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!;

A Berry Nice Surprise

The ambulance slowly backed down the driveway on it's way to deliver my mother to Virtua Hospital in Marlton NJ.  This Easter Sunday surprise was not the one the 50 guests arriving in two hours were expecting.  While my brother followed behind the paramedics, I hurried inside to finish preparing, slicing, cooking and dishing up the Easter brunch and party my mother had spent nearly a month planning.  There were hams to be sliced, eggs to display, lasagna, quiche of every kind, beans, buns - you name it.  Neatly tucked into the 200 eggs hidden around the property were the usual Easter surprises from who knows where made with who knows what.  Holidays tend to suspend all manner of dietary rules or concerns and this was no exception.  I myself had placed plenty of chocolate, sugar and deliciousness made en masse by factory machines in some no name place that could be thousands of miles away in my own child's basket.  There was a time when my own Easter basket was filled with bunnies and eggs from either Bayards Chocolate House just two towns away - or chicks and jelly beans from Medford's very own Reily's candy shop (who make the very best, fresh chocolate covered blueberries around in early summer).  Easter basket fare was automatically homemade and local back then.  My grandmother made her own coconut chocolate covered eggs.  I remember helping dip the creamy coconut in a hot vat of dark confection.  So why why why do I fill my own child's basket with junk?  It's a force of habit so instinctual it's going to take a lot more time and effort to deliberately break.  I'm starting to understand that the reason my clients failed so miserably at the detox plan I described in my first blog is that our habits have become so entrenched in the convenient, pre-made, even mindless ways of eating that when we get busy we go into robot mode.  We regress to what is easy.  Many food traditions and routines have been lost along the way over this last generation that we have to seek out classes to learn what we should or could have learned from our mothers or grandmothers.  Boxed shelf food was a novelty to our grandmothers who enthusiastically embraced it as progress, convenience - even an exciting new wonder of the world.  Our mothers enjoyed an increasing volume and variety of processed, packaged foods that made their lives easier and opened up more time for either leisure or the ability to enter the work force.  Even today we no longer have to even slice our apples or dice our butternut squash if we don't want to.  For a few extra pennies I can get it ready to go in a neat little package - no mess involved.  Does that mean my child won't even know how to cube a watermelon or chop an onion?  Will she even know that apples have skin or peaches have stones?  All this progress is rendering us helpless when it comes to feeding ourselves and our families from earth to plate with every meal - including treats.  Sure I've made homemade ice cream now and then - as an activity, a fun diversion - never as a necessity if we wanted a frozen confection.  The more I consider the source of my food - especially as it relates to daily life - the more I realize we've been duped.  There's an entire generation out there that doesn't realize food doesn't come out of a box.  That potato chips come from potatoes that grow in the ground. 

Returning home once Nan was given a clean bill of health and out of the hospital, I surveyed the back yard making mental notes of what needs to be done this week and comparing with my air traffic control kitchen wall.  I walk the small patch of land to see what's popping up from last year.  I notice the oregano making a nice comeback and then something catches my eye.  A long stretch of green along last year's flowerbeds.  What is that?  On closer inspection I immediately recognize the round, scalloped edged leaves.  The single strawberry plant I nurtured last summer mostly as a novelty to show my daughter where strawberries come from has run it's tendrils to a full 16 feet of strawberry goodness.  Wow!  We may actually get a few bowlful of strawberries this year rather than a measly handful - and with nothing but a helping hand from Mother Nature.  Empowered and inspired by this berry beautiful gift, I continue the clearing and weeding of the rest of the beds around the house and mark out the length for the new patch of vegetable garden I've been putting off.  I know there will be at least one child in her generation that knows where food comes from, how to grow it, cook it, can it and respect it.

