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This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing—use nothing!

This Halloween, have your pumpkin—and eat it, too

April McGreger — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:09:47 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Try April’s White Bean and Pumpkin Chili recipe (below).Photo: April McGreger

Halloween has pagan roots in the Celtic Samhain, a festival of the harvest and the dead. The Celts saw the end of October as the “end of lightness” or the end of summer, and the “beginning of darkness,” or the long, cruel winter ahead. At this time of year, harvests were complete, livestock were slaughtered, and community bonfires were started. During this transformation from light to dark, the ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the spirit world became thin, allowing spirits to pass through. Some spirits were thought to be harmless, such as the family’s ancestors; while other harmful spirits were warded off with the use of masks and costumes.

Despite Halloween’s origins in European culture, it has clearly meshed with Native American culture here in the United States, with the elements of corn and pumpkins being the most common symbols of the harvest. The next time you find yourself carving a pumpkin, you should think of how much more difficult your task would be if you were following the Celtic tradition of carving a much denser turnip or rutabaga. The American tradition of pumpkin carving actually preceded the popularization of the Halloween celebration in the United States, which is thought to have origins in the Irish immigration following the Great Famine of 1846. Pumpkin carving was a harvest ritual and was not specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 1800s.

However, for all of our Halloween obsessions with pumpkins, the culinary state of our much beloved gourd is a sad indeed. Aren’t our pumpkins good for more than scary or comical faces? Most of the pumpkins grown in the United States are purely ornamental. Even if you tried to roast and eat your jack-o-lantern, you would quickly discover that most of the flesh has been bred out of the pumpkin and what is left is watery, stringy, and of lackluster taste. Sadly, the only pumpkin that most Americans have eaten is canned and usually in the form of an overspiced pie or quickbread. One can fully understand why pumpkin remains a virtually undiscovered vegetable at this point.

I did not begin to fully appreciate pumpkin until I began to think outside the box—or, more accurately the orange globe. If you are looking only for round, bright orange ones that we most readily identify as pumpkins you are missing out on a myriad of beautiful colors and shapes and the best pumpkin eating. It is also important to note that terms pumpkin and winter squash are used interchangebly, so we should loosen our rigid “pumpkin” guidelines even further. Both are gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita.

Some of my favorite varieties are the beautiful grey-blue Australian Jarrahdale; the Japanese kabocha; the old green-striped Southern cushaw, popular in the Appalachians; and in South Louisiana, the Long Island cheese pumpkin. And the dependable and ubiquitous butternut squash is my favorite supermarket standby. I will use any of these varieties in my “pumpkin” pies—and the pies are much better for it.

However, my pumpkin culinary advententures don’t stop there. By far the tastiest method for cooking winter squash is to roast it in big chunks that have been tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. Roasting the pumpkin slightly caramelizes it and gives it an amazing depth of flavor that I find totally addictive. You can then use the roasted pumpkin in many different ways. I love big chunks of it on top of a salad of spicy mixed greens and hazelnuts, walnuts, or pecans. Many other cultures have explored the savory possibilities of winter squash with much greater depth.

In the Mediterranean, they make a lovely autumnal hummus of roasted pumpkin and tahini. The French love their pumpkin gratins; the Italians, their pumpkin risottos and ravioli. In Mexico, they make a delcious raw sugar roasted pumpkin very similar to Southern candied yams. I particularly love pumpkin when its sweetness is countered with a bit of spice, such as the savory tarts that I make with pumpkin and a spicy Indian tomato chutney and the agrodolce (sweet-sour) pumpkin from Mario Batali’s Molto Italiano.

It was with these dishes in mind that I gravitated toward a chili with pumpkin. Since fall is also firmly established soup and chili season in my family, it seemed a natural fit. Moreover, following the wisdom of “what grows together goes together,” I knew that the American Indian crops of pumpkin, beans, peppers, and a side of cornbread were a natural match. The results did not disappoint. So this weekend, whether you are carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, or standing around a big bonfire, you can have your pumpkins and eat them, too.

Feel free to substitute other beans in this chili, or add meat for a non-vegetarian version. When I made this recipe at my parents’ house this weekend, 2 cups of shredded brisket from a previous meal made a delicious addition. If you wanted to add meat from the beginning, you would need to brown it along with the onions and peppers.

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White Bean and Pumpkin Chili

2 medium onions, diced (about 2 cups)

2 red bell peppers, preferably roasted and skinned, cut into medium dice

2 jalapeño peppers, seeds and membranes removed, cut into fine dice

4 Tablespoons olive oil

2 1/2 pounds tomatoes, coarsely chopped, or about 4 cups

1 1/2 tablespoons chile powder, mild, hot or a combination

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 bay leave

2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons honey or sugar

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

4 cups cooked white or black beans, preferably from dried

4 cups roasted pumpkin or winter squash, directions below*

pinch of Mexican oregano

Serve with sour cream, chopped cilantro, chopped scallions, shredded cheese, and cornbread (recipe below).

Directions:

Bring the beans to a boil, then turn down and simmer until tender. Otherwise, use drained and rinsed canned beans** (see below).

In a large stock pot, sauté the onions in olive oil until lightly golden. Add in the bell peppers and jalapenos, and cook for about five minutes until tender. On medium heat, add the chili powder, curry powder, ground cumin, cinnamon, bay leaves, and salt, and cook for another minute. Then add the tomatoes and the honey or sugar, stirring well to incorporate. Cook at a simmer for 10 minutes.

Once the beans have become tender, add them into the chili base, along with their juice, and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours. Add the pumpkin and vinegar just before serving. Taste, and adjust seasoning.

*Remove the seeds and the fiber from the pumpkin and cut the flesh into chunks, leaving the skin still attached. Mix the chunks in a bowl with 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, and a teaspoon of dried oregano. Lay the chunks on a baking tray, skin side down, and put them in the oven, which you have preheated to 425 degrees F. When the chunks of pumpkin are soft and the edges are tinged with brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool, and scoop out chunks of the pumpkin from the skin with a fork. Measure out 4 cups of the pumpkin and save the rest for another purpose, like a salad or snacking later.

**If using canned beans, cook the chili tomato base an extra 20 minutes before adding the beans. Add the rinsed beans along with 2 cups of water and cook for another 20 minutes. Add the pumpkin and adjust seasoning before serving.

Black Skillet Cornbread

Serves 6 to 8

2 cups cornmeal, preferably stone ground (you may substitute up to half of the cornmeal with all purpose flour if you prefer)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4 tablespoons oil or drippings—bacon grease or lard gives distinctive flavor, but a mixture of a high heat vegetable oil, such as safflower or grape seed and butter, makes a fine substitute

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups whole buttermilk or whole milk

A few teaspoons of honey or sugar (optional)

Directions:

You really need a 9- to 10-inch cast-iron skillet for this recipe. If you do not have one, I can’t think of any better way to spend $15-20. You can buy cast iron pre-seasoned these days, if that part of the process has always scared you. You may substitute a 9- or 10-inch cake pan or muffin tins, but you will lose some crispness in the crust.

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Heat the bacon grease or oil in a 9-inch cast-iron skillet in the oven for 10 minutes to get it very hot before you pour in the batter. Whisk the cornmeal, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a large bowl. Add the egg and buttermilk and whisk until smooth. Add the sweetener if you wish. With a thick oven mitt or kitchen towel, remove the hot skillet from the oven and very carefully swirl the grease around the pan to coat the sides. Pour about half of the hot oil into the batter and whisk it in. Then pour the batter into the hot skillet. If the batter does not sizzle when it hits the pan, it was not hot enough—heat it longer next time. Place the skillet on the lower oven rack and bake for 15 minutes. Transfer the skillet to the upper rack and continue baking until the cornbread is dark golden brown on top. Remove the skillet from the oven and invert the cornbread onto a large plate or cutting board. Slice into wedges and serve hot. If the cornbread will not be served immediately, it should be cooled on a rack so that the crust maintains its crispiness. The bread reheats in a moderate oven wonderfully.

So long and thanks for all the fish

Apples with a sense of place

April McGreger — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:38:26 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

One lovely evening a couple of weeks ago, I watched the documentary Food Fight in an outdoor theater in my downtown. The documentary focuses on how the 1960s counterculture—specifically the Berkeley crew of which Alice Waters was a member—led to the current sustainable agriculture boom. The documentary champions the sensual pleasures and health promotion of fresh, locally grown food, but I couldn’t help noticing one glaring omission.

In my personal experience the single most rewarding aspect of eating locally has been exploring my own region in depth. I think of it as seeking the wisdom of Wendell Berry who says repeatedly, “You’ve got to know where you are. You’ve got to consult the genius of the place.”

Before moving to North Carolina, I was living a few miles from where my family had settled six generations back. The loss that I felt in my new place was a disconnection to the past and to the land that I now lived on. I fell into a counterculture of my own—a community of multigenerational farmers and DIY punks who mostly grew and/or ate seasonal, locally grown and foraged food. There was an intentional effort within this community to live Berry’s idea of a good life, one that values sustainable agriculture, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, meaningful work, a functioning local economy, reverence for nature and the interconnectedness of life.

I experienced an ever increasing awareness that the food choices I made were governed by the competing considerations of identity, convenience, price, and responsibility. Through my choice to support small, local farmers by buying directly from them, I could help preserve agricultural land in an area that was experiencing rapid growth.

In the long term, however, what keeps me interested in locally grown food is discovering that self-imposed geographical limits on our foodshed support the minor agricultural products, for which there are increasingly fewer markets in our current boundless global food society. There is a deep and understated sort of satisfaction that comes from delving into long forsaken traditional foods, such as lard from pastured pigs as a cooking fat, sorghum molasses as a wholesome sweetener, and old varieties of Southern apples found here in the North Carolina Piedmont.

It was in this spirit of discovery that I first sampled a rustic, idiosyncratic apple that I found for sale at the Carrboro Farmer’s Market. That apple had a winey, complex taste that just doesn’t exist in modern apple varieties. I sought to learn more. It turns out that although they are virtually extinct on the commercial market, there are many, many varieties of delicious old timey apples with a rich, if disappearing, history behind them. And that is what fascinates me: not just a local apple, but an apple with a story, a history, and a sense of place, all of which contribute to the pleasure of every winey bite.

My apple love led me to premier apple preservationist Creighton Lee Calhoun, who grows 450 varieties of heirloom apples at his nursery and apple orchard just down the road from me in Chatham County, North Carolina. In his book, Old Southern Apples, he describes over 1600 beloved Southern apple varieties, many of which are now extinct. The reason that so many different varieties arose is that European settlers opened enormous new lands all over the South from the 17th to late 19th century. There were perhaps tens of millions of apples seeds planted—not grafted as in the common nursery practice—in the South during this time. Apple seeds are like humans—each has a unique genetic code and will yield a tree that is different from its parent tree.

Apple seeds were cheap, durable and portable, and the men and women who planted these trees knew that most seeds would yield mediocre apples at best. Most apples would be used to feed the hogs or to make vinegar or hard cider. A few of the seedlings would yield apples good enough for cooking, fresh eating, and some to keep through the winter. Out of the millions of seeds that were planted, a few would become exceptional trees that were cherished by Southerners. These trees were often reproduced by digging up the root sprouts that sometimes spring up around the apple tree. It is those varieties that have survived in the backyards of the old homesteads that Calhoun has collected.

Thanks to his propagation, those storied apples can be found for sale at my local farmer’s market and all of my apple recipes are better for it.

Heirloom Apple Sauce (makes about 5 half pints)

2 cups water

2 cups apple juice

1 cup orange juice

6 Tablespoons sugar or honey

6 whole cloves

4 cardamom pods, cracked

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 teaspoon of fennel seeds

About 10-12 medium apples, preferably sweet and soft fleshed varieties, peeled, cored, and quartered (if you have a food mill, you can skip the peeling and coring)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, combine the water, apple juice, orange juice, cloves, sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, and fennel. Bring to a boil and reduce liquid by half. Strain the liquid to remove the spices.

In a large heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the apples with the spiced liquid. Simmer for about 20 minutes until the apples are falling apart tender. Remove the apples from heat, add vanilla, and let cool. Process in a food processor or food mill to desired consistency. Ladle into sterilized jars and top with two-piece lids. Process in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Oven-Roasted Apple Butter (makes about 4 half pints)

To turn your applesauce into apple butter,

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To your applesauce mixture, add ½ cup brown sugar, 1 Tablespoon of ground cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon each of ground cloves and ground ginger. Bake the apple puree, stirring occasionally, for 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours, or until very thick and deeply browned.

