Coming events!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Looking for something fun to do that involves eating local?  Look no further…

• Dance of the Ripe Tomatoes.  Friday, September 7 at 6:30pm at the White Dog Cafe (ok, behind it in a tent).  $40/person.  Annual Farm Buffet Dinner served outdoors featuring the harvest of local organic family farms which supply the Cafe and the Fair Food Farmstand, including Branch Creek Farm, Buck Run, Green Meadow, Greensgrow, Greystone, Neptune, Meadow Run, Overbrook Herb Farm & Lancaster Farm Fresh, as well as beer by local brewers Stoudt’s, Yards, Flying Fish, and Victory.  Following the dinner is dancing to live music.  Call the White Dog at 215-386-9224 for reservations.  All proceeds benefit the Philadelphia Fair Food Project.
• “Urban Farming” field day.  Saturday, September 15th from 11:00am-3:00pm. $15 for PASA members/$25 for all others (includes lunch). Greensgrow, Philadelphia’s first urban farm, invites you to learn about its unique approach to running a vibrant business on a former brownfield site.  Participants be introduced to their City Supported Agriculture model, various methods for growing above-ground, as well as learning about their distinctly urban nursery business. The day will end with a quick look at their new bio-diesel reactor and two green-roofs.  Sponsored by Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA).  Contact PASA at 814-349-9856 to register.
• Iron Hill Brewery Oktoberfest Kick-Off - Brewer’s Reserve. Saturday, September 15 from 4-10 pm.  Free admission, food/booze a la carte.  Join Tim Stumpf, head brewer, in Iron Hill’s Phoenixville location to sample a selection of handcrafted traditional German style beers.  Special guest Sly Fox, from nearby Royersford, will serve its acclaimed Pikeland Pils.

Federal money for PA organic farmers

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Here’s something interesting to note - last Friday the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the availability of $1 million to help farmers and processors pay for the cost of their organic certification costs.  15 states will share the $1 million proportionate to the number of organic producers in the state.  One of those states is Pennsylvania!

The states that will share the money do not traditionally receive as much crop assistance as the larger Midwestern states do in the federal farm bill. Leahy initiated the program to help deliver federal agriculture money to the farmers in the states in New England and the mid-Atlantic.

The money is specifically aimed at small farmers and will reimburse each eligible farmer 75% of certification costs up to $500. 

No doubt this will benefit all of us who enjoy eating locally grown, certified organic produce.

CSA Weekly Report:  Blooming Glen Farm

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

"No more flowers :( “ says Tricia.

(Click photo to read notes at flick’r regarding names and quantities of this week’s share.)

Please advise!  Anyone have any idea what to do with that funky sunshine winter squash? 

CSA Weekly Report: Red Earth Farm

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

This week’s haul:
Nectarines (from Buying Club)
Green Zebra tomatoes-- new variety for me. A bit tart, but juicy.
A colorful assortment of bell peppers
Garlic
Italian Basil
Radishes

And so it begins: Eat Local Challenge!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Where did the Summer go?  With the arrival of September comes this month’s Eat Local Challenge, Philly-style.  Several of us here at FTP (along with a few FTP readers) have pledged to do the following:

1. Eat one meal per week during the month of September that is made using locally grown ingredients.  Non-local oil and spices are allowed.
2. Can, freeze, dry, or otherwise preserve two things during the month.
3. Utilize one new resource for locally grown food during September - that could be a new restaurant, farmer’s market, etc.

Our first progress report will appear next Monday! Woohoo!

If you’d like to participate, please leave us a comment!

Edited to note:  Even CNN is covering the Eat Local September Challenge!

If the food hasn’t been grown within 100 miles of where we live—we won’t buy it. That is the pledge concerned foodies across the country are taking for the entire month of September.

At its extreme, the 100-mile diet means no coffee, no spices and no chocolate. Most people don’t go that far, but they do embrace buying food grown and raised locally where possible.

CNN cites diversity and freshness of food, interest in supporting small farmers, and concern about the environment as reasons to eat local.  They point out several reasons why eating locally may be a challenge: convenience and not being able to get your favorite foods when you want them.  They also indicate that some people don’t like CSAs because it’s harder to cook because you might be unfamiliar with the produce.

