Life Begins at 30

Chantenay Carrots, Marin Roots Farm

I realize that in my list I said I would do a post a day for 30 days.  But friends, I am so dang tired.  It's been a very long week, but pretty satisfying in general.

I "had" to go to the San Rafael Farmers Market this morning.  I post about Bay Area farmers markets on Serious Eats about once a month, and I realized that I hadn't been to a market in a couple weeks.  I needed some fodder for my post this upcoming Monday.

So off I went.  I spied these lovely carrots at Marin Roots Farm.  I am pretty sure that the carrots on the left are chantenay, but I like to call them Mr. McGregor's carrots.

I hope you can get to a market sometime soon, it's a fantastic time of year to be there.

An unabashed attempt to lure you back

A few friends of mine have left the Bay Area this year, or are in the process of leaving for greener different pastures.  You know exactly who you are.  I only have one thing to say:  Joe's dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes are back for the season.  Come home!

On the Eat Local Challenge, Rain and Chickens

I want to start this post by talking for a moment about the Eat Local Challenge.  You will be getting more information in the next few days, but just a reminder that it's in May.  As in 12 days from now.  We have had a ton of interest, both here and on the Locavores site, and I am very excited to be trying this out in the springtime.  To brush up on the Eat Local Challenge, see the announcement post from last August.  The challenge will basically be the same this year.  You set your rules, and do what you can during the month to consume as many locally-grown products as possible.  For a great summary of the challenge, please see Jamie's post on 10 Signs Like This.

May in San Francisco is usually the time of spring peas, strawberries, fava beans, and cherries.  Due to this years incredible rains, however, none of us are too sure what we are going to be eating in May.  I am still getting Red Russian kale and butternut squash from my CSA, so it's anyone's guess.  I wrote a post today for Bay Area Bites that I'd ask you to read if you care about farmers and what this season is doing to their crops.  Short end of the story: It doesn't look great, and no one is sure how bad things are yet.  We should all do what we can to support our local farmers during this time.

Switching gears a little, you may have visited the site of Patrick and Holly called Letter from Hen Waller.  I have it linked on my blogroll there on the left.  I first started reading their blog a while back when they were living in Berkeley.  They are dedicated to reducing their ecological footprint, and do this by growing their own food, biking as many places as possible, and raising chickens for eggs and meat.  Add to this the fact that they are both compelling writers, and you can understand why they have one of my favorite sites out there.

Patrick and Holly moved to Portland in the past six months, and I've been enjoying reading about their new adventures there.  Holly wrote a great post this weekend describing their trials and tribulations with trying to get a permit to raise chickens (in Portland you can have three without a permit, but more than that and you have to apply for a permit and notify your neighbors).  They were met with some stiff opposition from their neighbors and really had to consider whether this was worth the fight.  They decided to do anything they could:

We choose to raise chickens in the city as a part of our convictions. We raise them to deepen our connection with the natural world, by practicing animal husbandry. We raise them to enjoy nutritious wonderful eggs from chickens raised in a good, healthy environment, in the sun, hormone- and antibiotic-free. We raise chickens to help maintain breeds of birds that are not raised in factories, so that when, inevitably, disease devastates the factory breeds, some hardier breeds will survive, to provide stock for meat and eggs for all people. We raise chickens to create a more integrated environment on the land we occupy, using animal fertilizer, not petroleum-based inputs, to grow food that we eat, and the plants that make a space beautiful and healthy to live in.

We believe that we can no longer afford to live in a strictly ornamental world, and cannot continue to be an increasingly flaccid and parasitical people. We live in a world of increasing social and economic crises that promise only to become worse with the accumulating impacts of global warming and peak oil. Patrick and I have chosen to live in a way that reduces our ecological footprint, wherein we seek to live as locally as we can. We support local food producers. We live our lives within a radius that we can cover by bicycle. And through raising chickens and gardening the small amount of food we do, we seek to learn and develop once-common skills, and to reconnect with the plants and animals that nourish us.