Ladle the apple butter into sterilized jars, top with two piece lids and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Apple tartsRustic Apple Tarts (makes 1 large tart or 6 small tarts)

Dough

½ pound butter, unsalted, very cold and cut into 1-inch pieces

½ cup ice water, drained

¾ teaspoon salt

2 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour

Apples

About 10 medium apples, preferably a sweet-tart cooking variety, peeled, cored, and cut into wedges, about 8 per apple

½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon butter

Splash of apple cider or juice

Pinch of salt

¼ cup crème fraiche, optional

Walnuts, optional

Measure flour and salt in a bowl or in the bowl of a food processor. Toss in the cubes of butter. Using a pastry blender or pulsing your food processor, cut the butter in the flour until the butter is the size of large peas. You want fairly large pieces of butter because this is what produces a flaky crust. Pour all of the water into your flour mixture and mix the dough until you can gather it into a shaggy ball. Flatten the ball of dough slightly and fold it back on itself to get it to come together more. Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour before rolling out.

Place the disc of dough on a well floured surface. Flour the top of the dough and brush off the excess. Flour your rolling pin as well. Place your rolling pin in the center of the disc of dough and roll towards the top. Turn the dough a quarter turn to your right and repeat. Use your bench scraper or a spatula to scrape the bottom of the disc of dough to keep it from sticking. Add more flour as necessary. Continue to flour your rolling pin and scrape any sticky pieces of dough off of it frequently. When your dough is ¼-inch thick and in a rough circle, drape it over your rolling pin and transfer it to a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator while you prepare your apples.

To caramelize the apples, place a large frying pan over medium heat. Sprinkle the bottom of it with ¼ cup of sugar. When the sugar begins to caramelize, swirl the pan and toss in about ½ of the apple slices. Toss the apples to coat them in caramel and let them cook for about 2 minutes. Dump them out on a parchment lined baking tray and spread them out slightly to cool. Cook the other half of the apples exactly the same way. When you dump the second batch of apples onto your baking tray, place the pan back over medium heat and add the tablespoon of butter, the apple juice and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and with a wooden spoon try to get any bits of caramel stuck to the pan stirred into the sauce and melted. Pour this over the apples and set aside.

Remove the tart dough from the refrigerator. If you wish, brush the bottom of the dough with crème fraiche. Pile the apples into the center of the tart, leaving about a three inch border. Fold the border up over the apples. Brush the crust with an egg glaze (1 egg beaten with a pinch of salt and a splash of cream) and sprinkle it lightly with sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees until deep golden brown, about 1 hour.

Alternately, you can make 6 smaller tarts. Just reduce the cooking time to about 40-45 minutes.

So long and thanks for all the fish

Home pickles made easy—and delicious

April McGreger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:53:51 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Yes, you can (preserve your own peppers). All photos by April McGreger

Judging from the first canning-equipment display I’ve ever seen at my local health-food store, home canning is undergoing a revival. Let us not forget, though, that long before Ball and Kerr were churning out jars, food preservation was a common practice. Traditional cultures all over the world preserved much of the food needed for the winter through lactic-acid fermentation. Sauerkraut, kimchi, grape leaves, cucumbers, turnips, green tomatoes, peppers, corn, and many, many more vegetables were commonly preserved through this process.

Of all methods of preserving, lacto-fermentation is the most magical. At its simplest, it is just vegetables and salt. This provides the right conditions for nature to take its course. The salt slows the decomposition of the vegetables briefly until the sugars in the vegetables are broken down by friendly lactobacilli and converted into lactic acid to preserve the vegetables for many months.

Thinking about real, lacto-fermented pickles makes my mouth water. There is no substitute for their complex and nuanced taste. I was born into sweet pickle territory, however, and grew up on bread and butters and apple cider vinegar-y okra pickles. Though delicious as well, that’s not what I am talking about here. Here we are talking about the artisanal crafted, slightly unpredictable, real thing.

Not-so-classic dill pickles: just add chiles.My first encounter with real, garlicky, brined pickles was at the all-you-can-eat pickle bars of Jewish delis. Since then, my love of pickles has led me on pickle eating field trips to the Russian community of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where they serve massive slabs of whole pickled watermelon, to Japan, where I ate pickled umeboshi plum, daikon radish and burdock root for breakfast alongside bowls of rice and miso soup. I’ve also discovered some hidden fermenting traditions in my own region as well, such as the Appalachian tradition of pickling whole ears of corn on the cob, which has roots in Native American food ways, and the grape leaf pickles found around Winston-Salem, N.C., most likely connected to the Moravian settlement there.

This is the perfect time of year to try your hand at fermented vegetables. The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler and temperatures are on the decline. However, harvests are still coming in. When fermentation temperatures rise above the low seventies, yeasts and mold growth on the surface of the pickles are more aggressive. Cucumbers, the vegetable most synonymous with pickles, prefer cooler summer temperatures and are plentiful at my market right now. Another of my favorite vegetables to ferment is peppers, and this is high pepper season. A fermented hot sauce has a sophisticated lingering flavor and not just heat. It might be bad news for the hot sauce business, but once you’ve made a homemade, fermented version, you may never buy another bottle of the stuff. Fermented sweet peppers are delicious on sandwiches, chopped into salads, tossed in a stir fry, and just about anywhere you choose to apply them.

If you want more information about this type of pickling, there is tons to explore. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation as well. I highly recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz, and The Joy of Pickling by Linda Zeidrich.

Before you begin, there are a couple of important things to remember when fermenting vegetables. First, be absolutely certain that your vegetables are fully submerged beneath the brine and sufficiently weighted down. If an errant cucumber is sticking out of the brine and exposed to air, yeast and mold are likely to flourish. Check your pickles regularly and immediately skim off any growth that does occur.

Yeast and mold are much more difficult to combat at warmer temperatures, which is why, along with the necessity of putting food by for winter months, fermentation is traditionally done in the fall. Temperatures between about 55 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit make the best pickles, but with careful monitoring I have successfully fermented at temperatures up to 80 degrees.

In quite a pickle: not just for cukesMany traditional pickle makers believe that pickles need to be made when the moon is waning, so you might want to consult your lunar calendars as well.

Once fermented, the pickles will keep in your refrigerator for up to a year so long as they remain submerged in the brine.

Below, instead of giving you a specific recipe for fermenting pickles, I have attempted to give you a general guide and a ratio for brine that you can adapt endlessly. The saltier your brine, the longer your fermentation will take and the more sour your pickle will be. Below you will find my most commonly used ratio for brine. However, you can successfully cut the salt in half and still have pickling success. Your pickles will be not get as sour and will pickle in about half to three quarters of the time. This is how the half sour pickle of Jewish delis is made.

Lacto-fermented Pickles 101

The following guide will make two quarts of fermented vegetables. If you want to make 12 quarts of pickles, simply multiply everything by a factor of six.

Necessary Equipment: a stoneware crock; a food grade plastic bucket or other nonreactive container to hold your pickles, such as a large glass jar; a measuring cup and measuring spoons; and either a plate that will fit snuggly inside the rim of your container or two plastic Ziploc bags large enough to cover the surface of your pickling crock.

Ingredients: 2 pounds cucumbers or about 2 quarts of other vegetables, such as quartered green tomatoes; green or wax beans; thinly sliced carrots or beets; small peppers or pepper strips

Brine: 3 Tablespoons fine sea salt; 1 quart filtered water.

Suggested herbs and spices:

Garlic is a must in my opinion – 5-6 cloves, crushed, sliced, or chopped per quart of brine
Dill – a handful of dill heads or fronds per quart of brine
Black Peppercorns – 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns per quart of brine
Mustard Seed – 1/2 teaspoon per quart
Chile peppers – dried or fresh, 1-2 per quart of brine, or more if you dare
Bay leaves – 1 per quart of brine

For crunchier pickles – add a few grape or sour cherry leaves per quart of brine.

**A note on other spices—The sky is the limit with how you spice your pickle. My advice is to choose no more than three predominant, complimentary flavors that you want to accent in your pickle. I almost always use garlic. Try an Asian spiced pickle with Sichuan peppercorns and ginger, or a Mexican spiced pickle with jalapenos, cumin, and oregano. Mixed pickling spice gives pickles a spicier, old fashioned flavor. Create your own pickle based on your own favorite herbs and spices, such as horseradish, fennel, celery, basil, tarragon, or curry powder.

Pick a peck—then pickle ‘em. Method:

In a clean crock or other pickling vessel, layer your well washed vegetables and spices. Leave about 4 inches at the top of your crock. Prepare your brine with cold, filtered water. Whisk well to completely dissolve the salt and pour the brine over your vegetables. The brine should just cover your vegetables.

Next, you need to weight down your vegetables to keep them fully submerged in the brine. You can do this by using a plate that just fits inside your crock, thus creating a seal, and weighting that plate down with a well-scrubbed, large rock or several quart jars that have been filled with water.

Alternately, you can use a plastic bag filled with brine to act as both a weight and a seal. I often use this method. Fit a heavy 1-gallon plastic freezer bag inside another (for larger than 2 gallon crocks, I use the 2 ½ gallon bags). Fill the inner bag with a salt brine of 3 tablespoons salt to 1 quart of water and tightly close both bags to prevent leaks. Place on top of the pickles, making sure it fits tightly around the inner edge of the crock. It acts as an airtight weight on top of the vegetables, which will discourage the growth of yeast and scum. Store the crock in a cool place (60° to 75°F). Liquid may bubble and seep from the pickles as they ferment, so place the crock on a tray to contain any overflow.Now that’s hot

Your pickles will take about 4-10 days to complete fermentation, depending on the temperature of fermentation and the concentration of salt in your brine. Cooler temperatures and saltier brines slow fermentation. You will know that fermentation is complete when bubbles are no longer rising to the surface of your pickles and they have a fresh, tart smell. Taste the brine. If the saltiness is not balanced with sourness, you can let your pickles continue to ferment another day or two.

Truly Sensational Hot Sauce:

Ferment hot peppers, adding garlic for spicing, if you wish. Turn your fermented hot peppers into hot sauce by simply stemming and pureeing them. Be sure to wear gloves when handling hot peppers. If you want a thinner sauce, strain. Bottled sauce will keep all year in the refrigerator.

So long and thanks for all the fish

UPDATED: The cruelty of industrial egg-riculture—plus a tasty recipe for your local pastured eggs

Kurt Michael Friese — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:36:19 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Consider the egg. Photo: Kurt Michael Friese

UPDATE: The owner of the hatchery in the video mentioned below has spoken out, says there were violations of procedure but makes no apologies. He calls "instantaneous Euthanasia" "Standard industry practice." Read the story here.

Iowa is the number-one producer of eggs in the country, with more than twice the number of laying hens than Ohio, the number two state. There are nearly 20 times as many hens here than there are people, producing a shade over 14 billion eggs a year. As one might expect, their living conditions are less than ideal.

A cursory glance at the website of the Iowa Egg Council does not reveal any of the images of the way the laying hens are treated, but rather concerns itself with recipes, coloring books for the kids, and "Eggbert's" somewhat rosy history of egg production in Iowa. A search of their site for the term "battery cage" yields a goose egg. But battery cages are one of the major reasons why Iowa out-produces everyone else - we have lots of them.

Across the US there are about 280 million hens in battery cages at any given time, cages that so severely restrict their movements that they cannot even spread their wings. They can't nest, bathe in the dust, perch or forage, all instinctive chicken behaviors. Completely depleted of calcium in a few short weeks, their bones break and they are shipped off, dead and dying, to soup plants and pet food factories.

Then of course there's the small issue of the effluent these factories produce, which must be stored lest it leak into the environment, which inevitably it does. The fumes threaten the health not only of the workers at these facilities but of the neighbors on the surrounding farms too.

While it's true that none of this is news, it is interesting to note the ways people have opted out of participating in this heinous activity, and the ways that Big Egg has attempted to mask their misdeeds.

Here in Iowa City two years ago the student body of the University of Iowa voted to ban those eggs, insisting that only "cage-free" eggs be served to the 31,000 students and 15,000 staff members who live, work and learn in the Old Capitol. Sadly though, taking them out of the cages does not usually lead to bucolic lives on Old MacDonald's farm.

Cage-free eggs come from chickens raised in warehouses in their thousands, beaks mutilated to prevent them from pecking each other to death due to stress, and exposed to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide gasses. Of course these are all hens. The male chicks were ground up alive soon after hatching and made into feed or fertilizer. They don't lay eggs and are therefore of no use to the industry.

