Eating green in the white house

Well, as you may have noticed I'm not a very big Daily News reader, but this article looking at the new assistant white house chef discusses the focus on eating locally and sustainably. Its interesting to me that this spot light on local food not only is an effort to green wash the new administration (who selected Tom Vilsack, aka best friend of industry, for secretary of agriculture), it also highlights the way in which eating locally is good for the economy (which I agree with on the local scale). Its not a very good article all in all - sort of short and superficial, but it does show how the concept of local food is continuing to rise to new levels of prominence in the contemporary discourse.
Any thoughts?

Feeling alienated because of commodity fetishism?

Then buy local... well not necessarily local, but one Brooklyn resident (in another life experiment for a year in the vein of No Impact Man, Barbara Kingsolver, Gary Nahban among others (as opposed to long standing lifestyle change found in folks like one of my heroes Joan Gussow)) tried buying only from producers whom he knew, or at least met one of the workers along the commodity chain. His project is called the Consumer Reconnection Project and his blog can be found here. He met producers from local farmers (my favorite!) to athletic shoe producers in an attempt to demystify the social relations of production (at least in my words). In his words he set out to "become aware of my own dependence on blind consumption, and gain an understanding of the people and processes involved in making commodities available to me." A noble project regardless of the underlying theoretical framework I would say. Check out his site and think about the "who" and the "how" behind what you buy (along with the food you eat).

Root veggies and Chicken Pot Pie

I decided to use up some root veggies by making a chicken pot pie - and yes, I literally baked it in the pot, which made it pretty simple and easy to clean up. I think you can use just about any hearty veg in this kind of dish. I made this right before getting the second share from our winter CSA, so I was happy to use up the rest of my carrots (of course we got more) and some of the potatoes (help, I need more potato recipes!) in something comforting and hearty to help warm us up in these gloomy gray winter days.

This is sort of a conglomeration of lots of recipes I have read and a bit of improvisation. Use your favorite pie crust recipe - I pulled together a quick flaky pie crust using the food processor, and it came out just right. If you want to avoid the pastry making, you could also top this off with a sheet of puff pastry to make things simpler.

For the filling:
3 c of a mix of cooked root veggies of your choice (I used about 2 c carrot and 1 c potatoes)
2 c cooked chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1/4 c butter
6T a-p flour
1 c milk
2 c chicken stock
fresh or dried herbs of your choice
salt and pepper to taste

preheat the oven to 425 F
in a 2 1/2 to 3 quart pot:
make a roux by melting the butter and whisking in the flour, cooking until mixture turns golden
whisk in the milk and stock
stir regularly as it thickens and comes to a simmer
add herbs and salt and pepper
stir in cooked chicken and let simmer gently for about 10 minutes so the flavors come together
stir in veggies and check seasoning
let cool a little
tuck the pastry over the top of the pot when everything is cool enough to handle
bake for about 30 - 40 minutes until bubbling and the crust has turned golden