Andrew Mark Veety

Alice Waters Get's Her Wish

60 Minutes did a piece on famous chef, restaurant owner and Slow Food advocate Alice Waters recently, discussing the relationship between food, the Earth and our lives. 

Among the highlights of her interview were the ideas that healthy food is not a luxury, but a right of all people and her desire to have a vegetable garden planted at the White House.

Well Alice, congratulations, via the New York Times, "Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of the South Lawn on Friday to plant a vegetable garden, the first at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II."  

The Times continues, "While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern." 

I am so happy that awareness continues to grow on this issue and I am looking forward to shopping the great farmers markets we have here in St. Louis. I hope this interview and associated article inspires you to shop and eat locally this season as well.

Some more information

• Slow Food USA
• Slow Food St. Louis 
• Missouri Farmers Market Directory  
• Tower Grove Farmers Market
• Local Harvest Grocery 

Election Day

Sara and I were on line this morning at 6AM to vote, and it still took us almost an hour and a half. It was amazing to see our friends and neighbors lined up on a warm fall morning, everyone was in good spirits, we moved along at a decent clip, and in short order we were on our way to work.

Today I have hope for the future and a return to normalcy after the last 8 years. I wish our new President well and the best of luck, but really, I just want him to get to work fixing our country. January can't come quick enough.

Seafood Boil In The Heart of St. Louis

This post finds me thankful for my wife, Sara. A few years ago she found herself successful, but unhappy working for a large corporation here in St. Louis. In what was a test of our relationship and eventually our marriage, we decided that the time was right for her to leave her job and pursue a new career. Sara graduated right before we were married, and the events leading up to our wedding probably overshadowed her accomplishment of graduating with a degree in Interior Design more than either of us would admit. 

One year later Sara has continued her string of accomplishments, completing her LEED certification in environmental design. If you don't know what LEED is, you will soon. The ideas driving green building have a foundation in LEED, and in the near future those ideas will become everyday practice. I'm proud that Sara will be at the forefront of a new way of designing and building structures, with an appreciation for the relationship between people, the buildings we live and work in, the Earth and it's limited resources. 

To celebrate Sara's certification, I planned a cookout at our house that in hindsight had an enormous carbon foot print due to the main course - a seafood boil of snow crab from Alaska, new potatoes and fresh corn on the cob. Trying to stick with a tradition that I have only read about, I covered a part of our picnic area with brown paper bags, then poured the crab and vegetables onto the table where we all gathered around to a family style seafood feast.  

It was a rare moment of decadence with our hands covered in Old Bay and garlic infused butter, but it brought together good friends and Sara's favorite food to celebrate the hard work that she has completed. I guess in the end that made it even more of a moment to savor than the crabs themselves. 

Here is to large and small victories, and for hoping that we take the time to celebrate them with our friends and family. 

Chicago 2008

My wife and I recently visited Chicago for our 1st anniversary and to tour the Smart Home at the Museum of Science and Industry.  From an environmental perspective, I’m sure the greenest thing to do would have been to stay home and read about the Smart House online. However, we wanted a chance to see the technology and materials up close so we decided that we would try to travel in the most environmentally friendly way we could - the train.

For the round trip of 602 miles, how did the train stack up against taking a plane or our car:

Airline = .458 Tons or 916 LBS of CO2
Automobile (Avg 25mpg) = .234 Tons or 468 LBS of CO2
Train = .12 Tons or 240 LBS of CO2

Via calculator at Native Energy.

Given that we are Americans and are creatures of speed and convenience, we would have loved to take the hour long flight between St. Louis and Chicago. Taking our car would have been quicker as well given the track work that delayed us on both legs of our trip. However, we saved hundreds of dollars by not flying, as well as avoiding the hassles and delays that come with trips to the airport. With gas and parking in downtown Chicago for the long weekend it’s realistic that we would have spent around $200 for transportation. Instead on the train we traveled business class to Chicago and home in a private sleeper room with a meal for the same $200. We also had time to talk and relax, watch a movie, read several magazines and enjoy the rolling Illinois countryside.

Chicago is a great city and my list of places to see and more importantly eat at was as long as our weekend was short. We walked where we could and utilized the train system to cover our adventures from Lincoln Square to Hyde Park. Highlights included the Smart House, an architectural river tour, an outstanding meal and bottle of 1999 Marques de Riscal Baron de Chirel Reserva at Café Iberico, and the morning coffee at the W Chicago City Center. A major disappointment was our brunch at Kitsch’n which can be summed up as pretty food that tastes pretty bad and the W Chicago City Center in general. Missed and saved for another day were Superdawg Drive-in, The Frontera Grill, Lou Malnati's Pizzeria and Gene & Georgetti.

Summer 2008 Chicago Trip: A Photo Essay

Inspired by tales of many friends who have traveled around Europe by train, Sara and I packed a light picnic of grapes, crackers and cheese and wine for our trip to Chicago.

Sara and I at the Navy Pier celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary. Interestingly enough, our wedding was recently included in the Missouri/Kansas print edition of The Knot Wedding Magazine.

A thunderstorm rolls across Illinois farmland.

Our return trip included accommodations in a sleeper room as the train was on its way to LA. As part of our ticket, we were invited to a meal in the dining car, which was a pleasant surprise. Sara and I each had a Flat Iron Steak and enjoyed our meal with a nice German man by way of Toronto who travels the rails around the world as a way to enjoy his retirement.

Things Discovered and More Information:

• Birds of Paradise, Price’s Chicken Coop, Charlotte, North Carolina
• Robbs Run House
• NatureMill Automatic Indoor Composter
• Michelle Kaufmann
• Smart Home Exhibit Resource Guide
• Inside the Scandal That Rocked the Formula One Racing World

Honda FCX Clarity

As part of my research into a new hybrid vehicle to replace my 1997 Mazda Miata M-Edition, I've followed with great interest the development of the Honda FCX, also known as the Clarity. Honda hopes to make the Clarity the worlds first production hydrogen fuel cell powered automobile. With a projected roll-out of 200 cars over the next few years, its clear that one of the major obstacles in the way of moving off a petrochemical based infrastructure is not the ability to produce the vehicle, but the development of a way to distribute hydrogen to a broad market.

The wait continues.

Current Researching

• Toyota Camry Hybrid
• Honda Civic Hybrid

Additional reading:

• Latest Honda Runs on Hydrogen, Not Petroleum (New York Times)
• 2009 Honda FCX Clarity (Businessweek)