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Cantaloupes and Listeria: Know Your Farmers Market, Know Your Food

“You need a cantaloupe? These are better than Rocky Fords.” The man at the farmers market said.

“No, thanks, not today.” I replied. “C’mon, kiddo.” I said to my child. We moved up the walk to the table next to the end. I stopped here to smell the ends of the cantaloupes on his table while he weighed the heirloom tomatoes out for me. He handed my kiddo an extra pint of cherry tomatoes, I saw his rough hands and dirt caked under his nails as he tucked the extra treat in for her.

“Thanks!” I smiled. “And this melon, too.”

“But, Mom! You lied to that other farmer. You said you did not want cantaloupe.”

Kids. They bust you like this. I’d been bringing her to this farmers market since she was three months old in a baby carrier. But, I had never explained to her why we shop this way. Maybe now at six, going on seven, she was ready to learn.

“No, honey,” I replied. “I did not want that cantaloupe. It was grown in a Colorado. It was bought from a warehouse and the man is reselling it. This cantaloupe,” I said, nodding toward the farmer, “was grown by this man.”

“I only buy the foods here at this market grown by farmers we know. It keeps them in business, keeps them on their farms. It tastes better because he just picked it. And it’s healthier, because it’s fresh.”

The quiet farmer smiled at me, “Thank you,” he said.

“No,” I said, “thank you,” in response. To the kiddo, “Besides, it’s really important to know who grows your food so you know it is safe to eat.”

That was a month ago. Today’s headlines, September 28, indicate that warehouse cantaloupe could have been dangerous. Cantaloupes from the Rocky Ford area have been implicated in the deadliest listeria outbreak in a decade. Seventy-two people have been sickened and thirteen have died so far.

So, even at your own farmers market, make sure the farmers are clearly marking their produce for where it was grown, and if it was sourced elsewhere. Some markets do not require farmers to do this, and have wholesalers selling produce instead of the actual farmers. Be sure to ask, and Know Your Farmers, Know Your Food.

 

How to Order Your Thanksgiving Turkey On Facebook

The first year I attempted a local Thanksgiving, my best gathering skills only conjured up sweet potatoes saved, dirt on, in our basement for a month. It was a start.

In the last six years, I'd like to think my gatherer (however not hunter) skills have improved. But skill has nothing to do with it. You show up at the market every weekend, get to know the farmers and next thing you know, your pastured turkey is just one facebook wall post from your table. Far more than poultry and potatoes, what I gathered has been people. Friends. Farmers. Fellow cooks and locavores. It's a bounty that ensures that neither my table or my life will be empty. As my family celebrates this holiday, we have much to be thankful for in our connections to our food, not just connections on facebook.

Like the farmers who see my child at the market each spring, after a winter apart. They've watched her grow up from a baby in a front carrier to her current four feet tall — and knew it was their food she ate to get so big. They've fed her cherry tomatoes and peppers fresh from the ground and encouraged her love of vegetables in ways I never could. A few of them have even, in the cold late fall market days, wiped her nose for her, just as if she were one of their own.

I've watched my child pet the forehead of a bull in a pasture and hold baby chicks when we went to get our chickens.

A few of the farmers have become good friends, showing up at our table, our kids playing together as we cook and drink wine. We've celebrated holidays now, and family outings to the pumpkin patch. We've cooked the lamb they raised, possibly even the once tiny ones they kept warm in their laundry room during a wicked cold winter.

Each winter, I wonder how they all are and look forward to the spring ahead when we will see them — not just their produce — again. I rejoice at new methods like high tunnels that extend the season a month in either direction. Not just because the food is so good, but it's two months less I will not have to miss all these people.

Which is a whole lot to gather into your life besides sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Souffle
2 lbs washed, peeled and diced sweet potatoes (start with a bit over 2 lbs. to allow for peeling)
3 tbs. flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp. orange extract
1/4 cup light sour cream
3 eggs
2 tbs. butter, melted

Steam the diced sweet potato for about 20 minutes until tender. Allow to cool before preparing the rest of the recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the sweet potato in a food processor and pulse until pureed. Add the flour through the extract and pulse to combine. Add the sour cream, eggs, and butter. Pulse to combine well, scraping sides as needed. Pour batter into a greased souffle dish. Bake for about one hour or until edges are puffed and center is nearly set. Allow to cool for about 15 to 20 minutes before serving for the best texture. It really does get better cold the next day.

ExpatChef, or Beth Bader, is co-author of the upcoming book, The Cleaner Plate Club: Recipes and Advice for Getting Real Kids to Love Real Food.

