I'm stuffed! Please, no more food.

This holiday season has been one of the busiest I've ever had. With my families, my boyfriend's families, and friends' dinner parties, we had five (count them - five) Thanksgivings to go to this year. Add to the frantic schedule the fact that I didn't have much left over from my trip to the farmer's market last week, and you've got yourself a sticky situation. How could I make a large enough side dish with the little I had for even one of these parties? Reluctantly, I settled on making a late lunch this Sunday for Paul and myself. I had purchased a couple round cuts of beef at the market, eggs, and a couple heads of cabbage, so I could at least do that.

A round cut of beef is notoriously tough - so much so that people usually use it to make jerky! Alas, I didn't have enough to make tasty strips of portable meat, so I settled on making the meat as tender as possible. The following are my gentle instructions for beating the crap out of tough meat: After letting it thaw overnight, cut the meat on both sides with a criss-cross pattern; it should look sort of like a tic-tac-toe table. This maximizes the surface area so that the marinade can get to as much of the meat as possible. Then use a tenderizer (gee, I wonder where it got its name?) to beat the meat into submission. Not too hard, though - you don't want it to be too thin - but a short/light-handed beating will help, well, tenderize it. Marinate it in a concoction of soy sauce, lemon juice, pepper, garlic, and pineapple juice for at least six hours (I did mine overnight). When you're ready to eat, broil the meat for a minute or two on each side, and it's done! I served mine with a sunny-side up egg on top, and the meat was tender and juicy and flavorful. Nothing like a filet, but tasty nonetheless. :) On the side, we had a simple vinegar coleslaw. Here's the recipe:

Two heads of cabbage (make them two different colors to jazz it up a bit)
One large carrot
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. mustard seed
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

Shred vegetables and mix them together in a bowl. Combine all other ingredients in a separate bowl; pour over vegetable mixture. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.

Dark Days: Week One

I know that it's only the first week of a very, very long challenge, but so far it's been relatively easy to obtain local food in my area. It seems that locavores in Kansas City are blessed with a winter farmer's market. I knew we had multiple summer markets, but winter?? It's too awesome to be true. Eggs, beef, lamb, end-of-season vegetables, greenhouse vegetables and more - all from different vendors, all under one roof. I purchased a dozen eggs and a basket of greenhouse tomatoes from a lovely woman with her own bit of land, some beautiful white radishes and arugula from a backyard garden, two small steaks from grass-finished cattle, and a couple heads of cabbage with which I plan to make cole slaw at some point. Everyone was so friendly as the crowd slowly packed its way into the room. I had a wonderful conversation on how to correctly prepare mustard greens. :)

This week, I settled on a local breakfast. I figured it would be a nice way to start my day. I wish I had a camera - I would provide pictures of how I used my bounty. It's broken, though, so you'll have to make due. I know you'll manage somehow. ;) I started by wilting some roughly chopped arugula in butter. As soon as it had turned that vivid Christmas green, I added the eggs, beaten with a bit of milk (also from a local Missouri farm). As they were just starting to firm up, I added bits of tomato. Salt, pepper, and some rooster sauce (none local) topped it all off. With it we had toast slathered with local clover-flavored honey.

As the months progress, I expect that meals will get more and more challenging, especially since I haven't saved anything from the summer. I'm grateful that there will be a local market open through at least part of this challenge, though. I'm glad to have the support system!

Why I am a Locavore: Part II

As you all remember from my first post in this series, the primary reason why I consider myself a locavore is nutrition. Local foods are simply bred more for their nutrients (and thus taste) than their industrialized counterparts. But there are also many other reasons why I have chosen this lifestyle. I'll try and limit this post to a single issue, with others to follow in the weeks to come.

What is my second biggest reason for choosing local food? Animal cruelty. It's a broad topic, so to narrow it down let's consider a single animal: The cow. The life of a typical industrial cow and that of a slow food cow are remarkably similar in their first six months of life: Both are born on wide-open prairies and raised on a nutritionally sound diet of their mothers' milk and, later, grass. At this point, though, they each take two very different paths. At six months, the industrial cow is shipped off to a feed lot, where for the next several months she is fed a diet of corn, grain and nondescript protein additives (from soy or, horrifyingly, ground up cattle/chickens). Ever wonder just why cattle so desperately need antibiotics today? This diet is the very reason. Since they never evolved to eat grain, it makes them extremely sick. They tend to develop a slimy layer of film across the liquid in their rumen (first stomach), which makes it hard to expel gas. Thus, they require a constant dose of antibiotics to stay "healthy" - if that word is even appropriate here. In extreme cases, the gas trapped in their rumens expands to such a degree that it is pushed up against their lungs and they literally suffocate.

