Tradition! July 30, 2008

Try not to break into “Fiddler on the Roof” at this title; however, I’ve spent a lot of time with my family recently, which has me thinking about food traditions. I grew up within the culinary limitations of a southern college town (pork and beer, y’all). My mother learned to cook in New England and Texas as a newlywed, although she grew up in a German Jewish family in northern California. I like to think of her cooking as as home-style regional fusion with a strong German influence.

 

We ate stews, Polish pork chops, pumpernickel bread, and Spanish rice. My mother took me to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings. She made her own bread and pie crust, but claimed she could never make biscuits. I grew up thinking that cake mixes were an abomination, store-bought pie crusts were for the weak, and jar tomato sauce was not mentioned in polite company.

 

(thanks, pickyourown.org!)

All was not blackberry-picking in the mountains for my native food culture, however. For each homemade jar of jam, there was Uncle Ben’s Rice and Campbell’s soup. As I grew up and learned how to eat and cook for myself, I discovered basmati rice, cilantro, and green peppers. I continued going to farmers markets on Saturday mornings and try to make my own pie crust, with varied success.

 

For me, growing up was a process of choosing food cultures to keep and to reject. (If I never eat aspic again, it will be too soon.) Here are a few simple recipes from my mother (below the line).

 

Rhubarb Custard Pie July 28, 2008

[Ed note: This is a guest post from my friend Susan, who is a fabulous baker in the DC area. Follow her recipes and gain many friends.]

(thanks, worldcommunitycookbook.org!)

I’m not local to you folks, but I do have some nice seasonal recipes that you might not have heard of. Rhubarb, the weird red-pink stalk, is out and available now and it isn’t used enough, as far as I’m concerned. It makes a wonderful pie, with sour rhubarb on top of sweet custard. This crust is flaky and pairs really nicely with the filling. It’s worth the trouble:

 

Shocking Laziness July 23, 2008

(thanks, NYT, Peter DaSilva, for photo!)

According to the New York Times, all those people who make masses of money are reverting to the last century: paid kitchen gardeners.  The article claims that there is a trend for rich folk to pay a professional gardener to not just plant a vegetable garden in their backyard, but also to pick the fruits and vegetables and leave them in picturesque baskets on their back porch.

 
My reaction: cheaters!  immediately followed by, well, at least they aren’t spraying awful chemicals on ugly monoculture swaths of grass edged with boring shrubbery.  Nevertheless, I’m a bit concerned the whole physical connection to the land ideal is replaced by a watching your servant muck around in the dirt.

 
Think it pays well? Maybe I’ll become a gardener for the nouveau rich when I grow up…
 

-groundcherry

Weeds. It’s What’s for Dinner July 21, 2008

(thanks, wildliferanger.com!)

What’s a weed?  Everyone who’s ever had so much as a row of radishes knows that weeds are every gardener’s foe.  Weeds—those plants you are not trying to grow—even more than weather, neighbors who burn their brush pile under your black walnut tree, marauding deer, hedgehogs, and rabbits, are always a gardener’s problem.  They appear even if you haven’t had rain in three weeks, you’ve mulched heavily, or if your garden is simply a large mud puddle.  You, as the gardener, then feel guilty for not removing them or else grouchy from having spent 4 hours on your knees pulling them up.  Twice.  In the past week.  How can a gardener stay sane?

 

Unfortunately, a recent New York Times Magazine article kindly pointed out to us that the weeds are only going to get worse with increasing climate change. This does not bode well for gardens in the future, but there is one way to turn this twist of climate to your favor.  Two summers ago, my battle with weeds changed shape.  I started eating them.  If I was going to spend that much time dealing with them, I thought we’d better be getting something from it.  Most people know a few classic weeds are edible, but don’t bother separating them out.  I suggest that you do, particularly early in the season.  Here are a few options:

The Zucchini Wars July 17, 2008

Back when I lived with roommates in JP, we split our local CSA three ways. Usually this worked out very well: when we got only two tomatoes, one roommate would use hers in dahl and the other  would use hers in a sandwich, they kindly saved me the bulk of the arugula (my love for arugula knows no bounds). However, in mid July we sometimes fought over zucchini. We got a lot of zucchini and there are only so many ways three women can eat zucchini. We began to keep track. Tempers ran high.
      “I used two last week, it’s your turn!” said one roommate out of frustration one day.
      “Don’t look at me” I said “I put zucchini in my stir fry yesterday.”

 

(thanks, vegetarianceliac.blogspot.com)

When you start quantifying zucchini consumption, you know you have problems. I made spaghetti sauce with some one week and felt virtuous, but there were still five left in the refrigerator drawer. One roommate made chilled curried zucchini soup. She used three zucchinis, but none of us loved the recipe. I sliced a fourth one very thin for sandwiches (fresh mozzarella, herbs, vinaigrette, and thinly sliced zucchini is surprisingly good). That lasted all week. One zucchini to go and then it was Saturday when we picked up our CSA share and got six more zucchinis. Our household survived zucchini season intact, but after it was over, none of us voluntarily brought zucchini into the house until late February.

 

Zucchini grows well on the North Shore too. My neighbor just gave me a zucchini the size of my arm. What will I do with it? Zucchini fritters? Stuffed zucchini? I’ll let you know.

