FOOD ON THE FOOD

Closing Out the ELC

I forgot to show you my last Eat Local Challenge meal of the month: Indian cauliflower and potatoes, ginger-creamed kale, and chicken tikka masala over rice. The rice was not local, but let me remind you that I was not officially doing the Eat Local Challenge this year. Just a scaled-back effort in spirit and solidarity. So although I had my local Baer’s Best barley at the ready to substitute for the rice, I didn’t wanna, and so I didn’t. I have other plans for that barley, which don’t involve pretending that it’s basmati rice.

Also, what you can’t see in the picture is that Husband and I consumed the whole meal while floating on our backs in a swimming pool, trays of food resting on our chests. Because we’re both such excellent swimmers!

Local Sources:

Onions, cauliflower, kale, garlic: Waltham Fields, Waltham, MA

Potatoes: Picadilly Farm, Winchester, NH

Cream: High Lawn Farm, Lee, MA

Butter: Cabot, Cabot, VT

Ginger: Me, Waltham, MA

Chicken: Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA

Yogurt: Liberté, Montréal (technically Canadian, but they use milk from Vermont farms and I LOVE their yogurt)

Something’s Fishy Around Here

The raccoons have been having a field day ever since we joined a community-supported fish co-op (like a CSA, but with fish). A CSF (no, really!).

Somehow the raccoons knew about our first pickup even before we brought the trash out that night, which contained the remains of two haddocks I filleted (butchered is more like it, though sharpened knives and lots of practice have since improved my technique by a small fraction). As I made my way in the dark to the trash cans, I could see 20 pairs of glowing eyes in the bushes. “Don’t get too excited,” I said, as I dropped the bag into the barrel and carefully backed away. “It’s mostly just skin.” Then I sprinted inside before they could shake me down.

Late last night, emboldened by the prospect of pollock and three flounders (where do they get their information?), the raccoons and their extended families were all lined up at the picnic table on our well-lit porch, forks in paws, one of them tapping his watch while looking me dead in the eye. Don’t they know I keep all of the good trash for stock?

Cape Ann Fresh Catch has been doing a brisk business since they started selling shares in their CSF earlier this year. After missing the boat this summer, I signed up for a trial run in October through a partnership they were developing with my CSA (cue shot of boats run aground in the fields, lines tangled up in tomatillo plants, another fisherman pulling up a rabbit).

However, the CSF ran into a snafu with the City of Waltham, which doesn’t allow for traveling vendors. I believe “gypsies” was the term the City used. Nice. Anyway, the fish people had to nix the Waltham location and so they tacked me onto the one already underway at Codman Farm, which was met with furious clapping on my part since that meant I could now combine my fish shopping with my bacon shopping. Now I’m just working on the timing of getting to the late afternoon pickup, bringing the fish home, filleting it, and getting dinner on the table before bedtime. Not easy, but the fish is great.

I like the idea of a CSF for many reasons, not least of which is that I’d rather see smaller, local fishing operations, which have a stake in the condition of the regional marine environment and fish stocks, remain in business. Certainly the large corporations or whoever they are (pirates?) conducting their massive ocean-scouring operations don’t really care about dumb things like that.

As a member of a CSF, you and the local fishermen engage in a risk-sharing arrangement. If the weather is bad and conditions are dangerous, they don’t go out. They catch what is running that day instead of chasing down whatever is going to fetch the highest price. Having customers signed up guarantees a market. In return, you the customer get the freshest possible fish for a very good price and the knowledge that you’re supporting the local economy and an industry that has been historically important in this part of the country for centuries. Have you noticed how hard it is to get local fish around here? Surrounded as we are by ocean? Frankly, it makes no sense.

I’m two weeks into my share. So far, so good. I cook some, and put some in the freezer for the winter. Has anyone else joined? And what do you think?

A Coupla More Local Meals

There have been a few more local meals on our table during this year’s Eat Local Challenge, though none photographed. You lucked out this time.

For lunch on Tuesday, for example, I had eggplant and oregano fritters stuffed with goat cheese and a big salad with radishes and hakurei turnips. The following night, we had pork chops with an apple cider vinegar pan sauce, mashed potatoes, and creamy braised Brussels sprouts with apple crisp for dessert. For another lunch, there was butternut squash, ginger, and Asian pear soup garnished with crumbled goat cheese (and a side of non-local tortilla chips). And just tonight, oven fries and hamburgers topped with havarti cheese and green tomato relish. (The masking tape on the jar of relish says I made it 8/09, though I have no recollection of actually doing it.)

Of course, I could just be making all that shit up and no one would be the wiser. Guess you’ll never really know for sure!

