Eat Local Eden Prairie Fair
On April 18th, we will be holding a fair at the Eden Prairie Community Center from 1-4 p.m. This event will be free to the public! We will be inviting local farmers, organizations promoting sustainable agriculture, restaurants featuring local food, and organizations that educate the public on how to find local food and why it’s an important facet of our economy and community.

Animal, Vegetable, Dairy Panel Discussion
Held at St. Andrew Lutheran Church on Monday, April 19th, with book discussions at 6:30 and panel discussion beginning at 7:30 p.m. The panel discussion features Catherine Friend, author of The Compassionate Carnivore speaking on local animal farming, Carrie Marshall from Eden Prairie’s own Marshall’s Farm speaking on vegetable farming issues, and the Minars, owners of Cedar Summit Dairy, speaking on dairy farming issues. We hope to see you there for a fabulous and interesting evening.

It’s as if my pantry is going bare.

I think there must be a better way to plan for what I would like to have to sustain me over the winter. Each year, I stash away more. But I am too diverse. If I only made spaghetti sauce, peach salsa and strawberries, I think I’d be happy until summer. And perhaps a freezer chest to give me the space to keep all those strawberries.

Half way through February is really a great time to start planning for spring. And there’s a lot of interesting things coming up in Eden Prairie this spring. (see next post)

Hutchinson, Minnesota has an annual garlic festival in August. It sounded like a fun outing on a warm Saturday. An hour’s drive seemed a reasonable distance to buy some local garlic.

What did I know about garlic ahead of time? A bunch of cloves made of a bulb….they are tasty and pungent…my hands smell of garlic after I chop them…they add flavor to almost any dish. Okay, so I knew nothing about garlic.

The festival took place at the McLeod County fairgrounds, primarily in one of the large barns. Not only were there booths about garlic, but there were also vendors sampling local milk and cheese and booths focused on sustainable gardening.

Now about that garlic. There were many farmers selling garlic. Who knew there were so many varieties of garlic? Over 100 varieties are grown in Minnesota. They are planted in October and harvested in July — and then cured before you can buy them. One fellow was sampling tiny pieces of garlic. “Do you like it hot?” he asked me. I didn’t even know the answer. (not really, is my answer) In the past, I go to the store — or the farmstand or the farmers market — and just grab a bulb to cook with. I had no idea that someone had already decided what I would like — or what would last the longest on the shelves.

There are actually two main varieties of garlic: hardneck and softneck. What I’ve generally bought in the grocery store are softneck garlic, mostly from California, 10-40 cloves per bulb, and can be stored for over 6 months. Hardneck garlic bulbs have 4-12 cloves apiece and don’t store as well. I bought a hardneck variety called Music — not because I know what I’m doing but because one of the farmers said it’d go great in my salsa and it has some really large cloves. I also learned how to plant it and I’m wondering if the smell of the plant will ward off those voracious rabbits from eating everything in sight in my garden! I learned that scapes — those delicious curly tops of the garlic plant — are snipped off to increase the growing of the garlic underground.

The garlic festival also had garlic ice cream for a dollar. Listen, if I’m going to eat the calories of ice cream, it’s not going to have garlic in it. Really. I watched people tasting it — they had this moment of “huh?” before really diving in.

It was fun to go to a festival focused on a single food item. Now maybe someone can tell me what to do with two dozen zucchini?

You know those “sample” folks in the grocery stores that give you a taste of something wonderful and then you buy it? Or maybe you’re one of the shoppers who knows precisely when these folks are going to have their little tables with samples set up and you go hungry to the store and eat away? (You know who you are.) Well, I’m the person who looks and keeps walking. (Don’t think me noble — it’s partly my imagining all these disparate foods joining together in my gut that bugs me.)

