The Farmette Report

Maryland farms with websites

Not sure where to find more information about local farms in Maryland? You'll be surprised to see how many farms have their own websites. What a great way for these farmers to get their stories out, and how handy for discovering places that you may never even have known are just down the road. While you're checking out the above link, click on the "Country Store" link to find local agricultural business who specialize in country craft and supplies, food, or health and beauty.

For more farms in the mid-Atlantic states, check out the Small Farm Success Project.

Related to: August Eat Local Challenge.

Challenge within a challenge

As part of the August Eat Local Challenge, Tomatilla has issued the Paper Chef #9 - the Local Edition. In this challenge, participants are called upon to exercise their culinary skills and come up with a dish that makes tasty and imaginative use of selected ingredients. This month, extra points go to those who take the effort to use local ingredients - "the more local the better." This month the ingredients are:

1. Dried Chillies
2. Peaches
3. Edible flowers

What a combination! As luck would have it, I'm allergic to fresh, raw peaches, but I can eat them almost any other way: baked or cooked in any way, frozen, dried, or canned. Chutney seemed like a good way to go, but that would be best on something like a pork dish, and I don't eat pork (or beef, or most meat). I immediately thought: grilled peaches and ricotta with a spicy chipotle-cinnamon honey glaze. Fresh peaches are still in season here, and ricotta can be found locally. I already have local honey and dried chillies (local, from last year's CSA offerings) in the pantry and a choice of edible flowers from the garden. In particular, I had in mind either the nasturtiums (for beauty) or the cinnamon basil now starting to flower and go to seed (for amazing flavor).

I only caught wind of the challenge this morning, so all the way to work, I thought about combinations of the chosen ingredients. How about a leek soup with a spicy basil-peach pesto, garnished with nasturtium blossoms? Or a peach ice cream that warmed the tongue? Or a large ravioli filled with smokey chillies and peaches bound with local goat cheese? Or a cheesecake or tart....? I could only hope that someone would attempt (and post a recipe for) a chili-chocolate peach cake.

A killer day at the office didn't get me home until quite late, but I was determined to go with my first choice and try the grilled peaches. Keith had to work late, too, and when I came home I was surprised to find five messages waiting. One from a realtor who we don't know, referring to us by a name that's not ours, telling us that he understood that we are selling our place and is interested in listing it for us. Not true! Well, he may be interested in listing, but we are not interested in selling. Another message was from an unknown drunk-sounding guy saying "Charlie, man, I heard you blew out your back again, man. Give me a call, huh?" There was a message from bro-in-law number one, back from vacation, checking in. And there were the two messages from bro-in-law number two who was planning on putting my 78 year-old father-in-law on a plane home from Boston tomorrow only to have Pops admit that he would really really prefer not to be negotiating airports and airline travel all by himself after all - even though that's how he got up to Boston to begin with. Tom was going to put Pops on the plane, and Keith would be there to take him off, but if Pops is feeling anxious, well, we need to pay attention because not much makes Pops anxious.

So! Phone calls and whatnot ensued instead of grilled peaches, which is fine. Family and making sure Pops gets home safely is more important. The Paper Chef challenge will remain a paper challenge for me, at least for today.

You all have a good night - and please make sure your father (or father-in-law, as the case may be) knows he is loved.

Blue plate special

Update on the August Eat Local Challenge: After working 14 hours on Thursday and otherwise putting in some long hours last week, it seems there was not a lot of meal planning going on. Instead, before the weekend, we were simply grabbing, grazing, and noshing from the fridge and pantry.  That situation changed with the arrival of the weekend and my Friday visit to the farm where I participate in a CSA program. This week's share included:

• Head lettuce (it’s back after a heat wave caused the outdoor crops to bolt)
• Carrots
• Napa cabbage
• Green beans
• Squash (beautiful yellow and green Zephyrs)
• Cucumbers
• Cherry or Juliet tomatoes
• Slicing tomatoes
• Basil or parsley or another herb
• Fresh garlic
• A hot pepper or two
• A cantaloupe

As if this wasn't enough for two people, yesterday morning I made a trip to our local farmers' market and picked up half a dozen ears of bi-color corn ("Temptation") and some flowers.