Hurry Up and Wait

After a flurry of activity two weeks ago, I haven't seen much going on in old man Aldo's garden.  A few rows of bright green growing but more than half the garden is still barren - albeit neatly tilled and furrowed.  Seems it's time to wait again until Mother Nature laps the track and hands off the baton once more in this relay race of Spring gardening.  The rows of shelves in my garage once crowded with a cacophony of discarded, dusty items are now empty.  Gleaming and inviting - just waiting to be stacked with freshly canned tomatoes, peaches, strawberry jam, pickles and whatever else I can manage to jam into a jar.  But for now, they wait, I wait - and continue to find sources for the local produce and other products I won't find in my backyard.  The Fairfield Green Food Guide proves an excellent source for finding farms, farmer's markets and all manner of green ways to eat, cook and get involved.  I download the 2012 Guide to Fairfield County Farmer's Markets and post it up next to the weekly menus, garden plan and shopping strategy.  I survey the plan of attack covering the kitchen wall, I consider the yard and the gardens for a moment - yaaaawwwn - it's like watching grass grow.  And then the Lawn Doctor van pulls up to begin this season's dousing of our patch of grass with seed, fertilizer, pesticides and God knows what else.  I run screaming out into the street, arms waving wildly "Noooooo!".  Not this year," I pant.  The young man looks confused and alarmed.  I explain that we are going green, growing a garden and the poison he's got stacked up in his truck will have to find a new home.  If it's a choice between thriving green grass and thriving green food, I choose food.  My husband will not be happy - he likes a thick carpet of green surrounding the property that is little work for him.  We have an old hand pushed spreader in the shed.  I see no reason why we can't seed and fertilize our own lawn - it's certainly not that big.  There will be no pesticides around here this season though - if I can get my chickens they should take care of the bugs and grubs anyway!  Laura Ingalls would be proud;)

No Scrap Left Behind

So let's get back to the food.  Reading Wildly Affordable Organic has not only opened my eyes to many ways of saving money while getting down and dirty but also reminded me of the many ways to reduce, reuse and yes, even recycle my food - and I'm not talkin' leftovers.  My garden design plan has not only made room for a chicken coop but now a compost bin as well- don't worry the smell of my daughter's feet will outweigh any farm fresh odors in the neighborhood;)  I'm readying myself to buy a kitchen scale to measure out exact amounts not only for baking bread and cookies, but preparing full meals as well.  I've always guestimated the amount of sugar snap peas to saute up for a three person dinner and there always seems to be a small amount left over whether it's animal, vegetable or mineral.  Clearly my eyes have always been bigger than my stomach.  Never enough to save for later but still enough to make me feel guilty tossing it in the trash.  Scaling down my guesstimates to actual amounts will leave no scraps behind while peels, pits and tops will now go into the compost bin.  Shopping for the week instead of the month will yield more fresh food that's used quickly thereby cutting down on packaging.  So how am I doing?  This morning was fresh blueberry pancakes made with local blueberries I froze last summer, organic white whole wheat flour, local butter (expensive! yikes!), local organic milk, local organic eggs.  The batter made enough to freeze for three or four more breakfast meals.  Lunch will be fresh mixed greens from the farm up the road - although sneaking into Aldo's garden in the middle of the night was tempting I restrained myself figuring I need all the good garden karma I can get.  I'll add a hard boiled egg and some organic bell pepper and cucumbers (not local).  It's time this yoga teacher came up with a new mantra.  I've always used this technique with my daughter to motivate her for her morning routine  "Brush (your teeth and hair), rinse (your mouth), floss, potty, scrub (your hands)."  It's organized, fits easily in your mouth and gets the job done.  We post it on the side of the fridge and sing it while getting ready for school.  For me, let's see -  "Plan, shop, cook, clean, freeze."  I'll chew on that for a few days - like a good bottle of heavy cabernet. 

All or nothing?

Weekly meal plan and shopping list - check.  Garden plan with scheduled reminders - check.  Budget, school calendar, workout sessions, holiday checklist, softball roster, daily routine, spring cleaning plan, repair list, email, texts, calls, blogs...STOP!  Time to schedule in some downtime.  I'm inspired and motivated on this mission to get down and dirty with what goes on my plate, but all this healthy living chasing is exhausting!  I realize the start up phase is the hardest and eventually I'll hit my stride, but this was supposed to be the easy season - or so I thought.  I'm connecting with so many new people on this blogging journey who have so many new ideas, stories to tell, tips to share that at times my head is spinning like a helicopter pod slowly spiraling down down down to earth.  Down to earth - hmm, well that's where I'm trying to go so I do.  I go out on this spectacular, warm spring day and sit on the earth.  I can't remember the last time I sat on the grass - directly on the grass - without a blanket or a tarp or some other thin barrier between me and the earth.  And then it hits me.  This quest I am on does not have to be all or nothing - I can go back to the beginning and start with one thing.  Local.  I never really defined what local meant - does it mean food sourced from my backyard, my town, my neighborhood, my state - the northeast?  I decide that my beloved Garden State and it's incredible fruits of summer must be within the boundaries of local.  I set my "local" bar at 200 miles so when Trader Joes is selling big fat juicy blueberries from Hammonton, NJ this summer I can gleefully fill up without a trip to Nan's house.  Local and organic tend to go hand in hand these days - but save for the dirty dozen if I have to sacrifice one of the two - I'll be going local.

