Locavores delight

Boxes awaiting pick up

This week when  I went to my Green Cay CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to pick up our vegetables, I took along my camera. Each member of the CSA who picks-up (as opposed to gets delivery) finds a labeled box on the table with their share for the week. The boxes are kept on tables under a canopy to help keep them fresh. 

The crop just beginning to grow looks like corn to me and I am getting excited by the thought of some really fresh corn. Although we have had delicious corn from The Boys Market,  I am sure that corn picked in the morning and driven 2 miles to my house and cooked for dinner will be the best we have had since we left Central New York. My house would not really be 2 miles from the pick up spot, if we could cross the canal and travel in a straight line through the fields. My house is just over the canal behind the silo in the back of the photo.

Once again, the heirloom cherry tomatoes were outstanding. We also received regular tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli, romaine, carrots, and bell peppers. J has discovered how good fresh raw vegetables taste with hummus, so the veggies disappear from the refrigerator. Although the weather has slowed the output a bit for this time of the year, we are still getting more than enough vegetables to last us until the next box arrives. In fact, there is the usual surplus of zucchini. Did you ever hear of a farm that didn't have lots of zucchini? I think I will have to make and freeze more zucchini muffins to be sure that I don't waste the food.

Green Cay Open House

On Valentine's Day there was an open house at the CSA we belong to. The farm is about a mile from our house by car and much closer if we could walk and there wasn't a canal between us. That is really really local. It was a beautiful sunny day, cool, of course, because that is the kind of winter we are having here in Florida.

We had signed up for the 11 AM tour, so we arrived a little early to deliver our contribution to the potluck lunch and be sure that we could get to the tour starting point in time. We were warmly greeted by the farmer, Nancy and her husband. The event was very well organized and went perfectly. With the tour beginning at 11 and ending at about noon.

We walked to the fields and up and down rows as Nancy explained some of the challenges of growing produce: insects, rabbits, the weather. They now have some electric fencing to try to keep the rabbits from eating all of the green beans. I like it that they use organic methods whenever possible. I also liked it that we had the opportunity to pick cherry tomatoes (lots of cherry tomatoes) and some greens as well.

It was fun to meet other members of the CSA and to talk about what they cook with the fabulous vegetables we are getting in our boxes. After a tasty lunch, we said good bye and drove 3 minutes back home.

Green Cay Heirloom Tomatoes

The cold weather in Florida has caused considerable damage to agricultural crops, but the CSA I belong to has not had extensive loss of vegetables in the fields. I had been worried about it, of course, because as a member of a CSA,  I have made a commitment to the farm and that makes it so much more real. Remember hearing about the citrus crops that might be lost because of the freeze? If you  are like me, you thought, "Oh, that's too bad." and went right back to what you had been doing.

I am not saying that my concern about the loss is anywhere near the concern of the farmer whose money, sweat and worries are all wrapped up in the farm. It is just that now that I have a share in a farm, losing the crop would mean that people who have entered my life are having a bad time and I would not have the wonderful heirloom tomatoes you see in the photo.

Today was my first day to pick up my box in quite a while because of the holiday season and I was thrilled to return home with a box overloaded with fresh vegetables grown 1 mile from my house.  In addition to the cherry tomatoes and arugula in the photo, I received red cabbage, kale, summer squash, green beans, French breakfast radishes, yellow and orange carrots, and fennel.

The summer squash will become muffins. The red cabbage is going to be a coleslaw with rice wine vinegar dressing, and the green beans my favorite vegetable dish, and the kale will be perfect in beans and greens.

It may be cold in Florida, but we still can enjoy local vegetables in January.

Soba Noodles with gingered bok choy

The bok choy from my CSA has inspired me to adapt a recipe I found for bok choy over soba noodles. A big fan of these Japanese buckwheat noodles,  I can never seem to get enough of them. For two days in a row, I have made this dish for my lunch. But the recipe still isn't quite right, so I have to keep trying before I have a recipe I  want to share.

