Discover(ing) Sustainability

I finally cracked the Sunday Boston Globe last night (Yeah, Wednesday. That’s what kind of an up-to-the-minute media maven I am.) and there, deep in the Money section, was a story that made the slog through credit card fraud and auction-rate securities all worthwhile. The Associated Press reported on how high gas prices have some real estate agents appealing to would-be bicycle commuters with bike-friendly listings and even two-wheeled house showings.

Not surprisingly, the story came from Portland, Ore., which is unanimously touted as our nation’s bike-friendliest city. The story also cited Pedal to Properties, a real estate brokerage with optional bike tours based in that other mecca of fitness and sustainability, Boulder, Colo.

While it’s interesting and quirky that these agents are trading their luxury sedans and SUVs for helmets and panniers, what I find really compelling in this story is not so much the change in selling but in buying habits. These Realtors are responding to a growing interest among home buyers to live in communities where bicycling can become an integral part of their lives. They’re looking for homes that are relatively close to the amenities of daily living — jobs, of course, but also schools, shops and other services — and that aren’t severed from those amenities by busy throughways that in effect shout “cars only.”

I’ve said repeatedly that my family’s car-free month in May, and our ongoing dependence on bicycles rather than our car, was made possible first and foremost by the location of our home. It’s no accident that when we moved to Durham we chose a neighborhood central to our work and to many downtown amenities — we knew we didn’t want to drive much. Of course, this is the hardest “habit” to change when trying to save fuel costs or live more sustainably; few of us would choose the expense and stress of moving as a viable way to cut our carbon footprints. That’s why I’m so heartened that some folks who are moving are factoring bike-ability into their real estate decisions.

Speaking of our car-free month, I’m pleased to report that my husband and I have now achieved official hero status (rather than the casual and rather sarcastic hero status bestowed upon us by friends and family). We’re the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge’s September Climate Heroes. I hardly think of anything I do as heroic, but heck, if someone wants to call me their hero, I say bring on the cape!

Last night, I made gazpacho. From an eat local perspective, this was a home run: I harvested the tomatoes, basil, and parsley from my front yard; bought cucumbers, onions and garlic at the Portsmouth Farmer’s Market; and even dripped in a tablespoon of honey from a Vermont friend’s hives. Of course, all those so-fresh-you-gotta-slap-em vegetables made the gazpacho an ecogastronomic win as well — a delicious and mind-blowingly nutritious meal.

But is it sustainable? I fear not. If sustainability is about seeing things whole, that gazpacho represents a big ugly rip in the wholeness of it all.

Working a full day at UNH, dashing home to feed my family and care for my toddler son, picking garden tomatoes by flashlight, and cleaning the kitchen (finally) as the nightly news begins hardly feels sustainable. That damned delicious local gazpacho took me several hours to make and robbed me of any spare moment of downtime I might have in a life stuffed to overflowing with obligations. Is it any wonder my workday lunches are more Lean than green cuisine?

On a recent family vacation, my mother read me a passage from Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” in which brilliant Kingsolver waxes on about the devil’s deal made 30 or so years ago, when women gleefully unchained themselves from the drudgery of the kitchen to storm the workplace but, in doing so, swapped nurturing their families’ tables for takeout pizza and Lunchables.

“Most of us, male or female, work at full-time jobs that seem organized around a presumption that some wifely person is at home picking up the slack … but in fact June Cleaver has left the premises. … That gal Friday is us, both moms and dads running on overdrive, smashing the caretaking duties into small spaces between job and carpool and bedtime. Eating preprocessed or fast food can look like salvation in the short run, until we start losing what real mealtimes give to a family: civility, economy, and health,” Kingsolver writes.

“Barbara Kingsolver doesn’t have a toddler at home,” my wise mother responded. As she read, my own toddler was being introduced to the joys of “colorful” cereal by his cousins, for whom fruit is spelled with two O’s.

Between Kingsolver and the gazpacho, I get to wondering how realistic is it for someone like me to incorporate principles of local, sustainable eating into my life. Do I forgo activities that fulfill me — weekends away, early morning runs, the 85^th reading of “Blueberries for Sal” — to prepare wholesome food in bulk-sized quantities? Or do I tend my garden, fill the freezer with Lean Cuisines, and search for a balance? I’m not the only busy mom who shoulders the bulk of family care and feeding with this dilemma – chime in with your thoughts and ideas.

