What's Local at...

It'll be another week until Green City Market re-convenes, and then will there be anything but pork? Eat local fans may think their options limited, but a bit of out and about finds plenty of options. Here's some of the things you can find locat at...

...Cassie's Green Grocer is always all things local. She's picked up the contract to sell interesting small producer cheeses from the Monroe, Wisconsin area, especially the fine cheeses from Edleweiss Creamery--about the only local guys to make a true large wheel Ementhaler. Her city farm sources send her arugula and sunchokes, and other city farms should shortly be providing her greens and roots.

...Robin, don't call them her, winter markets, Saturday in Chicago and Sunday in Deerfield. Robin and I just got the most gorgeous baby vegetables from Farmer Vicki's Genesis Growers. Come get yours at the markets.

...Jewel (Roosevelt and State, Chicago) - Jewel is good for two things these days, yartzheit candles and BelGioioso American Grana cheese. While shopping for those things, I espied Wisconsin onions and Michigan apples.

...Marion Street Cheese, Oak Park - Joining La Quercia in their collection of fine Midwestern pork products is a Spanish style, dry ham, from pastured, acorn fed, pigs raised by Crawford Farm in Wisconsin. Quite pricey but quite decadent too.

If you cannot get off your keester to any of these fine places, Irv and Shelly will bring it to you. New this week, they have ravioli made by Local Folks Foods in Indiana.

What else are you all seeing?

Round Steak?

So, yesterday I went to the basement freezer for some meat. How could we stay a locavore family if my wife was grumbling about Kuma's. I'd make burgers to keep her. The 1/2 frozen state of the meat at dinner time, however, led to my version of keema instead of burgers with my secret sauce. But that's neither here nor there for the question at hand. As the supply of Bessie dwindles, we are left with the odds and ends, especially the round steaks. I found three packages of round steak on my way to ground beef yesterday. What does one do with round steak.

It's not that I keep kosher, nor have I had any trouble finding uses for the sirloin or other cuts from that end of the cow, but the round steak, for whatever reasons, seems like an especially foreign cut to me, goyish to me, or at least rural to me [ed. which is a more PC way to say it?].

Advice on the round steak much appreciated. NB: these are round steaks, not roasts or anything else.

Don't Stop Now

After dropping off several bags of product (and some yogurt) in our car, my wife and I returned for a second round of the final Oak Park Farmer's market of the season. I reminded my wife that at one time, the final weeks of the market consisted mostly of gourds and bales of hay (it seemed). Today, well there was so much food, it took us two good laps. Moreover, there were so many people, the line at Farmer Vicki's Genesis Grower's was out the door. With this much product, really, should the market shut down today?

There are certain reasons the market's gone into hibernation. Said Farmer Vicki's got a great guy that works for her, although he's one of the few non-gregarious farmers I know. He did reveal much, however, in his laughing reaction to my comment today to him, "glad to be done." Farming and especially market farming, and even more especially organic/sustainable farming like Genesis Growers is incredibly difficult work. The hours on the field are many. Then vending requires very early rising and very full days. I can see why these guys are ready to get some good rest. For some, inventory is dwindling. One of the Michigan fruit guys said that with the two downtown markets they will be at next week, they will have effectively sold all of their crops for the year. One of the Oak Park vendors was plum our of potatoes, to my chagrin as I had planned on buying. At another vendor, all of the tomatoes left were green. Things could be wrapping up.

Or should they? I am bothered by two things. First, I want the pro's to store the crops. Probably 2/3rds of the stuff for sale today could be for sale in a few months, the beets and celery root and parsnips and squash and onions and potatoes and most of the apples, and a few of the pears. These things would last so much better in good cold, conditions, with the proper humidity, moist for most, dry for some, conditions hard to replicate in a suburban home and even harder in an apartment. Kept well, they could be divvied out to aspiring locavores for a good period. Second, there can be robust late season farming. At the Thursday Eli's Cheesecake Factory market, Chad Nichol's was marveling at all of the cold weather crops. Brussels sprouts, kale, spinach all come out better after some frost. Beets and carrots and parsnips can stick around until the hardest frosts, and even those frosts can be put at bay with a bit of tech. A bit more tech, of course, allows for winter farming of lettuces, herbs, arugula and other items.

I've said this before, but the opportunities are wide in this area. There are farmers in the Northeast who do not begin their season until now. Snug Haven Farm in Wisconsin also operates on this schedule. There should be guys who pick up the slack when the hard working market farmer's take a snooze. There are outlets for winter produce. Robin's got her markets, Cassie's got her Green Grocer and Irv and Shelly have their delivery service. Plus, there's the Vie's and Mado's and Lula's serving market driven menu's. Cannot someone jump into this demand?

There is really no reason that the markets need to wrap up now...except for the farmer's who need a well deserved rest.

Eat Local Now - Day 3 of the Localvore Challenge

As I said on the Local Beet this morning, the best way to convince you to eat local is to have you eat local. I am sure your first few days on the challenge have got you revved up to the deliciousness of the challenge. So revved that you need places to re-fuel, see my Local Beet post for places to shop local. As you visit these shops, take in some of these items.

