Civil Eats

In a Maine airport shop, I beeline for the local food souvenirs, my eye roving from a set of Stonewall Products over to several local blueberry jams. More than I expected, in fact. One comes from Out on a Limb, a small home jam-making operation that got started thanks to Maine’s cottage food law.

Today about 31 states have so called “cottage food laws,” allowing legal home-based food production on a small scale. Read More

Samin Nosrat is a veritable poster girl for the current trend (some would say necessity) of workplace reinvention.

Since the shuttering last summer of Eccolo, an acclaimed Italian eatery on tony 4th Street in Berkeley, that restaurant’s one-time sous chef now juggles an impressive number of part-time jobs in the culinary world. Read More

Fast food is the ultimate American invention — cheap meals for people on the go. But we’ve paid a heavy price for our national addiction — an epidemic of obesity, the destruction of our fragile environment, and the loss of community ties that are maintained by taking the time to prepare and eat food together.

Despite these negatives, the need for quick affordable food is undeniable in today’s world. But why on earth are McDonalds and its competitors our only option? Every single time I get hungry on the road, in an airport, or at a shopping mall I wish someone would open a healthy fast food restaurant… and it turns out the wait is finally over. Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food restaurant opened it’s doors for business in Berkeley at the end of July 2008. Read More

The ingredients for green collar economic renewal via food-based businesses have been stewing for a few years in the Mission at La Cocina. Entering its fifth year of operation in 2009, La Cocina was founded to provide kitchen space and assistance to food entrepreneurs – many of them low-income and all of them women – helping them in starting new businesses or grow their home-based businesses into stable ventures. Read More