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.
One of the best articles that I’ve read. I can honestly say the author was right, although sometimes I’d put some of the issues a bit differently. But I accept that anyone has their own view, and the most objective entry.