Cooking for the Mob

They made us an offer we couldn’t refuse: Bring shovels, rakes and rubber boots to a designated location and be prepared to load and dig manure into a series of shallow (and slippery) muddy pools. And we went for it.

Jason, far right, demonstrates how to level the rice paddy.

Good thing this invitation came from Crop Mob, that loose-knit, now famous band of local growers, field hands, interns and sustainable ag enthusiasts who show up for mass work days at members’ farms about once a month.

Sunday’s Mob drew about 100 people, a record, to help Jason and Haruka expand their Edible Earthscapes rice paddy near Moncure. Building the terraces is a dirty, labor- intensive job that would ordinarily take weeks. Perfect for Crop Mob.

My first assignment was to work on the lunch crew under fearless cook Camille (a.k.a. Cookie-san). Local Greek goddess Angelina gave us the run of her Kitchen (Greek food with a local twist) and joined the fun along with foodie friends Susan and Ann (who baked those delicious tarts at the recent I Love u Lunch). Yours truly (a.k.a. Sweet Potato-San) was there to follow their instructions and try not to do too much damage.

Camille says, "Come and get it."

Cookie-san did the heavy lifting: came up with a recipe for AnPan, a popular Japanese concoction of sweetened Adjuki bean paste stuffed into fresh buns made with coconut milk. Some 90 volunteers had already signed up for today’s Mob, so we would need to bake a gigantic batch of grub.

Camille had already cooked up about 8 pounds of beans and 16 1/2 pounds of dough ahead of time. We ground the beans into a smooth paste, added sugar and cooked them on Angelina’s commercial-grade range. We kneaded the dough in several batches then calculated how much dough should go into each bun (2.5 oz), and measured each roll carefully on Angelina’s ounce-calibrated scale (which I only knocked on the floor twice). We dropped the rolls on four massive pastry pans to rise, then rolled them out to be stuffed with bean paste, returned to the pastry tins and baked in the convection oven for 15-20 minutes. Whew, we had a blast and got it all baked up by noon without blowing up the kitchen, following Cookie’s brilliant plan. (See the recipe below).

Then Angelina, she of the devilish laugh who must be obeyed, decided we needed dessert. Yes ma’am. Ann and Angelina whipped up a bodacious batch of triple-fudge brownies in no time flat. Angelina threw in a platter of her very own Baklava for good measure, definitely not vegan.

When we arrived at the farm, just five miles down the road, Jason was showing the assembled Mobsters how to dig manure into each terraced paddy, working the compost into the mud with shovels, hoes and rakes, so that the water would be absorbed and the terraces would be smooth and level. Volunteers were trucking manure down the hill in wheel barrows and slipping and sliding their way carefully across the mud pools.

Ann was already hard at work, barefoot and shin deep in a mud bath. I put on my rubber boots and began digging compost into a paddy with Debbie, also barefoof, our intrepid sustainable agricultural extension agent. Gray (a Crop Mob regular) labored in the adjacent terrace. Debbie and I experienced paddy envy: we couldn’t get our terrace to look as smooth as Gray’s, but Jason eventually pronounced our work sound.

By 2 p.m. more than 100 Mobsters had converged at the farm, trailed by reporters from the Los Angeles Times and UNC Public Television, among others. (It didn’t hurt that Crop Mob was just featured on Public Radio and in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.)

It was finally time for our high-protein authentic Japanese bean buns. While Haruka, Rachel, Kristin (another regular Mobber, from Circle Acres) and others prepared dinner from Edible Earthscapes farm ingredients (mixed salad greens, frittatas and chick-pea soup), Mobsters scarfed up our AnPan buns, brownies and Baklava with Haruka’s green tea.

By 4 p.m., most of the acre had been sculpted into credible terraces, and half of them were now grade-A smooth, level and soggy.

Jason was happy. “This would have taken us at least 10 days,” he said. “When you get this many people showing up, there’s no way that you don’t get a whole lot of work done. And it’s a lot more fun.”

Now all they have to do is finish off the paddy, plant the rice seed, get someone to bring the rice huller over from Japan, harvest, thrash and hull that crop. Thanks to a grant from RAFI-USA, they’ve got the funds to pull it off. If they succeed, we may see “Five-Mile Rice” rice in our local co-op this year.

