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.

Why Pay for Muesli

I'm a sucker for grains, any kind - fresh baked bread, whole wheat pasta, sprouted wheat bagels, oatmeal cookies... and one of the foods I particularly love is muesli. I never miss breakfast, and nothing starts the day better than a nice mix of rolled oats, wheat germ and some dried fruits, drenched in thirst quenching whole milk. A bowl of muesli can't be beat for good taste and filling you up.

But there are a few things that bug me about buying pre-made muesli: it always seems overpriced, it never has exactly what I want, and it's usually too sweet.

Overpriced - $5-$6 per pound (approximately) seems like too much to pay for the amount that I go through. I know it has dried fruit in it, which is expensive, but it's mostly just rolled oats, which aren't expensive.

What do I want? - Not sunflower seeds. Blech. There aren't too many foods I dislike, but that is one of them. Ideally, I'd like a muesli with lots of fruit and a mixture of grains and seeds to make it more interesting and nutritionally diverse than just rolled oats and raisins.

Given these complaints, I decided I should just make my own. After all, it's just mixed up dried ingredients. What could go wrong? Well, for once, nothing actually. It had exactly what I wanted, and I mixed it up in about 2 minutes. As a bonus, my son liked it too, expanding his repertoire of wheetabix, yogurt and berries to include one more item.

I didn't include a picture here because it looks exactly as it sounds - like a bowl of rolled oats, dried fruit and a few other extras. My photography isn't good enough to make that look any better than a pile of stuff. But it did taste pretty good, so you might want to give it a try.

What was in the cupboard Muesli

• 1 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. rolled rye flakes
• 1/4 c. wheat germ
• 2 Tbs. wheat bran
• 1 Tbs. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. raisins, roughly chopped (if I don't chop them, my son picks them out and eats nothing else)
  
• 10 dried apricots, sliced thin, then chopped (see raisins)
• 1/4 c. pecans, roughly chopped
• 2 Tbs. unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 Tbs. flax seeds

Raw Milk - Will it really make me sick?

I know that I've been slacking the last few weeks. When I began this blog, I swore up and down that I'd post every two nights, but I got to feeling like that was too frequent. I was wearing out my four readers with the overload of fascinating information I was pulling together. So I decided to go down to three. That worked for a few weeks... But, you see, I have a lot going on right now, and this week I actually went four days without posting (gasp!) SO... hoping to recapture my lost reader, I'm going for the gusto, I'm finally going to resume discussing my agonizing dilemma over whether or not to get a raw milk share (see Where to Start Looking for Raw Milk).

Why, you might ask, did I wait so long? I do have a good excuse. There is so much information out there on this topic, that I couldn't figure out how to assemble it. I've read presentations, infectious disease articles, FDA warnings, watched California senate debates, and after all of this, I still can't make my mind up.

But I do feel that I've boiled it down to a few key questions...

Does raw milk carry more dangerous pathogens than pasteurized milk?

How this question has been answered is actually quite interesting in itself. The pro-raw milk articles I've read point out that in the numerous tests that have been done comparing pathogen levels of raw and pasteurized milk, the milk is usually compared from the same source.

In fact, in one study, the cows' udders were injected with bacteria to see if the bacteria was passed into the milk, which it was (shoot, sorry, I can't find my reference on this - but I know I read it somewhere). This sounds like a logical test, except that it only tells us one thing - milk with a high pathogen level will have a reduced pathogen level after pasteurization.

What if the pathogen level of the milk isn't high to begin with? What I'm getting at is, have any studies been done examining the pathogen levels of milk from pastured, grass fed cows? None that I could find, unfortunately. I am trying to be unbiased here, but I do strongly believe that cows raised on grass and fresh air are going to be infinitely healthier than industrial dairy cows crammed together in a building eating corn meal and antibiotics. Healthier cows probably produce cleaner milk. For instance, "Vitamin E and selenium improve immune cell function and allow proper closing of the streak canal after milking, the canal through which pathogens generally infect the mammary gland ... Vitamin E intakes of lactating cows on pasture can be four to five times higher than the average intake in the United States"^

If the cow tested in the previously mentioned study is a healthy pastured cow that does indeed deliver infected milk after her udder is injected with bacteria, but is otherwise uninfected, what does the study prove?

A more relevant study would probably be to test the infection rates of raw milk in pastured cows.

A follow-up question I have is how clean does pasteurized milk stay after pasteurization? I'm curious as to whether killing off all bacteria in milk is really a good thing - couldn't we be creating the perfect environment in which bacteria that survives pasteurization or finds its way into the milk could thrive, similar to the Superbug effect that the overuse of antibiotics has caused in humans? Statistics on rates of disease caused by pasteurized versus raw milk would probably help answer this question. So...

Is the risk of getting sick higher with raw or pasteurized milk?

Here are some interesting statistics from the Weston A. Price article, RESPONSE TO ANTI-RAW MILK ARTICLE Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, January 2009

Statistics from the FDA attribute a 25 fold decrease in the % of foodborne illnesses due to milk since 1938 to pasteurization, but the source of the improvement cannot be isolated as states adopted many other cleanliness standards at the same time as they adopted the pasteurization standard.

"Although there were fewer outbreaks attributed to pasteurized milk than to raw milk between 1980 and 2005 (the years for which the CDC has data available in both categories), those outbreaks attributed to pasteurized milk were larger, and there were therefore nearly eleven times as many illnesses attributed to pasteurized milk as there were to raw milk."