Feeling gluttonous for simple, fresh veggies, supper consisted of:

• Steam/sauteed green beans with crispy shallots. The shallots were already on hand; I'm not sure where they're from, other than from the organic market.
• Cole slaw with a toasted sesame seed and soy dressing
• Sliced cucumbers and Vidalia onion marinated in rice wine vinegar Normally, I would have added dill, but didn't have any on hand and couldn't find any locally grown. The Vidalia was not local, but was authentic and already in my larder.
• Steamed fresh bi-color corn
• Grilled Zephyr squash and plum tomato halves
• Chilled melon

Marvelous summer simplicity!

(Hmmm, I wish I were a better food photographer.)

Washington County Farmers' Market
Prime Outlets:   Hagerstown
Prime Outlets Blvd. off Sharpsburg Pike
Wednesday:   3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.   
May 18 – October 26
Saturday:   10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.      
June 11 – September 24
Contact:  Pearl Martin 301-733-4551
WIC and Senior FMNP Checks Accepted
They sell only what they produce!

Menu for a Maine wedding

Six years ago today, Keith and I were married on Mount Desert Island in Maine. We had retreated there for a week or two every summer for most of our previous thirteen years together, and we couldn't think of a better place to embark on our married life together. We also loved the opportunity to introduce our family to such a beautiful part of the world. 

Then, as now, local, organic and seasonal food was important to us, so we felt fortunate to find a caterer who lived on the island and who specialized in fresh, seasonal Maine foods. Kate Huntress ("Never Enough Thyme") worked with me to develop the menu, and with only 17 wedding guests (immediate family only), we were able to pull out all the stops, more or less. I must say that the food surpassed all expectations!

Menu for an August wedding in Maine:

Appetizers

• Puff pastry hearts with basil pesto and plum tomato
• Phyllo-wrapped asparagus and fresh herbs
• Crudités basket with light dipping sauces

Dinner

• Steamed Maine lobster
• Steamed Maine mussels and/or clams
• Local organic field greens, edible flowers and fresh herbs with cranberry-ginger dressing
• Grilled vegetable and couscous salad
• Red, white and blue potato salad
• Soufflé of fresh sweet corn
• Freshly baked whole-grain breads and rolls

Instead of a big wedding cake, we had individual cakes baked in popover tins by the Morning Glory Bakery. The cakes were not frosted, but were filled with sweetened lemon-flavored local goat cheese and served with mixed summer berries.

Many a Bar Harbor Brewing Company microbrew was consumed that wonderful day.

(Note: I posted this entry on 8/7, but back-dated it to 8/6 because I had other things to occupy my attention on my wedding anniversary!)

Even donkeys eat local

What's the big deal about a couple of miniature donkeys eating local produce? After all, Molly and Ambrose graze nearly all day. You can't get much more local than the grass under your own two, or in their case, four feet. But that grass isn't enough to satisfy them, and they do deserve the occasional treat that comes in the form of farm-fresh carrots (they love the carrot greens as much as the carrot itself), and apples (fruit from our own trees is coming in now), and hay.

Our few acres are mostly wooded, so we don't try to grow our own hay. Instead we buy ours from Nick's Organic Farm - that's right, it's local and organic. A couple of weeks ago, we arranged to pick up a load of hay from Nick. We have a trailor that would have easily handled the job, but it wasn't available. Instead, Keith managed to stuff the back of his pick-up truck with bales of hay, and stuffed the remainder onto the roof of his truck cap:

As you can see, he ended up opening up the tailgate and using that to stack up the last few of the 20 bales we managed to crowd in and on the truck. The best part was that, after we picked up the hay, Keith decided to run a couple of other errands while we were passing through town. He's been in the market for a better mileage vehicle, so one of our stops was at a local auto dealership to see if they had in stock one of the models he's been wanting to check out. Yep, we pulled into the dealership with our Clampett-mobile loaded with hay, and for the first time in my experience, not a single car sales dude would even try to make eye contact with us. No offers of help, nothing... well, nothing except for  a few smirks at a couple of unwitting "hayseeds".