Meanwhile Crop Mobs are sprouting up all over. There’s one in Wake County, another forming in Atlanta, interest in New York and Seattle, and inquiries coming from as far away as Spain. And it all started right here in North Carolina’s Triangle foodshed, ground zero for innovative, grassroots, sustainable farming.

– Dee

Recipe: Cookie’s AnPan (16 servings, which we multiplied six-fold for The Mob)

Buns

1 T active yeast, 1.5 cups of whole wheat pastry flour and 3 cups of unbleached flour, 1 can (2 cups) of coconut milk, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 T salt.

Mix yeast and flour, add warm coconut milk, stir into wet dough, cover loosely and let rise 30 minutes.

Add salt and sugar, knead for 10 minutes, and let rise in loosely covered bowl for 1.5 hours.

Knead dough, cut into 16 equal pieces, knead briefly and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.

Place 3 T bean paste mix into center of each (see recipe below), fold sides over and pinch, let rise 20-30 minutes.

Bake seam side down 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Bean Paste

1.5 cups of red adjuki beans, rinsed well; 4 cups of water, 1/2 cup of vegetable shortening, 1 cup of sugar.

Place the beans and water in a saucepan, cover, bring to boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 1 1/2 hours, or til beans are very soft. Strain the water from the beans, and blend them into a puree in a blender or food processor. Press the puree through a sieve, discarding the skins, which will be left in the sieve. Place the puree in several layers of cheesecloth, and gently squeeze to remove excess moisture. Place the thickened puree back into the saucepan, together with the sugar and vegetable shortening, and heat over low heat, stirring until it becomes a thick paste. Stir and scrape vigorously so that it does not stick to the bottom. [The paste is ready when you can easily see the bottom of the skillet when you swipe the spoon through the paste.] Remove from heat and let cool before filling buns.

They came, they dug, and they ate.

Tom Robinson, Iconic Carrboro Fishmonger

A tribute to the longtime owner of Tom Robinson’s Seafood Market, who died Friday. By friend George “Jake” Horwitz:

Thomas Marshall Robinson, Jr., November 11, 1951 – February 19, 2010

If you asked one person who knew Tom Robinson for more than five minutes what was most striking about the man, you might reasonably expect six answers, each in conflict with the other five. When Tom wasn’t outraged by stupidity (which was usually), he laughed about it. He laughed more than most people, and most people, if they had any sense, joined in with him. His original charm was nearly irresistible, unless he happened to grossly offend you. Which was known to happen: Democrats, for some reason, don’t like to be mentioned as ‘feckless idiots’ any more than Republicans care for the sound of ‘sleazy morons.’ Tom loved the idea of states’ rights, but thought ‘Tea-baggers should be euthanized.’

He’d earned a degree in botany at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1975, and then traveled abroad to study in Norway . He then came home and turned his attention to selling fruit and vegetables on Rosemary Street . He switched to seafood, spent most Wednesdays driving his truck around New Hanover and Carteret counties, assessing and buying fishes, oysters, shrimp, scallops, crabs, and other tasty delectations from watermen, merchants, and assorted scoundrels along the coast. (He confided in me and about ten other people one vinous evening that Wilmington was ‘the evilest city in Christendom.’) He liked most of them, of course, but was unsparing in his disdain for their short-sightedness. (‘If you kill all the damn fish and catch the rest, then there won’t be any fish. And you won’t have any to sell. They don’t understand that.’)

Some time in the ‘eighties he sold the fish market and went back to Norway to study boat building. At the end of this splendid adventure, he came home because the people who’d bought the market from him had not followed his instructions and consequently went broke. He was seldom imprecise when instructing others how a job must best be done. His sweetheart of seventeen years Kay Hamrick recalls his telling a new employee how to scour the inside of a fish box (“Use a circular motion, going slowly in a clockwise motion…”) He had no opinion of failure to follow simple instructions.