Dollars and Sense

I'm on a strict budget according to  my husband - or a tight leash if you ask me.  Since beginning my quest for clean, local, organic food our grocery bill has blossomed considerably - not to mention the added expense of driving to all those farm stands and out of the way markets.  I try to leverage this point in making my argument for a chicken coop - fresh eggs everyday for free!  "Free?" he says.  "I don't think so."  After reviewing the costs of construction, buying the hens, feeding the hens, township permit fees and so on I'm beginning to realize why the farm fresh eggs I've been buying recently are $8 a dozen.  No amount of health benefits balance out the increased grocery bill in his "numbers guy" mind.  Even the gardens I'm planning on yielding bumper crops of fruits and vegetables this summer can carry a hefty price tag.  Soil to fill the raised beds, plants to put in them, organic fertilizer etc etc.  After all, Grandma Emily always said money doesn't grow on trees - and those chickens will not be laying golden eggs.  So what is the cost of a healthy lifestyle?  Do we save on doctor bills?  Do our insurance premiums go down?  How do I eat green and save green too? 

Our local grocery chain has it's own line of organic produce and other products which is more expensive than the non-organic or generic brands but less than other organic brands.  It helps, but not enough.   I find some helpful tips in the book Wildly Affordable Organic - making a plan to eat organic, what to spend on and what to save on.  Here we go again with another plan!  My dry erase board is beginning to look like an air traffic control schedule.  Researching CSA's brought another sticker shock - although fair enough when you spread it out over the whole season, still a good chunk to come up with right now - and the weekly take is usually way more food than we need for the three of us.  What to do?  Most CSA's are already sold out but maybe I can find a half-share out there....somewhere.  Initially, I had no luck so instead I turned to deciding where I am going to source my plants for the vegetable garden.  River Crest Farm in Milford, CT has always been my go to place for herb plants and heirloom tomatoes.  My gentleman farmer brother even prefers their tomato plants over what he can get in Jersey - and that's nothing to sneeze at when considering that Jersey is famous for its tomatoes.  A quick check of their website reveals that they also offer a CSA.  I figure it can't hurt to ask at this point so I shoot off an email to the farm.  Crossed fingers, toes, eyeballs and legs later I get a response that one of the farmer's close friends is looking to split a share with someone.  They don't do half shares as they can't cut or split any of the food items (because that would be considered food processing) but some people buy a full share together and split it themselves.  Perfect!  I look forward to meeting my new CSA buddy - giving the bank a break before breaking the bank - and maybe making a new friend in the process.

Robin's Blue Eggs

The chives I planted last year in a small pot on the deck are a good six inches high already and I'm remembering advice from my sister-in-law to wait til they've flowered and then chop them off to about an inch high.  The first year I tried to just clip what I needed when but now know they need to be harvested in full so they can regrow that same season.  Every plant, vegetable and flower comes with it's own set of rules which used to overwhelm me.  One thing gets snipped (parsely), the other left on the vine til the leaves have shriveled (pumpkins) and yet another picked immediately before the birds can get them (strawberries).  I'm picking up tips and tricks from numerous sources, considering a compost pile and yearning for a chicken coop (zoning?).  I wonder what my husband would say if I told him I wanted chickens.  "No rooster," would probably be his response.  He's gotten used to my cockamamie ideas over the years - allowing me the freedom to play while supressing a small amused smile.  He's tried everything I've put on a plate for him - maybe not finishing the meal but giving it a good college try.  I take credit for his recent clean bill of health from the doctor due to organic and as close to raw food as is appealing to me.  Throwing local and in season into the mix has strained the mealtime mood recently because there's not much on the plate right now.  Today I hunt for locally sourced meat - beef, fowl, fish, pork.  The last few farmstand visits, however, have taught me to let my fingers do the walking first.  That proves much easier than I thought - the Connecticut Department of Agriculture has a complete listing by county of all meat producers in Connecticut.  Great! - the first site I land on produces heritage turkeys and yes, I can buy them directly from the farm.   Okay, well, I can chase one of those down on the side of the road on my way home from Skylar's Tae Kwon Do class.  Not that I want to - but yes, turkey definitely seems to be local and that certainly takes care of next Thanksgiving!  I find veal, lamb, Cornish rock chickens, pork, natural pasture raised dry aged beef, sausage - and even blue eggs.  Blue eggs?  Grabbing the keys - I gotta find out more about that!

