How Far Does Your Salad Travel To Get To Your Table?

There is a common expression used in Peak Oil circles, as well as sustainability circles, how far does your food travel? The carbon footprint for many food items is insane. A salad can travel thousands of miles before it reaches the supermarket. This is why I started to grow my own food. I can do my part to reduce my carbon footprint, and most of all I save money. Growing lettuce is a lot cheaper than buying it at the store. It's about as easy to grow as it is to buy at the store. Drop the seeds in the ground and then pick off leaves as it grows.

The photo is a proud accomplishment of the first lettuce picked from the garden last month. Tasted very fresh, very letuccy, a new word I just made up. It really did taste more like lettuce than what I would buy at the store. So right now my salad travels about twenty five feet to reach my kitchen, another five to ten feet to get the to the table. I haven't measured, just approximating, but I would be confident to go in front of any lettuce court in the county. The prosecutor would challenge me and it would go like this:

Lettuce Prosecutor: Mr. Mayer, how far does your salad travel to get to your table.
Me: I am proud to say that it is less than fifty feet. I may add that I picked it myself.
Lettuce Prosecutor: Mr. Mayer will you please keep your answers to the questions asked.
Me: I was just pointing out that I grew the lettuce myself and that I don't live next door to the supermarket.
Lettuce Prosecutor: Mr. Mayer that is obvious unless you lived in the supermarket.
Me: I wouldn't say that was obvious........
Lettuce Prosecutor: Uh, Mr. Mayer, do you add anything to your salad?
Me: Do you mean other vegetables?
Lettuce Prosecutor: Yes. Any tomatoes, mushrooms, other vegetables of that kind?
Me: No, I just have a plain salad. My tomatoes haven't grown in yet.
Lettuce Prosecutor: Do you add salad dressing to your salad?
Me: I would like to plead the fifth amendment and refuse to answer any more questions.

OK, so I do put salad dressing on that has probably traveled a bit to get to the supermarket. My salad is not 100% local just over 90%. But the great thing about growing lettuce in the northwest is that it can grow most of the year, hearing that from what I've been told. It is my first year growing lettuce, but as long as it keeps coming up I'll keep tearing off the outer leaves and eat them. I need to add different varieties of lettuce, I'll probably do that around early September when the temperature starts going down. I'll add them the same time I plant some beets. My goal is to have enough lettuce to have a salad for Thanksgiving.

I'll proudly pick and eat my lettuce and think of how much I can save in one year. Might be enough to bail out my blue cheese dressing. Boy that Lettuce Prosecutor is one mean dude.

Kim chi!

There are few things in the world that get my mouth watering than Kim chi. I make large batches of it myself, as seen by this photo of my most recent batch which is sitting in the refrigerator. I made 10 lbs, which was two cabbages, and this should last about four to six months. How did a white boy originally from Queens and now living in Oregon come to making his own Kim chi? A tale I will tell and follow up with my own personal recipe.

Back in 1994 my wife and I were living in downtown Flushing. At the time there was a growing Korean population as well as a good number of restaurants opening up. One night we went to one near the Queens Botanical Garden, can't remember their name, but it was a fancy restaurant. They had metal chopsticks! Try and pick up rice with those, it takes some practice. I ordered something that I had never ate before, Yukhui, which is a raw meat dish served with a raw egg. Before you get sick I'm telling you it is really good.

When the dinner was served the waiter placed out a bunch of small bowls with various foods in them. I found out years later this is known as banchan which is standard in Korean cooking. Looking at the bowls I saw items like seaweed salad and other interesting items and one bowl that had a green and white thing in it covered in red sauce. I asked what is that, I was told that it is Kim chi. I asked what is Kim chi and was told that it is a spicy pickled cabbage and that I should try it. I did and I fell in love.

