What You Get from a CSA that You Can't Get in the Supermarket

This year my family purchased a Fall Keeper CSA share from Abbondanza Farms for the second time. The Keeper share is a little different from the more popular summer CSA share. You only get five drops, at a pretty high cost per drop, but each drop is a big box of storable fall vegetables. The idea is that by over-purchasing from the late fall harvest, you'll be able to continue eating local produce through most of the winter. See my previous posts on CSAs and the Fall Keeper Share to learn more.

As the summer produce dwindled, I started planning (and craving) what I would cook with the first pick-up. I remembered the quality of last year's beets, winter squash, fingerling potatoes, and I couldn't wait. The summer CSA (from the same farm) had ended two weeks earlier, so my cupboards were pretty bare. I hadn't bought anything at the supermarket because I knew I had a bountiful box of food coming.

As I eagerly drove up on Thursday, the usual pickup day, I was perplexed to find the parking lot empty. I slowly realized that I'd gotten confused. Thursday had been the pickup day all summer, but I'd received an email earlier in the week notifying me that the pickup day for the fall share was Wednesday. Ohhh noooo….

I was so disappointed. How could I have spaced this out? How was I going to get my veggies? What was I going to cook for dinner that night?

So I called the farm, explained my situation, groveled, begged, and sure enough… no problem, I could come get the share at the farm that weekend. Great! When I arrived, they didn't seem bothered at all. In fact, it appeared from the stack of boxes set aside that I may not have been the only person to have gotten confused.

I definitely wasn't going to forget again. Especially since the next share was a double pick-up of veggies right before Thanksgiving. How exciting!

Two weeks pass by. Every day I remind myself… don't forget the veggies on Wednesday.

The day arrived, and what a crazy day it was. That morning, my son got sick, so I stayed home from work to snuggle with him. I also received a call from a family member asking if I could help take an elderly relative to the hospital the next day. And, I was busy thinking about a business trip I had to make to India in a few weeks. To say I was a little frazzled was an understatement. At eight PM that night, it suddenly dawned on me that it was THE pickup day, the one I wasn't going to forget, and it was one hour after they closed. ARRRGGGGHHHH!

I was so upset. How could I have done this again? After a few minutes I came to my senses. I have too much going on. Yes, it's a lot of money that I spent and am going to have to spend to buy the food I didn't get, but I've got too much to worry about. Besides, while they were very nice last time, I just couldn't stomach the thought of admitting again that I was so disorganized. I decided to forget it.

A few days later, I received a phone call from the woman that runs the program. She had noticed from the checklists that I hadn't shown up for either of the first two pick-ups and was concerned that they hadn't properly communicated the schedule and location to me. I was so surprised and moved that someone would go to this trouble; everything came rushing out. My voice starting choking up as I told her about the troubles of my week and that I had just been too embarrassed to call again. Finally, I sighed, "I know this is silly, that it's just food, but I was so looking forward to those veggies." She cut in, "It's not just food. It's important. I'm so sorry to hear about all of this. We'll absolutely get you your share if we have to drop it on your doorstep." We talked about 20 minutes more. She shared a little with me about her family. She asked more about mine. And we talked about the farm and the food that really did mean a lot more to me than I was willing to admit.

So that day I got my veggies and a very welcome personal connection.

There are many well-advertised benefits of joining a CSA: fresh, varied, high quality produce, eating organically, supporting a local business, lower carbon footprint from eating locally grown food.

Here's one more...

The community supported part of the term Community Supported Agriculture means that you're not just supporting a community farm, they're supporting you. I'm pretty sure I've never seen that on sale for $.99/lb at Sunflower Farmer's Market.

Open Access at Windsor Dairy

In a recent post exploring raw milk, I concluded that because the alleged benefits and safety of raw milk are directly dependent on the living and cleanliness standards of each dairy, one could not safely drink raw milk without seeing first hand the dairy from which the milk is purchased.

This gives me a good reason for a field trip. Bonus - my son is currently going through the obligatory animal obsession phase, so he will probably enjoy it too.

Windsor Dairy is the best known dairy in this area offering raw milk shares*, and conveniently, they also feel pretty strongly that consumers should check out their cows. They require every prospective milk share purchaser to tour the dairy on one of their two weekly tours. So we went, the whole family in tow.

I had no idea what to expect. Having spent my whole life in the suburbs, I'm not even sure that milk comes from cows; I've never seen a live chicken, and I've certainly never seen a baby goat lying asleep with his head nuzzled in the crook of his front leg.

I think I was expecting a big field filled with cows next to an industrial-style milking building, but what I saw was completely surprising.

The farm was like a cross between a petting zoo and a bustling animal city: a city with a downtown (the farmhouse, the shop, the milking building, the chicken coops, the "maternity ward" for young cows and goats and their mothers), a diverse population (cows, chickens, goats, a dog, a horse and a few sheep), rush hour (free range chickens EVERYWHERE), and the burbs (200 acres of pasture just starting to green up).

I was stunned at the perfect balance of manic activity with the easy, timeless pace of nature. The frantic pace of the chickens. (they are so weird that they deserve a post of their own). The heart wrenching cuteness of the kids bumping into each other for access to the trough of hay. The black lab chasing terrified chickens. And all the while, the cows just hanging out watching everything, lazily chewing, chewing, chewing their cud.

