A Single Step

Persimmon: The prettiest fruit I’d never met before

I don't recall the very first time I ever caught a glimpse of them, but I do remember the first time I ever looked  closely at them.  I was shopping for vegetables for my minestrone soup last week when I saw them closely for the very first time, their vibrant blush, their incredible radiance.  I stopped dead in my tracks and whispered a haiku under my breath:

            Glowing red-orange
            Asian beauty, speak to me
            Like an ancient dream

Infatuation for sure, but I wanted to suddenly take some of this fruit home with me, not knowing what to do with it.  I wanted to see if I could fall in love.

As I embarked on a search for persimmon recipes, I quickly learned that there are astringent varieties and non-astringent varieties.  Astringent means that it's likely to make your mouth pucker if you don't allow it to ripen deeply before tasting it.  The Hachiya variety I bought was astringent.  OK, I needed to be patient.  I also learned that you should remove the skin before eating it, a task that is not easily accomplished once the fruit takes on a squishy, yet ripened texture.  So even with patience, it's likely to be messy.  I was starting to think this could be a difficult relationship.

I settled upon a recipe for a persimmon pudding cake.  I figured that even if I were to mishandle the fruit, I could hide any mishaps, inflicted wounds or general ineptitude in the mashed pulp hidden deeply within the cake. 

The cake turned out pretty good, given my past difficulties with baked goods recipes.  And I'd consider seeing the persimmon again.  But I'm hoping that the second time is a bit sweeter and more natural union between us.  If not, I suppose I can go back to the more familiar apple.

Do you have a favorite persimmon recipe?

Persimmon Pudding Cake

Ingredients
*  2 cups Hachiya persimmon pulp
*  4 eggs
*  1/2 cup butter (I stick), melted
*  3/4 cup milk
*  1 teaspoon vanilla
*  1-1/2 cups flour
*  1/2 cup sugar
*  1 teaspoon baking powder
*  1 teaspoon baking soda
*  1/2 teaspoon salt
*  2 teaspoons cinnamon
*  1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
*  1 teaspoon ginger
*  1 teaspoon allspice
*  1 cup chopped pecans
*  whipping cream

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees;
2. In a large bowl, mix the persimmon pulp, eggs, butter, milk and vanilla
3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices;
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, one-third at a time, fully incorporating after each addition.  Add the chopped nuts;
5. Bake in a square glass pan, buttered, for about 50 minutes;
6. Top with a dollop of whipped cream.

   

Options to Eating Local: Farmer’s Markets

This is my third installment on ways that you can eat local.  Today I'll share the fifth idea, shopping at Farmers' Markets.

If you're like me and a bit wary of receiving too much farm fresh food from a CSA, or perhaps you just enjoy being outdoors or the experience of shopping, then the Bay Area offers you numerous Farmers' Market options.

I heard on the news the other night that it was former California governor Jerry Brown, in the late 1970's, who was responsible for changing regulations that prohibited farmers from selling directly to consumers.  This led to what has now become an explosion in the number of markets in California.  He's been quoted as saying:

The farmers' markets were another step to giving people an opportunity to take more power over their own lives and also to provide another outlet for organic produce.  That is important because the production and distribution of food is increasingly being monopolized and controlled by large corporate structures, large financial structures.

There are now more than 4,600 Farmers Markets in the U.S. (up from 1,700 in 1994), 600+ in California, and based on my own count, more than 100 in the Bay Area.  Not only have they given greater access and options to people who seek fresh from the farm produce, but they have also transformed cities and markets:

• Between 1987 and 1997, sales of fresh fruits and vegetables in the U.S. have more than doubled to about $70 billion per year;
• In order to better compete with Farmers' Markets, the number of items in the average supermarket produce section has risen from 173 to 335;
• Markets often provide access of fresh fruits and vegetables to urban residents who in some neighborhoods do not have access to a grocery store.  Some markets report receiving as much as half its revenue in the form of scrip from Federal and State anti-hunger programs such as the WIC program;
• Farmers' Markets have been used as the centerpiece in urban development, such as at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, or in being the original anchor in what is now the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica;
•  Markets serve as community centers, allowing families to spend a morning together, or to attend special events such as concerts, book readings, cooking demonstrations, and tastings.

There are also considerable benefits realized by farmers.  They keep a larger portion of their revenue than what they would get selling to wholesale distributors.  They get cash instead of having to wait weeks to get a check from a wholesale customer.  And they get to build relationships with customers, from chefs to house-dads. 