He collected stuff wherever he went. Norway , Denmark , France , Canada , New York . Whisky, firearms, magazines, financial records, tools, books, knives, racing pigeons, boat designs, oyster shells, cooking stuff. He had plans for each of these, just not enough time to get it all done. His little sister Jane recalls Tom as a small child running out of their house in Wilmington, dressed in his bathrobe, grabbing a hoe, dashing to the garden, muttering boyish curses, “complaining that he’d slept late, and was already way behind.” Years later, we planted cypress trees at his farm in Chatham County , so Tom could have timber for the boat he was going to build. Some evenings Tom came to our cabin on the Haw River , and he drove over in his delivery truck; every cat in Bynum scampered across that bridge following the bodacious smell. “We’ll have supper outside, in the moonlight” he said, “among the sacred groves.” We talked about sailing, Leif Erikson, Magellan, Chinese junks, “the French and their food,” the advantages of the single-action Colt, the excellence of Southern generals in the War between the States, and, inevitably, the burgeoning presence of the Mafia in Wilmington.

Although the house he shared with Kay is loaded with boxes full of stuff, and the farm he owned is littered with old cars and trucks packed tight with Tom’s things, none of that is anything compared with the information and plans he squirreled away in his head. ‘I suppose you knew that more soldiers from North Carolina died defending Virginia than from any other Confederate state, including Virginia . But do you have any idea how many Black soldiers fell defending Wilmington ?’ And everything he knew, he staunchly defended with a strong opinion, whether it was the inferiority of John Jameson’s whisky (“Fine stuff if you enjoy the taste of kerosene.”) to the grace and power of the works of Edvard Grieg. His favorite comic strips were The Phantom and Prince Valiant. His demented support for the Tarheel basketball program absolutely eclipsed rationality. He loved playing with his dogs, racing his numerous pigeons, and fighting with the tax people in Wilmington (“Because they’re wrong.”) When Harvey Gantt ran against Jesse Helms for the senate, Tom gave Mr. Gantt a benefit fish-fry in the yard next to his market. It was a pretty day and we had fun.

Tom got cancer eleven years ago, endured the indignities of chemo-therapy, felt tired sometimes, scarcely slowed down, and seemed to get better. But cancer has a way of coming back, and his did. More chemo last year, then H1N1 influenza, and then pneumonia. Some of the last things he said in the hospital were orders for the fish market and telling Kay to keep after those incompetent crooks in the Wilmington tax office. He hung on with the respirator for days and days, and oftentimes we thought he would ride it out. His adored Kay sat down beside him for the long siege; my wife Kathy Armacost and I had the privilege of joining them. He never got to build his boat, but they tell me he’s sailing now, under a cloud of sleek racing pigeons, smart wind at his back, getting the feel of it. Sometime, I hope, he’ll take us for a ride.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m.  on Sunday March 7 at Walker’s Funeral Home in Chapel Hill, 919.942.3861.  Online condolences may be sent to www.walkersfuneralservice.com. Photo from North Carolina Travels, Carrboro.

James Beard Awards recognize local cuisine

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the seven North Carolina chefs and restaurants named semi-finalists for the prestigious 2010 James Beard Awards have built their reputations around fresh, local and organic cuisine.  And that five of them are located in the Triangle, where some 250 sustainable farms nourish us.   After all, Bon Appetit named our region “the foodiest small town” in America in 2008 precisely because of the symbiotic relationship between our outstanding chefs and farmers.

Andrea Reusing

Congratulations to our semi-finalists, and the farmers who distinguish their menus. Semifinalists for Best Chefs in the Southeast include: 

Ashley Christensen, Poole’s Downtown Diner in Raleigh

Scott Howell, Nana’s in Durham

Andrea Reusing, Lantern in Chapel Hill

Bill Smith, Crooks’ Corner, Chapel Hill

Jacob Sessoms, Table in Asheville.

National semi-final awards include:

• Outstanding Restaurant: Crook’s Corner and Magnolia Grill
• Outstanding Service: Magnolia Grill
• Best New Restaurant: Good Food on Montford, Charlotte. 

Bill Smith

They were selected from among 21,000 entries. Finalists will be announced March 22 and winners will be recognized May 3.

Door to Door Daikon

By Carol Peppe Hewitt

At the end of a recent Local Lunch Friday Jason and Haruka presented us with a dilemma. They operate EdibleEarthscapes, and they were overstocked with daikon radishes. They brought boxes of daikon to the kitchen, and have hundreds more plants in the ground.

