What We Need Is Here

Perfect Summer Supper

I think so anyway. I admit it’s hard to tell how much of my enamory (doesn’t spell-check, but it’s just the right word) with this meal is from good memories of similar meals from my childhood, and how much is from knowing it’s mainly local or that it’s nutritionally lovely.

My grandmother would have added a ham bone to the fresh black-eyed peas, and sometimes they would have been field peas instead – either way shelled by hand on the porch rocker. I can hear the plunk of the peas against the metal bowl. The corn muffins would have excluded rosemary and included a few extra eggs; I remember hers being very moist and spongy, and that she didn’t work from recipes.  The home-grown tomatoes, like mine, would have been simply salt-and-peppered, the corn local and buttered.  And, there was always meat served up with the veggies at my grandmothers: a slice of ham, a pork chop, or fried chicken.  

Even with these variations, it smells and tastes like hot, summer childhood vacation in Lake City to me. Just right.

Farmers Market Bounty

The 441 Farmers Market is bustling!  Just about everything we can grow here in North Central Florida is being harvested right now.  Plus it’s blueberry/blackberry/peach season!  As much as I hate running anywhere first thing Saturday morning, it is so worth it to get up and go. 

All through the winter and up till this week, Warren and Erika supplied our family and the Breakfast Brigade with fresh oranges at a very reasonable price.  The folks at the labor pools loved them, and I loved getting to see Erika and Warren every weekend.  Erika also sends out a newsletter each week loaded with info about the upcoming market – what’s available, what the weather will be like, etc.  She includes handy updates on farm policies which will eventually trickle down to our local markets and to our family tables.  She sees the big picture while taking care of our own backyard.  She’s great.

We drop off a bucket each week in which farmers can donate leftover produce to “Jubilee House,” home of the Gainesville Catholic Worker.  With it we make week night dinners and delicious soups for the Sunday café.  If we have extras we give them to other folks in need.  Most people appreciate so much the very local stuff, esp. yellow squash, field peas, corn, collards – things their grandmas used to cook.  It’s a kind of comfort food that’s good for body and soul.  And the farmers are so very generous.  Our bucket runneth over!

 

Another Harbinger?

Lately a lot more people have been finding this blog through search phrases like “ “inspiration during hard times,” “hard financial times,” “dark times,” and “how do I grow my own food?” – things of that nature.  It’s both touching and worrisome, especially when the searches are put into question form.  I imagine someone awake and worried in the middle of the night, typing in the question to Google as if to an oracle. 

It’s a fact that the effects of the high cost of food is “trickling up” from the hotspots where it was first reported.  Here’s an interesting and clearly-written article by Fred Magdorff, professor Emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont.  In it he discusses the recent acute crisis in light of the long-term crisis that has been unfolding for two decades.   It’s definitely worth the read.  At the end, he offers some solutions, or at least a change in direction from where we’ve been headed:

“Almost every country in the world has the soil, water, and climate resources to grow enough food so that all their people can eat a healthy diet. In addition, the knowledge and crop varieties already exist in most countries so that if farmers are given adequate assistance they will be able to grow reasonably high yields of crops.

Although enhanced agricultural production is essential, much of the emphasis in the past has been on production of export crops. While this may help a country’s balance of payments, export oriented agriculture does not ensure sufficient food for everyone nor does it promote a healthy rural environment. In addition to basic commodities such as soybeans, export-oriented agriculture also leads naturally to the production of high-value luxury crops demanded by export markets (luxuries from the standpoint of the basic food needs of a poor third world country), rather than the low-value subsistence crops needed to meet the needs of the domestic population. Production of sufficient amounts of the right kinds of food within each country’s borders—by small farmers working in cooperatives or on their own and using sustainable techniques—is the best way to achieve the goal of “food security.” In this way the population may be insulated, at least partially, from the price fluctuations on the world market. This, of course, also means not taking land out of food production to produce crops for the biofuel markets.”

This should be an inspiration to continue to educate ourselves about what part we play in the policies that are causing this kind of world-wide suffering (I recommend Vandana Shiva's "Stolen Harvest" - see sidebar).  And, on the homefront, to encourage us to buy local from our farmers here and to learn and share how to grow our own.

Thanks, Girls!

Hmmm... We've been out of town at Joe's graduation, and I had written a post about our chickens and scheduled to show up on Friday night.  And now it is gone.  I guess even these new-fangled, user-friendly blogging sites foul up once in a while.  Or I did.  Anyway, here's what I was going to say about chickens!

I wanted them for years before we got them and had collected a file of instructions about feeding and housing them.  Not being at all handy, I think I was waiting for that day when I had acquired enough skills to follow coop-building directions.   That was not happening, but John - who is less fearful of failure than I am - just  up and did it anyway last summer.  He thought up a coop, bought the supplies and it was finished in a few days. 

