One of the things I appreciate most about living in the Pacific Northwest is the availability of cheap or free fresh berries. Berry harvesting is also a great excuse to experience the outdoors!

Blueberries:
My favorite place to get blueberries is Blueberry Park, located at 7402 East D St. and E 74th Street. Originally a blueberry farm, the school district purchased the land in 1968 in order to build a high school at that location. However, the school was never built and neighbors began working together to maintain the blueberry bushes. In 1997, the land was adopted by Metro Parks as Blueberry Park. Volunteers continue to maintain the park every third Saturday of the month from 9 am – 12 pm. The blueberries are still ripe, so be sure to visit this Tacoma gem.

Blackberries:
I have a love-hate relationship with blackberries. My day job is to dig up the ubiquitous Himalayan Blackberry (Rubus discolor), an invasive species which has taken over our road sides and habitat sites. It is covered in thorns, and I have been scratched hundreds of times. However, the berries are delicious and best of all, free. Just look around and you’ll be sure to see blackberries wherever you are. If you are a huge blackberry fan and would like to have them conveniently located in your yard, there is a lovely native species of blackberry, called Trailing Blackberry (Rubus ursinus). They taste better, look nicer, have fewer thorns, and won’t grow into tall unruly bushes.

Strawberries:
There is a native species of wild strawberry in Washington State as well (Fragaria vesca). This would be a great ground cover to grow at home because it is well-suited for our climate and it has pretty white flowers in the spring. If you are vigilant, you may even spot the wild strawberry while on a walk in the woods. There are also many local u-pick opportunities for strawberries in the local area. I usually go to Picha Farms in Puyallup.

Raspberries:
If you love raspberries, you will be happy to know that we also have a native type of raspberry in the Pacific Northwest called the Black Cap Raspberry (Rubus leucodermis). It looks a lot like a blackberry vine except that the stems are an icy blue. Of course, raspberries are also a popular u-pick crop.

Thimbleberries, Salmonberries, and Red Elderberries:
There are many berries from the Pacific Northwest that you won’t find in your local grocery store. I personally enjoy Thimbleberries (Rubus parviflorus), although I know people who don’t. These tart berries are surprisingly common and I love to feast on them while hiking. Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) are a more popular berry. They resemble a blackberry plant except that their stems are golden in color and their berries are orange, yellow or red. Red Elderberries (Sambucus racemosa) are commonly harvested for wine or jam (don’t eat them raw).

Before You Harvest:
Before picking berries in the wild, it is important to familiarize yourself with their identifiable characteristics. There are poisonous plants out there, so it is critical that you first do your homework. I recommend the book “Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast” by Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon as a source for descriptions and pictures of plants common to the Pacific Northwest.

An Edible Yard:
A good way to acquire a free native berry plants for your home would be to attend a plant salvage event and dig your own. Plant salvage events occur in locations with a plethora of native plants that are slated for development. These plants are either salvaged with permission from the developer, or they are typically bull-dozed. I recommend contacting the Native Plant Salvage Alliance or the Native Plant Society for information on upcoming salvage events.

Once upon a time, I couldn’t imagine the taste of bread. I lived in a house where tofu and soymilk were common staples. A decade ago, a vegan or gluten-free diet was not nearly as common or trendy as it is today. Many people thought nothing of their heavy meals laden with wheat, and the breadbasket was a common preliminary step before a waiter brought out the main course. My family’s unique take on healthy eating stemmed from my brothers’ severe food allergies and differed from the norms of everyone I knew, but I thought nothing of it. While I didn’t understand the health benefits of eating gluten-free at a young age, it was simply the way we did things in the Elkus family.

I have memories of childhood play dates with my confused toddler friends who were used to being fed pizza during lunchtime, unsure of what to do with the rice pasta and sautéed tempeh on their plates. I remember family dinners in foreign countries during summer vacations that took hours to complete due to our complicated orders and special requests, not to mention the added language barrier. My brothers’ intolerance to dairy, wheat and eggs provided for a challenge at every meal, and my devoted mother toted around a plethora of emergency Epi-Pen shots and Benadryl bottles with her on vacations that rivaled the medication aisle of a fully-stocked CVS store. Accidents were inevitable, and my heart jumped in nervousness at the first sound of their voices uttering “I feel sick” and the worried expression on my parents’ faces. Was it some bread crust that had slipped into their French fries? Could their corn tortilla have been carelessly switched with a wheat one? Did someone put flour in the soup? Little did I realize that with each experience, whether it ended in a safe and satisfactory meal or a panicked finale of frustration and tears, I was digesting the basic medical training of a dietary specialist.

