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Smog Poses A Present and Future Danger
Everywhere I went last week, people in Michigan were talking about the same thing: smog from Canadian wild fires,
You probably saw the dramatic pictures from New York City and heard about the Air Quality Index readings in various parts of the country. One day last week, Detroit’s AQI ranked behind New Delhi, India as the world’s worst.
Baseball games were canceled, fireworks were scraped, airports issued temporary flight stops, and everyone scrambled for tips on how to keep their air at home clean. I didn’t think it was affecting me, until I came home from my book event in Tecumseh, Mich., on Thursday night.
My throat felt scratchy, my eyes were clouding up and I woke up Friday with a very dry throat. This was more than my usual tangle with allergies, and I had to hydrate and use some eye drops.
Our turn to experience it
While it was a short-lived curiosity for East Coast residents, filthy air is something that hundreds of millions of people deal with worldwide every day. Air pollution, whether from fires or factories, has a broad impact on health and social life. For years, we have seen photos of murky air in Beijing, and hazy skies over Tokyo.
Of course, Californians have dealt with poor air quality for generations. Now, wildfires in western and eastern Canada have sent smoke as far south as Louisiana, which already faced its own locally induced air issues.
Eater New York reported that the city’s smoky skies prompted GrowNYC Greenmarkets to close on Thursday and Friday, including locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens as well as Manhattan’s Union Square Greenmarket and 97th Street Greenmarket.
That caused operational headaches for some leading chefs. “We get 90 percent of our produce from the Greenmarkets from May to October,” said Jean-Georges Vongerichten, chef and owner of prestigious restaurants, “so of course this affects us.”
He told Eater New York that chefs were working with farmers to get vegetables delivered directly to restaurants. While the market may be closed, “the farmers don’t stop growing.”
But there’s also the issue of what micro particles might to do their produce. If it’s visible on the surface, cooks can wash it off, but the smoke can have an effect on soil. If you have ever driven by a field or forest where a fire took place, you know that soot can linger for a long time.
In an email to supporters on Saturday, the High Line, an NYC park, posted:
“Short-term exposure to smoke (as little as 20 minutes) has been reported to reduce photosynthesis by as much as 50%, as a consequence of both the destruction of chlorophyll, the light-capturing green pigment, and in impeding the movement of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the plant through leaf pores.”
Putting health concerns first
Beyond that, proprietors were concerned about the smoke’s impact on employees and customers. Birria-Landia, an outdoor taco truck, temporarily closed its Manhattan outpost on Wednesday, Eater New York said. It wrote on Instagram: “Your health and safety are our top priorities.”
As many restaurant owners know, a number of Covid-wary customers still don’t want to eat inside. For them, outdoor dining had been a solution that allowed them to enjoy fresh air hospitality.
But poor air could keep them at home. And it also could prevent people from enjoying roof decks and picnics. My friend Liza Donnelly captured the conundrum in this cartoon.
Restaurant owners also have to be concerned for employees’ well being. In New Orleans, I saw so many servers, bartenders and other hospitality employees riding bicycles and walking to their jobs. No one wants people to endanger their lungs simply by commuting.
Hopefully, as Canada tackles the wildfires, the smoke will not be a lingering problem. Yet, we now have a taste of what other parts of the world are encountering, and what extreme weather may yield.
We Have A Winner!
The winner of Veg Forward by Susan Spungen is paid subscriber Nancy McAllister.
Nancy writes, “I live in Chicago in the Andersonville neighborhood, and I'm a freelance writer and editor. I love to cook, and I've been a vegetarian since 1986, so I am really looking forward to checking out the recipes in this cookbook.”
Congratulations Nancy! She’ll be receiving the book directly from Harper Collins. Our next giveaway is waiting in the wings. Hint: this one is for a carnivore, and it has been seen on TV, so stay tuned.
The Ebony Test Kitchen Finds A Home
I discovered Ebony Magazine in junior high school (what middle school was called back then). Our school librarian had subscriptions to both Ebony and Jet, and I enjoyed getting their perspectives on Black culture and politics.
A key feature of Ebony was its recipes. Ebony was famous for the test kitchen in the magazine’s Chicago offices, part of the Johnson Publishing Company. It opened in 1972, and was a classic example of late mid-century culinary design.
Here’s a description:
The 26-by-13-foot iconic kitchen consists of two separate but connected spaces, including a sitting area, all-electric appliances, wine rack and display and storage cabinets. The visual aesthetic of the test kitchen has been described as “Afrocentric modernism,” “psychedelic” and “bold.”
The kitchen includes swirled orange, purple and avocado green wallpaper, brightly colored cabinets and what in the 1970s were considered the height of modern amenities and appliances such as stovetop grills, a trash compactor and a refrigerator with an ice and water dispenser. The space was designed by Palm Springs-based interior designers William Raiser and Arthur Elrod of Arthur Elrod Associates.
But it was in danger after the building was sold and developers announced renovation plans. Landmarks Illinois, a preservation group, led an effort to save it. The kitchen was painstakingly dismantled and stored.
Now it is the safe hands of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum doesn’t plan to display it yet, but it will undergo conservation work while the museum decides how it will be used.
You can read more about the Ebony Test Kitchen here.
https://searchablemuseum.com/the-ebony-test-kitchen
Strawberry Season Has Arrived Up North
It is the most wonderful time of the year if you love strawberries. They have arrived at farmer’s markets and grocers in the northern U.S. In Michigan, the season is short, about three weeks, so we pounce on them and eat as many as we can.
I have been making my friend Kathy Gunst’s roasted strawberries for years. Lately, I have been adding a teaspoon of sumac, the Middle Eastern spice, before I roast them.
They cook very fast and give off the most wonderful syrup. Here is Kathy’s recipe.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/06/16/kathy-gunst-strawberries
Meanwhile,
had a wonderful recipe on her Substack this week for a strawberry rhubarb galette. You bake it in a cast iron skillet, which helps avoid burning the crust (something that has happened to me). You definitely want to sign up for her newsletter and look up this strawberry treat.Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
News: As I told you last week, I am excited to kick off CulinaryWoman Coaching. This week, I’ll begin sharing the names of the experts who are in my Rolodex of Resources. We are all looking forward to helping you, so please reach out.
Events: my Michigan Notable Authors Tour is this coming week. I look forward to seeing you if you are up North.
Contact me: you can reach me at culinarywoman (at) gmail dot com.
Social: I’m on Instagram (@) michelinemaynard and there is a CulinaryWoman Facebook page.
I’ll see our paid subscribers tomorrow with Red Beans and Advice, and everyone else next week. Stay safe and healthy!
I was in NYC this past week when the smoky skies occurred. I experienced smoky skies like these a few years ago, complete with the eerily orange hue, in San Francisco where I live. The smoke was even more alarming when I thought about the distance it had traveled from Canada to New York - perhaps as much as 500 miles - which was much greater than we experienced in SF (IIRC, the distance between the fires and SF was 100 miles).
On Wednesday June 7, when the smoke was at its worst, a local news broadcast included a segment about the ethics of able-bodied individuals ordering food and grocery delivery given the terrible air, when everyone was being encouraged to stay indoors as much as possible. The conclusion was that it was unethical to do this, excluding emergencies (again, this focused on able-bodied people, not people with limited mobility or other health issues which would be aggravated by the bad air). While everyone was encouraged to avoid going outside, if possible, or limit the amount of time spent outside (while wearing a mask, if available), the guidance was that people should get their own groceries or food, rather than forcing others to risk their health delivering those items.