I guess it’s an article that’s trying to be balanced, but I’ve never really had problems getting to farmer’s markets and tend to think of eating seasonally and cooking according to what comes in the CSA as positive things. Huh.

The delicate Delicata

Like lots of people on Labor Day, my husband and I had ourselves a little cookout.  We grilled up some nice steaks from Natural Acres.  I wanted something different as a side, though.  And with the four Delicata squash grown by Green Valley Organics that have come in my CSA share over the last two weeks, it seemed like a good idea to cook those up.

Winter squash at an end of Summer cookout?  Well...as strange as that seems, it worked.  After cutting the squash in half lengthwise, removing the seeds, and slicing up the halves, I tossed the pieces in olive oil and roasted everything for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  The roasted slices of squash then were tossed in the last of my tulip poplar honey from Linvilla and some sea salt, and roasted another five minutes.

The result was a sweet and salty squash dish that was hearty enough to stand up to steak, but still light enough for a cookout.

I roasted all the squash, but only about 1/3 of it got the salt and honey treatment.  The rest has been packed into freezer bags to puree for soup when it gets a little cooler outside.  I can barely wait!

Juniper berries

Monday, September 03, 2007

The idea of foraging never occurred to me prior to reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Rather than something normal people do to find food for themselves, it seemed like something weird and foreign...nearly akin to looking in trash cans for food.  I’ve always been a gardener, excited by the idea of raising my own food.  It seems silly now that I would make such a distinction between things I specifically cultivated for food and food that I might find growing wild.  It is especially odd, considering I grew up in an area where there were so many hunters my school district was (and continues to be) closed on the first day of deer season - what else is hunting and fishing but foraging?

Foraging is, in its most basic sense, wandering in search of food.  And I have done it without considering it as such - like when I was little and gorged myself on a blueberries from a bush I found in the woods.  Lately I’ve been more and more inspired to look for sources of food outside my comfort zone (ie, my garden and the farmer’s market).  To help me with identification, I took out Edible Wild Plants of Pennsylvania and New York by John Tomikel from my library.

Before I start searching the city and burbs for edible plantlife on public property, I thought I might start in my own backyard.  It’s still foraging in your backyard, right?  If the stuff you find wasn’t intended to be food?  Well, I’m going to call it foraging.  Baby steps to real foraging, maybe.

Many of us have juniper bushes on our property in this neck of the woods.  We have three or four giant juniper bushes in the yard.  The Juniperus virginiana is an evergreen that is quite common to the area, usually planted as windbreaks or hedgerows.  It produces juniper berries, although it’s really not a true berry.  It’s a modified conifer cone, so it’s a little scaly. As a rule, you really wouldn’t want to eat juniper berries - most are fairly bitter.  However, juniper berries do have their uses!

The juniper berry is the major flavoring used to make gin.  As far as I know, it is legal to make gin in your home as long as you don’t sell it.  If you’re interested in trying, there are some fairly substantial instructions at Home Distillation of Alcohol.

Beyond their role in making gin, juniper berries are a great flavoring for meat dishes.  They are generally used dried and crushed, and are removed from the dish before eating.  I have used juniper berries from my bushes in meat marinades.  However, I’ve found all sorts of recipes using juniper berries

For more information about how and when to harvest juniper berries, click here.

A word of caution: juniper is a diuretic and can be harmful to pregnant women (it may cause uterine contractions).

Last OLS 2007 dinner!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Ta da! One Local Summer 2007 has been successfully completed!

One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 10

* Homemade whole wheat pizza (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles) with tomatoes, onion, yellow and red bell peppers, garlic (all from Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles), basil (Bux-Mont Hydroponics - 5 miles), white sweet corn (Lancaster - 84 miles) and cherry bomb hot peppers (our garden - 0 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: yeast, olive oil, salt
* Red and yellow watermelon (Blooming Glen) and peach (New Jersey - 40 miles) fruit salad.
* Proprietors Reserve red wine (Chaddsford Winery - 48 miles)

I absolutely considered going all out with several recipes for the last meal, but thought this simple meal was much more representative of the spirit of OLS. Simplicity in making big changes with little effort. Simplicity too, in finding joy in small things; like cutting open a watermelon and discovering buttercup-yellow flesh instead of the expected pink.

