Category: (it's all about the) food

8 tips for shopping at the farmers market

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening, raising chickens, shopping

the farmers market is unofficially open in portland, maine (and maybe where you are too). here are some ideas to get you started off on the right foot:

  1. bring a bag! preferably a reusable shopping bag vs those plastic ones (although these are available from the farmers if you do forget your bag. which I typically do).
  2. don’t be afraid to ask, “what the heck is it?” if you don’t recognize it.
  3. don’t be afraid to ask, “how the heck do you cook that thing?” . they’ll tell you. (most likely it will involve frying it in butter, but hey, doesn’t butter improve most things?).
  4. bring small bills and a handful of change. nothing will make you feel more uncomfortable than handing over a $20 to pay for $1 worth of parsnips (reference #3 above) and  nothing takes longer than a farmer counting out your change in those precious one dollar bills that he will desperately need to make change for other ill-prepared shoppers a few hours later.
  5. if you see a pile of something on the ground behind the vendor’s stand, ask for it! they are often happy to give you those carrot tops (or whatever) that their other customers didn’t want but that your chickens will swoon over for just the price of taking it off their hands.
  6. show some restraint! don’t buy up all of those “early girl” tomato seedlings when they first appear. by the time the heirloom varieties (purple brandywine; amish paste, hawaiian pineapple, stupice, thesoliniki) are presented, your garden will be overfull (and your significant other will be saying, “I told you so!” with that smug look as you sob that “there is no more room in the garden! Why didn’t I wait?!”).
  7. shop around; nothing is more annoying than to fork over $4 for that small bunch of cut daffodils and then find the much larger bunch for $3.50 two stalls down.
  8. plan to visit the market as close to when it opens as you can; it is definitely an “early bird catches the worm” kind of shopping experience. they have what they have until it’s gone.

and remember: they hauled all that stuff over here, the least you can do is to go buy a parsnip or something (reference #4 above).

anyone else have any tips for farmers market shopping? …or any good parsnip recipes? 🙂

find a local farmer’s market: http://www.localharvest.org/

learn what to do with what you bought: http://www.farmfresh.org/learn/recipes.php

 

(another) new restaurant in the old port

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, restaurants

KAMASOUPTRA is the new restaurant, and they serve (you guessed it!) primarily soup. they have a cool tag line:  steamy. hot. soup.  i mean really; how could you go wrong?

well, for one thing, that stupid construction vehicle that is blocking the entrance is …bad feng shui. also, the stairway to the second floor where the restaurant is located was shut down, so i was forced to take the, um, rather suspicious looking elevator which was  moving so slowly that my usually latent claustrophobia was starting to dust itself off. once the doors finally opened and i escaped…i mean arrived at my destination, things  began to look up. the servers were clean and friendly. all soups i asked to try were graciously handed over, no charge. i thought the cheese containing soups were too…cheesey, but my cheese loving friend thought they were just right. the vegetable tortilla soup was my favorite.

a bonus was … they had CUPCAKES! from the TULIP CUPCAKERY! the name alone primes you to love them! and did i mention the sample was free? it was half a cupcake, but still.  having just finished 5 soup samples(not to mention lunch and the scone i had been gifted with earlier), it really was more than i needed, or expected. (full disclosure: the cupcake was a little dry but the frosting more than made up for it).

they sent me on my way with a menu that included a 10% off coupon for my return visit (this week) and several extra coupons for my coworkers.

all in all, it was 10 minutes well spent this afternoon.

if you are in the portland (maine)  area, check them out.

http://kamasouptra.com/home.html

gardening

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening

are you gardeners out there getting excited thinking about your vegetable gardens for this year? the rain last year left my tomatoes (and me) in misery; there was so much mold that when i finally did get a tomato or two that were edible, i had no appetite for it…and i love tomatoes. fortunately, this  is still vivid in my memory so i will not be going tomato crazy when it comes to plant buying time this year (the last two years i had in excess of 18 plants…).

so, this year i will try to do get more bounty from fewer plants. that is my plan. i hope i can stick to it when i am looking at all the different varieties of tomatoes seedlings for sale at Agway…

here are some helpful links:

http://www.agway.com/

http://www.gardeners.com/KitchenGardenPlanner/kgp_home,default,pg.html

http://www.5dollardinners.com/2010/03/free-gardening-planners.html

“The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before.”~Vita Sackville-West

happy easter

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, good grief, tweens

one of my favorite holidays growing up was easter. my father loved easter, and always went out of his way to make it fun for us. we had the requisite easter baskets, usually one of the prepackaged, pre-filled ones from the closest department store (we were a family of 4 kids born in 6 years, after all), but i always loved mine. the best part of the day was the easter egg hunt. dad would fill the plastic easter eggs with small change and “hide” them around the house (my father was disabled and not-so-agile, so most of the eggs were at about waist level, in plain sight). we would race around until we had found them all.

