Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

The winter challenge is officially over. And we didn't go hungry.

What I learned about eating local from November until the first asparagus in California is that it's not the challenge I thought it would be. The farmers' markets were less crowded with buyers but there continued to be plenty of fresh food; eggs, cheeses, meat, jams, nuts, yogurt, too many greens to name. I almost forgot to mention winter squash, potatoes, citrus fruits in a fifty shades of sweet and sour.

Having a bit of produce put up in the freezer was a bonus. The challenge now however is to finish what's left. There's one bag of peaches, one bag of corn. There's a few raspberries, some applesauce, half a dozen slow roasted tomatoes. We barely touched the pesto and didn't touch the frozen grapes that were so delicious in the summer at all.

The strawberries, blueberries and blackberries were the first to disappear. Next year I'll freeze more tomatilla sauce, more roasted and pureed pepper cubes. I'll skip the tomato sauce and stick to the whole roasted tomatoes with the skins that slide off in seconds with a quick introduction to hot water.

I'd like to say I'll store less winter squash but I doubt that will be true. I love crowding the table with them, their saturated colors and thick skinned personalities. I love their witch like warts and their Cinderella carriage curves. I eat them only out of obligation for having bought them.

My favorite find earlier this year were the wildly spicy pickled peppers from Happy Girl Kitchen. Next year I will can my own or a buy a case of theirs. I don't know how we've survived without them.

And my favorite recipe find was the no knead bread. I've loved serving it toasted and wrapped in a cloth on the table, local jams beside it. It makes me feel like we're in Italy although we've never been.

Mostly what I enjoyed about eating locally through the winter was this. When it rained I knew I would eat it, the same with the frost and the wind. I ate the southern afternoon light, the dark clouds, cloudy shadows. I devoured the late sun rises and early sunsets. Every winter pink sunset was in the food I found on my plate. And the mud and the cold and the quiet were there too. All the elements informed our food, strengthened our sense of place. Spoiled me for anything less then grown here.

Heartfelt thanks to Laura at the not-so Urban Hennery for dreaming of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge and then tending to it so thoughtfully these last months. And radish bouquets to all the challenge takers that have also spoiled me with their own sense of place, good food, ideas, humor, care and knowledge.

The challenge is done but the celebration continues.

Haiku Friday

Six Little Organics
yukon gold potatoes
mashed for our dinner

Nearly the End of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

I'm cooking again after the big fever. Or more truthfully, I'm obsessed with local food again and my appetite is accommodating. In fact I can hardly stop eating. And there is so much good food.

I baked no knead bread twice over the long weekend and have fallen in love with the bubbly shaggy dough after it's first stage of sitting. I coo to it, "You are a good batch," I say. "Healthy, perfect."

"Who are you talking to?" the cute guy asks.

"No one," I answer.

And in the last stage before the dough goes in the oven, when it's doubled in size and is like a poem or a babies bottom I don't want to bake it. It's so perfectly pretty. But I do and we exclaim over each slice as if it were our first, or our last.

We ate salad this week made from back yard greens, one of which has gone to flower so we ate the flowers too. There was wild arugula and pea shoots from Bolinas, blue cheese from Pt. Reyes, walnuts from Mendocino.

And I steamed new stems of broccoli, mixed them with garlic toasted brown in olive oil. "This is the best broccoli I've ever had," the guy said and I knew life was good because he doesn't like broccoli.

I served asparagus prepared from a recipe at Orangette and his first words were, "It tastes like bacon." And I smiled because he loves bacon.

On the weekend I made fried rice from a recipe at Eat Local Northwest but changed all the ingredients to accommodate our season. I didn't have the oyster sauce the recipe called for and still I ate every last bite before I would have to share it.

On Easter Sunday we had breakfast after the farmers' market with eggs the color of orange Bauer plates, topped with Petaluma mushrooms, shavings of aged goat cheese and diced red serrano wildly spicy, pickled peppers from Happy Girl Kitchen. And toast with butter and jam. And strawberries. And sunshine and shadows. We ate forever. And then we napped.

