Locavore cuisine with an international flavor

Being a locavore in a place like Pittsboro NC doesn’t mean that you only get to eat Southern home cooking.  Far from it.  Here on the rural edge of the Research Triangle area with its major universities and global companies, we have an amazingly diverse population (one of my UNC colleagues told me he was the only one in his Chapel  Hill cul de sac who speaks English as a first language).  So  we have our share of ethnic eateries, and the best of them source their ingredients from local farmers. We’re lucky:  we can eat local and savor global at the same time.

Consider Kerala Curry, the growing Indian condiment and packaged-entree company based here. One taste of their mango or tomato chutneys, or one of their chicken curry dishes, and you know it’s the real Indian deal.  Owners Ann and Rollo Varkey, from Kerala in Southern India, live in Pittsboro, shop most of their ingredients from the State Farmers Market in Raleigh, manufacture their products in Burlington, and produce their labels in Clayton. They use no preservatives or artifical coloring.

Kerala has plenty of customers throughout the Triangle, through Southern Seasons, Whole Foods, Weaver Street and Chatham Marketplace, and you’ll find them at the local Shakori Music festivals.  They also  ship to retail supermarkets and gourmet shops in 25 states.

Last year their tomato chutney won first place in the condiment competition at the Fancy Food Show in New York. Slather some on a cracker with cream cheese and you’ll understand why.

I first discovered Kerala when I was attempting to duplicate former Chatham  Marketplace Chef Jeff Barney’s “pork loin roast with mango chutney reduction.” I didn’t have the patience to try to create my own mango chutney and I tried several store-bought varieties until I found Kerala Curry’s version right under my nose at Chatham Marketplace.  I mixed some into the pan drippings from a pork roast, threw in some white wine and cooked it until it bubbled down. Voila, mango  chutney reduction, not as good as Chef Jeff’s of course, but not bad for an amateur. One of my friends makes a tangy cheese ball by mixing Kerala mango  chutney with cream cheese.

You can read all about Kerala Curry in Andrea Weigl’s feature in the News and Observer.

Sweet-potato kin

I’ve never met Stanley Hughes,but I feel like I know him. His sweet potatoes show up on my table every week of the year, so it seems like we’re foodshed kinfolk. Sweet potatoes are the favorite vegetable at our house. We usually just roast them with butter.  After carmelizing in the oven, they need no further sweetening. Sometimes I make sweet potato and onion quesadillas for supper or sweet potato hash browns for brunch. 

We’re thrilled to have this local organic source year round from the Hughes’ Pine Knot Farm in Hurdle Mills,N.C., just 30 miles or so from our place in Pittsboro.  The fact that he grows our favorite, and probably most nutritious, dinner staple on land that has been in his family for three generations, makes it even more special.

I buy the sweet taters at Chatham Marketplace, our natural foods co-op just two miles from our back door. Organic, local, affordable, high in anti-oxidants, low in carbon emission and, did I mention,  indescribably delicious. It doesn’t get much better than this.

This summer I’m trying to deepen the roots of our sweet spud connection. I remembered that back in grade school, I learned to sprout sweet potato slips by putting the whole vegetable in a glass of water. I would watch the roots miraculously fill up the glass and the sprouts spill over the top and reach for the floor.

So last month I took a couple of  Pine Knot’ Beauregards from our spud stash and stuck  them in water to grow on the windowsill.  Last week,  after the sprouts had grown more than 6 inches long, I snipped them off and planted them gently in a large raised bed in the backyard. With luck, sun,water, mo-jo from my compost and nutrients from Hughes family soil dating back to 1912, I might be harvesting a new generational line of  Hughes potatoes this fall.

We may just have to have a sweet potato family re-union.

Another reason to ‘buy direct’ from our farmers

From the “Food for Thought” department, here are two salient points reported by Rob Smart at Civil Eats, underscoring why we should ‘buy direct’ from our local farmers– better for us and better for them:

“Today’s average farmer makes about 55 percent less money for the food they grow than they did 50 years ago. According to the USDA, farmers’ share of consumer food expenditures dropped from about $0.40 per dollar in 1950 to around $0.19 in 2006. The balance of consumer expenditures, termed the Marketing Bill, goes to “value-add” (i.e., industrial food companies).

