The World According to Monsanto

I'm a member of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. Today I received a notice from them, which I feel compelled to share:

On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE –French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film makerMarie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-842180934463681887&hl=en
Please watch and forward before this gets removed.

Chickweed for Breakfast

I love early Spring when I can finally begin harvesting wild greens from the garden! I make scrambled eggs with sauted' greens about 3 times a week year-round, but in Winter, the greens are locally-grown baby salad mix from a farmer with a greenhouse. They're good, but they don't compare to wild greens! The day before yesterday we had Nettles in our eggs for the first time this year, and today we had Chickweed! We have several little mounds growing near each other - here's a photo of one of them just before I started snipping. I use sharp scissors & take the longer stems, back to the outer edge of the rosette.

I harvested about 3 cups loosely in the colander & then went back inside to rinse the little bits of soil off. Chickweed (Stellaria media) is so soft & moist that you really have to handle it gently or it will bruise. I use a colander with larger holes & a smooth surface, so that the debris can wash through the holes & the tender plants won't be scratched with the wire most colanders are made of.

After a good rinsing, I melted some butter in the skillet & added the Chickweed.

Once the Chickweed was thoroughly wilted, probably 2 minutes, I poured an egg & goat milk mixture into the pan & made scrambled eggs! Voila! Breakfast!

Poem from Shekhinah

It's interesting how things happen. This morning someone placed an order on my web site for a book, Ariadne's Thread, written by my friend Shekhinah Mountainwater. Shekhinah died last August. So, missing her, I "searched" her name & found a poem I don't remember reading before. A call to heirloom apples! Here it is.

Apple Tales
by Shekhinah Mountainwater
2/11/06

Five things a proper apple must contain
Ripe, crisp, tart, juicy and sweet
To satisfy me tooth and tongue
And make the eating of her complete
Can these be alligned perhaps
With the magic pentacle?
Is that why She placed Her star So cleverly within?

So hard it is now to find such
In the marketplace
Apples are there so vividly displayed
In colors red and gold and green
But alas they are mealy or dry or flavorless
Even now the beloved MacIntosh.
"Delicious" grown to distorted unnatural shape
And Braeburns from Australia
That I had found still held those Five
Have also changed.

Gone are the true authentic apples
Fading from our world even as Gaia herself is fading
Sisters we must bring them back!
Find the seeds and plant anew
Rewrite the myths now gone askew
No wonder apples have lost their taste
When the tales told of them speak untrue!