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Preserving+canning — No Comments
28
Sep 09

Pepper jelly, at last

We have been collecting peppers for weeks now with the sweet memory of last fall’s pepper jelly in mind. A small jar was gifted to us from our friends, a woman called Michal and a man called Jay. They work and live at this very special farm that does sort of extraordinary stuff in Monterey, Mass. And they grew, to our great fortune, a handsome crop of jalapenos in their personal garden whence this jelly was born.

But it has been no easy task locating a proper recipe for our own. Surely, we could have asked Michal and Jay for theirs. (They used the preserving book referenced in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle — the name escapes me, but the proportions were all different and, more importantly, our pepper collection was all different.) We found these bizarre recommendations on the interwubz, calling for 6 cups of sugar to every 1 cup of minced pepper (NO), others that encouraged the use of food coloring (WHY?) and approximately zero that offered flexible proportions in a pectin-free scenario (FUCK PECTIN). Seriously, people were preserving long before pectin was commercially produced. Plus, it costs money, its origins are mysterious and we had these perfect apples from Stillman’s in the kitchen — a natural source of pectin to use in its place.

In the end we pieced together our own recipe and are, presently, hoping for the best. Just an hour or so later, it appears to be setting.

Here’s what we did. You may do this too, but no guarantees.

Ingredients

Lots of bell peppers, of various colors and sizes. Once minced in our food processor, they totaled 4 cups

Minced habaneros (or anything hot, it seems) with the interior flesh and seeds removed — 1 cup (about 6)

3 WHOLE apples (cores and all), sliced

3 cups of sugar

4 1/2 cups of white vinegar

Throw everything in a pot. Bring to a boil. Let it simmer (on medium heat) for about 25-30 minutes, or until the apple starts to fall apart. It will not look like jelly yet! Meanwhile, get the canner boiling, prep your jars. Pour the mix in when the jars are hot, seal ‘em and process for 10 minutes. These quantities filled nine 8 oz jars with a tiny bit leftover. It’s in our fridge now. It’s pretty friggin hot, but also delicious.

Editor’s note: be mindful of your hands when dealing with the hot peppers. If you neglect to use caution, you will surely regret it later, during an intimate moment with yourself or someone else.

Preserving+canning — 3 Comments
24
Aug 09

Mediterranean chutney + eggplant smokes

Very suddenly this week and perhaps like many other CSA shareholders, we found ourselves with a glut of eggplant. Armed with a copy of “Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning,” we set out today to do something productive with it.

The result: five beautiful jars of Mediterranean Chutney.

More on that momentarily. But first, a word about eggplant. From The Wikipedia.

Eggplants are native to India.
18th Century imperialists named them eggplants because the cultivars of the day were actually white and yellow and it was an aptronym. These days, of course, British imperialists call them aubergines. It is unclear why American imperialists have not caught on.
Eggplants are berries. Their seeds, you may have noticed, are quite bitter. That’s because they contain tobacco — Eggplants are close relatives of tobacco plants.
In fact, if you had 20lbs of eggplant you would have the same amount of nicotine as one cigarette. We have noted this for future preserving projects and/or smoking cessation drug patents.

Mediterranean Chutney is simple and unintimidating: an excellent gateway into preserving.

What you will need:

Tomatoes (we used about 10 San Marzanos purchased from Grateful Farm at the Cambridgeport Farmers’ Market)
An onion or two
An eggplant or three (we used 2 1/2 medium sized)
Three cloves of garlic, at least
A zucchini or two
1 cup of vinegar
1/3 cup of brown sugar
Salt, pepper, red pepper, tarragon, rosemary, oregano, whatever you have on hand
Canning jars and lids

What you do:

Wash and chop the veggies. Put them in a large saucepan with the spices and boil over low heat. When everything is soft and well blended (after about 40 minutes or so) add the vinegar and brown sugar. You can keep it on the low heat until it looks like jam or until it’s more liquid-y. We gave it another 40 minutes or so, until it was somewhere inbetween.

Wash the jars and lids in boiling water. (We timed this so they were still warm when we were ready to load them up with chutney.) Leave about a quarter-inch of space at the top of each jar when you’re filling them. Put on the lid and the band — and tighten them. Let them cool on a counter and then store them in the fridge.

The recipe we’re using says the flavor will improve with age, but it doesn’t indicate how long they’ll last. Fingers crossed.

Addendum

We nearly used this eg gplant pickling recipe, posted on the interwubs by a Josephine Caravetta. Anyone with that many vowels in their name can surely be trusted and we may call on her next week. Please report back if you are inspired to try it.

