Serenity in the Storm

Guest Post: Animals, Violence, and Social Justice

Today we have the treat of having a guest post from my very own sister, Lucy Gillespie. A while back, Lucy called me, upset about an experience she had had in her workplace. She works in a mediation (or ‘alternative dispute resolution’) center in Baltimore, MD. She has been trying to think through the experience she had (below) and after this weekend’s post about the pig slaughter I witnessed, she felt ready to contribute to the blog. In her free time, Lucy is a musician (check out her website here)–writes, plays and records her own music–and a kick-ass cook (hopefully, if we’re lucky, Lucy will do some guest recipe posts in the future). From Lucy:

I recently got involved in the non-profit sector of the workforce in Baltimore, MD. A pretty staggering jump from cooking for a living to now being on the front lines of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) leading the country in non-violent conflict resolution in one of the most notoriously violent cities. Though the stereo-types about Charm City have, in some ways, proven true – I have come across some of the most open, liberal, and socially aware people I’ve ever met. The non-profit world tends to draw socially aware people, and in an ADR program that partners with the city and State Penitentiaries: people fighting for social justice are everywhere. At this point I’m sure it’s unclear how this ties into Serenity in the Storm’s fight for Animal Rights/Welfare.

Surrounded by like-minded liberal folks at work, who are all trained to be reflective listeners and to pick up on subtle emotional cues, I rarely find myself feeling uncomfortable about anything that could be construed as racist, sexist, homophobic, or any of the other “ists” or “phobias”. This is perhaps why the following story had such an impact on me.

Let me begin by saying that I am not vegan. I am not even really fully vegetarian (though eating meat hasn’t happened in quite a while and dairy is becoming less and less a part of my diet.) I’m not confident that I will ever really become completely vegan.

I was sitting around at work, reading Wikipedia, as I tend to do if there’s a lull, and my co-worker was looking at pictures of tea-cup pigs, when another co-worker joined the conversation. She began telling a story about growing up in the South, down the road from a farmer who owned a pig. She reeled us in by saying that the pig only had three legs and was a spunky little guy with a big heart. One night when the farmer and his family were sleeping, the farmhouse caught fire. The pig went in to wake the children and the farmer’s wife and led them to safety before returning for the farmer, and saving the entire family before the place collapsed in a ball of flames. When the fire department had gotten the blaze under control, a fireman approached the farmer saying “That is quite some pig you got there! Little guy’s a hero! But what happened to his leg? Did he lose it doing something equally as heroic?” and the farmer replied “Oh, a pig that good… you don’t want to eat him all at once!”

We had all been duped. Instead of a heartfelt story about a brave little pig whose gumption and spunk rescued a family, it was a joke. Everyone around me laughed, while I remained silent and began to feel uncomfortable, like I had just listened to some disgusting racist joke. How could this group of socially aware people, with giant hearts, and a drive for social justice, be so trapped in such a mainstream idea about animals in the same way that misogynists talk about women? How could you remark at how adorable a tea-cup pig is and then in the same breath basically make a joke about cutting its leg off, eating it, and keeping it alive to continue eating it? Navigating the reality of that joke is why I found it disturbing. I’m sure no one in that conversation was thinking about cutting off an actual pig’s leg, cooking it up and eating while the pig bled out in the corner.

I thought about that joke for weeks trying to pinpoint what about it made me uncomfortable and even more so, why I was the only one who seemed to be bothered by it. I think at some point, I lumped social justice and animal rights or welfare into the same category, but nobody else in my immediate network did. In a room full of socially aware people, there was a glaring blind spot or gap where the animal population fits.

Thanks, Lucy, for an interesting and thought-provoking post. I’m so glad that Lucy brought up the topic of how we think about social justice, and the importance of including animals in our understanding of social justice issues. Also, I think Lucy’s post addresses nicely the potential violence of language and humor. How we talk about animals (jokingly or not) governs how we treat animals and place them in our moral reckonings. Have you all had any experiences of feeling uncomfortable with the way animals are being talked about? How do you deal with these situations?

Weekend Recap and Berry Green Smoothie

Maynard--definitely a weekend high point

This weekend was filled with highs and lows. The highs were amazingly good–Eric was offered a year-long contract for an awesome job (yay for employment!), there was good news at Pigs Peace on Saturday–Judee the pig is making a remarkable recovery, and we got to spend all day Sunday with my dear friend Theresa, who was visiting from Spokane. We went to Cafe Flora for breakfast after we picked her up from the airport (delish!), went to the Goodwill for a little treasure hunting, hung out around the house, and then got some kick-ass Ethiopian for dinner at Saba on 12th Ave. A great day. The lows of the weekend were pretty low and involved unexpectedly watching three pigs get slaughtered at the farm next door to Pigs Peace on Saturday and the looming specter of the revision for my funding application, which is (unfortunately) not writing itself and is subsequently sucking my soul out of me a little bit at a time.

