Sparks in the Soil

New Project: Tips for a Dairy-Free Diet

Friends, I'm excited to share with you that I've recently launched a new writing gig--I'm the Dairy-Free Food writer for Boston's Examiner.com!  I'll be writing 2-3 times a week with tips, advice, products, recipes, and information for those of you are on either dairy-reduced or dairy-free diets...as I am.

My dairy issue is casein, the protein found in milk (the other dairy biggie, you probably know, is lactose).  In my body, casein sensitivity leads to everything from sinus issues to stomach sluggishness to acne.  Since I stopped--or, if occasional cheating can be admitted, greatly reduced--my intake of dairy, I've seen marked improvement in all of these areas.

So I'm excited to pursue the topic further on Examiner.com, learning more myself as I guide you toward better, healthier choices....no cow required.

Click here to see my Dairy-Free Food page on Examiner.com.  And don't be shy - click "subscribe" in the upper right-hand corner to get my dairy-free latest emailed to you!

(image via: http://www.all-creatures.org/)

Composting Pumpkins: Note to Self

My next-door neighbor maintains a gloriously wild, riotously colorful garden that is obviously fed with lots of love...and excellent compost.  Yesterday, as families around the 'hood began to watch their porches for signs of Jack-o-Lantern collapse, she sent around an email asking that instead of tossing their gourds, they donate them to the cause of her compost heap.

What an excellent idea, and what a beautiful thought to imagine the leftovers from a community's celebration of Halloween finding new life in the glory of next year's garden.  If I weren't going to give our front-porch pumpkin to my own worms, I'd gladly donate it to the cause.

But note to self for any Halloween pumpkin composters out there:  Remove all seeds from your pumpkin before you heave it onto the compost heap!  If you need explanation as to why, read this cautionary tale of a garden gone to pumpkin in the course of one season....

So oh, darn - you'll just have to save your seeds and roast them!  My new favorite way?  Sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, and a little sea salt.  Crunch!

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Tale of a Victorious Sunday

It's been rough waters around here this summer, and often it's felt like every little thing from dry cleaning to grocery shopping has been a struggle, complicated, involving something broken or compromised or incorrect.  Yesterday, Rob an I had a morning that reminded me that oh, yeah, it's not always like that.  Some days are lousy, but some days are....not.

We got up early and drove out to Verrill Farm in Concord for some produce and a breakfast of these amazing cranberry-orange scones with a just-sweet-enough icing.  I am an admitted scone snob, most scones I find to be either incredibly tough or incredibly dry, neither of which I am in the mood for in the morning (or ever).  Verrill's scones, though, are ever so slightly under-baked.  This leaves them tender inside, crunchy outside, with the tri-partite bonuses of moist icing, plumped dried cranberries and bright orange zest that render them full of flavors that couldn't be further from standard scone "hockey puck" fare.

We gathered some luscious corn, blueberries, eggplant, and shallots from the farmstand, and then headed over to the bakery section for some scone-y perfection.  But--sigh--we were greeted with the sight of an empty tray.  Oh.  Ok.  We got good stuff, we'll just take our veggies and maybe a cookie and go home.  But as we turned, defeated, to leave, who should come out but a bakery employee carrying a giant tray of fresh cranberry-orange scones! 

Sweet fancy Moses were they delicious!  And even more than that, wow did we feel happy from the victory and surprise of getting a treat we thought was lost to our Sunday. 

Farms are great places to get such surprises.  Your home vegetable garden is too.  I was joyfully shocked when my sluggish zucchini plant shot forth 6 perfect specimens in the 4 days before we moved from our condo last week, enabling us to feast on grilled zucchini in our new home.  The roots that have sprouted rom my New Dawn rose cuttings were another great surprise.  Discovering at Verrill Farm that local blueberries are at their sweetest this week was another spark of "yay."  And of course the scones.  The fresh, flavorful scones.  They were there just for us.

This is not to say that I'm not expecting any more trouble out of life in the near future.  But I am so grateful to have been reminded by that little moment in the bakery section that some days are pretty darn good.

New Veggie-Sharing Website

Thanks to my friend Lisa for sharing VeggieTrader.com with me!  This is a brand-new site with a brilliant, simple premise:  when neighbors grow food and share it, communities come together, people eat better, and some might even make a little green for their greens.