 

-goldlentil

Eating Local on the Road July 15, 2008

photo by no egrets

I just want to give a quick shout out to the Mass Pike farmers’ market program. I’ve been on the road a lot recently, eating lots of local food from barbeque to bagels, and Sunday night I was speeding toward the North Shore, looking forward to being home, but also thinking about my empty refrigerator, knowing I was way too tired (and cranky) to deal with the Big Chain Republican Grocery Store near my house. However, at the Lee service plaza, I found a farmers’ market and was able to buy fresh corn, tomatoes, zucchini, and squash. I came home across the river and made a beautiful Massachusetts-grown tomato sauce with zucchini, adding rosemary and thyme from my (very happy) garden.

 

-goldlentil

Not in My Cookies! July 14, 2008

(thanks, theperfectpantry.com!)

Flour was a staple of my childhood—huge bags of whole wheat organic bread flour were almost always in the center of the kitchen. It was vital, literally the base of our diet, but also invisible because it was so available and familiar. Unlike the seasonal apples or the labor–intensive black walnuts, flour was a given that required no work and was always there. I didn’t even think about it until well into college, when I had one obsessive vegan in my life, which meant that there were fewer titillating topics at 3 am other than flour + fake butter + tofu (organic & local) + peanut butter (organic) + maple syrup (local) = ethical anti-establishment cookies.

 

What establishment? you ask. Well, to begin with, the industrial food complex, the corporitization of food, agribusiness, consolidation, vertical/horizontal integration, transnational takeovers… To most localvore types, these phrases sound dangerous, cues that our food system has moved far from the place where it was 200, 100, and even 50 years ago. Some of the structural changes have benefited society. More have not. Today I offer a superficial look at a few structural issues seen through my ethical adventures in buying flour.

 

Enjoying Beets July 8, 2008

Katherine’s Raw Beet Slaw

A few years ago I spent a month at an artist’s colony, where, on Sunday nights, all the writers and artists would cook together. The administrator of the program made a raw beet slaw, telling us that no matter how we felt about beets, we would all like it. And we all did.

 

(thanks, tinyfarmblog!)

The Slaw

Finely shred two to three of your beautiful CSA beets until your fingers are tired and stained red. Then shred of slice very finely half a head of cabbage, a small onion, a pepper, and as many carrots as you have wilting in the bottom of your refridgerator. Add a bunch of parsley or cilantro. Mix together, wash your hands, and make the vinaigrette.

 

 

The Vinaigrette

1 clove of garlic (or more) mashed and diced

1/2 tsp cumin (if you used the cilantro)

1/2 tsp oregano (if you used the parsley)

1/4 cup cider vinegar or lemon juice

3/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

 

Pour the vinaigrette into the slaw and mix. Put in the refrigerator for a few hours to let the flavors get to know each other.

 

Thierry’s Favorite Beet Salad

My brother-in-law is French and this is his favorite salad. Are you going to argue with a Frenchman about food?

 

Boil a bunch of baby beets until tender (this takes a long time, don’t get discouraged, but make sure to start cooking before you are hungry). Remove from the water and let cool.

 

While the beets are cooling, prepare a nice bed of CSA Arugula or other spicy lettuces. Crisp up a few slices of Haloumi cheese in your favorite olive oil. Drain on a clean rag or paper towel.

 

Once everything has cooled, slip the skin off the beets and place them whole or sliced on the lettuce. Garnished with dry-roasted walnuts or pine nuts, the Hauloumi, and red onion slices.

 

Make a vinaigrette using 1 part orange juice (with zest if you’re using a real orange) to 2 parts olive oil. Add homemade croutons and dress.

 

 

-goldlentil

Two Easy Ways to Cook Fresh Greens July 4, 2008

So, you’ve got a bunch—no pun intended—of local greens and you’re wondering how to cook with them. These suggestions are for hardier greens, like arugula, spinach, bok choy, and other Asian greens (not lettuce).

 

Chop up your greens (say, a couple of handfuls per person) and sauté them in olive oil and garlic for a few minutes until softened. Add to an omelet with some pecorino or parmesean cheese.

 

Do the same as above, but after sautéing for a minute or two, add a little chicken stock, cover the pot, and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, until only a little stock remains. Add greens and stock mixture to cooked pasta, top with fresh parsley and freshly grated cheese. Yum! (You might add some local tomatoes, freshly chopped, to this summer pasta dish.)

(thanks, veggie gardening tips, for the photo)

 

-cara

Becoming Local July 3, 2008

When the weather and workload allow it, Cara and I walk around the pond on our lunch break. We began this habit early this March, after what felt like a long cold imprisonment inside. We kept a close eye on the bare branches and iced-over pond, looking for the first stirrings of thaw and then spring.

 

One day in April we saw a narrow white question mark across the water—the distinctive silhouette of a heron. Last year I had seen both white herons and a great blue heron, but this year, it seemed the pond played host only to white ones. There were three of these solitary hunters standing out against the far dark shore. The turtles came out to sun themselves on the log. We could see up to ten turtles of all sizes, and ages, lined on the log in the far corner of the pond. Red-wing blackbirds flew overhead. We once saw an oriole.

 

Cara reported our daily heron and turtle count to one of our coworkers, who is native to Essex. “There are no herons around here, they must be egrets!” she told us. Cara grew up in southern New Hampshire and I grew up in Virginia. We hurriedly corrected ourselves, sure that we just weren’t local enough to know. A few weeks later I got into a conversation with a man on my street who is a birder. He said that he sees herons all over the place. Although he is originally from Maine, he has lived in Beverly for forty years. Who are we to believe?