boston localvores

By darry — Events — 1 comment — 23 Jul 10

Inflatable movie screen + local burgers + campy independent horror films

I’m not sure I need to say much more than that, but ok.

We love the Haley House Bakery Cafe in Roxbury. They’ve been a very generous in letting us use their space for our events, plus, they’re just cool. They host programs that teach kids how to cook, and provide job training skills to people coming out of prison.

Every year, they partner with the Color of Film Collaborative and the Roxbury International Film Festival for an outdoor dinner and a movie. This year’s Dinner and a Movie is Friday, July 30, 6:30-9:30 at the Haley House.

Last year, the Haley House manager, Bing Broderick, asked us to help make the event all local. And he wasn’t kidding. Just about every single menu item was: cheese, beer, bread, burgers, chicken (which was made so delicious by our friend Erik that the people there christened him “The Bird Man”), fruit, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic - everything.

We really assumed that the local BBQ was a one time theme, but this year, they’ve just kept it largely local again. It’s so cool. This is how change happens.

Here’s the menu (The event is Friday, July 30 from 6:30-9:30):

-Haley House Homemade chicken dogs topped with our homemade sauerkraut
-Hardwick Beef cheeseburgers with all the fixings
-Haley House’s own special veggie burgers
-Haley House potato salad with local potatoes and vegetables and Noonday Farm eggs
-Haley House special healthy slaw made with Chinese cabbage from Noonday Farm
-Fresh local tomato salad
-Sour Cherry Upside Down featuring Roxbury/Dorchester cherries, courtesy of Earthworks, topped with whipped cream
-Watermelon punch
-Organic beer & wine will be available for purchase

You can buy tickets here.

We’ll be volunteering at the event. Hopefully we’ll see some of you there!

By kristi — Jam / Preserving+canning / Rants — 7 comments — 22 Jul 10

Blueberry therapy

jam1

First: an aside. I noticed this week that my fingers are taking on a subtle but certain look of age and overuse. Kind of bending and twisting a bit when they’re at rest. The cumulative effect, probably, of spending half my life before a glowing screen, arms propped awkwardly on a desk, fingers rapidly firing T-O-I-L, basically, over and over again.

Some nights we come home from our day jobs and our commutes and the thought of preparing a meal with all the raw, local ingredients in our kitchen feels like another hour or two wrangling only more T-O-I-L. But lately, even in the heat, or maybe because of it, we have been coming home to this reality with a sense of a relief. Respite. Therapy for my twisted fingers. The silent, methodical rhythms of transforming all of this beautiful produce into simple, delicious stuff. We’re using our hands and ourselves in a more natural way. We’re making a mess, nourishing ourselves and tidying up in a terribly satisfying way. And probably hitting dozens of important acupressure points on our palms in the process.

And now, to the point: We’re already putting things by with a bit of a fury in preparation for the winter, should it ever get cold again. Little bits here and there, when something is suddenly abundant. A couple nights ago we made a giant bowl of pesto and our first batch of blueberry jam. The jam turned out rather miraculously to be our most successful batch yet. Per usual, we winged the recipe.

We’ve learned two important things about jam recently through the Collective Conscience of our Facebook page, a small bit of web research and the contents of this book called Putting Food By. They are: 1) That pectin does nothing for the preserving of fruit. It only affects the texture of a jam, making the “jelliness” of it, in some cases, possible. and 2) sugar changes the acid of a jam. Which is to say, sugar does something for the preserving of fruit. If you remove the sugar entirely, like we have done, you’re at risk unless you put your jam in the fridge or freezer.

Because we think 12 cups of sugar in anything (a standard quantity for jam recipes) is an obscenity, we reduced the amount most sources told us to use. And have opted to refrigerate and/or freeze.

Here’s how we did our blueberries:

2 1/2 pints of blueberries (or 7 1/2 cups)
3 cups of sugar
1/2 t of cinnamon*
1/4 t of ground cloves*

*optional, for spicing

yield: 3 1/2 pints

The morning after, when all was cooled, the jam was surprisingly viscous — jelly-like, really. And delicious. It’s now in our freezer until a dreary day in February, so we can’t be sure the consistency or flavor will stay the same. Here’s hoping.

…Now step away from the computer and go work your hands.