Through the site, you can post whatever's in excess in your garden and trade--or sell--it to eager folks in your area. 

Got too much mint but not enough dill?  Too much zucchini but not enough cucumbers? Maybe your neighbor has basil and cucumbers out the wazoo, and was wondering just how many pickles he could put up in one summer.  And maybe that same neighbor was hoping to sip on some minted iced tea while grilling some zucchini to go with his dinner.  You never know until you connect....

A word of warning--the site is just getting started, and there are very few listings (none in my zip code, my parents' in Maryland, or even in--what?--San Francisco).  But why not support this exciting, innovative venture by posting a listing of your own?  If I had anything in abundance happening in my garden at the moment, I certainly would....

Click here to visit VeggieTrader.com.

The iPhone Locavore App

I recently upgraded my iPod Touch so it can accept apps, and one of the first I downloaded was "Locavore," a new app that tells you what foods are in season, what's coming into season, and where the nearest farmer's markets are to your location.  Within the U.S., it can tell what state you're in (who knew Big Brother was a locavore?)

I'm excited about the app, but my first run out of the gate was a little disappointing.  Mainly because it said there are no in-season foods in Massachusetts at the moment.  Now I know the farms aren't yet teeming, but I also know that just last weekend I bought spring parsnips from Verrill Farm that were just delicious.

Even more discouraging, the app also tells me, "no new food coming into season soon."  Again, I know Massachusetts has a short growing season, but asparagus, early lettuces, and even pea tendrils aren't that far off....are they?

The farmer's market feature works great, though, and will be fun to use this summer to discover new nearby markets.  And you can browse by state in case your friend in Maine wants to start eating local (note: beets, cabbage, garlic, winter squash, parsnips, and more are listed as "currently in season" in Maine.  Um, is the Mass. list broken?)

Click here for a great Treehugger review of the app (and note that their screenshot is from Hawaii, sigh....)

One Good Egg

Our visit to Pete & Jen's Backyard Birds this weekend yielded a box of some seriously large, gorgeous eggs.  Fried up and slid onto a slice of 12-grain toast, they made us one delicious breakfast:

This picture really illustrates the wisdom behind the Russian proverb, "Love and eggs are best when they are fresh."  It's especially evident because this one is so honkin' big!  Note the following telltale signs of freshness:

• The rich, deep-orange yolk that stands firm and upright when the egg is cracked
• The milky, bubbly outer area of the white
• The tight, thicker inner area of the white, indicating that the albumen has not broken down due to age

Just had to share.  This was one good egg. 

Another Reason to Sprout: Bread!

Of course!  Sprouting isn't just for pastas, salads, and snacking, it's for bread!  Boston Globe correspondent Ted Weesner Jr. wrote compellingly this week about his experiments with sprouted bread, a tradition that goes right back to biblical times.  Just look at the gorgeous photo of the loaf about which Weesner's friend remarked, "It makes other bread seem like a saltine!"

Back to the biblical reference. Ezekiel 4:9, to be precise, is apparently an instruction in using sprouted grains in place of flour to bake bread: "Further, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and emmer. Put them into one vessel and bake them into bread."

Interesting, because I would have thought the verse instructed people to grind up the grains into flour, but it is widely regarded as a sprouting principle.

So.

Time to start a new batch of sprouts!  (And time to get my hands on a copy of Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads")

Have you ever baked with sprouted seeds in place of flour?

How to Find Grass-Fed Meat and Eggs

When a friend asked how I found my "secret" pastured egg and beef supplier, I could barely remember.  So I went a'clickin', and found a great resource to help you find pastured meat and eggs in your area.

Check out EatWild.com, which has a clickable map of every state, with lists of local producers of grass-fed beef, lamb, chicken, eggs, and more.  Pete & Jen's Backyard Birds (my spot) isn't on the Massachusetts list, but I suspect they're too small-scale. 

A cool discovery among the myriad producers listed: Nick's Organic Farm, purveyor of organic, grass-fed beef, chicken, turkey, and eggs, in my own hometown of Potomac, Maryland!