Some of these things are not exclusively local, i.e., you could get them in other areas, but the key thing is that to best take advantage of these things, you have to eat local.

• Fresh lima beans - One of the last crops to come into season is the fresh or shelling beans. It is easy to walk in to the typical grocery and find dried, canned and frozen lima beans, but if you ever want to know why people started eating limas in the first place, try fresh. Need to know how to make real succotash, see here.
• Concord grapes - Can you deal with a pit. Spit a seed. If so, you can stand the immense difference in taste between Concord grapes and supermarket Thompson seedless. It continues to amaze me that something so complex in flavor as the Concord makes such awful wine. In fact any cooking of the grape, like jelly, seems to reduce the Willy Wonka-ishness of this fruit. So go for them raw or freeze them to make quasi-sorbet.
• Holland Family Farm's "Marieke Gouda" - I'm the kinda guy who's favorite cheese is often the last one tried, but right now this farmstead cheese from Wisconsin is my favorite. I am sure I could find something this good in Holland, but I have never tasted a Gouda even close to this. It is aged on wooden boards so it is much harder and more intense than typical Gouda, at least the ones I know. It is also far from one dimensional, the result, I know of using raw milk. Track this one down.
• Perch - It was just yesterday that I was reminding you that your local meals could include fish. Here's the thing, not only can your local meals include fish, but you can have fish not available to those locavores you envy in California. I am talking about Great Lakes perch. I've been known to throw perch out as one of my top ten favorite foods. Iron Chef-testant Paul Virant knows too, he has perch on his menu now, and I can specifically vouch for this dish having had it last Friday. It truly tastes different than ocean fish.
• Black walnuts - Nuts seem to remain a conundrum for area locavores. The problem with black walnuts is, the crop is prevalent but their appearance in markets is rare. This is partially due to the ridiculously hard time it takes to crack and shell black walnuts--driving your car over them is one suggested methods. The taste, however, is exquisite, with a grapey must that you do not find in "regular" walnuts.

The eat local challenges tend to focus people on things they cannot have. After all, the first thing you do is lay out your exceptions. The second is ruminate on what you appear to be missing. It's like while I fast for Yom Kippur all I think about is eating. Instead of praying for slab of salmon or the out-of-season asparagus, think about the products that are there waiting for you just because you eat local.

Eat Local Now - Chicago's Localvore Challenge

Local Booze/Local Cold Cuts

Today begins the Green City Market Localvore Challenge, with rules or at least guidelines and all. As I wrote on the Local Beet, I am not exactly participating, but I also noted that I am not wholly against the Challenge. In that spirit, here's some ideas and insight to help you eat local now. If you have specific questions, raise them on the Local Beet discussion board.

The Green City Bloggers are realizing the first lesson of eating local, what I call the Smokey Robinson Rule. You Got to Shop Around. The Green City Market is bringing in more farmers this week to reduce that shopping around, but even if you could meet all of your cooking needs for the next few weeks at the Green City Market, it stands that you might not be able to be at Green City all of the time. Parking aside, there are locavores who cannot shop at Green City. More, does Green City meet all of your diet needs. What else do you want to consume these two weeks?

The Green City Bloggers all seem in a quandary over local booze. After all, the Green City Market is dry. Drinking local is one of the easier parts of the local challenge as was easily seen at this year's Green City BBQ. You can stock your bar with local gin, vodka, and rye whiskey; rum's a bit harder. You have wines produced in all of the states around Illinois, with some I really like from Michigan. If you cannot find enough local beer to take you through the two weeks, you are not trying very hard. You can relax over an after dinner drink made from local grappa. Your whole localvore challenge can be one drunken blur from local alcohol.

When you sober up, what else do you need. I'll fill in some of my favorite local products during the next two weeks, most of these things I have mentioned before on this site. For today, I'll mention local cold cuts. If your goal is to simply find sausages made in Chicago (or the suburbs), your choices are huge. Why not Bende Hungarian salami or the copas made by Riveria on Chicago's Harlem fringe. If you want more specifically local, how 'bout the Gunthrop Farms ham sold at Fox and Obel or the Nueske ham sold at Marion Street Cheese. If you want to lunch on more than salads this week, take advantage of our local cold cuts.

Take advantage of the richness and the diversity of the Green City Market, including the added vendors, but do not expect to get all of your food there. Or what I am really trying to say is, do not rely solely on what the Green City Market's vendors sell. Instead, continue to eat all of your favorite foods, just make them local foods.

Are You Up For the Challenge - Green City Market Eat Local Challenge

Chicago's Green City Market is sponsoring a "Localvore Challenge" [ed., still using that spelling huh?]. Last year they wanted you to eat local for a week; this year they are extending it a week. Eat local for two weeks!

At the Beet, Michael wonders about the challenge:.

