Tag Archives: food

Tomatoes Up

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I planted tomatoes in foam cells a few days before we went away for a few days.  I was hoping they would be popping out of the dirt when we returned.  They were not.  They were still buried.  Pokey seeds.  I was worried they might be duds.  The next day was eight degrees plus.  They started to rise then.  I guess they like it hot.

No peppers have risen yet.  I planted those at the same time as the tomatoes.  Pokier seeds.  The leeks and onions are doing fine, curling all over.  I had to give them another haircut tonight.  That smelled pretty dang good.  In two or three weeks I will plant all this stuff in the ground.  I am looking to plant other things earlier–peas, lettuce, carrots maybe.  Pumpkins.  We’ll have to see about the weather.

I planted an oak tree from an acorn with the children last June.  It was a father’s day gift.  I never planted it and then winter came.  I thought i would plant it this spring.  When we returned from our trip it was dried out.  I thought watering it would help it bounce back.  It isn’t dead but it is still pretty limp.  I guess you shouldn’t treat your trees like dirt.

The tomatoes are pretty wiry at this point.  I’ll need to bury them deep so they grow well.  I decided not to repot them this year to see what happens.  I thought maybe I wouldn’t lose as many that way.  Last year I repotted once, the year before twice.  I’m all about efficiency.  I still need to prepare the garden.  It is in pretty good shape but the lawn keeps encroaching.  Too bad we can’t eat that.  Tomatoes are tastier.

Things are greening up all over the place.  I am again amazed at how winter turns to spring and then all of a sudden it is summer.  I can’t imagine ever getting tired of that.  I say “wow” a lot this time of year.  I watched a vulture swoop low over the field tonight.  My son and I said “wow” together.  It was in the eighties again today.  That is a wow in itself.  We watched snow fall last month.

So things are growing.  Hopefully I can translate that into some food and some beauty in our garden.  I can almost taste the tomatoes and lettuce and onion sandwiches on homemade honey oat bread with Cabot extra shart cheddar cheese.  Oh crap, I just drooled on myself.  Keep growing tomatoes.

Wild Leeks

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Not far from our house there is a spot where the wild leeks grow like gangbusters.  This time of year they fill the woods, not only with their bright green leaves but with their fragrance.  Running past I can smell the odor of onions.

Yesterday I ran past and, inhaling one of the sweet smells of spring, said aloud, “Look at all that food.”  The green stretched across the floor of the woods as far as I could see.  It really was a lot of food, and almost no one would eat it.

I thought about this as I ran.  I also thought about the bash we would be hosting later in the day.  Then the two thoughts merged.  I was planning to make potato salad once I got back.  The recipe I had found called for onions and garlic.  The merged thought consisted of substituting some wild leeks for that onion and garlic.

And so on the way back past that spot in the woods I veered into the trees.  I brushed away the dry leaves, dug my bare fingers into the cold earth, and dug up some food.  They are small, not at all the supermarket version of leeks.  They are more the size of scallions.  I carried them lightly in my left hand as I ran slowly home.

The potato salad came out great.  It was one element of a fine pot luck dinner.  The problem, as I discovered/realized when evening came and we got to the business of cleaning up the final bits, was that it never got put out.  We simply forgot about it.  It sits in the fridge still, waiting for a diner.  I was going to have it for lunch but we still had some guests who spent the night.  I forgot again.

I need to head back over to the leek patch before long to harvest some more of the tasty little plants.  Spring doesn’t last long and soon they will be swallowed by the rest of the undergrowth.  They aren’t as tasty later in the spring or in the summer.

I will grow my own leeks in the summer but they don’t offer quite the same feeling as picking food straight from the woods.  Of course, that doesn’t matter much if I leave whatever I make sitting around uneaten, now does it?

Earth Day? For Real?

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I got a flyer in the mail from Price Chopper yesterday.  Normally I just toss these.  They may have better prices on some things now and again, but it isn’t worth traveling extra distance to get there.  I save more in transportation costs by going somewhere closer.  But this flyer caught my eye.  At the top, on an extended page that stuck out of the middle, was a banner reading “Together, We Can do Our Part to Make Every Day Earth Day!”  Oh really?

First, Price Chopper, you are sending me a flyer that I do not want or need.  It requires paper, ink, transportation, labor, and I will not even look at it.  How does that make Earth Day every day?  Second, what exactly do you mean?  The small print says to “see pages 4 & 5.”  The first thing I see on those pages is an inset spread with “certified organic” produce.  That is a good start (although it is only USDA organic) but all three things listed are in plastic tubs.  Spring greens (two types) and strawberries, shipped across the country in plastic bins?  Earth Day?

