Of Wildlife and Gardening

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Ann Lovejoy
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The Winter Wildlife Wonderland In Our Own Back Yard

I recently heard from a reader who feeds all sort of wild animals, including raccoons. She noted that while I have written about promoting bird and bee habitat, I seem less friendly to larger critters. As a gardener, I am indeed a bit ambivalent about animals in the garden, wild or otherwise. I too enjoy seeing wild creatures (admittedly especially birds), but sharing my garden with wildlife can be a little challenging. Do they really need to take one bite of each ear of corn or apple? Must they denude every lower tree limb, casually mashing the perennials underfoot as they do?

With critters all around, I sometimes feel like a Disney character, especially when deer herds and large raccoon families wander through the yard. If I warble out a little ditty, will a bird come flying to alight on my finger? What would I do if it did?

Bird Bests

I do plant with birds in mind, notably natives that flower and fruit. Oregon grape (Mahonia) species come in several sizes, from creepers to tall shrubs. They have fragrant flowers in late winter and spring and plump fruit from summer into winter, and the glossy evergreen leaves are too prickly to attract deer. Disease-resistant wild roses offer flowers for bees (and me) and bright hips for birds, and again are not deer favorites.

In the past, I spent a lot of time trying to protect my plants from hungry or destructive creatures. I fenced, I put out water-spraying devices, I threaded sticks with string and nasty smelling laundry softening papers. I even encouraged the males in my family to whizz long the garden’s edges (male predator urine is a powerful dis-incentive for deer and many small mammals).

The Lazy Way…

These days, I’m older, more tired, and more tolerant. I rarely even bait for slugs anymore, instead replacing delicious plants with less tasty ones. Now that all the remaining lawn is at the bottom of a long slope, much removed from the house, I don’t really care when raccoons dig for grubs. (Though really, if they would just learn to replace their divots, their digging wouldn’t even show.)

Because their table manners are so awful, deer are probably the least welcome here, though I no longer try to discourage them. After all, they were here first, and their habitat is indeed shrinking fast. The other day I drove past a wooded area that is being cleared for new houses and saw a puzzled looking deer wandering through the stumps, probably wondering where her own home went.

Critter Comforts

Last week, I noticed that my pile of composting dairy manure looked freshly rumpled. I wondered for a minute if it was being used by a neighbor, then realized that indeed it was: the neighborhood deer were making cozy sleeping nests in the warm manure. Awww.

While I am not about to start actively feeding raccoons and deer, I do find coexistence easier than ever. I do more planting of deer-resistant plants and less fencing, spraying, or otherwise repelling. Tasty, soft-leaved shrubs get replaced with beautiful, colorful barberries, whose sharp spines help keep them intact. Spireas don’t seem high on the deer list either, and I love the vivid foliage colors they offer, from gold or chartreuse to tawny orange and copper.

Deer Resistant, Anyway…

Nobody seems interested in eating hardy herbs with scented foliage, from lavender and rosemary to thyme, sage, and hyssop. Rhododendrons and azaleas are rarely damaged, and heathers and heaths remain untouched year after year. Heavenly bamboo (Nandina) is another favorite of mine that deer ignore, as they do California lilac (Ceanothus). At this point, I’m pretty happy to live and let live. But I still won’t feed those dratted raccoons!

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Brightening Up The Winter Table

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Ann Lovejoy
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Cooking With Sweet, Savory, Adaptable Beets

Los Angeles Times photo by Kirk McKoy

Beets can be boring, I’m told, but I find them great fun to play with. Despite having their own earthy, distinct taste, beets readily take on flavors from pepper and vinegar to oranges and vanilla. They are lovely grated or shaved raw into salads and soups, they can be boiled or steamed, and they taste great when baked and tossed with anything from a lively vinaigrette to plain old butter and salt.

When I roast whole, unpeeled beets, I usually cook a whole bunch at once. When cool, the skins slip off with ease and the newly naked roots can be refrigerated for several days or frozen until you want to use them (up to 3 months or so). Golden beets are less messy to handle (red beet juice dyes everything in sight) yet just as flavorful as the red ones, so use those in all the same recipes if you prefer.

