Fairhaven, The River

End of season

Today is the last day of the season for farmer's market.  Attendence and sales have been drifting down as the season ends.  I had time for a short chat with one of the farmers.  His farm has four major sales channels, and part of his challenge is maintaining a proper balance for them.

1. They run a CSA program.  For a fixed payment in the winter you get a weekly box of mixed produce during the season.  This up front money is very important for the cash flow of the farm.  But they limit participation because they don't want to kill the other channels.   They are not sure that the CSA approach has real endurance.  If it turns out to be a passing fad, the farm will need the other channels.  Also, CSA customers do not like to be subject to the variability of good and bad seasons.  In return for up front payment, they want assurances on quantity.
2. They run their farm stand.  It will stay open for another month.  This is a long standing tradition for suburban farms.  They are not willing to close it.
3. They sell at the farmers market.  This has held up nicely and provides a high efficiency sales environment.  They make a lot of sales in a few hours each week.
4. They sell to a few local stores and restaraunts.

This year went OK for them.  Not too much was lost to rain or insects.  The increased interest in local eating helps.  The less fad driven locavore efforts have also helped.  A lot of the press and educational coverage has emphasized a realistic assessment of what crops make sense for this climate and soil.  So instead of the locavores pushing to grow difficult poor yielding crops, the locally suitable crops are pushed on the locavores.

I've also noticed an increased interest in canning this year.  There were sales on canning supplies at the hardware stores and more press coverage.  This seems to be a nationwide thing too.  Amazon and other Internet stores were sold out for many canning supplies.  I had not noticed canning before.  I don't have a garden so it makes little sense for me to can.  If I really enjoyed it, personally canned goods would taste better but using locally  grown foods would cost more than commercially canned goods. 

Eating local in Homer, AK

I missed the farmer's market in Homer on Saturday by not paying attention to the time.  By the time I remembered, there was not enough time to go down and see it before I needed to be on my way.  But the local residents are very much into eating local.  This is due to cost, a desire for fresh food, and the outdoor way of life.  So, besides getting much of the protein from fish, there is a lot of local produce during the rather short growing season.  I had wondered what you would find here.  The answer is practically all the cold weather vegetables.

One garden was showing several varieties of lettuce, kale, broccoli, rhubarb, and strawberries.  Others also have potatoes and cabbage.  The alpine strawberries are ripe in the fields.  They don't get the sun to turn red, these are the white and pink sweet strawberries.  Tomatoes are indoors at many houses, but it is borderline for tomatoes.  The temperature is not quite high enough.  One house has a triple pane polycarb greenhouse attached, with solar powered fan and automatic temperature hinges to open when hot.  They get many more varieties.  Right now they were getting tomatoes and eggplant.  (This is an energy efficient style, because there is no external heating.  It uses just the sun to keep warm.  So there are no plants surviving in there over the winter.)

Decent food at a conference

I regularly complain about the terrible things that travel does to my diet. For the first time that I can recall, I'm getting suitable food at a conference. The HL7 conference lunches are genuinely suitable food. There is a salad that is tastey components, not just an excuse for fat laden dressings. The fruit is large quantities that are expected to be eaten, fresh and tasty. This is not the fruit display that is expected to last all week. Then they have good fresh vegetables without a sauce and meat in it's own juice. The only traditional carbs and fat offering is the potatoes side dish.

This is a great improvement over the usual carbs (bagels, pastry, more pastry, more carbs)and coffee, with fat laden carbs and meats for the meals. It is much easier to eat properly when the food is suitable.

Tonight's dinner was with relatives. Fish and lean beef on an electric grill at the table, eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves.

This is the first trip in a long time that is not a dietary disaster. Being in San Diego does make a difference.

Eating Locally, this year's status report

The season is about over.  Aside from a few squash there is nothing local left.  In
Food politics | Voting with your trolley the Economist argues some of the complexities of the eat local movement. I think that my eat local avoids the problems that they describe. The two keys are:

1. Know what is naturally in season locally, so that you avoid blunders like using hot house tomatoes instead of the lower energy alternative of shipping them in from where the climate permits natural growth in season.
2. Don't drive extra miles, in fact, try to reduce miles driven.
   

I have a farmer's market within walking distance every Saturday in the summer. It is primarily good for greens, although occasionally there are good local fruits or other vegetables.  So there is no extra driving, and perhaps even a little less driving.  My regular vegetable store marks the origins, and that lets me select items that are currently in season locally.  I also have relatives and friends that still have farms in the area, so I know what is seasonal.  It might not be from an immediately local farm but it is something moderately local.  That does reduce the energy demands.  It also helps preserve both the semi-rural feel and keeps more money in the local economy.

