Skates, pink bicycles and lettuce

My first pick up day for my CSA and I am unreasonably excited.  Trolling the produce aisle in the grocery has become depressing - too many things I make too many times or things strange to me I don't know their names or how to prepare them.  My family is a little gun-shy when I try unfamiliar vegetables given the celeriac root sauce I made one late autumn.  It was vile but they lovingly choked it down anyway.  Now they wince when alien food shows up on the plate.  We have one family rule I have never wavered from - "You have to at least try it."  This applies to more than just dinnertime but it's the only time they cringe.  So I knew there would be no wincing for dinner last night as we would have farm fresh familiar produce dished up in some ingenious way filling our plates and bellies.  Boy was I wrong.  As I arrive at River Crest Farm on a spectacularly sunny Thursday, I spy an adorable pink retro bicycle with an oversize basket affixed to the front jauntily cradling a riotous bunch of fresh flowers - something straight out of a travel brochure for Martha's Vineyard.  "That must be Betsy's bike, my CSA buddy," I think to myself.   I open the creaky back door to the chilled wooden hut reserved especially for CSA members picking up their bounty.  Inside are a few shelves filled with small bunches of green things - but I'm not entirely sure what those green things are.  I make out some rosemary and lettuce- familiar garden fare.  Beside the giant, oversize scallions is what appears to be some curly green roping of some sort and beside that some fresh garlic bulbs.  Next are what appear to be radishes but these are pink and very long - not the cheerfully round and red variety I'm used to.  What do I do with this strange collection of horticulture?  I'm seeing a salad in my future but once again, not much else.  Maria tells me the green ropes are called skates - the long curly tops of the garlic root.  "Ah, I see, aaaaaannd what exactly do I do with them,"  I ask.  "Steam," she says.  "Just a little steam and some salt."  I'm guessing it's something everyone is going to have to eat even if only in self defense (bad breath).  Since I'm sharing my CSA with Betsy the garlic root has to be cut in half which makes for a very pungent ride home but inspires me to whip up a quick pesto with the garlic, radish greens and a little lemon - yum!  That's going straight on a pile of steaming pasta for dinner tonight - along with that fresh salad I'll be using everything else for save the rosemary - we'll use that for a loaf of fresh baked bread.  Great.  Now that tonight's dinner is taken care of and my next CSA pick up is next Thursday - what about the rest of the week?  Sigh - time for a run to Trader Joe's.  I always get good inspiration there.

A barrel of monkey wrenches

Funny thing about monkey wrenches - you never know what they're going to do or when life is going to throw one your way.  After spending so much time organizing, planning, cleaning, researching, clearing, planting and eating - it seems we may be relocating this summer to another state.  Sooooo what does that mean for my garden and all my prep work?  Do I leave it for the next owner to cultivate or not - do I continue to spend time and money nurturing and growing food for someone else to harvest?  The past few weeks have taken me away from my computer and this blog to  rather clean, prep, repair, paint and stage my house.  As any homeowner can tell you, one little thing leads to the next - a never-ending supply of fix-its to be done.  As my garden grows and the weeds get higher than the vegetable plants, my efforts to clean up our plates has gone back to the grocery store variety organics.  My CSA is not open yet (but soon!) and farmers markets and farm stands definitely have more to offer these days than just a short month ago.  So what's a girl to do?  I've spent so much time setting myself up for home grown harvest throughout the year it would be a shame to waste my efforts and not continue whether the new owners are gardeners or not.  I figure I'm going to count my successes thus far and plan to start again in our new space when that happens - sort of cross that bridge when I get to it instead of trying to cross an imaginary one now.  I've pared down my grocery bill by buying fresh every few days and planning ahead for the number of eaters I can expect at the table.  Sometimes that changes so I swap one night's plan for another which seems to be working pretty well.  Fewer left overs unless I want them, fewer things going in the trash and the compost bin.  Having to keep the house tip top for showings sucks a lot of my time otherwise used for tending the garden and the fridge but I found just as I had with the garden that an ounce of planning was worth a pound of catching up - once the major work is done the maintenance is much easier.  Attacking those weeds now that the house doesn't need as much of my attention is going to be a big task - some of those suckers scare me! - but I figure it'll be worth it as much of my produce will start to bear soon. 