To counteract the slow death from the funding application, I’ve been trying to make green juice and smoothies whenever I can to give a little boost of life to this body. A lot of times the green juice is great because it’s not that filling and it’s lots of vitamins in a quick format. I enjoy smoothies when I’m feeling hungry but I don’t want to eat a full meal. I’m a big fan of simple smoothies. I find that smoothies with too many ingredients cause two problems:

1. It can get expensive, and smoothie recipes can be a bummer if you don’t have a lot of ingredients on hand.

2. Too many ingredients can result in a muddled flavor.

As such, I’m on the keep-it-simple smoothie train.

The Recipe (If it can be called that)

Serves 2

2 small bananas (or 1 large banana)

2 cups fresh spinach

1 cup frozen berries

1-2 cups water (depending on desired thickness)

Blend all ingredients in the blender until perfectly smooth. Pour into two glasses and drink up.

What’s your favorite simple smoothie combination?

Pigs in Sanctuary/ Pigs at Slaughter

As I’ve mentioned before, Eric and I try to get up to Pigs Peace Sanctuary once a week to volunteer. It’s a wonderful experience–not only getting away from town to do some good manual labor, but because we’re getting to build relationships with the pigs, dogs and humans at the sanctuary. Yesterday, we took a baby cedar tree that we had to remove from our yard and planted it at Pigs Peace, and then we were moving wood chips (my favorite job there). It had been a couple of weeks since we’d been there because of the snowy weather. While we were snowed in, a new pig came to the sanctuary. His name is Maynard and he is a potbellied piglet:

We got to meet him yesterday for the first time. When he first arrived at Pigs Peace, he had mange and was staying in the house with Judy since it was so cold outside. Now, he’s feeling much better and is trucking around the sanctuary exploring his new home and learning the ropes from the other pigs in the yard–Ziggy and Judee. Ziggy is a large one year old ‘farm’ pig who was born with only three legs. She is the official sanctuary greeter and spends her days hanging out in the yard, greeting visitors, eating lots of good treats like grass, carrots, and apples (from the orchard), and (yesterday) harvesting the leftovers from the vegetable garden. Judee is also a large ‘farm’ pig who was part of the main herd out in the field/woods area, but one day Judee hurt herself. The other pigs around her came to get Judy (the human) to let her know that Judee (the pig) was injured. Judee’s leg had been badly injured and she could barely walk, but Judy got her back to the yard and has been nursing her and keeping a close eye on her progress. None of the vets knew what was wrong with Judee’s leg, and they all suspected that it was only a matter of time before Judy would have to make the decision to euthanize her. A pig with a broken leg is normally viewed as a hopeless case. But Judy listened to Judee’s signals and watched her closely and Judee continued to let Judy know that she wanted to live–with lots of pig kisses and she made efforts each day to get up and wander around the yard with Ziggy as best she could. The two pigs have become fast friends and wherever one of them goes, the other is not far away.

Since we hadn’t been to the sanctuary in a couple of weeks, you can imagine our surprise when we arrived and Judee (the pig) was walking on her bad leg–still limping, but the improvement in her gait was like night and day when compared to two weeks ago. It turns out that Judee had three very serious types of infection deep inside her hip. In the last two weeks, the infections have worked themselves out of her body through several abscesses on her bad leg. Once the abscesses started draining, her leg started to improve rapidly. This is remarkably good news and a huge relief that she is on the mend.

While we were hauling wood chips, we suddenly heard a gun shot across the fence. Eric and I quickly went to the fence and noticed that there was a large truck and a small animal trailer at the neighboring farm. Two men were struggling with a pig they had just shot who was still writhing around violently on the ground outside the trailer. Using a knife, one of the men stabbed the pig and, slowly, the pig stopped writhing and became still. Then they dragged two other pigs out of the trailer and shot them both as well. You can imagine the horror of this scene just across the fence from the Pig Sanctuary. Judee and Ziggy were startled by the first shot and Judee wandered toward the fence to see what was happening. The men let the pigs bleed out and washed their bodies. Then they hoisted each pig up, one at a time, to hang at the back of the truck so they could skin and disembowel them. Apologies for the low-quality picture (I only had my phone camera with me):