This is not to say that there isn't a downside to a farmer working a market.  The hours can be long, and at some of the more popular markets, competition can be fierce.  This has resulted in some farms either cutting back on its market visits, or pulling out completely.  Just the other day, I saw a farmer drop his price for pluots from $2 / pound to $0.50 / pound so he could close for the day and return home.

You might be surprised that there is a market located near you.  I told my friend "D" the other day that I had shopped at a market literally around the corner from where she lives, and she was unawares that it existed.  Again, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers has a tremendous resource in its Food Guide where it lists the markets by day of the week and by county in the greater Bay Area.  There's a market every day of the week, except Mondays.  You can do a web search of its database, or you can check out the Google Map I created using the information in the Food Guide.

I like to attend markets because I can people watch; I can ask a question of the farmers about a new food and not feel dumb for asking; I can sample foods; I get to shop outside! 

Last Wednesday I took a bus down to the Heart of the City Farmers Market where I took in the sensations.  This is a truly urban market located at the United Nations Plaza between Market Street on one end and City Hall on the other end.  I bought some Persian cucumbers and green onions from a farm located in San Juan Bautista, and I bought a pound of green grapes from a farm located in Modesto.  I spent a total of $3.

I was amazed at how many people were out and about shopping at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon.  I briefly wondered how this market compares to those found across the country, but I quickly reminded myself that few places can compare to the bounty we have available to us in San Francisco and around the Bay Area.  I basked in the sunshine of the day and smiled.  Life is good!

If you don’t shop at Farmers’ Markets, what are your reasons?  If you could have somebody shop and deliver from a Farmers’ Market FOR YOU, would you be interested in this service?

M-m-m-m-minestrone Soup

Other than green cabbage, there are no ingredients in this dish that I'm not passably familiar with.  But what I like about the recipe is that it's got so many different vegetables that it must be healthy, no?  I'm thinking a single bowl must count as my targeted 5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day as suggested by the USDA.  I've also noticed that the nights are getting a bit colder.  So I decided I'd not only celebrate my recent dedication to more vegetables, but also give myself a warm comforting dish that I can enjoy over the next few weeks.  Did I say weeks?  Yep.  I've finally overcome my irrational aversion and I plan to freeze half of this for future consumption.

There's a lot of chopping involved with this recipe (and some coordination, especially if you do as I did and bypass canned tomatoes and cannellini beans), but preparation time was only about 30 minutes for me, with an additional 25-30 minutes of cook time.  I think it was worth it!

Do you have a favorite comfort soup recipe?

Classic Minestrone (serves 6)

Ingredients
*  2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for serving
*  1 medium red onion, chopped
*  2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
*  1 large celery stalk, diced
*  1/4 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
*  1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary, or 1/4 teaspoon dried
*  course salt and ground pepper
*  1 can (14.5 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes, drained and finely chopped [NOTE: I boiled three of my own tomatoes for 1 minute and put them into an ice bath to easily remove the skins]
*  1 large potato, peeled and diced
*  1/4 head Savoy or green cabbage (1/2 pounds), cored and thinly sliced
*  1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained [NOTE: I boiled 1 cup of dry cannellini beans for about 10 minutes before adding it to the soup]
*  1/2 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
*  1 garlic clove, minced (optional)
*  1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil, plus torn leaves for serving (optional)
*  3/4 cup grated Parmesan, for serving

Preparation

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium.  Add onion, carrots, celery, red-pepper flakes, rosemary, 1-1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper;
2. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to turn golden, 5 to 8 minutes;
3. Add tomatoes;  cook until some of the liquid evaporates, 1 minutes;
4. Add potato, cabbage, cannellini beans and 7 cups water.  Bring to a boil;
5. Stir in green beans;
6. Reduce to a simmer and cook until all the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes;
7. Season with salt and pepper; stir in garlic and basil;
8. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan, and if using, torn basil.  Drizzle with more oil if desired.

Options to Eating Locally: Community Supported Agriculture & Non-Farm Delivery Services

Yesterday I shared some information about how you can grow your own food, either with a home or shared community garden.  Today I'll touch upon something that's much easier:  delivery services.  These are two of the nine ways I've determined that I can buy foods produced within my defined 150-mile local food radius.  As a reminder, the nine ways are:

1. Grow it yourself;
2. Share the responsibility of growing, either through a community garden or by bartering with friends, family or neighbors for food they've grown themselves;
3. Buy from a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program;
4. Buy from a non-farm produce delivery service;
5. Buy from a Farmer's Market;
6. Buy from a small grocery store that sells mostly locally sourced products;
7. Buy from a 'meal assembly' services that is committed to local buying;
8. Eat at a restaurant that cooks with locally sourced ingredients;
9. Buy from a national chain when you're able to determine that products are sourced locally.

