musings of a practicing momma: Eating local in the pacific northwest...

I took down my other blog because it made me feel too fractured. I didn't know what to post where and I felt too much like an expert trying to educate people or something, which was not what I was going for. Stilted. My choices about what I eat and where it comes from have been evolving for several years now and it makes more sense to me at this time to discuss this within the framework of the rest of my life. So here are several of the links from that page that is no more-

Blogs

Publications

Online Resources

And the posts-

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

a little on grains and flours and salt

Ok, after looking around, although not technically calling around, I found out a little bit about what Bob's Red Mill has to offer. Cafe Mama wrote to them and here is what she came up with. Basically, for flour there is spelt and some wheat local to Oregon and Washington. I have also found local wheat grown in Oregon, some even at the Farmer's Market. I found this little write-up on another blog that has some good stuff about grains. This in particular stuck out at me, as I think Shepherd's Grain is the place at the Farmers Market where I have also bought chick peas and lentils. It is hard to get each of the farmer's names when I am at the market because I go with my two small children and they are much more interested in Hot Lips Pizza...

And then another blog reminded me of a product I have in my own cupboard. Flour from the Fairhaven Cooperative Mill. This is local to the Pacific Northwest, though a bit far for Portlanders, locally speaking, technically. Still, I consider it local at this point.

Also on Cafe Mama, a resource for Washington salt! I consider that to be one of my favorite finds of the day!

Local Flavors

I just picked up a great book from the library, Local Flavors- Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets by Deborah Madison. I have another of her cookbooks, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and have found her to be a great resource and I enjoy her recipes. She gives a lot of information about what goes with which vegetable and makes it easy to ad lib while you cook. Local Flavors has some great market stories from across the country mixed in with the seasonal recipes and has so far been a lot of fun to read.

I plan on trying out this recipe for Cabbage and Potato Gratin with Sage very soon because cabbage is something I have a lot of right now. Cabbages are quite important in northern climates like this one. Although I have to say that I didn't realize just how important they were until this winter with my CSA. I have had a lot of cabbage and could not possibly eat it all myself. (I mean a lot of cabbage!) So I am happy to find another recipe! I also have a ton of sage growing in my backyard that will go nicely here as well. And plenty of potatoes from the CSA and my own garden. They are very sweet. I found out tonight, in case you don't already know this, that the cool soil makes root vegetables sweeter. My carrots are incredibly sweet as well.

Cabbage and Potato Gratin with Sage

1 lb potatoes
1 1/2 pounds savoy or other green cabbage (I am going to throw caution to the wind and use my newest January King Cabbage)
sea salt and pepper
4 TBSP butter
2 TBSP chopped sage
1 garlic clove
1 1/3 cups milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/3 cups flour

This next part I paraphrased and assumes basic cooking skills-
Preheat oven to 350. Butter 8x12 inch gratin dish or otherwise. Peel (if you wish!) potatoes and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Slice cabbage into 1 inch ribbons.

Boil potatoes until tender. Boil cabbage for 5 minutes. Rinse cabbage in cool water and dry off excess water.

Cook garlic and sage in melted butter for 1 minute without browning garlic. Toss with potatoes and garlic. Whisk remaining ingredients together and pour over veggies in pan. Bake for about 50 minutes. Voila!

For me, all but the milk and Parmesan are local. And of course, the salt and pepper- although I would like to find out more about salt.

Eva has eaten up almost all of the peaches I canned last July. For some reason we didn't pick very many this year. We have a ton of berries, though, which is great. I made her an apricot-boysenberry-blueberry crisp tonight which she gobbled up. I used oats in the topping. Not local. Fruits yes, this grain no. Pretty good for a winter snack.

We also had a chicken vegetable soup this week with all of the different roots in the house. There were turnips and carrots and potatoes and rutabagas and celeriac and lots of herbs from my backyard and some I had dried and a surprise that I didn't even know you could eat, some verbena. Turns out it is great for stress and tension and I think we all benefited from that as well as the root vegetables' high vitamin counts. Now that I have become more comfortable with celeriac, I see that you can do so many things with it. The flavor is nice and you can use the tops just like celery. The root itself can be thrown into stir fries and put in soups willy-nilly. I added some to potato and leek soup this week and pureed it all with a hand blender. I am pretty sure you could roast it as well. I will try that next time I roast the rutabagas!