Yet all of this is only part of the reason why I don't use such eggs in my restaurant. Our eggs come from Steve Rogers of Highland Vista farms, who runs his operation based on the model of sustainable-farm folk hero Joel Salatin. His chickens live on pasture, with the freedom to come and go from the coop as they please. They're locked up at night to protect them from predators, and the rest of the time they scratch and forage on a different patch of pasture as they are moved about the farm. They live very happy, natural chicken lives and you can taste it in the eggs.

They cost us about three times what the factory eggs cost, or about $54.00 for a case of 15 dozen, which breaks down to about 30 cents an egg. Pricey? Perhaps, but it means 60 cents worth of the plate cost of the huevos rancheros we serve at brunch every Sunday, and when it comes to freshness and flavor (not to mention nutritional quality) there is simply no comparison.

We occasionally serve a very simple egg-based dessert over seasonal fresh fruits called Zabaglione (the French call it Sabayon). It always wins raves for it's rich decadence. But each time a customer asks if we add turmeric or saffron to make it so yellow, I smile and say "no, that's what eggs are supposed to look like."

A little zab'll do ya'.Photo: Kurt Michael FrieseZabaglione
6 egg yolks
2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cups Marsala wine (or substitute rum, or Grand Marnier, or whatever turns you on)

Place a stainless steel bowl over a simmering saucepan of water to create a double boiler. In the bowl, whisk the eggs briskly and constantly with the sugar. While continuing to whisk, drizzle in the Marsala wine. Continue to whisk until the mixture becomes light and fluffy, a lttle like whipped cream at soft peaks.

Serve immediately over your favorite fresh fruits. Serves 4-6

Related Links:

Beat the August heat with an easy veggie supper

April McGreger — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:02:00 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

The sweet sizzle of summer. Photo: April McGreger

Try as I might, I cannot hate on August. I half-heartedly complain in solidarity with the masses about the stifling heat and humidity, as well as my scratchy, ragweed-irritated eyes.

But in truth, this is the time of year I long for. August means watermelons, okra, fresh corn, peppers, tomatoes, and the seasons' first figs. I am obsessed with these sun-drenched summer vegetables. They form the basis of my food identity, shaped by the geography of my Mississppi birthplace and my family's particular affinities.

These heat-loving vegetables are what the South grows best, and Southern cooks show a deft hand in preparing them. My relationship with them is intimate, rooted in family history. My grandfather and my father taught me to grow them in doted-on backyard gardens. I learned to prepare them and to put them away for the winter at my grandmother's elbow.

My grandmother would often prepare a meal with as many as six different summer vegetables and serve them up with hot and crispy cornbread. I still find this food to be the best food in the world, and at least once every summer, I host an all-out Southern summer harvest feast to share these traditions with my friends. Eating them in the much the same way that my family did many generations ago is my dinner-party version of a séance.

Appearing now at a market near you: late-summer veggies yearning to be fritters.Photo: April McGregerMy everyday reality, however, is that I live a hectic modern life in a two-person household. I have a need for simple, quick meals with a minimum of cleanup required. I have, therefore, found myself returning meal after meal to the versatile fritter.

Fritters are everywhere in the South, from street vendors selling sweet rice calas in New Orleans to the ubiquitous hushpuppy, which accompanies both barbecue and fried fish. The food scholar Jessica Harris, who has spent her life studying the culinary cross-currents between Africa and the Americas, says that wherever fritters have been perfected anywhere on the Atlantic rim, an African hand most likely had a hand on the pan.
Though an age-old culinary tradition, fritters adapt perfectly to our modern lives. They come together in a flash, are endlessly adaptable, and are a perfect medium for recycling leftovers. And they work just as well as a cocktail nibble as they do at lunch, dinner, breakfast, or even dessert, for that matter. They can be a main dish, a side, and/or the bread component of your meal. They are perfect for summer, too. For just when you just can't bear to turn on the oven, they cook quickly on the stovetop.

I have many favorite combinations for fritters. Grated zucchini or summer squash pair well with herbs and flour or breadcrumbs. Corn cut fresh from the cob gets an extra dose of corn flavor from stone ground cornmeal. Whenever I have leftover rice in the refrigerator, they make the perfect basis for a fritter, delicious with cheese, beans, or seafood. Serve them with a simple salad or top with a dollop of chutney or sour cream.

Here are a couple of my favorites, with guidelines for making them your own.

Okra Fritters
Serves four as a main course, or eight as an appetizer

Fritters are often deep-fried, but in my version I simply pan fry them in the smallest amount of oil for a healthier, neater and more economical version. For fluffier, fancier fritters, beat the egg whites to soft peaks separately of the yolks and fold them in at the end. Leftover batter holds well in the refrigerator for a couple of days. I absolutely love these fritters with a Indian-style tomato chutney.

1 1/2 cups stone ground cornmeal (or crumbled cornbread OR cooked rice)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4-1 cup buttermilk, or milk or yogurt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups thinly sliced okra (see suggested substitutions and other additions below)
A big pinch of cayenne
Salt and pepper
olive, safflower, or other neutral vegetable oil for frying

Measure the cornmeal and the baking powder into a medium bowl and whisk to blend. Mix in all the remaining ingredients together except the oil. Season with about 1 teaspoon of salt and a big pinch of black pepper and cayenne pepper.

Film a large skillet (or two) with about 2 Tablespoons or so of olive oil. When the pan is hot (on medium heat), drop heaping tablespoons of batter into the skillet. Cook over medium to medium low heat until dark golden brown on the bottom, about 3 minutes. Flip and cook the second side. Eat while hot with salsa, chutney, or other condiment.

Substitutions: fresh corn cut off the cob, diced green tomatoes, cooked shell beans or field peas, coarsely mashed
Additions: diced hot pepper, diced onion, garlic, herbs, spices

Fritter your life away in style.Photo: April McGregerZucchini Fritters
Serves four as a main course, or eight as an appetizer

Fritters are easy, resilient, and flexible. Excess water from vegetables such as zucchini, however, can result in soggy fritters. We remedy that problem by salting and squeezing out the excess water before mixing it with the batter.

4 cups grated zucchini (1 ½ to 2 pounds), squeezed dry
About 1 ½ cups of bread crumbs, flour, or cornmeal
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
4 scallions, chopped including the greens
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup chopped herbs--any or a combination of parsley, cilantro, basil, mint
salt and pepper
A splash of milk or buttermilk, if needed, to give the batter a spoonable texture
Olive oil for the pan

Sprinkle about 1 ½ teaspoons salt over the grated zuchinni and set it aside in a colander to drain for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the remaining ingredients together except the oil. After 15 minutes squeeze any excess water from the zuchinni and then mix it with the batter. Season with a big pinch of black pepper. Film a large skillet (or two) with 1 Tablespoon or so olive oil. When the pan is hot (on medium heat) drop heaping tablespoons of batter into the skillet. Cook over medium heat until golden brown on the bottom. Flip and cook the second side. Eat while hot with sour cream, yogurt, or salsa verde.

Substitutions: grated eggplant, butternut squash, sweet potato, cubes of roasted vegetables
Additions: cheese, other spices or herbs, seeds or nuts.

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Let’s (re)do school lunch

Kurt Michael Friese — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:00:38 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Are corndogs a vegetable? There has been a cultural revolution in this country over the last 50 to 75 years, a sort of intellectual cleansing that has removed from most people's minds any understanding of food, of cooking, of the pleasures of the kitchen and table, and replaced it with the language of the drive-thru, the shopping mall, and the convenience store. Michael Pollan recently addressed this problem well.

Nowhere is this more evident than in our schools, where our kids are not taught about food and cooking, not even the "Home Economics" of my high school years. No, instead the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) teaches something called "Family and Consumer Science." There you have it -- we are not raising citizens, we are raising consumers. Our children are being taught one way of surviving in this modern, fast-paced world: the way of conspicuous consumption.

A recent federal mandate required that every school district write and implement a "Wellness Policy" that addressed, among other things, the epidemic of obesity and childhood diabetes now rampant in our youth. This was a noble endeavor; however, it needed to be more than a mere academic and bureaucratic exercise. What is called for here is a true revolution, one that, like all revolutions, will be very difficult to conduct in the face of the stalwart forces of the status quo. The fear of change is a very difficult one to overcome.

Like all of us, our children are what they eat, and they cannot be expected to learn and grow effectively on fat, salt, and corn-sweetener-laden government-subsidized surplus. What is offered to them today is the result of the entrenched bureaucracy at the USDA, the immoveable object of parental indifference, and the irresistible force of union and administrative fear of change. Unlike the rest of the student's school day, the lunch period is conducted not by the curricular side of the school system, but by the maintenance side. Meanwhile, the hardworking members of the ICCSD Food Service staff are restrained by inefficient kitchens, ludicrous time restraints, and a budget that is laughable at best. How well would you expect to eat on $1.60 per day?

We need a paradigm shift. From the parents and the rest of the taxpayers in the district, we need an understanding that spending more money is not "just throwing money at the problem," it is an investment in the health and well-being of our children and our community. Parents must no longer choose to ignore the situation to the proven detriment of their children. From the teachers' unions we need the flexibility to see that there are other models for the school day and the school year that can be effective besides the one we have in place, which was created over 100 years ago to fit an agrarian calendar so that kids could be home to tend to the farm when needed. The school year in the U.S. is 180 days long. It is 240 in Germany--and 243 in Japan. School days and even school weeks are longer too. A longer school day will provide the time necessary for children to eat healthily. Today they have 30 minutes or less, and most of that is spent standing in line.

If we move lunch away from the maintenance side of the equation and over to the curriculum, food will gain the attention that is necessary for it to demonstrate its own importance. We cannot continue to teach one thing in health class and peddle another in the lunch room. Teaching about food, its history, its culture, its etiquette, and its importance to our health and community will ensure a more productive and enjoyable future for our kids. To those who say "don't try to tell me what I can and can't feed my kids," I say this: First, the USDA is already doing that, and in a demonstrably unhealthy way. Second, they may be your kids, but they're our future.

This Labor Day, Slow Food USA will formally launch its Time for Lunch campaign with "Eat-Ins" scheduled all over the country -- as of this writing, 227 in 49 states (step up, Mississippi!). In partnership with Sustainable Table, The Center for Ecoliteracy, Roots of Change, Edible Communities, and other organizations, Slow Food is calling on Congress, during its reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, to put real food on our children's lunch trays. To do so, they must double the federal contribution to school lunches from $1 to $2 per meal.

Modeled on the sit-ins of the 60s, these Eat-Ins are potluck picnics to raise awareness. They are a call to action for our kids, alongside Slow Food's signature celebration of local, sustainable, traditional food. Here's a simple salad that's delicious and ample enough to bring to to an Eat-In near you.

Anchovy, Goat Cheese and Romaine Salad
8 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
40 anchovy fillets -- rinsed and chopped
6 ounces red wine vinegar
1 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon black pepper
6 heads romaine lettuce -- rinsed and coarsely chopped
12 ounces fresh goat cheese -- crumbled
1 cup red onion -- minced

Place garlic, salt, and anchovy fillets in food processor; pulse until chopped. Add red wine vinegar, and then puree. Slowly add in olive oil while motor is running. Add black pepper. Toss greens with vinaigrette. Garnish with goat cheese and red onion.

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Simple summer salads for staying cool and well-nourished

April McGreger — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:16:28 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

It's getting hot in here ....It's happening again. It's gotten so damn hot that I fear the heat of the stove. I want to be at the beach, tubing down a river, napping in a hammock under a big shade tree. The problem is I still get hungry. Convenience foods abound to solve that problem if I let my guard down. Luckily, we have other, tastier alternatives.

This is the time of year when the produce at the farmer's market is so perfect and so abundant, that with little more than a drizzle of vinaigrette you can create refreshing salads, which are what I truly crave this time of year. I have found that if I spend as little as half an hour twice a week, I can keep my refrigerator stocked with delicious and nutritious salads that keep my family and me eating healthfully as well as supporting our local farmers.

When I head to the market, I buy what appeals to me with faith that I can turn those vegetables and fruit into delicious meals with just a few ingredients from my pantry. I have standard salads that I turn to again and again, like cucumbers and onions, with nothing more than a drizzle of vinegar and a pinch of salt and sugar. I love blanched green and yellow wax beans, which I keep in plastic bags in the refrigerator for snacking as well as adding to salads. With a creamy dip, they are the favorite snack of my nieces and nephews on our beach trips. If we fire up the grill, we are sure to throw on way more vegetables than we can eat so that we have extra for the rest of the week. Grilled corn and red peppers get thrown into everything and charred eggplants get mixed with a bit of garlic, tahini, and lemon juice to become baba ghanoush for stuffing into pita bread.

