Ultimate Local: Planting Peas

Nothing could possibly be more local than food you grow yourself. I'm an avid gardener, and I coordinate the vegetable garden for my community, Cambridge Cohousing. I'm not going to explain cohousing here, but I should explain that this is not your typical community garden. While only a few people work in the garden, everyone in our community is encouraged to come and partake of the harvest. If you think that's unfair, realize that I never, ever have to mow the lawn. Someone else who enjoys mowing does that, and someone else manages cleaning the common spaces, and someone else makes up the trash rotation, etc. We all help out as best we can, and right now, what I can best contribute is gardening.

This year, I have a nearly full time job, so I called a meeting of the usual gardening suspects and a few eager newcomers and got everyone to take on a plot or two. For myself, I reserved peas, lettuce, and strawberries. Traditionally in the Boston area, peas are planted on St. Patrick's Day, but I was working Tuesday, so I didn't get around to planting until yesterday. At least three of my neighbors stopped and asked, "Planting already?" Yes, indeed. They're called snow peas for a reason. Peas are a cold weather crop. They're the first crop planted in the spring and among the first harvested. Peas can handle an occasional frost or even snowfall.

I picked out a bed that has hosted eggplants and tomatoes for far too long and needs a good nitrogen boost. I would have liked to add compost, but our compost isn't quite ready yet, and I'm not getting any delivered until April 5th. Instead, I lightly amended with Cockadoodle-doo, which is to say, composted chicken poop. It's organic and safe even for my almost-two-year-old to handle. We raked the straw off the bed and sprinkled our doo all over. Then I set up the fences, and my elder daughter and I got to work planting peas.

I suddenly remembered that the squirrels had eaten all the sugar snap peas last spring before they had a chance to sprout. We took a break for lunch, and when I came out later, I brought onion skins with me. I don't know if they mask the scent of the pea or if the squirrels just don't like them, but it keeps them away from my tulip bulbs, so I'm hoping the skins will also protect my peas. One of the community kids came out to help me plant, and we finished up and covered the newly planted peas with straw.

Along the way, I notice a couple of little green spears poking up, and I actually dug up a small onion bulb at the end of one pea fence. Oh, no! Did I forget where I had a neighbor plant the Egyptian walking onions last fall? A quick web search when I got home confirms that they look just like those spears when they sprout. Well, this shouldn't be a problem. The onions shouldn't be ready until June or July, when the peas are already gone. And perhaps the onions will ensure that the squirrels leave the peas alone. We shall see... and this means I have a spare plot for the parsnips after all!

Next weekend: lettuce.

Restaurant: Kitchen on Common

Last night, we decided to celebrate the vernal equinox by finding a new locavore restaurant and trying it out. My husband selected Kitchen on Common in Belmont's Cushing Square. I drove there directly from work and was hit with a deep sense of deja vu: Kitchen on Common happens to be located just two doors up Common St. from my former workplace, Firespout, a dotcom company long since gone bust.

Kitchen on Common's web site touts it as a restaurant that specializes in excellent food made from local ingredients. They list the following companies as their partners:

• Gretta Anderson/Belmont Farm CSA – Belmont, MA
• Iggy’s Bread of the World - Cambridge, MA
• Baer’s Best Beans - Hamilton, MA
• Vermont Butter & Cheese Company - Websterville, VT
• Coming Soon - Tea from The Thymely Gardener - Belmont, MA

I'm curious to know where the lamb I ordered came from, though there are certainly plenty of local sources. I think I'll email them and ask for the sources of all the ingredients in our meals.

Kitchen on Common turned out to be a small, homey restaurant with about eight tables and two servers, one of whom looked like he may have been related to the owner who was working in the kitchen. My husband had called ahead, and the restaurant had arranged to have a table for us - a kind couple actually moved from a table for four to a table for two for us. They started us with a basket of Iggy's bread, fresh and tasty, but we would have enjoyed it more if we'd had knives with which to spread butter on our bread.

We ordered macaroni gratin and maple-roasted carrots for the kids. My husband and I started with split pea soup. I ordered the Grilled Lamb Steak with Sauteed Cabbage & Israeli
Cous-Cous Risotto, and my husband ordered the Farfalle with Roasted Mushrooms Pecorino and Roasted Garlic Cream, both of which are right up our alleys: my favorite meat is lamb, and my husband loves creamy sauces over pasta.

