This week I finalized something I'm very excited about! Starting today, I'll be doing some writing for the Examiner.com's Annapolis Fresh Foods section. Even though I will be writing about Annapolis things, I hope to include recipes and other tips that anyone who eats(!) can use. Hopefully you'll find it useful, be entertained and informed!
My first article is live.
You'll be able to see all my articles over time on .
The heat wave continued through Thursday, getting up to a high of 91 on Wednesday. Unbelievable. I'm not really sure how this heat will affect my current garden stock long term, but in the short term, it seems to have pleased them. Almost all the seeds have sprouted and seem quite happy. A couple mornings I was out in the yard, fully dressed for the office job, sprinkling them with a light layer of water.
Thunderstorms rolled in Thursday night, refreshing everything and really cooling things down. All the perennials (mostly hostas) also seem to have appreciated the heat and even *gasp* the moisture. After months of being a swampy mess, the yard and flower beds had finally mostly dried out. Had, being the operative word.
So, it's back to cold (high of 60) and swampy. Home, sweet home!
Earlier this week, I went back to the Accokeek Foundation for the first of their . Held the first Tuesday of every month through Daylight Savings Time, they plan to get as many people as possible together to discuss and learn about local food. Their description beats mine:
One of the great things about Southern Maryland is the availability of local food. Depending on your tastes, you can find locally grown fruits and vegetables, eggs, and meat all within a short drive for a good portion of the year. If you are interested in finding and eating locally grown food, or you are interested in creating a better market for the food you grow or produce, we'd like to invite you to our free Local Food Forum. The Forum will meet from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month during Daylight Savings Time. Meet local producers and learn about the foods that are grown and produced locally. We will also talk about how and where to find local food, and work as a group to make local food more available.
I wasn't sure what to expect. And, I was concerned that I'd make the trek over and discover the cheese stood alone. Don't get me wrong, I loved my day there for the backyard chicken class... what a beautiful place. But, since it's an hour + to get there and another hour to get home, if I'm going to site-see I'll go on a weekend. For the second time at Accokeek, I was pleasantly surprised!
There ended up being about 20 people there. A huge variety of ages, from 20s to 70s. Not so much variety of sexes though: Only 3 men. And 2 of the 3 work there! Now that I'm thinking about it, many of my favorite local food or homesteader writers are women. (These two for example: and .) Surely with Joel Salatin and Michael Pollan as leaders in this movement, there are just as many men interested?
In any case, there we all were. A room full of people with different levels of passion and involvement in the local food movement, but all were in it to some degree. How cool. I mean, seriously, the more I step out of my comfort zone (i.e. my living room), the more I am refreshed and encouraged to find others sharing this passion of mine.
As we all introduced ourselves and moved into the discussion, there were a few central themes of the evening:
Is local food elitist? And further, how to combat that misconception.
How to eat locally easily.
Local food builds community.
The ethics of food, and how not to get discouraged.
I'm sure we'll get into each of these topics in the future sessions, but I thought the first round was pretty thought provoking. The first theme of elitism caught me a little off guard, honestly. I certainly don't feel that way, nor do I think it's true. But, thinking it over afterward, I can definitely see how that image gets transmitted. Alice Waters, who has arguably done more for the local food movement than anyone, can seem elitist. The image of her large home, huge garden, and highly successful restaurant doesn't scream "I'm just like you." Most people don't have her luxuries, or the opportunity to make a profitable living by growing and cooking their own foods. Hard to relate.
Making local eating easier and more accessible was something everyone seemed to agree upon. How to do it, and what sources are best, not so much. It seems it just doesn't get more personal than your food choices. The foundation talked about their desire to get a group of people, both in and out their , to pool their buying power to make it possible for them to provide other local products. I think this is a great idea, and a little similar to .
Then there was community. This is the most surprising part of the local food movement for me. It's obvious, in hindsight, that if you have to get to know your growers and producers in order to know how they grow and produce, you have to get to know them. Beyond that though, there is a small but vibrant community involved in our area who want to learn and share in what Maryland (and Virginia) has to offer.
The ethics of food part gets sticky. Mostly because it's another very personal choice. And there are usually compromises to be made. Some may decide to favor local over organic. Others will choose vice versa. Some will favor local within a 25 or 100 mile radius. Others may define local more loosely, looking for regional. If you can't find local or organic, does it have to be free trade? Many, many considerations each as personal as the next.
We left the evening after making paper pots and planting fish pepper seeds. They told us it's an old Maryland-grown pepper that used to be found around the crab houses. They promised it would grow from a green and white striped pepper into a red one. I can't wait!
I'm really looking forward to the next forum. Also, they mentioned a canning and preserving class they are holding in June. Totally in.
It's a secret no one wants to talk about. But, I'm opening up the door on this particular local food secret. Here it is: Farm fresh eggs cook differently. As in, throw away your old techniques. My mom and I perfected a hard-boiling technique a handful of years ago. Couldn't have been simpler. Boil water, turn off the heat and throw the eggs in. Let sit for 15 minutes, and voila! Turns out that technique isn't aggressive enough for these pesky fresh eggs...
