A Front Burner Issue | Pura Vida! | Recipe: Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
A Front Burner Issue | Pura Vida! | Recipe: Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
Issue No. 30
In this week’s edition, who cares about climate change? He does! She does! They do! Also, we have a remembrance of the Civil Rights Movement’s sit-ins on the 60th anniversary of the protests, an intoxicating read on natural wine, and chocolate cake for dessert.
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Jackie and I started this newsletter last summer wanting to focus on three food-related topics: Florida’s growing seasons, fermentation, and climate change. But sometimes the third item felt like touching a third rail. We worried how readers might react. In September, Jackie wrote an introduction about the parallels between her Catholic beliefs growing up and how she resists climate change. We sent it out and crossed our fingers that a confrontation with the climate problem wouldn’t lead to mass unsubscribes.
Six months later, climate change issues have become a steady part of Sunshine + Microbes’ repertoire, and readers didn’t go running scared when we broached the topic. In fact, our subscriber base has more than doubled (almost to 500 y’all. Help us get there by spreading the good word!). As Emily Atkin, who sends out a climate change newsletter with over 20,000 subscribers, puts it:
I’ve learned that — despite media both-siderism and Koch disinformation — the U.S. public mostly agrees (it’s still partisan) that climate change is real, manmade, and needs to be dealt with by the government.
That’s why it’s so dismaying to see another Democratic primary debate ignore the subject. I’m not the only one who feels this way.
The media and political leaders should acknowledge that a significant portion of the U.S. wants to hear and discuss solutions for climate change. The calls for more discussion are not limited to the lefty pockets of the country or to the areas sinking into the ocean (i.e. Florida). A poll in the lead up to the Iowa caucus found that “climate change” was tied with “health care” as the issue Democratic caucus-goers considered “extremely important.” Polls in early primary states also have shown overwhelming support for the Green New Deal.
Citizens across the country are feeling the impacts of climate change in a very real way. For example, Iowa and South Carolina both are enduring historic flooding from climate change-induced extreme rains — and it’s been especially devastating for farmers in Iowa and throughout the midwest.
It’s a shame to see the existential issue of our time put on the back burner on the debate stage. In previous debates, former candidates like Beto O’Rourke and Tim Ryan have brought up environmental solutions like regenerative agriculture. But overall this dialogue has been rare, and that’s a result of the networks ignoring it. During a question about trade in a January debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders brought up climate change only for a moderator to tell him to stay on topic. The senator replied “they’re the same!” And he’s right.
Climate change permeates every major issue from trade to immigration to national security to, of course, health and food.
We’re a food newsletter that happens to also be about climate change. Mentioning the former without the latter would feel irresponsible. Thank you Sunshine + Microbes readers for letting us do so.
abrazos,
Matt
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TRAVELING WHILE HUNGRY
Friend of the newsletter and Costa Rica Tica Jandi Keum chews on a dilemma during a journey home.
I am originally from Costa Rica. I grew up there until heading off to the U.S. for college. Two degrees and a marriage later, I have settled into the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Throughout my various moves, I spent the past nine years flip-flopping from vegan to vegetarian to pescatarian and back. Then, six months ago, I finally committed to veganism for the long-haul. Having enjoyed the widespread availability of vegan food at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and even Walmart, I was apprehensive about traveling back home.
For some background, I had not been able to visit Costa Rica for over 14 months, as I got tangled up in the bureaucratic nightmare known as the U.S. immigration system. So this time, my visit held a lot at stake – it was my first time going home in too long, I had not seen my family in 8 months, and it was my husband’s first time getting to know my home country. At the same time, I wanted to stay committed to my vegan diet.
Some parrots enjoying the traditional Costa Rican breakfast gallo pinto:
Eating out as a vegan in Costa Rica, particularly in rural and touristy areas, is tough to do unless you commit to eating rice and beans and plantains and plain tortillas for literally every meal. Most bread in Costa Rica contains milk and/or eggs (I found this out the hard way after making the wrong assumption about a nice ciabatta I ate at a resort on the Pacific coast).
At some point, I ran out of vegan granola bar rations. As a result, on a 6 a.m. snorkeling trip in the Pacific Coast, I caved. The only open place in town was a local bakery. I was desperate and didn't want to be starving while swimming in open water so I had a cream pastry. It was delicious and I apologized to the cow. From there, my veganism took a vacation too. I missed eating local food — my home country's food. Homemade tortillas palmeadas — palm flattened tortillas filled with cheese, eaten with a sweet sour cream called natilla. Savory potato wrapped in a flaky puff pastry known as enchilada de papa. Crema de ayote, a creamy squash soup that was particularly amazing in the cold Arenal volcano region.
I am back to my vegan diet now that I’m in the U.S. Many other vegans emphasize that it's not an all or nothing deal – it's about constantly working towards sustainability, upholding animal rights, and for some, being kinder to your body. Veganism is important to me, but I also believe in forgiving yourself and doing what you need to take care of yourself. In this case, taking care of myself meant bending the rules a little to find my way back home.
-Jandi
Pura vida! ✌️
Fresh links
⛔The Man Behind the Counter | Bitter Southerner
One of the iconic photos from the Civil Rights Movement occurred in 1960 at a lunch counter in a Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, N.C. In the picture, four African-American college students sit at the counter while glancing back at the photographer.
