The View From the Top

This photo was taken from Mt. Tammany, on the New Jersey side of the Delaware. The big road along the river is I-80, and through hikers on the Appalachian Trail have to climb down there and hike across the bridge on the road shoulder. Better than swimming, I suppose. On the left side of the river is Pennsylvania, and the small, two lane road down there is Route 611—if you drive down far enough, it turns into Broad Street in Philadelphia. Unfortunately the subway doesn't come this far north.

Eureka!

Some of our friends from grad school came along with us this weekend, and that meant we needed to rustle up some extra tents. Fortunately one of our friends, Large, comes from a family that's big on camping so she was able to borrow a couple of tents from her dad. Unfortunately, one of the tents was about 35 years old and either it had extra parts or it was missing pieces—it's hard to say exactly what was wrong with it, but something was definitely amiss.


Jeff and Jess, the two who would be using the ancient tent, started putting it together themselves but soon called for backup. Kelly and Large came in to help.*


Not much progress is made, so a strategy meeting is held.


Large quits, and the rest of the tent pieces are forced into place.


Jeff shoots the tent an angry look as he wonders why it is nearly as tall as him, but only half as long.


The fly is on. Wow, what a spiffing tent.


I wonder why this company isn't around anymore?


*As I was doing this post and talking about that sad tent, Kelly said, "Please do not put up any photos of that tent with me near it. I do not want to be associated with that catastrophe."

Over the River and Through the Woods

So, this weekend we headed up to the Delaware Water Gap to do some camping. The Water Gap is mostly reserved as park land, and it covers a huge area where the Appalachians cross the Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. We camped right next to the river, which was nice. Here's the view from our tent:


That's New Jersey on the other side. From where we were, you couldn't even smell it.

Langhorne Slim at Johnny Brenda's

Last night Meg and I and some of our friends made the trek into Philadelphia to see Langhorne Slim at Johnny Brenda's. I got hooked on Langhorne Slim about a year ago when he showed up on one of my Pandora stations. The entire experience, although not planned this way, was truly a locavore's delight.



It turns out that Langhorne slim is from Langhorne, Pennsylvania, in Bucks County, which is a high-speed-hour northeast of Downingtown. And Johnny Brenda's turned out to be a real gem. They only serve locally brewed beer and their entire menu is made with ingredients from small scale local farmers. Hell, we just wanted to go see a show, but we ended up getting a case of the feel-goods too.

Three Rivers

Thirty years ago this view would have been hidden by a thick fog of pollution from all of the steel mills.

Michael Pollan: Part Two

On Thursday we hopped a train to Philadelphia to see Michael Pollan speak and give a reading from In Defense of Food at the Free Library of Philadelphia. We got to the library an hour and a half early, but couldn't get inside because the library had closed for the day and was waiting to reopen at seven for the event. We were effectively the third and fourth people in line after two young women who had arrived ahead of us and were hanging out on the steps. By six o'clock there were easily two hundred people waiting. It was interesting to see what an obvious demographic turned out for the reading; at least 75% of the attendees were under 35 years old, and about the same percentage were urban hippies: Keens, Nalgene bottles, and thrift store cardigans were in abundance. We're rural hippies, so we had Keens, Nalgene bottles, and flannel shirts. We were all let in at quarter after six, and by six-thirty all seven hundred available seats were taken and the library staff had to start turning people away. The crowd was pretty amazing.

Before the event started I was a little bit concerned I'd be disappointed, because I thought (and still think) that the catchphrase for the book, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants," was a little cute. That line is being repeated ad nauseum on NPR, in reviews, and online, and even though it makes sense and all, it is a little too pat for my liking. His other writing is very much not like that, though. I've read The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma, in addition to some of his articles, and his other stuff seems well thought out and researched. My chief complaints with the two books I've read are that Pollan identifies and discusses a lot of problems inherent in the agricultural and food industries, not to mention the government, but he doesn't do very much in the way of offering alternatives. I know that he's technically a journalist, so it's not his obligation to give answers. But he's probably more intimate with the issues he writes about than most people are, so it almost seems like his duty to give us some sort of guidance. What's the best way to fix the farm bill? How do we get the government to subsidize the farmers who are doing good work? How do we get consumers to wrap their minds around the fact that in the end they pay a lot more than a dollar for that fast food value meal?

I don't know. Anyway, from Pollan's talk, it sounds like In Defense of Food will give a bit more direction, at least to individual consumers. Here are a couple highlights from his talk:

• Foods are not "the sum of their nutrients," despite what Multi-Grain Omega-3 Heart-Healthy American Cancer Society Approved Cheerios might have you believe. For reasons we don't understand yet, eating a fish from the ocean (presumably one who was able to avoid the toxic, mercury-filled parts of the ocean) is a much better and more effective way to get omega-3s than by taking a supplement or eating fortified food. The beta carotene in a carrot will do a lot more for you than fortified Wheaties.
  

