Why I object to Tesco in Stokes Croft, Bristol

On Tuesday I ate (well) in Zazu’s Kitchen in the cultural quarter of Stokes Croft.

A unique area featuring street art from vintage Banksy

to up-to-the-minute street art. (Thanks Italian food blogger, Jasmine, for Banksy pic).

“93% of local people don’t want Tesco in Stokes Croft,” says the fresh notice on Stokes Croft’s  creative response to street drinking, Turbo Island.

How many Tescos do we need? There are already 38 Tescos in Bristol according to Tesco – and two within five minutes of the proposed site.

Tesco picked the wrong place to wield its corporate takeover of the high street when it set its sights on the eighteenth-century building at 138-142 Cheltenham Road in Stokes Croft.

Using an intermediary (to deflect suspicion? Surely not?), it bought the lease on Jesters comedy club and applied for change-of-use to shop in November 2009.

Apparently, one Bristol City councillor said: had he known it was Tesco applying, he would not have agreed. But the application got passed, unnoticed.

Thus Tesco infiltrated the heartland of Stokes Croft, as part of its taking advantage of the recession master-plan. What a double-win for Tesco: cheapness and take-over. The more shops Tesco has, the less competition.

Local shops cannot compete against a supermarket’s marketing millions. Hello supermarket means goodbye local family businesses.

Stokes Croft happens to bring together a powerful group of people: freethinkers, food activists and artists. The area’s independent shops offer a wealth of cultural diversity and quality food – including a long-established Italian delicatessen and organic farm shop – and community.

People know each other and help each other.

The local shops even have an informal agreement not to sell cheap-as-dirt super-strength alcohol – the liver-rotting stuff supermarkets sell.

It will be the beginning of the end if Tesco moves in.

As Joni Mitchell sung in the Sixties: “They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot…You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

There is still time to stop the juggernaut.

All Bristolians have a right to object.

It’s true that current planning laws do not allow a Council to protect its own local shops as the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary: Tesco – the supermarket eating Britain – shows.

However the formal objection process against a shop front still gives plenty of scope for voicing concerns.

Tesco front store branding promises cheapness but is a lie. Our local shops are cheaper than Tesco Express, according to a local survey.

I am helping run workshops to help people write their letters. We all need encouragement. I know I did.

The No Tesco in Stokes Croft campaignwebsite has a template letter to email to Bristol City Council. Copy and paste, then top-and-tail with a list of your concerns and your postal address.

The deadline for emailing your objection is the 14 September 2010.

I have also sent my written statement asking to speak at the planning committee on 22 September at Bristol City Council on College Green.

There will be a party on College Green from 12.30 – 2.00pm to celebrate our campaign. Whatever happens, our fight for fair planning laws has just begun.

I hear Stokes Croft is causing Tesco a huge headache.

Navajo tea

Back in the UK, sipping Navajo tea from the greenthread plant.

Crystal had told me about the tea – organic greenthread tea grown near Gallup.

I could not stay for Gallup’s farmers’ market to get some but, luckily, on our way back from the Navajo nation to Flagstaff, I found greenthread tea at a gas station on Route 66.

See the packet of Yanabah tea in the pic above, a shot taken on my first day back in the UK, plus homecoming flowers.

Tonight I sit at home sipping Yanabah tea.

I love the taste, reminds me of nettle tea. Like European nettles, greenthread grow wild, its strength-giving properties still intact.

The warmth and strength of Navajo tea sipped in England connects me to my summer in the US, and two conversations I don’t want to forget.

We visited Anna Rondon on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico with my sister and her husband. Several years ago they had made a film on depleted uranium featuring Anna Rondon, the chair of the Navajo Green Economy mission.

Bear with me while I explain about depleted uranium: a by-product of refining uranium ore, which has been mined in the Navajo nation, it causes radioactive hell for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and the US and UK military.

A green economy provides the Navajo nation with alternative employment to cancer-causing uranium ore mining.

Back to my visit: So here I am in New Mexico for the first time in my life and I have been cooped up in a car or house since leaving Flagstaff that morning.

“I need to go out for a stroll,” I say.

Anna’s daughter, Crystal, gives me directions from the residential street to nearby open land on a rock.

I feel English and befuddled.

Crystal patiently explains: “Follow the trail.”

Then she adds: “Sometimes we make our own trail.”

On the rock, I feel like a child allowed out to play.

“Sometimes we make our own trail”. Stays in my mind.

I leave the stony path feeling brave. I only take a ten-minute detour but feels like the start of a good practice.

That was the first conversation I don’t want to forget.

The next day Anna Rondon takes us to a Sun Dance in the heart of the nation.