As a shopper, you basically have two options to receive delivered food:

1. Have vegetables and fruits delivered from a local farm through what is called a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program;
2. Have vegetables and fruits delivered from a non-farm operation that aggregates from many farms and growers.

Community Supported Agriculture
       

A CSA program is basically a subscription or "pledge" to a specific farm that you will purchase its food.  It's a way to bypass the Farmer's Market and still ensure that you are receiving locally grown foods.  The benefit to the farm is that it can count on a guaranteed income stream and a predicatble demand which lets them to only plant what subscribers have committed to.  The benefits to the consumer are a steady stream of fresh, seasonal ingredients.  And if you're a practicing locavore, of course this means you know exactly where your food is coming from.

Each CSA operates a bit differently.  Some farms will deliver a box directly to you.  Others will designate a pickup location for you to come get it.  Some offer multiple size boxes and different delivery frequencies.  Some deliver only fruits and vegetables that they grow, while others may add foods grown from neighboring or partner farms.  Most will provide you recipes as well as invitations to visit the farm for special events or occasions so that you get to know the families and people who are harvesting your food.

If you're interested in CSAs, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers publishes a Buy Fresh, Buy Local Food Guide that includes 23 different farms that currently offer CSA programs within the Bay Area.  If you cannot locate a printed version of this tremendous resource, you can print parts of it, or search an online database at the Buy Fresh, Buy Local website.  Additionally, Local Harvest has a powerful, searchable database that can pinpoint CSA farms that service your location.

I've taken the liberty of putting together the following chart to help make your connection to the farm of your dreams a bit easier.  In addition to contact information, I've also indicated the counties in which each farm offers either a pickup or delivery service.

Lastly, KQED compared a few CSAs for you at its food blog, Bay Area Bites.  And oh yeah!  Remember My Farm, the company that installs backyard gardens?  Through them, you can also subscribe to a CSA that supports your backyard garden neighbors in San Francisco.

In addition to fruit and vegetable CSAs, the Bay Area is starting to see the emergence of Meat CSAs.  In a meat CSA, not only can you get beef, pork, lamb and poultry, but at  least also provides you farm fresh eggs.  Check out the recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle about them.
There can be a couple of challenges when you join a CSA.  One is that you may have to learn how to prepare and cook with unfamiliar ingredients.  Again, many farms will provide you with recipes to overcome this hurdle.  Another challenge is that you may receive more food than you are able to cook and eat (my personal fear), resulting in spoilage and waste.  There's an interesting article about the  dilemma of wasting CSA food at Slate.  Bonnie P. over at The Ethicurian, however, writes about a solution against CSA waste via a CSA Challenge / dinner party with friends. This is yet another opportunity to develop community around food. The last challenge is that as a sponsor of the farm, you are committed to receiving the bad along with the good.  A poor harvest could be reflected in poor quality food.

Non-Farm Delivery Services

Planet Organics is based in San Francisco and sells a variety of produce boxes and grocery staples.  They offer more than 20 different combinations, ranging from all vegetables, to various mixes of vegetables and frutis, to all fruits.  It appears as if all the produce sold is organic, but not necessarily locally produced.  From its website:

We buy locally as much as possible.  In the winter months when little is grown in Northern California, we buy from farms in the Central Valley and Southern California.  Our tropical fruit, such as bananas and mangoes, comes from organic farms in Central and South America.

The origins of each item contained in a given box are only occasionally descriptive enough to make a determination as to where the product was grown.  Planet Organics delivers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area within the boundaries of south to San Joes, north to Petaluma and east to Livermore.

The Fruit Guys is another San Francisco based service that will deliver boxes of fruit to your home or company offices.  The Fruit Guys offer three different sized boxes with a range of varieties and will attempt to fill the boxes with as much locally sourced fruit as possible, depending on whether you live in their defined Western, Central, or Eastern zones.  A quick review of the products available in the Western zone indicate a fair number of Northern California growers, but certainly not all.  And of course, they do offer tropical fruits such as bananas that are not native to the Bay Area, let alone to California.  Fruit Guys deliver nationally.

A key benefit of these non-farm delivery programs is that if you don't like them, you are not committed to buy from them for an entire growing season, as you may be with a CSA.  Also, as I've noted above, if you are committed to buying only locally produced foods and to supporting local farmers, these options are not perfect.