The assurance of my brothers’ health came at no easy price for my parents. I have so much respect and admiration for the hard work they dedicated to raising children on such a specific and limited diet, and the time that they spent self-educating with late-night Internet research and dozens of highlighted and underlined newspaper articles ripped out and tacked to our kitchen bulletin board. The differences of our kitchen to most were stark, but I grew to accept them and even enjoy the acquired tastes of “Tofu Pup” soy dogs and quinoa-based pastas. Gluten-free was simply my way of life.

It was only while progressing through elementary school and spending more time away from home that I began to side-track from the gluten-free foods. The school cafeterias presented a vast array of lunchtime options that made my ten-year old head spin. “Real” pasta, dripping in warm butter and crisp parmesan flakes! Freshly baked brownies, glazed with vanilla icing and individually saran wrapped! My eyes grew wide at the selection of kid-friendly options and lack of parental supervision, and I indulged without hesitation. Away from home, I felt free to enjoy whatever foods I wanted, especially without the guilt of eating them in front of my brothers, who had never experienced a real cupcake or a slice of Domino’s pizza. The ongoing question of how I was so lucky to be an allergy-free middle child born between two once-sick children no longer mattered. Sitting next to my friends at our table, I was like everybody else, and my newfound culinary anonymity was a foreign comfort in the confusion and mayhem of adolescence.

My experiments with these strange wheat-based foods quickly progressed into a full-fledged love affair. There was no question – I was obsessed with gluten. I started to crave the satisfactory full feeling in my stomach after eating a sandwich or plate of pasta that just couldn’t quite compare with the aftermath of a soy hot dog or slice of rice bread. If there is such a thing as gluten addiction, I had it.

It wasn’t until the end of high school that I began to reevaluate my love of wheat-based foods. School days were long, and I was used to the hour-long post-lunchtime slump that occurred in the early afternoon, a sluggish period of food coma that prevented me from thinking clearly during my one o’clock math class. I was unknowingly experiencing what is commonly known to the community of gluten-free eaters as “wheat fog.” I had become accustomed to the heavy feeling in my gut after a gluten-based meal, and I forgot what it was like to experience the light and airy aftermath of a wheat-free meal. It took discipline to change, and hundreds of afternoons spent without incentive to exercise or be productive. I began to slowly eliminate gluten from my diet.

The results were incredible. I noticed a difference right away in how I felt both immediately after a meal, but also as my day progressed. My mind was clearer, and I felt increasingly able to study for longer periods of time without the sleepy fog that usually crept through my mind after lunch. I could sustain exercise for more time with longer bursts of energy, and I slept more soundly. It was clear that a gluten-free diet was the right decision for me, and since then, I haven’t looked back. While I may not share my older brother’s Celiac Disease or my younger brother’s wheat allergy, I realized that I was one of the ten percent of Americans who suffered from a gluten sensitivity, and I was lucky enough to already have the skills and knowledge to maintain a new diet.

I know that many healthy people do allow gluten to occupy a place in their diet, and that there are even more who don’t think twice about it and feel fine. I also know that my return to a gluten-free existence has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I would advocate it to anyone who is ready to take a chance on a conscious, long-lasting and beneficial change. The world of gluten-free food no longer requires an arduous trek up and down restaurant-lined streets searching for a kitchen willing to make substitutions on their menu. Grocery stores now offer entire aisles of gluten-free options and many trendy eateries are adopting the wave of current medical research and celebrity-endorsed wheat-free eating. I urge everyone to take a chance on improving their health. Start by slowing substituting gluten in just one meal a week to test the waters. In honor of the traumas and tribulations of my brothers, the two bravest boys I know, I can’t thank them enough for helping me to realize that sometimes the best option is the one you had all along.

*Author’s note: If you are on a diet, and do not have iron-clad determination, stop reading.*

Photo thanks to Pie, Cupcake Royale and Full Tilt

There are many hard-hitting, thought-provoking, whistle-blowing, tough as nails journalistic pieces out there…this is not one of those pieces.

This is about all things joyous. All things wondrous. All things splendid. All things, sweet.

Our delicious tour of sugary goodness begins with one of my favorite treats; pie. At an establishment aptly named Pie, in the heart of the Fremont neighborhood. Pie specializes in personal-size, all hand-made confections using only fresh and natural ingredients, including a delicious hand-made flakey crust.

