The weekly “dairy” choice of eggs, butter, milk or yogurt has been changed to eggs, butter, yogurt, seitan or tofu
There is a prepared food item weekly, like pasta, breads, dips and jams (locally produced, of course)
2009 was billed as 3-6 fruits and veggies; 2010 is 1-2 fruits, 5-7 veggies
I won’t lie. I was torn. The meat was definitely a draw for me, and seeing the tradeoff quantified to be so veggie-centric made me sad. 2-3 fruits (or more!) and 4-6 veggies would have been much, MUCH preferred. But, even with the sadness, I re-enrolled. Perhaps this will be the year I will truly embrace the vegetable.
If you want to sign up for Greensgrow, don’t hesitate. The 2009 share was completely sold out by the end of March. If Greensgrow isn’t your pick, I hope you’ve been researching, and found a CSA that’s right for you! But all farms offer a limited number of shares, so take 10 minutes to fill out the application. When you’re filling your belly with fresh produce all summer long, you’ll be happy you did.
Aren’t sure you’re ready to commit to a farmshare? In Philly, it’s still easy to get access to local agriculture, including produce, meats, dairy products and eggs. (Yes, even raw milk, Vick!)
Happy New Year, my dears! It’s resolution time, and a great many resolutions have to do with food. I’m taking the advice of two of my favorite bloggers, and making sure my resolutions are concrete — things that can be clearly separated into done or not done.
I have a generic resolution to eat local. To transform that into concrete plans, I will: join a CSA, shop at Fair Food once a week, and remember local pastas, cheeses and other prepared foods (hello, Green Aisle!) when buying.
If you are thinking that 2010 will be the year you join a CSA (what is a csa, anyway?), now is actually a great time to start your research. Most CSAs start accepting signups in March, and they can fill up fast. If you wait until the first strawberries hit the stands in May to think CSA, you may find yourself out of luck for the year.
Back to the resolutions! I also want to keep better track of food I try. I have a terrible habit of trying a wine, cheese or beer, but remembering nothing about it except that I have tried it. It ends with me either re-buying something it turns out I didn’t like, or just sticking with my old standards, because I can remember I do like them.
Concrete plan: photograph everything with my iPhone, stick it in Evernote, tag it “like”, “dislike” or “neutral”. If I’m feeling really ambitious, I might even write my thoughts, but let’s not push it. I’m using Evernote just because I’ve used it in the past. If you’re tracking wines, etc. in some handy way, share it in the comments!
And, because I love a good secret resolution, here is mine: improve my photo composition. (What’s a secret resolution? One I don’t feel guilty about not keeping, which usually means it has a higher success rate than my “real” resolutions.) I probably take 50 shots for every one I post here. In Japan, I didn’t have a way to offload the photos on my SD card, so I had to shoot more mindfully.
In 2010, I shall channel the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson, and focus on the decisive moment. Or something. Take fewer pictures. Make more of them good ones. That is, spend more time thinking, less time clicking. I’d love some tips on making this concrete, though. I’ve been looking for a photography class without a darkroom component for a while now. Let me know if you’re aware of a good one!
Will you be making any food resolutions this year? Cook at home more? Eat more colorful foods? (I thought about that one.) Cook your way through a cookbook? (hee….) Stop eating so many g-d burgers you keep reading about on the Internet? Tell us in the comments!
The 2009 Greensgrow CSA wraps up this week. After my encounter with a reader, though, I realized I have never really explained what a CSA is!
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. They’re sometimes also referred to as a farmshare. In a traditional CSA, a farm sells “shares” of their crops at the beginning of the season, which CSA members then receive as they are harvested, usually a box a week throughout the growing season.
As eating locally produced foods became more popular, some CSAs began adopting more flexible arrangements. Some CSAs let you select your own box of goodies each week. Some incorporate non-plant items (eggs are a particularly popular choice.)
Greensgrow takes that flexibility to the extreme. Even though they are a farm (in the middle of the city, even), most weeks’ boxes don’t include any Greensgrow-produced items. Instead, Greensgrow acts as a broker between the local-food-loving public, and an array of local producers including farms who may be too small to run their own CSA, meat producers, dairies, and even local prepared food vendors like Superior Pasta Company and Bobbi’s Hummus.