I’m pleased by any attention brought to the idea of eating locally-produced foods, but I tend to bristle a bit at these short-term “events” where people try to endure the pain of changing their habits for a short period of time. Changing your shopping and dietary habits is a difficult process and not something that can be taken on in a cold turkey mode.
I’d love to see the organizers of this event follow up with some participants a year later and see if they held on to any of the changes they made during the two-week event. I’m skeptical about the effectiveness of these challenges and I don’t like how they frame eating locally as something that you need to “endure”, but I’m still hopeful that the Locavore Challenge can turn a few people towards locally-farmed foods.

I think Michael is right-on, but I am a little more generous to the benefits of the Challenge.

I am, however, a bit miffed that the wisdom of this blog and the Local Beet are not more fully drawn on by those blogging for Green City. I've taken my complaints to the Beet's forum. Hope to see you there--and not just to talk about the Green City bloggers!

How Fare the Battle for Local

About 2 weeks ago, I gathered up all the weekly inserts in the Chicago Tribune for grocery stores. I meant to write a post highlighting the amount of local foodstufs advertised by the lot (including Dominicks, Jewel, Tony's, Ultra Foods and Caputo's). As a lot of my ideas of late, it remains inchoate (+ one post in draft form and another post that got killed by an Internet Explorer crash). The bad news from the delay, it seems like the forces of local have had some setbacks.

A few weeks ago, all the stores featured several local items (produce) in their fliers. Today, the pickings are fewer. To wit:

• Food4Less - No specifically delineated local products. Worse, the navel oranges are highlighted with a big bar "IMPORTED!".
• Jewel-Osco - See above. No produce labeled local; Australian navel oranges. They do note their peaches and nectarines are "Bursting with Pick'd Ripe First of Summer Flavor [sic]". Believe them?
• Tony's Finer Foods - Getting better. They advertise "Sweet Michigan Blueberries".
• Ultra Foods - Take that: home grown green beans, zucchini and yellow squash.
• Domincik's - One one hand, they have the absurdity of an ad for hot house cucumbers right above copy that reads, "It's Peak Season!", but they do also advertise locally grown blueberries, sweet corn and green beans.
• Angelo Caputo's - I save the best for last, the staunched of the bunch. They advertise Michigan green peppers, Michigan peaches, Michigan pickles, Michigan grown farm fresh eggplant, Michigan grown farm fresh large ripe tomatoes, locally grown green onions, locally grown Romaine lettuce, locally grown basil, and Illinois farm fresh sweet corn. Where should you shop?

Here's the real kicker. Everything Caputo's advertises, they offer for less than $1 per pound or $1/per item. For instance, their Illinois sweet corn sells 5 for $1. C'mon! Anyone who tells you that local is not affordable or accessible, well get thee over to Caputo's now. I was there yesterday and besides what is on advertisement, the local included cabbages at something ungoldy cheap like 3 lbs/$1 and an assortment of local peppers. If price is a strong concern, stock up on your local now, when it is cheapest. Green beans and corn freeze especially well. Peppers can be preserved in oil. These are not quite canning tomatoes, but Caputo's will have them soon. Eat local.

Let's monitor the battle front in the weeks to come.

Take the Eat Local Challenge

Details here.

Eat Local Orange Juice

Well, there are many locavores that can wake up each morning with a refreshing glass of orange juice from oranges grown within their local area or local foodshed. If your oranges are out of season, you can even use some stuff you put away in your freezer. OK, that aint us here in the Chicago area. Anyone around here abiding by a local diet, whether a 100 mile radius or my more expansive Big 10 Conference, will not find oranges. Here, local orange juice?

Last night I had the chance to speak to a small group of people on my favorite's of topics, eating local [ed., you would like the chance to talk about the media issues, but no one's giving you that platform, right?]. As I am wont to do in such talks, my first bit of advice to the crowd is the way to starting eating local is to not eat local. In other words, don't make yourselves nuts eating local. If you want a glass of orange juice to start the day. No sweat.

An audience member last night, though, instinctively hit on one of my favorite themes. If you cannot eat it local, eat it as-if local. She talked about making her own orange juice. How different the amount of juice one gets when squeezing her own oranges compared with opening a carton, but this juice, her juice satisfied her more, and as we both agreed, came with the lack of packaging one associates with local. We further agreed that juice oranges, even those found up North, tended to be more flavorful oranges than the standard supermarket oranges and surely more flavorful than the standard supermarket orange juice. Good points all around. Then, another audience member added another good juice point. We used to know juice glasses as tiny glasses. We drank a standard portion in three ounces. It made sense, the amount of juice obtained from DIY squeezing. That's what it was supposed to be. So, I say. Go ahead, drink juice. Make it as-if local by squeezing it yourself.

Another key message (I believe) about eating local (beyond don't make yourself nuts) is that local is an imprinteur, a roadmap. Way more than organic, I find the word local, well not so much the word but the sussying out via label reading and other research, leads to the type of food that matters to me. Firstly, it leads me to food made with respect for the things that matter to me such as humane animal husbandry and good environmental practices. Secondly, it leads me to food made with care, artisanalship, quality, things together that equals what matters most, deliciousness. The corollary of this message becomes then, if it cannot be local, look for products that have the traits of local. Take my morning coffee. I would not survive, period, if I looked for local coffee. I do survive, however, on coffee that is fair trade (or better) and organic. Roasted by local companies like Blue Max, all the better.

