A recipe from Tree:

In the fall giant puffball mushrooms seem to be everywhere ... forests, roadsides, city parks and empty lots. Safe to eat (as long as they are still fresh and white inside), hard to mistake for anything dangerous, but honestly pretty bland.

Generally, I think they work well as a tofu replacement in most recipes. Puffball bacon is my favorite:

Cut the mushroom into thin bacon like strips

Marinate the strips for several hours in tamari or soy sauce with a touch of maple syrup and a bit of nutritional yeast

Heat a lightly oiled pan (an iron skillet works best) over high heat.

When the pan is hot, fry the mushroom bacon until it is almost crispy.

Flip the bacon multiple times while you are frying. It's inevitable that some will stick to the pan, but the burned bacon bits are pretty tasty anyway.

Let the bacon cool in the pan, and it will continue to crisp a little bit.

I love to use the mushroom bacon to make BLTs, but it works great crumpled over salads, or in any recipe that one might use bacon as an accent.

Enjoy.

from Lynn

I like to think that this dessert is something similar to what Midwesterners were making 100 years ago with the rich fruit of the native persimmon. You are especially likely to find persimmon trees in Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, and Illinois in the woods next to old farms. Ask a farmer friend if he or she has any on their property.

The Native American Persimmon is quite small and seedy. They usually get no bigger than the size of a golf ball. The golden, amber fruit ripen mid-autumn and achieve their wonderful sticky sweetness after a few frosts and they start falling from the tree.

You can eat the persimmons just the way they are or, to use in a recipe, you will need to extract the pulp from the skin and seeds. In order to do this, rinse the fruit in water, and mash through a sieve or food mill. A good harvest of about 3-5 pounds of persimmons should yields about 2-3 cups of pulp.

Old Timer’s Persimmon Pudding

This is a really unusual recipe I adapted from the Bear Wallow book on persimmons. They produce a lot of cookbooks of American folk recipes. What makes this recipe unusual is that the pudding is stirred while it is being baked, making the finished version, a dense, chewy, caramelized masterpiece.

2 cups persimmon pulp
1 cup half and half
½ cup melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp grated nutmeg
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In large bowl, mix together wet ingredients: pulp, half and half, melted butter, eggs, and sugar. Mix dry ingredients separately: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Mix dry mixture into wet mixture. Stir well. Pour into a greased 9” x 13” pan and bake for one hour. Stir several times while pudding is baking, making sure to fold the crispy edges into the center of the pudding.

from Peter

April 19, 2007

She was a young Chicago nurse with an enviable snap-to-it efficiency and caffeine-saturated rectitude. She was, incidentally, also popping Tums-like candy. Her fiancé was a resident in anesthesiology, one of the most challenging and well-compensated specialties in medicine. These two were leading the classic hectic lifestyle of the upwardly mobile, and they have long since married and settled in a large mansion in the suburbs.

Years ago, my girlfriend and I were house-sitting for the nurse. While preparing pasta in the underused kitchen, I dug a can of Parmesan cheese out of the pantry. I misread the date: it had expired ten years prior, not to mention “Refrigerate After Opening.” I absentmindedly poured some out into a bowl. It was brownish in color; I nearly ruined dinner with it, since it had turned to dust sometime after its expiration date.

There are these households where the home economy should ostensibly meet up with the discernment and finances of the owners, but in many cases the kitchen is a ghost town, populated by darkness. In the suburbs of Austin, Texas, a few summers ago, I sojourned with and cooked for new parents — one of America's top programmers and his wife, a new doctor.

Concerned about global warming, I resisted the 12-mile roundtrip to the supermarket in their SUV. An exercise for me is always to find and quietly exploit the ingredients that the hosts have abandoned — like the heels of dried bread, to use as filler in a casserole; dried fruit and leftover jams, for oatmeal; and the scrapings from a sauce jar, for some marinade or dressing. This seldom fails to elicit a squeal of delight on the tasting, and then a squeal of objection on divulging the recipe.

