CBS’ “The Early Show” sent a crew to our home a couple of weeks ago to do a story on our locavore lifestyle. We were fortunate to be able to share our story with them, and to have them follow us to both the Bayou City Farmers’ Market and Midtown Farmers’ Market at t’afia. The segment aired on Monday, November 17.

This weekend we visited my sister and her family in San Antonio, TX. It was a short visit but it is always a pleasure to spend some time with her and her family. We had made plans to spend Sunday afternoon together in Wimberley, a picturesque town north of San Antonio, but Isabella, her baby girl was not feeling well.

We proceeded with our plans without them. First we stopped at The Bella Vista Ranch, which according to Jack Dougherty, the owner, “is the first commercially producing olive orchard in Texas,” home to First Texas Olive Oil Co. They have guided tours of their orchard, olive mill and winery, a tasting room and a gift shop where we bought 2 bottles of their Alfresco extra virgin olive oil.

Next we headed to The Leaning Pear, where chef Matthew Buchanan prepares dishes with seasonal and local food. We all had a delicious soup and the Leaning Pear house salad, seasoned with shallot vinaigrette, spiced pecans and local goat cheese. We highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Wimberley. After eating, we spent an hour walking around the town square before we headed back to Houston.

I am glad we decided to get out of town and break our routine. We had a lovely time with family and we even explored a charming little town.

Gracie Cavnar, the driving force behind Recipe for Success has been named a L’Oreal 2008 Woman of Worth. Recipe for Success is a Houston organization that works with more than 3,000 children each month, delivering cooking, gardening and nutrition instruction in a number of Houston schools.

L’Oréal Paris will donate up to $25,000 to benefit one National Woman of Worth Honoree’s most cherished cause.  Please click the link below to vote for Gracie:
L’Oreal 2008 Woman of Worth

We recently paid a visit to MacGregor Elementary, one of the Recipe for Success pilot schools, for a firsthand look at the school garden and classroom. It is admirable what the kids are learning in the classroom.

“Recipe for Success Foundation is dedicated to combating childhood obesity and encouraging long term health by altering the way our children understand, appreciate and eat their food.” Their program “is focused on integrating nutrition vertically throughout curriculum and after school programs, and operates in selected H.I.S.D. elementary schools.” (Source: recipe4success.org) 

Visit the photo gallery (but only after you’ve voted for Gracie!).

Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama.

During the next few months, the Obama administration will coalesce and take its fledgling steps onto a world stage fraught with challenges. These problems will at once be familiar and new, from the long-ignored peril of oil-dependence and diminished health care to the sudden economic crisis that has gripped the world’s markets and threatens to undermine economic stability for a long time to come.

However, even while we implement bold plans to reverse or fix these problems, we also have the most valuable of all currencies available to us – ideas.

Recently, Michael Pollan wrote a letter to the next president  published in the New York Times. Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, challenges the President to improve our nation’s food system, a task that will require the participation of farmers, consumers, legislators, and yes, the first family as well.

Leaving no stone unturned, Pollan outlines the actions required: converting agriculture back to solar power (breaking our reliance on fossil-fuel based fertilizers and pesticides), eliminating the subsidization of commodity crops that are actually harming human health and the planet, increasing food security through regionalization and restoring sustainable agricultural practices throughout the American landscape. In support of these broad actions are initiatives that are gaining traction already through the commitment of dynamic and progressive non-profit organizations: gardens and healthy meal preparation in primary schools, community gardens, community-supported agriculture and more.

President-elect Obama has already outlined a commitment to energy-independence within 10 years. What is needed now is what conservationist Wendell Berry has dubbed “solving for pattern,” or the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems while minimizing the creation of new problems

Pollan’s letter has provided the Obama administration (and the rest of us) with a set of solutions that fundamentally address pattern. By retooling our food system, we can effectively counter these grave threats to human health, environmental stability, energy and even our economy.

The future is at stake, but there are solutions. And there is no lack of currency for re-imagining our world, even if it happens one meal at a time.

Real-time results of the presidential race…