Tomorrow morning, have a nice, small, glass of orange juice, secure in your knowledge that you are a locavore.

It's Good to be a Locacovore - 7+ Days of Local Eating

Local as I Wanna Be

Before all these meals drift off into happy memories, here's how we use our local bounty. I'll go has far back as I can remember.

Last night - The first of the year tomatoes (grown inside but in soil) dotted with Hidden Springs Creamery "Driftless" sheep's milk cheese. Chicken from Farmer Vicki's Genesis Growers new avian CSA, spice coated and grilled; chard leaves and beet greens sauteed with garlic and keeper onion (yes we still have); grilled radicchio; leftover bread pudding.

The night before - Batter fried squash flowers, then Pleasant Springs Hatchery farm raised perch "puttanesca" and a salad of kohlrabi, carrots and pea shoots.

Sat/Sun - Madison, WI

Shabbat Dinner - The Jews who eat pork for Shabbos! Fava beans grill/steamed in their shells for nibbling. Smoked Wettstein Organic Farm's pork shoulder, grilled summer squash, last year's fingerlings grill roasted and dressed with a cumin-allspice lemon vinaigrette; Farmer's All Natural Creamery buttermilk cabbage, carrot and kohlrabi slaw; roasted cauliflower with olives; bread pudding with Michigan dried cherries and freshly whipped Farmer's All Natural Creamery cream.

Thursday - Tuscan Night. Wettstein Organic Farm's thick cut pork chops, marinated in rosemary and garlic, grilled, served with salsa verde; kohlrabi arugula salad; grilled tropea onions.

Wednesday - Pasta with garlic scapes, asparagus, cultivated local mushrooms, green salad with fresh shallot vinaigrette. Strawberries and sour cream, brown sugar.

Tuesday - Northern Italian Night. Riso con asparagi with plus beets/beet tops with lime butter.

Monday - Big salad of local greens, carrots, sugar snaps, turnips, Saxony aged cheddar and Gunthrop Farms ham, shallot vinaigrette.

Sunday - Sandwich of leftover ribeye steak, local provolone, giardinara; cucumbers with sweet onions.

Saturday - Mado

Other Shabbat Dinner - Herbed farmer's cheese to staunch hunger followed by fava beans grilled/steamed in their shells; sitting down to bowls of fresh pasta dressed with arugula-black walnut pesto followed by locally raised ribeye steaks, grilled; salsa verde on the side; grilled beets, grilled tropea and cipollini onions. Eli's cheesecake.

Any themes emerging?

I'm Not Bitter - Chicago Tribune Front's Local

While the story should run on the front page of Sunday's Chicago Tribune, it's already front and center on their web site. I'm entirely happy that the Trib's profiling locavore's. The challenges of eating local will diminish as more people eat local. I believe, have remarked often, that demand, consumer demand, will make local happen the most. Want more farmer's markets; shop at farmer's markets. Same with winter markets. Don't just dabble. Let your wallets talk. Demand can achieve year round local produce, right here in Chicago. Demand can create meat that's not frozen all the time. Demand will get you more and more restaurants with local food. So, I'm happy first of all that the article highlights a few others that are keeping local, with various degrees of extremism. I am happy, obviously, with the top of the news placement, and I am happy that the article will encourage more people to eat local. I'm not bitter that my comments to the reporter last week were not included. The story is mostly a good primer for eat local starters, and I'm not bitter over the fact that I asked the reporter to mention this humble blog, and he did not.

Really, I'm not bitter. I'm not a bitter kinda guy. My family calls me Mr. Not Very Bitter. It's just that I did not start eating local last month, nor did I commence my web site (this one) in 2008. Been doing it, my family and I, for three plus years. Not giving it a whirl, not a one week challenge and not in time for the duration of farmer's markets. We do it summer and winter. We maintain it because the reasons for eating local, all the reasons for eating local, do not go into hibernation when the farmer's markets pack away. And, we do it, surely a bit, for the challenge too, to see that we can continue to do it. We know the challenges. Just because my family and I believe we have as much, nay more experiences on eating local in our area, we're not bitter. If I was a bitter kinda guy, I'd be bitter. Instead, I'm happy the Trib's got the Eat Local beat.

Certainly, a bitter guy would not share the three challenges to eating local I mentioned to the reporter the other day. After all, if they were not good enough for the Chicago Tribune, could the be good enough for here?. The challenges to eating local in Chicago:

1. Tracking down one's food. To eat local in the Chicago area means working for your food, whether it's shopping at farmer's markets or figuring out how to have local meat, it's not just a question of hitting the closest supermarket.
2. Can local be done year-round? To eat local in the Chicago area in the winter means a combination of winter shopping and storage. I'm not sure which is the bigger problem. Do you have the time to run to Madison? Do you have the space and resources to horde food?
3. Time. As I have said often, local needs time. It needs time to figure out what works, how to do things that work for you, and it needs time to prep, to get your local food on the table.