Photos from UOS’s lunch at the Dairy Bar reopening:

I can’t scream it loud enough: the Dairy Bar is open!

As many of you know, UNH has been renovating its historic train station (home to the Durham stop of the Amtrak Downeaster) and Dairy Bar restaurant this spring and summer. The $1 million restoration will expand our intermodal faculties and include full intercity bus capacity, indoor rail/bus transit passenger waiting areas, a renovated UNH Dairy Bar restaurant, and historic transportation displays highlighting the role of transportation in the founding of UNH-Durham. (Learn more here.)

While the official ribbon cutting ceremony will be Sept. 30th, the Dairy Bar opened today.  Brett, Alaina, Juliet and I went over for lunch to celebrate, and we weren’t disappointed.  Not only does the menu feature healthy breakfast and lunch items made from local, organic, and Fair Trade items, but the food is delicious and well-priced!  Plus the restaurant has ENERGY STAR-rated equipment, uniforms and hats made from 100% organic cotton and manufactured by companies that practice Fair Trade policies, and biodegradable, compostable containers that are collected, pulped, and added to the UNH composting windrows. Compost is then be used to grow food for the Dairy Bar. The menu was even designed with help from a team of student dietetic interns from the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture (COLSA).  (You can read more in our April/May 2008 newsletter.)

Plus, how cool is it that you can easily grab a healthy (for you and the planet) meal and then hop on some form of sustainable transportation, from a train to a bus to a bicycle? Talk about sustainability in motion.

The Dairy Bar is part of UNH’s Local Harvest Initiative: a partnership of UNH Dining, our office, and COLSA that raises awareness and educates students, staff, and community members about our local agricultural landscape and its role in sustaining our physical and economical health and well-being, now and in the future.

Our office in Nesmith Hall is literally a 2-minute walk to the Dairy Bar, so we intend to visit often.  Our sandwiches and salads today were delish, and we can’t wait to go back for more.

Congratulations to all those involved in making this happen!

Photos from our Eat Local Week!  

Posted on behalf of Charlotte Todd, UOS’s STARS Intern and a senior at UNH 

What a wonderful summer for an intern! The UNH University Office of Sustainability couldn’t be a more fun and interesting place to work. This past week however was really “grade A.” NH Eat Local Week has provided me with the wonderful opportunity of good talk, hearty laughs, and of course delicious food and recipe ideas. I have always respected those loyal summer veggies like eggplant and tomatoes but tasting them in all their delicious forms this week was bliss. From homemade mozzarella cheese to marinated local beef, there was plenty more than simply veggies on the table as well!  It is my pleasure to wrap up the week with a little flavor of my own.

I decided to contribute with one of my favorite meals, pesto pizza. I took a trip to Deerfield and Barrington to scoop up some supplies. I purchased the famous “snappy cheese” (an aged cheddar) from Calef’s Country Store in Barrington. I used my own green house tomatoes from my garden and fortunately my mother helped me make her delicious homemade pesto with local garlic and basil. The leeks are local too, and the peppers are from an old friend who owns a farm in Deerfield. And don’t be alarmed by the broccoli: it is local from last October! My friend Honey is a veggie preserving goddess and she helped me to try to understand how broccoli could still be good after such a long time (a complicated blanching and freezing process).

Hopefully it all tastes delicious! You can’t go wrong with pizza, however, and you certainly can’t go wrong with local.

Editorial note from Sara: Charlotte’s pizza was fantastic!  She also had a delicious salad and local melon to go with it.  We are very lucky to have such talented and dedicated interns! 

Photos from our Eat Local Week!

Posted on behalf of Alaina, UOS’s administrative assistant 

Today is the last day of NH Eat Local Week for UOS, and it was my turn to share a local dish with everyone! Being the last person, and having tasted everyone’s delicious creations, I knew I was going to have quite a challenge ahead of me. I decided to go with a summer favorite, vegetable pasta salad.

While out and about running errands this week I picked up several items throughout the granite state to make my local meal. Like Brett, Juliet, and Sara, I too visited the Portsmouth Farmer’s Market on Saturday with my family. I purchased some garlic, cucumbers, and summer squash from Stonewall Farm in Nottingham, NH. I then visited Tuttle’s Red Barn in Dover, NH where I picked up some of their homegrown zucchini as well as some delicious corn on the cob that my family and I enjoyed this week. On Monday afternoon I took a little break from my desk and walked down to the Durham Farmer’s Market with El, Juliet, and Charlotte to pick up some grape tomatoes.

