Here are a few ideas for how you might use your box's bounty this week. The items from the box are in color:
Grilled Veggie Kabobs with cherry tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, onions, and hunks of marinated tofu
Beet Orange Salad
Peel, cube, and roast beets on a baking sheet with a drizzle of olive oil until fork tender. Let cool before adding to a salad of romaine lettuce, cucumbers, and orange sections. Dress with a mix of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and dijon mustard.
Grandma Helen's Hungarian Spinach/Kale
My Great Grandma Helen handed down this preparation for spinach, and it works well if you steam the kale and then chop it finely. Saute some chopped green onions, add in the chopped kale, a few Tablespoons of Smart balance, and a handful or two of seasoned breadcrumbs or corn-flakes crumbs (depending on how bready you like your kale). This also works as a stuffing for fish roll-ups (tilapia or sole), or for large mushrooms.
Baked Potato Bar
We like to top potatoes with flaked tuna or sour supreme and chives, or leftover broccoli.
Joy of (Modified) Pancakes with Blueberries (see recipe posted below)
Tunisian Vegetable Stew
This stew makes use of peppers and red cabbage. It is delicious served over rice or couscous. Check out the recipe posted below.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Joy of (Modified) Pancakes
We love to mix up the grains when it comes to pancakes, and I have found that the basic recipe from The Joy of Cooking is very forgiving. Whatever combination of grains or kinds of milk I've used, the pancakes always come out tasty. I've included the original and my substitutions. Serve with blueberries, bananas, strawberries or a drizzle of pure maple syrup.
Makes about 12 5-inch cakes
Whisk together in a large bowl:
Makes about 12 5-inch cakes
Whisk together in a large bowl:
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (1/2 C whole wheat flour, 1/2 C oats, 1/2 C quinoa flakes, 2 T flax meal)
- 3 T sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups milk (1 1/2 C soy, rice, or almond milks, or a combination)
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (3 T Smart Balance Light)
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
Tunisian Vegetable Stew
For those who were members last year, you might recall this recipe. It's still one of my favorite ways to use red cabbage and peppers.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups thinly sliced onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups thinly sliced cabbage
dash of salt
1 large green bell pepper, cut into think strips
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
cayenne pepper to taste
3 cups undrained canned tomatoes, chopped (28 oz. can)
1 ½ cups drained cooked chick peas (16 oz. cans)
1/3 cup currants or raisins (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Preparation:
In a large skillet, sauté onions in olive oil for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the cabbage, sprinkle with salt, and continue to sauté for at least five minutes. Add the bell pepper, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, and cayenne to the skillet and sauté for another minute. Stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas, and optional currants or raisins, and simmer, covered for 15 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender. Add the lemon juice and salt to taste. Top with crumbled feta or almond slivers if you like.
Source: Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, 1994
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups thinly sliced onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups thinly sliced cabbage
dash of salt
1 large green bell pepper, cut into think strips
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
cayenne pepper to taste
3 cups undrained canned tomatoes, chopped (28 oz. can)
1 ½ cups drained cooked chick peas (16 oz. cans)
1/3 cup currants or raisins (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Preparation:
In a large skillet, sauté onions in olive oil for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the cabbage, sprinkle with salt, and continue to sauté for at least five minutes. Add the bell pepper, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, and cayenne to the skillet and sauté for another minute. Stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas, and optional currants or raisins, and simmer, covered for 15 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender. Add the lemon juice and salt to taste. Top with crumbled feta or almond slivers if you like.
Source: Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, 1994
How to Cope with “CSA Stress”
By Cathy Erway
This article is from Cathy’s blog “Not Eating Out in New York”. All the produce we receive in our CSA boxes can sometimes be overwhelming. Cathy’s article provides great ways to utilize all that produce, other than just typically trying took cook everything all in one week. You can visit Cathy’s blog at http://noteatingoutinny.com/
Since so many of us have joined the frays of small farm supporting by becoming new members of CSAs, I’ve noticed a particular syndrome going around this summer. The symptoms? Staying in to eat lettuce heads that have piled up in the crisper over some weeks, extreme guilt about going out to eat when there’s tons of food at home; passing up plans to make the weekly pick-up day and time, or feeling the need to schedule vacations around your CSA calendar. And then the danger symptom, indicating the illness has reached its next, undesirable stage: deciding to forfeit a few items from your share on a particular week, leaving them behind at the pick-up location.
Basically, it’s being bogged down by the little commitments one makes when joining a CSA. I can relate. It took me three days past the official pick-up night last week when I finally took my half of a full share out of my share-splitter’s fridge. People, especially in urban areas, continue to have unpredictably busy schedules, even though their will to support local food has grown.
But, before you start tossing once-fresh vegetables to the compost, or dread another bag of spinach in the fridge, here are a few tips that have helped me, at least, figure out what to do with all this great food.
Don’t cook.
Put away the pots and pans. If your CSA produce looks anything like mine, it’s probably at its best potential raw. We’re not talking about pesticide-drenched, close to moldy, stuff from the supermarket. So beyond a little dirt and bugs, there’s nothing high heat needs to kill, besides some extra vitamins. Zucchini and summer squash? Chopped and sprinkled with sea salt, lemon and olive oil and they’re a refreshingly crisp, new breed.
Rinse before putting away.
If you spend a few extra minutes washing and patting down your produce with towels, you can grab and go from the fridge much easier through the week. Plus, the time taken will reinforce what you have that week in your mind, hopefully clearing up all, “What’s in here and how old is it?” confusion.
Appoint a back-up pick-up buddy.
It’s like the person who has your extra set of housekeys, for when you get locked out. Except instead of hanging onto a measly key, this neighbor gets to hang onto a big batch of food when you can’t pick up your CSA share. And the words, “Keep whatever you like!” should be a pretty good guarantee for his or her service.
Save the hardiest vegetables for later.
Beets last a really long time. Kohlrabi is not going to turn in a week, either. If you find that you simply have too much stuff to eat in a week (as I do often), go for the most delicate leafy greens first. Save the big heads of cabbage, potatoes, green beans and carrots for another week, and don’t worry about them.