Every year it seems that I always add a few new salads to the mix as well. This year, I am mad over farro. Farro is an ancient wheat, also known as emmer wheat, with a nutty flavor and an appealing texture that is popular in Italian cooking. It has been my go-to grain since early spring when I began combining it with roasted broccoli and preserved lemon for a totally satisfying, substantial salad. Farro is at the ready to rescue you from your pasta-salad malaise. It can be combined with just about anything. Cherry tomatoes, basil, and olives are traditional, but my favorite summer salad this year is black-pepper spiked farro with cantaloupe, cucumber, mint, and feta. It's unexpected, a complete meal, and totally refreshing. When I am at the beach, I love to throw boiled or grilled shrimp or squid in this salad as well.

Photo: April McGregerFarro with cantaloupe, cucumber, feta, and mint
1 1/2 cups farro
1 half medium, fragrant cantaloupe, seeded
2 pickling cucumbers or 1 large cucumber
1 large shallot, chopped
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons Sherry or red wine vinegar
2 big handfuls of mint leaves, half chopped, half as whole leaves
salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup crumbled feta

Cook farro in large saucepan of boiling salted water until just tender or according to your package directions. Depending on whether you are using semi-pearled or regular farro, it could take between 10 and 45 minutes. Drain. Transfer to large bowl.

Meanwhile, peel the ½ cantaloupe and cut it into wedges about 1 1/2- inches wide. Thinly slice the wedges and place in a medium bowl. Thinly slice the cucumber as well and add to the bowl with the cantaloupe along with a few pinches of salt.

Dice the shallot and place in a small bowl with a large pinch of salt. Add the vinegar to the bowl and whisk in the olive oil. Season dressing with a full teaspoon of black pepper and the chopped mint. Add the dressing, the cantaloupe, the cucumber, the feta, and the mint leaves to the farro and toss to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, vinegar, or olive oil if needed. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

Photo: April McGregerThree-bean salad with tomato vinaigrette
When I bring home an array of fresh beans from the market, I immediately blanch them and place them in plastic bags in the refrigerator. Then they are ready for snacking and tossing into salads like this one. I also love them tossed with boiled new potatoes in stone ground mustard vinaigrette. If you don't have access to fresh shell beans, you can leave them out. But if you do, please try them. They add extra protein, folic acid, as well as a lot of flavor. Try fresh field peas, butterbeans, garbanzos, runner beans, and more. You can also use canned beans, just rinse and drain them first.

1 pound mixed stringless beans--I used green beans and yellow wax beans
1 cup fresh shell beans, such as cranberry beans, field peas, or butterbeans or drained, canned garbanzo beans
A handful of olives, pitted and halved
1 cup chopped good tomatoes (I used my roasted heirloom tomatoes)
1 large shallot, diced fine
2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
A handful of fresh basil leaves

Trim the beans and set aside. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Parboil the shell beans in salted water until tender, about 15 minutes, depending on the type of bean. With a slotted spoon or small strainer remove the beans from the water and spread out to cool quickly. Blanch the green and wax beans in same salted water until just tender, about four to five minutes. Drain and immediately dunk in an ice water bath or spread them out to cool. Pit and halve the olives and add to the beans.

Place the diced shallot in a small bowl or a jar with a lid and add a large pinch of salt. Add the vinegar, then whisk in the olive oil. Stir in the chopped tomatoes. Add more salt and freshly ground pepper. Toss in all the beans and the basil leaves. To preserve the vibrant color of the beans, don't toss with the vinaigrette more than two hours before serving. Delicious cold or at room temperature.

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From southern Spain, the king of summer soups

Kurt Michael Friese — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:05:39 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Spanish steps to the perfect summer soup.Like Penelope Cruz, my restaurant has a Spanish accent. I can't quite say "theme," because the menu is far from 100 percent Spanish; but we focus on tapas and serve classic preperations like paella and sangria. This time of year, our Spanish lilt mandates gazpacho.

Some of the best dishes in the world were invented via that great mother, necessity: the necessity to get by on very little, or to make use of a soon-to-spoil abundance. Witness cassoulet, prosciutto, gumbo, quiche, bouillabaisse, pesto, etc. Gazpacho falls on the abundance side of that truism, as it makes use of just about everything that is ripe and abundant in my restaurant Devotay's gardens right now.

Originating in Andalusia, the southern part of Spain that includes Gibraltar, the soup most Americans know is probably not the original. When most of Spain was part of the Moorish empire, cooks there developed an ancestor of the now-familiar gazpacho made of garlic, almonds, bread, olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Now called ajo blanco, this was the go-to cold soup in Spain until Columbus returned with from the new world with the curious nightshade, the tomato, one of many New World foods destined to revolutionize world cuisine.

Gazpacho: Southern Spain in a bowl. Today's most common version contains two new world foods, the tomato and the pepper. The ultimate summer soup, gazpacho also makes an interesting drink when used like a Blood Mary mix (omit the bread from the recipe below for that).

Iowa is renowned for its ungodly hot and humid weather in July and August, and even though we've seen an uncharacteristically cool summer thus far, the gazpacho still sells well. We get a lot of vegetarian guests since the menu is about 65 percent veggie, and this dish can be made perfect for the stricter vegans, simply by leaving out the chopped egg garnish.

Gazpacho Andaluz
Andalusia is the region of Spain where Jerez, the home of sherry, is located. Sherry is a nice accompaniment to Spain's most famous soup. Look for a sherry called "Amontillado," which refers to the medium-dry character of the wine. I like the Gomez or Wisdom & Werter brands.

3 pounds tomatoes -- peeled, seeded and diced (see below)

1 onion diced 
2 green peppers cored and diced
2 roasted red peppers 
4 cloves garlic
4 slices day-old bread, cubed, crusts removed

2 1/2 cups tomato juice
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste,

at service
Ice cubes
1 red and 1 green bell pepper, minced
1 onion, minced
2 hard-boiled eggs, minced
2 cups croutons

To peel the tomatoes, use a sharp knife to make an X on the bottom. Plunge them into boiling, salted water for 30 to 45 seconds, or until the skin becomes loose. Immediately "shock" them by placing them in ice water. When they are cool enough to handle (usually just a minute) use the knife to peel the loosened skins away. To seed the tomatoes, cut them in half along the equator and gently squeeze the seeds into a strainer over the sink. Rinse and dry the seeds and save them for next year's garden.

Now puree the peeled, seeded tomatoes in a blender or food processor along with the onion, peppers, garlic, bread, tomato juice, olive oil and vinegar. You may need to do this in batches. Season to taste with salt and fresh cracked black pepper, then serve, garnished with an ice cube, pinches of the minced peppers and eggs, and a few croutons.

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Reveling in the season’s tomato bounty, from pasta sauce to easy preserving

April McGreger — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:31:24 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

The jewels of summer, in their glory. Photo: April McGreger

Would a summer without garden-grown tomatoes really be summer at all? For me, summer is: tomatoes ripening on the windowsill; picking the hornworms off the tomato plants; a huge bowl of tomatoes on the kitchen counter; tomatoes at every single meal; farmer's markets so packed with dazzling tomato colors and sensual shapes, they outshine the fresh-cut flowers.

I relish the first tomatoes of the season in their purest, raw form: tomato sandwiches, BLTs; cucumber-tomato salads; classic panzanella salad of tomato-drenched crusty bread, scented with intoxicating fresh basil and briny with anchovies & capers; and simple stacks of olive oil-drizzled, salted, jewel-toned tomatoes. But alas, the time comes when I want something different. Finally, it's time to cook them.

My idea of tomato sauce was changed forever the summer that I spent on the Aeolian island of Stromboli off the coast of Sicily, gathering seismic data which would be the basis for my master's thesis in geology. I was there to study geology, but it was the rich food culture of this tiny, isolated island that captured my imagination. In the tiny market in the village, deep-red cherry tomatoes hung from the rafters by their 4-foot plus brown stems.

The tomatoes were sold semi-dried, following an old Sicilian tradition of hanging small cherry tomatoes outside in the sun for three to four days after harvest to profoundly concentrate their flavors. My Italian colleagues turned these tomatoes into the quickest, easiest, most succulent pasta sauces that I had ever eaten. Using the sweet 100 or sungold cherry tomatoes from my own garden and farmer's market produces a close approximation, and it remains the first cooked tomato dish that I turn to in the summer.

Following the Sicilian sentiment that excess water is the enemy of tomatoes, I have found the best tomatoes for this sauce are often grown by young farmers or new farmers who haven't yet saved up the capital to put in an irrigation system. Without the irrigation, the farmer's tomatoes may not grow as large or yield as much, but they will be the most delicious. Like wine grapes, you see, tomatoes benefit from a bit of suffering.

Briefly, I am content with impeccable fresh tomatoes and an intensely flavored, effortless, and fresh sauce. That contentment quickly subsides and every glorious tomato I pass by at the farmer's market looks like a missed opportunity to preserve the pleasure for when the bounty ends. Lives get busy; summer vacations draw us away from our gardens and our kitchens; and yet, the seasons roll on. Before we know it, the seemingly endless supply of tomatoes will start to dwindle whether or not we've made time to capture these nuanced flavors for enjoyment beyond the dog days of summer. Months without a taste of the dark & smoky Cherokee Purple, the bright yellow Kellogg's Breakfast, or the zippy striped Green Zebra seems unbearable and, thankfully, unnecessary.

I get to work putting a few pints by here and there. Similarly to the Sicilian semi-sundried tomatoes, large and juicy heirloom tomatoes can be slow-roasted in a low oven to reduce excess liquid, concentrate flavor, and increase acidity. Plus, we can keep the oven at such a low temperature that it doesn't even heat up the house. As an added bonus, this method couldn't be easier. There's no peeling or seeding involved. Even if you don't can them, they will keep covered in olive oil for several months in your refrigerator, where they will serve as your secret weapon. Chop for an instant pasta sauce; add zip to beans or soups; use as the basis for roasted tomato vinaigrette; pair with fresh mozzarella & a loaf of bread for a perfect picnic. The possibilities are endless, and the flavor is unparalleled. So what are you waiting for?

Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes
If you like you can pack different varieties of tomatoes in alternating layers in your canning jar, or you can separate them by color for more distinctive tastes and hues.

Makes about 3 pint jars
10 pounds heirloom tomatoes
1 head of garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
A couple of shallots, halved, but not peeled, optional
A handful of thyme sprigs
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2-3 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
Your favorite fresh herbs for tomatoes--basil, marjoram, or oregano
A few dried red chili peppers, optional

Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper or foil. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees F.

Rinse your tomatoes, and slice them in half across their equator, or into thirds if they are particularly large. Line them on the baking sheet in a single layer, seed side up. Drizzle generously with olive oil. Scatter the garlic cloves, shallots, garlic, and thyme over the tomatoes. Sprinkle each tray of tomatoes with 1 teaspoon of salt.

Place the tomatoes in the oven and roast for about 6 hours, until much of the tomato juices have evaporated, and the slices have shrunk to about ½ their original size.

Let the tomatoes cool at room temperature. Then with a spatula transfer the slices to your very clean pint jars (wide mouth canning jars will be easiest to deal with.) Layer fresh basil, or your preferred herb, between the slices of tomato, as well as the cloves of garlic and shallots that you squeeze from their hulls. Leave about 1 inch of headspace at the top of each jar.

Choose your Preserving Method

• Short-term: top with a 1 inch thick layer of olive oil and a clean lid, and they will keep in your refrigerator for 3-4 months.

• Long-term: Top the jars off with a thin layer of olive oil, leaving a good inch of head space. Date the jars and place them without lids into the freezer. Because liquid expands as it freezes, it is best to let the jars freeze without lids first to be sure that the jars to not crack. After your tomatoes are frozen, you can top with clean lids, and they will keep for up to one year. Alternately, pack the tomatoes in quart freezer bags, date them, and keep them for up to 1 year in your freezer.