The American Pastured Poultry Producers Association (that's A-triple-P-A!) has a good resource page as well, though it is, obviously, poultry-only.  Friend-of-Sparks-in-the-Soil Terry Golson appears on the list, but she does not sell her hens' eggs--so keep in mind that APPPA members are listed, though not all of them are egg-and-meat sellers per se.

Where do you get your meat and eggs?  Any local gems to share?

Secret Food Spots, and the Perfect Pot Roast

Every few weeks, we drive out to Concord, Mass., stop in at Verrill Farm for some produce (um, and 2 or 6 of their mocha chocolate-chip cookies), and then drive just down the road.  We park in a small, muddy lot next to a horse stable, and walk down to an almost-hidden little door with a wooden chicken hanging on it.  Inside the door is a tiny room containing a refrigerator (which contains pastured chicken eggs by the dozen) and  a large freezer filled with fresh, local meat.

In addition to being a great way to support a local food source, it's just plain fun to go to Pete & Jen's Backyard Birds.  Slipping through that door feels like a secret privilege.  And walking out again with farm fresh eggs (their laying hens live the good, grass-munching life in a mobile coop) feels like a special gift.  In the summer, one of our favorite dinners is a couple of super-fresh eggs, sunny side up, oozing bright yellow yolk over a hash of seasonal vegetables.  Ooh, summer:

But I digress.  Eating local in a New England winter means eating meat.  And I missed my chance to get orders in for Pete & Jen's meat chickens, plus I don't eat pork.  But lucky me, because they currently have in their freezer grass-fed beef that's pastured in Southborough, Massachusetts!

We bolted over there right after getting the email alerting us to this exciting development last Sunday, and we came home with a beautiful chuck round roast and a pound of ground beef.  And last night, we chowed on pot roast - brightened with the biggest honkin' carrots I've ever seen (which we picked up at Verrill's), and stewed slowly in a braising liquid that's half Barefoot Contessa and half of my Great-Aunt Dot:

Equal parts tomato juice and ginger ale. 

The ginger ale gives a little zing to the roast, and the tomato juice tenderizes and flavors the whole thing.  Four hours on low heat, a little brown rice to sop up the juice, and dinner was served.

Do you have any local food sources that feel like your own special secrets?  Come on, it's just between us chickens....and grass-fed cows.

 

In Defense of Conventional Bananas (Sort Of)

John raised a great point in my "green shopping tips" post about why he buys organic bananas: the pesticides used in conventional methods don't necessarily hurt the fruit or the eater (because of its thick rind), but the chemicals can hurt the people who grow and pick the bananas.

He's very right--and it used to be even worse.  In 2007, banana growers sued American companies Dole, Dow Chemical, and others because they claimed that in the 1970s, the companies negligently allowed workers to be exposed to DBCP, a toxic worm-fumigant known to cause infertility and cancer.  DBCP was banned by the U.S. in 1977, but other chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used to keep bananas "clean" yellow and free of bruises. This article makes a good case for organic banana-buying.

The problem is that organic bananas are $1.19/proud at my local Whole Foods Market, as opposed to $0.79/pound for conventional ones.  And I'll confess: I've been spoiled by the idea that bananas are smooth and yellow, not brown and spotted.  Organic bananas that I've eaten in the past have tasted starchy to me, been small, and often had rotten spots.  That's my anecdotal experience, granted, but there it is.

The good news is, there is a middle way for those of us who don't want to pay $0.40 extra at the market for food whose pesticide residue is unlikely to find its way into our bodies, yet who care about worker safety and health and want to feel that we're not hurting whole communities so we can have bananas in our morning cereal.

That middle way is the "Fair Trade" seal that appears on the $0.79/pound conventional bananas at my market. The seal means, among other things, that workers are:

a) Paid a living wage
b) Protected from human rights abuses like child labor
c) Given healthcare benefits
d) Not exposed to banned toxic chemicals
e) Given protective clothing (gloves, masks) as needed to prevent respiratory and skin absorption of chemicals
f) Working under environmentally sound conditions

Click here to sign a petition to urge your grocery store to stock fair-trade bananas. 

But first, please leave comments - do you buy conventional bananas?  Are you comforted by "fair trade" seals?  Or do you avoid bananas because of the carbon footprint required to transport them to your neck of the woods?

(Image from this interesting Babble.com post about how bananas are marketed here in the U.S.)