I thought it was hilarious.

Day 3: let there be leftovers

Take someone who doesn't know how to prepare a dish that serves fewer than six people and put her in a household of just two, and what do you get? Leftovers.

Hooray for leftovers. It was 95 degrees today. Who wants to cook when it's 95 degrees? Even now, it's almost 80 (with humidity at more than 70 percent), but it's night-time so that means it's a dark heat, so it can't be that bad right?

Stay cool - and eat local. (Am I the only who has seen "local" so many times in recent days that it's starting to look like "lo-cal" as in "low calorie"?)

Mystery squash revisted

As it turns out, that mystery squash growing out of the compost bin is producing five really great pumpkins and it looks like more are on the way. There's another plant coming out of a different bin that's producing some fine patty-pan squash, which will definitely figure into some local eating this month.

I've never grown pumpkins before, and can hardly take credit for these since they were an accident of my lazy cold composting habits. They are so cool - dinosaurs among vegetables! I used the above pic to make the eat local button on the sidebar (over there ->, see?). Liz has some cool buttons - or you can click for the official logos for the eat local challenge.

The pumpkin only started showing its colors just over a week ago. The above pic was from less than two weeks ago, so you can tell it's moving along fast!

Speaking of not dawdling, weeknight suppers around here are usually what we can fix that's yummy, doesn't take too long to make, and doesn't require heating up the kitchen on a humid 92 degree day. For day two of the eat local challenge, we had...

Tabouleh with chickpeas

• 1/2 cup bulgar (cracked wheat)
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• a couple of tomatoes
• a small cucumber
• a carrot or two
• a small summer squash (our CSA had beautiful yellow and green Zephyrs)
• a clove or two of garlic
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• a bunch of mint
• a bunch of parsley
• can of organic chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans - if you're the type who has fresh beans or your own home-cooked beans around, by all means use them)

1. Stir the water into the bulgar and let sit for about 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, chop the veggies into into chunks (large dice), except for the garlic and herbs, which you want to chop finely.
3. Add the veggies and herbs to the bulgar. Mix well.
4. Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans, then add them to the mixture.
5. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons each of olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

Serve over a salad of mixed leafy greens. Add pita bread if you have it. With a little extra effort and some tahini, you could use the chickpeas to make hummus and really have a treat.

All the ingredients for tonight's supper were organically produced, but only the veggies and herbs were local.

August challenge: eat locally

Do you know where your food comes from? Would you rather support huge agri-businesses who truck or fly their mass-produced, pesticide-laden, non-biodiverse, genetically modified foodstuffs to you, or would you rather support the family farm down the road? If you'd like to see your local farmers continue to plant crops instead of housing developments, if you'd like to be more thoughtful about just where your food comes from, or are perhaps growing your own and are enjoying your garden's summer bounty, take a shot at participating in the August Eat Local Challenge.

Thanks to Liz, for being my inspiration in what is essentially a month long local food meme. Here's the original call to action:

What if all of our food decisions for a month were based on what was available in our foodshed?  What is it like to eat only what's in season?  What if we all became more aware of where our food really comes from?  What if local businesses got the message that people actually care about where their food comes from because of the sheer number of people asking questions about sourcing?

Life Begins at 30, in association with Locavores, is pleased to bring you the August Eat Local Challenge.  During this August, we challenge you to set some goals that will include eating food that is local to you.  Life Begins at 30 will be hosting a month-long meme along with suggestions for how to do this, and an update of how everyone is doing.