Monday, January 14, 2008

ark of taste usa

What a great resource the Slow Food USA site it. This is the Ark of Taste link for the US and I have it linked to the apples list. I was pleased that I had actually eaten some of these apples and not really surprised that some of them I knew through my grandmother who grew up on a farm in Southern Indiana. I know she spoke about the Winesap, for instance, when we went to the apple orchard when I was growing up. We u-picked Northern Spy and Winter Banana definitely the last couple of years (in addition to some more usual varieties) at Peterson Farm Apple Country out in Hillsboro, Oregon.

I was hoping to find something I could grow right now, or at least this summer. I am thinking about some of the beans or potatoes or maybe the beets or turnips, if I can find the seeds for them! I will check out local harvest first, probably, because I found some great ground cherry seeds through them last year, as well as loofah that I planted too late in the season. Next year!

Jacob's Cattle beans! And look, a place to get seeds locally (within the greater Pacific Northwest!).

Sunday, January 13, 2008

more on seed catalogs

It is kind of distressing to find out that even seed catalogs that purport to be independent (and local!) may in fact be associated anyway with agribusiness giants like Monsanto. Too bad. To me it is like Odwalla being bought by Coca Cola. Or Horizon cows being confined in small quarters. Or so many other slights like this that add up to being entirely certain where to turn next.

Barbara Kingsolver talks about the seed catalogs in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She also talks about companies like Monsanto a good deal. I went out in search of other sources for seeds after reading her information and found this interesting chat thread on Garden Web.

Here is a link to Fedco for seed ordering. I still like Territorial Seeds for some of their local varieties to grow in the Pacific Northwest. Kingsolver also gave me extra pause for thought when considering growing some more heirlooms in my garden. I grew a few last year but am considering more this year. There are a couple of plant sellers at the Portland Farmer's Market who seemed to have several different heirlooms- tomatoes, of course, but also peppers and eggplant (although my eggplant only grew the tiniest little eggplant last year!) and some others I am forgetting.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Territorial Seed Catalog

The day after Christmas I received the spring 2008 Territorial Seed Catalog. A welcome edition after a hectic and fun day. I have been perusing the pages and making lists of seeds and plants ever since. According to The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide, I can start planting in February- Outside! And of course it is fine to start planting seeds to grow seedlings indoors then as well.

What struck me as I was going through the catalog is just how much there is to grow already in February and I was remembering back to last year and just how much food those first seeds generate. Lots of spring greens and radishes and peas and spinach and green onions... Given that we live in a place where most people believe it is too cold to grow food for much of the year, it is always fun to be reminded just how much does grow here and for how long. I think it was in Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades (although I am not positive...one of those gardening books...) that the author pointed out that the Pacific Northwest has a maritime climate, much like England, but that by the time European settlers finally made it all the way out here, they had forgotten how to garden in maritime climates and instead treated this place as though it were in the Midwest or the East coast. We don't need to have just one big harvest here, but can really reap the benefits of a mild winter and grow crops year round. And that is really fun to remember and certainly can be inspiring.

These days we are enjoying a multitude of frozen berries that we picked and bought all summer long. I also have some peaches but have not broken them out yet. It reminds me to pick more and freeze or can more next summer. They are really filling in the fruit gaps well and with the local apples from Washington and also some yummy pears, the kids are eating quite a few local fruits. They have also been enjoying some very unlocal citrus in the shape of satsuma mandarin oranges. 'Tis the season for satsumas and today they declined buying any more. My youngest said they didn't taste as good any more and maybe their season was over. And maybe it is.

And what about that? What about buying and eating unlocal foods but that are so seasonal that you are really only buy them for a couple of weeks or a month each year. Like those fancy yellow manila mangoes in the spring? Joan Dye Gussow has a good argument for being able to import such luxuries and specialties if we can grow most of what we need locally. No need, for example, to import tomatoes in the middle of February (to name a favorite of hers) but it might be ok to buy an occasional avocado or some satsumas or how about a few grapefruit, if everything else is taken care of?

