Who needs defense when you have Tom Brady and Kale Chips?
• 1 head kale, washed and thoroughly dried
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Sea salt and pepper, for sprinkling
Directions
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.
Remove the ribs from the kale and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Toss in large bowl with salt and pepper. Lay pieces of kale out on baking sheets, dark green side up. Bake until crisp in top half of oven for approximately 25 minutes. Have a look at them every 8 minutes to ensure even baking. Serve while warm, immediately, in a large bowl. Pair with beer. If somebody looks up and says, “Hey, these chips are black!” pass the dip. (Yogurt and lemon with white pepper works well.)
For a more formal presentation, kale makes an elegant entry in its long leafy shape. Just remove stems with scissors and skip the step of cutting the kale leaves. Cooking directions remain the same. Long kale chips can be served in various vessels such as pewter beer steins and other football game ephemera. Pair with a nice Pinot Noir. If somebody says, “Hey, who brought the lawn clippings?” squirt some organic lemon on the chips.
Either way, kale chips are an effective transportation device for salt, like popcorn. But that's cool. They're so healthy, it is impossible to eat too many! Go Pats!
Think you have mastered kale? Think again. When somebody says, 'kale chips' (#1000 out of 1000 on the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) can also be a snack food,' you have to try 'em.
So I tried. I tasted kale chips two years ago in Hartford. A restaurant owner passed them out. Delicious black squares salty and with a bit of something else, not sure what. I learned that her kale chips were dehydrated. Don't have one of those machines so moved on in the research.
Discussing kale with some kids in Great Barrington, a woman named Sharon said she loved kale chips and made them all the time. She baked them in the oven, real hot, oil and salt. Easy!
She said the secret to kale is to make sure it is very, very dry before cooking. "So I leave all of the cut leaves on the table to dry overnight. Then my partner comes home and she says, "Is this an art project?"
Further investigation revealed several recipes, all of which involved drying before baking. The dehydration method, I ruled out since I don't have one of those machines. Being a locavore, I try to keep the grid to a minimum.
Anyway, I remember the business about drying and take a couple of recipes and put them together. I follow the first steps, all recipes specify cleaning, cutting away the stems and drying. After drying, baking instructions ranged from 250 to 350, depending on the recipe. I wash the kale and decide to stick the leaves in the oven, very low, to DRY them right away rather than having to leave them out on the table over night. Seems like a quick way to do the overnight method. But it was a one-way ticket to Pompeii. When I took out my sad little squares of kale, they were ashen, like burned notes lire, like an art project. They tasted of blackness.
In the end, we went out to dinner at Hope and Olive in Greenfield, where I knew kale would be on the menu. The place never disappoints, never forsakes our local bounty, no mater what the season. Way out in front of the food curve, Hope and Olive was first to feature mead, hard cider and grass-fed beef on its menu.
Last night, Hope and Olive's Kale Salad featured ribbons of kale. If you try to make this salad at home, massage the kale as described several posts ago, before adding the other stuff. In this case, the other stuff was white rice, sliced beets, the exotic red and white stripped kind, bits of squash, not sure what kind, roasted whole pecans maybe with a hint of sweetness and apple.
It should be noted for those who are trying to make the dish, is that the roots are cut into MATCHSTICKS. This is a step that must not be ignored because scale is important when it comes to mixing this much different food together. You don't want to let the kale ribbons get lost in great lumps of other produce. How wonderful this salad is. An entire meal.
Can kale the super food also be kale, the super star of snack foods? Stay tuned.
Bread Euphoira is my morning place, my second family, a source of friendship, coffee, sugar, advice on things. Things such as kale for example.
Recent forays into the restaurant world investigate how this tough, obscure little plant is playing out in eating establishments across America. Perched on a ridge in the foot of the hilltowns in my little part of the country is a place run by a mad baker and his wife with a stalwart staff including Molly and Sean. Molly wants to learn to how to make kale. Has a friend who grew up on a commune, intentional living, works wonders with kale. Molly specializes in Mac and Cheese and aspires to Commune foods.
For her, kale is an unattainable feat. We discuss kale for a couple mornings and she, in conversation, pauses for a brainstorm and says, “Oh, right here, he knows how to cook everything, ask him about kale!” Sean comes into the conversation, nods, and recites the following about kale. (It should be noted that he is tall and fair in complexion with dark hair and glasses perched almost a third of the way down on his nose. Molly is a sprite with a great black shock of straight bangs.)
Sean says: “I always blanch it. You have to blanch it. After blanching it, no vinegar. Kale is too bitter already, do butter. I like butter.” He later adds that oil is OK but definately not vinegar. Sean talks restaurant talk. You will see what I mean by the recipe below.
So I go home and try it and it works pretty well. Couple of weeks later I go back and discuss kale with Molly again. She blanches at the idea of blanching and I can’t say that I blame her. What is blanching anyway? Steep in boiling water. What is steep, how long is the boil, what kind of boil, what kind of pan? You can use any pan deep enough to take the kale with some water on top to ‘cover.’ Bring the water with some salt to a boil, put the kale in the pot until the it withers a bit, or is ‘shocked’ by the water. This will soften the kale but not overcook it making kale attainable, less elusive, for all mankind, not just those in The Commune.