Entertain more.
In times of stress, we can all lean on our friends. I don’t think I needed to sound half as desperate when I asked one, in a moment of high CSA stress, “I have too much food, can I make you dinner?!” Who doesn’t like local, fresh food, being served to them free? Plus, following guideline #1, there really is very little preparation that should be involved for this grub.
Can it, jam it, pickle it (and compost the scraps).
A few mason jars go a long way; you can make pickles, jam or sauces like chutney and pesto to snack on throughout the year by squashing a lot of fresh produce into its tightly-packed constraints. But if this weekend hobby is not quite your style, you can still salvage extra produce by simply bagging it and tossing it in the freezer. Broccoli and green beans work great for this.
Make a stress-relieving tea with dried herbs.
Overwhelmed by all the fresh herbs you’ve been getting? Grow your own already, and don’t really need ‘em? Hang a bunch upside-down for a week, like you would with a rose bouquet, and crumble the flakes into a mason jar. Yep, I have cilantro “tea,” all ready to steep. So? (Hint: mix in those dried rose petals, too, if you’ve got them.)
Be a good member.
It’s easy to dash in and out of CSA pick-up in the middle of your busy day or night, but the folks volunteering there, or organizing the local chapter, can really help you out if you have a stress situation. Communicate if you’re going to be out of town and can’t pick up your stuff, they might appreciate the advance notice to gauge how much will be leftover at the end of that day. Or give it away to someone else in the group who might actually need it for a big bash they’re throwing. Volunteering, team-working and spreading the good karma might win you favors in return, like being able to store your untaken stash another day somewhere convenient.
This article is from Cathy’s blog “Not Eating Out in New York”. All the produce we receive in our CSA boxes can sometimes be overwhelming. Cathy’s article provides great ways to utilize all that produce, other than just typically trying took cook everything all in one week. You can visit Cathy’s blog at http://noteatingoutinny.com/
Since so many of us have joined the frays of small farm supporting by becoming new members of CSAs, I’ve noticed a particular syndrome going around this summer. The symptoms? Staying in to eat lettuce heads that have piled up in the crisper over some weeks, extreme guilt about going out to eat when there’s tons of food at home; passing up plans to make the weekly pick-up day and time, or feeling the need to schedule vacations around your CSA calendar. And then the danger symptom, indicating the illness has reached its next, undesirable stage: deciding to forfeit a few items from your share on a particular week, leaving them behind at the pick-up location.
Basically, it’s being bogged down by the little commitments one makes when joining a CSA. I can relate. It took me three days past the official pick-up night last week when I finally took my half of a full share out of my share-splitter’s fridge. People, especially in urban areas, continue to have unpredictably busy schedules, even though their will to support local food has grown.
But, before you start tossing once-fresh vegetables to the compost, or dread another bag of spinach in the fridge, here are a few tips that have helped me, at least, figure out what to do with all this great food.
Don’t cook.
Put away the pots and pans. If your CSA produce looks anything like mine, it’s probably at its best potential raw. We’re not talking about pesticide-drenched, close to moldy, stuff from the supermarket. So beyond a little dirt and bugs, there’s nothing high heat needs to kill, besides some extra vitamins. Zucchini and summer squash? Chopped and sprinkled with sea salt, lemon and olive oil and they’re a refreshingly crisp, new breed.
Rinse before putting away.
If you spend a few extra minutes washing and patting down your produce with towels, you can grab and go from the fridge much easier through the week. Plus, the time taken will reinforce what you have that week in your mind, hopefully clearing up all, “What’s in here and how old is it?” confusion.
Appoint a back-up pick-up buddy.
It’s like the person who has your extra set of housekeys, for when you get locked out. Except instead of hanging onto a measly key, this neighbor gets to hang onto a big batch of food when you can’t pick up your CSA share. And the words, “Keep whatever you like!” should be a pretty good guarantee for his or her service.
Save the hardiest vegetables for later.
Beets last a really long time. Kohlrabi is not going to turn in a week, either. If you find that you simply have too much stuff to eat in a week (as I do often), go for the most delicate leafy greens first. Save the big heads of cabbage, potatoes, green beans and carrots for another week, and don’t worry about them.
Entertain more.
In times of stress, we can all lean on our friends. I don’t think I needed to sound half as desperate when I asked one, in a moment of high CSA stress, “I have too much food, can I make you dinner?!” Who doesn’t like local, fresh food, being served to them free? Plus, following guideline #1, there really is very little preparation that should be involved for this grub.
Can it, jam it, pickle it (and compost the scraps).
A few mason jars go a long way; you can make pickles, jam or sauces like chutney and pesto to snack on throughout the year by squashing a lot of fresh produce into its tightly-packed constraints. But if this weekend hobby is not quite your style, you can still salvage extra produce by simply bagging it and tossing it in the freezer. Broccoli and green beans work great for this.
Make a stress-relieving tea with dried herbs.
Overwhelmed by all the fresh herbs you’ve been getting? Grow your own already, and don’t really need ‘em? Hang a bunch upside-down for a week, like you would with a rose bouquet, and crumble the flakes into a mason jar. Yep, I have cilantro “tea,” all ready to steep. So? (Hint: mix in those dried rose petals, too, if you’ve got them.)
Be a good member.
It’s easy to dash in and out of CSA pick-up in the middle of your busy day or night, but the folks volunteering there, or organizing the local chapter, can really help you out if you have a stress situation. Communicate if you’re going to be out of town and can’t pick up your stuff, they might appreciate the advance notice to gauge how much will be leftover at the end of that day. Or give it away to someone else in the group who might actually need it for a big bash they’re throwing. Volunteering, team-working and spreading the good karma might win you favors in return, like being able to store your untaken stash another day somewhere convenient.
News from the Farm - Summer Week 13
Now that the leaves are turning color and the night time temps are in the 50's, I really feel like summer is over. Fortunately, the weatherman disagrees with me and this week the temps are supposed to go back up. Hopefully, we will still continue to see ripening tomatoes and fewer cracks from the rains. Rain, rain, go away.
