Quinoa Salad

I've made a protein-packed quinoa salad for a few recent pot-luck dinners. Even people who can't pronounce quinoa and are a bit skeptical of its rice-meets-couscous-like texture really enjoyed it. (And of course my tofu-pressing, kale-munching, vegan-cupcake-eating friends loved it, too). The basic idea is to cook the quinoa in vegetable broth (throw the raisins in halfway through to plumpen them up) and let it cool. On the side, mix together everything else. Combine and serve! Beware: this recipe makes a ton I would recommend halving the recipe.



12 ounces (2 cups, or 340 g) prewashed dry quinoa
5 cups (1.2 l) water or low-sodium vegetable broth
1 packed cup (165 g) raisins
1/4 cup (60 ml) apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup (120 ml) olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, adjust to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh green onions
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
Pinch sea salt, adjust to taste
Cracked black pepper, adjust to taste, optional
Heaping 1/3 cup (50 g) salted roasted pepitas
4 large carrots, peeled and finely grated
One 15-ounce (425-g) can of red beans, drained and rinsed
One 15-ounce (425-g) can of black beans, drained and rinsed

Recipe and photo credit to Have Cake Will Travel.

The Mirage of Clean Politics

By Sean MacEntee / flickr.com

There's a new Facebook group on the loose, "100 Percent FED Up". Recent posts include a photo of FLOTUS in the arms of U.S. Olympic wrestler Elena Pirozhkova and the sarcastic caption, "OUR FIRST LADY REPRESENTING OUR GREAT NATION WITH CLASS AND INTEGRITY AT THE 2012 OLYMPICS!" Another is a meme admonishing food stamp recipients for owning iPhones. Still another questions the existence of Obama's birth certificate. (Are people STILL doing that?) And my favorite: side-by-side photos of Joe Biden and Herman Cain. Under Joe Biden's photo (labeled "Democrats" and--tongue-in-cheek--"Not Racist"), a caption reads: "Think Black people are incapable of achieving anything without the help of white people." Under Herman Cain's photo (labeled "Republicans" and "Racist"), the caption reads: "Think Black people can achieve anything they set their minds to without help from anyone." None of these is smart, or useful, or kind. Just to prove I'm equal opportunity, I will say that Change.org has also been guilty of some of the same counterproductivity, to coin a term.

Indeed, I am fed up, but not in the way this pseudo-political group implies. I am tired of political ads that are blatantly misleading. I am tired of personal attacks, which by definition reveal nothing useful about the leadership abilities or policy positions of their victims. They are wrought in back rooms by spin doctors and wielded haphazardly, as weapons. I am tired of the barrage of fundraising e-mails--even from a candidate I support--with pithy, curious subject lines. At least once a day they beg for my donation to add to an (at least partially) ill-used war chest. I am tired of watching my candidate wrestle in the proverbial muck, wasting his time and sullying his character. I am tired of disingenuous promises. I am tired of opportunistic photo ops. I am tired of all-too-transparent pandering. I am tired of oversimplification, of quotes stripped of their context, of slogans without the details. I am especially tired of mudslinging at the expense of marginalized groups--the LGBTQ community, people of color, and low-income moms, to name a few.

Is this really how we elect a president?

To be clear: I applaud get out the vote efforts that seek to engage underrepresented people. I am happy that some portion of my campaign donation goes to pay hardworking field organizers (and many of them are unpaid), thoughtful policy advisers, and the under-recognized staff who turn the gears, pour the coffee, advance the gigs, etc. I am even okay with the use of my donation to power an informative website, or print a campaign flyer, or stamp a button. I understand that campaigns are expensive, and I appreciate that being out-raised imperils your chances of success. What I hope we can eliminate in my lifetime is the resource-intensive part of this process that ashames and frustrates me--the part where we call each other dirty names.

It's time to clean up our elections. In 2016, the candidate who sticks to positive ads, sets achievable goals, and puts out substantive policy positions gets my vote. Period.

On American Presidents: A Journey through Books

Cover of Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

It's been far too long since I've written here. Job changes, the fun of summer, and a debilitating obsession with The West Wing, Mad Men, and Modern Family have kept me from my blog. But I'm now returning to begin progress toward a new goal--a presidential reading project. I plan to read one highly-acclaimed biography of every American president, in order. I will use my blog to post at least once in the course of reading each book to share a little-known fact, reflect on an important finding, or, in some cases, express surprise (and maybe a little disgust) at the heroism we posthumously impose on our most deeply flawed American leaders.