I had never before witnessed in person an animal being slaughtered. My MA thesis was on ‘humane slaughter’ and I specifically focused on the Mobile Slaughter Unit (see above), but I relied on videos and texts for my research. The Mobile Slaughter Unit is touted as being the ‘most humane’ way to slaughter animals for food and operates as an ‘alternative’ to the industrial slaughter industry. These MSUs are trucks that have had the back converted into a USDA-approved slaughter facility. They travel to (mostly small-scale) farms to slaughter animals onsite. The MSU does offer small-scale farmers a way to have their animals slaughtered locally without the long transport distances which are stressful and oftentimes lethal to animals in the food industry. Despite the fact that this is most likely an improvement on industrial-scale slaughter, I can honestly say that the process of slaughter by the MSU looked far from humane. It was violent, incredibly bloody, and I can say with complete certainty that at least that first pig thrashed around for several minutes before he/she died.

My instinct was to look away, to turn back to the three pigs I knew were safe and happy–Ziggy, Judee, and Maynard–but I knew that there was something important–something absolutely necessary–about my witnessing the deaths of these three pigs. There was something essential about there being witnesses to document the violence that humans intentionally inflict on other humans and animals. Out of witnessing comes change. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But facing the violence of slaughter, and seeing it for the violence that it is has to be one step in a broader change of consciousness about the exploitation of animals. Eric and I left the sanctuary yesterday with a renewed sense that killing animals for taste is morally indefensible in a country where there are many food options beyond meat/dairy. The part that was so striking to us was not so much whether or not that pig suffered when he/she was slaughtered (I’m pretty certain that he/she did), but how those three pigs who had literally wound up on the wrong side of the fence could have such different experiences than the three pigs on the Judy’s side of the fence. Ziggy, Judee, and Maynard were rooting in the garden for carrots, potatoes, and beets while the three pigs on the other side of the fence were being slaughtered for someone’s dinner table.

I was in an academic workshop recently and we were talking about the ‘humaneness’ (or not) of animal slaughter. One of the attendees asked, “Well, how many of you have actually witnessed an animal being slaughtered?” A few people raised their hands, but the majority of the attendees had not witnessed an animal being slaughtered in person. The implication in this question was that you couldn’t make ethical assertions about the ‘humaneness’ of slaughter until you had witnessed it in person. Having not witnessed an animal being slaughtered at the time, I (and others in the workshop) became deeply troubled by this claim that, without witnessing, you couldn’t possibly make informed claims about whether or not we should kill animals for food. I certainly felt at the time that I did not need to see slaughter to know that there were ethical problems with it, but I also felt slightly paralyzed. That I somehow wasn’t part of the club. Somehow, I wasn’t as informed as those who had stared slaughter in the face and realized that it “wasn’t as bad as all that”. After having watched those three pigs be killed, I know two things:

1. Witnessing has its place. There is historical value in bearing witness to the violence of slaughter and recounting that violence to others as a method of reconceptualizing our relationship to other animals and exposing our implicatedness in the way those animals live and die.

2. You do not need to see slaughter to make informed moral arguments about it. The insistence on the part of the workshop participant that watching slaughter was necessary to enter into a conversation about it was successful in shutting down important conversations about human/animal relationships and the importance of challenging/reimagining the status quo.

What do you think?

Vegan Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins

When we were snowed in last week, I got an unreasonable hankering for blueberry muffins. And not just any blueberry muffins…cream cheese blueberry muffins! We trudged up to the grocery store in the snow with Maizy (she loves the snow!) and got some frozen blueberries and some pretzels (for snacking, not for the muffins). These muffins were outrageously good. Seriously. Best warm from the oven or the same day. They were moist, just sweet enough, and the cream cheese topping gave them a creamy finish. If you prefer to leave off the cream cheese mixture, these would be perfectly delicious without it. And if you happen to make them when blueberries are in season, fresh blueberries would be divine.

The Recipe

Makes about 10 muffins

For the muffin batter:

2 cups of flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup nondairy yogurt (soy or almond)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup blueberries

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbl lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

1 cup nondairy milk (e.g, rice)

For the cream cheese mixture:

1/2 cup blueberries, thawed

1/2 cup vegan cream cheese

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp lemon zest

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 Tbls powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. To make the batter: In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the flour with the blueberries. Set aside. Mix dry ingredients in large mixing bowl. In separate bowl, mix wet ingredients. Stir wet ingredients into dry. Stir in blueberries. Fill muffin tins with batter.