• When sociologists look at food, they find that the health of a population has nothing to do with individual foods; rather it's contingent on the amount of whole foods that are eaten. Pollan talked about an African tribe that basically eats beef, cow's blood, milk, and a couple grains. They have virtually no chronic diseases, they live a long time, and they can withstand minor illnesses way better than the average Westerner. The same holds true for any group of people who are eating a very culturally based diet, whether it's Inuits eating seal blubber, South Americans eating beans and potatoes, or French people eating brie.
  

• Speaking of Westerners, we have pretty much the crappiest diet in history, and immigrant populations who move to a Westernized area and start eating our junk food develop lots of health problems—high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity–very, very quickly. However, switching someone back to their native diet, or any diet of organic whole foods, completely reverses the problems they developed in, like, six weeks.
  

• Crappy food is cheap food, thanks mainly to the completely disproportionate and nonsensical allocation of government subsidies. Next time you hear someone whine about people who accept welfare and government handouts, tell them to boycott Kraft, General Mills, Nestle, and the like. Processed food is cheap because of government incentives to produce monster quantities of nasty, genetically modified corn, ship it around the country, and cram it into every box of cereal, soda bottle, and frozen dinner. One dollar can buy you about 1500 calories of processed food; the same dollar can buy about 250 calories of fresh produce. It is not really more expensive to grow a carrot than to make a box of Hamburger Helper; the problem is that the carrot farmer doesn't get any help from the government. In fact he's got to pay the government if he wants to call his carrot organic.
  

• I'm getting worked up.

• A big factor in the rise of health problems in Westernized nations, especially the US, is that we don't cook anymore. If you go to the grocery store and buy bread, milk, vegetables, and meat, you're going to be a whole lot better off than if you go for a box or a bag in the freezer section. Sure, you can add too much salt or too much butter, but most people don't keep corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil and monosodium glutamate in their spice rack. On the whole, you'll fare much better if you cook your own food, especially if you buy organic ingredients.
  

• And finally, a positive thought: the food industry is extremely sensitive to health scares and contamination, because of the awful publicity that such things bring. Basically, they're terrified of consumers. As an example, Pollan cited McDonalds' unadvertised use of genetically modified potatoes in the late 1990s. A few people learned about this and were rightly concerned, and they called and sent letters to the company. Less than 100 complaints was enough for McDonalds to reconsider, and lead to the eventual reverse of their use of GMO potatoes.
  

On the whole, Pollan was a very good speaker. He was engaging and funny, and he gave a lot of information. It made me eager to dig into the new book this weekend. It seems like it might serve as the missing last chapter of The Omnivore's Dilemma and take those ideas a little deeper, and I'm hoping to get a more complete picture of the whole food issue after reading it. After the talk, we ran upstairs to the book signing line with the three books we'd brought along. He happily signed them all and put a nice little book-specific note on each one: "To Meg and Kelly, fellow bumblebees," in Botany of Desire, "Vote with your fork!" in The Omnivore's Dilemma, and "Eat food," in In Defense of Food.


A podcast of the event is here. It is about an hour long, and I highly recommend listening to it whether you're familiar with Pollan's message or not.

Edited to add: Kickass Philly Blogger Albert "Dragonball" Yee has a very thorough write up of the reading here.

Michael Pollan: Part One

Meg and I had the privilege to go to Michael Pollan's reading this evening at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Like our DC trip earlier this week, we have arrived home late and a little too bone-weary to give a proper post on the experience. We took notes and will say our what-have-yous tomorrow.

Washington, DC in 500 words or less.

So, yesterday we headed to Washington, DC to meet with Kelly's dad, Bob, and see the Edward Hopper show at the National Gallery. It's hard to write a coherent report of what was a fun but scattered trip to the city, so I'll just give the highlights.

We parked outside of the city and took the Metro in. Washington has a great transit system, and the underground stations all look like leftover Star Wars sets. Here's a shot from when we emerged onto Pennsylvania Avenue into ridiculously warm weather. It got up to 73° in Washington yesterday.


We hiked to the museum and waited out front while Bob found a parking spot. While we were waiting we took this photo of the Canadian Embassy, which is right across the street from the gallery. The Canadians have the best deal in town, because they can run across the street to the totally free National Gallery and check out art on their lunch breaks.

We also took this faux artistic shot of our reflection in the museum's windows.


After the show, which was great, we went for coffee and met with Bob's cousin Jimmy, who works in the city doing something governmental. Jimmy provided us with a National Lampoon-esque driving tour of the city, mild whiplash, and tips about which of Washington's "No Left Turn" signs are serious, and which are just faking. I managed to get a couple half decent photos while hanging out the car window.




After Jimmy took us on his (literal) whirlwind tour of the city, he took a photo of Bob, me, and Kelly in front of the Washington Monument.


Jimmy is really not that great of a photographer. After the photo shoot, we visited with ol' Abe.


And we took one last look at the Washington Monument before we headed back to the train.

Road Trip

Meg and I were in DC today to hang out with my father and see the Edward Hopper Exhibit at the National Gallery. It's currently 11:22 p.m. and we are both tuckered out; we'll share some photos and stories tomorrow.