RECIPE: Sean’s Kale
1-Bunch Kale Butter (or oil)
Blanch kale until al dente (not too soft, with a bit of a bite) Serve as a ‘hot side’ meaning warm, on the side, maybe tossed with butter and salt and pepper with whatever else you have like red pepper strips or pickled onions, hard boiled eggs, etc.
NOTE: wash kale, remove stems and roughly chop before beginning this recipe -- MN
"Street Kale" otherwise known as urban decoration. Photographed on 22nd bet. 8th and 9th, NYC
Street Kale: It's what's for dinner....
This urban food, while similar to kale purchased by the man at stores and farmstands, is worthy occupation fare during times of strife. Preparation requires cutting off leaves at the stem with a leatherman knife or tie off with guitar strong then soak for 5 to ten minutes in water bath to remove traces of street urine. For quick consumption, de-rib, roll leaves into cigar shape, cut into little stubs and fry in skillet with ghee, oil for free butter pats found at the breakfast bar in extended stay hotels near Chinatown. If you have enough fuel but no fat or a good knife, de-rib with fingers and blanch kale leaves in boiling water for five to ten minutes. When ready, text friends #dinner.
If kale could talk, "Put me in coach," would be its mantra.
Take a random recipe plucked from box unearthed in a basement or estate sale. The basics are there such as salt, fat, acid and with that in place, substitute away. Here, for example, a vintage Newspaper Recipe for Greek Tortellini Salad ("This potluck-size salad can be made several hours ahead.....") has the basic ingredients for a side dish that can sit for a bit under cover and for the ingredients potentially not in your larder, such as a package of plain or tricolored refrigerated cheese tortellini, feel free to substitute with kale.
In this case the other ingredients are peppers, onion, olives, vinegar, oil, mint, lemon juice, sherry, salt, garlic powder, crushed red pepper and feta cheese....more than enough action to make this dish work with kale as the star. Because of kale's star power due to flavor, nutrients, fridge endurance and winter availability, the dish can be made with far fewer ingredients.
A quick massage and ribboning of the kale (see below) with addition of onion, vinegar, oil, an herb you might have on hand, an alcohol you might have on hand (not beer) instead of the sherry, real garlic and some cheese (not swiss) as an option makes for a sustainable version of this Vintage Recipe Box recipe.
To say that kale is healthy is like saying the earth is round. Kale is so healthy it is at the top of the list that ranks foods by evaluating a range of micronutrients including vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidant capacities. The ANDI score is formerly called the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index and it ranges from produce to dairy with produce leading the pack with a score of 1000 for kale, according to documentation provided by Whole Foods. Carrots have a score of 336 and oats 53, trout 36 and swiss cheese 15, just sayin! By working olive into the nutrient packed fiber of this hearty, hearty, green, the leaves relax and luxuriate in a bath of garlic, lemon and salt.
Give it a good rub, lots of payback.A massaged kale salad will keep in the fridge with dressing or up to three days.
Massaged Kale Salad
1 Head of Kale
1 T olive oil
honey, about ½ t
juice of one lemon
2 T chopped almonds
salt & pepper
Remove stems from kale with a sharp knife or scissors and roll individual leaves of kale into cigar shapes. Cut width-wise so the kale becomes like ribbons. Place kale ribbons in a bowl and massage olive oil into pieces. Toss with lemon, salt, garlic and add almonds if you like. Pepita seeds are also great with kale.
This kale on toast delight is from the recipe box of Jack Algiere ofStone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture where the kale is in season, the extended season, that is. This seasonal farmers' market sells produce from Stone Barns' own hoop and green houses and meat from the farm's livestock. At Stone Barns Farm in upstate New York, farming is what farming would be like if millionaires built the place. The buildings are originally the dairy and hay barns that made up the Rockefeller estate. Food in situ, food at the market and food in the restaurant where menu features seasonal dishes in multiple courses, is worth a visit. Stone Barns is a non-profit farm and education center. The restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns is located on the farm as well. Both are open to the public.
Sick boyfriend, two days after Christmas, looking for something simple, easy to digest, healthy and without sugar or caramel! In fridge is a couple of chicken legs from our meat share (Chestnut Hill Farms) and on the top of all the cupboards are jars and jars and jars of grain, we just received from our grain share (Pioneer Valley Heritage Grains) so what else but a chicken soup with faro, an ancient grain that I don’t know how to make yet. Turns out the farro gets cleaned then toasted then cooked with 1.5 C water until water is absorbed. The rest of the dish is business as usual and after a day he was all better, the boyfriend, that is....local chicken and grain make all the difference.