Five Foods I Only Tried by Eating Local

by Expat Chef

It would seem like once you get to be an adult, and an adventurous eater at that, new foods would require a passport, extra bag fees and various immunizations. Truth is, that exotic vegetable experience was as close as a trip to the farmers market — or delivered in my CSA box. Here’s just a few of the new foods that have ruined me for the megamart.

1.     Heirloom tomatoes. Okay, the trend has passed. It’s so five years ago. But I’ll never be able to look at a store bought tomato again. Much less eat one. Even with my voracious appetite for all things veg, I still have roughly 500 more varieties to still try. Favorites from under 100 samplings? Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, German Stripe, Sungold Cherry, and the Technicolor kaleidoscope of tomatoes, Mr. Stripey.

 

2.     Kale, collards and chard. Unless you grow up a bit further south, the only greens you see are kale leaves used as a garnish on a buffet. Forget the chicken-fried whatever on top. Eat the kale, especially if it is the sexy purple kind or the kind with the little yellow flowers, or the luscious baby kale mix from my CSA. Best prep? For collards, a quick sauté with bacon. Kale chips are the family favorite, but kale and white beans with garlic are my pick. Chard can substitute for spinach, and tastes even better.

3.     Heirloom winter squash. I have a small problem with these. If you can call 300 lbs. of the stuff a “small” problem. You’ll need to ditch the canned stuff, get a sharp knife, and a few ethnic cookbooks (try Caribbean, Mexican and South American for starters) to understand just how many amazing recipes you can make with these. My picks? I’m a bit of a Francophile when it comes to winter squash. French heirlooms such as the Musquee de Provence and Rouge Vif D’Etampes (sold as Fairy Tale and Cinderella, respectively).

4.     Weed. Okay, I’m not in THAT kind of CSA. The feds won’t be knocking to take away my foraged goodness. The fact is, many a plant referred to as a “weed” is really an edible delight. Not ALL, mind you. So don’t head out to the yard with a fork unless you have an educated forager/farmer along for the meal. Dandelion greens would be the most familiar in this category, but hold the Roundup if you plan on harvesting your own. Other sexy salad greens disguised as weeds? Miner’s lettuce, pursulane, and some varieties of amaranth — also known under the far less sexy name of pigweed.

5.     Purple haze. Nope, no weed induced visions here. Wrong weeds. Purple just keeps showing up in new ways when I eat local. Purple cauliflower, carrots, bell peppers, hot peppers, tomatillos, tomatoes not to mention all the extra purple shades of eggplant that are not, well, eggplant-colored.

Expat Chef is Beth Bader, co-author of upcoming The Cleaner Plate Club: Advice and Recipes for Getting Real Kids to Love Real Food.

Dark Days: Time to See Them in a New Light

Following is a letter I will be sending to my local farmers market manager who oddly enough decided to close our market early and open late just as local farms are beginning to find ways to extend the growing season by months. Nationwide, high tunnels and other approaches to farming are extending growing seasons and making even local lettuces a reality in December.

Dear Ms. Maricle;

Congratulations on your first season as manager for the OP farmers market. I have been coming to that market with my family since before our child was born. So many of the farmers who are regulars there know us and know that their sustainably-raised, local foods have been on our family dinner table for all these years.

Each year, as the market closes for the winter season, my child and I both get sad for all the friends we will miss and the foods as well. Winter is the longest season surely because of this, even longer this year with the early closing of the market and no November purchases of chestnuts and pecans, sorghum and preserves, and the last of the hearty winter greens.

You may find it interesting, however, that today even as the temperature plummets to THREE degrees and the Christmas lights are glowing, today I am going to a local farm and picking up a CSA package. The package will have lettuces and carrots and greens in it, all of which were grown outdoors — not in a greenhouse — using high tunnels.

High tunnels and other innovations are gaining ground, so to speak, in our area. These growing methods now extend our growing season by months, both at the season’s end and the next season’s beginning. Rather than giving up on local produce at October’s end and waiting over five months until April, I now can easily get local food through December and at the beginning of March.

Local foods are also not limited to just produce. Even in winter, I buy meats, milk, eggs, cheeses, canned items, bread and other local food items that are still available even when the produce growing season is done.

Which is why, I am wondering, did you choose to shut our market down earlier than season’s past and delay the opening for two weeks later in the spring? The farmers who sell at market rely on income each week, decreasing those weeks will decrease their potential income. Rather than lose money, the best of the local farms who sell at the OP market will likely find other venues to sell in. Which is where we all in our community will lose out.