Beaver Blogging: Herding Cats

We can't have a dog where we live now, but eventually we'd like some kind of smart, rugged dog that can live outside and hang out with and watch over our animals.


This is Molly. She's a Corgi. Corgis are wicked smaht dogs. They're good watchdogs and they're great at herding, so you can teach them a lot of stuff. Judi and Dan take Molly on walks around Beaver, and since she knows the route she doesn't need a leash. A few weeks ago Dan was walking with her and she ran ahead a bit, stopped, and started pointing with her nose like a hunting dog. Dan thought she saw a squirrel, but when he got closer he saw that she was pointing at their cat, Sammy, who had gotten out of the house and was apparently hanging out in a park a half mile from home. Dan told Molly to get the cat and Molly did her herding dog thing, rounding up Sammy and driving her over to Dan, who told them to go home. The three of them marched back to the house, with Molly keeping the cat in line the whole time.

We need a dog like that to keep our chickens in line.

Beaver Blogging: Big Town Compost

While working on the Jeep we noticed a very large and curious piece of machinery in one of the garage bays. We asked Dan for the info and he said that it is the borough's leaf shredder. Apparently this thing is strong enough to suck bricks (and one very unlucky cat) off the pavement. What's really cool is that they take the leaves to a site right outside of the town and make the compost available to anyone in the borough who's interested.

Beaver Blogging: Grandpa's German Tomatoes

Meg and I are carrying on a bit of history in our garden. Many years ago my grandfather received some tomato seeds from a neighbor of his and has been growing them ever since. His neighbor said they were German tomatoes and had little information on them beyond that. Last year my grandfather gave us some of those seeds.

We unfortunately never took any pictures of the plants we grew this year,but we'll be sure to next year. The photo on the left is one my grandfather took of a plant from two years ago. They are big and man do they produce.

The tomatoes are real meaty and only have one vein of seeds. They're great for slicing and stewing.

The top photo is one Meg took today in my grandfather's living room. I'm on the left and my brother Derrek is on the right. For those of you who are wondering whether the photo is bad or my grandfather is drunk, let me point out the empty glass in his right hand. The old gardener was feeling good to see his grand kids.

Beaver Blogging: Haulin'

A while ago Kelly and I sold our crummy old cars and bought a Jeep–since we can both take the train to work we only need one car, so we decide to get a rugged one that we can have forever and use for garden stuff. Judi and Dan got us a brand spankin' shiny new tow package for Christmas, so on Saturday night we took advantage of Dan's access to the Beaver Borough garage and went to get it installed. We put the Jeep up on the lift and raised it up:

And then we dumped out all the tow hitch pieces to see what was what.


Then Kelly and I messed around with some nuts and bolts.

Until Dan and Derrek and their actual knowledge of cars came to get some real work done.


Meanwhile, we found this super tall funnel on wheels and changed the oil. If you don't have a big industrial mechanics' lift and a super tall funnel on wheels, I recommend that you get both immediately.

It's really so much easier.


Also, you should get a 55-gallon drum full of oil so you don't have to run out for quart bottles every time you need an oil change.


And while we drained out the old oil, Dan and Derrek got the bar on and installed the wiring.


And then all we had to do was stick the pretty new hitch on.

And now we're ready to steal an abandoned trailer and haul some stuff.

Beaver Blogging: Wonder Boys

If you've ever seen the movie Wonder Boys, then you may recognize these first two photos. The house is the childhood home of Grady Tripp's soon to be ex-wife (remember? it's the part when Toby McGuire has to squeeze the doggy door). The middle photo is of the park that is right across the street from the house. This view is seen from the perspective of Michael Douglas looking at Toby as he (Toby) points out the imprint of a butt on the hood of his car.

The last photo is of the Beaver borough garage. My mother's husband, Dan, is in charge of the facility and has a foot note to the scene I just mentioned. This shot was taken just a bit down the road from the house where they were filming. This just so happens to also be the same spot that Michael Douglas, in between shots, drove golf balls onto the roof of the borough garage. Dan said that what ensued was a series of expletives shouted by the borough workers to a bent-over-laughing Douglas.

Side note: The author of Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon is a Pittsburgh native. They just finished turning another of his books, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," into a movie, which should be out soon.

Beaver Blogging: Tree Dudes

We're in Beaver, PA for the week, and since holiday stuff isn't yet in full swing, we went for a little hike around town today. We ran into a couple of cool tree carvings. Apparently a local guy with a chainsaw makes them. We don't know what effect they have on live trees, but they look cool.

The Burgh

In a few hours Meg and I will be heading across the state to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Unfortunately our families live far enough apart that visiting both is unreasonable. We decided the most logical thing to do is switch where we go each year.

Steveo said that he will take care of the chickens while we're gone. We learned quickly that if you want any kind of farm animal, and you want to go somewhere for more than a day, then you need a sitter. I'm not sure how garden-focused our blog can be while on the road, but we'll be sure to share some info of our travels just the same.