The last few months I decided I was going to sample every variety of winter squash that was for sale at the farmer's market. I had not been giving this nutrient-dense, filling, locally-produced vegetable its due.

There is more out there than just butternut.

I bought squash from about 5 different farmers--When all was said and done, my favorites were the dark green "buttercup," blue-hued "blue hubbard" and a bright orange variety called "sunshine" (aka orange kabocha).

Less thrilling to me were delicata (not enough meat), sweet potato squash (tastey, but the real deal still has more flavor and is also available at the market in winter), and an unnamed Asian variety (bland).

The winter squash season is winding down, however Red Bank Farms is still selling butternut, which also made the top five.

Super-simple Squash - Baking instructions:

* Preheat oven to 350 F
* Cut lengthwise down the middle
* Scoop out the seeds
* Lightly coat the exposed meaty parts of the squash with butter or olive oil
* Salt and pepper to taste, with a touch of ground ginger (or cinnamon, or nutmeg, your preference - for a sweeter taste, use cinnamon sugar)
* Place cutside up in a baking pan with about an inch of water in the pan
* Cook until fork tender -- usually about 1 hour.

FREE SEEDS FOR EDUCATORS
Educators in Chico are invited to pick up free packets of garden seeds (vegetables, herbs, flowers) for use in their classrooms, school gardens, community gardens, and other educational settings.

Yes, free. Totally free. Do you know an educator in town? Tell them to come by!

Pick up seeds at the Chico Country Day School garden (102 W. 11th Street) on Monday, February 22 or Monday, March 1 between 4:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., OR, come to the Seed Exchange at GRUB on February 28--See below!

SEED EXCHANGE FOR ALL!
The Chico Permaculture Guild and the GRUB Cooperative are hosting at Seed Exchange at the GRUB farm on Sunday, February 28 from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. at the GRUB Farm, 1525 Dayton Rd.

Bring labeled seeds to exchange/swap. The potluck-style exchange will feature hundreds of varieties of seeds as well as educational information about getting them to grow. A limited supply of soil, pots, and envelopes will also be available. Children are welcome and encouraged to participate.

In addition, educators with a school ID card will be welcome to take seed packets from the "Teacher Boxes." These seeds are intended to be used in educational settings (i.e. not for personal use.)

Contact Stephanie (828-6390) or Francine (965‐1073) for more information.

"Join us as we celebrate seeds, local food, and genetic diversity!"

A hearty thank to Jim (new dad!) and to Magnolia Gift and Garden on East Avenue for their continued support of school gardens through generous donations of seeds and discounted plant starts. As a result of these gifts, aromatic, drought tolerant, and butterfly-attracting plants will be in bloom this spring at the base of fruit trees at Chico Country Day School, AND hundreds of seed packets from Magnolia (and OSH and Plant Barn) will soon be distributed for use in school classrooms and school gardens throughout the city.

Another reason to support Magnolia Gift and Garden: Discounts on bare-root fruit trees from now until they are gone. And when you purchase one of these trees, be sure to touch base with staff who can recommend some good plants and shrubs to plant at the base of these trees to attract pollinators, discourage aphids, and improve soil health while at the same time adding to the beauty of your yard.

This evening my wife asked me if we had a popcorn popper. I said no, but we could probably borrow one from a friend.

Then I thought to myself, maybe I can just pop them in a pot over the stove. Could it be that simple?

Yes, it is (but don't tell the popcorn popper companies).

1) Choose a pot that will hold the volume of cooked popcorn you desire, but be sure the pot is light enough to hold for up to 5 minutes above the burner.

2) Add vegetable oil covering the bottom of the pot.

3) Add unpopped popcorn to cover the bottom of the pot, with the kernels no more than one layer deep.

4) Put the lid on the pot, and place on the stove on high heat. After a couple of minutes, start shaking the pot to keep the kernels moving.

5) After 3-6 minutes, your popcorn will begin to pop. Continue shaking.