I was inspired to undertake this project after reading Candice Millard's absolutely excellent book Destiny of the Republic about the short-lived Garfield administration, and, more interesting, the tragic saga of his death. It is meticulously researched yet reads like a thriller. It turns out that Garfield was a fierce advocate for equal rights, yet his all-important presidential legacy is nil and his broader life story has been muted by his truncated time in the White House. From my reading of Millard's book, Garfield promised to be a far more admirable, if not influential, leader than the author of the Emancipation Proclamation himself. I feel robbed, having not heard this story til now. I have decided it's time to get educated.

I also feel my formal education--K through college--failed to really ignite a passion for history. As James Loewen has written in Lies My Teacher Told Me, many history teachers fail to appreciate the power of stories to teach history. Joshua Foer explained well in his brilliant book Moonwalking with Einstein how the memory requires context and imagination to absorb facts. The more memorable the context, the more easily we can recall the fact. (Foer says it's much easier to remember the word "baker" [the profession] than the last name Baker, because "baker" has a memorable context--the smell of bread, the taste of a fresh bagel, the starched aprons and white hats.) A list of presidents, important dates, or war battles does far less for long-term understanding than an engaging story which touches each of those data points and imbues them with meaning and emotion. I feel the historical names, dates, and places I was taught (to little effect) have been missing memorable linkages for a long time. I hope this project helps me understand our nation's history, reflect on the injustices that were committed to make the country, and recall names and dates--and the stories that make them important--more easily.

Wish me luck! My first two books are Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner and John Adams by David McCullough.

The (Green) Revolution Will Not Be Robotic

Or maybe it will. America's young farmers will decide.

Check out my new piece on Slate on the unraveling future of on-farm robotics...

Last July, Iowa-based Kinze Manufacturing gathered its dealers to debut a new on-farm toy: a John Deere tractor pulling a grain cart. The scene might have been unremarkable—dealers have seen the cart in action countless times—except that there was no one at the wheel.

The driverless tractor won admirers at NPR, Wired, and the Wall Street Journal. But Midwesterners saw Kinze’s system as a welcome but predictable upgrade in the über-mechanized world of commodity growing. For more than a decade, farmers have enjoyed the advances of precision agriculture. The highest-tech farm vehicles across the country now boast real-time kinematic GPS and auto-steer technology. Farmers are just along for the ride, accompanied by  Beyoncé videos.

There’s no doubt that big bots are the future of big ag. The question is whether autonomous technologies will ever penetrate the rest of the market—smaller-scale, diversified, labor-intensive operations popping up across the country.

As of the USDA’s 2007 census of agriculture, the average American grower is 57 years old. For every farmer under 35, there are nearly six who are 65 or older. The agriculture industry is poised for sudden, widespread employee turnover from the last generation to the next. These incoming growers, far more than the outgoing ones, will decide the fate of robotic farming. And from what we know of new farmers, two very different futures are possible. READ MORE...

Photo by Wheat initiative / flickr.com

Upcoming Event

In partnership with Slate magazine and Arizona State University, the New America Foundation is hosting an exciting event, entitled "Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks." Next Thursday, April 12, 2012, from 9:00 am - 3:15 pm we will explore how we will feed ourselves in 2050, when population growth, climate change, and shifts in diet will challenge the global food supply. Find more event details and an RSVP form here.

Why the Critics and the Evangelists Are Wrong About Church

This subject warrants a much longer post by me, but I want to write quickly that I'm so distraught by some of the things I read from conservative Christians, who love their churches, and also from those who grew up in those churches and have rejected them as adults. This post by Rachel Evans, popped up on my Facebook feed (I don't read her regularly), and I wanted to respond by telling her "thank you" for an honest, insightful response to her upbringing in a conservative Christian church, but also to say that this story does not paint a valid picture of the entire universe of organized religion in the United States.

I have attended several wonderful churches--particularly Methodist, Presbyterian (USA), United Church of Christ, and Unitarian congregations--that are doing all of the things most people say churches do wrong, right. They are inclusive. If you visited, you would see women on the choir risers and in the pulpit as salaried clergy. In fact, you would see people of color in those places, too. And gay and lesbian clergy. And a whole mix of folks sitting in the pews, next to one another, talking to one another, and interacting warmly and genuinely in the coffee hour after church, too. These churches are multi-generational, and all types of families show up on Sundays. Doubts and questions are expected, even encouraged. Perhaps these churches err on the side of assuming everyone is voting Democrat, but I've been to some that don't assume at all. From the pulpit, and in Bible studies, and in the impassioned conversations in women's groups (even youth groups!), talk about sin is almost exclusively about the ways people commit injustices against each other. There are plenty examples of that in the Bible. Sex is part of the conversation, sure, but it's about sexual violence, and misplaced societal value on sex, and sex as a means of subjugating certain people, not really about abstinence.

