Cider Hill Farm Takes the Slow Food $5 Challenge

Writes Jessica Hose

"What a great dinner we just had! Between some frugal cooking, a visit to Cider Hill Farm on Wednesday and the last of the garden's bounty we had an absolute feast! We estimate the entree came to $3.06 per person and dessert was about $1.17 per person. ($4.23 total). 

Here's what we had:

Chicken & Dumplings - Serves 4

3lbs bone-in chicken, cut into parts

3 cups onion, diced

1.5 cups celery, diced

1.5 cups carrot, diced

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

2T olive oil

1t salt

1T white pepper

1 bay leaf

1T thyme 

2 large sage leaves

water or chicken stock, about 1 quart

Dumplings

1 cup AP flour

1/2T baking powder

1/2t salt

1.5T butter, cut into small pieces

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

sage, pepper & nutmeg to taste

Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add chicken and brown. Remove chicken and saute mushrooms until browned. Add onions, celery and carrot and cook until beginning to soften. Return chicken and any juices to pot. Cover with water or stock. Add herbs and simmer over low heat, covered, about 2 hours. Adjust seasoning to taste. 

For dumplings, combine dry ingredients plus butter in a mixing bowl. Combine with fingertips until butter is incorporated. Make a well in center and crack egg into well. Whisk egg and slowly add milk. Incorporate dry ingredients into wet until batter is consistent throughout. 

Drop by large spoonfuls into hot soup. Cover and let simmer 10 minutes. Serve hot. 

For complete photos as well as the recipe for my Cardamom-Ginger Peach Cobbler please see my blog here: http://cake-o-cake.blogspot.com/2011/09/slowfoods-5-meal-challenge.html

Bon appetit!

Jessica Hose

Kudos!—Slow Food Boston

Beverly, MA Takes the Slow Food $5 Challenge

From Beth Maynard

"Here are some pictures from the $5 Challenge meal in Beverly, MA. We had about 30 people for a potluck. As far as I know, it was the only public Slow Food event observing this day in the Boston area."

Kudos, Beverly!—Slow Food Boston

MOS Invites You to Dine at Their 600-Foot Table

Photo: David Rabkin, courtesy of Museum of Science

From the Museum of Science

On Saturday, June 25, 10am to 5pm, the Museum of Science presents the Let's Talk About Food Festival, a celebration of food, health, cooking, and science. Taking place along the DCR Cambridge Parkway, behind the Royal Sonesta and adjacent to the Museum of Science, the festival is free and open to the public. Members of the community, along with farmers and chefs, scientists and policy makers, healthcare professionals, performers and artists, will gather along the Charles River for this one-day event exploring the art, science culture and critical issues related to that delicious essential of our lives: food. 

Highlights include "the Endless Table," a 600-feet long table around which festival participants and guests will break bread and discuss our food system; a “Main Stage and Sub-Zero & Wolf Demo Kitchen,” where Boston’s top chefs, nutrition experts, farmers, and seafood professionals will present cooking demonstrations; a gourmet pop-up “Food Truck Food Court”; an “Edible Garden,” illustrating how you can grow beautiful food in your backyard or neighborhood garden; and hands-on food, health and gardening activities and food sampling stations.

Event link: www.letstalkaboutfood.com

Six Local Faves at Harvest Co-op

By Chris Durkin, Community Director, Harvest Co-op

Here are a few of our favorite locally made foods. Look for the "BUY LOCAL" shelf tags.

21st Century Tofu, a staple food for many co-op shoppers, is made right in Jamaica Plain, and sold both packaged and in bulk. It is made from organic non-GMO soybeans and delivered fresh every week to both stores. They also make a great tempeh.

Chilly Cow sells frozen custard sold in its Arlington store; we carry a product made for them under agreement by Shain's of Maine Ice Cream, a family-owned company located in Sanford, Maine. The coconut custard will knock your socks off! Brian LaClair, Chilly Cow's founder, has over 12 years of experience in the ice cream industry and five making this unique variation.

Equal Exchange Co-op, with offices in West Bridgewater, MA, provides fair trade coffee, chocolate, cocoa and bananas. As the Cambridge Food Co-op, we were the first customers ever for this worker-owned co-op which subsequently revolutionized the coffee market by ensuring the coffee farmers are paid a fair price for their coffee. They envisioned a food system that empowers farmers and consumers, supports small farmer co-ops, and uses sustainable farming methods.

MOO Milk is fresh pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) milk from organic farmers in Maine. Maine’s Own Organic milk was formed to promote farm preservation and economic development in Maine. After the ten original dairy farms were dropped by H.P. Hood, they joined together to create MOO milk. Production began in late January, 2010.

