Text 5832, 66 rader
Skriven 2006-09-24 22:53:22 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JIM WELLER
Ärende: eek! coli!
==================
DS> But, do they do things differently in California than they do 
DS> here?

JW> Sadly, they do. The working conditions for seasonal, migrant farm
JW> workers suck.

I suppose that the reasons conditions are bad is because no one wants
to pay another dime a pound for their lettuce and grapes.

Ffft.  That is why we try to buy local produce and eat with the 
seasons.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much canning done this year since we
were up and down with the house - for most of the summer we weren't
sure where we were going to end up.  Some local construction has
blocked access to the grape vines we used to harvest, and the bastards
at another local business sprayed herbicide on their blackberry canes
because I had an argument with them last year.  (The business is 
leasing unposted land on which I have gathered blackberries for nearly
20 years.  According to common law here, because the land wasn't 
posted and because I've always enjoyed access, the lessor has no 
legal right or ability to keep me off the land.  So the sons of
bitches sprayed the canes.)

JW> The migrants I worked beside all said they liked working in 
JW> Canada better than the American South including California.

I'm not at all surprised.

I never worked tobacco when I was a kid, but my brother and I used
to pick strawberries from dawn to noon, then peddle them door to door
from 1 to 5 every day during strawberry season.

JW> You just have to worry about the germs not any lingering 
JW> toxins. So 160 F is more than enough. Most germs die around 
JW> 148 F or so. 

So what the hell is the problem, then?  Pull the raw salad stuff
and put tags on the rest warning people to cook it.  Cripes.

JW> I suspect the point is moot as I believe all 
JW> spinach from every source has been pulled from the markets.

I noticed today in the market.  See my earlier note about the
frozen (and yet not bad) stuff.

JW> Have some endive instead....

Eww.  You know what belongs in a salad?  Cool, wet, crisp iceberg
lettuce (the yellowy hearts, if you please.)  Native summer tomato
or none at all.  Olives, black preferred but any as you like.
Paperthin curls of carrot.  Tender, sweet, roll-cut celery.  Salt,
freshly coarse-ground pepper, the best olive oil one can afford, 
and some flavorful vinegar:  good cider vinegar, perhaps, or some
lovely Italian wine vinegar, white or red.  Some crumbled bacon,
and lovely toasted buttery croutons.  And rub the bowl with a clove
of crushed garlic first.  Now THAT is a salad, m'lad.  None of that
fongoolia or arroogola or whatever the hell it is, no weeds out of
the back yard, no "edible" flowers.  I'm not livestock.  And no
spinach.  Cook the spinach with a knob of butter and add some cream
sauce if you will, but cook the stuff.  [g]

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Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, 
minutus carborata descendum pantorum
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