6) Once the popping begins to subside, remove the pot from the heat, and carefully remove the lid and dump about 1/2 of the popped popcorn into a bowl. Replace the lid and let the last remaining kernels pop for a couple minutes as the pot cools.

7) Dump remaining popcorn into your bowl, mix with salt and melted butter as needed.

The entire process took me about 6 minutes, and I got it right on the first try.

And please don't reply to this post with comment about microwaves.

Thanks.

There are quite a few of us who believe that the Chico Unified School District can do better when it comes to the health and quality of K-8 meal offerings.

Pizza in mildly varying forms was on the menu four days a week in November, including twice on Thursdays, when it was offered for breakfast as well. Most of the other main entrees were equally as. . .Well, you can see the menu for yourself on the Nutrition Services website. Be sure not to miss the "peanut butter and jelly uncrustables."

"I-5 Live" on KCHO rebroadcast their coverage of this issue a couple of weeks ago, I was not very impressed with the guests, who represented two local school districts.

I have heard two basic points in the District's defense. The first goes something like this:

"We we are doing the best we can with the money we have. Organic costs more, and we have not found a local source that can provide product in the form we need (minimal prepwork required) in the quantities we need at a price we can afford."

And the second:

"The students who eat at our cafeterias get better nutrition and healthier food than they would if we did not offer any meal options."

With these two points may have their validity, that has not kept the district from being accused of both setting the bar too low and failing to think outside the box. While there are murmurs of a pilot project to improve and localize cafeteria food over at Hooker Oak School, I think there is plenty more that the District can and should be doing. Here are my thoughts for tackling Chico's K-8 culinary conundrum:

1) DOWNSIZE & SIMPLIFY
The present lunch menu offers up to three entree's per day, and the breakfast menu rotates through ten different offerings over a two week period, including healthalitious "Chocolate Chip Muffins." Nutrition Services needs to provide tasty, nutritious meals, but they don't need to be a restaurant. Cut costs by going down to one lunch entree each day, and for breakfast, eliminate foods such as chocolate muffins which sugarload the students in a way that drives teachers bonkers.

2) FOCUS & IMPROVE
Zero in on those menu items that have potential for improvement or even diversity: Burritos, a sandwich bar, or even the existing salad bar. Money saved by downsizing can be put back into quality. If it doesn't look like food--like chicken nuggets--drop it from the menu if it can't be replaced with the real deal.

3) EDUCATE
Yes, a lot of students qualify for free or reduced cost meals, but there are many others who buy their meals outright. I would like to see the responsibility of keeping children well-fed be returned to the parents. Nutrition Services can help here by educating the parent community about how to prepare inexpensive, healthy meals for their children. How? By having an educational presence at key school events such as Back-to-School nights where they give cooking/meal prep demonstrations and pass out literature, such as pamphlets with 20 or so different recipes and ideas of where and how to buy cost-effective healthy food items. A simple breakfast or lunch recipe should have its own location on every weekly flyer the school sends home. And lastly, schools should continue to embrace the nutrition education programs offered by programs such as Harvest of the Month offered by the Sierra Cascade Nutrition and Activity Consortium (SCNAC), The Butte County UC Cooperative Extension, Opt 4 Fit Kids, and others.

4) ROLE MODEL
Over the course of the year, students will see their teachers eating. Therein lies a learning opportunity, by simply encourage school staff to make a concerted effort to partake of healthy meals.

These items to me represent the "low hanging fruit." The golden apples, so to speak, are seeking out and working with local growers to provide local, fresh, in-season produce, and coming up with creative inexpensive ways to get the food prepped in a manner appropriate to a cafeteria setting.

