notes from the zen kitchen

05/19/2009 - 2:41pm
Dani Nordin
Future of Food Conference

On May 9th, I braved the Boston subway system to attend the Future of Food Conference at Boston University. Speakers and attendees included policy analysts, food activists and thought leaders from around the world.

Some of the highlights (for me), included:

  • a class on fermentation with Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation, which included a copy of the book. So far, I've already started kimchee and pineapple vinegar!
  • Farmers commit suicide more often than any other profession. Yep, you heard that right.
  • 30% of all food produced in the US is thrown away uneaten. 40% of cereal produced in India rots after harvest.
  • Related: The problem of world hunger is not a lack of food. The problem is a distribution system that considers food a saleable commodity and offers food only to people who can afford to pay for it.

This last point brings me to a topic that's always fascinated and frustrated me: the lack of access to healthy food in low-income communities. With all of our talk about locavorism, the "high cost of cheap food" (which was also discussed at the conference), etc. we seem to neglect one simple fact: the vast number of communities, both urban and rural, which are considered "dead zones" for fresh, healthy food. These are the areas where the nearest supermarket is miles away - and the population is often without reliable means of transportation. Food banks are equally inaccessible, and often offer canned or processed food that isn't healthy at all (to give you an idea, many years before starting the zen kitchen I actually had to get much of my food from a food bank, and most of it was canned vegetables, cereal, instant mashed potatoes and gum. Yes, they once gave me 6 packs of gum at a food bank. No, I'm not kidding).

Here's my issue: I appreciate the power of the local/sustainable food movements and the urban homesteader/community gardening movements for their ability to create change within the community that has the access to these things. After all, I've been part of the movements for years. But how can we involve those who *don't* have as much access? How do we create a system where people from all walks of life are able to get involved with where they get their food and what they put into their bodies?

Programs like Operation Frontline are one part of the equation. Community gardens and farmer's market vouchers can be another part of the solution - especially when efforts are made to get low-income communities involved. The point is to create access, and stop thinking of the problem as a lack of education, but as a lack of access. Then, and only then, can we create massive world-wide change.

0
12/22/2008 - 11:18pm
Dani Nordin
An open letter to Yes! Magazine

I’m not one that normally subscribes to a ton of magazines. A few that are important to me I keep around; HOW, Pink and Yoga Journal are subscriptions I’ve maintained for years, and I refer to them again and again. Yes! Magazine I subscribed to for a year, mainly out of support for its message of personal responsibility, sustainability and social change. However, when I decided to let the subscription lapse (I just wasn’t reading it), I started receiving direct mail from them every other week for the last three months. Finally, I sent them this letter today, after receiving my fifth “final notice” from them.

Dear [Subscription Manager],

Thank you for your passionate interest in my continued subscription to your magazine. However, I feel that I should inform you that today’s direct mail solicitation is, in fact, the fourth or fifth one that I’ve received from your magazine since my decision to let the subscription lapse. This is in addition to at least three e-mail solicitations. As a magazine that purports to be pro-sustainability and positive social change, how do you justify the incredible amount of paper and digital waste involved in trying to re-secure my business? Is this something unique to me, or do you do this to all readers who decide to let their subscriptions lapse?

Again, thank you for your interest, but I have decided that Yes! Magazine is not right for me. Have a wonderful week, and best wishes to you.

Sincerely,

Dani Nordin, principal

the zen kitchen

0
12/18/2008 - 4:00am
Dani Nordin
Here's a holiday idea: Cards they can send back!

Among the stack of holiday cards I usually receive here at the zen kitchen, I found a great one from my friend Mo: a Reproduct Zero-Waste card. It’s a beautiful card, printed on tree-free recycled paper, and it comes in a reusable gatefold reply envelope that you can use to send the card back to the company for recycling in Shaw Carpets.

The boxed sets are a bit pricy if you’re doing a ton of holiday cards, but they have custom options available, including photo cards for as little as 90¢ each. Not too shabby!

0
12/01/2008 - 4:00am
Dani Nordin
The First Certified-Organic Bar opens in New York City

According to a recent post in the Agriculture Information online community, the nation’s first certified-organic bar has just opened in New York City’s Greenwich Village:

The bar, GustOrganic, is located inside the popular New York City organic restaurant of the same name.

Now with both a certified organic restaurant and bar in the same building, dedicated organic food eaters and beverage drinkers won’t have to step outside of their organic lifestyles at GustOrganic in order to have a before, during and after dinner cocktail with their 100% organic meals.

While this is certainly a great step for the organic movement, it’ll be interesting to see whether this starts a trend in restaurants and bars seeking organic certification. While consumers have certainly become aware of organics in relationship to the food and beverages they consume, alcoholic beverages are still a relative newcomer to the organic market - and beer and liquor are a space that tends to be wrapped up in brand loyalty. Will consumers who love their Bacardi or Tangueray be willing to make the switch to an organic brand? Will the Bacardis and Tanguerays of the world start working towards organic versions of their brands? We’ll see.

0
11/25/2008 - 4:00am
Dani Nordin
Death to the Clamshell!

I was just pointed to this blog post by Martin Bishop of Landor Associatesannouncing Amazon’s recent decision to work with its manufacturers to eliminate the demonic plastic clamshell and annoying wire ties package so many of the products that we buy consistently. Sony, Microsoft, and Best Buy are also in on the effort.

There’s apparently a term for this - “Wrap Rage.” You’ve likely experienced it - I know I have. It’s the visceral anger that comes from getting a product home from a retailer and attempting to open it; usually with a variety of tools, and quite often with casualties involved. In fact, according to a New York Times article referenced in Bishop’s post, 6,000 people each year have to go to the emergency room because of cuts received from trying to open clamshell packaging.

