The built-in gardener at my house — I highly recommend locating one of your own — grows green beans of many colors and temperaments. He likes them all boiled quickly until crisp-tender with olive oil added at table, or sometimes he films them with butter browned in the cooking pan while the cooked beans drain briefly in a colander.

My own tastes in green beans are more catholic. (I’ve been waiting a long time to use that word in that way!) I like green beans cooked crisp-tender, tender-tender, soft, and all the way to mushy if the flavors are rich enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year I bought cranberry beans at the Seacoast Growers Association Tuesday farmers market in Hampton, New Hampshire. I had no idea what to do with them.

On August 6, the San Francisco Chronicle fixed all that. See “Seasonal Cook: Fresh from the Pod.”

I hope to find fresh shelling beans in a market in New England or Kentucky in the next few weeks. Even with my fumbling last year, the beans tasted warming and rich, and I knew I’d like to get to know them better.

Got a farm? Your children are going to want to farm it. That’s my prediction, based on the rising enthusiasm I sense all around for locally grown foods. And today the New York Times weighs in with “Supermarket Chains Narrow Their Sights,” describing the ways and means the big chains have begun using to buy and sell locally grown produce. Read the rest of this entry »

Three examples this week of faith-based work in support of sustainable food systems wake me up to how quickly faith congregations can change habits and help save the earth. (Some wonderful educational institutions are already leading toward sustainability, as are a few corporations. I’m less sure about government bodies.)

A beloved niece, entering the second of two years as president of her synagogue, tells me persuading the congregation to install and use composting systems is high on her agenda for this year.

Second, from someone dear to a beloved son, I learn about successful efforts to set up a CSA (farm subscription) at a synagogue in Chicago. A short story in a newsletter (PDF, 241K) from the synagogue tells about cooking with the good food from the farm, and includes an inspired recipe for cucumbers on page 2.

Third, while on vacation this week I read Matthew Sleeth’s Serve God Save the Planet, a polestar book for many of my beloved neighbors, members of a Christian-based faith community that takes on the world’s toughest issues, including homelessness, hunger, and saving our literal earth, air, and water.

When institutions lead, lots of people get exposed to new habits and new satisfactions quickly. In the words of the excellent Bill McKibben: Step it up!