At least the Asian markets seem to have stopped selling "Jew's Ear" mushrooms, fresh and dried (auricularia auriculara-judae), but the interwebs are still full of recipes for "Jew's Ear Soup" 木耳湯 (I can't vouch for the Chinese characters - I got them off a web site... can anyone confirm or amend?)

There were a lot of un-P.C. nicknames for foods back in the day.

"Back in the day" people would think paying $2.99 lb for onions was absurd.

Actually, I think it still is. Especially when we've fine Walla-Walla onions for less than a third of that.

$3/lb for onions? Say hello to the ugly side of the organic movement.

Keep it up there with your expectation of cheap calories. There are some good buys in high fructose corn syrup, and you can fashion it into almost anything. Just don't complain when it ruins your health. And, God forbid anyone other than ADM should earn a living wage through farming.

My goodness I am lucky to have a commmunity space garden! A 20'x20' provides enough food through the year for not only the two os us, but a lot of our neighbors. I have red onions growing in my garden- the onion sets were donated by our local CSA.
Three cheers for http://www.47thavefarm.com/

My goodness I am lucky to have a commmunity space garden! A 20'x20' provides enough food through the year for not only the two of us, but for a lot of our neighbors. I have red onions growing in my garden- the onion sets were donated by our local CSA.
Three cheers for http://www.47thavefarm.com/

My grandma taught me to look for flatter red salad onions as the torpido shaped ones tend to be too strong to eat raw.

Torpedo shaped onions in the food industry and wholesale produce business world were the ones that were weeded out and sold as cheapies. Amazing what "organic" gets away with-just like the energy worlds "sustainability".

Same goes with potatoes. On our family farm we sold produce to the local stores. We didn't call our farm "organic" (which it was by today's standards), but called our produce "local", The knobby potatoes we fed to the cows and pigs-we wouldn't even give them to our friends and relatives. Only the rounded, oval potatoes went to the stores at a lower price than the larger producers charged.

"Organic" is a major rip-off. But keep buying, the little farmers need the money.

$3 for torpedo-shaped onions? Think I'll pass...

Last year I checked out our neighborhood farmer's market in Westmoreland. I bought two spuds for dinner. They cost the same as a 10 lb bag at QFC around the corner. I have not returned to the "farmer's market". Best bet for good cheap produce in our neighborhood is the produce stand on 28th by Reed College. Best prices and very good quality.

That's what food should cost when it isn't subsidized. Massive, scale production monocultures are like the national debt. They're subsidized through cheap oil, and nobody's paying the real environmental cost. Those onions are literally the example of how real people can make a real difference to make this world a better place. Your Kitchen Gardeners are great Americans, as are their customers.

Huck, what the heck are you talking about-"subsidized"? I know onion farmers,for example my nephew down the valley, and they aren't subsidized. Their onions sell for less than a dollar a pound. Their diesel/gas comes from the same tanks as "Your Kitchen Gardeners" and all the other things you can conjure up as being "subsidized".

Do you know any larger farmers with 20 acres or 200 acres providing our dinner tables, and know the true facts about subsidies?

But then I guess it's okay to subsidize crops being raised to make ethanol, like my uncle in eastern Oregon. Thanks to Commissioner Leonard and Gov. Kulongoski for some of that subsidy. One subsidy bad, other good. What's $7.00 a gallon subsidy for gas when it's selling for $2.45?

lw, I grew up in an onion town in the west valley, and yes, I do know quite a bit about subsidies. Vegetables do not receive the traditional USDA "subsidies" that commodity grains, legumes, and cotton receive, but they are subsidized. Here's how:

Organic farms substitute labor for petro-fertilizers and herb/pesticides. Large farms do not pay any, nor do they shift any, of the cost of the environmental damage done by those applications. So, organics pay the true cost - labor, in their case - while conventional consumers do NOT pay the true cost.

Furthermore, conventional farms use vast monocultures, which are also extremely environmentally imprudent. Their consumers do not "directly" pay the costs of this method.

More directly to your point - yes, small farms do use gas/diesel, and probably less efficiently than large farms. To that extent, yes, they are also subsidized. Small and large farms alike are also subsidized through their free (and largely inefficient, though there are exceptions) use of water. Finally, both receive large subsidies through state and national university research.

Small local farmers don't get a free pass from me, but they do get the benefit of the doubt. The opposite applies to large scale, conventional agriculture. I believe either can get it right. I just happen to know YKG does, and that is all I was saying.

And no, ethanol made from food crops is not worthy of a subsidy.