By kristi — CSA — 3 comments — 19 Jul 10

Carrot top, the tea

carrot-tea

This year I have been given the good fortune of being the CSA site coordinator for Red Fire Farm. Every Wednesday I spend several blissful hours in the parking lot next to the Harvest Co-op in Cambridge, making sure 150 or so people get their weekly share of veggies from the farm. I am outside. I am around beautiful fruits and veggies, most of which was harvested within a 24-hour window of delivery. And, maybe most importantly, I am not at a desk staring at a computer screen.

Actually, the most important thing has been the interactions I’ve had with both the members of the farm and the folks wandering past our distribution, who sometimes mistake it for a farmers market — sometimes to the extent that they’ve collected a bunch of items and are trying to give me money for them — and very often express genuine interest and curiosity in what a CSA is. But more on that in another post.

It’s been very cool talking with other CSA members about their relationship with the food they’re taking home each week. What they’ve done with it, what they’ve discovered about themselves (they like fennel, hate radicchio) and about time spent working with real food. There’s lots of generosity with recipes. Complicated ones. Simple ones too.

Here is a simple one that we have been enjoying: Tea made with the tops of carrots. So yeah, just chop them off, rinse and pour boiling water over them. We let our tea steep for 20 minutes or so, took the tops off and put it in the fridge in a ball jar.

It is a little sweet and it has the flavor of carrot juice except it is about a million times lighter. It’s been incredibly refreshing in the heat. It’s also a mild diuretic with curative properties. Apparently it is an antiseptic than can purge toxins. According to someone else on the innernets who is crazy about the stuff and its healing value.

In our weekly email from Red Fire Farm, we were encouraged to make a tea with the tops of fennel (ahem, The Fronds). We haven’t tried this yet, but we have stored a bunch of fronds in the freezer for future brewing.

By bostonlocalvores — Meals — 2 comments — 12 Jul 10

Anatomy of a local meal: July 11

By kristi — Corn / Rants / Tomatoes — 3 comments — 06 Jul 10

Why is there corn now?

We spent the holiday weekend camping with some pals in the western part of the state. It was a swell time. Last week, as we were exchanging frantic emails with each other to make sure we collectively had our gear and, most importantly our food organized, one of our friends suggested someone grab corn at a farmers’ market, for grilling purposes.

We local eaters smugly replied: it’s a little early for corn.

But as we local eaters drove out Route 2 to Route 112 and on the winding roads to our rural destination, we passed several farms and their farmstands offering, yup, corn!

Now, corn, at least as I conceive of it, is a treat reserved for high summer. I have very fond memories of living in the Pioneer Valley, pedaling through the rocking corn fields of Hadley, Mass. in the stiff and slow heat of August. *August.* I mean, I can’t be sure it was August, but it definitely was not the Fourth of July.

But this scenario is, I think — I am going to say it — may be, a casualty of the popularity of the local foods movement. What I mean to say is, local farmers are growing stuff earlier than they used to (and perhaps earlier than they should be) to accommodate a consumer demand for Those Most Precious and Adored local crops. That is what the “local foods movement” is asking them to do.

A couple weeks back we were having a conversation with a farmer at the Cambridgeport market. (She is young and awesome and well-known in the community.) We got to talking about how, thanks to the swell of local eaters and the demand for a steady, nearly year-round supply of local food, what used to feel like a healthy lull in winter now feels like not much of a break at all. She’s got to work harder, in part because the bureaucracy is bigger, in part because her customer base has grown and also, in part, because she’s got to get stuff to seed … earlier than ever before.

Hmph.

Remember the first or second week of the Copley Square market and how a bunch of different growers had hothouse or greenhouse tomatoes? There’s another treat that, at least as I conceive of it, is reserved for high summer. I don’t even think that last year I saw them so early.

Now obviously there are some incentives for the local farmer if local customers will pay a premium for a local tomato on June 1. And hey, it was great for us to have corn on the cob over a fire this July 4th. Maybe there’s nothing at all to complain about here, but perhaps there is something curious worth noting. But a lot of do this local food thing with integrity and a commitment to eating things when we’re supposed to eat them.

Also, this is a position we take often: The movement has got to be about feeding people. I mean everybody, including the people who think they are too poor (and actually are) to shop at farmers markets and the farmer working her butt off all year to actually enable a transformation of our food system. To make that possible — that = sustainability = I am wondering do we need tomatoes in June?

By bostonlocalvores — Fruit / Preserving+canning — 3 comments — 02 Jul 10

Raspberry jam

raspberry

We now know that we are simply incapable of following a canning or jamming recipe. Oh well.