The food was amazing, consistently excellent. By far the best dish, surprisingly enough, was the carrots. The maple glaze roasted into them was not excessively sweet and served instead to accentuate the natural sweetness of the carrots. My husband and I gleefully finished what the girls could not.

Similarly, the macaroni gratin was some of the best mac'n'cheese I've ever had, with a nice sharp pecorino romano. My one complaint there is that the romano may have been too strong for the girls, because they inexplicably failed to eat it all.

The spilt pea soup, by contrast, was a little disappointing. I think that if it hadn't followed such excellent dishes, it would have been fine, but by comparison it seemed bland. I had expected the bacon to give it a good salty base, but I ended up adding salt, which I almost never do.

Our main dishes, when they finally came, were also wonderful. I never knew that cabbage could taste that good, but it was utterly marvelous, and I actually liked it more than I liked the lamb. The lamb, while tender and cooked perfectly medium as requested, was somehow boring in comparison with the other offerings, like the lovely Israeli couscous, about the size of tapioca with a firmer consistency and in a nice, savory sauce.

The farfalle pasta was surprisingly wonderful due to the excellent quality of the mushrooms. I'm pretty sure they had been dried, but they were moist and tender in the dish with a wonderful wood flavor that was not overpowered by the sauce. I completely fell in love with the dish, and fortunately my husband similarly fell in love with the lamb, so we ended up trading dishes.

For dessert, we got one chocolate chip cookie and one raspberry oatmeal bar. They were served heated, gooey and delicious. It's a testament to how good the main dishes were that we had to take some of the dessert home.

This might have been one of the best meals I had ever had if only the fabulous food had been matched by the service. But the service was frankly terrible. We had no silverware and no water even well after we had ordered our food. Our waitress failed to take our drink order, so we had to wait until she had brought the water to order chocolate milk for the girls and San Pellegrino for my husband.

The food came out very, very slowly. We had them bring out the girls' food first, which turned out to be a horrible mistake because it was another half hour before our main dishes came. Meanwhile, the girls got more and more restive, loud, and cranky. My almost-two-year-old, who is cutting her two-year molars, became increasingly inconsolable. When our food finally came, we had to fight to get the waitress's attention to order dessert so that the girls would have something to munch on while we tried to finish our meal in peace. But then, of course, they heated the desserts, which meant that we were largely done eating by the time they came.

We did not even check the bill, just paid the tab and a straight 15% tip and fled. Now, I know our children were loud and disruptive, but that's exactly when a server should pay more, not less, attention to the table. Keeping the food moving and the kids happy makes dinner a more pleasant experience for everyone in the restaurant. And even if we hadn't had the kids along, I would have considered the service slow. There was actually one couple who had arrived before us and were still there as we left, likely because we rushed to get out as quickly as possible.

This actually seems to be a common theme: we've had a similar experience at Stone Hearth Pizza. It seems like a restaurant can be either local or family friendly but not both, unless you want to pay exhorbitant amounts of money and go to Henrietta's Table. And even then, that's cheating - there's a nearby hotel lobby where high-energy children can run around and burn off the calories they've just consumed. At one point in our meal, my husband turned to me and said, "I miss Boloco," referring to the failed restaurant in Davis Square with a nice kids' corner, now taken over by Green Tomato II, which still has the kid's corner but offers miserable cafeteria-style food.

Ultimately, while we loved the food at Kitchen on Common, we were seriously disappointed by the service. It would be fine for a leisurely meal for two adults, but it's a terrible venue for kids. If you want to your kids to dine on their fare, I recommend takeout.

Readers' Challenge: Where is your favorite place to eat with your children that offers local fare?

Does a Locavore Diet have a Smaller Carbon Footprint?

A quick post on my lunch break. A recent article in the Boston Globe argues that eating less red meat will reduce your carbon footprint more than eating local. I say, why not do both? By only eating the meat that comes in our meat share, I've significantly reduced the amount of meat my family eats and ensured that we only eat local.

