Because 2 days is never enough.

The New Oxford American Dictionary selected “locavore”, which means someone who eats locally grown food, as the word of the year.

“The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

The word “locavore” was created two years ago by four women in San Francisco who proposed that people should try to only eat food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius.  It spawned an entire movement that encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or to grow their own food, noting that fresh and local products are more nutritious and taste better.  We couldn’t agree more!
Jess will be pleased to know that the phrase “colony collapse disorder” was one of the runners-up.  (I’m surprised “carbon neutral” wasn’t on the list.)

Urban life doesn’t really accommodate some really cool DIY pursuits. Tending a vegetable garden, canning, etc… are all kind of out of reach in my one bedroom apartment. But the one out of reach hobby that really stings these days, so to speak, is beekeeping.

I adore honey; I eat it almost every morning in my yogurt. And once I started reading reports about Colony Collapse Disorder I was, naturally, pretty alarmed. Elizabeth Kolbert had a great article in the New Yorker back in August about CCD and about keeping her own bees. The article was full of all these amazing and strange facts about bees that had me riveted:

Honeybees are the only animals besides humans known to have a representational language: they convey to one another the location of food by dancing. When the queen lays an egg, she is able to choose its sex. Males, known as drones, perform no useful function except to mate. They are loutish and filthy, and the workers—sterile females—tolerate their presence for a few months a year, then systematically murder them. A single pound of clover honey represents the distilled nectar of some 8.7 million flowers. In a week, a productive hive can add seventy pounds of honey to its stores.

How could one NOT be fascinated by such creatures? She also describes the unsustainable practice in large scale agriculture of renting out large hives to pollinate often pesticide treated mono-culture crops. No wonder the bees are in trouble. Is it my moral obligation as a honey lover to try to save the bees?

So, my irrational desire to have my own apiary grew. Let’s be honest, what I really want is one that I shared with some other, more responsible people, because I probably don’t want to keep bees, like, every day. Anyway, my obsession reached a fever pitch when my friend Shana, who lives in Nevada City, California where she runs a peace education program, came to visit.

Shana is a lovely house guest and came bearing thoughtful thank you gifts. First, she gave us a bag of yummy apples from the orchard behind her house. I was so pleased, but when she pulled out a jar of honey that she harvested herself from her own hive I was so jealous I could hardly stand it. Why can’t I harvest my own honey?

My the dull ache of desire for my own bees has subsided some. I am not crazy like these people. Shana laughed at me that I’m trying live in little house on the prairie in the city. But is that really so much to ask? Can’t I be walking distance from good restaurants and subway stops and have room for bees and a vegetable garden. Is it so much to ask?

Dear Tomato Plant,

Thank you for hanging in there, in the bathroom, with probably less light that you might have wanted, maybe not enough room to stretch out, probably a couple days here and there where you wondered where the hell your water was. Thank you for forgiving me for infanticide on your littlest budding tomatoes (in hopes of channeling all your energy to a few great tomatoes). Thank you for producing the sweetest, juiciest, most delicious cherry tomatoes I’ve ever eaten, even if there were only five of them and Karl and I had to split them on top of our omelettes.

In gratitude to your service, I promise to take much better care of the tomato plant I plant in my bathroom next summer.

A few weekends ago we had a potluck dinner to make lasagna completely from scratch. It was a good way to put our pastamaking and cheesemaking skills to the test. (This potluck involved everyone bringing an ingredient instead of a dish.) Jess and Karl cranked out some beautifully thin fresh lasagna noodles. Erik made the veggie filling, which included spinach and purple cauliflower from the farmer’s market.

I was tasked with making two kinds of cheese–ricotta and mozarella–which we learned in our cheesemaking class the weekend before. I used Natural by Nature organic milk from grass-fed cows in Pennsylvania. (Their milk is not ultrapastuerized, an important quality for cheesemaking.) I made the ricotta first so that the whey could drain while I made the mozarella. It was an instant success and instantly boosted my cheesemaking confidence. Unfortunately something went terribly awry during the mozarella process resulting in a curdy mess that had to be discarded. For some reason, the curds never properly separated from the whey during the milk heating phase. I ladled the curds out anyway and tried to separate the whey even more before before heating them a second and third time. It was no use, the curds were not holding together and were not exhibiting the characteristics of cheese. Hardy and I took a quick trip to the food co-op to buy some fresh mozarella and the lasagna meal was saved. Needless to say, my cheesemaking confidence has suffered.

