Not Your Average Joe's Goes Local

We were in Arlington Center yesterday to pick up our meatshare from Chestnut Farms, and we decided to hit Not Your Average Joe's for dinner. To our surprise and delight, Joe's is in the middle of their Summer's Best Fest, and all of their specials include local ingredients. I spoke with the manager, and he told me that he and the chef had hit the farmers' market last Wednesday and bought vast quantities of local produce and other ingredients for their menu this week.

On their specials menu:

• Tomato and watermelon gaspacho
• Chatham stuffed quahogs
• Corn, arugula, and tomato pizza
• Watermelon steak salad
• Grilled pork tenderloin
• Chicken paillard
• Free-form vegetable lasagna
• North Atlantic swordfish

We sorely tempted by the quahogs, which the menu described thusly: "rhode island clams, locally made chourico, grilled corn from wilson's in lexington and tabasco aioli." But our ravenous children convinced us that we should eat swiftly, so we went straight for the entrees. My husband ordered the chicken paillard while I ordered the swordfish. The kids both ordered pasta with butter, and I ordered them a side of sweet potato hash to go with it.

The swordfish, when it came, was grilled to perfection, topped with a cilantro and pumpkin seed pesto, accompanied by a roasted cob of corn (from Wilson Farm in Lexington) sprinkled with cotija cheese and watercress with a lemon vinaigrette. I am in no way exaggerating when I say here that it was the best swordfish I have ever tasted. It was astonishing. The fish was perfectly cooked, just slightly crispy on the outside, tender and moist and delicious on the inside. The pesto complimented the fish beautifully. The pumpkin seeds gave it a nutty flavor without overwhelming the flavor of the fish. I almost didn't notice the watercress, but it was fresh and crunchy and refreshing. The corn, what my children did not claim for themselves, was also delicious, the cheese adding some nice saltiness.

For all that, my husband's chicken was actually better. The menu describes the dish as "chicken paillard with a panzanella salad of brioche croutons, tomatoes from ward's in sharon, cucumbers, capers and red onion, topped with locally grown arugula and romano cheese." My husband had serious doubts about ordering what he took to be a chicken salad. His doubts vanished when the dish arrived. The chicken, like the fish, was grilled to perfection, cooked through but moist and tender with a sauce that he could not get enough of. When he had finished the croutons, he was reduced to filching uneaten bread from our daughters to sop up the very last bit. To complement, he had a glass of pinot gris 2008 from Nantucket Vineyard which he liked quite a bit.

The downside to the meal was the lackluster service. Our dour waiter seemed to be perpetually annoyed that we wanted anything at all, though he was prompt and refilled my water glass frequently. The food was slow to arrive given that we were there quite early and the restaurant was nearly empty. What annoyed me most, though, was the thorough lack of imagination applied to the kids' menu. Pasta with butter or tomato sauce, no sides? For $5.99? That's absurd. I would have loved to see some locavore offerings for the kids. I'd like kid's meals that integrate vegetables. But their menu seems to consist of stereotypical kid food (mac 'n' cheese, cheese pizza, burgers, pasta) or cut down versions of adult fare (sirloin tips, balsamic-glazed salmon.) How about a kid-friendly stir fry? Maple-roasted root vegetables? Pasta with chicken and broccoli or asparagus in a mild cream sauce? Even the sweet potato hash, when it arrived, turned out to be too spicy for the girls to eat.

Well, regardless, I'm delighted to see a chain restaurant, even if it's a semi-local chain, jumping onto the locavore bandwagon. Best of all, their prices were quite reasonable: $13.99 for the chicken, $21.99 for the swordfish and worth every penny. Not Your Average Joe's Summer's Best Fest lasts until September 20th.

Why You Should Ask Who Picks Your Food

For the past couple of weeks, I've been buying organic blueberries from Georgia, reasoning that this is more local than California or Mexico. However, a blog post today about the farming crash in Georgia informs me that those blueberries were most likely picked by illegal immigrant laborers, who are now fleeing the state in the wake of new anti-immigrant legislation.

Jay Bookman writes,

After enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.

It might be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars’ worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they’ve done to Georgia’s largest industry.

It turns out that illegal immigrant migrant laborers earn an average of $8/hour for their work. Only 7.7% receive health benefits.

Now, I have little objection to illegal immigrants working in fields in the U.S., since they're providing a useful service, contributing to a troubled economy, and since few legal Americans would work so hard for so little. I do, however, have a serious problem with this degree of exploitation.

So here's another reason to buy local: that pint of blueberries has no label stating "produced and picked by fairly-compensated labor." But at a farmers' market, you can talk face to face with a farmer and ask, "Who picked these blueberries? How many people work for you? Do you offer health benefits?"

I also have a suggestion, or perhaps a challenge, for the folks in Georgia, particularly the unemployed: it's an incredible waste to allow these fruits and vegetables to rot in the fields. So talk to your neighbors and raise a crop mob. Get out there, bring in the harvest, and then donate what you earn to a workers' rights advocacy group such as the United Farm Workers of America, or to an immigrant legalization advocacy group such as the Farmworker Advocacy Network.