We have eleven sets of onion yet to pull - that is less than half of the whole. This week I plan to get another 2-3 sets out. The guys are probably going to have to work long hours to get it all done, but I am fortunate to have wonderful employees. Part of what gets difficult this time of year is the loss of employees and interns due to college starting back up. I employ college students and most of my interns are college students who do research on the farm over the course of the summer. This year we are participating in an energy study with the University of Chicago. Their goal is to determine if small local farms are better stewards of energy than large commercial agribusiness producers. The data will be interesting. Anyway, I have lost one person as of last week, one more this week and then another in two weeks. One will go part time on top of it. This explains some of my stress and fatigue this last week.
I love to grow vegetables. I strive to grow the best, freshest items to grace your tables. I will always go to the extreme to produce the tasty crops you desire. This week, though due to extreme fatigue, I pulled back just a touch and did not harvest every crop. I would liked to have added one more crop to your boxes, but lack of sleep was physically hurting me, so I had to schedule a bit more sleep for this week.
Your box
Mixed colored bell peppers - these guys are so pretty
Beets
Kale
Plums - yumm
Blueberries - Mick put them in clam shells for me - how nice
Cherry tomatoes
Freshly dug potatoes
Red cabbage
Vicki
Genesis Growers
8373 E 3000 S Rd
St Anne, Il 60964
815 953 1512
www.genesis-growers.com
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
My plan for this weeks box includes enjoying the cantaloupe as is (!) and stir frying a mix of the zucchini, celery, chard, tomatoes and some corn. It is simply hard to go wrong with fresh veggies! As for the cukes - I think I will make a batch of bread and butter pickles with them along with a pepper or two. I'll used cider vinegar, a smattering of sugar along with mustard seed, celery seed, cloves and tumeric for seasoning.
Not too tough an assignment!
From Rabbi Jacob Fine in Seattle --
Wasting Food While People Go Hungry
For 1 in 8 Americans, hunger is reality. According to Feeding America (the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief organization), in 2007, 36.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 23.8 million adults and 12.4 million children. (And these numbers are before the economic downturn!)
At the same time that so many Americans are going hungry, we are wasting a shocking amount of perfectly fine food. The USDA estimates 96 billion pounds of food are wasted each year in the United States. Feeding America estimates that if we could recover merely 5% of the food wasted each year, we could help feed 14 million people. Harvest Against Hunger, a Seattle based hunger relief organization, estimates that Washington State alone wastes 10’s of millions of pounds of food each year.
Our tradition has a remarkably powerful set of teachings around the injunction not to waste food and other useful resources. The seed of this tradition traces back to two verses in this week’s torah portion, Shofetim. The parshahreads:
When you besiege a town for many days, waging-war against it, to seize it: you are not to bring-ruin on its trees, by swinging-away (with) an axe against them, for from them you eat, them you are not to cut-down – for are the trees of the field human beings, (able) to come against you in a siege? Only those trees of which you know that they are not trees for eating, them you may bring-to-ruin and cut-down, that you may build siege-works against the town that is making war against you, until its downfall. (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)
This command that the Israelites refrain from destroying the fruit trees of their enemies during war-time becomes the foundation for a comprehensive, and quite radical, set of teachings around the prevention of waste. For example, Maimonides (1135-1204) teaches that “Not only own who cuts down food trees, but also one who smashes household goods, tears clothes, demolishes buildings, stops up a spring, or destroys food on purpose violates the command: ‘You must not destroy.’
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) goes even further in teaching that:
The prohibition of purposeless destruction of food trees around a besieged city is only to be taken as an example of general wastefulness. Under the concept of ‘you shall not destroy,’ the purposeless destruction of anything at all is to be forbidden, so that our text becomes the most comprehensive warning to human beings not to misuse the position that God has given them as masters of the world and its matter to capricious, passionate, or merely thoughtless wasteful destruction of anything on earth. Only for wise use has God laid the world at our feet when God said to humankind, “…fill the earth and master it…(Gen. 1:28)
As Jews, we know that the obligation to care for the poor and vulnerable in our communities is absolutely central to our lives. Tragically, now more than ever, we don’t need to look very far to find people in our midst who are literally going hungry. As Jews, as humans, we have the responsibility to do something.
To learn more about how you can help relieve hunger in Seattle and around the country please check out these resources.
Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Jacob
The first watermelon have been harvested! Hot diggity! We immediately popped one of those big boys open and snarfed down that tasty flesh. Everyone wants the heart, but I beat them to it on the first melon, so the guys decided they had to pop open another one. Here on this farm it does not take much to figure out a way to get another melon to sample - one just accidentally dropped - oops! It had a dent. Darn! It was funny shaped! Dang! Anyway, watermelon is full of great minerals, so let them eat watermelon and drink less Gatorade. Unfortunatley, they are not coming in very fast yet, but hopefully they will catch up.
We have continued to harvest onions, trying to get them all out. We are so busy right now that our average is two sets a week. At that rate we will get done by Thanksgiving. Chad took the two interns out Friday and got one extra set pulled, so at this new rate of three a week we will be done by Halloween. So Sunday, Jon (who has now left for school) went to Champaign and picked up two buddies who have never had the opportunity to play onion ball. Poor boys! Their goal is to get three more sets out. They may not have been too fond of onion ball by the time they were done. But, in order to leave a good impression, Jon wanted to have a bon fire with watermelon margueritas and lamb brats. Wonder which activity the fellows would have enjoyed more? Unfortunately, they got rained out and only one set of onion was harvested.
This is the season of fatigue. Three days last week I got only 2-3 hours sleep. Usually what ends up overwhleming me is paper. I stay so busy with field supervision and market, that I skip paper when I get in at night. All I want is food and a shower and a nice pillow. I think if you talk to most farmers right now they would concur that they are tired. It is truly a shame we can't all take a week and go away just before the busy, busy season begins. Please forgive us if we get spacy or a little cranky. We are just revealing our fatigue as farmers.
