Tag Archives: food

these are the people in my neighborhood

Posted on by
Reply

I bought my husband a book recently, and didn’t think much about it at the time. An old college friend of his had written it, and I was excited to support Matt’s endeavors and surprise my husband at the same time. And, of course, it didn’t hurt that the old friend is a chef, and the book he’d written was a cookbook (and a good-looking one at that). After Super Bowl Sunday (and making Matt’s great wings and blue cheese sauce), a thought clicked in my head.

20130203_184802

Trying to get back to sourcing my food locally – away from processed food, away from GMOs and frankenfoods, closer to a more local system – automatically linked me in to a local foods community. Part of this has always been obvious to me, I know the ‘know your farmer!’ mantra well. But it didn’t really occur to me how plugged in we have become. Not only do we buy from farmers at local markets (both seasonal and year-round ones), we frequent locally-owned restaurants, we buy locally made bread, etc. etc. etc. Now we also plug into cookbooks and recipes written by people we know. So my kids think it’s normal to talk to the person who owns the restaurant, to get a hug from the coffee shop owner, to know the guy on the tv teaching the host how to cook, to have met the chickens who laid the eggs we’re eating. They’re learning to expect a certain standard of food, both in quality and preparation, at home and when we go out.

The European horse meat scandal drove this home to me – especially since so many responses to it have been ‘what’s the big deal?’ Either people are so used to not knowing what’s in their food, not used to reading labels, or not caring what they ingest, that they don’t seem to think it’s a problem that what is labeled at beef may not actually be beef. Even if you don’t care about whether or not you eat horse meat (in many places it’s culturally acceptable to do so), why don’t you care when you’re being lied to? Doesn’t it bother you that the companies that feed you are banking on your apathy for their profits?

Have you considered where all your food comes from? Not just the local farmers, but the boxes of mac and cheese on your shelf, the flash frozen reconstituted whatever it is on your plate from the chain restaurant you took your family to tonight? We’re far from perfect with our food management, but good food is a priority of ours. I don’t miss the crap, and I cherish the real connections we’ve made. The wings aren’t bad, either.

holy peas, batman!

Posted on by
2

I’ve gotten over three pounds of snap and snow peas out of my garden in the past three weeks. My trellises are groaning. I’m in heaven. Peas and beans were by far my favorite veggies to snitch from the garden when I was a kid. My kids, not so much. More for me! I’ve been snitching for days, and feeling quite self-righteous when I do, thankyouverymuch.

(Once I make it to the grocery store to price peas I’ll do the math.)

20120607-001231.jpg

Yes, I know that’s only three ounces. I’ve picked a lot more since then.

20120607-001901.jpg

Good stuff from the garden, on its way to a pasta salad for a foodie party. Spinach, red onion, peas, garlic scapes, thyme, oregano, and shiitake mushrooms.

20120607-001914.jpg

Thanks, domestic goddess turned convicted felon, for giving me the idea to blanch the peas in with the noodles right before they finished cooking.

20120607-001923.jpg

The finished product. Added some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and stinky cheese, and I was good to go.

Note: the only thing I bought specifically for this spring salad was the pasta. I had everything else (yes, even the stinky cheese) in my kitchen, or I had plucked it from the garden. This, my friends, is one of the reasons why I grow things.

hello, perennials

Posted on by
Reply

I know I’m slacking in the garden update department – yell at my life for getting in the way. Seriously, do it, I need things to calm down a little. Thanks.

I took a series of photos last month of all the things that were cropping up in my garden, and I just realized that most of them (except for the peas, overachievers that they are) are plants that are perennials or that were planted last fall. For me, they are the gifts that keep on giving – when you’re slogging through seed starting, or prepping beds, or attacking weeds that seem to grow faster than anything you’ve planted, it’s so encouraging to look over and see something growing that doesn’t need your help (or at least, doesn’t need your help anymore). I hold onto a lot of baggage in my life, but for some reason, I forget how hard it was to plant those 80 onions in December when I couldn’t feel my fingers. I just see those happy green shoots waving at me and can’t wait to yank one up and see how big the onion is. Though I am being good and waiting for a while longer.

20120515-134810.jpg
Strawberries hanging out with the daffodil leaves and ivy in the front yard.

20120515-134900.jpg
Carrots I didn’t realize were there last year – tops are still good for stock or smoothies.

20120515-134919.jpg
Elephant garlic with yellow onions behind.

20120515-135128.jpg
Thyme with some male pattern baldness – it’s filled out since then.

20120515-135138.jpg
Oregano came back with a vengeance.

20120515-135149.jpg
Sage reaching for the sky (ignore the weeds in the foreground).