Jess and I teamed up for the salad. I provided greens, making my own mix from the amazing selection the farmer’s had on hand. Jess tossed in veggies from the Union Square Green Market including large radishes and exotic items such as purple peppers and three colors of carrots (red, white and orange). Hardy brought a tasty loaf from the farmer’s market that she turned into crunchy garlic bread, and also kept the wine flowing as much as the conversation.

The meal was delicious! It tasted especially great because we knew how important our individual contributions were, and that we couldn’t have done it alone.

View the photos>

Lasagna Night Oct 07

We celebrated the one-year anniversary of 3DayWeekend with a vocation vacation – cheesemaking! (Happy birthday, 3DayWeekend!) The entire photo album can be viewed here.

Jess, Erik, Amy, Daniel and I managed to do some “leaf peeping” on our road trip to Western Massachusetts in the peak of October for a one-day cheesemaking course with Ricki Carroll, the cheese queen. (You may know Ricki from such books as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver.)

We learned to make Farmhouse Cheddar, Queso Blanco, Whole Milk Ricotta, Whey Ricotta, Fromage Blanc, Creme Fraiche, and a 30 Minute Mozzarella. Ricki led us through step-by-step demonstrations and also gave us the opportunity to do hands-on work in small groups throughout the day. It was a lot of information to absorb in a single day, but we took copious notes.

Naturally, we had to taste the cheeses we made as we went along. The Fromage Blanc was a huge hit in our group – naturally sweet and creamy. We were also impressed with the Queso Blanco, which doesn’t melt and was pan-fried to a nice golden brown (similar to paneer). The Farmhouse Cheddar was the most complex of the cheeses we made, and we kept revisiting the process throughout the day while we made the other cheeses. (This led to a little bit of confusion in our group since the instruction tended to jump around from one cheese to the other in quick succession.) The cheddar requires a mold and a cheese press, so it’s not a top candidate for cheeses you can make in your small Brooklyn apartment, but I think Amy and Daniel will be able to replicate the process quite nicely in their Connecticut home – especially after Daniel turns the basement into a cheese cave for aging.

We enjoyed a lovely lunch of farm fresh foods that included a fantastic squash soup that Ricki’s partner Jamie made along with many varieties of cheese, of course. I had to force myself to stop eating the Fromage Blanc slathered on figs, and I promised myself that I will make them at home the first opportunity I get.

After the class ended, we made our way down to Ricki’s basement to purchase the necessary cheesemaking supplies along with a few containers of fresh yogurt Jamie had on hand from the farm nearby. (I’m using those cultures in my homemade yogurt – yum!)

The five of us piled back into the car – a little bit wiser and a little bit heavier – and headed to Northampton for dinner. As we were leaving Ashfield, we spotted the most spectacular double rainbow that any of has ever seen! It was such a rare and amazing sight, that every car on the road simultaneously careened over to get a better look. Both rainbows spanned a perfectly green field full of grazing cows with a backdrop of autumn trees. If you looked carefully you could tell that one end of the rainbow was directly over Ricki’s house, which proved to us that there is CHEESE at the end of the rainbow.

View all the cheesemaking photos>

07-1020-Cheese_Making

I’m eating an apple a day – the sweetest, crunchiest, juiciest apples around. It inspired me to write this haiku.

honey crisp apples

from the farmer’s market

i love to eat you

A tree grows in Brooklyn — and now corn does too. I came upon stalks of wild corn as I walked through the intersection of President (my street) and 6th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I’m obviously not the only person to notice the two dozen tall stalks. A short article even appeared in the New York Times, which unraveled the mystery of who planted the city corn and why.

The little cornfield is the work of Donnaldson Brown, a 48-year-old trusts and estates lawyer, screenwriter, fiction writer and mother of a 12-year-old son, who planted the seeds in May, fully aware that if they survived, the result would be comedically off-scale for the urban setting.

“It was to subvert expectations,” Ms. Brown, who spent part of her childhood on family farms in Maryland and Texas, said as the cornstalks swayed outside her window, “to put something out of context.”