CSF / Fish — 14 Comments
21
Jul 09

Does local always = sustainable?

cod61 The short answer is yes. At least we think so. But first, a parable.

Our friend Adam has a share with Cape Ann Fresh Catch. Like us and the other 898 members, he’s been getting a lot of cod from the community supported fishery. Through the magic of the internets, he found himself surfing the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s web site recently, where there’s a very thorough guide on how to eat seafood and protect endangered, overfished species. As it turns out, they had this to say about cod:

Atlantic cod from North America has been fished heavily for the past 50 years, resulting in massive population declines. Scientists agree that we are now fishing the last 10 percent of this population. … Fishermen often catch cod with bottom trawl gear, which involves dragging large nets across the seafloor. This damages marine habitats and results in bycatch.

Adam, like us and probably the 898 other CSF members, is a conscientious eater. He doesn’t want to consume the last 10 percent of cod. So he contacted Cape Ann Fresh Catch and asked for some guidance.

Two days later, he got an email back from the president of the Gloucester Fisherman’s Wives Association (which is facilitating the CSF). This is some of her response:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. What the Monterey Bay Aquarium has on line about the Atlantic cod is not the truth. For the last 32 years the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives association has worked with the regulators to make sure that we preserve the fish stocks in the atlantic.

The fishermen of the eastcoast have made many sacrifices for conservation. They fish under the most restrictive regulations in the world …. The latest news from the scientists was that the cod stock of the gulf of Maine is in recovery and by the year 2012 it will be fully recovered.

Keep in mind that the boats that catch the fish that we deliver to you is done by small boats between 40 to 50 feet, they are on the fish ground only few hours a day because they are allowed only to bring a total of 800 lb of cod per day. The catch is inspected at the docks by federal agent.

Yes our boats are bottom draggers but remember that they have fished as draggers for over 100 years and they still fish in the same fish grounds and it takes a 10 minutes tow to get 800lb of cod. so you see there are pleanty of fish for us to enjoy.

I hope I have given you enough information, if you need more please let me know.

No, we didn’t need to publish all of that. But, in a way, we did. Implicit in it is the answer to the question in the headline on this blog post.

Couple things:

It’s really great that Adam asked this question. It’s really great that he got a prompt, warm answer — and an offer for more info. It’s really great that he shared it with us and that we’re sharing it with you. This is an active engagement in a food system and it is the number one way to dig ourselves out of the hellhole where most of what America eats is presently cultivated/swimming around in.

cod2 If all of our fish (if all of our food…) were coming to market through small, co-operatively owned models like Cape Ann Fresh Catch, it’s probably fair to say the ocean would be in better shape. Because the success of the fishery hinges on the success of its membership, Adam’s question mattered. Because of its scale and proximity, he could have an actual dialog with the people in charge there. Any of us could.

On the matter of cod and who is right about whether it’s safe to fish: It’s impossible for us non-fisherman, non-scientist types to really make the call on this one. We don’t have full access to the complexity of the situation. And so the true word on cod remains a mystery to us.

In a way, that’s OK. What matters more than solving that mystery is resolving the problems that precipated it at all.

On its page about ‘green seafood,’ Cape Ann Fresh Catch issues this sentiment — almost precisely. This is sort of perfectly expressed.

We wouldn’t have to think this hard about what we eat from the seas if policies and regulations were ecosystem and community based. NAMA believes that through a grassroots movement of fishermen, fishing community organizations and those who eat their catch we can transform today’s fisheries policies towards ones that recognize the oceans are complex ecosystems and not bodies of water that magically produce single species of fish that pop onto our plates.

Preserving+canning — No Comments
20
Jul 09

We picked our own

That’s our pal Erik holding the perfect blueberry. He wrestled it from a gang of pre-schoolers and one very ferocious German shepherd at Land’s Sake Farm in Weston. There was some serious competition in the pick-your-own fields this afternoon. But it was a glorious Sunday in summer and it is *the* blueberry moment.

Which is to say, if you want to get your hands on a lot of berries — perhaps with an idea of putting some up for winter — now is the time. Land’s Sake is a lovely venue for this, and only 20 minutes from the city.

Maybe go on a weekday. And try to overlook the irony, like we did, that you are actually paying more for the experience of picking your own than you would if your purchased the same quantity of berries from your local farmers’ market. ($5/pint) Our pick-your-own berries came with the extra bonus poison ivy exposure, so it was totally worth it. (There’s kind of a lot of poison ivy at Land’s Sake, but you can avoid if you’re paying attention… and not hungover.)