But what was this huge tray of purple-brown paste taking up an entire shelf in the refrigerator? I felt the urge to engage in some creative reuse. But I was afraid to taste it, it looked so neglected.

The Texas programmer glanced up from his computer. “I was into making matbuha for a while, up until the baby was born,” he said. He had lived in Israel and returned with a penchant for Middle-Eastern fare. Matbuha is a fairly simple but rich sauce made with red peppers and tomatoes, typically seasoned with olive oil and fresh cilantro. In a class of condiments with tahini, baba ghanouj, and hummus, it is eaten with pita.

“This batch was too spicy,” he explained. But the baby was six months old! I quietly threw out the desiccated concoction to make room in the refrigerator. Still, the pantry shelves were piled high with the costly abandoned ingredients of his experimentation. I ended up leaving Austin with cases of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce which they now had no use for, tending now to lean towards the Atkins diet.

I had shown the man years before how to make matbuha without much fanfare, from a few fresh ingredients; what had caused him to get so elaborate with the sauces and spices? Surely this is also what had caused him to abandon his efforts, and to move to Atkins, the last resort for many Americans who have lost touch with their natural diets.

There is an emptiness in these homes. “Waste, Want” should be the new cross-stitched plaque adorning these kitchens, these lavish but lonely corners of the homes of some of America’s busiest and most successful people. I have cooked in a hundred of these kitchens. The kitchen is typically an afterthought to the yawning jaws of the TV room, whose wide screen invites anything but scratch cooking.

On the Food Network and elsewhere, we are greeted with a vast and ever-expanding legion of food experts, available 24 hours a day. There is a bizarre hypocrisy on the part of the hosts of these shows. On the one hand, they try to treat informally and casually the everyday preparation of their meals. After all, they’re supposed to be teaching us. On the other hand, these meals are always made with blushing virtuosity, from extravagant ingredients, and served in the matching crockery with the utmost casual pomp.

The Barefoot Contessa will throw together a pasta, but it will always be with shrimp and white wine. The Naked Chef — what enviable names! — will compose something with flair, but it can’t really be done without the finest of fresh ingredients and a zip around London in the old blue Vespa. Emeril or Martin Yan need only utter some humorous syllable and we dutifully cheer and applaud their genius. Between the hoity-toity ingredients and the insufferable elegant simplicity — in both their skill and their creations — we are sighing with admiration but left stuck to the couch, in so much awe that we are afraid to move.

Here in America, we have a bounty of means and such wonderful wholesome ingredients as to put new immigrants to their knees and weeping on their first sight of the supermarket shelves — yes, I have witnessed this poignant phenomenon. These are things which most of the backward world prays to have. Yet, while they pray, we leave it in our refrigerators to spoil.

Let me say a prayer for myself. Behold my religion: I have made a commitment to get my sorry ass into the kitchen every day. Let the astronauts binge on the Space Food Sticks: my food will come less often from a package than straight from the ground, while I have the strength to pull it up and put it into a pot. There is no excuse for someone with two legs and two arms not to cook his own food every day.

If necessary, I shall move the couch into the kitchen so that I can better know that place. It will become my new living room. Most importantly, I must commit to spending liberal time being more aware of my own perishables. The new boob tube in this house will be my own refrigerator-freezer, tuned to my own 24-hour food channel.

Everything will be prepared and eaten perfectly, just as long as it is prepared and eaten. It need not be expertly or elegantly made, only consumed with gratitude. We have discarded prayer before meals, and even where it survives, the words too often have a tinny sound, like the speedy disclaimer at the end of a car commercial. But I will quietly think a little mantra at every bite.