At Lakewinds last Saturday, during the Eat Local kickoff event, there was this interesting product. The story goes that it was developed by a local (Edina) cardiologist, mostly for her family. Dr. Elizabeth Klodas’ product is organic and is called fibre (accent on the e). It’s a “sprinkle” — a blend of stuff you already know of including (in the blueberry flavor) organic: dried wild blueberries, flax, oat bran, wheat germ, almonds, walnuts and raisins. This does not resemble a granola — it resembles, well, a sprinkle!

Two tablespoons contains 3 grams of fiber, 900 mg omega-3 and antioxidants. Also 3 g of protein and 80 calories.

I didn’t buy it.

The next day, I decided to buy it. It’s not cheap($13.99 a can) but it’s intended to be sprinkled on yogurt or something like that and will last a couple of months. (The web site has other recipes too.)

Okay, this stuff is fabulous! First, it tastes sinfully good. (Remember, I don’t eat ice cream or chocolate any more, so my standards are different. ) When I eat it, I feel as if I’m eating a candy bar sprinkled on my food. Really. It’s that good. I am no expert on heart-healthy foods. Actually, I’m not an expert on any sort of food. But this is an interesting product, made locally, that is worth reading about — and trying.

Yesterday, I stopped by my friends’ John and Mary’s house for a bit of an exchange. I have lots of jam. They have lots of maple syrup. A trade ensued.

In my mind, a good barter is one in which both people think they got the better end of the deal. “Maple syrup, oh my gosh,” I was thinking. “Homemade jam, all that work!” they were thinking.

So here are my questions to the reader:
Have you bartered food before?
Do you have any local goods to barter for jam? Or perhaps peaches? (obviously, nonlocal but I am ready to buy them)

I don’t need zucchini, so please don’t even mention the word. I also don’t think raspberries is on my list of coveted foods right now. Did I say no zucchini?

I am a bit overwhelmed by an abundance of goodness.

Raspberries. So many raspberries. My knees are stained red from kneeling and picking low hanging berries. I’ve made raspberry jam, raspberry marmalade, seedless raspberry jam, as well as black and red raspberry jam. I’ve baked numerous batches of raspberry muffins. I have frozen raspberries. I’ve made fruit leather even. I’ve got about a quart ready to eat in the refrigerator.

Zucchini. I’ve got some monster ones and some smaller ones, and about 6 in between sized. I’ve cooked them up in stir fry, I’ve microwaved them with parmesan cheese. I’ve made zucchini bread (with raisins) and zucchini bread without raisins. I’ve tried an oil-free version which came out white and pasty (with green flecks). I’ve made muffins. I’ve made chocolate zucchini cake. And I’ve got some decisions to make about what to do with the rest. No shortage of ideas, just energy.

Strawberries. My freezer is having trouble with how full it is. It’s packed full of strawberries. After making strawberry jam and more strawberry jam, I froze the berries to use in smoothies, an everyday occurrence in this household. I’m afraid we will run out by fall though. I think one can’t ever have enough strawberries.

It’s glorious, really. To have this much food. It’s fortunate. It’s a blessing. It’s an abundance of goodness.

On my regular walking route with Erin, we pass through a park. Early this morning, it was quiet. The grass was crispy dry. No one was playing baseball on the field. No one was shooting hoops. No kids played on the recycled plastic playground that my kids long ago thought too safe to be fun. No one was playing tennis. Since Erin has an uncanny knack for sniffing out lost tennis balls, we circled behind the tennis courts. Surely she’d find a treasure. Buckthorn was growing wild, crowding out other other growth. It was a tangle of weeds. Erin pushed through and searched but found nothing.

I, however, found black raspberries. The elusive black raspberries were right there. Gorgeous and ripe. I picked a handful and walked the mile home with the leash in one hand and my berries in the other. Local berries. One mile local.

Even if that good thing is zucchini?

I love them. If I could eat one vegetable every day, it would be this one. Eight days ago, there were tiny vegetables. But when I walked into the weed-filled garden, the plant was gigantic, about 4 feet across and there were these seriously big zucchinis. Seriously.

Day one and two have passed of my zucchini binge. I’ll check back about them on day fourteen and see if I’m still loving them.