• Long Term Shelf - Pack tomatoes into sterilized jars, leaving about 1 inch of head space. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or red wine vinegar to your tomatoes and top off with extra virgin olive oil, leaving a final 1/2 -inch of head space. The added lemon juice or vinegar increases the acidity of your tomatoes even further to prevent the growth toxins or bacteria. Top with sterilized lids. Line the bottom of a large pot or canning kettle with a folded dishtowel. Place your jars of tomatoes in the kettle on top of the dish towel at least ½ inch apart. Fill the pot with water until it covers the tops of the jars by at least one inch. Bring the pot of water to a low boil. Adjust the heat to maintain a steady simmer and process the jars for 30 minutes. Carefully remove the jars with a jar lifter and place on a clean towel to cool completely without disturbing. Store on a cool, dry shelf for up to 1 year.

Massimo's Pasta Stromboli
Don't skimp on the amount of olive oil in this pasta sauce and try to use a Mediterranean one with a nice, fruity taste. It really makes the dish.

Serves about 4
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 pints cherry tomatoes, such as Sweet 100 or Sun Golds, whole
2/3 cup of good green olives, such as Picholine
about 20 fresh oregano or marjoram leaves or about ½ teaspoon of either, dried
3-4 dried hot peppers, optional
A teaspoon of salt-brined capers, rinsed and chopped (skip if all you have are the pickled kind)
1 pound penne or rigatoni pasta

Bring a large pot of salty water to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente, reserving some pasta water.

While the pasta cooks, make the sauce. First, with the side of your chef's knife, smash the olives and remove the pits. Set aside.

Then, heat a large skillet or sauté pan with the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for only about 15-30 seconds, until it just begins to color.

Add the tomatoes, oregano or marjoram (reserve a few fresh leaves for sprinkling at the end), pitted olives, capers and hot peppers, if using, and cook until the tomatoes just begin to burst, about 5 minutes.

Add the cooked pasta to the skillet and cook over high heat, stirring, for an additional minute to marry the flavors. Moisten with a tablespoon of olive oil and/or a bit of pasta water, garnish with the reserved herbs, and serve immediately.

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With a gust of wind, an Iowa crop duster can squash an organic farm

Kurt Michael Friese — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:40:37 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

A crop duster in action.Photo: Roger Smith via FlickrGrinnell Heritage Farm is 152 years old. Andrew Dunham is the fifth generation of his family to work this land about 50 miles east of Des Moines. He is a direct descendant of Josiah Grinnell, founder of the town and the man Horace Greeley once famously quoted as having said, "Go west, young man, go west." Andrew and his wife Melissa are a few months shy of receiving their formal certification as an organic farm.

Across the road, due north of their land, is a field of corn that is managed by the nearby Monsanto seed corn plant. In Iowa and anywhere commodity corn is grown, it is common practice around this time of year to use chemicals to control fungus. Often this is accomplished via the use of aerial application, commonly referred to as cropdusting. On July 6th, a rustic-looking old biplane swooped in to spray Monsanto's field. To put it mildly, the pilot's bombardiering skills were not what one would hope.

Dunham's crew was in the field picking broccoli and spinruts ("turnip" backwards--a Japanese form of the root vegetable). They witnessed the plane as it failed to shut off its spray mechanism in time, and the fungicide drifted into their tree planting and hay field. "The hay ground is in the third year of transition and would have become organically certified on September 1st," Andrew said. Now, probably not.

You'd think that this would be a clear-cut cause of action, as the legal folks would put it. But the clever folks at Monsanto hire the crop dusters as contractors, and they in turn use a corporate shell with no assets, so when something like this happens and a victim sues, they simply file bankruptcy and then form a new corporation.

Iowa is the single most radically altered landscape in the country. No state has changed more since the arrival of European settlers, and today the land is heavily "mono-cropped." Nature abhors a lack of diversity, but pathogens love it so farmers respond with more and stronger chemicals to fight off the bugs and weeds and fungi. No one owns the airspace, so planes can fly over any land they choose. Even if the pilots are incredibly accurate, Iowa is a windy place (thus the massive increase in wind energy production here in recent years). Drift is practically inevitable.

Last month in Mississippi, the Clarksdale Press-Register ran a story about the problem of chemical drift. They spoke to a pilot:

Bob Howard, owner of Howard Flying Service, says crop dust pilots like himself are often unfairly singled out as the culprits of drift damage. Howard points out many farmers apply herbicides and pesticides from ground rigs, which if done in high winds, is also susceptible to cause drift injury.

The risk of dusting an off-target field with Roundup is something Howard says is always in the back of his mind when working.

"If everything was Roundup Ready it would be the greatest thing in the world," Howard said. "If they would all go to Roundup Ready or all go back to conventional farming it would sure be a lot easier on us."

I'm not sure I would even know where to start with this guy, but let's try the part where he says that the risk is something that's "always in the back of his mind." The back? It's stunning that someone so obviously shortsighted was able to obtain a pilot's license. His apathy toward his community and flagrant self-centered simple-mindedness are indicative of the unconscious conspiracy to which so many are a party. They have all been bamboozled into believing in "Better living through chemistry." So much so, in fact, that the methods most farmers have used for a mere few decades are called "conventional," and the few who practice farming as it was done for millennia are the outliers. Monsanto's website even claims that they are "Growing yield sustainably."

Farmers like Andrew Dunham can do little more than stand in their contaminated fields in stunned silence as Monsanto's contracted crop dusters continue to fly in the face of logic. But Dunham and his family still manage to produce excellent food. In defiance of negligent crop dusters, here's a simple and delicious recipe from the Heritage Farm newsletter.

Kale with olives
1 bunch kale, tough stems removed and leaves
chopped
2-4 Tbsp olive oil
Ground sea salt and black pepper
½ cup olives, chopped
Red pepper flakes and lemon wedges, optional

Simmer the kale in a skillet in about 4 cups boiling water. Add salt and stir the greens until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Drain the leaves, toss with the olive oil and add the olives, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Serve hot with lemon wedges.

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Cobbling together a delicious and easy summer dessert

April McGreger — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:21:22 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Life's a big container of cherries.All photos by April McGreger

I'm bored by chocoholics.

Don't get me wrong; I very much appreciate good chocolate. But after attending four cookouts in the past month without a fruit-based dessert in sight I have had enough. Had the scent of perfectly ripe peaches somehow escaped my hosts? Are they unaware of the painfully short cherry season--whose end is near?

What about all the bramble berries that line the ditches and roadsides this time of year? What sort of person does not delight in these things? Please, hold the chocolate cupcakes. It's summer--the season for peach juice dripping down our elbows and blackberry-stained T-shirts.

Perhaps there is something anxiety-producing about preparing fresh fruit desserts. I admit homemade pie crust can be difficult for the uninitiated. But anybody, oh anybody, can make a cobbler, and there is no dessert more rewarding. Because cobblers are spooned into bowls rather than sliced and served up on plates, you can get away with less thickening agent, such as cornstarch or flour. This means more fruit juices and more vibrant flavor.

What could be better than bubbling fruits of summer with golden biscuit topping and just melting vanilla bean-flecked ice cream? Cobblers are as easy as whipping up a pan of brownies, and with a few tips, you'll be free to do your own experimenting. After all, that is what being inspired by the season's best is all about. Here's what you need to know:

Follow your nose, wherever it may lead.

Cobbler 101
Use the best fruit you can find. Use your nose, your eyes, and your mouth to find the best fruit. Peaches should smell like peaches and should be without a trace of green (which means they were picked too early). Berries should be sweet, not just tart. Cherries should look shiny and firm without brown spots.

You can forage your own bramble berries from unpolluted areas for a very thrifty cobbler. Shop farmer's markets and pick-your-own operations to find the season's best. Pick-your-own orchards are a great way to get out into the countryside, and offer much more than just the amazing fruit for an amazing price that you'll take home. I feel like a kid again every time I climb the wooden ladders to pick cherries at my favorite cherry orchard.

• Crisps, crumbles, fruit dumplings, betties, grunts, sonkers, slumps: all are all essentially cobblers with slightly different toppings, assemblies, and cooking methods. Below I'm offering you two recipes, one with vegan options, as a start.

Follow your own inspiration and free yourself from recipes once you've learned the basics.

• Plan now for spontaneous cobbler later. Whenever I find perfect fruit, I always buy or pick a lot. Plenty to enjoy now, and some to put by for later. For berries, cherries (pitted), and peaches (sliced first), I spread them out in a single layer on a sheet pan and put them directly in the freezer. When they have frozen completely, I transfer them to a freezer bag and date it. Cobbler is a snap to throw together any time, but making double batches of topping and freezing half for later makes the next cobbler even easier, and halves the cleanup time as well. I keep a bag of frozen crisp topping, rolled pie crust, or drop biscuit cobbler topping in the freezer for instant cobbler assembly.

Still life, with cherry bucket and scale

To freeze drop biscuit topping, spoon it out onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze it. After it is frozen, transfer it to a freezer bag and label it. You can bake the fruit and the toppings directly from the freezer without defrosting.

• Don't forget the ice cream. Make your own, or pair your cobbler with Grist's favorites (both dairy-based and vegan). You can also serve up your cobbler with whipped cream or crème fraiche, or a non-dairy treat.

Cobbling it all together
Use these recipes as a guide for getting started, but let your local fruit options and what's in your pantry inspire your combinations. I had sour cherries in my freezer and perfectly ripe peaches on my countertop so that's how I chose this cobbler. Their color combination is stunning and their flavors complement each other well. I like the texture that oat flour adds to biscuits and scones and its flavor goes very well with peaches, as does the cardamom. I love the rustic look of cobblers made in cast iron skillets (I used a 10"), but you can use a 2 1/2 quart casserole or pyrex dish, too.

For biscuit cobblers, the topping is not very sweet so a fair amount of sugar is added to the fruit. Crisps offer a sweeter topping so the fruit is less sweet to balance it out. For the crisp recipe featured below, I combined blackberries and blueberries with a vegan coconut-almond topping. It's just as beautiful as it is delicious.

Sour Cherry & Peach Cobbler with Oat-Cardamom Biscuit Topping
About 8-10 servings

Filling
1 tablespoon butter, softened
4 cups fruit (I used 2 cups pitted cherries, 2 cups unpeeled, sliced peaches)
Pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot
½ cup sugar
Pulp of half of a vanilla bean, or 1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract

Drop Biscuit Topping
1 cup unbleached all purpose or pastry flour
1 cup oat flour (rolled oats processed in the food processor or coffee grinder to a coarse meal), or substitute whole wheat pastry flour, cornmeal, buckwheat flour, nut meal, or other flour
2 Tablespoons turbinado sugar, divided
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt, preferably fine sea salt
½ teaspoon ground cardamom, optional (you can also substitute cinnamon)
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) very cold unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes
1 cup very cold buttermilk or plain yogurt
2 Tablespoon cream to brush the tops of the biscuits

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a 10-inch cast iron skillet or a 2 ½- to 3-quart casserole or pyrex dish with 1 tablespoon of soft butter.

Prepare the filling. In the buttered pan, combine fruit, sugar, salt, cornstarch, and vanilla. Set aside while you prepare your biscuit topping.

To make the biscuits, whisk together the flours, 1 tablespoon sugar, baking powder, and salt. Toss in the butter cubes, and using your fingers, a fork, or a pastry cutter, cut the butter in the flour until it is the size of large peas. Quickly, stir in the buttermilk until just combined. Dollop large spoonfuls of the biscuit dough onto the top of your prepared fruit. Leave spaces between the dropped biscuits for the cobbler filling to shine through. Brush the tops of the biscuits with cream and sprinkle with the reserved tablespoon of turbinado sugar.

Bake for about 45-50 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Serve warm with ice cream.

Vegan Blackberry-Blueberry Coconut Crisp
1 Tablespoon virgin coconut oil
4 cups or 2 pints mixed blackberries and blueberries
2 tablespoons natural cane sugar
Pinch of salt
1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch or arrowroot
1 teaspoon grated lemon or lime zest, optional

Coconut Almond Streusel Topping
3/4 cup all purpose flour, rolled oats, a mixture, or a gluten free baking substitute
½ cup packed brown sugar
Rounded ¼ teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
6 tablespoons virgin coconut oil, room temperature
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
2/3 cup sliced almonds (about 2 3/4 ounces)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet or a 2 ½- to 3-quart casserole dish with the tablespoon of coconut oil. In the prepared pan, prepare the filling. Toss together the blueberries, sugar, salt, cornstarch, and citrus zest. Set aside while you prepare the topping.
To make the topping, combine the flour, brown sugar, salt, and spices. Using your fingers, cut in the coconut oil until it is the size of large peas. Stir in the coconut flakes and sliced almonds. Crumble the topping on top of the blueberries. Bake about 45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbling.