And I will pay my respects to the creatures who in turn created these things on my behalf. For the milk that spoils I will say a dirge for the cow who generously spilt it out of her swollen body for me. For the next rotten egg I will beg forgiveness of the white hen trapped in some cage somewhere. For each slice of discarded bread I will think of a wheatie sweating in his combine, floating away his endless hours across the Kansas gold. I will strive every day not to let these miracles happen in vain.

from Chi-Town Daily News
(published Dec. 11, 2007 10:28 AM)

http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago+news/2007/12/11/Opponents_squawk_over_chicken_ordinance

Opponents squawk over chicken ordinance

By JENNIFER SLOSAR

It's an issue that's beginning to ruffle a lot of feathers.

But puns aside, the Chicago City Council's proposed ban on chicken farming has significant implications for the city's immigrant populations and others committed to raising fowl in the city, according to critics of the measure.

The council is set to vote tomorrow on legislation banning ownership of live chickens in residential areas.

The proposal's sponsor, Ald. Lona Lane (D, 18th Ward), did not return repeated calls seeking information about it.

The council's Committee on Health, which passed the amendment Nov. 20, cited concerns relating to noise, debris, and rats. Lane cited concerns that disease could be linked to chickens.

Proponents of urban agriculture see the proposed ban as a hasty and ill-advised measure that flies in the face of the trend toward sustainable local food systems that promote community and help consumers to reduce their carbon footprints.

The Chicago Food Policy Advisory Council (CFPAC), a network of forty organizations that works to promote urban agriculture and green enterprises has asked 28th Ward Ald. Ed Smith, who chairs the health committee, to table the ordinance before the 12th.

Edie Cavanaugh, who provided the sole citizen testimony for the health committee, strongly opposes residential chickens. She said her neighborhood in West Lawn includes at least 10 chickens and several roosters.

"Chickens are dirty and smelly," said Cavanaugh. "If people want to raise chickens they can go buy a farm. If they want eggs they should go to a grocery store. They [the chickens] don't belong in the city."

"My street has a rat problem, big-time," said Cavanaugh, who believes that rats are attracted to the chicken droppings and feed. "And rats spread disease."

Linda Nellett, a proud chicken owner in the 45th Ward, begs to disagree. Nellett, whose three hens produce one egg each on a daily basis, said her chickens lessen environmental stress and provide a healthy alternative to the factory food system.

"I don't feel like I have to worry about where my eggs are coming from," said Nellett. "They don't have to be trucked from far away. Nor are they coming from a factory where they're kept in small cages or dosed with all kinds of antibiotics."

Far from being a nuisance to her neighborhood, said Nellett, the chickens "are really an asset."

"I've had so many neighbors come up to see me and reminisce about memories from being on farms or growing up on farms when they were children. They enjoy bringing their grandchildren over to feed the chickens," said Nellett.

Martha Boyd is director of the Urban Initiative program at Angelic Organics Learning Center and a member of the CFPAC.

"We recognize that the city has legitimate concerns," said Boyd. "But many of these concerns are addressed in other ordinances."

She pointed to exiting city laws that outlaw the slaughter of chickens on residential property and describe proper methods for handling organic matter to prevent the proliferation of rats. There are also nuisance laws on the books that protect neighbors against pets that are not cared for responsibly.

Boyd suggested that this an opportunity for the city to learn from other municipalities. Some U.S. cities allow the raising of chickens on residential property and outline basic best practices and basic requirements that minimize concerns such as noise and pests, she said.

In St. Louis, up to four chickens may be kept without a permit. New York City bans roosters, but allows residents to keep an unlimited number of chickens, as long as they acquire permits and keep their dwelling areas clean.

"There are people who are bad dog owners too, and we don't ban dogs, she said. There is such a thing as responsible chicken ownership," said Boyd.

Nance Klehm, an urban food forager and activist from Little Village, suspects that anti-immigrant sentiment might be fueling the chicken ban in Chicago. Klehm works with residents in her primarily Latino neighborhood on food exchange systems.