this year is the first that neither of my kids believe in the easter bunny anymore. here’s the funny thing about that though: they both still expect baskets and booty from the fictional bunny. as a mother, i certainly don’t want to disappoint them, but this year i wanted to focus on “less is more” and so i scaled things back some. instead of large, overstuffed baskets, i made them easter bunny bags to hold their candy (http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/holiday-ideas/easter-table-decorations), an idea i got from Good Housekeeping Magazine. they were easy to make, and more importantly, they were quick, since it was 10pm on easter eve before i got to actually assemble said bunnies. the other good thing about these little bunnies is that they form an enclosed space within which the contents must conform; no candy or toys spilling out over the tops and the sides…another reminder for me not to go “over the top” with filling them.  i did, of course, fill the plastic eggs with small change for the egg hunt. even though the morning will be rushed, with us getting ready to drive an hour and a half to have dinner with family out-of-state, and the older child getting ready to go to work, we will have our traditional egg hunt.

i would not want to miss that opportunity to honor my dad. 🙂

what easter rituals does your family have? are they carried over from your childhood?

spring ritual

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, gardening, italian

my italian grandmother always said her birthday was on the first day of spring. actually, every so often she was right; her birthday was march 21st, and spring is usually on march 20th, but not always:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox).  one sure sign that spring had come when i was little was The Making of the Dandelion Salad. my grandmother would send me out into the yard to gather dandelion leaves. this wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds. there were rules that must be followed:

1. leaves must be chosen from plants that had not yet flowered, otherwise they would be too bitter. 2. you had to look for plants that were far from the road, otherwise the exhaust from passing cars would poison them 3. leaves must be washed at least 3 times, because they were pretty dirty, what with actual dirt,  plus who knew what manner of animal had befouled the leaves in some manner? 4. the salad must always have olive oil and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper for dressing. that’s it. 

as i’m writing this, i realize one of the implicit gifts from this practice: nana always told me why i was being asked to do something a certain way. that was as important to me when i was 10 as it is to me now.

do you have any rituals from childhood that you remember? do you still practice any of them? who was an unsung hero in your childhood?

potlucks

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

march is nutrition month, and this year we celebrated it at work by having a potluck. the general overall theme was healthy eating; the underlying challenge was to prepare and bring healthy foods that people wanted to eat, which left quite a wide range open for interpretation.  we had the requisite fruit and veggie tray, and a box of clementines from the no-time-to-shopper…then we had the piece de resistance: vegetable casserole, which was a hands down favorite.  this recipe can be found here: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1750,149169-249195,00.html

ahhh, and then there was the bread.

is there anything better than a potluck to improve morale in the workplace? if so, what??

cookie break!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, recipes

and speaking of cookies…recently my coworker was walking around with a plate of her latest offering: homemade cookies. way to boost morale in the workplace!  one of her favorite websites for recipes is www.kingarthurflour.com.  i tried some of the recipes from this website and had great success with them (the blueberry muffins were a big hit with the kids…but that’s another story; today we are talking about cookies).

these are MY favorite cookies at the moment; either homemade (they sell a cookbook with the recipe) or you can go to the Beach Pea Bakery in Kittery and purchase one (or two or three!) already  made:  http://www.beachpeabaking.com/. if you go, check out the fougasse…

do you prefer to bake your own cookies or to have them handed to you?

marching into may

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

i just took a walk, then negated the benefits of said walk by accepting and eating a homemade peanut butter oatmeal cookie when i got back to work. i took the walk because this year i signed up for March into May, a program designed to help you become more active. you set your own goals, then update them each week for 8 weeks.  i consoled myself after the cookie-eating with the fact that i DID, at least, take the walk, which i probably wouldn’t have done if i wasn’t thinking about my MIM goal not yet being met for the week. (i probably would have eaten the cookie either way…one of the best bakers i know made it!).

if you decide to sign up for MIM (it’s free! and you can build in your own rewards (cookies!) for staying on track each week , or for whatever behaviors you choose to reward). here’s a tip from someone who has participated in MIM for several years (me!):  for your goal: set the bar low; make it achievable, so it is motivating, not demotivating. 🙂

http://www.marchintomay.org/march-into-may.php

what do you think? is this worth doing? will it help you get out and do some exercise of some sort that you might not have done otherwise ?

a spring miracle

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening

i was amazed to see that my garden from LAST year has spinach and lettuce growing in it THIS year…how could this happen? first of all, both are supposedly annuals (http://www.learn2grow.com/plant-guides/vegetables/leafy-vegetables-lettuce-spinach/)…did they survive the winter?  hallelujah! then i thought, sure, it’s growing, but is it edible? this not being medieval times, i had no assayer (food taster) to step up and take the fall for me. i glance over my shoulder at my chickens, nearly beside themselves with excitement, salivating at the sight of fresh greens…should i feed some to my least preferred chicken and watch for untoward effects? (would that be wrong??) in the end, i realized that i really only had 2 options: to throw it away or to risk it myself. guess which door i chose? all who said “door #2”, you are correct! and since i’m here to tell you about it, you may have already deduced the outcome…have any of you ever had your annual vegetables stick around through the winter and keep growing in the spring?


food security

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food

one of my goals this year is to support food security. “The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing ‘when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life’. Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people’s dietary needs as well as their food preferences.”                                                   

source: http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/

so. starting small,  i gave a clementine to my friend and told her that i appreciate her. other food gifts i’ve given over the past month include: dinner to a family whose single parent suffering from complications from surgery, freshly baked bread, chicken soup to a friend who had been sick with respiratory symptoms…for weeks! most recently, baked 2 dozen sugar cookies with green sprinkles for coworkers to celebrate st. patrick’s day.

how can you support food security in some small way this week?