Kim chi is a staple in the Korean diet, like the way potatoes are in our diet. I started to go to different Korean restaurants in my neighborhood, the metal chopstick place was expensive after all, and saw that it was everywhere. One night after work I stopped into a Korean supermarket on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing and bought a five pound jar of Kim chi for ten dollars. I started to eat it on a regular basis. I finished that jar and proudly turned it into a flour jar to reuse it, yes I've been an environmental geek that long, sadly even longer. I did buy another jar that was only five dollars thinking that I got a great discount only to realize that when I got it home that it was very old and was way too fermented to eat plain. I now know what to do with Kim chi like that, more on that later.

Shortly after I moved to Oregon and would pick up Kim chi when I could, usually at Uwajimaya over in Beaverton or at the supermarket. A 16 oz jar would cost almost five dollars, I thought there has to be a better way. And when I say better way I mean cheaper. I feel comfort with cookbooks, so I went out and bought one. This one to be exact. I started to read it and learn as much as I could since I am scared to try something the first time but can't wait to try something the second time.

The book explained about the red pepper used in Korean cooking, it is similar to the Mexican Cayenne pepper. They were planted by Portuguese missionaries in the early 1600's all over Korea and it ended up replacing the Schezuan pepper. Kim chi has been around for a long time, thousands of years it's estimated. Cabbage is the most common type but it can be made with a number of other vegetables. One for example is to use Korean radish which is very similar to daikon radish.

I found a recipe for Kim chi radish which is very simple. You cube up radish, julienne a head of garlic, ginger, green onions, fish sauce or salted shrimp, sugar and lots of red pepper. Put it in a jar, keep it out for 24 hours, then refrigerate and eat. It was easier than I though it could be. The radish shrank in the jar and after awhile I started to notice that the sauce got thicker. I am starting to realize that it might be the sugar that is creating the thickening. I was now ready to make a try with cabbage. I'll post the recipe first and how I learned to make Kim chi.

Kim chi (my version)
Napa Cabbage 2 to 3 lbs
Korean Radish (can use daikon) 1 lb
Bunch of Green Onions (usually 5 to 6)
7 to 8 Garlic Cloves
1" Finger of Ginger
Carrot
1 Tbs Salted Shrimp Fry (can use Fish Sauce)
1 to 2 cups Red Pepper (powder and flakes)
Kosher Salt
Hot Water

First split the cabbage in half from the top to the base. Put about a table spoon of kosher salt on each half, get it between each layer of leaves. Place the cabbage face down and allow it to drain for at least 3 hours. Wipe off the salt and squeeze out as much water as you can. Cut a few round cuts off the radish, enough to put two to three in the bottom of each jar. Take the remainder of the radish and julienne into small strips. Do this with the garlic, ginger and carrot. Cut the bottoms of the green onions, the white portion, thinly and the green tops about a half inch to one inch long. Combine into a bowl and add salted shrimp fry, the red pepper and enough hot water to make it into a paste. Take mixture and put some between each layer of cabbage, it may be easier to cut it smaller first. Place into mason jars, close them and let sit unrefrigerated for 24 hours, then refrigerate for at least one week. The jars don't need to be sealed like you would in canning, just cleaned out first. You are trying to get the cabbage to ferment so it doesn't have to be sealed too tightly.

I didn't list sugar since I don't eat much of it and I'm not sure if it is the "secret" ingredient that I'm missing. My Kim chi doesn't get very thick but I have time to learn. Years ago I was installing a T1 for a local company in Beaverton that produces Kim chi. I told the women working there that I make it myself, she was amazed. She was really shocked to find out that I make radish as well. She told me that she has never met a white guy who made his own Kim chi. I asked about how to make the sauce thick, she told me that the owner, whose recipe they were using, spent many years learning how to do that. Nothing more, no secret spilled.

