Harrietts Tomato

The Sweet Spot Where Food, Art and Activism Collide

Oh Banksy, Banksy you mysterious man of the shadows.  The supercool British artist has unveiled an installation, "The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill", in  New York City's Greenwich Village, satirizing our treatment of animals.

“I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming,” Banksy said in a statement distributed by a publicist, “but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing.”

Read the full New York Times coverage here.  Writer Melena Ryzik describes the show that consists of several window scenes:  "A rabbit wearing a pearl necklace files her nails in a window; the coop in the next one has chicken nuggets with legs, busily dipping themselves in sauce.  Inside the store, hot dogs and sausages squirm like snakes in sand-filled terrariums, and the floating fish sticks are so lifelike that a visitor tapped on the tank, as if to get their attention."

Green Porno

Insects are intrinsic to our food chain - bees pollinate our fruit, worms till the dirt, spiders eat unwanted pests.  But the burning question is...do bugs have sex?  See for yourself on Sundance Channel's series of genius short films by Isabella Rosellini, called "Green Porno".  These are well worth the next 15 minutes of your life.

Free Range Studios: Uncaged

Free Range Studios - also genius!  They've teamed up with The Humane Society to promote California's Prop 2, a legislation aimed at ending animal cruelty on factory farms.  Factory farms continue to keep pigs, calves, and chickens in cages where they cannot move, and spend their life breathing in their own feces.  Horrific, and not safe for human consumption, either.

Watch the clever video UNCAGED on the Free Range website to the tune of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".  And if you can vote in California, please vote Yes on Prop 2.

Jail for Vindictive Hair-in-Steak

Ryan Kropp, of West Bend, was fired and accused of inserting hairs in a steak before giving it to a dissatisfied customer back in February of this year.  According to the Associated Press, the 24-year-old restaurant cook pleaded guilty to a food-tampering charge in Washington County, Wisconsin, and was sentenced to six months behind bars and three years probation.

Kropp apologized in court saying he was ashamed, embarrassed and remorseful. The patron who got the steak, Kevin Hansen, refused to accept his apology and said Kropp deserves more time. He says he and his family don't eat out anymore.

Stolen Stouffer's and Goats do Roam

A refrigerated truck containing 13 tons of frozen Stouffer's pizza nearly disappeared last Saturday on its way to Springville, Utah.  The driver, running behind on delivery time , decided to sell the goods and pocket the cash.  A sting operation revealed the dirty deed and, when an undercover cop moved to arrest him, he attempted a run. 

Now he's in jail.--what was he thinking!  Pizza is an American sacrament, and you don't mess with that.  Read all about it in The Salt Lake Tribune.

A couple of years ago, Ms. Tomato wrote a tiny yet worthy piece for the New York Times T-Living magazine about a company in Northern California that rents out flocks of sheep as lawn mowers, called "Wooly Weeders".  It's an ecologically sound and efficient method of reducing fire hazards and keeping the fields trim. 

Now the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency has hired 100 goats to nibble thick weeds on a steep slope in the middle of the downtown business district.  According to the Los Angeles Times,  the goat herd comes at a cost of $3,000 as opposed to about $7,500 for people-power.  An added bonus is that goats and sheep can eat human-unfriendly plants such as poison oak and thistle. 

Goat photo by Brian Vander Brug, Los Angeles Times.

Inaugural Slow Food Nation Fest

Here is an event Ms. Tomato hates to miss but, alas, will.  Please attend the Slow Food Nation weekend August 29-September 1 in San Francisco and send a report. The schedule features good food, wine, conscious discussion with folks like Alice Waters and Michael Pollan, ecologically-imagined architecture and a pretty decent musical lineup.

Slow Food was founded in 1989 in Italy.  Slow Food’s ethos is defined by the belief that food is a common language and a universal right and an appreciation for slowing down and savoring the convivial traditions of the table.

Vertical Farms and Carbon Footprints

A couple of interesting stories in food...New York Times writer Bina Venkataraman wrote a piece back in July of this year on the work of Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University.  Despommier, whose name is French for "of the apple tree", has outlined a plan for vertical farming that he believes would work for urban areas like, say, the middle of Manhattan.

Dr. Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. He says his ideas are supported by hydroponic vegetable research done by NASA and are made more feasible by the potential to use sun, wind and wastewater as energy sources.

In another news story...now you can feel guiltier about where your grapes came from, or simply get more conscious and start the habit of buying local.  In Japan,  at any rate.  There, food and beer producers have been publishing the carbon footprint on labels, much like the calorie and fat counts we see.  Now the country is adopting a standardized carbon footprint labeling system, according to Huffington Post Green writer Dave Burdick.

Wiki-Nerds Collecting Recipes

The Wiki folks have created Recipes Wiki, a new data base that has accumulated over 46,000 recipes so far.  Your source for recipes such as "American Chop Suey".  Like all wikis, the site can be edited by anyone.

They've also started a Vintage Pattern data search that enables you to find sewing patterns that either are or are similar to cool old stuff you might be looking for.  What else?  Gardening Wiki and of course, Green Wiki, a hue that is taking over all media outlets...and we at H.Tomato are all for it.

Julia Child, Spy

According to the Associated Press, secret files are being released today detailing clandestine work done by 24,000 civilians during World War II...one of them our very own Julia Child. Our Julia never made it a secret she met her husband while working for the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA, yet discreetly avoided outlining her daily chores.

Her big assignment?  Finding a way to chase sharks away from underwater explosives.  Apparently the creatures would bump into them, setting them off and warning the German U-boats they were intended to sink.  Julia Child and her cohorts came up with a recipe for shark repellent that was used to coat the explosives.

Life at the South Pole

Want more factoids and photos of life at the South Pole?  Follow this link the the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) website...the video of the Aurora Australis over the Amundsen-Scott Station is well worth seeing.  Just click on the webcam link:  current extreme weather prevents the live stream from working, but the southern lights are there in its place.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/livingsouthpole/index.jsp