Ms. Maricle, I am asking you to reconsider the later opening date for the OP market. Our farmers have chosen to innovate and evolve their methods in order to make our local food scene even better. I am asking you to support those farmers and make it possible for them, and local food in our area, to continue to grow.

Thank you. Best wishes for your holiday season.

Why I Am Changing CSAs

Let me start off with the advice that CSAs are a fantastic thing. And, that I am searching for our next CSA. But just like the proverbial barrel of apples, one bad experience can detract from the others — if you let it.

It is rare that a CSA does NOT work out, but as more and more people embrace eating local, it can happen. Here's the story and how to make sure your CSA experience is positive.

We've had the same CSA for five years. In the beginning, it was like Christmas each week. Especially in July and August when a huge box filled with heirloom tomatoes was a weekly gift. We were pretty supportive of our farm and the fact that some of the best restaurants in town were building menus around the very same produce we were lucky to eat ourselves.

The farm flourished, expanding to sell meat and eggs and preserves. Building green houses and on the verge of offering a winter CSA (fresh, local lettuce in February!). Then, there were some family problems with the farm last year. The boxes got lighter. We saw the heirloom tomatoes on restaurant menus — from our farm — but we got few of them, and few of the other unique varieties.

My weekly trip to the farmers market for a few extra goodies turned from an optional trip to a requirement in order to get enough produce for the week, despite paying more each year.

The family split. We felt awful for them and figured the bad year was justifiable. We decided to stay another year and support them through this difficult time.

The cost of the CSA went up with gas prices, and stayed up. The boxes got lighter and lighter, despite a mild summer and a lot of rain. Some weeks, there was not enough produce in the box to serve for more than two meals for a family of three. On average, a CSA box should provide enough produce for a family of four for a week.

The pickup location moved to the lot where some of the restaurants the farm supplied were located. I saw items posted on their menus from our farm that were not in our packages. The heirloom tomatoes were absent for us. Instead, these special items were displayed in baskets on the pickup table and sold to other folks as a farmers market. Of course, we were welcome to pay extra for those heirloom tomatoes, dragon tongue beans, elephant garlic and exotic items — even though our deposits bought the seed and supplies.

Friends we had recommended the CSA to were complaining to us about it. One said she found store stickers on some of the peaches in her box. We talked to the farmer, she denied any problems and accused of us not wanting to support local farmers.

You see, restaurants do not pay up front. Sometimes they don't pay for weeks after a produce delivery, and some don't ever pay. Farms rely on CSA subscribers for up front money for the farm and a guaranteed income. CSA subscribers are the only secure income for these farms.

I took my extra money to my own farmers market to buy the other five days worth of fruits and vegetables for our week. When the CSA quit a week early, they also requested for us to be sure and sign up again for next year, the sooner the better for them. I hope they do well, I think they should probably just focus on the restaurant business since that is their priority.

I am looking for another CSA. I am NOT quitting the CSA process. I believe in it. I believe in family farms and supporting them. But a CSA is a partnership, and it has to be based on trust just like a friendship.

Joining a CSA is a new experience for first-timers. An adjustment. You pay up front, you don't get to choose what you get, you cook what comes ... it's hard enough to adjust for a lot of folks new to eating local without additional problems. But, trust me, once you make the adjustment, you'll never want to go back to the grocery store path. It's that good.

Here are some things you can do to make sure your CSA experience is a good one.

• Talk to more than one CSA provider and get to know them a bit
• Visit the farms if possible
• Ask how many acres the farm has, how many subscriptions they will sell, and how many restaurants or other businesses they supply
• Ask if they work with other farms, some do, to provide more variety and serve more subscribers
• If you are excited by heirloom produce, ask if the farmer grows unique varieties
• As them what an average box contains
• Talk to other subscribers for several CSAs and ask them about their experience, or even trade photos of your weekly boxes to compare
• If you can't commit to a weekly pickup, ask if the farm delivers, if not, you may be better off shopping at the farmers market
• Do you have a pretty good idea how to cook most anything, or do you cook only from recipes? If you are not flexible in your cooking approach, you may be better off with the farmers market since it is more like shopping 
• Get recommendations on the best farms from your local food circle staff. They know everyone and may be able to help advise you on what farm is the best fit

By Beth Bader, Expatriates Kitchen

Eating Locally in the North Woods of Wisconsin

So far, here in the far northern reaches of Wisconsin..this challenge has been easy-ish...for us at least.

I have a garden center where I teach folks to "feed ourselves"...we have had plenty of produce from our gardens.  I've been drying various foods like crazy for the long winter ahead.  I do some canning also, but drying is so much easier and less risky.

We have 7 apple trees, so there's loads of dried apple rings and applesauce and apple leather for the months ahead.