A grass-finished cow, on the other hand, is eating exactly what she is supposed to eat where she is supposed to eat it. She lives longer, since it takes years for cattle to fully mature on grass. (Timeframe is one of the major reasons why cattle are fed corn - they are ready for slaughter several years ahead of their grass-fed brethren.) She is antibiotic and hormone free, since there is no need to protect against disease when cattle are naturally healthy. Furthermore, grass-fed cattle tend to contribute to large-scale poly-culture farms. The cattle come in and graze the grass; they leave behind cow patties, which fertilize the soil; the chickens come in afterwards and eat the larvae that grow in them, providing a natural curb on the insect population and a huge boost of protein to the chickens' diets; their eggshells are thus thicker and the yolks are a beautiful orange because of it. When the grass is ready again, the cattle come through once more and the cycle starts all over again. When they are finally ready to be eaten, their meat is significantly lower in bad fats since they spent years wandering around fields and eating healthy grass. It's also significantly higher in nutrients, like B vitamins.

Imagine that: What's good for the land is what's good for the animals, which is what's good for us. What more could we ask for?

The Tale of Pelops

For those who are scratching their heads and wondering aloud, "What in the world is a Pelops? And how exactly do you prepare it??" I offer a tale of mischief and woe that doesn't involve any actual food at all. (Can you tell that I'm trying to heighten the dramatic effect?)

Our story begins in the legends of ancient Greece - specifically, some time in the Iron Age. Around that time, Pelops was born to a king within Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) named Tantalus. Tantalus was a skilled chef and cultured epicurean. Those who tasted his cooking exclaimed that it could be a feast for the gods. Eventually, these gleeful cries of delight floated up, up to Mount Olympus, where the ever-curious and constantly meddling gods overheard them. Intrigued by the possibility of a meal more succulent than ambrosia, they ordered Tantalus to prepare for them his finest meal. Panicked by the very real possibility that he could disappoint them, he began scheming - and soon came up with an idea for a very special stew. He would slice up his son, Pelops, boil him with all the typical vegetable additives, and serve it as his Perfect Feast.

The gods, of course, caught on to his plot and restored Pelops to life, albeit sans his left shoulder, which was replaced with sculpted gold. (Poor Demeter, distraught over the loss of her daughter Persephone, had absentmindedly eaten it before she could be stopped.) The gods banished Tantalus to Hades, and even though he stands in a pool of water and grapes hang over his head, he is cursed with constant thirst and starvation. For when he bends down to take a drink, the water recedes; when he reaches to pick a grape, they coyly move just beyond his grasp. Pelops, meanwhile, moved to a district in Greece,* married a princess, had close to a dozen children and lived well until his death.

I suppose the original meaning of the parable was something about cannibalism, but I suggest that it also has a more relevant meaning for our current society. Perhaps we are all feasting on Pelops now - no, not our sons and daughters (ewwww), but instead our cheap, processed, efficiency obsessed, additive laden semi-food. Food for thought, I suppose. And a mythology lesson to boot! :)

*For those of us that are history geeks, you may note that this story never really took place in Greece at all; it occurred in some other kingdom, probably that of the Phrygians. It does occur where modern Greece is now, though.

Dark Days Challenge '08 - '09

I spend a lot of time tooling around on the Internet - a lot. I browse Google Finance, online news sources, blogs about chickens / gardening / eating local, webcomics, etc. While completing my allotted tooling-around time a week or two ago, I came across this wonderful blog: Urban Hennery (which is, now, a not so Urban Hennery since the blogger has moved to a small farm outside the city). It combines information about eating locally, gardening, cooking, and raising chickens - so, of course, it's perfect reading in my opinion. If you are at all interested in the aforementioned subjects, I highly suggest that you check it out.

