Brooklyn Feed

If a reader hadn’t asked, I might have forgotten to post about my little apple tree. In the early spring I posted about trying to pollinate my Sundance apple tree. I pruned branches from another tree and put the branches near my flowering tree in the hopes that the bees would do the cross-pollinating. You can read about the process here. The good news is that it worked and I had 5 apples growing on my tree. I don’t have any experience with dwarf apple trees, so I don’t know if this is a decent number for the first year of fruit. I also wasn’t familiar with this variety of apple, so wasn’t sure how it would look when the fruit was ripe. This apple is one of the 5 from my tree. The fruit is sweet and crisp and delicious. I’ve always dreamed of having a small home orchard, and although 5 apples is a laughably small amount, it is a beginning.

This week was the first week of our CSA or farm share. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s also known as subscription farming.

In the winter, you buy a share of a farm and in return, you get a share of the produce. What’s great for the farmer, is that the payments come all at once (and are predictable), so they can purchase equipment, seeds and supplies for the next growing season. You and the farmer share the risk of a bad year, or the bounty of an excellent growing year.

What I like is that you get to relearn how to eat with the seasons. The beginning of the season has lots of greens. We got lettuce, oregano, leeks, sunchokes, and lots and lots of strawberries. I wish I could describe how aromatic and delicious these strawberries are. Everything is picked when it’s ripe because it doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles. Can you remember the insides of strawberries being red instead of white?

If you live in New York and are interested in participating in a CSA (for next season), click here to find one. We kind of got in through the back door with ours. It has a really long waiting list, but they offer a winter share with frozen fruits and veggies. Somehow participating in the winter share got us in and past the people lined up for just the regular summer share. Shh, don’t tell anyone.

While we were up in the Berkshires, we went to visit Gould Farm to see their maple sugar operation. My in-laws recently met a man named Steve who oversees the maple sugaring there. Gould farm is a pretty amazing place. It is a residential, therapeutic community dedicated to helping adults with mental illness. You can read more about them here.

The evaporator that we saw is powered by a wood fire. From the enormous woodpile behind the sugar shack, it was clear that a lot of wood is needed for the process.

The sap is poured into the far end of the evaporator and works its way through channels. What you can’t see, is that the underside of these channels are shaped a bit like an accordion, so a very large surface area gets heated by the fire. The tree sap ranges from about 2% to 5% sugar and when it’s finished it’s about 67% sugar. We were treated to maple tea, which is the sap that has cooked for quite a bit, but is still in the back half of the evaporator. It is sweet, but still thin like tea. As an extra treat, Steve brought fresh cream from their cows to add to it, which made it taste like ice cream.

There are various ways to know when the maple syrup is finished. You can use a hydrometer, a candy thermometer (it’s ready at about 7 degrees F above the temp of boiling water), or you can do a visual check. The syrup sheets off the ladle in a manner similar to making jam. It is something you can do at home, but we were warned that with the amount of steam that is produced, many homes have lost their wallpaper during the process.

The final syrup was temporarily put in large containers, to be bottled and ready for sale in a couple of weeks. We are definitely going back to get a bottle!

Here is a clip of Obama answering a question posed by Slow Food USA.

When you are interested in foraging, you really have to pay attention to the seasons. If you read about ramps in the winter, you are going to have to wait until spring to find them. Shopping at grocery stores seems to have made us forget that certain things grow at certain times of year. At least locally, that is. I had read about making acorn flour a while ago, but it wasn’t acorn season. I forgot all about it until I saw Stephanie mention it in her blog. I was going up to the Berkshires for the weekend and it was the right time of year for acorns.

We went on a hike and I brought a backpack along to gather nuts. I had no idea how many I would need, so I summoned my inner squirrel and kept gathering and filling my bag. When we got home, I weighed the nuts I had found and had 8lbs. After pulling off the tops and discarding the ones that had worm holes in them I had 6lbs. I read in a couple of places that you place the acorns in water and the ones that float aren’t viable. I tried that and almost all of mine floated. I decided to check inside and see what they looked like. Some were bad, but most were good, so I decided to skip that theory.

