coffee, fair trade, and me

As much as I rely on it each morning, I recognize that coffee is a luxury item. Ditto with sugar and chocolate, but we’ll get there. After spending time in Europe, I couldn’t go back to coffee dripped through paper. Similarly, if it weren’t for the Greek students introducing me to the wonders of the stovetop espresso pot, I might not have made it through my year in England, land of instant ‘coffee’.

During my first year back, my final year of college, I relied on my little curvy pot (still my favorite after all these years) and pre-ground Lavazza (which is, of course, excellent commercial coffee). Following graduation, I moved to the West Philly neighborhood where I’d been spending much of my time. I became a member of the Mariposa Food Coop there, where what to my wondering eyes did appear but bulk bins of amazingly good coffee beans. Although I still didn’t have my own grinder, I was hooked on the Bolivian beans (Full City Roast), and was delighted to find them again at the People’s Food Coop when I moved to Ann Arbor the following year.

Back then, I didn’t know much about the history of Equal Exchange as a company; before the establishment of third-party certification through TransFair, the ‘Equal Exchange’ name seemed more like a fair trade label and less like a brand name. Mostly, it was difficult to find organic coffee beans at all; consumers were just starting to be educated about the fact that ‘gourmet’ coffee was both better tasting and more expensive because it was grown in its natural shade, and commensurately slower to harvest. Being already addicted to high quality coffee, I was completely happy to pay gourmet coffee prices for beans that were organically grown and fairly traded. Truthfully, it seemed like something too good to be true.

It wasn’t a far stretch for me to extend the food politics of the U.S. that had led me to start eating vegetarian and organic—unsafe and unfair farm labor practices, pesticide overuse, the growth of corporate farming, pollution of land and water resources—to the global politics of the cash crops of coffee, sugar, and cocoa. Giving up meat had required a conscious awareness of what I was eating and what went into producing it; that awareness began with animal farming, but I carried it into a consideration of the origin of my plant-based products as well. Buying these products was never about whether I was getting more vitamin C in an organic orange versus a commercial one; it was about knowing that no one was getting cancer from crop-dusting so that my juice could be a little less expensive. Principles of ethical consumption are such a basic part of how I make food choices that it’s hard for me to relate to people who seemingly don’t care where their food comes from, or aren’t at all concerned about whether what they paid for it matches the ‘true’ costs of producing it.

Returning to coffee: flash forward to ten years later, and I am completely at the mercy of my fairly traded, organic, shade grown coffee bean supplier. I haven’t abandoned drip coffee altogether — we do have a drip coffeepot, acquired during my partner’s first post-doc, for which I faithfully grind the beans fresh each day. We use a reusable gold filter in it, which makes it taste more like presspot coffee: the pot and filter combined were probably the best $30 I ever spent, as we’ve used them nearly every day for nearly a decade now, and they are still going strong (besides having to replace the pot once after an unfortunate encounter with a porcelain sink). On the days when I haven’t cleaned the coffeepot the night before, I do use my old school presspot (replaced last year after an unfortunate encounter with a ceramic dish). And on the day after that, if I’ve been particularly lax about doing the washing up, I go back to the little stovetop pot, and am reminded of how much I like americanos made that way.

I haven’t gotten to the point of using only bottled water to make coffee (most likely because I haven’t gotten to the point of drinking bottled water in my house), but I can’t be budged on which beans we purchase. While I buy almost entirely organic, and am happy to support a variety of processed food companies and local farms in their choices to go organic, I only buy fair trade certified coffee, sugar, and cocoa. It’s precisely because these inessentials are such a big part of my life that it’s so important to me to participate in their consumption in an ethical way. I’m not moved by the claims of retailers or roasters that their beans are fairly traded despite their choice not to become third-party certified. It may or may not be true, but that’s not the issue for me: transparency and accountability are important elements in a community-oriented business practice, and I choose to give my $8 per pound to those companies willing to open themselves up to the external evaluation.

