A friend of mine once said that at most, you could add tomato or bacon to a grilled cheese sandwich. Anything further and you’ve got a different sandwich. The grilled cheese at B29 Streatery, the new food truck from the folks at Brick 29 Bistro in Nampa, is another sandwich altogether. Beyond the cheese and bread,...
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Three years ago, Alma Hasse walked purposely, head down, toward a red brick building. The Jerome County Courthouse held a mountain of files on the county’s dairy CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations, and Hasse wanted a look at them. She and her agricultural watchdog group, Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment believed...
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It’s easy to get all Dickensian when looking at what’s happening across the agriculture landscape. As the spring growing season begins, there are plenty of examples sprouting that suggest that, in terms of food and farming, we are indeed living in the best of times and, if not the worst of times, some pretty...
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The recent rains and sunny weather have got me thinking about spring, planting vegetable gardens — and the water footprint of food production. This time of year, as farmer’s markets open up after a winter hiatus and Idaho starts to offer fruits and vegetable again, I’m reminded that producing food in much of Idaho...
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I remember seeing them along the roadside. As a kid growing up in rural Idaho, those orphaned gray lumps were a common sight. I even kicked one once, then picked it up, dusted it off and bit into it. That was a mistake. I hadn’t thought much about sugar beets since, at least until they...
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This from Barry Estabrook, former contributing editor at Gourmet magazine and now regular contributor to the the New York Times, the Washington Post, and TheAtlantic.com: “On Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) had approved the unrestricted planting of genetically modified alfalfa sold by Monsanto Co. and Forge...
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The local food movement is growing in popularity. Back in 2007, the Oxford English Dictionary declared “locavore” the word of the year. In 2009 and 10, the National Restaurant Association called local food “America’s No.1 restaurant trend.” But popularity breeds polarization. A series of articles and at least one upcoming book have...
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