We're already getting bowfuls of juicy strawberries we've managed to keep from the birds and old man Aldo continues to be a source of inspiration with all the tempting things thriving just over the fence.  My flower beds are in full bloom - heady with the scent of my earlier labors - hopefully I'll see those tomatoes before I hit the road for Jersey!

Fast and Furious

It's no less than an addiction - the sugar, the processed foods, the packaged convenience.  Impossible to get away from completely because we are surrounded by it - even bombarded by it in our daily lives.  Getting off the convenient food habit is like chewing off an arm or a leg - you're left feeling disabled once you've jettisoned the offending appendage.  There's a huge hole left in my normal habits - my instinct of reaching into the cabinet as opposed to into the garden or fridge.  Besides that, I forgot to make dinner last night.  What?!?  Yes.  I truly forgot to make dinner last night and roused my 8 year old out of bed at 9:30 to fork down some quickly boiled pasta with jarred sauce.  We spent the day browsing locations and properties for our new home.  A quick breakfast in the morning, then lunch on the run which was surprisingly yummy and healthy.  In our travels we found an adorable little cafe/market that had fresh homemade, organic soups and sandwiches not a stone's throw from our new potential domicile.  A long drive home had us scurrying to finish up the end of day tasks, feeding pets, watering plants, checking gardens and consulting the plan for the next day.  After that, the computer drew my attention away from the moment for more house hunting research until I suddenly realized it was bed time - packed up the kid with a swish of the toothbrush, a moment on the potty and into bed it was.  90 minutes later to my horror I realized why I felt so hungry.  Now what?  I've got plenty of fresh, organic produce and other ingredients available but what can I make fast.  The answer was frozen ravioli furiously boiled and a splash of Prego.  Oy.  Back to square one - again??  What is this like the third or - gulp - the fourth time I find myself back at the starting gate?  They're not kidding when they say old habits are hard to break.  The answer is staying vigilant.  There will never be a moment when it runs like a machine.  Sourcing and providing good nutrition to myself and my family will always be a daily focus - forever.  I can't let my guard down or suspend my attention to it for even a moment because there will always be another meal on the horizon - and then another and another.  Eating to live and living to eat are the same thing.  Keep it nutritious and toxin free but also keep it interesting and delicious.  I'll admit I'm tired of the planning, the prepping, the cooking, the cleaning. 

This, however, is the moment that separates the men from the boys, the culinary enlightened from the food zombies.  I will continue to make the grade and build my foundation - I will keep rising from the ashes of my failures - I will do the work.  But seriously, can someone else make dinner for once?

Crying doesn't help.