20120515-135201.jpg
Asparagus! I cannot tell you how stupidly excited I was to see this come back.

hanging with the kiddos

Posted on by
Reply

Mother’s Day is the one day a year where I can reasonably expect to get help in the yard from my family without (too much) complaint. This year I plotted to get the most effective use of my eight year old’s time before he declared himself ‘boo-oooored,’ though the rain thwarted some of my plans. This got me thinking about what’s worked in the past for keeping my stubborn mules interested in food:

  • Get your kids involved in planting. The best way I’ve found (so far) to get my kids to try to eat something is to enlist their help in planting seeds and managing the plants. Even if they out and out refuse to eat a pea or tomato from the store, they’ll snitch straight off a plant.
  • Look for recipes that will keep their interest. One year, the Easter bunny brought my picky eater a kid’s cookbook, and we picked a recipe from the book for our low-key meal (I’ll bet you’ve never had chili cheese dogs for a religious holiday). He helped make the meal, we talked about from-scratch cooking vs. processed, and he’s been more involved in meal planning ever since. We’re also in love with ‘Chicks and Salsa‘ by Aaron Reynolds, a book that’s part picture book and part recipe. Both of my kids enjoy reading the silly story about the escapades of farm animals inspired by cooking shows, and the Hog Wild Nachos recipe (what the farm animals create over the course of the story) is GOOD. Like, it’s what we serve on Super Bowl Sunday good.
  • Throw in some creativity. I recently schlepped the kids to the Union Project, a local community space with a ceramics studio in the basement, for a Garden Marker Party. It took the kids a while to warm up to the process, but in addition to my traditional peas and carrots signs, we also have princesses guarding the weeds and a warning against alien ‘abducshun.’
The overarching way I’ve found to get and keep my kids involved in the garden is to give them ownership. That’s *their* plant, *their* recipe, *their* artwork. Hey, whatever gets them sticking around long enough to help with the weeding is fine by me.

some catching up to do.

Posted on by
3

OK, ladies and germs, where exactly did February go? I’m still trying to get through January. It doesn’t help that we’ve had almost no winter to speak of. Today my third grader walked home from the bus stop in shirt sleeves – two years ago this week, we had three feet of snow.

At any rate, time has gotten away from me and I haven’t mentioned two new posts of mine over at the Digging Deep Campaign. So if you have some sugar monsters living in your house, or if you need to know more about the types of urban ag floating around our fair city, check it out.

NOW – onto new business:

I have to admit, all the fantastic posters from the Library of Congress archives are a major reason why I’m doing this challenge.

Today in Victory Garden Challenge-land, I now understand why CSAs have startup costs. Also, why fruit is so freaking expensive. Let me elaborate.

I’ve drafted a sidekick to this challenge – a friend who doesn’t have a lot of growing space but is willing to put some sweat equity into my yard to help produce some, well, produce. So we met for coffee, we kvetched about men, we fondled some seed catalogs, and we made a list of all the veg we wanted to grow this year. Some of which I have tried before, some I have not. We made a long list. A daunting list. But, a list that is probably doable, especially if I draft my family as minions. Then I ordered a big chunk of seeds from that list. And then said to myself, “Oh, Lord, what have I done?”

I bought a lot of seeds.

I also have this crazy idea to grow apple trees into a fence (I am not the first person to have this absolutely mental idea). Dude. Good apple trees are expensive. So I must now figure out how to keep the deer far, far away from my babies.

Drumroll, please….

Yes, I have spent $200 on seeds and apple trees. So far.

I figure if things go crazy and we have more than we possibly could manage I could swing a seedling sale at our local coffee shop. Wish me luck!

victory will be mine!

Posted on by
6

Victory garden posters are my favorite wartime artwork (though all propaganda posters are pretty fascinating). Unlike many posters which scared you into working harder lest America fall to communism or the Axis powers, posters promoting victory gardens seem to have been generally positive. And the simple, direct slogans, bright colors, and streamlined designs speak to me – I have several modern gardening posters influencing the way I compost and can in my kitchen. There’s something oddly compelling about a space age pickle, no?

I did a double-take while perusing my facebook feed recently, seeing this vintage poster pop up on High Mowing Organic Seeds‘ page:

Beautiful, right? Gorgeous colors, vibrant and healthy fruit and veg, throw some ribbon in there for patriotism, we’re good to go. But the slogan… wow. It may have meant supporting the war effort during WWII, or be sure to help the boys fight the commies, or whatever it meant back then, but today?

“Grow your own – only way to be sure there’s no pesticides!”

“Grow your own – be sure your children won’t sprout a second head!”

“Grow your own – be sure your sprouts, melons, and spinach won’t kill you!”*

Times sure have changed.

Speaking of changing times, how about this one?

I certainly don’t get the impression that it’s my patriotic duty to do much more than support the 1% these days. Thriftiness will get you nowhere when you’re defeating the enemy by shopping.

In the interest of getting back to simpler times when corporations didn’t rule the world, I’m going to attempt to quantify how much money one could save by being thrifty and growing your own. Let’s call it the 2012 foodmeonce Victory Garden Challenge.

