The Seed Catalogs are Here!

I just finished "window shopping" in my 2010 Burpee seed catalog. Each year, I seem to buy more and more seeds. Mind you, although our urban home has a triple size yard (from back in the olden days when such things were commonplace), it is still on a city lot. That doesn't seem to stop me from buying vegetable seeds and plants. Potatoes grow great at the edge of the compost pile. And the broad space where our back hedge used to be (don't ask...) is begging for a pumpkin patch to cover the stumps. Growing food for my family makes me feel good, and I know we are eating.

Last year, we had a tease of an early spring, with summer-like weather that tricked us into planting things that had no business being planted yet. Then, the real "summer" hit, although in name only. It rained twice a week, with cool, muggy weather in between. Tomatoes didn't set fruit. Tomatillos produced empty balloon husks. Anything in the melon family grew a beard of gray mildew, then collapsed and died in a brown, squishy mess. Even the heartiest of my zucchini plants succumbed, after valiantly releafing to replace their first rotten leaves. Our local pumpkin patches suffered a great loss. My hot lemon peppers loved the cool, wet weather, though, and produced a bumper crop, as did my pole beans, which produced until frost.

So I flip through my Burpee catalog today, reminisce and put things in my "shopping cart" -- nearly all heirlooms, plants if I can get them (I never was good at starting plants indoors). Their names sound like music on a dreary winter day: 'Black-seeded Simpson' lettuce, 'Big Mama' paste tomato, 'Moon and Stars' watermelon, 'Fairy Tale' eggplant... I want to try them all. But I know, when the packages arrive in the spring, the space we have available will look surprisingly small, and I'll be coaxing my black-eyed Susans into scooting over for a small patch of beets or a pepper plant (or six).

Our two older boys moved into their first apartment last August. Both love cooking, and gardening, and are eyeballing their tiny back yard as a potential veggie patch. Maybe I can annex their yard?
_________________________________________

Leftover yams from Christmas found their way into a pie crust today. I adapted this recipe from one on allrecipes.com. For a change, I eliminated the white sugar and substituted vanilla eggnog for the evaporated milk. My mother-in-law taught me the trick of placing the pie plate on the oven rack and ladling the pie filling into the shell right in the oven, to prevent the filling from sloshing up onto the shell when you slide the rack back in, and then scorching in the hot oven. The things we learn from hanging around with great cooks!

Sweet Potato Pie

Makes one 9-inch pie

2 c mashed sweet potatoes or yams
1/4 lb butter, softened
2 eggs
1 c packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c evaporated milk
1/4 c white sugar
1 9-in unbaked pie crust


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a blender, combine all filling ingredients. Pulse until well blended.

Pour into pie shell. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees; reduce heat and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until firm. Cool before cutting.
__________________________________________

Home-made Turkey Soup - Pennies a Bowl

So, right after I posted yesterday, I went to do errands with my family. Went to the Post Office then Wal-Mart, and immediately began to wonder about going to large chain stores, like Wal-Mart, in light of my new resolution to live a "low-impact" life.

Now, one of my good friends refuses to shop at Wal-Mart. She doesn't get on a soapbox about it, just doesn't go. I looked up Wal-Mart's business practices, and found out some things that made me realize why the prices at Wal-Mart are so low. 

"Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town" http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html

Here's another really interesting item, a video, courtesy of my friend, Calvin, who is a big thinker. It explains why you really can't get something for nothing -- someone ends up paying.

"The Story of Stuff", by Annie Leonard (http://www.storyofstuff.com/)

__________________________________________

Jennifer Maisel, editor of the "Eat Local Challenge" website, suggests starting with five food items that you can replace with locally grown. I decided to look at today's evening meal as a starting point, because I need something concrete like that:

"End of the Holiday" Turkey Soup -- Serves 12

1 T olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, sliced in thin slices

4 oz. sliced mushrooms

2 carrots, peeled and sliced in 1/4 inch rounds

8 cups turkey stock
2 cups cooked turkey, cubed
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1 T dried parsley flakes
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/2 c white rice, uncooked.

1. Heat oil over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add vegetables; cook until wilted (not browned).
2. Add turkey stock; stir to blend with vegetables. Add turkey and seasonings. Bring to boil; cook a minute or two to blend flavors.
3. Stir in rice. Return to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 20 minutes or until rice is done.
4. Check and adjust seasonings to taste (I know I used the remainder of the turkey and stock from my enormous Thanksgiving turkey, which had already been seasoned -- if starting with a new turkey, you'll need to add more).

We ate this with hot rolls, a platter of assorted Christmas desserts, and a bowl of fruit. What comfort food!
________________________________

When I look at the ingredients for my soup, I see that I used homemade turkey stock and leftovover turkey that I had stored in my freezer for a bleak mid-winter day such as yesterday. That's two points out of my five.

As I began to look through my cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer for the first steps toward treating myself and the planet better, I looked for the following items, which are produced in almost every state of the contiguous forty-eight, and are prime beginnings as I shift toward a "greener" life:

• apples
• root vegetables
• lettuce
• herbs
• greens

So I searched for some sign of the origin of the carrots, onions, celery and mushrooms that I put in the soup. Did you know there is no mandatory labeling telling us where our veggies were grown? So when there is a salmonella recall of something grown in Florida, that's great, but we can't tell, and grocers don't always know.