Local Sources:

Eggplant, garlic, lettuce, radishes, turnips, shallots, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, onions, green peppers, green tomatoes: Waltham Fields, Waltham, MA

Goat cheese: Vermont Butter & Cheese Company, Websterville, VT

Eggs: Drumlin Farm, Lincoln, MA

Apple cider vinegar, Asian pears: Carlson Orchards, Harvard, MA

Mustard: Raye’s Mustard, Eastport, ME

Pork chops, hamburgers: Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA

Potatoes: Picadilly Farm, Winchester, NH

Cream: High Lawn Farm, Lee, MA

Butter: Cabot, Cabot, VT

Milk: Our Family Farms of Western Massachusetts, MA

Apples: Autumn Hills Orchard, Groton, MA

Oatmeal: Wood Prairie Farm, Bridgewater, ME

Ginger, oregano: Me!, Waltham, MA

Havarti cheese: Smith's Farmstead, Winchendon, MA

Grape Expectations

We’ve been enjoying fruit from Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton for three seasons now through a partnership they have with local CSAs. The shares consist of mostly apples--different varieties, all delicious--but some weeks you’ll get a few pears or peaches mixed in, a pint of prune plums, or, as we recently received, a bunch of Concord grapes.

The grapes smelled so good, I couldn’t even believe it. I got a little drunk off the heady aroma and started engaging in some grape-related tweeting, mostly about where one might find teeny-tiny dollhouse-sized mason jars to fit the amount of jam I’d be able to make with a single bunch of grapes. Pretty soon, Ann at Autumn Hills was offering to drop more off at my house while making her delivery rounds. I tried not to sound too desperate as we made arrangements.

Later on that day, under cover of darkness, the grape fairy left on my porch five pounds of the most fragrant, sweet, musky grapes this side of Concord. Which made the most fragrant, sweet, delicious grape jam I’ve ever tasted. Seriously, I can’t bring myself to put it on peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut butter wouldn’t know a classy jam if it kicked him in the nuts.

I don’t have a canner or anything snazzy like that. I don’t usually “can” anything officially. I just make enough of whatever it is that can be consumed within two months and then store it in jars in the fridge. But now I’m getting the bug. Blame it on Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen who attended Eugenia Bone’s recent canning class and had the marinated cauliflower to prove it. This other cool canning blog didn’t hurt, either. So, I canned 9 out of the 12 jars of jam, as many as would fit in my pot at one time, and refrigerated the rest.

Looking at the purple jars lined up in my pantry (aka some shelves at the top of the basement stairs), I can’t wait to savor the taste of sweet summer sunshine in between chiseling our way out of our ice house this winter. I’ve already polished off a jar spreading it on my morning toast and mid-morning snack/mid-afternoon snack/dessert of jam/Manchego cheese. This stuff is supernatural.

Next, I’m canning applesauce. You can’t stop me.

Concord Grape Jam

I accidentally bought the pectin for sugar-free recipes instead of the regular kind because reading labels is not my strong suit. It worked perfectly, though. I wouldn’t change a thing.

5 lbs. Concord grapes, plucked from the vine, washed

1 cup water

1 box pectin (not gelatin)

7 cups sugar

Sterilize your jars however you like to do it. I boiled them for 10 minutes in a stock pot, jars resting on their metal rings to keep the glass from rattling horribly on the bottom.

In another large pot, mash grapes, add water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 10 minutes. Let cool a bit, then run through a food mill. Of the three disks that came with the food mill, I used the one with the mid-sized holes, which kept out seeds and skins but kept in a little bit of pulp, not too much. I was left with about 7 cups of grape puree. Return puree to pot, add pectin, and bring to a hard boil. Stir in the sugar, return to a boil, and cook 1 minute longer. Remove from heat.

Ladle into sterilized jars leaving about ½-inch of headspace. Wipe off rims of jars with a damp paper towel. Screw on lids and boil jars for 10 minutes in water covering them by 1 inch. Let cool 24 hours (you should hear the suction pull the metal lids inward with a pop as they cool). If you don’t achieve a good seal or if you want to just skip the canning, store the jars in the refrigerator and give away whatever you won’t be able to eat. Label jars with the date. Makes 12 half-pint jelly jars.

Source: Adapted from The Salted Cod. We did a jam swap last year, so I knew his recipe was a good one.

One Local Meal

Are the leaves unusually spectacular this year or is it just me? Every time I turn a corner, the view is more spectacular than the last. It makes me want to drive around and around, maybe even get out of my car, which is good since this is the season to stock up on farm products while you still can.

I did manage to put together an all-local lunch yesterday in the spirit of the Eat Local Challenge: eggs over-easy atop garlicky kale, pan-fried breakfast sausages from Chestnut Farms, and buttery whole-grain sourdough toast with husk cherry-apple butter. I already had most of it in the house.

It was, admittedly, a little heavy on the protein. In the end, I only ate half the sausage so you don’t have to notify the Cancer Police. Some of the reading I’ve been doing lately is leading me to believe that the only meal that won’t kill me is one that has every last drop of everything I enjoy (meat, dairy, sugar, fat of every kind) sucked out of it. But then, I ask you, what kind of a life is that?

