NewYorkFoodVine

Local Meat Traveling Far to the Slaughter

2010-03-27T17:16:00.005-04:00

Interesting article in yesterday's NYT about the lack of slaughterhouses and the increased demand for local meat. Here are my two favorite excerpts:

"Ms. Zimmerman and her husband, Kevin McCollister, would like to see the rules relaxed on farm slaughter. Their slaughterhouse is an hour and a half away — long enough for the pigs to be stressed and not in optimal shape for processing, Ms. Zimmerman said."

(Adrenaline doesn't taste very good, it turns out.)

"Helping small farmers, said [Agriculture Secretary] Tom Vilsack, will improve struggling rural economies.

But building a regional facility is not always easy. As the locavore movement and self-butchering movements grow, so do cries of 'Not in my backyard.'"

How to You Like Your Meat? Dumb or Healthy?

2010-02-19T09:33:00.009-05:00

An op-ed in today's NYT has my blood boiling.

Adam Shriver, a doctoral student at Washington University, suggests the way to solve the problems at factory farms is to genetically engineer livestock not to feel pain. Then we can keep them sequestered in unhygienic conditions and continue feeding them grains which make them sick guilt free!

This is a typical case of fighting fire with fire. We are only now starting to see the problems with previous advancements in food production (which, by the way, were also supposedly going to be problem-free). And instead of going back to ways nature intended, i.e. allowing chickens and cattle to eat grass, we are adding more advancements by doping them with antibiotics and considering altering their genes.

Not sure what it says about me, but I am not an animal activist. Worse, I'll have to admit, I am a speciesist. While I agree that animals should not be needlessly harmed, it is the human dependence on animals for nutrition that moves me. (Vegans, most well-educated medical doctors will say you are not well fed.)

The problem with how we treat our livestock is not just the plight of the suffering animals. Humans are suffering from eating these maltreated animals. Not only has the build up of antibiotics in the food chain been linked to an array of human health problems, but the simple act of feeding animals cheap subsidized grains rather than grass, their natural food preference, has dangerously altered the balance of essential fatty acids in the average American body. (Too much Omega 6, too little Omega 3.)

As a result, Americans have increased inflammation throughout our bodies, raising our risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other health problems. The imbalance is also affecting our brains; Omega 6 fatty acids can cross the blood-brain barrier and trigger depressive symptoms.

Making cows too dumb to notice the acidic burn of eating grains instead of grass will not solve any of these problems.

The student concludes with a preposterous theory that knock-out genetic engineering (where a gene is omitted instead of added in) can not cause health problems to eaters. This paragraph showcases a shocking disrespect for the complexity of the genome for a doctoral student.

To be clear, an omission can be just as dangerous as an addition. It can also be just as safe. But like the "innovation" of feeding animals grains instead of grass, it can take half a century to know the effects on humans.

(I am not against innovation, Mr. Shriver, but please don't declare something safe when the truth is we don't know; people have enough trouble trusting science as it is.)

We need creative thinkers to figure out how we can raise enough livestock in a healthy and humane way, not how we can add potential new problems to the mix in attempt to assuage our collective guilt.

photo by Mykhaylo Loyish

Going Hungry on Snow Days and Everyday

2010-02-10T09:58:00.007-05:00

One in eight Americans sought emergency food assistance last year, a 46 percent increase from 2006. But in the Big Apple the problem was even worse. Nearly half of the households with children in New York City had trouble affording food in 2009.

The existing national safety net seems to be failing, while city, state and federal budget talks are calling into question the future of not only emergency food assistance, but also broader child nutrition and poverty relief programs, according to the Food Bank for New York City.

Responding to Obama's call to end child hunger by 2015, the Food Bank is holding a policy meeting next week. Details from the press release are below.

What: Ending Child Hunger by 2015 Policy Meeting

When: Wednesday, Feb. 17 from 4 to 6 p.m.

Where: Office of Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer

1 Centre Street, 19th Floor (Large Conference Room)

New York, NY

Please contact Frances Edwards, Public Education Associate, with questions or to R.S.V.P. by Feb .12. She may be reached at fedwards@foodbanknyc.org or (212) 566-7855, ext.1571.

photo by Robert Mizerek

Vitamin Hype

2010-02-02T09:09:00.006-05:00

Finally! A balanced health article by Tara Parker-Pope.

Eschewing a growing tendency to just pump out the sentiments of a random press release espousing the new health claims of Nutrient X -- with perhaps, if the reader is lucky, a nod to the study's limits buried towards the end -- yesterday's article on the health benefits of Vitamin D let even headline-only readers know that the science is not solid.

In The Miracle of Vitamin D: Sound Science or Hype?, Parker-Pope let's the qualifiers take the lead. Here is my favorite paragraph:

"Although consumers may be tempted to rush out and start taking 2,000 I.U.’s of vitamin D a day, doctors warn against it. Several recent studies of nutrients, including vitamins E and B, selenium and beta carotene, have proved disappointing — even suggesting that high doses do more harm than good, increasing risk for heart problems, diabetes and cancer, depending on the supplement."

photo by Christopher Elwel l

Safety in Diversity

2010-01-06T08:52:00.008-05:00

A frozen Noah's ark is being created on a 45-acre estate in Newport, RI.

While organizations such as Slow Food USA and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy are helping to keep rare breeds alive by, well, keeping them alive, Swiss Village Farm Foundation (SVF) is conserving heritage livestock breeds by freezing their semen and embryos. They expect cryopreservation to significantly aid the conservation movement which, considering the decline in our food diversity, brings to mind two sayings: "too little, too late" and "something is better than nothing."

This is not just a matter of preserving gawk-worthy zoo novelties; it is about shoring up the health of our own species. While a diverse diet and disease resistance have long been known to go hand in hand, our modern diets -- despite the fake plethora in the cereal aisle -- are strikingly homogeneous. According to ecologist Vadana Shiva, humans used to eat over 80,000 different species but today three-quarters of all human food intake comes from just eight plants, mostly genetically-modified corn and soy. Half of the genes in 93% of our dairy cows comes from less than 20 bulls.

The agriculture industry runs on consistency, while our bodies run on variety.

As I have mentioned before, when I compare the menu of the ancients with the menu of modernity, I can’t help but become green with envy. Exacerbating the problem, we are losing varieties within species every year.

Some excerpts from the NYT article about SVF by Barry Eastabrook:

"As an example of how vulnerable our milk supply is, Dr. Saperstein [SVF's chief scientific adviser and chairman of the Department of Environmental and Population Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University ] points to a heat wave in California in 2006 in which some 16,500 Holsteins died, despite farmers’ efforts to save them with cooling mists of water and fans. In contrast, the Pineywoods cattle in SVF’s collection were introduced into the forests of the South by Spaniards in the 1500s specifically because they tolerated heat. In all likelihood, the hearty animals would have survived the heat wave.

“'Heritage breeds have not been continuously ‘improved’ by humans,' Mr. Borden [the executive director of SVF] said. 'They have been shaped by natural survival-of-the-fittest forces and can get along without human intervention. Typically, rare varieties exhibit good birthing and mothering abilities. They can thrive on native grasses and other natural forage, and many know how to avoid predators.'”

In the end, the article stresses,

“'We have to eat these animals to save them,' Mr. Borden said. “Ultimately, food is the reason heritage breeds are important.'”

Picture: Digitally generated Ark on Mount Arafat, by Hayk Harutyunyan

Why Popeye Popped Spinach, Not Pills: Vitamins Can Be Bad For You

2009-12-31T08:43:00.012-05:00

I have been waiting for a study like this to come out.

A research group in Tel Aviv has finished one of the most comprehensive studies of Vitamin E supplementatio n, which analyzed all other prominent studies on the subject and considered data from over 300,000 people in the US, Europe and Isreal.

They found that, on average, popping Vitamin E pills may negatively impact quality of life.

From the press release: "To explain the meaning of this parameter," says Dr. Pinchuk, "consider a participant who was healthy during the first 10 out of 20 years of the study, but then suffered a stroke and became dependent on others throughout the following 10 years. The QALY [quality-adjusted-life-years] during the first 10 years of healthy life is 10, but after the stroke the quality of life is only half of what this person had before. Therefore, the second decade is considered the equivalent of merely 5 years of healthy life and in sum a person's QALY is 15... On average, the quality-adjusted longevity is lower for vitamin-treated people. This says something significant."

Other studies have shown vitamins to be ineffective, or to cause birth defects or asthma, or to put undue strain on the kidneys. I think there will be more studies like this one. The body is not meant to be hit with vitamins, minerals or fatty acids in the concentrated form they are found in pills. Why pop capsules when you are better off with something yummy, like a spinach frittata, spaghetti marinara or toast smeared with nut butter.

Good sources of Vitamin E available at a farmers' market:
Eggs
Milk
Spinach
Wholegrain foods
Broccoli
Tomatoes
Asparagus

picture by Dusan Zidar via Dreamstime

Freedom Trail Fruits

2009-12-30T08:46:00.008-05:00

Imagine a pilgrimage of ham hocks, smoked turkey wings and fresh black-eyed peas winding up the country, traveling from the South to the cities of the North as if re-enacting the covert operations of the Freedom Trail.

This is exactly what has been going on for generations, according to the NYT. Southerners have loaded trucks full of special white cornmeal, 'sweet meat' and other Southern specialties and driven them up from Georgia and the Carolinas to homesick city-slickers in Harlem, Brooklyn and neighborhoods in Philly and Chicago. They sell the items out of their trucks, with all the benefits of shopping at a farmers' market:

"Because to some cooks, buying ham hocks from a supermarket or a warehouse store isn’t the same. At the trucks, somebody will ask you where your people are from. They will tell you how long to soak the black-eyed peas and when to start simmering the seasoning meat," Kim Severson writes.

"'You don’t have those conversations when you go and buy your pecans at Costco,' Ms. Ferris said."

This is a story written for cultivores -- us voracious eaters who simply want to know more about our food, its culture and the history of our human passion for it. Who want to use food as a window into the world.

In the article Marci Cohen Ferris, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in the meaning of food in American culture, "points out that in Ralph Ellison’s 'Invisible Man,' the main character buys and eats a baked South Carolina yam on a Harlem street in the 1930s and is 'overcome by an intense feeling of freedom.'"

I feel the same way when I walk around the block tantalized by halvah, chorizo, camembert, miso, egg drop soup, collard greens, ceviche, bacon cheeseburgers, coconut curry and cannoli.

Intertwined is a lovely argument against being 100 percent locavore. Would okra from upstate satisfy the hunger pains of a Georgia-born Bed-Stuyer? Probably. Would it satisfy her homesickness? Not as much as buying from a traveling countryman.

And I would rather not trust my New Year's Hoppin' John recipe to a Yankee. Not only out of concerns for flavor authenticity, but Northerners tend to leave out the good-luck coin! (Whoever gets it in their serving is guaranteed good luck for the rest of the year.)

Eat poor that day, eat rich the rest of the year.
Rice for riches and peas for peace.
- Southern saying on eating a dish of Hoppin' John on New Year's Day.

photo by Artography via Dreamstime

Inside-Out Apple Pie

2009-12-23T11:33:00.006-05:00

Here’s an easy and delicious way to have that holiday treat we’re all craving.

Note: Do not sub in a different type of apple. I know, I know; Granny Smiths are not my favorite snacking apple either. But their sturdy texture is crucial in this recipe; other types break down and become pulp under the heat. Also, don’t worry about the puckered mouth you get when you eat a Granny Smith raw. Here, the sourness is first mellowed by the baking and second, necessary as a counterpoint for the sweet filling and sauce. Lastly, you MUST peel the apples. If you skip that step, all the steam will get trapped inside and turn everything to mush. But peeling them gives a firm-tender apple with a savory-sweet filling -- tasting much like right-side-in apple pie. Maybe even better.

Inside-Out Apple Pie

*adapted from a Cook's Illustrated recipe for Baked Apples

Serves 4

5 Granny Smith apples

4 Tbs butter, softened and divided

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup dried cranberries, chopped

1/3 cup toasted pecans, chopped

3 Tbs rolled oats

1 teaspoon orange zest

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1teaspoon vanilla

table salt (dash or pinch, to taste)

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup juice (apple or orange) or cider

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel, core and cut 1 apple in a ¼ inch dice. Combine diced apple, 3 Tbs butter, sugar, cranberries, pecans, zest, cinnamon, vanilla and salt in medium bowl.

Cut ½ inch slice off the stem top of each apple; reserve. Peel the apples and hollow out a wide middle hole (about an inch from the apple edge) using a melon baller or paring knife, being careful not to pierce the bottom.

Melt remaining tablespoon of butter over medium heat in an oven-proof skillet. When butter bubbles die down, place apples into skillet, cut side down. Cook until surface is golden brown, about 90 seconds. Flip apples over and fill with cranberry/oat/nut mixture, packing it down into the hollow and piling it on top of the apple. Place reserved apple caps on top of the filling. Pour maple syrup and juice or cider into the skillet. (If you are using a wide skillet, you may need more of each; you want ¼ to a ½ inch of liquid on the bottom.)

Place skillet in the oven and bake 35 to 45 minutes, basting every 15 minutes. Serve without the caps and generously doused with the syrup sauce.

photo by Nsilcock via Dreamstime

Thou Shalt Not Kill

2009-12-22T09:50:00.008-05:00

"I don't eat living things," says a beige-dressed woman at a holiday party.

"Me neither," I agree. "I like them to be killed first."

Beige Woman turns on her heel in a huff and I am left wondering if she meant she is able to photosynthesize, that she only consumes air, water and sun.

The next time this little fantasy of mine plays itself out, I will be armed with the Natalie Angier's research from today's NYT.

In a nutshell, she says, plants are living creatures, too. Not only do they grow, react and reproduce, but they are complex creatures that have invested much in their own survival.

Humans with chlorophyll-pigmented skin are saints. The rest of us are murderers.

Happy Holidays!

picture by Eti Swinford via Dreamstime

Brussels Sprout Slaw

2009-12-16T12:01:00.007-05:00

By popular request, here's my new go-to holiday recipe for brussels sprouts (which, I maintain, are the absolute cutest of the cabbage family. Don't they look like green sleigh bells?) I made it for Thanksgiving but it would make a nice palate-cleansing side dish for any game-heavy meal. I am dreaming of serving it along with some lamb...

The dish also gets a holiday star for its convenience factor. You can prepare the majority of it in advance, it travels well and it doesn't require any space in the oven!

Happy Holidays!

Brussels Sprout Slaw with Maple Pecans
*adapted from Bon Appetit's 11/09 issue
8 servings

cooking spray
1 cup pecan halves
1/4 real maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (plus more for seasoning, etc.)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (plus more for seasoning)
1/4 cup whole grain Dijon mustard (whole grain is key)
2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1.5 pounds of brussels sprouts, trimmed

NUTS: Preheat oven to 325. Spray large sheet of foil with cooking spray and set aside. Whisk maple syrup, salt and pepper in a medium. Add pecans; stir to coat. Spread pecans on cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake for 5 minutes before stirring. Bake another 6 minutes, or until glaze is bubbling thickly. IMMEDIATELY transfer nuts to foil or they will harden to the pan. If stored airtight, these can be made a couple days ahead.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS: Bring large pot of salted water to a boil. Add brussels sprouts and cook for about 5 minutes, until "crisp-tender." They should still be a lovely bright green. Drain and rinse with cold water. When cool and relatively dry, slice to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. Can be made up to 3 days ahead; chill.

DRESSING: Combine mustard, vinegar, lemon juice and sugar in a small bowl. Whisk in oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Can be made up to 3 days ahead; chill.

An hour or so before serving, coat the brussels sprouts with dressing and mix in some pecans. Garnish the serving dish with additional pecans.

picture by "Egis" via Dreamstime

Ugly Roots make Yummy Soups

2009-12-11T12:03:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite vegetables this time of year is celery root, also known as celeriac. Despite its name, this hearty veg is not the root of celery. It does anchor some stalks that are awfully celery-like in appearance, they don’t taste very good and I’d skip putting them in your bloody mary. Still, celery root is from the celery family and the same salty flavor base – so familiar in stocks, hors d’oevres trays and, of course, “ants on a log” – infuses this starchy tuber.

While it is rather homily in appearance, it can add a lot of pizzazz (without being garish about it) to dishes such as gratins, purees, stews – pretty much anything you would use potatoes for. In fact, that is how I think of celeriac: a celery-flavored potato.

The weather has made me obsessed with soup. It has been two-soup day every day this week, a feat which was greatly helped by a large pot of the below.

Soothing White Winter Soup

Serves 6 as an entree, 12 as an appetizer

NOTES: 1) don’t worry about knife skills as you prepare the ingredients; you are going to puree everything anyway. 2) An immersion blender makes this dish a breeze to make.

2 Tbs bacon grease

2 shallots, sliced

2 leeks, well cleaned and sliced

1 medium celery root, peeled, roughly chopped into 1-2 inch chunks

4-5 parsnips, peeled, roughly chopped into 1-2 inch chunks

1/3 -1/2 cup fresh horseradish, peeled, roughly chopped into 1-2 inch chunks

1 head romanesco cauliflower (looks like light-green, pyramid-studded sea coral), roughly chopped.

