The LocalHarvest Blog

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Three years ago this month I started taking a new approach to meal planning. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it really has changed my life. If you're like me, you like to cook, but don't enjoy deciding what's for supper, especially under duress. There is nothing that drains the energy and ratchets up the stress quite like arriving home after work tired and hungry, with no idea what to make. Add a couple of tired and hungry kids to the mix, and it is easy to see why there is often a long line at the drive-through.

My new approach takes about 30 minutes a month, 45 if I get fancy. Around the first of the month - ideally before the new month begins - I sit down with a calendar and jot down a supper menu for every night of the month ahead. Usually I have some idea of which nights are likely to be a little hectic or unusual around the dinner hour, so I can plan simple meals for those nights. ("Tacos and leftover squash") Similarly, I can plan to do a little extra cooking on the weekends if it is going to be a particularly busy week. ("Quiche and salad; bake a squash for Tuesday.") It really is not that hard, but it has changed how we eat. That far ahead, mood and whim do not factor in - it is easy and neutral. If need or craving arise, I can always change the menu on any given day, but usually I am so glad to have it decided that I just make whatever is on the calendar.

The benefits here are many. Looking at our diet a whole month at a time helps me balance out the protein sources and the kinds of vegetables to make sure we are getting a good variety. It helps me anticipate and create a steady flow of leftovers so we always have something to take for our lunches. I have also found that this method helps eliminate food waste. There are just three people in our family, so it takes us a few meals to get through a roasted chicken or a head of cabbage. By looking ahead, I can shop less often and make a plan to use everything.

Once I was asked to share my calendar, and the friend who looked at it was aghast: "But where's the Pad Thai?" Aha! Lesson learned. We all eat differently, so these calendars are highly individualized and, sadly, not transferable. Nor are they as replicable as I had thought they would be. Initially, I planned to only do this for one full year, thinking that I would just save the calendar and repeat it the following year. My family eats quite seasonally, so I figured that the available produce would be similar to the same month the year before. More or less it is, but our tastes change over time, and some years I have more interest and time for cooking than others. So I look at the past year's calendar for reference, but create an updated version every month. It's time well spent.

How do I know? If I am running a few days behind and planning the whole month starting with tonight, it is that square - tonight - that is invariably the last to be filled in. The rest of the month takes maybe 30 minutes, and I spend another 15 trying to figure out what to make tonight. "What's for supper?" Try this idea, and you'll wrestle with that question only once a month.

As always, eat well and take good care. Oh, and don't miss the very cool little video below!
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

My inbox has been full this month - many thanks to all of you who took time to respond to last month's article about having hope in hard times. I appreciated your words. Thank you, too, to the 80 of you who sent notes in response to my search for some homesteaders to talk to for this month's newsletter. Homesteading seemed like a good topic for two reasons. First, because it is deeply interesting and even more hopeful to me that so many people all over the country are taking up some of the old skills. Raising a flock for eggs or meat, keeping a hive for honey, putting in a big garden and preserving the excess harvest, heating with wood, brewing, knitting, spinning, and on and on. In my family we call it "having a home-based life," and though we don't consider ourselves homesteaders we are intentional about keeping our focus on producing rather than consuming. Like many of you, we find a lot of meaning and satisfaction in the process of raising, creating, and making things.

The first thing I learned in reading your letters is that many people wonder if their efforts are sufficient to qualify them as homesteaders. This was especially true of the many people who live in urban areas and are drawn to the homesteading lifestyle. A few people even sent official definitions to help determine their membership. Given all the ambiguity about what makes a homesteader, I had to laugh when I opened an email from Sam in Northeast Tennessee. It read, in full, "I think I'm a homesteader, therefore, I am." Enough said.

If our members are typical, there are as many paths to becoming homesteaders as there are definitions of the lifestyle. Kelly from The Never Done Farm in Fromberg, MT told me that for her husband and her, the motivation was a desire to eat more healthfully to help address their daughter's health issues. For Brenda and Chris from Thunder Garden Ranch in Ione, WA, it sounded like the best financial option for retirement, but has ended up offering so many surprising blessings. In June, 2010 they moved from the city to a homestead with 50 acres, in a town of 500 people. "What we didn't expect was that the social life is so much fun! We really know all of our neighbors and see them all the time. We love that. We wish we would have moved here years and years ago."

Of the work involved, one homesteader talked about cooking on her wood cook stove, raising most of their own food and all the rest, and said simply, "It's what we like." Another person said that honestly, the workload was more than anticipated, but that it was good exercise and that it kept them striving to work as smartly as possible, finding labor-saving tricks wherever they can. Many talked about how their families or customers often don't understand why they choose "to do everything the hard way." But for the homesteaders I talked with, having their own eggs was worth setting up a chicken coop and learning to tend a flock, because taking the long view they saw that raising chickens was not a labor intensive proposition. For homesteaders - like small farmers - 'labor' isn't a dirty word. They like being active. They like problem solving.

Another theme among the people who responded to my call for homesteaders was the desire to share experiences and stories. While we can't all get together in a big old barn somewhere - but wouldn't that be fun? - we did change our feedback section to allow people to comment on each other's stories. It's a small- change, but one that we hope will encourage conversation about this and future topics on LocalHarvest.

Have a homesteading story of your own you want to share? Tell us here! Whether you're living in a city, a trailer park, the suburbs, a mountain top, or out in the sticks somewhere, we'd love to read about what you do, why you do it, and how it's gone for you. And if these long nights have you wanting to curl up with a good book and a 'virtual' homesteading experience from the comfort of your armchair sounds good to you, I would recommend Up Tunket Road: the education of a modern homesteader, by Philip Ackerman-Leist. It is a detailed but accessible memoir, full of the kinds of good stories you might expect from people diving into a homesteading adventure.