The flyer lists three things I can do (“You Can Help!”).  The first suggestion is to recycle my plastic bags at the store.  How about not taking them at all?  The second tells me to use compact fluorescent light bulbs.  Done.  The third:  “Shop locally to save gas and the environment.”  That is why I do not need the flyer and do not shop there.  Thanks.

Then they list three things they can do (We Can Help!).  First they tell me they recycle 1,700 tons of plastic each year.  That is good, but reducing plastic in the first place would make a bigger difference.  Second: “Price Chopper installed low energy LED Lighting in new and recycled stores.  Other than not having much clue what a “recycled” store is (turning an old building into one of their stores?) this is great.  I believe that one day we will leave compact fluorescent bulbs behind and use only LED lights.  They use way less energy.  Finally, they note that “Price Chopper uses local farmers each year for produce.”  On that one I am curious just how much local produce they use.  A few pumpkins in the fall hardly will make a difference, but as much as possible would make a difference.

The flyer seems like one more feel-good marketing gimmick.  Inside the flyer are:

  • Cut flowers, probably shipped thousands of miles and grown with bundles of pesticides
  • A variety of ham products from pigs raised, I am sure, on nasty factory farms
  • Lemons sold in plastic mesh bags
  • Plastic tubs of margarine
  • Cans of whipped cream
  • Bottled water
  • Plastic “candles”
  • Aluminum foil baking pans
  • Paper napkins wrapped in plastic

Earth Day every day?  I will buy some of these things at some point in the future, I am sure, even though I try to avoid them.  But let’s cut down on the Earth Day crap.  If every day were Earth Day we would not be buying any of the items listed above, and Price Chopper would not be selling them.  Maybe someday we will get there, but it ain’t happening this year. Price Chopper is making some good progress. Cutting down on flyers that don’t get read would be another step in the right direction.

Sausages and Tofu

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We don’t eat meat in our house.  I guess that isn’t totally true but almost 100% true.  My daughter is pretty good at counting but she can count way higher than she needs to in order to count the number of times she has eaten meat.  I have cooked meat in our house exactly twice, and when I did so it had been many years since I had cooked meat at all.  Tonight for dinner we had cheese quesadillas and salad.  It was light fare but was just what we needed.

My daughter likes breakfast sausages.  She has eaten them only a few times.  The last time was at a community breakfast at her school.  There were many families there.  It was a fund raiser for the local pre-school.  We had tons of fun and my daughter wanted some sausage, like many of the other children there.  I hate to be the parent who says no all the time, especially when I don’t have the best of explanations.  I didn’t want to eat it, and this particular sausage wasn’t exactly of the highest quality, but why the heck not let her have it?  She’ll try to some time anyway.  And it won’t kill her.

I hear people talk about how they could never be a vegetarian.  As if they would have to jump right into eating tofu and beans and kale at every meal if they decided to stop eating meat.  I think most people eat plenty of meals that don’t contain meat without even thinking about it.  Peanut butter and jelly?  Macaroni and cheese?  Breakfast cereal?  Who eats meat at every meal?

Anyway, I am currently of the mind that we won’t have meat much in our house at all.  My wife and I are on the same page with that one.  But if the kids want it once in a while when it is offered, I will let them try it, as long as it isn’t too nasty.  I made them fried chicken a couple of times here at home, at my daughter’s request to have chicken.  She thought it was OK and my son just said no thanks.  I have cooked up chicken many a time and this was, and I’m not just saying this, really good fried chicken.  I ate it right up.  The second try provided the same results.  Salad is a bigger hit.

We do eat tofu occasionally.  It is good stuff if you prepare it right.  Kind of like cauliflower.  That stuff isn’t exactly great plain, if you ask me, but in a gratin, oh baby oh.  I can whip up some tofu into a tasty meal.  We even eat meat substitutes.  For me, it isn’t that I don’t like meat as a food.   It just seems irresponsible to eat it.  Eat it if you want but, knowing what I know about where it comes from, I don’t want to support such a destructive and unhealthy system.

We have talked about trying to eat meat that is locally and responsibly grown.  That is where the chicken I fried came from, a local farm.  At this point that is hard to do, more because we are in the habit of not eating meat than anything else, but meat still has a larger ecological footprint, even if it is raised in the best way possible, and that factors in as well.

For now we don’t buy it, don’t prepare it and don’t really eat it.  I won’t be a hindrance to my children experimenting with it if they want to do that. Maybe if they experiment with that they will be more careful experiementing with things like smoking banana peels.  And we will likely cook up something fleshy again at some point.  But for now I will toss that fake sausage on the pizza and bake the tofu pot pie.  That will do me more than just fine.