So tonight, just as we did precisely this time last year: we rinsed our haul (five pints). Spread them out on cookie sheets, on a layer of a wax paper. Popped them, in turns, in the freezer for about an hour until they were good and hard. Then into ziploc bags. And there they will stay until the world turns cold and bleak and horrible again.

Dairy / Localvores USA / Meat / Updates — 1 Comment
12
Jul 09

Cheese tasting, the roster

On Thursday we had another lovely cheese tasting at the Growing Cente r. A serious thank you to the 50-70 or so people (friends and many strangers!) who showed this year. Also to the Growing Center, the cheesemakers, goats, cows and sheep who participated. A note: You can buy local cheese at a bunch of farmers’ markets but year-round at: Formaggio Kitchen (Cambridge and South End), Dairy Bar@Kickass Cupcakes (Davis Sq), Dave’s Fresh Pasta (Davis Sq), Lionette’s Market (South End) and… Whole Foods. Here’s the roundup of what we were tasting. Please, go out and buy this stuff. And the next time you see someone about to spend money on grass-fed cheddar from New Zealand or some such nonsense, please scoff at them.

Maggie’s Round, Cricket Creek Farm, (Williamstown, Mass.) An Italian farm-style raw milk cheese which is aged more than four months. It has a creamy texture with a flavor similar to that of an Italian Toma. Buy it on the Cricket Creek web site — but not til fall!
Two from Valley View Farm (Topsfield, Mass.)Valley View Chevre - A soft, fresh goat’s milk cheese from a small herd of Anglo-Nubians. And Highlander, a semi-ripened goat cheese - The pyramid shape and greater surface area allows the two different molds to ripen, intensifying the development of flavors.These are both available at Lionette’s Market, Dave’s Fresh Pasta, Lexington, Union Square and Charlestown farmers’ markets (and variously on the North Shore).
Bourree: Dancing Cow Farm (Bridport, Vt) a raw cow’s milk cheese. This was made with uncooled raw cow’s milk from a single milking, Bourree is a washed rind cheese that has an earthy aroma and supple texture with strong hints of nuts and grass. This is fun: The name Bourree comes from a French peasant dance with rapid foot movements, much like the cows when first turned out on spring pastures. Available at Lionette’s Market.
Three Mountain, West River Creamery (Londonderry, Vt), a raw cow’s milk cheese. A washed rind cheese. Semi-soft, bold and smooth, velvety, finishing with a salty tang. Available at Lionette’s Market.
Ewe’s Blue, Old Chatham Sheepherding Co. (Old Chatham, NY), a sheep’s milk cheese. American Blue Cheese made in the Roquefort style with 100% sheep’s milk. Creamy texture and subtle blue overtone.
Crystal Brook Chevre (Sterling, Mass.) This mild, unassuming chevre comes from a herd of 70 Apline and Saanen goats — and cheesemaker Ann Starbard. A rocking lady. Her husband Eric, BTW, is a sawyer — he produces lumber from the farm. They like to flavor their chevre. Today we have cranberry orange, garlic basil, cracked black pepper, sundried tomato and plain ole plain. Available at Copley, Davis Sq, Arlington and Newton farmers’ markets.
Cabot’s Clothboound Cheddar (Cabot, Vt). This is pretty f’n good. It’s a cow’s milk cheese in a natural rind. Aged 10 months. It’s got the texture of an English-style cheddar but it’s got a sweet, milky, caramel-ly flavor. They make limited batches of this stuff. Check Whole Foods or Formaggio.

