October Unprocessed

I'm back! I took a few weeks off from blogging in order to finish my dissertation chapter. I'm not sure it helped significantly - I still went right down to the wire before meeting the deadline - but it did give me one less thing to think and worry about. Yes, I worry about blogging. I'm a worrier by nature, even about things I think are fun. Now that chapter five is hot off the presses (yes, chapter five, although it's only the second one I've written - it's complicated), I wanted to let you all know about a little pledge I signed last week.

This year, Jeff and I signed the October Unprocessed pledge, hosted by Andrew at Eating Rules. The concept is simple - go one month without eating any processed food. The reality is harder, as processed food of all sorts has insinuated itself into our kitchens and pantries. This is not just about Lean Cuisines and Hot Pockets - think refined white sugar, baking powder . . . even homogenized milk! Going unprocessed means that a great deal of thought needs to go into every food purchase. Labels need to be read, processes need to be researched, and knowledge needs to be gained. The basic metric for this is the Kitchen Test - if a food product could be made by a person of reasonable skill in a home kitchen using whole food ingredients, it passes. Since even this can be tricky to determine in some cases, Eating Rules has some lovely resources (like this guide) to help with the challenge. The idea is that, by the end of the month (or week or day, if you choose), participants will come away with a greater awareness of all the chemicals they are putting into their bodies (and perhaps realize that they feel happier and healthier without them!).

I struggled for a while with the idea of this challenge. After all, we essentially eat this way already. Our meals are prepared using fresh, whole, largely organic ingredients. We can and preserve and make lots of kitchen staples for ourselves. We rarely eat out. The processed ingredients that still reside in our pantry would be too difficult to get rid of (like white sugar or baking soda). It wouldn't be worth it. Yet another part of me said that this is exactly why we should take this challenge - to identify where the chemicals and engineered foods we still eat are hiding and to see if we can do without them.

I hope that we are able to rise to this challenge, evaluating our meals more critically. I hope that, by the end of this month, I am even more aware of what is going into my body and how it makes me feel. Finally, I hope that I can inspire some of you to join in - if not for a whole month, than a week or even a day. 

Apple Day at Terhune Orchards

This weekend, Jeff and I visited Terhune Orchards for Apple Day! I love any opportunity to visit the Mounts' lovely farm, but it's especially fun during a special event.

Apple season is a wonderful time. I keep apples on hand for snacking during most seasons of the year, but there's nothing like one fresh off the tree. The crisp crunch when you bit into a truly fresh apple is irreplaceable. So, of course, when it comes to apple picking, I tend to get excited and overdo things.

When Jeff and I arrived at Apple Day, we went straight for the orchard to pick our own apples. I remember the first time we went apple picking at Terhune, a few years ago. We picked a dozen or so apples before we figured it was more than we could manage. Perhaps it was, back then. Today, with our canning and preserving expertise, we are made of sterner stuff. We ended up with over 18 pounds of Empires and 12 pounds of Stayman-Winesaps.

Our first apple-picking excursion last year focused on Empires, which we used for applesauce. The sauce was delicious and perfectly sweet without any additional sugar. We loved it, so we knew another batch would be in order this year. Stayman-Winesaps are nice crispy tart apples - one of my favorite eating varieties. They're also good for all sorts of cooking. We made a batch of applesauce with them last year, as well, but it needed some sugar (which I'd prefer not to add if I don't have to). We ended up making a batch of apple butter with this year's batch, since that required sugar anyway. We still have a vast quantity of apples to find a use for. More applesauce, at the very least, is in order for this week.

Once we'd picked our apples and stashed them in our car, Jeff and I were free to roam around the farm.

We visited the lovely chickens in their coop. I find the idea of fresh eggs every day so enticing!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be roaming around the farm. I took this picture from down by the pond. Check out the solar panels on the roof - all 21st-century farms ought to be so sustainable!

We wandered to the other end of the farm and made our way through the corn maze. It was not as challenging as last year's, since we managed to stumble on the correct path almost right away. Then we stopped by the food tent for some barbecue chicken and apple treats.