These churches believe deeply that every person (not just people in church) are works in progress, even that the Church and its doctrines are works in progress, too. People at my churches believed in evolution and also respect and study the Bible. "Community service" is an act of humbling ourselves before God, being accountable to the creation we nurture (and often destroy), and practicing an unconditional love and care for other people, as God loved us. It is often about collecting stories and sharing them with friends; breaking bread with people we might not have otherwise met at a dinner table. It is never about converting people or showing them why they are wrong to believe or live as they do. My churches make an active effort to avoid becoming a "country club" of the rich, white, and well-dressed, and instead aim to be just a meeting place, where we practice being members of the type of world we envision would bring about the most peace (in the broadest sense of the word).

I admit that these churches are rare. They take effort to seek out, but they exist, and they offer an organized, loving community whose reality and teachings run completely opposite to everything the un-churched or dislocated conservative Christians say is wrong with modern religion. I understand the need to rebel against institutions that oppress you and people you care about. I support that, in fact. But I wish those rejections didn't reinforce such a one-sided portrayal of who Christians are. I am progressive, and justice-seeking, and full of doubts, too. And going to church on Sundays edifies who I am at my core.

Why We Keep Coming to DC

Today, I achieved one of the goals I set for myself upon snagging my new job--publishing a piece of writing. My wonderful boss is also the editor of Zócalo Public Square, an L.A.-based online magazine and lecture series on social cohesion. He asked me to write a piece on the disconnect between polling data on D.C. and the experience of living in Washington. Here is what emerged...

Ms. Lawrence Goes to Washington
But the Rest of the Country Thinks I'm in Sin City

Exactly one year ago, I was packing my suitcases to move from my childhood home in north Texas to a three-bedroom group house in Washington, D.C. My mother, standing close by to inspect my work, hooked the shoulder of a blue dress on her index finger and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t forget,” she said, “what happened to Monica,” drawing out the name for effect.

Ignoring the implicit attack on my character, I pointed out a crucial difference between Ms. Lewinsky and me: “I’m going to work for a non-profit, Mom.” Later that afternoon, my father—ever the comedian—called out to me from behind the TSA security line at DFW Airport, “Don’t spend all the taxpayers’ money!”

To my parents, Washington is populated not by young idealists but rather by those eager to consort with sex-crazed lawmakers and to squander dad’s paycheck...

Read more...

Photo credit to {Wes} on flickr.com.

Becoming a Big-Time Writer

As I settle into my new job, I'm looking for ways to do more writing for a general audience. I've done writing I think is infinitely interesting and I hope also holds the momentary attention of like-minded SNAP wonks, for example; but I need to learn how to put my arms around other topics without squeezing the life out of them or using so many words (and parentheticals, haha) that nobody makes it to the conclusion. In short, I'm interested in getting out there and acquiring some journalistic skill and experience. The only issue is that I need a few provocative ideas. Here's what I've got so far--what do you think?

1. Related to my previous post on academic achievement and job expectations, I've found it interesting that, even internationally, as performance on standardized tests goes up, the percentage of kids expecting to go into medium- and high-skilled work goes down. (The opposite relationship is also true.) This is a surprising finding, and I'd like to investigate the possible causes and what they could mean for U.S. education policy. Why, when kids do poorly in school, don't they expect to be punished in the globalized job market?

2. Despite the fact that more than 4 in 5 Americans label themselves middle class, we don't have a good definition for what that means. Is being in the middle class just about income? Probably not--it's probably also about wealth, education, and job status. Is is also about political engagement, savings rates, and social networks? I think we could turn a (potentially boring) literature review into a provocative story about how Americans see themselves relative to their neighbors.

3. A number of writers and researchers have found that income equality breeds broader economic prosperity. In an age of ballooning CEO compensation (and severance) packages, I wonder if this is also true for businesses. Does more equitable pay all the way down the career ladder in a company result in more productive and successful firms? Can we add an economic argument to our equality-based case for more reasonable CEO pay?