Your box
Gold zucchiniCantaloupe
Mixed pepper basket - all hot except for the sweet chocolate - Save hot peppers for winter use by chopping and freezing. No need to blanch
Small finger size green = Serrano
Larger green - Jalapeno
Yellow - hot banana
Brownish red - Sweet Chocolate
Heirloom cucumber - round yellow is a lemon cuke; long yellow or rust is a Poona Khera - you got one or the other
Sweet corn
Celery - we clipped out some stalks if they had insect damage
Swiss chard
Cherry tomatoes
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Jew and the Carrot
Here's some information on our parent organizations own blog and how you can get involved. I was a founding writer for this blog, and while I have not had the chance to post recently I fully intend to return to writing for them very soon.
The Jew, The Carrot, and You: An Introduction to Hazon’s Blog
By: Mia Rut
I guess you can say that I stumbled upon The Jew & The Carrot accidentally. I was job hunting and anxious for any opportunity to network. Through Facebook, a friend forwarded me an announcement for an internship at the Jewish Food blog. Seeing it I thought, ‘well, I like Jews and I love food’ and I was trying to get my foot in the door in the Jewish professional world. So I decided to write to the then Editor-in-Chief, Leah Koenig. Long story short, I started writing for the blog. Then I joined one of Hazon’s CSAs and went to the Food Conference. Yea, I was hooked. Since its inception in 2006, The Jew & The Carrot has been an active online community that offers folks the opportunity to talk about food, health, and sustainability – all from Jewish perspectives. Over the years, there have been wonderful interviews with well-known authors like Michael Pollan and cooks like Lagusta Yearwood as well as coverage of breaking news such as the Agriprocessors plant in Iowa. Perhaps the most popular pieces published on the blog are the numerous recipes our writers create or adapt and make available to our readers. The diversity of our writers is reflected in the wide variety of (often seasonal) recipes. Additionally, many people have shared family recipes around the holidays. The Jew & The Carrot has even published a cookbook based on a collection of some of the blog’s best recipes. Since January, The Jew & The Carrot has been an entirely volunteer-run blog with three fabulous Associate Editors and an Editor-in-Chief who not only writes for the blog, but keeps everything running. We have now grown to over 70 active writers; many of whom also publish in other publications and write their own blogs. All the writers contribute a wide range of perspective to the New Jewish Food Movement and you can too! We are always looking for new ideas, recipes and comments. Sure, you can go to HYPERLINK "http://www.jcarrot.org" \t "_blank" www.jcarrot.org and check out our work, but you can also get involved yourself. Just send your story to HYPERLINK "mailto:editor@jcarrot.org" \t "_blank" editor@jcarrot.org. You can write about your CSA, your favorite recipe this season or even about a current event. If it is about food, sustainability, and Jews we want to hear from you!
The Jew, The Carrot, and You: An Introduction to Hazon’s Blog
By: Mia Rut
I guess you can say that I stumbled upon The Jew & The Carrot accidentally. I was job hunting and anxious for any opportunity to network. Through Facebook, a friend forwarded me an announcement for an internship at the Jewish Food blog. Seeing it I thought, ‘well, I like Jews and I love food’ and I was trying to get my foot in the door in the Jewish professional world. So I decided to write to the then Editor-in-Chief, Leah Koenig. Long story short, I started writing for the blog. Then I joined one of Hazon’s CSAs and went to the Food Conference. Yea, I was hooked. Since its inception in 2006, The Jew & The Carrot has been an active online community that offers folks the opportunity to talk about food, health, and sustainability – all from Jewish perspectives. Over the years, there have been wonderful interviews with well-known authors like Michael Pollan and cooks like Lagusta Yearwood as well as coverage of breaking news such as the Agriprocessors plant in Iowa. Perhaps the most popular pieces published on the blog are the numerous recipes our writers create or adapt and make available to our readers. The diversity of our writers is reflected in the wide variety of (often seasonal) recipes. Additionally, many people have shared family recipes around the holidays. The Jew & The Carrot has even published a cookbook based on a collection of some of the blog’s best recipes. Since January, The Jew & The Carrot has been an entirely volunteer-run blog with three fabulous Associate Editors and an Editor-in-Chief who not only writes for the blog, but keeps everything running. We have now grown to over 70 active writers; many of whom also publish in other publications and write their own blogs. All the writers contribute a wide range of perspective to the New Jewish Food Movement and you can too! We are always looking for new ideas, recipes and comments. Sure, you can go to HYPERLINK "http://www.jcarrot.org" \t "_blank" www.jcarrot.org and check out our work, but you can also get involved yourself. Just send your story to HYPERLINK "mailto:editor@jcarrot.org" \t "_blank" editor@jcarrot.org. You can write about your CSA, your favorite recipe this season or even about a current event. If it is about food, sustainability, and Jews we want to hear from you!
Food Vocabulary
Foodie Vocabulary
By: Hilla Abel, Co-Chair of Forest Hills Tuv Ha’Aretz in Queens, New York
At our first Tuv Ha’Aretz committee meeting of the year, one of our committee members introduced herself and explained why she wanted to be part of Tuv Ha’Aretz. “I was a locavore before locavores existed,” she said. Indeed, the concept of being a locavore—one who eats food grown locally—motivates and resonates with many of us who are part of the food movement.
Though it has been just a few years since Jessica Prentice coined the term in 2005, foodies and environmentalists alike have been quick to adopt it. I think the success of the term locavore can be attributed to its functionality. It has become a key word in our conversation about food and sustainable living. So, in the spirit of continuing and growing the conversation, I’d like to share this food vocabulary list with you:
cool food: A food that is produced with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. The coolest foods are organic, local, and whole foods. As CSA members, we are definitely on the right track!
food miles: The distance that the food travels from production to consumption. A commonly cited statistic is that food travels an average of 1500 miles from the farm to our plates. I recently learned that this statistic does not include imported foods or animal-based food transport, which must make the 1500 mile statistic a gross underestimation.
foodshed: An area which can, or is sufficient to, provide food for a given location. I like how the word foodshed is a natural analogy to a watershed. To me, the word foodshed creates a beautiful mental image of what local food communities can look like on a map.
foodprint: Our food system's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. Foodprint is great word to describe food’s role in contributing to the carbon footprint. It is quickly becoming a buzz word here in New York, as the local food movement fights to pass the FoodprintNYC Resolution through the city council. The resolution calls to increase the availability of local, just, and sustainable food. A similar resolution is also working its way through the Chicago city council. (I encourage all New York City and Chicago Tuv Ha’Aretz members to get involved. A quick call to your councilmember would make a big difference. Visit foodprintusa.org.)
