for years we have tried to support local and preferably organic. it just feels (and typically tastes) much better. moving to a new locale challenges us to learn what's in season and where we can get what. it's been a l-o-n-g year of figuring that out, but i really feel as though it's been coming together of late. we frequent the lake ella growers market on wednesdays and have gotten to know our farmers -- namely louise & herman at turkey hill farm, and jack & carmen at crescent moon. sweet grass dairy is a real local gem as well (thomasville, ga) -- we adore their cheeses and have recently had the pleasure of purchasing ~half a hog from them. we only just picked up the meat last wednesday and it is goooooo-oood!! the first sample of our bounty was the smoked mild link sausage...delish! for breakfast i sauteed an onion, some roulette peppers (ie- mostly sweet, but could have some heat) from THF with the SGD sausage. then, added to some hot bradley's country store grits along with parmegiano and s+p. a wonderful breakfast made better accompanied by a THF fried egg. mmm mmm.
dinner was truly delicious... jack (CMF) has had some incredible heritage sweet potatoes at the market lately that i can't get enough of. the pear sauce was made a couple weeks ago (and then frozen) using some local "cooking pears" (i believe the tag said "ash pears," but maybe "sand pears") from new leaf market. herbs are grown with love by H from baby plants that were purchased from bob and millie at the lake ella market.
sorry... no photo today. :(
maple-glazed sausage and sweet potatoes
1-2 T olive oil
1 med.large white onion
1+ lb. SGD smoked mild link sausage, cut in 1/2-3/4-in. rounds
2 large sweet potatoes (any is okay, but orange flesh is lovely), 1/2-3/4-in. dice (well scrubbed, NOT peeled) :)
1+ cup pear and/or apple sauce
1/4 cup white wine or white wine vinegar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup (or honey would be nice)
fresh sage, approx. 10 leaves (on stems okay)
fresh rosemary, approx. 4 x 3-in. pieces
s+p
preheat oven to 375F.
heat a large pot or dutch oven over med-high heat. add olive oil, then onion and sausage. brown for a few-several minutes as you finish dicing up sweet potatoes. add sweet potatoes and salt and pepper. stir, bring heat to high. cook covered for a few minutes. add wine, maple syrup, apple/pear sauce, and fresh herbs. stir, recover, and roast at 375F for 15-20mins. Uncover, raise heat to 550F and roast for an additional 15-20mins.
serves ~ 4 as a main course.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Beach Advisories and Seafood, and more FISH
The Tallahassee Democrat has been running articles about Panhandle beach advisories for weeks, if not months. High levels of harmful bacteria in the water have kept some people, but not all, out of the water. Beach advisories are nothing new -- many local beaches seem to be under water/bacteria advisories for months out of each year. Human waste and storm-water runoff have been implicated recently, although though there are also other micro-organism "explosions," Florida red tide and blue-green algae, for example, that may be exacerbated by agricultural runoff and elevated water temperatures.
Within the last few days, there were two articles in the Democrat about local seafood restaurants: one on the reopening of Angelo & Sons, rebuilt and ready for business after being condemned following damage from Hurricane Dennis in 2005, and a review of The Forgotten Coast Seafood Shack. Is it safe to eat Local seafood now? In his review of the Forgotten Coast Seafood Shack, Ashby Stiff cheerfully admitted to eating Oysters "out of season." Personally, I don't like seafood if it's overcooked (and it so often is). But is it safe to eat local seafood (especially oysters, shrimp, crab) that hasn't been overcooked?
Is this an over-reaction to a phenomenon that has been around for years? Is the danger from swimming (which usually involves some ingestion of water) as real as indicated or is it exaggerated? Is there a corresponding risk with eating local seafood this time of year?
There were two Democrat articles about the Goliath Grouper, which may be of particular interest to Slow Food members. Protected from fishing since 1990, the Goliath Grouper is up for reconsideration as an allowed catch. State, Federal, and University researchers and the Florida Fish and Wildlife commission met on Monday and concluded that more time and information is needed before a decision is made. A strange sensation for foodies: Don't eat the foods you wish to protect. Of course, sometimes, particularly when it comes to cultivated crops and value-added products, we actively seek out and purchase the rare foods we wish to preserve -- as co-producers we must encourage the producers' efforts. Our job is to be educated about which foods fit into which category.
