Springfield Locavore

Garrick Veenstra and Lindsay Record on WUIS

Our local PBS radio station, WUIS, is holding a pledge drive this week, teaming up with the Buy Fresh Buy Local Central Illinois campaign of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. If you make a pledge to WUIS, you will receive a WUIS Buy Fresh, Buy Local Membercard, which provides discounts at numerous area restaurants.

While I was listening during my drive home from work, I was pleased to hear that they had Garrick Veenstra (of Veenstra's Vegetables) and Lindsay Record (of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance) on the air helping out!

If you enjoy listening to WUIS, but haven't yet made a pledge, please do so now. You can make a pledge online. I'm donating $10 per month, which is a painless way to donate $120 to the cause!

By the way, I have an update about Garrick and Andy's CSA, which I'll be posting soon!

Flow, The Greening of Southie, Battle in Seattle

After posting about the showing of Food Fight as part of the Earth Week Film Festival, I looked at the trailers for the other films that will be shown. They all look excellent. Shoot. I guess I'll have to go to all of them! ;-)

The Greening of Southie

The other films don't directly involve food, but I did notice something food-related about The Greening of Southie. It's made by Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney, the guys who did King Corn! Now I definitely have to watch that one!

Here's the trailer:

Sunday, April 26, 5:00pm
Hoogland Center Theater, 3rd Floor

Flow

I suppose you could say that Flow is directly relevant to being a locavore. It's about where our fresh water comes from - and who controls it. That's probably not something you've thought about before, is it? I know I never really thought about it.

Actually, that's one of the lines I remember from the opening of the movie Tank Girl. She mentions an organization called "Water & Power", saying that "They control most of the water and got all the power."

Come to think of it, control of water was also the background of the movie World Gone Wild. (Bruce Dern and Adam Ant make that a fun movie, if you understand going in that this is not Fine Cinema.)

I have to say, based upon the trailer, Flow looks like one frightening film, far scarier than Tank Girl or World Gone Wild at least. Anyway, here's the trailer:

Monday, April 20, 6:00pm
Lincoln Library

Battle in Seattle

Unlike the other movies, Battle in Seattle is a drama, although based on real events. I'm less interested in it for that reason. I know very little about what happened in Seattle during the protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999. On the one hand, I'd learn a bit about those events from watching this movie. On the other hand, because I know so little, it would be difficult to judge what is true and what is artistic license (aka "not true").

Here's the trailer:

Sunday, April 26, 7:00pm
Hoogland Center Theater, 3rd Floor

Food Fight Showing in Springfield on April 22

The new documentary Food Fight is currently being shown in a few screenings around the country. It will be shown in Chicago on May 15-16, as part of Greenfest. I've no idea when it will get distributed in general release.

I was going to suggest that maybe Will Reynolds could arrange a showing as part of Liberty Brew & View. Then I realized that he already has! (Way to go, Will!)

April 22, 7pm
City Nights Theater at Capital City Bar & Grill
3149 S Dirksen Pkwy (in the Capital City Shopping Center)

Yes, that's right - we're getting the movie before Chicago does! How often does that happen? This is part of the Earth Week Film Festival. Check Will's site for all of the details.

Here's the trailer:

Blizzard Saturday Night?

The National Weather Service says we might have up to 6 inches of heavy wet snow Saturday night. Yikes! Better now than later, I suppose. I'm still hoping to do some yard work this weekend.

White House Vegetable Garden Being Planted Today!

Remember the Eat the View campaign? (Scroll to the bottom of my post about Michael Pollan's open letter to the "Farmer in Chief" for some links and a video.) Well, it was successful! Here's an excerpt from the New York Times article about the Obamas' plans to plant a vegetable garden:

On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut.

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.

In an interview in her office, Mrs. Obama said, “My hope is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.”

Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It’s just below the Obama girls’ swing set.) Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs.

Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing. “Now Grandma, my mom, I don’t know.” Her mother, she said, would probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that lovely. You missed a spot.”

Heh! I'm curious as to how much time the President will actually spend in the garden, but I love the idea!

Buying Local from Watt Bros. Pharmacy

Watt Bros. Pharmacy opened in 1938, but with Walgreens and CVS on nearly every block, not to mention Wal-Mart, it's a wonder they've been able to remain in business. With my interest in helping to strengthen community ties (stoked by books like Bowling Alone and The Great Good Place), I figured I should transfer my prescriptions from the big chains to Watt Bros. They're right across the street from where I work, so it's not like it would be a great inconvenience! So after work last week, I took in a prescription that needed a refill.

