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Posted on June 30th, 2011
Join me on the last weekend in August for a workshop filled with cooking classes, tastings, discussion, a farm visit and more at The Kripalu Center. Sign up now! If you have any questions feel free to contact me. (And don’t forget to forward this to your friends.)
3 Fabulous Recipes with July’s Crop
Market Salad with Pan Roasted Potatoes and Local Cheese
(Or how to improvise a salad using the best of the season.)
Tomatoes Provençale
(A classic that lets local tomatoes sing!)
And for Dessert
Summer Pudding with the Best of the Berries
(This updated 18th century dessert is a summer staple at my house.)
Search The Locavore Way’s 100 locavore recipes by ingredient, season and more…
Posted on June 2nd, 2011
Make Perfect Salads
Search the 100 locavore recipes on this blog by ingredient, season and more…
Posted on May 22nd, 2011
 August Weekend Locavore Extravaganza!
Join me for an exciting Locavore Way Weekend Workshop, August 26-28, complete with intensive cooking class, fabulous food, tastings and a farm tour with lunch — all at the fabulous Kripalu Center in the Berkshires in Lenox, Massacusetts. Feel free to contact me with questions. It’s going to be a blast, so sign up soon as space is limited.
What’s up?
Adapting my Farm to School Cookbook
I just completed The Missouri Farm to School Cookbook, which was adapted from my MA Farm to School Cookbook. The book is an aid for food service professionals that trains them how to cook with fresh seasonal foods from local farms. (Scroll down this page to read more and to download this free book.)
Producing the Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Harvest Festival
This year, I will be producing the Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 77th Annual Harvest Festival, Oct 1-2 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where I will be adding a fabulous new farmers market and lots of local vendors.
Locavore Recipes for the Season
Access 100 of my seasonal recipes using farm fresh ingredients. Search by season, ingredients and more…
 May ramps (wild leeks)
To get you hungry for my August class, here’s the smoky chicken and corn from last summer…
(The chicken gets a fabulous Piquant Italian Herb Sauce.)
Posted on April 8th, 2011
 Wild Watercress
Here’s 3 for April….
Spring Toss:
Vibrant green watercress is back in the rapidly running icy cold stream behind my house.
Ramp it Up
Today I saw wild leeks, called ramps, in the woods around the corner. Stay vigilant, as they’ll be up soon and ready to blend into a fabulous pesto.
Fresh Chive Noodles with Early Spring Things
The chives are up too and superb in homemade noodles made with with freshly laid eggs.
Not forgotten
I know I’ve been gone awhile, but I haven’t forgotten you. It’s just that I’m knee deep in two exciting projects, both of which are in keeping with The Locavore Way. One involves developing farm fresh recipes in a school kitchen for a state-wide cookbook. (Last time it was Massachusetts; now it’s Missouri.)
You’ll hear more about both projects on this blog, although postings are likely to be more infrequent for at least several months. But I promise to keep you abreast and deliver delicious local recipes and news tidbits when I can….
Posted on March 19th, 2011
Below the Recipe
This Weekend
Join me! Spring Tonic at the Lenox Library
Project Native Film Festival in Great Barrington
More Recipes with Goat Cheese
Feeding the World without Destroying it
 Susan Sellew of Rawson Brook Farm with her baby goats.
(Photo from Berkshire Food Journal)
The Recipe
Early spring. This is the first time I can see the ground after 5 months of snow. Startled, it’s beige-green and soggy, dotted with islands of white. Here and there, if I look carefully, a few inches of daffodil sprouts reach upward. I can hear the rush of my backyard brook, swollen with snow melt.
Historically, when local food was all there was to eat, this time of year was the starving season. Even today, the winter stores have run dry and the harvest is far off. There’s local meat, eggs, maple syrup and cheese, but I’ve finished our fall roots and defrosted the last of the local meat. It’s a long wait until wild ramps and the first spring harvest. I’m lucky to fill in with food from afar, but I miss real food from the farms around me.
Goat cheese to the rescue — clean and milky with a slight bite. It’s some of the best in the country, from Susan Sellew at nearby Rawson Brook Farm in Monterey Massachusetts. Eat it straight or roll it into Susan’s recipe for chocolate truffles, which can be sweetened with local honey, which is readily available too. Makes about 24 truffles
6 ounces semi sweet chocolate
1/4 cup honey
3-1/2 ounces fresh goat cheese
1 tablespoon lemon zest
Unsweetened Cocoa
1-Heat the chocolate just until melted in a microwave, double boiler or boil over hot water. Stir in the honey, chevre and lemon zest.