“We make our pies in small batches all day long, so what you see on the menu in the morning may be different than what you see by evening time,” said Jess Whitsitt, co-owner of Pie. The changing Pie menu does not only include sweets, however; it also includes “savory” pies – think of pot pie, but WAY better.

“We have many interesting savory pie creations: Pork Pot Sticker Pot Pie, Spaghetti with Meatballs Pie and Swedish Meatball with roasted potatoes and Lingonberry Sauce Pie, to name a few,” said Whitsitt, “but English Meat and BBQ Pulled Pork are our most popular.”

However since we are talking about all things sweet, you can find that at Pie too – patron’s favorite creations include Coconut Cream, Berry Awesome and my favorite, Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie. Even better, Pie has a late night window from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. “We get a lot of families the first hour and then we get the fun people who have been out at the bars in Fremont after that, or just folks from the neighborhood who have a late night craving,” said Whitsitt.

If you prefer cake to pie, cupcakes in fact, then you can pop over to one of Cupcake Royale’s many Seattle locations for a Dance Party Holly Hobbie, Royale with Cheese or President Obama’s favorite, the Salted Caramel.

Cupcake flavors range from lavender to bacon, and their interesting arrangements has earned them national attention, appearing on Cupcake Wars on the Food Network last month.

“We were asked each year they ran Cupcake Wars and finally we made the show. I think we came across the most culinarily professional, and perhaps the least crafty-craft. Which is cool, because we’re all about the taste and doing cool things with interesting ingredients,” said Jody Hall, Founder of Cupcake Royale.

Whatever ingredients Cupcake Royale chooses (including for their unique “Cupcake of the Month” – be sure to make it in before the end of September to try the Huckleberry Cupcake), ingredients are always kept local. “Cupcake Royale thinks local is always the best way to go. By investing in our friends and neighbors, we’re making an investment in our community,” said Hall.

It’s Cupcake Royale’s investment in community and creativity in sweet perfection and that allows them to thrive in an ever-growing cupcake market. Said Hall, “We know that there are other delicious cupcakes out there. We’ve tried many of them. In the nearly eight years since we first opened, we were the first cupcake bakery to open outside of NYC, many cupcake bakeries have opened. But what has always set Cupcake Royale apart is our focus on nostalgic style and taste, real and local and organic ingredients when possible, our community settings (mall-free since 2003!), and our philanthropy. We donate over 40,000 cupcake annually to help small local businesses raise funds, and just recently, we created a special ‘The Gay’ cupcake and were able to donate $10,000 to the It Gets Better Project.”

The final stop on this Tour de Sweet is in a part of town you might not expect sugary goodness: Rat City (also known as the White Center neighborhood in West Seattle) at Full Tilt Ice Cream. You want hand-made artisan ice cream in pleasantly unexpected concoctions? They got it. You want classic arcade games like Wack-a-Gator and Skee-Ball? They got it. You want to hear some live music? They got it. Heck, you want a BEER to go with your ice cream? They got that too!

With locations also in Columbia City and the U-District, Full Tilt strives to not only indulge your sweet tooth, but provide events to bring neighbors together. “We have everything from political potlucks, bike repair classes, to punk rock shows. I think they are very important to our communities where there is very little in the way of safe, all ages places,” said Justin Cline, owner of Full Tilt, “We are also launching a record label, and a co-op kitchen in the south end.”

But even with all their events, Full Tilt still finds time to create an ever-changing variety of ice cream flavors. “Salted Caramel is most popular by far. Next is Ube,” said Cline. “We do a peanut butter banana and chocolate covered bacon flavor that we have dubbed The Memphis King. We also did a flavor recently with Chapulines, which are dry roasted grasshoppers from Oaxaca.”

I might be skipping the grasshoppers, but on my last visit I enjoyed a sorbet that tasted exactly like a grape popsicle, while my friends had Maui Coffee Porter Beer floats. How good is their ice cream? To quote a post from the Full Tilt Facebook page, “Our White Center store closed at 7 tonight. We sold out of ice cream. Thanks for the amazing day.”

I could keep going on about all the deliciousness Seattle has to offer (I didn’t even get to touch on the donut bliss of Mighty-O or Top Pot, or the magic of Theo’s Chocolate Factory, or…), but I can feel myself slipping into a sucrose coma. So I beckon all readers to don your stretchy pants and join the legions of out-of-towners, out-of-country-ers, and especially locals, who always have these three sweet champions on their “to-eat” list.

