BRB w/ Nathan P – Garden Giants, Lentil and Tomato Curry & Essentialism
How one mushroom can protect your garden and regenerate soil, a quick and easy protein-rich curry, and doing less to achieve more (#35).
Hi all,
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of climate information to inspire climate action.
My mission is to make it fun, easy, and delicious to make more sustainable decisions.
Each Wednesday, I share 💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate.
💥 Breakthrough: Garden Giants
Last week’s post on permaculture explained how agriculture doesn’t need to be destructive.
Nature-inspired methods can regenerate soil, increase biodiversity, and sequester carbon.
And there’s one mushroom that can help with that: the Garden Giant.
Today’s post will dive into its benefits for:
Companion planting
Mycoremediation
1. Companion Planting
Stropharia rugosoannulata is also called the wine cap mushroom or “Garden Giant” because of its large size.
But don’t let its stature intimidate you. It’s the teddy bear of mushrooms, and also your garden’s best friend.
The Garden Giant is useful for companion planting, a practice that mimics the natural symbioses of different organisms support and cultivate one another.
Many indigenous traditions realized the benefits of companion planting, often growing beans, squash, and corn in the same plot of land. The crops share nutrients and provide shade, increasing the yield and resiliency of plots.
The Garden Giant does the same for the plants or crops in your garden, as it naturally:
🪱 Attracts earthworms
🌱 Helps plants access more micronutrients
🍂 Accelerates composting of leaf matter to fertilize the soil
And best of all, Garden Giants are delicious. They’re an easy way to add more protein and fiber to your diet, straight from the garden.
If you are interested in welcoming them to your garden, here’s a video from Paul Stamets on how to cultivate and cook it. His book Mycelium Running also describes the process in detail.
2. Mycoremediation
Beyond the benefits above, the Garden Giant is a great candidate for mycoremediation – the process of using fungi to treat contaminated soils.
Garden Giants have proven effective at filtering E.coli, consuming nematodes, and treating storm water from other floating microbes in a large 2013 field study.
They are especially effective for a sub-category of mycoremediation called mycofiltration, in which mycelium can act as low-cost, scalable, and effective membranes to treat contaminated water.
The mycelium can be inoculated on agricultural by-products and construction debris in burlap sacs. The Garden Giant then develops a mycelial mesh with a permeability similar to medium grain sand, capable of removing near 100% of sediment-bound E.coli.
The Garden Giant is also remarkably resilient, withstanding stress testing better than other species like Pleurotus (oyster mushrooms).
I contributed to an article HackTrends published this week on Mycoremediation. Check it out to learn more on the potential of this biotechnology and the start-ups in this space.
🥘 Recipe: Lentil and Tomato Curry
This week’s recipe is a quick and easy curry. It’s rich in protein, climate-friendly, and soul-warming.
This lentil and tomato curry makes for a delicious weeknight dinner and scales easily for meal prep.
Scroll down for the recipe from Fork Ranger.
If you make it, please send pictures :)
📚 Book: Essentialism
We have all worked on activities we find exciting, but which don’t drive meaningful results or get us closer to the life we want.
Essentialism by Greg McKeown promotes a philosophy of ruthless elimination to make time for the things that matter.
According to the author, essentialists:
🧏♀️ Believe that less is better, so they…
👩🔧 Pursue less with intention, so they can…
👩🎨 Live a life that really matters.
The process to becoming an essentialist is quite simple in theory, and harder in practice. Here are Greg McKeown’s 3 steps:
Explore and evaluate what activities we engage in or things we have
Eliminate what we should “probably do less of” or “probably get rid of”
Execute to keep the essential
What is “essential” should differ for each person – it is based on our values, priority (note the singular), and beliefs on what is most worth pursuing.
Many of the concepts in this book seem obvious – but do we really know them if we don’t practice them?
It’s something I’m working on myself.
To learn to say “no” to most things, to have the discipline to avoid shiny distractions, and to dictate with intentionality how I want to spend my time and get out of this short and beautiful time on this planet.
It goes without saying that the essentialist philosophy is also key for sustainability, in both our actions and the impact of our work.
It’s not easy. But the upside is palpable: to live a life we fully design, on our own terms.
Some favorite quotes:
Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will.
What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?
Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” [essentialists] ask, “What do I want to go big on?”
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
🥘 Recipe: Lentil and Tomato Curry
This recipe has been created by Fork Ranger. Discover how to eat for the climate and get more inspiration through their (cook)book, seasonal calendar, and free app.
Ingredients (makes 4 servings):
300g Basmati rice (brown)
250g cherry tomatoes
400g lentils, cooked
2 yellow bell peppers
200mL cream (soy)
2 tbsp peanut butter
70g tomato paste
2 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp sugar
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves
Juice from half a lime
15g fresh parsley
Instructions:
Prepare the ingredients. Dice the onion, mince the garlic, cut the bell peppers into short strips, and halve the cherry tomatoes.
Cook the Basmati rice.
Sauté the onion on medium-high heat with some olive oil. Add in the tomato paste, minced garlic, julienned bell peppers, garam masala, and chili powder.
Add in the peanut butter, sugar, and cream (soy), and stir to combine. Drain the lentils, then add them with the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Plate the rice on one side of a large bowl, and the curry in the other. Squeeze half the lime on top and garnish with parsley.
Enjoy with your besties :)
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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