Refreshing Winter Fare

Winter food can be heavy and even faintly depressing, so it’s great to have a few recipes that give winter classics a twist up your sleeve. This pretty salad combines good looks with vivid flavors, especially when you use crunchy apples like Fuji or Pink Lady.

French Winter Beet Salad

1 organic lemon, juiced, rind grated
2 tablespoons wine vinegar
1/2 cup fruity olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup stemmed flat Italian parsley
1 cup walnut halves, toasted
1 1/2 cups cooked beets, diced
2 crisp apples, cored, pared and diced

In a jar, combine 1 teaspoon lemon rind, the vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, and pepper. Cover tightly, shake well to emulsify and set aside. In a serving bowl, toss the apples gently with lemon juice. Add beets and walnuts, toss again with dressing and serve, garnished with parsley. Serves at least one.

Sort-a-Sweet Beet Treats

Roasting awakens the latent sweetness in almost anything, and beets are no exception. After all, they are the source of a lot of (admittedly cheap and not-for-the-hummingbirds) sugar, right? The roasted cranberries provide a fantastic contrast to beets, as well as most other vegetables, notably Brussels sprouts, roasted cabbage quarters, and sweet potatoes.

Roasted Beets And Cranberries

2 teaspoons safflower oil
3 cooked, peeled beets, coarsely chopped
1 cup raw cranberries (frozen work fine)
sea salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Pour oil into a rimmed baking sheet and gently toss beets and cranberries to coat. Sprinkle with salt and roast at 400 degrees until caramelized (more or less, depending on your taste preference). Check them after 20 minutes and every 5 minutes after that until they are perfect. Serve hot. Serves 2-4.

Ginger Up Your Beets

Matchstick cut (julienned) vegetables make this spunky salad especially attractive, while crisp apples, sweet oranges, and salty toasted cashews offset the tangy ginger. Serve this with grilled salmon or roasted eggplant to give a plain meal a lift.

Gingered Beet Salad

1/3 cup plain rice vinegar
2 tablespoons fruity olive oil
1 inch fresh ginger root, peeled, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 organic orange, sectioned, rind grated
3 cooked beets, peeled, julienned
1 plump carrot, julienned
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1 Opal or Honeycrisp apple, cored and diced
1/4 cup toasted cashews

In a serving bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, ginger, garlic, salt, and orange rind. Add beets, carrot, celery, and apple, gently toss with dressing and serve, garnished with cashews. Serves 4-6.

Spunky Beet Soup

This toothsome soup is a tasty takeoff on classic Borscht, with slightly caramelized onions for a touch of sweetness and lemon juice and zest for a tart counterpoint (and kale because it’s irresistibly green and fresh right now). Serve this hearty entree with warm oatmeal muffins and a fresh green salad dressed with lemon-garlic dressing to unify the meal.

Lemony Oniony Beet Soup

4 beets (about 2 pounds), peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 organic lemons, juiced, rind grated
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1 tablespoon fruity olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 large brown or yellow onions, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sugar (any kind)
1 bunch kale, stems trimmed, sliced in narrow ribbons
1/2 cup stemmed cilantro
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup Greek yogurt

Place beets in a soup pot with 6 cups water. Add half the garlic, half the lemon juice and rind, and half the salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium low and simmer until beets are fork tender (30-40 minutes). Meanwhile, heat oil and butter in a wide, shallow pan with onions over medium high heat. Sprinkle with sugar, remaining lemon rind, remaining garlic and salt and cook, stirring often, until golden brown (10-12 minutes) then reduce heat  to medium low until very soft (20-30 minutes). Add kale, cover pan and simmer until slightly wilted (6-8 minutes). Add cooked beets and broth, seasoning to taste with remaining lemon juice and pepper. Serve hot, garnished with green onions and yogurt. Serves 4-6.

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Safer Soaps & Shampoos Spare Beneficial Bacteria

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Ann Lovejoy
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Antiseptic Stuff Can Be Too Much Of A Good Thing

It’s barely noon and already I’ve washed my hands over a dozen times today. Whenever I’m cooking, or cleaning, or planting primroses, or playing with the cats, or taking out the trash, hand washing is an automatic reflex. It’s kind of amazing to realize that, for millenia, people died just because they–or others–didn’t wash their hands. For thousands of years, dirty hands could be deadly.