Sandi from ECO said she didn’t need them, as she is flush with daikon right now. I suggested we take them to the Asian markets in Cary to see what we could sell. Lyle jumped at the idea.

“Do you know where those stores are?” he asked.

Lyle has never shopped at an Asian market, and being on a hundred mile diet, it is unlikely he will shop there any time soon, as they specialize in faraway foods. Plus, Lyle says he doesn’t get out much.

“Sure,” I replied. “I even know the owner of one of them. “

So the challenge was on and we set off with a box of big white tuber looking radishes. The mission was simple: come home with an empty box, a fistful of cash, and a buyer for the many boxes that would soon follow.

Our first stop was Grand Asia Market in Cary. The young woman in customer service rang for the produce manager and we explained our situation. “We have a box of wonderful local, sustainable daikon. Would you like to buy them? “

We showed him a sample and he led us to the produce section to compare it with their selection. Theirs were much bigger. And tougher. And cheaper. We were up against the Shanghai price.

We countered that ours might taste better and out came a knife. Next thing we knew we were cutting samples and performing live taste tests in the aisle. The produce manager preferred their hotter radish. The young woman from the customer service desk preferred ours. Lyle commandeered an unsuspecting shopper to try each one and she preferred our daikon! Score! EdibleEarthscapes took the lead! Our product was a bit more expensive, but we worked out a deal.

They asked us to come back with a pretty sign that explains these are fresh, local, sustainable, and whatever other good “shelf talk” (as they say in the business) and they’d set up a separate display to see how they sell. They would also need to be individually wrapped or marked with a stamp on them to distinguish them from the other, less expensive product. OK. We could take the idea back to Jason and Haruka for consideration.

They sell fifty boxes a week. The trick is to deliver them into that market profitably.

Stop number two was the Triangle Indian Market on Chatham Street. I had met Nagi, the owner, before. He is an excellent businessman who not only owns the grocery, but also several restaurants and a movie theater. He and I had talked previously about finding local farmers that would be interested in growing some of the vegetable varieties he now imports from overseas. He was not there, but we got his card, took a good look at the vegetable offerings-where daikon was called “muli.” Here we were up against the Miami price, and out of luck. We would have bought a couple of warm samosas for the road, had we not stuffed ourselves with cabbage pancakes and homemade mayonnaise at Local Lunch.

The woman we showed our sample to said that only the people in the north of India would eat such a thing. Interesting.

Third stop was the Punjab Indian Restaurant across the parking lot. North or South India, we weren’t sure, but we took a radish in and asked to speak to the chef. The hostess that greeted us shook her head. The chef wouldn’t want any, but how much did they cost? She might take one for herself. “One dollar,” Lyle said, before I could jack the price. A second woman nearby said she would take one as well. We closed the deal and moved on. Back in the car Lyle called it a “sympathy sale,” since we were cold, and wet, and bedraggled looking. Fine, but we now had two dollars!

Lyle forced me to stop at a Korean restaurant he had spotted, assuring me that daikon would be big in Korean cuisine. We met the owner and she was gracious. She held our sample up lovingly and explained that it was only the Chinese that would eat such a thing.

Around the corner was a Chinese fast food place. We walked in and Lyle held up the sample daikon. She waved him off. “No, no, I don’t want that.”

Next stop was Patel Brothers, another Indian market. Again I showed our sample radish to the owner. The customers in the checkout line seemed interested as well, so I asked to borrow a knife to carve off some more sample pieces. “Oh no,” the man behind the check out quickly informed me. “They will not eat “mooly” in the afternoon, just the morning, because it ruins the breath.” Great. So much for my breath, which had clearly been ruined a few stops back. And now we have another word for daikon.

Lyle had cased out the produce section and noticed that their box of daikon radish was almost empty. He was convinced they would buy our entire box if we got the price right. Lyle brought the box in from the car and the fellow at the checkout began piling long radishes on their counter scale. After eight or ten they began to roll off. My suggestion that they not try to get them all on the scale at once fell on deaf ears. After a couple of avalanches they held. 16.18 pounds, and we got our cash.

