Earlier this week, I got an email from Judy at Pigs Peace Sanctuary. In case you’ve missed my other posts about it, Pigs Peace is a wonderful sanctuary for pigs (and other animals) about an hour north of Seattle. Judy emailed me with the story of Elsie, a piglet who came to Pigs Peace this week. Elsie’s story/a message from Judy:
On Sunday afternoon a man in a pick-up truck on Highway 2 was carrying a crate filled with piglets in the bed of his truck. He slammed on his brakes, the crate broke open and, as he made a sharp turn, each piglet fell out onto the highway to be hit by cars and killed. All but one! A man who was driving on Highway 2 and witnessed this stopped traffic and saved the piglet and brought her to Pigs Peace. She is VERY sick with pneumonia on top of recovering from trauma and a damaged leg. She is very afraid of people. ALL support to help this survivor would be a great help.
This piglet is Elsie. I find her story to be particularly moving and heartbreaking in part because it is not unique. Many of the pigs at Pigs Peace have faced violence, cruelty, neglect and abandonment before making it to Pigs Peace. Many were destined for meat production. Others were kept as ‘pets’ in hoarding situations. And others, like Ziggy (the three-legged pig), were kept as ‘freaks’ in roadside zoos or as other sources of entertainment. Judy works tirelessly to take amazingly good care of the pigs and provide them with comfort, safety and love. For the most part, Judy does it all on her own. She is out there 365 days a year from dawn till dusk keeping the sanctuary going. And she could use help! Pigs Peace is in constant need of monetary and volunteer support. Unlike some other sanctuaries, donations to Pigs Peace go entirely to the feeding, upkeep and medical care of the pigs.
This is a particularly tough time, as there is an influx of piglets at this time of year in need of regular medical attention and vet visits in order to make sure they survive. If you’re near Seattle and can volunteer, I know Judy would love the help. If you’re not in the area, or don’t have the time to volunteer in Stanwood, please consider a one-time or monthly donation to Pigs Peace to help Judy continue her compassionate work for the pigs.
Just in time for St. Patrick’s day, colcannon is a traditional Irish dish made by mashing potatoes and mixing in cabbage or other greens. When I was growing up, my parents used to make colcannon, or my dad would sometimes call it ‘thump’ (a Scottish variation), with whatever greens we had around. Usually, this was chard or kale from the garden. Sometimes it was cabbage. This dish is the definition of comfort food for me, both because it’s filling and tastes delicious and also because it reminds me of being a kid. I used cabbage this time because we had some in the fridge that needed to be used. But for a less monochromatic dish, use a more colorful leafy green–like rainbow chard or kale. With cabbage and potatoes, this is an extremely affordable and filling dish to make. I also didn’t realize until this moment that the bowl in the photo looks a little like a shamrock. Happy almost St. Patrick’s Day!
Prepare the vegan garlic mashed potatoes according to directions. While the potatoes are cooking, saute chopped onion in a splash of olive oil or water in a large pan. Cook until slightly soft. Add the cabbage or other greens and cover with lid to steam the greens. Add salt and pepper to taste, keeping in mind the potatoes will also have salt and pepper in them. When the mashed potatoes are prepared and the greens are cooked, mix the two together thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Enjoy!
Yesterday, my mother was attacked on her way home from work. My mom walks about 4 miles to and from work every day and yesterday, she was almost home–in her own neighborhood–when a group of girls ran up behind her, hitting her from behind and shoving her down onto the pavement. Then they ran off. She is quite shaken up and badly bruised and scraped up, but otherwise she seems to be okay. A man who was driving by and witnessed the whole thing stopped immediately and helped her up. A woman who had also seen the attack gave my mom a ride home. The strange thing about it was that this was a purely random act of violence. The girls did not take anything from my mom and were not trying to mug her. Who runs up to a middle-aged woman and knocks her down on the street?! She is still very disturbed about this whole event and feels violated. To not feel safe walking home in broad daylight in your own neighborhood is awful. And to not understand why someone would do this is also unsettling.