1 C farro
2 chicken legs
1 onion
2 peeled parsnips
1T thyme dried
pepper grind 2-3
1 large clove garlic
2 C carrots, diced
2 onions, chopped roughly
1 bunch kale, stems removed, cut into thin strips
¼ C apple cider
1 C chopped carrots
Clean and brown faro and set aside. Make stock with chicken legs, onion, parsnips, thyme and pepper by bringing 2 quarts of water to a boil over the ingredients and reducing it to simmer for 45 minutes. When stock is finished, strain out liquid and set aside the meat. Return stock to pot and add carrots, parsnips and farro. Bring to boil and let simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, remove chicken meat from bones and shred meat. Set aside. In large cast iron stock pot, sautee 2 onions with kale, cut very thin in 1 T olive oil. When browned, add apple cider. Simmer on low for 10 minutes. Add stock and pieces of chicken. Bring to boil, cook on low for 10 minutes and remove from heat. Serve warm in large bowls with crusty bread.
Grab some kale out of the snow or off the shelf at the store or off a dusty table at your deep winter storage CSA. Cut it up into ribbons, discarding the ribs. If it is at all possible, get what is called "Dino" kale which is so named because of its wrinkled form. Dino kale is sweet. This recipe calls for a nest of fried kale with a fried egg on top. Take the ribbons of kale and drop them directly into a fry pan of almost, but not quite smoking oil. Remove after around a minute. They will be almost, but not quite, brown, yet nice and crispy. Blot to remove oil using a cloth, not a paper towel....not the Shroud of Turin either....and salt lightly. Fry an egg and gently place it on top of the nest of kale. Deep winter acts of love deserve bumper stickers.
Recently my mother
lost the whole notion of a yearly, holiday 'cookie party' and replaced it with something entirely different.
Instead of women from the neighborhood coming over in the late afternoon bearing shortbread and chocolate kiss peanut butter cookies in metal tins, there will be only wine. No food, just wine.
Since my father died, she hasn't been the same. After a few weeks of mourning, she moved into hyperactivity. Things were being eliminated. Old clothes, papers and now the cookie party, out the window. The idea for "Wenches and Wine" came from her sister in New York. So now, typical mom gifts such as a scarf, a nice book or a tasteful print are out the window. This year mom is getting booze for X-mas. Her favorite is "chard" of the Three Buck Chuck variety.
A trip to Whole Foods in Hadley (no wine at this Trader Joe's) to test the latest holiday samples revealed two surprises: Wine fit for a discerning wench and Veggies (some) fit for a locavore.
VEGGIES
Marqulela Stevenson (pictured above) offered shoppers endive boats last week at Whole Foods. Parked just inside the front doors, Marqulela offered samples of the veggie with a dipping sauce. It was a rainy night. Many shoppers came by and devoured bits of endive boats that contained tofu from Connecticut, and watermelon radish from Vermont and carrots from Winter Moon farm in Hadley. Oh, holy night. I learned from Marqulela that the carrots, 500 lbs of them, are periodically hauled to the store on a bicycle from Winter Moon Farm on Bay Road to Rt. 5. Dipping sauce: peanut butter, rice vinegar, lime, soy, sesame oil, none local, delicious and might be replicated with maple syrup, rhubarb reduction, sea salt from the Cape and melted butter. But that is for purists.
WINE
In the wine department a is guy giving out samples of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot which sells for $35.88 per case. Called "Three Wishes" the wine comes from California vineyards with wine to spare. According to Don Williams, head of the wine team at Whole Foods Hadley, this is not just extra wine with a Whole Foods private label, it is quite "quaffable." Two reasons: recent years in California have produced consistently good vintages; and vineyards have made quite a bit of it. The wenches found "Three Wishes" to their liking. Responses ranged from "lighter" to "maybe just a third glass." Patsy will give a case to her sister who will share it with New York wenches.
The California wine isn't local but the negative carbon footprint carrots from Hadley are a plus.
At Stone Barns in NY, a woman talking and gesturing and signing books shared her concept for happiness and love: Brisket. If you have a chart that shows what the cuts of beef are on a cow, you will see that the chest of the animal, No. 7, is known as "Brisket." Next to the word "Brisket" on the cuts of beef chart is the explanation, "Jewish Pot Roast." If you have a meat share, ask for brisket and if you go to the grocery store, pot roast or brisket will buy you an economical cut of meat for a song. But it is protein plus sugar that really nails it. According to Pierson, brisket + onions is the perfect combination. The book "Brisket, a Love Story," outlines many, many other ways to attack the chest of a cow. They include comment and recipes by a constellation of foodie super stars including the doyenne of Jewish Cooking, Joan Nathan, the dynamo of Italian cooking Mario Batali and many others, some just regular people.