Of course, I know that I’m getting the highest quality product as well, so it’s not like there’s any hardship involved. I’m easy: chalk it up to food snobbery, if that goes down more smoothly than anti-capitalism. I just find it amusing and rewarding that it’s possible to have both in the same cup.

coffee, fair trade, and me

Deliverer, by C. J. Cherryh

On Friday, I took a break from the other novels I’m reading and whizzed through C. J. Cherryh‘s Deliverer, the latest in her Foreigner series. This is the only series of hers I’ve read, as I was drawn to the first contact elements. I know there are other series of hers that include aliens, I just have them mentally categorized as space war books, which doesn’t at all appeal to me. I still think of these books as first contact books, despite the fighting and chasing that is the major plot model, as that’s pretty much the only type of science fiction that includes space travel and aliens that I enjoy reading. The distinction between the books I enjoy and others involving space travel and aliens tends to be the sociological or anthropological slant, rather than the ‘I chase your spaceship with my spaceship and shoot guns at you’ storyline, and by sheer numbers of pages devoted to one over the other, this series still tilts my way. It’s not the best example of this sub-genre, though: my favorite books of this kind remain the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia Butler, The Color of Distance by Amy Thompson, and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, all of which are excellent at imagining and conveying the experience of first contact.

In the beginning, Cherryh’s series seemed more like those. Sadly, it doesn’t anymore. I am still invested in the characters, and curious about the plot development (such as it is), but I have to confess that I skip large chunks of the narrative as I go along (here is where academic reading skills come in handy). My train of thought goes something like: ‘woe is Bren, blah blah, scary is the world, blah blah, enemies are everywhere and the weight of the world is on my shoulders, blah blah, now is when we ride the mecheiti at breakneck speed through the wilderness, now is when we try to kill the bad guys in the dark, here is where the goodies prevail, oh look, the book’s over.’ In terms of plot movement, I think she’s now managed to stretch the events of a week (two weeks? three weeks at most…) over the course of three books. Movement at this pace leaves many pages free for Bren’s mental problems, er, worrying. In 1994, the idea that a male protagonist could be introspective and concerned about flubbing things up royally was endearing and somewhat different than usual. Now, in the 21st century, we’re confronted by whiny, insecure men at every turn, and it’s really not that interesting anymore (not that it ever was all that interesting outside of science fiction).

Don’t get me wrong: I’ll keep reading the series (and hope that the next three-book-arc gets us back into space). The dragging is not bugging me anywhere near the level that the second series of Brin’s Uplift books eventually did (and the first three were so good), leading me to abandon that series in disgust. The books just seem to be getting lighter and more formulaic as she goes along, which is a shame, as the world she’s built retains potential.

Deliverer, by C. J. Cherryh

book challenge 2007 progress report

At the end of month two, I have faced two major hurdles in my efforts to not buy new books this year, and come over them slightly battered. Vows were meant to be tested, right? Slips are an opportunity to get back on the wagon, right? Right.

In January, I visited Powells for the first time, and managed to limit myself to the purchase of used books (mostly poetry volumes) only. The whole category of previously owned books is an admitted gray area in my challenge: they are new-to-me, and they constitute more books that will need shelves in my home. In terms of managing the numbers of piles of books, then, it doesn’t get me there. In terms of managing the percentage of our budget that flows into book purchases, it improves the situation somewhat, although of course isn’t as good as just not buying anything. I hesitate to invoke that stalwart truism of consumer capitalism, ‘I could have bought even more, so what I did buy is small by comparison.’ Nonetheless, when it comes to visiting the most well-known independent bookstore in the country, I have to say: it could have been worse.

This past week, I smacked head on into my second hurdle, and it gave me a Texas thumpin’. Having chosen to attend an in-store reading, I was unable to resist buying the new book by one of my favorite authors, as I didn’t want to miss the chance to have it signed. In this instance, my vow to not spend money on books was in open conflict with my long-standing vow to purchase the books of authors I want to support when those books come out (rather than as remainders). In the end, the latter won out, and I was similarly unable to resist buying his book analyzing international law using Marxist theory, as I’ve been eager to read it and waiting for the less expensive trade paperback version to become available. And then, well, it became a matter of damage control, and I managed to leave the store with only an additional two books: his collection of stories that I’d not yet picked up, and a book on competitive birdwatching that hooked me in the first pages of the introduction.