On the way she tells me more about her work building an eco-economy for the nation. New Mexico has the resources to make solar power work all the year round.

She does not use the word “sustainable” to describe her work. On purpose.

I rejoice – I have always disliked that word because a) it has too many syllables b) no one really knows what it means.

We both agree – “sustainable” has become a meaningless word co-opted by corporations to improve their image.

Instead Anna Rondon uses the Dine (Navajo) term to describe how to make a living in harmony with the earth: lifeways.

Native American lifeways have been inspiring the green movement for decades.

So, that is the second conversation I don’t want to forget.

Top Chef DC – Capital View

Back in the UK.

Blog-mind filled with unwritten posts.

Like that Tuesday in Washington DC.

We’d been on the Amtrak train since 5.30am Sunday morning

- passed Gallup and our Dine (Navajo) friends (another blog to come)

- woke that morning in Kansas station where I stretched my legs in the light and sun

- ate three meals a day in the dining car and watched Amerika‘s gigantic land roll by.

Planned to do the tourist thing at Washington DC.

Its railway station heralded grandeur.

But by the time we reached our hostel, we were exhausted.

After two days of train-rocking, we wanted was stillness.

A night-in.

What a night-in!

Turned out we were in the funkiest hostel in the funkiest part of town.

On a empty parking lot, surrounded by modern neighbours, the brick house with wood panels and sash windows, built in the 19th century, belonging to the National Advancement of Colored People.

To add to the hostel’s homeliness, a (modern, paint-white) shared kitchen.

A good place for gossip: a TV journalist showed a picture on his phone of David Cameron’s visit that day to the White House.

While cooking brown rice, I found a unopened packet of interesting Indian spices and spinach from Trader Joe’s. A previous guest had labelled it: “to share”.

I debated with myself: was it selfish or unselfish to use it?

A young Danish guest urged me to. He said I reminded him of his mother, also a brown rice ex-hippy. (And like my children would have done, encouraging me to think of myself).

Enter the hostel manager, Kevin, who turned out to be a would-be blogger for the hostel (and I about to give a social media workshop when I got back to the UK) and into real food.

So we shared the brown rice and spicy spinach, and Kevin invented a crunchy-soft topping of avocado and peanut butter.

Over my six-week stay in the US, I had been watching Top Chef DC on TV, marvelling how the US,  as mired as the UK in obesity and junk food, is as obsessed as the UK with food on TV.

Now I was in the foodie capital, eating the kind of spontaneous, messy, healthy, tasty concoction I would eat at home.

Thank you, Capital View.

Carrot cake at the Grand Canyon

I ask the Grand Canyon rancher: “What is the trail for the scaredy-cats with no heads for heights?”

Nonplussed, she sends us to the start of the Bright Angel trail.

Looks steep and scary to me.

I do not dare take in the view. Just focus on my feet.

Try to ignore the images of pitching headlong over the edge which my mind is generously supplying.

We see a zag of lightning.

Thunder hollers in the canyon.

Anxiety about heat exhaustion (it was 100 degrees when we started) is replaced by fear of being struck by lightning.

Fat plops of rain fall.

When we reach the Mile-and-a-half shelter, I am soaked. Chilly.

Three US students and a  family from Amsterdam are also sheltering. We commiserate over Holland losing the World Cup.

The students have been hiking since early morning.

They witnessed a helicopter rescue for a hiker with a scorpion bite. The helicopter took six hours to arrive, the rancher two.

Not enough money, say the students. The Grand Canyon is feeling the recession.

The rain stops.

We set off on our return journey up the trail.

Miraculously, my mind is no longer furnishing scenes of disaster.

I am no longer hugging the side of the rock.

I am taking in the view. And stride.  A miracle.

Time for the carrot cake’s photo-shoot (see pic above).

I baked it the night before, amalgamating and adjusting several recipes found on the web for the simplest.

Here it is before I forget it.

Whisk five small eggs (or four big ones) with 1+1/4 cups of sugar and 1+1/4 of organic coconut oil

Fold in 2 cups of organic flour and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Plus 3 cups of grated organic carrot and some cut-up raisins.

Bake in a greased loaf tin for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Insert a knife to check it is not wet when withdrawn. If wet, the cake is not sufficiently cooked.

Because of the high altitude (7,000 feet) of Flagstaff, the cake took another twenty minutes.

I concocted a separate topping of whisked organic tofu, lime juice and organic agave nectar (the un-organic kind is highly processed and not worth it).

The topping did not come with us to the Grand Canyon.

Unlike the brave carrot cake, that did.

You can’t beat US home cooked food

The US Asia bus from Las Vegas (hot tip: cheaper than the Greyhound) drops me on the outskirts of Los Angeles, at Monterey Park.

