And suddenly it was Week 8 of the CSA

Gosh. A little teensy bit of rain, a few extra hours at work, and suddenly it’s late July. How did that happen?

Here’s this week’s half-share. Yes, this is a half-share. Thank goodness we didn’t opt for the full Monty.

Leftish to rightish:

Beets, Napa cabbage, lettuce with a lovely rosy center, cauliflower, garlic, basil, something like broccoflower?, yellow squash, potatoes, red chard, watercress, a zucchini, and two ears of corn.

We’ve had this wet, wet season, as everyone in New England knows. So we’ve had tons of green leafy things to enjoy. We’ve eaten so many salads, with many more in our future. We’ve tossed chicory (curly endive) with cherry vinegar and a little olive oil. We’ve sauteed chard in garlic and oil, chopped that up, and baked it with eggs in a frittata.

I’ve wrapped beets in foil, baked them 45 minutes in a hot oven, then left them to cool and eat another day, sliced and sprinkled with olive oil and freshly ground pepper. I’ve added fresh dill to a chicken and cucumber salad with yogurt dressing.

I’ve reserved beet greens and mixed them with a few leaves of chard or kale – none of them much of a portion in and of themselves, but together a bitter high-vitamin stew. I’ve scrubbed little red potatoes, boiled them, then mashed them with a splash of buttermilk. I’ve peeled and chopped fresh garlic to start a dish, left the last few cloves on the kitchen table, then puzzled to find them under the table in the next room, where a zealous and daring cat has soccer-footed them across the floor.

Not everything coming my way has met with maximal use. I’ve waved the one limp rib rhubarb like an underperforming magician’s wand, then chopped it regretfully into the compost pile. I’ve lost one handful of basil to my own forgetfulness. So it goes.

Everything though – so delicious, fresh, nutritious. A pleasure to eat. And it’s still like Christmas to receive and open my half-bushel box (especially when there’s an extra bundle of Japanese greens on top, that additional abundance that simply wouldn’t fit).

More anon.

 

Week 1 of the 2009 farm share

Ladies and gentlemen – start your vegetables!

Today I raced to Allandale Farm at lunchtime to pick up my first share (really a half-share) of the season.

Good doggy.

I parked next to a car with a very cute car alarm.

The farm, and a row of carts

The farm was a sea of green. I stopped in the shop to figure out where to pick up my veggies. They directed me around the back. A girl working in the shop stepped away from the register and took a nut caramel from a penny candy jar before going back to her post.

Rows of starter veggies

I guess it’s not too late to start a little garden. The seedlings look so tempting. Maybe I’ll have herb planters again.

Still life with tank

They gave me my own half-bushel box. Half share, half bushel. They do want their box back. They also gave me an ID card for the CSA, good for 10% off any other purchases made at the farm on my pickup day.

In the fields at 6:30am. In my CSA box by 12:30pm.

I couldn’t resist peeking into my box before driving back to work. I see green, green, green. And those radishes.

The dog in the car next to mine started yapping again. A woman who had been standing next to the car looked up suddenly and said, “Wrong car!” and walked toward another red car (sans doggy alarm).

First CSA share of 2009

Today’s share, from upper left: one large bag of spinach, one large flowery head of red-tinged lettuce, one bunch radishes, one small bunch arugula, one rib of rhubarb (challenge vegetable!), one German Extra Hardy garlic (so they say! I’ve never seen garlic look so leek-y before), one large bag mesclun mix.

That looks just right, quantity-wise, for me and my husband. We’ll have salad or spinach salad for the rest of the week; I’ll probably serve the arugula in salad or as a zingy topping for sandwiches. My husband won’t eat the radishes (mine!). As for the mystery garlic bulb and the single rib of rhubarb… I’ll think of something. Maybe I can cook the rhubarb with some strawberries and sugar, and mix it with yogurt.

 

Michael Pollan’s talk at West Roxbury Public Library, 5/12/09

Last night I joined several hundred people for a talk and Q&A by Michael Pollan, journalist and author of In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and others, for the West Roxbury Public Library. Some quotes and notes from his talk:

“The subject [of what to eat] got simpler and simpler the deeper I got into it.”

“Nutrition science today is approximately where surgery was in the year 1650.”

“We don’t know what’s in the soul of a carrot, nor do we need to know.”

“There are as many brain cells in our digestive tract as there are in our spinal cord.” (Pause) “What are they thinking?”

“Get off the Western industrialized diet (refined meat, high calories, processed foods, absence of fruit, vegetables & whole grains) in whatever way we can.”

“Don’t eat anything you’ve ever seen advertised on television.” (Not counting Washington State apple grower PSAs and the like.)

“Eat all the junk food you want, provided you make it yourself.” He talked about how messy it is to make French fries at home – the peeling, the cutting, the frying – which labor automatically limits him to indulging about once a month.

What he’d advise Obama: Preserve farmland. Decentralize the food system. Require local procurement in government food purchasing – even having just 1% to 2% of government food purchases come from within 100 miles would make a huge difference.

Next book: he’s just conceiving it, he thinks it’ll be about cooking. Not an actual cookbook. But if you’re going to talk about changing the way you eat, you need to help people figure out how to do that.

