food fest 5: some kernels about corn

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In an oval roundabout in Menston a dozen Poplar trees were planted in the 1970s. As you can see only about half survive and these have been mistreated by polling them to restrict height.

Credits Avocadoes Camknows CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 “avocadoes by Elsa4Sound CC BY-NC 2.0

Not so long ago my Hostas were in fine flowering fettle. Now as Autumn approaches the slugs and snails are making a meal of the soft juicy leaves that are starting to give up the ghost.

Lichen on tree bark

The last week or two has seen an influx of butterflies in the garden, which may or may not be the norm at this time of year; some have even paused long enough for me to photograph them, which is certainly not the norm! I hadn’t planned to seek them out for Six on Saturday, the meme hosted by Jim of Garden Ruminations, but nevertheless they still wangled themselves into the photographs. Above is a meadow brown.

Garden designer Alison Jenkins in her Somerset smallholding

I recently had a call from a South Carolina resident who lost power for more than 24 hours and wanted to know whether the foods in her freezer would be safe to eat. This is a very common problem in South Carolina winters and could easily affect you in the coming months.

Yes, you read that right – snowman hands. When I started teaching food safety practices to children I wondered how to teach them about proper hand washing. We all know how important it is to thoroughly wash our hands before preparing food, after touching raw meat and poultry or any other potentially contaminated surface. We can easily explain to children (and adults!) that singing happy birthday twice, while scrubbing hands, equals the prescribed 10 to 15 seconds that we should do while washing. However, how do you explain how much soap to use to create a good lather?? The answer: snowman hands! Use enough soap that your hands look like a snowman’s hands after rubbing them together! I have found great success with this tip while teaching children (and now my own children) to wash their hands properly. And guess what – it takes a good 10 to 15 seconds of scrubbing soapy hands together to create those snowman hands! Bonus to the singing of happy birthday while washing hands! So next time you are washing your hands, use enough soap to create snowman hands. This will help prevent the spread of food-borne illness (and those nasty cold and flu bugs too!).

Silver Queen Corn is a favorite; the 8-inch tapered ears fill to the tip with 14-16 rows of tender, sweet white kernels with excellent flavor. Kernels contain moderate degrees of sugar and convert to starch rapidly after harvest; taste best when fresh.

Food waste and how to reduce it is a big topic with big implications. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that food waste each year totals 133 billion pounds which includes 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels. Food is lost at all stages of the supply chain and for a variety of reasons that might include produce that is discarded because of flaws in appearance or restaurants serving large portions that may not be finished.