My Favorite Brisket (Not Too Gedempte Fleysch) Adapted from Jewish Cooking in America, by Joan Nathan
Serves 10
Basically, this is what you'd offer your future in-laws to ensure their undying affection. This is a taste-great, feel-good classic Jewish brisket, but while the recipe has been in the family for years, Joan is not averse to a new tweak or twist: Add a jar of sun-dried
tomatoes, dry or packed in oil, for a more intense flavor. Or add a 2-inch knob of ginger and a few large strips of lemon zest to the pot. Remove them before serving. Note: Not Too Gedempte Fleysch means "Not too well stewed." I didn't know either. - Stevie Pierson, author, Brisket, a Love Story
2 teaspoons salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 (5-pound) brisket of beef
1 clove garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 onions, peeled and diced
1 (10-ounce) can tomatoes
2 cups red wine
2 stalks celery with the leaves, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig rosemary
1/4 cup chopped parsley
6 to 8 carrots, peeled and sliced on the diagonal
Preheat the oven to 325°F.
Sprinkle the salt and pepper to taste over the brisket and rub with
the garlic. Sear the brisket in the oil and then place, fat side up,
on top of the onions in a large casserole. Cover with the tomatoes,
red wine, celery, bay leaf, thyme, and rosemary.
Cover and bake in the oven for about 3 hours, basting often with the
pan juices.
Add the parsley and carrots and bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes more,
or until the carrots are cooked. To test for doneness, stick a fork in
the brisket. When there is a light pull on the fork as it is removed
from the meat, it is fork tender.
This dish is best prepared in advance and refrigerated so that the fat
can be easily skimmed from the surface of the gravy. When ready to
serve, preheat the oven to 350°F. Reheat the gravy in a pan on the
stove. Some people like to strain the gravy, but Joan prefers to keep
the onions because they are so delicious.
Trim off all the visible fat from the cold brisket. Then place the
brisket, on what was the fat side down, on a cutting board. Look for
the grain (that is, the muscle lines of the brisket) and with a sharp
knife, cut across the grain.
Put the sliced brisket in a roasting pan. Pour the hot gravy on the
meat, cover, and reheat in the oven for about 30 minutes.
At his permanent pop-up shop on the first floors of Thorn's, chocolate mogul Bud Stockwell is celebrating beauty, the holidays and his new digs with rows and rows of hand made chocolates festooned in crystallized ephemera. At the new pop-up (yet permanent) Heavenly Chocolate, candy resides under glass in the prow of a curved wooden counter that is manned by pretty women. They are expensive, (the chocolate) they are sophisticated, they come wrapped in gold and they never disappoint. Most of the chocolates are hand made, mostly by Bud, who spends lots of his time bent over a boiling vat of molten cocoa, dipping and carefully rolling -- that is just for the truffles. Other varieties of perfection include a rosemary flavored caramel and an edible little Santa Claus. Locavores will appreciate that rosemary, mint and pear flavorings come from Bud's garden. This claim can only be substantiated by tasting the stuff.
If you are in the mood to shop and nibble, check out the new Heavenly Chocolate on the first floor of Thorn's. Just walk in the front door and list to the left toward the stairwell at the back. The chocolate will be there, under glass waiting to jump ship.
Please join us next week for our annual Thanksgiving store extravaganza!
The farm will be open to the public on the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving with a wide array of fresh, locally-grown items to make your holiday feast abundant.
Our own organic veggies...
We will have available: carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, leeks, parsnips, onions, rutabaga, winter squash, cabbage, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, spinach, lettuce, mixed salad greens and more!
We will be selling our vegetables individually by the pound.
We are also offering a special pre-order bulk-rate of over 55lbs of mixed veggies for $65. We do still have a limited number of shares available. If you'd like to buy one, please send an email with your contact information to info@nextbarnover.com and mail a check to Next Barn Over Farm, P.O. Box 92, Hadley, MA. 01035.
Farm Fresh Thanksgiving Pies...
What's November without a mad dash of pie-making? We are continuing the pie tradition from last year and many years previous at Food Bank Farm (thanks to the lovely folks at Hillside Organic Pizza who are once again letting us use their incredible kitchen). This year we will have our standards: apple, apple-cranberry, wild blueberry, pumpkin, maple-walnut, pecan, and take-and-bake apple and apple-cranberry. New this year: sweet potato, german chocolate pecan, and a gluten-free crustless pumpkin. We make these pies with many local and organic ingredients including our own pumpkin and sweet potatoes, apples from Cold Spring Orchards, wild organic blueberries from Burke Hill Farm in Maine, organic cranberries from Cape Cod, maple syrup from Dufresne sugar shack in Williamsburg, Mapleline Farm milk and cream, and Diemand Farm eggs. Our crusts are made with organic flour, cabot butter, and non-hydrogenated organic oils.
Additional items for your holiday meal...
Fresh, organic cranberries from our friend Monica in Buzzard's Bay on the Cape, fresh apples and cider from Cold Spring Orchards in Belchertown, heavy cream from Mapleline Farm in Hadley (whipped cream for the pie!), farm-made garlic thyme butter, homemade ready-to-fill pie crusts, Hadley chestnuts, our own popcorn, Donavan Farm potatoes from Charlemont, and other treats. We will also have our standard farmstore items: goat cheese from Westfield farm, Cabot cheddar, El Jardin's delicious bread, Sidehill yogurt and eggs from Lynn's Laughing Layers.