2 ginger gold or honey crisp apple, cored, peeled, roughly chopped into 1-2 inch chunks

6-8 cups chicken broth (more if lid doesn’t fit very tightly)

1 cup cream

sea salt, black pepper

scallion tops, finely chopped (optional garnish)

In a large stock pot, warm bacon grease over medium heat. Add shallots and leeks; lightly carmelize and take off the heat. Add the rest of the vegetables (minus the scallions) and the apples to the pot, along with 6 cups of broth. Cover pot and bring broth to a boil. Allow to boil until everything is very tender, about 40 minutes.

Puree, either with an immersion blender right in the pot, or transfer portions to your standing blender. Blend until soup is all one smooth consistency. Stir in cream and additional broth until soup is desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve piping hot, topped with scallions if desired.

picture by Chiyacat

City Council Speaker Sees Great Things for City Food System

2009-12-07T15:29:00.007-05:00

Describing Mayor Bloomberg's initiatives, such as serving free breakfast in schools and 'banning' trans fats, as important first steps but ultimately "piecemeal", City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn is about to release a new plan for the entire food system (production, transportation, sales) of New York City.

Looking forward to examining the details!

picture by Michal Jesensky

Grass Dinner or Shot in the Neck? Using Drugs to Fight E. coli

2009-12-04T10:12:00.009-05:00

In typical American fashion, Big Agriculture is trying to solve a bad habit with yet another bad habit. Like overdosing on aspirin to continue one's extended drinking binge, the U.S. Agriculture Department is now testing a drug to lessen E. coli outbreaks.

It is like they haven't even bothered to ask why such outbreaks have risen so sharply in recent years. While cow-borne illnesses have been on the rise for decades, according to the NYT, the industry has initiated 52 recalls of beef tainted with E. coli since January 2007, compared with 20 in the three previous years.

“I was looking for anything that could help us because people were getting sick and people were dying,” Dr. Richard Raymond, the Agriculture Department’s under secretary for food safety from 2005 to 2008, told the New York Times.

Why does "anything that could help" seem to always come in the form of a drug?

The primary reason cow-related diseases are on the rise is because most cows are fed corn and animal products. (Yes, they are vegetarians by nature, but who cares about nature when fattening them up is so profitable.) This may not explain the jump over the last two years, but it does offer a better solution than a shot.

Before cows were switched to corn diets, they had neutral pH digestive systems. We humans have acidic stomachs. Therefore, any bug that could live in the cow found the environment of our digestive systems inhospitable to say the least.

When cows are fed an improper diet, namely corn instead of grass, their stomachs become acidic. And over the years, a strain of E. coli has mutated to withstand the cow's acidified rumen. This mutation, which is nothing but our own self-created Frankenstein bug, is what is surviving to kill or paralyze us.

To reverse this trend, microbiologists have found that we can reduce the number of bugs by as much as 80 percent simply be returning cows to a grass diet, allowing the rumen to de-acidify. (Remember, the bad bugs don't like neutral pH environments.)

The vaccine may have comparable efficacy rate, although it is too soon to be sure -- not only about its efficacy but about any potential side effects. After all, we are just now learning about the problems caused by the long-used antibiotics pumped into our meat and dairy sources to keep them healthy despite their unhygienic living conditions.

Grass, on the other hand, has wonderful side effects. Not only is the meat uncontaminated and drug-free, it is full of omega 3s, beta carotene and other nutrients largely missing from the sickly flesh of corn-fed animals.

Grass dinner or a shot in the neck? Easy to see what the cow would prefer, but I am afraid the industry will go for the latter.

picture by Dennis Chudonov

Recipe Chain: Purple Kale with Cream and Bacon

2009-11-24T08:54:00.005-05:00

Unlike a hilarious game of telephone, the following recipe has been passed along unadulterated and retaining its original yumminess. I picked it up at the "information" stand at the Borough Hall farmers' market. Each greenmarket seems to have one of these, and they are usually stocked with great recipes for whatever you will find being sold around you. The greenmarket, in turn, took this particular recipe from The 100-Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change. I've copied the recipe verbatim, to pass it on its pure form. My notes are in italics.

I have a never satisfied hunger for kale, so that was my "late fall green" of choice. Although, "green" is a misnomer, as the kale I was using was purple -- which, when I went to drain the cooked leaves, temporarily turned the sink violet. Later, the cream in the dish became a soft lavender, lending a bit of whimsy to this veggie heavy dish. Other than the seasonings, every ingredient can be found from a local source. We ate it with roasted sweet potatoes, also available in the market right now.

Casserole of Late Fall Greens
serves 2 as an entree, 4 as a side dish

2T unsalted butter (salted butter also worked fine, just reduce salt elsewhere)

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs (drop a couple crustless slices in the food processor, and crumb away)

Kosher salt and fresh black pepper

1 cup heavy cream

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and peeled

2.5 ounces of bacon (about 3 strips) (whenever I buy bacon, I immediately repackage it into 3 strip allotments before freezing; this seems to be the perfect amount to add flavoring to greens, potatoes, egg dishes...)

2 cups of cooked winter greens (spinach, swiss chard, kale, broccoli raab, etc) (see first step of instructions)

1/3 cup of freshly grated hard cheese (cows milk or sheeps milk would be best) (I got grater-happy and ended up using 1/2 cup; less than that and the cheese's contribution may have been lost.)

To prepare and cook the greens, remove any tough stems and roughly chop. (To yield 2 cups cooked you will need 1 pound of spinach or brocolli raab, 1 3/4 pounds of swiss chard, or 1 1/4 pounds of kale.) Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil and cook until the greens are tender (spinach 30 seconds, swiss chard 1 minute, brocolli raab 2 minutes, and kale 8 minutes). Drain and squeeze to remove excess water.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter a 4 cup shallow gratin dish. Toss together the breadcrumbs and 1 T of melted butter with a pinch of kosher salt and a little ground pepper and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, bring the cream and garlic to a boil over medium-high heat and then turn down the heat and simmer vigorously until the cream is reduced to about 3/4 cup. Take the pan off the heat and remove and discard the garlic cloves. Let the cream cool slightly and then season with 1/4 t of salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

In a large skillet, cook the bacon until crisped and browned. Drain on a paper towel and remove almost all of the excess fat from the pan. Add the remaining 1T of butter and return the pan to the heat. Add the cooked greens with 1/4 t salt and cook stirring constantly for 1 minute. Evenly spread the warmed greens in the gratin dish.

Crumble the bacon over the greens. Sprinkle on the cheese. Pour the seasoned cream over the greens/bacon/cheese and top with the bread crumbs. Bake in the 400 degree oven until brown and bubbly - about 25 minutes. Let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

picture via Dreamstime

Pumpkin Patch Pasta

2009-11-17T11:16:00.005-05:00

The gifts of Pumpkin Project Day keep on giving…

A recent dinner popped up after adapting a recipe for “Autumn Pasta” by Ariana Sherlock for Torii Mor Winery. The original recipe calls for butternut squash, not pumpkin, and a couple complications. But this simplified version is not only delicious, it is awfully fun to say. (Five times fast, I dare you!)

Pumpkin Patch Pasta

serves two

3 Tbs olive oil, divided

1 ½ - 2 cups frozen (or roasted fresh) pumpkin chunks, large dice

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

2 sprigs of fresh sage leaves, chiffonade

salt and pepper

5 cups loosely chopped swiss chard, stems removed

2 servings linguine, cooked al dente in salted water

¼ cup grated parmesan

½ cup walnuts, finely chopped (garnish)

Heat 2 tbs oil in large skillet. Add pumpkin and allow to brown, by avoiding stirring, on at least one side over medium heat (~3-5 minutes.) Add garlic, sage, salt and pepper. Use pasta water to scrape up any yummy charred bits from the pan. Add last tbs of oil to pan and then add the swiss chard. Sauté 4-5 minutes until well wilted. Add pasta and cheese; toss well. Plate and garnish with walnuts.

photo by Susan Law Cain

Farmers and Eaters Robbed by Rain

2009-11-15T08:17:00.007-05:00

Quote of the Day

“We were just a couple of frogs short of a Bible story... It was surreal. It just kept raining and raining and raining.”

-- Patrick Horan, a local farmer, on the year's poor growing season that is now coming to a close.

Find the complete NYT story here.

picture via Dreamstime

The Grandchildren of Giraffes: Passing Down the Toxins in Our Food

2009-11-10T09:03:00.007-05:00

Nicholas Kristof has joined the bandwagon against BPAs (synthetic estrogen found in hard plastics, cans, etc. ) and he has done a good job summing up the studies that have been flooding recent science journals.

He brushes past the most interesting part though, because his article is more of a warning than a musing on how fascinating our understanding of biology has become. These studies show that our lifestyle habits today may affect the health of our grandchildren -- even if we don't live to meet them.

If that reminds you of a long-discredited theory by the early 19th century biologist Lamarck, you are right. His logic was that traits acquired in a lifetime could be directly passed on to subsequent generations. For example, because a giraffe stretched his neck to reach the top leaves, his offspring were born with long necks.

Darwin, of course, came along and proved Lamarck wrong (although Darwin had some Lamarckisms of his own.) But, scientists are now finding, Lamarck may have been partly correct all along.

(I reported on this new field, called epigenetics, in April. For a great primer on the subject, I highly recommend this video by NOVA.)

Don't want to contribute to your grandkids (or your own) risk of cancer or infertility? Avoid, when possible, canned foods and hard plastics. Easier said than done, I know. I have yet to be able to cut everything out.

But the farmers' market certainly helps.

photo by R. L. Wolverton, via Dreamstime

Eggplant, Addictive?

2009-11-06T16:55:00.008-05:00

There are still a few eggplants hanging around the farmers’ market and they are desperately seeking kitchens. I highly recommend taking them home with you. They are great for layered dishes, roasted and mashed with tahini or simply grilled.

And who can resist a plant that comes with trivia?

Saving the best for last:

(1) While the ones at the market are, of course, local, eggplants immigrated from places like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

(2) Eggplant, like its cousin the tomato, is technically a berry. (I can just see eggplant alamode on the next episode of Chopped.)

(3) The tiny seeds running through the flesh, which are slightly and pleasantly bitter, contain trace amounts of nicotine. (Tobacco is a distant relative.)

The below gluten-free version of a pasta standby uses both tomato and eggplant. The saltiness of the tapenade balances out the sweetness of the berry vegetables. (Forgo adding extra salt to your tomato sauce.) But if you are feeling less adventurous or are craving a more classic pairing, replace the tapenade with herbed ricotta.

Tapenade “Ravioli”

Serves 2

Pasta

2 medium or one large, preferably narrow, eggplant, peeled

salt

olive oil

Tapenade

1 packed cup pitted kalamata olives

4-6 Tbs fresh parsley

1 small can anchovies with capers (optional)

black pepper

Sauce

1 cup tomato sauce

2-3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1 red jalapeño pepper, minced

grated parmesan cheese (garnish)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Slice peeled eggplant in ¼ inch thick rounds and lightly salt. Set aside to “sweat” 15-30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a food processor, combine olives, parsley, anchovies and pepper to make tapenade filling. Grind into a paste.

Coat a jelly roll pan or well-lipped cookie sheet with 1/8^th inch of oil. Pair eggplant slices according to equal sizes. Lay one half of each pair flat on the pan. Spread tapenade “filling” on top. Place matching eggplant slice over tapenade, pressing firmly down. Bake for twenty minutes, flipping with a spatula halfway through.

In a small pot, simmer tomato sauce with garlic and red pepper about twenty minutes. When eggplant “ravioli” are done, use spatula to arrange on plates. Top with spoonfuls of tomato sauce and grated parmesan.

photo by Isabel Poulin

Hold the Music: Bands Drive Away Farmers' Market Shoppers

2009-11-05T09:56:00.010-05:00

A study analyzing the rapid increase of farmers' markets in Indiana (222 percent between 1994 and 2004) was released from Purdue University yesterday. The researchers looked at what factors increased a market's popularity. The following ranked highest, when all other variables were held stable:

1. Cooking demonstrations brought 200 more people to a market
2. Concession stands attracted 110 more
3. Each additional product/vendor drew in 20 more
4. The presence of WIC (Women Infant & Children Farmers' Market Nutrition Program) attracted 20 more.

Interestingly, live music discouraged people from supporting the market. When music was played at a market, attendance declined by an average of 200 people. This from the press release: "These findings could indicate that customers attend the market to shop, not to be entertained", the researchers explained.

Reminds me of the farmers' market we visited in Montana, desperate to taste some of the local beef we had been watching graze all week. Other than a few stands with arugula and tomatoes, and a table tended by bonnet-bound girls offering chicken and eggs, the market resembled a county fair. There was cotton candy and fudge, kettle corn and pulled pork sandwiches. Knick knacks, handmade and otherwise.

And yes, we left, before they finished setting up for the band.

photo by Jaimie Duplass, via Dreamstime

Mushrooms: “Grey is a color, too!”

2009-11-04T13:02:00.003-05:00

With frequent reports reminding us to eat our colors, mushrooms are often under appreciated for the nutritional powerhouses they are. They can bolster the immune system (yes, keeping H1N1 at bay), lower stress and reduce the risk of many chronic illnesses. Because of their hearty texture, they can also be a great way to replace or “stretch” the meat called for in more many recipes. One of my favorite tricks is to mix ground portabellas (just throw them in a food processor) into ground beef and then use to make hamburgers, lasagna, etc. as you usually would. This is particularly good if you are using grass-fed beef that has a normal (aka non-reduced) fat content. The mushrooms help lighten up the meal without losing any valuable Omega 3s.

Last night I made a mushroom and sage sauté and served it over polenta. I used criminis, which also go by the name baby portabellas or, alliteratively, baby bellas. They are the same shape as white button (still America’s favorite), but darker and more flavorful. While each mushroom type seems to have its own expertise in the nutrition game, but criminis are among the best. If you are looking for adventure, however, check out Madura Farms stand (Union Square, Grand Army Plaza, Carroll Park… click here to see if they come to the market near you): they have oyster, shitake, chanterelles, hen of the woods, you name it – all of which are yummy simply sautéed with butter and salt.

Mushroom and Sage Ragu

Serves 2

2-3 Tbs olive oil

8-12 inches of sausage (optional), such as the turkey sausage from DiPaola, cut on the bias into ¼ inch slices

1 large yellow onion, halved and sliced thin

Broth (chicken or vegetable) or water

4 cloves garlic (less if you are using non-local garlic), minced or pressed

2 yellow tomatoes, halved and sliced thin

1 pepper (half of a bell, if you want a mild dish, jalapeño or chili pepper if you want to jazz it up; mince spicier pepper, slice into 2 inch sticks for milder peppers)

2 cups crimini mushrooms, quartered

1/3 cup red wine

3 Tbs chopped parsley

2 Tbs chopped fresh sage

kosher salt and black pepper

grated parmesan

Heat skillet and allow oil to coat the pan. Add the sausage, if using. Allow to brown by leaving untouched for about 2 minutes. Flip the sausage slices and repeat. When browned on both sides, remove sausage to plate with slotted spoon. Set aside.

Add onion to same pan over medium heat. While the onion is cooking add a bit of broth to the pan, to deglaze the yummy brown bits left by the sausage. When onion is soft (~4 minutes), add garlic. After two minutes, add tomato and cover. When tomato has broken down (3-5 minutes), add pepper, mushrooms and wine. Cook covered until pepper has softened (3-5 minutes). Stir in parsley, sage, salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered until sauce reduces to desired dryness. Serve over polenta (recipe below) and dust with parmesan.

Polenta

Serve 2 to 3

2 ½ cups chicken broth (recommended) or water

kosher or sea salt

2/3 cups very fine cornmeal (available on Fridays at the Union Square Farmer Market)

4 Tbs half and half or 2 Tbs cream (available from Milk Thistle)

Bring broth and salt to a rolling boil. Stirring constantly to stave off lumps, slowly add cornmeal. When the mixture starts to thicken, stir in half and half. Stirring occasionally, simmer until mixture is desired thickness, 3-20 minutes. (Traditionally, polenta is served very runny but I like mine approaching the consistency of mashed potatoes.)

photo by Photowitch, via Dreamstime

Halloween Pumpkins: Trick or Treat?

2009-10-26T08:22:00.011-04:00

According to this NYT oped, my sentiments about delicious orbs of pumpkin being left on the stoop to rot are echoed in France, where Halloween is slowly but surely taking root.

skull photo by penywise

photo of miniature pumpkins and other autumn vegetables by Paul Prescott

Ginger and Chorizo-Infusion in Minutes "Splat"

2009-10-23T12:35:00.007-04:00

Last weekend, there was a festive clam bake at the farmers’ market at Carrol Park. People were swarming around, slurping broth from shells, as they considered multi-hued potatoes, maple syrup and bunches of rainbow kale. They inspired me to finally buy a “splat bag” – a mixture of mussels and clams – from the fishmonger and lug it home. That evening it became the below:

Ginger and Chorizo-Infused Mussels and Clams

1 chorizo, sliced into thin bite-size sticks
1 onion, sliced thin
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2-3 inch piece ginger, minced
1 small red chili, minced
2 ½ cups white wine, such as chenin blanc
juice of two small limes
1 Tbs butter

1/3 cup (or more) chopped cilantro
1/3 cup chopped parsley

1 5lb “Splat” bag of mussels and clams, well-rinsed, any open shells discarded.