Now comes the gross part…grubs! Many of the acorns had grubs. The fat, white, wiggly things totally grossed me out, so I decided to bake the acorns at 170 degrees F to kill them. A dead grub is still gross, but a wiggling one is much worse.

After discarding the acorns that were discolored or had grubs in them I think I was down to about 2-3 lbs. Acorns are full of tannins, so you have to soak them for several days to remove the bitterness. I tried soaking them when they were chopped, but thought that the water wasn’t getting to the inside of the acorn meat. I ran them through a meat grinder to chop them smaller.

Directions for how to make acorn flour:

• Gather a ridiculous amount of acorns
• Discard any that have obvious problems (squirrel bites or worm holes)
• Bake acorns at 170F for 1 hour to kill grubs
• Shell acorns tossing out any that are discolored or have grubs. It is pretty obvious which ones are good and which ones aren’t
• Grind acorns in a food processor, or a meat grinder
• Wrap in several layers of cheesecloth and soak in water. You will need to do this for several days, until the meat isn’t bitter.
• Lay the acorn flour on a pan and either dry in the sun, or in the oven on the lowest setting. Make sure it’s completely dry or it will mold.

I will post some recipes within the next few days.

This morning we had nothing in the house to eat for breakfast, so we picked up bagels and went to our local playground. This playground/park hosts a farmer’s market every Sunday, so we popped by to see what they had to offer.

One of the vendors was Grazin’ Angus Acres, which raises animals for meat and eggs. They had a certification of Animal Welfare Approved. I was wondering what that was compared to Certified Humane. I found this description on the WSPA (World Society For the Protection of Animals) website:

Are all humane food certification programs the same in terms of animal welfare requirements?

No. While the Certified Humane and American Humane Certified programs are similar, significant differences exist between these and the Animal Welfare Approved program operated by the Animal Welfare Institute. The concept of certifying animal foods as being humanely raised is relatively new and not all animal welfare scientists agree on what standards are appropriate. In addition, the administrators of humane food programs differ on the question of whether the programs should allow participation by producers that raise animals under both humane and factory-farming systems (referred to as “dual operations”). Certified Humane and American Humane Certified allow dual operations, while Animal Welfare Approved only certifies products from family farms.

Many products sold as humane are produced by companies that confine a majority of their animals under factory conditions. These companies can typically offer their humane products for less than they could otherwise because the products are subsidized by the intensive portion of their operation. Eventually small family farmers who run 100% humane operations could be driven out of business.

Okay, so Animal Welfare Approved sounds a bit better than Certified Humane. Live and learn.

Since watching Fowl Play, I haven’t eaten any meat. I just haven’t had the stomach for it. I even ordered carryout from a vegan restaurant last night. Which was delicious. Tonight we are going in the other direction and eating hamburgers from Grazin’ Angus Acres. It is grass fed and finished, local, no hormones or antibiotics and has the Animal Welfare seal of approval. It’s been a gorgeous day and a dinner outdoors will be a nice way to end the weekend.

I just watched the movie Food, inc., which I recommend to everyone. If you haven’t had the time to read Omnivore’s Dilemma, it condenses the information well. If you already know about most of the issues, as I did, it renews your commitment to buying the most local and naturally raised food available.

I was talking about the movie with a friend the other day and we were specifically talking about organic and bio-dynamically raised meat. I have to admit that this is something that I haven’t incorporated into my diet as much as I could/should. We usually order Bell and Evans or Murray’s chickens from our butcher, but have had some suspicions about the veracity of the being the real deal. (other butcher’s we’ve gotten them from have had Murray’s tags on the chickens and our butcher’s doesn’t) I bought an Eberly chicken, which Neil roasted on the bbq last night. It was flavorful and delicious. They come shrink-wrapped, so it’s impossible to substitute some factory-farmed chicken for one of theirs.