A woman I know had the goal to get her local eating to about 80% to allow for imports like avocados or chocolate or even sugar. It is an interesting idea and a little different from the many *eat everything local or bust* ideas that are swimming around. Both have a place to be sure and I think about the merits of each of them often. For myself, I am trying to eat as local as I can without driving myself or my kids crazy. And sometimes that includes satsumas in the winter and sometimes, like today, it does not.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

tis the season

Tis the season to look longingly at green vegetables in the grocery store. We bought a cucumber the other day at New Seasons. It was the first out of state vegetable I have bought since, hmmm, last February? I feel pretty good about that whole veggie thing. I am still working on a few other areas like eggs... I had hoped to find some local greens there as well but they only had mixed greens from California. The produce woman said people just didn't grow mixed greens here this time of year. Hmmm... My sister found some lovely mixed greens at Food Front Coop and we had a lovely local salad for Christmas dinner, along with tomato sauce and some tasty but definitely imported pasta. Ah well, we do what we can. How to make it more local? I guess I could buy local grain and make my own pasta. If you are up for it you can do most anything. Maybe New Seasons has some pasta I could buy instead that they made and that is local? I could check for next time.

The interesting thing about the cucumber was that my daughter was so excited about buying it and seemed to be starved for whatever nutrients it offered and yet when she ate it she was definitely frustrated. No, a cucumber imported from out of state in December is definitely a different vegetable than one you find during cucumber season right where you are. It ended up being dunked in large amounts of ranch dressing.

That said, we have been eating our frozen berries from the summer and really enjoying them. I wish now that I had frozen or canned some peaches this year because everyone seems to be tired of apples already and it is only December. Pink ladies are so tasty but I suppose you can even tire of those. I am not tired of them yet, not by any means. I am getting tired of cabbage. Maybe I will try to liven up the four or so heads I have in my refrigerator (you know it keeps forever...) with some of those pink ladies sitting out on the table. Apples and cabbage slaw or braised apples and cabbage or roasted apples and cabbage. Endless possibilities!

Monday, December 24, 2007

A local Pulla?

Last year on Christmas Eve I made a Finnish Pulla shaped as a wreath and really enjoyed it. I wanted to make another one this year and decided to figure out just how local it could be made.

Here is the list of ingredients from the recipe I used from Baking with Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan-

1 cup milk
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp crushed cardamom seeds
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
4 1/2- 5 cups flour
1 stick butter
another large egg with milk for glaze

Ok, so I didn't use the cardamom this year or last year because, well, no one in the house but me would eat it and I didn't want to eat the whole braided wreath myself. Some may say that this would not technically be a Pulla, then, without the cardamom. Perhaps...perhaps not. Regardless, that part is taken care of for me. There is also no local source that I know of (yet!?) for either sugar or salt. Sweetener? Sea salt? I wonder about honey in a Pulla? I have some wonderful local honey. I even saw the bees who made it! The yeast is from far away as well. It is from a company based in Wisconsin (I'm from Wisconsin and I wonder if that counts a little bit...) but the product itself is from Mexico. Either way you look at it, the yeast is not local. That got me thinking about how the Finnish people long ago made Pulla when they couldn't import yeast made in Mexico for Wisconsinites. They most likely made some sort of starter from a natural yeast, like sour dough or something. I wasn't able to do that this year, so I gave up on the yeast as well.

But here is where it gets very local. Bob's Red Mill? Right here in Oregon. That takes care of the flour. Pacific Village Butter (from New Seasons Market) is also local. The eggs are from the Farmers' Market. I am also working on getting some local eggs delivered, hopefully soon! Ok, now with the milk there are a few local options that I have used in the past and I am sad to say I did not use them this time because my kids have been so sick and I don't usually keep cow's milk in the house normally anyway (just some cheese from Greenbank Farms). Now, if you want to use local milk, there is always Norris dairy, which they sell at New Seasons Market and which you can also have delivered or even pick up at the Portland Farmers' Market. I have also bought some wonderful local milk from Kookoolan Farms out in Yamhill. They also sell out at the Hillsdale Maket- but not milk, only chickens and eggs. Oh, and Cascadian Farms, which is from Washington, and definitely sells dairy.

I have much to say about making un-local recipes local and the ingredients needed for such ventures, but it is Christmas Eve night and there are still cookies to be baked (decidedly not local) and tomato sauce to cook (which, as it turns out, can be the most local food of all!).

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Last Portland Farmers' Market

Today was the last market day for the Portland Farmers' Market. It will resume next spring, the first Saturday in April. During the next couple of months you can still find fresh produce and other local goods at the People's Food Co-op Farmers' Market every Wednesday from 2-7 pm. The Hillsdale Farmers' Market also has a winter market that is roughly every two weeks on Sundays. I must confess I have never been to either one of these markets but would love to try them out. They are just not as convenient for me, although I do drive into Portland every Saturday for the Farmers' Market there rather than going to the one here in Beaverton. This is partially because we meet my sister there and she is in Portland and partially because I just like it better. There are so many markets to choose from during the summer months that you can find one on most days of the week depending on where you find yourself.