Weybridge, Scholten Family Farm (Weybridge, Vt.), a pasteurized organic cow’s milk cheese. This is a delicate little cheese with a fluffy, whipped texture. Mmm. Tastes like farm. You can order this stuff online. Not so available in these parts.
Landaff Creamery (Landaff, N.H.) A raw Holstein cow’s milk. This is inspired by Duckett’s Caerphilly and aged 60 days in Jasper Hill’s cheese cellar across the Connecticut River in Vermont. It’s tangy, clean, buttery — and it melts well. Online sales only through landaffcreamery.com.
Two from Heartsong Camembert (Gilmanton Iron Works, NH), a goat’s milk cheese. This stuff is finished when it’s still ‘young’ at two weeks. By four weeks, the center is firm and white and surrounded by cream. Online sales only.And Valencay (Gilmanton Iron Works, NH), a goat’s milk cheese. This type of cheese was named by Napoleon, after the castle in Valençay, France! A creamier, firmer texture than many goat cheeses. Online sales only.
Two from Jasper Hill Constant Bliss, Jasper Hill Farm, (Greensboro, Vt). This is a slow cheese made with fresh, right out of the cow, uncooled, evening milk. We’re talking raw whole milk, and the cheese is started before the cow’s even doing milking. Then it’s aged 60 days. The name: Constant Bliss was a revolutionary war scout killed in Greensboro by native Americans in 1781.Bayley Hazen Blue Jasper Hill Farm (Greensboro, Vt). This is a natural rinded blue cheese made with whole raw milk every other day, primarily with morning milk, which is lower in fat. It’s drier than most blues and has nutty, grassy, occasionally licorice-y flavors. The name: Bayley Hazen was an old military road across Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, commissioned by George Washington.Buy them at Lionette’s, Formaggio and Whole Foods.
Fiore di Nonno, fresh mozzarella (Somerville). This is as local as it gets, people. Lourdes Smith will literally disabuse you of any previous notion you once held of ‘fresh’ mozzarella. Life-changing. Get it at farmers’ markets, Lionette’s, Dave’s Fresh Pasta and Dairy Bar.

Cheese / Events — 2 Comments
5
Jul 09

Free. Local. Cheese tasting.

cheese This will be fun.

On Thursday from 6 to 9 at the Growing Center in Somerville, we’ll have seriously delicious sampling of cheese from around New England. Plus some info about how they’re made and, most importantly, where you can buy them. Available to you, good eater, for free.

The Growing Center is a leafy nook outside Union Square. Thus, this will be outdoors. And the good people there are so organized, we even have a rain date: July 11.

We’ll also have some cheese-related snacks. *We encourage you to bring some too. (A crusty loaf, jam, chocolate.)

Please come — It’s our first 2nd annual something! When we did this last summer it was a really swell time and, for us, the first night we met a lot of like-minded people who have become very good friends over the last year. All thanks to the internets, and our collective interest in going to meet a bunch of strangers over good food.

Some of the cheese we’ll be featuring this year:

Fiore di Nonno — amazing mozzarella made by hand in Somerville by Lourdes Smith
Valley View chevre and semi-ripened — this is a small family-farm in Topsfield (North Shore repreresent)
Cricket Creek — gorgeous rounds of ripened raw cow’s milk from the Berkshires
Heartsong — goat’s milk camembert from New Hampshire

and several more…

Honestly, this is FREE. But we would welcome a $3 donation to cover the cost of the cheese (some of which is donated, some of which is not). We’d also like to kick some funds to the Growing Center and the important work they do.

Events — No Comments
16
Jun 09

Important movie + local beer = $12.50

On Thursday, June 25 we (that’s us and any of you who’d like to join) are going to have a beer or two at Cambridge Brewing Co. Then we’re going to head, en masse, across the street to Kendall Sq Cinema to watch the new and excellent film Food, Inc.

We’ve worked out a deal with the theater and the restaurant so that movie + beer go for $12.50 (regularly about $14). Plus you get to meet some friendly area localvores and discuss — and, frankly, help us raise about 20 bucks to cover our web hosting fees.

Here’s the deets:

Find us at the brewery between 6 and 8. Collect your tickets for a free beer and for the movie.
Get to the theater for an 8:20 screening.
Sound good? GO HERE to buy your ticket. We only have 25, so hurry up.

P.S. We saw Food, Inc. at the Boston Film Festival earlier this spring. While incredibly sad, it also a very accessible and comprehensive look at our broken food system. It put a little fresh vigor in our advocacy work. Please come!

Asparagus — 5 Comments
26
May 09

Asparagus for dinner, brekkies, dessert and dinner again

This weekend we marked the first extended and actual taste of summer with another brief but comprehensive indulgence of this flavor in the Pioneer Valley.

The asparagus moment is upon us people, we had to do it.

The Pioneer Valley (90 miles west of Boston and a bit north if you travel Route 2 and know when to dip off into the back roads and hills) is *the* place to go for ‘gus. In Hadley, the town bookended by Amherst and Northampton and entangled in the Connecticut River, there is magical soil where the stuff grows perfectly and abundant. There are literally stands at the end of peoples’ driveways all over town. It’s sitting out in bunches for $3.50 and if you need change, you take it from the honor box.