Some other favorite cobbler combos:
Blackberry-Raspberry Cobbler with Buckwheat Biscuit topping
Plum Pecan Crisp
Blackberry-Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal Biscuit topping

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I find my thrill in blueberry preserves—and so can you

April McGreger — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:14:39 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

As we approach the summer solstice, long, hot days spur a growth frenzy in the garden. That explosion of fertility produces the excesses that I live for. I love being swamped by 100 pounds of the fragile soft fruits of summer. It is a race against time. I must work quickly in order to get the fruit processed while it is at its prime. There is no satisfaction quite like turning the problem of too large a harvest, bound for the compost heap, into a prized condiment that will brighten the rest of the year.

Have you pancakes and eat them too.Photo: April McGregerAs the harvest comes rolling in, I can never resist picking and buying more than I need. It overwhelms me, but I crave that feeling. By necessity all other demands fall by the wayside. The task of preserving consumes me. My normal mode of constant multi-tasking is relented, and I submit my full concentration to a day of putting up glistening jars of preserves. When I collapse into bed around the midnight hour after a long day of preserving, the ping of jar lids signifies a good seal and a rewarding day of work.

My first epic preserving battle of the season was with strawberries. Innocent enough in these parts, strawberries come in all alone with no other fruit with which to share the limelight. Then they are asked to step aside as the first round of early blueberries comes rolling in. Right on their heels are the first blackberries and raspberries, cling peaches, and sweet and sour cherries. The preserving marathon has begun. These next few months will be all about fruit preservation for me. It was my love affair with perfect summer fruit that inspired me to start my business making pickles and preserves, and this is prime time.

Long before I put up my first mason jars, preserving food was a necessity. Before World War II, wintertime tables showed evidence of summertime's accomplishments, or lack thereof. Women and their daughters crowded together on back porches peeling peaches and apples, snapping beans, and shucking corn, and then around steaming kettles in the suffocating heat of late summer. It was exhausting, strenuous work necessary for their family's subsistence, done in volumes rarely seen outside of commercial kitchens today.

Today we are experiencing a preserving renaissance. As more and more people desire to know where their food comes from and exactly what is in it, our human instincts towards preservation are reawakened. We are realizing the detrimental environmental effects of non-sustainable food systems, and we seek to build a whole and healthy alternative. Some have mastered eating locally grown food in the summer months and want to prepare for doing so through the winter as well. Perhaps you have been given a jar of homemade jam and you realize that preserving your own just tastes better.

Can you top this?Photo: April McGregerThis is your year. Don't let another season of harvests pass you by and send you into a long winter with a barren pantry. Grab a friend and head to the kitchen. You'll need only a few simple tools and tips to make your preserving efforts successful.

I am well aware that many experienced cooks and gardeners have an unfounded fear of preserving. I am here to tell you that you are not going to poison anyone. Other than the splatter of boiling sugar and occasional mold which can form on the top of a jar, fruit preserving is trouble free and simple. The problems associated with canning mostly involve low acid vegetables like green beans, which we will leave for the advanced class.

Before beginning your first canning and preserving efforts, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the basics of home canning. Next, you will want to assemble a few tools. Hardware stores are generally great places to find canning supplies, or you can mail-order a beginning canning kit. As you start your canning journey, be flexible. If your recipe for blueberry preserves is a softer set than you had hoped for, change your expectations. If you think of it more as blueberry sauce or compote, you might find it glorious in its own right.

I offer to you recipes for both a sweet and a savory blueberry preserve, which I feel is a good recipe for the beginner, and delicious enough that experienced preservers will return to it again and again. You can substitute blackberries, raspberries, or other bramble berries with similar results. Strawberries are very low in pectin and present a little bit more of a challenge. I prefer not to add artificial pectin to my preserves because I like the more intense flavor and natural texture of old-fashioned, concentrated fruit preserves. Try it this way, and I think you'll like it. If you prefer a firmer set, you can add a whole grated apple, peel and all, to your berry preserves without sacrificing flavor.

Blueberry-Lemon Verbena Preserves

These chunky blueberry preserves reign supreme over pectin-pumped blueberry jam. Fully ripened fruit contains less pectin, so when making preserves, I like to use one-fourth just underripe fruit. I also love to throw in a few of my favorite herbs from my backyard, but you can leave them out if you prefer. Put some of these preserves away now, and you'll no longer relegate your jam to peanut butter sandwiches, but will instead be spooning it over everything from crepes to yogurt to rice pudding and ice cream, and my favorite, cornmeal pancakes for the perfect breakfast.

We be jammin'.Photo: April McGreger8 cups blueberries (2 quarts)
4 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
A handful of lemon verbena leaves, torn into bite size pieces (optional)

Pick over the blueberries to remove any leaves, stems, or twigs. Rinse the berries, drain well, and place in a wide, large, heavy bottomed pot with the sugar and lemon juice and toss.

Place 2 small plates in the freezer. Bring the berries and sugar to a boil over high heat, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a hard boil and boil for 10 minutes until the juice has thickened. Watch it closely. Scrape the bottom of the pan often towards the end to be sure the preserves are not sticking, but be gentle with the berries. Add a dab of butter to the preserves to reduce foaming if necessary and skim carefully to remove any excess foam.

The syrup should reach 221 degrees in order to gel properly, or you can use the plate test to check the set. Check the set of the preserves by removing a plate from the freezer and dropping a spoonful of preserves liquid on it. Return it to the freezer for 2 minutes, then gently nudge the edge of the syrup with your finger. It should crinkle. If the preserves are too thin, return to a boil for 2 more minutes, then check again.

When the preserves pass the crinkle test, toss in the lemon verbena leaves and simmer for another minute.

Ladle very hot preserves into very hot, sterilized jars and top with hot sterilized two-piece lids.

You can sterilize your jars and lids in a steadily simmering hot water bath for 10 minutes or in a 275 degree oven for 15 minutes.

When the preserves are jarred, set aside and do not disturb for 24 hours. When completely cool, check the lids to see that they sealed properly by pressing the button on the top of the jar. If the button pops back, store the preserves in the refrigerator to prevent spoilage.
Makes about 5 half-pints.

Variation: Spiced Blueberry Chutney

This blueberry chutney is simply preserves nudged in the savory direction by sautéed shallots, a spot of red wine vinegar, and a little spice. It pairs very well with camembert-type cheeses, goat cheese, wild game, roasted duck, pork, and pate. It also makes a lovely replacement for cranberry sauce with roast turkey at Thanksgiving, so make a point to put some aside now.

Decrease the sugar to 2 cups.

Before bringing the blueberries and sugar to a boil, first sauté ½ cup chopped shallots and 1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger in 2 Tablespoons olive oil.

After the sugar is dissolved and the preserves are boiling, add ¼ cup red wine vinegar, ½ teaspoon of fresh ground white pepper, 1 bay leaf, and a pinch each of freshly ground nutmeg and ground allspice.

Cook until thick, about 10 minutes. Check the set using the plate test.

Ladle the preserves into sterilized 8 oz. jars, top with sterilized lids and process in a boiling water bath for 7 minutes.

Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes

The perfect vehicle for a shimmering spoonful of blueberry preserves. Yum!

¼ cup stone ground cornmeal
½ cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tablespoons melted butter, unsalted

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients - cornmeal, flour, baking soda, and salt - with a whisk. In another medium bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and melted butter.
Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredient until just combined. Some small lumps are okay. Be careful not to over mix.

Heat a heavy bottomed skillet or griddle over medium heat. Grease the pan lightly with butter. Spoon the pancake batter into the hot skillet, using about 2-3 tablespoons per pancake. Cook on one side until bubbles appear on the surface of the pancake and flip. Cook the pancakes another minute on the other side. Place on a plate in a warm oven to hold warm until all the pancakes are cooked.

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From grass to grill, a Midwestern farm struts its stuff—and dishes up delicious lamb chops

Kurt Michael Friese — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:54:55 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

The chefs of "Lambstravaganza."The best part about my work with Slow Food USA is getting to experience new people, places, and especially great foods. Such was the case this past weekend as I traveled to join the members of Slow Food St. Louis for their fourth annual "Lambstravaganza" at Prairie Grass Farms just outside of New Florence, Mo.

Prairie Grass Farms is in the capable hands of its third generation of Hillebrands. Dave Hillebrand runs the farm now, having inherited it from his father and grandfather before him. There they used to raise primarily row crops, but Dave took an interest in chickens--and eventually in his grandfather's sheep. Today he and his family raise about 700 lambs a year on their 520 acres, all of it on scrupulously-cared-for prairie grasses (hence the name).

Hillebrand insists that everyone's health -- yours, mine, his, the sheep's, the earth's -- is tied directly to the soil and to the interaction of plant, animal, and microorganisms in and on it. This philosophy is keeping his family on the farm without resorting to the trap of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that so many Midwest farmers have come to consider their only resort. Those CAFOs are just the opposite of Hillebrand's methods: they take everything from the earth and give back only pollutants in the form of concentrated manure.

Sheep grazing at Prairie Grass Farms.Sheep and other livestock (he has a few head of cattle and his daughter tends the goats), when allowed to graze free in the pasture, aerate and fertilize the soil constantly. In return, the sheep get plenty of sweet grass and clover, packed full of healthy nutrients that they in turn convert to good milk for the lambs. Chickens remove worms, grubs, and other pests from the soil, add additional fertilizer, and provide the best eggs you've ever tasted in a rainbow of colors.

It takes a ratio of about seven to nine ewes and their lambs to each acre of land for all the participating organisms to thrive. Those lambs go to members of Fair Shares CCSA and to some of the best restaurants in St. Louis. Nine chefs from those restaurants were present last Sunday to display their talents and celebrate the Hillebrand family's hard work and dedication to sustainability.

Their tasting menu (eight small plates) was a testament to the tremendous quality of the meat. Vegans, you may want to skip this next part. Omnivores, get a load of this:

Potted lamb with an assortment of housemade pickles by Margaret Kelly and Dave Owens of Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier Vindaloo braised shanks and toasted naan with pepita-coriander pesto and a mango lassi by Andy White of the Schlafly Tap Room Grilled leg of lamb & homemade feta with crispy mint gremolata and a shaved radish salad by Josh Galliano of Monarch Chermoula-spiced smoked lamb with harissa and a saffron aioli by visiting chefs Timothy Grandinetti and Ray "Dr. BBQ" Lampe Lamb's tongue faggotini with consommé and cocoa nibs by Gerard Craft of Niche Rack of lamb by Lou Rook of Annie Gunn's Lamb loin and sweetbreads by Kevin Nashan of Sydney Street Café Pistachio cream puff with farmers market strawberries, homemeade jam, and local honey by Christy Augustin, also of Sydney Street Café

If you'll be in the area a year from now, you can participate in the 5th Lambstravaganza by getting on the Slow Food St. Louis listserv and getting your tickets as soon as they go on sale.

In the meantime, here's a delicious and easy preparation of chops from your local source for lamb. It appeared in my latest book, and is by Chef Jasper Mirabile of Jasper's in Kansas City.

Grilled Grass-Fed Lamb Chops
Jasper writes: Every summer my Nana (Jasper's Grandmother) would prepare these delicious little chops on the grill. She would marinate the chops in balsamic and garlic and a little bit of red pepper. My three brothers and I would eat the chops faster than my dad could grill them!

Ingredients:
2-3 lamb racks (about 3 pounds, or 12 chops)
1 lime
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Salt to taste
5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
4-5 sprigs fresh mint
2-3 cloves garlic, sliced paper thin
½ cup mint jelly
Procedure:
One day ahead: If your butcher hasn't already, cut the racks into chops, using a cleaver if necessary to separate the chine bone. Lay out the chops in a shallow casserole. Drizzle the juice from the lime on the chops.

Mix the brown sugar, salt, and balsamic vinegar with half of the olive oil. Chop 2 of the mint sprigs coarsely and add to this marinade. Pour the marinade over the chops, turning each to get them thoroughly coated. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

Day of service: First thing in the morning, turn each chop once so that they marinate evenly.

A note about your grill: Gas grills are adequate, and need to be heated roughly half an hour in advance. Real wood always brings better flavor, though. I recommend using real wood charcoal, not briquettes. A good source for this is Cowboy Charcoal from Brentwood, Tenn. A charcoal fire needs about an hour to reach that white-ashed glow that's perfect to cook on.

While the grill is warming up, mix the rest of the olive oil with the mint jelly and garlic.

Place the chops on the grill, being careful not to crowd your surface area. Grill them in batches if necessary. Baste each side with the mint sauce (Nana used to use a mint sprig to baste with). Cook approximately 5 minutes on each side, or to desired doneness. Serve immediately with remaining basting sauce for dipping.