Farmers, if you can't get workers to pick for low wages, don't just throw your crops away. Contact some area gleaners groups, such as Mid-Atlantic Gleaning Network in Alexandria, VA. Volunteers will come pick your crops and bring them to area homeless shelters and food banks, and you'll at least get a nice tax write-off.

What It Means to Be a Locavore

Boston.com today has an interesting and pretty well-reasoned article today arguing against locavorism.

However, the article misses a crucial point about locavorism. Being a locavore means more than just buying locally grown food. It also means being mindful about what food reasonably grows in your area.

The article argues:

One recent UK report found that the greenhouse gas emissions involved in eating English tomatoes were about three times as high as eating Spanish tomatoes. The extra energy and fertilizer involved in producing tomatoes in chilly England overwhelmed the benefits of less shipping. Even New Zealand lamb produced less greenhouse gases than English lamb.

This sounds like a good argument, but it misses several points:

1. True locavores are mindful of their regional limitations. If you're buying tomatoes at Massachusetts farmers' markets right now, you should know that they were either grown in a hothouse, which isn't terribly efficient and probably produces more greenhouse gases than shipping them up from Georgia or California, or they were, in fact, shipped in from out of state. Which means that if you want to be true to locavore ideals, you must resist those plump, juicy heirlooms and wait until late July before buying tomatoes. Cherry and grape tomatoes may be ready sooner.
2. If you're using vast amounts of artificial fertilizer to grow tomatoes in England, you're doing it wrong. Organically grown tomatoes use compost and well-composted manure, which do not contribute significantly to greenhouse gases or watershed pollution.
3. Comparatively, Spain is closer to England than Florida is to Boston, and tomatoes from Spain are likely shipped via rail or boat, rather than by truck, which is also a more efficient use of fuel. So for England, from an environmental standpoint, Spanish tomatoes are, in fact, probably a better idea than English tomatoes. As long as they actually are from Spain.

Really, what it comes down to is this: do the research. Find out what it takes to grow a particular crop in your area, and then determine when it makes sense to start buying that crop locally.

You also need to determine for yourself what local means. Many locavores set the limit at 100 miles from home. But if you can't live without bananas in your cereal each morning, you're violating that limit. Ditto olive oil, chocolate, or coffee. In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver wrote that each member of her family was allowed to choose one non-local food to buy.  If you can stick to that rule, you'll be reducing your footprint significantly.

To be honest, my family isn't there yet. We buy organic produce from California and prepackaged pastas and canned tomatoes. But whenever possible, we try to buy local. We buy 90% of our meat in a meat share from Chestnut Farms. We buy almost all of our eggs locally from Chestnut Farms and Pete & Jen's. We plant and pick in a communal garden in my cohousing community. Until this year, we bought a CSA farmshare from Brookfield Farms. We buy almost all our dairy locally through the Dairy Bar or Sherman Market (exception: we have not found a good local source of goat milk for my lactose-intolerant daughter). Now that the farmers' markets are open, we gleefully buy fresh greens there (kale!) every week. And in a month, we're moving to a new home in Beverly with plenty of land where we hope to grow most of our own food.

The path to locavorism is a tricky one, but the most crucial skill you need to become a locavore is this: ask questions, find answers. Ask the farmers at the market where they are, whether they grew the produce themselves, how they grew it, whether they use a hothouse, how they heat that hothouse, and whether they use pesticides, herbicides, or artificial fertilizers. Talk to them about the pasture area their cattle have, or what they feed their pigs, or how they slaughter their chickens. Ask the farmers who works for them, whether they're paid fair wages. Ask them how far they have to travel to come to the market, how much fuel they use, and whether they partner with other farmers to save on transportation costs (I spotted Pete & Jen's eggs at a Blue Heron farmstand yesterday).

The more you know, the better and more sustainably you'll eat.

"I am a conscientious parent. I am not a HEPA filter."

Here's a remarkably well-written argument, not just for eating organic foods and using organic practices on lawns and farms, but to push for legislation to ban dangerous chemical use. Sandra Steingraber writes:

But Faith and her brother, Elijah, do not live solely within the bubble of my kitchen and property lines. They occupy a much bigger ecological niche, and I cannot verify the agricultural origin of every food item served at every birthday party, summer camp, sleepover, recital, and library summer reading program event. I can’t ensure that every backyard soccer field, every patch of lawn, and every pet in every neighborhood home they run in and out of are free of organophosphates. 
Nor can I stop the wind from blowing.

See the full article at http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6162/

Keep Big Ag from Hiding Their Inhumane and Unsafe Practices

Currently, several states are trying to pass legislation that makes it illegal to take photos or film of farms. That's right, Big Ag doesn't want you to know what they're up to.

Transparency is the consumer's best protection against unsafe business practices. You can join Slow Food USA in petitioning to withdraw this legislation here: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5986/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6675 .

To further support the petition, Slow Food is encouraging people to take pictures of farms they visit and post them on their Facebook page. They will then take the best of the pictures, create a booklet, and send it on to legislators to make their point. Which is a great excuse to go visit your local farm!