2-Chill for several hours. Form into tiny balls, washing hands often. Roll in the cocoa, shaking off the excess.
 Curds and whey. Goat cheese dripping in cheese cloth.
(Photo from Berkshire Food Journal)
Local Food News
Spring Tonic : Celebrating All Things Locally Grown at the Lenox Library
Join me for a talk and book signing this Saturday at noon at the Lenox Library in Massachusetts. Enjoy the festivities, noon to 4 pm, including the pick of the farm market, live music, sign up for CSA farm shares, kids stories and a drawing for a gift basket of farm goodies. This event hints at the green season to come while promoting locally-grown products and healthy living.
Film Festival
Project Native’s Environmental Film Festival in Great Barrington Massachusetts is at the Triplex Movie Theatre and Mixed Company and is on Sunday March 27th, 10 am-8 pm. Full length films and shorts include The Meatrix (factory farming), Homegrown Revolution (urban farming), Greenhorns (young farmers resettling America) and much more. For more, visit their website or call 413 274 3433.
Other Recipes with Goat Cheese
Play with Your Goat Cheese!
Winter Salad with Spinach,Beets, Shiitakes and Goat Cheese
Roasted Vegetable Spirals with Caramelized Onions
Market Salad with Pan Roasted Potatoes and Local Cheese
Smoky Black Beans with Local Booty
Trio of Spring Bruschette
A Sharp Look at World Hunger
I strongly recommend reading this excellent article in Alternet from collection of essays Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal,edited by Fred Magdoff and Brian Tokar.
Mark Bittman, of The New York Times, who has moved from food maven to opinion shaper, discusses feeding the world on sustainably raised food.
Posted on March 8th, 2011
What’s Below
What is a CSA?
How to find one near you
New Berkshire CSA
A little background
Farm Film Festival!
The Recipe: Delicious Running-on-Empty Tuscan White Bean Soup
Starting to see the earth below all this snow? Seed time!
(Picture from Berkshire Food Journal)
In March and April, as local food runs low, I face the bleak facts and have to eat more food from far afield. Traditionally, this is the starving season, when cold storage foods run low and the pantry is wanting.
North country locavores like me are happy to have a few root vegetables around, boosted by tasty cheeses, yogurt, milk eggs, meat, freshly made maple syrup and the last of August’s jam. Real fresh food is a distant memory, sadly imitated by the hollow taste of produce from distant climes.
But cheer up, there is so much to dream about — garden planning, seed shopping and, yes, joining a local CSA.
It’s CSA time!
For the ultimate locavore experience, join a CSA, which is a Community Agriculture Farm. It’s the most direct way to connect with a regional farmer, nature and the flow of fresh, sustainably raised food right through the season.
What’s A CSA?
“CSA” stands for community supported agriculture. Although it denotes a kind of farming, the term has also come to mean the farm itself. CSA members, sometimes called shareholders, agree to support an environmentally responsible farm and farmer by paying upfront costs before the growing season.
Join a CSA and get a grocery bag or so of sustainably raised farm fresh food on a regular basis, usually once a week. Many CSAs also include a pick your own option on high labor crops, such as berries or cherry tomatoes. Pick-up days are especially satisfying if you can visit the farm, but even city slickers look forward to their weekly bag of startlingly fresh produce, and many visit the farm at least once a season. My book, The Locavore Way, has lots of information on CSAS — from how to decide if CSA membership is right for you to how to cook with CSA goodies.
How do you find a CSA near you?
Search for a CSA near you at the Robyn Van En Center. Or, if you live in NYC, use Just Food. In the Berkshires, where I live in Western Massachusetts, use Berkshire Grown. A new Berkshire CSA in Stockbridge is accepting 30 first-year members. Contact Katherine Vause at Solid Rock Farm. (413) 298-4500.
Background
I was already a chef who understood fresh when Robyn Van En, who co-founded the CSA movement in North America initiated me into the local food movement. Robyn’s Indian Line Farm was one of the first two CSAs in this country. She spread the word through talks and a $4 pamphlet that taught farmers around the county how to start CSAs on their own.