And when you do, head over to the Dark Days 08 - 09 Tab at the top of the website. It details the annual challenge to eat at least one local meal a week during the winter - no small task when it regularly freezes in your neck of the woods. I've decided to participate, and hopefully I'll discover some interesting ways to eat local in the cold, dark, and wet Midwestern winter. I've decided on some personal rules for this challenge, sort of a pre-New Year's Eve resolution:

1. For the purpose of this challenge, local food is grown/raised within a 200 mile radius. I probably won't have to go that far, but I'd like to give myself as much room as possible this winter, since it's much harder to eat locally between growing seasons. I'll keep you updated on how far I actually have to drive to get my local meal.
2. Even on days when I am not eating local food, I will still cook my own meals. It's been difficult lately to do so, what with the two jobs and the twelve hour work days. Cooking in bulk will help, though (not to mention be nicer to my budget).
3. These meals will be mostly plant-based. While I am certainly not a vegetarian, I have come to the conclusion that meat is a treat, not a staple of our diet.
4. That being said, if my weekly local meal features delicious grass-fed lamb or cattle this winter, I'll be ecstatic. Honestly, how could I not? My mouth waters at the thought.

That's pretty much it! Check in later this week for an update about my first local meal of the winter.

I'm-a-Dirty-Hippie Bread

Since I claimed in the previous post that baking from-scratch bread at home is as easy as 1-2-3, I thought I would prove it and share one of my favorite recipes. I call it my Dirty Hippie Bread, because it's filled with whole wheat and nuts and molasses and other healthy stuff. Hardy stuff, for sure - one slice of this bread almost fills you up like it's the entire meal! Perfect for dipping in soup or with eggs in the morning, it's definitely versatile and oh-so yummy!

Dirty Hippie Bread
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
1/2 cup warm water
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 tablespoons active dry yeast

Stir together the 1/2 cup water and applesauce in a small bowl. Dissolve the yeast in the mixture, let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes.

3 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten

Pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl containing the warm water, honey, molasses, vegetable oil, lemon juice, and eggs; stir together to combine well.

10 cups sifted whole wheat flour
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 cup quick cooking oats
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
3/4 cup cracked wheat
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1 tablespoon sea salt

In a separate bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, flax seed, oats, sunflower seeds, cracked wheat, raisins, and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the yeast mixture until a smooth dough forms. The original recipe suggested that kneading is necessary here, but I doubt that's possible with how gooey the dough is. Just work it in the bowl for a few minutes, and then let it rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Lightly grease three 9x5 inch loaf pans. Punch down dough, shape into loaves, and place in the pans. Allow to rise in pans until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until the loaves sound hollow when removed from the pan and tapped on the bottom.

'Mommy, what's a locavore?'

If only more children were asking that question - maybe then we wouldn't be seeing skyrocketing 'adult-onset' diabetes and obesity in our children today. Here's why:

First, a definition: A locavore (think 'omnivore') is a person that refuses to partake in the industrial agriculture system, prefering instead to gather in-season food from local producers - many times even directly from the farmers themselves. These locavores are not only supporting their local economy; they are also more efficiently supporting the nutritional requirements of their bodies. Think about it. The industrialized tomato is bred for durability, quantity and looks - we've lost the taste of tomato, receiving in return an unbruisable, odorless, and bland... bushel of what, exactly? It's also picked weeks before it's even ripe. Has it had the time to obtain all of the nutritional goodness it can from the soil? Unfortunately, no. You might as well eat sawdust.

Since local food is bred for taste, as well as allowed to ripen on the vine instead of in semis moving at 70 miles per hour, it is exponentially more nutritious than any fruit or vegetable you can buy in February from Argentina. By eating whole, local foods (which are whole because they are local), a person can enjoy amazingly delicious and nutritious food. Who needs soda when you can purchase ripe, succulent peaches from your farmer's market? Who wants to eat bland, 'fortified' bread when it can be made with little effort in your own kitchen, using whole grains and local honey? Who doesn't prefer a home-grilled, grass-fed hamburger to the slop that they serve at McDonald's? Surely America's children would be far healthier and happier if they (or their parents) stopped and thought about what they are putting in their mouths.

Thus begins a series I'll call "Why I am a Locavore." In it, I will attempt to break down the many reasons I have chosen to primarily eat within a 100 mile radius, and hopefully this information will convince you to do the same.

For more information on the nutritional content of our food, check out the 2007 report entitled "Still No Free Lunch," by Brian Halweil.