Regular canvas contributor Laura Collins-Hughes takes an herbal food tour through Chinatown and makes some observations on the way we eat and the way we heal.

In Western culture, the divide between medicine and food is generally unambiguous. Not so in Chinese culture, nor in New York’s Chinatown, where tradition recognizes herbs as medicine but also as food.

“There’s no distinction in many of the Chinese herb shops,” Letha Hadady said the other morning, leading a small gaggle of reporters and publicists through stores on Canal and Mulberry streets and the winding lanes beyond. Bins were stocked with medicinal mushrooms and fat twigs of ginseng root; jars were filled with fragrant loose teas and flower blossoms; packets of seeds promised a trip down a different garden path, lined with Chinese kale, bitter melon, Chinese cabbage, amaranth. Out on the sidewalk, women sold gingko nuts near a greengrocer offering fresh lotus and Chinese okra.

To people who do their grocery shopping in standard-issue American supermarkets, all of this is not just exotic but entirely unfamiliar. If you shop in health-food stores, you’ve been seeing many of these items for years, even if it’s only now that they’re creeping into the mainstream. But in Chinatown, the prices reflect familiarity: You’ll pay only a small fraction of what you’d pay for the same herb – maybe processed and packaged, but the same herb – in the vitamin aisle at your local health-food store.

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When considering how the world has largely become greener, I am, at turns, surprised, shocked, and pleased with the efforts individuals and corporations make to create a more sustainable and earth-friendly environment. I’m also often dismayed as the green movement gains momentum and those seeking to cash in hope to ‘greenwash’ their products and services, implying a sustainable message when there actually is none. We recently had this experience when a jewelry manufacturer sent us samples of bracelets made from all-natural materials. Indeed the products were made of natural materials—including endangered tropical rainforest wood.

Sigh.

Then today, I read something that had me amused and scratching my head: An eco-friendly wax portrait of the Prince of Wales.

As many of you know, Prince Charles of England is a fairly green guy. Well, at least as much as anyone who lives in a drafty old castle that takes gobs of resources to heat can be. He does get around in a “green car” and does try to minimize his travel so as to reduce his carbon footprint, even donating to footprint mitigating charities when he is forced, because of matters of state, to fly around the world. On his last visit to the U.S. he posed a plea for the great nations of the world to take action on the various environmental crises we are facing.

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It’s a brave new Web 2.0 world out there. Time’s Person of the Year is (annoyingly) “You.” Theoretically, “You” are empowering yourself via the internet by blogging, comparison shopping, posting to bulletin boards, making new friends and business connections on LinkedIn and MySpace. Maybe you are even authoring web videos. It’s a wonder anyone has time to get in front of a stove to cook the family meal. We’ll, how about doing both? My friends at Realmeals.tv encourage the budding Mario Battali to break out the digital video camera and iVideo software, and start cooking. Submit your video recipe directly to the site, and enjoy watching yourself concoct an Apple Martini, make your own “DIY” wedding cake, or get dressed up like Elvis and make a peanut butter and fried banana sandwich that’s true to the King’s original recipe. Get a YouTube buzz going, and maybe someone with a yen for obscure cooking talent and a fat checkbook will make you the next Rachel Ray. It’s worth a shot.

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In the seven or so months that we have been producing canvas one of the greatest areas where we receive feedback is our food coverage. Folks have contacted me about doing more sustainable, organic, local and ethnic recipes. Many have asked that I lend my expertise as a professional chef to the mix and offer tips, advice, product sourcing and more.

Well, as you see, I’m only too happy to oblige. If you are here, then you’ve entered canvas’ new food site where you’ll not only find blogs from me and guest chefs and aficionados but fellow foodies from all sides of the menu. In addition to the recipes, reviews of books and products, demo videos, calendar items of local and city food events and more, you’ll most of all find that this food section is a place where you can contribute your recipes, comments and ideas.

Let us know what you’d like us to cover and write in with your cooking questions! Welcome to the table—Bon Appetit!

Ramin Ganeshram is canvas’ editor in chief and a chef professionally trained at the Institute of Culinary Education. She is a Bert Greene, Food Journalism award nominee, acknowledged expert on the foods of the Caribbean and author of Sweet Hand: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago. She has contributed food articles to Saveur, Four Seasons, epicurious and more.

The other day, as we walked to lunch, I and my colleagues, canvas publishers Tom and Matt, again started to discuss a topic that has been much on our minds of late: The argument about organic vs. local products—primarily foods.

It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot lately—not only because I am the editor of this sustainable lifestyle magazine but because of the fact that I am a professionally trained chef and veteran food writer—a fact that many of you may not know.

Given those two sides of my professional self most folks make the assumption that I must be ardently pro-local. After all, any seasoned chef worth his or her toque always aims to use seasonal ingredients in the kitchen. There are a lot of reasons for this: Cost is one because bountiful seasonal items are often cheaper than there cross-country shipped counterparts. Plus, locally produced food just tastes better because of the foreshortened time getting it from field to market.

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