In the coming weeks, I'll do a few more posts, one on chickens, just because they're so fun, and the other on the point of my visit - the cows. But before getting into detail, I'll say that the whole place was wonderful, interesting, natural, clean and totally open. It was much more than I'd been hoping to see.

One final note - one of the chicken coops has apparently been taken over by a very exclusive club. See the rules below...



*Colorado is one of many states that prohibits the sale of raw milk. To get around this, raw milk dairies sell shares of cows ... you buy part of a cow for a one-time fee, and then pay a monthly boarding and milking fee to get your milk.

Snow Welcomes the Boulder Farmer's Market

Winter was unseasonably warm this year in Boulder. I can't say that I've complained - lots of pleasant, sunny runs and bike rides, made only slightly less pleasant by an eerie, nagging feeling that this was warning of an oh-so-hot Boulder summer. Not to worry, just as spring arrived on the calendar, winter arrived in force. We've had snow every other day, mixed with cloudy, brisk winds.

I was worried that Friday evening's snowfall would mean cancellation for the first farmer's market of the season, but my fears proved to be unfounded. By late morning, the snow had subsided and the temperature was in the low 40's. I decided to head downtown with my son to see what I could find.

Sure enough, the market was on. Admittedly, there weren't too many stalls or people. The hot food area only had a natural burger stand and one selling corn tamales, and the rest of the market was just as thinly populated. But there was enough - I got some good veggies and a few other luxuries to boot.

• parsnips - just harvested from Cure Organic Farm. Unbelievably, they're small ones, which are not easy to find; these have a more delicate texture than the large ones typical in fall. Two pounds should be enough for two good meals.
• salad mix - also from Cure.
• sunchokes - at $5 for a bag of about 1.5 lb, this is an unusually low price. After eating carrots, potatoes, onions and winter squash for the last million weeks, I couldn't bring myself to ask if they were organic or why they were so cheap. Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, are a delicious root vegetable from the sunflower family and related to artichokes. They taste similar to artichokes but are less work to prepare and are delicious in soups and gratins. We had them last night in a pureed sunchoke and potato soup.
  
• chocolate truffles - from Seth Ellis, a local organic chocolatier. I do wonder what "local" chocolate means, as chocolate is a tricky subject if you're interested in eating food with a small carbon footprint. Mr. Ellis's chocolate is from Peru, processed in Belgium and then shipped here via a few other places. This is probably a topic for another day, but I eat a LOT of dark chocolate, and the circuitous trail seems to be pretty similar for all brands, organic or not.
• whole wheat bread from Udi's Bakery - I have such bread envy
  
• Winechick White wine from Augustina's Winery just about a mile from our house. I'm not a great judge of wine, but I did enjoy this one, which was reasonably priced at $12.
  

All in all, it was worth the journey. I think I bought the only three types of vegetables for sale in the whole market, but they should be enough to create some much needed variety in our menu this week.

Viva la Farmer's Market!!!

Ode to Jamie

When I started this blog, I knew that one of the early things I wanted to do was pay tribute to my first cooking love and hero Jamie Oliver. I haven't done it yet because I have a (not so) secret hope of sending him a link to this and that he might actually be interested in reading it - but until I had more content, who would be interested in reading it. Well I have 30 entries now, all of them way too long, so I'll proceed...

First love? You're probably thinking, hmm, that's a bit celebrity-stalker-ish. I mean love strictly in the food sense. I'll start at the beginning.

Let's go back to the year 2000. My husband and I enjoyed a leisurely lifestyle of lazy lie-ins, all day bike rides, sunny afternoons on the West End rooftop patio drinking beer in the shadow of the flatirons (back before the view was blocked by hideous condos), eating out for pretty much every meal, and definitely not cooking. Sounds pretty good right? Actually it wasn't bad. Then he came along.

One night we were watching TV, eating sandwiches from Snarf's (really good sandwiches, actually), and this show came on called The Naked Chef. My husband says, "I've been meaning to tell you about this show. It's hilarious."

I'm sure by now, everyone has seen the reruns, but at the time, it was an all new concept. Like The Real World meets Emeril and goes to Britain with a cool DJ in the background. I was sucked in. For the food? Yea right. For the coolness/dorkiness. On the one hand, the funky kitchen, cool friends just "stopping by" and Jamie's crazy accent seemed so contrived. On the other hand, I wanted to have a funky kitchen, cool friends and a crazy accent.

As I sat back to enjoy my sandwich and laugh at the ridiculousness of such a trendy show, something caught my eye.

"Hey, do you see what he's making? That fish looks really good. And it actually looks kind of easy to make."

I was mesmerized. For the first time in my life, I was actually considering buying and cooking fish.

The blur of infatuation that followed is a little hazy for me to remember now... did I buy the first cookbook the next day, or did I watch a few episodes first? It all happened so fast.

The first cookbook, also called The Naked Chef, kept the promise that the show had made... and this is really what got me hooked. The beautiful, glossy pictures draw you in, but the freshness and ease of the recipes is what keeps you coming back for more.

Jamie doesn't advertise himself as a health food chef, but in my opinion, it doesn't get any healthier. From the beginning, he has been a strong advocate for eating wholesome, organic, natural food - lots of vegetables and herbs in place of pre-made sauces and canned ingredients. That is the origin of the nickname Naked Chef.