Local Sources:

Sausage: Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA

Eggs: Drumlin Farm, Lincoln, MA

Kale, garlic: Waltham Fields, Waltham, MA

Bread: Nashoba Brook Bakery, Concord, MA

Butter: Mendon Creamery, Mendon, MA

Husk cherry-apple butter: Local sources here

Apple cider: Carlson Orchards, Harvard, MA

It’s That Time of Year, Again

Did you know that the Eat Local Challenge is in October again this year?  How did I not get that memo?  I thought I had conveniently missed it.

As you know, October is my very favorite month for the Eat Local Challenge because it coincides with the winter squash-a-thon that marks the end of the summer and the beginning of our return to the frozen tundra.  Husband and I had to discuss whether or not we would be participating this year:

Him: What do you think?

Me: I don’t know, what’s the quota for crying in any given year?

Him: Maybe we could do it for a week. 

Me: It would have to be one of the non-squash beginning weeks.  Which, according to my calendar, start way too soon. 

Him: Or we could just do an Eat Local side dish.

Me: A side dish?

Him: Yeah.

Me: Pfffft.  That’s not even a challenge.  I could do that with two hands tied behind my…(yawning).  Is it bedtime, yet?

Him: It’s quarter of 6.

Me: Goddamn the hands of time.

I was happy that Husband was so gung-ho about it.  Still, in the interest of not stressing the shit out of myself during what’s supposed to be my recovery period, we’re going to pass this year.  If you’re really depressed about it, you can re-read the posts pertaining to our moderately successful Eat Local Challenge of September 2007 and the train wreck that was the ELC of October 2008.  But I don’t think you’re depressed about it at all. 

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll do a few Eat Local posts next month just for fun.  Who knows?  Maybe even an Eat Local side dish!

Fungus Among Us

It has begun.  My mushroom-growing experiment, that is.  Do you have any idea how fascinating fungus is?  Do you?  I don’t think you do.  Sometime, I’ll have to devote an entire post to the wonder that is the earth’s natural recycling process, as it will just about blow your mind, but right now I have to unburden myself of the pile of neglected posts accumulating on my desktop before they start self-composting.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a sucky gardener.  However, growing mushrooms is the opposite of gardening, and so I’m optimistic that I’ll have tremendous success.  If I’ve learned anything from my past failures, it’s this: diversify.  That way, you can have double (even triple!) the fun, while containing your losses somewhat.  So I’m trying three different strategies in the hopes that one of these will actually grow:

1.  Oyster mushrooms in used coffee grounds;

2.  Shiitakes out of felled logs; and

3.  Morels in my former garden spot with plenty of fireplace and BBQ ash.

Of the three, the third one is absolutely doomed to fail.  Everyone (apparently) knows that morels are impossible to grow and, yet, you can always count on someone like me plopping down a hard-earned twenty to test the odds.  But somebody eventually wins the lottery, right?  You just have to be foolish enough to play.

The oyster mushrooms have the best chance of working.  Why?  Because the patch I bought, which is basically a block of established oyster mushroom spawn in packed sawdust, was already producing mushrooms right inside the package it came in.  I ordered it from Fungi Perfecti, the company run by mushroom guru Paul Stamets who wrote that book I mentioned.  Basically, I just went to the children’s section of his site and bought whatever mushrooms were deemed easy enough for kids to grow.  Because that’s about the level of expertise I bring to the table.  I also got a Mushrooms of the World coloring book.  For myself.  

Here’s what I did to prepare the growing medium for my oyster mushrooms.  Dug a 5-gallon bucket out of the basement and washed it out.  Drilled five or six holes in the bottom.  Ripped up some old pizza boxes and soaked the cardboard in a sink full of water.  Placed the soggy cardboard in the bottom of the bucket.  Dumped Husband’s accumulated coffee grounds on top.  Realized I would need a LOT more than that.  Begged my neighbors for their coffee grounds.  Got a little bit more.  Realized I would have to take drastic action if I hoped to fill up the bucket by spring’s end.  Went to a local coffee shop and asked if they would dump their coffee grounds into my bucket.  They agreed.  (Thanks to Café on the Common on the corner of Main St. and Moody St. in Waltham).  It took about two days to get enough.

Worried that the coffee filters would degrade at a different rate than the grounds, I pulled them out and composted them separately.  I poured water onto the grounds and drained off the excess.  Then, I opened the oyster mushroom spawn.

See?  Mushrooms already.  They look leggy because they had no access to light in the box they came in.  The instructions said to cut off these mushrooms before proceeding.  Then, I broke up the spawn with my hands and mixed it into the coffee grounds, like so.

Now the mushrooms have all kinds of new material to decompose.  Then you compress the whole thing, mist it twice a day with a water sprayer, cover with the humidity tent it came with, and store it outside somewhere with indirect light. 

And now we wait.  It should take about two or three weeks for mushrooms to appear.  Let the betting pool begin.

Next up, shiitakes.  The logs should be ready for action in just a few weeks.