Thanksgiving stuffing with local chestnuts, winter apples, kale and sausage.
This dish is made from local ingredients. Chestnuts provided by Sunset Farms of Amherst, MA and apples and cider were grown and made at Bashista Farms in Southampton, MA. Bread from Berkshire Bakery.
Ingredients
1- 7" length of sausage
1- onion, diced
2- C crusty bread, cut into pieces and toasted individually
1- bunch kale, remove stems and slice thinly. If kale is very tough, blanch for 5 minutes to tenderize
1- Baldwin Apple (a tart, heritage variety, propagated in Lowell MA by Colonel Baldwin in 1740) cored, peeled and cut into small cubes
2- C chestnuts, roasted (to roast, score with “X” on flat side of nut, roast on baking sheet cut side up in 425 oven for 20 min and peel immediately) peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 to 1 C apple cider
Directions
In generous frying pan or cast iron stockpot, brown sausage, (in butter if necessary) remove, quarter length-wise and slice thin.
Add chopped onion to sausage fat. If additional fat is required to season pan, add butter.
Cook onion until translucent.
Add cubes of bread, chestnuts and slowly brown.
Add sage and apple browning slowly to meld flavors.
Add remainder of cider and cook down until stuffing is moist but not soggy.
If cooking stuffing inside of bird, add only 1/2C cider and remove from heat.
Finish with 1T of chopped sage and stir over low heat until incorporated.
Vegan Thanksgiving Stuffing: Eliminate sausage or replace with 3 C Chanterelle or oyster mushrooms.
Gluten Intolerant Stuffing: Substitute bread with rice cakes.
Small towns make for small communities. It is October and I am my coffee place in Northampton Coffee place. It is so hot out!
Just saw anti-sugar guy, Craig Fear. What a name! Thin guy, used to be vegan, now not vegan, used to live in Long Island, now lives here. He is a food coach. Parents with overly chubby children come to him for advice. He tells the whole family to stop drinking soda first, then pizza goes, then pasta, then everything that is processed and before you know it, a family of five has lost a collective 100 lbs. Exercise is also involved.
Because in almost all processed food there is corn syrup because everything is a little bit sweet. This is of course not local and nothing gets on the nerves and puts on the pounds like white sugar. Ask anybody, not just Craig blames obesity on this stuff. Sugar isn't hard to stop eating. You just have to kick it to the curb.
But how, locavore, you say, is it possible to do no sugar in New England? Honey is a good source of sugar. It is indigenous, it is as local as the flowers around it, and as a special bonus, honey in the pure or honey comb state can stop you from sneezing.
Due to the fact that the bees in your community are interacting quite intimately with the flowers in your community, the pollen that flies around contains stuff from the local bees that prevents allergies from setting in. The bees and the people are intertwined. Eat the honey of the bee that pollinates the flower. That way the pollen won't be a stranger to your body. You will not be allergic. And you won't be fat. Nothing to fear.
Simple honey is easy to make. Buy local honey that is in a raw a state as possible. That means honey comb or at least honey that is raw in a jar. Follow the recipe below and keep around in a jar and use where sweetness is required. I put it with local peaches, picked over the weekend at Clarkdale, a fourth generation orchard up in Deerfield where the river runs through it.....Ben Clark is the go-to guy and his fruits, apples, peaches, grapes and cherries, can be had for canning, for eating and for infusing all things good and liquid.
SIMPLE HONEY
1 C Honey
3 C Water
Dissolve honey in hot water and allow to cool. Put into jar and place liquid in fridge. Keep on hand for use where sweetness is needed such as in the following recipes.
PEACH SPARKLER
5 C fresh peach flesh or canned peaches
1/4 C honey water
1 sprig fresh rosemary
Club Soda or Champagne
Bring peaches, rosemary and 1 C water to a slow boil. Add 1 T honey water, as desired.
Set over low heat and bring to just below boiling point. Simmer for 20 minutes, then leave to cool at room temperature for 15 minutes. Remove rosemary and puree the contents of the pan in a blender for about 2 minutes. Strain and keep in a cool place.
To serve, club soda or Champagne into glass. Add a teaspoon of Pureed Peach and serve with sprig of rosemary.
How To Be a Poet by Wendell Berry
(to remind myself)
i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Well, due to time constraints and fruit flies, my man didn't get to help with the peaches. In the end, I processed only six jars worth of and froze the rest. For two reasons: a) processing is a hot, sweaty, labor of love and slime. If you don't jump on it when the peaches are on the counter, right in from the orchard, you get a house full of guests in the shape of small winged insects. b) freezing is fast. My man, although interested in canning, is like most. He is attracted to canning the way people are attracted to arcane old ways such as caning chairs or whittling an apple into a figure of the last supper. Interesting in theory.