Environmentalists blather and quake in their hemp clothing as new research done by Canadian scientists are now able to reduce cattle-produced methane gas by 25%.  When I read the title heading in Science Daily’s May 09 issue, I couldn’t help but be solidly impressed.  How have researchers figured this out?  By compiling an extensive database of methane production values measured on cattle to formulate equations to predict how much methane a cow would emit based on its diet.  Researchers then genetically select cattle that inherently produce less methane.  Next stop?  Genetically selecting humans that produce less excretions.

In 2006, researchers officially quantified greenhouse gas emissions, stating that livestock is a bigger problem than a car emissions.  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed that livestock generates 18% more greenhouse gas than modes of gas transportation.

Worse, cattle are a large factor in enhancing drought situations by stripping the land, exposing the soil to the wind, and with no grass or shrubs with roots to hold the soil down, the soil is blown away or becomes nutrient-depleted.  Along with this soil deficiency comes water degradation.

When I lived in Oklahoma, there was this beautiful road sign that said “Keep our Land Grand” and next to that was a sign in the shape of Arkansas and Oklahoma’s trash being thrown into it.  A legal battle has ensued between the two states, with Oklahoma accusing Arkansas of dumping chicken, turkey, and cattle pooh into watersheds that then dump into Oklahoma streams and rivers, posing a huge health hazard to drinking water and recreational settings.

In Arizona, a long drought period has decimated the lands, further increased by the cattle industry.  The impact of grazing, drought, erosion, and fire are directly correlated to each other, and Dr. Robert Kattnig at the University of Arizona states that it takes upwards of two years or more to “recover” the land from cattle destruction.

In 2007, Washington State Beef Industry Statistics show that the sale of cattle was approximately $724,533,000 with an impact of $2.17 billion on the state’s economy.  There are approximately 11,700 cattle ranchers and 760 dairy farmers, and approximately 1.09 million cattle in Washington, of which 243,000 were dairy cows.  Total beef production was 848,710,000 pounds, whereas the entire United States produced 26.5 billion pounds of beef.  The “Total Use Mandate” of Washington allows for cattle to graze on public lands, further increasing the expanse and production of Washington cattle.

My teenage years were spent on a beef cattle ranch in the northeast corner of Oklahoma (plus a short and financially devastating stint with Emu ranching that ended with us turning all 200 of them loose–locals still say they see one every once in a while, providing them with a good dinner that evening).  My brothers and I were in charge of taking care of the cattle, all the way from bottle feeding, branding, castrating, to labor and delivery.  My favorite Christmas occurred when Dad gave us a wrapped box full of rocks, only to find out it was a treasure hunt that ended at the far end of the ranch with cows tied around 3 of our very own cattle.  My job was to get a bull calf into the head gate, then one brother would brand it, and my dad would finish the job by castrating it, turning it into a fine steer with a glorious ending at the local slaughter house.

Last Saturday, May 16th, my bookstore sold books at a Michael Pollan event in the Central Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, Maryland. Over 1,100 people showed up for this question and answer session with the author of (most recently) In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I’ve only read an earlier book of his, A Place of My Own, but since I’ve been studying his precursor, Wendell Berry, it’s only a matter of time before I get to his other work. I’m always behind on the latest trends.

Tony Geraci, the new Baltimore City Head of School Lunches, interviewed Michael Pollan. I didn’t take these questions and answers down verbatim, so these are not direct quotes by Michael Pollan, but they are the content of what he said.

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In this episode of The Melon Underground, Electric Elliot sits down with peace negotiator, human rights activist and former Director of Centro Latino, Julio Quan to talk about the Cooperative movement and Tacoma’s plan for a Food Co-op.

Find out more about TFC at http://www.tacomafoodcoop.com/

Part 1:

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In a not-so-surprising-but-still-fascinating twist, researcher Cristina Gomes, along with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, recorded chimpanzees trading sex for food in the Tai Forest of the Ivory Coast.

In a June 2004 Wenner-Gren Foundation grant study, she and her colleagues recorded grooming, aggression, aggressive support, food sharing, and copulations as traded biological commodities on the meat market.  Male and female chimps groomed other chimps that groomed them in return, supporting Cristina’s original hypothesis that grooming suggests an exchangeable complex biological market.

Her second study, published this week on April 8th, shows an interesting tweak on her commodities  market theory: since females do not often hunt other animals, they trade sex in exchange for meat.  Cristina wrote in PLoS ONE, “The meat-for-sex hypothesis aims at explaining these cases by proposing that males and females exchange meat for sex, which would result in males increasing their mating success and females increasing their caloric intake without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting.”

