Frozen coconuts

So we’re back to food safety. As we hunker down to winter fare, when we face a seeming dearth of fresh food, it seems normal that we should turn to boxes and cans and the freezer instead of the garden or the farmer’s market. But all is not well in Grocerilande: it appears that we have yet another case of tainted food, this time a frozen coconut dessert that contains the Listeria bacterium, as well as a particularly damning story showing high levels of harmful pesticides in everyday supermarket produce.

When I was in Alexandria, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., I had a free afternoon to explore a bit. Besides an incredible chocolate shop (up some narrow stairs, I found Kingsbury Chocolates) and a great chili joint (I slurped up the Frito-chili pie at Hard Times Café), I went hunting for a letterbox at Gadsby’s Tavern. The day was incredibly clear, but bitterly cold. I descended the steps near the tavern’s north end, where thoughtful restorers had created a cutaway view into the ice well. Unsuccessful in finding my quarry (though I did locate a cleverly disguised geocache), I read the historical marker. The well served as an underground storage area for ice cut from the Potomac in winter, offering a way to cool drinks and refrigerate foods into early summer. It is empty now, but for two artfully arranged hay bales, and the Potomac is not frozen—yet.

I scratch my head and think how odd it is we should think to consume a frozen coconut dessert in January, when it was made months ago, and it’s really too cold to be thinking about slurping popsicles anyway.

An intrepid researcher also released his findings today: apparently, when kids eat conventional fruits and vegetables, they show traces of organophosphate pesticides. If they switch to organics, the markers in their urine and saliva disappear. What’s more, the markers show up in higher concentrations during the winter months, when we tend to import more foods. There are no surprises here, but the alarm is sounding because this is the same family of pesticides that the EPA was supposed to remove from the food chain. Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist of the Organic Center, dares to speak aloud what is on the tip of many of our tongues: "Given the almost daily reminders that children are suffering from an array of behavioral, learning, neurological problems, doesn't it make sense to eliminate exposures to chemicals known to trigger such outcomes like chlorpyrifos?"

Indeed. Once again, I bypass Grocerilande and head over to Co-opville, where I pick up some lovely local thin-cut pork chops (they will be paired with an apple past its crisp prime), some local blue potatoes (“Mommy, why do they call them blue, when they’re purple?”), and some fuchsia red-stemmed chard. Our plates are beautiful, dark like the season, but colorful and delicious (and organic) nonetheless. Dessert is an indulgent square snapped off a bar of Kingsbury chocolate (with essence of orange, dried cranberries and pecans), also dark like the season. But not frozen.