Hm. Actually, now that I think about it, this dinner wasn’t exactly simple. I’d never made pizza dough before. Not that it was complex, but there’s a little bit of a learning curve to work into the math there

And that’s what OLS has been for me these past ten weeks: doing things that I never before had an excuse to do. Making pizza dough and tortillas, going to the Skippack farmers’ market and discovering artichokes, finding several local vegan protein sources - shit, me just purchasing flour to bake was an unthinkable prospect before this summer. I mean, really… I look at this and am just plain surprised with myself:

As much as I love to cook, and love local foods, I can truly say that I never would’ve made a pizza from scratch had is not been for the challenge of OLS. Nor would I have considered using corn as a topping. But! These were all good decisions!

Thank you, Liz! You are amazing and inspiring and fun.

With the the picture-taking, planning, deadlines and posting, I’m happy to have a short break from these meals each week , but I’m sure local-specific meals will maintain a somewhat regular appearance here until OLS 2008. I’m interested to see what I can some up with say, in February. Stay tuned!

Raw milk cheddar

Saturday, September 01, 2007

My grandparents were farmers - cows and corn.  As a result, my mother didn’t have pasteurized and homogenized milk until she was out of high school and thought it was disgusting.  When you’re used to raw milk, everything else tastes super watered down.  I haven’t drunk raw milk since I was a baby...until recently.  I bought a gallon to make cheese, and nearly spit it out when I tried it.  It’s all what you’re used to, I suppose.

One thing even the skim milk drinkers amongst us might agree on: milk made from raw milk is far superior in taste and texture.  The flavor of raw milk cheese is so much more complex and, well, earthy.  I recently tried the raw milk cheddar from Green Meadow Farms, a farm run in Gap, PA.  It is amazing - it has a fairly sharp bite to it, which I love in cheddar.  Great texture, too - it’s a little crumbly, but smooth on your tongue.

While my bit of raw milk cheddar will be finished simply sliced and served with thin slices of apple, the cheese would make an unbelievable baked macaroni and cheese.  As the cooler weather approaches, I may have to try that.

Green Meadow Farm cheeses are made from grass-fed milk and are hormone- and antibiotic-free.  You can find their cheese at various restaurants throughout the Philadelphia area, including Fork and the White Dog Cafe.  I purchased my piece of cheddar at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market.

I don’t give a fig

Friday, August 31, 2007

Figs are coming in hot and heavy at the farm stands around town, and I am overwhelmed with delight to see it.  I love fresh figs...so much so that I bought a couple of fig trees earlier this Summer (which are doing great in our USDA hardiness zone, I might add.  South Philly, in particular, is filled with little back yards overrun with fig trees).

My little trees may not be bearing fruit yet, but the Fair Food Farmstand has found a source for figs in South Philly - her name is Becky.  She plucks figs from her tree every week and delivers them to the stand on Wednesday morning.  Act quickly - as I found out yesterday, those babies don’t last long.  I was told by the woman on duty that the figs are gone by Wednesday afternoon.

Figs from some random woman’s tree in South Philly?  Yeah, that’s totally worth an extra stop into Reading Terminal Market.

It kind of reminds me of the Fallen Fruit initiative out of Los Angeles - residents are encouraged to contact city administrators to ask that fruit trees be planted in the city, rather than a tree that doesn’t produce anything.  The idea is that any person on the street can than feed themselves from public trees.  And not that I have any plans to stand outside Becky the Fig Woman’s house and hope for her fig trees to bear fruit on the street, but I like the idea of finding public and free sources of food.  It satisfies my inner forager.

Have you found any public fruit in the city or the surrounding areas?  Perhaps we start our own little mapping project.

Digression from Tomatoes

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Tuesday morning, parking and setup for the Rittenhouse Square farmers’ market went unusually smoothly, so I wandered into the Barnes & Noble across the street, contemplating the purchase of a news magazine to read over coffee.  My choice became easy once I noticed that the current issue of The New Yorker is the food issue!

(That morning, the first food-related article I came to was an amusing and tantalizing exploration of Singaporean street food, by Calvin Trillin.  If it’s feasible, I’d recommend buying the issue to read that article; sadly, only the abstract is available online.)