In large deep sauce pan, brown chorizo. Remove and set aside. Add onion to pan and sauté, scraping up any brown bits left from the chorizo. Add garlic, ginger, chili, wine and lime juice. Bring to a boil, with cover on. Add back chorizo. Stir in cilantro and parsley. Add mussels and clams. Boil until all shells are open, 15 or so minutes. (Check the bottom, too.) Serve piping hot with plenty of broth, and maybe some toasted bread to sop it all up.

picture by Zheng Dong

Molasses-Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread

2009-10-21T13:04:00.004-04:00

The first pumpkin recipe of the season! (Well, if you don't count toasted pumpkin seeds and mashed pumpkin with butter.) Pumpkin and molasses compliment each other beautifully, especially in baked goods. This bread turned out fluffy and moist in texture but dense and dark in flavor. The olive oil lets the molasses and pumpkin shine, without weighing them down.

Molasses-Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

2 large eggs, at room temperature

½ cup olive oil

5 tbs water

1 cup pureed pumpkin (fresh or canned)

¼ cup sugar

½ cup molasses

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

½ cup oat flakes, divided

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1teaspoon ground nutmeg

1teaspoon ground cinnamon

1teaspoon ground clove

1teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350º degrees. Briefly beat eggs in a large bowl. Stir in olive oil, water, pumpkin, sugar and molasses. In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients except 1/3 of the oatmeal and the nuts. Add the mixture of dry ingredients to the pumpkin/molasses bowl in three parts. Stir to mix but do not over stir! Don’t worry if there are still lumps. Stir in walnuts. Pour batter in a greased standard-sized loaf pan (9" x 5"). Dust the top with remaining oat flakes. Bake for 45-60 minutes until a knife slipped into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool before slicing.

picture by Dušan Zidar

Pumpkin Project Day

2009-10-19T09:03:00.007-04:00

I love October. You have the end of the summer’s harvest and the first of the winter vegetables all at the same time. But even amidst all this plenty, October would not be October without Pumpkins.

I am not talking Jack o’Lanterns. While I am not against these haunted decorations per se, when I see them sprouting up in advance of Halloween, I shake my head, wondering why someone took one of the earth’s brightest bon-bons, turned it into a monster and set in on the stoop to rot. Pumpkin is far too yummy for decoration!

I’ll admit my October Pumpkin Project Tradition started with salvaging seeds from such candlelit carvings. Today, it has expanded to a half-day event that hordes every last spoonful of orange flesh and then freezes it away to be savored for at least the next three months.

Here’s the only rule to Pumpkin Project Day: Make too much. It is a true “project”, and if you are going to do it, you might as well get as much return on your effort as possible.

Besides, there is so much you can do with pumpkin! In addition to make puree for pie, bread, pancakes, soup and reduced into a side dish, I freeze raw pumpkin in thin slices (for sautéing, scalloping or layered dish-ing) and bite-size chunks (for roasting, curry-ing and frying).

And, of course, I still gotta roast the seeds.

To get started, pick out some pumpkins. In general, “sugar” or “pie” pumpkins are better for dessert preparations while conventional varieties such as Howden or Magic Lantern are better for more savory dishes. But don’t fret about the type; you can’t really go wrong when it comes to pumpkin.

Then cut them into halves or quarters depending on the size. No one tells you how hard this is. I usually have to place the chopping block on the floor and go at with my full weight. I dream of investing in a hatchet those mornings, but it would be a uni-tasker in our kitchen and Pumpkin Project Day only comes once a year.

Once you have them open, scrape out the seed and stringy bits of flesh. Reserve the seeds in a big bowl of water, to start their cleaning process. Also reserve a few raw pieces of pumpkin for chunking. Place the rest of the pumpkin pieces in a large pan, such as the one you will use for turkey next month and roast and 400 degrees for about an hour, or until very tender.

When cooled, scrape the pumpkin “meat” out and puree. Freeze or use immediately in place of “canned pumpkin” in any of your favorite recipes. I also like to serve pumpkin puree as a side dish, hot with a bit of butter.

With the reserved raw pumpkin, use a peeler to take of the tough outside. And then cut into bite-size chunks. You can roast or add to stews and curries the way you would with potatoes.

With the seeds, work them free of the orange string bits in the bowl of water. (They can be allowed to soak overnight, if need be.) Pat dry and spread them out in a single layer on oiled cookie sheets. Stirring occasionally, roast at 300 until dry and crisp, about 20-30 minutes. Salt and snack.

picture by Dmitry Skalev

Tomato Cryonics

2009-10-16T13:08:00.006-04:00

Tomatoes are on their way out for the year. But they are still plentiful in the market, so now is the time to stock up!

If you want to eat them fresh, buy from sellers that are still putting out slices to taste – otherwise you run the risk of getting a mealy one. But grab the value bags of tomatoes with abandon if you are making tomato paste or tomato sauce. Deborah Madison, in her farm-to-table cookbook Local Flavors, convinced me to make tomato sauce for the rest of the year, simply by sharing her trick to save room in the freezer: zip lock bags laid on the freezer floor freeze flat and thin, easy for storing AND thawing – you can just place the frozen bag in the same water you are bringing to a boil for pasta and before you know it you have spaghetti marinara.

The recipe itself is a cinch. No blanching, peeling, coring or seeding necessary. Just quarter the tomatoes and toss in a pot.

Tomato Sauce

~6 cups
6-7 pounds of tomatoes, rinsed and quartered (about 2 large “apple” bags from Fred Wilklow’s Orchard)
6 Tbs fresh basil or marjoram (optional), chopped
4 Tbs olive oil
salt, pepper

Throw the tomatoes and basil in the largest pot you own; cover and add medium heat. The tomatoes should begin releasing their juices immediately, but double-check to make sure the tomatoes don’t scorch. If they are still dry at the bottom after the first 4-5 minutes add a bit of water and cover again.

Let cook about 30 minutes until the tomatoes have completely broken down. Pass through a food press or blender, to make it a uniform consistency. Simmer with cover off, stirring occasionally for about 60 minutes, until sauce is desired thickness. Stir in olive oil and seasonings. Cool before portioning 1 cup allotments into ziplock freezer bags.

Joyless Pursuit of Perfection

2009-10-09T09:37:00.004-04:00

There was a very pretty opinion piece in the NYT this week by Timothy Egan. It covers his trip during harvest time to lush and fertile Yakima Valley in Washington State, and dovetails on the recent story about the dancer paralyzed after eating an E. Coli tainted burger grilled by her mom. In addition to beautiful descriptions, even if some of the transitions are choppy, the piece offers a few fun tidbits (apples originated from Kazakhstan?!?!) and, of course, food politics.

My favorite parts, however, are his references to perfection. He does get deeply into it, but I think some misguided pursuit of this unattainable state indirectly causes rows of identical cookies, identical boxes of cereal, identical frozen meals and in, Egan's view, tasteless apples.

Here is an excerpt:

"Red Delicious, which is to a fruit bowl what plastic surgery is to beauty, is still the most popular apple — a polished piece of fruit that can keep its buffed pose year-round in near-freezing warehouses, but is utterly tasteless.

Honeycrisp, which is sunshine in a marbled orb, and Gala and Fuji are all coming on, as are innumerable varieties that had nearly been lost in the joyless pursuit of the perfect apple....

... How much of the danger from leafy vegetables can be blamed on the industrial model that produces cheap calories I don’t know. But as consumers follow Michael Pollan’s advice to get to know our food producers, we will learn to see the processed burger and the industrial vegetables for what they are — cheap global commodities that carry some risk.

The best antidote for such a thing is to see, touch and experience food as it comes off the fields. As imperfect as this harvest picture is, it satisfies a need that has never bred out of us as people."

honeycrisp apples via Dreamstime

The Summer's Last (Edible) Flowers

2009-09-30T18:59:00.003-04:00

Sadly, we may only have one more week of squash blossoms. These palm-length orange flowers have a subtly perfumed taste that adds a unique dimension to any dish. If you find some, buy as many as you think you can eat in a week!

They are good simply sautéed quickly in butter (remove the stamen inside the flower first) and make a lovely side dish or garnish for a grass-fed steak. That said, after I was inspired by Greenmarket recipe writer Maria Alvarez, I spent much the summer thinking about different ways to stuff them (winner: stuffed with feta, egg battered, fried.)

For a delightfully delicate change-of-seasons dish, also gather some of summer's last tomatoes and peppers and try the below main dish.

Blossomed Catfish

20 large fresh squash blossoms
2 Tbs olive oil
½ medium or 1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 fresh green chile such as serranos or jalepenos
1 small green bell pepper, seeded and de-ribbed, cut into half inch cubes
1 medium tomato, boiled, peeled, cored and chopped
¾ cup fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
½ cup white wine
1 pound catfish filets, sliced into 2” by 3” squares.

Cut the tough bottom off the flower; pull out and discard the stamen. Rinse the flowers thoroughly and slice crosswise into ½ inch tubes.

Sauté onions in olive oil. After 3 minutes, add garlic and both types of peppers. Sauté until peppers soften, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add white wine, stir. Adjust heat to medium low heat. Place fish pieces around pan. After 2-3 minutes, flip fish. Add blossoms, tomatoes and cilantro. Cover and allow to cook 8-10 minutes, until blossoms are well wilted and fish is cooked through. Season with salt and serve with extra broth from pan dressing the plate.

Rice and fresh corn make good compliments.

picture by Harris Shiffman via Dreamstime

Cabbage Buds from a Tree

2009-09-28T16:40:00.010-04:00

Rumored to come from Brussels, but bearing no resemblance to sprouts, Brussels sprouts are making their first appearances in the market -- although I had trouble locating them at first.

I was scanning the stands for heaps of perfect dollhouse-sized cabbages when my eye caught on a thick stalk almost 2 feet long. It was wrapped with Brussels sprouts like a sting of bulbous lights on a Christmas tree.

Despite eating hundreds of these creatures over the last few decades, I had rudely never considered the upbringing of this button-cute member of the cabbage family. Apparently, they bud in bunches of 20 to 40 on the thick stem of a plant that grows several feet tall. Here’s a picture of a harvested field, where mostly stalks remain.

While most everything in the cabbage family (including kale, broccoli and cauliflower) is going to get even tastier as the temperature dips, I see no reason to wait. Besides, is it possible to resist snatching up a stick ornamented with Brussels sprouts?

Below is my favorite way of preparing them, not only because it is so simple. Roasting them caramelizes and chars the outer leaves, giving their texture an added dimension.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts (with fig option, see below)
- serves 4 as a side dish

1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed
2-3 Tbs olive oil
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine oil with salt and pepper. Add Brussels sprouts and toss. Spread on a large baking sheet and roast for 30-45 minutes until just tender enough to pierce with a knife. Serve while still hot.

For a festive rendition, 15 minutes before the sprouts are done, add 8-10 fresh dark-skinned figs that have been de-stemmed, quartered and lightly coated in oil. Garnish the duo with pomegranate seeds.

picture via Dreamstime

Are Farmers' Markets the New Starbucks?

2009-09-18T10:44:00.007-04:00

In a new book due out next month, Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press, October 2009), historian Bryant Simon explores the unmet needs Starbucks came to fill in American culture.

“At its peak,” the press release reads, “Starbucks thrived by giving Americans what they thought they wanted, which wasn’t coffee. It was predictability, class standing, a sense of community, more natural and authentic products, and a sense of themselves as caring and more benevolent individuals.”

That last sentence, minus predictability (I always find myself surprised at our greenmarket), might as well be describing a farmers’ market. Fittingly, farmers’ markets are on the rise. According to the most recent data from the USDA, the number of farmers' markets in the United has grown from 1,755 in 1994 to 4,685 in 2008 — over 2.6 fold. And preliminary reports suggest the pace of growth is only increasing.

According to Simon, with its comfortable and aesthetic seating areas and eco- and employee-friendly policies, “the success of Starbucks is, in essence, a plea for an older form of state action and everyday neighborhood involvement.”

(Simon explains that the recent dip in Starbucks sales is primarily due to copy-cat places also supplying these other “beyond-coffee” needs. “Now that Cosi and Panera look like Starbucks, it just doesn’t seem special,” he said.)

What is the growing popularity of farmers’ markets, I would argue, if not also “in essence, a plea for an older form of state action and everyday neighborhood involvement.” It provides Everything and the Food. Hell, Starbucks is even involved in a youth food project at a farm 20 miles from Boston that contributes to local farmers' markets.

Are farmers’ markets the new Starbucks?

I sure hope so!

picture by Jim Boardman via Dreamstime

When Peaches aren't Peachy

2009-09-14T12:22:00.007-04:00

I’ll admit I have been underwhelmed by this year’s peaches. (The nectarines and plums, on the other hand, are incredible right now.) Maybe I’ve just had bad luck, but letting summer close without having had my fill of furry chin-dripping fruit did not seem like an option. So, I bought a four-pound bag, all of which were too hard and ornery to bother eating raw, and cajoled and tickled them until they succumbed -- finally offering smiles, good humor and yes, juicy goodness. In other words, I made a pie.

Spicy Peach Pie

8 cups peeled, sliced firm peaches (about 10 peaches or 4 lbs)

2 cups brown sugar (not packed)

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground cayenne

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 ½ tsp ground clove

2 tsp ground cinnamon

½ cup flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

Your favorite pie crust recipe, such as the one below based on one in Joy of Cooking. (Don’t believe recipes that say they make 4 crusts; unless you are an overly-ambitious roller, they usually make 2, with the obligatory generous lattice.)

Cream or milk for brushing atop crust

Preheat over to 375ºF. Mix dry goods in small bowl. Add to peaches and stir thoroughly. Add vanilla, stir again. Roll out half of the pie crust and place on the bottom of deep pie pan (ungreased). Fill with peach mixture. Roll out top pie crust, place over peaches and seal edges with lattice folding, using fingers or spoon to bevel edges. Slit holes in crust to let out steam. Brush with cream or milk. Bake 90 minutes until golden brown and juices are bubbling through the crust. Allow to cool for at least 45 minutes before slicing. Top with ice cream and you may just find yourself tickled peach.

Double Pie Crust (adapted from Joy of Cooking)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

13 Tbs chilled butter, sliced

4-5 Tbs water

Combine the flour and salt. Using a pastry blender or fingers, work in half of butter until mixture resembles corn meal. Work the second half of butter into the dough until it is pea-sized. Sprinkle dough with water and form a ball. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before rolling. I like to save myself a mess and roll between layers of wax paper.

picture by David Kay via Dreamstime

Kohlrabi Krunch

2009-09-12T11:57:00.002-04:00

It looks like an alien from outer space. All the more reason to invite it into the kitchen! Kohlrabi, a favorite in Indian cuisine (especially in the North), is yet another member of the cabbage family (like kale and broccoli) but has a delicate sweetness all its own. Its flesh is firm and yields a soft crunch when raw (my preferred way of eating it) which cooks up tender like a turnip. The leaves are also edible; cook ‘em the way you would any hardy green (sautéed in olive oil and garlic is never a bad idea).

Below, I gave a Middle Eastern twist to a popular Thai salad, som tom. But instead of green papaya, I used kohlrabi and cabbage (optional). If you leave out the cabbage, sub in two more of its space alien cousins.

Tahini Thai Salad

2 large shallots, minced
½ (or less) of a long red chili pepper, minced
~1/3 cup rice vinegar
lemon juice from half a lemon
4 Tbs tahini paste
2 Tbs peanut oil

1 kohlrabi, purple or green, peeled and sliced into ¼ wide sticks about 2 inches long
1 baseball size cabbage, halved and slice thin
6 radishes, halved and sliced thin
½ cup roasted cashews, chopped fine

Put shallots and pepper in deep bowl. Pour vinegar and lemon juice over (enough to cover) and set aside for at least 30 minutes. (This will mellow out the sharpness of these ingredients and infuse their flavor more evenly throughout the dish.) Mix in tahini and peanut oil. Stir thoroughly. Add kohlrabi, cabbage if using and radishes. Toss. Serve garnished with cashews.

picture by Petr Kratochvil via Dreamstime

Big Food = Big Tobacco

2009-09-10T11:19:00.008-04:00

Michael Pollan's has an excellent Op-Ed in today's NYT about the health care system, explaining that the "Western diet" is the elephant in the room when it comes to this debate. "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat 'preventable chronic diseases,'" he writes, many of which are caused by poor diet.

Requiring the health care system to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, etc., he argues would give Big Insurance the incentive to fight Big Food. Here's an excerpt:

"[If the proposed heath care reforms actually go through], what happens when the health insurance industry realizes that our system of farm subsidies makes junk food cheap, and fresh produce dear, and thus contributes to obesity and Type 2 diabetes? It will promptly get involved in the fight over the farm bill — which is to say, the industry will begin buying seats on those agriculture committees and demanding that the next bill be written with the interests of the public health more firmly in mind.

