Animal Vegetable Miracle

Currently I am on Winter break from school and in the process of catching up on food related books and articles. I want to share a quote from Barbara Kingsolver's book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes about how it is hypocritical for parents to instruct their children to have patience and restraint for life's desires and they should wait until the right time, while when the parents have a craving for out of season produce they must have it now.

"We're raising our children on the definition of promiscuity if we feed them a casual, indiscriminate mingling of foods from every season plucked from the supermarket, ignoring how our sustenance is cheapened by wholesale desires." - Barbara Kingsolver


I feel that this quote fits snugly with our misguided American way of life. We as American's always receive what we want, when we want it, without taking into consideration the effects of greed.

~Aren

Chef Garden produce

Here are some pictures of produce from Chefs Garden.

Michael Pollan

Here are some videos of a wonderful interview of Michael Pollan by Bill Moyers on PBS. Michael Pollan is a inspiring individual of mine. He has written many books on the subject of our food culture in the United States.

Link to videos

~Aren

The Voice

In the current issue of The Washtenaw Community College's student run newspaper called The Voice. I am honored to say I had an article wrote about me by the Editor Colin Fraser. I haven't read the article yet, not because it is a bad artcle, its just that I am much to embarrassed to read it.

Link

~Aren

Avalon Housing fundraiser

Last Saturday I was a volunteer for Avalon Housing's fundraiser dinner. I was part of a team that arranged numerous platters of donated food. The food was donated from Zingermans, Food Art, and Katherine's Catering, just to name a few. It was a great success and I hope to be involved with Avalon Housing in the future. A photographer by the name of William Jordan captured some great pictures of the event.

William Jordan Photography

~Aren

Chef Gardens

I just got back from the American Culinary Federation's Chef meeting for the Detroit chapter. The meeting was at The Palmer Building on U of M campus. The meal was very exquisite, and featured produce from Chef Gardens. Lee Jones was the keynote speaker for the meeting and is the owner of Chef Gardens. He has been a family farmer for the past 47 years and his specialty now is to cater to chefs needs. His produce is well renowned by the most famous of chefs in The United States, including Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten just to name a few. He brought two tables full of morning picked vegetables from his farm. The variety was outstanding. Everything from microgreens to a leaf that is 1000x sweeter then sugar. I was memorized by the taste of all the produce. After talking with him after the presentation, I volunteered to help bring his produce to Ann Arbor. I really want to visit his farm as soon as possible.

Chefs Garden

Healthy eating,

Aren

Kombucha

Since last Saturday I have been brewing my first batch of Kombucha. Kombucha is a fermented beverage that contains a plethora of good bacteria that improves the digestion system. These bacteria are cultivated by a Kombucha fungus. The process to create Kombucha involves preparing a gallon of sweetened tea, I used a mix of green, black and fruit teas along with honey and turbinado sugar. Then a Kombucha culture is added along with a bit of the "mother tea", which is a small amount of the Kombucha from the last batch. After all the ingredients are added, place in a warm, quiet spot and wait approximately 10 days or when the Kombucha's taste is to your liking. The longer the fermentation time, the more acidic it will become. After the desired taste is reached, remove the cultures, there will be a new one on top, along with a small amount of the liquid and start a new batch or keep in a small jar until ready to use. It contains less than .5% alcohol and can do wonders for your health. I have been drinking store bought Kombucha to add much need antioxidants to combat the below average amount of cigarette smoke at work.

~Aren