I’ve been thinking about this almost constantly since my mom told me about it yesterday. And the only conclusion I can come to is that these random acts of violence must be countered with random acts of kindness. We hear about random (and not random) acts of violence every day on the news and in our personal lives and I think these stories worry at our psyches, instilling fear in us a little at a time until we are afraid of a whole host of people and things. This fear transforms into all kinds of negative responses–depression, anxiety, paralysis in our actions, more violence, discrimination, etc.
Since hearing about this yesterday, there has been a quiet whisper in my head, “Random acts of violence…random acts of kindness” over and over again, like a mantra. These random acts of violence cannot be allowed to define us and how we relate to the world. My mom practices random acts of kindness in her daily life all the time and this attack, this violation, will not change that. We must all practice random acts of kindness every day in our lives. We must put compassion and loving kindness out into the world in every way we know how. We must learn what we can from the violence in the world and work to neutralize it at the structural level, the systemic level, the community level, and at the individual level. That violence performed by those girls was not created in a vacuum. Those girls are not bad or evil. Their violent actions are the product of a violent system and a violent culture. And we must work to promote more compassionate systems, more compassionate communities, and more compassionate individuals by being kinder ourselves every moment of every day.
This project has been a while in the making (the idea formed in 2009), but it’s finally coming to fruition (pun intended?!). In our very own neighborhood of Beacon Hill at Jefferson Park, a food forest project is being developed. What is a food forest, you might ask? According to the Beacon Food Forest site:
“A Food Forest is a gardening technique or land management system that mimics a woodland ecosystem but substitutes in edible trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. Fruit and nut trees are the upper level, while below are berry shrubs, edible perennials and annuals. Companions or beneficial plants are included to attract insects for natural pest management while some plants are soil amenders providing nitrogen and mulch. Together they create relationships to form a forest garden ecosystem able to produce high yields of food with less maintenance.”
Growing an edible forest in the inner-city will help provide produce to those who need/want it and it will be maintained by volunteers in the community. The Friends of the Food Forest secured a $22,000 grant through the Neighborhood Matching Funds program in Seattle (a great resource for community initiatives and small projects). Informational postcards to gather volunteers for the planning phases were sent out in five different languages and the local Samoan community (who frequent Jefferson Park for cricket games) was consulted about which types of plants they would like to see in the food forest. At a number of community meetings, the food forest was planned and the first phase of the forest will be planted this spring 2012:
The completed food forest will cover a 7 acre sunny slope of Jefferson Park (owned for the last century by Seattle Public Utilities) and will be the largest food forest in the country. It will be populated with fruit and nut trees and bushes and will be open to all for harvesting as needed. I am so excited about this project and the potential of projects like this to convert green spaces in urban areas to productive sources of produce. Urban farming, gardening, and forestry could provide much needed plant-based nutrition to people who are homeless, low-income, middle-income, etc. and they have the potential to build community at the same time. I love this idea and the possibilities for food forests to be a new part of urban landscapes.