As a member, participating in a CSA means you’re getting fresh, seasonal, super tasty produce all summer long. Plus, you’re doing your part to support a local food economy and farming families, and it’s good for the environment, too. Joining a CSA is a great way to put your money where your mouth is on a range of issues. For farms, it’s a chance to get some money in the door earlier in the season, and also build a group of supporters. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone in a CSA who wouldn’t enthusiastically promote it to you.
If you’re thinking about joining a CSA next year, there are a lot of options in the area. When choosing, I would think about:
CSA style: there are all-veg, fruits and veggies, produce and eggs, a full mix including meat, and more. Some CSAs also let you add on things like extra fruit, or actually select a given amount of your weekly box.
Food Quantity: Many CSAs have a full and half share. You can also buddy up to split your share.
Pick-up locations: do you need to take a weekly trip to the farm (Greensgrow requires this), or is there a pick-up location near you?
Signup date: Popular CSAs sell out, almost every year.
The first year I wanted to do Greensgrow, I didn’t think about it until May, when I saw the first produce of the season hitting the farm stands. I was too late, and the CSA was sold out. I spent that whole summer in CSA envy, watching people picking up their boxes at the Fair Food CSA drop-off. I made an entry on my calendar for February of the following year, so I could be sure I wouldn’t miss it. And with good reason…. the 2009 CSA sold out in under a month.
Want to stump for your favorite CSA? Tell us all about it in the comments!
On to this week’s basket, AKA the end of season hodge-podge AKA beer week!
Greensgrow Bucks - Philadelphia, PA
Brussels Sprouts - Lancaster, PA
Radicchio - Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
Bell Peppers - Lancaster, PA
Beer - Philadelphia Brewing Company, Philadelphia, PA
Red Onions - Porter Farms, Tuscarora Organics Co-op, PA
Sweet Potatoes - White Swan Acres, Lancaster, PA
Raw Colby cheese - Swiss Villa Dairy, Lykens, PA
Gotta have my eggs!
Smoked Turkey Breast - Koch’s Turkey Farm, Tamaqua, PA
This week is a grab bag of fall flavors. Last week’s bacon fat is hanging around… maybe waiting to make those brussels sprouts tastier? Niki tried to convince me this week that sweet potatoes are better than regular potatoes (because you can’t make a cake out of regular potatoes), so I can test that theory this week. Have a recipe for spaghetti squash you like? How about collards? Recommendations are very welcome!
I may have to do another cheese wrap-up soon. The Portelet from week 19 was a big hit with bda, but the cream cheese from last week was a bust. I might still bake with it, at least. But it seems like the cheeses have been even better this year than last, and there’s been a much better variety, too (waaay fewer Jacks.)
Apple Cider - Three Springs Farm, Lancaster County, PA
Zucchini - Lancaster County, PA
Carrots - Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
Onions - Lancaster County, PA
Butternut Squash - Lancaster County, PA
Greensgrow Bucks - Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia, PA
Cream Cheese - Hillacres Pride, Peach Bottom, PA
Dairy Option - 1/2 Gallon Hormone-free Milk, for real this time (I accidentally got eggs last time, and I still have a full dozen)
Bacon - Country Time, Hamburg, PA
Last week’s share was a huge success; I had cooked virtually everything by Tuesday. (Except the cabbage! I really need to find a cabbage dish that I like to eat in order to inspire myself to cook.)
This week looks to be just as good. I was never much of an apple cider fan, but something tells me that this cider is not exactly Zeigler’s. The newsletter pitched this as “the breakfast week”, but cream cheese and bacon are valid for far more than just breakfast in my book. And any week that lets me loose on the farm stand with Greensgrow Bucks makes me happy.
When I was debating rejoining the Greensgrow CSA this year, last year’s oyster share definitely figured into my decision-making process. That being said, as much as I enjoyed those oysters, there is a serious downside. You had to pop them open yourself. Shucking is a bear. I think I may have actually only eaten 10 of my 12, because I mangled the shells of the other two so badly that I couldn’t open them.
I can reveal to you now how crushing this failure was to me last year. You see, in Anthony Bourdain’s cooking memoir Kitchen Confidential, he talks about shucking his first oyster as one of his seminal foodie moments. Like some phenom hitting his first pitch right out of the park, he made shucking an oyster sound like a mystical moment between food lover and food, where the worthy would find the oyster shell creaking open of its own accord.