In the same way much of the health insurance industry threw its weight behind the campaign against smoking, we can expect it to support, and perhaps even help pay for, public education efforts like New York City’s bold new ad campaign [worth checking out] against drinking soda... School lunch reform would become its cause, too, and in time the industry would come to see that the development of regional food systems, which make fresh produce more available and reduce dependence on heavily processed food from far away, could help prevent chronic disease and reduce their costs.

Recently a team of designers from M.I.T. and Columbia was asked by the foundation of the insurer UnitedHealthcare to develop an innovative systems approach to tackling childhood obesity in America. Their conclusion surprised the designers as much as their sponsor: they determined that promoting the concept of a “foodshed” — a diversified, regional food economy — could be the key to improving the American diet."

A diversified, regional food economy? Sounds like a network of farmers' markets to me.

After researching the addictive nature of much processed food, David Kessler, former commissioner of the FDA, also came to the conclusion that Big Food should be treated in the same way as Big Tobacco. In his recent book The End of Overeating, his arguments for taxing soda, banning ads aimed at children, etc. parallel those against cigarettes. While easily obtained, both cigarettes and junk food are emotionally and physically addicting, slowly but surely damage the brain and body and are crippling our health care system. Neither should be socially acceptable.

Smoking has gone out of style. Are cola and Cheetos next?

picture by Lunamarina, via Dreamstime

Overactive Bladders to the Rescue?

2009-09-03T09:38:00.007-04:00

Last weekend, I found myself defending some of my favorite farmers for their use of chemical fertilizers. My argument was some paraphrasing of what they had told me: Without chemical fertilizers, it is nearly impossible to get enough nitrogen in the soil to keep stuff growing, unless you slow things way down and strategically plant legumes. Realizing these farms are barely making ends meet (especially this year after it rained all June), my argument continued, it is the big farms that can take more risks and find ways around petroleum-soaked fertilizers — hopefully to the eventual benefit of all farmers.

I wish I had seen this new study before I got on my soapbox. Apparently tons of available nitrogen can be found in, er, human pee. Mix it with wood ash and it becomes a powerful fertilizer. (Together they provide high amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, calcium and magnesium.) Talk about interdependence!

The urine/ash fertilizer significantly increased crop yield “without posing any microbial or chemical risks,” reports the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Furthermore, levels of the vitamin beta carotene were higher when the urine/ash fertilizer was used in comparison to other fertilizers.

In all fairness, plants treated with the mineral fertilizer did have, on average, two more fruits per plant than plants given the natural fertilizer. But urine still tripled the yield obtained with no fertilizer.

This particular study focused on tomatoes, but urine has also been successfully used to fertilize cucumber, corn, cabbage and wheat and is likely to be more widely applicable.

Now, dancing in my head, I have a relentless sci-fi fantasy of trading eco-toilet gatherings for produce at the greenmarket. What an image to start the day.

photo by Nikhil Gangavane via Dreamstime

Edible Lingerie Found at the Farmers' Market

2009-08-31T13:38:00.008-04:00

Hi, sorry it is has been a while. Working on a book proposal with every free second, but I feel I am doing an injustice by keeping dragon's lingerie, (or dragon's langerie or dragon's tongue), to myself. While there seems to be some confusion over its actual name, I like the first name best.

(As in a dragon's knicker's?, I asked. Yep, the farmer's rep laughed.)

Yes, you can eat it. And no, I am not trying to be kinky. It is a long bean with thin pastel stripes of purple and pink. Unfortunately this ‘lingerie lace’ disappeared with heating, so I am working on a raw recipe. But I was pleased with a recent simple sauté in butter. (Is there a veggie that doesn’t work in butter?) They tasted of a very delicate yellow wax bean — while the name conjured funny fantasies of Puff lounging seductively in his cave. For a picture of the actual bean, click here.
photo by Marek Paju via Dreamstime
cartoon by Sofia Santos

Totally Tomato

2009-08-06T11:41:00.004-04:00

They are beautiful globes, decorating the farmers’ market like ornaments come six months early. They are red, green, yellow, orange, even purple and dark brown. Some are striped, warped, twisted or just generally playful. No matter their particular quirks, they are delicious and will be in their prime starting this Saturday.

Starring names from Beefsteak to Brandywine, Plum to Purple Prince, these tomatoes bear no resemblance to their mealy-mouthed pale-faced supermarket cousins. The food demo-ists in the market are sure to be promoting simple techniques for a tomato salad and fresh tomato sauce this summer. But what to do when, like myself, you get so carried away with the variety, colors and personalities that you end up with a full fridge of nothing but tomatoes?

In lieu of eating so many you turn a soft tomato hue, try making a concentrated tomato paste to use in recipes the rest of the year. It’s real easy; the majority of the cooking time can be spent in your garden or on the sofa watching the Food Network.

First, grab as many tomatoes as you can manage to carry home from the market. (You’ve got about a 3-week window, starting now, for the best selection.) Classically, tomato paste is made from plum tomatoes, but I like a mix of heritage tomatoes because they are so much fun to work with (all those fairy tale names!)

Then follow the recipe below.

Local Tomato Paste

Ingredients:

Tomatoes

-- That’s it! Ain’t it lovely.

1) Fill a large pot about half way with water. Heat it to a rolling boil.

2) Add tomato, in batches if necessary. Cook until skin splits.

3) Remove tomatoes. When cool enough to handle, remove skin and stems. (Skins should peel right off with your hands.)

4) Cut open and remove seeds. (No need to be a stickler here; some seeds are fine.)

5) Puree tomatoes.

6) Add puree to large pot.

7) Simmer, stirring occasionally, until puree reduces to paste – about 4 to 5 hours depending on the amount of tomatoes and their relative juiciness.

8) Freeze spoonfuls in ice cube trays or muffin tins for easy use in future recipes, such as marinara sauce, lasagna, tomato soup or beef stew.

picture by Diana Lundin via Dreamstime

"Wwoofing" Around

2009-08-04T16:48:00.007-04:00

I met a young man at the Brooklyn Food Coalition kick-off meeting (an outgrowth of the Brooklyn Food Conference) who told me he was "woofing."

When I came to understand he did not spend his working hours practicing canine tricks, I realized he was verb-izing an acronym. WWOOF has stood for at least three names since its inception in 1971: Working Weekends On Organic Farms was first; when people started staying longer than weekends, it became Willing Workers on Organic Farms; and now that the word “work” can cause brouhaha, WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

In all cases, it involves volunteers getting paid in knowledge, room and board as they help organic, or transitioning to organic, farms.

Apparently you can just wonder from farm to farm, and work for your dinner and sleeping quarters. (Although calling ahead first is recommended.) And it is not just here in the United States. While it started outside of London, it now has organizations in 43 countries, including Ghana, Belize and Finland.

The young man I met (whom I would like to encourage to contact me) said he had left an industry job to become a full-time WWOOF-er several months ago. While his hair was a muss, he glowed with health. He also seemed in the midst of having his eyes opened wide. He said, what has most surprised him since starting out on this path – one his friends and family thought was crazy – is finding how very many people are already doing it.

picture credit

Planning for a Berry Christmas

2009-07-21T10:39:00.007-04:00

I was too preoccupied with munching, make that devouring, strawberries and cherries over the last several weeks to do what I ought've. Each bite required a puckered chomp, a kiss that was rewarded by plump flesh dripping with such sweet-tart berry juice, I forgot all thought of tomorrow and ate for today. For right now. Popping cherry after succulent cherry, dangling them from the stem over my mouth, before licking it up and sucking the pit dry. I've gone through several quarts a week.

But I must stop! Not eating them but the one-minded distraction, at least long enough to realize just how precious these gems are. I am afraid I am too late for the cherries. They are a week past prime. Still good. But I am taunted by the memory of last week's.

So, I am determined to not repeat my mistakes with my current obsession: blueberries. Right now, they are fat, sweet and... forgive me but... even a little earthy -- in a good way! Candy with complexity, if you will. Somehow every time I pass by their bowl, a few more end up in my mouth. And I don't want to give them up. I will not give them up.

There is only one solution: I Must Stop Time.

Thankfully, we've made room in our kitchen for one trusty time machine: the freezer. This weekend, I plan to do what I should have done last week with cherries and several weeks ago with strawberries. I am going to rush the farmers' market, and snatch up buckets of local blueberries (and probably some raspberries). I'll time-freeze them in one cup portions in ziploc bags, and then sigh in relief that there will be colorful smoothies, pancakes and muffins through Christmas.

picture by Dan Klimke

Reaching Ripeness

2009-07-16T11:30:00.006-04:00

Too much fun. Roger Cohen today riffed on the NYT's recent article about calorie restriction and longevity. (I covered it Friday: Calorie Restriction = Fountain of Youth? Don't Believe the Hype).

He asks, "before everyone holds the French fries," to consider the misery of the starved lab animal.

His op ed is here. My favorite line:

"As Edgar notes in King Lear, 'Ripeness is all.' You don’t get to ripeness by eating apple peel for breakfast."

picture by Elena Snegireva

Pesticides and Brian Damage

2009-07-14T13:22:00.004-04:00

Several pesticides, used on soil and/or major crops, are potent neuro-toxins and have been linked with diseases such as Parkinson's for a long time. A study appearing in the July issue of Archives of Neurology has just linked the two with even greater specificity.

The press release notes that several pesticides known to cause major health problems are now being more tightly regulated. (So, what? people growing up in the forties, fifties and sixties were just unlucky?)

This is what I found as an example of such tighter regulations: In August of 2006, the EPA called for a voluntary cancellation of registrations for the pesticide/neuro-toxin lindane, saying there are now safer alternatives. It has taken us roughly sixty years to realize the problems with lindane; isn't too soon to be calling new alternatives safe?

And, unfortunately for the eaters of today and tomorrow, lindane and other pesticides are considered "persistent organic pollutants" meaning they will continue to accumuate up the food chain for a long time after they have stopped being used.

picture by Ambrogio Corralloni

Pumping Healthy Animals with Medication may be Making us Ill

2009-07-13T16:16:00.008-04:00

... and Obama's to the rescue!

This from the NYT:

"The Obama administration announced Monday that it would seek to ban many routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals in hopes of reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria in humans."

The antibiotics make livestock big, fast, and also help them withstand poor, er, wretched, living conditions. They may also be creating health problems for humans, including the rise of antibiotic-resistant bugs such as "flesh-eating bacteria" (covered here by Nicholas Kristof in March).

My only worry is the stipulation that treatment should only stop for healthy animals. Since most animals get sick in CAFOs, and 95 percent of antibiotic use in US livestock is already for "therapeutic use" (2005 data), I can't help but wonder:

Will this proposed ban impact medication rates at all?

picture by Andrzej Tokarski

Calorie Restriction = Fountain of Youth? Don't Believe the Hype

2009-07-10T09:04:00.007-04:00

Some biologists are currently in love with this idea that restricting calories, by about 30 percent, will prolong life. They have found correlations of such in spiders, rodents and, most recently, rhesus monkeys. While I agree eating too much can cause extra wear and tear on your body, I doubt the long-term, real-life (as opposed to lab life) benefits of the CR movement.

The meals lab monkeys usually eat is likely of poor quality, especially for their activity level. In the experiment covered today by the NYT, the non-dieting monkeys were allowed "free rein" of food options, and we all know boredom, as expected in a captivity, is an impetus to eat. If you look at the photos here, the monkey not on the diet -- the one with the shorter expected life span -- looks clearly overweight. (Surprise, these monkeys were the only ones with a susceptibility to diabetes.)

It's not that dieting make you healthy, it's that eating too much makes you sick.

Reviewing 11 studies on calorie restriction in HUMANS, the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2007, concluded that, despite some benefits on the moderate side, extreme dieting results in bone and muscle wasting, fatigue, a compromised immune system, infertility, constipation, dizziness and other signs of poor health. Aside from the obvious argument that this is no way to live, especially for a long time, in real life, these symptoms are associated with decreased vitality and productivity as well as a greater vulnerability to disease. (How good would those monkeys be at defending their turf, if they have weak muscles, a bad cold and are overwhelmingly sleepy?)

The argument that starvation sends out protection signals to the brain is interesting and seems, at an extreme level, mostly to make an animal calm and focused on obtaining food. Which, like most things in biology, makes a ton of sense for survival.

But the human brain is also extremely vulnerable to a lack of calories. Humans did not have their huge brain spurt, evolutionarily speaking, until we figured out how to get a steady and plentiful supply of calories. (That said, the brain is also adversely affected by too much food.)

Exactly how many calories is optimum for health is still a matter of debate -- and likely hugely variable depending on the individual. But one thing seems clear, despite the way it is portrayed in the NYT and elsewhere:

It's not that dieting makes you healthy, it's that eating too much makes you sick.

picture © Guilu

Low fat "Cheese"

2009-06-25T10:06:00.006-04:00

This press release is too funny not to share: “Developing a Low-Sodium, Low-Fat Cheese That Tastes Good Is Still a Challenge.” What do ya know?

The real question is why try?

Good salt is good for you. It supplies minerals you can’t find in other ways.

The fat in cheese is even more important.

Many of the main nutrients in cheese, including calcium, need to be paired with fat to be best absorbed by the body. Also, whenever naturally occurring fat is cut out (or off), the hormone balance gets messed up as I discussed here in regards to meat. The evidence has only grown since I last mentioned this in February.

Even leaving hormones aside, experts agree with me that fat, even saturated fat, is a vital part of the human diet. And when good fats are paired with produce -- whether it is figs and blue cheese, strawberries and feta, bacon and collards or wine with marbled steak (yes, I just referred to wine as produce) -- the benefits and flavors compound exponentially. So have a little cheese. But only if it is tasty.

photo of cheese worker by Kheng Guan Toh
fig and blue by Liv Friis-larsen

Spring Chickens have Sprung!

2009-06-24T19:05:00.003-04:00

I have been obsessed with the warm weather pastured eggs for over a month. It's time for the next natural step. The chickens! They are tasting so much yummier than last winter. They taste the way chicken is supposed to taste. Sorry, I know that isn’t very descriptive, but it rings truest to me. Perhaps imagine some artificial chicken bullion and then mentally subtract the artificial over- and undernotes, and then you have a slight sense of what these spring-pastured chickens taste like. While commercial chicken has given rise to the now-so-ubiquitous-its-silly references that everything tastes like chicken (because the chicken we’re accustomed to is so bland it might as well be tough tofu), chicken really has its own unique taste.

Roasting a whole farmers’ market chicken just plain is probably the best way to start, with no more preparation than a brief rub with a baking soda and salt mixture to make the skin crispy. (325 degrees for 75-90 minutes, depending on the size of the bird; put the breast side down for first thirty minutes, and then flip. When almost done, take chicken out of oven and let rest as you get the temperature in oven up to 500. Return the bird to the heat and wait until skin is a nice golden color, about 10 minutes. Remove and let chicken rest for at least ten minutes before slicing, or its wonderful juices will escape into the air!)

But it is June, so I wanted to try a grill method, even if I have to pretend I am outdoors in our lovely but deck/patio/yard-less apartment. Here’s an adapted/stolen version of Cook’s Illustrated’s Italian-Style Grilled Chicken. To see how they do it outside, with bricks (!) go here:

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 bottom bulbs of green garlic, stems removed.
- break into bulbs, mince or process
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 cup fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1/8 cup fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
1 Tbs kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 whole chicken.

(First two steps sucked right off of www.cooksillustrated.com; thanks Cook’s Illustrated!)

1. Combine oil, garlic, lemon zest, and pepper flakes in small saucepan. Bring to simmer, stirring frequently, over medium-low heat, about 3 minutes. Once simmering, add 3 teaspoons thyme and 2 teaspoons rosemary and cook 30 seconds longer. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer set over small bowl, pushing on solids to extract oil. Transfer solids to small bowl and cool; set oil and solids aside.

2. Following prepping directions below or illustration here (scroll to bottom of webpage), butterfly chicken, flatten breastbone, and tuck wings behind back. Using hands or handle of wooden spoon, loosen skin over breast and thighs and remove any excess fat. Combine 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper in small bowl. Mix 3 teaspoons salt mixture with cooled garlic solids. Spread salt-garlic mixture evenly under skin over chicken breast and thighs. Sprinkle remaining teaspoon salt mixture on exposed meat of bone side. Place chicken skin-side up on wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours.

Heat grill skillet first in oven set at 350 degrees. When fully heated, about 20-30 minutes, place directly on top of breasts of flattened bird. You’ll hear a nice sizzle, letting you know you are getting nice grill marks.
Bake with grill iron resting on top for about 30 minutes or until meat thermometer says you’ve reached 120 degrees. Then take iron off and turn up heat to 450. Cook another 20 minutes until temp in thigh reaches 160 degrees. Allow to rest out of oven for 10 minutes before serving. (Temperature will rise some more after removing from the oven, so don’t worry, it’s done through)

Step-by-Step

Prepping Chicken for the Grill

1. BUTTERFLY Cut through bones on either side of backbone, then discard backbone.

2. PRESS Flip chicken over, then flatten breastbone and tuck wings behind back.

3. SEPARATE Loosen skin over breast and thighs and remove any excess fat.

4. SALT Spread salt-garlic mixture under skin of breast and thighs. Spread salt mixture on meat of bone side.

photo copyright Stevies

Food, Inc.