Robyn has since died, her farm Indian Line Farm is still going strong. The CSA center at Wilson College which bears her name, estimates there are close to 2000 CSAs in North America. Here’s a good article about the CSAs and their history if you want more.
Farm Film Festival
Farm Film Festival, This Sunday on March 13, 1-4 pm in Willamstown at The Images Movie Theatre. Sponsored by Williams College Sustainable Food and Agriculture Program and Storey Publishing.
The Recipe
Running on Empty Soup: Tuscan White Bean Soup with Wheatberries
Nothing in the house? I made this delicious soup out of what seemed like nothing, adding two locavore ingredients — dried sprigs of rosemary from last year’s garden and wheatberries from last year’s grain CSA share. Serves about 6.
1 pound the biggest white beans you can find (cannelini or butter beans)
2 sprigs of dried rosemary
1 large or 1-1/2 small garlic bulbs
1/2 cup wheatberries
1 small can tomato paste
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
cayenne or quality hot sauce to taste
salt to taste
2 tablespoons whatever green is in the house, chopped (optional)
1- Soak the beans overnight. Drain. Cover beans by about 2 inches of water. Add the rosemary and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Skim off any foam that floats to the top. While the beans are cooking, separate the garlic cloves. Peel and throw them into the pot. (Peeling can be done two ways: Smash them with the heel of your hand onto a flat side of a thick knife. Peel. Or you can cut off the end of the bulb and plunge them into boiling water for about 20 seconds then rinse under cold water. Peel.)
2-While the beans are cooking, bring 2 quarts of lightly salted water to a boil and add the wheat berries. Boil until they are soft enough to eat, about 45 minutes. (They will still be a little firm but not raw.) Drain when done.
3-When the beans are almost soft, about 45 minutes or so, spoon in the tomato paste and continue to simmer until they are very soft, about 1 hour or more, adding water if necessary just to cover. Puree the soup thoroughly in a food processor until very smooth. Return to the pot. Season with the vinegar, a touch of cayenne pepper or hot sauce and a generous amount of salt to taste.
4-Equally divide the soup among the bowls with the wheatberries in the center. (Let diners stir the wheatberries in.) Sprinkle with the greens if you are using them.
Posted on March 1st, 2011
Local Food News Below
It’s Maple Month!
Recipes Using Maple Syrup
An Oral History of Girlhood and a New England Farm
More about Maple Syrup
My niece Sadie, third generation pudding lover, who knows to keep blowing and eat it warm! (See her savor it below.)
The Recipe
I come by pudding adoration naturally. It’s a staple at my mom’s house. So much so that when I asked my young daughter for the reasons she loved her grandma, pudding came near the top of the list.
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For me, the only way to savor pudding is warm, especially up here in the North, where it is still endlessly white. And this pudding cheers our long evenings, especially when paired with a Cary Grant movie or candlelight and a little Erik Satie.
The recipe was adapted from my pal Carol Durst’s excellent easy baking book, I Know Your Were Coming So I Baked a Cake. There is a maple variation below. Serves 1 pudding lover or 2 average eaters, easily multiplied.
1 cup milk*
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar (or 2 Tbs sugar + 2 Tbs maple syrup)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon butter*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Procedure for microwave or stovetop —
1-Pour the milk into a 2-cup Pyrex measure or medium non-stick pan, and add the cornstarch, sugar (or sugar and maple syrup) and salt. Stir to dissolve.
2-Microwave on high or simmer for 2-3 minutes, or set the pot on medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes, until the milk is beginning to thicken. The mixture must boil to cook the cornstarch, but watch carefully and to be sure it doesn’t boil over. Stir it down after this heating.
3-Put the egg yolk in a small ceramic bowl or 1 cup Pyrex measure. Slowly pour or ladle about half the milk mixture in, while mixing the egg with the folk. (This tempers the egg, to avoid making scrambled eggs.)
4-Return the egg-milk mixture to the rest of hot milk, stirring with a fork as you pour. Microwave on High for 1-2 minutes, or return to the stove and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, at least 5 minutes.
5-If using the microwave, stir in the butter and vanilla into the pudding. For the saucepan, wait for bubbles to appear around your pan before adding the butter. Pour into serving dishes and enjoy warm.
Maple Variation: Replace the sugar with 2 tablespoons maple syrup. Omit the vanilla or add 1/2.