The first time I was excited and painfully waited for a week. It tasted great, even if it didn't taste like what you got in a restaurant or at the store, I made it myself. At some point later I was diagnosed with high cholesterol meaning I would need to change my diet. Since Kim chi doesn't have any cholesterol and I needed to find breakfasts that had little to no cholesterol, I figured out how to make Kim chi pancakes. Buying a ready made pancake mix for scallion pancakes, and after doing the stupid metric conversion I was able to make a nice hearty breakfast, served with low sodium soy sauce and white vinegar.

I started to realize that after a few months that the Kim chi keeps fermenting. Facing the problem I had when living in New York, I read up on what to do. It turns out that when Kim chi gets to that point it's used in soups, stews and cooked with pork. The acids help break down the pork and make it much more favorable and tender. So every few weeks I make a pot of Kim chi tofu stew with fish balls and what ever else is laying around and toss in some Udon noodles.

The main reason for this post, besides putting up another of my favorite recipes, is to show that being sustainable in my view is to be in control of your food source. And it's very economical. The photo taken above cost me about 12 dollars to make. If I bought that in a store it would cost at least 75 dollars or more. Ultimately I want to be able to grow as many as the ingredients as possible. By the time for the next batch I should be able to use my own garlic. If I start growing cabbage, radishes, green onions, carrots, ginger well not sure if I can grow ginger, but to make a home made batch from home made ingredients! That is one way to reduce my carbon footprint. One tasty pepper covered leaf at a time.

So I get to dry my clothes and save money!

I just want to start off saying that I think the dryer is one of the greatest inventions of the last century. And if my dryer reads this post, I just want to say that I love you and that there will always be a place for you in my home. That is until you break down and I get the most energy efficient model that I can afford. But still, I won't give up my dryer completely anytime soon.

I have heard horror stories from people who live in HOA's about not being able to put up a laundry line. One of the reasons I chose the house I live in is that if I want I can put up a laundry line in my backyard. In fact there was a device that had a line to use for laundry but the locking mechanism was broken. If you pulled the line out it would sag when you put any weight on it, not a very useful way to dry your clothes.

So I decided on running the line in a different direction and attach to a hook on the side of the sun room. This was a good plan except that it didn't make the line taught enough. Using a hook to hang plants on pounded into the ground worked, that is until I put on more than two pieces of laundry. Then gravity (stupid gravity) took over, the hook tipped but I caught the line just in time. Then a solution presented itself.

Yes, I ran the line across the roof. Not actually the roof, but the covering over the south garage door. I then stretched the line as far as I could and found a nail on the sun room that it reached to. The line was now tight enough to hang laundry and to keep it from hitting the ground. I proudly put some on my laundry just wet from the washing machine with the wooden clothes pins I got at BiMart and went inside.

It takes time to dry clothing on a laundry line, but it doesn't use any electricity. It works better when the sun is out, but even though it was cloudy and late in the day, I was glad that I could get the laundry out and not have to run a dryer load. When I checked the laundry before I went to bed it was still a little damp, I knew it would by dry by the morning.

I woke up that Saturday morning and looked over at the clock and saw that it was 5am. I laid there and listened to the rain falling outside. RAIN! I got up and ran out to the backyard and quickly pulled the laundry off the line, it wasn't too wet but got a good soaking. I waited until it stopped a few hours later, put the laundry back on the line and let it dry, again.

As the days are sunnier during the summer I will put laundry out on the line. Why not, it saves money and it keeps the laundry room from getting too hot. Also the dryer does make a lot of noise (again sorry to my drier if it's reading this) which I can do without. Some items, according to my wife, still need to be dried in the dryer. I have done two loads of laundry in my life, last year while my wife was in the hospital, so I am no expert when it comes to laundry, I'm guessing that she must be right. She tells me that she is always right. But even if I can reduce at least one dryer load then I'm saving energy and most of all saving money. If the dryer is not running then I'm not paying the power company. The dryer will still be used in the winter, it will help keep the house warmer when it's on and I don't want to have to run out at 5am again to pull clothing out of the rain.