To make the cream cheese filling: Beat together all of the ingredients until smooth (some chunks of blueberry are fine). Using a pastry bag, or simply a spoon, nestle some of the blueberry cream cheese mixture into the top of the muffin batter in the tin:

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 350 F. If you omit the cream cheese step, you may want to check them sooner as they may cook more quickly without it.

You should really try one as soon as they’re cool enough to eat without burning yourself. They were heavenly.

Dinner at Sutra

First, I have to apologize for my neglect of the blog these past couple of days. This week has been extraordinarily busy and I have barely had a moment in the past three days of unscheduled time. I defended my dissertation proposal on Tuesday, which was actually a really good experience. I had applied for a research grant in October, and I found out over winter break that I did not get it. So, I’m currently in the process of revising my application so that I can resubmit it next week. My committee was so helpful in giving suggestions for revisions and guiding me toward a better proposal. It was also such a treat to be in the room with all those amazing people again and have them talk about one of the things that is absolutely most interesting to me–the dissertation project! In addition to revising my proposal this week, I’ve been teaching and meeting one-on-one with each of the students in my class to hear about their individual research projects for the class. This has been so amazing–each project is so interesting and unique and the students seem so engaged in thinking through issues relating to animals, ethics and food. It’s really a total dream to be teaching this class, and the students are so thoughtful, insightful and talkative!

Anyway, a couple of our friends found out recently that they are going to have a baby (more on that in the coming months since I get to do the baby shower!!) and one them also found out that she was awarded a really prestigious animal studies fellowship. That, paired with defending my dissertation and taking my generals last quarter, gave us lots to celebrate! So, we went out for a very special meal last night at Sutra in Seattle. Sutra is a lovely place–we had been there once before with Eric’s mom and her husband, but my pictures didn’t turn out well enough to post, so I made sure to take the real camera (and not just my phone) this time. Sutra serves a vegan, organic, pre-determined menu. Each night they have either one or two seatings where everyone comes in at once and is served a fixed menu at the same time. It’s typically four courses and there is an option to do either an alcoholic or a non-alcoholic pairing with the meal. The menus are printed on recycled grocery bags.

Last night, the menu was:

FIRST COURSE: black cardamom-curry leaf-butternut squash soup finished with thyme oil:

and a roasted chioggia beet-fennel & cara cara orange salad with kiawari sprouts:

SECOND COURSE: urfa biber-risotto cake-roasted rainbow carrots-preserved lemon-arame-sunchoke chips and a caper rose-hempseed sauce:

THIRD COURSE: porcini dusted celery root stuffed with hedgehog pecan cheese served with a cauliflower-smoked french green lentil-asian pear-lacinato kale ragout with a porcini-marjoram-tomato demi and a port-black lemon gastrique:

FOURTH COURSE: sandra rose cherry tort with a fig-sesame-sunflower seed crust and saffron-coconut ice cream:

Eric and I shared the N/A pairing which was:

while you wait….lemongrass ginger cranberry sparkling elixir

1st course: local CommuniTea kombucha on tap

2nd course: housemade cherry-rosemary syrup with sparkling water

3rd course: blueberry echinacea hibiscus sparkling elixir

4th course: french pressed Pangaea coffee or Sutra blend tea

Eric and I have decided that Sutra is our new special occasions spot. Since becoming vegan, we’ve tried a bunch of different vegetarian and vegan restaurants looking for one that could replace our old meat-centric spot for celebrations. The atmosphere at Sutra is very warm and intimate and before the meal is served, the chef rings a large bell and talks to all of the guests, sharing a moment of giving thanks for the farmers who produced the food, and setting our intentions of sending out gratitude and compassion to the world. I love this part. I so often forget to slow down and give thanks on a daily basis, especially when things are as hectic as this week as been.

The food is outstanding, and I love that you don’t have to choose what to eat–it takes so much of the pressure off and allows us to just enjoy the company of the people we’re with and periodically the lovely owners of Sutra bring outrageously good food to the table.

I think my favorite part of the meal was the beet/fennel orange salad and the butternut squash soup. I hesitate to say it out loud, but I think I might actually be starting to love beets! I liked sharing the pairing with Eric because one per person would be a bit much. The first time we went, we found it hard to keep up with drinking each pairing before the next course came, so sharing it was perfect for us!

What do you like to do for special occasions? Make a special dinner? Go to a special place?

And now, back down the rabbit hole of grant writing, teaching, cleaning the house for a most special guest this weekend (!), etc.