*A lighter version: Even though I’m finally starting to take off the 8 pounds a decade I’ve gained since 20, I still insist on eating well. So here’s a lower fat and calorie version of this recipe still rocks: Use low fat or even non-fat milk and omit the butter. (Or add 1 teaspoon of butter, which is my preference.)
Where did the ingredients come from?
This recipe uses: Highlawn Farm milk and Ronnybrook Farm butter, North Plain Farm eggs, Ioka Valley Farm maple syrup or the fabulous Baldwin’s Vanilla, which has been made since the 1880′s in my home town of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Local Food News
Recipes for Maple Syrup
Try Indian Pudding and Maple Milk or Whole Wheat French Toast with Apple, Cranberries and Maple Syrup.
Read about maple syrup and local food in general in rural New England right down the block from me,’18-’33.
More About Maple Syrup
Excerpted from my last book, The Locavore Way, a comprehensive guide to seeking out and savoring local food.
Maple syrup is produced in northern climates, mostly Canada and the United States, by reducing sap to syrup by boiling off the water.
Traditionally, maple syrup is made in a sugar house (or shack), during sugaring season in the late nights are followed by daytime temperatures that rise above 40°F. Tapping for maple sap, however, is generally done only in the spring when the weather is more predictable and the sap’s sugar content is high. (The proportion of sap to syrup runs around 40 to 1.)
When shopping, carefully read labels, looking for local or regional farm locations. Quite often, even here in maple country, stores stock syrup from far away even when syrup is being manufactured close by. Some farms sell right off their property. If you have a chance, be sure to visit one during the season. (Mine, Ioka Valley Farm, sells pancakes, too.) Or tap your own maple trees to make syrup with simple equipment bought at your hardware store or online. Maple syrup comes in two grades: try both the lighter A grade and the less expensive, more maple flavored B. If there are no maple trees near you, there’s no local maple syrup!
Posted on February 19th, 2011
Local Food News Below
Good Meat, Comprehensive New Book on Sustainable Meat
Learning About & Buying Sustainably Raised Local Meat
Berkshire Maple Dinner on March 14th
White House Garden is Swell, but Obamas need to do more.
The Recipe
You won’t believe the depth and character of this meat borscht, a hearty meal-in-one soup from my book, The Locavore Way. It’s a winter favorite in my house that continues to get better over the course of several days and freezes well, so double or even triple the recipe.
The recipe calls for chuck roast, which works well, but I use any cut from my 1⁄8 cow order, except the more tender steaks, sometimes adding the bones for flavor and then removing them at the end of the cooking time. The yogurt or sour cream topping and all the vegetables but the tomatoes are available now. And if you canned tomatoes last summer, you an add them too. Makes about 2½ quarts.
Preparation Tip: Use a food processor to shred the veggies, radically cutting down on preparation time.
3/4 pound beets
1-1/4 pounds boneless beef chuck roast (or any stewing meat), cut into bite-sized cubes*
Flour
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 quart water or beef stock, or some of each
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
3-1/2 cups shredded cabbage, any kind
2 carrots, diced or shredded
2 celery ribs, diced or shredded
2 small or 1 large onion,chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1½ to 2 tablespoons
Lemon juice
2 to 3 cloves garlic,minced
Generous salt and
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
Optional Topping
Yogurt, sour cream or crème fraiche (optional)
Chopped fresh dill (optional)
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wrap the beets in foil, and roast them until they are easily pierced with a fork, about 1-1-1/4 hours. Set the beets aside until they are cool enough to handle. Removing any remaining stems. Slip off and discard their skins, peeling any that stick. Dice the beets by hand or grate them in the food processor. Reserve.
2. Meanwhile, toss the meat in a bowl with a little flour until lightly coated. Remove the meat, leaving most of the flour
behind. In a large pot, brown the meat in one layer in the oil over medium-high heat, shaking the pan and turning the meat as it browns. (Do it in two batches if necessary.) Don’t worry if some sticks or if the meat doesn’t brown evenly.
3. Add the water and/or broth and tomatoes, and simmer gently until the meat is almost tender, about 1 hour or more. (Taste it!)
4. Add the vegetables, including the beets, and tomato paste. Simmer gently for another 30 minutes or until the meat is very tender. (If necessary, add extra water or stock to reach the texture of a thick soup.)