A customer asked if we had brought the leaves. Darn. Not a one. They are very good cooked she said, and I promised to bring some back for her. Have we discovered another saleable product that is usually ending up in the compost bin? Now that would be exciting.

Going door to door with Jason and Haruka’s daikon was a tremendous success. We learned a lot. We made several connections that may pay off later and we got useful feedback everywhere we went. We went out with a full box and came home with an empty box and a bit of cash, so that counts for something. And we found out that the Asian markets are not a panacea for selling surplus daikon.

Good to know.

And what a blast. If we are going to re-engineer our foodshed, we are going to need to pay this tuition, to go talk to the grocers and get a thorough understanding of the markets we are playing in. Overstocked on daikon? Better knock on some doors.

Market research. What better way to spend a dreary February afternoon?

Crop Mob strikes again

Within hours of our posting, “Growing Rice in Moncure NC?”, Rob Jones of Crop Mob contacted Jason and Haruka and offered to stage a “mob” work day at Edible Earthscapes to help them expand the rice paddy: Sunday Feb. 28 from 12 noon to 5 p.m, followed by dinner. 

Jason and Haruka will lead a demonstration at the start so participants can learn more about what it takes to create the perfect environment for rice.  Participants can help by working on the paddy, or on the roofing of the intern housing, or cooking up sustainable grub for hungry “mobsters.”

Come prepared to work, learn and enjoy. Bring your rubber boots (expect mud) and tools if possible, such as: shovel, trenching shovel, rake, pickaxe, long level, wheelbarrow. Please RSVP to info@cropmob.org so they can plan enough food.

Crop Mob is an informal group of farmers, farm hands, interns and advocates who help each other with big projects.  The idea is to exchange labor and ideas, learn,make new friends and strenghten our local sustainable farm community.

Here’s a slideshow Logan Mock-Bunting created from the mob last March at Edible Earthscapes.  Listen to Sam and Kristin talk about why they are involved in Crop Mob, on WUNC Public Radio “State of Things.”

Edible Earthscapes is located at 4803 Moncure-Pittsboro Rd., Moncure, NC 27559 (look for the yellow sign).

Locals loved local Valentine’s fare

By Carol Peppe Hewitt

Some might say locavores are unrealistic, and that in the winter we would starve. But Valentine’s Day in Pittsboro proved the skeptics wrong. There was snow on the ground, yet inside a bright, airy, festive room at Chatham Mills over a hundred people dined on a three-course, gourmet meal that was at least 80% local food and drink.

Ann's tarts in the works

Our Sunday I Love u Lunch was completely sold out. I had hoped for about 40-60 people, but by Friday we were at 101 (we could seat 96) and I was getting calls begging me to add more. I turned away a local official, several close friends, two of the farmers who had grown some of the food we were eating, and a walk-in, a gentlemen who had come all the way from Greensboro, was put to work as a volunteer.

This was meant to be a smallish pilot event, a first collaboration with Slow Foods Triangle, Chatham Mills, the Abundance Foundation, ECO, and several Chatham farmers and caterers – but we ended up feeding about 100 attendees, and a dozen volunteers. The food got good reviews, and the noisy sound of happy chatter drowned out the IPod singing love songs from the corner.

There were even local early camelias on the tables, cut at Sugar Lake Nursery. (They used to be only a wholesaler, but lately with an appointment they’ll let you come buy camelias right from their greenhouses. Good luck choosing : pink, white, red, spring bloomers, fall bloomers, winter bloomers…. I came home with a red and white variegated spring one, and a bucket of blossoms for the tables.)