These young men known as the A&T Four (after the local college) would be a catalyst for sit-in protests around the country that helped desegregate “Whites Only” establishments. But also in that photo is a black busboy behind the counter named Charles Bess. Now, age 82, Bess spoke about his role in that historic image.
He was 23 then, and had been promoted from dishwasher to busboy. All the kitchen staff was black, while the waitstaff was white. He had no idea that he’d be talking about that photo 60 years later, but he felt thrilled at the time when he saw the A&T Four take a seat at the counter and refuse to leave despite not receiving service. Bess told his cab driver on the way home about the incident, then his family.
Months later, as the sit-ins gained traction and the Civil Rights Movement grew, Woolworth’s upper management told the other kitchen staff to eat lunch that day at the counter. Bess had a meatloaf and went back to work. Segregation at Woolworth’s had ended.
Parts of the expanded counter post-integration now belong to the National Museum of African-American History in D.C. and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The original lunch counter now resides at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. Sometimes Bess will walk into the museum and go up to the counter, and tell visitors about the change that took place there 60 years ago.
👨🍳Current Job: Award-Winning Chef; Education: University of IHOP. | NY Times
Acclaimed chefs at top restaurants have been receiving their training at unexpected destinations: fast food chains.
Chain restaurants are often accused of a sterile uniformity and a lack of attention to quality ingredients, nutrition and the environment. But for anyone trying to enter the restaurant business, they have particular attractions: formalized training, efficient operations, predictable schedules and corporate policies that claim to discourage the kind of abuses that have come to light in the #MeToo era. The pay is sometimes better than at independent restaurants, and the Affordable Care Act requires companies with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance.
These chains have been developing the next set of all-star chefs. As a teen, Tiffany Derry was a short-order cook at IHOPs in southeast Texas, where she learned business skills like “how to cost out a dish” and “do inventory” without needing to pay for culinary school. She now has her own restaurant in Plano, Texas where she tries to pass on similar skills taught at IHOP franchises. Katsuya Fukushima — executive chef at several Japanese restaurants in Washington D.C., — said handling the drive-thru window at Wendy’s in his late teens proved to be a more practical experience for him than working at El Bulli, considered the best restaurant in the world before its closing.
Many celebrated chefs still have a soft spot for chain food. Like French cooking star Jacques Pépin, who spent 10 years at Howard Johnson’s, and Sean Brock, a leading Southern chef, who once took Anthony Bourdain on a drunken sojourn to Waffle House.
🍷The Strange-But-True Story of Natural Wine’s Ascent | New Yorker
This story is a delight. Rachel Monroe explores the origins of the U.S. obsession with natural wine — “typically made with organic grapes, using no added yeast, no filtration, no chemical additives, no new oak barrels, no mechanical manipulations”. Today the wine has become a favorite of a certain type of connoisseur with an indie sensibility. There are natural wine zines, festivals and fairs, and Instagram posts with the hashtag #nattywine. As a backlash to gigantic corporations and “grapes doused in the weed killer glyphosate”, natural wines serve as a perfect fit for urban appetites looking for “authenticity.” Both virtuous and indulgent, natural wine is an obsession for many.
So perhaps it’s appropriate that the birthplace of natural wines in the U.S. was in a cult. Gideon Beinstock, a 64-year-old French-Israeli man, joined the group called the Fellowship of Friends after getting involved in a type of mysticism known as the Fourth Way (which combined, among other things, Zen Buddhism, Sufi Islam, and the occult”).
Beinstock moved to the Fellowship’s headquarters in northern California, and started working in the group’s vineyards. He started taking the “natural” approach to winemaking and eventually his wines became best-sellers. The Fellowship did not survive. Its founder, who claimed to speak with angelic beings that included Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln, saw membership disappear due to a mix of failed apocalyptic predictions and sexual harassment allegations. Beinstock became disillusioned with the Fellowship as his winemaking prowess grew.
But natural wine lives on. It might be bigger than ever these days. And still a little bit of a cult.
Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
I make a lot of cultured butter at work. I’m always trying to find creative ways to use up the buttermilk, the liquid byproduct of the butter-making process. Here is one such endeavor — a lovely, little cake. Easy to whip up and satisfying without feeling decadent. Serve with fresh berries and whipped cream for a satisfying afternoon snack.
Ingredients and Special Tools
1 cup flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour, but choose your own adventure)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk (or milk or yogurt)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup olive oil
(Optional) 1 cup mix-ins such as chopped nuts, chocolate, and/or coconut flakes
Parchment paper
9-inch round springform or other cake pan
Step-by-step
Preheat oven to 375 °F. Cut a round piece of parchment and line the cake pan so the bottom and most of the sides are covered. Lightly rub a splash of olive oil onto parchment.
In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Crack the eggs directly into the flour mixture, breaking the yolks with a wooden spoon. Add buttermilk, olive oil, and vanilla extract and mix until there are no more dry bits of flour.
If adding optional mix-ins, gently fold into the batter now.
Pour batter into the parchment-lined pan, and bake on the middle rack in the oven for about 35 minutes. Insert a toothpick to be sure the cake is cooked all the way through (There should be no wet batter sticking to the toothpick). Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully remove cake from the pan. Gently peel away parchment, and let it finish cooling, ideally on a wire rack.
Usually Just Desserts is food-related. But I got nothing good this week. So, here are some adorable dancing animals.
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.