To read the rest of the very interesting and inspiring and also quite sad story, visit Letter from Hen Waller.

Community Supported Agriculture, Week 17

Once we are adults, there seem to be fewer and fewer things that wholly change the course of one's eating habits.  I have had some people tell me in the past that the issue of food politics, where our food comes from, and supporting small farms, is best taught to youngsters because adults are too "far gone" to really change on a fundamental level.  I am convinced that a huge exception to this rule is community supported agriculture (CSA) and what it can teach us.

In November, we joined a CSA for the first time.  After a lot of research, we decided to subscribe to Eatwell Farm's weekly box.  I have known Nigel Walker, the farmer, for a few years and knew that we would be in good hands with his CSA.  Eatwell Farm is a certified organic farm located 68 miles from San Francisco with a CSA program that is in it's 10th year.

This week, we received our 17th box.  I can say that without a doubt, subscribing to a CSA has completely changed the way we eat.  Our meals at home are now much more reactive than proactive, but in only the best sense of the term.  Instead of doing the work to decide what's at the peak of the season ("I know there are oranges at the market right now, but aren't they almost at the end of the season?  Are they still sweet?  Where are those tomatoes coming from?  How were they grown?"), and what is from our local foodshed, we pick up a box of fruits and vegetables that the farmer has decided he wants us to have because they represent the best that his farm has to offer that week.

One argument that I have heard against joining a CSA is that "I love shopping at farmers' markets each week."  I love shopping at the markets too, and still do.  CSA membership and market shopping go hand in hand, but instead of lugging all the essentials home I use the market to append to what I already have.  I find the market to be a much more pleasant experience when I know that I have the basics at home already. 

Each week in our box, we receive a newsletter from the farm that talks about the week and anything that is going on at the farm.  This type of communication puts me in touch with my food in a way that I have never been connected before.  At the very beginning of the year when we had terrible storms in the Bay Area, we received a newsletter talking about the damage done to the farm (power out, damage to the power source), and the reasons why Eatwell Farm fared so much better than some (the quality of the soil absorbed the rain correctly) -- all things that I may have been able to find out at the farmers' market if I asked the correct questions and if the farmer had time to talk with me.

I still have the note from that week on our refrigerator:

We do not have running water on the farm due to the weekend storms.  Your vegetables are unwashed today and quite muddy.  Instead of lettuce, you have organic walnuts from Dixon Ridge Farms.  You may have a butternut squash instead of sweet potatoes.  We were also not able to wash eggs.  You will receive double eggs with your next box.  Thanks for your understanding.

So much about this note makes me smile.  The fact that there are so many changes to the box, the fact that they substituted lettuce with walnuts (because they're so similar), and fact that the note reminds me of how muddy the food was that week.  I received one item in a plastic bag and I literally had no idea what it was until I washed and washed for about two minutes - to finally find a watermelon radish in a huge clump of mud.  Jason and I were fascinated because we had never seen mud with such a clay-like consistency.  We actually ended up calling Nigel on the way to Sacramento one day to see if we could go see the farm after the storm.  "It's not in very good shape," he replied, but I persisted that we wanted to see it during the winter, and he acquiesced.  The pictures that you see in this post were from that day, and as you can see the farm was gorgeous and in amazing shape. 

As we have turned into a CSA household, I find myself really embracing certain books and cooking methods more than ever:

* In most of his books, Mark Bittman recommends a method of cooking greens that involve heating a small amount of oil in a pan, sauteeing greens for 2 or three minutes over high heat, then adding spices and chicken stock (about a cup for a pound of veggies) and cooking a few more minutes (I usually cover, but it depends on the vegetable).  The beauty of this recipe is how many variations there are of it.  You can cook it with peanut oil, ginger, and a bit of soy sauce for an Asian influenced dish, or with olive oil and red peppers for a more Italian dish.  I have used this cooking method with broccoli, cabbage, spinach, tatsoi, chard, kale, and brussels sprouts. 