Yea, he is a bit of a commercial empire. He has a million cookbooks, I think Jamie Makes a Sandwich is the latest one, but he's done a lot more than get rich. He is one of the strongest voices in the western world to advocate for eating organic, local food, including leading an ongoing campaign to improve school lunches in Britain.

That influence has changed my life forever. From the first time I cooked Fish in a Bag, a whole new world opened for me. Since then I've moved on to other amazing chefs and cookbooks. I don't need the glossy pictures and cool TV shows anymore to get me interested in turning on the stove, but I will always have a special place in my heart for Jamie. There is only one celebrity I'd ever be interested in meeting. And if I did meet him, I would just say Thanks.

I probably shouldn't do this, but here is my favorite Jamie Oliver recipe. Simple and bursting with amazing flavors. From The Naked Chef - which I highly recommend...

Fish Baked in a Bag with Marinated Cherry Tomatoes, Black Olives and Basil

• 4 fish fillets, about 6-8 oz each (I usually use wild salmon)
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 3/4 c dry white wine
• 1 handful black olives, pitted
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 1/2 small dried red chili, crumbled
  
• 1 handful fresh basil or marjoram, roughly chopped
• 2-3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 20 cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt and fresh ground pepper

Put the olives, garlic, chili, herbs, extra virgin olive oil and tomatoes into a bowl and toss. Leave for half an hour, then add the lemon juice and seasoning to taste.

Season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper. For each fillet, take a large piece of aluminum foil. Place 1/4 of the tomato mixture in the center of one half. Lay the fish on top of the tomatoes. Fold the foil over and seal two sides by folding over tightly. Add 1 Tbs olive oil and a quarter of the white wine, then seal the remaining side. Bake at 475⁰ for approximately 10 minutes. I'm not sure why, but this recipe tastes much better when cooked on the grill. Let the fish rest in the bag for 3-4 minutes before opening.

Serve each unopened bag on a plate, to enjoy the fish, tomatoes, juices and all.

Getting My Hands Dirty

Today I am going to digress slightly from the food topic to discuss my CSA in more detail. As I've discussed before, I'm a member of Abbondanza CSA here in the Boulder, Colorado area. Last year we got a fall share, which was great, and for this summer, we have signed up for a summer share. I can't wait... the first pickup is May 13th.

Last weekend, they needed volunteers to help with some labor in the field, so I decided to join them. The whole experience was quite interesting, so I'd like to share...

For some reason, I thought that we would show up, they'd all give us jobs to do and away we'd go. Not quite. It seemed like they asked us out to educate us about the CSA as much as to do some work.

The first thing we discussed was the origin of the CSA. The field in which we were standing is a 10 acre plot of open space (Thomas Open Space) next to a housing subdivision. In 2005, the subdivision residents convinced the city of Lafayette that rather than let another subdivision be built, they should buy the adjacent land and create an organic farm. A ballot measure was passed and the land was purchased. The city irrigated it, ran electricity, added a parking area, created rows and roads up and down the ends.

Abbondanza started originally as a farm for organic seeds on 40 acres about 8 miles north of where we were. Two years ago, they leased the open space from the city and added it to their farm. In 2008, the farm gained official organic status.

From looking at the project description on the city website, the farm is still funded annually by the city to the tune of $100k in 2008. I'm curious why, given that Abbo is paying a lease, and I've sent an email to the project city manager... I'll post a follow up if he replies.

It is starting to become apparent to me that creating a local food supply must be a truly community effort. You can't just pay your share and pick up your veggies. If that is all anyone does, this idea will never fully take root :) It seems to require a combination of impassioned farmers, volunteers, committed communities and some subsidies. Some might say that this not very free market, but is supermarket food any more free market? I doubt it - the subsidies are just harder for the average consumer to identify. Hmmm, that sounds like another interesting blog topic.

Moving on, we next discussed our job for the day, which was to pull carrots. Carrots? Isn't the season over? Not completely.

These carrots are being grown for seed. They were planted last August and have been hibernating underground all winter, protected by a few layers of plastic. Because they weren't harvested, they'll now start to grow prolific greens and eventually go to seed, all of which will be collected and sold. We needed to pull up the carrots for transplanting at the other farm (the original 40 acres). Why, you might ask?

That's an interesting question, and one about which all of us were confused. It was explained to us many times...

Abbondanza sells hand selected, open-pollinated seeds. This means, "a seed which produces offspring just like the parent plants. Open-pollinated seed allows growers to harvest and save seed for the following year".¹

The alternative is hybrid seeds, in which the seeds are harvested from a plant pollinated by a plant of a different species. "The one big negative is that hybrid seeds do not produce true reproductions of the mother plants. This makes buying new seed every year a necessary, expensive, and for someone who wants to become self-reliant, a dangerous practice."²

This is great for seed sellers that want to resell their seeds year after year. Abbondanza is more interested in creating self sustaining gardeners in its community and preserving high quality local species than in generating large profits. Hence their open-pollinated philosophy.

Why were we pulling the carrots again? Because they planted two varieties of carrots in the field over the winter. In order to keep the varieties from crossing with each other, they have to separate them. So in a few weeks, they'll put the carrots we pulled into the other farm and later in the summer, they'll harvest their seeds.