Here’s the final menu:

• Soups from Angelina’s Kitchen: Avglemono, Greek Chicken Soup, (Harlands Creek Farm chickens, Hoganvillaea’s eggs, Bennett Farm Lemons) or Butternut Squash, Carrot Green Chile Soup (Cottle Farm squash via ECO, Rocky River Farm carrots, Piedmont BioFarm chiles)
• Baker+Farmer Duck Egg Dinner Rolls (Duck Run Farm duck eggs) and Mrs. Scurlock’s Sweet Potato Pecan Muffins (sweet potatoes via ECO).
• Roasted Root Vegetable and Goat Cheese Tarts ( Rutabaga via ECO, Edible Earthscapes beets, local market eggs, Maple View Farm Buttermilk, rosemary, baked by Ann Silverman)
• Mixed Salad Greens (Asian greens from ECO, Piedmont BioFarm Winter Salad Mix, Screech Owl Greenhouse mixed lettuces)
• Scratch Baking’s Beet Chiffon Pies with local Whipped Cream

This was too much fun not to do again soon. I am already hatching new plans. Next time I will make sure the farmers can attend, and I will also invite them to bring whatever they can spare to create a mini-market of local meat and veggies. Much of the produce was donated this time, but next time, we’re paying for it. Local sustainable farmers deserve support, not only in helping them get their names out there, but also by putting cash in their hands, and that I will do happily and gratefully.

So keep an eye out for our March luncheon date, come hungry, and bring a shopping bag!

Growing rice in Moncure, NC?

Two young farmers at an incubator near  Pittsboro will soon have a viable local rice crop, thanks to their ingenuity, perseverance, and a grant from the Rural Advancement Foundation International:

Before moving to Moncure about two years ago, Jason and Haruka Oatis lived and farmed in Japan, where they also ate rice daily.   After moving to North Carolina, they established their Edible Earthscapes CSA farm, a dream come true. It seemed to have just about everything — fertile soil, a hoop house, a cistern and deer fence, plentiful herbs, sunflowers, vegetables and greens, good neighbors, and a growing market of consumers hungry for sustainably grown food.

But there was one thing missing: a rice paddy.  Come on, in the Piedmont? Right.

Jason eyed the low-lying corner of the property and began dreaming, and reading, about how to grow rice in North Carolina. He read One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fakuoka and decided that he and Haruka could become rice farmers, too.

Last winter they began digging the low area out and sculpting the clay soil into a tiered rice paddy.  It looked like the real deal.

They even made clay seed pellets, providing a protective covering over each tiny rice seed so the birds wouldn’t get them.  Jason broadcast the seeds by hand and waited. Within a week the seeds germinated and then, miraculously, it began to rain.

Soon they realized they would have to re-shape the paddy to hold and distribute the water more effectively, but that didn’t stop them. Never mind that they had to dig up all of the plants, fix the paddy, and then plant the rice again. It took them two days and it was really muddy work, but they did it.

By mid June, the transplants were thriving. And on September 25, they harvested their first rice.

Jason soon realized their hard work wasn’t over yet. He could not figure out a way to get the hulls off the seeds. He tried a coffee grinder, and all kinds of pounding and pressing, to no avail. They would need a costly hulling machine, but they didn’t have the money. The rice crop would have to be set aside and stored in bags until they could find a way.

Then the second miracle occurred. They learned about a grant, sent their application in and began waiting, and waiting for a response. Two weeks ago, Jason and Haruka got the good news: they had received a $10,000 grant from the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) Tobacco Reinvestment Fund to buy hulling equipment, expand the paddy, and continue cultivating our community’s first 21st century local rice crop.

You can read all about their rice paddy adventure  and see more of their outstanding photos on the Edible Earthscapes blog. 

Now if we could only figure out a way to grow local coffee……

A case of cabbage

By Camille Armantrout

Our friends at ECO (Eastern Carolina Organics) do a great job of getting local produce into local markets and restaurants. As is the nature of their business, they sometimes end up with seconds. When that happens, they generally alert the people who work nearby at Piedmont Eco Industrial Park.

A few weeks ago, it was cabbage. ECO sent an email offering 1.8 bushel boxes for $15 in order to cut the loss to the farmer. My husband Bob bought a box and we began working our way through forty pounds of cabbage.

The first thing Bob did was give away five heads. That night I fixed one of our favorite cabbage meals: “Repollo Orientale” which is Spanish for Oriental Cabbage.

Repollo Orientale was the brainchild of the Nicaraguan cook at a lodge on Little Corn Island who often served it to the help for lunch back when we were on staff. It’s an easy, tasty dish made of sautéed cabbage, garlic and onions seasoned with shoyu, ginger, cayenne and sesame oil and served over fettuccini.