The full text of the article I read yesterday afternoon, however, is available online.  It’s entitled ‘New York Local’, by Adam Gopnik.  Needless to say, I was excited to read this article—localism, the word Gopnik seems to use frequently, is entering the zeitgeist as interpreted by such a venerable magazine as The New Yorker!  In the middle of the article, I texted a friend who is a geography professor, ‘I’m not sure what to think of [the article]’, and after I had a couple hours to ponder it, I think I’m annoyed.  Gopnik writes about his meetings with community chicken carers, rooftop beekeepers, a Central Park forager, and a Brooklyn College fish farmer—all people he encounters in his week-long experiment to eat only food ‘grown or raised within the five boroughs of New York City.’

OK, intriguing experiment.  But...I started to become dubious when Gopnik lists the following reasons he attempted this experiment: 1. to find out if it was possible, 2. to explore localism, and 3. ‘to see if perhaps the implicit anti-urban prejudices lurking in the localist movement could be leached away by some city-bred purposefulness’.  ...Huh?!  Is it just because I’ve become a locavore while living IN the city, taking advantage of co-ops and farmers’ markets and farm shares with other urban residents, that I am oblivious to this anti-urbanism he claims to sense in the movement?  It’s true that he mentions in the paragraph previous that the usual rules of localism allow for a 100-300 mile foodshed, but if the whole article is focused on a five-borough foodshed, will his readers remember that passing mention?  Am I just over-reacting?

He talked about interesting people and exciting projects, but I was a little sad that this article was the only perspective on localism in this issue of The New Yorker, a perspective so different from my own experience as a locavore.  Please do let me know your thoughts!  I know most of the blog entries so far have contained beautiful produce collections or tasty recipes [edited to add: and I love all of them!], but I am also interested in your help to become more conversant in the theory and advantages/objections to eating local. 

OK, intriguing experiment.  But...I started to become dubious when Gopnik lists the following reasons he attempted this experiment: 1. to find out if it was possible, 2. to explore localism, and 3. ‘to see if perhaps the implicit anti-urban prejudices lurking in the localist movement could be leached away by some city-bred purposefulness’.  ...Huh?!  Is it just because I’ve become a locavore while living IN the city, taking advantage of co-ops and farmers’ markets and farm shares with other urban residents, that I am oblivious to this anti-urbanism he claims to sense in the movement?  It’s true that he mentions in the paragraph previous that the usual rules of localism allow for a 100-300 mile foodshed, but if the whole article is focused on a five-borough foodshed, will his readers remember that passing mention?  Am I just over-reacting?

He talked about interesting people and exciting projects, but I was a little sad that this article was the only perspective on localism in this issue of The New Yorker, a perspective so different from my own experience as a locavore.  Please do let me know your thoughts!  I know most of the blog entries so far have contained beautiful produce collections or tasty recipes, but I am also interested in your help to become more conversant in the theory and advantages/objections to eating local. 

CSA Weekly Report: Lancaster Farm Fresh

Upon hearing that another dozen ears of corn would be present in the CSA share from Lancaster Farm Fresh today, I immediately set out to Williams-Sonoma to get my hands on their corn zipper gadget.  For the last few weeks I’ve been using a knife to cut the kernels off cobs of corn, but the corn goes all over the place.  After cutting kernels off of a dozen cobs, my kitchen is positively littered with corn.  And while my dog certainly loves to perform her clean up duty, I hate to lose all that corn.  Alas, Williams-Sonoma was out of the zipper, but had something better: the Good Grips corn stripper.  It’s sound like a rural burlesque show or something, but the stripper has a container that catches the corn as it’s removed from the cob.  I fully expect to be blissfully happy as I process this corn tonight.

That was a little off the subject, but yes, there were a dozen ears of sweet corn grown by Green Acres Organics in today’s Lancaster Farm Fresh share.  Additionally, there was:

• 3 red bell peppers grown by Meadow Valley Organics
• 6 red slicing tomatoes grown by Countryside Organics
• 2 heirloom tomatoes grown by Riverview Organics
• 1 spaghetti squash grown by Elm Tree Organics
• 1 pound onions grown by Scarecrow Hill Farm
• 2 delicata squash grown by Green Valley Organics
• 3 pound bag potatoes grown by Busy Bee Acres or Elm Tree Organics
• One of the following items: 1 bunch escarole grown by Scarecrow Hill Farm, 2 eggplant grown by Riverview Organics, or 1 bunch parsley grown by the Back 40 Ranch (I was lucky enough to get the eggplant)

I am particularly excited to see the spaghetti squash, which I plan to bake and combine with cheese (because everything is better with cheese!).