To me, aside from the personal injury aspect of the clamshell, there’s a fundamental waste issue. If you look at a clamshell, it’s almost like a plastic sculpture - huge amounts of plastic are wasted for something as small as a SIM Card or USB Key, and on top of that you have the cardboard used to create the marketing piece associated with the packaging - not to mention the extra cardboard and paper used to hide things like A/C adapters and user instructions. How can manufacturers reconcile their increasing desire to be viewed as “green” companies when they’re putting this much material into packaging small objects?

0
11/18/2008 - 4:00am
Dani Nordin
The zen kitchen's Holiday Survival Kit is here!

Just in time for the holidays, it’s the zen kitchen’s first annual Holiday Survival Kit! This handy-dandy PDF is full of worksheets and tools - some practical and some downright silly - that’ll help you get through some of the most common family holiday dilemmas, including:

• Planning and cooking the usual many-course meal;

• Navigating the many (many) stops you’ll need to make to family during the holiday;

• Trying to remember who that random uncle is who remembers you when you were “this high;”

• Dealing with those *ahem* uncomfortable questions that are bound to pop up.

You can download the full PDF here, and print out only the pages you really need to make your holidays work. Happy holidays!

0
11/03/2008 - 4:00am
Dani Nordin
Behind the Candidates: who's working for your candidate?

Although I’m very political by nature (after all, I started my career at 16 as an environmental activist), I try not to go too deeply into politics in conversation with folks I don’t know well. It’s too likely to get heated, and personally, I’d rather talk about food and business and the like.

That said, I do spend a lot of time reading up on the candidates, getting informed and the like, and the other day I was pointed to this interesting site called Behind the Candidates, which is a breakdown of all the folks who are working in the campaigns of the two main presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain.

Overall, it’s pretty well designed. Clean, easy to read, and one key thing I like - it has nice big type so voters of all ages can read it without an issue (often a problem with modern websites). The one thing that gets me, though - they created a custom scrollbar in the center of the page, rather than letting the page scroll on the right like it normally would.

The benefit to this, on one hand, is that it forces you to think for a moment - which, presumably, is part of what the site is meant to do. On the other hand, it also makes an assumption that the person visiting this site has all the time in the world to peruse through the multiple mini-profiles. It’s clunky to use, and since I, like most folks, was checking this site out in my *ahem* copious spare time, I barely got through a couple dozen profiles before I had to move on.

Personally, I’d have left the scrollbar where it was - where people expect it to be. Aside from that, a nice clean design, and well-organized information.

Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

0
10/27/2008 - 3:00am
Dani Nordin
Many many places to buy sweet things

Just found this great link from the Smart Life blog: 155+ places to buy Chocolate, Candy and Cookies Online. Oh yeah.

Some of the favorites I can personally vouch for:

BurdickChocolate.com— Delivers chocolate assortments, chocolate dipped fruit, novelty chocolates, pastries, gift baskets, wedding favors, and more to 20+ countries worldwide, including the U.S. I’m not sure if they started in the Cambridge area, but there’s one right in Harvard Square that I visit every once in a while. The chocolate mice are my favorite, but there’s a whole bunch of good stuff. It is *very* rich, though, so I feel it’s best to keep them an occasional treat.

LakeChamplainChocolates.com— Offers fresh, all-natural chocolates in normal and gourmet styles from Vermont. These are one of my favorite chocolates; try the Sea Salt and Almond Milk Chocolate sometime. Seriously addictive.

DancingDeer.com— Offers a variety of baked goods including brownies, cakes, and cookies. Special occasion and bulk item orders are available. Another favorite of mine (particularly the Molasses Clove cookies, which are too good to be allowed in my house on a regular basis for waistline-maintenance reasons) - and they’re based right in Cambridge (the next town over from me)!

GreystonBakery.com— Founded by a Zen Buddhist in 1982, this bakery offers brownies, specialty cakes, wedding cakes, and sundry desserts and is the exclusive producer of brownies for Ben & Jerry’s. The DoGoodie brownies are truly amazing - seriously. And, they’re a client of the zen kitchen, so I gotta give them some special love.

Go forth and treat yourself! Let me know what you try.

0
10/21/2008 - 3:00am
Dani Nordin
Specialty Food Marketing: It's Not Just About the Product

On Sunday, the Daily Recordin New Jersey posted a great article on a new Food-Preneur Boot Camp program at Farleigh Dickinson University, which helps specialty food entrepreneurs learn the ropes of creating, packaging and marketing specialty food products.

A couple of quick highlights from the article:

”The Food-Preneur classes are gaining traction because nobody else is offering them,” [Domenick] Celentano [of Celentano Company] said. “Food is a popular business for people to start because they can create the prototype products in their kitchen.”

Also, the specialty-food industry is booming to the tune of $50 billion a year, he told participants. It rose more than 24 percent between 2005 and 2007…

While the article makes some interesting points about why to go into the specialty food business, it also makes the point that it’s not just about creating something tasty and expecting people to love it. 90% of all specialty food products (and processed food products in general) don’t succeed. So how do you make your product stand out?

One tip is to have good packaging. According to the article:

Good packaging informs customers about a product in addition to preserving and protecting it, she explained. Great packaging also attracts them to the product. Holding a bottle of Demeter’s Pantry Taste of Crete Organic Olive Oil, she said it stands out on shelves because of its gold foil top and its bottle tag, which offers information about the oil and the story of the company.

But going further than this, I feel that the brand and website of a product also makes a huge difference in the success of a new product, especially when the product is intended as a luxury/gourmet item. The more expensive the price point, the better your brand needs to look; customers who are purchasing these productsoften care as much about how it looks on the shelf as they do how it tastes.

By the way, the same holds true for body care, wine and candles, where customers time and again will actually make purchases based exclusively on packaging and/or scent.

0