"The thing about this ordinance is that it really hits immigrant communities the hardest," said Klehm, who hears and sees free-range hens all the time on her street.

"This is a very land-based and food-based culture," said Klehm, who described her neighborhood as one of wide streets and long-established homeowners . "Most people here own the property they live on," said Klehm. "Everybody that I know on my block has been here since the 1950s. They are people very connected to place, and they are carrying on the traditions of their families, many of them campesinos."

"It's an inexpensive and holistic way of keeping a protein source nearby." Klehm.

Julie Peterson, of the Ravenswood social justice and environmental organization Beyond Today, said the legislation has wider implications for those interested in sustainable agriculture and environmental practices.

"We need to make it a principle to maintain vigilance on our local laws to protect any activity which helps people to be environmentally responsible," said Peterson. She points to ordinances in other cities that prohibit laundry lines. "They see these as a sign of poverty and not energy conservation," she said.

"It looks like I will be an 'outlaw' as of Wednesday," said Nellett. " These chickens are my pets, and I will not just dump them somewhere. It will take time to responsibly re-home them, and it is not possible for me to drop everything and concentrate solely on finding a good home for my hens."

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http://www.worldchanging.com/local/chicago/archives/007677.html

That’s Chicken Sh*&!: A Proposal to Ban Egg-Laying Hens in Chicago

(published December 6, 2007 9:37 AM, also published on www.gapersblock.com)

by Jesse Rutschman and Anna Barnes

When I was growing up in Pilsen, it was common to see hens clucking around the neighbors' front yards. Though the agrarian fantasy to convert Chicago into one big urban farm may not appeal to everyone, growing your own food is an excellent way to limit the impacts of industrial farming and decrease your carbon consumption. And, as New York writer Manny Howard and others have demonstrated, raising chickens is not out of the realm of possibilities for an adventurous urban gardener.

Locavores and groups like MadCity Chickens (based in Madison, WI), are building urban chicken coops to feed themselves and to “educate the urban population on the benefits of raising one’s own food, and to bring to light the misconceptions people might have about the raising of poultry in an urban setting.” In Chicago, however, one’s right to raise chickens is in serious question.

At a Chicago City Council hearing on December 12th, 2007, 18th Ward Alderman Lona Lane’s proposed ban on chickens will be voted on for approval. According to Chicago’s Municipal Code keeping roosters or chickens for slaughter is illegal. However, there are currently no ordinances that would prevent a Chicagoan from having chickens as pets or maintaining a chicken coop to produce eggs.

Alderman Lane is concerned with chickens because of an increased potential for spread of the avian flu virus, chicken waste attracting rats, and the illegal slaughter of chickens on residential property. While her concerns have merit, they do not logically imply the need for a city-wide ban. Avian influenza should be a more serious concern for large industrial farms, and the proliferation of rats in Chicago, unfortunately, cannot be pinned to chickens but is a much broader problem relating to the improper disposal of waste.

Chicken-rearing (for eggs) provides an affordable option for food insecure families, seriously eliminates the food miles eggs normally travel to get from farm to table, and allows families to re-connect to farming traditions in an urban setting.

Alderman Lane and the Chicago City Council need to hear from you. Below is a sample letter to send to your local alderman. Write before the hearing takes place on December 12th, 2007!