If you happen to have Rip Esseltyn's "Engine2 Diet: the Texas Firefighter's 28-day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds," you will find a recipe in that book. I prefer not to have the flavors of the brown rice vinegar and mirin Rip uses in that recipe. However, that is such a matter of personal taste that you may find Rip's recipe perfect for you just the way he wrote it.

Rip was one of the great presenters at the Healthy Lifestyle Expo I attended last month in Woodland Hills, California. It was so worthwhile and inspirational that I hope to attend again in 2010.

Food memories of Schav

Anna’s Schav

For years my husband has talked about his memories of schav, a cold Russian soup his mother made for summer time meals when he was growing up. She also made Borscht, which he liked but not as much as he liked her schav. Neither of those soups were in my cooking repertoire and concerned that no soup I made could make would live up to the soup of his memory, I never tried. Until yesterday when I received a large bunch of Swiss Chard from my CSA.

I researched schav recipes in my cookbook collection and on the web. I interviewed Jerry about what he remembered of the soup. I knew the recipe I ended up with would not include the traditional sour cream or the optional eggs and milk. I thought I could create a close approximation to the remembered soup using the chard instead of the more traditional sorrel. And it worked. I was surprised and pleased that my soup received praise for being so much like Anna’s soup of decades ago.

Anna cooked without recipes, carrying her ideas entirely in her head. The family says that wherever Anna was became the family gathering place. Although I never had the opportunity to meet her, I think it would please her to have others enjoying her schav.

Schav

4 cups water
½ teaspoon dried dill
5 scallions, 2 chopped for cooking, 3 chopped for garnish
1 pound Swiss Chard
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 small cucumber, chopped for garnish
3 radishes, chopped for garnish

Wash the chard well by partially filling the sink with water, gently swishing the chard around and then lifting the chard from the water. Repeat 2 more times. This method leaves the sand and dirt behind. Remove the tough stems and chop the leaves into pieces about one-inch square.

In a soup pot, bring the water to a boil and add the chard, dill, 2 of the chopped scallions and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the chard and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the greens are very soft, but still holding together well.

Remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper.

Chill and serve in bowls with the chopped cucumber, radishes, and scallions.

Serves 3-4

Veggies4U (make that for me!)

The area just north of where I live is called Boynton Beach and in Boynton Beach there is a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Community Services describes a CSA as

"a partnership between farmers and consumers. In conventional agriculture, the farmer bears all the risk of production, but CSA allows farmers to share farming’s risks—and its rewards—with consumers. CSA revolves around a community of people who pledge their financial support to a farm. At the beginning of the growing season, members pay a fee to cover the cost of the farm’s operations and the farmer’s salary. In return, each member receives a weekly share of the farm’s bounty—typically a box of fresh vegetables and herbs, though the box might also include fruit, honey, eggs, and even meat. For farmers, CSA offers a fair, steady source of income—and a way to revitalize the small family farm. Consumers, on the other hand, get fresh, great-tasting produce grown in a sustainable manner by someone they know and trust."

It lists only 10 CSA's in all of Florida, so I am really lucky to have one nearby. Last year I applied to become a member of Green Cay Produce/Farming Systems Research Inc., the CSA in Boynton Beach. There are more people who want to be members than the Farm can accomodate, however, so I was placed on a waitlist and never did get a chance to join. This year, I was watching for the announcement that applications for membership were being accepted and this year, I was in time. Hurray! I am now a member of a CSA.

I will receive a box of just harvested vegetables on an established schedule and I opted to pick up at the Farm myself rather than have the box delivered to my home. I received driving directions from the Farm and was astonished at the location. The Farm nearly adjoins the gated community I live in. My produce is going to have an incredibly low number of miles to travel from growing field to my kitchen!

So I will receive really fresh produce grown with minimal chemicals (this is Florida!) and I will be supporting a local farm. When my farmer son starts a CSA in upstate New York, I hope there will be lots of people like me who sign up to support him.

