Food and Hunger

(05/23/12) The Canton Farmer's Market opened last week. While most of the vendors rely on their table display to catch the customer's eye, one tent calls on the customer's olfactory system.

(05/18/12) Governor Cuomo announced Thursday that he's rescinding a state regulation that requires food stamp recipients be fingerprinted. As Karen DeWitt reports, the governor is saying the poor and hungry are not criminals, and shouldn't be treated that way. more

(05/16/12) Those who love edible wild mushrooms, cousins of the grocery store variety, also enjoy the annual spring hunt for one of the most elusive -- the morel. May is morel month in the North Country.

Todd Moe joined an outing of mushroom collectors at Paul Smiths College last spring. The group held a friendly contest to see who could find and pick the largest quantity of morels. By the end of the hunt it was clear you don't have to have to go out looking for morels with a meal in mind. Just learning to identify each mycological species is a challenge.

A reminder about looking for edible mushrooms: even distinctive yellow morels have look-a-likes that are poisonous. The slightest doubt about a mushroom is warning enough not to eat it.

(04/16/12) 15 years ago Ben and Jerry's teamed up with Vermont band Phish to create their now-famous ice cream flavor, Phish Food. On Saturday they aimed for another accomplishment, setting a record for the world's largest cowbell ensemble while raising money for flood relief in Vermont.

1600 people wearing spotted T-shirts, eating free ice cream, and waving cowbells packed onto Church Street. Phish drummer John Fishman led them in classic rock covers. The first song: 1968 hit "Time Has Come Today," by the Chambers Brothers.

Sarah Harris brings us the sound of a 1600 cowbell interpretation for today's Heard Up North.

(04/11/12) It says in the Bible that there is a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. Right now, it's time to plant, some things anyway. On this past Easter Sunday Tasha Haverty worked a trade with longtime North Country gardener, Isis Melhado. If Tasha helped with the onions, the reluctant Isis would explain a little about her method.

Weaver and gardener Isis Melhado lives outside Canton along the Little River, and times her planting by the phases of the Moon.

(04/11/12) Last spring downtown Plattsburgh got a new restaurant: a Himalayan restaurant. It's owned and operated by Tenzin and Yangchen Dorjee, a Tibetan couple who moved to northern New York with their two kids in 2007.

This month they're putting on a Tibetan arts festival where visiting monks will make a mandala out of sand, and offer lectures on topics ranging from Tibetan medicine to religious ethics. Sarah Harris visited the restaurant and talked to Tenzin Dorjee about the family's journey to Plattsburgh and how they're keeping their culture alive in the North Country. more

(03/29/12) Phil Harnden, founder and former Executive Director of GardenShare, Martha Foley and Ellen Rocco confess to their gardening mishaps and mistakes, and take questions and comments from callers about gardening in this challenging climate.

(03/14/12) Amy Cotler is an author, chef and local food advocate, who says it's an exciting time for the locavore movement, but more needs to be done. Cotler is author of the book, The Locavore Way, which focuses on the pleasures of locally grown food. On Monday, she'll give the keynote address at Dig In!, a food and gardening conference at Clarkson University in Potsdam. The event will bring together school staff, educators, parents, business owners, community leaders and health professionals.

Amy Cotler told Todd Moe that most schools, businesses and places of worship are doing a good job of developing and sustaining effective local food-based policies and practices, but, she says, they're just "scratching the surface".

(03/07/12) Cold nights, warm days, sunshine: chickdees are busy, and the sap is rising. It all adds up to maple syrup season. Whether your operation includes a bulk holding tank and miles of plastic tubing, or just a few buckets hanging off the trees in the backyard, it all starts the same way, with a strategically placed hole in a sugar maple.

And it's today's Heard Up North, produced by Martha Foley.

(03/05/12) It's a scene that was common-place in the early 20th century, horses out on a frozen lake cutting through the ice with bladed plows.

Ice harvesting may not be part of your family's plans this year, but for one rural St. Lawrence County family it's the only way to keep food cool during the summer. Trevor Alford visited the Douglass family farm outside Canton and has our story. more