As people pass on the street, grocery bags in hand, cellphones pressed to their ears, they crane their necks to look up at the stalks, as if Shoeless Joe Jackson might come swaggering out. The cornfield has also become a point of orientation. “We’re a block down from the corn,” a resident will say. “You can’t miss it.”

It reminded me of the recent New Yorker article in which Adam Gopnik prepares a meal from ingredients that are local to New York City. (Foraging in Central Park anyone?) You just never know where food is going to crop up.

I went to visit my sister, Kate, at Vassar College last weekend. She and her roommates joined a cooperative run by the Vassar farm and she was eager to show me her weekly harvest. And it was a bounty. There is something so much more satisfying about picking up your CSA veggies on an actual farm, as opposed to a church basement in Harlem, but I digress.
Like good little kibbutzim, Kate and her friends rose early and bright eyed, arriving at the farm at 12:30pm, some faces still dented from their sheets. They then took to their labors, picking green beans with curiosity and chewing them raw, handfuls a time, happily bovine as partially chewed beans hung from their lips.
Here’s Kate with her colorful flowers and leafy greens:

And here is Comrade Blake, a model for the Soviet propaganda poster for the Vassar Cooperative Farm. (He’s a professional: has been in two soundless films!)

It was a pretty farm, tucked right next to my old rugby field against a few acres of undeveloped mid-Hudsdon woods. Kate and her darling friends returned home and planned for a farm co-op potluck, carefully arranged sage leaves into a decorative candle holder, and put out their pretty flowers.
Oh sure they were all hung-over and patching together the spotty bits in their memory of the evening before. And yes, we did eat at the same charming greasy spoon diner where the wall paper alone is probably predates the civil war. But still, I couldn’t help but admire how much more wholesome these kids were, with their kale, fresh air, beets, peppers, lettuce, than we ever were back in the olden days.

When I left for my vacation in Seattle, I begged Karl to water my tomato plant with love. You see, it had finally starting growing little flowers and I felt so close to realizing my summer time dream of actually growing a tomato. The plant had survived my well documented bad plant mothering skills, a lengthy period in a planter far too small for it, and a traumatizing attack by our friend Tyler who, for inexplicable reasons though it was cilantro.

A week and a half later, I returned to my dear tomato project. Yes, we grow herbs and tomatoes in our bathroom…besides being the sunniest spot in the house with the most extra space, it gives me something to do while I brush my teeth and pee. And there they were, my little beauties. Little is the operative word. For now.

I love them. I love them so much I could literally sit there and watch them grow.

It’s late in the season and I’m concerned that I won’t ever get to eat a shiny red bathroom tomato on my salad. Matt suggested that I cut back all but one or two of them so that plant can concentrate on squeaking out a prize for me. But… KILL my babies (there are now 6 of them)??? What kind of monster would suggest that?

I did pull off a flower this morning. And I still feel kind of crappy about it.

UPDATE:

They’re getting biiiigger! I only hope I love my own children this much (and I hope I don’t dream of one day eating my own children with a little mozzarella and basil!)

Erik and I are addicted to smoothies. It started as a summertime weekend treat when we lived in San Francisco, and has developed into a multi-day affair in the form of breakfast Monday through Friday. We’ve put just about everything in season into a smoothie at some point, although some concoctions are more successful than others, and some can never be recreated since we don’t remember what was in them (sadly). Some items are better paired with yogurt, some with soy milk, others with chocolate soy milk. Some items go well with a little green tea matcha, some with a scoop of sorbet. The process lends itself to endless experimentation, which is part of the fun.

The smoothies this week have been so good that we’ve actually managed to make the same smoothie four days in a row (very rare in our smoothie making experience since we usually run low on at least one ingredient after the first day). The amounts below are estimates since we just eyeball everything or throw in the amounts that happen to be on hand.

Add to blender:

• 1/4 cantelope, cut in chunks
• 1 peach, sliced
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (preferably homemade)
• Scoop of mango sorbet (or other complimentary fruit, preferably homemade)
• 1/4 cup Ceres Medley of Fruits juice (natural guava, pineapple, papaya, etc.)

Makes enough for 2 pint sized glasses.

Here’s another yummy mix for late season peaches when the bounty of apples start to appear at the farmer’s market:

• 1-2 peaches
• 1 large honey crisp apple
• 1 heaping cup of plain yogurt (preferably homemade)
• 1/3 cup apricot juice
• honey to taste

Enjoy!