I want to be Laura Ingalls

I want to be Laura Ingalls - or better yet, her husband Almanzo Wilder as he was as a boy in northern New York State.   Life was simple but more importantly, eating was pure.  The sheer simplicity of living off the land, enjoying the sweetness of sugared off maple syrup - eating as much pumpkin pie as you can hold in your belly.  As I read the "Little House" series to my daughter each night, my mouth waters not only at the descriptions of family food and meals, but also at the verbal illustrations of the painstaking process of growing those foods.  How to raise a milk fed pumpkin, the exact placement of seed for carrots or corn.  It's alluring and nostalgic and - well - ordinary.  Seems we've come so far from the earth with our technology and readily available shelf food that we've become bored with the extraordinary wonders of progress.  The ordinary life of Almanzo Wilder seems very romantic to me here on my little patch of ground in my little patch of a house.  True, life was harsh then too - winters exceedingly colder than anything I've ever experienced - and extended days of hard manual labor.  But the smell of warm wheat drying on the barn floor - or the delight on your tongue of wild wintergreen berries buried in snow on the south facing slope of a forest hill in late winter seem extraordinary to me now.  Cooking was straightforward but delish - I'd love to be in that kitchen and cellar - smelling the smells and tasting the tastes.  A quick search on Amazon and Bam! there I am - The Little House Cookbook -place in cart, enter credit card information, choose shipping method and in a few days I'll be cooking circa 1866.  Could be just the way to learn to eat as my great-grandmother ate - that is my quest after all isn't it?  Funny how our fast-paced complex world of technology can so easily summon the simpler, slower past.

Grow, swap, eat

The before shot - what a mess!

Jersey garden plan

It’s easy to bite off more than I can chew playing around with Garden Minder and planning my summer bounty.  I did my best to restrain myself considering availability of equipment, time management, and growing zone.  The app made it easy to create my gardens in my mind but the app won’t do the work for me – just remind me what work I need to do.  So I already have a list of what needs to happen this week – let’s see how I do in getting it done.  I’ve also laid out a meal plan for the week trying to include as much of what I think should be available locally but filling in with organic and fresh from elsewhere for now.    I realize it will be a lot of good, hard work over the spring and summer to see results from the garden.  We should be eating pretty darn well by summer, though, if all goes as planned.  My concern is what to do once the garden is no longer yielding a crop.  Where will my veggies come from then?  I remember Grandma Emily canning and preserving many things when I was a child and she even taught me how to make strawberry jam albeit with a truckload of white sugar.   I tried canning tomatoes from last year’s garden but not sure I want to be opening those jars at this point – they look more like a science experiment at this point!  I figure a few classes in canning and preserving won’t hurt and will most likely be a lot of fun.  Lucky for me, Sport Hill Farm up the road offers just that during the summer.  (Note to self:  make room in summer schedule for canning classes.)  If I don’t yield enough for canning and preserving to last the winter months I can always hit the From Scratch Club swap – a homemade locally grown food exchange party.  I haven’t seen or heard of any in the immediate area but maybe by then I’ll organize my own!  If all else fails maybe I can swap with Aldo’s wife Edelweis – she canned 100 jars of tomatoes last summer.  I’m beginning to see many options as long as I plan ahead.  I’ll hit the farm stands again today to see if they’ve got anything new and make a plan as to where I’ll be getting my vegetable plants since seed starting is not on the agenda for me just yet (next year).   Planning, organizing, executing, working, sharing – I knew all those years in Girl Scouts would come in handy someday!