You can find great produce at the market, obviously, and I also enjoy buying local salmon and eggs and sometimes breads from local vendors depending on if I have an eggplant lying around waiting to be made into dip and my kids love the pastries from local bakeries and of course fudge! Malou's Chocolate Fudge is a favorite around here. I don't know how local the ingredients are, but he and his wife are definitely local. They are down in Milwaukee and make all of their own fudge and brittle.

And that is another reason that I love shopping at the market. Not only do we get to buy local foods, we get to support local people and their small businesses. Local is local and that is one of the most local ways of supporting of all.

Friday, December 21, 2007

What to do with all that kale?

Kale grows well here. I have had an abundance of kale in my garden for several months now and have also been receiving some periodically in my produce basket. About the only time during the year when it isn't thriving is in the dead of summer when the sun is hot and the rain is nearly nonexistent. That said, many people wouldn't recognize kale if you tried to sell it to them at a farm stand my kids had over the summer. People who stopped were happy to buy the tomatoes and carrots but anything green and leafy they lumped together as just plain "herbs" and then kind of averted their eyes from mine to let me know that while they admired my growing it, they were not going to buy it. Nor probably eat it.

I love this recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. It can be modified depending on just how much kale you intend to cook! The parentheses are my own comments.

Kale with Cannellini Beans
1 1/2 - 2 lbs kale or mixed greens with stems and ribs removed (if you so choose)
salt and pepper
1 small onion, finely diced
1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil (or I use coconut oil sometimes for a change)
2 plump garlic cloves (or more depending on your garlic tastes)
pinch red pepper flakes
2 tsp chopped rosemary
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/3 cups cooked Cannellini, rinsed well if canned
freshly grated Parmesan, optional

Simmer the kale in salted water until tender, 7 to 10 minutes. Drain and reserve liquid. Chop kale into bite size pieces. In a large skillet, saute the onion in the oil with the garlic, pepper flakes, and rosemary for about 3 minutes. Add the wine and cook until it's reduced to a syrupy sauce. Add the beans, kale, and enough cooking water to keep the mixture loose. Heat through, taste for salt and season with pepper and serve with Parmesan.

I routinely leave out the wine and frequently saute the kale with everything else without boiling first and then braise it with some water. It is a very loose and versatile recipe. The Parmesan and red pepper flakes really add to the kale's flavor.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Eating Local

Right now out in my garden there are carrots, some potatoes to be dug, an abundance of kale and some very large broccoli plants as well as assorted onions, herbs and some Calendula plants still flowering. And chard! I love the garden and all that it has to offer. Depending on the season, you can find a variety and ever changing venue of plants growing there and if I choose, I can also find dinner. The home garden is at the very heart of eating local.

And there are so many other ways as well. There are CSA's (community supported agriculture), locally raised animals and eggs and milk, farmer's markets, u-picks, road side farm stands, local artisans, local bakeries and grains, food co-ops, local grocery stores, nuts and seeds like walnuts and hazelnuts, and of course so many local apples and pears and different berries and other fruits like cherries and apricots and peaches.

Even the smallest urban apartment can have an herb garden or tomato plant inside or on a patio. But you need not garden in order to eat local. And you don't have to only eat local to really begin to make a difference. Each little step can be a discovery of the seasons and what your area has to offer. Seemingly small decisions can have an impact, like choosing to buy the apples from Oregon rather than those shipped in from Australia. And like buying apples when they are in season, rather than say, strawberries.

Of course, like everything else, even these ideas should not be hard and fast rules cutting you off from enjoying yourself. If, for example, your four year old daughter is begging you for strawberries and cucumbers in the middle of February, well, it might be worth it to buy them for her, as I often do, particularly if there are already smart puffs in the cart. As always, it is the fun to be had with eating local that really keeps me at it and it is that process that I hope to share in this blog.

One last thing I want to add is that much of what I have to say here can be applied almost anywhere. I just happen to live here in the Pacific Northwest and so this is where I am doing what I am doing! Happy eating!

musings of a practicing momma

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Eating local in the pacific northwest...