Late July Organic Snacks is a family-owned and operated company from Barnstable, MA, that makes USDA certified organic crackers and other snacks. Their line includes delicious crackers, chips, sandwich cookie, and more—all made right down on the Cape!

Harvest also carries craft breads delivered daily from Iggy’s in Cambridge, Pain D'Avignon from Hyannis, Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord, Jessica's Brick Oven from North Andover and When Pigs Fly fromYork, Maine.

Harvest Co-op Market, a grocery store with two locations in Cambridge and Jamaica Plain, is owned by over 3,800 community members. Begun in 1971, we feature organic, “natural,” fair trade and local foods.

Local Salad in Winter? Yes, You Can!

Photo: Flickr/Joana Petrova

By Victoria Thatcher
The appearance last year of a winter farmers’ market in both Wayland and Natick was a cause of celebration for local food addicts. This winter a third made its debut, in Somerville, and now it’s really time for hats in the air.

Being able to grow and sell vegetables year round represents a turning point for local food and agriculture in New England. Along with farm share programs, winter markets will make it possible, for the first time in perhaps a hundred years, for farmers to make a steady living year round—a critical factor in preserving farmland and local food sources. It represents the intersection of old ways, like root cellars, and innovative methods for growing cold-season greens in unheated greenhouses. It’s also the result of surging demand for local fresh food.

Somerville Winter Market
This market was started in January and organized by Shape-Up Somerville and the City of Somerville. Products for sale include local vegetables, bread, pastry, honey, cheese, eggs, fish, meat, apples, fair trade coffee and wine from Massachusetts vineyards such as Turtle Creek in Lincoln, Mass. (If you haven’t tried these new regional wines, you’re in for a pleasant shock; they are top-class.) Upstairs on the mezzanine, you can sip a hand-made cup of coffee, munch a cider donut, and listen to live folk music. Get there early, lines can be long. Somerville Winter Farmers’ Market, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville, at the Center for the Arts at the Armory. Vendors take cash, checks or tokens that can be purchased at the market table with your credit card. Open Saturdays, 10-2 pm, January through March 26. Three weeks left!

Wayland Winter Market
Started by Russell’s Garden Center last winter and growing strong, this market is brilliant, literally, because it’s situated in sun-filled greenhouses. In addition to the items listed above, you can buy pasta, soup, smoked meats, gelato, old-time root beer, pickles, and locally raised wool. Not to mention plants and gardening supplies. Homemade lunch food is available from a couple of vendors and you can relax at one of the café tables dotted around the greenhouses. Winter Farmers’ Market, Russell’s Garden Center, 397 Boston Post Rd/Rte. 20 in Wayland. Some vendors take plastic, but most take only cash or checks. Open Saturdays, 10-2 pm, January 8 through March 12. Last chance this year!

Natick Winter Market
Started last winter and reopened in October 2010, this market is running until early April. It has craft sellers as well as hosting various food artisans, a meat vendor (Chestnut Farm), and a lobster vendor. It has no regular vegetable growers, but the Natick Community Farm is at the market the second Saturday of each month with fresh organic eggs and greens. Natick Winter Farmers’ Market, Johnson Elementary School, Route 27, Natick. Open Saturdays, 9:30-1:00 pm, October 30, 2010, through April 2, 2011. Four weeks left!

For folks who are particularly interested in fresh local produce—and what locavore isn’t—there are four vegetable vendors of note at these markets.

Winter Moon Farm (Whately) sells root vegetables only, but their displays have customers lining up 50 deep. Heaps of red, yellow, and pink beets, creamy lavender-tipped turnips, coal black Asian radishes, rainbow carrots, and watermelon radishes cut open to reveal magenta interiors ringed in green. At the Somerville and Wayland markets.

Until last year Steve Hancock, owner of NorthStar Nursery in Westport, was growing perennial flowers. But this year he’s transitioning to using his greenhouse to grow winter salads, including arugula, spinach, and an array of baby Asian greens. He also has potatoes and onions. At the Somerville Market.

Farmer Dave Jackson of Enterprise Farm (Whately) has amazed Boston area locavores this winter by offering not only cold-season vegetables, but also yellow summer squash, tomatoes, kale, collards, romaine, strawberries and other “summer” produce. Even oranges! He’s able to do this because of an innovative partnership he set up this year with 14 small farms in New England, one in North Carolina, and three in Florida and Georgia. This intriguing distribution model raises some interesting issues related to what it means to support local farms and eat local. At the Somerville Market.

Red Fire Farm (Granby) and owners Sarah and Ryan Voiland are selling a variety of cold-season storage vegetables and greens. At the Wayland market.

Victoria Thatcher is a local food and agriculture advocate, gardener and editor.

Slow Food Boston Book Club: Reviews by You!