I buy a new watch strap and a refreshing green tea with succulent mango seeds from one of the many local Chinese shops.

I ask directions for downtown LA, using my rudimentary Spanish as the lady I ask speaks no English.

Poor people, and workers, on the no 70 bus. I am minority White. Everyone helpful and polite.

Downtown LA with its impressive skyscrapers.

After catching another bus, stressed from travelling in a strange land, I am picked up by my Servas host.

Servas was started after the Second World War to promote peace and understanding amongst nations.

Suddenly, I am whisked to heaven – yoga in the garden, fine wines on the veranda, then supper with soul conversations.

I realise that most of the food I have been eating in the US has been ethnic: Thai, Chinese or Indian.

This is my first taste of traditional American food.

Home cooked, with ingredients from the local farmers’ markets, it is superb.

Traditional July 4 food: barbecued and succulent spare ribs, homemade watermelon rind pickle, refrigerator cucumber pickle (Midwest speciality) and – officially – the best coleslaw I have ever tasted – courtesy of Angie’s father with spicy cayenne and refreshing parsley and cilantro.

The pudding: seasonal cherries picked that day by Angie in Leona valley, a nearby microclimate defying the Californian desert. Plus apricots, a blob of creme fraiche, and the most elegantly thin wholemeal pastry (a feat as such pastry is usually cludgy).

Bless you, Angie and Hans, for giving me sanctuary.

Vardo, Venice

I walk the boardwalk from Santa Monica to Venice.

The sky is overcast (yummy, just like home in England). The locals call it June gloom.

I am hungry but nothing takes my fancy.

It looks touristy and, well, not real food.

I can’t get this restaurant out of my head that I had passed earlier.

The sign had said: ethnic, vegan, vegetarian…

I don’t like retracing my steps, or leaving the ocean.

But I am glad I did.

It is rare to find somewhere where I want to eat every dish on the menu.

This is the place for me.

An oasis. Delicate flavours, vegan and vegetarian delights, raw food desserts and all ingredients organic.

I had the aromatic gently spicy dhal and spinach curries and salad, beautifully dressed with homemade vinaigrette.

followed by this sweetheart of raw chocolate with fresh mint and coconut filling.

Vardo means gypsy in Roma.

And suited this gypsy queen down to the ground.

Food I eat in the US

Leaving Las Vegas

on the US Asia bus (tip: cheaper than Greyhound bus).

I have my bag of provisions from New Frontiers. Organic roasted cashews, plums, bananas, chocolate almonds.

I had oatmeal porridge for breakfast in the Sahara hotel and casino on the Strip.

My palatial room with en-suite was only $28 a night. I could live cheaply in Las Vegas.

The vast lobby filled with a 100 gambling machines holds no temptation.

Nor does the food.

It is plentiful alright. But nothing I want.

I am in the land of GM.

No labelling on food. No choice.

My list of food I don’t want includes:
anything with corn in it – one of the native American ‘three sisters’, it is a prime victim of genetic modification.

That cuts out a lot including, sadly, tortillas.

I don’t want to be fussy about food.

But I know too much.

I can’t unknow that cattle are pumped with grain and hormones, or shrimp is laced with antibiotics, or the gene to resist the weedkiller Roundup Ready has been inserted into the corn plant’s cells.

Plus my delicate digestion is like a canary down a mine.

I had a rice drink in my first week from a regular cafe. The next day my bowels knew it. I think it was the high-fructose corn syrup.

As the US food writer, Michael Pollan, says:

If it comes from a plant, eat it, if it was made in a plant don’t.

I am in the land of the overfed and losing weight.

How ironic.

PS Just after writing this moany blog,  the bus stopped mid-desert. I eschewed McDonald’s and plumped for Chinese fast food. Joy! I rate Panda Express.

God bless farmers’ markets

So here I am in the land of fast food.

Food is not only about how it tastes when you eat it.

- the food technologists have ways to make it seem to taste good.

More importantly, it is how it feels in your gut several hours later…

Fast food ruins my digestion. To be avoided at all costs.

Thank god for fresh food at Flagstaff farmers’ market

Above – fresh organic beets and chard from Seacat Gardens.

And Flagstaff farmer’s market now accepts food stamps.

- thanks, Kennedy, for that hot-off-the-press info.

Praise-be for Community Shared Agriculture too.

Such as Crooked Sky Farms

where you can give your labour in exchange for a share in the harvest.

Community Shared Agriculture – like fast food – originated in the United States.

Ah, complex beautiful country, providing both the problems

and the cutting-edge solutions!