This morning after Eric left for work, I buckled down and tried a new workout. I’ve not been making it to the gym with the teaching schedule and everything else and have been feeling quite lazy and in need of exercise. I’ve been trying to figure out a workout that I can do quickly and at home to minimize the amount of time I’m spending on working out. If I go to the gym, it’s at least a 2 to 2.5 hour time commitment with travel time, parking, etc. I really want a workout routine that I can sustain over a long period of time, instead of doing it for a few months and burning out because it takes so long and life gets in the way. When I took a few of the students from my class to the pig sanctuary a few weeks ago, I was lamenting the problem of carving out time for working out and one of my students recommended Jillian Michaels’ workout videos. They are only 20 minutes per workout and she said that it was so hard she could barely make it through one. Usually I am NOT a fan of workout videos because they’re long, boring and the same every time. But I thought, “what the hell! I’ll try anything at this point!”. Before leaving for New York, I ordered two of the videos online and they arrived while I was away. I bought the “Thirty Day Shred” and “Ripped in 30”. Each DVD contains 3 or 4 20-minute workouts (respectively) and the workouts get progressively more intense as you progress and build up stamina and strength. I started with the first workout on the “Thirty Day Shred” and it practically killed me. The workout is designed on the 3-2-1 system, which means 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of abs. You do 3 sets of 3-2-1 and then you’re done. It’s been so long since I’ve done a tough workout that it completely wiped me out. I took a nap and then made some chia pudding, which made me feel a million times better. Here’s the recipe below. Eric thinks the chia pudding looks nasty and maybe it does. But it tastes damn good and it is very stabilizing and filling! Note: chia seeds can be purchased online, at health food stores, or at places like Whole Foods or food co-ops. The jury is still out on the workout system–it’s just been one day, afterall–but I’m going to try to do it for 30 days and see how it goes.
The Recipe
Serves 1
1/4 cup chia seeds
3/4 cup rice milk (or other nondairy milk)
1/2 banana diced
sprinkle of cinnamon
1/4-1/2 tsp agave (optional)
Stir together the chia, cinnamon, and rice milk. Stir in diced banana. Add agave if you want it a bit sweeter (totally up to you). Wait for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally until the seeds turn into a pudding texture. Eat up!
I thought I’d try something a bit new today, and provide an audio recording for you all. I recorded the talk I gave at the Institute for Critical Animal Studies Conference in Buffalo, NY on March 4, 2012. I was in a session called “Resistance” and my talk was entitled “Joining the Resistance: Farmed Animals Making History”. Here it is:
I would love any feedback, thoughts, questions, etc. you might have. Every time I give a talk, I feel like I learn so much from the interesting and challenging comments/questions that come up in the Q&A period.
Continuing on the recap of my NYC trip. I woke up on Saturday morning (late) and rushed to subway to try to make it to an 8:00am session at the AAG. The subject was the meat industry and it was one of the sessions I was most looking forward to attending. The ‘L’ train was closed for maintenance, which meant I had to take a shuttle to another train. The perk of missing the train and having the detour was that I got to enjoy the lovely subway art at the other station. To make a long story short, I missed the session and landed in mid-town at 9:30am with nothing to do until noon. The conference was held at the Hilton and Sheraton hotels. I met up with Tish and Amy (geography friends from Seattle) and we went in search of a non-$25 breakfast. We found a little spot, had breakfast and shared our tales of travelling from Seattle and our first few days in New York.
more subway art, same station
My noon commitment was the annual board meeting for the geography journal I work for. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here before, but my advisor is the managing editor for a geography journal, and my funding currently is for the editorial assistant position. It’s a great job and I enjoy it. This was my first time to attend the board meeting and it was being held at a nice Italian restaurant around the corner from the Hilton. There were approximately 20 board members in attendance at the luncheon all seated at one long table–all top geographers in their respective subfields. My advisor was seated across the table and a few seats down from me. I was seated next to a lovely woman from Capetown (S. Africa). We were chatting about our respective research interests and I began to tell her about my dissertation project. In short, I told her that I was interested in the lifecourse of the cow in dairy production and the various ways that different cows’ bodies are used (based on their biological sex and age). I gave the example of male calves being used for veal and then brought up the issue of adult bulls. These adult males are often kept on breeding farms and forcibly ejaculated for semen collection for the artificial insemination of cows on dairy production farms. At this moment in the conversation, Michael (my advisor) tuned into the conversation and smiled oddly at me across the table. I said (quite loudly I’m afraid), “Yes, Michael, I’m talking about semen!”. That, of course, drew the attention of all of the faculty at our end of the table. Michael said, “Of course you are. That’s my Katie!” I suppose that’s me…talking about semen at the professional lunch table. Whoops! On a more mundane note, I had a roasted beet salad (the only thing on the menu easily veganized), which was quite good and I’m going to try to recreate for the blog.
