Haverford House

Starting at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia a few months ago, I didn’t really know what kind of activism went into ‘bicycle advocacy’ (nor what ‘bike advocacy’ even meant, for that matter). I’ve had experience with more direct political activism, I’ve always been excited by non-violent social change like the Civil Rights movement, and most recently I focused on empowerment through displaying social and political issues in the form of public art…but none of this seemed to be what the Bicycle Coalition was about.

When I interviewed at the Bike Coalition, the executive director told me: ‘the thing about bicycles is that they’re fun, and you can win,” comparing the Coalition to his former work as an anti-war activist. “What we’re trying to do is create a cultural shift towards more bike use”. The Coalition focuses on advocacy and education, working to make bicycling both safer and more accessible. The idea is that by doing these things, more people will be willing to try biking, and will be able to enjoy it and recognize its importance on their own- that is, they will be able make biking part of their culture, because they are being invited rather than yelled at or looked down on.

To use one of my favorite new metaphors, the Bike Coalition is not trying to hit people over the head with their agenda, but rather respectfully reaching out to people wherever they currently stand, and asking them to move only a little bit towards making Philly safer and better for bicycling. And exactly because they are engaging in this more subtle, cultural shift kind of activism, people seem to be willing to stop and listen and be engaged, and maybe even shift their behavior.

So would this strategy work for the anti-war movement, I wonder? While it might not solve every problem, it seems to me that the idea of ‘creating cultural shift through building education and accessibility’ might be helpful for many causes.

*p.s.- Speaking of education, check out the bicycle education blog I’ve been writing a lot for! http://bikePHL.bicyclecoalition.org

To help keep our house green, we decided to make a worm bin. Worm bins are an easy way of dealing with food waste and generally require less maintenance than a compost bin.

I looked around online for a design I liked. Generally it’s best to have one bin with holes in the bottom nestled within one without holes.  That way, the liquid (or worm tea) can drip out of the first bin and be collected in the second.  This design includes a third bin, also with holes in the bottom, that one can add once the main bin starts to get full.  If you add it on top of the main bin and begin adding food, the worms will move up from the old bin to the new bin (through the holes in the bottom), ultimately leaving you with a beautiful bin of worm castings without having to sort through and remove the worms yourself.

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.