Winter Wonders

Intense color on your plate is one way to banish winter blahs and learn to love seasonal eating. Picture a spoonful of red cabbage braised with apples and caraway seed next to golden cubes of roasted butternut squash exotically scented with cinnamon and cardamom. That's not just eye-catching; it's a nutrition bonanza. Ditto a dish of spinach pasta with stir-fried kale, garlic, sunflower seeds and bright lemon zest, garnished with grated Parmesan cheese. Consider a bowl of black bean chili topped with the pure white dazzle of fresh local yogurt or sour cream and a sprinkle of chopped fresh greens beside a bowl of yellow rice.

Cabbage...kale...winter squashes...rice and colorful beans...this is how we are supposed to eat right now. Here is the moment to really appreciate the blessings of cold weather crops, those long-lived vegetables at the heart of winter farmers' markets, and the beauty of dried beans with that other preserved crop, rice. They make for eating at its most economical, ecological and exceptional nutritionally. Plus they can make you feel good not just physically but better yet, by knowing you're not destroying the planet trying to have fresh blueberries and bell peppers at this time of year--because you miss them or can't think of anything else to eat.

The red cabbage recipe is in How to Fix a Leek and Other Food from Your Farmer's Market. Here is the butternut squash that will be in this year's edition: roast a whole squash at 350 for about 50 minutes or until it is soft to the touch but not mushy. Cool, peel, seed and dice it. In a large skillet, heat 3 tbsp corn oil and add 1/2 tsp cumin seeds with 2 dried red chili peppers, chopped. Saute 30 seconds and add 1 large red onion diced. Continue to saute 5-7 minutes until the onion is soft and caramelized. Add 1 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground cardamom and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, stir and then add the diced squash. Add the juice of a lime, 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Blend everything. Keep stirring so nothing sticks to the pan, cooking until the squash is soft to a fork and heated through. Serve garnished with chopped fresh parsley or cilantro.

If you are a carnivore, now is the time to garnish these great dishes with roasted bits of locally produced meat. Maybe a brisket with the red cabbage and some mashed potatoes. Maybe a roast chicken with the butternut squash. Maybe a pork loin roasted with dried apricots, dried cranberries, prunes and onions served with wild rice and steamed kale. Tiz also the season of the small shrimp that go well with penne, parsley and peas (frozen from last spring).

For vivid color and robust flavor, easy to achieve and economical to serve for lunch or a light supper, try this red lentil soup, which serves 4-6:

3 tbsp olive oil

1 lg onion, diced

2 lg garlic cloves, minced

1 fresh red chili, seeded and minced

1/8 tsp ground chili powder

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp ground coriander

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 tsp fenugreek seeds, ground if you can, no big deal if you can't

1 tsp celery seeds

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 ¼ cup split red lentils

4 cups vegetable stock and 2 cups of water

½ tsp freshly ground or cracked black pepper

½ tsp salt or more to your taste

for garnish

1 bunch scallions, finely chopped

1 bunch flat leaf parsley leaves only, chopped

juice of ½ fresh lemon (or lemon wedges for each bowl)

In a heavy gauge medium size lidded casserole or other such pan, heat oil over medium. Add onion, garlic, chili, chili powder, cumin seed and ground coriander, stirring to blend. Sauté over medium heat until onion is soft, 3-5 minutes. Add carrot and cook another 2 minutes. Add fenugreek, celery seeds and tomato paste.

Stir in the lentils, blending everything

Pour in the stock and water. Bring to a boil. Immediately cut heat to low, partially cover the pot and

simmer 35-40 minutes.The lentils should now be mushy and the soup thick.

Serve garnished with chopped scallions and parsley and lemon juice or wedges.

If you prefer a smooth soup, puree before garnishing.

You can turn this into a first class feast, by adding the best locally baked bread you can find, creamy local farm fresh sweet (unsalted) butter and high quality sea salt to sprinkle on top. If you don't do butter, go for the best local cheeses--a trio of them with varying textures. You won't believe how stunning a table set like this can be. Simple things done with perfection can serve enough joy to send you sailing into the new year.