It's by no means perfect.  We had to add a door once we realized how heavy it was to lift to get at the food and water.  And the heaviness is an issue he hadn't thought of in building a "chicken tractor" - a small, moveable, bottomless coop for scooting around the garden so chickens can scratch and "fertilize" fallow areas.  John thought he was opting for a more sturdy coop when he used heavy boards.  Suffice it to say it doesn't actually move without borrowing the labor of friends and neighbors.  So it's more of a small coop instead of a "tractor."

 

But it's working fine. We get about five eggs per week from each off our three girls - more than enough for our family.  While we don't have good records on what we've spent on feed, the chickens range freely on a regular basis and so don't eat as much as they might. 

We wonder what will happen as they age and don't produce many eggs.  I remember my grandparents' chickens, many of which I grew up with; several had to be at least a decade old.  I have a feeling that, like them, I would find it hard to cook up Henny, LouAnn and Junebug - lserving "Pet Pot Pie" as my brother called it when he and his kids slaughtered and ate their rooster.

For right now, we 'll just enjoy the eggs and not worry too much about the future. 

Blueberry Season!

It's just the beginning of a season that will last at least a month. We are lucky to have blueberry farms all around our area - a number of them u-pick and organic.  "Pick Your Own" is a nice website with locations and phone numbers of farms open to u-pickers. 

Blueberry picking is a great activity for the whole family. The weather's still pretty nice early in the morning, and the bushes are thornless and not easily damaged by little ones.  Picking wild blueberries as a child and later at farms with my children - as well as with school children on field trips - are some of my happiest May memories.  And what a great way to turn children on to the goodness of local food. 

This week I bought organic blueberries at the 441 market for $4/pint - which is still a better deal than an equivalent amount of Ben and Jerry's.  And quite a bit healthier.  They're considered a "super food" - anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, etc., etc.  Although after reading Michael Pollan's book, I don't know how much credence to give the latest food fad.  I do know this: they're good, they're local, they're even beatuiful. We're going to be eating a lot of them over the next month.

This is part of the joy of eating locally. We can look forward to blueberry season like we do to a holiday that comes around each year. We appreciate them all the more because we don't have them all the time.  Go celebrate! 

Body Clutter

I kind of hate to write this; there is so much thinking and talking about weight and weight loss and diet, etc., - especially among women of a certain age (mine). But when I was writing about the cost of clutter and its relationship to the low price of cheap mass-produced “stuff,” I couldn’t help thinking about a book I recently read about food.  In The Defense of Food, Michael Pollan suggests that eating with health in mind (not necessarily weight loss and buff bodies) is quite simple: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. His book talks about how nutrition science and big food corporations have led us astray by encouraging people to eat too much cheap, processed food.  He says we should be spending more, consuming less.  The connection is obvious.  We’ve got too much stuff – everywhere.

I thought I had avoided weight loss obsession in my adult life.  Busy with four kids, and concerned about feeding them well, I stayed around my high school weight range, give or take ten pounds.   But over the last few years, the weight crept on.  Ben’s cancer treatment, which at one point caused him to lose 30 pounds, magically transferred that bulk to me.  Treatments done, Ben looks pretty much back to normal.  I am not. Or at least I don't think so. 

I suffered from anorexia as a teen – a food obsession that seems to be passed down through the women of my family. And my fear of passing that on to my daughters or other young women in my life has made me a poor dieter as an adult.  I wanted it to stop with me.  But my revulsion toward dieting hasn’t protected me from feeling guilty about my health as my weight has crept up.  I am out of the healthy weight range, and I would like to get back in. Michael Pollen’s advice really resonates with me as a way back to health by acting healthy – both physically, mentally, and in the world at large.  So.  Starting today I am going to follow his advice and see what happens:

·         Eat fewer processed foods: esp. white flour, white sugar, and corn syrup.

·         Eat three meals a day, no snacks.

·         Eat mostly plants (local of course). 

·         And to keep myself from sliding down the slippery slope of obsession, I will eat a bagel on Sunday and dessert once/week if I want it.

And I will strive not to obsess about the number on the scale, only checking it in a, ahem, detached and curious way.  Maybe the weight that I am now is exactly what I am supposed to be as I approach fifty.  Maybe the extra fluff makes me more cuddly to grandchildren.  Or, being a seventh-generation Floridian, perhaps I have developed a beneficial genetic mutation – a built-in flotation device around my middle parts. Maybe I will stay exactly the same, regardless of what I eat.

Maybe not.  Either way, I believe I’ll feel better about the weight I am if I feel like it’s the result of eating well with health in mind, mine and the food system's.

Jammin' with the Farmers' Market

The Farmers’ Market at 441 was holding its Spring Festival last Saturday and we came home with all kinds of good stuff, including a flat of strawberries for jam-making.

I’ve made blueberry jam in the past, but this was my first time with the strawberries.  If I had to do it again, I think I might add the ½ teaspoon of butter the recipe called for to decrease foaming - although when I opened a jar this morning and mixed it around a bit, it was fine.  Just an aesthetic thing.   Making the jam was pretty quick and easy, following the recipe in the pectin package; I think I’ll do it again before the season is over.  I like the idea of just putting up a batch at a time regularly rather than making an all day thing of it.