Lastly, I needed the pasta, and also the right sauce to pull the whole dish together. I went to Fiddlehead Farms Marketplace in Dover, NH, which houses Terra Cotta Pasta Company. I was getting pretty hungry while shopping, but luckily one of the nice Terra Cotta employees was making some yummy samples that my step dad and I enjoyed. After many samples, including some excellent shrimp scampi, I decided to go with the five-cheese tortellini, egg rotini, and basil pesto sauce.

Then came the fun part, cooking it all and (hopefully) making it taste good. This dish was actually quite simple to make. I first cubed the zucchini, summer squash, and cucumber and minced the garlic with a little help from my favorite kitchen accessory, my Rachel Ray furi knife. I then blanched the vegetables until they were al dente and let them cool.  Finally, I boiled the pasta, added the veggies, and mixed in the basil pesto sauce. I saved the color of my dish as the last step. Before leaving for work in the morning I added the fresh grape tomatoes from the Durham Farmer’s Market. My dish was complete. Yumm-O!

At a last minute I decided that we couldn’t end our weeklong local feast without something sweet. I decided to hit up Me & Ollie’s last night to get some Granola Munch and yummy chocolate chip cookies that turned out to be a big hit with my coworkers.

All in all, NH Eat Local Week was a great and DELICIOUS success at UOS!  Everyone made tasty dishes while supporting many local farmers, vendors, and businesses. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Who knows, maybe we could all trade off and make this a weekly event! It would certainly take away some of the stress from the question I face everyone morning five minutes before I leave for work…what am I going to bring for lunch today?

Photos from our Eat Local Week!

Eating local food is not new to me; I eat a lot of it, especially this time of year. So when the NH Eat Local Week was announced, I thought I’d better up the ante for myself. Driving home one day I passed the road leading to Brookford Farm, an organic dairy farm in Rollinsford, and it came to me: I should make cheese! I have two friends who took a cheesemaking course. Could I convince them to teach me?

It turns out that it didn’t take much convincing. They were up to the challenge of making homemade mozzarella, and one even offered use of her kitchen (and powerful microwave, which is needed for the recipe we used). I purchased two gallons of whole milk: Oakhurst, which I got at Tuttles, and Brookfard Farm, and supplies to go with my finished mozzarella (local tomatoes at Emery Farm, basil, and Borealis bread). My friends Justine and Marj provided other necessary cheesemaking items, like citric acid, rennet, and cheese salt.

We started with the Oakhurst milk. I poured it in the pan and we heated it slowly, stirring, and adding in the citric acid. When it reached 90 degrees, we stirred in the rennet, and stirred with an up/down motion, until it heated up to about 105 degrees. At that point the milk had turned the consistency of curds (now I understood where “curds and whey” came from). Marj poured out the excess water and put the curds into the microwave to be heated for a minute or so. Then she began pulling the now stretchy, “almost” cheese, while I sprinkled salt over it. We repeated the process a few more times, heating, stretching, and salting, until finally it was the desired consistency and taste. Voila! We’d made cheese!

We were excited to try the Brookford Farm milk to see how it compared. Brookford Farm raises grass-fed Jersey cows, which have the highest fat content in their milk. We were amazed when, after heating and stirring and adding the rennet, there were no curds – it just congealed as one big mass! Not only that, but it required a couple extra zaps in the microwave to get it hot enough – higher fat content means its more dense. And the color was different – it had a lovely light butter color.

Justine agreed to a taste test after the two cheeses were finished. She could tell immediately which was which. While both were delicious, the Brookford Farm milk yielded the more flavorful cheese. The Oakhurst milk made a lighter cheese – also yummy, but not quite as rich with flavor.

I have to admit, I was impressed with myself. Cheesemaking seemed like such a mysterious, complicated thing, but I’d done it right in my friend’s kitchen with a few tools, some great local products, and in just a couple of hours from start to finish! I’m happy to say that my coworkers enjoyed the final result, and it was a perfect compliment to the delicious pasta salad that Alaina brought in – look for her post tomorrow!

Photos from our Eat Local Week!

Dateline: August 2, 2008, 11:00 am

Countdown: 13 hours to midnight and the start of NH Eat Local Week!