Finally, we examined the collection of pumpkins. We decided it was a bit early to buy ourselves carving pumpkins, though (and it's likely we'll get them from the CSA anyway). Instead, I opted for a picturesque cheese pumpkin to decorate my living room until I decide to eat it. Yummy.

Apple Day may be over, but Terhune still has apple picking every day and fall festival events most weekends (pretty similar to Apple Day, from the sound of them, but probably less crowded). Even if you don't live near Terhune, do yourself a favor and get to a farm some weekend. In my opinion, there's no better way to spend a crisp, sunny fall afternoon!

1st Annual Philly Farm and Food Fest

Last weekend Jeff, his sister Andrea and I drove down to Philly for the first annual Farm and Food Fest. I had high hopes for this event and I was not disappointed. Food artisans and farmers from the greater Philadelphia area were present in droves, promoting their products.

 

I had wondered, since it is so early in the spring, how much in the way of fresh produce could be available. It turns out, a fair bit. Besides their own herbal teas and potted ramps, this vendor (possibly Happy Cat Farm) had wild foraged mustard greens on offer.

One of the booths I was most excited about was Urban Apiaries, a Philadelphia honey company. I love that each jar is marked with the zip code where it was collected. Different zip codes mean different flavors, as the bees have different varieties of flowers to collect their pollen from. Local and delicious! I passed on the honey, since I just bought a big jar from Pineland Farms at my own farmers market, but I've been regretting it ever since. The next time I go down to Philly, I'll be sure to buy a few jars.

There were tons of cheese vendors there (not a great thing for me, since I'm watching my saturated fat intake). Jeff and Andrea certainly partook of a wide variety. I tried a few, but I'm not really a cheese person anyway (not being allowed to eat it isn't a huge problem). I was happy, though, that we got to say hi to our friends from Cherry Grove Farm (I'll be out there tomorrow to buy some eggs and check up on the adorable calves!).

I was thrilled to see multiple vendors with their own milled grains. While I know of one local farm (the Hopewell Living History Farm) that offers its own whole wheat flour, I buy most of mine from the supermarket. I was really excited to speak with a woman from Daisy Flour, which offers a variety of organic products, sourced as locally as possible (some, like the spelt, from within Pennsylvania). They weren't selling any at their booth and I didn't get to the stand in Reading Terminal Market before it closed, but they'll be on my list the next time I'm in town. What I did pick up was some buckwheat flour from Yeehaw Farm. Pancakes will be made some day soon!

One of the most interesting companies was Frecon Farms, which had a line of hard ciders (which people were, of course, lined up three and four deep at to taste). Jeff and Andrea seemed to like them, although Jeff said that it was a dangerous product, since they didn't taste nearly as strong as they were - 7.5% ABV! It's astounding to think that our colonial ancestors drank the stuff all day long.

I came home with a great haul: some delicious black bean and sweet potato soup from Good Spoon, multigrain bread from the Metropolitan Bakery, scrumptious maple almond granola from Amaranth Gluten Free Bakery, creamy and spicy black bean hummus from FreshaPeel Hummus, and a few other things I already can't remember. We also got multiple samples of delicious gelato from Capogiro (best gelato ever, in my opinion). It was a good day. I'm already looking forward to making it back next year!

New York Chocolate Show

Yesterday, Jeff and I went up to New York to attend the New York Chocolate Show with his sister Andrea. When Andrea had mentioned it last year, I had sighed with jealousy. This year, when the time came, she was good enough to remember my sighing and invite us.

We arrived at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea promptly at 10 am, when they began letting people in. We were disappointed to learn that no re-entrys were allowed - we had been planning a lunch break at a local restaurant to cleanse our palates before another round of chocolate. Instead, we had to push back our reservation a bit in order to get the most out of the show.

Nearly every booth had samples to try. I thought most of the samples were fairly commonplace - white, milk and every possible percentage of dark chocolate. The Granada Chocolate Company, pictured above, offered a 100% bar. That was too bitter for me to even try, but Andrea enjoyed it.