As to resources, there's plenty here, including my trademarked best seasonality guide. Look over the links on the sidebar for any help you need to eat local. If I was bitter, I'd go an erase them all right now.

I look forward to your participation in the Eat Local Challenge. I'm with you all the way. Not the least bit bitter.

The Cost of Local Food

Yesterday, I spoke with a local reporter about the challenges of eating local. One challenge I did not mention was cost. I did this because I do not believe cost is a challenge to eating local. At least let me put it this way, I certainly think that I am paying the fair cost for my food when eating local. That does not mean that there are not ways to make local less costly. Jen Maiser at the Eat Local Challenge site has some good ideas on how to spend less money as you go local.

MCA Farmer's Market

We Need After Hour Farmer's Markets!

We had the perfect Tuesday afternoon planned. I spent the morning ably in work, completing a case, but perhaps the day's events were foreshadowed by a software glitch that prevented me from sending out this report. Rick Bayless, by way of Macy's 7th floor, left a bad taste in my mouth too. It cost me over $10 for slices of chicken breast (I'm not sure if a whole breast made it on my sandwich), a small container of salsa from a jar and a watery diet Coke. I gotta certain amount of love AND respect for Mr. Bayless. He is very local ya' know, but I also find, well, they never call hm Rick "Value" Bayless.

They may call me "Mr. Farmer's Market"(although my family also calls me Mr. Thin Slicer and Mr. Mirth Provider but that's neither here nor there to the point at hand). No one loves farmer's markets more than me. I've driven in horrible storms to get to Madison's market; braved sub-zero weather for a market in Ann Arbor. I'll get out of bed at the crack of dawn to ensure my Saturday includes a stop at the Oak Park market. These days, I'm at at least 2 markets a week. Because I am Mr. Farmer's Market I can criticize the hell out of them.

Really, I said that wrong. I don't mean to criticize farmer's markets. I mean to criticize the idea of farmer's markets. And it's not even farmer's markets I am criticizing. What I mean to say is that farmer's markets are a problem for the locavore. OK, what I mean to say, is that you should not have to rely soley on farmer's markets to eat local. Make sense yet? All I'm trying to get to is that it would be helpful if farmer's markets had hours that facilitated more people eating local. Like, for instance, how 'bout a market that was open on the way home from work, so you could be inspired by the bounty and then cook dinner.

The market at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) is advertised as going to 6 PM. Back to my swimmingly planned day. The plan was that Mom and Older Daughter would take advantage of free Tuesdays to see the Jeff Koons exhibit, and Dad would get another market under his belt. I did a bit of recon while they got a head start on me--there's only so much high class porn masquerading as art [ed., don't forget floating basketballs too!] I need. It looked like a very adequate market. I was especially interested in buying new potatoes, basil and baby zukes. The problem, when we left the market around 4 PM, about 1/2 the stands were packing up. We did buy fruit from Ellis and Nofke who swore they'd stay to the end. The MCA market is also the only market in the the Michigan Ave/Streeterville area. I'd have better things to say about it if it kept to its schedule.

Just today I was telling someone that one of the key challenges of eating local was the tracking down of one's food. I caveat-ed that by saying I, personally, find pleasure in the hunt, but I recognize that not everyone else does. I want people to adopt local eating. I have less of a need for people to adopt local eating challenges. Local eating will become less of a challenge when there are more options for getting local food, including farmer's markets that stay open late.

The Big Picture

Eat Local Later

I may not have much in common with Tony Soprano, but when he confesses to Dr. Melfi that he admires the Gary Cooper type. I nod. I may not exercise my anger quite in the same way as T, but I long to be a bit less temperamental. To help, my wife reminds me to look at the Big Picture. So, if a driver going North on Narragansett is going less than 20 mph as I work my way into the city, I should look at the Big Picture. I'll get to my destination, say Khan BBQ, soon enough. As I remarked the other day in my Foodways talk, the locavore needs to look at the Big Picture too. You cannot just focus on what's for dinner this week. You have to think about what will be for dinner in the weeks when there are no farmer's markets, no CSA deliveries.

My family is in luck because our CSA provider, Farmer Vicki of Genesis Growers looks at the Big Picture too. The boxes she provides each week often contains more than can be expected to be finished that week. Farmer Vicki expects you to set aside when times are flush for times that are lean. This week, for instance, the box came with about 30 stalks of asparagus.

The easiest way to preserve vegetables for future use is to freeze them. The process of freezing them is hardly complex. Blanch, which means boil and then shock in cold water, for up to three minutes, essentially until the color of the veg intensifies. Let the vegetables cool as much as possible before bagging--if you put hot stuff in your freezer, it will raise the temperature in your freezer. Put in plastic bags. Try to squeeze as much air out of the bags as possible.