Within the last few days, there were two articles in the Democrat about local seafood restaurants: one on the reopening of Angelo & Sons, rebuilt and ready for business after being condemned following damage from Hurricane Dennis in 2005, and a review of The Forgotten Coast Seafood Shack. Is it safe to eat Local seafood now? In his review of the Forgotten Coast Seafood Shack, Ashby Stiff cheerfully admitted to eating Oysters "out of season." Personally, I don't like seafood if it's overcooked (and it so often is). But is it safe to eat local seafood (especially oysters, shrimp, crab) that hasn't been overcooked?
Is this an over-reaction to a phenomenon that has been around for years? Is the danger from swimming (which usually involves some ingestion of water) as real as indicated or is it exaggerated? Is there a corresponding risk with eating local seafood this time of year?
There were two Democrat articles about the Goliath Grouper, which may be of particular interest to Slow Food members. Protected from fishing since 1990, the Goliath Grouper is up for reconsideration as an allowed catch. State, Federal, and University researchers and the Florida Fish and Wildlife commission met on Monday and concluded that more time and information is needed before a decision is made. A strange sensation for foodies: Don't eat the foods you wish to protect. Of course, sometimes, particularly when it comes to cultivated crops and value-added products, we actively seek out and purchase the rare foods we wish to preserve -- as co-producers we must encourage the producers' efforts. Our job is to be educated about which foods fit into which category.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Scuffinnahves
Seven years ago, I married and moved with my husband to his home-town Tallahassee. Until then, I'd been a bit of a transatlantic nomad; my rather homogenized accent picked up and dumped flavor without loyalty. Shortly after I began work in my new town, a co-worker came into staff-meeting with a container full of mixed green and purple orbs the size of large "boulder" marbles. I inquired, and she replied in her slow, smoky drawl, "Skuffinnahves."
"Uh, ... what was that?"
"Skuffinnahves."
"Skuffin-knives?"
She nodded,"Skuffinnahves."
Even as a fellow American, I was a foreigner as I encountered this new word and struggled to sort pronunciation from spelling. She invited me to try one. I selected a green one. My teeth sank through thick, tart, leathery skin into cool, gelatinous, grape-candy flesh and finally crushed astringent, slightly bitter seeds. As odd as it may sound to locals, I felt like I'd landed on the moon.
A mission to find more quickly turned up plenty of labeled containers of "Scuppernong" and "Muscadine" grapes. Scupp-er-nong. Skuffinnahves. Last night, after finding scuppernongs at New Leaf and remembering my introduction to the fruit, I asked Matt if he'd ever heard the word pronounced this way. No, he hadn't.
These fat grapes have a love-it-or-hate-it flavor often described as "musky" or "foxy." Some prefer to split the skins (which are thick and can be bracingly astringent) and eat only the clear, sweet pulp. Personally, I enjoy the contrasts of sour and sweet and leathery and slippery. The purple grapes (muscadines) are sweeter than the green, and they're best when they've ripened and softened slightly past their taut fullness. Muscadines are on my "sexy foods" list.
Scuppernongs grow wild in parts of the South. I remember seeing them hanging unripe from vines all around Tallulah Gorge near Atlanta. Do they also grow wild here? There is a vexing weed that grows here, that looks remarkably like the scuppernong vine but does not produce the fruit.
I found these suppernongs from Ladybird Organics/ Monticello Vinyards at New Leaf yesterday. New Leaf also sometimes carries the local farm's muscadine jelly, sunflower sprouts, and eggs.
I'm told that New Leaf carries Monticello Vinyard's muscadine wine for a day, or an hour -- blink and it's gone. One can also order it online from the Ladybird Organics/Monticello Vinyard's website. I vaguely remember hearing or reading that you can pick your own grapes there sometimes. The farm also boasts persimmons, pecans, satsumas, marsh grapefruit, meyer lemons, and microgreens. Visit the website for more information.
"Uh, ... what was that?"
"Skuffinnahves."
"Skuffin-knives?"
She nodded,"Skuffinnahves."
Even as a fellow American, I was a foreigner as I encountered this new word and struggled to sort pronunciation from spelling. She invited me to try one. I selected a green one. My teeth sank through thick, tart, leathery skin into cool, gelatinous, grape-candy flesh and finally crushed astringent, slightly bitter seeds. As odd as it may sound to locals, I felt like I'd landed on the moon.
