Upon setting up my new kitchen (with its groovy orange-y red countertops), the first thing I did was set out the teakettle. Thing #2: organize the tea cupboard [note: trying to shift the balance to all organic and fair trade teas, but I’m still finishing up my older stash first….]
food
Picture: apricot tart garnished with sprigs of lavender
John and CatGirl made some gorgeous tarts this weekend. This is the apricot tart that we shared with Friends on Saturday evening. Luscious!
On Sunday the two of them served a ginger/peach tart for brunch. We ate it with steaming cups of ginger peach tea. Wow. Good stuff.
For dinner John made an apriocot-lavender compote that he served with a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Such extravagance!
For the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on eating locally, supporting family farms that grow produce and raise livestock on a small scale. In the process I’ve found a few helpful websites:
—Local Harvest: You can search for Community Supported Agriculture programs for your region
–Find a Community Garden near you and grow your own organic food!
–website of the 100 mile Diet, moderated by the authors of Plenty.
–Barbara Kingsolver’s new book about eating locally: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
–For those who are interested in taking on the challenge to eat locally, I highly recommend subscribing to the “Eat Local Challenge” blog.
–For you who live near me (in SoCal), here are some links for some fabulous local foods: Winchester cheese (their super-aged Gouda is to-die-for), Temecula olive oil, and South Coast Farms (which is the best local CSA source, IMO)
My biggest problem in trying to source all of our family’s food locally is wheat. I know that wheat is grown within 100 miles of our home, but I can’t find any place to purchase the wheat. Does anyone have any ideas for me on how to do this??
UPDATE: The National Center for Home Food Preservation (for canning, pickling, etc all of that locally grown good-ness)
Also, see JohnH’s writeup of our local eating adventure last Sunday.
UPDATE #2: A list of OC Certified Farmers Markets with tons of seasonal recipes(!) included