When I pulled up to Charlie’s house, I was greeted by a robin. She was sitting on the fence. I could hear her, really. She said, “Where’ve ya been? These raspberries need picking! There are too many for me!” I looked at the robin. Could it be true? Too many raspberries?

Charlie was away and I’d been in New England with my son. Yes, I had neglected the raspberries. But I thought about them. Sitting on the train through Boston, thinking, “What about those raspberries?” Driving through the Green Mountains of Vermont, thinking, “I hope the raspberries can wait.” Walking on a road in the Berkshires that crossed from Massachusetts into New York, tart raspberries growing wildly on the side of the road, thinking, “Will the raspberries be okay?”

For the first time I can remember, I was overwhelmed with the abundance of raspberries facing me. Two and half hours later, the robin had long since left me and I had picked until the light was too dim. I had barely made a dent in the berries.

I carried my pans and pails over to the car, my back aching. That was a lot of raspberries. What was that on my windshield? A bird had visited my car and left droppings on the window — and it was mostly raspberry seeds! I laughed, got in, ate a raspberry, and drove home.

To the doubters of the salad table experiment….to those that though using “medium” rather than soil was a risky proposition….to those that thought a little dirt might help….to those that have been enjoying salad for weeks now….

Ah…

Toast & Taste in the Gardens was the name of last night’s after-hours party at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I am a member and enjoy walking through the Arboretum in the summer, spring, fall and particularly the winter. But last night’s event was something quite different — and perfectly done!

Set around the Arboretum were small tents with either “tastes” — local restaurants or “toasts” — local wineries and breweries. When we arrived, we received a name tag and a small commemorative glass. The glass was to be used to enjoy all the toasts! The tents were spaced around the Arboretum in relative proximity to the main buildings. Restaurants represented included Cafe Maude, The Strip Club, Birchwood Casfe, Brasa, OM, Trotter’s Cafe and more.

It was sunny, warm, upper 80s, the gardens were beautiful, the shrub roses and peonies particularly glorious, and the atmosphere was of a Minnesota summer garden party. The tastes were quite honestly, fantastic. Each tent offered a small taste (and sometimes not so small) of one or more of their dishes. My naive self thought it was a bit like a Top Chef event, with chefs milling about, serving us, explaining what was in each taste. It was really a blast.

Outstanding to me was the Birchwood Cafe. They were the first taste I had — and for the next two hours I kept thinking how I wanted to return to their location. And did. I was completely blown away by their Espresso Cream Cheese Brownie pictured above. But their rhubarb dessert with Izzy’s ice cream was a close second. (They also served a non-dessert item that was excellent made with my favorite local Hope Butter….)

The Arboretum did it up right.

During that first month of the 50 Mile Diet, I think I put on some pounds. Although I wrote of having nothing local to eat in my pantry, and although I spent quite a bit of time “foraging” for food, what I really did was eat a lot of what was easy to find locally — ice cream, cheese, eggs and chocolate. Oh sure, I ate my chicken and vegetables, but I’m not the kind of person who is really jazzed by vegetables. And sure I ate fruit, but how many times in a day can you eat just the fruit that is in season? Rhubarb for weeks, strawberrries for weeks, raspberries for weeks, and then apples, apples, apples… And in order to come up with new ways to eat the food repetitively, I found myself baking a lot.

I do love to bake.

Last night, I baked strawberry muffins that called for wheat flour. Never sniffed the wheat flour to see if it were okay, and it was only after the first depressing bite of muffin did I realize the flour had turned rancid. So this morning, if only to redeem myself, I baked up another batch, using only white flour. The batter turned gorgeously red with the berries.

No Mixer Strawberry Muffins
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup chopped strawberries — keep it coarsely chopped

Mix the milk, oil and egg together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Add the chopped strawberries into the flour mixture, coating the berries. Then gently stir the liquid ingredients into the dry.

Put in lined muffin tins and baked for 25 minutes at 375.