When I told the pharmacist (I don't know whether it was John Watt or one of the others) my last name, Hartshorn, he told me that there's a cookie ingredient called Hartshorn ammonia (similar to baking powder). I knew that in earlier times a deer's antlers (i.e. a hart's horn) could be used to make ammonia, so this made sense.

The pharmacist asked where I lived, and when I told him, he not only knew where that was, he knew the woman who used to live there! Among other things, I learned that her son died just a couple of months after she did.

While we were talking, a man sitting behind the counter eating made a good-natured sarcastic comment. The pharmacist informed me that he was a smart-aleck orthodontist. I replied that I could have guessed the first part.

Even with all of the conversation, my prescription was filled faster than it would have been at a big chain. In addition, I learned some interesting things about my name, about the former owner of my house, and about at least one orthodontist.

In over 20 years of getting my prescriptions filled at big chain stores, I've never returned with a story to tell.

The Folks at Food Not Lawns Will Be So Disappointed

I ordered a John Deere LA155 riding mower the other day. I have mixed feelings about it.

At our old place, we had a smallish lawn. Using our Black & Decker cordless electric mulching mower, I could mow the grass in about 45 minutes. It worked quite well, and handled our lawn with few problems. The only times I had problems were when I would either try to mow the grass while it was too wet or when I had let it grow too tall. On those occasions, it would run out of juice before I was 100% finished. If I had to do it over again, I think I would buy a corded version, primarily because it would be much lighter than pushing around the cordless version with its heavy battery. Generally, however, it worked quite well.

The main things I liked about it were (1) never having to drive to the gas station to buy gas for the mower, and (2) it was quiet! That's one thing that I find really annoying: The constant drone of gas-powered mowers every weekend -- and most weeknight evenings! Particularly in the spring, before the weather has grown so hot and humid, it's nice to sit outside and enjoy the nice, peaceful sounds of-- RRRRRooooaaarrrr!!! *sigh* Let's go inside where it's quieter.

If I had the money, I would buy all of my neighbors electric lawn mowers. Failing that, it would be nice if we could all agree to mower our lawns at the same time on the same 2 days of the week -- 2 hours of RRRRROOOOAAAAARRRR!!!! a week, rather than spread out continuously. Oh well.

Unfortunately, our new place sits on a 1 acre lot with lots of grass. We plan on reducing how much grass we have -- vegetable garden, wildflowers, decorative grasses, playground with mulch, perhaps someday a rock garden out front, etc. However, at the moment we've still got nearly an acre of grass to mow. And our 19" cordless electric mower just won't cut it -- literally.

I did try last fall, at the end of the growing season. The cordless made it through the front lawn without too many problems, taking about a full charge and 45 minutes to complete. The back lawn, however, is much larger and has a much tougher type of grass. It took several full charges to finally finish cutting it. During the spring growing season, when the grass needs to be mowed twice a week, there is just no way that I could keep up. (And if I tried, I wouldn't have any time left for, say, planting that garden that I've been talking about!)

So I began seeking a new lawn mower. Before turning to John Deere and gasoline, however, I poked about to see whether there was an electric riding mower. There is: The Electric Ox MP! It looks very cool, but with the mower kit, it runs about $10,000. Okay, not that cool.

Then I discovered that there are several electric robotic lawn mowers, including RoboMow, the Husqvarna Automower, and the Lawnbott. They are all extremely quiet, which I really like! Unfortunately, given the size of our lawn and the cost of the robotic mowers, I decided that they just weren't going to work for me, at least not yet.

So I settled on a rather traditional choice -- a big, loud, gasoline-powered riding mower. On the plus side, it has a 48" blade and a 22 hp engine, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to at least get the lawn mowed quickly, albeit not quietly. Plus, I'll be able to attach a snow blade to clear our somewhat steep and long driveway of snow in the winter, as well as perhaps add a utility trailer at some point for hauling stuff (soil, mulch, compost, plants) to and from the garden.

One nice thing about it: It has a 12-volt electrical outlet, along with an optional fan that I can mount on there to stay cool while I'm mowing in July. Ahh!