We looked around online for ideas, consulted Putting Food By, and asked our Facebook friends. All said we could forgo pectin if we could be happy with a runnier preserve. But Putting Food By said that some lemon juice in will help low acid fruits gel. So, here’s the don’t-follow-this-recipe-yet recipe:

22 cups whole, uncrushed raspberries (it cooked down to a lot less volume than this)
5 cups sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice

The recipes we looked at were calling, for, like, a one to one ratio of fruit to sugar! That just wasn’t going to happen. It’s super sweet with just the five cups.

There was one jar that wasn’t quite filled, and so didn’t get processed. But as it’s cooling, it’s gelling up. So, fingers crossed…

jam

By bostonlocalvores — Community / Farmers markets — 12 comments — 15 Jun 10

Wowie, a farmers market calendar

We just spent a couple of hours putting this together: A Google calendar of all* the farmers markets in the city for the 2010 season. Please, go use this.

…Because we are geeks. Because we like using Google apps. Because this is open and free and you can add to it and make it better. (Tell us what vendors are there! What you like. When it’s best to go. That sort of thing.)

*We did our best to get every market on there, but, you know, online records of what’s happening when and where are a bit inconsistent. Help us fill the holes?

And if you want it, here is the public link to the calendar.

By bostonlocalvores — Milk / Raw milk / Updates — 3 comments — 06 Jun 10

Raw milk still legal, for now

We just got the following email from Winton Pitcoff and the NOFA Raw Milk Network. It indicates a victory for those of us who made a lot of noise after the Mass. Department of Agriculture proposed new regulations on raw milk and milk buying clubs. But it also indicates that those who would like to further restrict the sale of raw milk might be gearing up for an even bigger battle later on.

We get the sense that the pro-farmer contigency at the Dept. of Ag at least exists and truly sees the economic value of raw milk to Massachusetts dairies, but is facing a big beast of opposition from the industry… we mean, the Department of Health.

Check it out:

… Commissioner Scott Soares said that the department will not hold additional hearings on raw milk regulations at this time, and the regulations as they are currently written will stand during what he said he expects to be a lengthy process leading up to any changes. Soares indicated that as a result of internal review and comments that have been collected regarding this issue thus far, adequate examination will exceed the current resources and capacity of the agency. “In the interest of providing sufficient attention to matters associated with raw milk,” said Soares, “the agency will indefinitely postpone any further public work around regulatory changes that were proposed in April.”

That said, Soares told NOFA the cease and desist orders that were sent to formal buying clubs, like Just Dairy, still stand. However, it seems like there’s a glimmer of hope that regulators will come to some resolution that might provide a safe and “legal” space for such operations.

Soares said that as the Department continues its examination of the regulations, “everything is on the table. We will consider extended sales and what it would take to make those sales safe.” He reiterated MDAR’s commitment to on-farm raw milk sales, and said that there have been no discussions to eliminate or further restrict such sales.

It’s interesting to take a look at these FAQs on raw milk the Dept. of Ag posted after the May 10 hearing, where, by the way, hundreds of raw milk supporters turned out to provide several hours worth of comments and testimony. For more info on that hearing and the discussion that followed, we direct you to Alex Lewin’s thorough roundup. (All told, there were 285 comments submitted and all but one of them were in opposition to the Dept. of Ag’s proposed regulations. The one comment in favor came from the the Dept. of Health.)

We owe a lot to the Raw Milk Network at NOFA and especially to Winton Pitcoff for translating what all of this means for us raw milk consumers. So if you’re the kind of person who, you know, doesn’t have to work or can spare a few vacation days, you should take a trip out to the Pioneer Valley this summer and support the work they’re doing. The Raw Milk Network is hosting a symposium at UMass on Aug. 13. and there’s a fundraiser at Cook Farm in Hadley the day before, where we can assure you, you will be in proximity of some very delicious ice cream.

By kristi — Updates — 6 comments — 01 Jun 10

Growing Triscuits and ire

A couple of weeks ago, we had a pretty fantastic debate over on Facebook about this community garden project at a church in Somerville. We’ve been thinking a lot about our own anti-corporate position, our own objection to the world’s second-largest food corporation co-sponsoring a local initiative to reconnect communities to fresh veggies and all of the interesting and passionate things our localvore community on the FB had to say about this. (As a side note, I’ve been reading very fascinating stuff about what it means to be a corporation, and the history of such things, in Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection. Highly recommend.)