I'd almost give up on hard boiling these eggs, actually. In my Backyard Chicken class at the Accokeek Foundation, we discussed the issue and our teacher agreed that it was a difficult task. Didn't really inspire me to keep trying, that's for sure. But, one of my fellow classmates refreshed my memory the other day with . Never one to walk away from a challenge, I set out to learn how to hard boil the damn things. My previous attempts have resulted in what can only be described as soft-boiled eggs. Something that a) I don't care for, b) makes lousy egg salad and c) clearly isn't the point.
Apparently, fresh eggs also have a reputation for being difficult to peel. I figured I'd try to incorporate some techniques that, provided I actually managed to cook them properly, would help out in the peeling.
Well, I did it. But, ironically, this time I managed to overcooked them. I started with eggs that were a couple weeks old, which seems to be important for the process. For perspective, store-bought eggs can be upwards of 6 weeks old when they are first placed on the shelves for sale. (This fact alone might have been enough to turn me off commercial eggs.)
Here's what I did:
Fill a large pot with cold water.
Add eggs, only as many as can fit in one layer.
Turn water on high, and bring to a hard boil.
Turn temperature down to medium high, and boil for 17 minutes.
Turn off heat, and let eggs sit in hot water for 5 minutes.
Put eggs into an ice-water bath and allow to sit for 3-5 minutes. At the same time, bring the original water back to a boil.
Put the now cooled eggs back into the boiling water for 1-2 minutes.
Return eggs to ice-water bath, and cool completely.
Next time I'll skip step 5. I think that would make the difference between cooked just right and overcooked. I turned my success into egg salad, which was a nice reward after my months-long hard boiled egg drought.
Oh, and PS, if your husband tells you that eggs float when they are finished cooking, don't believe him. This too may result in overcooking.
As if the two blizzards (yes, two!) this winter weren't enough indication that she's losing it... it's supposed to be near 90 today. In April! All my poor "cold season" plants are surely confused!
Insanity! More random, the world is ending, weather tidbits:
February was the most snowfall in recorded history for Baltimore with 49.7 inches.
Average yearly rainfall is 41 inches.
In the last 12 months, we've had just over 61 inches of rain.
We've had 11.9 inches of rainfall YTD.
Half of that rain was last month.
Rain + melted snow = really, really wet!
We're going to be looking into rainscaping! It's apparently landscaping with the express purpose of dealing with the rain. Yes, please!
When my parents were in town, we all got together for dinner at .
Here's the slightly extended fam!
Do we look confused? Because we were.
The menu is extensive, which can make your choices difficult in any situation, but this one was... different. There were cheese courses, small plates and salads. But then, there were also pastas, main courses and pizza. Oh, right, and charcuterie and sides. To be fair, I knew this already, because their menu is listed . There was considerable planning and research going into this dinner, actually.
Since my parents were coming in, and it happened to fall close to my birthday, I got to pick our destination. I knew that DC had some restaurants that are working towards serving sustainable, ethically raised, local foods... And I wanted to try one! My first choice was Equinox, because we'd been there years ago and loved it, but they were closed for renovations. Looking through the Sonoma DC menu, I was excited by all the different types of options. I'm usually happier with my appetizers than entrees, so lots of pre-main meal options = good.
We were seated right away, even though we were early for our reservation. The wine list was our first challenge; even in a group of wine lovers, it was difficult to find any wines we'd seen before. Once we decided (everyone but my gin-preferring husband just ordered what my dad picked! Safety in numbers, or something?) we were all happy with the wine. Score 1 for our group.
After pondering all the many options and wondering how they intended us to order... cheese first? small plates? is pasta a pre-entree course? We asked our waiter for help. "Oh, it's whatever you want to do." While I appreciate the "customer is always right" mentality, we wanted needed instructions! Surely, there was a plan? The chef must have structured the menu like that intentionally? Well, if he did, someone should fill in our waiter. We took another tactic, asking how large each of the option categories were. "Oh, that depends on which ones you're considering." Peachy. Some of the salads, large enough to share. Some of the small plates, small enough for one.
We muddled through the ordering, some ordering 2 small plates and an entree, others sharing a salad and ordering entrees. Jay and I opted to share a small plate - the meatballs served with soft polenta. He ordered a burger, and I ordered a roast beet salad, and a pasta course.
I was confused when my salad came first, because... well, I was just confused. But, oh. my. god. This salad... roasted beets, including golden ones, bacon, blue cheese and salad greens that included beet greens. I'm a new-comer to beets, and wow, that was an amazing combination.
After that, our meatballs came. Gooey with cheese, tomato sauce and polenta, they were also really good. We were both really pleased and quickly ate them all up.
My pasta course, which was a light linguine with bacon and egg, was pretty good. I thought it lacked some flavor compared to the rest of the dishes, but it was good. Jay really liked his burger, so his dining experience was complete!
We all finished up sharing a couple of desserts... I'm not a dessert person, so I had a bite and was happy. And, I'm sorry to say, I don't remember what those desserts were!