A mission to find more quickly turned up plenty of labeled containers of "Scuppernong" and "Muscadine" grapes. Scupp-er-nong. Skuffinnahves. Last night, after finding scuppernongs at New Leaf and remembering my introduction to the fruit, I asked Matt if he'd ever heard the word pronounced this way. No, he hadn't.These fat grapes have a love-it-or-hate-it flavor often described as "musky" or "foxy." Some prefer to split the skins (which are thick and can be bracingly astringent) and eat only the clear, sweet pulp. Personally, I enjoy the contrasts of sour and sweet and leathery and slippery. The purple grapes (muscadines) are sweeter than the green, and they're best when they've ripened and softened slightly past their taut fullness. Muscadines are on my "sexy foods" list.
Scuppernongs grow wild in parts of the South. I remember seeing them hanging unripe from vines all around Tallulah Gorge near Atlanta. Do they also grow wild here? There is a vexing weed that grows here, that looks remarkably like the scuppernong vine but does not produce the fruit.
I found these suppernongs from Ladybird Organics/ Monticello Vinyards at New Leaf yesterday. New Leaf also sometimes carries the local farm's muscadine jelly, sunflower sprouts, and eggs.
I'm told that New Leaf carries Monticello Vinyard's muscadine wine for a day, or an hour -- blink and it's gone. One can also order it online from the Ladybird Organics/Monticello Vinyard's website. I vaguely remember hearing or reading that you can pick your own grapes there sometimes. The farm also boasts persimmons, pecans, satsumas, marsh grapefruit, meyer lemons, and microgreens. Visit the website for more information.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Fig Preserves, Sunshine in a Jar
I live in a house which is almost one hundred and fifty years old. It sits on a strangely shaped piece of property measuring a little over two acres. On this property we have some of the most amazingly majestic live oaks I've ever seen, too much bamboo, lots of native flowering bushes, quite a few pecan trees and assorted other things like hydrangea, azalea and magnolia.
There is, however, a startling lack of fruit trees if you don't count the pecans and I don't because we get virtually no nuts off of them. That's probably our fault, but neither here nor there in this conversation.
I am certain that over the years, there must have been blueberry bushes, mulberry trees, peach trees, fig trees, sand pears, and so forth. Folks must eat! We are trying, slowly, to reintroduce some of these things to the property but they are mostly slow-growing and so we must depend on generous friends and U-Pick places for the fruit we like to eat and preserve.
Yesterday I had just gotten a message from a friend whose fig trees are in overdrive, inviting me to come pick when my husband called, saying a co-worker had brought us in a large bag of figs.
Time to make preserves!
Fig preserves are one of my favorites. First of all, the fruit is just so...well, darnit, sensuous. No wonder it's an age-old symbol of fertility. How can a fruit be so male and yet so female at the same time? Or is that just me?
According to a quick Google, I find that figs were probably one of the first fruits ever cultivated by people. References to them can be found in the Bible and in the mythology of many cultures. I'm not surprised.
The figs I have in my possession today are, I believe, the Celeste variety. Small and purplish brown with a luscious almost-coral inner flesh, they grow quite well in our area.
I've had the recipe that I use for fig preserves for so long that I can't remember where I got it, but I think it was from a very, very old cook book. It's the kind of recipe I like- simple, direct, and to the point. I cook my figs whole, rather than cutting them up, and add a few lemons to the mix to add that sour spark that makes the sometimes almost too-sweet flavor of the fig pick right up and dance.
The pleasure we'll have in opening a jar of these preserves next winter, spooning out some of the figs to mash on a fresh biscuit and pouring over some of the sweet syrup, is quite enough to rationalize the time and money that goes into making them. Let's face it- it's cheaper to buy fig preserves than make them, but that's hardly the point.
Here's the recipe I use:
Fig Preserves
4 lbs. fresh figs
2 lemons, sliced very thin and seeded
4 cups of sugar
1 cup of water
Wash figs and cut any stems. Combine sugar and water and bring to a boil. Boil for five minutes.
Add figs and lemons. Cook rapidly until clear.
Seal in clean, hot jars, process in boiling water canner for fifteen minutes.