Perhaps I was insuffiently pure at heart, or perhaps my psyche just needed time to integrate my new skill, but this year’s shuck went a lot more smoothly. First of all, I used a much sharper knife, with a very definite point (for once a year, I haven’t yet invested in an oyster knife.) When you pry open a rock from a tiny, tiny seam, something sharp and pointy is going to get in there a lot better than something dull and rounded. I got over my (very well-founded) fear of cutting myself, and used a sharp knife.
The instructions said, “run your knife under the oyster meat to separate it from the bottom shell.” Perhaps next year, I will have become skilled enough to avoid mangling my oysters in this process.
20 minutes later, I had all 6 oysters shucked (ok, and eaten.) 3 minutes an oyster isn’t going to win me any shucking contests, but I did get that tiny glow in my heart from defeating a mechanism evolved over millions of years to avoid that very fate. One step closer to that mystical moment, eh?
All summer, I’ve been struggling with what to do with my CSA peppers. This week, I was merrily prepping roasted turnips, onions, garlic and potatoes to go with the poussin (which looked eerily like a headless lady) when I nearly kicked myself. Of course. I will roast them.
Like all my favorite recipes, roasting peppers turned out to be dead easy. You throw them in the oven at 500, and in 40 minutes, they go from this:
to this:
Peeling them is slightly more difficult than peeling peaches, but since it’s essentially the only work you have to do, it’s ok. They flatten out really easily once they’re cool enough to handle, and then you just pull the skin off with your fingers. If you were one of those kids who enjoyed peeling glue off your hands, you may even find this kind of fun, in that “how big a piece can I pull off at once?” kind of way.
Then you plop them in a bowl, add olive oil, vinegar, a garlic clove, and some salt and pepper, and stick it in the fridge overnight. The next day, drain them, and eat! Or stick them in a jar with olive oil to cover, put it in the fridge and eat over the next few weeks.
Roasted Peppers
bell peppers (4 will fill a pint jar)
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 500. Place peppers in a baking dish (they will release some liquid while roasting.) Roast for 40 minutes, until well blackened and losing their shape.
Cool for 40-60 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Discard stems and seeds, and peel off the skin.
Place in a bowl with all other ingredients. For once in my life, I will say, don’t add too much salt. You want to taste the sweetness of the peppers. Refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours before serving.
If you want to store them for later, drain the oil and vinegar. Then, put them in a jar, topped off with fresh olive oil. Poke with a chopstick to let out all the air pockets, and store in the fridge.
This week is bda heaven; he’ll be eating the baguette while I’m still picking up peppers. Salad with lettuce, peppers, radishes, apples? You bet. I’ve been loving vinegar-based slaws recently, so I might actually break into that cabbage for the first time in 2 years of CSA-ing.
I also had to look up what a poussin is. Wikipedia thinks it’s either a spring chicken or a rock game hen. Marinated. Well, if it’s whole, it’ll get roasted, and if it’s parts, well, we’ll see.
On a non-food-related note: Whip It is having a sneak preview on Saturday night. Totally ready to see this movie.
Honeycrisp Apples - Three Spring Fruit Farm, Aspers, PA
Eggplant - Linvilla Orchards, Media,PA
Beets - Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
Goat Chevre - Shellbark Hollow Farm, West Chester, PA
Eggs, eggs, eggs! All mine got used up making birthday party food.
Bluefish - E. Frank Hopkins, caught in New Jersey
What a delightful fall bounty. Yet I am Montreal-bound! Eric has offered to pick up my basket this week, as well as eat anything that will be bad before I return. (And the fish. As cucumbers are to me, fish is to bda.)
I’m super excited for the chevre! Jenn got a container of it earlier this year in a honey variety, so I’m hoping that flavor will be available, but all the Shellbark Hollow chevres I’ve tried have been really tasty. The Honeycrisp apples, at least from the description, seem more suitable for fresh eating than baking, so some apple salads might be in my future. And Mary’s promised eggplant may finally get delivered after all!
But in the meantime, any suggestions for must-eats in Montreal?