2009-06-16T15:10:00.008-04:00

Caught the documentary Food, Inc. (which is also a book of essays by prominent foodists) at the Film Forum on Saturday. Much of it gave the same info as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but I still found it though-provoking.

With all the graphic depictions of CAFOs, slaughterhouses and tons of flesh in mid-grind, the image that haunts me is the family of four subsisting primarily on fast food due to time and budget restraints. A burger costs a dollar, so does a large head of broccoli: which says dinner?

And then we are told, they are spending about as much on food as they are on health care, mostly due to the father’s Type II diabetes -- a disease largely caused, and complicated, by a poor diet. It made me want to rewind to when the father was healthy, take the $260 dollars they now manage to spend every fifty days for his pills, and spend it on, yes, broccoli.

The film’s main point: Food costs are more than what’s on the price tag.

Food, Inc. will be opening in at least 40 more cities over the next several weeks and be available as a DVD this fall.

burger photo by Jari Bilen
broccoli by Edyta Pawlowska

Pollan on the Silver Screen

2009-06-12T09:56:00.004-04:00

Omnivore’s Dilemma makes the big screen. In a sense. Michael Pollan is a major contributor to the new documentary Food, Inc., being released today in Manhattan, LA and San Francisco.

The trailer, thankfully, traffics in mainstream drama.

The film was also reviewed in today’s NYT. Here’s my favorite line:

“There’s something horribly wrong with a system in which a bag of chips cost less than a bag of carrots.”

picture by Sylwia Horosz via Dreamstime

Tired of Working for The Man

2009-06-11T15:48:00.007-04:00

Below is the promised profile of Ms. Severine, the documentarian I interviewed here. Severine epitomizes just one of the many types of people inspiring, and inspired by, the locavore movement. Other people I am planning to profile – with my obvious focus on their attraction to farmers’ markets – include a sociologist, an urban farm volunteer, an ecologist, a school teacher, a compost teacher, a cattle farmer, an anthropologist, a professional gardener, a ‘seed saver’ and, of course, a couple chefs. Stay tuned.

The Pied Piper of New Farmers

Manning her booth at the Greenmarket in Prospect Park, Severine is hyper. "I’ve had a lot of coffee and, like, no food," she says as she bounces from foot to foot, fidgeting with promotional stickers and offering strangers her "spiel."

Severine von Tscharner Fleming (or simply Severine, as she prefers) is a 28-year old agrarian based in the Hudson Valley. She is also a movie producer. The spiel is about The Greenhorns, her upcoming documentary about the growing consortium of young farmers.

The film, which is crisply shot and matched with an energetic score, covers the struggles and triumphs of new farmers, from California to Maine, while following the journey of organic food from the earth to the table. The film will be released this November and shown at schools and museums. DVDs will be sold at farmers markets and Whole Foods stores.

Halfway through the practiced spiel, Severine interrupts herself with: "I have to get that ribbon." She abandons the booth to pounce on some blue twine slithering down the sidewalk, revealing in the process a calf-length jean skirt. Victorious, she returns and ties the string around the waist of her hooded sweatshirt, and then in her frizzy hair, all while continuing on about farming. "It is a radicalizing experience," she says.

It may be tempting to pass her off as a starry-eyed hippy born in the wrong decade. But the movement is real. In New York alone, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farmers under the age of 35 has increased by 40 percent since 1997. And many are first generation farmers, like Stacey Bliss of Broadturn Farm, which is featured in the film. She and her partner John Brenner first learned about farming by taking "every book out of the public library that we could find about growing plants," she says.

It is a busy Saturday at the Greenmarket and many passersby linger at Severine’s booth before moving on to buy produce, turkey sausage or apple donuts. One young man stops with a persistent curiosity about Severine’s maps, heirloom beans and other props. To help him understand local food, she reaches over the table and puts her hand on his heart. "It’s like if this were New York," she says. "We need all this," tracing circles over his chest, "to feed New York."

She invites him, and everyone else, to a film fundraising event – a goat-spit BBQ in Brooklyn, complete with local beer and salad greens from her own farm in Columbia County. (She, too, is a first generation farmer; her parents, she writes, "are skeptical of farming.")

But the film is just one of a myriad of activities she and her cohort of helpers are pursuing. They are creating their own on-line census of small farmers, with over 2,000 already registered. They also provide farming guidebooks, tip-laden blog posts, class information, mixers and other events – all part of their mission to recruit and connect what Severine describes on the film’s website (www.TheGreenhorns.net) as "the rosy cheeked muscle of the new American countryside."

With or without the caffeine, she admits, "We have a lot of energy."

picture by Natalia Kuzmina

Committing to a Market (or Upping the Anty)

2009-06-08T18:52:00.006-04:00

When I first started this blog, my goal was to visit every farmers’ market in the city. All 49 of them. I have been to ten so far – not bad as many are just now opening. But as my infatuation grows deeper, I am realizing my approach was mistaken.

Every farmers’ market I have been to, here and abroad, seems to traffic in smiles. (I, like many American travelers, have returned with many colorful tales of open-air food markets.) Even when the weather is frigid, vendors joke over cups of steaming cider, shift from leg to leg and playfully try to outlast their competition. Devotees, who arrive on a mission, and perhaps with a list, still stop and ooo over the first crop of strawberries or the last cloves of garlic. Even aloof passersby look up and get swept in. One lawyer told me his local farmers market was his favorite “impulse buy.”

What is it about overflowing tables of food that makes people happy? Is it the apparent bounty? Maybe. But I do not see similar grins in the grocery stores.

Is it shopping outside? If it were moved indoors would the smiles follow? Most people seem to think so, and the few sheltered markets in this country reportedly thrive. (I’ve only been to roofed farmers’ markets in Asia, but I hear positive things about covered markets on the West Coast.)

Does the joy come from meeting the farmer him or herself? Could be, except often you are not buying from the farmer but an employee or city volunteer.

The volunteers are another puzzle. No one has ever volunteered to rotate produce at a KeyMart. Why not? Why do people prefer spending their weekends standing at a table piled with a local farmer’s product? Maybe they have fears about our current food system and want to further the locavore cause. But that is not all. It’s fun.

But why is it fun?

If anyone has an idea, I would be much obliged. My working hypothesis is that it has something to do with community spirit. Why the same spirit doesn’t arise in the neighborhood grocery store, I don’t know. But a sense of connectedness does exist at the greenmarket, not only with the other people – it’s common for conversation to erupt among strangers – but with the farms themselves.

During a typical visit, you may get spontaneous updates on crops, animals and new techniques. People ask how the osso buco cut worked, or how the cheese tasted in that quiche you were planning. You hear stories about harvesting and are warned of the sting in the stinging nettles. When a farmer (it was the actual farmer) told me this Sunday how 140 chickens – out of flock of 200 – had been killed by a single weasel, I realized something. This wasn’t a market at all. It was a family gathering. He wouldn’t have shared those details, if he wasn’t used to seeing me at his table. He wasn’t looking for pity. Rather, I had become one of them. He knew I would be truly saddened by his chicken loss, because it was mine too.

So while I plan to keep visiting markets throughout Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and upstate, I am committing to two: Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. Most of the farms represented at these gatherings also have tables at the 47 other greenmarkets, so I feel I won’t miss much by way of product. And the deeper value of any farmers’ market, I am beginning to understand, is found with repeated, frequent visits.

Perhaps commitment will enable me to delve deeper into the question: Why does a farmers’ market make people smile?

picture by teacept

Ease Cow Indigestion and Save the Planet

2009-06-05T12:39:00.006-04:00

Apparently when cows eat closer to what they have evolved to eat (instead of cheap corn), they stop contributing as much to global warming.

I only have one question, and it is for the Ms. Julia Laurain, who is quoted in the article and is a representative of Valorex SAS, a French company that is making feed additives to make conventional feed closer to that which is evolutionarily appropriate. Why come up with a 'new' feed, complete with these 'newly discovered additives' when pasturing the animals will do the trick?

Excerpts from the highly recommended NYT article are below. (Now I am craving a grass-fed burger...)

Greening the Herds: A New Diet to Cap Gas
By LESLIE KAUFMAN

HIGHGATE, Vt. — Chewing her cud on a recent sunny morning, Libby, a 1,400-pound Holstein, paused to do her part in the battle against global warming, emitting a fragrant burp.

Libby, age 6, and the 74 other dairy cows on Guy Choiniere’s farm here are at the heart of an experiment to determine whether a change in diet will help them belch less methane, a potent heat-trapping gas that has been linked to climate change.

Since January, cows at 15 farms across Vermont have had their grain feed adjusted to include more plants like alfalfa and flaxseed — substances that, unlike corn or soy, mimic the spring grasses that the animals evolved long ago to eat.

As of the last reading in mid-May, the methane output of Mr. Choiniere’s herd had dropped 18 percent. Meanwhile, milk production has held its own.

Scientists working with Groupe Danone had been studying why their cows were healthier and produced more milk in the spring. The answer, the scientists determined, was that spring grasses are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which may help the cow’s digestive tract operate smoothly.

Corn and soy, the feed that, thanks to postwar government aid, became dominant in the dairy industry, has a completely different type of fatty acid structure.

Ms. Laurain maintains that even if the [more suitable] feed costs more, it yields cost savings because the production of milk jumps about 10 percent and animals will be healthier, live longer and produce milk for more years.

The methane-reduction results have been far more significant in France than in the Vermont pilot — about 30 percent — because the feed is distributed there not just to organic farms, where the animals already eat grass for at least half the year, but also to big industrial farms.

“They are healthier,” [Mr. Choiniere] said of his cows. “Their coats are shinier, and the breath is sweet.”

picture by Monika Wisniewska

Can Food be Too Clean?

2009-06-02T11:28:00.001-04:00

While I’ll admit experiencing glee after finding a hydroponic plant in the farmers market, especially in the dead of winter, I have yet to be bowled over by their flavor. (On the other hand, they do happen to look gorgeous.) Perhaps being suspended in air – soil-less – with roots touching nothing but clean pure water (with whatever necessary nutrients pipette in) leaves the plant feeling a little, well, uprooted.

Whether it is wine or veggies, it seems a little struggle – pushing those roots through gravelly soil, craning the leaves to reach the sun – is good for a plant. That is, if you believe, as I do, that a domesticated plant ‘wants,’ in an evolutionary sense, to taste good so that its seeds will be saved and planted again.

In humans, a little bit of stress is actually great for our health. (There is lots of psychological research on this fact, but here is new metabolic finding with the same conclusion.) And in plants, it certainly ups the antioxidant quotient, which, along with other nutrients, are being linked to certain flavor intensities.

So what to do with rampant food scares leading everyone to want pristine, carefully coddled food, such as this movemen t in Japan to grow produce in laboratory-esque environments – no dirt, no bugs, low struggle and most likely low taste and low health benefits? Safe, yes. But so is WonderBread.

(Hat tip to Robert Roy Britt for covering this on The Water Cooler.)

The answer is not to retreat to a lab, quaking in our boots. Yes, our existing food system is a mess. But messes are not scary. They just need cleaning up.

picture credit, via dreamstime

Strawberry Sun Salad

2009-06-01T18:38:00.004-04:00

After I found this list of the top things to buy organic, I zeroed in on strawberries and started craving them – probably because my subconscious knew it was too early to find them in the farmers market (not that it didn’t keep me from looking!)

Two weekends ago, I caved and bought strawberries from Big Organic California, diced them with avocadoes, cilantro and onion, tossed them with lime juice and dug in with tortilla chips (inspired by a Cooking Light recipe).

But this weekend, I found true ruby treasure, the first local pick of the season, arriving in Park Slope from southern New Jersey. They are small and sweet and perfect for a salad. (Or a snack, or dessert, or breakfast, or…) I wondered the market for a bit, until I had gathered the main ingredients for the below.

Strawberry Sun Salad

2/3 cup inexpensive balsamic vinegar
1½ pints or 3 cups of ripe strawberries
¼ lb (or 4-5 cups) sunflower shoots, rinsed (Evolutionary Organics)
1 cup red leaf romaine, julienned
1-2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
4-5 oz feta cheese (such as Lynnhaven goat)
kosher salt

1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

Reduce balsamic to roughly ¼ cup by simmering over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool. Set aside

Pick over strawberries, slice off tops and sliced into bite size pieces. (I like the tiny strawberries because then I only have to remove the tops.) Crumble the majority of the feta over the strawberries, but reserve an ounce or two for garnish.

Combine sunflower shoots and romaine in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Toss. (You don’t need pepper; the sunflower shoots supply plenty peppery flavor all by themselves) Add strawberry and cheese mixture to greens. Toss and dish onto plates. Crumble remaining cheese and sprinkle pine nuts over plates. Drizzle reduced balsamic in thin stripes over salad. Serve.

picture by Olga Gerasimova, via Dreamstime

Kitchen Orphans and Kryptonite

2009-05-31T10:12:00.002-04:00

In my head, I am working on a book with the working title Kitchen Orphans.

The book is not about parents, or the absence there of, during meals or within the kitchen. Parenting styles are largely dictated by the environment (i.e. culture) and picking on them is like pointing out the sweat beading up on someone living in the desert. Besides, even if the family meal is in decline, it still exists and a recent study of over 16,000 people shows only a small parental impact on eating behaviors.

It is our food that has been orphaned.

Almost literally for most of our meats, where young animals are often separated almost immediately from their mothers. And figuratively for many other products; corn, tomatoes, soy, wheat, beets and so on are all processed away from their basic biology into something its kinfolk wouldn’t even recognize.

And when they appear in our kitchens, they might as well be orphans – at least in our minds. Most people my age have no idea what most foods looked like in its pre-processed stage, let alone youth. I only just learned what young peppercorns look like, and I have eaten black pepper at least once a day for roughly 30 years.

We also have little to no comprehension of family trees. Recent discoveries of the relationships between coriander and cilantro, broccoli and cabbage, even buttermilk and butter, have each blown my mind. On a subconscious level, food seems to materialize out of nothing and is therefore oddly foreign and irreparably different than Us.

I have a friend who, while not an orphan, was adopted as an infant. His adoptive parents were open about his adoption from the beginning, but had no information about his birth parents.

Kevin found this scenario thrilling. Growing up, he felt he had arrived on the planet from the ether. He was invincible. Otherworldly.

Like Superman.

In his late 20s, his birth mother hired a private detective to find him. The day the detective was successful, Kevin plummeted to earth.

His mother ended up being a delightful and fun-loving woman, much like Kevin. That wasn’t the problem. The kryptonite took another form. He suddenly felt inextricably linked to his biology, to this woman and to a network of boisterous blood relatives – many of which looked and acted like him. He went from being unique and invincible to part of a diverse but unified, supportive but vulnerable, network of family members.

This was a burden he was still growing into when we parted paths, so I don’t know if he would still say he preferred the fantasy of omnipotence to the messy reality. I like to think he does not.

We entertain similar fantasies about the superpowers of Food.

Our little food orphans appear on our plates and supermarket shelves like capsules from outer space. We plea to them, save us! The bad guys, in this case, include Cancer, Loneliness, Heart Disease, Snug Pants, Anxiety, Boredom, Love Handles, Skinny Arms, Sadness, Lethargy and lastly, Hunger.

But food is no superhero.

It is part of a network. Part of one big family.

Most domesticated plant and animal species would not survive without our care. Conversely, we obviously depend on their nurturance. Humans, plants and animals are all parts of a diverse but unified, supportive but vulnerable, network of family members.

None of us is magic. None is invincible. We are all – plants, animals (including homo sapiens), bacteria and fungi – simply celebrating one meal at a time.

A round up of NYT mornings

2009-05-29T13:03:00.010-04:00

Despite its scandals, I am pretty committed to the New York Times. We have coffee together almost every morning and our conversations range from trite to serious, disturbing or inspiring. We rarely squabble, although if we do it is most likely Tuesday, when the often ill-reported health page comes out. Lately, I’ve been adoring their coverage of food trends… Below are my favorite NYT stories of the week.

1) Meet your meat
May I introduce you to tomorrow's dinner? A trend among U. S. butchers is apparently rising, not (just) from locavore demand, but immigrant tradition.

Best tidbits:
“I want to see it [the health of the animals, the slaughter] with my own eyes,” said Shamsul Rahman, 65, who is originally from Bangladesh and was buying 11 chickens.

“We’re used to going into the grocery store and there’s not even a butcher counter, just a bunch of foam trays with a lot of anonymous blobs of meat in them.” -- Tom Mylan, who carves up cows in front of customers at Marlow & Daughters, a butcher shop and locavore’s temple in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

And hearty thanks goes to writer Anne Barnard for sneaking in this slaughterhouse observation: Nearby, an energetic goat placed its hooves on an iron rail and craned its neck toward a photographer like a supermodel flirting with the camera. “He wants to make a connection with you,” Mr. [Muhammed] Ali [of Jamaica Archer Live Poultry slaughterhouse] said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/nyregion/25slaughter.html?th&emc=th

2) Since you already know that, despite my affinity, I am not a locavore, I’ll blatantly promote this editorial on the importance of international trade

In a nutshell:
“One of the sure ways to prolong the global recession is to create even more barriers to global trade.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26tue1.html?th&emc=th -

3) The resurgence of canning, or, what to do when you go hog wild in the farmers market.