Tonight because we were running out the door nearly as soon as we'd arrived we ate bean soup with chard from the freezer. I could not have been more appreciative of the ease.

Already I've planed tomorrow night's meal three times, three different ways with local food infused with spring. Infused with that impossible light that happens when the trees bloom. Even the bread has bounce.

I can taste the ground waking and warming, ready to get down to the big business of summer crops. And it tastes so good, so right, I can't get enough.

Ginger, Lemon and Honey Tea

After a few days away from home a monster bug gripped me in its steel jaws. This is one bad bugger.

Fortunately I have local ingredients for one of my favorite remedies, ginger, lemon and honey tea.

I make it by the tea pot full. Here's how -

3-5 Tbsp. Ginger
2 Lemons
1 Tsp. Honey Per Cup

Boil water.
Slice ginger (peeled or not) and add to steeping pot of water.
Squeeze lemons into tea pot.
Let sit for fifteen minutes.
Pour and add honey to taste.

The tea hasn't cured me but it does calm the bug temporarily.

Berkeley Farmers' Market

Saturday I visited my friend, the demographer, in Berkeley. We went to a movement class down the street from her loft, because that's what you do in Berkeley, and then we went to the farmers' market. Because that's what I do wherever I am.

At the farmers' market I filled my pockets with the best kumquats I've had all year, carried away a pound of Santa Rosa pecans and a dozen brown eggs. And after sampling Bariana balsamic vinegar I came home with a bottle of that too.

I picked up potatoes for dinner from a central valley farmer, which weren't as tasty as the Petaluma potatoes I've gotten used to. Although how I could tell is debatable as the aloo gobi I'd put them in suffered from way too much fenugreek. (So much for following a recipe!)

The demographer and I drank Indian chai in the sun listening to a bluesy trio. Small children danced.

On the way out I chose a brown bag for home recycling from the box of bags that sits in the middle of the market for the taking.

All of which was enjoyable but the two best things about the market weren't its food.

The first was we left our cars at a car wash run by Options Recovery Services and walked the few blocks to the market. Only if you've experienced parking for this market will you fully appreciate that statement - that we left our cars there. No endless circling for a parking spot. Even better than the kumquats.

And the men at the car wash made our cars shine. I would have paid the $15 tax deductible donation just to park there or hang out for a while. The parking lot was a carnival of buckets, hoses, soap suds, grateful guys and good will. The clean car was a bonus.

Nearly as good was the group at the market creating buzz and selling subsidized worm bins. Enthusiastic, young guys with earrings talking up vermicomposting to a constant parade of marketers. People were peering into bins, kneeling down and picking up worms, asking questions. Taking away pamphlets.

As much as I love the farmers' markets for the local and sustainable food, the commerce and community that springs up around them is a big part of the story.

Cooking Seasonally

The other night a friend told me I should give cooking classes. "I'm an accidental cook," I told her.

"You're always cooking something new," she said. "I'm in a rut. I cook the same things all the time."

It wasn't until I hung up that I realized eating seasonally doesn't accommodate cooking ruts for long. Sure, the guy I feed doesn't believe that there is ever a season without chard or kale and it's seeming like he may be right, but logically I know it can't grow year round.

Last summer when I was picking up speed with the summer squash the season ended. Same with the tomatoes. I was ready to live on them forever and then one day, they were done and it was time for winter squash. Now we're eating carrots and cauliflower.

Eating seasonally forces change or rather, it inspires creativity. The food informs what we're having for dinner more than I conform preconceived ideas to a meal. That's what happened when I accidentally cooked Indian food this week.

It started with a head of cauliflower I didn't quite know what to do with. And then I bought another head and another because, well, because they were so good looking. I know, I have a problem. But then I found a recipe for ginger cauliflower soup seasoned with curry powder. No more problem!

I found half a bag of yellow lentils hidden in the back of the potato drawer and decided to make dahl. I've always wanted to make dahl. I used summer peppers from the freezer, ginger from Fresno and local garlic that made my fingers smell from peeling it. I sprinkled in turmeric and we had dahl like it tastes at the restaurant, but better.

