Chico, Sustainable

Chard Haiku

The chard plant stood there
Defiant for nineteen months
It left a crater

At a dinner party the other day, a meta-discussion of the Paleo diet ensued. This is the diet that basically suggests that eating like a caveman does wonders for your body. In our area, the Paleo Diet joins with "locavore" and "Weston Price" as being marketable terms promoting various culinary regimens. Books, websites, coffee mugs, t-shirts, kindergarten curricula and trading cards have all been developed in support of the multi-million dollar "diet fabrication industry."

My colleagues and I would like to throw our hat into the ring. Our creation: "The Urban Paleo Diet." It is local, economical, and tailored to city-dwelling citizens who may not have access to a free range chicken, but are savvy enough to recognize the culinary value of the neighbor's marigolds.

Additional menu items include:

--Wild-caught pigeon, grilled on one's engine block
--Escargot
--Dandelion greens
--Discarded (but intact) condiment packets
--Restaurant fryer oil (can also be used to run your biodiesel vehicle, which in turn can provide the heat to cook your pigeon)

As a concession to the locavore crowd, we have purposely not included baked Norway rat.

We thought about developing a "Global Climate Change" diet, but other than a great pitch line ("Start Chowing Today on the Diet of Tomorrow!"), we quickly recognized that most the menu would consist of fish clams, and seaweed.

As usual, there is a lot going on in Chico in the latter half of April. The sun beckons! Have a great weekend!

Kids and Creeks is proud to bring Brown Bird back to Chico for the final installment of their Spring Concert Benefit Series on Sunday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. Funds go towards supporting Kids and Creek's mission to provide hands-on, outdoor science education experiences to Chico-area schools. . .for free.

Brown Bird hails from Rhode Island and is taking a break from preforming at the Fillmore in San Francisco to make the trek up to Chico.

3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th grade students from Chapman, Shasta, Neal Dow, Chico Country Day, Citrus, Hooker Oak, Nord, Forest Ranch, McManus, Emma Wilson, Sherwood Montessori, Marigold, Parkview, Little Chico Creek, and Hooker Oak Schools will all be participating in Kids and Creeks programs this spring that were made financially possible by the performances of the Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, Poa Porch Band, Brett and Nathan Dennen, and Brown Bird. More schools will be reached in the fall.

Tickets are $12 at Chico Natural Foods, Lyons Books, and Three Sixty Ecotique.

Okay, it's a little thing, but I learned that if you like hard boiled eggs, then steaming, instead of boiling, is the way to go. Here's why:

1) Less Energy: Even though you need to steam them for 20 minutes (instead of boiling for 12-14 minutes), you are required to heat significantly less water.

2) Less Water: I often add salt to the water when I boil eggs, or an egg may crack, resulting in more water used in cleanup. Steaming requires no salt, and I haven't cracked an egg yet, so cleanup is just a quick rinse versus washing an entire pot.

3) Faster Peeling: I have found that the eggs peel better when you steam them, which saves time, a non-renewable resource.

I re-read Edward Abbey's classic The Monkey Wrench Gang the other day, instantly jumping it back toward the top of my all-time favorite novels list. Fast-paced, funny, irreverent, and inspiring.

Makes me think what my first act of monkey wrenching would be. Some midnight native plant restoration projects might be fun. . . at some of our local golf courses.*

The author in no way endorses, condones, sanctions, suggests or recommends tearing up golf greens to plant native plants.

I recently read that Chico's first sustainable sushi bar will soon be opening. Now don't get me wrong, I am as much of a fan of sushi as any Bay Area transplant, but I think we are kidding ourselves if we can tag a raw-fish meal wrapped in seaweed with the label "sustainable." Yes, I know the buzz that some fish are "better" than others to eat in terms of their impact on the planet. But when you look at the consumption of saltwater fishes in general, one must remember that by road, Chico is nearly 200 miles from the ocean, with the fish themselves an additional unknown distance via diesel-engined boat. Wrapped up in imported nori seaweed, and you have a treat that is just as sustainable as pouring organic Vermont maple syrup over your pancakes. It may be delicious, but I would not call it sustainable, unless you live in Burlington. Sustainable, I would argue, means you could eat it frequently (weekly, daily, while in season) without upsetting the eco-gods who also keep an eye on things like how many miles your food travels before it gets to your plate.

Want sustainable sushi? Go ahead and take some local steamed rice, tofu, asparagus and carrot roll it into a lettuce or kale leaf. Slice with a sharp knife.

But I concede that I do like sushi, and I look forward to trying out this new place on one of the 2 - 3 occasions/year that I have to get my rainbow roll fix. But I won't be telling myself that patronizing their establishment will save the Earth.

I grew up in a house where the color TV with a remote that had four buttons, the newspaper came every morning, and telephones were attached to walls with a coiled, plastic cord. Eggs were white, and came in a styrofoam carton from Safeway.

My daughters are growing up in a world where the TV is all but obsolete, newspapers are becoming extinct, and the a phone in the pocket is a TV, a newspaper, pocket calendar, map, portable video game, home movie theater and more.

And the eggs? They come home from preschool each Tuesday in a reused, cardboard egg carton as part of the "eggshare" run by the teacher. The eggs are brown, green, and white, and the chickens that lay them greet us as we come and go.

Speaking of daughters, my three-year-old invented a new word today: "huggle" Of course it means a "hug" and a "snuggle." Even though it already shows up in Wikipedia, I was still impressed.

Huggle someone special today.

Brett and Nathan Dennen will be at the Chico Women's Club on Sunday, March 5 for an acoustic concert to benefit Kids and Creeks outdoor education programs. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

This is the second in a series of three concert benefits to support hands-on science field trips for Chico public school students, which Kids & Creeks provides FOR FREE to the schools.

Tickets are $35, and can be found at Chico Natural Foods, Three Sixty Ecotique, and Lyon Books. There are a limited number of tickets available.

Never hear of him? His Wikipedia entry is pretty impressive.

The 3rd Annual GRUB Seed Swap will take place tomorrow, Sunday February 26 from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at the GRUB Cooperative, 1525 Dayton Road.

Bringing seeds to share is fun but not required; hundreds of expired 2010 and 2011 seed packets will be available for free, and local vendors such as Redwood Seeds will be on hand to sell fresh seeds and plant starts.

Special free "Teacher Bags" will be set aside for educators who plan to use seeds in their school gardens or classrooms, each bag has about 24 seed packets.

In addition, there will be gardening demonstrations and activities for children.