* To support our new CSA food routine, I stock large amounts of brown rice, beans, lentils and baked smoked tofu to give us proteins and help round out a meal featuring our CSA veggies.

* Any time you we have root vegetables that we are stumped by, we roast them.  You can try this with one or many types of root veggies combined together.  I dice them all into same-sized cubes, add a small amount of olive oil and salt, then roast them in the oven at 400 degrees.  The amount of time depends on the size of the dice, but it usually takes about 30 minutes.  I have tried this on different combinations of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, rutabagas, and turnips.  The roasting adds a dimension of flavor that is wonderful by itself or added to a dish such as soup, rice dishes, or pastas.

* Elizabeth Schneider's book Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference has proven to be a very valuable resource when I get something in the box that I haven't used much before.  While I have bought turnips for specific recipes, I have never had turnips in the fridge and wondered what to do with them.  Same goes for rutabagas.  This book helped me with both veggies, and gives me new ideas for familiar vegetables as well.

We recently resubscribed for another 13 weeks, and I have some goals for this next term of the CSA:

* I plan on using the CSA box when entertaining as well as in every day cooking.  At the moment, I am still depending on recipes and menus when friends come for dinner, instead of letting the box dictate what we'll have. 

* I plan on starting to put vegetables "up" for the May Eat Local Challenge, and for out of season use.  We often think of that in the summer, but I wouldn't mind saving some of my spring and winter vegetables as well.

* I need to revamp our kitchen area in order to give myself a good cool, dark place to store our root vegetables and other long-term storage items.  Right now, most items go into the fridge or are put on a table, neither of which is an ideal solution.

While I think that Eatwell Farm is an exceptional CSA to belong to and a great fit for us, I would encourage you to look into joining any CSA near you.  It's an amazing way to get local food easily, feel more connected to your food than ever before, and to support small local farmers who work so hard at providing food for the community.

***

 

If you live in the Bay Area, this post I wrote for Bay Area Bites gives a good overview of local CSA's.

Photo credit: Flourphoto

Eating Local in November

This is our eat-local dinner from last night.

Butternut Squash (Eatwell Farm) roasted with salt, pepper, brown sugar and a dab of olive oil.

Scarlet Runner Beans (Rancho Gordo) sauteed with shallot, spinach, and tomato (Eatwell Farm)

Rosie chicken breast with black sesame seeds (Full Belly Farm) - marinated with soy sauce, ginger, and garlic.

Yes, you just read that right ... I had a local, organic, non hot-housed tomato in November.  Eatwell Farm is still providing a few in their CSA boxes.  The one I used last night in the spinach was delicious. 

I finally joined Eatwell Farms' CSA program.  For years, I had gone back and forth about a CSA, feeling as though I still wanted to be able to go to farmers' markets and choose my own produce.  The main reasons I decided to join are:

1) price.  I believe we are going to spend less money on the CSA box than we usually do for our produce.  We pre-purchased 13 weeks of the basket and are spending $19.50 a week.

2) convenience.  My real epiphany came about a month ago when I was struggling to carry home several bags of food from the farmers' market.  It is a lot to purchase all the produce for a high veggie-eating household at the farmers' market on any given weekend.  This way, I am hoping that I will still go to the market and be able to focus on purchasing specialty items instead of all the basics.

3) support of the farm and the CSA concept.  Of all the farms that are out there, I have the closest personal connection with Eatwell Farm, and I know that the CSA program is a great way to be a consistent supporter of any farm's work.  While farmers love and are thrilled with support at a farmers' market, dollars received as a part of a CSA subscription have additional value in that they are dollars that are pre-paid, consistent and can be counted on when the farm is making plans upgrades or large purchases.

I will keep you apprised of how I do on the CSA program, and let you know what I am receiving in my box.  If you would like to read more about local CSA programs, you can read my wrap-up which was written for Bay Area Bites.