There's an app for that!

Making a plan has never been my problem - sticking to it? - well now there's the rub a dub dub.  I spent most of yesterday surveying, measuring, clearing out old vines, leaves and plant matter from last year's garden.  Taking before pictures, comparing with Aldo's clean, trim, thriving colony of plant life and plotting a tract for my garden's expansion made all the more easier by Garden Minder - a new mobile app by Gardener's Supply that helps you grow a better garden and learn as you go.  Now I can take my garden with me wherever I go, get alerts, reminders and how to's.  All those questions I can't ask Grandma Emily or Nana anymore? -- answered!!   I laid out a diagram of what plants will go where and created an action plan for accomplishment.  What I forgot about was last night's dinner.  By the time the school bus rolled up depositing my 8 year old jumping bean into my arms I had done a week's worth of planning - and not a minute of execution.  Too late to try the farm stands again - whatever they had this morning will be gone now.  Too tired to battle the grocery - especially with the bundle of energy now circling my house on her go-kart.  I'm just back from a long weekend away so there are no fresh veggies in the house, no defrosting meat on the counter.  With a 5:00 doctor's appointment, arranging for pick up of the cranky car they towed away earlier, and having to meet my husband's train at 6:30 all looming before me, there's no time to make a slow food dinner that's been sourced less than 50 miles from my house.  Am I really back at square one?  I realize I need an everyday action plan for daily meals each week as well as a list of go-to meals fitting my requirements that can be rounded up in a pinch.  This time and attention to the quality of our meals is taking over my days.  There are other things to be done - cleaning, teaching, mothering, and oh yeah - my job.  Spring is here so that means much more outdoor work that needs to be done - how do I make it all mesh?  I figure the rest of today is about creating the diagram and action plans for everyday just I like I did for the garden which won't be giving me any returns for awhile yet.  I'll post all those tomorrow - I may not be curing cancer, but you know what?  Maybe in the long run..... I am.

Unexpected Inspiration

As the tow truck slowly backs up the driveway to cart away my husband’s persnickety BMW that almost left us stranded at LaGuardia Airport last night,  I realize I’ve succeeded in eating only one meal this week that was whole, fresh, organic, in season and local.  Every other meal sacrificed at least one of the above categories – even an amazing meal at the innovative new Seasons 52 on the rise in cities around the country could not deliver a meal that was inclusive of all of my requirements.  I gaze longingly at the peas and lettuce now starting to thrive in Aldo’s garden spurred on by this very early New England Spring.  Heavy set and hairy, clad in dirty jeans and a skullcap, Adam, the tow truck driver asks if that garden is mine.  “No”, I reply sullenly.   His response takes me by surprise.  “I hope to have one that size this year.”  Talk about a head turner.  Apparently,  the guy who has come to save my dead battery is now my garden hero.  He tells me of his test gardens last year of three 8x14 raised beds.  He tells me where to buy bulk vermiculite online – but watch out for the shipping.  He tells me how to keep the slugs from getting my purple cabbages this summer (cover the rim of your raised beds with copper or sandpaper).  Adam apparently tends the Garden of Eden.  He knows it all and robustly regales me with his life story of culinary school in Manhattan, starting seeds in his garage, picking bugs off the plants instead of spraying pesticide.  The wind has turned to the colder side today but the sun is out and Adam has inspired me to get out back and get my own garden going.  I won’t be starting seeds this year, and I won’t have any early peas or lettuce like Aldo– but I can get my hands in the dirt and get started.  Already I’m behind the ball, but today I’ve got nothing but time and sunshine.

Florida Oranges?