My friend mentioned a local bio-dynamic angus farm called Grazin’ Angus Acres. I am lucky enough that they come to my local farmer’s market every sunday. Below I put a blurb from their website that gives some information on why to eat grass-fed beef over corn-fed beef.

Ultimately it’s healthiest for you, the animals and the planet not to eat meat, but if that isn’t an option for you, switching to grass-fed is a much healthier and humane option.

Health Benefits of Eating Grass-Fed Beef:

Safety:  Because humans are omnivores, our stomachs are highly acidic. Meanwhile, the pH of grass-fed cattle is normal.  If Grass-Fed Black Angus happen to be carrying bacteria in their normal pH environment, our highly acidic stomach bath offers real protection.  Contrast that with corn-fed cattle…  Corn turns what is typically a normal pH environment into a highly acidic one.  Consequently, corn-fed cattle often require antibiotics in the feed to keep them from being sick, which generates its own set of concerns for human health.  Further, if corn-fed cattle carry bacteria (e.g. E-Coli) that is thriving in their now acidic environment, the acids in our stomachs offer little, or no, protection against it.

Omegas: Grass-fed meat has been shown to have a 60% + increase in omega-3 content, as well as a more favorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.  Both fatty acids are essential and must be obtained from food.  It is important to maintain a balance of omega-3 and omega-6 in our diets, as these two substances work together to promote health.  That balance is adversely affected when cattle are fed grain. Specifically, a grass-fed diet produces a 2:1 omega 6:3 ratio.  “Why should I care?” you ask…

Consider that omega-6 promotes inflammation, blood clotting, and tumor growth while omega-3 does the opposite.  Dietary experts estimate that current eating habits in America lead to an omega 6:3 ratio of about 20:1.  Grass-fed beef is a huge step in the right direction.

ProVitamin A / beta-carotene:  Beta-carotene is a fat-soluble vitamin &  antioxidant that is a safe dietary source of vitamin A.  Vitamin A is important to normal vision, bone growth, reproduction, cell division and cell differentiation.  Grass-fed beef has a 10-fold increase in beta-carotene levels vs. grain-fed.  Taking vitamin A supplements can be dangerously toxic – but, we can eat all the beta-carotene possible and the human body will only convert the amount needed to vitamin A.

Vitamin E / alpha-tocopherol:  Vitamin E is also a fat-soluble vitamin / antioxidant that protects cells from the effects of free radicals (which have been reported to contribute to cancer and cardiovascular disease development).  Grass-fed beef increases alpha-tocopherol levels three-fold vs. grain-fed beef.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA):  Numerous health benefits have been attributed to CLA including reduced carcinogenesis, atherosclerosis, onset of diabetes and body mass.  Grass-fed cattle have been shown to produce 2 to 3 times more CLA than grain-fed cattle.

IT’S NATURAL! Nature had it right all along.  The sun’s energy grows the grass that is harvested by the cattle that are harvested by us.  Grass-fed is how it was meant to be; it’s how our human construct was prepared to capture the nutritional value of meat.  The industrial machine – feeding cattle corn in confined areas - has destroyed what nature intended.

Begin to enjoy the benefits of local Grass-Fed Black Angus today!

I keep taking photos of the beautiful tomatoes I’ve been getting from my garden. I said taking photos, not posting photos. Argh. I’m so behind on sorting through my photos!! I was lucky not to have the tomato blight that wiped out so many people’s crops. I bought a 6-pack of heirloom tomato seedlings this spring, but the names weren’t identified, so I don’t know what they are. I know the ones on the right are green zebra tomatoes, but the beautiful persimmon-colored ones are a mystery. I want to find out because they were absolutely sweet and delicious. The little cherry ones were so sweet, it was like candy from nature.