 

Today is a big cooking day for me.  For the last couple years Ben has invited friends over for “Wednesday Night Dinner.”  It started out as a way to socialize when his immune system was so suppressed from his cancer treatment that he couldn’t go out.  But even now that he’s well, we have a regular little group of folks who come to eat and hang out. It’s sweet, and I’ll miss it when it’s over.  As every middle-aged parent in the world is fond of saying: “It goes by so quickly.”  And since they seem to enjoy the garden/local veggies, tonight we’ll be having roasted beets, onions, carrots, and tomatoes with rosemary served on polenta with a side of lettuce/sorrel/garbanzo salad and homemade cheese bread.  Left over strawberries on ice cream for dessert.  We still go all out on Wednesdays. (bold=local farmers, bold+italics=home garden, everything else local grocer) 

If this were going to be a totally locally-grown meal, I would have to leave out the grain (bread and polenta), garbanzos and ice cream.  I’d put boiled eggs on the salad for protein and maybe serve the strawberries with cream (we have a local dairy).  As it is, it fits the locavore guidelines at least - not to be too dogmatic about it. 

I’ll post the recipe after we see how it turns out.

Local Locavore Challenge!

Hogtown Homegrown is sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge for our region!  During the month of May, participants will track the food they eat, with the very do-able goal of eating one locally produced food item at each meal.  They also offer these guidelines for eating locally, based on the famous guidelines from Locavore.com. This San-Francisco-based group of locavores actually coined the word back in 2005.  Have some fun and enjoy eating good food while supporting the local economy and our local farmers – join Hogtown’s* version of the Locavore Challenge!

*”Hogtown” was the original name of the city of Gainesville, Florida.

image from Path to Freedom

Canning - Or at least thinking about it

A few years ago I made about 24 half-pint jars of blueberry jam with locally-grown blueberries.  It was a fairly simply process, and it was just delicious; it tasted a lot more like blueberries and less like sugar than commercial jam does.  It didn’t last as long as I had hoped, though, as we gave a lot of it away as gifts and tended to heap it on toast and bagels ourselves.

Jams, jellies, preserves, pickles and tomatoes are quite easy to can because they have a high acid content and can be processed with a minimum of equipment, trouble, or worry. But, except for the tomatoes, the end products aren't particularly nutritious.  I’ve always wanted to learn to can other foods we grow in abundance here during certain seasons: greens, corn, field peas, butter beans, green beans, sweet potatoes, etc. 

In order to can these low-acid vegetables, the USDA says (very adamantly) that one must use an expensive pressure canner. This is the first hurdle.  When I went to a canning workshop at the county extension office earlier this week, I learned of another: accurately calibrated pressure gauges are vital, and pressure gauges can lose their accuracy over time.  Apparently, the manufacturer’s instruction booklets advise bringing them in yearly to the local county extension office to be checked. But due to cost and liability our extension office does not provide that service. And neither does anyone else according to the extension agent. 

In addition, the instructor said that canned goods should be stored in a cool, dry place at a temperature between 60 and 70 degrees.  Obviously, this too is a problem here…  There is no place in or near my home that remains at that temperature range for more than a few weeks in the dead of winter.   

So, what to do?  Our instructor suggested that we should use the cans within one year, rather than the two-five recommended by the USDA, which seems do-able.  And there is an alternative type of pressure canner that uses weights instead of a dial gauge as a measure of pressure that I would like to look into. 

Although this part of the country does not have the ideal weather for storing preserved foods, it does offer the possibility of nearly year-round fruit and vegetable production. So preservation is not nearly as crucial as it would be if we lived further north. 

So, as appealing as the vision of rows of canned vegetables lining my pantry shelves is (I admit in a kind of Walton-esque way), it doesn't seem to make that much sense for this locale. I do plan on canning tomatoes this year – for year-round soup base and sauce. And I may, if I can get my hands on an affordable weight gauge pressure canner, try canning early-summer field peas and butter beans, since they would be a good source of year-round protein. We'll store them in our dark-ish pantry for less than a year. Other than that, we'll count ourselves lucky to live in a place where there is fresh stuff available so much of the time.    

Why You Can't Find Local Food in Your Supermarket:

Several people sent me a link to an op-ed piece in the New York Times this week.  My Forbidden Fruits and Vegetables is an articulate, concise, and touching story by a farmer who would like to grow more vegetables for local markets but found out how the government interferes with it – actually made it impossible for him to do so.  Education and personal change aren't enough unfortunately; structures need to change in order for us to have a more just and sustainable food system. And there’s a lot of politicking behind those structures. The Farm Bill is once again stalled in Congress, so we have an opportunity to make a difference.  Please write or call your congressperson.  There’s a letter already written for you to cut and paste at Crunchy Chicken.

*Graphic above is the cover of Food Fight: A Citizen's Guide to the Farm Bill.