I have the packages from the carrots, onions and celery. All they said was they were "products of the U.S.A.". Darn. However, they did indicate where they were distributed. The Stop & Shop carrots were distributed in Massachusetts, so they would qualify within my 100-mile "local" rule. The onions, also Stop & Shop, were distributed in Maryland -- no deal. The celery, Green Giant brand, was distributed in far-away California. The mushrooms, until two years ago, would have come from Franklin Mushroom Farm in North Franklin, Connecticut; alas, the facility closed and left the Northeast scrambling for locally grown mushrooms. No idea where mine came from.

So I scored a 3 out of 5 for "local" on my soup. Not bad for a first effort.

Celery: 2/3 is grown in CA, most of the remainder in FL. However, there are many local farms that grow celery, as I found on Local Harvest. Here are five:

• Hidden Brook Gardens, Ledyard  (http://www.hiddenbrookgardens.com/)
• Maple View Farm, Harwinton (http://mapleviewfarmct.com/Our%20Farm.html)
• Urban Oaks Organic Farm, New Britain (http://www.blog.urbanoaks.org/)
• Gazy Brothers Farm, Oxford (http://www.gazybrothersfarm.net/)
• Happy Hollow Homestead, Middle Haddam (http://www.buyctgrown.com/happyhollowhomestead)

Onions: Even more local growers grow onions than celery (why did mine have to come from Florida?). Here are five:

• Topmost Herb Farm, Coventry (http://www.topmostherbfarm.com/)
• Hidden Brook Gardens, Ledyard (http://www.hiddenbrookgardens.com/)
• Northfordy Farms, Northford (http://www.buyctgrown.com/northfordyfarm)
• Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm, Moosup (http://www.ekonkhillturkeyfarm.com/)
• GiGi's Native Produce, Enfield (http://www.gigisnativeproduce.com/directions.html)

Now I know for a fact that the Willimantic Food Co-op procures its produce from a number of these farms. I'm assuming that Whole Foods does, too, but will need to inquire.
___________________________________________


Stores selling locally grown produce:

Willimantic Food Co-op
http://www.willimanticfood.coop/

Whole Foods Market

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/
___________________________

A Connecticut farm with a year-round farm store, including vegetables currently in season or coming out of storage:

George Hall Farm, Simsbury (http://www.georgehallfarm.com/)
                              

Time is on my side...

Life circumstances have caused me to regroup and reconsider the balance (or lack thereof!) in my life. I'm not great at New Year's resolutions, but here is one that I think I can do, as it is important to me, now more than ever:

I resolve to decrease the negative impact that I have on the world, and increase the positive impact that I have on my environment, my community, and my local economy. I will start small, but grow each day.

I  begin this adventure with a new vocabulary word, that I just learned yesterday, as I was "googling" for salsa recipes, making a list of heirloom salsa vegetables in anticipation of another bumper crop of hot peppers from my garden next summer.

What is a "locavore?"

A locavore is someone who considers the source of his or her food (and, by extension, goods and services), and, whenever possible, chooses to support things that are grown, produced or distributed locally.

My mom, Linda, came to stay with us to help us through the Christmas holiday (third cycle of chemotherapy threatened to interfere with my holiday cheer, but we had a wonderful week). As we prepared various holiday meals in my urban home, we reminisced about fresh eggs from our chickens, home-canned summertime to last through bleak winters, and the joys of pick-your-own produce, homemade baked goods and other delectables. All product placement aside, the photo of our Christmas breakfast became the starting point of a conversation on a kinder, gentler, simpler way of living.

When I first was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2009, I began a mission to determine, of all the things I could not control about my diagnosis, the things that WERE within my control. Hence my studies of  organic foods, sustainable living, and, most recently, the "eat locally challenge".

Here are some links that I found to help me out:

"10 Steps to Becoming a Locavore, " by Jennifer Maiser
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/344/locavore.html

"Eat Local Challenge," (Jennifer Maiser, editor)
http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/

-------------------------------------------------

What is "local?"

Local is whatever you decide it is for you. For many, it begins with a 100-mile radius around the town where you live.  Here is a handy tool that I used to determine "local" for me:

"Find Your 100 Miles" (Alisa Smith & J. B. MacKinnon)
http://100milediet.org/get-started/map

For me, a 100-mile radius around Hartford, CT, extended into most New England states, as well as parts of Northern New Jersey and Eastern New York, so I decided, for the purposes of my "locality", I would look for products from all the New England states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut), as well as New York and New Jersey.

-------------------------------------------------

Folks who supply "eco-friendly" alternatives to my Christmas breakfast items:
( from http://www.greenpeople.org/ and my own experiences-- "Green People" will let you search your area by zipcode)

***********************************************

Alchemy Juice Bar Cafe, Hartford, CT -- restaurant and grocer, organic and vegetarian foods

Good Gifts, Naturally, LLC, Windsor, CT - sustainable, fair-trade foods and goods
http://www.goodgiftsnaturally.com/

Eagle Wood Farm, Barkhamsted, CT -- organic, sustainable beef, pork, goat and lamb
http://www.eaglewoodgourmetfood.com/

Urban Oaks Organic Farm, New Britain, CT -- specialty, organic and heirloom produce
http://www.blog.urbanoaks.org/

Shaggyhill Farm & Feed, Bethany, CT -- organic, sustainable dairy and eggs

Hosmer Mountain Soda, Willimantic, CT -- family-run, locally produced, spring-water made soda in returnable glass bottles

http://www.hosmersoda.com/

---------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow:

• Choose 5 foods...