Some fun things we learned from a story in Edible Pioneer Valley:

The French use the word “asperge” as slang for penis. In the 1500s, the English mutated the Persian asparag (”sprout”) into the adorable “sparrowgrass.”
During WWII, American spies were allegedly told to eat asparagus as a survival tactic. Because it would make their pee smell and if they urinated in lakes and oceans, the scent was like a siren song to fish, making them easier to catch and eat.
About 21 farms in the Pioneer Valley harvested 53 acres of ‘gus. And most of it stays in the valley, so you must go there to fetch it. Oh yeah, and they call it Hadley grass, if you need to ask.

We managed to consume the local stuff in soup form at dinner on Sunday night; in omelette form for brekkies the next day; in ice cream form at Flavyvor’s later on – that’s me tasting it in the photo; also the cow whence the cream came and the field whence the ‘gus was grown. We also brought back two bunches and grilled them for dinner. We recommend this!

CSF / Fish — No Comments
1
May 09

OMFG — CSF (Community Supported Fishery)!

Go — now! — to sign up for Cape Ann Fresh Catch. Fresh fish, 12 weeks, $180 half share/$360 full from the northern shores of Boston!

Other spectacular features we can share with you… which came to us this morning from Niaz Dorry, an organizer for the CSF:

Cape Ann Fresh Catch is a collaboration of shore-side residents and the local fishing community. Members give the fishing community financial support in advance of the season, and in turn the fishermen provide a weekly share of seafood during the harvesting season to shareholders — just like a regular ole CSA.

What you will get: a variety of haddock, cod, flounder, hake, dabs, grey sole, monkfish, Pollock, and redfish – and possibly other seafood such as clams, lobsters and scallops. (!!!) The fish will be dressed (cleaned and gutted, NOT filleted), and packed on ice. A 12-week subscription to our summer CSF will start in early June.

In traditional markets fishermen are forced to chase whatever species is fetching the highest price that week. By taking a mix off these species at the same price week-to-week (about $3/lb), fishermen are able to fish areas that are not stressed by the rest of the fleet, and give species and ecosystems time to recover and replenish.

This cooperative system also keeps fishermen safer because they don’t have to fight the weather to go offshore for a certain species; if the weather is dangerous, they can stay close to shore and catch only what the CSF needs that week. At the same time, shareholders are guaranteed the freshest, highest quality fish caught. The fish caught for the CSF will never be old or frozen, and it will always come from fishermen who believe in working with the ocean and the community.

Where you can get your hands on this share: Organizers are trying to get enough people in Cambridge/Boston interested so they can have a drop-off in the city, possibly at a farmers’ market — the CSF is running the same months as your typical veggie CSA.

It’s small and local, because: There is an essential quality to seafood that you only get when it’s harvested locally and delivered to you just hours out of the ocean. The boats they’re using are family-owned — which means they’re paying attention to the way fish is caught and focusing on strengthening our local food community, economy, and the sustainability of the ecosystem. The long-term health and abundance of the Gulf of Maine are important to all of us. (Read Bottomfeeder and you will understand this in a very visceral way.)

Apply?? Here!

Updates — No Comments
27
Apr 09

The ‘Inconvenient Truth’ for good eaters

Last night we had the privilege of checking out an early screening of Food Inc, a documentary that visually realizes all of the finest points of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma — and then some. It’s starring all the usual suspects, Pollan himself, Eric Schlosser, Joel Salatin, Gary Hirschberg from Stonyfield and a handful of famers’ — the good and bad kind — talking frankly, radically and practically about the nightmare that our food system has evolved into over the last 50 years.

Some highlights:

Carole Morison, a farmer in South Carolina, effectively blowing the whistle on Tyson Foods. She maintained a concentration camp for chickens and was more or less enslaved by this horror show, thanks to Tyson. How?

The average farmer in this scenario carries $500,000 in debt to meet all the “regulations” installed by Tyson, which is contracted to purchase their birds.
The average farmer’s actual income: $18,000/year.
(After talking to the filmmakers, she was dropped by Tyson. We must find her, thank her and see what she’s doing to get by these days.)

A look inside Beef Products Inc, which processes meat from dozens of feed lots across several states and “CLEANS” it with ammonia.

Because, of course, this reduces bacteria!
And because it’s OK to eat ammonia?
The visuals on this were particularly vile. There has been very little coverage by the press on this practice, but here’s one “academic” document I found on it — and this news item, about a woman who *died* while working at BPI. From ammonia exposure.

Food Inc opens at Kendall Sq on June 16 — and that’s it for the whole of New England. Tell everyone you know to go see it here, or wherever else it’s showing. Perhaps if it does well enough a clever, mindful capitalist will take notice and see that it gets the kind of distribution it needs.