Lighted Window

Winter CSA, week 02

I forgot to take a photo before it was all put away, but here's what came in this week's box:

• more strawberries!
• butternut squash
• small white potatoes
• large sweet potatoes
• lots of small onions
• rainbow carrots
• arugula
• cilantro!!!
• apples
• oranges

I'll try to remember to photograph what we make with it :)

The snow yesterday was beautiful, but kind of frustrating -- we've been having problems with ice dams on and off since we bought the house, and this was an "on" week. The weather forecast for the rest of the week heralds more snow, too! At least today it warmed up enough that the ice sheet fell off the back wall of the house, and the roof wires appear to be working -- we couldn't tell at first, there was that much snow. (We should have turned them on last week.)

All this grey means that my yellow Shalom sweater is getting LOTS of mileage. I really need to knit up some warm and COLORFUL sweaters!

Winter CSA, week 01

It really feels like cheating to be having strawberries in January. Like the Month Brothers are going to come down hard on us in return. Oh wait, we're supposed to have a nor'easter tomorrow.

We just joined a winter CSA, East Coast Farm Share, run by Enterprise Farm in western MA. They have deliveries to the metro Boston area, and just added a location less than three miles from our house, so I no longer had an excuse not to do it.

The lettuce, at least, is local (and I think the sweet potatoes too). Everything comes from farms along the East Coast, and at least we know we're supporting family farms and organic farming.

I'll keep you posted as we inch towards spring...

Michael Pollan: Sec'y of Agriculture?

First thought: "I wish...."

Second thought: "WHY NOT?"

If you're of like mind, please sign the petition.

If you've never heard of Michael Pollan, you may have heard of his books -- my favorite is The Omnivore's Dilemma. Wikipedia has a decent summary of his work (scroll down for linked essays and interviews) and you can even view some of his talks online.

But I was using my whole ***

You might call this a half-***ed entry into the inaugural week of One Local Summer 2008, and you're be right. However, I was using my whole *** at the time, and I make no apologies (even to Homer Simpson). It was just spread across two meals.

It poured all day Saturday, so no pictures. For lunch I made corn chowder, using local milk and corn I froze last summer, and enjoyed it with some French bread from Nashoba Brook Bakery. (Probably nonlocal onions, celery and butter were also involved.) For dinner, we had a delicious delmonico steak from Blood Farm, along with baked fingerling potatoes (unknown provenance) and salad (greens from our garden and Verrill Farm, tomatoes and celery from probably not local).

This was one of the first meals for which I was back in the kitchen, queasiness abated, so half + half is fine for me. For the first week anyway. :)

Simple Corn Chowder

Chop 1 rib of celery finely and chop 1 medium yellow onion likewise. Cook in butter in soup pot until softened, then remove from pot. Melt 2 Tbsp butter in the pot and begin warming 4 cups milk in another pot or in the microwave. Add 3 Tbsp flour to the melted butter and stir for roux. After the roux has cooked a bit, add milk a little at a time to the roux, stirring till milk is absorbed and mixture is smooth. Finally, add the vegetables back to the pot along with 4 cups sweet corn kernels (and their milk if you are lucky). Season to taste with salt, pepper, bouillon, parsley, etc. You can process half the soup in a blender, or use a stick blender in the pot, to thicken it up a little.

A few slices of French bread go very nicely with a hot bowl of chowder!

Back on the Wagon

The last three months have been... well, to get it out in the open, they've been your typical first trimester blah (plus two weeks of nasty poison ivy rashes). Of course that does mean I got on the proverbial temperance wagon, but I fell off the blogwagon around the same time. Sorry about that.

Things have gotten better over the last week, though, and I had enough energy today to:

• start cleaning up the guest room (inlaws coming!)
• run multiple errands
• go through 4 boxes of hand-me-down maternity clothes
• spray Roundup on the poison ivy
• GO TO THE FARM! YAY!

Thank God I got my groove back in time for One Local Summer signups! Barely in time. Today's the last day, so if you meant to sign up and haven't, get over there! I have definitely been eating non-local what with trying to get enough greens in my gullet, during a cold New England spring, but our CSA share should be starting up in a couple of weeks, and our garden has baby spinach and lettuce and onions and more. A strawberry patch, too. That was a complete surprise as the snow melted.

We've been greening our garden in other ways, too -- we installed a couple of rain barrels so that we're not watering from the town wells. Except for the Roundup, we're not using any industrial pesticides or fertilizer. Just compost and manure and soap. (I wouldn't even use the Roundup but severe allergic reaction means we have a zero tolerance policy for the plant, and it's nowhere near the food plants.)

We were biking in Western MA yesterday, out near Zoar, and we rode past one small homestead with a long road frontage. The veggie garden gave way to the rhubarb patch, which was followed by a dozen or so blueberry bushes, which yielded to a few venerable old apple trees. Blessed people!

Teach By Example?

Hook 'em while they're young

This got my dander up. And if there's anything you don't want in a kitchen, it's dander up.

"Who has time to inculcate the next generation in the ways of the culinary world?" You, that's who. Your kids are far more likely to imitate you than some teacher in yet another after-school lesson. You don't have to be able to make souffle or brioche to teach them the culinary basics: Wash your hands. Use tasty ingredients. Point the knife away from you. Enjoy yourself.

It's Habit-Forming

The Eat Local Challenge is starting up as OLS ends, so I'm going to just roll right into that. What, you thought we'd stop eating local foods just because the party wound down? Hah. It just tastes too damn good. Not to mention I love the macro mode on our camera.

Funny how the ELC steps read just like a Girl Scout badge ("Learn more about a farmer or local producer by talking to them"...) -- it would be neat to earn a big red tomato badge at the end of the month. This would be a good project for my Scout troop too. They got more excited about food than anything else last year (they're teenagers). To qualify as a "real" Scouting badge, there would have to be a service component as well; e.g. "help your local food bank hook up with local food producers" (actually I think a lot of them ARE hooked up for "seconds" and day-old baked goods). Getting your school cafeteria hooked up with local food producers would be a terrific service project.

Not done thinking about this.

Globe articles on eating locally

[This post has turned into a page, which I will keep updating.]

Boston Globe article

"The Localvore's Dilemma"

Somebody at the Globe has been paying attention.

A friend of ours brought up this same concern this weekend, as we were floating lazily down the Nashua River by kayak, watching the food chain at work. Barn swallows swooped crazily over the water, snatching junior dragonflies mid-flight. Muskrats pulled up mouthful after mouthful of grasses. Great blue herons stalked fish and frogs. Cows in a nearby field... produced methane. (We paddled faster through that stretch.)

I know that our container garden wouldn't exist without interstate trucking. The pickle buckets and the name-brand potting soil certainly found their way to Middlesex County, MA, at least partially by truck -- to say nothing of their constituent materials.

And you know what? This is an experiment. It doesn't have to be guaranteed to succeed, or be sensible, before we've tried it. What matters the most is that we keep our eyes open and honest, and learn from trying. What do you think?

Two Local Panini

Spread pesto on two slices of bread (rosemary and olive oil bread, today). Layer tomato slices and mozzarella inside, with a touch of salt. Pan-cook in a little bit of olive oil.

Die and go to heaven.