That afternoon, I went to a session at the AAG called, “New Directions for Political Ecology”, which was quite interesting. One of the speakers was another graduate student in our department. And another speaker on the panel was Joshua Muldavin, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College who was responsible for turning me onto Geography in the first place. I was all set to be a fiction writer and then stumbled into Josh’s class (‘Food, Agriculture, Environment & Development) and it/he changed the whole trajectory of my life. Thanks, Josh! This was the first time I had seen him since graduating from SLC, and it was great to reconnect for a minute and hear about the work he’s doing!
Times Square, February 2012
After the conference was over that day, Tish and I wandered out into midtown a bit aimlessly until we stumbled into Times Square. It had been a long time since I’d been to Times Square because I had always avoided it like the plague while living in NY. She wanted to take some video for her fellow back home, so we stood in the middle of Times Square for a while and took it all in. One thing I hadn’t noticed before, which Tish pointed out, was that Times Square really isn’t very noisy. For how much of a visual overload it is, it isn’t any louder than any other part of the city. It’s strange. From Times Square we were looking for a bar to sit down and have a beer. We were both a little overwhelmed by everything and found a little Irish bar where everyone seemed to have an Irish accent except for the two of us. It was kind of charming and we had a few beers and some french fries and laughed and cried and talked…The next day Emma and I headed up to New Haven to see our friend Gwen. I’ll tell you about that next time because Gwen’s interior decorating deserves a post all on its own, but I will share this photo for all the Doctor Who fans out there…It was on the train to New Haven:
I really don’t know what else to call this sandwich other than to tell you it’s a little bit of heaven. I used to get a version of this sandwich at a little cafe called Molly’s in the basement of the Henry Art Gallery at the UW. There, it was called “Molly’s First Date”. I liked that name, but since I’m not Molly, it doesn’t make sense for the blog. I guess it could be called “Katie’s First Date”. Molly’s Cafe stopped carrying it, opting instead for a reduced selection of premade sandwiches that cannot be veganized. This sandwich is peanut buttery, cinnamony, crunchy and sweet. Delish! Peanut butter, apples, dates, cinnamon. Molly’s used to make it on a walnut bread, but I just had normal whole wheat. You can make it on whichever kind of bread you like, of course.
The Recipe
2 slices bread
peanut butter
3-4 dried dates, chopped
1/2 apple, sliced (gala, granny smith, etc.)
sprinkle of cinnamon
drizzle of agave, optional
Spread the peanut butter on the bread. Press the chopped dates into the peanut butter to hold them still. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon. Add sliced apples. You can add a drizzle of agave if you want the sandwich to have a little extra sweetness (though I usually don’t because the dates are pretty darn sweet as is). Add the other slice of bread. Cut in half. Serve with the other half of the apple on the side.
Any ideas of what to add to make this sandwich even more heavenly? Any favorite sandwiches that are easy to make and slightly unusual?
awesome iron fence outside a kitchen store in Brooklyn
Finally, back to Seattle after a week in New York City, then back to Seattle for a day, then back to Buffalo until last night. I can already feel some semblance of normal creeping back into my life (thank goodness!) but I still have a lot of catch-up to do from all of this time away mid-quarter. New York City this time was a whirlwind as usual. I arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and made my way to Brooklyn from JFK, where I stopped by my friend Emma’s apartment and dropped off my stuff. Emma was at work and her roommate Leah was heading off to work, so I took a shower, snuggled in for an hour or so nap on the couch, and then took off into the Lower East Side to meet up with my friend Claire for dinner. I’m terrible–I was so hungry and tired and jet lagged, I do not remember the name of the place where we ate. And I forgot to take a photo of it. Whoops! I do remember that it was a cozy place where you can order 4 different vegetable dishes on one plate. I ordered roasted butternut squash, kale, roasted beets with walnuts, and soy-glazed tofu. It was all delicious and I had eaten only a small bowl of oatmeal at 4am that morning before leaving Seattle, so I was beyond ravenous. It was lovely catching up with Claire and we hung out for a while after dinner in her cozy apartment with pink walls and gold stars! I headed back to Brooklyn to meet up with Emma at her apartment when she got off work.