And lastly, since I believe that dahl and nan are the perfect marriage, I made nan. Oh, heaven. I made nan. And a cilantro pesto with olive oil and more ginger. The guy and I are still swooning.

And to think this meal would never have happened if tomatoes were in season year round.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

"What are you going to do when the DDELC is over," a friend recently asked.

"The same thing I'm doing before the DDELC is over?" I wasn't sure if it was a trick question.

"Oh," she said. "I thought maybe you would go back to normal."

I've been reflecting on that. Normal.

I keep carrots in an office file drawer at work and last night I was digging in my purse for a pen and found watermelon radishes instead.

There are greens in the fridge to feed the worms in the garage. Doing dishes includes plastic bags and the art of propping them up into crumpling clear villages on the counter to dry.

I secretly slip grocery bags into my purse that coworkers leave in the kitchen to use at home for garbage and recycling.

Shaggy bread dough bubbles on the kitchen counter, potatoes sprout in the bottom drawer. The batteries we kept in the freezer have been replaced by raspberries and applesauce.

Our pantry has become a shelter for wayward winter squash, art and orphans all of them, which I've been placing in foster homes since the fall.

I buy nettles from a lady with a hundred tattoos, walnuts from a woman wearing a hat in the likeness of a furry chicken. I buy citrus from a Grandma with pin curls.

While I miss the athletic blond cashier at the corner grocery, I now know the guy that grows roots and greens. I have a crush on the man with the apples and the cheese guy seduces me with his accent week after steamy week.

My favorite brands are Dirty Girl Produce, Happy Boy Farms.

And I no longer check labels for calories or sugar content but instead I get tips from the farmers. "Last of the crop," or a whispered, "Sweet," as I fill the bag higher.

I quit using shampoo after reading the Herbwife's Kitchen and Green Bean's blogs and instead rinse my curls with a rosemary tea I brew from garden trimmings.

All of which seems quite natural. I've concluded this is as close to normal as I'll likely get, challenge or not.

Happy New Year! (DDELC Update)

Our local meals this week have not been worthy of the Chinese New Year. They've been fast food in the form of quick braised greens, brown rice and handfuls of almonds. One night we had scrambled eggs with the rice, another night a delicata squash with the kale. We've been eating bunches of carrots carried to work in wax paper bags, satsumas two at a time.

Hardly worth writing about except for the fact that we've managed to maintain real food as fast food when we need to.

The one trophy meal of the week was a pizza with potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, a mystery artisan cheese, hot Italian sausage and carmelized onions.

Tonight I was at a loss for dinner. There was cauliflower and arugula in the fridge. Some onions and a jar of yeast. At least that's all I could see.

"I can't eat anymore greens," the cute guy said. He had his head buried in his hands at the table.

We walked downtown to eat.

"Where do you think zucchini comes from this time of the year?" I asked at the first item on the menu.

The waiter walked up. "We'll have the pizza," the cute guy said taking the menu out of my hand. "And the arugula salad. We'll share."

"Arugula is local," I offered once we were alone again.

"I know," he replied. "And just for tonight everything else here is local too."

He's such a good sport I played along, although I can't stop wondering about where those poor zucchini must have come from.

Foodshed Celebration

"What's the occassion?" the cute guy asked. I'd prepared four different foods for the same meal and used the big plates reserved for company.

The night before there had been five different foods but he hadn't noticed as one of the foods was salsa which required I layer everything in a bowl to properly enjoy.

It was two days of unplanned celebration. In September I was confident that I would not be able to sustain local food meals through the winter. And stomp-my-foot sure that the summer foods I'd put up in the freezer would be gone by the end of the year. I pictured us withering away cold and hungry.

But I was happily wrong. The year round farmers' markets augmented with my freezer stash have completely kept me from the grocery store with the exception of one item stops for such necessities as baking powder, dish soap. Local Straus milk.

So I cooked. The big plate dinner was an egg and Santa Rosa cheese omelet. It paired beautifully with Marin Root Farm's mixed greens braised with leeks, along side roasted tiny potatoes (nearly too cute to eat). We had flat and ugly home baked bread with homemade butter that would make even a cereal box taste good.