You will be able to design your own Eat Local challenge, noting your level of participation (eat local all day every day, once a week, one big event during the month, etc) and your "exceptions" - those things that aren't local and that you won't be able to live without as long with other specifications.

By taking this challenge, you will be joining a group of bloggers and non-bloggers alike who are willing to make the effort during August to source their food and eat accordingly.

Interested?  Move on to the Nuts and Bolts.

Need more convincing that local is the way to go?  Move on to the Reference Guide.

I'm about a day late with this, but I should at least clarify a few things:

1. What’s your definition of local for this challenge?
   While I'll certainly aim for the recommended 100 miles, it's going to too limiting to try to stick with it for everything. I'll feel that I'm doing good if I stay within Maryland or close-in West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
2. What exemptions will you claim?
   Unless I want to eat only the typical Maryland summer farmstand diet of Silver Queen corn, cukes, melons, lopes, and tomatoes, I'll be claiming a lot of exemptions, mostly pantry staples such as olive oil, spices, condiments, and beans and grains. Part of what attracted me to this challenge is the realization of just how many of the foods I eat are produced hundreds or thousands of miles away - I want to be more mindful about what I eat.
3. What is your personal goal for the month?
   I gave it away with my last response. I want to be more mindful about what I eat. Given summer's bounty, August should be a fairly easy month for this kind of challenge, and it helps that I belong to a CSA that provides ample organically grown vegetables for us every week, yet it was only when I started to think about the meals I would be eating this month that I realized just how much of my diet is not local at all. (I'm beginning to sound repetitive, aren't I?) I hope, too, to discover some new local food sources - and already have made some headway just researching the links for my blog's sidebar. I figure that I'll be talking more about goals, and what this challenge is teaching me, as we go along. I want to enjoy participating in this challenge and I want you to enjoy it, too.

Now, for the important question: what's for supper? With temperatures in the upper 80s, I'm not much for cooking after coming home from the office. Today, the "sweat index" was compounded by the time I spent doing some yard work before dinner - just as it was alleviated by the discovery that a large number of the tomatoes in our garden are now ripe. We had a light supper of tomato bruschetta on roasted garlic toasts with Allegheny Chevre from FireFly Farms. We washed down our tasty repast with a nice cold Wild Goose IPA made by the Frederick Brewing Company. The bruschetta was nearly all local (the recipe is below), but we suspect the bread is mass-market stuff disguised as local artisan bread by our chain grocery store. FireFly Farms is less than 40 miles away, but we bought the cheese at My Organic Market when we were in Rockville this weekend - about 60 miles in the other direction. Frederick is about 30 miles away. Not a bad start, but then I didn't mention what I ate for breakfast or lunch. Let's not go there, eh?

Tomato Bruschetta (I've written about bruschetta before, and this recipe is slightly different, only slightly):

1. Get as many ripe tomatoes as you want to eat. If you can, use a variety. Heirlooms are great. For firmness and texture, I prefer smaller tomatoes such as Roma and grape. Chop them up as coarse or fine as you like.
2. Add diced red onion to taste.
3. If you have a mild pepper such as a banana pepper, mince it and toss it in.
4. Chop up some fresh basil leaves - as much as you like - and toss them in with the tomatoes.
5. Dribble on some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
6. Add a pinch of coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir.
7. Serve on top of toasted garlic bread. Enjoy!

Childhood nostalgia meme

Ellen tagged me with this chain-letter meme where I'm supposed to name five things I miss from childhood. That's easy enough, but before I start, let's tend to the housekeeping part, the part where I'm supposed to snag four other participants, which I am, as always, reluctant to do. What I'll do is tap the last few commenters and they can opt in or out as they please: Liz, Meg, and Michelle. Notice that I carefully omitted Jerry, knowing how allergic he is to memes. If you wish to participate (and, by the way, you need not have been named in order to do so), the chain-letter part works like this: remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog’s name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross-pollination effect.