My most recent post for Bay Area Bites was posted today entitled "Noshing through West Marin County".  You can always check the most recent posts I have done by checking column to the right of this post entitled "I write for KQED's Bay Area Bites".

Not Chutzpah, it's Hutspot!

Earlier this week, I posted about a dish that Jason made called "Chutzpah".  Well, I received an email from his mom after posting that said "No, not Chutzpah, it's Hutspot!".  This is a dish that Jason remembered from being a child, and by the time he told me (and I wrote it down) I heard Chutzpah.

"Hutspot" is a traditional Dutch dish -- according to Jason's mom, "The Dutch word is 'hutspot' meaning
'cottage pot.' The English version of it is 'hotchpotch' or 'hodgepodge.'"  Hutspot is usually served as mashed vegetables (potatoes, carrot, kale, cabbage, escarole, onion, or some mixture - you might remember that we used pumpkin too) along with a piece of meat such as smoked sausage, corned beef, or boiled beef).

So now we all know that it's hutspot -- not chutzpah and I will change the earlier post to set the record straight.

But I think in our household we will still call it chutzpah!

Hutspot in Sunset magazine
Hutspot - Food Network Recipe

Halloween and Chutzpah Hutspot

Editor note: This post has been changed from it's original as I mistakenly thought the dish was called Chutzpah.  You can read more about this misunderstanding here.

Feeling particularly pumpkin-y last night, I cooked up a beautiful little blue-tinged pumpkin that I bought a few weeks ago at the Healdsburg Farmer's Market.  As has already been established, I am not particularly adept at cooking pumpkins and squashes, so steamed up half for dinner and roasted the other half to make puree for bread or pie. 

In debating what to do with the steamed pumpkin, Jason asked "Why don't we make hutspot?" 

"Hutspot?" I asked.  "Never heard of it."

He explained that it was a dish that his parents made when he was young, and that it usually contained mashed vegetables and butter, and sometimes sauerkraut.  Modifying that to remove the butter, we put chicken broth, potatoes, pumpkin, and carrots in the pressure cooker for 30 minutes, took it out and mashed.  And what did we get?  Hutspot!

It was delicious -- I think it's one of those dishes that really shows off the quality of the ingredients.  We had used some outstanding carrots, and the other ingredients were impeccable as well.  I am looking forward to trying to make up some chutzpah cakes with the mash this evening.

I served the hutspot with scallops and spinach, as you can see to the left.

Seasonal Produce Report, Week 42 2005

I am doing a report whenever I can of the produce that I brought home for the week from the farmer's market, along with a couple notes about what's going on at the market.  Rather than trying to be a comprehensive report of what's in season, it will just be a diary of my personal purchases.  I am going to track this by week of the year so that it will be easy to compare over the years.

I went to the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market this morning alone and ended up bringing home much more produce than I had planned to.  The season has definitely changed, and as you can see from the produce, we are squarely in Autumn.

In Janet Fletcher's book Fresh from the Farmer's Market, she recommends buying something from the farmers' markets that you have never tried before -- she doesn't recommend going overboard, but one thing each time you go will help you in adding new fruits and vegetables to your diet.  This week, my new product was pineapple guava, or feijoa, from Brokaw Nursery.  You can see them in the picture above on the lefthand side -- they look like avocados.

I am thrilled to see the pomegranates in season.  I had seen them a few weeks back, but held out for this week, as the pomegranates seemed so much riper.  I look for a stand that has quite a few cracked pomegranates to tell me that they are ripe -- I don't know how scientific that is, but it works for me.