Have you ever bought from a CSA?  What has your experience been?

Options to Eating Locally: Grow It Yourself

After almost three weeks of eating local, I've decided that now is the time to take a step back from the excitement of trying something new and the enjoyment of testing new foods and recipes, and be more methodical in describing the challenges of eating local.  One of my original goals in taking the Eat Local Challenge for October was to see how difficult it would be to make this commitment, not only for a month, but for a lifetime.

As I see it, there are nine distinct ways that I (or you) can acquire local food.  They are:

1. Grow it yourself;
2. Share the responsibility of growing your own, either through community gardens, or by bartering with friends, family or neighbors for foods grown;
3. Buy from a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program;
4. Buy from a wholesale produce delivery company;
5. Buy from a Farmer's Market;
6. Buy from an independent grocery store that sells mostly local products;
7. Buy from a 'meal-assembly' business that buys most of its ingredients from local sources;
8. Eat at a restaurant that cooks using mostly local ingredients;
9. Buy from a national chain store when you are able to determine products are locally made or sourced.

Today I'll share some ideas on growing it yourself and on community gardens.

   

Grow It Yourself
In order to grow your own food, you will need some outdoor space, some soil, some seeds, some water, some sunshine and preferably a green thumb.  In an urban setting, the space could be your front yard, back yard, window boxes, or even rooftop.  And if you don't have a natural green thumb, or don't know the difference between root and non-root vegetables, there are plenty of resources available to you:

• Read a Book: A search of the terms 'backyard vegetable garden' at Amazon.com returns the the following four books (and more!):   Better Homes and Gardens Step-by-Step Successful Gardening: Vegetables; The Vegetable Gardener's Bible: Discover Ed's High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions;  Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long; and HOME VEGETABLE GARDENING: A Complete And Practical Guide to the Planting and Care of All Vegetables...Worth Growing for Home Use.
• Watch a Video: Fine Gardening has a series of short videos on topics such as "How to Prune Tomatoes," "A Simple Compost Bin," and "Managing Soil Texture."
• Check Out the Web:  Home gardening is a huge industry and there are several websites dedicated to this practice, including The Essential Garden Guide, Backyard Gardener and Organic Gardening;
• Take a Class: Garden For The Environment in San Francisco offers environmental education programs about organic gardening, urban compost systems and sustainable food systems.  Classes planned for the next few months include: "SEEDS! Seed Saving & Seed Starting / Botanical Propagation Techniques, Part I;" "Urban Wildlife Habitat Workshop & Walking Tour;" "Urban Composting;" "Make More Plants! Cuttings & Divisions / Botanical Propagation Techniques, Part II;" and "Rainwater Harvesting."
• Join an Online Community: Websites such as Tribe.net and Ning.com are making it easier for groups of people who share common interests to establish their own communities, complete with forums where you can ask questions of other members.  Tribe has a group called Backyard Gardening Survivalists while Ning has one called Fruit and Vegetable Gardening.
• Pay Somebody to Do It:  Businesses are emerging that will design and install a garden in your home.  Companies such as San Francisco based My Farm or East Bay based All Edibles will landscape your yard, install watering systems and plant food for you.  My Farm will even provide ongoing maintenance and harvest the crops for you.  The New York Times recently called people who use this kind of service "Lazy Locavores," but in this case, I like to think that attaining the end result is more important than the path taken to get there.

Join a Community Garden
If you are an apartment or condo dweller, or do not have yard space, you can consider joining a community garden.  A community garden is nothing more than a piece of land, usually owned by a city, that is shared by a group of volunteers who are free to plant and harvest anything (legal) they desire for personal consumption.  Often there is a small fee that covers the costs of maintaining the property, and many will provide you with the tools, water, and even expert advice, you need to start your own mini-farm.

• San Francisco has 40 community gardens that it administers through the Recreation and Parks Department.  SFGro.org also has additional information about all of the San Francisco gardens;
• Berkeley has 10 community gardens in addition to school, youth training and college gardens;
• San Jose operates 18 community gardens;
• Oakland has 8 community gardens run by the city.  There is also a non-profit organization called City Slicker Farms. CSF is helping a specific area within Oakland that is severely underserved by grocery stores by operating community farms that increase the availability of fresh, organic produce to residents of West Oakland.  Check out this cool article.

If you grow your own food, what do you grow?  Would you be interested in being able to trade your food for that grown by others?