Thursday was Emma’s birthday, but she had to work all day, so we had breakfast (oatmeal and tea) together in the morning before she left and then I worked all day on writing my talk for the annual conference for the Association for American Geographers (which was the reason for my trip to NYC). The AAG is a massive geography conference hosting geographers from all walks of life: cartographers (yes, there are actually map makers in the discipline!), political geographers, feminist geographers, Marxist geographers, animal geographers, economic geographers, health and/or medical geographers, cultural geographers…the list goes on an on. There are usually about 25 or more sessions going on at once all day long for 5 days! It’s a totally overwhelming event. The program, which lists all the sessions and the talks within each session is about 1 inch thick. Things had just been so hectic in the week or two leading up to leaving for New York with teaching and everything else that I hadn’t had a chance to finish writing my talk. I took a break in the early afternoon from working to walk down the street for a bagel. Bagels are one of those things that are really special about New York. If you’re out on the west coast long enough, you can kind of convince yourself that the bagels are good, but then you happen upon a New York bagel in a New York deli and your realize that they shouldn’t even be called the same thing. This is the bagel I got–an onion bagel with spinach and artichoke tofu spread, cucumber, tomato and avocado:
Heaven!
That night, Emma and I ordered Thai food and then went out to a poetry reading that a friend of hers had organized. We took a completely insane cab ride through Brooklyn–the driver kept dozing off every time we stopped and then as soon as he realized that traffic was moving again he floored it and sped up like a maniac to catch up with the cars ahead. We arrived at an industrial area in Brooklyn and wandered around looking for the building. This, apparently, was it:
The door was locked, so we waited until someone came out and then went in. The inside was strange, with white walls, white tiles and lots of these metal doors:
strange metal doors
We walked up a number of flights of stairs looking for the correct room, only to find that this was the address for the office of the group that was organizing the event and not the event space itself. On the way down the stairs, there were these neon light fixtures:
looking down the stairwell
We ended up having to take the subway across Brooklyn to the correct location and found the poetry reading. But the journey there was a bit surreal.
Friday, Emma and I spent hanging out running some errands. We had a leisurely breakfast and then went into Union Square to hit up the Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s for Emma’s weekly grocery excursion. When we got back to her apartment, we were hungry, so we went out and got some Korean food for lunch. I had Bi Bim Bap, a bowl of rice with vegetables, tofu, kimchi, spicy sauce, etc. in a sizzling bowl that made the rice crunchy and brown on the bottom. Yum! We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around her neighborhood (Williamsburg) and went to the little kitchen store (see picture at top of page for awesome fence outside the shop). In the kitchen store, I was able to find some little heart shaped cookie cutters, which I had been wanting, for 75 cents. And I also found a little set of cookie cutters that will work perfectly for cutting out the centers of jam-filled tea cookies. That night, we made the flatbread with tapenade and vegetables recipe that I posted the other week. Saturday was the first day I went to the conference, so more of that next time.
I’m sorry for the long delay between posts. I’ve been in NYC for a conference for the past week and just got back to Seattle late last night. Off to another conference for a long weekend. And then back to normal soon. Whew! Lots of report on from New York travels, academic stuff, and good eats. Soon, my dear readers. In the meantime, I thought we might all enjoy looking that these recipes for Veganized Girl Scout Cookies (click here) from VegNews. Make your own vegan thin mints, samoas, and tagalongs. Can’t wait till I can get into the kitchen and try some of these out. In fact, I can’t wait till I can get back to the kitchen and try ANY recipe out. It will be nice to get home next week and settle back into a routine.
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