Makes 3 pints.
Please watch your figs as they boil because if you go off to do something (like write a blog) and ignore them as they boil, you will walk into your kitchen to find something of a huge mess.
Also, when you measure out your sugar, you might find yourself thinking, "Golly, this is more sugar than my family uses in a year!"
True, but, sugar is part of the preservation process and so necessary in this recipe. Console yourself with the idea that you will be eating small amounts of the resulting sweet goodness. Then, do your very best to avoid the temptation to just take a spoon to the jar. Add some whole wheat and flax seed to your pancakes or biscuits and when you are eating them with these preserves, you can almost believe you're doing something good for your body, despite all the sugar.
You will certainly be doing something good for your soul.
There is, however, a startling lack of fruit trees if you don't count the pecans and I don't because we get virtually no nuts off of them. That's probably our fault, but neither here nor there in this conversation.
I am certain that over the years, there must have been blueberry bushes, mulberry trees, peach trees, fig trees, sand pears, and so forth. Folks must eat! We are trying, slowly, to reintroduce some of these things to the property but they are mostly slow-growing and so we must depend on generous friends and U-Pick places for the fruit we like to eat and preserve.
Yesterday I had just gotten a message from a friend whose fig trees are in overdrive, inviting me to come pick when my husband called, saying a co-worker had brought us in a large bag of figs.
Time to make preserves!
Fig preserves are one of my favorites. First of all, the fruit is just so...well, darnit, sensuous. No wonder it's an age-old symbol of fertility. How can a fruit be so male and yet so female at the same time? Or is that just me?
According to a quick Google, I find that figs were probably one of the first fruits ever cultivated by people. References to them can be found in the Bible and in the mythology of many cultures. I'm not surprised.
The figs I have in my possession today are, I believe, the Celeste variety. Small and purplish brown with a luscious almost-coral inner flesh, they grow quite well in our area.
I've had the recipe that I use for fig preserves for so long that I can't remember where I got it, but I think it was from a very, very old cook book. It's the kind of recipe I like- simple, direct, and to the point. I cook my figs whole, rather than cutting them up, and add a few lemons to the mix to add that sour spark that makes the sometimes almost too-sweet flavor of the fig pick right up and dance.
The pleasure we'll have in opening a jar of these preserves next winter, spooning out some of the figs to mash on a fresh biscuit and pouring over some of the sweet syrup, is quite enough to rationalize the time and money that goes into making them. Let's face it- it's cheaper to buy fig preserves than make them, but that's hardly the point.
Here's the recipe I use:
Fig Preserves
4 lbs. fresh figs
2 lemons, sliced very thin and seeded
4 cups of sugar
1 cup of water
Wash figs and cut any stems. Combine sugar and water and bring to a boil. Boil for five minutes.
Add figs and lemons. Cook rapidly until clear.
Seal in clean, hot jars, process in boiling water canner for fifteen minutes.
Makes 3 pints.
Please watch your figs as they boil because if you go off to do something (like write a blog) and ignore them as they boil, you will walk into your kitchen to find something of a huge mess.
Also, when you measure out your sugar, you might find yourself thinking, "Golly, this is more sugar than my family uses in a year!"
True, but, sugar is part of the preservation process and so necessary in this recipe. Console yourself with the idea that you will be eating small amounts of the resulting sweet goodness. Then, do your very best to avoid the temptation to just take a spoon to the jar. Add some whole wheat and flax seed to your pancakes or biscuits and when you are eating them with these preserves, you can almost believe you're doing something good for your body, despite all the sugar.
You will certainly be doing something good for your soul.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Market Bag
Surf N Turf
In the rippling heat of early dog-days, the bounty continues. The faithful year-round growers display July's ratatouille kaleidescope: tomatoes and peppers (diverse), garlic, shallots, eggplant, squash, basil tips. Also arugula, honey, collard greens, corn, kale, sprouts, cut flowers.
The handful of back-yard growers that comes during the summer months offer zipper peas, okra, cucumbers, blueberries, figs, potatoes, watermelons, other things. Van Lewis is there with his beautiful clams. My market bag is heavy.