So no carrots for us, or so we thought... In one row, about 90% of carrots had their tops eaten off by geese from a nearby pond. Without tops, carrots can't go to seed. But they're still edible! As we searched for the few remaining intact carrots, each of us hoarded as many half eaten carrots as we could hold.

I've been making carrot cake, carrot salad, and anything else carrot I can think of ever since. There is something really cool about being able to eat for a week from 1) food that I shared with a goose and 2) food that was going to be left in the ground to rot. As you might guess, I'm no gardener or this wouldn't be such a novelty.

All in all, it was a fun day. I met some interesting people, learned a lot about my CSA, carrots and seeds. And went home with not just carrots... we were all allowed to raid the stash of root vegetables that weren't fit for sale last fall. So now I have a whole new load of potatoes. Just when I was starting to crave them again.

And in an interesting twist, the walk-in cooler at the farm is a weekly pick up site for Windsor Dairy, the raw milk dairy I've been interested in. I love seeing how all of these things are connected. It almost makes me feel like I live in a ... what's the word... community.

¹http://www.victoryseeds.com/information/glossary.html#open-pollinated%20seed
²http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/clay56.html

Colorado Sourdough from Scratch

Today was attempt #2 at using my sourdough starter to actually make bread. As much as I love tending to it and seeing it grow, I'm not looking for a new pet - it's time to put it to use.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was trying that very day to make my first ever sourdough bread. Many, many hours later, my "boules" were about as risen and tender as slightly misshapen softballs. Yumm. I decided not to waste the electricity to bake them - there was no hope.

What went wrong?

The recipe I used was suggested as the easiest one to start with for new sourdough bakers in the King Arthur book -

Pain Au Levain with Whole Wheat.

• 1 c. (9 oz) ripe whole wheat levain - yes, I have that finally!!
• 1-2/3 c. (6-5/8 oz) whole wheat flour
• 2-2/3 c. (11-1/4 oz) unbleached bread flour
• 1-1/2 c. (12-oz) cool water
• 1 Tbs honey
• 2 tsp salt
  

I am not going to recount all of the steps in detail here as the recipe is actually FIVE pages long with a few extra sidebars on other pages. If anyone is interested, let me know, and I can provide more detail.

Actually the recipe wasn't hard - easy steps with short risings in between, followed by one long rising. So I was surprised that my dough was so leaden.

After thinking back on each step in the process, I had an idea for what the problem might be. This recipe is a little unlike other yeast recipes I've used in that it suggests that you add all of the flour and water to your rising agent in the first step, stir it slowly and then let it sit for 20 minutes. This step is called an autolyse and is apparently quite important.

Heartland Mill, supplier of organic grain products, says, "This pre-hydration allows for better links between gluten and starches and results in shorter mix times and improved dough extensibility. Loaves made with autolysed dough will be easier to shape and will have more volume and better crumb structure."

In other recipes I've used, which don't happen to have this step, when the flour is added to the liquid, you only start with about two thirds of it. The remaining flour is added during the kneading process so that you can judge whether or not it is necessary.

Well, being a bit baffled by the autolyse step, I thought I'd better just follow the instructions and added all of the flour.

And this, I think, was the problem. Colorado is extremely dry, which makes the flour here extremely dry. The drier your flour, the more liquid it will need. When making bread, your liquid amount is predetermined, so all you can do to get the right balance is use less flour. When I make yeast bread, I typically add about 1/2 to 1 c. less flour than suggested for a two loaf recipe.

Rather than pay attention to this previously observed pattern, I just dumped in all of the flour. As soon as I began the first kneading step, I sensed a problem.

Whole wheat bread dough is extremely wet and sticky to knead, which is quite different than white bread dough. After a good kneading period and the right amount of flour, a white bread dough will feel smooth, warm and elastic - maybe a little tacky, but definitely not sticky. Whole wheat dough will feel elastic, but it will be much more sticky. If you add enough flour to whole wheat dough to make it smooth, the dough will be so heavy that the yeast won't be strong enough to make it rise.

And that was my problem... my dough felt exactly like white bread dough.

So today I started over, which brings us to the present...

Man, this bread takes a long time to make. I am not kidding, here are (roughly) the steps:

• Mix the starter, water and flour slowly.
  
• Let rest for 20 minutes
• Add salt and honey, knead for a few minutes
• Let rise for 45 minutes
• Put dough on floured surface, spread into a rectangle, fold up like a letter, twice, put back in bowl.
• Let rise for 45 minutes
• Repeat folding step
• Rise for, surprise, surprise, 45 minutes
• Turn onto surface, divide in two, draw up edges and pinch together
• Let rest for 20 minutes
• Shape into boules (long, long explanation here which I don't really understand, basically I ... shaped them into taught rounds)
• Put into bowls or baskets lined with heavily (didn't do it heavily enough!) floured, smooth tea towels and cover
• Let rise for 2 to 2-1/2 hours
• During rise, preheat oven to 450⁰ for half hour with baking stone on middle rack and iron skillet on bottom rack
• Bake loaves on stone for 10 minutes at 450⁰, then 20-30 minutes at 425⁰. When putting loaves in the oven, put 1/2 c. water into iron skillet to create steam, which makes the crust crispy.
  

The only modification I made was to hold back about 3 oz of the bread flour from the first step. As it turns out, I never needed to add it back. The dough seemed to fit the description pretty well from thereon out.

