Menu D'Jour - And you thought slaw was boring...

Another week. Another delightful meal. This time we took advantage of some lingering carrots and cabbage tucked into our CSA share from Snow's Bend, fresh green tomatoes from Burnette Farms, and Alabama farm-raised shrimp that was purchased at Birmingham's Tria Market. I have to admit the concoction was accidental. We originally planned to eat all the items separately, arranged in nice and neat little piles on our plate. But voila, our creativity and sheer food madness took a hold of us once again, inspiring this southern-style fusion dish. Eat well, and don't forget the Abita!




Garlic-Basil Shrimp with Goat Cheese, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Coleslaw

Garlic-Basil Shrimp
(modified from Martha Stewart Living):
1 lb shrimp, peeled
1 giant clove of elephant garlic (or 3-5 regular garlic cloves), chopped
2 T olive oil
1/3 cup freshly torn basil
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tsp honey

Heat oil over medium hi heat. Add garlic and cook until just begins to brown (less than 5 min). Add shrimp and cook until turn opaque, stirring frequently. Stir in salt, pepper, honey, and basil.

Fried Green Tomatoes
3-4 green tomatoes (depends on hungry you are!)
buttermilk
cornmeal
vegetable oil for frying

Cut tomatoes in slices, about 1/2 inch thick. Place buttermilk and cornmeal in two separate shallow dishes. Dip each tomato slice in the buttermilk, then dredge with cornmeal. Fill an iron skillet about 1/4 inch with vegetable oil. Fry tomatoes until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side.

Quick Summer Slaw
This is a repeat performer! See the June 11 post.

Once it's all prepared, layer fried green tomatoes on a bed of coleslaw. Top with garlic-basil shrimp and sprinkle with goat cheese (Try Belle Chevre, it's delicious!). Bon Appetit!

The Red Scare, Locavore Diss, and Other Food Related News

From "The Red Scare of '08" to a Freaknomics stone-cold locavore diss, food has made plenty of headlines in the last few weeks.
Here are a few for you to chew on:

1. The Red Scare.

Perhaps the piece of news most heavy on everyone's heart (and palate) is the recent discovery of salmonella-tainted tomatoes. Yikes. Who'd a thunk it? But then again, this hasn't been the first time nasty bacterium have landed in our produce. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were shirking away from those bags of spinach after a slew of people wound up sick from Ecoli poisoning. What's funny is that an article I read about the scare mentioned that "homegrown" tomatoes weren't affected. Well, duh! This is a problem affecting commercially grown tomatoes, not homegrown or even locally grown tomatoes (unless you're composting with ripe chicken manure!). This is further evidence of the huge disconnect that exists in the way people think about food. In fact, in an interview yesterday on All Things Considered, David Acheson, the Food and Safety Director for the FDA, highlighted the fact that it was pretty damn hard to trace the source of some of these tomatoes. He mentions that there are many "arms and legs to tomato supply chains" and that "tomatoes are so complicated...we may never get back to the farm if that's where the problem happened." Do you really need another reason to buy local?

Update: Check out this Slate Magazine article.

2. Eat Less Meat.

It's time to trim the fat. My favorite food writer, Mark Bittman, had a nice little piece in the New York Times last Wednesday about cutting back on our meat consumption. In the age of half-a-pound burgers and 20 oz. T-bone steaks, this may seem like a crazy idea, but if you stop and think about it for a second it's not so far-fetched. For one, eating less meat is definitely better for your health. That's what most people already know. But the thing a lot of people don't stop to consider is the toll that commercial meat production has on our environment and resources. In another article about meat published back in January, Bittman offers these statistics:

-30% of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production

-livestock production generates nearly 1/5 of the world's greenhouse gases (more than transportation emissions)

-2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days

-the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens

-U.S. livestock produces 900 million tons of waste annually

-U.S. agriculture contributes to nearly 3/4 of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams

And of course, when you choose to buy meat from local producers who practice sustainable methods, you bypass a lot of these problems. Many local farmers pasture their animals, allowing them to feed on grass, which is what the animals were designed to eat and what their bodies can more easily digest (this is especially true for cattle). On a small-scale farm, animal waste is not as much of an issue, and the waste is often utilized as a fertilizer, eliminating the need for the waste lagoons used in big commercial operations. You have also reduced the amount of energy expended on your food, just by buying it close to your home.