Roasted Heirloom Tomato Salsa

I don't know whether it's blasphemous or not to use heirloom tomatoes to make a salsa, but I like to smother my scrambled eggs and fried potatoes in salsa when I cook a weekend brunch, I didn't have any in my refrigerator, and I had just returned from the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market with $2.55 worth of heirloom tomatoes purchased from Lucero Organic Farms.  12 small tomatoes, with the names of Early Girl, Pink Brandywine, Persimmon Orange & Black Prince would be my experiment in making my own salsa and in using heirloom varieties to do so.

I quickly found a recipe for a Roasted Tomato Salsa at Allrecipes that called for 12 roma tomatoes that I settled upon.  The recipe says that it yields 24 servings, so I suppose I may end up freezing half the batch for later consumption.  But then again, after serving it on my eggs this morning, and an idea to serve it on a quesadilla I plan to eat later (with the Primavera corn tortillas I bought yesterday), I may not have to freeze any of it.

Do you have a favorite salsa recipe to share?

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Salsa  (yields 24 servings)

[NOTES:  I doubled the garlic and jalepeno and added half a yellow pepper.  Also, the shot glass above is the juice of the roasting pan.  A delicious shot of pure tomato juices!]

Ingredients
*  12 roma (plum) tomatoes
*  2 gloves garlic, unpeeled
*  1 small onion, quartered
*  1 jalepeno chile pepper
*  1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
*  1 teaspoon ground cumin
*  1/4 teaspoon salt
*  3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
*  1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

1. Preheat the broiler;
2. In a medium baking dish, place tomatoes, garlic, onion and jalepeno chile pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil;
3. Checking often, broil 5 to 10 minutes, or until outsides of vegetables are charred;
4. Remove vegetables from heat.  Remove and discard tomato cores, jalepeno stems and garlic skins;
5. In a food processor, coarsely chop the charred vegetables.  Transfer to a medium bowl and mix in cumin, salt, lime juice and cilantro.

Colors (and a Good Tired) from a Farmer's Market

As I walked out of my door this morning, I felt my first Fall chill.  The sky was overcast, moisture dotted the sidewalk and a gentle but persistent breeze made me realize that the season is changing.  Sometimes living in San Francisco, where Summer is typically cold, and the 'real' summer is between September 15 and October 15 reminds us that we have our own micro-climate and that is yet another  reason why the rest of the country can call us strange and odd and even bizarre. 

I was on my way to visit the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market with two goals in mind:

1. Pick up a copy of the comparative research of farmer's market prices versus mega-mart prices that Dave Stockdale mentioned at the Commonwealth Club presentation I had attended earlier in the week;
2. Find FRESH EGGS!

I jumped on the Muni 45 to Stockton & Broadway, transferred to the Muni 12 and found myself dropped off across the street from the market.  I've been to the Ferry Building many times, but never to the farmer's market.  At first I was slightly disappointed that there seemed to be only about two-dozen stands set up along the Embarcadero, but after I went to the information booth to ask whether any eggs were being sold today (answer: at least 3 farms were selling eggs), I quickly realized that the market also lined the backside of the building and where at least 60 more farm stands were in place.

After spying some cippolini onions at the Heirloom Organic Gardens booth, I added one more goal to my day:  Buy ingredients to cook a large Sunday morning breakfast.  So I added some cilantro to my bag of onions, picked up a half-dozen small Grade A Pullet eggs from Eatwell Farm, grabbed a dozen stone ground handmade organic corn tortillas from Primavera, selected a yellow pepper from Madison Growers, and picked up an assortment of small heirloom tomatoes (Early Girl, Pink Brandywine, Persimmon Orange & Black Prince varieties) from Lucero Organic Farms. 

As I left the plaza, the sun had broken through the sky.  I removed my sweatshirt and soaked the sun's rays on my face and arms, noticed that the Embarcadero was bustling and smiled at having accomplished my goals for the morning.  I also realized that from the time I left my home to the time I left the market, three hours had already passed.  I was feeling a bit lazy, perhaps even tired, but I remember immediately asking myself "how can busy parents afford to make this time commitment?"  And then I remembered a passage I once read in the book Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, by John Izzo:

My grandfather, who, as I have said, was one of the wise elders in my life, used to talk about having a "good tired" at the end of a given day.  He contrasted this with a "bad tired."  He told me that a "good tired" was when you lived your life focusing on the things that really mattered to you. A "bad tired" he said often comes even when it looks like we are winning, but we realize we are not being true to ourselves.  It seems to me that the first element of knowing ourselves is figuring out what makes up a "good tired" day for us.