How did it turn out? ... It was everything I hoped for: chewy, tender, crusty, and with the extra flavor of a whole wheat loaf.

So ... living in a town with great artisan bread available, was it worth it all the effort? It tasted quite similar to expensive breads I've bought. The one extra characteristic I noticed was that it tasted fresher. I don't know why, given that any bakery bread I'd buy around here would have been baked that morning, but my husband and I both agreed that it definitely tasted fresher. And it's pretty cool that I made the whole thing using flour, water, honey and salt.

Notice that in the picture, the loaf is half eaten. That picture was taken about 3 minutes after we cut into the first loaf. That might give you an idea of how it tasted. So at this point, I'm thinking I'll keep my little pet around for awhile.

Find a CSA near you

If you haven't heard the term CSA before, now is a good time to learn a little about it, because the summer sign-ups are starting.

If you have, then don't worry, I'll keep this short.

In my own words, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a way that members of a community can join together to support a farm and its farmer(s) and reap its benefits. The farms draw members from a small local area. They usually ask for a lump sum payment from each member at the beginning of the season (and sometimes even a few days of labor) for the purpose of supporting the farm and its workers through that season, and in return, distribute their wares to each member in installments. When you buy a CSA share, that is really what you are buying ... a share, as opposed to a regular guaranteed delivery of vegetables. If the farm has a little trouble due to weather, you'll get less of a share; if the veggies are great that year, you'll get a little more.

Having said all that, there are thousands of CSAs in the US, operating on many different models and for many different types of farms, including everything from veggies, fruit, flowers to coffee, bread, milk and meat.

What is the motive behind all of this? To build a network of local, small scale, non-industrial farms in your area. These farms will supply you with healthier, often organic, food that is grown in your own backyard rather than being trucked in from thousands of miles away. Long term, you're guaranteeing that this supply will be around because by giving a guaranteed payment to a farm at the beginning of the season, they'll become more stable than if they were to strictly sell produce at farmer's markets, especially in a problematic season. And an additional bonus is that you're supporting your local economy.

Believe it or not, the USDA estimated based on data collected that in 2007 there were 12,459 farms in the US selling through a CSA arrangement¹. This movement is growing. Maybe someday it will actually be more common to buy food locally than from the supermarket.

A few resources - The USDA has an interesting older article on the origin of CSAs as well as many up to date references and Local Harvest is a great website for finding a CSA near you.

So which CSA did we go with? If you've been reading this blog, you can guess that we are in awe of the veggies from Abbondanza. We did a fall CSA with them last year and had great luck - beautiful, delicious produce and a lot of it. It is $650 for 22 weeks.

But I don't think we can expect that this will always be the case. Our summer experience wasn't quite as good. We joined a different farm, that I'd prefer not to mention. Maybe we just weren't in the right mindset (which is why I'd rather withhold their name). It's hard not to look at the price you're paying per week, especially when you've just picked up chard and pea shoots for the 3rd week in a row and compare it to the price you'd pay at the supermarket for a week's worth of veg. It's hard to remind yourself that you're not in it for the deal - you're in it for building a long term, sustainable food supply. I guess what we objected to was the selection of produce grown - either Colorado produce takes some getting used to or they grew weird stuff.

Having said all that, I'm very excited for this year. Even if it turns out exactly the same as last year, I'll have a better idea of what to expect and what to do with the food. (Put the chard in the trade basket!)

In fact, this summer I plan to feature a vegetable of the week centered around what I got in my pickup. It'll all be very exciting!

So, in summary- join a CSA and do it now, they fill up fast

Ok, one more thing... what is the deal with snap peas? Every CSA around here features them prominently. Last summer there were basket loads at every stand at the Farmer's Market (31 days!). People seem to refer to them in reverential tones. WHY? They are not nice at all. To me, they taste like sugar water in a fibrous green shell. Whereas fresh English peas are simply divine, seem to be growable around here, and are quite hard to find! Ok, rant over. Goodnight.

¹USDA website on Community Supported Agriculture

Eggsaustive Eggspose - The Final Chapter

Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for - the final installment of my series on finding and eating all natural eggs. This is where we put it all to the test - get the free range eggs, get the feel good factory eggs and compare how they cook and taste.

The contenders:

- Cyd's Nest Fresh Free Roaming Organic Brown: As discussed in the previous posts, this was the grocery store brand I chose based on a few factors. They're local, they use organic feed, the hens aren't caged, and while the chickens are pretty far from what many people would consider truly free range, at least they've gone to the effort to get certified by an independent organization as following humane practices.

- Jay Hill Farm's free range eggs: This nearby farm sells organic vegetables and free range eggs year round. I had a few email exchanges with Rowan of Jay Hill Farm regarding what free range actually means to them. Their chickens eat weeds and veggie scraps from their farm, commercial feed, non-organic due to affordability, but at least non-gmo, and whatever they can get outside. They roam around in a large enclosure from early in the morning until evening. She said that they tried letting them truly roam free in their fields, but there were too many predators around. I can believe that, as I live nearby and frequently have foxes in my backyard. So, while I was disappointed that their feed isn't organic, these chickens are probably leading contented lives and getting a substantial portion of greens and insects in their diet, which seems like a reasonable compromise.