I've been on the move again in the past week which definitely seems to be the more difficult hurdle when it comes to keeping vigilant about sourcing food.  We had a packed schedule filled with mostly driving.  Staying on track with my menu plan was impossible and when dinner is either take-out or a big family gathering, I have little if no control over the quality of the ingredients.  I may have been cooking but didn't do the shopping.  I may have been eating but didn't do the ordering.  If you were to ask, I'm not sure I could even remember what I ate this past weekend.  While it was all healthy enough in terms of nourishment - whether or not it was local, organic or even fresh - who knows?  It all made me a bit uneasy somehow - if not queasy.  Back home and back on track I feel better.  With the extensive planning and organizing I've already done, it was very easy to slide right back into ritual.  The only issue right now is my personal penchant for spontaneity.  It feels ho-hum somehow to plan every meal for a week and stick to it.  Where's the thrill of chaos at mealtime?  Where's the I-don't-care, throw caution to the wind reflex of culinary excitement?  Watching my cooking shows is great for inspiration as long as that inspiration is in season.  I'm finding it hard to wait for that season to come along.   I received an email from my CSA farm talking about what they've been planting and when things will become available.  Looks like June.  Geeeez - this time around Spring is beginning to feel longer than the warm sleepy summers when I was ten years old that felt as if they stretched out in front of you forever.  I've been thinking about all the bounty of the coming summer and I can hardly wait for all the food - as if I've been starving myself on what I can forage along the stream bed out back.  Truth is, I've filled in aplenty with items not considered local or in season because what else can I do until I've got a year of this under my belt and I've prepared for a long winter and spring?  I can't let my family perish like those early Pilgrims in Massachusetts.  Life intervenes and I needs must adjust.  Beating myself up about it will get me nowhere, "Crying doesn't help so might as well get on with it" is my mantra to my 8year old - time to eat my own words and just get on with it.  I figure my percentages of success have been pretty good if not smashing so I'm going to feel good about the process so far.  I've got a good structure in place for setting up success later in the year but at the moment I'm still grasping for that immediate gratification.  Breathe, settle in and stick to the plan.  That's me - for today anyway;)

It all comes full circle

Compost is a stinky situation.  I certainly despise the amount of waste we produce as a collective being, and I want to do my part to nurture the environment so starting to keep compost seemed a natural and logical step in both reducing the amount of waste I send to the dump as well as feeding my garden good, organic, homemade fuel.  The smell couldn't be any worse than that coming from the giant town distributed garbage tank sitting at the end of everyone's driveway on trash day.  What I wasn't prepared for was the smell and fruit flies in my kitchen from the canister kept on the counter for collecting scraps at mealtimes that would eventually end up in the compost bin.  Walking the scraps out to the bin after each meal seems a mountainous task at times - especially on the nights we are quickly forking down a delicious, slow cooked, local, organic, in season meal and trying to clear the table, clean the pots and pans, scoop up the remains, scraps, and whatever trash was left over all before rushing out to be on time for softball practice, or Tae Kwon Do or some other non-negotiable activity.  Even the simple act of walking the days scraps to the back yard becomes just another groan on the ever lengthy daily list of tasks.  If I could move it to the weekly to do list - that would be ideal but I don't want my kitchen turning as ripe as the lone banana now bark brown in the fruit bin.  Keeping this new routine alive requires reducing the number of tasks I must complete regularly, not adding to them!  My daily mantra of plan, shop, cook, clean, freeze was a good start - but needs some expanding.  The Little House cookbook has it's own organizational mantra (they call it a tradition) of Wash on Monday (I kinda do that instinctively anyway), Iron on Tuesday (ironing's not my thing (just ask my mother) so that opens up Tuesday - maybe I'll plug weeding in there), Mend on Wednesday (mending is sort of obsolete but I need Wednesdays for prepping Brownie meetings), Churn on Thursday (change churn to burn and make that a gym day ), Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday (traditionally family day for us but I could include my 8 year old in the baking), Rest on Sunday.  Rest on Sunday??? That's it??   -  I need to schedule more downtime than that - and Sunday is the day I've been getting my schedule  and lists organized for the coming week.  I'll amend the Little House list a bit but that still doesn't help my compost dilemma.  As luck would have it, I was making a quick dash through Home Goods for specialty cupcake papers when I spied a nifty little bright green silicone bin labeled Scrap Collector and Freezer Compost Bin by Full Circle Home.  This cute little thing has a handle to hang on your drawer top when working at the counter for sliding scraps in - then fits perfectly on the freezer door for keeping those scraps until ready for the compost pile.  Eureka!  No more yucky, smelly mess - no more fruit flies!  Easy no hands - and I only take it out to the compost when the bin is full.  Best of all - I can put it in the dishwasher too.  Ahhh - ask the universe and you shall receive.  Problem solved - I love that.  Now, what to do with that overripe banana?