Gong hay fa choi, everyone. The water dragon has arrived.

Or as the Chinese used to say: May your rice never burn.

"Organic" tomatoes and the end of maple syrup

The new year started with even more reasons for those of us who care about the food we eat to buy only from our local farmers. Under the headline, "Planting the Desert", the New York Times told the story of how the precious, limited subterranean water supply that sustains life on the sandy, barren Baja peninsula of California is being sucked dry by industrial agriculture mega monoplanting tomatoes. This is to provide a steady winter supply flowing into American supermarkets. Think about that: growing gazillions of acres of tomatoes in desert sand where nothing else grows and in hot sun to boot. A lot of water going out, a lot of fertilizer coming in.

This is how our consumer culture works: as long as some of us think it's perfectly okay to slice fresh tomatoes into January's salads, others of us feel its perfectly okay to destroy the planet to provide them.

Often these picture perfect winter tomatoes are labeled "organic", which makes them all the more glamorous and desirable, and, of course, more expensive than those hardballs gassed in trucks on their way up from the Everglades of Florida. These recent tomatoes are technically organic: no line in the sand they have been grown in bears any hint of pesticide residue, although fertilizer build up and run-off has become significant. It is in fact a major source of the degradation that will destroy the lives of Baja natives.

The systematic destruction in pursuit of summer tomatoes and related vegetables like bell peppers for winter markets has called into question the whole meaning of the word "organic." When it first came into our collective consciousness as part of the '60s counterculture, it defined products grown and harvested by hand instead of machinery, grown in soils in shouting distance from the point of sale, food grown without pesticides or artificial chemically formulated fertilizers so that the soil was never degraded and remained healthy. It was used for food that was the deliberate antithesis, the nemesis, of the corporate industrial supermarket product. Later, as science and technology ramped up, organic also came to mean food grown from a pure old fashioned unadulterated seed, and not some genetically modified, man made or pesticide imbued one.

A decade into the 21st century, a significant crop of industrial agriculture horror stories inevitably ginned up organic food as the only way to eat and be well. Even if it costs more, everybody who was anybody wants it. The elite chic has made it even more of a must-do, and thus ever more profitable. So inevitably industrial food corporations and supermarkets, in a race to the profitable bottom line, used their political muscle to exert enough pressure to bend this word to their business model. That's why Wal-mart sells "organic" fruits and vegetables, why the local supermarket touts its organic blueberries flown in from Chile and cucumbers double-trucked from Mexico. That's why even if you live where you have to drive through new fallen snow to get them, you can eat fresh, organic tomatoes and bell peppers in February.

Nowadays big business "organic" merely means not grown with pesticides, and that's about it for the old definition's parameters. It does not mean the soil is not being degraded or local or the growing system is harmless enough to be sustainable. It does not mean by hand. And it definitely does not mean the farmer growing the food is getting a living wage for the extra effort. The farmer is the same slave to the price fixing of big agriculture as the non-organic grower.

The essence of our capitalist system is to find a need and fill it. That is what all this means. Which also means if there is no need for fresh tomatoes in January-- no demand as it were, there would be no need to destroy Baja California and other formerly pristine places where people have lived for centuries to supply them. That's really the crux. And that hinges on blindly believing in the constant consumer come-on that you can have it all, and have it your way, 24/7. Just today in the New York Times, via the AP: Americans in general have come to expect that they should be able to buy blueberries, spinach and other things even when they're not in season in the U.S. "This is about the expectation that we're going to have raspberries when it's snowing in Ithaca," said Marion Nestle, a food studies professor at New York University.

Admittedly it is tough to go against a cultural grain doing its damnedest to nourish us on the profitable have it all pitch. It is a tough sell to tell somebody to give something up, to sacrifice what they can so easily enjoy. Especially when everybody else seems to be doing it. Self-control can be a real bitch. But in the end, it is the only thingamabob that will do the job of changing things and saving us.

