Earth Day 2021
It would be easy enough to tick off the rather limited set of initiatives we have undertaken in our soul food kitchen to reduce impacts on the environment. Taking the Planet’s viewpoint for a sec, the real question is: What have you done for me lately? Or, at least, what are you willing to commit to going forward?
Top of the food chain, so to speak, is to get serious about composting all of our organic waste. For a while, I was using at least all of my vegetable scraps to make vegan soup stock. But that quickly started to take over our entire freezer space. You see, in case you didn’t know it, food prep involves a considerable amount of organic waste. When time has permitted, I’ve dipped my toes into researching composting programs in central Tel Aviv. But the effort, admittedly, has been desultory. I want to use this occasion to declare publicly that this coming year, we will do better.
Next in line is probably the shift to a more herbivore menu. This is a bit trickier. On the one hand, most of our extended family these days is vegan. And, not a small proportion of our clientele also orders vegan. On the other other hand, our kitchen has carved out its niche preparing a whole range of soul foods that are meat based. I think the strategy we need to adopt is simply to promote more actively our vegan options, without removing the standard stuff like bbq brisket and crabcakes from the menu. Not a revolutionary step, granted. But still, a step in the right direction.
Beyond that, I think we need to devote more of our produce sourcing to direct food-to-table. We do a bit of that now, but not enough. The biggest obstacle here (aside from price) is that I have always selected my produce in person, at least 3 or 4 times a week in the market. I’m reluctant to begin ordering via internet, even though I know there are environmental advantages to doing so. So, perhaps here too, baby steps this coming year, testing the waters.
The main message, I guess, is that we all need to make moves for a more sustainable future, even if those steps, for the moment, seem somewhat incremental. The compound effect of such efforts could literally be life-changing.
