor packets full of salt and who knows what else. However, I had some leftover chicken meat and stock and promised him a buckwheat ramen, veggie, and chicken soup in not much longer a time than it would take him to prepare his store-bought ramen packet.
My first step was to get the stock in a pot on the burner so it could be getting hot while I sliced some carrot, celery, daikon radish, and a collard leaf to add to the soup as it was coming to a simmer.
Next was a block of buckwheat ramen. I use King Soba Organic Buckwheat Ramen, which, if you shop around, you can get for under $2.00 per block/serving, with it coming 4 blocks per package. Don’t bother with Amazon - WAY too expensive!
Once the noodles were cooked, I added the chicken and, since we like a bit of heat, what I thought was going to be a TOUCH of hot sauce. Well, I took the cover off my bottle of Frank’s REDHOT sauce instead of opening the top of the cover to reveal the dropper dispenser…
Somehow I managed to stop pouring sauce in time to limit the heat. Don’t get me wrong. It was now pretty darn spicy, enough to just about hide the flavor of my lovely homemade chicken stock…
Luckily, I had just made some veggie stock, so I added some to defuse the heat, and also added a few teaspoons of vinegar, and voila! We ended up with a delicious and wholesome hot and sour ramen chicken soup for lunch.
Takeaway - now I know how to make my own version of hot and sour soup and also, I will hopefully remember the intricacies of how the cover of a bottle of Frank’s RedHot sauce works. 😉
What Else?
Well, I guess I can’t resist a plug for my cookbook. I will be publishing it via Ingrams or another publisher that is more friendly to independent bookstores, but for now:
Quick and Easy: Comfort From the Kitchen is available on Amazon.
I also want to wish everyone, you who are reading this, and everyone in our world, a peaceful 2024. Let’s hope that those in power make the right choices for us all.
Thank you for reading! I’ll be back next year! (Sorry, could not resist.)
Wendy
For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we each are free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks