Haverford House

Thought I’d share this photo — our first house activity was to welcome some of the current Philadelphia interns. Peter graced us with his presence and CHOCOLATES  … oh we have friends in high places.

Here is the sign for the Co-op that we visited for one of our farm tours.

A refrigerated truck for shipped fresh produce!

Peaches right from the farm – sooo juicy, like candy.

The farm owner and 2 of his 11 kids!

Baby turkeys!! Aren’t they CUTE!?!?!? As you can see, they live in a clean, well-lit environment, and will have even more space to roam once they get a little older and their immune systems are more fully-developed. They will be full grown just in time for Thanksgiving …   … well, they will have had a good, naturally-raised, free life, and then they can RIP.

Baby pigs, just a few weeks old, too cute for words! Again, pasture-raised. Pasture-raised doesn’t actually mean “free range” or rather, vice versa. “Free range” laws include enough loopholes that farmers and agro-businesses can get away with claiming that their animals have “access to the outside” even if that space is only a small window! Buying pasture-raised and locally helps ensure that the animals truly were raised naturally, humanely, and more sustainably.

I took SO many pictures of these piglets – they were just TOO cute … in real life, they were the size of a small cat or maybe a large rabbit – so very tiny, especially in comparison to their mother!

Here was one of the “mom” pigs – called a sow in farm-talk. Did you know that pigs are smarter than dogs?

Teenager pigs, lining up for their photo-op. Cute, no? They were indoors (in a well-lit, well-ventilated barn) because pigs do not do well in heat during the day – they dislike it. They are turned out to pasture at night.

Two Amish boys with their puppy – a Blue Heeler named Katie. When she gets older she might help herd and guard the cows!

We all remember those books we read when we were little about life down on the farm – with all the baby animals! Here are mother and son. Unfortunately, most of the meat and vegetables we consume are grown very differently from the way those children’s books depict them. Instead of an idyllic farmstead lifestyle (though, as the movie “FOOD, INC” points out, the farm is an idyllic pastoral icon used on many foods we find in the supermarket), much food comes from factory farming and big agro-business. For more information on this issue, I highly reccommend the books “FAST FOOD NATION”, “THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA”, and the new documentary “FOOD, INC.”

Thoreau said that a weed is a plant whose virtue we have not yet identified. I believe this. The plant in the picture above is grown as a “cover crop” that helps prevent erosion and recycle nutrients in one farmer’s field. Having cover crops reduces the need to till, which actually damages soil. Additionally, many weeds are able to send a tap root farther into the soil than normal crops, bringing nutrients that our crops need to the surface so that our crops can feed on them even though they have shorter roots than the so-called “weed.” Healthy soil, one farmer told us, should look like “Jurassic Park” under a microscope – with different microbes and bacteria and nutrients crawling all through it.

Me down on the farm. One farmer let us pick some of his yummy sweet corn (there is a technique to picking corn which he taught us and, I am proud to say, I mastered) and tomatoes!

This bird-brain (oh I am so punny) is a guinea fowl with a personality – he or she (the farmer has no one who can deterime the sex of guinea fowl) likes to escort cars to and from the parking lot, which he or she has adopted as his or her territory.

He or she is also very vain, prefering to spend time looking at his/her reflection in the hubcaps and occasionally pecking at them.

Sausage, anyone?

This is the room where they make the cheese!!

Where they age the cheese! Oh cheese … I was in a room with wheels upon wheels of it. YUMMY.

I cannot begin to tell you how yum this all was.

This is bleu cheese, aging. It looks gross now … but think about how good it tastes …

I took SO many pictures of baby cows. SO cute.

When we were in the cow barn, someone started talking about hamburgers. How horribly insensitive.

You should buy all your milk products from this farm. The cows are SO well treated that they even have this little back-scratcher for when they get itchy, a la a car wash (er, a cow wash).

I have been working the past two weeks to get to know the people of Witnesses to Hunger, what they do, and what I’m going to do. Besides helping them out when I can, I am looking into human rights education and thinking of how that could become a curriculum for the Witnesses, the 42 women who photograph and their day-to-day experiences and struggles. I have gotten the chance to read some relevant conventions – Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention of Human Rights – and looked into how they affect our lives in the US. It is so interesting to read these documents about how things should be, as I am seeing that for many people these rights are far from reality. I am still trying to figure out exactly what form the curriculum will take, but I’m really enjoying learning. I am gaining some more concrete skills like how to send mass mailings using Mail Merge, how to update the websites, and how to send very official looking emails. Not to mention, I am meeting some amazing and inspiring women every day.

Yesterday was a very exciting day at the office because, well, it wasn’t just in the office. There has been a lot of excitement about a big event at the ShopRite in West Philadelphia because a few White House representatives were going to be there. My boss Dr. Mariana Chilton and one of the Witnesses, Tangela, were planning on going. When Tangela could not find a babysitter, I found my way in Mariana’s minivan on the way to the event. As an experienced babysitter and a baby-appreciator, I was more than happy to watch her 17-month-old during the event; As somebody very interested in the issues surrounding food accessibility, I was thrilled to have this opportunity to learn more.

I had read about this store in June in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/busine…. From the article, I thought this seemed like a wonderful solution to address the problem of “food deserts.” Just put in a grocery store, and the people will eat healthy food, right? It turns out that many grocery chains did not want anything to do with the available lot. Cities often become food desserts because of a lack of space for the store and parking, the additional cost of security, and low demand from low income residents. When the Fresh Food Financing Initiative gave the ShopRite owner some tax and loan incentives, the grocer set up shop. Two years later, the store is an example for other initiatives to bring supermarkets to other urban neighborhoods. This article and the event yesterday had the same excited and congratulatory tone.

After a tour of the store, there was a town hall meeting with the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. A huge deal!! Luckily security let me and the baby inside the meeting. I think they didn’t want to leave us in the parking lot as it began to rain. The talk was facilitated by the new Secretary of Urban Affairs, who directed the questions to the other secretaries and panelists. Some attendees offered more praise for the program; others asked about local food; and one asked about how they could bring a similar program to her own home state of Maine. Tangela had the opportunity to ask her own question: could the store do anything to make the food more affordable for families like hers, which is relying on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – AKA food stamps)? Even though she lives a mile from the store, she shops elsewhere because the ShopRite is too pricey. The Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, reminded her that many farmers’ markets have wireless machines to accept the benefits cards; and another panelist mentioned USDA website, which offers menu planning ideas for healthy and economical options. Tangela was not satisfied with these answers, so she is planning to follow-up with some more questions.

This experience has shown me how important it is to combine real life perspectives with the stories I read in the newspapers. This grocery store is certainly a boon to the community, bringing jobs and food to many people. As Mayor Nutter said, “It’s not just about food for your stomach. It’s also about food for the souls of the city. It’s about economic development, employment, reentry. It’s about how we connect communities.” I understood this in June when I read the NYTimes from my kitchen table. What I didn’t consider is all the other voices who are not heard in the paper. How many more people are there like Tangela who cannot go to the ShopRite if they want their food stamps to last the month? Considering 24% of Philadelphians are on food stamps, I would guess there are more  http://joelberg.net/2009/02/joel-in-the-…).

This might seem obvious, but it is a lesson that is really sinking in: listening to people’s voices is so important if you want to understand them and the world we all live in. Witnesses to Hunger offers those of us lucky to be living relatively comfortably a look into what many families are struggling with every day.

I really love my job, and I feel so honored to have a place on the team. Mariana, Jenny, Vanessa, Jen and all the Witnesses are wonderful to work with, and I am really looking forward to this next year!!

Mary, Max, Joe, Sarah D, and Jess – at an orientation event in University City!

Fourth of July!

We all went into the city to watch the fireworks by the art museum! Wearing our best red-white-and-blue threads, naturally.

I like my job so far, but I am continuously baffled as to why the people I work with seem so happy to have me – I am, after all, a recent college-grad with basically no skills to speak of and they have to teach me about the office and the farmstand. But still, I get an enthusiastic introduction whenever my boss takes me to meet new people. I’m flattered, but I don’t think I deserve it – yet … though I hope to soon!
I am loving living in Philly and living communally. Living communally gives me a supportive and enthusiastic audience for my baking efforts, which recently culminated in three batches of delicious scones.
The story behind the scones is part of why I really like my job. I am working a couple of days of the week at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market (come and visit me and buy an expensive cucumber or something!) and whatever they don’t or can’t sell goes on a “staff shelf.” Some of the stuff of the staff shelf strikes me as the straightest path to food poisoning, such as 2-weeks expired raw milk, but I found some decent eggplant and a broken cucumber and, the piece de resistance, a quart of raw milk heavy cream that was only a day old and therefore, I reasoned, probably not too deadly.
Of course, what does one DO with an entire quart of heavy cream that may or may not have gone slightly off with age? So I asked Joe, our resident raw-milk drinker and vegetarian chef, and he said what you do with it is to make scones. So I did. And they were delish. Sarah D helped. This resulted in scones that we decide to call “stone-hearth-fire-kissed” instead of “burnt” which was technically what they were, but I kinda like a crispy texture with my breakfast coffee. Anyways, it was only one batch.
The cool thing about the scones is that you could really TASTE the thickness and flavourfulness of that heavy cream … being able to eat locally-created food items like that is a real privilege, but one that my organization is working really hard to bring to more people in Philadelphia! We have had a surprising number and variety of people shopping at our farmstand; and it accepts the ACCESS card (a form of electronic food stamps, as I understand it) so that people who couldn’t normally access or afford fresh food can get it. One of my projects for this upcoming year will be expanding and really publicizing this access, which I am very much looking forward to doing!

As cooking, eating, thinking about, and talking about food are some of our favorite pass times here at Haverford House, I thought it would be nice to share some thoughts and some of the things we’re doing here. Even though most of our placements are not related to sustainable and fair food, we’re still interested in eating and growing some healthy and local food.

I personally am very excited about what this city has to offer as I have more responsibility for cooking for and feeding myself. We have a farmers’ market 2x a week only 8 blocks from our house, so local and delicious food is so accessible. I have picked up some delicious squash and zucchini there, and they were amazing. The tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and blueberries are also so amazing and so fresh. There is something so neat about getting your food straight from the farmer. If we feel like venturing a little further afield, we can make our way to the Reading Terminal Market where all sorts of delicacies are available. Sarah M. works in a farm stand there, and I am hoping to visit here very regularly to pick up some fresh treats. Even in her first week she has been nice enough to bring us home some local white eggplant, raw milk and heavy cream. We’re so lucky!

Since we’re talking about local, I’ll let you know what sorts of super local growing we’re doing here at our farm, Hazel Fields.

Here are the planted seed potatoes. After acquiring some seed potatoes from Greensgrow Farm, a really cool farm in North Philadelphia (check it out: http://greensgrow.org/), and some old tires from a nearby mechanic shop (well 10 blocks away… it’s nearer when you’re not carrying a big tire), the farming began. While it is a bit late in the season to start this process, I felt compelled to go ahead and do it anyway. I think it is my calling actually. The Irish half of me was born to grow potatoes, so here I am.

I learned about this way of growing potatoes online, and it seems like it makes a lot of sense. As the potato plants come up to about 8 inches, you mound soil around them. This causes the green stem to revert to root-status, and potatoes then stem from the root. You repeat this process a few times until you think you have a sufficient amount of roots and you are ready to harvest the potato crop. Using tire mounds is a great way to grow root vegetables in your backyard without worrying about the quality of the soil. Lead contamination is an issue in the city, so we wanted to be very careful about that.

As you can see, there are not any sprouts yet, but hopefully some growth will crop up soon. Then it will be time to get some more tires. Of course, I will keep you all informed about the progress of our precious tire potatoes.

The roof top garden, is our pride and joy. Our backyard is pretty shady, so we figured the roof is a wonderful place for some of our plants. We’ve got parsley, thyme, mint, butternut squash, and eggplant. The herbs seem to be surviving, and the butternut squash has gone to flower. I think we know what comes after flowers… fruit!! Sarah M. is growing some really nice looking and tasty cilantro, too. Home-grown herbs add so much to a meal!

Last night was a busy one here at Haverford House as we geared up for a BBQ with CPGC sponsored interns in Philadelphia. After completing the first week at our internships, we enjoyed having Friday “off” (off is relative as we were all working on cleaning the house, planning the menu, and cooking for the BBQ). We all bustled in the beautiful kitchen together, preparing a sumptuous meal of vegetarian masala burgers, meat (fair-trade fair-bred fair-fed grass-fed free-range) burgers, artisan pasta salad, mixed fruit salad, garlicky guacamole, and homemade pita chips. The two New Yorkers of the group, Max and I, grilled the burgers even though that’s not a skill one normally picks up growing up in the city. I was proud at our accomplishment.

Our first guest, Peter Block who’s interning at Weaver’s Way Co-op in Philadelphia, arrived right on time. He not only brought his energy, bright shirt, and curly hair, but a beautiful chocolate wine bottle as well! After ample time spent admiring the craftsmanship, we all sat around a table with the rest of the interns who came and delved into conversation about our internships.  We reflected on our frustrations and worked to understand and perhaps conquer them at our workplaces.  We ended the night with Mary’s fabulous mint chocolate cups and enjoyed each others’ company.

It was a fun night and a great way for us to begin our connection to Haverford College while being alumnae/i. Hopefully we’ll have more of these gatherings in the future, although perhaps a potluck may be in order.

I think the fellows this year are really off to a good start together. We’ve enjoyed each other’s company in cooking, exploring, creating, organizing, and all the other miscellaneous tasks of the week. We’re finally unpacked, have blinds, and almost have reliable Internet. Until then, thanks to Wireless Philadelphia and the local cafe!

After reflecting on the week we’re almost completed, I have a few thoughts. First off, I am definitely so thankful to have had the help of Sonia, a fellow from last year, Janice, and Parker. During this transition they have managed to make us feel comfortable with each other, with our neighbors and neighborhood and our role as CPGC Haverford House fellows.

I truly can’t decide what I’m most looking forward to. I have to first say how spectacular the other fellows are. We all enjoy each other’s company, whether we’re cooking, jogging, drinking coffee or simply chatting, and I am very excited about all our future activities together. Besides living communally, we’re looking forward to working on some different project together. I think it will be so nice to get to know Max, Jess, Sarah D., Joe and Sarah M. better. How lucky I am!

I am also very much looking forward to working with Haverford students. Much of our time during this orientation has been focused on designing projects for the students. We’ve learned about networking from the director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network of Neighborhood Development (PHENND), and we’ve brainstormed with the Student Activities Director Jason about how to work with Haverford students. We’ve also bounced ideas off of each other and some students to figure out how to get involved. Keep your eyes out for a variety of events: city tours, reading groups and ex-co classes, parties, community service opportunities, and a website. We’re all very excited!

Living in Philadelphia will be amazing! We have already been exploring our neighborhood and taking advantage of SEPTA to get to know the rest of the city. We went to see the beautiful 4th of July fireworks at the art museum, we’ve taken the food tour and indulged in some wonderful cheese, tea and chocolate, we’ve explored some local co-ops, and learned about the different neighborhoods. Tomorrow we’ll learn more on a bike tour with Parker and a visit to a local urban farm.

Right now there is just a million thoughts and ideas running through my head. After seeing such interesting parts of the city and meeting with such inspiring people, we’re all full of ideas. I’m very ready to get to work and figure out exactly what I’m doing. Our placements will start on Monday, and as Sarah said there is a mixture of nervousness and excitement. It’s hard to imagine that we’ll be working 9-5 jobs!

We will all be in touch about how things continue to develop. Thanks for reading!!

Just moved into Haverford House a few days ago! I came prepared, with a print-out of a Google-Maps map that I made of all the coffee shops within a 3-mile radius of the house. Which is all I really need in life. Or so I thought. Actually, I (we) needed bathmats (because tracking muddied water all over the bathroom is gross and also bad for the floors), blinds for the bathroom (because being naked in full view of 2 blocks of new neighbors is awkward), a coffee-maker (duh), and oh-so-much-more. I absolutely hate K-Mart and such places on principle, but we’ve been there twice in two days trying to pick up things to make our very-nice-but-much-smaller new Haverford House a home.
I am SO excited to be in Philadelphia. Last night we went to see the fireworks and it was like ALL of Philly had turned out to see them. The diversity of the crowd was something I’d never really experienced before — yes Philadelphia is a diverse city, but so are a lot of places … however, the difference with Philly seems to be (seems to me, so far, at least) that different races and socioeconomic classes and ages all turn out for city-wide events together. It was, however, interesting that on Spring Garden Bridge, where I was standing, the crowds to the left (toward North Philly) were almost exclusively black, whereas the crowds to the right (towards the Parkway) were about 65% white. I wonder why that was. Anyways, it was super-exciting to be in such a big happy good-natured crowd all together to watch the fireworks which were wonderfully loud and colorful, as fireworks should be. There are oodles of Haverford grads in the city as well; I randomly ran into five of them last night, unplanned.
I am already setting myself up as the House Photographer by making people pose in cheesy touristy pictures of us in Philly, us on the roof, us setting up the new house, etc. So far everyone is pretty good natured about it, but I feel like it might get old after a while. But whatever, in a few years they will THANK ME for photographing so damn much because they’ll have memories. And also I have things to put on the blog, which is something I can see myself enjoying in my spare time.
Everyone is talking about when we’ll start out jobs and saying they’re nervous … I’m more so excited, I wonder why that is. Maybe because I’m the first Haverford House Fellow that my organization – the Fair Food Project – will have, so I don’t have anything to live up to?
Ok well I am going to try and post pictures.