Do you have any additional thoughts? Feel free to send ideas to me--I'll post'em, but better yet, send them on to district superintendent Kelly Staley:

Superintendent Kelly Staley
Chico Unified School District
1163 East 7th Street
Chico, California 95928
Or e-mail: kstaley@chicousd.org

Goodbye Fostine's
I was saddened to return home from a Thanksgiving jaunt to the Bay Area to find that Fostine's Nursery on Nord had become a vacant lot. Don't know when this happened, but I have have patronized them more than once over the last few years, and they were also generous enough to donate plants and seeds to school garden efforts. They will be missed. For those shopping for a new nursery, I would recommend the following local businesses, in no particular order:

The Saturday Farmer's Market (esp. for vegetable starts)
Little Red Hen
Magnolia Gift and Garden
Plant Barn
Floral Native Nursery (for native plants)
Mendon's (for folks in Paradise)

Hello Eggs
Chico Natural Foods is now selling free-range local eggs (from Orland), in bulk, at 25 cents each. Watch out, Saturday Farmer's Market--At $3.00 a dozen, that is 1/3 less than most of the vendors. Not sure how they managed to get the price so low, but you do have to bring your own empty carton. Apparently some cartons are available at times, but not on this particular visit--next time. Does anyone know much about the quality/source of these eggs?

2000 miles north of its native range of Southern Mexico, I have finally put the first of my home-grown avocado trees in the grown.

As I have documented starting last November, I began by sprouting avocado pits from "Duke" avocados grown at Chaffin Family Orchards in Oroville. A couple weeks ago I planted the biggest of my one-year-old trees, which is now about 3 feet high.

I placed it about 20 feet off the north side of my house and 10 feet to the east of a 6 foot high fence. A large redbud is about 15 feet away. Though this is a relatively shaded, shadowy location (especially in the winter), my biggest concerns for my sapling are 25 degree winter frosts and 100 degree summer heat. I am hoping that this location will shelter the tree from both while it is still young.

While in milder climates a sunnier location would be better, I am thinking that by the time the tree is old enough to produce fruit--I am told about 6 years--the tree will be higher than the fence (and perhaps the house) and will catch enough sun to allow me to bust out the guacamole recipes.

Just in case the tree doesn't take, I have another sapling that I am keeping container-bound until spring.

The 5th installment of the CSU Chico Sustainability Conference, is now in full swing, with sessions running through Saturday November 7.

Here are a couple other items one might add to the weekend calendar:

PLANT SALE
"Butte College Environmental Horticulture Department Is Having Its Annual Fall Blowout Sale! This Friday (6th) from 9am to 5pm, and Saturday (7th) from 9am to 2pm."

JESUS CENTER GARDEN
"Hello wonderful community! GRUB is having one more workday to complete the Jesus Center garden. We need to fill in the last few raised beds with compost, set up irrigation, and get food into the ground. If you would like to help out with some or all of these events please join us. Sunday, November 8; 2:00-5:00 p.m., 14th Street and Mulberry

Okay, so maybe dishing out $1,000,000 to purchase cleaner-burning wood stoves is a bit far-fetched, but here are the requests that I would make of the biggest retailer in the known universe:

--Annual discounts to all teachers purchasing school supplies for their classes

--Discounts on any item that will be used in a school or community garden

--20% off for anyone who shows up on a bicycle or via public transportation

--"Farmer's Market Sundays": On Saturday afternoon Walmart purchases all of the remaining Saturday Farmer's Market produce from local growers and then sells it the following day at a competitive price.

--Conversely, should they expand to sell fresh produce, refuse to sell product shipped in from south of the equator (i.e. New Zealand apples in March).

--Demonstration of attractive, drought-tolerant landscaping using native plants

--Use of permeable concrete in the parking lot

--Charge 10 cents per disposable bag used, with the proceeds going towards cleanup efforts in nearby Little Chico Creek (including removal of plastic bags)

--Include a label on domestically-sourced foods that identifies county and state of origin

Many ask, why pick on Walmart? What about K-mart, Costco, etc? My answer is simply that we have to start somewhere. We have passed that threshold where it is okay for people and companies to continually take without giving back. Walmart has the resources to be a leader in this regard, and I for one applaud the Chico City Council for pushing them to do so.

A report by the nonprofit Great Valley Center found that while the 19-county region that makes up California's Central Valley leads the nation in agriculture production, its per capita income would rank 48th in the nation if the region was a state.

My take: Our nation undervalues food.

I wonder how these statistics compare to other countries with fertile agricultural regions.