Reader's Challenge: Local Corned Beef

Hi, all. It's nearly St. Patrick's Day, and I got to wondering whether it's possible to find locally-raised corned beef. Yes, I know I can get a local beef brisket and corn it myself. That's not the point. Is any of the corned beef that we're about to be inundated with locally produced?

Please do me a favor: in the next few days, whenever you go out shopping, check out the corned beef and post back here if you've found some locally-raised beef that's already corned.

Thanks!
Jenise

Heads Up: New Research on Commercial Pig Farming

Check out the NY Times article on Commercial Pig Farming and the spread of antibiotic-resistant staph infections. Here's yet another really good reason to choose local, sustainably-raised meats to grace your table.

In Search of the Perfect Egg

These days, there are so many different types of eggs available, it's dizzying. Even among local eggs, you can choose between conventionally farmed eggs (read: hens stuck in cages), cage-free eggs (hens let out of cages for an hour or so every day), free-running hens (hens never in cages but still confined to a barn), and free-range hens (allowed outside during the day and brought in at night to protect them from predators).

Then, there's what the hens are fed: conventional chicken feed, vegetarian chicken feed (nothing but grain or corn), organic chicken feed, and feed supplemented by whatever the chickens scratch up outside.

But what does all this mean for your breakfast table? Which of these eggs is more nutritious and more tasty? Well, I decided to find out, empirically.

This morning, I compared one egg from each of the following local sources:

1. Country Hen, Hubbardston, MA - free-running hens fed vegetarian organic feed, bought at Whole Foods
2. Chestnut Farm, Hardwick, MA - free-range hens that happily eat insects, bought when picking up meat share last week.
   
3. Coll's Farm, Jaffrey, NH - cage-free hens fed vegetarian conventional feed, bought at the Dairy Bar in Davis Square.
4. Chip-In Farm, Bedford, MA - free-running hens fed vegetarian conventional feed, bought at the farm

I checked the eggs for two critical parameters: color and taste. Yolk color is determined by what a hen eats. A more orange yolk can mean one of two things: a coloring agent such as marigold petals has been added to the feed, or the hen's diet is naturally rich in carotenoids such as beta carotene. Read more about this here.

An earlier taste test between scrambled Chestnut Farm eggs and Chip-In eggs failed miserably due to adding too much water to the eggs, resulting in runny eggs. Note, however, that the eggs on the right, from Chestnut Farm, are much darker in color than the Chip-in Farm eggs on the left.



So this time around, I chose to fry them sunny-side up. Here are the eggs, happily cooking in the frying pan together. They are, starting from the top right and moving clockwise, from Chestnut Farm, Chip-In Farm, Coll's Farm, and Country Hen. Note that the eggs from Country Hen and Chestnut Farm look noticeably more orange than the eggs from Coll's Farm or Chip-In Farm. My husband and I then tasted the yolk of each of the eggs. The yolks from Chestnut Farm and Country Hen clearly had a stronger, better taste and texture. The Coll's Farm yolk had a very mild flavor, and the Chip-In Farm yolk was nearly tasteless. Of the two tasty orange eggs, we both agreed that Chestnut Farm's egg had a slightly better flavor.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Country Hen eggs. I had expected them to come in near the bottom, despite their brandishing of the high-omega-3 content of their eggs. According to them, their eggs are highly nutritious, and judging from the color and flavor of the egg, I have to agree. But here's the kicker: they were also the most expensive eggs. Here's a cost comparison of the eggs from most to least expensive:

1. Country Hen - $2.75/half-dozen
2. Chestnut Farm - $4/dozen
3. Coll's Farm - $3.75/dozen
4. Chip-In Farm - $2.30/2 dozen

For the difference in cost, flavor, and humane treatment, I declare Chestnut Farm the winner. Incidentally, the Chestnut Farm eggs were also, on average, bigger than all of the other eggs, making them an even better value. Unfortunately, those eggs are available only once/month, on meatshare distribution days. When I run out, I plan on buying Country Hen eggs. I'm going to shop around area stores and see if I can't find them at a better price than at Whole Foods.

Reader's Challenge: Got a favorite locally-produced egg? Do your own taste test against Country Hen eggs or Chestnut Farm eggs if you can get them, then let the rest of us know your results.

