Eating: a political act? and leftover cranberry relish

The Simply in Season recipe of the week, Cranberry Nut Loaf, makes a pretty addition to any Christmas brunch. It’s one of several SIS recipes that calls for flax seed meal. You can skip this ingredient if you don't have it on hand, but it’s an easy way to add a powerful nutritional punch to your breakfast. Hooray for Omega-3s!

Whole flax seeds do not digest well because of their hard shell, so you need to crack it -- just wait to do this step until you’re ready to use it, as the cracked seeds quickly turn rancid. Check a natural foods store for whole flax seed in bulk and grind it as you need it in a blender or coffee grinder. Zip, zap, ready.

My favorite cranberry side dish these days is not the cooked sauce but a relish like SIS’s Cranberry Salad, made with raw chopped cranberries, oranges, sometimes nuts, lemons or apples. If you have leftover relish of this sort, try folding it into your favorite quick bread dough. In Cranberry Nut Loaf, for example, omit the orange juice, orange peel, sugar and cranberries and add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of Cranberry Salad.

(Recipe changes weekly. To get on our recipe e-mail list, go to the SIS website and click on "Register.")

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The November issue of the MCC Washington Office newsletter, Memo, includes a few of my musings on eating as a political act. Several other articles from this issue on global food and farming are also available online.

Global food and farming issues will be the focus of Washington Office’s annual spring seminar, slated for March 5-7, 2006. Stay tuned for more information about “Voices Around the Table: Stories of Food from CAFTA to the Corner Store.”