Hi Everyone,

It’s hard to believe it’s Spring, with all the cold weather we have been having. In spite of the weather, I have been busy in my garden, planting seeds and seedlings, and harvesting my over abundance of Shiitake mushrooms! I must share with all of you that inoculating mushrooms is one of the most satisfying chores you can do! We inoculated our logs back in June of 2020, and we are still getting pounds and pounds of mushrooms on a regular basis! I like to cook them all at once and then freeze them in small batches that I can easily pull out of the freezer and add to my stir fry, or any dish I am making. It is a gift that keeps giving!! Tonight I am making my mushroom bolognese recipe that is featured in this week’s newsletter using my recently harvested shiitakes.

Everyday I hear of a new horrible decision coming out of the White House and it makes me crazy!! I want to curl up in bed, close the curtains, and never come out, but of course that isn’t going to happen. So I want to know what I can do to maintain my activism? I show up at protests, I write to Congress, I sign petitions, and yet it still doesn’t feel like enough. How can we stay vigilant and make a difference? How can we get our elected officials to follow the Constitution and stop all of the bullshit going on with gerrymandering, and our voting rights? How can we get them to care about the Climate Crisis we are in, or the rise of Racism and Anti-Semitism in this country? How can we support our non-documented neighbors from the attacks from ICE? And what about our tax money supporting the new ballroom, the monumental golden arch and painting the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? It all makes me livid, especially the feeling that there is nothing I can do about it. I know most of you share my feelings. That is why I am always talking about community, and the need to surround yourself with others that share your feelings. To all of you reading this, thank you for being a part of my community!

Last week, iEat Green, along with Slow Food North Shore and NOFA-NY, co-hosted the film, Organic Rising, with the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. The film was one of the best documentary films I have seen, demonstrating the difference between conventional agriculture and organic agriculture, with lots of new scientific information that I had not heard about yet. I know PFAS and other chemicals in our food and environment can disrupt our hormones, but I had not seen the research before, which I found fascinating but very disturbing. To know this research and knowledge exists, and yet so little has been done to rectify it, is another issue I can add to my list of things that makes me furious! I highly recommend watching this film. You can rent it on their website!

Again, I want to thank you all for being a part of my community and reading my newsletter. Please share it with others you think would appreciate it.

With love & peace,

Bhavani