Waffle Cabin

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Up at Bolton Valley they have a Waffle Cabin, a shack outside the main lodge that sells, uh, waffles.  It was not open when we were there yesterday in the afternoon.  Not sure what was up with that.  Why wouldn’t you have this unique snack shack open on a beautiful day during school break?  Seemed like a missed opportunity to me.

We went up for night skiing tonight.  The kids wanted to try it and this was as good a time as any.  It was pretty much perfect–warm, soft snow, not crowded at all.  The corporate race event was happening and they got a kick out of that.  They had so much fun they did not want to stop.  Twice we did just one more run, then we had to get home for bed.

We checked when we got there to make sure we would get a waffle before the hut closed.  We had plenty of time to ski before then so we got in a few runs first.  My daughter is shredding it up these days.  She has gained a lot of confidence and so is really having lots of fun now.  We could say I told you so, but what would that accomplish?  Our little guy has lots of ground to cover.  Maybe next year he will get it.

The waffles were dang good.  Crispy and fatty and covered in chocolate.  And warm.  They had been recommended by a friend so highly that we had to try them.  I had seen the building and was curious, but could take it or leave it.  Then Nicole talked it up, telling us she would look forward all day to having one of the waffles when she knew she would be up there.  She was right about them.  I want another one.

It is the perfect example of word of mouth marketing.  The place has high visibility but no real flash.  It does smell good when things are cooking and word has now spread.  Knowing this now, I really can’t figure out why they would not have been open yesterday.  We may go up again tomorrow (the kids are now eager to hit the slopes again) and that place better be open if we do.  I’m already jonesing.

What’s for Dinner

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Last night I had the time to make a good dinner.  I whipped up cream of celery soup and fresh dinner rolls.  With fresh pears on the side.  It was wholesome and tasty.  The kids hated the soup, of course.  “This looks like throwup,” says the boy of joy.  He was serious.

OK, it did look a little like throwup, but only some kinds of throwup, not the gross kind.  Well, not the grossest kind.  But it did taste good–salty and fresh and creamy.  I guess you can’t have everything in a soup.  Especially one that your kids think looks like something your body already rejected.

At least the rolls were good.  They ate plenty of those.  So tonight I wondered what to make.  I had a lot less time.  The rest of the fam was off to the library where my daughter met a friend from school for some friend time.  It was me deciding and me making and I had had a long day.  I didn’t feel like making anything complicated at that point.  I just wanted to eat it.

But of course I wanted my family to have a quality dinner.  I had to make something fast that had no resemblance to bodily fluids.  So I made spaghetti.  We don’t have that all that often.  It is easy and we all like it but I tend to make things that are fresher if I can, or that are just more fun to make.  Spaghetti is just too easy.

My savior was the table.  Instead of the easy pour it into bowls at the stove approach, I set places and we had some spot lighting and we sat together and talked about our day.  I love that.  I remember eating spahetti as a child but more than that I remember eating together as a family.  I want my kids to remember that.

The bummer is that I had really been looking forward to making the soup yesterday.  I had never made cream of celery soup before.  Mostly because, well, it’s celery for god’s sake.  But I had all this celery since you can’t buy just what you need and I needed to make something with it.  I’m thinking next time I toss in a few carrots.  It will give it a little sweetness but, more importantly, some color.

But then again, do I want to hear my boy of joy say “This looks like…?”

Leftover Soup

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I was home with the kids tonight, just the three of us.  We had sandwiches, soup and fruit for dinner.  It was a winning combination.  I made pumpkin soup last weekend and it was a real winner.  I used frozen pumpkin from the summer and pureed it smooth with some sour cream.  It was a real success.  My daugher asked for more the night we had it and then asked for it for breakfast the next day.  She still liked it tonight, a couple of days later.

We also had some potato leek soup left over from a few days before.  I ate that.  Good cheese, good bread, good soup, and fresh fruit to top it off.  It was cold out, the woodstove finally heating up after a day of us gone, and we were filling our bellies.  It was a satisfying parent moment.   Happy kids, happy dad.

Soup is one of those foods that work pretty well most times, but especially well in the winter.  And they are cheap.  I am into cheap these days.  We spend a lot of money on food.  In some ways I am OK with that.  I want to eat good food.   I don’t like to compromise when it comes to food.  But good food is expensive.  It is one of those ironies of the food system.  The stuff that is grown close to home without all the extra poisons tossed onto it actually costs more.  It goes against logic–less shipping and less cost for all the added junk, yet it costs more?

I hope to make some soup later this week.  I hope it comes out well, and that it lasts.  That will satisfy the palate and the wallet.

Fourteen Below and Thinking About Gardening

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Garden Beds Waiting for Spring

Garden Beds Waiting for Spring

That was the temperature this morning–fourteen degrees below zero. You might say it was chilly. I wimped out on going for a run. I had planned to do so today but I stayed inside, stoked the fire, got some work done and even read a book. So much for training.

