With the night air approaching freezing in North Carolina, my backyard basil recently began browning. I picked all remaining leaves with some two-year-old help.

Of course–much to my chagrin–I was a little too late for some of the basil…

After harvesting our year’s pine nut crop procuring plenty of pine nuts, the entire process was utterly simple. A little measuring and Cuisinart pulsing later, I had a nice supply of pesto, whose insistence on browning immediately did not endear it to this photographer. But as I say–’taste trumps appearance.’

While this process is second nature for many of you, it was my first experience turning my end-of-garden basil into a usable product. And it underscores the beauty of those old foodways like end-of-garden cooking and canning. While eating food picked that day is fabulous, why let the changing season halt garden-grown eating.

My first event was part presentation, part panel discussion. My fellow panelists, Elizabeth Royte (Garbageland) and Elizabeth Meltz (the sustainability czar for Mario Batali’s empire ), did a fabulous job bringing the issue to life, answering questions and tying it to New York.

The organizers, Kerry from Eating Liberally and Paula from Civil Eats, were the night’s true heroes, wearing many hats–including toques. They even convinced Marion Nestle to attend.

In addition to those all-stars, I got to meet some old e-mail buddies in person: Chris of Meatless Monday, Daniel of People’s Garden NYC, Gary of AmpleHarvest.org and Elizabeth from Egg in a Box.

The book reading the next night was intimate and interesting. I’d never done an event at a restaurant, but the Half King, a bar that serves food, fit that description. I considered doing a plate waste “show and tell,” but eased up on the attendees. After all, they had come to the event.

While in New York, I saw some fascinating food-waste-to-energy news from Sweden and got to see my name in The New Yorker (in David Owen’s piece, page 80–the whole thing isn’t available online).

One thing I gleaned from the trip is that there are a number of like-minded people in NYC bent on reducing waste and/or composting it. Yet, after all that activity, it’s now time to recuperate. Normal blog service will resume on Friday…

Where the story gets even happier, though, is that the school will begin separating and composting food waste from its cafeteria next fall, er, school year.

Along with the garden, she said, the school will be starting to recycle its food waste from the lunch room into compost for the garden.

From the first day of school on Aug. 25, students will be taught how to separate the food waste from their lunch trays so that left over scraps can be turned into compost for the garden.

School gardens make all too much sense and, as the Edible Schoolyard folks know, and should have a major impact on how the children’ view food. Especially the healthy stuff that often elicits “Eeews.”

All the better that they’ll learn to compost, using the nutrients from their uneaten food items to help create new ones. Equally important, it’ll teach kids that food isn’t trash.

I think the soup will enter our regular rotation next summer, as it’s easy, tasty and a nice way to use up slightly past-their-prime foods. To wit: the recipe upon which I loosely based my soup calls for bread. The last two slices of a fairly old loaf, which had been destined for the crouton heap, became a nice thickener for the gazpacho.

In addition, I could imagine adding some other vegetable odds and ends you’re looking to use up. Not to mention the fresh tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers that are entering the September of their years.

Come to think of it, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. Those were basically the three crops that came through for us this summer!I’m sure you all have your ‘tried and true’ uses for the end-of-summer tomato backlog, but I’d definitely recommend the gazpach. Five or six ‘beauts’ is a small price to pay for a flavorful, summery soup.

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Here’s Makes and Takes on the benefits of tray-freezing. Natch, one is avoided waste.

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Raleigh’s Inter-Faith Food Shuttle launched a farm and community gardens project recently. They’re also accepting donations from gardens in association with Plant a Row for the Hungry. And I hear that the Lawrence, Kansas master gardeners are getting into the donation act. 

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Portland restaurants are increasingly separating their food waste for pick up, but the Rose City still can’t find a site for a local compost facility. At present, it’s sent to a large transfer station (that I visited and can still smell in my mind’s nose), then shipped north to Seattle.  

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Here’s a story on a New Hampshire family who weighed their food waste for a month and includes some general food storage tips. Not sure what the extension specialist is talking about when she says that apples only last a day or two sitting out on the counter. Uh…not on this planet.

When Gary became director of the West Milford (NJ) Community Garden, he found that others left a lot of produce on the vines. He created a committee, called Ample Harvest, to find food pantries to which they could donate this healthy excess. It turned out they couldn’t find any. And when Gary searched himself, the closest one he found was 25 miles away, he told me in a recent phone interview.

That’s when he realized:

The pantries are not listed any place. They don’t have an internet presence. That’s when I had an epiphany in early March, saying, what we need is a nationwide directory of food pantries.

And today, with the launch of Ample Harvest, Gary is approaching that goal. He’s touched on an underrated problem in the food recovery world. How can individuals or institutions donate fresh food when they don’t know where to bring it?

Ample Harvest was created to solve that problem by providing an easy way for backyard gardeners to find  the food pantries closest to their home. It’s a neat idea. Because not only do pantries need more donations to meet their increased demand, but they also need fresh produce to provide healthy meals to those who don’t get enough nourishment.

