Purple Is the New Green...At the Farmer's Market

Since Saturday is my Farmer's Market shopping day, I dutifully set out to pick up some more meat. I came home with three packages of bulk Italian pork sausage and put a small deposit down on my hormone- and antibiotic-free, free-range, pastured turkey for Thanksgiving. It's kind of neat knowing that someone is actually raising a turkey for me, but also cool to know that it will be the healthiest Thanksgiving turkey I have ever in my life eaten.

I'm trying to put up good meat for the winter. After watching some of the recent food documentaries I've seen, the most recent being Food, Inc., I have trouble walking down the meat aisle at the grocery store. I've seen the conditions under which the animals live who are packaged by familiar labels, such as Tyson and Perdue; I can't stand the thought of contributing to the industrialized food system. So I'm stocking away meat each week...and I still have quite a ways to go if we're going to eat off the farmer's market meats all winter.

One of the things that makes our Farmer's Market fun is the fact that a variety of performers entertain the crowds. I caught a young lady in mid-dance and the balloon-animal guys preparing a treat for a young girl. Throughout the market, a number of musical acts were performing, and part of the market includes arts and crafts. It's quite the cultural endeavor, and it happens every Saturday morning downtown!

Another wonderful aspect of the Farmer's Market, which I've mentioned before, is the fact that you can buy organic and heirloom varieties that aren't available in the grocery store. Last time, I tried the purple cauliflower. This time, I picked up some purplish carrots (Purple Haze variety) and some purple beans which, according to the farmer, will turn a dark green when cooked. I'm looking forward to trying these new varieties to see how the taste compares to the common varieties. I have to say that the purple beans are absolutely beautiful; the Purple Haze carrots are more of a brick red, I think, than purple. I will, of course, let you know how the taste test turns out!

Broccoli Never Tasted So Good

Yesterday I went to our local farmer's market. I would provide you with a picture, but it was cloudy and began to rain, so I decided to get my veggies and meat and duck out before the clouds exploded. (Which they did, about one minute after I got into my car.)

I'm impressed with how friendly the farmer's market vendors are. Before I make any purchases at a stand, I ask questions. For vegetables and fruit and herbs, I ask whether they have used any herbicide, pesticide, or insecticide on their fields or products. If the answer is yes, I thank them and move on; if the answer is no, I will purchase the produce. If the vendor is selling meat or dairy or eggs, I ask whether antibiotics or hormones were used on the animals. If that's a no, I ask whether the animals are free-range. If they have four-legged critters, I want to make sure the grazers are grass-fed, not corn-fed.

Luckily, we have several "organic" veggie and animal farmers. (I put that word in quotation marks because legally, farmers are not allowed to label their products as organic unless they meet the USDA organic guidelines.) So yesterday I purchased a green pepper (the only one left at the market), the last carton of eggs, some bratwurst burgers, and some broccoli. I would have had a much bigger haul if I had been able to force myself out of bed earlier than 10 a.m. Maybe next week.

The meat is pricey--$4.89 a pound for the bratwurst burgers, which added up to $15.31 for 10 patties. But I am willing to pay extra to know that I am not eating added hormones or antibiotics, and honestly, about $1.50 per burger (they're a good size) is not unreasonable for good meat. I'll supplement my meat purchases with complimentary deer meat from my friend Blake's family's hunting adventures.

The broccoli was incredibly inexpensive. It was priced at $1 per pound, so I asked for two pounds. I ended up with a plastic grocery bag full of broccoli! They had already trimmed the heavy core away from the branches, so what I was getting was completely edible. I steamed the broccoli for dinner, and I could not believe how wonderful it tasted. The broccoli from the store doesn't have a tenth of the flavor that this broccoli had. No more store broccoli for me! I also found out that you can freeze broccoli without blanching (it stores for about 6 weeks that way), so I may have to load up on broccoli and do some freezing.

The eggs were more expensive than I could find at the grocery store, but again, since they are antibiotic- and hormone-free, I'm willing to pay the extra. They were asking $3.50 for a dozen medium eggs. They had one dozen left, with one cracked egg. They offered it to me for $3 if I didn't mind the cracked egg, so I leaped at the opportunity. I'm looking forward to tasting home-grown eggs from free-range chickens.