I have been thinking about the garden lately. January is the month to plan it out, to figure out what to plant, how much of it to plant, and where to fit everything. The corn can’t go where it went last year, but it can be planted with the squash. I look forward to sitting down with the legal pad and sketching out the garden plan.

Of course, it is way too cold to do anything with the garden at the moment. It sits under the snow, waiting for spring. I am glad we have snow cover. The blueberries and strawberries will fare batter with the insulation. And the snow adds an element of beauty.

The circle I carved out of the lawn for our garden feels like a work of both labor and art. I want to grow food that is fresh and tasty and that I can’t get elsewhere (Striped Zebra tomato anyone?), but I also hope it adds some pastoral artistry. I want it to be beautiful. That takes work and luck and a willingness to let things grow as they need to grow. Seeing what the plants will do with what they have gives me joy.

So I wait it out and dream of warmer weather. I love this cold snap we are having, even though I chickened out of running today. Winter just isn’t satisfying if we don’t have some days below zero. I have seen the mercury rise to six degrees today and now it is back down to four. Once the sun goes down, I am sure it will break through the zero mark again.

Maybe some of those cucumber beetles will take a hit from the cold. I won’t count on it, but since I am imaging a perfect garden, I might as well dream that too.

Baking Bread

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Fresh Bread, Baby

Fresh Bread, Baby

Last night my wife and I sat down (and stood around, and paced) and talked about our finances. We are in fine financial shape overall. When we look at how we can immediately cut out expenses, there isn’t much that jumps out in the no-brainer category. We don’t have cable or satellite television. Our electric bill is low. We get a discount on the oil we use. We keep the thermostat at about 62. The price of gas is low. Still, we feel like we need to balance things better.

Our conversation about bread make me think about bread, if you know what I’m saying. One area we might cut expenses is our grocery bill. We don’t spend a fortune on frozen dinners or junk food. The problem is that we want quality. I was raised with the knowledge that teh generic or store brand version of a product is the same as the name brand, and this was and often is true. But I have entered another league since those days. I don’t want just the whatever, GMO, artificially colored, high-trans-fat margarine. I want the local, all natural butter. It tastes better and it works better when cooking.

I know we could save money if we were willing to compromise on quality, but I am determined not to do that. I buy Green Mountain fair trade coffee, and that is a compromise of sorts. I prefer that to Maxwell House by a long shot and I know that it has benefits far beyond my budget. I also don’t want to pay for coffee in a paper cup every day. When I bake bread, I know it will be better bread with good flour and butter and even salt. Quality matters.

I also know I trade time for money. I could buy a five dollar loaf of bread, or I could bake a loaf of bread. The freshly baked homemade loaf is just as good if not better but takes more time. I just popped a loaf of bread out of the oven that I started this morning. A few hours of work means some damn good food and a big savings. If I can take the time to make what I eat, I will save money and have quality grub.

For dinner we will have fresh bread and fresh soup. That is good stuff. Yes, it takes time. I need to make time when I have it to prepare so I can eat well every meal, not just boil up some pasta because it is quick. I need to whip up dinner in a hurry sometimes when the children and I get home late. Prepping in advance can help us eat sooner and still eat well.

Maybe that should have been a New Year’s resolution: eat even more freshly made food for taste, health, and the the old pocketbook. I suppose I can make it one now. Bread once per week? That might be doable. I’ll have to see what I’ve got for time, as soon as I finish eating this pasta.

Santa in the House

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Evidence of the Fat Man's Presence

Evidence of the Fat Man's Presence

We had a classic Christmas here at our house. Our children were pumped up on treats and gifts. As it should be. Santa came in the night and did his thing. We all benefited from his visit.

The parents were awake (5:30) before the youngsters (6:00 for one, 7:00 for the other) and we got started early. Snow showers fell during the critical morning hours to lend to the air of Christmas, but it was warm enough for some icy outdoor play after lunch. In the afternoon, both my wife and I even managed to fit in a run on this not quite frozen day.

The kids opened gifts all morning. We tried to keep it going slowly. We did not stick to the one-at-a-time everyone-goes-in-turn method employed when I grew up. We will do that in time, but it just feels wrong to keep small children from enjoying the thrill of unwrapping.

By request, we had pizza for lunch. We had out usual dinner of mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, peas and roasted maple butternut squash. That went down just fine. I realized that I did not have any candy until I had a half dozen M&M’s as I was making dinner. I did, however, have a vanilla Coke.

My daughter was so tuckered from going to bed late, rising early, and playing hard all day, that she was asleep by about 5:30. Her brother followed about an hour later. They couldn’t have had a better time. They don’t usually squabble, but had nary a disagreement all day.

Maybe we need to do this every day.