We didn't have time for 'processing' five bushels of rotting peaches together but I did and now the two of us will enjoy the bounty of summer and fall in the form of fifty gleaming jars of tomatoes and peaches lined up on the top of our cabinets in the kitchen. Many of the peaches had to be frozen rather than canned. Canning is more beautiful and takes less space in the freezer but as Tim Wilcox recommended on his blog you really can get away with halving them and throwing them in a zip lock for a deep freeze. To can peaches, meaning skin, core, cut out nasty bits, shove in clean jar and 'process' in a massive canner, take a certain amount of focus and man power. Also peaches are so fragile they wither before your very eyes. In the nation of preservation, time is of the essence. Nature and peaches as well as tomatoes and cukes wait for no one. If you don't act fast, it is humans zero, fruit flies one.
Two years ago I canned maybe 12 jars of tomatoes which lasted me until Christmas. Last year I did 24 which lasted me until February. This year I have 42 which is ten less than on can per week which is about what you need if you figure tomatoes won't be in season again till August and then you have only about eight weeks. Obsessive? Well, see what you have to eat in January when a winter share produces bunches of kale, potatoes, maybe a leek or two and enough cabbage to feed all the Russians in West Springfield. Cost? About $2 per jar not including the jar. Time? I won't lie to you. It takes lots of time. Maybe a couple or four full days?
This year we have captured and put up the following for winter: 10 bags of frozen oven roasted tomatoes, good for making ketchup, 15 bags frozen blueberries, good for any winter repast requiring fruit, pickles in a crock fermenting away, a gallon of cider that will get hard as the fall progresses, good for getting drunk, and, thinking about all this conjures the picture of a housewife on the cover of Life Magazine from around 1962 where she is sitting on her front lawn with all of her possessions strewn around her. That is what it is like putting up food for winter. All of your food is just there, in front of you, lined up and ready for the coming of winter and whatever else nature might have in store this year.
Saying that this procedure of shape changing tomatoes is easy is like saying there is nothing better in summer than a fresh off the vine tomato, especially if you get to pick it yourself. So easy, this recipe can be done in your sleep. Great on their own or as a bit of awesomeness in salad…or when you find them in the freezer in May, with asparagus.
a) buy a bushel of plum or cherry tomatoes.
b) pre-heat oven to 525 for plum, 425 for cherry.
c) line one baking sheet with parchment paper....(only if pan is aluminum)
d) slice lengthwise and remove cores
e) place on baking sheet, skin side down
f) sprinkle with olive oil and kosher or sea salt. about 2 T of each
g) roast in middle of oven for 1 hour
g) turn off oven and go to bed
h) do not open oven till morning
i) eat several, place in jar for refrigeration or freeze in freezer bags.
to a volume potato operation in Hatfield was offered to all who came. Families of all stripe, the poor, the rich, the dentists, the church sexton, the two politicians. Those who carry water and chop wood broke stride to attend.
The sun came out after a flash of rain. Up in Greenfield under the trees on the common, people queued up, plates and utensils in hand. At the end of the line were tow rows of tables laid out with food. Pizza made with local wheat with heirloom tomatoes was passed as an appetizer. Along two rows of tables, plates and bowls set forth the fruits of this summer’s bounty. Eggplant with feta, corn on the cob, a wheatberry salad with blueberries, and peaches as well, in slices, served with turkey breast from a farm up in Wendell.
This feast, also known as Free Harvest Supper, is the ultimate local food challenge. Every year a small group gets together to plan the supper. They meet in the upstairs of the Greenfield Co-op early in the year when they begin dividing up chores. The chefs coordinating the event (Of Hope and Olive and Magpie in Greenfield) never knows what they will get in but as the bushels and boxes come in overflowing with produce, some how they figure it out.
Now in its seventh year, the supper came together this summer on Sunday, August 21. The tables were set out, serving and eating tables were set up, and the line for supper snaked around the block. It was a diverse crowd, as always.
She was pretty quiet sitting there, under the trees. But that is her usual demeanor. Although the 700 or people around here did not know it, the Free Harvest Supper was Juanita's idea. It all came about around eight years ago when Juanita said to friends, "Wouldn't it be great, if everyone in this town could just sit down to supper together?" Juanita grows her own food. She believes that sharing food with neighbors is not only nice but is a way to avoid violence. “You wouldn’t fight with someone if you needed their food, would you?”
Juanita Nelson, widow of Wally Nelson, knows about violence. Her husband was a freedom rider in the early sixties when he and eight other guys boarded a bus bound for Montgomery Alabama and rode into a shit storm that made history. Violence against blacks, long standing in the south, was writ large during this confrontation once news photos that circulated. The pictures showed the protesters being beaten and attacked with fire hoses and dogs. Old habits of racial hatred were broken and so were bones.
In the sixties while Wally and Juanita were civil rights activists and non-violent peace protesters. They continued their activism in various forms here in western Mass for several decades. The lived in a cabin without electricity, they protested military expenditures by refusing to pay taxes and lived simply, like Buddhists or activists but their lifestyle defies labels because it is an object lesson.
Wally’s early efforts against segregation had an international impact. Five years after the Freedom Riders trip Montgomery Robert F. Kennedy was invited to South Africa by an anti-apartheid group to speak about racial inequity. In 1966 at the University of Cape Town he made a speech with the now- famous "ripple of hope" paragraph:
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Now the speech and the event are famous although the individual who invited RFK was put under house arrest and not allowed to attend the speech and a photographer recording the event was ordered by police to pull the film out his camera.