Fossil Fuel Use - Boats, Trains, Trucks, and Refrigerators

I've been investigating my assumption that buying local foods reduces fossil fuel usage, and the results so far are really interesting.

First, it depends on how the food is transported. Apparently, shipping by sea has been found to be far more polluting than previously thought (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution). The main culprit here appears to be that ships in international waters are poorly regulated, and so they use the cheapest, dirtiest fuel available. Purchasing kiwi shipped from Italy or New Zealand contributes far more to global pollution than purchasing kiwi from California (unless the Californian kiwi is transported by boat as well).

This report is supported by a study in Seattle that actually measured the amount of greenhouse gases released by essentially identical plates of locally- and internationally-produced foods. The locally-produced plate wins, hands down. The report is well summarized by Tim Crosby, who writes a fascinating blog on food systems in the U.S.

The results for transportation of domestic foodstuffs is more murky, perhaps because it's difficult to compare transportation of food in a semi from California to transportation by multiple consumers' cars. In Energy Use in the U.S. Food System: a summary of existing research and analysis, John Hendrickson argues that, while it's very difficult to determine the true cost of transporting foods, there are other good reasons to buy locally:

"Regardless of the actual miles or the relative proportion of energy used in transporting food products, it is important to realize that transportation is an especially vulnerable sector of the food system. In contrast to the other sectors of the food system, transportation is almost exclusively dependent upon liquid fuels derived from oil. International supply disruptions and price fluctuations can have a more marked and immediate impact on this sector (OECD 1982). And this vulnerable sector is, experts agree, the most critical sector of the food system. What the modern food industry hails as the “global supermarket” depends heavily on cheap and efficient transportation. Without cheap and efficient transportation, there can be no “global supermarket.” Subsidies in this sector (highway maintenance for example) are significant and help keep food affordable for the average American. If fuel were priced so as to reflect its true costs (including environmental impacts) food prices would rise accordingly. Already, 6-12 percent of the consumer dollar spent on food eaten at home represents transportation costs (Rhodes 1993). True-cost pricing for gasoline has been estimated at $4.50/gallon by the Worldwatch Institute (1989). Another study has suggested an increase of over two dollars (World Resources Institute 1992). These and other considerations have led many analysts of the food system to suggest at least a partial return to a more decentralized system of distribution, in which individual states and/or regions are more self-reliant in food (Tansey and Worsley 1995; Kloppenburg et al. 1996). See Paxton (1996) for a review of the environmental and social consequences of long distance food transport."

I also discovered, much to my surprise, that transportation is only the second largest source of energy consumption in the U.S. food system (not including the cost of producing the food in the first place, which is far, far more energy-intensive than transporting the food). According to Swivel.com, transportation accounts for 14% of energy consumption, but 35% of energy consumption is caused by home refrigeration! This is making me rethink getting a standing freezer to store more food. Who could have guessed that how we store our food is more important than how we get it in the first place?

First Farm Visit - How Not to Do It

Yesterday, we spontaneously went out to Chip-In Farm in Bedford, MA, and it was quite a learning experience. On the one hand, we could just walk into the store and visit their petting zoo. On the other hand, there was no farmer on hand, and the store was being run by a girl who looked to be somewhere between 12 and 15 years old. So we had no access to the chicken barn to check the conditions, nor could we get very close to the cattle, nor could we ask any questions.

Clearly, from now on, we need to either go on Open House days or call ahead to arrange a visit, although neither of these options really satisfies me. In both cases, the farmers have a chance to clean up and present their best face. I want to see ordinary daily activity: dirt, manure, and all.

Here's what we did learn. Chip-In Farm is tiny. I'd guess it's about three acres of land being actively farmed, although the property probably extends back into the woods somewhat. It's tucked behind Hanscom AFB in an area of swampland, scrubby new-growth forest, and military housing. I suspect that this was all farmland in the not-too-distant past, judging by how young the trees were.

The farm store was rather disappointing. While they did have their own eggs, milk from Shaw Farm in Dracut, MA, honey produced locally in Bedford, and locally-produced maple syrup for sale, most of the rest of their offerings were non-local: strawberries from Florida, blueberries from California, Idaho potatoes, lots of conventional penny candy for the kids. And I saw no organic offerings at all.