As you look at the following pictures, I wish you (and particularly you parents) a good tired weekend!

Local Beef, Brussels Sprouts & Baked Apple

I was craving red meat yesterday, so I opened up my latest issue of Everyday Food magazine to pick out a dinner recipe.  I settled on a slow-cooker pot roast which first led me to spend 30 minutes searching high and low in my tiny kitchen for the Crock Pot mom gave me when I left for college 25 years ago.  While assembling my shopping list, I came across a couple other recipes that piqued my interest: a mouth watering dessert of cinnamon-roasted apples with pecans and ice cream (I'm not much of a dessert person, but oh my, I DO love roasted vegetables and increasingly roasted fruit), as well as a fig and goat cheese sandwich.  I also realized that I was out of olive oil which gave me a slight concern.  Earlier in the week, I knew I was running low on olive oil and I checked out the two merchants at the Ferry Building, Stonehouse Olive Oil and McEvoy Ranch Olive Oil to learn that Stonehouse's olive grovers were in Oroville, exactly 3 miles outside of my avowed 150 mile radius, but that McEvoy's groves were outside of Petaluma. The problem was that McEvoy never seemed to be open when I was at the Ferry Building.  Not knowing whether either would be available at my destination, I decided to go check out the market to see what they had to offer.  I decided to forego my usual neighborhood Real Food Market and head across town to the Mission District to visit Bi-Rite Market which I had read about recently.  I jumped on the ever unreliable 22 Muni and headed across town for another shopping adventure.

I'll talk a lot more about Bi-Rite soon (suffice it to say that they do a superior job of merchandising and labeling their local fare, and the assortment is amazing.  In short, I LOVE IT!), but while there I was able to find some locally raised chuck roast from Marin Sun Farms.  When I started to prepare it for cooking, I almost had a 'Peet's Coffee moment' (where I was able to discern an immediately noticeable difference between other varieties of foods).  The meat was a darker red than almost any other beef I've ever seen before.  I salivated, recalling when mom used to let me eat a small piece of raw meat as she was preparing dinner, but I decided against it.  Instead, I would wait until the slow cooker worked its magic before sampling it.

There was also a large assortment of olive oils to select from.  I felt as lost and confused as I often do when presented with shelves and racks of wines, but at least I knew I wanted oil from Northern California.  I ended up buying some Pacific Sun Riverview Ranch Tuscan Blend Olive Oil.  Not knowing exactly where Riverview Ranch is located (turns out it's in Tehama County - closer to 180 miles from where I live), I bought it on faith that the 'made in Northern California' label would meet my needs.  Truthfully, I also decided that even it this particular variety was not within my 150 mile radius, I'd allow myself an exception only because the bottle has a hand written batch number on it.  I have a very strong interest in the concept of producers and manufacturers allow consumers to trace their food back to the source through labeling.  Unfortunately, once I checked the Pacific Sun's website, I wasn't able to use the batch number to learn more about the olives used.

Anyways, I also picked up lots of produce (tomatoes, lemon, onions, red potatoes, carrots) including two I've never prepared before: Brussels sprouts and figs.  I also bought some dry goods (cannellini beans and pecans) private labeled under the Bi-Rite brand, without verifying their source of origin.  Lastly, I bought some locally made goat cheese and some parmesan-reggiano, its original also not determined.  While my perfectionist nature would prefer to be 100% certain that I'm meeting my Eat Local commitment, I've accepted that I won't be perfect, and that this exercise is more of a journey than a destination (at least at this stage of the game).

Last night before heading to bed, I filled my Crock Pot with carrots, onions, celery and the beef, and urned it on to begin the 10-hour slow cooking process.  I also slow roasted 5 tomatoes in the oven to make some tomato sauce that I plan to freeze for future use.

For dinner tonight I ate the roast, along with the Brussels sprouts and moaned and rolled my eyes after each bite of melt-in-your-mouth meat and crunchy caramelized Brussels sprouts.  And being a creature of non-conformity, I ate the roast apple dessert last night after yet another slice of broccoli quiche (cooking large batches of food for one often results in the same leftover dinners, night after night...*sigh*).  I'm happy to report that the dessert took my mind off the quiche, and as Rachel Ray would say.....YUMMO!