The next night the salsa dinner started with a Sonoma County tortilla topped with leftover butternut squash, fried hamburger (it's been fifteen years since I could say that!) from a cow pastured on Grandma's old chicken farm.

The salsa was from my tomato and pepper freezer stash. And the final topping was inspired by another Dark Days Eat Local Challenge blogger, Green Bean. I mixed cilantro, shallots, ginger, olive oil and sea salt in the food processer. After inital pinched tastes we piled it on in great spoonfuls. Read - No Leftovers!

As much as I celebrate my foodshed I become ever more aware of the challenges facing our national and global food systems in terms of accessability, fair trade, enviromental sustainability, labor rights and our own national food security.

But change starts at home; Right?

Homemade Butter

I experienced a miracle.

The last year has been full of revelations; where our food comes from and it's staggering effects on the environment. All of which has led to my getting religion in the form of local foods.

Now the mysteries of food are actually unfolding to me.

Yesterday, and it was Sunday, the perfect day for a miraculous occurrence, I saw one of my favorite foods, butter, created from a bottle of cream. And I am here to spread the word.

"We are going to make butter," I told my aunt.

"We need a mixer," she said.

"I don't have one. We'll use a whisk."

"We'll have sore arms," she tried while I began whipping.

"Here." I handed her the bowl licking whipped cream off my fingers.

"We need paddles," she said.

"Keep whipping."

"It's spitting."

"It's spitting!? What do you mean it's spitting!?" I approached her tentatively. And the contents of the bowl spit on me too.

I took the bowl to the sink then and with a spoon and smaller bowl kept up the whisking stirring motion and that's when the miracle occurred.

"Come and look." I felt like I was giving birth. Well, not really but it was an omnipotent moment. The contents of the bowl completely separated. Think the parting of the red sea.

A clear liquid splashed in the bottom of the bowl and the butter separated from it, sticking together, sloshing around.

"It's butter!" I yelled. "It's butter!"

No Moses. Only a hell of a lot of whisking. And no sore arms which is the biggest miracle of all.

Banana Squash

Tonight I off loaded three quarters of the ten pound banana squash I've had in the pantry since September.

I remember the Saturday afternoon at the Petaluma market when I bought it. "I keep them in the barn all winter," the farmer told me. "Then I sell them to the market down the street. They cut them up and sell them by the pound."

I carried my apricot colored squash off then, proud to be a step ahead of the grocery. And I kept it in the pantry for four months and had to bully my friends, they are still my friends, to take a chunk home.

"I have two squash at home you already gave me," one complained.

"They aren't cut open. They'll last. Eat them for lunch." I commanded.

"I have one too," another tried.

"One is nothing," I countered. "Here."

They were more compliant than usual though as I'd invited them for dinner. "It's local," I said at one point.

"Duh," they responded in unison.

I was effusive of the mustard greens in the salad mixed with arugula and a hand full of my back deck baby greens. The salads were plated with Pt. Reyes blue cheese, rounds of pink lady apple, roasted pecans and drizzled with honey and olive oil.

"It has layers of flavor," my cook book friend complimented on the soup with Rancho Gordo tepary beans, summer stock, peppers and tomatoes from the freezer. I couldn't have hoped for higher praise.

The soup also had layers of story though. Other people have their summer vacation adventures to show and tell - I have soup. The buying, preparing and preserving of the summer harvests. It all went through my mind.

The best part though - sharing the meal. Even if it was merely a bribe to off load more squash.

Packaged Garlic

A friend offered to teach me how to make squash raviolis. "Great," I told her. "I have plenty of squash." A complete understatement but she had no idea.

"I'll bring the rest of the ingredients," she volunteered.

She unpacked her bag of cheeses and noodley skins onto the counter. "What's that in the package?" I asked.

She held up a square of clear plastic the size of a condom wrapper. Sealed on either side, the package contained three cloves of garlic. "Isn't this cool?" she said. "They peel and package them in individual servings."

Now I know that packaging garlic into ticky tacky little packages is nothing in terms of the enviromental, social and health issues facing the world but in that moment I was ready to give up. But not without speaking my mind first. I felt my cheeks getting hot, my hair beginning to smolder.