4. After WWII, the GI Bill sent millions of veterans to the schools of their choice and paid for living expenses for their growing families while they studied. A survey of 10,000 veterans and nonveterans estimated that 20 percent of veterans who went to college wouldn't have done so if it weren't for the GI Bill. (Though I admit there were tens of thousands of women and minority veterans who were unjustly kept from the benefits.) Historically, the military seems to have served as a major engine for social mobility. But what about now? Can we still count on the military to train and educate Americans such that, upon putting down their guns, they can forge successful civilian careers or retire without worry?

These are some of my ideas, a few of them admittedly better fit for whole books or academic studies that online magazine articles. All of them are also the subject of others' study and writing. Still, I think asking any of these questions might bring forth interesting and timely answers. In the context of "broke" governments, political polarization, and a protesting "99 percent," I think deep research into any of these issues will unearth something new.

Photo credit to Opedagogen from flickr.com.

Are we studying for unemployment? OWS and education reform

The following is a reproduced version of my guest post on www.amandaripley.com, the blog site of Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable and The Smart Kids' Club (forthcoming).

A few days before my 6th-grade graduation in Richardson, Texas, my teacher asked us to write poems about the jobs we hoped to have in 10 years. In clumsy rhyme and loopy cursive, we proclaimed our intentions to become singers, pilots, doctors, race car drivers and pastry chefs. With the audacity of youth, I predicted my own success as an author, lawyer or architect. (I was keeping my options open.)

Mrs. Babb affixed a gold star to each page and lovingly pinned them to the bulletin board, silently affirming that yes, these jobs are waiting for you if you work hard. Not a single child prophesied his future as a barista, a telemarketer or a perpetual job-seeker.

Since then, I have graduated from college and been fortunate to find a job that allows me to use my brain and pay the bills. But some of my highest-achieving friends are still grasping for the very bottom rung of the career ladder.

We know that the Occupy Wall Street protest is partly a response to corporate greed, but I suspect it also reflects the disconnect between our aspirations and our reality. It feels like the engines of social mobility (namely education) are failing us. After talking with the protesters in Zuccotti Park, the Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri described the sentiment this way:

“Growing up, we were told: You are special. You are brilliant. Go to school, get a degree, pursue what you love. Four years later, we are mired in debt. Jobless, with no prospects. This is not what it said on the motivational poster.”

It’s as if we are catching up to the data, which has for years shown a mismatch between our academic performance and our occupational aspirations. In its 2007 report Child Poverty in Perspective, UNICEF evaluated countries’ performance along 40 indicators of child well-being, six of which measured educational well-being. Among 25 “economically advanced” nations, the U.S. ranked 21st in educational achievement of 15 year-olds in reading, math and science. The U.S. also had higher drop-out rates than similarly prosperous countries. Of the 23 countries ranked, the United States ranked 21st in “percentage of 15-19 year-olds in full-time or part-time education.” In fact, the United States ranked second-to-last (20th of 21 countries) in child well-being overall.

But at the same time, U.S. kids trounced all others when it came to optimism about their careers. Just 14% of 15 year-olds surveyed said they expected to go into low-skilled occupations—the lowest rate in the world. Although many could not compete with average students elsewhere in core academic subjects, very few believed they would pay a price for this mediocrity. (By contrast, over half of Japanese 15-year-olds expected to be doing low-skilled work—while the country ranks fourth in overall academic achievement and has a lower unemployment rate than we do.)

Can we continue to peddle the American Dream in classrooms that don’t prepare students to compete in a globalized labor force? One anonymous blogger wrote on the “We Arethe99 Percent” tumblr page:

“I have a bachelor’s degree from a top-ranked liberal arts college and a master’s from an Ivy League university. After graduation, all I could find was a year-long internship that only pays about 1/4 of my living expenses. The fellowship ends in under three months, and I still don’t know if they plan to hire me on permanently.”

Occupy Wall Street is not just about deadlock, dysfunction and disenfranchisement. It is about our nation’s willingness to over-promise and under-educate. It is about the urgent need to finally get serious about making our education system worthy of our ambition.

Putting SNAP on the Map: When it comes to eating, place matters.

It’s no secret that where you live affects how you live—everything from the length of your morning commute, to the quality of your neighborhood park, to whether your child’s teacher writes with broken chalk or SMART Board™ technology.