Coincidentally, I’m told by our site manager that there were supposed to be extra vegetables in the share this week to make up for being shorted a watermelon two weeks ago.  Alas, nothing extra.

Head to Headhouse and Make this Soup

The bounty of the much-touted Headhouse Farmers Market inspired this soup recipe.  Make a list of the ingredients and head to the market to see if you can get one item from a different stand to spread the love around.  Or, just stop by our table, Weavers Way Farm, and buy everything but the corn.  Deliciously fresh, this soup can be served hot or cold so it’ll make the transition between seasons with you.  To stock up for the colder months, buy extra fresh corn to cut off the cobs and freeze.  Then buy bushels of tomatillos to make salsa verde to also freeze or can.  That way, when winter settles in, you can call upon your stockpiles to make this hearty soup to remind you of the freshness of summer.

Corn and Tomatillo Chowder
Adated from The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Soup

2 T. peanut or corn oil
4 large shallots or 1 medium onion, diced
1 hot pepper such as Hungarian Hot Wax, diced
1 sweet pepper (purple, red or green), diced
2 ears of fresh sweet corn, kernels cut off (about 2 cups)
12 or so tomatillos
3 c. of vegetable or chicken stock
1 c. light cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper


Husk tomatillos, place in a small sauce pan and cover with water.  Place on high heat until water boil and then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes until tomatillos loose their bright color and float to the top.

Meanwhile, heat oil in large deep skillet.  Add the diced onion and peppers, reserving a tablespoon or so of the pepper for garnish later, to the hot skillet and saute over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes until they get soft and brown on the edges.  Add the corn kernels to the skillet and saute for 2 minutes until softened and the color pales.  Finally, drain tomatillos from their hot water and add to skillet to toss with sauted vegetables.  Stir to incorporate.

Carefully pour contents of skillet into a blender (or use an immersion blender for extra ease) and process until smooth, adding a little stock if needed to loosen it up.  Transfer blended contents back to skillet and slowly add in stock over low heat.  Allow soup to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes to scrap up any corn sticking to the bottom of the skillet.

Remove skillet from heat and stir in cream.  Serve soup chilled or warm.  If serving warm, gently reheat - never allow soup to come to a boil.  Garnish each bowl of soup with diced pepper and thin slices of an uncooked tomatillo.

(makes 4 large servings)

take the tomato

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I’m glad Nicole wrote out those 10 things you can do with tomatoes. I was already plotting and planning what recipes from the NYTimes I would make. I really loved the idea of a tartlett. But I am not one to follow recipes if I can use what I already have in the house.

So I took the tartlett idea and made something yummy of my own. Tomatoes on filo. They were probably the tastiest thing I had this week.

The same concept from the NYTimes recipe is there, instead of using puff pastry I used filo dough. I put it on a silicon matt and brushed each layer with butter. Then I took equal portions of riccotta and goat’s cheese and mixed them with fresh basil. I spread it on the filo much like you would pizza sauce or if you were icing a cake. Then I put my very yummy fresh cut tomato rounds on it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, top with parmesian. Fold the edges up if you like the more picturesque tartlett picture, or leave it as it.. the cheese really doesn’t run over the sides. Pop it in a 425 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. It was absolutely delish!

CSA Weekly Report:  Blooming Glen Farm

Whew.  After our Rhode Island vacation, it seems we’re finally getting back into the swing of things over here.  Readjusting to schedules and responsibilities is always a little slow moving, especially after spending two weeks in a tent at the beach.  We’ve been… resistant, I’ll say.  I’m happy to report, the vibrant colors at Blooming Glen really softened the CSA pick-up duties this week.

(Click photo to read notes at flick’r regarding names and quantities of this week’s share.)

The peppers are out of this world, and I’m quite excited to have received garlic this year.  Pictured is a German White variety, next to some yellow onions.  As one might imagine, we’ve been making some mean stir fries in Souderton lately. 

If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out this great newspaper article, ”New crop of farmers comes with college degrees, no farming past” (The Intelligencer, Aug. 25), which features the Blooming Glen farmers, Tricia and Tom.