It was a warm morning. Clouds were moving through and I realized that this was a day for strawberry picking. I called the Klingelhutz farm. The automated voice message was inviting. I put on some long pants and a sleeveless shirt, grabbed my various containers, and flew to Waconia. After about 10 miles, I’m on dirt road and the dust blows up behind the car. I have to slow my pace I’m so excited. I love to pick.

I’m hardly the first one there. Mostly women are bent over the strawberry plants. Colleen Klingelhutz gives me my rows. Mine alone. I pick. I pick. And I pick. I pick mostly for jam. I focus on the plants. There are so many berries, it’s incredible. I look for the best berries. There are so many. I lay down on the straw so I can see under the leaves. The berries hide underneath. An overnight rain makes the leaves wet and my shirt is wet. My pants are muddy. I’m so close to the plants I see the spiders dashing away from my probing hands. I don’t much like spiders, but the strawberries take precedence over my dislike of them.

The sun comes out and heats up my arms, my back, and I wish I had a hat. I picked 19 pounds. The woman in front of me picked 42 pounds. Wow.

Once home, my son says, “That’s a lot of strawberries.” I say, “I’ll make one batch of jam.” He says, “Make two, I like strawberry jam.” Apparently, the jars of rhubarb jam haven’t appealed to him too much. So I make 18 jars of jam, half strawberry, and half strawberry vanilla. (It’s an experiment and I think it’s a good one.) I freeze 8 quarts of berries. I still have a pail full of eating berries and more on the counter, awaiting strawberry muffins.

I think I’m done with strawberries for the season.

Raspberries are on my horizon……..

But it’s not supposed to turn into a battle.

The strawberries. Hundreds of them were in my fenced-in garden. It’s got rabbit fencing and netting around that. So how could it be that I keep finding bunnies in the strawberry patch? Little Peter Rabbits that are so tiny they get in and around and under my fencing! I decided to leave the little bunnies alone since they won’t be little for long and then they won’t be able to get in. (right?)

Satisfied, I was sitting in my screen porch, watching the garden grow, and saw two squirrels hop over the fence and start to eat. Seriously? So now there’s netting above the garden too.

So do I have any strawberries? Nope. None. Went picking last week instead. Got some gorgeous berries at Klingelhutz in Waconia.

Now for the lettuce update. Cooler temps and some rain have finally given my salad table the stuff it needed. I will be eating lettuce this week. And then some. I don’t think I’d use this medium again — soil might be easier. I also need to learn to place the seeds more spaced apart so that the roots have some room…..But I like the table.

I spent four weeks watering my salad table. Four weeks of sticking my pointer finger into the non-soil to see if it were wet enough. I watched some of the lettuce sprout and wither. The second planting practically disappeared. Okay, I said to myself, this was an experiment!

Then the rain began. Cool temps and misting rain. From my upstairs window, I can see the table. It began to green. Every morning, I’d smile down at my table. Then, one morning, I saw a rabbit under the table. Hah, I thought, no harm done. You can’t get my lettuce! What he did start to do was to dig a burrow under the table, out of the rain. The dog and I put an end to that plan, at the expense of my fenced in garden, which now has a happy bunny eating the tomato plants to nubs in the earth.

Meanwhile, the rain continues. It’s cool. And lettuce is happy in that. Eventually, I’ll have a small rabbit-sized salad to eat. Eventually. Nibble nibble….

June is the start of the exciting part of the eating local season. And it teaches patience along the way. Since there’s been a complete lack of rain for so many weeks (driest May here since 1934, I think I heard), I have been watering with my hose nearly daily. Strawberries need rain.

They are finally pinking up. This berry looked close yesterday. Just about ready to pop off the plant and into my mouth. Even with the hundreds of berries in my garden, I don’t think there are enough to do anything except “weed and eat.” But patience means waiting until it’s more than pink.

I called my favorite local Waconia strawberry picking patch and she said only a couple of her berries were pink but to check back next week. Strawberry picking is pretty fun. I like to go when it’s quiet early in the morning.