Juanita's tiny ripple of hope continues to sweep along the Connecticut River Valley in the form of Free Harvest Supper and in other ways. Her husband Wally died several years ago at 93 and Juanita is now in her 80’s. She continues to grow her own food but now with lots of help from friends. As much as she can, Juanita continues to live off the grid in a community that shares what it has with one another.
At Free Harvest Supper, I was taking pictures of this community, of Shenandoah from “Whole Lotta a Hoop” who was dancing in front of the tables at one point, along with the a guy from the Greenfield Recorder. After he got his shot, I continued to photograph the scene. Each shot seemed better than the one before. A man appeared in the frame. I continued shooting because he wore a scarf imprinted with the American flag. As he got closer, I noticed his face was extremely angry. Then his angry face filled the frame. I put down my camera. “Do not take my picture,” he shouted. Buddhists breaking stride in their routine of carrying water and chopping wood looked on with interest. “I did not give you permission to take my picture. You can’t take my picture, you can take her picture,” he said gesturing to Shenandoah, “and you can’t take anybody’s picture without permission.”
“Ok,” I said.
“You cannot take picture without people’s permission,” he said, still shouting.
“But this is a public event,” I offered. After all I wasn’t doing this for money or for a newspaper….it is legal to shoot pictures in a public setting.
He began to walk away and I picked up my camera again relived. He turned around and lunged into my small footprint and said, “erase that picture, in fact, erase all of those pictures.”
I said, “sure” and picked up the camera, looking him in the eye, and pressed a tiny button. It was a fake gesture. He walked away. I looked around and people seated nearby were munching on ears of corn, contemplating whether or not to continue shooting. Then the guy with the American flag scarf came back. “All of them,” he said. “Delete all of them!”
I looked up to where Juanita was sitting under the trees, looking calm and at peace with the universe. I looked back the guy and said, “Will you forgive me?”
He forgave me and walked away.
It was winding up at Free Harvest Supper around 6:30 and the food was being put away. I approached Juanita to chat and requested with respect that I take her picture, "Well, no," she said after I had taken several.
There was still some food left on her plate--some of the yogurt from a farm in Colrain and several slices of tomato from one of five farms, from the look of it, exotic, maybe Danny Botkin's in Gill. She looked at the crowd, heading home in the fading light and said "Wouldn't it be great if other towns could do this?" Indeed.
My man wants to learn to can. Really! So we're starting with the easy stuff.
Blueberries a) because they can be frozen, b) because first you turn them into tiny blue frozen ice cubes by spreading them all out on a cookie sheet and then into freezer for only a bit of time c) before dipping the cookie sheet into a bag, frozen blue ice an be consumed right now (or in January with Prosecco) and finally e) no messy clean up.
So far we have 11 bags of the things, stuffed into zip lock bags, stuffed into the freezer, ready to be launched.
Total time: around 15 minutes, not all at once, not counting buying flats of them, not including shopping around for the best price, not including regret that we are a bit past the season, not including glee and thanks that we finally did score some grown in Westfield, big, beautiful, plenty to last us a year.
This is not canning but we are 'putting up' food for later. Not much later but later, all the same. Next we will do Peaches.
This weekend, Magpie, her pizza place, will be inundated with the spillover of the 1000 or so of people who show up on the Green in Greenfield for Free Harvest Supper. But this is a good thing, for us, anyway.
Evelyn's pizza is sublime - cooked in a wood fired oven making for a flat, bubbly crust that takes the beauty of summer tomatoes one step further to nirvana.
A better thing, if it is possible, is that that self same pizza will be offered in the food line for free at Free Harvest Supper. The pizza shown above was served in Evelyn's restaurant on Bank Row as the Tuesday Night Special this week. It consisted of feta, artichoke hearts, red onion, sungold cherry tomatos and fennel. Need I say more?
This Sunday, August 21, at Free Harvest Supper, the Evelyn's pass-around-to-the-crowd pizza will be in keeping with the theme of the event. The crust will be baked from local wheat and it will be topped with local feta, crazy-fresh area tomatoes and basil, among other things.
Free Harvest Supper chefs create the meal with food that comes in a day or two before the event. All from the fields of area farms, all quite fresh and if I didn't mention it before.....free, left over from the harvest. Pizza handed out on Sunday between 5 and 7 will be featuring tomatoes and cheese but to see what else, better show up and don't forget a plate and utensils. This event is zero waste.
Magpie, if you happen over there on Sunday, is located across the green on Bank Row and will be open during Free Harvest Supper, thus Evelyn's tear. I do believe she will be ready though. Her background as a conspirator chef in Free Harvest Supper for years makes her event-ready for anything. The pizza menu at Magpie on Sunday will feature the special pictured above as well as house-made sausage and broccoli rabe, fennel, arugula and goat cheese and perrenials such as meatball and peperroni and mushroom.
