Quote of the Day: Robyn Griggs Lawrence
Preparing food is an ideal way to hone your creative flair and bring sense of beauty into your home. You have to do it every day, anyway – and if you stop to recognize the simple majesty of the objects you bring home in grocery bags, making dinner will be a lot more fun.
Next time you unload the groceries, particularly the produce, do so mindfully. Notice the fine white hairs protecting the carrot’s flesh, the squeaky wax binding the cheese wedge, the chunky shapes or fine straight bands of different pastas. How can you make the most of crisp spring greens, plump August tomatoes, golden fall pumpkins? You can toss them, mash them, and spice them up for consumption, of course, and you can also use them to add seasonal grace to the dining room table.
Robyn Griggs Lawrence (The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty)
There’s nothing I love more than heading to the farmers market each week to see what each vendor will have. Fresh sheep’s milk yogurt, honey, cheese, carrots, kale, cabbage, apples and a few other goodies made it into my bags on Friday. To me, it’s all about relishing the fact that time moves forward, seasons change, the sun rises and sets, and food changes as this happens.
Meals shouldn’t be just about eating, they should be about appreciating the distinct flavors of the seasons. The more food I grow in my garden and the more wild foods I learn to gather, the more I appreciate each thing at the height of it’s flavor. The longer I eat seasonally the less I want to eat things that aren’t fresh and at the peak of ripeness. Asparagus picked a few minutes before eating is so much better than some I’ve pulled from the freezer in late November. Not only is the flavor not as good, but it seems wrong to eat it when the skies are gray and the earth is settling in for it’s long winter’s nap. This time of year apples fit the bill better than asparagus.
This doesn’t mean we have to learn to cook new things each season, often we can learn to make one dish and adapt it for different flavors. Crepes are one of those versatile dishes that everyone should learn to make. They’re quick and easy to make and you can stuff them with anything sweet or savory. In June you’ll find them on our plate stuffed with strawberries, in late winter, with kale, eggs, bacon and cheese. You can even use different types of grains to make them even more flavorful!
Yesterday morning we enjoyed homemade crepes of freshly ground wheat flour, eggs from our chickens, milk from a local farm and local butter. Instead of adding water to the recipe I used apple cider since it was in season and my crepes were going to be stuffed with cooked apples. For the filling, I combined apples, more cider, butter, molasses, cinnamon, ginger and allspice. Each crepe was smeared with some sheep’s milk yogurt then stuffed with the apple filling, and chopped crispy walnuts. A little drizzle of maple syrup and a sprinkling of cinnamon topped it off perfectly. The perfect brunch on a saturday in December!
What would you choose as your favorite crepe filling combo?
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Belfast Farmers Market
This past Friday Mr Chiots and I headed over to Belfast, ME to hit the farmers market. It was amazingly well stocked with root vegetables, seafood, cheese, yogurt, baked goods, soap, and even water buffalo meat.
We grabbed a few items like goat milk yogurt, brussels sprouts, beets and a few scallops (yes there was seafood at the market). Mr Chiots snagged a big chewy triple ginger cookie which was made with real ingredients like butter, organic cane syrup, and fresh ginger. I’m really looking forward to trying a water buffalo steak next week, it’s such a unique item to see.
What’s the most interesting item you’ve spotted at your local farmers market?
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Friday Favorite: Martha’s Farm
This past week I got to spend some time touring Martha’s Farm in Ashland, Ohio. Martha has been my go-to place for chicken, turkey, eggs and vegetables for the past couple years.
Martha is a wonderful person, she’s friendly, kind and has a real passion for good healthy food and community. It’s a bonus that she’s from Ecuador so we can chat in Spanish sometimes when we get together.
If you live in the NE Ohio area, I highly recommend visiting Martha’s farm and getting your Thanksgiving turkey from her. Her smoked turkeys are to die for. I don’t even like turkey and I ordered an extra one for our freezer!
Martha is a Quechua Indian from Ecuador, so she’s fascinating to talk to. She’s had so many wonderful life experiences and loves to share them. I’m hoping to get over to the week after Thanksgiving to help her write down her story. Mr Chiots and I would also love to make a documentary about her.
This is what I love about local eating. One of my favorite things to do is to head out to the farms and get to know who’s growing the things I eat. There’s nothing better than finding someone who is as passionate as you about good quality food.
Do you have a favorite local farm?
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Back in Business
We’re back in business as far as our raw milk is concerned. Luckily it’s much easier to come by in Maine that in Ohio. Back in Ohio, we were lucky that our dairy farm was only a few miles away, though I would have driven a long way to get milk from them. They stocked us up with lots of milk before we left and we were on our last jar.
I had a list of farms to call and visit, but then our neighbor gave me the name of a friend who does dairy on a small scale. We headed down the road yesterday to see her cows and chat with her. She has 3 Jersey cows that she milks. The dry periods are staggered throughout the year so she’s always milking 2 cows.
They were out frolicking in the 40 acres of pasture. In fact we weren’t sure if we were going to find them when we first arrived, but they finally came around. One of them thought my camera was a delicious cow treat and kept trying to eat it.
We made it home with a gallon of fresh raw milk. The cows we got milk from back in Ohio were Normandy cows. The Jersey milk is definitely different, much creamier. Milk is one of those funny things you always think it just tastes like milk until you start drinking pastured raw milk. Then you start to notice the changes that come throughout the seasons and from different cows.
Now that we’ve been drinking raw milk for many years I could never go back to the regular stuff. Even when we had to get lightly pasteurized milk from another small local dairy it always tasted boiled and weird to me. I’m happy that we should have enough options here in Maine to have a steady supply of raw milk all year long. Though I must admit, I’ll miss heading out to the farm on Thursdays and my chats with Dawn!
What product do you source locally or make at home that you could never buy the store/processed version again?
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Chicken, Duck, Goose
I buy chicken and duck* eggs at the farmers market all the time, in fact we eat about a dozen duck eggs each month and about 2 dozen chicken eggs each week. A lot of eggs, I know, that’s why I’m so excited to have chickens someday. Until then I’m happy getting them from Martha’s Farm, the chickens run happily outside and are fed a diet of organic GMO-free grains purchased from a local farmer. The eggs are fantastic! Yesterday, when I was at Local Roots in Wooster, OH I reached into the egg cooler and spotted goose eggs. WOW.
I grabbed two and nestled them in the skein of alpaca yarn I was buying (my mom’s making me a nice new winter hat). The cashier and I were talking about how the farmer couldn’t figure out what to put the eggs in for people to take them home. She offered some newspaper, but I had my hat and gloves since it was a chilly 28 when I left the house that morning. One giant egg was nestled into each glove which were then stuffed into my hat.
They made it home without a scratch. Each one weighed in at almost 8 oz, that’s almost 4 chicken eggs. Now that’s a bargain for 60 cents!
I’m an adventurous eater so I can’t wait to try these, I was told at the market that they make a wonderfully rich scrambled eggs. I’ve never met an egg I didn’t like and these will most likely be no different. It certainly will be interested to see what they’re like, I’ll have to do some reading on popular cooking methods. I certainly hope they have more next time I’m there!
Have you ever had a goose egg, ostrich, or any other egg besides a chicken egg?
*The duck eggs I buy are used for custard and ice cream since they have big thick yolks and thinner whites than chicken eggs, this results is a creamier custard.