Today I bought:

*butternut squash - Eatwell Farm
*leeks - Eatwell Farm
*broccoli di cicco - Mariquita Farm
*thyme - Mariquita farm
*bok choy - Heirloom Organics
*fennel - Heirloom Organics
*potatoes - Little Organic Farm
pomegranates - Balakian Farm
pineapple guava - Brokaw Nursery
*carrots - Tierra Vegetables
lemons - Paradez Farm

* = farms within 100 miles of San Francisco.

photo credit: flourphoto

Seasonal Produce Report, Week 38 2005

I am doing a report whenever I can of the produce that I brought home for the week from the farmer's market, along with a couple notes about what's going on at the market.  Rather than trying to be a comprehensive report of what's in season, it will just be a diary of my personal purchases.  I am going to track this by week of the year so that it will be easy to compare over the years.

It was a two-market week.  Ferry Plaza on Saturday and Berkeley Farmer's Market on Tuesday.  We had lots of family in town this past weekend, so our trip the the Ferry Plaza FM was much more socializing than actual purchasing.  I ran over to Berkeley a couple days later for a few more purchases to round out my week.

One of my addictions this summer has been Happy Quail Farm's sweet Mediterranean cucumbers.  They are easy to overlook as this booth has so many beautiful and eye-catching peppers, but seek them out.  They are very small and thin with a thin, edible skin.  My favorite way to eat them is sliced thin with salt and sesame oil.

Ferry Plaza FM (Saturday)
dry farmed early girl tomatoes - Ella Bella
sweet Mediterranean cucumbers - Happy Quail Farm
eggplant - The Peach Farm
corn tortillas - Rancho Gordo
small white carrots - Heirloom Organics
watermelon radish - Heirloom Organics

Berkeley FM (Tuesday)
avocadoes - Brokaw Farm
zuchinni - Full Belly Farm
fresh black-eyed peas - Tip Top Produce
dried wakame + seaweed snacks - Sea Breeze Sea Vegetables
shallots - Tip Top Produce
limes - Guru Ram Das Orchards
fresh tofu - Basic Soy

Seasonal Produce Report, Week 37 2005

I am starting a new feature here at Life Begins at 30 -- a report whenever I can of the produce that I brought home for the week from the farmer's market, along with a couple notes about what's going on at the market.  Rather than trying to be a comprehensive report of what's in season, it will just be a diary of my personal purchases.  I am going to track this by week of the year so that it will be easy to compare over the years.

Today's report:

This week we went to the Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market.  This market is in the height of it's high season ... a crush of people, but who could stay away with fantastic weather and a huge abundance of produce?  Granted, we didn't get to the market until the late time of 10.30, so it's our fault we were there with the crowds.

I have never seen, much less purchased, fresh cannelini beans - so when I saw them at Dirty Girl Produce, I had to fill up a bag.  I have yet to try them, but hopefully a report will come later this week.  Ella Bella's produce continues to really shine -- we have had the most amazing summer squash from them this year (there is a small, dark green, round squash that they have that is amazingly sweet) -- so I purchased my tomatoes there this week.

As I mentioned last week, my favorite tomatoes, hands down are the New Zealand Pink Paste tomatoes from Eatwell.  Unfortunately, get them while you can -- I have been told that the seed is not being sold, so Eatwell is doing everything they can to save their own seeds, but they really have very few of these beauties.

Since the Eat Local Challenge was over, I bee-lined for Brokaw's avocadoes and Rancho Gordo's tortillas.

Jason bought some random tomatoes and such purely for photographing.  He is doing some fun food photography right now -- check out these beauties.

baby shitake mushrooms - Far West Fungi
watermelon radish - Heirloom Organics
dry farmed early girl tomatoes - Ella Bella
small round brown skin potatoes - Little Organic Farm
charentais melon - Lagier Ranch
avocadoes - haas + reed - Brokaw Nursery
walnuts - Short Night Farm
dried garbanzos - Short Night Farm
fresh cannelini beans - Dirty Girl
lemon verbena - Eatwell Farm
spinach - Heirloom Organics
sage - Eatwell Farm
eureka lemons - Brokaw Nursery
heirloom cherry tomatoes - Eatwell Farm
tomatillos - Eatwell Farm
corn tortillas - Rancho Gordo