One of the ways to stop thinking it's perfectly normal to eat fresh tomatoes in January is to remember it is actually much healthier and more nourishing--for you, for planet Earth, for everybody on it-- to eat the way Mother Nature and Father Time taught us: seasonally. I had a friend who used to gorge on Maine shrimp while they were pouring off the boats in January, until she couldn't peel another one. This was perfect because the season ended and she was done with shrimp. She did the same thing with summer vegetables like tomatoes, almost orgiastically eating and cooking them every which way through August and September while they were most prolific on the vine, until she couldn't bear to see another one for a year. This is binge eating at its best. And it's actually the traditional hunter-gatherer m.o.: feast for days on the hunted animal, then move on to gather other things. It's more creative and less stressful on the body.

Another way to now eat seasonally is, of course, to buy all the fresh tomatoes you can get your hands on during the harvest season and can, roast, freeze or cook them into soups and pasta sauce to preserve for winter eating. Owning your own tomatoes this way, you drop out of demand, and automatically impact the supply side, nudging it down to help save Baja California and other tomato hot spots like the Everglades of Florida. Here is something you can actually do if you care about climate change, environmental degradation and the sustainability of other people's lives. It's speaking up.

You do it also if you care about the economy of your own community. Supporting a local farmer by buying his crops encourages greening the land, freshening the air, keeping money in the neighborhood, widening your property tax base and securing a food supply for times of trouble. You can't do that grabbing a plastic box of del Cabo cherry tomatoes on sale now at the supermarket, Cabo being the famous name for southern tip of Baja.

You may even be saving your maple syrup in years to come. Evidence from New Hampshire now indicates that global warming has changed the leaf cycle of the sugar maple trees, weakening them and thus decreasing the sap rise. All New England producers are already feeling negative affects. The line on today's graph leads to the total extinction of maple syrup by mid-century--unless global warming is reversed. That means a world even less sweet than it is now, and possibly a killer tsunami of high fructose corn syrup.

Lucky Peas

About half the country will celebrate New Year's Day with lucky peas. The tradition of eating black-eyed peas to invoke prosperity seems to have infiltrated the South almost two centuries ago as a carryover from West Africa, where enriching power was ascribed to the related pigeon peas. Some people think the South's most common preparation, "hoppin' John", comes from the common English mispronunciation of what the French speaking Creole's and Caribbean slaves from West Africa called "pois pigee on."

Since right now black-eyed peas become the momentary coin of the realm, some people think you have to eat 365 of them on New Year's Day to insure chances for prosperity all year long. That's why many folks whip up a big batch. Lucky peas are served with collard greens, which not surprisingly represent money bills, that green folding stuff, so nobody is stingy with this either. And it all goes down with cornbread, whose gold color is unmistakeable. Thus setting the New Year table with black-eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread is "hint hint" to the universe to send a little "lettuce" your way.

The most traditional lucky peas recipes represent not only great nutrition but cheap chic, easily meeting the latest Slow Food challenge: healthy food for less than $5 a person. A leftover ham hock or stray pieces of ham or bits of bacon are used to flavor onions and the peas, perhaps even the collard greens. The only extras for this frugal dish are chili peppers or sauce, garlic and rice. But what a bang for the buck in this nutritional pile up!

A 1 lb bag of black-eyed peas goes a long way. The vegetarian version I just made for a New Year's potluck looks like it will feed at least 15, even if nobody brings anything else. So one of the ways something like "hoppin' John" is "lucky" is that it doesn't break the bank, even if you have to feed a multitude.

This is comfort food every which way you think about it, because it's even easy to prepare. I soaked a lb bag of peas overnight in cold water and drained them. I sauteed two very large chopped onions and six minced garlic cloves and a chopped roasted Poblano pepper in corn oil imbued with 2 tsp. chipotle chili powder and 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika(trying for the smokiness of ham), plus 1/2 tsp ground cayenne for heat. Once the onions were translucent, I added 3 very finely chopped celery stalks, 2 tsp ground black pepper and the peas, blending everything in the pot. I poured in 4 cups of vegetable broth and 5 cups of water, added a tbsp salt, and brought everything to a boil. Then I put the burner on simmer, covered the pot, and went onto other things.