The next day sixteen juicy Cabbage Burgers went on the potluck table with a marinara sauce for dipping. They went over well and we sent four more heads of cabbage home with friends.

To make the Cabbage Burgers, I started with a spicy, foccacia dough which I rolled out and stuffed with a filling of Gimme Lean sausage (made from soy, but you can use crumbled tempeh or your favorite local sausage), cabbage, onions and garlic. The nice thing about these is they store well and can be eaten later. (Recipe for dough and burgers also on our blog.)

That weekend, we processed more of our windfall into sauerkraut using Sandor Katz’s recipe. This is our first attempt at kraut and we’re excited because we love sauerkraut with mashed potatoes and Tofurky Kielbasa or Beer Brats. Every week that kraut gets tastier and we’ve already used some of it in a Borscht I made using local beets and dill.

We also love cole slaw, so I shredded six heads and mixed them with mayonnaise, sugar, salt, pepper and vinegar. I added some shredded carrots from our garden for color. That first week after we got our case of cabbage, no one left our house without cole slaw or some other form of cabbage.

By far, the best thing we did with our cabbage windfall was have an Okonomiyaki party with our friends Jason and Haruka of Edible Earthscapes. Okonomiyaki, or Japanese Pizza is not difficult to make if you have a griddle and a mix for the batter. But you can also mix up your own batter and fry them in a cast iron pan. Here’s a link to a blog dedicated toOkonomiyaki with batter recipes and videos.

As unlikely as it sounds, cabbage pizza (at right) is indescribably delicious!

One-and-a-half heads to go and we’re unable to decide whether to put it into Okonomiyaki, kraut, slaw, Oriental, Borscht or cabbage burgers. I suspect we’re putting off the decision because we don’t want this wild cabbage ride to end. Maybe we’ll get lucky and happen into another case of cabbage from Eastern Carolina Organics.

Prosperity

Here’s another gem from Cameron, excerpted from the Saxapahaw General Store blog:

“Jeff will object to my regionalist comment here, but he is from Michigan, a land that is bereft of the Southern culinary ritual of eating black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year’s Day….

Perhaps it was the flavor–or maybe it was the desperation of Southerners looking for good luck for the new year–but we finally made Jeff a believer in this dish, when we ran out of collards midday on New Year’s Day…. I set out for Carrboro, hoping I’d find a supply of the stuff in one of the markets.

Halfway up the road, at Stuydivant’s Auto on NC-54, I noticed a marquis that read “collards.” I pulled onto the gravel drive, hoping to find someone to make good on that promise. Round back of the barns there to the side of the auto shop, just next to a couple of nice fields, I imposed upon three gentlemen chopping firewood to find out where the collards were.

“How many d’ya want?” one man asked, stepping away from his work to help me. .. I turned around to see that behind me were growing several rows of giant collard plants, bursting forth from their mounds like green sunbursts. … I asked for ten plants, please. He picked up a machete sitting on one of the rows and began harvesting my purchase. It was only after I had to fold down the seats in my station wagon that I realized how large the plants were… I drove away barely able to see past the leaves, my car stuffed with the elephantine bouquets.

I arrived back at the store and paraded about with one of the plants, delighting in the others’ amazement at the bounty with which I had returned. Dion… immediately set to work breaking down the plants into manangeable bits for cooking, and then he braised the greens for serving that night at supper. We served enough that day and the following days that if greens really do turn to money, Saxapahaw’s residents can expect a real boon in 2010.

From my New Year’s Day adventure, I took two concepts I’ll carry with me through this year. First, the ritual of food contributes much to the identity of a place in an ever-renewing way. The place carries the traditions, inviting us to join in whether we were born in one location or elsewhere. Second, prosperity visits a community when its members rely on their neighbors for their provisions. That those collards were alive in a field minutes from our store, and that they were sold to me by the hand that raised them, made me truly prosperous to receive them. .. I am grateful for these rituals and for these neighbors.”

And we’re grateful for you, Jeff, Dion and the nourishment you serve up at the Saxy General.