Nero
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Figs
I arrived at New Leaf Market just as a basket of small golden figs from a local farm was set out. The figs were so utterly, perfectly ripe that the mere gentle touch required to pluck them one-at-a-time from the basket and place them delicately into a bag, was enough to break the skin of many. Burdened and bruised by their own weight in that basket at the co-op, perched just outside of the refrigerated produce display, they would be discolored, oozing and moldy by the next day. For figs, the time between glorious, bursting zenith of life and decay into earth-food is very short. I took as many as I thought my family and friends could eat (about half of the basket), and hoped that someone else would take the rest before the end of the day.
Monday, July 9, 2007
FISH
"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime." -- Chinese Proverb.
"Go forth and multiply." -- God.
Impossible to do both? I really want to know where you stand.
Slow Food USA's most recent edition of The Snail is dedicated entirely to the impossible conundrum of sustainable fish. If you're living in North Florida and you love your local seafood, you'll be disappointed to know that Slow Food's short list of seafood to avoid (in the name of sustainability and health) includes two of your beloved favorites: red snapper and grouper. If you have deep pockets or a good hankering, you can still purchase these at just about any seafood counter or seafood shack boasting "Fresh from Florida" seafood. Local fishermen and the Florida seafood industry get a reprieve (at least for a while), and you get to eat snapper and grouper every day (but your grandchildren won't).
Louise was telling me about her personal local favorite -- redfish. She gets all sparkley-eyed when she's talking about them, but apparently I may never even taste one -- they're so scarce that the legal limit is one fish per harvester per day.
Some of the little fellas, namely Gulf shrimp (farmed or wild) and farmed clams and oysters are apparently doing fine and are not hurting anyone or anything -- good news for shellfish lovers. Perhaps stone-crabs. Perhaps blue crabs. Little fellas who are not doing fine: our local bay scallops. Who else? Someone fill me in.
Mr. Lewis, how are the mullet doing these days? How are our local fishermen?
And where the heck do I go to buy good local fish? I overheard people at the market talking about how fish is flown in from afar to our nearby fishing villages. Justin Timineri said that Southern Seafood is a good place to start if I want honest, good local seafood (I guess I just have to say "no" to grouper and snapper). What about Mike's Seafood (anyone know)? I know I can buy sustainably farmed clams at Clamalot. Can I go to any of the cinder-shacks from here to Apalachicola and be sure that I'm getting good, clean, fair, and local seafood?
Who can give us a good picture of the FISH issue at home on the Florida Panhandle?
And, once again, I really want to know where you stand.
"Go forth and multiply." -- God.
Impossible to do both? I really want to know where you stand.
Slow Food USA's most recent edition of The Snail is dedicated entirely to the impossible conundrum of sustainable fish. If you're living in North Florida and you love your local seafood, you'll be disappointed to know that Slow Food's short list of seafood to avoid (in the name of sustainability and health) includes two of your beloved favorites: red snapper and grouper. If you have deep pockets or a good hankering, you can still purchase these at just about any seafood counter or seafood shack boasting "Fresh from Florida" seafood. Local fishermen and the Florida seafood industry get a reprieve (at least for a while), and you get to eat snapper and grouper every day (but your grandchildren won't).
Louise was telling me about her personal local favorite -- redfish. She gets all sparkley-eyed when she's talking about them, but apparently I may never even taste one -- they're so scarce that the legal limit is one fish per harvester per day.
Some of the little fellas, namely Gulf shrimp (farmed or wild) and farmed clams and oysters are apparently doing fine and are not hurting anyone or anything -- good news for shellfish lovers. Perhaps stone-crabs. Perhaps blue crabs. Little fellas who are not doing fine: our local bay scallops. Who else? Someone fill me in.
Mr. Lewis, how are the mullet doing these days? How are our local fishermen?
And where the heck do I go to buy good local fish? I overheard people at the market talking about how fish is flown in from afar to our nearby fishing villages. Justin Timineri said that Southern Seafood is a good place to start if I want honest, good local seafood (I guess I just have to say "no" to grouper and snapper). What about Mike's Seafood (anyone know)? I know I can buy sustainably farmed clams at Clamalot. Can I go to any of the cinder-shacks from here to Apalachicola and be sure that I'm getting good, clean, fair, and local seafood?
Who can give us a good picture of the FISH issue at home on the Florida Panhandle?
And, once again, I really want to know where you stand.
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