We’ve been getting shorter days (sob) and cooler nights, so the days of tomatoes are coming to an end. I have basil that needs to be cut and turned into pesto and lemon verbena that I have some ideas for. I planted some salad greens (a mesclun mix, mache and spinach), which are already coming up, so I don’t feel as though my garden has come to an end. I love the weather at this time of year, but it always brings a bit of melancholy with the shortening days and the approach of the winter cold.

Last Saturday after going to the Greenpoint Food Market, we drove to the Bronx to go to a chicken meet up group being held on the Waterpod. KayCee Wimbush of Awesome Farm in Tivoli, NY came to talk about basic chicken keeping. Her farm pasture-raises chickens and lambs and are committed to taking care of both their animals and the land. While I knew most of the basic information, she did talk about alternatives to chicken feed.

In an attempt to reduce their feed costs and do some recycling, they gathered food scraps from local restaurants. Chickens are omnivores, or miniature goats as I like to call them, so they eat practically everything. Her solution was a win-win in that her chickens were getting high-quality food, she was saving money and the food wasn’t going to a landfill. I guess that’s a win-win-win. Anyway, these things always turn out too good to be true and they found out that what they were doing was illegal. Turns out there’s a law against feeding post-consumer food to agricultural animals. I’m sure I’m not quoting the law correctly, but it’s a way to prevent farmers from feeding ground up animals to their livestock, which can lead to many nasty diseases such as mad cow. Anyway, while it was a great idea, they had to stop.

If you are in NYC in the next 2 weeks, you should try and visit the Waterpod project. They are a self-sufficient floating farm. They incorporate many interesting ideas for farming, such as vertical farming, mobile farming, recycling graywater, etc. They are showcasing a new type of farming in a time of global warming and overpopulation. If land is too scarce, you can farm on a big barge. They are open to the public for tours and host performances and discussions. They were a great venue for our meeting and even have a few hens onboard.

We had our meet up under one of their domes. All of the materials have been gathered from salvaged parts. The dome was covered with billboard material (is it fabric, paper??). You can see a watch ad behind Owen, who’s the organizer of our meet up group. If you can’t visit the waterpod, check out their website at the link above. It’s a very interesting project and definitely applies to urban gardening.

Right around lunch time we headed over to the Greenpoint Food Market in Brooklyn. The market is inspired by all foods fresh and local, artisanal and homemade and encourages community involvement and DIY methods of food production. Sounded great, plus our friend Megan of Brooklyn Honey was going to be there and we hadn’t tasted her honey yet. Megan keeps bees on her roof in Brooklyn. She gardens and recently got chickens. Plus, who can look as cute as she does in overalls!?!

Our timing was great, because we were getting hungry and the food looked amazing. Our first stop was, of course, to see Megan. She sells honey that is still in the wax comb. It’s a totally different honey eating experience because once you taste the honey, you can chew on the wax like gum. She had other products made with her honey including nuts and the most delicious granola ever! I’ve tried making granola a couple of times and it is always the same recipe. “Bake the granola until it’s dark brown, then throw it in the trash and try not to think about how wasteful that was”

Soup from The Soup Spoon

We got soup from the very sweet ladies at The Soup Spoon. We shared a delicious gazpacho and a curried cauliflower puree. It was a drizzly day, so there was nothing better! I usually make gazpacho a few times during the summer, which is Neil’s favorite soup. Neil got cheated out of it this summer as I never got around to making it. Theirs was chunky and tangy and delicious, so Neil was very happy. They are looking to get a food truck, so keep an eye out for them.

We also had yummy kimchi pancakes, cookies and cinnamony mandelbrot. There was so much more to try – like the most beautifully decorated cookies from Sugarbuilt. Take a peek at their website to see what I mean. You need to scroll to see the different designs. Their Day of the Dead faces are amazing. I also love the architectural details they incorporate into their designs.

If you live in the area, I recommend going. It is going to be held every Saturday from 12-6. You can get more info on their site.

Seriously, where else are you going to get delicious food from fabulous Brooklynites? She’s selling angel food cupcakes and deviled eggs.