Serves 6

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How to turn your backyard into the best pizzeria in town

April McGreger — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:08:59 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Photo: Whitney BrownWhat is it about the flicker of a flame, the crackle of burning wood, and the wafting clouds of wood smoke that enchant us so? Combine an outdoor fire with a spring breeze dancing on one's skin and the sound of leaves rustling in the trees, and merriment abounds. The effect is liberating; the appeal is elemental.

Add delicious, smoke-kissed food, and you have a wholly sensory experience. All of my favorite food experiences take place outdoor over a hardwood fire: oyster roasts, hickory-smoked barbecue, and wood-fired pizza. I have come to believe that my happiness and well-being is dependent on my ability to gaze up into a tree canopy while sharing a fire, a meal, and maybe a song, with friends.

Perhaps that explains why the first thing Phil and I did when we bought our first home six years ago, was build an earthen oven in the backyard. We had just found out that we had three small hickory trees on our property that had been damaged by lightening and would have to come down. I knew we couldn't let the wood from our dead trees go to waste so we stacked it up into a grand woodpile and went to work. We turned clay, sand, and straw into a beautiful and effective oven, following the instructions of Kinko Denzer's Build Your Own Earth Oven.

The egalitarian nature and the organic forms of earthen, or cob, building had fascinated me for years before we broke ground on our oven. It requires no great skill, expense, or tools. Even children can participate mixing the mud mixture and sculpting it into place. The technology is ancient, and mud is still the most common building material in the world today. Perhaps best of all, this type of building is completely non-toxic, can be sourced from your own yard, and is completely recyclable.

The magic of mud and wood: a backyard earthen pizza oven heats upPhoto: Whitney BrownOur resulting oven might not have all the bells and whistles of the $20,000 outdoor kitchens featured in glossy food magazines, but for less than $200 and a little sweat, I think we built something far more magical. In the years since building our oven, we have gotten so attached to our backyard pizza parties that I cannot imagine ever being without them. These primordial traditions of fire, earthen building, and basic flour and water cooking bolster our connection to both the past and to each other.

Perhaps building an earthen oven is not for everyone, but I am sure most of you have a grill that you can fire up for making pizzas. Even if you just want to use your home oven equipped with a pizza stone, pizza is a great way to please everyone, let those who want to pitch in, and adapt your toppings to the seasons. If you'd like to host a pizza party, here are a few tips to help things go smoothly. The key is good planning and good fundamentals.

First you'll need a good pizza dough and pizza sauce (recipes below). You can purchase dough from your neighborhood pizzeria if you are intimidated by making yeasted dough, but I encourage you to give it a try. It's really quite easy once you've done it a couple of times. You'll need a very hot fire so be sure someone has started the fire on the grill or oven a good two hours before you are ready to start cooking. If using a pizza stone in a home oven, preheat the stone at 500 degrees F for one hour before you begin. Assemble a few useful tools--a pizza peel or an improvised canoe paddle, long handled tongs, and a rolling pin. Take a tip from celebrity chefs and assemble mis en place, a French term referring to having all your ingredients prepped--peeled, sliced, diced, grated, sautéed--ahead of time in order to make cooking easier. That way not only is pizza making easy for you in the heat of the moment, but also the system is very user friendly for your guest to take their turn as pizza maestro as well. Keep your crowd small, at least until you get the hang of things. Assemble a prep table where pizzas can be rolled out and topped, as well as another table where the pizza can be cut and served. These should be no more than a few steps away from where you are cooking the pizzas. Assemble chairs and groups of small card tables around the pizza oven or grill because that is where people will want to be. For years, we tried to cook pizzas and then gather everyone at a table on the other side of the garden for a sit-down dinner, and it never worked. We had much more success once we relented and just enjoyed the pizzas, one by one, as they came out of the oven. Be patient, relent the day to the processes of fire building, prepping and cooking, and enjoy it.

Get it together: a pizza party mis en placePhoto: Whitney BrownPerfect Pizza Dough
This is my favorite dough for making pizza. I like to make it a day ahead and place it in the refrigerator overnight to rise slowly. Then on the day I make pizzas I can concentrate on assembling my toppings and building the fire. When I make the dough I like to use part all-purpose and part bread flour, as well as a little whole-wheat flour for flavor and texture. You can use even more whole wheat flour, you just might need to add a bit more water as well.

Sponge:
1 ½ cups warm water (105-115 degrees F)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
2 ¼ teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast
2 teaspoons honey (optional)

Dough:
Sponge
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons fine sea salt OR 3 teaspoons of kosher salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose or bread flour

To make the sponge, sprinkle the yeast over the water in a large mixing bowl, whisk it in, and let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the honey and then the flour. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until very bubbly and doubled in bulk, 1-1 ½ hours.
To make the dough, stir olive oil and salt into the sponge with a wooden spoon and mix well. Whisk in 1 cup of the whole wheat flour; stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and mix until the dough is well blended and just slightly sticky. You may not need the last ½ cup of flour. Cover the dough and let it rest for 5 minutes. Then knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until soft and velvety, about 10 minutes.
First rise: Place the dough in a lightly oiled container, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/4 hours or preferably overnight in the refrigerator.
Shaping and second rise: If you refrigerated your dough, remove it from the refrigerator about 2 hours before you wish to use it. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces and shape them into balls. Rub each of the balls of dough with olive oil, place them on a parchment lined sheet pan, and cover with a clean towel.
When your oven or grill is hot, roll out 1 piece of dough on a well-floured counter or use your knuckles to gently stretch out the pizza dough. Don't worry if you don't get a perfect circle. That is part of the charm.

My Favorite Five-Minute Tomato Sauce for Pizza
I make a basic tomato sauce in late summer with fresh paste tomatoes and can it for use all year long. For this one, I turn to store-bought canned tomatoes. I prefer whole plum tomatoes, such as the Fire Roasted Muir Glen brand, or the prized San Marzanos.

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
1 teaspoon fine grained sea salt
1 small sprig of fresh marjoram, oregano or a few leaves of basil
1 ½ teaspoons crushed red chili flakes
2 cloves very fresh garlic, grated
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

In a wide saucepan heat the olive oil over medium high heat until hot but not smoking. Pour in the can of tomatoes and crush them with your fingers or the back of a wooden spoon. Add the salt, the fresh herbs, and the chili flake and cook over medium high heat until much of the excess moisture has evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add the raw, grated garlic and cook another two minutes. Add the red wine vinegar and remove from heat. Discard the herbs. Taste and add more salt or chili flakes if you like. Cool before using as a pizza topping.

Pizza Toppings for Late Spring
These toppings are just to give you an idea of a starting point. Choose your own favorites. Just remember to start with either an olive oil brushed crust or tomato sauce. Use toppings sparingly so that your crust does not get soggy. Place each topping in a small bowl of its own. Pre-cook the bacon, sausage, greens, mushrooms, caramelized onions, and any topping you choose that will not cook very quickly. For quick cooking greens like dandelion, I just toss them in a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper before throwing them on a pizza.

Caramelized spring onions, oil cured olives, and anchovies Bacon, radicchio, crushed garlic, chili flake, and fresh mozzarella Sauteed rapini or dandelion greens, Italian sausage, young red onion slivers, and mozzarella Sauteed wild mushrooms and smoked goat cheese Classic Margherita -- fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce, basil, and fresh mozzarella

In the Oven
If cooking the pizza in the oven, indoors or outdoors, slide the stretched or rolled-out dough onto a cornmeal or semolina dusted pizza peel and add your toppings. Be reserved with toppings and try not to get anything wet on the pizza peel or your pizza may stick. When your pizza is topped, jiggle the pizza peel to see if the pizza slides around freely. If the pizza appears to be stuck, use a spatula or bench scraper to loosen the dough from the peel and toss a bit more cornmeal under that section of the dough.

Next, slide the pizza onto the clean floor of your pizza oven or onto a baking stone in your home oven. Bake until the pizza is bubbly, and the crust is well browned. It will take as few as 3-4 minutes in a hot pizza oven or about 10 minutes in a home oven on a pizza stone.

On the Grill
For grilled pizzas, slide your rolled-out dough onto the back (bottom side) of a well-oiled sheet pan. Brush the top of the pizza with olive oil and have all the rest of your toppings ready. Things will happen fast once the pizza is on the grill so you must be ready. Keep the toppings very simple. Slide your prepared dough onto the grill over direct heat. Cook about 2 minutes, just to sear the bottom of the dough. After 1 minute, lift up the edge of the dough to be sure you aren't burning it. If you are, move the dough to a cooler spot on the grill.

When the underside of the dough is seared, flip it with a pair of long-handled tongs. Immediately brush the top with olive oil and add your toppings. You will most likely need to close the grill to cook the top of the pizza. When the toppings are bubbly and the cheese is beginning to brown, the pizza is done. Transfer to a cutting board and serve.

From “local” Lays to Oprah’s KFC promo, hypocrisy abounds in the food world

Kurt Michael Friese — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:03:07 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

War is peace, junk food is real food....Nobody likes hypocrites, despite the fact that everyone is a hypocrite to one degree or another: the smoker who tells her kids not to smoke; the closeted politician who works against gay rights; the police officer who throws the book at stoners but who himself gets high. But in the matter of marketing food, hypocrisy reaches a fever pitch.

Take last month's flap about Oprah Winfrey's KFC promotion. While the MSM focused on the feeding frenzy that ensued, and the near-riots when KFCs across the country ran out of food or people couldn't download their coupons from the website, precious few (apart from here on Grist anyway) were commenting on Oprah's hypocrisy in promoting KFC after she had done so much to promote the cause of animal cruelty prevention. She was even named "Person of the Year" last year by PETA. Yet while KFC continues to buy Tyson chicken, which is raised in heartbreaking conditions, de-beaked and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, Oprah apparently has no trouble promoting the company. Perhaps the greater hypocrisy lies with PETA, though; they've refused to call her out on the issue.

KFC is not blameless in hypocrite rankings either, foisting their products as fresh and healthy, hiding the true costs of cheap food, and claiming that it's cheaper than making the food at home. To their credit, KFC parent company YUM! Brands did cave to the Coalition for Immokalee Workers and their demand for a fair living wage for tomato pickers, but that was after years of protests and even more years of slavery in South Florida.

One member of the list of underwriters on the public radio show Marketplace is what truly pins my ears back though. The Monsanto Corporation bills itself, there and on their website, as "dedicated to sustainability." Please.

I am a great fan of George Orwell and have read all his books, and so I recognize Orwellian double-speak when I hear it. For the inventors of Terminator Seeds (from which plants grow, but the resulting seeds are sterile), Zombie Seeds (which will not grow until treated with a Monsanto-patented chemical); and Utility Patents on Seeds (giving them ownership rights not just on the seeds but on all their progeny) to stake some claim on "sustainability" may well be the height of hypocrisy.

The Orwellian rebranding does not end there, though. Last month Frito-Lay announced a new ad campaign in five states, beginning with Florida, referring to their Lay's Potato Chips as "local food." Strictly speaking I suppose it is since some of their potatoes are grown and fried in Florida. But by this logic, all of us here in Iowa can begin referring to high fructose corn syrup as a local food as well. That's the same HFCS that the corn processing industry calls "an American agricultural product" in their ads. Local Lay's are just the beginning of industrial food's latest foray into absconding with another useful term. They took "natural," they redefined "organic," they're taking "sustainable," and now they want "local," all the while changing the meaning of the words instead of their own detrimental practices.

I don't know if there is another reason for this behavior besides profit, but I doubt it. And I shan't be hypocritical myself in this regard, as a business owner and father of two kids in college, I am in favor of profit. But when lowering prices increases hidden costs to our environment, our health system, and our security-- witness swine flu, possibly to an enormous Mexican hoglot owned by Smithfield--then that is false profit indeed.

So, my hypocrisy? You'll not catch me at a drive-thru, but I do confess to liking Ramen noodles--and Lay's potato chips, for that matter. But I also make my own chips at home. Here's how.

The chips are upHome-Made Potato Chips

2 "Idaho" russet potatoes, scrubbed clean (or peeled, if you prefer)
2 quarts of your preferred oil (I like peanut oil. Soy is good too, as long as it's the non-GMO stuff.)
Salt to taste

Unless you are quite skilled with a knife, you'll want a tool called a mandolin. This has nothing to do with the stringed instrument; a kitchen mandolin is essentially the same thing Ron Popeil used to hawk on late night TV--it dices, it slices, it does almost everything but wash the dishes and walk the dog. Mandolins range from inexpensive plastic versions in the Asian markets to $200 stainless steel French versions. Pick up the sturdiest one you can afford and treat it with respect--it's very sharp and it doesn't care what it slices and dices, be it potatoes or your knuckles.