Whether it is for a chat around the dinner table, an impromptu debate at your Tuv Ha’Aretz distribution, or a phone call to your local councilmember, I hope you find these words useful in the ongoing conversation about the implications of our food choices.
--Hilla Abel
The vocabularly list is adapted from NYC Foodprint Resolution
Stay tuned for a list of “Jewish Food Vocabularly” next month!
By: Hilla Abel, Co-Chair of Forest Hills Tuv Ha’Aretz in Queens, New York
At our first Tuv Ha’Aretz committee meeting of the year, one of our committee members introduced herself and explained why she wanted to be part of Tuv Ha’Aretz. “I was a locavore before locavores existed,” she said. Indeed, the concept of being a locavore—one who eats food grown locally—motivates and resonates with many of us who are part of the food movement.
Though it has been just a few years since Jessica Prentice coined the term in 2005, foodies and environmentalists alike have been quick to adopt it. I think the success of the term locavore can be attributed to its functionality. It has become a key word in our conversation about food and sustainable living. So, in the spirit of continuing and growing the conversation, I’d like to share this food vocabulary list with you:
cool food: A food that is produced with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. The coolest foods are organic, local, and whole foods. As CSA members, we are definitely on the right track!
food miles: The distance that the food travels from production to consumption. A commonly cited statistic is that food travels an average of 1500 miles from the farm to our plates. I recently learned that this statistic does not include imported foods or animal-based food transport, which must make the 1500 mile statistic a gross underestimation.
foodshed: An area which can, or is sufficient to, provide food for a given location. I like how the word foodshed is a natural analogy to a watershed. To me, the word foodshed creates a beautiful mental image of what local food communities can look like on a map.
foodprint: Our food system's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. Foodprint is great word to describe food’s role in contributing to the carbon footprint. It is quickly becoming a buzz word here in New York, as the local food movement fights to pass the FoodprintNYC Resolution through the city council. The resolution calls to increase the availability of local, just, and sustainable food. A similar resolution is also working its way through the Chicago city council. (I encourage all New York City and Chicago Tuv Ha’Aretz members to get involved. A quick call to your councilmember would make a big difference. Visit foodprintusa.org.)
Whether it is for a chat around the dinner table, an impromptu debate at your Tuv Ha’Aretz distribution, or a phone call to your local councilmember, I hope you find these words useful in the ongoing conversation about the implications of our food choices.
--Hilla Abel
The vocabularly list is adapted from NYC Foodprint Resolution
Stay tuned for a list of “Jewish Food Vocabularly” next month!
This Week's Plan
So I see that we will be getting the mysterious alien vegetable Kohlrabi in our boxes. Now before you immediately chuck it into the swap box today, consider all the wonderful possibilities this veggie has to offer. As a rule treat it like you would a turnip, so it can go into soups or vegetable mashes, or mix it with some potatoes, onions (and maybe even this week's zucchinis, and roast in the oven with some olive oil, thyme and garlic for a wonderful side dish. Still not convinced? Heres a recipe that, if you replace the cream with Mayonnaise, will make a tangy variation on a waldorf salad.
Personally, I'm a radish Fiend so I cant wait to eat them raw, in a salad, or like they used to do it in the old country, dipped in a salt cellar. Braising them in butter is also a great way to mellow them out.
If you've never had the chanceto roast peppers, this week is your chance to go for it! just place them directly over the grates of a burner and rotate them with tongs every once in a while until the skin turns 90% black. Let them cool, and then use a paring knife to scrape the skin off leaving nice soft peppers than can be used in hundreds of ways. I put them in quinoa to make a nice salad, or simmer them in tomato sauce for a flavorful pasta sauce.
Finally, while peaches are great on their own, I've been halving them brushing them with a bit of honey, and then putting them on a very hot grill for just a minute until there are grill marks. This adds a really nice smokiness and makes for a wonderful dessert, alone, topped with cream or a simple mint syrup.
Any more ideas? leave them in the comments below!
Personally, I'm a radish Fiend so I cant wait to eat them raw, in a salad, or like they used to do it in the old country, dipped in a salt cellar. Braising them in butter is also a great way to mellow them out.
If you've never had the chanceto roast peppers, this week is your chance to go for it! just place them directly over the grates of a burner and rotate them with tongs every once in a while until the skin turns 90% black. Let them cool, and then use a paring knife to scrape the skin off leaving nice soft peppers than can be used in hundreds of ways. I put them in quinoa to make a nice salad, or simmer them in tomato sauce for a flavorful pasta sauce.
Finally, while peaches are great on their own, I've been halving them brushing them with a bit of honey, and then putting them on a very hot grill for just a minute until there are grill marks. This adds a really nice smokiness and makes for a wonderful dessert, alone, topped with cream or a simple mint syrup.
Any more ideas? leave them in the comments below!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Game Plan for Week 10
I am headed out of town tonight, and I have been giving a lot of thought to making sure that all of those amazing fruits and vegetables get used or preserved, and not wasted!
My kids were amazed to see that huge melon this morning, and we cut right into it for breakfast. I don't think it will last too long!
As much as I would love to just steam those ears of corn and eat them right off the cob, I don't want to leave them until next week when I'm back, so I'm going to cut the kernels off the cob and freeze them. Then I can throw them into polenta, corn and bean salads, chili, soup, etc.
I had a delicious sandwich this week that uses two things from Vicki, the arugula and the peppers. Roast the peppers (on a grill, under the broiler, or over the flame on your stove) and remove the skin and seeds. On a baguette or other crusty bread, layer the peppers, arugula and goat cheese (Trader Joe's has a delicious herbed goat cheese that is OU certified). Simple and easy. I also roasted and sliced some marinated portabello mushrooms and put those on too - it was a big hit with the friends I served it to.