The challenge:

• Poached - this most difficult cooking method would be a good test for comparing the freshness and firmness of the the two varieties
• Fried - this, the most delicious of all egg cooking methods, would allow me to taste both eggs at their best.

Quick diversion - frying an egg is easy right? That depends on who you ask. It seems easy, once you are practiced enough not to break the yolk, but achieving that elusive balance of crispiness and tenderness, softness of the yolk and firmness of the white is not easy. My husband pointed this out to me a few years ago. Pre-kid, we used to eat breakfast out every week or two. I liked to bounce around, trying different places, but he always wanted to go to this greasy place near our house called Marie's. It's been an establishment in Boulder since the 70s, I think. One day, I asked him what he saw in Marie, and he said, the fried eggs (always the same cook, not Marie) are better than anywhere else, in fact, they're always perfect. After a few years of paying more attention, I have to say I agree - Marie's makes perfect fried eggs.

You know who else does?

Not me. Mine aren't bad. They're passable to the untrained eater. But they don't have that je ne sais quoi thing going on.

It's my husband - the expert critic is also the expert chef. So I recruited him for the experiment. I poached, he fried.

Round 1 - Poaching:

I've decided to give my poaching method here because I've tried many different methods, only one of which works for me.

Bring 3 inches of water to a boil in a wide, deep saucier and then lower the temperature until the water is barely simmering. A saucepan will also work, but the flared edges of a saucier make getting the eggs in and out a little easier. A saute pan doesn't work because the eggs don't cook on top if the water isn't deep enough.

Add 1 Tbs. of white vinegar to the water.

Grease a ladle, then holding the ladle upright (I use my mouth to hold the ladle), crack the egg carefully into the ladle. Lower the ladle into the water, hold it without submerging for a few seconds until the egg white starts to color on the edges, then slip the egg gently into the water.

After about 4 minutes, remove the egg with a slotted spoon, tipping the spoon for a few seconds to drain off the water.

Season lightly with salt and pepper.

So how did it go? I don't know if there were about 10,000 stars aligned perfectly that night or what, but I made two perfect poached eggs, an unusual feat for me.

The whites of both held together tightly in the water, the yolks of both were incredibly rich in color. I did notice that the yolk of the free range egg was much bigger in proportion to the white than the other egg. When I first started cooking the Jay Hill egg, you can see that the white looked sloppier than the other egg, but it actually help together nicely.

Cyd's	Jay Hill

Round 2 - Frying:

So what is the secret method of my husband, egg snob and chef? I don't know exactly, as it's a tightly guarded secret. I have picked up a few clues though:

• Equipment: small, non-stick pan. Wide, flexible, silicone spatula.
• Olive oil for the fat.
• Cook mostly on one side without touching before turning.
• Low to medium low heat

As you can see from the pictures below, both eggs turned out nicely. By the second set of eggs, we knew we weren't imagining the larger yolk on the free range eggs - the difference is quite noticeable in these pictures.

Cyd's	Jay Hill

The decision:

Well, I am sad to say that after my exhaustive search for the perfect egg, and our carefully planned scientific experiment, I couldn't taste one bit of difference between the two eggs. In retrospect, I should have added a third contender - the cheapest factory eggs I could find - you know, 69 cents a dozen in a styrofoam container.

Ah well, they may taste the same, but I'm still going for the Jay Hill eggs for all of the other reasons I've discussed.

This may seem like an anti-climactic way to conclude my long, suspenseful series on finding the perfect egg in Boulder if it weren't for one thing... take a look at those pictures above. Those are some fine looking eggs, and we got to eat all of them for dinner.

Toothy Sprouted Wheat Bread

I am a bread lover. I pretty much love every kind of bread except for cheap, mass produced bread. I toggle between various favorites: Irish brown bread, meaty, tender French bread (it's not whole grain, but is irresistible), crusty, tangy, whole grain sourdough, sweet, multi-grain, seeded, artisan breads. We're pretty lucky actually, the selection of breads in Boulder is amazing. Udi's, BreadWorks, Whole Foods. Yet somehow I'm still always looking for the perfect loaf to make myself.

I don't even know exactly what I want. Actually, I guess I want it all. A thick, crunchy crust. A soft, chewy (what I call meaty) interior. The extra bite and nutrition of whole grain. Sometimes I like the tangy taste of sourdough, sometimes I want something milder.

Taking the whole grain idea to the extreme are the makers of sprouted wheat baked goods. And as I said in my last post, I LOVE sprouted wheat bagels and want to try to make them. Given that I had never worked with sprouted wheat before (or made bagels, for that matter), I thought I should start with an easy bread recipe.

Sandwich breads, which don't require an overnight starter, seem to be one of the easier yeast-leavened breads to make at home, and as all of the sprouted wheat bread recipes I found were of this variety, I thought this was a good place to start.

I had a few recipes to choose, from two different cookbooks: King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking and Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. I chose the recipe from the latter because the King Arthur's recipes had a larger set of ingredients - I thought the simpler the better. I also liked the Book of Breads' recipe because it uses 100% whole wheat flour. I don't often find completely whole grain recipes, so I was eager to try it.

I sprouted the grains for a total of three days - the recipe recommended 3-4, stopping when the sprout was the same length as the berry. I was a little confused as to how to decide this. From almost the first day, there was a very thin sprout (or two) emerging from the berry. By the third day, this sprout was longer than the berry on almost all berries. I also noticed that there was a thicker sprout coming out of some of the berries, which wasn't nearly as long as the berry yet. I wondered whether this wasn't actually the sprout that the recipe meant. I decided to ignore this and just use them after three days.