But it's now mostly over.  The winter squash will keep, and almost everything else is shipped in.  Come spring, the greens will pick up first, then the berries, and other vegetables come summer.

Eating Local

The local produce is running out. During the summer there is the local farmer's market (for fresh collards, kale, and local fruits). Then the veggie store always prefers local stuff. During the earlier fall it was awash with varieties of squash and greens. Before my latest trip it was starting to run down, but I was still able to have a mostly local meal before leaving (brussel sprouts, parsnips, leeks, and chicken). Only the chicken was not truly local. It's from an organic farm in PA.

But now the pickings are really slim. The brussel sprouts and winter squash will hold on, but the leeks are running low, the other greens are no longer local, and the fruit is imported. Thus it will remain until the summer crops begin.

Cast Iron

I wonder how cast iron cookery actually works. My skillet is now fully matured with a durable black layer. It is amazingly non-stick and easy to clean. Aside from the embarrassment factor of having a Martha Stewart household product it has been a great investment. (It was only $15 for the skillet). It looks somewhat like a layer of graphite, although there must be more to it than that.

Why did the cast iron skillet fall out of favor so much? Is it the weight? They are heavy. Is it the black and dirty look? Was it just an infatuation with new technologies? There are plenty of other cooking uses where the cast iron tools are not practical, so the no-stick coatings have a long life. Cast iron's resurgence may hold up as well.

Box wine

Box wines are becoming more popular in the US, which has lagged Europe in accepting them.  I dug into this a bit to understand the issues.  It turns out that there is one technical factor at work:

• The plastic liner of the box wine is imperfect.  Box wines will degrade after 1-2 years in the bag because of oxygen leakage.  This limits box wines to non-vintage use.  The wine must be kept in barrels until shortly before packaging and must be consumed promptly by the purchaser.  It is not suitable for long term storage in a personal wine cellar.

For routine table wine use, as is common in Europe, this is not a problem.  The box wine is cheaper and just as suitable as the bottled ordinary table wine.  It means that the variety of table wines can be much greater, because the box wine is much less expensive to package and ship.  Glass bottles are heavy, they consume significant extra energy to ship, significant energy to make, significant energy to recycle, are fragile, and otherwise a nuisance to deal with.  Boxes don't have any of these problems.  Their only failing is being unsuitable for long term storage.

This deals with some of the concerns in this article about the growing industrialization of winemaking.  There is an answer to the eco-costs of shipping wine bottles.  Further, in proper no-regrets fashion, it is economically much more attractive to both the wine maker and the wine buyer.

The main barrier in the US is cultural.  Routine table wine consumption is not a national tradition.  The tradition is that wine is for special occasions and should be a vintage wine.  Vintage wines will remain bottled. 

But there is increasing understanding of the uses for ordinary table wine, and the much lower price of box wines is driving that use.  Furthermore, you are starting to see semi-vintage wines in boxes.  These are wines that have been aged in barrels for several years and then boxed.  This is increasing the market for box wines.  The re-sealability of the box wines is also driving increased use.  Someone who has wine with dinner only once or twice per week will waste bottled wine.  Even with a stopper, the wine oxidizes and suffers badly within a few days.  The box wines have airtight taps, so that they remain OK for several weeks after opening.

Airport Cafe

Nancy's Airfield Cafe is a good choice for informal eating of innovative meals that are expertly cooked.  I've had a dinner there and their Sunday brunch.  They are only open for dinner on Friday and Saturday.  They are open for breakfast and lunch every day.  The location looks over the runway, and it is popular with the local pilots.  It also looks west, so it has a marvelous sunset view at dinnertime.

Dinner was ravioli, stuffed with gorgonzola, walnut, and other stuff, served with a brown ginger based sauce.  The side vegetable was a variety of fresh greens, properly sauted to just tenderness.   The brunch I had a central american combination of eggs, toasted tortilla, black beans, and a salsa.

Service is good, and prices are somewhat high (which fits with the high quality).  At dinner they bring a soupcon of the day's soups to try.  The soups were a fine lobster bisque and a very unique dessert soup.   It was chocolate soup.  This is something between a hot cocoa and a melted fudge topping.  It was an amazing flavor and texture. 

Taleggio

The veggie store has started carrying taleggio in the cheese section.  It's a fabulous stinky soft Italian cheese.  Some taleggio, some sliced sweet ham, a smear of crushed garlic on fresh crusty bread is a spectacular dinner.  A little box Merlot and dinner was complete.  (Stinky cheese plus garlic has social side effects, so take that into consideration).

The local cheese store (now about 15-years gone) tried taleggio and found that it was not popular enough.  The wheel would spoil before it sold, because taleggio spoils quickly.  I hope that the veggie store has a large enough audience to keep on stocking it.