I think the cauliflower and onion will be just fine until I get back on Sunday... what will you be doing with your box?
My kids were amazed to see that huge melon this morning, and we cut right into it for breakfast. I don't think it will last too long!
As much as I would love to just steam those ears of corn and eat them right off the cob, I don't want to leave them until next week when I'm back, so I'm going to cut the kernels off the cob and freeze them. Then I can throw them into polenta, corn and bean salads, chili, soup, etc.
I had a delicious sandwich this week that uses two things from Vicki, the arugula and the peppers. Roast the peppers (on a grill, under the broiler, or over the flame on your stove) and remove the skin and seeds. On a baguette or other crusty bread, layer the peppers, arugula and goat cheese (Trader Joe's has a delicious herbed goat cheese that is OU certified). Simple and easy. I also roasted and sliced some marinated portabello mushrooms and put those on too - it was a big hit with the friends I served it to.
I think the cauliflower and onion will be just fine until I get back on Sunday... what will you be doing with your box?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Summer CSA - Week 10
I am making up missing eggs this week, but from now on please take eggs only on the weeks when you are due eggs.
Whew! Monday was one of those days when it seems like the work is greater than the worker - namely me. I am sitting at the computer, flithy dirty, sweaty - and probably a bit fragrant - writing you a note. Eeeek!. It is time to begin the main onion harvest. The key is to let the onion tops drop, dry out and then pull them out of the field before the August rains hit. I do not have an onion harvester, but we do have five acres of onion. That means we go out with the tractor and three to four people. The tractor carries a pallet behind it. One guy alternately drives and gathers onions. Two people crawl down the field on hands and knees pulling onions and tossing them into the wheel row. Then the extra guy and the driver play "catch" with onions. We plant three rows at 15 inch spacing, that run 500 feet each. So that is 1500 feet of onion per set. I am one of the crawlers. The guys rotate who drives, digs, pitches and catches. The onions were beautiful and I loved watching the pallets stack high. The weight of one pallet is about 850 pounds and it takes two pallets to handle one set. That is a mucho big load of onions.
Now, do you wonder why I am one of the crawlers? It is Mr Big Bad Bull Snake. The guys decided I should have a fifty-fifty chance of encountering him. But, guess what? No Mr Bull Snake when I am around. Go figure! I am the one who wants to see him and he is always missing when I harvest onion.
Actually, this job is tons of fun. Can you picture three men playing catch with onion all day long? There are high flies, ground balls, fouls, right in the strike zone and sometimes line drives right into a zone no one wants to mention. Talk about hot, sweaty, and tons of fun. When you use our onions, know they were harvested with great joy.
Please note when ordering onions, we are transitioning from fresh to "skin on." The transition takes a few weeks. During that period of time we cannot wash down the onions or it will ruin the skin.
Your box
Cauliflower
Sweet corn
Cantaloupe - at long last
Cucumber
Yellow bell pepper
Purple bell pepper
Green Bell pepper
Alisa Craig sweet Spanish onion
Arugula
Whew! Monday was one of those days when it seems like the work is greater than the worker - namely me. I am sitting at the computer, flithy dirty, sweaty - and probably a bit fragrant - writing you a note. Eeeek!. It is time to begin the main onion harvest. The key is to let the onion tops drop, dry out and then pull them out of the field before the August rains hit. I do not have an onion harvester, but we do have five acres of onion. That means we go out with the tractor and three to four people. The tractor carries a pallet behind it. One guy alternately drives and gathers onions. Two people crawl down the field on hands and knees pulling onions and tossing them into the wheel row. Then the extra guy and the driver play "catch" with onions. We plant three rows at 15 inch spacing, that run 500 feet each. So that is 1500 feet of onion per set. I am one of the crawlers. The guys rotate who drives, digs, pitches and catches. The onions were beautiful and I loved watching the pallets stack high. The weight of one pallet is about 850 pounds and it takes two pallets to handle one set. That is a mucho big load of onions.
Now, do you wonder why I am one of the crawlers? It is Mr Big Bad Bull Snake. The guys decided I should have a fifty-fifty chance of encountering him. But, guess what? No Mr Bull Snake when I am around. Go figure! I am the one who wants to see him and he is always missing when I harvest onion.
Actually, this job is tons of fun. Can you picture three men playing catch with onion all day long? There are high flies, ground balls, fouls, right in the strike zone and sometimes line drives right into a zone no one wants to mention. Talk about hot, sweaty, and tons of fun. When you use our onions, know they were harvested with great joy.
Please note when ordering onions, we are transitioning from fresh to "skin on." The transition takes a few weeks. During that period of time we cannot wash down the onions or it will ruin the skin.
Your box
Cauliflower
Sweet corn
Cantaloupe - at long last
Cucumber
Yellow bell pepper
Purple bell pepper
Green Bell pepper
Alisa Craig sweet Spanish onion
Arugula
Food Justice and Your CSA – a Starting Point
Suzanne Bring, Development Director of Jewish Community Action
In about 1992, I first purchased a share in a local farm. I admit that it had little to do with what the farm offered (organic, local, reduced carbon footprint, &c.) and everything to do with the bare facts of my grad student-y fridge—a half-consumed bottle of wine, a jar of Dijon mustard—you get the picture.
My farm share eliminated the need to grocery shop and plan meals. If there were beets, I boiled them and dressed them with Dijon. Kale was folded into bean soup and accompanied by a glass of that wine. Kohlrabi, however, I always surreptitiously slipped into someone else’s share.
Years later, I’m still a participant in a CSA, now with Easy Bean Farm, owned by Malena Sandeen and Michael Jacobs. Easy Bean has expanded its reach through the St. Paul JCC and Tuv Ha’aretz and is Minnesota’s first Jewish-owned, organic farm.
No longer do I see my farm share merely as a personal convenience. My access to fresh, delicious, nutritious food is part of something far greater. I, after all, could choose from among dozens of CSA offerings in the Twin Cities, and can shop at major grocery stores, farmers’ markets, co-ops, and boutique fooderies.