Samosa-kopita

Last week, Seattle got slammed with snow. And when I say ‘slammed’, I actually mean only about 5 inches over a three day period. The University of Washington cancelled all classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and most of the city shut down. Seattle is known for not handling snow well–we don’t have the equipment to deal with snow and ice, and people who live here generally don’t know how to drive in snow (e.g., it’s typical for people to abandon their cars if the roads get slick). Having grown up in Pennsylvania, this is pretty funny considering that we would often get feet of snow and everything would operate as normal–not even a delayed opening for school! We had a good four days of being ‘snowed in’ last week, which meant a lot of time for cooking, schoolwork and watching TV. I was trying to just use the foods we had in the house and decided to make some samosas one afternoon. We had potatoes in the pantry and filo dough in the freezer. We didn’t have any peas, which would have been great, but I added them in the recipe below, anyway. I made the filling and then opened the defrosted filo dough, only to find it was all broken apart and dried out from being in the freezer too long (I have no idea when I bought it). Plans changed and I decided to make a spanakopita-style samosa dish. I pulled out a baking dish from the cupboard and layered broken pieces of the filo in the pan, brushing each layer with olive oil. Then layering in the potato filling with more filo dough. Hence the name ‘Samosa-kopita’.

The Recipe

Makes one 7×10″ baking dish, Serves 4-6.

4 cups diced potatoes

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp curry powder

1/8-1/4 tsp ground red pepper (as desired)

1/4 nondairy milk

1/2 package of filo dough

1 cup frozen peas, defrosted and drained

salt and pepper to taste

Defrost the filo dough on the counter ahead of time. Preheat oven to 375 F. Boil the potatoes until soft. While potatoes are cooking, saute onion with a little olive oil in a large pan until soft. Add the spices and stir to combine.

Add a splash of water if the mixture is too dry and looks like it might burn. Turn off the heat. When the potatoes are soft, drain the water out of them and add the potatoes to the pan of onions and spices. Mash the potatoes and spice mixture together, and stir in the non-dairy milk and the peas. Taste the potato mixture and add salt and pepper as desired.

Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of a 7×10 baking dish, and start layering filo dough. After each layer, brush with olive oil. You can add a pinch of salt to the olive oil, if you like. After about 6 layers of filo, add half of the potato mixture, spreading it out evenly in the pan. Layer another 5 or 6 sheets of filo on top. Add the rest of the potato mixture and then more layers of filo on top. Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes or until nicely browned on top. Cut and serve.

What do you like to eat when you’re snowed in?

Lasagna

Last Sunday, I made kalamata basil tapenade and used half of the recipe in a vegan lasagna. I made a 9×13″ pan of lasagna and Eric and I ate it for dinner three nights in a row. We tend to like doing this (if the food is good) because it makes the dreaded decision of what to have for dinner so easy! If you want a ricotta-type addition to this, try adding a layer or two of this vegan tofu ricotta recipe (minus the stuffed shells part). I made it as a layer for lasagna a few months ago and I really liked it, but Eric was not a fan, so I left it out of this recipe. Another note is that you can certainly add a vegan cheese subsitute to this, if you like them (like Daiya or another brand), but I am not usually a fan of the vegan cheeses, so we make it without. Use brown rice noodles to make it gluten-free.

The Recipe

Serves 6 (makes one 9×13 pan)

1 package of lasagna noodles

1 package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

4 large shallots or 2 large onions

4 cups mushrooms, sliced

6-8 garlic cloves, chopped

2/3 cup dry white wine

3/4 cup kalamata basil tapenade

1/8 tsp ground red pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp thyme

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 can/ jar tomato sauce (of your choice)

salt and pepper to taste

Cook noodles to al dente. Thaw spinach and squeeze out all excess water. Saute onions and garlic for 5 minutes. Add wine and let cook (simmering) until onions are soft. Add mushrooms and saute for an additional 5-7 minutes. Add salt, pepper, red pepper, oregano, and thyme. Turn off the heat. Assemble the lasagna in the following order or in whatever order you prefer:

1. drizzle of olive oil and a splash of tomato sauce in bottom of 9×13 baking dish

2. layer of noodles

3. layer half of the onions/mushroom mixture

4. layer of noodles

5. chopped tomatoes and some sauce

6. layer of noodles

7. layer of spinach

8. rest of onion/mushroom mixture

9. layer of noodles

10. tapenade

11. layer of noodles

12. top with sauce, making sure to get sauce down into the corners to keep the lasagna moist

