Food for Real

Here’s a great guest post from James Kim about eating local foods. Enjoy!

Sometimes, you may get a bit tired of your food routine. If you already eat local, you may be receiving boxes from a local farmer through CSA and you probably shop at a farmers’ market. However, there are always ways to “jazz up” your local food eating. Here are some more ways that you can put local food into your meal planning.

Travel

Okay, maybe this doesn’t count as “travel,” per se, but you can take a little road trip to the outskirts of your town to expand the scope of your local eats. Pack the family into your car and take a mini-road trip to a nearby farm. This can be an educational yet fun experience for both the kids and yourself. Try to find a farm that also processes the food they grow. It is always exciting to view and play with farm machinery. If you are near somewhere that grows grapes, try going to a winery. You can find farms in your area by using the Eat Wild website.

You could also try a u-pick farm as another option for travel. Go to a peach farm and take the peaches straight from the tree. If you go to a u-pick, make sure you’re prepared for a day trip. Sunscreen, athletic shoes, contains for the food, and hats are all necessary. Try the Pick Your Own website to find a u-pick farm near you.

Know Your Seasons

Memorizing the seasonal timeline of your favorite fruits and veggies is an easy way to minimize food travel time. While it differs from region to region, there are some general rules of thumb. . .
March-April: AsparagusMay-June: StrawberriesJune-July: CherriesJune-August: Blueberries, blackberriesJuly-September: Peaches, figs, tomatoes, green beansJuly-October: RaspberriesAugust: Figs, Early ApplesSeptember-October: Apples and grapesOctober: PumpkinsDecember: Christmas trees

Picture Steph took at NYC Farmer's Market - Fresh Strawberries!

Smart Living provides a search engine which provides a list of seasonal food for each state.

Preserve

Make your local foods last through preservation. Try your hand at drying, preserving, canning, or even freezing. You could also make marinades or salad dressings with your left over farmers’ market finds. Check out these recipes for delicious jams like apple pie jam, carrot cake jam, or banana blueberry jam. You could buy a book on preserving to learn the best methods of preservation (try something like the Complete Guide to Food Preservation). If you’re more of an internet junkie, go to a website that specializes in food preservation, like the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Local Food Producers

Buy coffee beans from the local coffee house, wines from the local winery, or a loaf of bread from your local bakery. You can easily find food producers through the Eat Well Guide. Simply type in your zip code and check out the lists of local bakers, restaurants, or coffee shops.

Get creative when eating local by taking a trip, knowing your seasons, preserving, and making friends with local food producers. These are all great ways to stay engaged in the local community.

James Kim is a writer for foodonthetable.com.  Food on the Table is a company that provides online budget meal planning services.  Their goal is to help families eat better and save money.

Produce from local New York Farms: Everything local down to the wheat in the crackers

Somewhere along the line, farming and buying locally became somewhat of a novelty. Today, if you purchase your produce from farmers’ markets or from the farms themselves, you’re considered chic, savvy, and ahead of the curve. But what I think we’re forgetting is that farming and gardening are extremely old practices. There is nothing new and nothing glamorous about it! Farming is a hard job with no vacations, no days off (it’s a 24/7 job), and no time to sleep in. It’s a sacrifice and damned important one at that. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending an event called “Secret Gardens: Powerful Plots in Surprising Places” at NYU. Hosted by Food and Restaurant Consultant Clark Wolf, each of the panelists shared their thoughts on and experiences with farming and gardening. And I must say, some of them had me considering taking a break from my current life and volunteering on a farm for a year! Hey, anything’s possible.

The first speaker was Amy Bentley, associate professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at NYU. Bentley is a historian with a focus on the cultural history of food and opened the discussion with a comparison of gardens and farms. Gardens are “enclosures of nature” controlled by humans with both aesthetic and utilitarian purposes. Farms are larger, professional and labor intensive establishments that thrive off profit and sales. It was a nice way to open the discussion, because we had both farmers and gardeners at the event. When asked what she is looking forward to in the future, Bentley replied that she is looking forward to the day when all people have access too and can afford fresh, wholesome food. Agreed.

Locally grown cherries are awesome

The next panelist to speak was George Reis, supervisor of sustainable landscaping at NYU. It’s his mission to put NYU on the horticultural map of Manhattan. His current project is a Native Woodland Garden near NYU in the West Village which hosts 40 species of plants native to Manhattan. Pretty cool! One of my favorite things he said was that it wasn’t his passion for botanical plants or horticulture that served as his inspiration to pursue gardening, but it was actually seeing the way people connect to plants. He said, “It’s not very easy to interrupt or get the attention of a New Yorker on the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon <soft, agreeing laughter from the audience…pause> But I can do that with plants.” Now, that’s talent!

The third speaker was Christine Muhlke, reporter, writer, and food editor for New York Times Magazine.  Muhlke travels around the country and writes about the local farm scene in the different neighborhoods she explores. After writing about restaurants for many years, Muhlke became fascinated with the story behind the ingredients. I think this is a trend that we’re going to start seeing all over the country. After traveling to and learning about some of our country’s farms, she realized that “we’re not just farming to be cute.” A popular notion I believe will, hopefully, soon be reversed.

I was super excited about the next speaker, because he is one of the chefs involved with Michelle Obama’s Chefs Move to Schools initiative (see post: Gotta love Michelle Obama). Chef Cathal Armstrong will be working with the First Lady to revolutionize school lunches with fresh farm products and recipes. He said one of the event’s most inspirational statements, “There is a huge bubbling of change, and soon, we’re going to see an explosion of natural food back into the schools. Wait and see. It’s happening.” Yes!

"Eating Local" by Janet Fletcher and Forward by Alice Waters

And last, but certainly not least, we heard from an actual farmer.  Skip Connett, organic farmer and writer lives with his wife, Erin Flynn, in Austin, Texas where they operate Green Gate Farms.  Connett is featured in an upcoming book, Eating Local – written by Janet Fletcher and published by Sur la Table.  He spoke about the difficult, yet gratifying work he, his wife, and his volunteers do at the farm. We talked about everything farming from growing elephant garlic to slaughtering chickens. One of the most interesting things that he brought up was a small conflict he and the other farmers near him are having with local restaurants. It seems that some of the restaurants are claiming to buy locally from these farms, but are not actually making any purchases! Connet and his farmer buddies call these folks, “Faux Locals.” In an effort to stop this madness, they joined Slow Food Austin and formed a process that will reveal who is and who is not actually buying locally.  Might be  a good exposé!

One thing that really resonated with me was said by Clark Wolf, the event’s host. He mentioned that during his first conversation with Marion Nestle, they agreed that most dietitians don’t know much about farming/food/cooking. In fact, he said that Nestle thought that NYU needed to “food up the nutrition department!” I had to think about this for a minute before realizing that I kind of agree with him! We don’t have any classes on agriculture or culinary arts in dietetics school (at least not at BU). While I think that many of us in this up and coming generation of dietitians understand the importance of these things, it is really on us to seek out experience and information. And sure, we can and will certainly do this, but wouldn’t it be cool if we actually had a few classes on farming, gardening, and cooking?

With the White House’s involvement and our country’s growing interest in sustainable agriculture, I think we’re going to start seeing a balance between globalization of food crops and the development of local and regional food sales. Hopefully generations to come will be educated on safe and effective farming and/or gardening practices, and I’d love to see some new NHANES data suggesting that our country is getting out of the fast food joints and back into the kitchen. Until then, everyone can make one small step in the right direction. Support local farms by learning about where you can buy local, or maybe start up your own mini garden! Even if you’re just starting to think about it, it’s a step in the right direction. Enjoy the day!