After spouting off about Trader Joe's and garlic from China and where all the plastic in the world is going to end up, I regained my composure and offered garlic from Brentwood. In it's original skin. My friend graciously accepted and told me to peel it.

An hour later the squash raviolis were terrific. Candle lit table, laughter, seasonal salad and brussel sprouts.

I called my friend the next day to apologize - again. She admitted the garlic we used was really good. "It tasted," she hesitated. "Well, it tasted garlicy."

I nodded my head silently on the other end and allowed a small smile.

"But you've got to work on your delivery," she added.

Winter Salsa

Our downstairs, except for the kitchen is covered from floor to ceiling with plastic and blue tape while our ceiling is being somethinged. Retaped, refinished, Somethinged.

So I decided to cook. Not my usual mono-meal, squash in a bowl or brown rice with an egg. No. I decided to have every burner going while I stirred and flipped, griddled and mashed. Did I mention the pantry door is also draped and taped with plastic. Anything in there is off limits. More forced creativity.

And we had the best local meal ever. Upstairs on the bedroom floor. Watching the third season of Lost on a DVD due back tomorrow.

I mashed potatoes with milk and butter all from Sonoma County. Sauteed delicata squash that I'd under baked the night before. Quick steamed kale from the Sunday farmers' market. And I put together a winter version of salsa I'd dreamed of in the summer. It's took me until now to make it a reality.

In August and September I slow roasted peppers, pureed and froze them. Tonight I added the spicy cubes with a touch of water to tomatoes I'd also froze. Once the tomatoes, which had been roasted, with olive oil, garlic and sea salt, were partially thawed I easily removed the skins. That was it.

"Why's it so sweet," the cute guy asked.

It had to be the tomatoes. They were from the elderly man in Petaluma that grows them like they are members of his family. Buying them felt like kidnapping even though I was the one paying.

The cute guy also bought a roasted not-really-a-free-range chicken tonight and tortillas, both from the next county. Being mono-meal people though we layered one thing on top of the other into one bowl each and covered everything with salsa.

Yes, it was sweet.

The house is going to be taped up for a few days, which is fine with me. I'll cook.

California Citrus

The blue sky and bunches of radishes at the Sunday morning farmers' market had me nearly skipping. Not that I don't like winter, I do. In fact the fall and winter are my favorite seasons.

The lift in my step was nearly involuntary, as if a seed under my skin was busting out ready to bloom. And I couldn't help but enjoy the change.

Which partially explains the bags of citrus I came home with. I was captured by a round woman in an apron and one of them was clearly from the old country as my Grandmother would have said. And this woman with her unleashed pincurls kept feeding me citrus fruits. She was pronouncing names, telling me what each new fruit tasted like, handing me more, reaching into boxes, slicing, handing, talking about antioxidants, popping a slice into her own mouth, waving her knife around.

"Here. Taste." I had some variety of mellow something grapefruit in my mouth, a slice of yellow lime, a pink orange. "It doesn't taste like lime," she declared.

I shook my head, my hand filling up with peels. She was right. She thrust a piece of small orange fruit, a cross between a mandarin and kumquat at me.

"Eat the skin." Her knife stabbed the space between us. I didn't argue. My face puckered until I bit into the almost sugary skin and putting the other peels in my pocket I started filling a bag with the sour fruits.

Satisfied, but still talking the woman began poking pinwheels of oranges and lemons onto sticks and poking them into the sides of the boxes. And all I could think of were daffodils and the bucket of china lillies at the first corner of the market.

And I came home with some of everything. Buddha's hands and kumquats excluded. The only two things I knew the names of.

"They're from Fresno," I told my friend later, taking the bright skinned fruit out of their bags. Apologizing as Fresno is further than my 100 mile local zone.

"Fresno? You mean these aren't from Florida?!" She picked up a big grapefruit. "You can grow these here!? "In California!?"

I nodded remembering she's not a native and smiling let her excitement effect me too.

We had our own tasting party then, this one more slowly than my other and we discussed for awhile where in the world our food comes from.