Rhubarb? Really?

Don't get me wrong - I have no intention of churning my own butter and I won't be trading my freezer for an icehouse, but there's something very romantic about simple, old fashioned food you've grown or created yourself.  Finding new ways to use basics and creating dishes with just a few ingredients so the "exotics" are minimal can come off as ordinary but then again, what's so wrong with ordinary if it's better than mass produced, boxed blah?  What was ordinary 100 years ago has become romantic, even exotic.  Even my favorite food network chefs are going back - either recreating the old with a modern flair - or just recreating the old - just served up as it was "wayback".  I've learned about ramps and rhubarb - considering an onion patch and feeding the growing mound of compost (or what my husband calls the stink that's on *@#!)  Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution painstakingly points out how far our generation has come from the earth -  painfully illustrating how much our kids don't know.  I watch his show "Jamie at Home" religiously because everything he cooks harkens back to a simpler age of pure ingredients and basic cookware.  There's nary a fancy word (except for letting the peas "pucker') or piece of cookware I don't already have.  His food jumps off the screen - or at least I wish it would - right onto my plate.  No fuss, no muss - just unbelievable goodness.  He's even proven to me that I can drink from my garden which in my last blog I considered impossible.  A rhubarb martini sounds like something my grandmother would have sipped - and made from leftovers no less!  I'll post the recipe below so come summer when we have all harvested our own rhubarb we can enjoy a little drinky dink together.

500g rhubarb, trimmed and chopped
• 100g sugar
juice of ½ an orange
• 2 shots of vodka
• ½ a shot of Galliano
• ½ a shot of double cream
• ½ a shot of milk
• a handful of ice cubes

Place the rhubarb, sugar and orange juice in a small pan and put the lid on. Simmer for a couple of minutes, then remove the lid and simmer for a few minutes more until you get a thick, compote consistency. Pour the rhubarb into a sieve over a bowl and let the liquid drip through. It’s this liquid you want (the rhubarb left in the sieve is lovely served with some custard).

Put the vodka, Galliano, cream, milk, ice cubes and 2 shots of the rhubarb liquid into a cocktail shaker and shake it about. Strain into two cocktail glasses.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

I've done the Connecticut wine tour a couple of times on frosty fall days when the harvest is in and the grape leaves have turned beautiful shades of plum, ochre and sand.  Unfortunately the wine has never satisfied me as much as the scenery and the scene.  There are a few wineries that quite nicely replicate the Napa experience of cheese and hors d'oeurves on a deck in the crisp air overlooking the vineyard but while I love the atmosphere and the food, I would rather bring my own California cabernet (a few bottles if you please) to fill my glass and swill on my palate.  I'm assuming this would be gauche to the third degree.  Connecticut wine tastes like a tin can to me - either that or seagulls and salt.  There are some local products that just will not do - wine is one of them - cheese is another.  Reiterating that my crusade for a fresh, local diet is not all or nothing, I refuse to relinquish cheese from the French countryside or table red from Tuscany.  So exactly where does the buck stop?  How do I decide what should be sourced locally and what imports are permissible?  I decide to start with fresh.  Whatever is fresh on my plate should be local - meat, produce, dairy, eggs.  Luxuries can be exotic insofar as they are superior to what I can source locally.  In the waning light of this spring afternoon I reach for the Joseph Phelps- pour a generous ration into my imported crystal goblet and serve a hunk of Danish edam cheese with some local crusty bread.  Sounds like a fair compromise to me - and sit back to peruse the plan of attack on the kitchen wall.  A strategy is starting to form, a scheme even, a recipe if you will of how to finally fit it all in creating a clean meal for each meal without breaking the bank or becoming an all consuming fire that leaves no room in my day for anything but meal planning.  Organize, streamline, do the work, reap the rewards, share what I find. 

 This is my mission, my calling....whew!  this wine packs a punch!;