6. Season with the vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and sugar, if using. Simmer for 15 minutes. Serve with toppings if you like.
*If you use meat with bones, double the weight.
Local Food News
Check out Good Meat, a terrific new book by fellow New Englander Deborah Krasner with a foreward by Senator Bernie Sanders. It’s a comprehensive reference book for the serious cook about sourcing and cooking sustainable meat, covering beef, lamb,pork, rabbit, poultry eggs and even side dishes. Recipes range from classic crowd pleasers like Hoisin Spareribs to out-of-the-box dishes like Kim Chi Soup with Fried Pork Belly.
Click here for another recipe using grass fed beef and lots more on sustainably raised meat.
Celebrate sugaring! Berkshire Maple Dinner Coming Soon. Menu here.
The White House Garden is Swell, But The Obamas Need To Do More and so do we!
Posted on February 15th, 2011
Food News Below
More about Potatoes
Ted Dobson of Equinox Farm Talks about Farming
Berkshire Kripalu Community Talk and Book Signing
“Changing the Way We Eat”big TED event now online
American Farmland Trust’s Planning Agriculture Guide
The recipe
Cute is not my thing. I ripped the bows off my party dresses as a kid, and my sisters tell me I that missed some essential “girl lessons” along the way.
But these potatoes are my kind of cute, each a different flavor and color, all wrapped in their baby skins. And this winter, when it’s been white everywhere for months on end, a little color, variety, and well, cuteness, go a long way.
Steaming these lets their flavor and texture shine through, unadorned. Serves 3-4 as a side dish (vegetarian
1 pound baby potatoes
1-1/2 teaspoons olive oil or butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley or dill, optional
1-Wash the potatoes and cut them in half.
2-Cook in a steamer over 2 inches of boiling water in a covered pot until cooked through but not mushy, about 12-15 minutes. If you don’t have a steamer, just put them in the water. Drain. Toss with the olive oil or butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you like, toss them a with a touch of chopped parsley or dill.
3-Serve warm as a side dish or as a component in a vegetarian entree. For a vegetarian entree, I like THEM atop garlic sautéed greens with a dollop of fresh goat cheese, which will start to melt. For that, this will serve two.
More About Potatoes
Where did they come from?
These potatoes are grown by Ivy Donovan of Hawley MA. Ted Dobson, of Equinox Farm near me in Sheffield, who specializes in Mesclun, has been buying them for 18 years and says they’re the best in the state. He wholesales them for $15 for a ten pound bag and can be reached at 413 229 2266 for orders. Hear Ted talk about farming on The Berkshire Food Journal.
These taters
These potatoes are mix of varieties — organic Red Blush, Yellow Finn, Butterball and All Blue. Red Blush are the red “new” potatoes you are familiar with, waxy and firm. Yellow Finn have a creamy texture. Butterball have a tender flaky texture and, yes, a buttery flavor. Magical looking All Blues are purple all the way through, unlike other varieties that have a greyish flesh.
Size matters?
Potatoes are graded by size, with A’s the largest, then B’s, followed by these baby C’s, which are harvested young or sorted by size. What contributes to their flavor? Their variety, the grower’s skills, soil quality, and of course because they are relatively fresh and local.
Because they are smaller you get more variety on your plate, which is fun for the eye and palate. But smaller is not always better, which I learned when I came of age as a chef in the 80′s when the world was awash in baby vegetables. A 4 or 6 inch zucchini is better than a honker. But a 2 incher is just silly. A giant brandywine potato may be tastier than a little cherry, or at least as good. And so on….
Good Food News
Kripalu Potluck Talk in Stockbridge
Berkshire Kripalu Community provides a fabulous service — top notch yoga at affordable prices for local residents. This month I get to give something back, a talk about local food and A book signing for their members-only monthly potluck supper. If you live in the Berkshires consider joining!
Changing The Way We Eat
Huge Sustainable Food Event for TED now online
American Farmland Trusts Planning Agriculture for New York Guide
A farm is lost to development every three and a half days in New York. This guide steers town planners and counties who value the importance of agriculture towards an pro-active role in preserving their local farms. (Many of the guide’s directives are useful for other states as well.)
 
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Also by Amy Cotler
The Farm to School Cookbook
USDA approved school-tested local food recipes and a supplement for educators.
Download it here.
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