I came back in about 45 minutes and chopped a bunch of collard greens into small pieces. I threw them into the pot along with maybe 3 cups of rice (I didn't measure), stirred everything up, covered the pot again, left it on simmer and went about my business. Again, I came back in 45 minutes and there was "hoppin' John." I adjusted the seasonings to my taste, which is peppery and salty, and got ready for the potluck.

I have to confess though, I kept interrupting myself to go back to the kitchen, for another and yet another spoonful. Those lucky peas were addictive. America, I'm doing my bit for prosperity. Et tu?

A DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE

Another life saving gift

In case I haven't given enough reasons for the urgency of shopping at and supporting your local farmers' market, here's a last minute holiday gift. It's from the national Environmental Working Group. Their newly revealed "dirty dozen" are the "fresh" supermarket ingredients most likely to be toxic due to pesticide contamination. With the list, the EWG urged Americans to purchase these items elsewhere, hopefully labeled organic. The safest "elsewhere" is of course your local farmers' market. Happily, many if not most of these items are readily available there.

Here's that dirty dozen in the order of toxicity:
Apples
Celery
Strawberries
Peaches
Spinach
Nectarines
Grapes
Bell Peppers
Potatoes
Blueberries
Lettuce
Kale

Note how most of these items are the highly touted must-eats for a strong body with good health, foods we tend to eat every day. So if you are shoveling in supermarket fruits and greens, you may be piling up pesticides inside your body. Going to your local farm or farmers market should be a New Year's resolution, for it could be a life-saver in the years that follow.

A delicious and nutritious 2012 to all.

Coming In From the Cold

The US Department of Agriculture is saying that winter farmers' markets are now sprouting in great profusion. In 2011, there were 38 percent more than in 2010, which means 1,225 instead of just 886. According to USDA, winter markets now represent 17% of all farmers' markets and they are growing because, " consumers are looking for more ways to buy locally grown food throughout the year."

New York state has the most winter markets, followed not surprisingly by California where winter in many regions is the equivalent of early fall or late spring everywhere else. Massachusetts is 8th on the USDA list leading newcomers Virginia and Michigan.

The great indoors often gives winter markets a merrier atmosphere than summer versions, a shopping party with music and hot cocoa or coffee. They can be even more colorful too as fruits of the land are replaced by fruits of the hand: knitted hats and scarves, candles, lotions and potions, pottery, leather goods, quilts, potholders, stuffed animals and all sorts of joyful craft are there for the harvesting.

And the eat goes on. It's no surprise that winter markets are the best source of farm fresh eggs, milk, yogurt, cheeses and meats. Or that you can find handmade breads, smoked fish, jams and pickles, pies, maple syrup, honey and winter squashes. What is amazing and getting ever more so is how the farmers bring from the cold a variety of fresh greens, herbs, and sometimes even root vegetables.

In other words, winter markets are all the rage because they really are super markets.

More Gifts from the Farm and Market

It's still not too late to create a few season's eatings from the bounty of the farmers' market, not if that's where you get bread. With bread you can make a supply of croutons, crackers, crunch bread and Christmas canapé supports that can come in very handy and end being greatly appreciated.

Tasty croutons--butter, garlic, herbs, oiled--can last a long time in a tin and be an uplifting gift to most winter salads or soups. And they don't necessarily have to be those perfect squares that come processed and packaged at a high price. Fine, if you want to cut precise squares out of your bread, no problem. But you can, say, also thickly slice a day old baguette and once it's baked, break it in half. Or you can cut bread sticks.

