Food food everywhere, have we got enough to eat?

This past Saturday I accompanied some co-workers from Lincoln Hospital on a tour of the South Bronx – the neighborhood that we work in but which none of us live in. The tour highlighted lack of park and riverfront access, the prevalence of dirty industry and the food options that are available to residents. There are grocery stores and restaurants in these neighborhoods but as one tour guide pointed out – those grocery stores are not ones known for carrying a wide variety of products and not necessarily improving the health of their communities.

We then paused for several minutes at a small South Bronx farmer's market. The market opened last year in response to a public health crisis that has in part resulted from lack of access to good, affordable produce. It started from a $500 grant, it is completely staffed by volunteers from the community and one of the vendors is an urban farm that is just a few blocks from the market. That urban farm is called La Finca del Sur and it is lead by women of the Mott Haven Community.

This stop was example of a community with little access to healthy food, fighting it's way into having that access. The farmer's market is small – insufficient to provide that entire community with good food and to completely prevent the massive proliferation of diabetes – but it's a valiant expression of a community meeting it's own needs when commercial grocery stores do not.

Now, this a blog for our CSA, it's not supposed to be about urban farming or farmer's markets. The story above illustrates a community which is making it's food delivery system more just for it's residents. The creation of that farmer's market and urban farm allows the residents to have a choice between what a grocery store offers and what it doesn't. Creating that choice is labor intensive but without that choice the health of the community declines.

The CSA that we are all a part of pays a farmer for the food he grows. We have a choice to either pay that farmer and know where our money goes and where our food comes from, or we could pay a grocery store and have that grocery store dictate the health of our community. For the most part grocery stores are not malicious organizations, but is my suspicion that we are healthier if we even just have the CSA as an option.

I am a member of this CSA to help keep this option strong and I am grateful for all of the persistence and the work that goes into it. Food Justice is a hot topic lately, I hope it stays hot for a very long time.


Corrielle Caldwell

Plums! (And their inevitable cake...)

Ah, plums. Aren't they a miracle of bluish hazy midnight purple deliciousness?

When late summer begins to hint at its transformation to early autumn, the elliptical Italian Prune Plums make their annual appearance. In our CSA shares, in the farmers' market stalls, and grocery shelves, we are treated to a brief window of plum abundance that I personally look forward to every year with great enthusiasm. My enthusiasm is due primarily to the anticipation of making the recipe I present to you here. By special request, here is Pflaum Torte. It's brilliant in its simplicity, and it is old school grandma awesome. (And it freezes like a champ for an easy "pull it out of the freezer and bring it to X,Y, or Z holiday party, go go go" in the harried holiday months we know are coming but don't want to think about just yet.)

Special Equipment:

A 9 inch Springform Cake Pan

An Electric Mixer

A Rubber/Silicone Scraper

 Ingredients:

1 stick of Butter, softened

1 cup, plus 1/4 cup Sugar

1 cup Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1 pinch of Salt

2 Eggs

12-14 Italian plums, halved and pitted (Probably just 12, but if you're like me, you'll need to eat at least 2 before they make it to the cake!)

1 1/2 tsp. ground Cinnamon

1 tsp. strained fresh Lemon Juice  

Step 1: Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and 1 cup of the sugar.

Step 2: Add the 1 cup flour, pinch of salt, 1 tsp. baking soda and 2 eggs and mix into a thick batter.

Step 3: Butter and flour a 9 inch springform cake pan, and pour in the batter.

Step 4: With the rubber scraper, smooth the batter into an even layer.

Step 5: Halve and pit the plums and then gently press them, skin side up, into the batter.

Step 6: Once all the plums are on, sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar,  1 tsp strained fresh lemon juice, and 1 and 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon over the plums. 

Step 7: Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 1 hour, or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely, then remove from pan, slice, and serve with a dollop of freshly whipped cream.

Pflaum Torte: 2015

Go out and get the plums. Do it now! In a few weeks they'll be gone, and you'll have to wait a whole year before you can have this cake! Unless of course you happen to be at a pot-luck with me in the coming months. Yes, I did bake 4 of these today. All in the oven at once. I'll soon be wrapping them in parchment paper and foil to slip into freezer bags, after which I will tuck them away in my freezer to hold on to the plum-tart-taste of summer's end for sometime mid-winter. 

Enjoy! 

Love, Terina

Türlü Güveç, Famous Turkish Mixed Vegetable Casserole

Sometimes the right tools make all the difference! A Güveç is a Turkish earthenware casserole in which these vegetables are baked. You don't have to have it, any oven safe casserole will do, but there is something about cooking in a clay pot that makes the food taste better. There just is.

Special Equipment:
An oven safe casserole dish, preferably made of the earth with a lead free glaze.
A colander 

Ingredients:

1 Medium Eggplant, cubed
4-5 Tomatoes, sliced into rounds
1 Bell pepper, chopped
2 Medium Summer Squash, sliced or cubed 
2 cups (Approximately) of young beans, snapped into 1-1.5inch pieces
3/4 cup green peas, shelled fresh or frozen
2 Medium onions, finely chopped
1 6oz can Organic Tomato Paste + 1 can water
1 Bunch flat leaf parsley chopped, or dry equivalent
3 tsp paprika or sweet red pepper/poivron rouge
4-5 teaspoons salt (for salting eggplant and then later to taste)
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
(You could also add okra, potatoes, or cannellini beans, all variations welcome! The Greek version adds garlic, too!)

Step 1: Cube the eggplant, salt the eggplant, and place it in a colander over a plate to drain for about 45min-1hr.

Step 2: Chop the onion, the pepper, the squash, the green beans and add them along with the peas to the clay pot. Rinse the salt from the eggplant, and add eggplant to the pot as well.

Step 3: Add parsley, salt, and paprika. Mix well, traditionally done with clean hands.

Step 4: Mix the can of tomato paste with 1 can of water and pour over the vegetables. If it clumps, just mix it in well with the vegetables.

Step 5: Slice the 4-5 tomatoes and arrange them over the vegetable mixture. Then drizzle 1/4 cup olive oil over the tomatoes.

Step 6: Bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven until the tomatoes on top have browned slightly, about 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Serve hot or cold with bread, rice or fresh yoghurt. (And if you're heating up your oven anyway, go ahead and make some other veggies in there, too. Summertime CSA bounty! Yes, I did steal a goat cheese stuffed mini-pepper and eat it before I took this shot, LOL! So did David Chen.)

Enjoy!

Love, Terina