Cover the pan with foil and bake at 375F for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Cri de Coeur Vegan Boot Sale

rugged_black_model_2 — Cri de Coeur Rugged Black Boots

I know I’ve talked to many of you about the dilemma of what shoes to wear when you’re in the process of becoming vegan. We’ve talked about the sensible method of wearing out those old leather boots and shoes from before you went vegan. But what happens when they wear out and you need a new pair? Each year, the vegan shoe offerings have gotten better and better in terms of style. Cri de Coeur is a vegan shoe company that advertises that they do not use sweatshop labor. This is a major concern for me when buying vegan footwear or any clothing in general. I think sometimes we can get so caught up in being ‘ethical consumers’ in one facet of our lives (i.e., being vegan) that we forget the myriad other forms of oppression we may be supporting (i.e., sweatshop labor or environmental damage). In fact, many inexpensive vegan boots may be so inexpensive because the companies are paying the people who made them next to nothing, and the only reason they are vegan is that leather cost too much and so they used a cheaper ‘manmade’ material. This whole dilemma is really troubling to me and I try to get around this by buying second-hand clothing as much as I can. If, however, you’re in the market for a new pair of winter shoes/boots, Cri de Coeur is having a big sale on PureCitizen. The sale ends today. I personally love the ‘Rugged Black Boots’ and also these:

london_gray_model_2 — London Knit Back Bootie

And these hiker-type city romping boots:

trail_black_model2_2 — Trail Hiker Bootie

There are also some fancier heeled boots/booties and some other shoes on the site. I’m not actually in the position to be buying new boots at the moment (as much as I might daydream about them), but if any of you are looking for new shoes, I thought this might be useful!

Ancient Garden Medicinals Organic Herbal Healthcare

On the side, I spent the winter break from school building a website for my sister-in-law’s new business. Marianna and Eric’s brother (Mike) and their two kids live near Willow Creek in Northern California and Marianna is trained as an herbalist and has spent a decade learning about the natural healing properties of plants and putting those to use in helping to heal ailments in her surrounding community. She recently started her own herb business called Ancient Garden Medicinals (CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE HERE), selling organic herbal healthcare products for pregnancy, postpartum, baby and the whole family. She has 10 products for expecting women, new mothers, infants, children, and even some for new stressed-out dads! (Note: some of AGM’s products contain beeswax, so read the ingredients list on the site if you are avoiding beeswax).

You can read more about Marianna on the ‘About’ page of the site. So far, she’s selling her products in a few stores in Northern California and is working on getting them out there to other shops. But you can also order online through the website. Making the website was a great (though at times extremely frustrating) experience for me. It’s something I’ve been wanting to learn to do for years, and I’m super grateful to Marianna for giving me the chance to fumble through the learning process on her site. Now I think I have a much more solid idea of how to build a website and set up a shop and I’m excited to try building another one to make sure I don’t forget what I learned! I also got to play around with learning to use our new camera to take the photos for the site (it was really fun to take the pictures with the dried herbs and the containers of products). Anyway, check out the website and if you try any of Marianna’s awesome products, let me know what you think!

Kalamata Basil Tapenade

A few weeks ago, Eric and I road-tripped to Portland for the day to pick up my dad and bring him back up to Seattle. Before we hit the road, we went to the PCC (food coop) to get some snacks for the car. We bought chips and salsa, rosemary/garlic bread, and a container of olive tapenade. My dad doesn’t even really like olives and he was raving about how good the tapenade was. We all were. In fact, we polished off the whole container in the car on the way home. The only trouble with that tapenade is that it was $6 for a very small container. So… using the ingredients listed on the container, I recreated it this weekend. It was awesome! The fresh basil really makes it something special and it only takes about 10 minutes to make. This would be great if you’re having people over and want to impress them with your appetizer-making prowess or if you’re just looking for new snack foods to keep around in the fridge. I ended up using half the recipe as a layer in a vegan lasagna on Sunday (I’ll post the recipe for that soon).

The Recipe

Makes about 2 cups

2 cups pitted kalamata olives

1/3 cup roasted garlic cloves

1/4 cup capers

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/2 Tbls lemon juice

black pepper and ground red pepper to taste

Throw all ingredients in food processor and process until very finely chopped. Taste and adjust pepper and lemon juice to your liking. If you don’t have a food processor or blender, you can chop all ingredients very finely by hand. Note: You can roast your own garlic, but if you’re in a rush (like I was), you can buy some roasted garlic either in a jar or in the antipasto/olive bar sections of some grocery stores.