While farmers’ financial situations have deteriorated, food manufacturers’ fortunes have skyrocketed to the tune of $3.1 trillion in revenues per year with above average profit margins. Judging by the fact that the Top 50 Food Processors and Top 50 Supermarket & Grocery Chains all have over $1.0 billion in annual sales, with Wal-Mart topping the list at nearly $100 billion, increasing concentrations of power are clear. “

Dear Lieutenant Governor

Don’t you love it when you take the time to write to an elected official and you receive a nice polite reply that says nothing? Below is my recent exchange with N.C. Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton regarding his challenge to encourage us to exercise and eat more fruits and veggies (great idea). You get points for eating more produce and it doesn’t matter whether it’s fresh, frozen or from a can, he says (not so good). In other words it doesn’t matter how many miles it traveled to get to your mouth, or how many petro-chemicals were used and greenhouse gases emitted to produce or transport it.  He provides a handy list of produce that includes many that are out of season or unavailable in North Carolina. No mention of where to find locally grown food (missed opportunity to support the local economy) even though our state has a Goodness Grows in N.C. campaign to promote farms and farmers’ markets.

(Thanks  to Linda Watson for emailing allies about this; she runs the fantastic Cook for Good website that shows you how to eat real food, including organics, without breaking the budget.)

I registered for Dalton’s campaign to see for myself, filling out the required form that hands him my name, address and email. He got my contact info (that should come in handy next time he runs) and all I got was a very nice and very disappointing reply.

‘Dear Lieutenant Governor,
 
Your challenge to get us to eat more fruits and vegetables is a great idea. But it would be even better for the health of our local economy, and our environment (lower our carbon footprint), if you expanded the challenge to give us extra points for eating locally grown produce. You could tie it to the Goodness Grows in North Carolina program and encourage all to shop at their local Farmers’ Markets and food co-ops, join a local CSA farm, or plant a garden in their backyards.
 
Thanks.’

* * *

‘Dear Dee,
 
Thank you so very much for contacting my office and for your support of our new healthy initiative. As you know, I care deeply about promoting healthy eating habits and lifestyle changes for North Carolinians. I thank you for your suggestion and for your advocacy on promoting locally grown foods. Once again, thank you for writing and sharing my concern for a healthier North Carolina.  
 
Most sincerely,
Walter Dalton
Lt. Governor of North Carolina’

Fickle Creek Farm comes full circle– sustainably

From the Newsand Observer 6-17-09:

“Ten years ago,walking around a certain 61-acre parcel of land in Efland was more like off-roading. All you could see were overgrown weeds and trees coming out of nutritionally parched soil…  Ben Bergmann and Noah Ranells, then NC State University professors teaching and researching agro-forestry and soil science, could see much more…. goats, sheep, cows and chickens grazing free on pastures and garden patches full of vegetables and fruits.”

After a decade of hardwork, that’s what they now have. Fickle Creek Farm, including their solar bed-and-breakfast, is a success. Click here to read the rest of this feature by Luciana Chavez.

Cycle to save farmland

Calling all sustainable farm advocates who love to cycle. Here’s a chance to have a great bicycle tour of scenic Chatham County, while raising money to preserve farmland, through Triangle Land Conservancy. The Freewheeling Farmland Frolic,  July 11, starts at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro. You can ride a 30-, 45- or 60-mile loop through Silk Hope and down in the Bonlee and Goldston areas. I can tell you from my own experience, these are some of the best, and safest rural roads to cycle in Chatham,with great views.Register online by Monday for $25,  $30 after that, and$35 at the event, if there’s still room.

Breaking Bread: Methodists and the community garden movement

I’m a fallen away Catholic who hasn’t been to church in years. But I believe in the power of community, and in the best churches, community thrives in many ways. Fred Bahnson from the Anathoth Community Garden at a small Methodist Church in Cedar Grove, N.C. (believed to be the first church community garden in the state) recently held a meeting with the Bishop, a former Special forces soldier-turned-food-activist, and about 14 farmers.  They discovered they had the potential, through the Methodist church, to spread community gardens all over so that sustainable food could be accessible to everyone. Imagine that.