For croutons, if you want buttery, melt 1 1/2 tbsp for each loaf of bread. If you want buttery and garlicky, mince three medium cloves to the butter. If you want peppery, blend in some freshly ground black pepper. And finally add a pinch of salt. Now brush this mix all over the bread pieces on all sides and put the bread in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 275 degrees until the croutons are uniformly crisp and hard, anywhere from 40-60 minutes. Cool and pack in tins. (My measurements are approximate.)

If you prefer olive oil and herb croutons, or olive oil and garlic, put 2 tbsp olive oil in a shallow bowl. Blend in 1 tsp dried thyme, 1/4 tsp celery seeds, 1/8 tsp ground coriander. If you want to add garlic with or without herbs, mince up 2 cloves and stir them in. Put the bread pieces in the bowl to coat them with this marinade. Then spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake at 275 degrees until uniformly crisp and golden. Cool and pack in tins. (Measurements are approximate.)

To make crackers for cheese, you will need a baguette. Cut this in slices as thin as you dare. Then brush the front and back of each with olive oil. Once the bread is moist, you can if you like flavor the cracker. Sprinkle on one side a pinch of poppy seed, or a pinch of Fleur du sel, or a pinch of cracked black pepper. You can even brush on fresh lemon juice with the olive oil for a different taste. Or for a truly olive taste, you can blend about 1/4 tsp black olive paste into the olive oil before brushing it on. Place the prepared crackers on a baking sheet and bake at 275 degrees until they are uniformly toasted: crunchy and golden brown. Leave no soft spots please. Pack in a tin.

To make what we used to call "crunchy bread" growing up because my grandparents liked to eat it, you need a rectangular loaf of white bread thinly sliced. All you have to do is put each slice on the baking sheet and bake at 250 degrees for an hour or two until the bread is hard and lightly brown. This is the original melba toast or Zweiback, which means "double baked bread." It makes a magically delicious breakfast slathered with fresh farm butter sprinkled with coarse salt, or cream cheese with a light coating of quince paste or apricot jam. It's also good for someone ailing to dip into tea, for teething tots, and for travelers.

To make Christmas canapés, get a rectangular loaf of sliced bread and get out your Christmas tree cookie cutter. By cutting one up and one upside down, you should get two "trees" out of each slice. Bake them in a single layer on a baking sheet for 30 minutes or until they feel firm to the touch. Now you have the base for a green Christmas tree canapé that can be made several ways. One is to cover the "tree" with a thin layer of fresh pesto and then to decorate it with garlands made of those thin little pieces of pimento that come in the very small glass jar. Another is to make a paté from maybe 1/3 cup creamed or soft ricotta cheese, a minced garlic clove, freshly ground black pepper and 2/3-1 cup of minced fresh parsley or cilantro--enough herb to turn the paté green. Decorate this "tree" with slices of olive hung like balls. Serve these immediately.

And finally, here's a shout out for a really great gift to us all: Jim Gerritsen of Aroostook County, Maine.

This farmer, who grows potatoes, corn and wheat, is president of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, a national organization that encourages resistance to big agriculture’s control of seeds for farming. He went from Aroostook to Zuccotti Park to Occupy Wall Street as part of Food Democracy Now. “I have not spoken to one farmer who doesn’t understand the message of Occupy Wall Street," he told a New York Times reporter, "that message that so many people keep saying is nebulous. It’s actually very clear. Because of business and corporate participation in agriculture, farmers are losing their livelihoods.... Metal prices are high, so we’re paying higher prices for farm equipment — like $200,000 for a tractor,” he said. “And the price of food in supermarkets is higher than it’s ever been. So, while farmers are hanging on by their fingertips, consumers are paying through the nose. The money that gets made in between is going to companies, and the government isn’t doing anything about it. We have fifth- and sixth-generation farmers up where I live being pushed out of business, when all they want to do is grow good food. And if it goes on like this, all we’re going to have to eat in this country is unregulated, imported, genetically modified produce. That’s not a healthy food system.”

Give your local farmer the gift of a living this holiday season.