Sample taste:
Preserving food cannot be considered new and trendy, no matter how vigorously it’s rubbed with organic rosemary sprigs… [However] in today’s swirl of food issues (local, seasonal, organic, industrial), home preserving can also be viewed as a quasi-political act. “Preserving is an extension of the values that made you shop in the farmers’ market in the first place,” Ms. Eugenia Bone said who has just published a canning cookbook titled “Well-Preserved” (Clarkson Potter).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/dining/27cann.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

4) The struggles of the economy being felt on small organic producers firs t

Pull quote:
“They say it’s heaven for the small farmer, but the small farmer is the one screaming the loudest right now,” said Aaron Bell, a Maine dairy farmer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/29dairy.html?emc=eta1

5) An op-ed about baobab, an exotic superfood, and how to ecologically manage its growing popularity

Wins the prize for best closing:
In Saint-Exupéry’s story, the planet the Little Prince lives on is too small to support the baobab. This is hardly our situation, but the Little Prince still has some useful advice for us: Taking care of your planet, he says, “is very tedious work, but very easy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26starin.html?th&emc=th

Baobab fruit in its early stages

cup photo by Ingrid Perlstrom
baobab photo copyright

Eat this, conservation movement!

2009-05-27T11:18:00.006-04:00

The options available to the average hunter-gather apparently put the Cheesecake Factory’s treatise to shame.

After examining fine details in the teeth of our ancestors, anthropologists recently adjusted their reading of the early menu available to humankind. In contrast to the caveman diets preached by fad gurus – with their focus on a few weeds and rare surpluses of fruit and meat – what actually made early man’s table so healthy was the broad range of foods.

A diverse diet has long been associated with greater disease resistance and, according to ecologist Vadana Shiva, humans have gobbled up over 80,000 different plant species. When I compare that with the modern menu, I can’t help but become green with envy.

Today, three-quarters of all human food intake comes from just eight plants, mostly genetically-modified corn and soy. Worse, we are losing varieties within species every year.

The best way to save them, paradoxically, is to eat them.

Heirloom plants and heritage animals can be found in many farmer markets, on-line and some specialty stores. And with names like Striped Toga Eggplant, Christmas Lima Beans and Red Wattle Hog, they are sure to get the imagination salivating.

photo copyright

Top Ten (Eleven?) Foods to Buy Organic

2009-05-24T15:48:00.004-04:00

The price of organic food has been getting a lot of coverage recently, from sustainability food conferences to major national magazines like the Atlantic, Cooking Light and Gourmet. The messages all spiral from two central questions: 1) how to eat healthily when the economy -- and our wallets -- are in lean times and 2) the injustice of having nothing but wing-dings, Necco wafers and fried chicken available in most poor neighborhoods. More farmer markets will help with the latter.

As for the former, below are the top ten things, according to the Environmental Working Group, you should keep buying organic. Thin edible (or non-existent) skins is the common thread. Personally, I would add meat to the list. It is more expensive than conventionally raised, but you get so much more nutrition out of it. I buy and use half the amount I was used to and fill up the rest of the plate with veggies. Trust me, we never leave the table hungry.

10 worst offenders for pesticides:

Apples
Celery
Cherries
Grapes (imported)
Lettuce
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Strawberries
Sweet bell peppers

picture copyright

Forget Asparagus and Ramps. The Real Treat of the Season is Ready

2009-05-22T10:20:00.006-04:00

Asparagus, ramps and peppercress may have short seasons. But spring is about the rebirth of life; what says that better than an egg?

And yes, eggs have a season. The eggs in the farmer markets right now are not just any eggs. They are not the placid ones we all hid in baked goods over the holiday season.

These are blooming, confident, orangey-yolked EGGS.

Once the mercury began to rise a few months ago, free-ranged hens everywhere started spending more time outdoors, sampling their own local fare. And now they are laying golden orbs, advertising the good life.

The best eggs I’ve had so far came from Grazin’Angus Acres.* Yeah, the guys with the great steaks. They do the rotating pasture thing, where the chickens, er, ‘pick up’ after the cows. (Apparently cow manure attracts the yummiest, and most-nutrient packed, bugs.)

The yolks are the color of a Maxwell Parish sunset. If you can resist the temptation to use them for artwork, they will reward you in the kitchen.

Easy Crustless Quiche
You can prepare this two days ahead, store it uncooked and covered in the fridge and bake right before serving. (Yes, that means you can wake up to quiche on Sunday morning, without having to do any chopping, cracking or mixing. Just put it in the oven, sip your coffee and then reap the rewards of Friday’s efforts.)

1-1 ½ cup sautéed vegetables (anything you want; if you have been hit with spring fever, try a mix of baby spring greens and the white portion of green garlic)
¾ -1 cup shredded cheese (again, whatever you want**)

4 eggs
1 ½ cup half and half (you know my favorite local dairy is MilkThistle.)
2-3 tablespoons minced rosemary
salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Spread the vegetables on the bottom of a 9 inch pie pan. Top with cheese. Whisk the eggs, dairy and seasonings in a separate bowl until well blended. Pour over vegetables and cheese. Bake for about 40 minutes or until quiche sets.

Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving. Also yummy at room temp.

* Grazin’ Angus Acres sets up shop at Union Square every Friday and Saturday. On Sundays, they are at Carroll Gardens and the Museum of Natural History at 77th and Columbus.)

** I used the Rupert cheese from Bardwell Farm (West Pawlet, VT) to rave reviews. Bardwell sells at Fort Greene and Greenpoint farmer markets every Saturday; Carroll Gardens and Tompkins Square Park every Sunday.

photo via Dreamstime

The Pied Piper of Young Farmers

2009-05-20T21:26:00.005-04:00

I’ve become fascinated about the psychology behind the local food movement. What is being tapped here? What need is being fulfilled? Seconds after I met young agrarian and documentarian Severine von Tscharner Fleming (who thankfully prefers going by her first name), I knew she epitomizes one aspect of the movement. I hope to profile her in the coming weeks. Consider the below Q & A a sneak peak.

NewYorkFoodVine: You were raised by two urban studies professors. How did you end up with your own farm in rural Columbia County, NY and directing The Greenhorns, a documentary about young farmers?

Severine: After college at Berkeley, I worked in farms in the United States and abroad. I began calling my fellow young farmers “Greenhorns” and slowly realized we are a full-fledged movement. We and others are voting for sustainable food with their lives.

NYFV: What do you think is drawing people to be farmers?

Severine: We are tired of working for the Man! That, and farming is totally addicting.

NYFV: When will the documentary be finished?

Severine: By November, when we will start showing the film in schools, complete with bicycle-power-popped popcorn. We will also be selling copies at farmers’ markets.

NYFV: Do you have blockbuster dreams?

Severine: The website and trailer are already getting hundreds of hits each day. But no. My fellow filmmakers and I are trying to avoid the big corporate sell out. However,Whole Foods wants to offer the DVD in their stores and I think that’s okay.

NYFV: How are you making a film on a farmer’s budget?

Severine: In addition to donations and fundraisers like goat-spit BBQs, we are getting support from the U.S. Farm Bill and XtraCycle.

NYFV: XtraCyle is a sponsor and the film’s blogsite is entitled The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles… What is this bicycle connection?

Severine: Bicycling puts your heart in a particular body space with the earth. It is a radicalizing experience, one that can also be felt while farming. Both are completely engrossing in a deeply physical way.

NYFV: Once the documentary is released, will you focus exclusively on your farm?

Severine: The documentary is just one part of our overall mission. We are recruiting young farmers to be part of a large supportive network. I want all Greenhorns to know they aren’t alone, help them be successful – and inspire others to join us.

picture by Philip Lange

College Food Circle

2009-05-18T11:33:00.008-04:00

Go K-State! Coeds there are planning on eating their own waste products this fall.

Here’s the first line of the press release: “Food waste generated at Kansas State University dining centers may end up back on students' plates…”

-- After being turned into compost, of course, and used to fertilize a student farm. My favorite moment in the short video is when Ben Champion, K-State's director of sustainability, beams with pleasure about how the gathered compost “is digesting itself.”

picture of generic cafeteria by Stephen Corburn

Why I am Not a Locavore

2009-05-14T15:27:00.003-04:00

First, I will admit, roughly 80% of my diet comes from local farms and I have significant respect for the movement. But I still bristle when I referred to as a locavore.

It is often said that most fad diets are about going without – usually some food group (meat, starch…) or some nutrient (fat, cholesterol, carb…). Similarly, most food movements are essentially about going without – a certain group of people. It is separating one’s self, defining one’s self against society, usually by subtly declaring “I am better/holier/healthier than thou” because my diet is vegan, low-fat, low-maintenance or can fit into really tiny carbon heels.

This tactic is not new. Many fledgling religions have used food to define themselves as separate and to discourage intermingling with outsiders. Take the Muslim month-long fast at Ramadan. Trust me: it is hard to have a conversation, let alone make friends during this time. Similarly, kosher laws help keep the Jewish community tight knit and Catholics go so far as to gather each Sunday to nibble on their Lord.

Being a cultivore is the exact opposite. They do not want to be separate.

Cultivores want to reach out, get messy and explore without reservation. A cultivore is curious about community, his own and others, and knows that the best way to learn is to examine what they put into their mouths.

I’ve long wished I could get away with the traditional Tibetan greeting. When Tibetans greet people – especially strangers – they opening their mouths wide and stick out their tongues. It is a way of saying, check out my insides! My mouth, tongue and stomach will show you my entire past, my history, my indulgences and sacrifices. I am showing it all to you, so you can be assured you are safe with me…

When we open our mouths, we become open in other ways too. Sharing and exploring food is a way of gaining insight about a person (or a culture) by trying to experience what they experience.

While it can be life-affirming to explore our nearest and dearest, if we focus exclusively on our own backyards, we might as well stick our heads in the soil.

A cultivore wants to know his immediate community intimately, but also nourishes curiosity in broader society, the continent and the world at large. A banana is worth its carbon if while eating it you mentally escape to Equador. A piece of yak jerky can convey more about what life is like in the Himalayas, than can a pristine photo of Mount Everest. And, I will confess, diving into my very first bag of mass-produced pork rinds, while wandering Bed-Stuy, was nothing less than a mind-opening experience.

In short, I worry about the isolationist stance of being a die-hard locavore. At this point in history, the spice of the globe is ignored at our own peril. And I, for one, would rather learn more about Pakistan through its curries than their bombs.

picture by Tono Balaguer, via Dreamstime

Locavores Bemoan Their Own Success

2009-05-13T10:12:00.004-04:00

An article in the NYT today reports, big food manufacturers, such as FritoLay, are beginning to ‘co-opt’ the locavore food movement. They suddenly have the gall to, say, make Florida’s potato chips from Florida’s potatoes.

Many locavores are ready to throw pitchforks at them.

I don’t get it. FritoLay’s new local bent is unlikely to make me snuggle up with a large bag of Ruffles, but I think this is something to celebrate.

Sure, it does not resonate with the Eat Local Spirit. I agree with the reaction of blogger and chef Jessica Prentice (who coined the term locavore in 2005):

“The local foods movement is about an ethic of food that values reviving small scale, ecological, place-based, and relationship-based food systems… Large corporations peddling junk food are the exact opposite of what this is about.”

But what’s wrong with junk food being local?

picture by Dmitry Maslov

Born Again Greens

2009-05-11T12:05:00.005-04:00

All the winter greens have been sprayed by the fountain of youth. They are showing up in the market sporting tender curves and babysoft complexions. Beware, however, of their apparent innocence; they have also become more childish temperamentally. The tough kale and mustard greens of winter have become almost as sensitive as the eternal big baby, Spinach. Cook quickly and expect to serve a lot less volume than you wash.

Although the texture has changed, the flavors have not become overly delicate. This new favorite side dish, for example, demands the mouth’s immediate attention. So serve with a main dish that can stand up to it, such as grilled chicken, pork or beef.

Spanked Baby Mustard
Serves 2 as a side dish

2 Tbs olive oil
½ Tbs dry fennel seeds
½ Tbs dry cumin seeds
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
4 cups baby mustard greens, any tough stems removed
• If leaves are large, chop coarsely

Heat oil over medium heat. Crush seeds roughly in bowl, to release their locked-in flavors. (Not every seed needs to be cracked open.) Add seeds to oil and roast until beginning to brown. Bring temperature down to low and add onions. When onions have softened, stir in garlic. Slowly cook onion mixture until is deep brown. Stir in baby mustard greens and sauté until wilted.

picture by Liubirong via Dreamstime

Chef Chops

2009-05-07T17:56:00.003-04:00

All week I have been watching meals be made by amateurs, who were trying to copy the movements of a food pro. (Think kindergarteners imitating a prima ballerina.)

However, during the intensive class at the Institute for Culinary Education, I think I ended up learning more from my fellow students than I did from the teacher. Not that Chef Anita Jacobson, who has more than 20 years of professional experience, was not a wonderful teacher. On the contrary, she was knowledgeable, empathetic and kind. It’s that she, alone, was familiar; I have watched her type on more food shows than I care to admit.

But seeing her amidst roughly fifteen amateurs put her talent in stark relief.

A true chef, I realized, has no fear of food. She or he handles ingredients roughly, shaking and telling them what is expected in no uncertain terms. While us students timidly poked the lamb loin and gingerly stroked a stalk of fresh sage, Jacobson grabbed, flipped, twirled, bunched and butchered – sometimes without even looking.

Sure, that is partly the result of practice. But it is also due to an advanced, sought after, and empathetic relationship with food. She understood, say, the chemistry of kale and how it differed from spinach, if not in scientific terms, on an intuitive level – the same way you and I know what to expect from a good friend.

(That said, she trusted ingredients much more than many of the school’s ovens.)

While she was grabbing a potato and bluntly asking how it was feeling today – and realizing it was sick from some invisible tinge of color – we students were shyly trying to get up the nerve to ask the oregano if we could sit next to it. (What if we don’t get along??)

I think that even if I was to bring Chef Jacobson some exotic vegetable or fruit she had never seen, she would handle it the same way. She may spend more time actually looking at a durian but I am sure she would gruffly grab even its thorny shell, intimately sniff its pungency and ultimately hack it open in one swift chop. Much different than the timid, finger-torn sawing I did the first time I opened one myself. (Ruining all sense of ventilation for my poor roommates.)

Come to think of it, most of the farmers and farmer helpers in the market are very casual with their products, too. They don’t attempt to hide blemishes, loving each as is. Nothing is handled squeamishly or hierarchically; pig ears and turkey necks are passed with the same hearty respect as an oversized butternut squash. And nothing is delicate; even the baby greens are deftly harvested from their potted soil as we hungry consumers watch.

Perhaps that is why I feel irrationally flattered when I get to go home with the most beautiful stalk of oyster mushrooms or the most evergreen bag of pea sprouts. Each piece of food is the farmer’s close friend. And they are, of course, happy to introduce us.

Photo by Dyscoh via Dreamstime

CAFO Source of Flu Pandemic

2009-05-03T17:15:00.003-04:00

Raj Patel confirmed this theory yesterday at the Brooklyn Food Conference. The author of Stuffed and Starved had just returned from a trip to Mexico; he reported that 60 percent of the people living around Smithfield’s enormous pig “concentrated animal feeding operation" (CAFO) came down with mysterious flu-like symptoms three weeks before US media was oink-ing about the sickness.

photo by Tatjana Krstic

Leave Our Friend, the Steak, Alone

2009-04-30T09:26:00.006-04:00

The NYT is giving beef the shaft again, with an article entitled The Price of Eating Red Meat.

It covers a large study that suggests eating red meat AND processed meat (the categories are lumped together) is associated with greater risk of early death, especially caused by heart disease and cancer.

What kills me about this article (and others like it) is not just the quick lumping of processed meats under "Red Meat" (as if Spam and filet mignon are nutritionally equal), but the following, quietly hidden in the middle of the article, rendering the rest of the article moot:

"The subjects in the study who ate the most red meat had other less-than-healthful habits. They were more likely to smoke, weigh more for their height, and consume more calories and more total fat and saturated fat. They also ate less fruits, vegetables and fiber; took fewer vitamin supplements; and were less physically active."

If Jane Brody, and presumably the Health section editor, understands that "Other factors associated with meat-eating are the real culprits in raising death rates, " why the misleading headline?

I am going to defrost a sirloin for veg-heavy stir fry in protest.

picture by H.D. Connelly

Pig Revenge?

2009-04-29T12:30:00.004-04:00

Does torturing our food supply result in human disease?

We know it does in cows. For example, outbreaks of mad cow disease, a disease only known in the last few decades, rose when cows were forced to eat cow. This practice was largely stopped once the connection was made – although cow blood remains part of most cattle diets. Cow leftovers are now fed to other herbivores that are then ground up and fed to cows. This may not be safer as prions, the devils of the disease, are likely tough enough to survive this protein somersault. Why are cows – adept vegetarians – being force-fed meat in the first place? Answer: To fatten, quickly.