Not so for some of my neighbors in my inner-city community. They are hindered by lack of transportation, two- and three-job lives, little cash, inability to obtain government food benefits, even location. Walking distance from my house are several tiny stores in which junk food and cigarettes occupy the best real estate and where the very modest array of fresh vegetables and fruit are hidden, expensive, and unappealing. My CSA isn’t really an option for many of my neighbors; after all, it cost more than $300 for a half share, and even though Malena and Michael will accept payment in installments, it’s still not doable for so many.
Together, we can change the problem of “food deserts” that affects so many urban, lower-income neighborhoods. Here is what you and the other members of your CSA, congregation, or community can do:
· Some Hazon CSAs already do this, but if you don’t already, consider organizing your fellow CSA members to purchase extra shares for donation to a local food shelf or shelter. Make sure, however, that you work closely with the intended recipient organizations, to learn what they need.
· Ask your farmer if you can enclose action alerts with the members’ veggie deliveries. Action alerts are an entry point to food justice advocacy, and can encourage CSA shareholders to advocate for a better Farm Bill, for expansion of food stamp benefits, for extension of EBT (debit card for food stamps) use at farmers’ markets, and many other local, national, or even international policy shifts.
· Convene a house party (or a series of them) among members of your CSA, one in which all can share recipes and sample dishes—but also discuss what injustices people really find troubling. Use these meetings as the starting place for building a local campaign for change: Does change involve expanding farmers’ markets into lower-income neighborhoods? Making sure that local banks are lending in under-resourced areas? Working with city and state lawmakers to prevent foreclosure, homelessness, and destitution?
· Support Magen Tzedek, which will encourage excellence in kosher food production, by improving worker safety and training, wages and benefits, treatment of animals, environmental impact, and corporate transparency. Jewish Community Action is undertaking the Twin Cities pilot of this national initiative, but you can be part of its expansion nationwide.
Suzanne has been at Jewish Community Action since 2002, after having worked as a development consultant to a variety of Twin Cities nonprofits. She also attained doctoral candidacy and taught courses in English literature at the University of Minnesota, focusing her research on nineteenth-century Anglo Jewry. Suzanne is a past board member of Beth Jacob Congregation (Conservative) and a current board member of Southside Family Nurturing Center. Suzanne welcomes your comments at suzaane@jewishcommunityaction.org.
In about 1992, I first purchased a share in a local farm. I admit that it had little to do with what the farm offered (organic, local, reduced carbon footprint, &c.) and everything to do with the bare facts of my grad student-y fridge—a half-consumed bottle of wine, a jar of Dijon mustard—you get the picture.
My farm share eliminated the need to grocery shop and plan meals. If there were beets, I boiled them and dressed them with Dijon. Kale was folded into bean soup and accompanied by a glass of that wine. Kohlrabi, however, I always surreptitiously slipped into someone else’s share.
Years later, I’m still a participant in a CSA, now with Easy Bean Farm, owned by Malena Sandeen and Michael Jacobs. Easy Bean has expanded its reach through the St. Paul JCC and Tuv Ha’aretz and is Minnesota’s first Jewish-owned, organic farm.
No longer do I see my farm share merely as a personal convenience. My access to fresh, delicious, nutritious food is part of something far greater. I, after all, could choose from among dozens of CSA offerings in the Twin Cities, and can shop at major grocery stores, farmers’ markets, co-ops, and boutique fooderies.
Not so for some of my neighbors in my inner-city community. They are hindered by lack of transportation, two- and three-job lives, little cash, inability to obtain government food benefits, even location. Walking distance from my house are several tiny stores in which junk food and cigarettes occupy the best real estate and where the very modest array of fresh vegetables and fruit are hidden, expensive, and unappealing. My CSA isn’t really an option for many of my neighbors; after all, it cost more than $300 for a half share, and even though Malena and Michael will accept payment in installments, it’s still not doable for so many.
Together, we can change the problem of “food deserts” that affects so many urban, lower-income neighborhoods. Here is what you and the other members of your CSA, congregation, or community can do:
· Some Hazon CSAs already do this, but if you don’t already, consider organizing your fellow CSA members to purchase extra shares for donation to a local food shelf or shelter. Make sure, however, that you work closely with the intended recipient organizations, to learn what they need.
· Ask your farmer if you can enclose action alerts with the members’ veggie deliveries. Action alerts are an entry point to food justice advocacy, and can encourage CSA shareholders to advocate for a better Farm Bill, for expansion of food stamp benefits, for extension of EBT (debit card for food stamps) use at farmers’ markets, and many other local, national, or even international policy shifts.
· Convene a house party (or a series of them) among members of your CSA, one in which all can share recipes and sample dishes—but also discuss what injustices people really find troubling. Use these meetings as the starting place for building a local campaign for change: Does change involve expanding farmers’ markets into lower-income neighborhoods? Making sure that local banks are lending in under-resourced areas? Working with city and state lawmakers to prevent foreclosure, homelessness, and destitution?
· Support Magen Tzedek, which will encourage excellence in kosher food production, by improving worker safety and training, wages and benefits, treatment of animals, environmental impact, and corporate transparency. Jewish Community Action is undertaking the Twin Cities pilot of this national initiative, but you can be part of its expansion nationwide.
Suzanne has been at Jewish Community Action since 2002, after having worked as a development consultant to a variety of Twin Cities nonprofits. She also attained doctoral candidacy and taught courses in English literature at the University of Minnesota, focusing her research on nineteenth-century Anglo Jewry. Suzanne is a past board member of Beth Jacob Congregation (Conservative) and a current board member of Southside Family Nurturing Center. Suzanne welcomes your comments at suzaane@jewishcommunityaction.org.
“I’m a grass farmer” and Parashat Ekev
Gary A. Rendsburg
This week’s parasha (portion of the Torah reading) includes several well-known passages, which indicate ancient Israel’s remarkable awareness of its natural surroundings in the land of Canaan and beyond. Among these passages is Deuteronomy 8:8, with the famous list of the seven species (wheat, barley, vines [i.e., grapes], figs, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey [extracted from dates]), and which is preceded by the verse describing Canaan as “a “good land, a land of wadis of water, springs and deeps, coming forth in the valley and in the mountain” (v. 7).