Having just arrived home from an unplanned trip to the west coast, I get up early (10:00 is 7:00 PDT remember), have breakfast and begin to think about what to eat for the coming week. My 3 year old announces that he wants his usual “honey toast” for breakfast. That’s local, I remember. We get our honey is from Erlon Gill a beekeeper in Greenland (NH, that is). Each spring I get a big bucket full that I split with friends. Eat up my dear!

On the plane with two children, I was able to read 29 whole pages of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, interrupted only 7 times in the process. The book describes a family’s year long journey of eating locally and about page 24, they are doing what I am doing: making a shopping list and crossing off that which requires too many gallons of fossil fuel to make it to the table. I begin:

• Vegetables: couldn’t be better than this time of year for local farms.
• Yogurt: yes - Brookford Dairy Farm in Rollinsford makes their ownNuts: noCheese puffs: sorry kids - not this week.
• Eggs: definitely.
• Chicken: will stop over to Kellie Brook farm on Thursday to pick up a couple fresh ones….and so on.

I decide to take stock of the three really local sources of food in my house: the freezer, the refrigerator and the garden. I pull out some frozen beef from Nezinscot Organic Farmin Maine, count the number of zucchini and eggplant I bought last week at the farmer’s market and head out the the garden to harvest some garlic and kale. Things are looking pretty good for meals at our house this week.

Dateline August 3, 2:00 pm.

I am preparing a dish for a Slow Food meeting with as many local ingredients as possible. I choose frittatas, get a recipe off the web and cook up some beans, zucchini, garlic, onions and herbs. For this dish I am using duck eggs from Yellow House Farm in Barrington. I have never had duck eggs before so just in case, I am spicing them up with lots of herbs. (Okay - I’m a wimp). At the meeting, others have brought local dishes as well. There’s lots of zucchini and eggplant, blueberries and peaches and they are all delicious. I am reminded of the main reason to eat local - boy does it taste good! And by the way, I didn’t really need to worry about the duck eggs….

After our meal we all talk about what we are planning to do this week around eating local. Sara Zoe of Seacoast Eat Local has some suggestions that go beyond just what we put in our bellies. If you are already an eat local type - try something new. Go to a farmer’s market you have never been to before and bring a friend or stop by a farm that you drive by on a regular basis. Go to your local store or cafe and ask about local ingredients - put the idea into the minds of others.

Then a person at the meeting said something most important of all. Make eating locally a celebration of the season, a feasting on the bounty that New England provides this time of year. Don’t cross things off the shopping list - put things on - because they are delicious and fresh. Will my kids ever eat potato chips again? Most likely, but this week its cucumbers instead.

Dateline: August 6, 9:00 am

It’s my day to bring a local lunch to the office. This morning I made one of my favorite eggplant recipes from the Silver Palate Cookbook:

Eggplant Salad with Basil

• 3 large eggplants, skin on, cut into cubes (Nippo Brook Farm)
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon coarse sea salt
• 4 cloves garlic (my garden)
• 2 large yellow onions, chopped (I use white onions from Wake Robin Farm)
• 1 cup chopped basil (Stone Wall Farm)
• Juice of 2 lemons
• Ground black pepper, to taste

Cube and toss eggplant with salt and minced garlic. Roast in 400 degree oven for 35 minutes. Saute onions in olive oil 15 min or until tender and grind on some pepper. Toss everything together, squeeze on the lemon juice and enjoy warm or cold.

I’m also bringing garlic bread made with garlic I planted last fall in my garden and that beef that I thawed out on Sunday, marinated and grilled. This is the second year I’ve grown garlic; I planted 70 cloves I bought from Stone Wall Farm and they actually came up in the spring…

The wonders of nature never cease and this is a great week to celebrate those wonders. Pass the heirloom tomatoes please!

It was a challenge to follow-up Brett and Juliet’s great local lunch with one of my own, but I think it all turned out delicious!  Plus I had the added challenge of planning the sweets for a surprise office birthday celebration for Alaina (whose birthday is today!) and El (whose birthday is next week).

Like Brett and Juliet, my husband and I hit the Portsmouth Farmer’s Market on Saturday.  I got two eggplant, a loaf of honey wheat Me & Ollie’s bread, three tomatoes, some blueberries, some corn, and a scrumptious blueberry lemon-flavored cake. Of course some of these we kept and ate at home, but most were for the lunch today. We got our items from Applecrest Farm Orchards, New Roots Farm, Heron Ponds Farm, and many others; you can check out the entire list of vendors at the Portsmouth Farmer’s Market here.