Dear Alderman (your alderman’s name here),

As a resident of Ward (Ward Number), I was saddened to hear of the proposed ordinance completely banning the ownership of chickens in Chicago, and I urge you to speak up against it. The problems cited by Alderman Lona Lane and others (noise pollution, rats, and avian flu) are worst-case scenarios that are almost entirely avoidable with good management and appropriate regulations.
While many Chicago residents have made noise complaints related to chickens, the vast majority of these are because of roosters. Backyard roosters have already been banned in Chicago and are not of interest to most residential egg farmers. Hens do not make noise that would bother neighbors. Furthermore, they give communities in need the means to produce their own food.
I appreciate Alderman Lane’s concern regarding the risk of chickens spreading avian flu. While avian influenza has infected some independent farmers, it is in crowded commercial farms that particularly dangerous mutations of the virus are likely to form. The truth is little is known about how the virus spreads. While the response by the USDA and local governments targets chicken owners (as this proposed ordinance does) it does not hold the poultry and egg industry accountable.
Alderman Lane also claims that chicken waste attracts rodents. Rats are sustained by suitable habitat and access to food, which includes garbage and animal droppings. While chicken litter does create this risk, unsecured human food waste is much more likely to attract rats and the answer in this case is for chicken owners to simply do what all residents are obligated to do, which is secure their waste.
While these are valid concerns for the sake of safety and respect, I believe that producing food on residential property is a fundamental right, whether one resides in a city or rural area.
Please do not allow fear and exaggeration to take away my right to produce food for myself and lead a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.

Thank you for your time, and keep up the good work!

Sincerely, Your Name Here

In the meantime, if you are pondering the idea of building your own mini-chicken coop here is some food for thought:

http://backyardchickens.com/

http://www.ethicurean.com/2007/09/22/chicken-parking/

http://www.madcitychickens.com/

http://www.growing-gardens.org/portland-gardening-resources/chickens.php

photos by Holly and Patrick @ 20:13 from www.henwaller.com

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$1000 Fine, 6 months in jail for feeding pigeons?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/695322,CST-NWS-pigeon13.article

JAIL BIRDS | Aldermen want to clean up 'all of this fecal matter'

December 13, 2007
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com
Mary Poppins once sang about the old woman who exhorted people to "Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag."

That advice wouldn't fly anymore in Chicago, if a pair of aldermen have their way.

» Click to enlarge image

A proposed ordinance will fine anyone feeding city pigeons up to $1000.
(Sun-Times file)

Aldermen Danny Solis (25th) and Helen Shiller (46th) are so serious about cleaning up pigeon droppings caked on monuments, bridges, sidewalks and plazas, they want to throw the book at those who feed the birds -- with fines as high as $1,000 and up to six months in jail.

Solis claimed that every well-fed pigeon dumps 25 pounds of fecal matter each year.

"It doesn't look good to have all of this fecal matter around a very beautiful monument" at 18th and Blue Island, Solis said.

It's "causing damage -- not only to property, but to health. . . . Whenever they overfeed them, rats gather around the statue. That's another health problem."

The ordinance that Solis and Shiller introduced at Wednesday's City Council meeting states, "No person shall purposely provide food -- including, but not limited to grain, seeds, greens, bread crumbs and miscellaneous food scraps -- intended for pigeon ingestion on public property or property subject to the city right-of-way."

Punishment would include fines of "not less than $100 or more than $1,000" and up to six months in jail. Each day pigeons are fed would constitute a separate offense.

Solis stressed that he's not talking about enforcing the law immediately. "We're going to try to have people get informed or get [two or three] warnings before anything happens" he said.

A plan by Southwest Side Ald. Lona Lane (18th) to throw chickens into the same coop was postponed at Wednesday's meeting.

The delay might have something to do with Mayor Daley, who sounds as if he's against the chicken ban.

"Let's be realistic. A lot of ethnic people do keep chickens. If you grew up in Chicago, you know that," he said.

On Nov 26, 2007 10:50 PM, Nance wrote:

We've just now heard of discussions that date back to July 2007 of a proposed ban on backyard chickens in Chicago that would come up for vote on the December 12 City Council meeting. The ban seems to be a reaction to backyard slaughter and concerns about avian flu virus, but is proposed to ban all chickens, even if raised for eggs. The links below offer some discussion. If you know of where this proposed ordinance stands,please respond with an update.

http://backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=208358

http://www.chicagoclout.com/weblog/archives/2007/10/city_of_chicago_want_to_remove.html

Here is a link from other cities and regions where backyard chickens are allowed for small scale urban livestock.

http://www.madcitychickens.com/

From Mike:

Oddly, this seems like an urgent issue to me. I don't consider myself a libertarian, but I think folks should be able to have chickens if the want to. And part of me even thinks we need to encourage people to have chickens.