[NOTE: I apologize that my food pictures are not stylized.  Let me know if they look less than appetizing as portrayed in their, um, natural bachelor's state]

Slow-Cooker Pot Roast (serves 8)

Ingredients

*  1 tablespoon cornstarch
*  8 medium carrots, cut into thirds
*  2 medium onions, each cut into 8 wedges
*  coarse salt and ground pepper
*  1 beef chuck roast (3 pounds) trimmed of excess fat
*  2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Preparation

1. In slow cooker, stir together cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water until smooth;
2. Add carrots and onions; season with salt and pepper, and toss;
3. Sprinkle roast with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.  Place on top of vegetables and drizzle with Worcestershire;
4. Cover, cook on high for 6 hours (or on low for 10 hours);
5. Transfer roast to cutting board; thinly slice against the grain;
6. Place vegetables in a serving dish; Pour pan juices through fine mesh sieve (if desired);
7. Serve roast with vegetables and pan juice.

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts (serves 4)

Ingredients

*  24 small Brussels sprouts
*  1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for rubbing
*  fine-grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
*  1/4 cup grated cheese of your choice

Preparation

1. Wash the Brussels sprouts well, trim the stem ends and remove any ragged outer leaves;
2. Cut in half from stem to top and gently run each half with olive oil, keeping it intact;
3. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in your largest skillet over medium heat;
4. Place the Brussels sprouts int he pan, flat side down and sprinkle with a couple pinches of salt;
5. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.  Cut into or taste one sprout to gauge whether they are tender or not.  If not, cook a few minutes longer;
6. Once just tender, uncover, turn up the heat and cook until flat sides are deep brown and caramelized;
7. Use a metal spatula to toss them once or twice and get some browning on the rounded sides;
8. Season with more salt, a few grinds of pepper and a dusting of grated cheese.

Cinnamon-Roasted Apples with Pecans and Ice Cream (serves 8)

Ingredients

*  1 cup pecans
*  1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
*  2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
*  4 Gala or Fuji apples
*  4 cinnamon sticks, plus more for garnish (optional)
*  2 pints vanilla ice cream

Preparation

1. Prehat oven to 450 degrees.  Spread pecans in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish;  toast until fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes.  Remove pecans and set aside;
2. In a large bowl, combine sugar, lemon juice and 1/4 cup water.  One at a time (to prevent them from turning brown), halve apples through stem end, core using a melon baller, and immediately toss with sugar mixture;
3. Arrange apples, cut side down, in baking dish; pour sugra mixture over.  Tuck cinnamon sticks;  cover dish with foil;
4. Bake until apples are easily pierced with the tip of a paring knife, 15 to 20 minutes;
5. Serve apples with ice cream, topped with pan juices and pecans.  Garnish with cinnamon sticks if desired.

Returning to What Once Was

Following up on a theme that Ari Derfel made to close the Commonwealth Club presentation I attended Wednesday night, I came across an article yesterday written by Bryant Terry (who was one of the people featured by the the New York Times last weekend).  I read it in edible San Francisco magazine, but it originally appeared on TheRoot.com and is entitled Reclaiming True Grits .

Bryant talks about how today's soul food has been pigeonholed and mass produced into an unhealthy version that no longer resembles the foods of his grandparents, where it was created primarily using local ingredients (I suppose you could also replace "soul food" with any traditional American food, for that matter).  He poignantly writes:

When I think of the soul food my grandparents and their parents ate, I do have some fond memories of deep-fried meats, overcooked leafy greens, and sugary desserts occasionally making a cameo on our menu.  But I also recall lightly sauteed okra, corn, and tomatoes from their "natural" backyard garden in South Memphis.  Devine recollections abound of butchered-that-morning herb-roasted chicken from Paw Paw's coop;  "grit cakes" fashioned from breakfast leftovers and then grilled alongside pulled pork; Ma'Dear's chutney made from peaches that came from Miss Cole's mini-orchard next door; and fresh watermelon purchased from a flatbed truck on the side of the road and served with salt sprinkled on each slice.

And I can picture an entire family sitting around a large table, swapping stories about that day's events with smiles on everybody's face and laughter filling the air.

I'm sure the foods that Bryant describe were better tasting and healthier for him than the canned, mass produced and quickly made versions of today, but he also describes a symbiotic system in which farmers and growers supported households and where households wanted (and needed) what these local producers offered.  It's been done before.  It can be done again!

I know that limited resources (time and money mostly) have taken many of our generation away from these daily communal celebrations.  But at what cost?  Bryant has indelible memories of these shared moments and is taking action to convince others that they are worth attaining, worth keeping and certainly worth treasuring.

What's stopping YOU from making an effort to achieve this for yourself?