Here’s an excerpt from Fred’s inspiring report; you can read more at Civil Eats.

“….Rev. Jeremy Troxler spoke next. Jeremy is a former tobacco farmer. Despite his awe-shucks demeanor he is an elegant spokesman for the agrarian way of life and is now director of the Thriving Rural Communities program at Duke Divinity School. “We need our parishioners to see that sustainable farming is not a liberal agenda,” he said. “In fact it’s really the way my grandfather lived. We need to use the deep wells of scripture to find ways to express that clearly to our congregations.”

Lunch that day was an all-local menu of onion and broccoli quiche, a salad of Jericho lettuce and sugar snap-peas, and fresh strawberries for dessert, all grown in the church’s community garden and on neighboring farms.

Before we ate Stan [the former soldier] said something that’s stayed with me. We had been talking about the recent groundswell of interest in agriculture among churches. Shaking his head slightly and speaking in a hushed, almost reverent tone Stan said, “There are 830 churches in the NC Methodist conference. Think if every one of those started a garden or produced their own food. Once they are in motion—that’s an unstoppable force.”

Heads around the table nodded in agreement. The bishop blessed the food. And then we feasted.”

Learn more about the community gardens cropping up in the Triangle area.

Why did the National Chicken Council cross the road?

To squawk about Food Inc., the movie that criticizes the way BigAg produces poultry, beef, pork, veggies, etc. The film features Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma), Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Joel Salatin (Polyface Farm) and others. Maybe we should see for ourselves. It’s set to open in North Carolina at the Colony Theater theater in Raleigh on July 17, with a special showing July 18 as a fundraiser for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.

Largest US farm tour reaps historic attendance

Berkeley-Bay may get all the buzz, but the largest farm tour in the US is in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triangle area. This time the tour drew more familes and foodies than ever in its 14-year history. Nearly 3600 people trekked to 40 farms (13,195 farm visits), during the annual Piedmont Farm Tour in April, sponsored by Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and Weaver Street Market.

I managed to visit Dancing Pines, Fickle Creek, Peregrine, Beausol Gardens, Ayrshire and Piedmont Biofarm, all impressive, highly efficient, bio-dynamic operations.

• Ayrshire was the first farm in N.C. to obtain organic certification; owner Bill Dow, a former doc andnatural-born community organizer, helped start the Carrboro Farmers Market more than 30 years ago (now one of the best in the nation) and has mentored countless new farmers, foodies and activists.

• Peregrine, owned by Alex and Betsy Hitt, provides lettuce to Weaver Street Market, the region’s largest cooperative grocery, and a diverse range of vegetables and cut flowers to the Carrboro Farmers Market and local restaurants. Their Dutch inspired sliding hoop houses are a wonder to behold.

• Fickle Creek Farm, run by Ben Bergmann and Noah Ranells (Orange County’s agricultural economic develoment director), features a passive solar bed-and-breakfast and delectable chemical-and-anti-biotic-free chickens, hogs and sheep as well as many vegetable crops.
• Dancing Pines in Efland is an amazingly orderly, bio-intensive farm run by Bill and Joanna Lelekacs, who both have full-time jobs off the farm.

• Harry LeBlanc’s Beausol Gardens near tiny Pittsboro feeds 100 CSA households from its two-acres of vegetables.
• And Piedmont Biofarm at the famous Piedmont Biodiesel Plant also in Pittsboro, is energized by Farmer Doug Jones, a seed wizard who specializes in peppers and has developed the Pittsboro Pepper, grown to thrive in our area.

The tour offered just a taste of a region where you can’t swat without slapping a sustainable farmer. There are at least 250 farms selling produce, meats and dairy products at about 30 Farmers Markets and two dozen CSAs in the greater Triangle region.

Agri-Biz Bummer

Quote of the week:

“Chemical agriculture is like a drug trip, it takes more and more every year to get the same kick.”

–Joel Salatin, farmer, in Fresh, the movie.