Joy Preserved

I've just shipped off the annual Season's Eating packages that my friends so anxiously await. Although they have more than everything, a little jam and some blueberry chutney, a jar of pickled asparagus, dried herbs, a small tin of chili roasted pumpkin seeds, a jar of honest to Maine maple syrup and some cookies seem to unleash joy to their world. So this is, at least for me, the greatest annual moment of glory for our farmers' markets.

Those packages are the soul satisfying triumph of shopping well done. And my friends get it that I am sharing the love: the love farmers have for their work and the love I have for their food. You just can't overdo caring in today's world. So give homemade food gifts if you can. At this dark time of year, the deep fruit flavor of honest jam, the pungent zing of blueberry chutney, the heat of chili or cinnamon spice brighten a body and soul. And look it this way too: you can frustrate yourself squeezing into crowded parking areas and mobbed malls trying to buy something probably made in China that you imagine somebody here really needs or you can stay home and have some family fun in the kitchen making something you know will be eaten with appreciation--for your thoughtful effort if nothing else.


I like to throw in a small non edible gift from time to time, usually something found at the markets' handicraft stalls--a clever potholder, a handwoven basket, a unique dried flower arrangement. One year it was sheepskin hats. This year, I've been diverted because I couldn't help myself. My gotta have gift is the shoulder strap tote bag for sale at the Museum Shop of the Maine Historical Society on Congress Street in Portland. This perfect shopping bag is emblazoned with the U.S. Food Administration's 1917 (read that: during World War I) words to the wise:
FOOD
1-buy it with thought
2-cook it with care
3-use less wheat & meat
4-buy local foods
5-serve just enough
6-use what's left
DON'T WASTE IT

A big thank you to whoever preserved those guidelines! Don't they make the timeliest gift now, nearly 100 years after they were issued?

My cookies, by the way, are ginger filled, because cinnamon, cloves and ginger are the spices known to raise the temperature of the body--a favor in these chilly times. That's why they show up in mulled cider and so many holiday baked goods. If perchance you found cornmeal at a farmers' market and still have some, consider making a cornmeal pound cake or cornmeal, lemon butter cookies. These are delicious without being cloying sweet. Italian baking books can guide you.

If friends are coming over, gift them with a festive, elegant but easy to prepare feast of warm smoked chicken (now at markets) with wild rice. Add pecans and cranberries (dried or fresh) to the rice, and add butternut squash mashed with cardamom and a bit of coconut cream to the plate. Or try making a smoked chicken salad (celery, scallions, currants, cranberries, tarragon) and serving it in a warm, colorful bowl: a hollowed acorn squash that was basted with maple syrup before it was baked. If you're thinking turkey again, remember the heritage ones, the real deal turkeys available at winter markets. Narragansett is the original, and the most popular now. You might also find Bourbon Red, Spanish black or Standard Bronze.

Ben Franklin lobbied for the wild turkey to be America's national bird, finding it more appropriate than the bald eagle. The eagle, Franklin wrote to his daughter, "is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.... He watches the labor of the fishing hawk (ospreys to us); and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young one, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him." But the turkey, Franklin went on, shared its food, and "though a little vain and silly, is a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on."

And if you haven't had enough apple crisp or pie or even crisp apples, hurry to the winter markets. There's where you'll find the tastiest apples available, and for good reason. A recent article in The New Yorker (November 21, 2012) confirms that when big ag supersizes the harvest to maximize profits, it focuses exclusively on apples that don't bruise when mechanically harvested, sorted and shipped; picks apples long before they ripen to keep a continual supply flowing to supermarkets and despite the damage to taste components, breed for mutations of shiny red because that's how they think we all think of apples. Green or yellow won't tempt us. And quality is not allowed to interfere with quantity in the supply chain. That's why the University of Minnesota wanted to protect its newly patented consumer hit, the SweeTango apple. "When you sell the apples at your farm stand," the head of its fruit breeding program explained: " people know who grew them. But when you sell them to a grocery store, you the grower are anonymous, as far as the consumer is concerned, and that's where quality issues creep in."

Who wants to get quality issues for Christmas?