The way industrial animals continue to be treated, crowded, fed and pumped full of antibiotics in conventional Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) not only makes them very ill, it has the potential to make us ill as well. CAFOs acidify the pH balance of a cow’s digestion system. Normally it is rather alkaline, opposite that of humans, and thus kills the bugs our bodies can’t. Without that protection we are susceptible to more illnesses, such as deadly strains of E. Coli.

So how ‘bout swine flu? Well, unlike mad cow and E. Coli, you can’t get swine flu from eating pork. But it does come from sick pigs (and humans who know a sick pig and the humans that know that human, and so on). Some are theorizing, especially among the press in Mexico, that the current outbreak began with sick pigs at one of the world’s largest pig plumper and packager, located in Vera Cruz. (Hat tip to Grist’s Tom Philpott for helping bringing this theory to US attention.) The hog production area is reported to be overcrowded and disgusting – a swamp of pig feces, swarming with flies. Similar to the descriptions of CAFOs in this country.

Forget Montezuma.

These outbreaks are the Revenge of the Even-Toed Ungulates.

picture by Katherine Welles

Green Decapitation

2009-04-28T20:55:00.008-04:00

At the Carroll Gardens Sunday greenmarket, I stumbled upon an intimidating head of lettuce. It came with a neck! And, if you count the pot, shoulders!

It was $5 for two, so with my wily bills, I captured a three-headed lettuce monster, slung him over my back and brought him home. After showing off my spoils, I decapitated one bobbing crown to make the below salad. It was gobbled up within minutes of slaughter. Can you get fresher then that?!

(The remaining two heads have been tamed with fear; they will be kept as pets, their outer ears nuzzled off according to Appetite's demands.)

4/30/09 Update:
The decapitated neck has already sprouted a new face...

Butter lettuce in Cream Dressing
Serves two

2 cups butter lettuce
1 cup mesclun mix

½ cup heavy cream (Ronnybrook worked)
¼ cup rice vinegar (or other white vinegar)
½ teaspoon dried minced garlic
1 teaspoon lemon zest
salt and pepper to taste

Combine lettuces. Mix the other ingredients together in a small bowl to form dressing. (Dressing can be made several hours in advance and stored in fridge.) Toss with lettuce, shortly before ready to eat.

Urban Oven BBQ

2009-04-27T10:11:00.003-04:00

In honor of the record highs for this time of year, we had an Urban BBQ yesterday. (You know, when you pretend you have outdoor space inside a city apartment.) Just after one p.m., a heavily marbled brisket ($7 a pound from Grazin’ Angus) began bathing in the following:

Marinade and BBQ sauce
Process the first two ingredients and then mix with the rest.

3 large garlic cloves
1 teaspoon green peppercorns

22 oz hard apple cider (Doc’s Draft is made in NY state from NY apples)
4 Tbs molasses
3 Tbs RedJacket Orchards (Seneca Lake, NY) Spiced Apple Glaze (if Red Jacket doesn’t come to a market near you, sub an additional 2 Tbs of molasses and 1 teaspoon ground black pepper.)
1 Tbs soy sauce
½ Tbs kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

After its long bath (about 2hrs) in a room temp Dutch Oven, the 3lb brisquet (and, on a whim, one very bruised apple, cored and quartered) went into an oven set at 225. (Low temp is key to an urban BBQ; it keeps the apartment from overheating!)

It braised for 3-4 hours and then was removed from the pot ‘to rest’.

The marinade was then sent boiling, uncovered, for about 20 minutes until it became a syrupy bbq sauce – some of which was mixed with some beans to make a quick side dish.

I browned the meat in a bit of peanut oil right before slicing and serving. (I know, I know; this is not the conventional way to do it. But it works for brisket.)

Cooking, the Way to Man’s… Brain?

2009-04-24T13:32:00.005-04:00

The theory that primordial Iron Chefs led to the evolution of humanity proved itself in a pan on my stove earlier this week. The theory, the metabolic basis of which is covered here (by me), is getting increased traction from a different angle, due to a new book by primatologist Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.

The book, covered by the NYT on Tuesday, will be released in May. (Who wants to keep me company on the waiting list?) It claims that our big brains got big when we started processing more of our food outside our bodies – freeing up calories (and likely releasing other nutrients) to feed the brain.

In other words, apes have to chew a handful of weeds for over an hour. They spend practically the whole day masticating. We just get out a pan.

A couple days ago, my pan was piping hot and held the usual array of caramelized onions, garlic, etc. On the counter was the biggest bowl in the apartment – the bottom portion of the salad spinner – filled to the brim with fresh spinach. Enough spinach to make salad for eight to ten people. I combined the spinach and the pan trimmings. Suddenly I had a tiny pile of leaves.

By applying a wee bit of heat, I now had the capacity to eat 8 to 10 salads, in one sitting!

I applauded my nutritional wizardry. And then remembered cooking has been around for at least 150,000 years. (Wrangham puts it at 1.8 million years, albeit controversially.)

So in a meaningless attempt to do my ancestry one better, I turned the leaves into the below for dinner; it would be nice for brunch, too. It is a riff on an ‘ouefs piperade’ recipe from James Briscione.

Oeufs Spinach

Serves 3-4

Olive oil
3 very thinly sliced pieces of pancetta, chopped
1 yellow onion, sliced
2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 Tbs (yes Tablespoon) minced rosemary
salt, black pepper and cayenne to taste

½ pound (2 cups) fresh baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbs sherry or balsamic vinegar
8-10 cups fresh spinach, lower stems removed, roughly chopped

8-10 eggs
3-4 ounces feta cheese

Preheat over to 425 degrees.

Coat, or spray, large non-stick skillet with oil. Heat over medium-low heat. Add pancetta. Allow fat to render but avoid browning the meat. Add onion and garlic. Sauté until onions are soft and beginning to caramelize. (It helps to cover intermittently.) Mix in spices. Then the mushrooms. Cover and let mushrooms release their liquid, stirring occasionally. When mushrooms have softened, turn off heat. Mix in vinegar and fold in fresh spinach. The spinach should wilt but not become mushy. Briefly turn heat back on if necessary.

Crack eggs over mixture, leaving yolks whole. Sprinkle with feta and black pepper. Place in oven for 15 minutes or until yolks are desired firmness. Slice and sprinkle with additional feta, if desired. Serve with a fresh baguette or home fries.

picture © Stilings

Princes in Need of Peas

2009-04-23T19:03:00.010-04:00

Anthropologists use the ways people obtain food to understand features of personality, writes Meredith Small, herself an anthropologist. (Full disclosure: Small also writes for LiveScience but we haven’t met.) She continues,

“The stretch from food to personality might seem like a long one, but if people are in any sense molded by their culture, then there should be links from how we go about surviving at the most fundamental level to who we are at the most esoteric level. To be a hunter and gatherer, for example, requires initiative and persistence, and so it might be expected that in such a system parents would foster self-reliance. And in a society of pastoralists, where obtaining and holding on to cattle is the measure of success, parents might be inclined to push for responsibility rather than creativity.”

I long to ask Small, how ‘bout when food comes from shelves? Presented just like magazines, toys and TVs? What personality traits do those cultures cultivate? A love of gloss and sheen? Nutrition label obsession? Deal-finding skills?

Placed on shelves, often in identical boxes and cans, food becomes easy to confuse with other items on a shopping list. Food, however, is not an idle commodity. It is the other side of a relationship, within which we are helplessly entwined.

Eating is a dynamic and necessary conversation between our bodies and the earth. (Not even Twinkies are from outerspace.)

Commodization of food, I think, is the start of the current culture’s larger confusion about what and how to eat. Surely, this was once a simple matter. But now, fad diets ripple through our population like epidemics, the ‘diet industry’ is obese and hospitalizations for eating disorders are on the rise. (Such hospitalizations rose 18 percent between 1999 and 2006; 119, yes 119, percent for children under 12.)

When do we learn how to relate to food?

A criminal defense lawyer once told me, when poor people get a bit of money, the first thing they buy is clothes. Next, a car. After that: some bling. All the while, going home to families cramped in miserably uncomfortable apartments. I get the logic; we are taught that image is the key to success. But it cannot be a healthy, or intimate, way to live.

We spend time, money and energy on our hair, cell phones and cars and yet neglect our most intimate and vital relationship.

In United States of Arugula, David Kamp wrote, referencing the culinary genius James Beard, “He knew we [Americans] could have it so much better if we just cared. For a long time, though, we resisted caring too much; it was as if there was something wussy, too soft, even un-American about investing one’s pleasure and emotion in what’s for dinner.”

He then adds, “But the tide is turning.”

picture copyrights in respective order
Adisa
Phartisan
Eugene Bochkarev

Organic vs. Local

2009-04-22T08:18:00.004-04:00

Student researchers in a hoop house at Genesis Growers. This rural farm is among the mix of farms participating in the study.*

What's better for the earth: eating locally or eating organically? A professor from the University of Chicago, Pamela Martin, is leading a year-long course study to find out. (She previously conducted a study comparing food choices to car choices on environmental impact; they tied.)

It is a complicated question, with a range of factors to include, such as farm size, crop diversity and farm 'inputs' (fuel, seeds, fertilizer, pesticide...) But preliminary findings suggest local wins out.

*Jessica Graves photo

Underground Dining: The Brooklyn Edible Social Club

2009-04-20T15:40:00.006-04:00

While grabbing cheese from Cato Corner (try the Vivace, it has notes of wood-smoked bacon), to fill out a lovely picnic in Prospect Park, I also picked up a tip about an underground dining club.

This, from the website:

Hosted by an acclaimed, artisan chef formed in the kitchens of The French Laundry
and Meadowood (California), these dinners will take place in roving
locations throughout Brooklyn.

How fun! And of course, “each feast features seasonal ingredients from local, sustainable farms” – many of which have been reviewed by NewYorkFoodVine.

The club’s blog is lovely, if perhaps just starting out. It offers background information on the upcoming meal’s featured ingredients and farms, as well as information on how to get invited.

Here’s a sneak peak at the April 22nd dinner.

$65, BYOB

Amuse bouche

First Course
Field Greens Salad (Evolutionary Organics, NY)
Free-range fried egg (Tello's Green Farm, NY)
Smoked bacon-thyme citronette (Flying Pigs Farm, NY)

Second Course
Foraged Mushrooms Ragou (Honey Hollow Farm, NY )
Womanchego cheese grits (Cato Corner Farm, CT)
Herb salad

Third Course
Steamed Clams (Blue Moon Fishmonger, NY)
Saffron, chorizo
Sourdough peasant bread (Bread Alone Bakery, NY)

Fourth Course
Braised Grass-fed Beef Short Ribs (Wilklow Orchards, NY)
Roasted sunchokes, grilled scallions, gremolata sauce

Fifth Course
Upside-down Apple Gallette (Red Jacket Orchards, NY)
Caramel "milkshake"

Mignardises, Coffee, Tea

picture of Brooklyn brownstone, by anonymous contributor to Dreamstime.

Five Market Weekend

2009-04-19T18:12:00.005-04:00

It’s time! Markets are sprouting up all over the city. Who cares if the schedule says they will open in June. Produce doesn’t follow the calendar to the letter, so why should the farmers.

Borough Hall, strangely, randomly, had two stands set up on Sunday and Carroll Gardens (at Carroll Park, between Smith and Court) had their first day of the season today as well. Milk Thistle, Grazin’ Angus, and a cheese maker I have yet to try, accompanied an amazing produce stand offering lettuce plants so beautiful I could swap them for a bouquet. Madura Farm, with their wonderful mushrooms, packed up by 3pm. DiPaolo’s had fresh meat. I engaged the turkey farmer about his birds and now I need to make some corrections to my previous post. It's true, his birds are the conventional Nicholas breed, but only in part. The line has been bred with a black Heritage bird, restoring their reproductive ability, but retaining the light flesh color we are accustomed to. (Apparently, the feathers of the black bird leave a mark on the skin, while the white Nicholas does not.) I bought three large turkey legs, $1.89 a pound, which I plan to braise in coconut milk this evening.

Three other markets, Columbia University’s (114th and Broadway), American Museum of Natural History (77th and Columbus) and Grand Army Plaza (Union St. and Prospect Park) which are open year round, had new buds this weekend. On Saturday, Grand Army’s Market branched into the park proper and had many new meat providers. On Sunday, 77th had a new goat cheese seller, Ardith Mae (Susquihanna County, PA), who provided me with feta ($8); Ardith Mae had a seller at Columbia's Sunday market as well. Columbia is also hosting Milk Thistle, a wide selection of organic frozen meats, a fish stand, lots of apples, potatoes (including blue ones!), other root vegetables and a motley of fresh potted herbs. The magazine and candy stand jutting between the tents seemed quite out of place.

Coco-Turkey
serves 2-3 people

1/3 fresh habanero pepper
1 large garlic clove
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
2 inch thumb, fresh ginger

1 can coconut milk
1 cup broth or water
1 ½ Tbs sugar
1 vanilla bean pod (optional)

1 Tbs olive oil
3 turkey legs
6-8 small blue potatoes, quartered
2 large carrots, cut into large bite-sized pieces
1 red onion, sliced thin
salt

1/2 cup cashews (optional)

Set oven to 300 degrees.

Combine first four ingredients in a food processor. Process. Add mixture to coconut milk and dilute with broth or water.

Dig out your Dutch oven or other heavy, oven-friendly pot. Heat oil while you salt and pepper turkey legs. Put turkey legs in broth. Sear briefly on at least two sides and remove.

Pour coconut milk mixture into pot. Add vegetables and turkey. Bring to a simmer. Remove from the stove and put into the oven for 1-2 hours. (1, they’ll be done; 2, they’ll be more tender.)

Remove turkey and veggies from broth with a slotted spoon and set aside. Put pot on burner and heat, stirring quickly. Allow liquids to reduce down until to a thick sauce. Mix with meat and veggies. Dish on top plates and top with cashews, if using. Serve.

Borough Hall’s Tuesday Market

2009-04-16T21:20:00.007-04:00

A few stands sprouted at Borough Hall’s Tuesday market today. (Supposedly, it’s open all year, just like the Thursday and Saturday ones, but finding any during the cold months was like searching for urban morels.)

More precisely, there was three sprouts: Wilklow Farm (Highland NY) with cider, baked goods and some of the last apples of the season (hopefully the last, they are getting mealy) and Baker’s Bounty (Linden, NJ) with their usual array of breads, muffins, pastries, knishes and stromboli. The final stand was decked out with spring flowers, both potted and cut. Hiding behind the blossoms were basic veggies: onions, leeks, a motley of potatoes, butternut squash, carrots and other root vegetables. (Tip: The freshest spinach is under the table, hiding from the sun.) For $14, I snagged enough veggies to get us through the next week. Borough Hall, no matter the day of the week, operates sans protein and dairy providers, but I am hopeful that the pretzel man, the mushroom gurus and other veggie jugglers will rejoin the weekday markets soon.

For a dinner side dish, I made a puree with my turnips. The below recipe would work just as well with parsnip or celery root, too. It is good with roast… anything. Or for a major contrast, try it with the vegetarian beet entrée below.

Porcini-Turnip Puree

Serves two as a side dish

2 medium turnips, peeled and cut into rough ¾ inch piece
~ 0.3 oz dried porcini
3 cloves of garlic, cut into thirds
broth to cover; about 2 cups (I used a mix of chicken and the portabella I made here.)

4 Tbs heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
top with chopped parsley (optional)

Boil vegetables in broth until very tender, allowing the majority of the liquid to reduce. Blend or puree. Stir in cream and seasonings. Allow to simmer out liquid, stirring frequently, until reaches desired consistency.

Alternatively, for a soul-satisfying soup, add a cup broth or water. Either way, serve hot.

Beet, It’s What for Dinner

Serves two

2 large red beets

2 Tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, cut in long strips
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
2/3 cups shelled broken walnuts
1 Tbs white wine vinegar
1/2 cup fresh marjoram leaves*

Set oven at 350 degrees.

Boil whole beets for about 35 minutes, until easily sliceable with a knife. Remove from water and cool at room temperature. Peel, quarter and slice ¼ inch wide. Set aside.

Spread walnuts on sprayed pan. Place in oven, for ten minutes or until browned. Set aside.

Sauté onions in oil. When slightly softened, add garlic. Sauté thirty seconds. Add beets. Cook until beets reach desired softness, stirring often. ( I prefer slightly chewier then al dente, about 20 minutes.) Add walnuts. Heat through. Turn off heat. Toss with vinegar and marjoram. Serve with a salty puree.

*It was Deborah Madison who turned me on to the beet/marjoram combo. Boy, was she right!

On Being a Cultivore

2009-04-15T21:46:00.005-04:00

This blog is not about choosing organic. Or eating locally. Or even about eating healthy. (Have you tried your local bacon?!?!?!) Although I am not numb to those side benefits.

Rather, I visit farmers’ markets because I am a cultivore.

I am curious about what I consume. I savor the learning process, just as much as the meal. Because I feel it is impolite to eat strangers.