My eyes open wide as the produce clerk in the grocery tells me they have no Florida oranges-only California.  Seriously?  but I'm in Florida!!  "You must have something?" I say.   "Well we do have some bagged oranges at the back on that small display. "  Tucked out of sight like the relatives you never want your spouse to meet are the Florida oranges so prized for the juice I buy back in Connecticut.   "This is crazy ," I think to myself.  In the few days I've been focusing on eating fresh, local and in season I've realized you can't trust even the food that should be a no-brainer.   Does everything I put in the grocery cart have a carbon footprint the size of Texas?  I grew up in the Garden State where summer meant almost daily trips to the red top or green top market and definite pick your own visits to Russo's farm for strawberries, blueberries, peaches- you name it.  The only footprints of my childhood were the barefoot ones left in the soft sand of the orchard roads or the dirt paths of the strawberry fields.  But today those pick your own trips are scheduled activities like playdates or museum field trips.  Something's gotta change starting with getting my hands dirty again to clean up my plate.  We cultivated a small garden last summer mostly to introduce my then 7 year old to the world of gardening-a task I now realize was substantially insufficient- almost a play acting at gardening instead of the real thing.  Time to get my brother up here with his John Deere and tear up a much bigger patch of the back yard.  Watch out Aldo, game on!

Terminal Fishing

Third day in and I am already up against the "what to do when traveling" monster.   Pack a healthy snack/ lunch for the plane or take my chances en route?  I decide I've got nothing whole, fresh,  healthy and local to pack as we gobbled up all of the fresh greens from Sport Hill Farm at last night's dinner.  I can't even pack a sustainable water bottle from the filtered tap water because security will surely confiscate it at check-in thereby stripping me of my $20 BPA free Kleen Kanteen.   So at the terminal I buy the obligatory plastic bottle of SmartWater- yeah right.  Hmmmm- vapor distilled and purified.  Bottled in Whitestone NY?  Okay- well the water seems to be local - that's a start.  Strategically placed nearby I spy a small container with two freshly hard boiled eggs inside and above that a box of what looks to be some bright, colorful micro greens.  Wow, this airplane food is beginning to look a lot like last night's dinner save for the local fish.  I've had to sacrifice organic but I think I've done exceedingly well for Terminal B at La Guardia International. Settling in to my hamster cage that is seat 25A, I open the inflight magazine to page 45 and find my fish.  Seems there is a movement happening right in my  own backyard (Boston, Mass) to source local seafood for restaurants and markets directly from the boat - each individual fish complete with its own business card and QR code.  A quick scan of the code brings up Trace and Trust, an organization devoted to the traceability of seafood - a detailed account of when, where and how your fish was caught and transported, how much it weighs and who it was partying with last night (wink wink). I wonder if Trace and Trust has an application for tracking teenagers?;))

Where's the food?

So I'm already lost. I hit the road with the best of intentions and the best of moods in search of early spring bounty. But all I could find was a bag of fresh mixed greens and some farm fresh eggs. Not much of a meal if you ask me. Where are the last of the root vegetables? Maybe some early peas - something...anything, I've got a family to feed! I even found myself peering over the fence of Aldo's garden to see what he might have brewing -- nuthin'. I'm beginning to understand why my grandmother canned and preserved everything in sight summer and fall - so people had something to eat in early spring. Okay - so I should be able to find some local meat - chicken, pork, oh wait - fish! Yes, that must be the answer, a nice spring green salad with grilled fish and hard boiled egg. Now I see a meal starting to form. A visit to the fish market revealed some New England Cod and cherrystone clams. I'll take it! I'm realizing I just need to think differently and change my ideas of what makes a balanced diet. Nature provides what you need for your body, your climate, your season. Funny, I didn't even consider trying to look for local grain - I'm not sure we even grow that stuff here in Connecticut.

Week One - making a plan

WEEK ONE

I’m a yoga teacher and eat as whole, clean and healthy as I can but when life gets hectic, and fresh local produce gets scarce - how do I stay true to these principles?  I recently led a group of clients through a detox, cleanse workshop to help inspire these same ideals in my students.  Somehow, not a single one was able to stick to the program for even a few days.  Why?  Time crunch was one answer.  Lack of motivation, lack of knowledge, lack of recipes were some others.  So I thought - is it really that hard to stay local, fresh and organic all year long?  I’m about to find out.  As much as I eat fresh and organic - I have no idea how local my produce is all year.  So this being the first day of Spring I’m going to hit the farms stands (if any are open yet), try the farmer’s market (if I can find one yet), and research buying in on a CSA.  I take my planting cues from old man Aldo next door who cultivates a substantial garden all Spring and Summer.  I think we are about to become much better friends:)........