Frozen vegetables can be used in nearly all preparations, except for some salads. A few minutes in the microwave, a dab of butter, and you have a side dish. We have had success freezing most everything but tomatoes (although some say you can), and I would not try cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants, radishes or other watery veg. I would say avoid freezing vegetables that are actually fruits, but bell peppers freeze nicely if cut into strips (use for pasta). Still, some vegetables freeze especially well, and nicely enough, the vegetables that need to be eaten the soonest after harvest are also the ones that freeze the best. In other words, not only can you freeze these, you should freeze these (if you cannot eat them soon). These for freezing include peas, corn and asparagus.

I'm of the mind for freezing because my hard workin' wife froze some asparagus yesterday. Yes, dear reader, she does the work, I do the blog. You can read about what we have put away here. I'll update as we set aside more.

How to Keep Your Food For the Week

So, You Wanna Eat Local

So, you wanna eat local. Most likely, your food came over the weekend when most farmer's markets operate, CSA boxes show up and Pollanesque Peapoders like Irv and Shelly's Fresh Picks make their deliveries. For most budding locavores, this will be your only shot at locally grown food for the week. Make it last. Last year, my friend Farmer Vicki of Genesis Grower's let me re-publish her insight into storing fresh vegetables. It's been my most popular post. I've expanded that post for this year--note, this post deals with storing the fruits and vegetables of the general farmer's market season; I will cover winter storage in another post later on this year.

First Things First

The goal is to make your store of food last until at least your next food arrives, to ensure that you have local food to eat all week. To do this, you need a food plan, an eating plan. It's not so much as laying out your menus for the week, but taking heed of which of your foods you need to eat first. Eat first the foods that will not last. Put better, eat the foods that need to be eaten first. These are foods that lose quality soon after harvest, and the quicker you can get them from ground to table, the happier you palate will be.

• Asparagus
• Corn
• Peas in all forms, but especially shelling or English peas
• Fava or broad beans
• Strawberries
• True "new potatoes", recognized by their peeling skins

Second

Will you eat all your food this week? For one thing, let's hope your local-ism extends beyond the farm fresh season; for another thing, many CSA boxes are meant to give more produce than you can eat during the week, with the idea that you will store. I'm not gonna make a treatise now on food preservation. In the short term, remember that freezing is generally easy. Fruits can be frozen with no processing; vegetables need a short blanch before freezing. Also, coincidentally or not, the foods that need to be eaten then fastest are also the foods that freeze the best.

The Burden of Local

Get it and forget it is not the mantra of the localvore. Stuff must be done to a lot of local food after its purchase to ensure its vigor for the week. DO remove all leafy tops from root vegetables: carrots, radishes, turnips, beets, kohlrabi; DO NOT wash other fruits and vegetables if possible. Dirtier food will generally stay better. If you cannot produce your meals Rachael Ray style, you will at least be rewarded with better tasting food.

In or Out

Most but not all of your local food will go in your fridge. Do not refrigerator the following foods

• Keeper onions a/k/a dry onions - Before storage, make sure that the onions are dry. Often in CSA boxes, the onions get wet inter-mingling with the other produce. If I find damp onions, I keep them on some old newspaper for a bit. Store these in as a cool and dry a spot as you can.
• All potatoes except true new potatoes - Like onions, make sure the potatoes are dry before storage. Potatoes stay best in the dark as well as the cool.
• Peaches and their variants such as nectarines*
• Plums*
• Apricots*
• Winter squash
• Tomatoes !!

*Put these in the fridge if they appear to be getting too ripe/mature

Berries including strawberries and cherries stay best in the refrigerator but taste best if served at room temperature.

Do refrigerate the following foods:

• Spring onions, scallions, knob onions and the like
• Sweet onions/summer onions - These are onions characterized by a flimsy and moist skin; these types of onions are often also sold with their stems attached.
• New potatoes
• Green garlic and other fresh garlics

Battle Your Fridge

Cold storage makes it possible for your food to last all week. Cold storage can also ruin your supply of local food. Here's a couple of tips to best use your fridge.

• Bag your food - Little local food comes pre-bagged, and the smart market shopper refuses any bags from their vendors. Still, just because you got the food that way, does not mean you have to keep it that way. If you can put the food in your refrigerator's designated vegetable bins, it will generally be safe. For foods not in the bins, in my experience, the harshness of the refrigerator can be mitigated by keeping your food in bags or containers. For many items like root vegetables, the bags can be sealed to provide a bit of necessary moisture.
• Hydrate your food - Space permitting, some foods benefit from being kept in water (standing in water, not submerged). These include asparagus, watercress and all herbs.
• Know your cold zones. In most refrigerators, the top shelf will be the coldest, and the coldest part of the top shelf will be the back corner. Only put foods up there that can withstand the chill, maybe even some frost.

Eat Well, Eat Local

My parting thought is that regardless of how well you tend for you food, the great thing about local food is that it will last much longer than conventional food. My family's experience is that produce will stay viable and taste great for much longer than predicted in your typical cook book or produce guide. This is obviously, because food is arriving at the Bungalow so much sooner than it would arrive at most people's houses.

