Scavenge and Glean

Scavengers aren't generally thought of very well, but there are ways of appreciating them. After all, when a murder of crows descends, they do clean up our roadkill, our rot, our discards. They loudly scold us for our errors, and move on to clean up for someone else. (Yes, a flock of crows is really called a "murder.")


Here's a non-crow version: Food Bank Farm went to farmers' fields after they were done harvesting. They dug and pulled and collected missed roots, tiny broccoli heads that wouldn't sell at market, imperfect greens, missed apples, and delivered the fresh food to food pantries. (Julia, the vegetable farmer at Fishkill Farms, calls her late season pool-ball sized cabbages "kittens.")


Worlds apart, in the U.S. there are philosophically driven dumpster divers, and in China, rag pickers who dissassemble our discarded electronics to save the reusable pieces. They are driven by poverty.

Another version is groups like Fallen Fruit, like Iskash*taa. Like a friend of a friend Inna Pickle Inna Jam who rides her bike around, offering jars of preserves and asking fruit tree owners if she can pick their unwanted fruit. Her preserves are named after where the food was discovered: Norvell Street Quince and Essex Street Plum.


This dark, moody day after Thanksgiving, the flocks of crows are here, talking. I'm not taking it as a death toll, rather, as a sign of efficiency, of early winter cleanup, as something that is right and makes sense.

Full disclosure: I was predisposed to be pro-scavenge since I had and loved a vulture stuffed animal as a kid.

Roasted Squash

My grocery, Nature's Pantry in Fishkill, had a full thanksgiving meal laid out for shoppers to taste this weekend. Thankfully, it was a vegetarian meal. They also provided recipes for the food they offered, and I thought I'd share the tastiest one here.

Roasted Squash

• 1 lb. orange squash deseeded and peeled, and roughly chopped (kabocha, butternut, acorn)
  
• 1 Tbsp chopped garlic
  
• 2 Tbsp chopped shallot
  
• 1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger
  
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
  
• 1 tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2 tsp allspice
  
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
  
• 1/8 tsp cayenne
  
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
  
• 1/4 c margarine, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix herbs and spices into the oil, then fold into the squash. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour in a glass casserole dish, or until tender when poked with a fork.

Thanks to vegannifer for the image.

Holiday Veg Roast

We hope that you and your loved ones enjoy the roasts prepared with love by wintergreens!

If you forgot to order one, maybe you'll find this Everyday Dish video useful. In it, my pal Brian McCarthy makes a great seitan roast.

Vegan Turkey Loaf from Everyday Dish TV on Vimeo.

Distribution - November 22, 2009

This Thanksgiving distribution we have food that is sturdy in the cold (kale, sage), many items from the root cellar, and our first fermented bit.

• roots: rutabagas, turnips, radishes from Huguenot Street Farm
  
• rhubarb chutney from Madura Farm (the rhu, not the chut!)
  
• sage from Huguenot Street Farm
  
• potatoes & sweet potatoes from Huguenot Street Farm
  
• squash: butternut and delicata from Huguenot Street Farm
  
• fennel from Morgiewicz Farm
  
• curly kale from Morgiewicz Farm
  
• garlic from Huguenot Street Farm

If green was the theme of the first distribution, the theme of the second is "roots."
There's nothing better than mixed roasted roots in the fall. I chop all roots (the denser ones should be smallest) with squash and fennel and whole garlic cloves and quartered onions and bake them with olive oil and salt, for an easy meal filled with a lot of earthy flavors. If you have a fry daddy or a good exhaust fan over your stove, you may want to make pretty root veggie chips.

If rutabagas (a cross between a turnip and a cabbage) are new to you, you might want to prepare them in a way that they are the focus: mashed with maple or with pears, or stuffed into squashes with pecans, or in a soup with chipotle.We decided to include rhubarb this distribution with the theory that this chutney can be a locally grown replacement for cranberry sauce at a thanksgiving meal. It's sweet, sour, tangy, and a tiny bit spicy, and goes nicely on crackers as an hors d'oeuvre, or as a tangy side to the many salty and savory foods we traditionally eat at this holiday. (The chutney has the following ingredients: fermented rhubarb, onion, raisins, agave nectar, apple cider vinegar, ginger, garlic, jalapeno, olive oil, salt, allspice, clove, black pepper, cinnamon, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.)

Sage is a rich herb, and a key ingredient to stuffing. It tastes great with potatoes and apples, and, if your fry daddy is still hot, there are sage potato chips.You can figure out what to do with potatoes and delicious sweet potatoes: Mash 'em! Ditto for squashes. Just don't forget to roast your seeds! Use garlic in your mashes, and every day in everything, to keep from getting sick.

And kale. We're so obsessed with bready things and creamy things on thanksgiving, that we often forget our greens. When we remember them, our guests are happy. There are a billion ways to prepare greens, but I find that this recipe (pretty and appealing) is by far the most universally accepted by people who aren't used to eating leafy greens.

Fantastic fennel. Try it carmelized, in potatoes, with pasta, or for the strongest licorice flavor, shredded raw in a salad.

There are some unusual foods in this distribution, but I urge you to give them a try. You're not always going to love every food that's locally grown, but it's worth it to find out.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Winter Salad

Green salads are not just for summer lunches. What goes nicer with hot soup or a hunk of fresh bread?

Way back when I was a young and going to school in Jersey, there was a snow storm that dumped something like four feet of snow, and stopped everything for days. Suffering from serious cabin fever, I hiked to a friend's house for dinner.

This was not an easy task, since plows hadn't come through at all, and drifts were taller than me. A walk that usually took fifteen minutes took me at least an hour and a half. Tired and wet when I got there, I thought it would be the soup or the tea or the whiskey that would win my heart, but it was a green salad with lime dressing, topped with avocado, pepitas, and lots of pomegranate seeds.

I grew up in the desert eating pomegranates and kumquats like they were going out of style, but I had never thought to put either of them in a salad. Nearly twenty years later I remember that salad and evening fondly. I don't remember my friend Matthew's boyfriend's name—the smart guy responsible for the salad.

Now my salads are always an experiment. If I'm craving something, I put it on a salad, or, in the dressing. (Tequila, no problem! Jicama, good idea! Flax seeds, sesame seeds, and peanuts, great! Pickles, well, all right. Peanut butter, yes, excellent with sesame oil and soy sauce.)

In winter this often means I'm putting hot foods on top of my greens: roasted beets and parsnips, wild rice, curry sauce, mashed potatoes, half burned spicy green beans, bean thread, squashes. Nuts and fruit are great on top of the hot layer. Obviously I use big bowls for these monster creations. Half of the time there's so much good stuff in there, I don't need dressing at all.

Today's salad had chopped raw fennel (the whole thing, bulb to fronds), haruki turnip, walnuts, and an apple. This sounds a little sad, but here it is anyway: It was the highlight of my day.

Biblically Bad

With 2009 being the worst farming season in NY in memory, the whole being-grateful-for-our-food ritual feels important.