For every ingredient, I need to know what is its ancestry? Where and how did it grow up? Was it stressed or indulged? (Each has its pluses.) How was it butchered, processed, stored? How do people prepare it, now and in times past? What nutrients does it offer?

And how does this unique history and biology affect its Taste?

With all this curiosity, food from a box, a stubbornly quiet and uniform box, can be quite a let down. It is as if the original food has been orphaned, separated from its own biology, dehydrated and mashed out of recognition. (Did you know Cheerios don’t grow on trees?) I am not against processing. I love to cook, after all. (Processing food may even be what makes us human.) It’s just, well…

It seems impolite to eat strangers.

I am open, friendly and flirtatious with food. I expect reciprocity if the two of us are to commit the ultimate intimate act.

Unfortunately, much of the food industry likes keeping secrets. They want me to believe, all those cans of tomato soup are not only identical, they have nothing to do with dirt. (They sprout on grocery shelves.) Or maybe copywriters just can’t explain ‘thiamine mononitrate’ in the space allotted on a label…

Big ol’ Head of Cabbage

2009-04-14T22:02:00.006-04:00

I love ingredients from the market that last for weeks and weeks. Part of it is, they are so fresh on market day. Even baby greens will last ten days. Of course, they skip the lame cross-county truck ride. Coolly, these veggies simply shake off their soil and hitch the short ride to the big city.

Potatoes, onions and other root vegetables are obvious examples of pantry staples. But a big head of lettuce can also last weeks and star in a number of meals. Here’s what I am making as a side dish tonight:

Creole Cole Slaw
Serves 4 or a very hungry 2

- based VERY loosely on a recipe in the current Bon Appetit (May 2009). Their recipe calls for green cabbage and prepared Creole mustard. I had white cabbage from Phillips Farm in NJ available. White cabbage tends to be tougher than green, so I added a boiling step. And I made my own mustard spread, to save a trip to a, gasp, store.

5 cups heavy white cabbage, cored and sliced thin

Fill a large deep sauce pan with water, salt and bring to a boil (as if you were making pasta). Add cabbage. Boil about twenty minutes until tender but not mushy. (again, as if you were making pasta). Drain in a colander and pour cold water over immediately to stop the cooking process. Refrigerate and make dressing.

Dressing
1 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs ground mustard powder
1 Tbs cider vinegar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon old bay
juice of half a lemon (about 1 Tbs)
¼ cup mayo

Add 1 Tbs mustard to oil in a small boil. Wisk with a fork until smooth. Add the final Tbs of mustard. Wisk again. Add vinegar and wisk. Add seasonings and lemon juice. Wisk. Fold in mayo.

If you would like, mix cooled cabbage with

1 minced red onion (optional) and
½ cup grated carrot (optional).

Dress thoroughly. Chill until ready to serve.

Turkey Sausage

2009-04-13T21:09:00.004-04:00

I mentioned Di Paolo’s turkey sausage before, but I haven’t yet really put him to work. It comes with the casing either on or off. Since the energy needed to tear a casing off and mush up the shape is minimal compared to that required to fill the casing in the first place, I usually ask for the casing on. Ridiculously, it makes me feel like I am getting more for my money. (And, if you count the casing, I am.) Still, when you slice the uncooked meat, the filmy casing will start to unravel. I just pull it off at this point; the shape holds just fine on its own. Of course, if you know in advance what you are making (rarely my position) and it's, say, lasagna, a ragu or turkey sausage burgers, don't bother with the casing.

The sausage has a versatile flavor (garlic, salt, light fennel), which would work with a range of dishes. It could be used with many Mexican, Middle Eastern and European flavor profiles. It would even be good with brunch; try sautéing it with a sliced apple and serving it with a rosemary omelet.

For dinner, here’s one of my recent experiments:

Nicholas Sausage Medley

Serves Two

1 Tbs olive oil
1/3 link turkey sausage, sliced and dusted with nutmeg and paprika
1 yellow onion - sliced thin
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup dry white wine
½ teaspoon ground paprika
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne
1-2 cups diced bell peppers

Wild rice

Heat pan and add oil. When oil resembles water, add sausage. Brown and remove. Saute onion and garlic in same pan. Add wine and scrape up any brown sausage bits. (There won’t be many if using Di Paola’s meat; it is extraordinarily lean.) Add seasonings and peppers. Cook until peppers release their water and reduce down. Add back sausage. Stir and serve with rice.

Jousting with the Dollar: Organic vs. Conventional Farms

2009-04-08T18:37:00.005-04:00

“Can organic cropping systems be as profitable as conventional systems?”

So asked a study recently published in the Agronomy Journal. Researchers followed a range of crop systems in southern Wisconsin for 13 years and concluded that “diversified* systems were more profitable than monocropping**,” said lead researcher Joshua Posner of the University of Wisconsin.

Even when risk premiums were included, diversified farms were more profitable.

The press release closes with the following:

“This study indicates that governmental policy that supports mono-culture systems is outdated and support should be shifted to programs that promote crop rotations and organic farming practices.”

The best part: the research wasn’t funded by Seed Savers or Slow Food but by the US Department of Agriculture.

You can download a copy of the paper for free here until May 6th.

*Diversified: think, smaller plots of land, each with a different crop, and each with a new crop each season; common on most organic farms as it cuts down on the need for artificial fertilizers, etc.

**Monocropping: think, endless rows of, say, corn, season after season; The fuel of big Agri-business.

Photo of a Wisconsin barn by anonymous Dreamstime contributor

Ronnybrook Follow-up

2009-04-07T19:36:00.004-04:00

It’s the ice cream. A little gritty and on the very-sweet side. But the vanilla flavor, at least of the Butter Pecan, comes through strong and clean. It’s the thing to turn to when summer heat has beaten you down, and you need a spoonful of hope. But somehow, I don’t think the carton in our freezer is going to last until August…

photo by Patrick Rolands

Ronnybrook

2009-04-05T16:48:00.003-04:00

Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in Ancramdale, NY. They have been around for more than sixty years. In fact, the mom-and-pop basic goods store on Clinton Street, which has been closed for what looks like a decade, bears their logo. And theirs is one of the busiest stands at Prospect Park (they leave early) and Fort Greene.

Why? The NYT called them the Dom Perignon of Milk, but that was more than fifteen years ago. (It was chocolate milk that was taste-tested in the article; an adult preferred Ronnybrook's, while kids preferred Quik.)

Ronnybrook lost NewYorkFoodVine’s first Milk Off. The non-fat yogurt is watery and clumpy. Way too much whey. The whole milk yogurt is much better, but is extra sour and has a chalky after taste.

If you want the Dom Perignon of Yogurt, try that produced by Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, NY. Even the plain is subtly sweet and it is much less sour than most yogurts. Alas, Hawthorne Valley won’t be selling in Brooklyn again until late spring (Sundays, Carroll Gardens) but rumor has it they are still at Union Square on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Inwood Park on Saturdays (Isham Street between Cooper & Seaman Avenues.)

But back to Ronnybrook. Their butter is ok. It tastes too close to cheese for my taste (I prefer cultured butter) but wasn’t much different than mass-produced butter in flavor. It is most likely better health-wise (mine and the planets), but if taste is my only concern I’ll keep Danish butter as my one guilty pleasure. (Okay, one of many).

To be fair to Ronnybrook, they sell one popular product that I have yet to try. Ice Cream. It must be the ice cream…

photo by Marlena Zagajewska

Hippie or just Hungry?

2009-04-03T15:08:00.005-04:00

I don’t really consider myself crunchy. I don’t own Birkenstock’s. I bathe daily and use artificial deodorant. I don’t smoke weed, I snuggle into slabs of meat (the bloodier the better) and I adore high heels.

But I make my own granola.

Every week.

For a long time, I thought cereal came into the world fully formed inside a Kellogg’s box. That’s where Cheerios grow up, right? I never thought it could be made without the industrial-scale help of factory. Apparently, it’s easy. (Once you’ve got yourself some flattened grains, of course.) It seemed like magic the first time I tried: Cereal! From our kitchen oven!

Now I can’t stop.

The best part is the endless combination of possible flavors: vanilla, hazelnut, coconut, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, any dried fruit, any nut, any juice… And it can be sweetened to taste. It’s just important to keep the ratio of liquid to dry goods about the same (although even that can be forgiving.)

Here’s a recent batch. The cider and dried apples came from Williams Farm in Ulster Park, NY. If you like things on the sweeter side, add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar to the cider or juice.

Farmer Market-infused Granola

4 cups quick cooking oatmeal
¼ cup chopped walnuts
¼ tsp salt
1 - 2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp allspice
1 cup apple cider
1 Tbs peanut oil (canola would work too)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sliced dried apples
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine the first five ingredients in a large bowl. Pour the cider, oil, vanilla and sugar (if using) into a small pot. Bring to boil. Pour over oat mix, in portions, mixing aggressively until entire mix is thoroughly coated. (I like to use my hands once it has cooled a bit.) Oat mix should be just barely moist.

Crumble onto lightly-sprayed jellyroll pans or baking sheets. Bake for about one hour, stirring every 15 minutes, until golden brown. Mix with dried fruit.

It will store in an airtight container for about 2 ½ weeks, although ours never sticks around that long.

dreamstime stock photo by Petar Neyche

First Milk Off Winner

2009-04-01T15:54:00.005-04:00

I promised, months ago, to have a Milk Off – that is, a back-to-back tasting of several milks sold at the greenmarket. I followed through on said promise the next week, carefully noting the flavor profile and texture of Milk Thistle, Ronnybrook and Hudson Valley Fresh – and then I left for Iraq. My notes were brought in tow, as I was fully intending to web-ify the tasting en route but, well, Iraq can be… how to put this… “distracting” and now, drats, I can’t find those notes.

Perhaps I'll use the loss as an excuse to hold another tasting. Especially as my palate is going to need much more education before I can tell the different effects of milk terroir and milk craftsmanship… (Rumor of the day: the foamiest cappuccinos start with cows who eat hay.)

But I can at least announce the results of the NewYorkFoodVine’s first ever Milk Off:

Milk Thistle, the newcomer of the three, was the clear winner.

The dairy cooperative, Hudson Valley Fresh, came in second.

And Ronnybrook, well, it beat the grey supermarket brand.

But don’t just take my word for it. According to TimeOut, discriminating 4 and 5 year-olds liked Milk Thistle best too.

photo copyright

Upper West Side I

2009-03-30T12:36:00.004-04:00

Battled the mist, and ignored the intermittent rain, Sunday to find one of the Upper West Side's many greenmarkets. Despite what the CENYC says, the market is no longer at 77th and Columbus although the flea market at that location was a welcome surprise. I left it laden with horseradish pickles, fresh local mozzarella and chocolate chip cookies. The farmers’ market was only a couple more blocks up Columbus at 79th. Roughly eight tents were braving the cold haze, offering pretzels, produce and potted plants. (The flowers bobbed in the breeze, like bright aliens stuck on a forlorn planet). Grazin’ Angus and Milk Thistle, both from Ghent, NY, were also on hand, although no cheese, yogurt, pork or poultry providers were found. (Dan Gibson of Grazin' Angus Acres was just interviewed about their beef; to listen, go here.)

All in all, I think it was worth the trip, not only because of the market’s proximity to that old-school foodie classic – Zabars (80th and Broadway) – which offered a dozen more yummy things to taste, mostly from farms far far away.

photo by David Anderson

Why "HungryNibbler"?

2009-03-29T17:01:00.006-04:00

Because this blog is about what happens before we eat. Planting, raising, harvesting, viewing, touching, buying, chopping and cooking. Hunger is the drive that inspires all of the above. Today’s hunger, tomorrow’s hunger, next year’s hunger.

And I’m a farm-ophile, but not a farmer (although a girl can dream, right?). While I mostly miss out on the growing and butchering, I embrace the shopping and preparation stages of a meal. Anyone who handles these later stages without tasting and sampling is more disciplined than I. My palate enjoys the education. What does this taste like raw, cooked slightly, cooked thoroughly…

Appetite. Flavor curiousity. HungryNibbler.

Cooking Brain Drain

2009-03-27T10:31:00.006-04:00

A reason for avoiding processed foods, when possible, that has nothing to do with cancer, campaigns or carbon footprints:

“The whole trend of American family cooking, since the 1940s, had been toward faster and easier, and things that were already prepared. It was gradually whittling away the very essence of what it meant to cook dinner for your family.

It’s like the story of the farmer who decided that his mule was eating too much and he gradually fed the mule less and less. And just when he’d trained the mule to live on nothing, the damn mule died on him. That’s kind of what’d happened to American family cooking.”

-David Goines -- known for his Art Nouveau posters (here is the first for Chez Panisse) and for being an early boyfriend, and later collaborator, of Alice Waters -- quoted in The United States of Arugula, by David Kamp.

photo by Dstudio

Parsley's Second Act

2009-03-25T20:14:00.002-04:00

My kitchen’s most perishable item is always my most demanding boss. It breathes down my neck, threatening to wilt or rot if I don’t do something already. As nerve-wracking as this can be, at least this manager, perhaps out of desperation, espouses belief in me.

We always seem to have too much fresh parsley. It comes in a big bunch and a few sprigs get used. This has resulted in a house staple: Parsto!

A simple variation on the basil standby, it can be spread on warm bread, mixed with pasta, brushed on large mushrooms before roasting or, my favorite (not only because it gets rid of two perishable items), blended with leftover cooked rice and served as a dip. It also freezes well, so I usually make as much as I can.

Parsley Pesto

1 cup packed fresh parsley
1 shallot (optional)
3 cloves garlic
3 Tbs walnuts
4 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs white wine vinegar
salt, ground pepper and crushed red pepper to taste

Combine first four ingredients in a food processor. Process until garlic looks like corn meal. Add the liquids and seasonings. Process to mix.

photo by Sefaoncul

From Phish to Farm?

2009-03-24T15:36:00.004-04:00

The Greenhorns is an upcoming documentary, by Severine Von Tscharner Fleming, about young people, going against The Man, by becoming farmers.

Here’s the trailer.

These ‘hipster farmers’ have also been covered by the NYT, the Huffington Post, The Boston Globe and several other notable publications.

The articles are compelling but are these just a few starry eyed hippies, with good PR skills, born in the wrong decade? Or is this a full-fledged movement?

My science background compels me to find the hard numbers behind tales of young faces rescuing ancient seeds. So I countered counterculture rules and turned to, that’s right, The Man.

Any census is going to miss some rural and small-scale operations, but the USDA has been (arguably) doing their best to keep tabs. Here’s some of their data:

Since World War II, the numbers of farms in the US has generally been declining. But between 2002 and 2007, that trend reversed. In five years, 300,000 new farms were created and “these new farms tend to have more diversified production, fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also work off farm,” reports the USDA.

Almost 40% of male farmers under 25, and more than half of those between 25-34, have no inter-generational mentor working along side them. This doesn’t tell us definitively whether or not they were born into the business, but it does suggest that many young people, like Benjamin Shute (formerly of hip-central Williamsburg) and partner Miriam Latzer, are indeed “first-generation farmers.” (Latzer told the NYT, her parents “wonder what planet I am from.”)

Despite an increase in organic farms, New York is one of only a handful of states that has seen a reduction in local farms. Still, the greenhorns are rising. In 1997, there were 156 New Yorkers under the age of 25 running farms. Five years later, there were 228. Among those under 35, the number rose from 1344 to 1874 during the same period. That’s almost a 40% increase.

Now the psych-trained part of me is intrigued. What is drawing young people to this way of life? Added to the process-it-yourself food movement, I have to ask:

Is domesticity the new rebellion?

picture by Niderlander

Flower Children - They're what's for dinner

2009-03-23T21:18:00.007-04:00

I love the over-sized smile of a sunflower just as much as the next gal, but what I found at Fort Greene’s greenmarket one Saturday, has made me all set to start murdering her young. Veal de flower!

Warm Wilted Sunflower Sprout Salad
(serves two)

2 large shallots, chopped
2-4 slices of pancetta, chopped
1 Tbs fennel seeds

6 cups sunflower sprouts

1 cup baby watercress (optional)

Sauté shallots in oil-coated pan. Add pancetta; brown slightly. Add fennel seeds and allow to toast in pan. Stir. Add sprouts; don’t stir. If pan is very dry, cover. Wait for sprouts to wilt ever so slightly. Uncover, stir in watercress. Dish and drizzle with lemon juice or balsamic. Serve immediately.

Sunflower photo by Petr Vaclavek

Obamas to Plant Vegetable Garden on White House Lawn!

2009-03-20T09:11:00.003-04:00

I wonder what that terroir is like!

NYT coverage: The president has promised to help pull weeds.

Map of planned garden, on the south lawn, where the Obama girls can keep watch from their swing set.

illustration by Marincas Andrei

Slow Food Mother

2009-03-18T14:58:00.001-04:00

The philosophy?

“I just was looking for flavor.” (video)

Here, here Ms. Waters!

(Her daughter, featured in the accompanying clip Exclusive: Home Cooking, reminds me of my younger sister: ‘McDonalds French fries??? Eeeew...’)