Eat Frozen Meat

Rick Bayless Sez So

I think this is gonna be the week of blessings and curses on the blog. Which is it, then when it comes to local meat? Except for some Amish raised chickens I can find here and there, my family and I are pretty much restricted to getting our meats frozen to stay committed to local meats. A...a curse angle, at least, as I have said many a-time, is the hassle of frozen meat. It puts a bit of a damper on spur of the moment meals, and means we plan our Friday night dinners by mid-week. Are for losing quality, I've not found it, and now Mike Sula has got Rick Bayless to weigh in:

"I think the freezer is a really good tool," he says. "We went through this period back in the seventies, eighties, when people would say if you had anything frozen in your place, you were an awful restaurant. And if you're talking about frozen prepared foods, or choosing frozen ingredients when you could get the best stuff fresh, then, yeah, that is awful. But we have huge freezers. . . .If you know how to use a freezer and you understand that you can only freeze certain things, and you know how to defrost slowly at the right temperature, you can serve great local food all year-round."

Running Even

Latest In Inventory

(previous inventory)

It's starting to be the time of year where the new stuff exceeds the stored stuff. We are in our fourth week of the Spring CSA. Last week was not a great CSA week. Farmer Vicki warned us that the Napa cabbage had some insect damage, to peel off some leaves, but it turned out that our cabbage was gone, totally. Such is the price of organic/sustainable farming practices. In addition to what we are getting from Genesis Growers, we picked up some produce from Cassie's Green Grocer. She's made a great find, Windy City Harvest. Windy City Harvest would be an all around terrific project on its own, but the produce they are selling to Cassie just gorgeous. Great reason to get to her place.

Before I get to what's at hand, one housekeeping note. The weather has warmed enough that the attic is no longer a viable storage spot. We moved the remaining potatoes to the basement, and we moved the remaining apples to the basement fridge.

Celery - Stalk by stalk, it has its uses

Herbs - Mostly rosemary and mint. We have Farmer Vicki mint and Green Grocer mint.

Keeper onions - Based on our purchases a few weeks ago at Andy's Fruit, we are holding out.

Scallions (a/k/a green onions; a/k/a spring onions) - A bunch, this is the first crop produced outside by Vicki. The use of spring onions/scallions as the cooking alium, after keeper onions run out, is one of the things that gives Spring food its characteristic flavors.

Garlic - Garlic remains fine, and we should last until the new garlic arrives.

Cabbage - Red head remains but for what?

Sunchokes - I looked at the sunchokes the other day, and they are pretty much caput. We had our chance. I just have not had the nerve to toss.

Carrots - Last week's CSA box had several large (assuming over-wintered) carrots, but none this week. We are not heavy on carrots, but given their market availability now, I'm not worried.

Parsnips - In addition to some we've carried for ages, last week's CSA box contained very large over-wintered (i.e., kept in the ground during the winter) parsnips.

Potatoes - We've used a lot of potatoes of late. We finished the 50 lb bag of Wisconsin russets we got earlier this winter, and we've used quite a bit from our smaller bag of Wisconsin russets. We have about 20 lbs of reds and about 5 lbs of speciality potatoes.

Apples - Not that many left, mostly what we got at Andy's a few weeks back.

Lettuce - The CSA boxes have had a lot of lettuces. This week we got a head of romaine. Time for Dad to whip out his Ceasar salad kit.

Burdock root - 1 lb - No change

Beets - Hopefully Cassie gets some more baby beets in from Windy City Harvest as I bought out her entire supply. As I said above, this is high endorsement for what they're doing on the West Side of Chicago. Moreover, these are double duty beets, with enough nigh perfect greens for the money that it's a steal. Also got beets, larger beets from Farmer Vicki, and we still have beets from before.

Kale - One bunch in this week's CSA box. Farmer Vicki suggests using it raw, but I'm just gonna save it for a week, so that there's enough for a good helping.

Radishes - We got a lot, ate a lot--so much that we ended up not having the ones we planned on serving for a Passover salad--and have obtained a bunch again. If you want some of your own, Cassie has some great looking French breakfast radishes.

Local Pantry - Cheeses (actually low on cheese), yogurt, eggs, noodles, pork, beef, lamb, bacon, granola, grains, milk

A Box Full of Radishes

Inventory Update

We received the second box of our Spring CSA last Thursday. It came with radishes, a lot of radishes. Two bunches, about fifteen radishes each, with blooming radish greens to use too. It's nice to taste something different. The latest inventory report follows.

(previous update)

Cranberries - Not saved for naught. Plan on making cranberry mostarda for Passover's bollito misto.

Celery - Some

Herbs - Did not do a good job of using up all the basil we had, so had to toss a lot. Still holding strong in the fridge are rosemary, thyme, cilantro, mint, and oregano. The new CSA box included a bag of rosemary. (Unrelated rosemary comment: On Top Chef last week the judges complained about rosemary in the beef carpaccio. Call me crazy, but I always thought beef and rosemary was a pretty classic combo.)

Winter squash - Still have some.