I knew I needed some kind of cheese for the eggplant and tomato sandwiches I wanted to make, so I headed next to Philbrick’s Fresh Market in Portsmouth.  There the incredibly knowledgeable woman in the wine and cheese section helped me find not one but TWO kinds of Vermont-made mozzarella!  So today we had a choice:  you could make your sandwich with smoked or regular mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm in Bennington, Vermont.  Yum! Philbrick’s even carries a variety of local goat cheese — including a chocolate-flavored version!

Then I wanted to get some potato chips to go with the sandwiches. But I worried — are their local chip companies?  My husband and I scoured Hannaford’s Supermarket and found Cape Cod potato chips, a Massachusetts company.  We were in luck.

And of course our great STARS intern Charlotte really made the lunch complete by adding a salad made from local produce — including tomatoes she grows herself in her garden at home; talk about local! — and using her Mom’s balsamic vinaigrette recipe.  Delish!

I have to admit:  I’m not a great cook.  I can bake a mean chocolate chip cookie or rum ball during the holidays, but I’m no chef by any means.  But somehow cooking with local foods to feed my great colleagues, and knowing I was supporting local farms and vendors, just made cooking more fun. And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? Fun and healthy ways to eat that are good for you and the planet.

And as you can see, one of my kitties - our nearly 9-month old kitten Gus - enjoyed it too.  Once we brought the local produce home, he couldn’t leave it alone! Even Gus himself is local: we adopted him from the NHSPCA.

Up next:  Alison!  We are in for a treat here.  Alison is one of the leader of Slowfood Seacoast and a true local foodie!

As the first person in the office to take the NH Eat Local Week challenge, I wasn’t quite sure what to try. So I thought I would start by wandering around the Portsmouth farmers market this Saturday to see what inspired me. There were lots great things to choose from, and I ended up with the following purchases: 

• An eggplant and a zucchini from Back River Farm in Dover, NH
• Basil from Stonewall Farm in Nottingham, NH
• Garlic and herbs from Meadow’s Mirth in Stratham, NH
• Tomatoes and cucumbers from Nelson Farm in Strafford NH
• A loaf of garlic rosemary bead from Me & Ollies

and I also had some peaches and apple cider doughnuts from Applecrest Farm Orchards for breakfast while I was shopping. Juliet Bluemling, our Local Harvest Initiative Intern, was also at the market and we discussed my menu for Monday. So, she offered to add a dish too!

 I used the herbs and garlic to infuse some olive oil overnight. Then I brushed a little oil on slices of the eggplant and zucchini and grilled them. I cut up the tomatoes and cucumbers and tossed them with the basil and some more of the infused olive oil. Juliet brought stuffed green peppers. I think everyone enjoyed it! 

Sara’s next! Stop back tomorrow to see what she comes up with.

This is posted on behalf of Juliet Bluemling, our Local Harvest Initiative Intern.

 This summer I was fortunate to be part of an internship created by UOS and Dining Services: The Local Harvest Initiative Internship. I am a Hospitality Management Major at UNH, but am also extremely interested in agriculture. As you might imagine, this opportunity excited me since it involved working and focusing on something I enjoy reading, studying, and eating: food! Therefore, I viewed this as an opportunity to integrate my business education with my passion for locally grown food.

I have been collecting data from Dining Services that will help UNH make purchasing decisions for the future. We have found that UNH purchases about 15% of their food from producers that are less than 250 miles away. Some of this is food grown locally, and some is food processed locally, such as bread, hummus, and peanut butter.

A large contributing factor to our locally purchased food is our annual Local Harvest Feast. As part of my internship, I have been asked to find more local farms to help provide us with food for our next Local Harvest Feast (September 24). This year we will be organizing an even larger event, offering a local breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have been enjoying working with local farmers to create partnerships not only for the Local Harvest Feast, but also for the future purchasing of the food for Dining Services.

There are many ongoing projects related to this information gathering that have begun now and will continue into the fall and even into the spring. As a student at the University of New Hampshire, I am proud to be working with many supportive and like-minded people on such progressive projects that will lead to a more sustainable and conscious lifestyle for our campus and greater community. I am hopeful that UNH’s sustainability initiatives will serve as a role model for other universities and communities into the future.