Published on May 20th, 2008
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My dear blog buddy, Yarny Old Kim, happens to live near my current hood, but is relatively new to the area, so we went on a local food gathering field trip last weekend.
First stop was to our local ‘bee lady’ Landi @ Gooserock Farm for wonderful local honey and bee-related products — some of the most luscious soaps and beeswax-based cosmetic products. Gooserock Farm is in Montville, NJ but if you’re not local, you can buy from their website (see link above).
Second stop was the local egg guy (I really don’t know his name!) to play with the free-roaming chickens and pick up some delicious fresh local organic eggs. Well, we were playing, the Pennsylvania Reds may have been more disturbed than excited to see us. Other than the colorful roosters, all the chickens had these big red butts, which were kind of amusing (see image above).
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Published on May 20th, 2008
While I missed a week’s posts due to a family emergency, all of you have been writing some amazing posts. Thanks for keeping at it and keeping me inspired. Great tips, photos, stories and recipes after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 19th, 2008
Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.
It’s been brought to my attention that croutons aren’t “much of an entry” (this from a man that goes pale at the mere mention of his participation in the nightly dinner preparations), but I beg to differ. While making your own croutons isn’t hard, it’s something most folks rarely think to do. The recipes I post aren’t meant to be revolutionary. Rather, they are here to prompt you, noble Eat.Drink.Better readers, to embrace the freshest, local food you can find. Homemade croutons made with a fresh herb butter fit in perfectly with that scheme, don’t you think? I certainly do.
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Published on May 16th, 2008
This may be slightly premature, but we are having a very rainy Friday out here in the New York metro area and thinking about Summer berries cheers me up! I didn’t think I would be able to get a recipe out today, but here it is!
The great thing about this recipe is that it is simple and you can get creative with your ingredients! It is a colorful and delicious part of our summer and I can’t attend certain family parties unless I show up with this dessert.
Ingredients
2 sticks butter – softened
2 cups quick cooking oats
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
4 cups (approximately) of various berries – washed and cut as needed. (depending on what is in season and available locally, my favorites are blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and sometimes I throw in a pear or two)
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Published on May 16th, 2008
Spring is upon us, and the redwood forest around my home has come to life. A friend told me recently that the lush clover-like ground cover that’s been popping up all spring in my yard is actually edible! It’s called Redwood Sorrel (Oxalis oregana), and its leaves have long been eaten by Native Americans on the Pacific coast. After a bit of research, I headed outside with a basket to collect some for our dinner salad.
Redwood Sorrel, not to be confused with the also edible garden sorrel, has a tangy, lemony flavor that is a great accent to salads. One thing to note, however, is that is should only be eaten in small quantities, because it contains oxalic acid that can disrupt digestion in large amounts. Since it’s a bit on the sour side, you probably won’t be tempted to overdo it anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 15th, 2008
The calendar says May, but where I live in San Francisco, it’s been feeling like the dead of summer lately. My thermometer says 85, which is unseasonably hot for my otherwise moderate city. Usually, my lunchtime staple is soup, however a warm bowl full of chili may be great in November, but none too appealing today.
I decided instead to concoct a cooling summertime soup. I’m a sucker for Gazpacho, but I wanted something a little lighter today. I also needed to use up all the dill from my herb garden that’s been withering away in the heat.
Here’s my recipe for Cucumber Dill Soup that as refreshing as it is delicious (and not to mention, healthy and quick to prepare!) Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 15th, 2008
I know this might sound pompous (my daughter’s favorite word these days), but I have some free advice about eating. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to eat in a more healthful, environmentally friendly, sustainable way. You don’t have to be an amazing cook, or use a carbon calculator for every meal. All you have to do is think about what you are eating.
I am irritated by the debate, by well-meaning food folks, about whether eating local food is really a good way to reduce the impact of your food choices on carbon emissions. This debate suggests a phony choice - if food miles matter, then nothing else does. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“Food miles” are a measure of the distance food travels from farm to plate. As far as I know, this concept caught fire after a 2003 study came out from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture comparing food miles traveled by local produce in Iowa and conventional produce within the U.S. The study found that the non-local produce had traveled an average of 1500 miles, Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 15th, 2008
I’m relatively new to this crazy Farm Bill thing. I was invited last Summer to an event at Paul Newman and local food activist chef Michel Nischan’s restaurant, the Dressing Room in Wesport CT, to listen to an amazing panel of speakers and participate in a dialog about the 2007 Farm Bill. This incredibly informative and passionate panel included, US Representative Rose DeLauro (D-New Haven, CT); Gus Schumacher, the undersecretary of Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services during the Clinton Administration; Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: A Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill; and Annie Farrell an advocate for sustainable and organic farming and manager of Millstone Farm in CT.
I was stunned by what I learned last year - more importantly, I was stunned by what I didn’t know, and I consider myself a sustainable agriculture supporter! I’ve been trying to track the progress of this Bill in its fits and starts and controversial moments, but still find myself quite ignorant and ever-more surprised when I hear or read another piece of this hulking bulk of legislation.Today is my ‘recipe’ day, not that I’ve kept up with the schedule lately AT ALL, but after reading the NY Times article about the latest on the Farm Bill, I just had to write something about this. Sorry. Look for some lighter fare (perhaps easier to digest than the Farm Bill) Monday! Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 15th, 2008
After a brief hiatus, Urban Agriculturalist is back! Urban Agriculturalist is a series on the ways city and suburb dwellers use their land as a food resource.
Last week, the New York Times featured a few part-time professional urban farmers in areas of New York City where a high demand and low supply of produce cause dietary and health problems. Increasingly, residents are seeing their abundance of abandoned lots as a new kind of food wealth.
In places like East New York, Brooklyn and the South Bronx, neighbors are getting together to create community gardens. But instead of toiling away on shared crops, each group grows and tends to his or her own plot. This allows more autonomy in deciding what to do with those hard-earned veggies. While some groups eat or give away their crops, many others decide to bring the fruits of their labor to market as a secondary source of income. One couple featured in the article, Denniston and Marlene Wilks, made over $3,000 dollars last year from four allotments. But the farmers insist it is not about the money: a South Bronx farmer, Karen Washington told the New York Times: “We’re selling so that people in our neighborhood have good quality. There’s no Whole Foods in my neighborhood.” Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 15th, 2008
What’s for dinner? Imagine just looking outside your kitchen window. Imagine United States citizens raising forty-percent of our nation’s fresh fruits and vegetables in home gardens. Imagine sixty percent of Americans actively gardening, harvesting over eight million tons of food a year.
No, this isn’t a pipe dream prompted by the current era of high fuel and food costs. “These statistics rang true in 1943 during World War II during the peak of the Victory Garden era,” explains Rose Hayden-Smith, a garden historian and leading expert on this amazing period of self-sufficiency over sixty years ago. “Victory Gardens provided multiple benefits back then, including improving American health and showcasing the nation’s stability and high morale.”
But Hayden-Smith isn’t a historian stuck in the past – she’s an advocate championing bringing the Victory Garden concept back to create a sustainable food system for future generations. Read the rest of this entry »