3. What's so bad about being a Locavore?

Steven J. Dubner of the Freakonomics Duo weighs in on the costs and benefits of the Locavore craze. After making a $12 batch of sub-par orange sherbert, the author muses on the myths of homegrown food, and suggests that maybe it isn't necessarily cheaper, better for the environment, or even more delicious. Hmm...I think this guy needs to read our blog.

friendly famer's market

All of my life, I have relied on the local grocery for my sustenance. Really, I enjoyed walking down the aisles, comparing the packages, the prices. It was like a game. And I bought into the packaging psychology. I never wanted the generic brand, only the things I had seen advertised on television. I believed the messages about what is healthy or would make me slim. Even though I was raised reading The Nation and to be an analytical thinker, food is something my family took for granted. We ate what was available.You can ask the produce worker at the grocer, “Where do your tomatoes come from?” California is undoubtedly the answer. Three thousand miles away. The worker does not know the farmer, does not know how the farmer treats his workers or what he puts on his produce. Isn’t there a double standard here? We ask our co-workers or church family to recommend a doctor that they trust or a mechanic that won’t take advantage of us. Concerns over the integrity of the medical care we receive should not take precedent over the character of the person who grows what we put in our bodies. We are more likely to worry about the character of someone who cares for our car than the person who grows what keeps us alive.

For this reason, I love eating local. In visits to the farms where our food comes from, and in going to the market each Thursday and Saturday, I come to know the people who grow my food. I know their children and grandparents. The farmer’s market is a special community, made up of people who share the same concerns over cancer, drought, and land preservation that I do. When I forge those relationships by buying the locally grown food, I gain a resource. “Is there a U-Pick nearby? What do you do about potato beetles? Has pasture raised beef helped cancer patients in your family?”

I encourage everyone to go out and enjoy the event that a farmer’s market can be and the satisfaction that comes from knowing the person who plants, cares for, and picks your food.

All Alabama Meal - Menu D'jour

In my last post, I mentioned that one of the difficult aspects of this project has been forgoing shared meals and communal eating. Well, one of the things we've done to remedy this void is to instate the weekly "Alabama Supper" - a time where we can get together with some friends and cook a meal made with all Alabama ingredients. This assures us a regular social event centered around food and sometimes, when we're not hosting, gives us a break from cooking (which is needed I assure you!). Last week, I prepared the following menu to wild applause (yes, I'm tooting my horn), for nine dinner guests. At 98 degrees in the kitchen, it was a labor of love, as I fried up 2 dozen hoecakes and 30 or more strips of bacon. Luckily, the potato salad and coleslaw could be prepared a day ahead of time. Enjoy!

BLT's on Hoe Cakes with Goat Cheese and Homemade Mayo*

For the Hoe Cakes (from "Southern Country Cooking from the Loveless Cafe")
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup canola or corn oil
Salt to taste

Combine the cornmeal, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir in buttermilk and beaten egg. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Pour about 1/3 cup batter into the skillet. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Repeat with remaining batter.

Fry bacon (amount of bacon will depend on number of guests, I figured 3 pieces per guest)

Place 2-3 strips of fried bacon, freshly sliced tomato, lettuce, and crumbled goat cheese between two hoecakes slathered (or dabbed) with mayonnaise.

*for the Mayo see "A Few Recipes", April 11 post.

Quick Summer Slaw
(modified from "Farmer John's Cookbook")

1 large head of cabbage, shredded
2-3 large carrots, grated
3/4 c mayo (more or less to your liking)
1/3 c apple cider vinegar
2 T honey
3/4 tsp salt or more to taste

Toss the cabbage and carrots in a large bowl. Mix the mayo, vinegar, and honey in another bowl. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and carrots; toss and mix to combine. Stir in salt to taste. Chill until ready to serve. Serves 6-8 (depending on how big your head of cabbage is!) Can be prepared one day ahead of time.

Hearty Dill Potato Salad
(modified from "How to Cook Everything")

3 lbs red potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks (peels on or off, it's up to you)
1/3 cup fresh parsely, minced
1/3 cup fresh dill, finely chopped (more or less to your taste)
chopped dill pickles to taste (I probably used about 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup spring or yellow onions (more or less to your taste)
Mayonnaise to taste (start with 1/2 cup)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil; salt it. Add potatoes. Cook them in the water until tender, but still firm (don't want them to be mushy), about 15 min. Drain and rinse in cold water. Toss the potatoes with parsley, dill, pickles, and onion. Add mayo until you have achieved the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to serve. Serves 8-10. Can be prepared one day ahead of time.