We also read the following description of the land in Deuteronomy 11:10-11, with a contrast to the physical environment of Egypt: “For the land into which you are coming to inherit it, it is not like the land of Egypt from which you came forth; where you must sow your seed and water with your foot like a vegetable garden. And the land that you are entering to inherit it, it is a land of mountains and valleys; from the rain of heaven you shall drink water. A land that YHWH your God cares for; always the eyes of YHWH are on it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.” Now, from any objective standard, one would assume that Egypt, with the constant flow of the Nile River, providing for plentiful water throughout the land, would be a more desirable place for agricultural productivity. But the biblical author turns this notion on its head, because he/she realizes that the irrigation system required to bring the waters of the Nile to the sown fields takes considerable labor – unlike the land of Canaan, where the rainfall is supplied directly by God, without the involvement of human toil.
Finally, a few verses later, we read: “And I will give the rain (to) your land in its season, former-rain and latter-rain; and you shall collect your grain, and your new-wine, and your fine-oil. And I will give you grass in your field for your cattle; and you shall eat and you shall be satiated” (Deuteronomy 11:14-15). At first glance, it would appear that the latter verse omits a step (or two or three) in the food chain: God states that he will give grass in the field for the cattle, and as a result thereof we humans will eat. But how do we get from the cattle eating the grass to our eating our own food?
The answer is clear to anyone who has ever farmed in a traditional manner, that is, polyculture farming, which naturally is how all farming occurred in antiquity. It all starts with the grass, as everyone who has read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) readily will understand. I refer especially to Pollan’s description of Joel Salatin, the chief operator of Polyface Farms in Virginia: “But if you ask Joel Salatin what he does for a living (Is he foremost a cattle rancher? A chicken farmer?), he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m a grass farmer.’”
Salatin comprehends the point about grass well, but he clearly is not the first to recognize the importance of grass in the food chain. The ancient author of Deuteronomy, three thousand years ago, already saw the connection between the grass in the field and the food on our tables – if he/she omitted several steps along the way, it is because presumably everyone in ancient Israel, where so many people engaged in farming (of the local, organic, pastured, grass-fed kind), would have understood the connection between the two parts of the biblical verse.
Gary A. Rendsburg holds the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair of Jewish History and serves as Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
This week’s parasha (portion of the Torah reading) includes several well-known passages, which indicate ancient Israel’s remarkable awareness of its natural surroundings in the land of Canaan and beyond. Among these passages is Deuteronomy 8:8, with the famous list of the seven species (wheat, barley, vines [i.e., grapes], figs, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey [extracted from dates]), and which is preceded by the verse describing Canaan as “a “good land, a land of wadis of water, springs and deeps, coming forth in the valley and in the mountain” (v. 7).
We also read the following description of the land in Deuteronomy 11:10-11, with a contrast to the physical environment of Egypt: “For the land into which you are coming to inherit it, it is not like the land of Egypt from which you came forth; where you must sow your seed and water with your foot like a vegetable garden. And the land that you are entering to inherit it, it is a land of mountains and valleys; from the rain of heaven you shall drink water. A land that YHWH your God cares for; always the eyes of YHWH are on it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.” Now, from any objective standard, one would assume that Egypt, with the constant flow of the Nile River, providing for plentiful water throughout the land, would be a more desirable place for agricultural productivity. But the biblical author turns this notion on its head, because he/she realizes that the irrigation system required to bring the waters of the Nile to the sown fields takes considerable labor – unlike the land of Canaan, where the rainfall is supplied directly by God, without the involvement of human toil.
Finally, a few verses later, we read: “And I will give the rain (to) your land in its season, former-rain and latter-rain; and you shall collect your grain, and your new-wine, and your fine-oil. And I will give you grass in your field for your cattle; and you shall eat and you shall be satiated” (Deuteronomy 11:14-15). At first glance, it would appear that the latter verse omits a step (or two or three) in the food chain: God states that he will give grass in the field for the cattle, and as a result thereof we humans will eat. But how do we get from the cattle eating the grass to our eating our own food?
The answer is clear to anyone who has ever farmed in a traditional manner, that is, polyculture farming, which naturally is how all farming occurred in antiquity. It all starts with the grass, as everyone who has read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) readily will understand. I refer especially to Pollan’s description of Joel Salatin, the chief operator of Polyface Farms in Virginia: “But if you ask Joel Salatin what he does for a living (Is he foremost a cattle rancher? A chicken farmer?), he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m a grass farmer.’”
Salatin comprehends the point about grass well, but he clearly is not the first to recognize the importance of grass in the food chain. The ancient author of Deuteronomy, three thousand years ago, already saw the connection between the grass in the field and the food on our tables – if he/she omitted several steps along the way, it is because presumably everyone in ancient Israel, where so many people engaged in farming (of the local, organic, pastured, grass-fed kind), would have understood the connection between the two parts of the biblical verse.
Gary A. Rendsburg holds the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair of Jewish History and serves as Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Hazon Food Conference 2009!
Join us in 2009!
December 24th, 3 pm – 27th, 1 pm
Asilomar Conference and Retreat Center
On the Monterey Coast, CA
December 24th, 3 pm – 27th, 1 pm
Asilomar Conference and Retreat Center
On the Monterey Coast, CA
You are warmly invited to join us at the 4th annual Hazon Food Conference on December 24 – 27, 2009 at Asilomar Conference & Retreat Center on the Monterey Coast! We look forward to four days together as a community of Jewish foodies exploring the intersection between ancient Jewish traditions and contemporary food conversations.
The Hazon Food Conference will once again bring together foodies, educators, rabbis, farmers, nutritionists, chefs, activists, students, food writers, and families who share a passion for learning about and celebrating food. Join us for inspiring lectures and discussions, hands-on cooking sessions, family-family activities, an inclusive Shabbat celebration, and delicious, consciously prepared food. You can learn more on Hazon's website www.hazon.org/foodconference. Information will also be available at pick-ups!
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