How Chefs, Farmers and Artisans Strengthen our Community

I attended one of the Commonwealth Club Speaker events that is sponsored by Eat Local SF as part of the October Eat Local Challenge.  This event was entitled "From Farm to Feast: How chefs, farmers and artisans strengthen our community."

It began with a local food and beverage reception where Butterfly restaurant served a Thai chicken noodle soup, Kika's Treats (a graduate of the La Cocina food incubator program) served Brazilian Honey Cakes with Dark Chocolate and Caramelized Graham Crackers with Milk Chocolate, Back to Earth Catering served an assortment of olives, meats & cheeses, there was a platter of meats and cheeses from Boccalone and from Cowgirl Creamery , and wine from Buckland Winery.

The presentation was comprised of a diverse panel that included:

• Joan Simon - current co-chair of Eat Local SF and a food industry consultant via her practice Full Plate Consulting;
• Sue Conley - founder and co-owner of Cowgirl Creamery, an artisan maker of cheeses based in Point Reyes Station and with a retail store at the Ferry Building Marketplace;
• Jered Lawson - farmer and owner of Pie Ranch , a farm located in Davenport (San Mateo County) and of Mission Pie, a retail bakery located in San Francisco that uses ingredients from the farm;
• Ari Derfel - owner of Back to Earth Catering, a 100% organic catering business that is a subset of a larger Back to Earth  concept that includes mountain yoga and other outdoor retreats;
• Dave Stockdale - Executive Director of CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture), an organization that educates and creates links between urban dwellers and farmers.  CUESA also manages the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market.

Each of the panelists gave a brief background of how they've arrived at their current place as spokespeople for the local food movement, and they shared stories and their visions for how local foods develop a sense of community.

• Joan made a point that dining at a restaurant is not only about eating food, but about how dining is a way to share time and moments with people who are a part of our communities;
• Sue shared stories of how Marin County has been able to sustain farming by dedicating one-third of its land to agriculture, and how farmers have been able to organize and sustain themselves through groups such as Marin Organic  to expand the number of certified organic farms, and to help what was once 5 farms selling direct to consumers to grow to 45 farms;
• Jered discussed his outreach programs to area high schools to bring school kids to the farm, show them the "seed to meal" process and to hopefully develop apprentices who embrace agriculture as a livelihood;
• Ari discussed how he sees part of his greater mission in life being to bring people together around organic food, and how preparing loving meals for hard working people is a way to nourish them (physically and spiritually) and to celebrate their efforts to make the world a better place;
• Dave talked about how chefs are increasingly working in concert with specific farms to plant new crops for use in their restaurants and how consumers ultimately benefit from these alliances.  He also talked about the many educational programs run by CUESA to bring urbanites in closer contact with farmers, be it Farmer's Markets or farm visits and tours.

The most interesting portion of the evening came during the Q&A session, when the audience asked how the local food movement can expand to the mainstream, beyond the audience members who have already drunken the proverbial Kool-Aid.  The answers were diverse, ranging from the abstract to concrete, and included:

• Ask retail workers where their foods and other merchandise come from.  Tell them you prefer to buy locally sourced and produced products;
• To overcome perceptions that food from Farmer's Markets are often more expensive than that found at mega-marts, share the results of research studies completed by CUESA and a (unnamed) Seattle group that show Farmer's Market prices to be comparable and sometimes less expensive than that found at national chains [NOTE: I plan to find these studies and share the findings];
• Point them to existing resources and organizations such as Eat Local SF, Community Alliance with Family Farmers , CUESA, or Local Harvest .

My personal observations from the responses is that while there are plenty of resources available to help motivated urban consumers to make eating local a commitment, it's still not simple enough education or services available to make it an easy transition to make for the average American family.  Changing consumer behavior is a very difficult thing to do (absent of any crisis). But that just means that there is an opportunity for somebody to find a consumer solution that makes it easier for more families to make this a choice.  Whoever figures it out will surely bring tremendous value to all participants of this movement.

Ari made a very insightful comment to wrap up the evening when he said (and I'm paraphrasing here):

This is a movement not motivated by profit, but by a desire to reconnect to a way of life that once was.  We're not trying to create something new here.  Rather, it's returning to something that once was.  The knowledge and the wisdom to do so is already out there.

What would persuade you to start eating local more often?

Oh yeah, Jered gave away some Sonoma wheat stalks (he said they are an heirloom wheat variety - but I couldn't find any information about it on the web) anmd challenged each of us to plant the seeds for harvest in August 2009.