This year, we're inaugurating a potluck/book club. The idea is super loose. We'll pick a book. Those who want to can read it; those who don't can ignore it! About six weeks later, we'll hold a potluck with a theme roughly based on the book. If you're in the mood, you can make a dish that reflects the theme. But if not... We'll be happy to devour your abuelita's holiday duck tamales, a VegWeb recipe using your own homegrown cardoons or that nameless stew thingy you learned to make during your year in the Congo. At the potluck, we'll eat and talk, talk and eat, eat and talk... And if the book makes its way into the conversation, great! But if not, who cares? The point is good food and good company.

Book selection: Fannie's Last Supper by Chris Kimball (here's my review on Public Radio Kitchen)

Potluck date: Sunday, March 6, 2011, 3-6 pm (There are four organized so far in Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline and Roslindale and it looks like we'll need a 5th soon!)

Potluck theme: Victorian—but remember, mixing it up with other dishes

Reservations: Required! Email me if you'd like to sign up

Those of you who are reading the book, let us know what you think of it! Write a review, a response or just a comment and send it to us to be posted here. (Contributions from those who won't be able to attend a potluck or just want to participate long distance are also welcome.)

Read on for reactions to Fannie's Last Supper by your fellow Slow Fooders...

Fannie's Last Supper: Review by Jennifer Guterman

"Worth Reading"

Fannie's Last Supper is well worth reading. The two biggest problems are that the title is misleading (the book does not re-create a meal from Fannie Farmer's cookbook, but rather uses her recipes as the basis for further creations) and that the narrative wanders around in kind of an odd fashion. But to me, this book read like the most interesting of old-fashioned cookbooks—full of not only recipes but slices of food background, science, and history, all in the form of sometimes useful and sometimes totally random pieces of information. As a resident of Boston, I was especially interested in the portrait of Victorians and their food culture, plus Boston's urban development, that emerges from the pages. Kimball's final words about the relationship between cooking and leisure time struck a nerve—cooking is worth exploring and spending time and money on, even in the most esoteric of experiments, if it feeds creativity as well as our stomachs.

Jennifer Guterman is an English language teacher and avid reader.

Fannie's Last Supper: Review by Renee Bochman

"Frustrating"

I found this book incredibly frustrating as it had great potential but I just became more and more irritated with each page. One of the quotes was Laura Shapiro’s observation that “Frannie Farmer did help herself, generously and without acknowledgement, to Mrs. Lincoln’s work; but she stamped the material with her own personality, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she drained it carefully of Mrs. Lincoln’s.” Ironically I felt that is exactly what he did in Fannie’s Last Supper. He removed all the parts he did not like, and in the end, I'm not really sure how much of what they ate resembled any part of Fannie’s vision.

I was challenged by this book because there were parts that I really found interesting, especially the process and attempts at using the older techniques and trying to decide where to interject new technology or staying true to the original recipe. It's ironic to me that we have gone almost full swing in the fact that technology and ease has taken us away from our food, so that now we have to purposely try to return and reintroduce ourselves to cooking with purpose and thoughtfulness.

Fannie's Last Supper: Review by Jean Belding

"Demoted to Two Stars"

I see this book has gotten superlative reviews by many luminaries in the cooking realm. Indeed, if you just approach it from the standpoint of a normal reader, you will find it very interesting and probably a good read. (I found it riveting as I initially flipped through its pages.) However, if you really scrutinize it, this book is RIFE with problems.

Here are some of my gripes:

Kimball's approach is inconsistent. He does not stick with Fannie Farmer's recipes; instead he picks and chooses which ones he will use (usually with changes, and frequently with changes that one would never have seen in the late 19th century). He also picks and chooses which items will be cooked on the wood stove. Throughout the book, Kimball vacillates between being rigorously authentic and throwing authenticity to the wind.

The tale of the dinner is interspersed with food history, some of which is relevant, and some of which is not. Kimball also speaks of some of his own experiences, and the same can be said of them. Sure, these things are interesting and a "good read,"but there is generally little or no transition to the recipe portion of the chapter. It seems like Kimball wants to talk about certain things and has thrown them into the book without regard to relevance or placement.

It REALLY irks me that some of the recipes have to be looked up online! I strongly believe that the whole recipe should be in the cookbook. This is much worse than having to flip around in books that have parts of recipes scattered about.

There are other editorial glitches: wrong tense; disagreement between noun and verb; discourses that are out of chronological order, etc..

Even after reading this book from cover to cover, I have no idea why this title was chosen. Yes, the Kimball mentions in passing that it was a menu in the back of Fannie Farmer's 1896 book, but what exactly does he mean as far as the title goes?

I was going to give this 3 stars only because the average reader will probably like it. But looking over my notes, only a fraction of which have made it into this review, I have demoted it to 2 stars.

Jean Belding, a former editor, collects antique cookbooks and is increasingly obsessed with food history.