More to my taste were these Prestat truffles. The middle box of truffles has luscious, liquidy caramel with sea salt surrounded by a creamy chocolate shell. I took this picture to remind me to go back and buy a box . . . unfortunately, I still forgot. I might have to try and get some online!

There were mouth-wateringly delicious French macarons from Francois Payard. I love this pyramid, designed to protect the delicate shells. We bought ours from a different vendor - Mad Mac - who had them in chocolate and salted caramel flavor.

Andrea commented that there were not nearly so many molded chocolates as last year. I only noticed a few vendors who had them, but every one I saw was gorgeous. Look at the top row of the above picture - check out the glossy finish on those chocolates!

And this vendor, 2 Chicks with Chocolate, made such colorful ones! I don't think this picture, with all those shadows in the way, does them any justice. Besides being delicious, these were works of art!

I did taste some delicious things that I did not get pictures of. One was the white chocolate strawberry bar from Co Co. Sala. The dried strawberry was absolutely packed with flavor, which was a beautiful complement to the creamy white chocolate. They also had a very interesting white chocolate with salt and pink peppercorn. Another was a white chocolate with poppy (not poppy seeds, but actual poppy flower) from, I believe, Des Lis Chocolat. It had some of the flavor you would expect from poppy seeds, but much lighter.

Everything wasn't straight-up chocolate - this patisserie had a wide variety of tasty little treats. It's too bad that, by the time we got over there, were were all suffering from palate fatigue and sugar shock. There is, sadly, only so much chocolate you can eat in a day (especially when they won't let you leave the show to take a break!). I left the show feeling that if I didn't see another piece of chocolate until Christmas, it would be too soon. (Of course, having had more than a day to recover, I've already changed my tune!) It was nice to pass this spice vendor on the way out and be refreshed by the savory scents!

Cherry Grove Farm Cookout

One of my favorite local farms is Cherry Grove Farm in Lawrenceville. They have eggs, beef, whey-fed pork, and cheeses in their farm store, along with an array of products from other Jersey food artisans. It's always a treat to visit the farm, to see animals being raised the way they ought to be. Check out these chickens, roaming their pasture:

Of course, most of them just wanted to stay under cover. I don't blame them - we have lots of hawks in our area!

Some young calves were grazing in the field by the entrance (Route 206 is on the other side of that fence - I always check out the cows when I pass by).

Back in the shade are the goats that sustain Cherry Grove's new label: Piping Goat Creamery. This weekend's special chevre flavor was "Scapegoat": goat cheese mixed with garlic scapes from nearby Z Food Farm. Delicious!

So what brought us to the farm yesterday (and, actually, the day before as well, since I had the date wrong) was one of their periodic cookouts. These events are arranged to give you a taste for their grassfed beef before you start planning your holiday barbecue (they did this before Memorial Day as well). It wasn't a huge event, but there was great local food, some music and the opportunity to roam around the farm.

This is my grass-fed beef burger with Cherry Grove's "Full Nettle Jack" cheese and First Field Jersey ketchup on a bun from the Village Bakery. Salad was from Z Food Farms with dressing from Muirhead Foods. We finished our meal off with some Joe Chips and some delicious but rock-solid ice cream from the Purple Cow, located on Main St in Lawrenceville (they had ice cream in a cooler out in the hot sun - if it weren't frozen solid it would have been soup).

In addition to the music, we were entertained by a cooking demo, where one of Cherry Grove's chef-cheese makers (sorry, but I've forgotten his name!) showed us how to cook with grassfed beef, making burger patties with a variety of spice rubs as well as beef empanadas.

Perhaps the best part of the day is that we came home with 5 lbs of Cherry Grove's grassfed beef at a special holiday price! We also got fresh eggs, pork sausage and that Scapegoat cheese I mentioned. Not only was it a lovely afternoon, but we have lots delicious future meals to look forward to!

If you're in the area, stop by Cherry Grove Farm. It's a great place that produces top-notch products! And if you're not in the area, look for a local farm near you. You might be surprised by what you find!