Frozen Blueberries

I live in a condo. With a shared common area yard. Shared with the neighbors two small children, their one large dog and enough plastic toys to entertain a hand full of generations to come.

All of which is to explain why I don't garden. Oh, and there is little sun. And the year I planted tomatoes they were eaten by the town roof rats. That was the last straw. Actually the last tomato.

But every January I get the urge. It's a physical pull in the center of my chest. I want to plant seeds. I want to dig and to watch things grow. I begin designing elaborate cantilevered structures to hang plants from with sonar devices to keep the kids and critters away. Two nights ago I imagined an enclosed greenhouse.

"Do you think we could build one on the back deck?" I asked my resident cute guy builder.

He pointed out our deck is over the garage. And up three flights of stairs.

Ummm. I haven't given up.

In the meantime I took blueberries for muffins out of the freezer last night and remembered the Fairfax farmers' market where I bought them. Not quite like growing them but that hot summer evening, the redwood trees in the park, the subsequent walk around town snacking on blueberries all came back to me.

Not the harvest memories I'm longing for but I love them all the same.

Stinging Nettles

Maybe I shouldn't have put the greens with stinging nettles in the blue bowl. They would have looked better in the orange. Or left in the pan. Maybe I should have tried to fluff them.

They made everything clump together. Until then the kale and chards with carmelized onions looked great. Edible. They were greener than hundred dollar bills. I could distinguish one green from the other.

After the nettles, they clumped. One big wad. I cut it up and combed it with a fork. Then I had a lot of little wads. That stuck together.

The cute guy looked in the bowl. "What is it?"

"Greens." I said it with confidence. "Yummmmm. The carmelized onoins are so sweet." I took another bite. "And the greens are..."

He took a little from the serving bowl, surveyed it on his fork, eyed me with distrust. "Don't laugh," I told him. He nibbled a stem. "Just try it. You'll like it." He took a bigger taste.

"Oh yeah." That's great," he said. "What's that over there," he yelled. I turned my head.

"Where?" I turned back to see his fork retreating from the bowl. Empty.

It looks like I'll be eating clumpy local greens for the next couple of days. Damn ugly but they don't taste bad.

Really.

Kabocha Squash

I figured out the best way to cook winter squash -- have the cute guy do it!

Tonight he baked a centerpiece kabocha squash, smashed it up with butter and a bit of brown sugar. It was the best squash he's ever made.

"It's the only squash I've ever made," he reminded me.

Still it was delicious. He made good points.

Haiku Friday

Lights Out

Friday night pizza;
tomatoes, pesto and cheese.
Sunshine in a storm.

Haiku Friday

Suppertime

I baked a green sqash
and served it in a blue bowl.
The sun setting orange.

Freezer Food and Squash

The best part of eating local the last week was pulling food from the freezer.

First there was the pork butt roast from a farm in Tomales that the cute guy and I made into chili verde with Canvas Ranch tomatillos. I'd cooked them with Brother Bill's backyard jalapenos. I could still taste the sunshine in them.

Twice this week I made corn muffins with Full Belly Farm cornmeal, the chicken hat lady's eggs, Stauss milk and blueberries bought last summer from the seasonal farmers' market in Fairfax. The berries seem bigger now that it's winter and bake up juicy and sweet. The muffins disappear so fast the cute guy claims the neighbors help themselves while we are out.

I also experimented for the first time with Rancho Gordo pozole. I read recipes online, waved the advice aside and used what I had, which was celery, onions, garlic, serrano peppers, carrots, a couple chicken legs with thighs and oregano. And I served it to guests. My brother and I had seconds and still the leftovers lasted two nights. And it got better. Especially when the leftover chile verde was added.

Faced with no more pozole I made a pan of potato and leeks with rainbow chard tossed in at the last minute and served it in a bowl with eggs over easy. It wasn't picturesque but it was hearty, fragrant and perfect for a ridiculous cold night.

It goes without saying we are still eating squash. Baked squash. And it's good. But I'm not ready to admit that I may have bought a couple too many or a few more than we are excited to eat.

I am determined they will not go to waste though. I know way too many people for that!

If you find one on your doorstep you can bet it's from me.

Happy Holidays!