Update: it turned red. And just a little sweet. Should’ve waited.

I was lucky to get these little eggs. And they are almost too perfect and pretty to eat. I was talking to the local high school librarian Cindy about Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It’s a book that Eden Prairie will be reading in its next community-wide read (www.epreads.org). The book was the impetus for this blog and my personal local eating initiative. Next thing I know, Cindy is dashing off to get me some eggs. They come from another high school teacher whose daughters (Natalie and Ellie) have gathered and cleaned them. Wow! I was honored to get some of them. I have learned that these are new chickens (younger?) and they lay smaller eggs. I guess I can eat more of them! Thanks!!!

The strawberries are getting close. Year one: I had about 3 berries, all told. Year two: I had closer to 20 berries. This year? I’m in the hundreds! Hardly enough to can — but enough to walk through the garden and munch.

My farmer within is happy. She says, yes, you can grow something productive in that garden beside the never-dying chives. You can. My one happy little organic plant from Lakewinds has spread rapidly in the years, sending out new shoots under the autumn leaves when I’m not paying attention. It’s very cool.

Last year we planted 4 raspberry plants near the strawberry patch. Two died over the winter. If the rabbits don’t eat them down, I might see a berry or two by late summer. But I’m not feeling overly hopeful for them.

Brenda, over at Donna’s farm said to me the other day, “You’ll be bonding with your lettuce.” She even laughed a bit.

I didn’t laugh. And with these two 90 degree days, I’m still not laughing. And what’s even more brutal on cooler weather crops is the wind advisory blowing this hot air across Minnesota. My poor beloved lettuce.

I am totally bonded with my lettuce growing in my salad table. As a reminder to an earlier post, I am growing the lettuce in a raised table using no real soil. It’s an organic composting material. All those gardeners “in the know” have warned me that it will be too dry, hard to grow, be sure to watch it closely, and good luck.

I am determined to have salad from this table. And yes, I am bonding with my lettuce.

I’ve planted parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. In addition, I planted marjoram and purple basil. On the top, I put lemon balm as well as peppermint.

In the center of the pot is a small piece of pvc “pipe” with holes drilled into it. Small pebbles partly fill the pipe. When I water I am sure to pour some down the center of the pipe so I’m also watering the plants in the side cups.

It’s pretty and a fun way to have an herb garden.

Apparently, rhubarb is is in season. Rhubarb is a teaser of wonderful fruit to come. It grow plentifully and the bright red color makes it look tempting. But it is a rather tart flavored food, one that my son has learned to avoid. I, however, am convinced it can be made tasty.

Picking this rhubarb was fraught with its own challenge. My friend C. has a tremendous plant near the corner of his property. A groundhog had taken up shop in a hole around the gigantic plant. The groundhog has dug huge holes on one side of the rhubarb patch. I don’t much like the critters, and I tried shouting down the hole to the sleeping rodent one day just to annoy him, but given their propensity for produce, perhaps I need to learn to share. Stepping carefully around its holes, I reached in below the leaves and selected which stalks were long and red enough to pull. I pulled a large amount of rhubarb stalks, tearing off the leaves and leaving them to compost (these leaves are not edible).

Armed with about 6 lbs. of rhubarb, I needed to get serious.

I made two batches of rhubarb jam. I think the later crop of rhubarb will be timed well for the early crop of strawberries, but for today, the jam was just rhubarb. When rhubarb is chopped, it’s mostly green on the inside, and I worried that the jam would be green as well. My recipe even called for optional red food coloring! I didn’t add it (couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t) and was pleased at the natural color of the jam.

For the record, rhubarb is a good source of magnesium, as well as vitamin C, K, calcium, potassium and manganese.

My vegetable roots are humble. I grew up eating vegetables from a can. Sometimes they were heated. Later, I had vegetables from a bag (frozen). And then I learned about steaming vegetables. I steamed everything imaginable. Asparagus steams just fine.