All in all, it was a great night with really good food.
I have worm eggs in my fridge. That's normal, right? Seeds in my crisper. Herbs growing in my dining room. Worms living in my shed. 1,000 worms, though maybe more. Lunch planned to exchange perennials. Gardening gloves in my car. Heirloom and organic bulbs on their way. Associations with 4 farms: a CSA, a community 'garden', a source for milk and eggs, and a source for sustainably raised meats.
I was talking to a coworker today about the chicken plan, and another coworker overheard. She said, "Oh, that's cool... do you live on a farm?" Nope. Not a farm. A pretty standard suburban neighborhood. But my use of it isn't so standard. And, really, I'm OK with a new version of normal.
Heather’s Note: My friend Penn lives in Baltimore with his wife and has been learning to how to combine a desire to grow his own food and city living. When he isn’t an urban “farmer”, he works in IT and writes for . I’ve asked him to share his experience here, to show another spin on local food.
There are a few things that I regret from the first time I tried to grow tomatoes. If they had not happened, who know how bad (good) the crop would have turned out.
I have a small patio in the back of my row home that gets about 4 to 6 hours of sunlight each day. This area was enough to make my herbs happy so I figured, why not try tomatoes. My wife loves then, I'll eat them, and they taste oh so awesome with Buffalo mozzarella, basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. I grabbed a pack of seeds, of a type of tomato I do not remember. I know that the picture on the front was of a large red tomato chilling happily on a big vine, it was Home Depot, and I panic when I am indecisive.
I also picked up a large round pot from Home Depot that I figured would be a decent home for a few tomato plants, I believe it was this guy. I picked up more potting soil and a cage cause this guy was big, and I wanted lots of growing room. After getting things home and setup, I started to break out the seeds into the pot. I made sure to read the directions, which mind you, are really geared towards people with farms or large tracks of land where they have long lengths of soil to use for planting. I had a pot. A big pot, but still... a pot.
I'm going to break for a minute in an attempt to build the suspense of my mistake (stupidity)...
The package made it seem like I should be putting one seed every three quarters of a foot, roughly. In my mind, I was thinking how bad of an idea this could be because not all seeds are successful (very wrong thing to think!)
I've included a drawing of where I placed my seeds, I'm pretty sure the pack of seeds that I bought contained close to 50 seeds total....I placed all the seeds in the holes, every single one.....
For weeks, I watched and waited. I tended the pot to make sure there was enough water. I didn't want to flood my seeds but I'm also impatient. I moved it when I was off of work so that it stayed in the sun longer. I was by this pot's side twice a day, morning and night, to cheer it on. I ultimately feel that the reason I was so adamant about making these tomatoes the most perfect tomatoes ever was because (as I mentioned) my wife loves tomatoes. She doesn't just like to eat them and buy them, she looooooooves them. I envisioned 4 sprawling tomato plants that would produce a bountiful harvest of tomatoes to last us through all of the summer.
If you've managed to follow along so far, and you understand gardening, you've probably already guessed my mistake. 50 divided by 4 puts me at about 12 seeds per hole. I'm pretty sure my first sprouts were roughly 6 to 8 a hole. Boy, was I excited to finally see sprouts! And, boy was I confused about what the hell I was going to do with more than 25 tomato plants in one pot!
Unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to take a picture of all the seedlings that sprouted but I do have photos how things started to turn out.
It had seemed that after a bit of time, the tomatoes decided to weed out the weak themselves. This was good because now out of each of the 4 points, I had only roughly 3 to 4 tomato plants growing. These guys were hungry too! I bought fertilizer and I would water them in the morning and in the evening because they would just suck that stuff up. I guess not knowing better, they didn't care it was city water.
It was a magical and fun time. The effort felt worth it. The results were awesome (and tasty).
I quickly learned that the cage I bought for my tomato plants was not large enough! One cage to rule them all was the wrong answer, Home Depot Gandolph.
I also learned that my back patio was probably not big enough either! These guys had decided to use fallen telephone wires to kind of hoist themselves up to the top of my back wall! I guess they were trying to climb up and make a break for it?
I met some good friends along the way! This guy was on my basil plants, he hung there and ate flies for a month. Samurai Jack (who I now believe is a she) was a fun little guy. (S)he would rove from plant to plant devouring insects. Samurai Jack eventually left
But (s)he eventually came back! Either that or he took off because this was a female looking to eat him. If that was the case I wouldn't blame him for packing his shit up! Maaaaan eater!
In the end it was fruitful (yes, tomatoes are fruits!) I had probably harvested close to 9 tomatoes which is no where near what I could have grown.
I unfortunately spent a very long weekend away with close to 3 days of 90 degree weather and this is what I came back to: I was sad, there was no amount of water that was going to fix this. The stems had lost their strength and the plant collapsed on itself. I was truly upset. There was a lot of effort and lost opportunity in those guys.
I've taken the lessons I learned from this adventure last summer to improve this summer. That's a future post that's still in the works.
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