Magpie has a nice wine and beer list as well as other things featuring local food besides pizza.
Magpie Restaurant
21 Bank Row
Greenfield MA
413-475-3570
Restaurant Hours
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 4 to 9
Friday and Saturday 4 to 10
The infrastructure of a city or town say, Pittsburgh, PA or Hadley, MA, greatly depends on raw materials. In the case of Pittsburgh, available steel makes for structures of a solid state and in Hadley, the very fertile river valley irrigates our soil.
But the digital infrastructure is yet another thing. In the City of Steel, Simon Huntley brings the computing cloud to those working under real clouds, the very clouds that make farming as volatile as the stock market.
Today Simon' farming is limited to a small back yard plot but his extensive experience on a farm in Colorado gave him a good look at what it takes to plant, nurture and harvest as well as doing it all over again. Selling the stuff is yet another chore. Simon is also an information technology grad. He formed Small Farm Central four years ago to marry farming with computing. "I'm not in this to make a million dollars, obviously," he said. "We are self-funded and we really just want to make life easier for farmers with direct marketing and web services."
Small Farm Central has four employees and has grown organically. The company now has over 400 customers across the country and in Canada. Services range from a web presence, hosting, e-commerce and mailing list options, all for a monthly fee. "We have a designer on staff. The sites are run on templates so they are easy to create but people still manage to make them look different," said Simon adding that technical support in the form of a person is also provided.
Typically, farmers will use the e-commerce functionality to manage buying clubs, inventory and track wholesale account. "Typically people will use us for inventory and tracking specialty food like honey and flowers. Inventory capabilities help prevent people from selling out," says Simon. In addition, the company designs websites and provides templates. Locally, Town Farm of Northampton and the Tuesday Farmers' Market are both represented by Small Farm Central websites.
The latest of the company's offerings is a free mapping site for farmers' markets and other groups called "Farmers Faces." Farms are referenced on a map with a link to farms' websites. The map is populated by individuals who run it such as farmers market managers or advocacy groups and others. "We're doing this so that people only have to update their information once," says Simon. "People have a presence online all over the place. They can be a member of a specialty group and selling at a farmers market and through a CSA. With a profile on Farming Faces, users won't have to constantly update their profiles," he said.
The volatility of weather is a big factor in selling fresh food. Getting the word out about late breaking crop news like having lots of melons to move, for example, or increasing awareness about winter shares where direct marketing can come in handy. Social media provides myriad ways to communicate a the rise and fall of food ranging from Twitter to Facebook in a world where everyone seems to be looking at hand held devices. Farmers in the fields checking rain patterns on their Blackberries less than a mile from people driving in cars checking for the nearest farm stand. Simon takes a broad view of social media. "We can provide help with the web side of things," he says. "A good site is the bedrock any marketing plan. We don't do a ton of social media but we will be looking to more integration where necessary."
When asked where he sees the web marketing scene ten years from now Simon responded, "I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day about this," he said. "Ten years ago was just 2001 so I guess my answer to that is that things will be the same only different." Kind of like the weather.
This Sunday at Free Harvest Supper where the food is free and the really really free market offers more free food, chefs Maggie and Evelyn will serving the menu below. All food local, donated and being served on the Green in Greenfield to one and all after 5 pm this Sunday on August 21. Meuu will feature 100% local pizza with in season cheese, tomato and pesto, among other local stuff.
Politically correct pizza! How great is this country?
1) In Season 2) Local 3) Cheap 4) Grows in Snow 5) Goes with Everyting 5) 1000 on the ANDI Index due to density of nutrients* 6) Nicknamed “internal scrubby” for its rough ride through the digestive tract.
*Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) is a score assigned to whole foods that contain the highest nutrients per calorie as noted by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat For Health. Each of these whole foods is given a score based on the equation H=N/C, which is that the health of a food is equal to the nutrients it delivers per calorie. An ANDI score of 1,000 is most nutrient dense and 0 being the least nutrient dense. Kale, Mustard greens, Collard Greens, and Watercress all receive a score of 1,000 using the H=N/C equation, while foods like meat, seafood, and dairy products receive scores below 50 and are not considered by Dr. Fuhrman to be healthy. Fuhrman argues in his book that a nutrient dense diet can prevent or even reverse diseases and also might reverse obesity.
10 am to 1 pm Second Congregational Church, Greenfield, MA
A local winter food scene not to be missed since this is the original effort to get the harvest out to the people in spite of snow and inertia.
Produce, meat, baked goods with locally grown wheat and crafts plus workshops, a wonderful barter swap (your pickles for somebody else's wool), workshops, seed swap and more).
Franklin County Week of Winter Fare will include potluck suppers, films and other activities.
2/4/12 to 2/12/12.
WHERE TO BUY LOCAL FOOD AT THE STORE IN WINTER
If you are lucky, you have a meat share and a veggie share. If you are not that lucky yet, there are more stores than ever that carry veggies, meat, cheese, dairy and other local food in the dead of winter.