Though Sir Joseph Lister’s groundbreaking sterile surgery protocols started saving lives back in the 1880s, today, antiseptic methods have gone too far. Numerous studies show that children raised with antiseptic soaps suffer more chronic disease than those in normally clean environments. In fact, excessive use of antiseptic soaps can promote resistant strains of harmful bacteria that don’t respond to antibiotic drugs. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer is no better; it doesn’t kill several critical baddies, it doesn’t remove dirt, and Triclosan, a key ingredient, is under FDA review as a suspected hormone disrupter.

Sing As you Scrub

What to do instead? Many sanitation experts recommend a 20-second scrub with plain soap and hot water, lathering up for about the time it takes to sing “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” or recite the ABCs. Turns out that though dirty hands won’t do, clean enough–not sterile–hands are just fine for most things (short of surgery, of course). Rather than aiming to eradicate all bacteria, we might remember that our bodies hold many times more bacteria than human cells. Nearly all bacteria are harmless or beneficial, and wiping them out indiscriminately is a very bad idea.

Indeed, bacteria are our very good friends; beneficial bacteria aid in food digestion, help our immune systems to develop appropriate responses, and reduce inflammatory processes. Recent research suggests that children raised in excessively clean environments lack the health protections that exposure to beneficial bacteria offer our immune systems. Unusually high rates of allergies and asthma may be another result of hyper-clean homes.

I admit, this is kind of a hobby horse for me, but here’s a link to a fascinating article, if you want to read more:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-antibacterial-products-may-do-more-harm-than-good/

How Safe Is Your Shampoo?

And while we’re at it, before you use your favorite shampoo, check the label. Anything there you can’t pronounce? Dismayingly, many common ingredients in shampoo and conditioner are harmful to your health. Our skin is our largest and most absorbent organ, and it efficiently takes in anything we put on it. For your health, choose skin and hair care products with organic ingredients, avoiding any that contain known carcinogens such as sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS), parabens, formaldehyde, and DEA, MEA or TEA, as well as hazardous materials such as polyethylene glycol.

Want to know if the shampoo in your shower basket is wholesome? To find out more about a specific cleansing or beauty product, visit the Skindeep database on the Environmental Working Group website (www.ewg.org/skindeep), which lists ingredients and ranks them for safe usage and potential hazards.

Toward More Natural Hair Care

To restore dull hair, put away the blow dryer. Wet hair completely before using a mild, castile-based shampoo. Gently massage your scalp (fingertips only; no nails) as you wash and rinse your hair. This increases blood circulation and unclogs sebaceous glands, both of which improves hair health and appearance. Gently towel hair dry, then let air dry completely. Use an olive oil conditioner weekly until hair luster is restored, then monthly or as needed.

Make Your Own Shampoo

This simple homemade shampoo combines luxuriant lathering with gently cleansing. It won’t get your hair “squeaky clean” because it doesn’t strip away natural oils, but your hair will dry silky soft.

Gentle Shampoo

1 cup organic castile liquid soap
1 tablespoon organic cider vinegar
1 tablespoon virgin olive oil
1/3 cup water*

Combine ingredients in a spray bottle. Shake gently before use, then work a tablespoon of shampoo into wet hair while massaging scalp, then rinse thoroughly. Gently towel dry hair.

* Or use rose water, or lavender water, or rosemary water…

Rosemary Water

1/4 cup rosemary sprigs (or lavender, or rose petals)
1 cup boiling water

In a glass bowl, pour boiling water over rosemary, cover and steep for 20 minutes. Strain into a glass jar and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 1 cup.

Olive Oil Conditioner

1/4 cup virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons local honey

Stir well to blend, then work through damp hair, gently massaging your scalp. Wrap your head with a hot (old) towel or wear a shower cap while you relax or take a bath for 20-30 minutes. Wash with gentle shampoo, rinse well, and let hair air dry.

Olive Oil Conditioner With Lavender and Rosemary

2 tablespoons rosemary, snipped
2 tablespoons lavender (fresh or dried)
1 cup virgin olive oil

In a glass bowl, pour 2/3 cup boiling water over rosemary and lavender, cover and and steep for 20 minutes. Strain liquid, discard herbs, then combine liquid with olive oil in a food processor or blender and blend well. Store in a glass jar. To use, shake well, then comb through damp hair, wrap head with a hot (old) towel or shower cap and relax for 30 minutes. Shampoo hair and rinse well.