"According to certified information the CDC has provided to us, between 1980 and 2005 there were 41 documented outbreaks attributing 19,531 illnesses to the consumption of pasteurized milk and milk products."

These numbers bring up a strong point in favor of eating local milk, pasteurized or not. Listening to the news the last few years, I can think of so many stories related to massive disease outbreaks attributed to one initial source: spinach, tomatoes, peanuts. These infections were probably not widespread to start with, but there seems to be so much consolidation in the food industry that a small outbreak can reach many, many people. This phenomenon would explain why even if pasteurized milk is safer than raw milk, the fact that it is usually produced on a large scale by industrial dairies means that it has the potential to infect many, many more people. A local dairy has a much smaller sphere of influence.

I felt that The Infectious Diseases article being rebuked by the stats just above, Unpasteurized Milk: A Continued Public Health Threat, did not seem very objective. It seemed to me to throw out common raw milk scare tactics, salmonella, E. Coli, Listeria, without discussing them in very scientific terms. Here is an example of one study:

"An overwhelming majority of dairy producers feel responsible for the safety and wholesomeness of the food products that leave their farms. Good animal health and hygienic conditions on the farm are important for the welfare of the animals and the profitability of the producers, as well as for the quality and wholesomeness of the raw food products leaving the farms for human consumption. Nevertheless, many dairy producers are unaware of the zoonotic potential of the most common bacterial contaminants in milk. In a recent mail‐based survey of 461 Ohio dairy farm respondants, 36% did not think Salmonella species caused disease in humans. Likewise, 81%, 88%, and 91% of farmers indicated that Listeria, Cryptosporidium, and Campylobacter species, respectively, were not associated with disease in humans (J.T.L., unpublished data)."

I'm sorry, but I do not find that to be a particularly compelling statistic. I can see why we would like a dairy farmer to understand the link between food poisoning and the hygiene standards he or she follows, but I'd bet there are plenty of passionate, humane, clean dairy farmers that don't.

I have primarily referenced two articles above, but I did read a few more, and felt that the two sides of the argument were roughly the same.

To me the core of the debate seems to be this

• Pasteurized milk probably does kill some dangerous bacteria. Does this benefit last until the milk reaches your table, or is there potential for subsequent infection due to the now nearly sterile environment created by pasteurization?
• Has pasteurization actually made milk safer, or is it just part of a general improvement in industrial dairy cleanliness standards?
• Is milk from cows raised on pasture safer than milk from industrial cows, regardless of pasteurization?
• If raw milk has a higher potential for infection, but pasteurized milk infections reach more people, from a statistical point of view, which one is really safer?

Given the one-sidedness of the articles I read, I don't feel like any of these questions were truly addressed. I've come away from this feeling like it's a complex question that every person has the right to answer for themselves.

For my part, I've made up my mind that if I am to drink raw milk, it will have to come from cows that are 100% grass fed and free range. I believe this gives me the best chance of avoiding the higher infection risk of raw milk, if indeed there is one. This means that I'll probably need to check it out myself to be sure.

Next question,

Is raw milk more nutritionally complete than pasteurized milk?

Phew, more on this another time.

The Endless Value of Vermouth

In the midst of making potato leek soup for tonight's dinner, I tried to get a little clever and do the dishes before instead of after dinner. Silly me... I lost track of time and realized a little too late that the heat under my gently sweating diced potatoes, leeks and onions was set too high.

There was a slightly burnt layer on the bottom of the pan. It didn't smell bad yet, but I knew that if I didn't get it off it would become charcoal because the soup had some time left to cook. I tried scraping them off but no dice. Stuck.

That's when I turned to my trusty friend dry white vermouth. As I poured in a 1/4 cup or so (maybe a little more), I realized that this incredibly useful trick might be worth sharing...

Deglazing is a common technique - splash a small amount of cold liquid into a hot, caramelized saute pan. I don't understand the chemistry, but this causes the crust on the pan to temporarily soften so that you can rub it with a wooden spoon causing it to dissolve into the liquid. Any cold liquid can be used to deglaze, but I've found that alcohol works best. Let most of this liquid burn off, then add the main liquid for whatever you're making.

Dissolving the caramelized meat, veggies or spices that were cooking in the pan adds a tremendous rich flavor to your dish that you just won't get if you add all the liquid to the pan at once. As a nice bonus, the reduced alcohol adds complexity to the dish as well.

After practicing this technique in a few recipes, I've gone crazy and started using it every time I saute or roast something in the oven, whether the recipe calls for it or not, and always with good results.

A few general guidelines. Try using it in soups, stews, sauces, gravies or stir fries. Vermouth works well in poultry, or seafood, as well as white sauce based dishes. For heavier dishes, specifically ones containing red meat or tomatoes, red wine or sherry works well.

What's even better about this trick is that vermouth and sherry are quite cheap, and because they don't taste good on their own, they're easy to keep stocked - there is absolutely no temptation to sneak some as an aperitif.

So next time you're in danger of burning up your dinner, give it a try!

Here's a much more eloquent explanation of deglazing and making a pan sauce from the Los Angeles Times.

Exploring the Term Organic

Just wanted to point out an interesting article in today's New York Times by Mark Bittman. In it he discusses the difference between eating certified organic and eating "real" food and why being organic doesn't necessarily equate to being healthy or environmentally friendly. He does a nice job in a short space of summarizing a few of the issues that are causing people to rethink industrially produced food, organic or not, although as he points out, unfortunately not enough people are rethinking it yet.

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