Moral of the story: don’t go to bookstores, especially not well-stocked independent ones, and definitely don’t pick up books from the sale rack to leaf through while waiting in line for the loo.

book challenge 2007 progress report

Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson

Breaking quite a dry spell, I read Nalo Hopkinson‘s Brown Girl in the Ring this past week. I did enjoy this book more than The Salt Roads, likely because it was more plot-driven. I didn’t love it; I would have liked to see more character development, and a thickening of the story. I enjoyed it as a quick read, however, I can imagine also enjoying a slower, deeper version of the same story.

I also found myself skimming through the more gory sections of the book, but this is probably a complaint peculiar to me and something that wouldn’t phase most readers my age. Call me a kook, but I’ve discovered that I just don’t enjoy blood, guts, and other kinds of gore. I can deal with violence that serves a narrative, and anything over my finely balanced measure of what counts as ‘serving the story’ will generally put me off a piece. I don’t like being scared gratuitously, and I don’t read books or watch films in the horror genre for that reason (my father could tell you about the time I started to watch Dr. Giggles with some friends, in an effort to defeat my fear of horror with sheer campiness, and how it backfired horribly and I called him to drive across town and follow me back home — I had the other car with me — so that I didn’t risk getting killed by a maniacal physician in the mile or so I had to travel…did I mention, in my car. Yeah. And, I was, like, 20 or something at this point. Not, you know, 12. The end. Postscript: just locating the Wikipedia entry has caused me to start to be totally jumpy in my cozy back room with three sides of windows. Definitely a night to keep my trusty Maglite near at hand. You can start laughing any time now…). Tangentially, this is the main issue I’m currently having with Heroes: I can’t stand the blood of the serial killing, and besides freaking me out, it seems completely unnecessary (both unnecessary to write the story that way, and unnecessary to show every single gruesome death on screen: we know what he does, our brains can slot in the first gory scene when necessary, thankyouverymuch). All the other issues I have with Heroes will have to wait for another time, as they really have no connection to the issues I had with Brown Girl in the Ring whatsoever. Also, the ways in which my struggle to stay engaged with Heroes is strikingly similar to the ambivalence that led me to stop watching Twin Peaks midway through the 2nd season (although, of course, I’ve since seen them all; on laserdisc, even)? Not relevant either.

Truthfully, I didn’t have many issues with Brown Girl in the Ring. It was ok. I didn’t love it, but it was entertaining and it was a nice break from continuing to work my way through Snow. Which I plan to finish and write about at some point.

Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson

roasting vegetables

This week, I roasted vegetables for the first time. One might think that, as a vegetarian for over 10 years, I would have tackled this basic cooking style before now. But I hadn’t; I typically sauté or stew or steam. Truthfully, I never used the oven much for cooking. Baking, yes. Cooking, that I did on the stovetop.

Enter the farm share, and the aforementioned bags and bags of turnips. Lovely little gold and purple turnips. It seemed a shame to boil them and then pour all that vitamin water down the drain. Plus, roasting with olive oil, garlic, and fresh rosemary sounded a lot more appetizing.

The first challenge was finding a suitable dish. I have three rectangular glass/pyrex baking dishes, a round and lidded glass/pyrex casserole dishes, and a square and lidded glass/pyrex casserole dish. I wasn’t keen on using any of these, but we don’t have a roasting pan (since I don’t, well, eat roasts). Then I remembered the terrine we acquired in Switzerland, ten years ago now. It wasn’t exactly right, as we weren’t able to spread the turnips (and chunks of onion, and cloves of garlic) into a single layer, but with checking in and tossing everything around periodically it turned out decently. Some of the turnips were overly soft, but we mixed in two kinds plus larger chunks of rutabaga, so that could have contributed to the uneven result. All in all, tasty enough to repeat.

Coincidentally, we initiated this roasting venture during the same week that I was trotting around to different stores comparing pots and pans. We need to replace our main over-sized frying pan (the nonstick stuff has bitten the dust, as happens), and we’re trying to create a matrix of cost, utility and quality that will guide us to the single most useful replacement pan, but that’s a topic for another day. As a result of all this hanging out in cookware sections, I came across and snapped up three stoneware dishes more suitable for roasting: a rectangular one, a shallow oval one, and a medium-deep oval one (all of which were of discontinued colors or styles or something that led to them being dramatically less expensive).

Tonight, then, we successfully roasted our turnip dinner in less time, with a more even result, in a dish that allowed for all the pieces to stay in a single layer. Huzzah!

roasting vegetables