On the positive side, their eggs were incredibly cheap. We bought two dozen for a mere $2.30!!! We will perform a taste test on the eggs later this morning. And they had a lovely petting zoo that seems to be a local attraction for kids. Inside the store, they had a bin of shredded produce, clearly store products that were no longer saleable, to feed to their livestock. Each child is allowed to bring in one basket of produce. We went with our two daughters, 5 and almost 2, and our elder daughter's best friend, almost 5, who were delighted with the animals and their ability to feed them. The zoo consisted of three sheep of two breeds, one exuberant goat, two very mellow bunnies, a large pig of a longhaired breed I've never seen before named Lilac, and four chickens. Above us, we could hear (and smell) the laying chickens. All of the windows on the second floor of the barn look like they're fenced in with chicken wire, so my guess is that they laying hens have the run of the second floor.

Outside, just as we were leaving, we spotted three head of cattle in a field with electric fencing. Again, they were a breed I've never seen before, solid color in the body with a white stripe down the spine. Either they're a very small breed, or these were immature cattle, two heifers and a young bull. My guess is that they were calved in late spring of last year and are intended to be meat cattle. I'll try to call the farm and ask.

Overall, I was a little disappointed. Among other things, I'm annoyed with the photos on their web site. Although they show chickens running around on the lawn, they also explicitly state that their chickens are indoor chickens because they're concerned about disease, particularly the Asian bird flu. So the chickens in the photos are almost certainly from the petting zoo and did not produce any of the eggs we bought. To me, this seems a bit shady, not quite false advertizing, but not entirely truthful either.

The trip did make me realize that, while I know something about raising livestock, I only know about a few breeds, and in fact, I don't even know which breeds those were. I know that my grandfather's cattle had some Black Angus in them because I vividly remember the Black Angus bull he brought in to breed the cows one year. His body proportions were very different from the cows', so the cows were a different breed altogether, but I have no idea which breed. They might well have been several other breeds. I'll ask my mother, but I doubt she knows, either. And since my grandfather really didn't write things down, I doubt that I'll ever know what those cows were.

So now, I'm determined to educate myself on different breeds of cattle and why one breed might be selected over another. A neighbor brought me a flyer from High Lawn Farm making grand pronouncements about the superior quality of milk from Jersey cows (over Holsteins). If that's so, why don't all dairies raise Jerseys? What's the trade off? I want to know.

My husband and I did a taste comparison of the eggs this morning, but I'd like to expand it to include other local eggs, so I'll likely post my results later this week.

Why You Should Believe Me

My husband, Alex, wrote this up about why he thinks I can pull off this blog:

"I need to tell you about my wonderful wife Jenise's grandfather's farm: five acres on the Rio Grande's flood plain in Albuquerque, NM. Max, Jenise's grandfather, who died last year at the ripe old age of 90, ran the farm on the side of his lifelong job as a mail carrier. They raised alfalfa, and fed it to beef cattle, which they ate themselves, but Max also brought in other animals from year to year as education for his grandchildren. Jenise got her start as a writer standing on the manure pile telling stories to the cows. But she lived with the cows on a daily basis for much of her childhood, and helped with farm chores like baling hay and feeding it to them.

"When I met Jenise at MIT, no one I knew had that kind of experience. In fact, in our social circles of mostly highly educated professionals, it is very nearly unique. (A lot of folks I know come from small towns, but very few grew up on farms.) So Jenise can make a good guess about whether a cow is healthy just by looking at it. (She claims she can do this for goats and sheep, too, which I mostly believe, but the cows I saw with my own eyes). In addition, she is an MIT-trained technical writer and graduate of the Clarion Workshop. So I think she has a better chance than average to be able to accurately assess a farm we visit, and the skills to write it up coherently and entertainingly.

"The thing we don't have is any formal agricultural training. So in that sense we are outsiders, still very definitely consumers of farm products."

I'd like to add that having grown up in New Mexico did not prepare me for agricultural conditions in New England. My very first backyard garden in Somerville washed away in a nor'easter. At the same time, it is a constant source of astonishment to me how things just grow here. I have a lot to learn.