In praise of Amtrak

Supper time on board the Amtrak train from New York to Chicago. Wild rice, trout and a medley of vegetables

The Hudson river (above) was our companion for a good while on the Lake Shore railroad.

Every meal time, we sat with different people. Several asked me about the British health care system. I said: “I bless the National Health Service.”

Socialism has a bad rap in the US but there is nothing to be scared of. It’s simply about society sharing the care of its citizens, especially the vulnerable ones.

This is my first time in the US.

We had flown from the UK to New York.

Going by train from New York to Arizona was initially for green reasons.

It was also more scenic, more convivial, more educational and also allowed more natural adjustment to time differences.

After sleeping on the train, we changed at Chicago. Like New York, it reminded me of European cities.

But the landscape became less familiar after Chicago.

Our conductor on the Southwest Chief gave us hot flannels, a welcome hangover from the days of steam trains.

We sat in the observatory lounge and watched the landscape change.

Agricultural fields of corn (see above), but few houses or people.

You get a lot of land for your money in the Midwest, said one passenger. But, he explained, it suffered from water shortages. There was competition for water between the states and much water went on golf courses.

The conductors had great lines of repartee and wit, such as:

“In a few moments we will be reaching Raton, New Mexico, and time for a brief smoke break. Have a few puffs on that cigarette but don’t wander far from the train or you will become a hitchhiker not a passenger although the good news is – there is another train in 24 hours.”

The landscape changed again after Albuquerque where we stopped for an hour in the intense heat, and an unexpected anti-genocide exhibition,
One Million Bones.

I fell in love with the railroad and big skies, the America of much loved novels.

I felt touched by the people I spent time with hearing something of their stories and why they are travelling: grandchildren, graduation, loss of loved ones.

I also had great chats about food: cinnamon in porridge; beer batter for frying flounders, and lavender and chamomile for restful herbal tea.

I feel sad how people from different countries and cultures can get divided from each other, through the iniquities of a profit-before-people system.

It took us two and half days to reach our destination in Arizona.

It was a privilege.

Eat organic – reduce carbon

Today I met my friend and ex-Soil Association colleague, Gundula Azeez, for lunch.

She wrote the Soil Association 2010 report, Soil carbon and organic farming.

I confess carbon used to confuse me.

As a journalist, my ignorance is my strength. If I can understand it, so can you.

Gundula kindly went back to basics for a beginner’s mind explanation.

Is carbon good or bad?

Carbon is both good and bad depending on where it is.

When it is in the soil, or locked up in oil and coal, it’s good.

When it’s in the atmosphere, it’s bad.

Carbon-in-the-air i.e. carbon dioxide is something we need to breathe OUT.

In the case of current planetary concerns, rising levels of carbon dioxide (or CO2) create rising greenhouse gases – too much of which contributes to climate change.

(Sentence rewritten following Georgie’s comment below).

Organic farming and the carbon cycle

Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere by breathing IN carbon dioxide.

That’s good.

When plants decay, the carbon is stored in the soil.

That’s good too.

Organic farmers uses this natural cycle to replenish the soil.

According to the Soil Association report, if all UK farmland were converted to organic farming, at least 3.2 million tonnes of carbon would be stored in the soil each year – the equivalent of taking nearly 1 million cars off the road

Not only that – but when carbon is stored in the soil, it does a LOT of good.

That’s because it is stored as organic matter which retains nutrients, soil structure and water.

Organic farmers create more carbon-rich organic matter through their farming practices.

They grow green manures and add compost to enrich the soil.

Soil life

Introducing soil microbes, the tiniest creatures on earth that perform vital functions to keep the soil healthy.

These soil microbes are exterminated by chemical farming practices but are actually encouraged by organic farmers.

Soil micro-organisms are essential to life on earth.

They help deliver nutrients to the growing plant.

They help it decompose when it is dead.

Thus creating more organic matter and its carbon-storage capacity.

Clods of earth

The soil actually clumps – or aggregates – around the carbon to protect it.

This delicious crumbly soil also provides a holding place for water, nutrients and air.

Which is why majority-world countries benefit from organic farming practices because they increase yield, and create water-retaining soil.

This gives developing countries more economic independence too.

They don’t have to pay the West for chemicals to feed the soil because organic farming does it naturally – by using the planet’s natural carbon cycle.

Lunch at Saint Stephen’s cafe

I had sweet potato frittata and salad – pictured – at Saint Stephen’s cafe.

The food is amazing – home-cooked and organic, seasonal, fair trade and local where possible.

Saint Stephen’s church cares deeply about the environment and this is reflected in its cafe food, conceived by one of Bristol’s best cooks, Edna Yeffet Summerel.

Nice to know when I eat organic food that I am enriching the soil and helping store carbon…