The recipe I used was a simple recipe consisting of mixing regular yeast with warm water, honey, brewer's yeast, oil and whole wheat flour. After letting this mixture double in size, the sprouts and the remainder of the flour are added and kneaded until the dough is smooth, stretchy and slightly sticky (as apparently whole wheat breads always remain stickier than white bread).

One thing I always find tricky about making bread is that I can never decide exactly when the dough has doubled in size (it'd be so much easier in a cylindrical bowl). I once took a cooking class in which they recommended that you are careful never to let bread risings go too long, as this can make the the air bubbles in the cooked bread irregular. Apparently this is especially a problem in Colorado because bread rises faster than at lower altitudes. Anyway, I thought that I had erred on the side of punching it down too early, but the texture ended up being fine.

I would say that the final product was a bit of a disappointment, but this could be because I'm expecting everything from one loaf...

The crust was pretty good for a sandwich loaf, and the whole grains added a nice flavor. The crumb (or texture of the air bubbles) was regular and soft.

I think I was disappointed for a few reasons. First, I guess I just don't like sandwich bread that much. It was crumbly and a bit dry after just a day or two, which often happens with homemade, obviously preservative free, bread. The more serious problem though was the star of the show - the sprouts. They were a tooth killer. I don't know if I should have waited for the thicker sprout to grow longer or what I could have done differently, but these sprouts were not right. Some of them were so hard they could have taken out a tooth.

Interestingly, both King Arthur's recipes called for grinding the sprouted berries in a food processor with some water and adding these at the beginning of the recipe rather than adding whole berries later in the process. I did a little more poking around, and it looks like most recipes call for grinding the sprouted berries. And my worry about the berries being hard because of not having sprouted long enough seems to be unfounded - all of the images I found show that my sprouts had grown enough, if not too much.

All in all, I'm still intrigued by the prospect of making sprouted wheat bagels, but I think I need to do a little more experimentation with sprouted wheat itself before I can hope to achieve the Alvarado pinnacle.

Incidentally, Alvarado Street has an FAQ in which they discuss the ingredients in their baked goods. Basically they sprout berries in water, drain and and grind them, adding fresh yeast, salt and honey or some other sweet ingredient. That sounds pretty simple, but almost too simple. I may have to try experimenting with this method next, although I have a feeling it will take a lot of attempts to go completely recipe free with success.

The Big Decision (Eggs Part 3)

Armed with the knowledge of how my egg laying hen should live and eat (see Eggs Parts 1 and 2), I now have to use this knowledge to make the healthiest and most ethical choice possible in purchasing eggs.

I had already decided that I would like to eat eggs from free range hens with a varied and natural diet, as opposed to commercial feed consisting of mostly corn, soy, animal by-products and vitamin and mineral supplements.

It seems I have two choices: the convenience of the super market paired with the compromise of an industrial product, or the inconvenience of finding something local paired with a more natural living standard.

First, the supermarket options. As you might guess, I generally opt for Whole Foods or something similar. There is a small local shop near me that carries a mix of organic and non-organic foods. Both carry a few different varieties of eggs, free-range, cage-free, etc.

After examining my options, of which there were may, I settled on the brand Cyd's Nest Fresh Organic Eggs. First, they're produced in Broomfield, Colorado, which is local. Second, they follow the Certified Humane standard, which I discussed in an earlier post. And third, their feed is 100% natural and organic. The free-roaming dozen is about $4.99.

I wanted to dig a little deeper and was able to find a wealth of information on their website, a good sign.

The hens' diet is 100% vegetarian, consisting primarily of corn, soybeans, limestone, alfalfa, vitamins and minerals. This diet is really not as diverse as I would like to see. As a fellow omnivore, I certainly couldn't survive on a diet of one grain, one grass, one legume and some supplements (actually, that's not really true - for many people, this is almost their exact diet, minus the alfalfa, as shown in Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma").

According to the certified humane standards, the animals have enough room to perform natural behaviors such as perching, stretching and dust-bathing. What I'm sure they don't have is enough access to the outdoors to forage for insects and grass. And as I mentioned in the earlier post, these standards allow for a small amount of beak trimming to "avoid heavy feather pecking and cannibalism." I'm really not sure what to think about this practice or the environment that would induce the hens to act in this manner.

Having discussed my reservations, I still think this company adheres to a higher standard than most others. I don't think I can expect to get anything closer to the way nature intended in a supermarket... after all, Cyd's has to make a profit.

What about the other option, local, pastured eggs?

It turns out that these aren't that easy to find.

Last summer at the Boulder Farmer's Market (opens in 45 days, yay!), I asked the only poultry/egg stand, Wisdom's Natural Poultry. Their feed and practices, as discussed with me then and also explained on their website, seem identical to Cyd's, although it is nice to get to talk to a person about it rather than just reading a website. Hmm, that's not quite what I was looking for and definitely less convenient than Whole Foods.

Then about a month ago, I was out with a friend talking about this topic, and she mentioned that there is a small farm near me that sells completely free range eggs, Jay Hill Farm. I looked on their website, and sure enough, this is a tiny farm that sells local produce and free-range eggs. They don't have a lot of info on the chickens, except that their blog mentions a few times that they let the chickens out at 6:30 am.