Let Her Eat Cake!

I started a new job this week, and on my first day my co-workers greeted me with a tempting batch of store-bought cupcakes. As the plastic container was politely thrust in my direction, my initial impulse was to save the drama, and just eat the thing. After all, a new job is a celebration of sorts, and if my co-workers felt cause to welcome me by proffering baked goods, who was I to say no? Isn't it considered rude to turn down food? Especially food that has been bought in your honor? It would have definitely been easier to just indulge, but instead I decided to spill the beans and tell a bunch of people I just met all about our Alabama eating adventure.

They humored me, and responded with the usual "Well, that's just more for us", and proceeded to carry on without me, as well they should. There were chocolate, yellow, and white cake varieties, all topped with brightly-colored icing. I thought about my two month hiatus from baked goods. I felt a little twinge of envy, as I watched them eat, carefully peeling back paper wrappers to reveal moist cake, taking one bite, and then another, until all that was left were bits of hot-pink icing on their finger tips. Our inability to secure grains has really taken a toll on one of my greatest joys in life: dessert.

Perhaps, what I really missed was not the physical act of eating and enjoying the taste of a cupcake, but rather the idea of sharing this food with my immediate community. What this and so many other of our similar social food encounters is teaching us, or perhaps reaffirming, is the fact that food for us is communal. We take great pleasure in breaking bread with our friends and family. It's difficult when we have to forgo that luxury. Even if it is just one little get-to-know-you cupcake between officemates.

South American Gerber.

Rashmi started a new job this week. So, I decided to get her some flowers after her first day. I went down to the local flower shop a few blocks from our house to pick up whatever they had available. The thing about eating local is that you start to reconsider what's available based on when it's available. The girl at the shop took me into their big refrigerated showroom. Roses, daisys, et al. Without hesitation, seeing so much flora in one place, I immediately asked, "Where do these flowers come from?" The girl, redfaced and perplexed as to my question of origin replied, "Honestly, I think most of them come from South America."

"Is there anything local?" I asked, thinking of the prodigious marigolds, gerber daisies, and sunflowers we were growing in our garden just a few hundred feet away.

"Maybe the roses are from the US?" she replied tentatively.

Undeterred because I wasn't actually eating the bulbs or the blooms, I purchased 6 gerber daisies from an undisclosed country in South America to celebrate Rashmi's first day at a new job. They're shown above mixed in with some fennel from our garden - it makes a nice greenery. As Joe admonished earlier in this experiment, I suggest again: don't start asking questions. It just complicates matters.

We've gone mainstream.

It's official. We've gone mainstream. "Business Week," a magazine you may have seen sitting atop the coffee table in the lobby of your rich uncle's accounting firm, has recently published an article about the economic, yes economic, impact of eating locally. And I quote:

"It's a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20% in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept."

That's good news to those of us who care about local eating, and it suggests that the lunacy of our project (WE HAVE HAD NO BREAD IN 2 MONTHS) may someday be irrelevant.

With rising food and fuel prices, it seems an increasing number of folks are starting to ask questions about where their meals come from. And, with summer just around the corner and everything growing at full tilt, many are cultivating their own home gardens - some for the first time. This new trend in home gardening reminded me of the Victory Gardens of WWII. During the first World War the government started a commission called the National War Garden Commission that encouraged citizens to grow their own food. They even offered a pamphlet with the wonderful slogan, "Can Vegetables, Fruit, and the Kaiser Too!" and some canning supplies to help you get going. In WWII these efforts were escalated even further, with huge propaganda posters, a film from the Department of Agriculture, and extension agents who could help you turn your yard into a "munition plant." Well it turns out there's a website devoted to helping revive victory gardens - victory not over the Axis powers but rather victory over global warming. There you'll find seed sources, gardening suggestions, and a food miles calculator. A few clicks later will land you on an ingenious idea posted on another website - an effort to get the next president to cultivate vegetables on the White House lawn. Now this may be a bit of stretch, but with the current awaking about food sources and local eating (did I mention "Business Week?"), this might be within the realm of possibility. After all, the White House already employs eight full-time gardeners, and historically there was a vegetable garden dating back to John Adams, the first president to live there. I'm not suggesting that we tear up the Mall and make a huge CSA...but, why not?

The point is, as many are now taking up this call to arms, maybe it's time we consider a popular slogan on European bumper stickers: "Eat your view."

Here's what I see when I look out my home office window. We like to think of it as our little munitions plant.