Preheat the oil in a saucepan or electric fryer to 375 degrees, no more no less. Meanwhile:

Using your mandolin, carefully slice your potatoes paper-thin. Place them in the oil just a few slices at a time, for about 1 minute, then remove them to paper towels. Once they have all been pre-fried in this way (it's called "blanched" in the industry), then refry them - again in small batches - for about 3 minutes until they are crispy. Remove to fresh paper towels and repeat for the rest of the batches. Salt to taste as soon as they come out of the oil.

Another caution: deep-frying can be hazardous. If you are doing it on the stovetop, be sure to use a much larger pan, one that's deep enough that the oil won't boil over. Nothing spoils an appetite like a house fire.

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Have a happy (and green) Memorial Day weekend

Grist — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:29:37 -0700

by Grist
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

Take a bite out of summer.It’s Memorial Day weekend! Say hello to the long, hot days of summer and goodbye to all the rest. However you celebrate this seasonal turning point, we’ve got advice for making it just a bit greener.

First, we hoist the flag with Umbra, who tells us how to be proud patriots 24 hours a day.

Now for the juicy stuff: Planning a cookout? Check out Umbra’s quick ‘n’ easy advice on eco-friendly grilling (quicker still: chuck the charcoal) and these illuminating BBQ FAQs. If you know how to fuel your fire but can’t decide what to cook, here are a few ideas on grilling without red meat and a cookbook or two to inspire.

Before you head out to buy watermelons and Not Dogs, check out our tips on prioritizing organic purchases, washing produce, and what those codes on produce really mean. And read Lou Bendrick’s beefy take on the real impacts of meat production.

Worried about bug bites? Check out our buzzworthy review of DEET-free bug repellents and read this rundown on eco-friendlier insect repellents and sunscreens. Be sure to keep an eye out for our brand-new test of eco-sunscreens, coming in early June.

And if you’re using this weekend as a chance to spruce up your grounds, check out our ideas for lawn alternatives, advice on fertilizers, and tips for the best way to water.

Finally, a verging-on-earnest note: we know Memorial Day is about more than cookouts and bug bites. But we don’t have many links to offer on the topic of sacrificing young lives in faraway lands. Still, we hope you’ll take a moment this weekend to thank the men and women who made your vegan sausagefest possible.

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Against the grain of industrial agriculture, truly local bread stages a comeback

April McGreger — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:02:18 -0700

by April McGreger
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

David Bauer of Farm and Sparrow BakeryPhoto: April McGregerOn a recent vacation to Asheville, North Carolina, I headed to the market to get a loaf of bread. Asheville is home to a large a number of small-scale bakeries, many of which sell primarily at tailgate markets and wholesale to nearby specialty food shops.

I found the market shelves stocked with lovely loaves of ciabatta, baguette, marble rye, and challah, but I was most intrigued by a few loaves that I knew at first glance were special. Packaged in brown paper bags with a hand-stamped wood-cut logo, the loaves were not internationally known bread classics. Instead, their labels heralded unusual ingredients: “Heirloom Grit” and “Kamut.” These intriguing loaves came from a bakery called Farm and Sparrow.

I couldn’t resist calling up David Bauer, Farm and Sparrow’s owner and baker, to arrange a visit. Through my talk with Bauer, I realized he represents a new type of baker. He sees himself as part of a larger decentralized, healthy, and diverse food system. The kamut, spelt, and buckwheat that you find in Farm and Sparrow’s breads are known as landrace grains—grains that developed in the absence of modern breeding techniques. Landrace grains tend to be tougher, more resilient, and not dependent on chemical fertilizers, intense irrigation, and pesticides in order to survive.

Bauer sells his breads at the tailgate farmer’s markets throughout the Asheville area. He is deeply committed to his local food community. Unlike most bakers who buy flour, Bauer sources whole grains, which he grinds himself the same day he makes his bread.

For him, the ideal would be to source grain locally. But finding locally or even regionally grown grain is nearly impossible in the United States today. The reason for this scarcity lies in the industrialization of agriculture over the last century, which went hand in hand with the consolidation of food processing.

A loaf of bread made of locally grown and stone-ground grains requires a certain kind of infrastructure that disappeared almost completely from our national landscape in the 1880s, with the introduction of the steel-roller mill and the rise hard Midwest-grown wheat. The steel-roller mill could efficiently remove the perishable germ and bran from wheat berries, creating a shelf-stable flour that could easily travel long distances.

Before this development, local mills had been necessary because flour had a shelf life of approximately one week. After, flour could be stored for months. Scalping the bran and the germ from wheat, however, meant stripping away key nutrients and fiber. This technological advance represented a nutritional step backward.

Flour then went on to be the first food to be centrally produced and widely distributed. What essentially amounted to the dumping of cheap, Midwest-grown wheat on the rest of the country resulted in the erosion of regional grain markets as local farmers couldn’t compete with the prices of cheap Midwestern wheat. The new roller mill technology also didn’t work as well on the softer wheat varieties that grew in most of the rest of the country. So the disappearance of the small stone mill meant the disappearance of softer varieties of wheat as well—and the homogenization of U.S. bread making.

In the 125 years since, this transformation has been little noticed and mostly forgotten. Then in 2007-2008, global wheat prices soared for a variety of reasons, ranging from the U.S. biofuel boom to a drought in Australia’s bread basket. Suddenly, bakers had to begin thinking hard about this fundamental ingredient that they had long taken for granted. Was it really worth it to pay top dollar for the same old mediocre hard-wheat flour they had been using for years? They began to see how their total reliance on Midwest wheat affected their regional food security—and, given the sudden prices volatility, their very viability as businesses. By fall 2008, high flour prices had pushed bakeries nationwide into a state of crisis.

Creative loafingPhoto: April McGregerIt was through my conversation with Bauer that I first learned of a group of bakers, millers, and farmers in North Carolina working collectively to do something about it by bringing back regional grain husbandry through the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project.

Jennifer Lapidus, an immensely talented and principled bread baker of the now defunct Natural Bridge Bakery, is the project manager of the grant. She brings her experience as a baker to the table in hopes that by working cooperatively the group can successfully navigate the tricky task of developing supply and demand simultaneously.

I headed back out to Asheville a few weeks later for the Artisan Bread Festival to learn more about the NCOBFP, a major topic of discussion for this year’s event. Glenn Roberts of South Carolina-based Anson Mills—which has done amazing work preserving southern grain traditions—was a featured speaker. He gave bakers some insight into the grain husbandry of yesteryear and a glimpse of our future as breadmakers.

Roberts predicted that we are moving back towards the old tradition of an average of 30 mills per county. Modern laboratory-developed wheat is failing us, he said: yields are plummeting as salt builds up in the soil from excessive irrigation. Meanwhile, new diseases pop up faster than the labs can generate resistant strands. The solution lies in biodiversity: a move back to region-appropriate, more robust wheat varieties, grown not in vast uniform fields but rather in combination with other crops.

In order to grow wheat while maintaining the health of the land, one also has to grow buckwheat, sorghum, and cowpeas—a legume that fixes nitrogen, suppresses a pest called nematodes, and keeps down weeds. Reviving regional grain-growing means a return to whole-system agriculture, and Roberts predicts it will happen sooner than we think.
For the health of people, of communities, and of the land, I stand with a group of micro-scale bakers like Lapidus and Bauer, who are ready to take on the challenge of developing intensely flavorful bread and pastries with unstandardized, capricious, and diverse locally produced grains.

Market Brown Bread
Making yeasted breads with small batch flours requires a bit of experimentation, scientific inquiry, careful observation, and an open mind. Anson Mills has a wonderful, informative website with lots of well tested recipes for using their products. If you are lucky enough to find a farmer growing wheat or cornmeal for sale at your farmer’s market, I find it easiest to first experiment with quickbreads, biscuits, and pancakes. If you can’t find locally grown grain in your area, let your favorite farmers know you would be a regular buyer if they grew it. Here’s a quick and easy recipe for a very satisfying, unyeasted brown bread that was the first bread I made with 100 percent locally grown grains. Feel free to experiment with your grains since the bread is quite forgiving. Unlike most quickbreads, this one is not a dessert bread but the perfect accompaniment to dinner. With a simple carrot-ginger soup, it makes a lovely spring meal.

3 cups whole wheat flour (or rye or ground oats)
1 cup cornmeal (or other grain)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 3/4 - 2 cups buttermilk
2 Tablespoons sorghum, molasses, honey or maple syrup
4 Tablespoons melted butter
(optional - a handful of raisins or nuts)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 1 pound loaf pan and dust it with cornmeal. Set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking soda. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and the buttermilk. Beat in the butter and the sorghum. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture. Different flours absorb different amounts of liquid so you may need to add another splash or two of buttermilk to get your batter to the right consistency. It should be thick but still pourable. Spoon it into the loaf pan and cook for 50 minutes on the middle rack. To test for doneness, insert a toothpick into the center of the bread dough, and it should come out clean. If your bread is getting too dark on top, you can cover the top loosely with foil. Let the bread cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin onto a rack to cool at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm with fresh butter.

Makes 1 loaf.

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In the lush dirt of Iowa, community grows alongside veggies

Kurt Michael Friese — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:10:37 -0700

by Kurt Michael Friese
Reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news, humor, and inspiration, visit www.grist.org.

ZJ Farms: Everyone's a farmhandI had the pleasure the other day of visiting ZJ Farms, the anchor of Local Harvest CSA, which is one of the biggest in the area. Farmer (and pillar of the local food scene hereabouts) Susan Jutz has been running this organic farm for all the years I've been buying food around here. A walk on her farm gives you an understanding of the paintings of Grant Wood.

In case you're unfamiliar, CSA means community-supported agriculture --a new name for what family-scale farming used to be. These days it works very much like a magazine subscription. You pay up front, usually in the late winter when the farmer really needs it, and in return you share in the bounty throughout the season. In these parts the season lasts roughly 20 weeks, so for each of those weeks we'll receive a box full of all the fresh goodness that's in season right then, usually picked that same morning.

Even though it's just me and my wife at home these days, I still buy a full "family share." I take what I want to cook with at home, and the rest goes to my restaurant, where my crew uses it for specials and such. Every Wednesday the cooks are always excited to see what's in the box - they unload it like kids on Christmas morning. The box, of course, gets returned to be used for the next week's bounty.

Laura Dowd of Local Foods Connection, left, and Susan Jutz of ZJ FarmsPhoto: Kurt Michael FrieseBuying a share of the bounty also means buying a share of the risk. It's been a cold wet spring here in Iowa, so many plants aren't even in the ground yet. I saw thousands of seedlings in Susan's hoop house, each one yearning to breathe free sometime after Mother's day - the traditional end of the danger of frost here. This means the season will start a little later this year, but all of us will gladly take that over last year's disastrous storms and floods. ZJ Farms was high and dry, but some savage straight winds did take out her 100-year-old barn, sheeps and pigs still inside.

That barn is still being cleaned up a year later, but volunteers from Local Foods Connection, an organization Susan helped create, have been helping out. LFC is a charity that helps get fresh wholesome food to needy families. Volunteers do work on area farms, and in return farmers give CSA shares to the charity, which in turn gives them to the families. There is also a wonderful educational component too. Families are encouraged to learn about the foods, and how to cook them. They earn points that can be redeemed for kitchen tools.

Families are also required to visit one of the farms. Often they are reluctant, but LFC founder and president Laura Dowd says that the only thing harder than getting them to visit the farms is getting them to leave. Many of the families have never had the opportunity to see a working farm up close, and that is intrinsically rewarding for anyone.

So now we await our first box, expected the week of the 18th. I'll be looking for asparagus, and radishes, and lots of baby greens. They'll probably all end up in a salad topped with Devotay's own balsamic vinaigrette.

Balsamic Vinaigrette
3 shallots
1/4 cup Boetje's Dutch mustard (a Rock Island original)
1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup Iowa Natural Soy Oil (strictly non-GMO, & made right here in Iowa)

Mix the oils together. Place shallots, mustard, pepper and salt into food processor and chop fine. Add vinegar and pulse. While running the processor, slowly add the olive and soy oils to emulsify. It may not all fit, so mix in remaining oil in bowl with a whip.

Make plenty--this dressing will keep in the refrigerator for weeks.

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