This is one of those sites that will work better with more users. So, as the site advises:

If no food pantries in your area are listed, you can help the AmpleHarvest.org campaign by seeking one out and encouraging them to sign up.

Some pantries won’t take loose produce, so be sure to ask if they will when contacting them. Still, it’s definitely worth the effort. I’ve just contacted a few local pantries to try to get them to register. Hopefully you’ll do the same and spread the word about Ample Harvest. Let’s make this work!

I hope you’re able to do the same! (the outside part, at least)

I’ll be back with a regular post on Thursday…

How’d you come up with the idea for Veggie Trader?

A few years back we started noticing all the excess stuff growing in our neighborhood and going to waste. It was everywhere. While we think splattered plums on the sidewalk make for interesting abstract art, we do believe fruit has a higher calling.  We think much of the problem is folks don’t know what to do with their super productive orange tree. Or they plant too many beans, basil, or kale. We figured Veggie Trader would give people a forum to help put their backyards to maximum use.

What’s your vision for the site?

Next time you’re out for a walk, take a look around. There’s a wealth of food growing right in our own backyards. People love to garden. We plant fruit trees, grape vines and fuss over our summer tomatoes. But too often much of what we grow ends up wasted. At the height of the harvest season, there are only so many tomatoes or squash one family can consume.

The idea behind Veggie Trader is to bring people together to share in the bounty and put it all to good use. Gardeners can use the website to trade for variety, find charities to donate to, or even sell their excess to make a few extra dollars. Those simply looking for local food can quickly get in touch with neighbors who have it.

Who does the cool art and do lemons really lament their wrinkles?

Yes, they do! Lemons just want to be useful. They want to be enjoyed and squeezed in the prime of life… The art is entirely the handiwork of Tam, one of the creators of the site.

What was the first trade/sale?

It’s early yet and we don’t monitor trades, but we intend to make a place available on the site soon where people can share their experiences with us.  It will be interesting to see what people say, and we can’t wait to hear their stories.

What has been the most popular item?
This time of year, seeds and starts seems to be the most popular listings.

Any funny anecdotes, thus far?

More like a quote: “I wish I had this last year so I didn’t have a yard full of raccoons getting drunk off my fermenting plums.”

In your mind, is there a critical mass for how many users you need?

We’re only a couple weeks old and just want to get the word out so people know they now have a place to share their extra veggies or find local food. We think it’s a great idea and hope and expect it to grow and succeed. Over 600 people have registered for the site in just the past week, and there are over a couple dozen posts so far. A lot of people are telling us they can’t wait to come back and list their produce once the growing season really kicks in.  Right now, we’re encouraging people to post what they have and what they’re looking for.

How far do you think people will travel to swap or buy produce?

No idea, but we designed Veggie Trader in the hopes of bringing people together in their local communities. However, one person did ask how she might search the entire country for produce instead of simply by zip code.  We told her how she could do this, but noted traveling across the country is a long way to go for homegrown fruits and veggies!

Is the action thus far just in warm weather states?

We’ve seen people registering and posting listings all across the country. It’s hard to determine a pattern just yet though.  I can say a lot of people from Southern California and Arizona have visited the site.  Then again, we seem to be getting a lot of people registering in Ohio as well.

Did you consider starting in one location and expanding to different cities slowly?

At first we thought about starting up just in our home base of Portland, Oregon.  But then we realized Veggie Trader can be just as useful in Austin, Denver, Los Angeles, or anywhere in the country. There’s been a tremendous amount of interest from all over.

We have lots of changes we plan to make to Veggie Trader to make it better and easier to use.  If people have suggestions, we encourage them to contact us via the site and let us know how we can make it a better
resource.

First, a 9-year-old New Zealand boy invented a contraption that allows you to dump food waste into a compost bin via your kitchen drain. This allows composting without the minor inconvenience of collecting the food waste in a pail and bringing it to your bin.Now comes word of the removable sink. While the primary purpose of this Australian creation is to conserve water (always a good thing), it helps with food waste, too.

After washing the food off dishes, you can remove the sink to water plants with the runoff. Nutrients from the bits of food in the water will only help nourish the plants. And it shouldn’t attract pests because only really small food particles will fit through the strainer.

Overall, it’s like turning your sink into a rain barrel, only indoors and you control the “rain.”

Because I doubt I can communicate my thoughts any better, here’s an op-ed I wrote in 2006.

In addition to recycling ideas from two years ago (recycle, reduce, reuse, right?!), I’m making a few new resolutions for 2009:

• Compost better. I’ve long composted, but not all that well. Up until now, I’ve been content to keep my food waste out of the trash. Now that I have one of these Terra composters, I’d like to actually make nutrient-dense soil because I plan to…

• Garden. My new house has a nice backyard with raised beds. It’s time to flex those horticultural muscles.

• Be a good parent and avoid waste without losing my mind. Wish me luck and please feel free to offer tips (there are sure to be more posts on the topic in 2009). I’m guessing it will involve lots of common sense, some portion control and eating some of the boy’s leftovers.

May your new year be sweet and your resolution strong!

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