Here’s my rules so far:

  • Keep track of how much money I spend on my garden this year (plants, seeds, dirt, mulch, etc. I’m still undecided about labor costs at the moment, but I’ll probably factor that in somehow).
  • Keep track of how much stuff comes out of my garden.
  • Figure out how much money each unit (tomato? onion? you get the idea) cost to grow.
  • Compare to equivalent produce in the grocery store or at the farmers’ markets.
  • Update regularly to prove I’m actually keeping track of everything.
I’m sure this will evolve as I go, but it at the very least will keep me organized in garden planning. And accountable to boot. Here’s my costs for the 2012 garden so far:

Onions and garlic are in the ground, lemongrass is happily sprouting roots to beat the band. I’m optimistic that terrorists won’t come near my backyard. Deer, however, are a different story.

—

*Check the FDA food recall site if you don’t believe me.

I may be a holiday card slacker but I still love street food

Posted on by
Reply

I drove to Texas to recover from Christmas.

Well, sort of. Not really. Maybe a little. Hang on, I’ll explain.

Enjoying a gorgeous winter day with Austin street food and a giant Wrigley’s ad. 

Remember that crazy table full of food at Thanksgiving? This one, with four different pies? Yeah, that lovely locavore Thanksgiving was the harbinger of crazy and madness that was the month of December. I have two kids – one who is young enough to fully believe in the magic of Santa, and the other who is on the fence about maintaining a belief in Santa (and who I swear asked for an expensive electronic device so that he could test Santa’s existence because his parents would never get said device for him). Also, Christmas was on a Sunday this year. The combined pressure of managing correspondence with Mr. Claus to ensure maximum rapture on Christmas morning while also NOT having the weekend right before Christmas to run around like a madwoman threw me off completely. Case in point: I had the photos we used for our holiday cards since Halloween, and didn’t get around to ordering said cards until five days before Christmas. And I’ve maybe sent out 10 of the 50+ I need to ship out. I’m totally counting Martin Luther King Day as part of the larger holiday season so no one can say my cards are late.

Craziness aside, we had a lovely Christmas Eve and Day, with fresh chocolate chip cookies made for Santa and a small group of people sharing a much simpler meal. It was perhaps the most stress-free holiday I’ve had since I was a kid.

And then we drove to Texas the next day (well, started to, anyway). Yes, we’re nuts. But we needed to meet our niece, who was her mama and daddy’s slightly belated Christmas present last year, and frankly, I desperately needed a vacation away from my office and my glowering piles of laundry at home.

Thankfully, my in-laws live relatively close to Austin, though we had never straggled over to the state capitol on previous trips to the Lone Star State. Since we tend to lean towards la rive gauche, as does Austin, we’ve wanted to check it out for a while now. Little did we know it is one of the best places in the country for what is, quite possibly, my husband’s and my favorite food type – street food.

We’ve both been suckers for street food at least since college. Pop the Greek first introduced me to tzatziki sauce with his little cart and umbrella, and the Thai roach coach in front of Hillman Library had green curry sauce and bamboo shoots and other culinary wonders never before experienced by this wonder bread-raised suburban white girl. Studying abroad in Europe introduced me to jacket potatoes and crepes and my husband to döner – and we introduced each other to these mobile delicacies on our honeymoon in Ireland. (How a man addicted to Nutella had never had a Nutella/banana crepe is beyond me.) We’ve been known to detour to a taco stand for lunch many times – lime juice dribbling down our chins, enjoying the simple flavors, good quality ingredients, and affordable price that keeps us coming back.

But, man, Austin kicks it up a notch. I had done some research before we left – mainly on sites like Austin Food Carts and Food Trailers Austin – and was, frankly, amazed at the options. Here in urban Appalachia, there are a few carts near the universities, and maybe a small scattering downtown. In Austin, there are literally hundreds. Like, over 1,600 by the end of 2011. Does Pittsburgh even have that many brick and mortar restaurants?

A couple of innovative trucks caught my eye. Sadly, VERTS mobile kebaps (served out of the back of a Smart car) was on winter break when we were there. But Chi’lantro – Korean BBQ/Mexican fusion – looked intriguing. And as you may have already seen, we tracked it down. 

Hummina, hummina, hummina. I may drive to Texas again just for the pork quesadilla with kimchi. The food was fresh, flavorful, spicy, and delicious. My kids even ate things they probably would have pooh-poohed elsewhere, because they got to eat outside out of a truck. Though I couldn’t convince them to put the fried egg on the chicken sandwich.

Hello, lover. The Korean chicken hamburger with spicy fries.

We also struck gold at Kebabalicious, with a fantastic kebab, but Chi’lantro’s food came up first and I couldn’t put it down long enough to grab a picture. Sorry, Kebabalicious, it’s nothing personal. Just didn’t want to get kimchi on the camera.

We topped the afternoon off by wandering through Zilker Park, feeding swans, running like idiots through the grass, watching kayakers and fishermen, and feeling very odd being exposed to so much sunshine in one place. Austin, you and your food trucks charmed the pants off us, and helped us recover from Christmas madness. Now I’m off to read the city’s Mobile Food Establishment Ordinance. Yes, seriously.

–

We found Chi’lantro and Kebabalicious at 2nd and Congress in downtown Austin. We highly recommend paying attention to their website and/or twitter feeds since they, being food trucks and trailers, are mobile and, you know, can actually move.