The objection to slaughter, I'm sorry, is absurd. Chickens are gonna die. Better to be there and know about it first-hand than be complacent to the artificial distance that corporate chicken sellers depend on for selling their chicken products to us.

Avian flu virus, here in Chicago (last time I checked), is simply not a real threat. And if we pay attention it never needs to become a threat. That is, we can have a certain amount of control over infections like this. And that control has very little to do with policy, and everything to do with our relationship to infected birds and our behavior around those birds.

Maybe to oppose this policy we need to teach ourselves and others how to protect each other from this speculative threat. How could the spread be curtailed and the effects of infection be minimized? It's not that scary. It's just a matter of knowing what to do. Further more, it could be a place to talk about a public health system that is not powered by commercial interests but by people who care about one another.

So please, do update us if you know more and let me know if I can help resisting this stupid change in policy.

From Diana:

To oppose this proposed legislation, we need to get people to call or write to their alderman--right away-- because they need to know we're not asleep at the switch when that vote comes up on DEC 12.

One argument to make is that the corporated sector has had so many e-coli recalls lately (mostly on beef products, but chicken as well) that public health would be better safeguarded by letting people raise their own chickens--yeah, it's a mildly facetious argument, but the serious side is that instead of further restricting our ability to provide for ourselves, the city council should turn their attention to enforcing health and food inspections that currently exist. This measure is another move toward further privatization forcing us to become consumer-slaves to the corporations. It needs to be opposed.

From Andrew:

This afternoon, I called the office of my alderperson, Helen Shiller of the 46th Ward. The lady who answered (not Alderperson Shiller) wasn't aware that the proposal existed! She was very kind and conversational, though.

I told her that we had chickens in an outdoor coop in the city when I lived in Ohio and there was absolutely no problem of noise or stink. I told her that the eggs produced were an important and economical source of protein.

From Celia:

I wrote to my alderman today. While i was at it, i asked him for a stop sign at my intersection.

From Julie:

In our neighborhood, we've had some discussions about the need for a very active group to keep an eye on city council and to watchdog for this sort of thing as well as another group to study progressive ordinances, etc. in other cities and to work to get them adopted in Chicago.

The chicken issue may be best addressed as part of a trend: if Chicago is meant to be "green", then local gardens and production of food, including bee keeping, raising chickens, gardening, composting, hoop house gardening, and protection of these gardens from "toxic tresspass" all need to be protected by law. We need to research laws in progressive cities. The chicken law is a difficult place to start because of most people's total misunderstanding of the reasoning. I think the best way to proceed is to make it part of a larger package ... the protection of the rights of Chicagoans to garden, produce food, and to adopt other practices which save energy and reduce greenhouse gases.

This should be incredibly important. The city has been too focused on green business and not enough on supporting the efforts of environmental pioneers who are trailblazing the way to sustainability.

I think this watchdog group needs to be resident based. Does such a thing exist as an organized entity?

From Martha:
I had a rooster named Chicken in Boston. We had him for about 4 years, I think, living in the partially aboveground basement and roosting at night on the bannister outside our bedroom - The cats and he got along great, and in fact Xena was his valiant protectress against neighbor felines. He would go where ever he heard voices to hang out and socialize.

He vanished from the yard with a squawk one evening before we sold the house - I wasn't living there anymore. John's renter heard it, but they never found a sign of him. Could've been a neighbor - lots of vietnamese, dominican, cape verdean folks up and down that hill, who used to come up into the yard to see if that really was a rooster they saw as they walked by. might have looked too tasty to pass up...he was just a tiny little morsel though. petite and sweet. he was a great bird.