But now. Asparagus in the broiler. It’s simple, elegant, the asparagus retains its fresh green color and is tender and delicious. Just wash, snap off the ends (as you normally would) and put in a broiler dish (I use a glass baking dish). Sprinkle with olive oil (the best you have — I use Italian Sammarelli Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Lakewinds, sold to me by the farmer himself) and then sprinkle with kosher salt (or coarse salt but the flakiness of the kosher salt helps it stick) and then broil for about 8 minutes. Check it with a fork to see if it meets your tenderness needs. You can squeeze a bit of lemon over it if you’d like.

I hear this works fine on the grill too, but so far, I’ve done it indoors in the oven.

Yet for many people, this isn’t a value. I don’t mean the other extreme (for example, the massive lines at McDonalds on Mother’s Day morning), but rather, the folks in the community who wouldn’t mind eating local or organic food if it is convenient and priced about the same as the “regular” food. If the local lettuce looks clean and fresh and sits next to the conventional lettuce at about the same price, they might purchase it. These are the people that Frito-Lay and other companies are trying to make inroads with. And without selling out the locavore movement, perhaps it’s the start of a consumer awareness of where their food comes from, even if it is about potato chips to start with.

I’ve had steamed asparagus, asparagus quiche, cream of asparagus soup and now, thanks to commenter and garden whiz Jay, I will be having broiled asparagus (brush with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and broil for 8 minutes). I do like the vegetable, but it’s hard to keep eating so much of it. And I’m one of the “fortunate” people who have funky pee after eating it.

Let’s deal with the smell first. I don’t understand why those who profess to “know” are split on the facts. Some say everyone’s urine smells, but only some people can smell it. Some say only some people’s urine smells because only some people break down the sulfer-containing amino acids during digestion. Some say the smell is from the sulfer compound mercaptan. Perhaps no one but me really cares.

Now, I need to remind myself why asparagus is good for me. It’s high in folic acid, a good source of potassium, fiber, vitamin B6, vitamins A and C and thiamin. It has no fat, no cholesterol and is low sodium. It is low calorie — less than 4 calories per spear.

Other facts: it was first cultivated about 2500 years ago in Greece. The Greeks believed it was an herbal medicine which could cure toothaches (good, I’m overdue at the dentist) and prevent bee stings (must be that stink). The word asparagus comes from the Greek word meaning stalk or shoot. And finally, it’s a member of the lily family (along with onions, leeks and garlic).

I picked a basket full of asparagus on Wednesday evening at my friend C’s house. I took a sharp pair of scissors and walked along the patch snipping away. It was gleeful. I don’t know why I expected the shoots to come up like a hosta plant, all in clump. But no, there are a couple here and a couple there, different heights, different thicknesses — even different colors (check out the purple asparagus in the basket!). I snipped away. In no time, the basket was filled. Green onions were growing like crazy too, so I got some of that too.

Okay, now what?

I pulled out my St. Paul Farmers Market produce cookbook to see if there was a good recipe for a lot of asparagus. Here is the cream of asparagus soup recipe — that uses 2% milk, rather than cream!

Cream of Asparagus Soup

2 lbs asparagus
3 C. water
1 chicken bouillon cube
3 T. butter
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
1 T. chopped parsley (optional)
3 T. flour
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 C. 2% milk

Blanch the asparagus in boiling water until tender. Keep the liquid for later use. Add bouillon cube into it.

Cut off the asparagus tips and save. Cut the remaining stems into 1″ pieces. Put them in a blender with 1 cup of the broth and process about a minute until smooth. Set aside.

In saucepan, melt the melt and saute the onions and parsley until soft. Add flour, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Cook a minute and then add milk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and cook until thickened — then stir in the asparagus puree, the tips and some of the broth. Heat through. Season!

My only issue was the color of this soup. Very green. It’s not exactly a problem — but it did take on a very grass-like color. My son (age 17) wasn’t sure this was something that should be eaten. His point is well taken, but it happens to be delicious.