Not only is this observation fascinating, but the long-term effects, as well.  Males do share meat for sex, but they are also sharing … for the sake of sharing, which means in the long run, they get more sex since they cultivate their female counterparts.  As the females get more protein in their diet, they are more likely to come into estrous, and once pregnant, carry a healthier offspring.  Survival of the fittest, a natural phenomenon that occurs in all life, is outplayed here as the gene pool expands and a sharing male’s genetic spawn continue the same tradition … if they are smart, that is.

Anthropologists must be all over this study, to determine if men will have a greater copulative success rate by  bringing better quality produce home from local farmer’s markets.  Sharing is caring.

It is a biological fascination to make connections between species, especially when they can be directly related to the human experience.  If male chimps cultivate a food caretaker mentality, how do human  males outplay a similar enactment?  How do human females respond, and what, exactly, is it that women are looking for in a man?  It is the eternal question that neither sex may fully be able to pie graph for one other.

While chimps trade meat for sex, women get bigger, better, and more orgasms if their partner has a good chunk of money available.  In another fascinating study, Dr. Thomas Pollet, a Newcastle University psychologist who, frankly, is quite young himself, recently submitted research that suggested “the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.”  Pollet believes this phenomena is an evolutionary adaptation, hard-wired into women, “suggesting that women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers.”

And meat shoppers, but of course, not their own meat–man’s meat.

You heard it here, The Melon.

The Melon is pleased to announce our new podcast, The Melon Underground. Join Chris “The Wedge” Van Vechten, Jometheus (Jack Faust) and Electric Elliot as they drinks some brews and shoot the shit about the universe.

Episode Zero covers a wide range of topics, from the first 104.678 days of the Obama administration, to education, Tacoma politics and the agriculture industry. Enjoy.

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I first met Jeff in 1999 and joined the the gypsies of Beekeepers in 2000; a young 17-year-old escaping the halls of educational facilities after graduating from high school. I joined a small circle of beekeepers in Long Prairie and Eagle Bend, Minnesota, which provided me the opportunity to assert my independence, financially provide my own way, be near my brother, and fall in love.

Author on the right, photo courtesy of Tina Kahrs

I probably idealize that time period too much, but it seems like the happiest days of my life were in Minnesota, secretly gardening naked, swimming with beautiful wood and painted turtles in the pond behind the bee shop, or mudding with our three- and four-wheelers at Spider Lake. In early spring every good beekeeper feels the itch to hurry with orange honey production in California and get on the road with the bees, heading northeast toward Minnesota, Land of the 10,000 Lakes, which naturally appeals to my DNA-laden wanderlust blood.

Jeff Anderson is a ruggedly-built stocky Minnesotan with sandy hair who looks like he stepped out of a Western Shootout Saga; and yet his voice is always calm and gentle which meticulously sounds out witty remarks in a very dry sense of humor. My fondest memory of Jeff was from Saturdays, when he would play the piano while I sang and Rachel, his daughter and my soon-to-be sister-in-law, played her flute. Jeff was the type of man every teenager wishes for her father (although I wouldn’t trade my own, but wouldn’t mind having a second one)–willing to get out on his-three wheeler and play in the mud with four young couples.

Jeff used to run a five-thousand-hive bee operation. But since 2000, Jeff’s bees have dropped from five thousand hives to less than two thousand. This spurred a research enterprise to find out why the bees died and charge the culprits to enforce the federal laws. California & Minnesota Honey Farms is a four-generational enterprise, handed down through the family since 1945. The family was featured in a May 1993 National Geographic Article on Beekeepers, and when my oldest brother, Rick, was 13 and saw another 12-year-old female beekeeper, that article inspired him to pester my parents to get him a beehive (which didn’t work). Unbeknownst to all, Rachel’s family seared into his mind and in 1999 they met in college, marrying in 2001.

Jeff Anderson, photo courtesy of Kyle Anderson

California & Minnesota Honey Farms has been in danger of extermination—not only from the disappearing and dying bees, but also from International Paper company.  International Papers is a vile corporation that illegally sprayed chemicals on the bees, which killed off thousands of hives and jeopardized the livelihood of a family whose business spans four generations, thousands of bee stings, and countless lonely nail-biting miles on the road.

Bees are like canaries in a coal mine—their decline and seemingly disappearance signals dangers for the rest of us. The problem is that beekeepers have become marginalized since agricultural areas are turning into developed cookie-cutter homes and industrial complexes, making it hard for beekeepers to be heard… until the Great Disappearing of Bees began sometime in 2005. This made Jeff Anderson, Protector of Bees, famous for his fight against International Papers.