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Fraudulent Foods

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Ann Lovejoy
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Read The Label, Then What?

For many years, I was a scrupulous label reader. When my kids were young, I made most of what they ate from whole ingredients. When I did buy prepared food, I made sure that it didn’t contain anything nasty. At least, I thought I did. After reading about recent label-fraud discoveries, I’m wondering if reading the label is providing the protection I assumed it did. As wholesome foods become trendy, unscrupulous marketers have taken advantage of their popularity, using deliberately deceptive labeling to sell adulterated versions of everything from olive oil and coffee to pomegranate juice and honey.

Because the problem is so wide-spread, the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention, a non-profit agency that creates the standards adopted by the Food And Drug Administration, offers a Food Fraud Database that lists food testing results by category. In 2012, for example, researchers found products labeled as “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” to contain corn, soybean, sesame, and safflower oils, among other things. Cheap honey may hail from China, where dangerous pesticide contamination has been found, yet be falsely labeled with a safer country of origin.

Is It Real, Is It Fake?

The creation of what are termed “fake foods” is lucrative enough that a horrifying number of such products may be found in stores nation and world wide. Unwholesome food additions may simply be cheaper versions of expensive foods, but they may also include harmful substances such as melamine, pesticides, and known allergens. To avoid them, buy whole foods instead of prepared ones when possible, perhaps choosing oranges instead of orange juice and blueberries instead of “blueberry-flavored” cereals, bagels, and so forth, which may contain only blue-dyed, sugary, fake berries, even in big-name national brands. Fruit juices may be adulterated with anything from high fructose corn syrup to MSG, so stick with organic versions or eat whole fruit, which offer greater quantities of antioxidants and phytonutrients.

Shop at farmers markets for local produce, eggs, honey, and cheeses. Buy locally made breads and organically raised poultry and meats. When that is impractical (few of us can make our own olive oil), read labels with care. Major brands may be more likely to be safe, since accountability is important to their public image, yet huge national brands of chicken, processed meats, seafood and other products have been exposed for unsafe practices in recent years. To stay informed, visit websites like Food Safety News (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/) and Environmental Working Group (http://www.ewg.org/) to keep abreast of current developments.

Top Ten Fraudulent Foods

Blueberries
Coffee (pre-ground and instant)
Fish and seafood
Honey
Milk
Olive oil
Orange juice
Pomegranate juice
Saffron
Truffle oil

Here’s another crazy-making link: http://www.foodfraud.org/node?destination=node)

What are these people thinking?

Buy Real Food and Cook It Yourself

All this makes shopping locally even more attractive. Cooking with beautiful, fresh, local food is certainly joyful, at least I find it so. I guess I am fortunate in finding cooking pleasurable, even fun. I am becoming painfully aware that many, perhaps most, young families that love to eat simply don’t do a lot of cooking. It’s not just the young, either; I recall clients, serious foodies, who learned, several years after purchasing their new home, that their amazingly gorgeous imported French range had never been hooked up. In all that time, nobody had ever tried to use it. Yow.

What can we do? Teach a friend, a neighbor, a relative, a young person to garden, to grow food, and to cook. Maybe that order is wrong, I don’t know. Perhaps the best idea is to lure people in with lovely food, then show them how to create it themselves, in stages. If we teach in sound bites these days, maybe bites of real food can be as educational as any book. What do you think? I’d love some ideas!

Simple Soup

Here’s a starter, anyway. Anybody can make this, and it tastes wonderful.

Kale Soup With White Beans

1 tablespoon fruity olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon dried hot pepper flakes
1 teaspoon thyme, stemmed
6 cups kale, thinly sliced
2 cups cooked White Cannellini beans
1/4 cup chopped apple

In a soup pot, combine oil, onion, garlic, salt, pepper flakes, and thyme over medium high heat and cook until fragrant. Add kale, cover pan and sweat for 2 minutes. Swirl to coat with oil and cook until lightly wilted (3-5 minutes). Add beans and water to cover (5-6 cups), bring to a simmer, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste and serve, garnished with chopped apple. Serves 4.

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