Keeper onions - As I noted last week, we added to our inventory with some local onions found at Andy's in Albany Park. It's vital to keep on top of onion stock as new bulb onions (as compared to green onions/scallions) are still several months away. We also got one red onion in our CSA box.

Garlic - Garlic remains fine, and we should last until the new garlic arrives.

Cabbage - Red head remains.

Sunchokes - "I peeked in on the sunchokes last week, about 25% were going/gone. As I say, tired but eatable"--what I said last week.

Carrots - Another three or so large from the CSA box to add to existing stock.

Parsnips - Remains

Potatoes - In anticipation of Passover kugels, we added some Wisconsin russets. Vicki's last CSA box contained about ten reds. Others left in the Bungalow include fingerlings, purple and pinks.

Apples - On one hand, finally got to some of those hangers-on for pie; on the other hand, added from Andy's supply of Michigan apples (Macintoshes, Red Delicious, etc.)

Lettuce - CSA box included bag of baby lettuces.

Microgreens/Sprouts - Finished one box of microgreens, have one bag.

Burdock root - 1 lb - No change

Arugula - One bag left, holding up quite well.

Beets - A good amount of beets.

Kale - Used last week's kale as a polenta topper; this week's CSA came with two more bunches.

Escarole - CSA box included a head escarole that went into Friday night's soup, so not really part of current inventory.

Radishes - And radishes.

Local Pantry
Cheeses, yogurt, eggs, noodles, pork, beef, lamb, bacon, granola, grains, milk

Local As I Wanna Be

Document It

A while back, my wife made an apple pancake for weekend brunch. Should I take a picture I asked. "Document it" she said. Here's the apple pancake and a few other local meals, giving you all a good idea how we survived the Chicago winter eating local food.












This is a your standard nice piece of fish (Great Lakes whitefish) from Robert's on Devon stuffed with local (frozen) greens and breadcrumbs, roasted on a splayed keeper onion.

Assorted stored roots, boiled (served with corned beef, horseradish sauce)

Local eggs, boiled 8 minutes, greenhouse arugula, green goddess dressing made from first of season, wild watercress.

Do You Want Local Food

Rebecca Gray, in today's Tribune (quite the publicist you have Ms. Gray):

I once read an article that had the rather gloomy title, "Is Cooking at Home a Thing of the Past?" The author cited convincing research from the Food Marketing Institute in Washington, D.C., which reported that with each generation meal-preparation time is being cut in half, that our grandparents spent two hours, including picking their vegetables and killing the chicken, on the evening meal. Our parents spent an hour, we spend half an hour, and our children spend 15 minutes on dinner prep—or sometimes less, depending on how much time speed-dialing for pizza delivery takes. What the author concluded from this was that declining minutes in the kitchen was a sign of an anti-cooking trend. We want to eat; we just want someone else to prepare the food.

Baloney, I say to the anti-cooking thing. Cooking is as basic and central to our being as the fire we use to accomplish it. And if we've really lost interest in cooking, then what's all that foodie stuff—a gadget for every kitchen task, the lessons in Tuscany, the explosive proliferation of food magazines and TV shows—helping us do in our kitchens? I don't deny that we're looking for quicker fixes for dinner—quick is part of the culture now. But beyond that we're searching for novel cooking prerogatives, innovative methods for building good meals—and meals that taste great. For better or for worse in America we no longer eat only because we are hungry.

But there is a solution for fast and good that also gives us a chance to cook the meal. Somewhere between reconstituted mashed potato flakes and Julia Child's pommes souffles is a simple, delicious and very flavorful plate of mashed potatoes—I'd use Wood Prairie Farm's Rose Golds to get there.

Of course I agree with Ms. Gray's basic sentiment (although I bet there are potatoes as good as from Maine around here). Still, this bit dovetails into a big eat local issue. Yesterday, someone bought me lunch so I could talk local (how's that for a treat). She wanted to hear problems with eating local. To me, more than cost, more than availability, more than anything, the problem is time.

Because I work at home and my wife does not work, we have the luxury of working with our local ingredients. The forty-five minutes it took to boil beets to prepare them for a dish; the hour to make good polenta; the surprising amount of work (and time) to prepare a dish as simple as mushrooms with pasta (brush the mushrooms clean, slice, mince garlic, 10 minutes in the pan, turn, another 1o, add the garlic, cook a few more minutes, add some herbs, some butter, some cream, all this while water has come to a boil for the pasta). Now think of this, do you want to eat just mushrooms and pasta for dinner. Some salad? That CSA lettuce does not come triple washed.

As I lamented yesterday, my companion brought up some solutions. Make your local food ahead. She says she makes a few weeks worth of food every few Sundays. Or, make like Rachel Ray, prep your food when you first get it. In other words, some investment in time can allow for much needed time later. Rebecca Gray points out that great ingredients demand less work. My family has found eating pleasure in our local potatoes plainly boiled, baked or roasted. Dinner time does not have to be a hassle.

OK, some hassle. I want you to eat local, so I am not gonna pull any punches. Local takes time.