Anyway, I was recently invited to write a column for OtherWords, an op-ed syndicate that is affiliated with my day job. I chose to write about this topic. So, um, here it is.

Community Gardens Don’t Excuse What Kraft Did to American Food
Big Food won’t be absolved by tossing a fraction of its fortunes toward urban plots.

by Kristi Ceccarossi
A few weeks ago, a churchyard near my city apartment was converted into a garden. A group of local volunteers hammered together raised beds, trucked in new soil, and planted berries, tomatoes and greens with the hope of growing fresh food for a local soup kitchen.

It doesn’t get much warmer and fuzzier than that, but I’m pretty repulsed by it.

As someone who advocates for a more localized food system where we can all have a stronger connection to what we’re eating and to the backstory of how it was grown, you’d think I’d support this kind of project. And I would, were it not for the fact that it was built in partnership with Triscuit. Yes, the cracker company, which is owned by Kraft Foods, Inc., the world’s second-largest food corporation.

This spring, to mark what is the start of the growing season for most of us, the marketing machine at Triscuit is breaking ground on more than 50 gardens like this in dozens of cities around the country. According to spokeswoman Allison Goldstein, that’s because Triscuit believes in the simple joys of growing your own food in a local garden, “no matter where you live.” Apparently, Triscuit also believes in emblazoning gardens with its logo and highlighting the joy it yields through organized press events.

It’s hard to find something bad to say about any garden, and even harder to fault one that will feed hungry people. But it’s just as difficult to reconcile what could and should be a genuine community initiative with sponsorship from a corporation with about $50 billion in annual sales.

For one thing, there’s the irony. Food giants like Kraft are largely to blame for the woeful transformation of our food system over the last 50 years, and the lost connection my grandparents’ generation had to what they ate and where it came from. By churning out Cheez Whiz, Cool Whip, Oreos and other highly processed foods, which require immense farms, Kraft and its ilk have allowed us to forget how to cook every day with fresh produce and bury the memory of what it means to grow our own food.

But now, through a confluence of contamination scares, Michael Pollan books, and the obesity crisis, thousands of Americans are questioning whether we should have forgotten how to cook just because we could heat up frozen dinners. We’re taking our money out of the supermarket chains and back to local farmers and independent shops, like our grandparents used to do, and we’re supporting a food system that’s better for the planet, our economy and our health in the process. Clearly Kraft has taken note.

Perhaps Kraft officials think Big Food can be absolved by tossing a fraction of its fortunes towards urban plots that will, realistically, feed very few people. Maybe they hope that we’ll forget the dozens of food recalls it’s been subjected to over the last two years alone, and see this gesture as a step in the right direction–that Kraft is on our side.

I don’t care how many seed packets Kraft stuffs into its Original and Reduced-Fat Triscuit boxes. I don’t trust companies of this scale when they tell me they care about gardening or fresh food or my neighborhood, because everything that preserves their bottom line tells me the opposite.

But more importantly, I don’t need the mammoth corporation that manufactures Velveeta to help me clear a bit of earth and prepare it for cultivation. None of us do. If we want to build community, change our food system or plant a garden, we don’t have to look beyond our neighborhood and its collective resources to do that. And that’s true, no matter where you live.

By darry — Cheese — 5 comments — 18 May 10

Ode to Vermont

kristifield

This is what it looks like when we go to Vermont. Kristi looks like she’ll collapse from happiness.

In this photo, she’s standing where our friend Howard’s yard meets the neighbor’s yard. We happen to know that in the neighbor’s yard is a cheese cave where wheels of Vermont Shepherd are aged. And across the street, Vermont Shepherd’s flock graze in the twilight.

sheep

I was ten when my family moved to Vermont from Long Island. I think that was young enough for it to mean I have no other home. Life was always just, you know, life. We did not grow up with money or privilege, but secret waterfalls and misty blue afternoons like this one were very much normal. Now when I go back, I’m like a tourist, unable to believe that such beauty still exists unspoiled and that people just live in this Eden in such a daily way. My day to day life now involves hot exhaust from MBTA buses and hipsters, trying so hard.

I know that Vermont has done a hell of job marketing itself to the rest of New England and the world as an exceptional place where exceptional artisan food is made. But this flock of sheep, guarded by a working sheep dog, are not at all an unusual site. These photos are not taken wildly out of context. The marketing is no shill.

road