And the same is true for food. You likely know from shopping and eating and penny pinching that where you live affects how much your groceries cost. As a Texas native recently transplanted to D.C., I have endured the wide-eyed, light-wallet symptoms of supermarket sticker shock. The same items—bread, milk, eggs, and other staples—I enjoyed in my home state cost far more in D.C. stores. Though the mechanisms that drive such food price variation across regions, states, and neighborhoods are many and entangled, the effects on consumer buying power are substantial: the more food costs, the less we can afford.

When I decided to participate in the Arizona SNAP Experience from afar, my Texas-to-D.C. sticker shock got me thinking: How does food price variation affect buying power for people who rely on SNAP to cover their grocery bills? The answer was not difficult to uncover. The USDA publishes a table on the average per capita SNAP benefit for every state, and Feeding America, the nation’s largest emergency food provider, recently released Map the Meal Gap, an interactive map with food insecurity and food price data for a variety of useful geographies.

Using two simple formulas, I calculated the average weekly SNAP benefit per capita in each state in the U.S. and the average cost of food for an individual for one week in each state, assuming s/he consumes three meals per day. By dividing the average SNAP benefit for a week by the average cost of food for a week and multiplying the quotient by 100, I found the percent of average food costs covered by SNAP for each state in the nation.

And I couldn’t believe what I found. First, SNAP covers far less of an average shopper’s food budget than I was expecting. For example, SNAP covers just 44% of the average weekly food cost for a shopper in D.C. That's just 9 of the 21 meals you will eat in a week. Although the USDA admits that SNAP is “supplemental” and therefore not meant to cover an individual’s entire food budget, 44% is simply insufficient, especially since many families cannot afford to spend money out-of-pocket. Second, I was surprised to find that there is incredibly high variation across states. In the best case, SNAP would cover 68% of your food (Ohio); in the worst case, just 44% (Vermont and D.C.). The national average is 58%. In Arizona, the number is 59%.

Check out the interactive map for information on other states. After the map opens, use the slider at the right to zoom out, place your cursor over the state of interest, and the relevant percentage will appear in the map legend.

The biggest problem resulting from such variation is obvious: if your food costs are high and your state’s SNAP benefit does not rise to meet them, you must leave some items on the shelf or reach deep in your pockets to pay for food not covered by your benefit. This is a problem for low-income people, who are often stretching their budgets to cover things like rent/mortgage, child care, health care, and utilities. I would hypothesize (though I haven’t formally researched these claims) that other phenomena may be related to geographic variation in what SNAP buys you, such as the following:

• Geographic variation in which foods (type and quality) families choose to purchase with their SNAP benefits.

• Geographic variation in food insecurity rates. (SNAP provides a different level of in-kind benefit to families depending on where they live!)

• Geographic variation in health outcomes associated with food insecurity and/or consumption of unhealthy foods.

• Geographic variation in SNAP participation rates. (One might ask him/herself: Why participate if SNAP only covers a small portion of my bill?)

These questions require formal analysis, but it’s easy to see how a failure in the SNAP “system” to account for geographic variation in food prices could result in important differences in health and other measures of well-being based solely (and unjustly) on where people have chosen to lay down roots.

Of course, food price variation is local. Examining food prices in your state is better than looking at food prices nationally, but using more localized estimates is even better. For example, within New York State, the average cost per meal in New York County (Manhattan) is $3.72, whereas the average cost per meal in Chautauqua County (rural NY county near the PA border) is $2.27.

Use the three simple steps below to calculate what percent of an average food budget in YOUR county or congressional district is covered by SNAP. Compute the number for your community, reflect on your week participating in the SNAP Experience (or the blog posts describing the experience), and write your state and federal politicians about it! I would bet your whole food budget and mine that your elected officials don’t know just how little SNAP is doing for your most vulnerable neighbors.

Easy as 1, 2, 3: Calculate “Real” SNAP Benefits on Your Own

1. Visit Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap site at http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-studies/map-the-meal-gap.aspx. Locate your county or congressional district of interest and trace your cursor over the area until it changes color (to orange). Note the average cost per meal in the right hand corner of the data that appears. Multiply the average cost per meal x 21. This is the average cost of food for a week in the geographic area you’ve chosen.

2. View the USDA chart of average SNAP benefits per person for FY 2010 at http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/18SNAPavg$PP.htm. Find your state's average monthly SNAP benefit per person and insert it into the following formula: Monthly benefit x 12 / 365 x 7. This is the average SNAP benefit per person for one week in your state.

3. Divide findings from STEP 2 by findings from STEP 1. Multiply the result by 100 to get the percent of an average weekly food budget covered by SNAP benefits in the geographic area you’ve chosen.