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Quote of the Day: Jessica Prentice

July 21st, 2013

Visiting a farmer’s market gives me a sense of the season and a direct connection with the people who spend their days growing food. Eating seasonally reconnects me to the natural pulse of life, the Earth’s annual cycle of cold and heat, wet and dry, long night and then long days as it makes it’s journey around the sun. These annual  cycles make me more mindful of the eternal realities of birth  growth, death, decay and rebirth.  They keep me aware of my humanness and my mortality as well as my kinship and interdependence with all other life on earth.  

Jessica Prentice – Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

I used up my onions from last year’s garden long ago. Even though we’ve been eating scallions and chives, nothing is quite as good as sautéed onions. The smell alone make me happy. Since we moved late in the fall, I didn’t have any leeks planted in the garden to fill the gap between bulb onions and new onions. Thus, we’ve been onionless as I refuse to buy them if I can’t find them locally.
red zepellin onions 1
One of the reasons I refuse to buy them is because it makes it all the more exciting when they start to show up at the farmers market and when they can be harvest from the garden. It has been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, that is certainly true for the humble onion. I was giddy with excitement when I spotted onions at the farmers market on Friday morning. I purchased 4 large white onions and a bunch of beautiful small red torpedo shaped onions. There’s nothing like scarcity to make us fully appreciate abundance!
fresh onions 2
My onions in the garden are doing quite well, they are finally starting to bulb, it will be interesting to see how many I harvest and how long they last in the cellar. I have a good number of leeks planted already, with more to go in the ground when I have a clear spot. My potato onions and shallots will also be harvest soon as well. I’m also harvesting ‘Mini Purplette’ onions I planted a few months ago.
fresh onions 1
This fall I’ll be ordering and planting more shallots as well to increase my allium collection. My goal is to be able to have some sort of allium from my garden on my plate every month of the year without having to grow massive quantities of bulbing onions. I want my diet to reflect the seasonal changes, leeks and overwintered bunching onions in spring and early summer, fresh bulb onions in throughout summer, fall and winter. Big fat leeks harvested from the icy soil in early winter and early spring. Learning to eat seasonally not only increases the variety in our diet, it also helps us stay in tune with the natural cycles.

What food do you miss most when it’s not in season?

10 Comments to “Quote of the Day: Jessica Prentice”
  1. daisy on July 21, 2013 at 6:09 am

    I will be harvesting our first shallots ever soon. So exciting! Enjoy your harvest.

    Reply to daisy's comment

  2. Maybelline on July 21, 2013 at 7:25 am

    I agree with you completely.

    Reply to Maybelline's comment

  3. Misti on July 21, 2013 at 9:34 am

    I’m not as strict as you are with local and seasonal but I do tend to buy fruits more in season than I do vegetables. I miss strawberries and peaches the most I think.

    Reply to Misti's comment

  4. kristin @ going country on July 21, 2013 at 10:10 am

    Tomatoes, without doubt. I just don’t buy them when I’m not pulling them from my own garden. Which is why I am SO NOT PATIENT about waiting for The First Tomato to get ripe. Which it still has not done yet. COME ON, TOMATOES.

    Also, peaches, strawberries, potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, beets . . . okay, so obviously I’m not real good about buying produce in general. My taste buds have been ruined by the real thing, and there’s no going back.

    My kids are going to be very unpleasantly surprised when they start eating outside our home. It will never, ever taste like their idea of home cooking unless it’s also home grown.

    Reply to kristin @ going country's comment

  5. Nebraska Dave on July 21, 2013 at 10:45 am

    Susy, seasonal eating is so not in today’s culture stream. My can’t wait vegetable would be sweet corn. Of course being from Nebraska, the capital state for growing corn, does that surprise you at all. When I was a kid, the first bite of watermelon seemed to be what everyone anticipated. However, I was not and still am not a fan of watermelon.

    I am more a lover of berries. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or mulberries, it doesn’t matter. All are good. I’ll surely be planting berry patches in my garden in the next few years.

    Have a great onion harvesting day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  6. Annie on July 21, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    Oh, tomatoes..!! I will not buy them from the store so I do without until warm weather. Fortunately here in the south, we have a very long season and I gorge myself on them. And I’m okay with admitting that. lol!

    Reply to Annie's comment

  7. Robin on July 21, 2013 at 5:15 pm

    I miss tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash and fresh herbs. We’ve been gorging on zucchini and summer squash for two weeks and I’m no where near tired of them.

    Reply to Robin's comment

  8. Amy S on July 21, 2013 at 7:19 pm

    I mostly miss the summer squash and zucchini. Since I can tomatoes, beans, corn, and make pickles & relish I’m okay with not missing those items. I am taking the leap and planting a fall crop with lettuce, carrots, beats, and collards & spinach. I just started some zucchini to see if it’ll produce anything before winter. We shall see.

    Reply to Amy S's comment

  9. MountainMisty on July 21, 2013 at 10:11 pm

    My autistic 10 yr old son loves strawberries and there is a 2 month period when I cannot get them organic at the grocery store, even the hot house organic strawberries from CA are not available. He is pretty rigid about which foods he will allow into his diet, without it causing a disruption in his routine. So he will allow us to switch him to organic kiwi, apples or pineapples during this time. My husband and I eat just about anything, so when our favorites are not in local season, we switch to another second favorite.

    Reply to MountainMisty's comment

  10. Sonya on July 22, 2013 at 8:30 am

    Tomatoes are at the top of my list with a close second of apples.

    Reply to Sonya's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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