Berries and grapes, both native and cultivated, find their way into jams and leathers.  I'm drying 15 herbs for future use.

A few years ago I built my green growing area on the south side of my house, there are plenty of veggies that will continue to grow through the winter to feed us: broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, onions, beans...all will continue to produce for us until I give them their "fake winter break" from mid December through "wake up" in February when the sun gets high enough to get them all growing again.

The Hodag Farmer's market in Rhinelander, WI was a treasure trove of all the food products I don't grow or produce...honey, corn, certain squashes.  For the past 4 years, our meat has come from an organic potato farmer about 45 miles south.  He's grown us field grazed beef and pork and chickens.

We've been trying to eat locally for the past 5 years and doing a fairly good job of it.  I'm trying to find a variety of banana tree that will grow, potted in our greenroom and I'd like a fig tree and MUST learn how to grow peanuts in containers...because my husband will not live without his daily PB and jelly sandwich!!!!  I've tried to get him to eat local nut butter...but to no avail.....Any help with these issues would be greatly appreciated.

One of my on going projects up here is to find a local mom and pop restaurant willing to add local selections to their menu.  So far...no luck...but I can feel it happening soon!!!

LynnAnn owns and operates a people/earth friendly garden center in the far northern reaches of Wisconsin.

Gardening with Conscience is emblazoned on her sign.

What is a beautiful landscape?

My daughter and I are now in the Midwest visiting her grandparents, so all I was able to manage today was some more locally made bread for breakfast. I had intended to put some local organic berry jam on it, but when I cracked open the jar there was mold on top. So much for that. It's hard to lose even a little when you don't have that many options to begin with.

We made a day trip to Grant's Farm today (a sort of historical site/game park/family attraction outside St. Louis), and the highway goes straight through southern Illinois farmland. Having lived most of my life in the Ohio River valley and south-central Indiana, this is the landscape that feels like "home" to me. The open, gently rolling fields standing under a big sky, planted in corn, soybeans, or wheat, or serving as cattle pasture, punctuated by large single trees or little stands of forest, the clusters of farmhouses and outbuildings; seeing these vistas provokes a pleasurable nostalgia, a return to the backdrop for trips to my own grandparents and, later, my universities. It's harvest time now, and the fields are particularly attractive, glowing orange and tawny gold in the setting sun, the newly shorn rows of corn stubble proclaiming 'the human hand has been here.'

However, now that I'm invested in local and sustainable food, I'm reading other elements in these scenes, seeing the acres of monoculture and of crops that may be used for fuel instead of food; watching the huge combines and trucks that have become the symbol of industrialized, oil-driven agriculture; seeing the brown, dust-laden clouds carrying away vital topsoil to pollute our waterways and choke our oceans.

I think about the Eat Local Challenge and wonder what it would mean to these farmers if we were able to turn the agricultural system upside down; what would the fields look like then? Would they be unfamiliar; would they be beautiful? What would happen to the machines they've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy? Would the grain silos be empty? Is it possible some of them might return to using the magnificent draft horses we saw today for their original purpose? I wish I knew, and I hope we'll see the day when a reimagined landscape is not only possible, but profitable, and sustainable.

Angela Jordan is a stay-at-home mom, web designer, and local food blogger living in Mobile AL.

Eating locally in Chicago

Local eaters in the Chicago area now have a new resource available to them: The Local Beet.  One of the founders is an author for this site, and it looks like it is already a great reference for Chicago-area locavores!

Among other features, check out their discussion forum covering topics like local food sources, making a root cellar, and finding local food at Whole Foods.

Eating Locally in Madison, Wisconsin.

Locavores in the Madison, Wisconsin area now have a new tool to find locally grown food.  Built by a group of geography students for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the local food map is interactive and allows a user to search by Co-op, Market, CSA, Farm, Restaurant, or Community Garden and to further segment by Meat/Poultry, Produce and Dairy.  It's well worth checking out!

What About The Celery

By VI

Baby it's cold outside.  Around me, there's a limited growing season and no year-round farmer's markets.  Yet, thank you very much, I still manage, some oranges aside, to eat local.  The hardest thing about eating local in Chicago: not managing your stock of root vegetables or wondering where you could put fifty pounds of potatoes. No, it's not having to eat all those root vegetables and potatoes.  While my family and I allow exceptions for things that do not grow around here, those oranges; we will not dabble in stuff that we can get, at least in season.  So, no matter how bad our apricot crop was this year, we will not get an outta region apricot.  Which gets us to the celery.  That's hard.  I got a head of celery this week, and it made me really happy.