On butter: he likes it. He quoted another nutritionist (I didn’t catch her name, it wasn’t Marion Nestle) as saying “I trust cows more than chemists.”

Upcoming film to watch out for: Food, Inc. It comes out next month. Look for appearances by Pollan and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) as well as information about Tyson, Monsanto, and the like.

 

Careful, the stuffed peppers are extra hot today

Three shoppers buying peppers at a Queens grocery store find bags of cocaine stuffed inside. (Link goes to New York Post’s story, complete with punny title.)

 

3/3/09: Happy square root day!

Wish I’d made the connection a little sooner. I’d have cut up some carrots, or potatoes, or beets, or even some ginger. Roots are tasty when they’re squared.

(What? Roots are for cubing, not squaring? Aw, c’mon.)

 

X-ray Vision Carrots vs. the Power Peas

Does a cool name make an ordinary vegetable more exciting? According to findings reported today, little kids will eat more vegetables if you call the veggies by a name that makes them sound more fun to eat.

Renaming the menu apparently works on grown-ups, too. Which would you order: succotash or spring vegetable medley? See?

(By the way… Merriam-Webster says “succotash” is derived from a Narragansett word for boiled corn kernels: msickquatash.)

 

Adzuki bean stew, and a walk to Guru the Caterer

Nothing quite like an episode of You Are What You Eat on BBC America to put me off sweets… if only for a little while. Today I attempted a Gillian McKeith recipe for adzuki (aduki) bean stew, a strictly vegan jumble of beans, greens, carrots, butternut squash, onions, and leeks. And it’s… all right, I guess. Needs a lot more cumin or something to perk it up. A grind of pepper, a sprinkle of sea salt. But yes, utterly sin-free food.
Before I could do much more than sample the finished stew, my husband suggested a walk to Guru the Caterer, which we both really like for Indian food. It’s the sort of place that only puts a handful of items on the menu on any given day: you eats what they gots. Their palak paneer (spinach with cheese) is a jade-green puree – not hot-spicy, but well spiced. We loved the pakoras today, too. The other dish in my veggie combo was red kidney beans in a rich tomato-cream sauce.

 

Back in the veggie saddle for summer ‘09

I’ve just mailed a check to Allandale Farm for a CSA half-share for this summer. Vegetablog shall rise again…

 

Baked delicata squash, my November go-to meal

What a treat to know that a cup of baked delicata – or any winter squash – costs me just one point in Weight Watchers’ system. One point, a few minutes to preheat the toaster oven, and 45 minutes to cook. I’ll even splurge on a point’s worth of butter for the creamy yum factor.

Step 0: preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Step 1: split your delicata squash the long way and scrape out the seeds.
Step 2: line a baking pan with aluminum foil, then brush the foil and the cut edges of the squash with olive oil. Put the squash on the pan, cut sides down.
Step 3: bake the squash for 40-50 minutes or until nice and soft.
Hoo hah – it’s hot, let it cool a minute, then mash the squash with some butter, salt and pepper, and devour. I like the skin, my husband does not. More fiber for me!

Bonus frugal points: wash those squash seeds, strew them across an oiled baking sheet, and roast for an hour at 250 degrees F (yes, a much lower temperature). Season, salt, savor.

 

Potluck potato salad recipe – easy and budget-friendly

"Please come to our potluck wedding," said our friends. "It’s on Easter Sunday." Hmm. All right. My mission: find a suitable potluck dish that was…

1. easy to make
2. easy to double or triple
3. easy to serve
4. affordable
5. possible to make & refrigerate the night before
6. free of weird ingredients (we were asked to provide a list of ingredients for the safety of guests observing certain diets or avoiding certain allergens)

I was this close to making Bruce’s grandmother’s delicious potato salad, but it’s seasoned with a Knorr product called Aromat, which is primarily salt, MSG, lactose, wheat starch, partially hydrogenated peanut oils… in short, an anaphylactic shock waiting to happen. So I opened up How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and used his "Classic American Potato Salad" recipe with a small tweak (the sour cream).

Here’s what I did to serve 12.

• One five-pound bag red-skinned potatoes
• 1-1/2 cups minced fresh parsley (I used curly)
• 3/4 cup minced white onion
• 3/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 3/4 cup lowfat sour cream
• Salt & freshly ground white pepper to taste

Bring a big pot of water to a boil. Salt it. Wash and scrub those potatoes (because who wants to peel five pounds of potatoes?), then cut into bite-sized pieces. Add potatoes to boiling water and cook them until tender but firm – not mushy – for 15 minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water, drain again.

Return the potatoes to whatever large vessel you have (say, that cooking pot), add parsley and onion, and toss. Add mayonnaise and sour cream and combine. Season with S&P, refrigerate until serving time.

Bittman says you can refrigerate it for up to a day before serving, but you want to bring it to room temperature to serve.

Pros: it’s delicious, universally liked, easy to serve. Cons: you absolutely must take away and discard the leftovers, no sneaking "one more bite." After a couple of hours on a potluck buffet spread, nobody should eat anything with mayonnaise in it. But then, frankly, nothing that’s sat out that long should go into your mouth, mayo or no mayo.

(Revoke my B.A. in English if you want to. But I’m leaving that misplaced modifier in the previous paragraph right where I wrote it. The image it conjures up makes me laugh.)