I was a little confused by the purchasing process - you order online the night before and go pick up the eggs in a fridge down a driveway? I thought I'd better call. Well, I was thrilled, I got to talk to the farmer, Rowan, in person, and found out that they even sell green-house grown veggies all winter long. I couldn't believe it. I was so excited, that I forgot to ask about what the chickens eat and how much space they have outside for foraging. I've sent her an email though - I'll give an update when I hear back.

I placed an order online, and the next day I picked up my eggs and veggies from the fridge, money left in a Tupperware in the fridge. There were a lot of positives to this - very local, small scale, free-range, no waste (just return the carton next time), winter veggies, and 50c cheaper than Cyd's at the supermarket. The only downsides are that I keep forgetting to place my second order, and it is a few miles out of the way on my drive home, which is less convenient for the supermarket.

Actually, as I scoured the Internet, I was surprised to find many small farms like this with similar arrangements (call the night before, pick up eggs in the fridge). It seems that if you search, you really can find pastured eggs.

This still doesn't answer the final question... are the eggs really any different? Do they taste or cook differently? Stay tuned next time when I'll feature my first guest chef - my husband. Ok, so he's not really a guest, but his eggs earn him the title of egg chef in any house.

Eating Beef Ethically

I've struggled for years with the decision of whether or not to eat meat. I first started questioning this when I lived in England about 15 years ago, which was when the BSE scandal broke in the news. I had no idea what cows were fed or what they were supposed to eat or what offal was. I decided, without much information, that maybe it was a good idea to eat less meat in general and eat no red meat.

Since then I really haven't eaten much meat, but I also have never quite managed to give it up. I don't think there is anything ethically wrong with eating meat, after all, we've evolved to eat it at least once in a while. But I wasn't comfortable with the idea of animals crammed into small cages or pens, living crappy lives and then being killed.

As the years went by, I couldn't come to a decision I could live with, so it just seemed easier to eat less and less meat.

Then I read Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. This book follows the creation of four meals from their source to their ultimate destination, his dinner plate.

The first meal chronicled is a McDonald's Big Mac, Soda and Fries, which obviously contains cheap beef, butchered from cows raised in feedlots. The sad story of these cows is worse than I could have imagined.

There is the obvious fact that they are crammed into tiny lots, which is far different from the grazing, roaming lifestyle for which they have evolved.

Then there is the environmental impact. A tremendous amount of chemicals and fossil fuels are used in creating their feed; not a very good ROI for the amount of beef produced. And on the other end is their waste. There is so much of it in such a small space and it contains so many contaminants that it can't be used as fertilizer; it seems that it becomes almost like toxic waste.

You could talk yourself out of caring about those two things, I suppose, because they don't have a direct impact on you. But what they eat... now that does, because ultimately it goes into my body. So what do they eat? Well, it's not grass, that's for sure

1. Type two corn - Why? "Cows fed corn, a compact source of caloric energy, get fat quickly .. Yet this corn-fed meat is demonstrably less healthy for us, since it contains more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than the meat of animals fed grass."¹


2. Antibiotics Rumensin and Tylosin - for two reasons. First, the close quarters in which the cows live causes higher rates of disease. Second, corn raises the acid level in a cows stomach, causing a painful disease called acidosis.


3. Liquid vitamins (because the corn has no nutrients) and synthetic estrogen (to grow faster)


4. Alfalfa hay and silage (for roughage)


5. Liquefied fat - Anything from Beef tallow, feather meal and chicken litter, to chicken, fish and pig meal. Obviously cattle have evolved to be herbivores rather than carnivores, so this is a strange distortion of the food chain. BSE is a good example of what can happen when rendered animals are fed to each other.


6. Protein supplement - molasses and urea. "Urea is a form of synthetic nitrogen made from natural gas, similar to fertilizer."¹ Yum!

Suffice it to say, I was pretty grossed out after reading this book. I definitely do not want that stuff going into my body. I vowed from that time to never eat feedlot beef again, which so far I've stuck to for about a year.

But after reading this book, I was convinced that I could feel comfortable eating beef from cattle that are grow completely open range and fed nothing but grass. In Colorado this actually isn't so hard. There is a growing number of ranches and farms that sell 100% grass fed beef, commonly referred to as pastured beef. Note that grass fed beef is not the same as 100% grass fed beef, as even feedlot cattle live free range for the first few months of their life.

We've been ordering beef from a ranch out in eastern Colorado, Sun Prairie Beef. They deliver to the Denver area twice a year, at about seven designated pick-up sites. We get their smallest quantity: a 25 pound variety pack for $175. Because we only eat beef about once a week, this lasts us for six months until the next delivery.

Many people complain that pastured beef is dry and tough because it has much lower fat content. I'll say that since I haven't been eating beef prior to now, I don't have any basis for comparison, but we definitely like what we've been cooking. We do tend to only cook everything to medium rare - a common recommendation for pastured beef. I just don't worry about things like E-Coli because I don't see how a cow out on the range could pick it up.

There is a great website with lots of information about eating grass fed beef and other sustainable, all natural foods. It includes lists of sources by state for all over the US.

¹ Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: a natural history of four meals (New York: Penguin Group, 2006).