After the farmer's market, I stopped by Kroger to pick up some organic milk (we prefer Horizon or Organic Valley, but we'll settle for the store brand as long as it's organic). I spied some portobello mushrooms on manager's special for only $1.49 for a 1-pound package instead of the $3.79 regular price. Once I got home, I cleaned the mushrooms and sliced them, then sauteed them in a little bit of olive oil, and packaged them in snack-size Ziploc bags. Then I placed all those bags in a larger 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag. When I need portobello mushrooms for a recipe, I just run the bag under warm water for a minute or so and then empty the mushrooms into the sauce or whatever I'm using them for.

Tomorrow my goal is to pick whatever zucchini is ready and to freeze some and bake with some. The freezer is beginning to fill up with healthy food for winter. I feel a bit like a squirrel, hiding nuts for the lean months.

A Taste for Spring

Yesterday, the temperature rose close to 70 degrees after several days of cold, wet, Midwest winter, and there I was, cavorting around town without even a jacket! Well, not cavorting actually, since I'm just recovering from whatever nasty respiratory bug has been going around, but I was certainly slightly bouncy. The sun was welcome as a beloved sister one hasn't seen for a year, and the gentle breeze that caressed my exposed skin put me in a mood to begin planting--although it's still a bit too soon. I did, however, buy a clearance-priced terrarium set-up (grow-light and all) and a seedlings heating mat in preparation.

After reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, I'm determined to spend a year trying to grow as much of my own food as possible and buy the rest locally or trade with others. Unfortunately, I won't be able to raise my own poultry like Kingsolver did, since city definitions of livestock prohibit such an endeavor, but I will do my best to seek out animal products where the animals have been treated humanely, fed naturally, and are raised without the use of hormones or antibiotics. My cohort in gardening crime, Michelle (My Grandpa's Garden), will be keeping me on task this year (in a later blog, I'll post about the sad state of my 2007 garden, but until then, you can get a small taste of it by reading Michelle's comments about my teeny tomatoes).

I've always enjoyed gardening; playing in the dirt is relaxing and productive. I get great joy from watching the plants grow, and even greater satisfaction from eating the fruits of my labor. So why the push to buy locally and grow my own food to sustain me through the year? Several reasons, actually:

• Buying locally is healthier for the environment. When food is shipped from other states, much more fuel is consumed--and more carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere--than driving to your local farmer's market.
  
• Growing my own food organically and buying organic food and livestock products is healthier for me. I have Stage IV breast cancer, and estrogen feeds the cancer. Since herbicides and pesticides operate in the body much like estrogen does, I would like to keep them out of my diet! Additionally, many livestock farmers inject livestock with hormones to promote maturation, and I am trying to keep my body a hormone-free environment. Staying away from antibiotic-injected animals also means (I hope) that I am less likely to develop antibiotic-resistant infections.
  
• Growing heirloom vegetables and herbs means that I am contributing to keeping a variety of species alive and on the market and is more intriguing--I'll be growing choggia (ringed beets), zebra tomatoes (striped tomatoes) and chocolate beauties (chocolate-colored bell peppers) this year, and I'm looking forward to taste testing these different varieties!
  
• Studies suggest that organically grown food has higher nutritive value than non-organic foods.
  
• Growing, trading and buying locally means I get to socialize with people who have similar interests.
  
• Being outside will mean that I will absorb more Vitamin D.
  
• By avoiding hybrids whenever possible, I can collect my own seeds to plant next year.
  
• I suspect (although I'm certain I'll find out whether it is true) that growing your own food is more economical than purchasing the same food in the store.
  
• Home-grown food just plain tastes better.

I have lots of other reasons, but just can't think of them right now.

So...I invite you to play in the dirt with me this year! I'll use this blog to chronicle my experiences, good and bad. Feel free to drop by to offer advice, share your own experiences, or pass along ripping good gardening tales!