Local Fruit

Green Chick's comment on my Farmers' Market post got me started researching what foods are available right now in Florida. I found the Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida's website and their fruits for the month for July and August: longan and mamey sapote. The longan is called the little brother of the lychee and I have actually enjoyed both the longan and the lychee with dear friends in Hilo, Hawaii. And I served canned lychees with kiwi in a crystallized ginger syrup as dessert (photo above) for the Indian Feast. I am not familiar with the mamey sapote, but that will be part of my research next. The Tropical Fruit Growers also feature dragon fruit which I recently saw at Whole Foods along with fresh lychees. Our friends in Hilo also took us to a farmers' market to sample the dragon fruit, which I have to admit I didn't especially care for.
The nearest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is Green Cay Produce, Farming Systems Research in Boynton Beach. On their website, they have charts for the monthly availability of their produce. Of course, they operate only the months of October through May, so we are not able to take advantage of that source of local produce during the summer months.

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has a chart of produce availability which can be downloaded as a PDF. In July, the crops listed are avocados, cantalope, green beans, green peppers, mangoes, and watermelon. I am sure that those items will soon be appearing at Publix and The Boys Market if they are not already there.

Today's Sun-Sentinel Food Section Vegetarian Today column by Steve Petusevsky is "Some Delectable Mango Recipes," written because people are bringing him so many fresh mangoes from trees growing in yards. He says he welcomes them all and gives advice about using the bounty both now and frozen for later use. That appears to be the secret to eating local: buy it when you see it and preserve it. Be sure to see the mango chutney recipe in the Indian Feast post which includes a link for those who do not know the easy way to cut a mango into pieces.

My favorite salad is perfect for eating local this time of year in Florida. The salad consists of romaine, field greens, spinach, red onion rings, sliced avocados, sliced mangoes and passion fruit vinaigrette dressing.

Alanna Kellogg, author of the blog Veggie Venture, encourages all of us to seek out fresh produce from our hometown farmers markets. She commissioned an icon to help showcase fresh vegetables and fruits and invites fellow bloggers to adopt the icon, too. So you will see the icon here in my posts and in other places that feature fresh produce and other farmers market finds.

That is as soon as I can go to a farmers market.

Ever since reading Barbara Kinsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life, I have been wanting to get closer to the source of the food that we eat. But here in Flala land, that happens on a different schedule from the rest of you. Old habits die slowly and after five decades living in Central New York, the arrival of June meant the arrival of fresh produce. Some years we had vegetable gardens, but always we could go to the regional farmers market and to farmers' stands right on their own land. And, of course, Wegmans filled their spectacular produce department with locally grown fruits and vegetables for all of the growing months. I was spoiled and never knew it.

We do have excellent fresh produce here at Whole Foods and at The Boys' Market. We even have a CSA nearby. ( A CSA is community supported agriculture. Basically that is a farm supported by individual contracts with members of the local community to purchase produce on a pre-established basis for the duration of the growing season.) We do have farmers markets in Delray Beach and in Boca Raton that are close enough for me to shop there.

What we don't have is a growing season that puts produce in the CSA or the farmers markets now. The CSA begins supplying produce in October and the farmers' markets start up again in October. So if you live in Miami or Orlando or Syracuse and can go to the local farmers market, go there and buy the freshest, local produce in season that you can find. Even though most of the fruits and vegetables do not say organic, produce grown on smaller, local farms likely contain fewer pesticides than the ones that have been trucked a few thousand miles to get to you. And then take your treasures home and cook them with the least effort you can manage after you have washed it. Eat it raw, steam it, or quickly boil it. Leave out the butter, cream, and oil and you will be leaving out the cholesterol and fat calories. Serve a plate of them with a fresh loaf of bread and you will have a fat-free vegan meal. And then enjoy it because you are really lucky to have it.

ps If you have a vegetable that you don't know how to prepare, post a comment and I will find at least one recipe for you.