‘I Love u Lunch’ with local food in Pittsboro Feb. 14

By Carol Peppe Hewitt

Slow Food Triangle, The Abundance Foundation, and Loom (advocates of bringing culture and business to Chatham Mills) have teamed up with a plethora of sustainable farms, caterers, and a coop in Chatham County to host an I Love u Lunch, on February 14th, Valentine’s Day, from 1- 4 pm in the historic Chatham Mills in Pittsboro, NC. The gourmet three-course lunch will feature Greek chicken soup (with a vegetarian option), Sweet Potato Muffins, Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese tarts, Winter Baby Salad Mix, Beet Chiffon Pie, and more! Tickets to the event are only $10 in advance and $15 at the door (children under 12 are $8) and can be purchased online. BYOB or purchase a $3 drink ticket for Benjamin Vineyards wine or Carolina Brewery beer.

For people who are passionate about sustainable grub, who like delicious food and good times, this is another chance to be in each others’ company, to be inspired by one another’s stories, and be nourished by not only the winter offerings of our local farms, but by the hope we hold out for a better world for ourselves and all those children I saw running about on New Year’s Day.

I had driven up to Golden Belt in Durham, NC, curious to see the renovation of this space that I had heard so much about, and to eat black-eyed peas and collards with the Slow Food Triangle folks at their annual New Year’s Day event. I knew they had sold out but was otherwise unsure what to expect. What I found was a massive room with long lines of tables strung together with table cloths and people of all ages, including an abundance of young families. I sat down across from a young woman doing a research project on an ambitious mill renovation in Star, North Carolina, then met Margaret who had just redone the CFSA website,then Josh who is pulling together a network/support group for artists and scientists. I saw old friends, and made new ones. What fun. There are over 1.5 million people in the Triangle area now, and when I am in a room like that I can forget that the sustainability crowd I hang with is actually fringe. Industrially farmed, genetically modified, flown in from other continents, tasteless food is what fills the local supermarkets, not these wonderful local collards. It was an uplifting afternoon, and an excellent article followed in the local press.

But it was the seed it germinated that matters here. We too, have a Mill in Chatham County that is undergoing adaptive reuse, and I wondered how to get these delightful people together with my Pittsboro locavore friends to enjoy a local food feast at our mill.

I was told to speak with Phoebe Lawless, queen of Slow Food Triangle and of pies. She was most encouraging and on the way home to Pittsboro I Love u Lunch took shape. A delicious lunch, midway through the doldrums of February, on February 14th, Valentine’s Day, which falls conveniently on a Sunday – why not? Find what grows in February, cook it up and invite a crowd. The first call was to Tom Roberts, owner of Chatham Mills. He was enthusiastic and eager to help host the event. More phone calls, meetings with Phoebe, Mary of Chatham Marketplace, Tami at the Abundance Foundation, and Sandi at Eastern Carolina Organics and we had a team. Several local farmers (Duck Run, Piedmont BioFarm, Screech’s Greenhouse, Celebrity Dairy, Edible Earthscapes, Scratch Baking) local caterers and chefs (Angelina’s Kitchen, General Store Café,) Scurlock’s Catering, Benjamin Vineyards Winery, and Carolina Brewery have all joined up as well.

Along with a growing cast of enthusiastic volunteers, we are well underway to a wonderful time! If we have half as much fun at the luncheon as we are having putting it together, it will be a blast!

The luncheon is also a fundraiser for Chatham Marketplace, the local coop also located at Chatham Mills, that offers a wide selection of local foods. Specifically the proceeds will help pay to solarize the new Chatham Marketplace sign being installed this spring.

Chatham Mills produced silk and woven labels from 1925 to 1996. Having produced a livelihood for so many for decades, the mill buildings and grounds are being renovated for adaptive reuse. Plays, concerts, conferences and events like this luncheon spur Chatham Mills’ evolution as an inviting, socially vibrant, community centerpiece. Attendees can join a 3:30-4pm a tour of the Mill if they wish. For more information about the event email me at iloveulunch@gmail.com, or call The Abundance Foundation at 533-5181.

There will be work involved as we re-engineer our foodshed, but it can also be good fun. On February 14th come take time to relax, sit back, and enjoy a delightful afternoon in Pittsboro with fellow like-minded local food, slow food, sustainability types, eating some of that fine sustainable grub!