Becoming a Locavore Detective

Recently, I bought some bacon prominently labeled "Made in Vermont." But after I got it home and read the label more carefully, I saw the small print: "Made using pork from the U.S.A. and Canada." Which means that while it's possible the pork was raised in New England or nearby Quebec, it could just as easily have come from Florida, California, Vancouver, or Hawaii. And while I like supporting a local Vermont business, that food's just not local enough for me.

Why do I care? Well, there are lots of good reasons to eat local foods. You can read about a locavore diet more thoroughly in books like Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle or Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and draw your own conclusions. You can also read the reasoning of other Boston-area locavores at BostonLocalvores.org. Here are a few of my personal reasons:

1. Nutrition - Locally-produced food is more nutritious. This is particularly true of fruits and vegetables because they do not need to be picked well before they ripen in order to be shipped halfway around the world. Local foods can be picked when ripe and full of vital nutrients.
2. Environment - Food that does not have to be shipped far consumes less fossil fuel en route to my mouth. And local foods tend to be grown sustainably and even organically, which reduces chemical pollutants in our water and soil and, coincidentally, also makes the food more nutritious.
3. Economy - Buying locally keeps money within the local community and supports small farmers.
4. Biodiversity - Small farmers tend to grow diverse crops and unusual varieties of livestock. This promotes biodiversity and offers greater variety in my diet.
5. Taste - Quite simply, locally-produced food tastes much, much better. Last night, I had the most tender, delicious roasted chicken in my life, and it came from Chestnut Farm in Raynham, MA.
6. Ideology - I don't believe that I can take my food at face value any more. There is nothing more intimately tied to my health and well being. Food becomes me. The food I feed my daughters becomes them. We are literally what we eat. How food is grown affects what we drink. How food is transported affects how we breathe. To be a responsible consumer, to take real control of my health and my life, as well as the health and lives of my family, I want to know my food: where it comes from, how it is produced, and how it arrives on my plate.
   

But how can I tell if my food is truly local? And even if it is local, how can I tell if it's sustainably farmed? If it's a food product like bread or jam or bacon, how do I know its ingredients are local? If I eat at a restaurant that claims to use local ingredients, how many of those ingredients are local? And are they sustainable/organic/humane?

The simple answer: ask.

I intend to spend a little time every week getting to know my food. And as I investigate the origins of my meals, I'm going to report my findings here. Like a locavore detective, I intend to ask questions and visit the places where my food is produced to verify the answers. Here are some of the things I want to investigate:

1. Local farms - About once a month, perhaps more in the summer, I want to visit a local farm. Initially, these will probably be the farms where I have CSA shares (Brookfield Farm, Chestnut Farm), but I'll also visit farms that are easy to reach from Boston and farms that sell food at Boston-area farmers' markets. I was raised on a farm in New Mexico, so I actually know a fair amount about vegetable farming and raising cattle and goats. I will report back on the conditions I find.
2. Restaurants serving food made with local ingredients - More of these are springing up all around the Boston area. I'll visit restaurants like Henrietta's Table, Stone Hearth Pizza, and many others. Suggestions for restaurants to visit are welcome. I'll also call the owners and ask them exactly what was in the dishes I ordered and where they get their ingredients. That may lead me to more local farms.
3. Locally-produced foods - Like the "Vermont Bacon," I want to check out locally produced foods, like Taza Chocolate, Maria and Ricardo's Tortillas, and Littleton Grist Mill's flours and mixes.
4. Local organizations that support local foods - Boston Organics recently began offering a Dogma Box of all local produce. How local is it really? And how about the local offerings in area grocery stores like Whole Foods and specialty shops like the Dairy Bar?
5. Where to find odd local foods - It seems to me that, being right next to the ocean, it ought to be possible to find locally-produced sea salt, but dang if I can find it. How about local vinegar? Local kosher foods?
6. Producing your own local foods - I'm an avid gardener, and I act as the coordinator for a community garden. Inevitably, my gardening habit will leak into this blog, but I'm also hoping to investigate things like how to make my own cheese, can my own vegetables, make my own maple syrup, heck, even my own sea salt.
   

It's my intention to make this blog useful to folks in the Metro Boston area who are also struggling to attain a local, sustainable lifestyle. I hope that you'll contribute your findings, ideas, and requests for information. I'll do my best to answer all our questions.

Happy reading, happy eating!
Jenise Aminoff