1. Nearest Distant Shore
2. Verbatim
3. Kingfisher Cove
4. Ellen's Nest
5. The Farmette Report

With meme housekeeping out of the way, here are the five things I miss most about my childhood. I tried not to think about them too hard, but just went with what first came to mind:

1. Summer vacation. And I do mean summer vacation! Months off from school. Months to run around with friends getting into who knows what while both my parents had to work (and therefore had no idea what we were really up to). Those were the days. Now, if I try to take two weeks off in a row, I get the fuzzy eyeball from my boss.
2. How we could turn everything into a game. We'd run around in the woods, without a care in the world, playing "explorer" or "spy" or anything that popped into our heads. There was a heavy TV influence as I was often Mrs. Peel to my brother's Steed.   
3. Drive-in movies. I mean family drive-in movies where we would pop enough corn to fill a big paper grocery bag and my brother and I would go wearing our pajamas and play in the gravelly playground before the cartoons started. The first movie would be something kid-oriented like "The Love Bug" with Herbie, and the second movie would be something of more adult fare like "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." We were supposed to fall asleep in the back of the station wagon before the second feature, but I'll never forget waking up in the middle of the "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie."
4. Easy-Bake Oven. In particular, I miss how I always made an Easy-Bake chocolate frosted cake for my doctor who I saw frequently for allergy shots. In turn, because I was a good patient and because of the baked "treat," which he was kind enough to make an appreciative fuss over, he would give me a 5 or 10 cc syringe to take home and use when playing doctor. Can you imagine anyone doing that these days?! To my consternation, he never gave me a needle to go with the syringe, but I would tape one of my mother's sewing needles or a pin to the syringe and practically terrorize the younger kids with it. Oh, all in good fun right? I mean, I never actually stuck anyone....
5. Making potholders out of loops. Remember those looms for weaving fabric loops into potholders? Well, they are still around if you know where to look (Klutz, eBay, or sites that sell old-fashioned fun for starters). Actually, I suppose that I can't say I miss this anymore because I just rediscovered it. I made these two potholders yesterday from the loops supplied with the Klutz book:

Now paging 1-2-3

Ellen tagged me with this meme. As she points out, it's super easy and, uh, "handlable." (That's the new word of the day!) Even better, there's no requirement that I rope anyone else into joining in, though any and all who would like to are certainly invited to come along.

Okay, so here are the rules:

Grab the closest book to you. Resist the urge to get hold of one of the cooler, intellectual ones! You've gotta be honest. Turn to page 123. Go down five sentences, and then post the next three sentences in your blog. Simple.

Truthfully, if I hadn't picked up the book at the side of my bed, the closest book to where I am sitting at the computer would have been Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern - but it only has 85 pages.

The book by the side of my bed, which I have let languish unfinished for the last several weeks even though I've thoroughly enjoyed what I've read so far, is Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (yes! I'm still reading it!). In one of those interesting coincidences, I was listening to The Infinite Mind on Public Radio as I drove home from work this evening. The show was the first of two parts about Asberger's Syndrome, which is a form of autism. One of the guests said that Wittgenstein had Asberger's Syndrome.... 

Ah! But the meme, what about the meme, you say. Okay, here goes, page 123, five sentences down:

  Marek Spinka, an animal researcher in the Czech Republic, has generated a general hypothesis of play in animals. His theory is that play teaches a young animal how to handle novelty and surprise, such as the shock of being knocked off balance or a surprise attack.

  If Dr. Spinka is right, that would explain why play fighting is so different from real fighting, because a play fight has to be constantly surprising to teach the young fighters to respond to novelty.

Ms. Grandin then proceeds to write about how animals use role reversal to prolong play while developing social and locomotor skills. Her insights into animal emotions and behavior are nothing short of amazing. She deftly interprets that which most of us don't even bother to notice, much less define, about animal interaction.