As this year's shortest day and longest night approach, we hope that you will eat well and take good care,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Last weekend my husband and I finished putting our garden to bed for the winter. There wasn't much left to do before the snow comes, but we raked leaves over the perennials and rolled up the chicken-wire fences to store in the garage until spring. By Saturday afternoon the last remaining task was to dig up the dahlia tubers. A hard frost last week had turned the dahlia foliage limp and black, quite unappealing.

As with many of our vegetables, this wasn't a good year for dahlias. I got only a handful of blooms off of a dozen beautiful looking plants. I assumed that if the plants could not flower, the tubers under the soil were likely in poor shape; digging them up for next year seemed not worth the trouble. But eventually I got over my ambivalence, cut back the dead foliage, and sunk my spade into the soil. I was surprised to find a huge clump of healthy tubers, twice as big as any from last year. I am no botanist, but all I can conclude is that somehow the conditions were not good for flowering, and that in that less than auspicious environment the plants decided to conserve their energy and store it up for next year.

Those dahlias got me thinking. For some people 2011 was an abundant year, but for many more it has been one marked by hardship and uncertainty. Every month we hear of farms closing because they can no longer afford to farm. Millions of people carry other burdens from the recession, and the collective stress is just plain painful. How easy it is to feel overwhelmed by all that we and our neighbors need, by all that did not flower this year. Yet here we are, approaching Thanksgiving, a time when many of us feel called to count our blessings and give thanks. What the dahlias made me consider is that when things are most difficult, when our best efforts have yielded little, it is possible that something good yet grows in silence, biding its time beneath the surface.

This is the essence of hope. It seems to me that in hard times a sense of hope is itself a blessing that deserves to be counted.

A few months ago someone sent me a quotation from a Native American prayer which says, "Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way." So may we express our gratitude around our Thanksgiving tables, for those blessings already manifest, and for the capacity to sustain the hope that what is needed is on its way.

With gratitude and hope,

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Last fall, a couple of weeks before the farmers market was to close for the season, signs started appearing on the public bulletin boards around my town. "Buy out the farmers on the last day of the market!" It was my favorite little bit of food activism all year. We who shop were reminded of the benefits of stocking up on storage crops, and got to express our appreciation for our farmers by filling their pockets with cash on the last day of the season. On the big day I found myself bellying up to a table loaded with the most beautiful winter squash I'd ever seen, and taking home a trunk full. (What does a family of three do with 25 winter squash, you ask? Put them in the basement. Bake three at a time every week, and eat one. Scoop out the flesh of the other two and freeze in large yogurt containers to use in quick winter squash soup all winter.)

Stocking up in the late summer and fall extends the buy-local produce season. Garlic, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, apples, beets, carrots and other root crops all store easily and well for weeks or months in the basement, garage or frig, depending on the crop and your local climate. (If you are uncertain about how to store particular crops, the Internet has many resources, including these two from the University of Minnesota and Washington State University.) If you are up for canning, drying, or freezing some food, fall offers oodles of fun weekend projects that will set you up well for delicious winter meals.

Stocking up goes a long way toward answering the perennial question of what's for supper. Having plenty of food in the house that needs to be eaten limits the menu possibilities in a way that I find very helpful. From now till spring we eat whatever vegetables we have in the basement, with a few things from the grocery store sprinkled in for variety.

If you get bit hard by the food preservation bug, and it happens, you're eventually going to want to give thought to some kind of root cellar. Since most of us live in houses built since the habit of thrice-weekly trips to the grocery store took hold, few of our homes have a cool corner of the basement open to the bare ground. But wouldn't it be nice? Fortunately, there are many alternatives to taking a jackhammer to your basement floor. One of my favorites falls in the category of "fruit and vegetable hideaway," and consists of an old refrigerator buried on its back and accessible from ground level.

The very best book I've seen on keeping food is called Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables. Filled with photos, line drawings, and stories, it is a great, fun resource to have around if you're even considering expanding your food preservation options. Thanks to Storey Publishing, this month we're lucky to have five copies to give away. If you'd like to enter to win a copy, fill out the little form here by Friday, September 30. I'll email you if you win!

Many people are looking for ways to eat local food in the winter. If you live in a part of the country where fresh produce is available year round, lucky you! If not, you can buy in bulk over the next few weeks, and store foods at home to eat in the cold months. For many people, this turns out to be easier than anticipated. It may, however, require shifting your mindset about how and when you shop, how much food you keep in the house, and what you consider "fresh." Remember, until very recently, nearly everyone "put food by." We can too!

Do you have a favorite food preservation practice, recipe, or book? We'd love to hear it!

Until next time, take good care, and eat well.

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

August is the month that local food lovers await. Tomatoes, melons, peppers, eggplant, etcetera, all in abundance - at least in the temperate parts of our country. This year, though, temperate areas have been hard to find, and harvests have been sparse in many areas. The drought in Texas has made national news, while other regions got too much rain early in the season and then too little, or too much heat when plants were trying to set fruit. Where I live, it's been a bumper year for cucumbers but not much else!

For most of us, immoderate weather is an inconvenience, but farmers' livelihoods are tied to the sun and rain. Summers like this one are a cause for great concern. Last month LocalHarvest farmers were invited to participate in a survey aimed at learning more about the current challenges and opportunities for farmers. One question asked them to name the issues having the greatest impact on the viability of their farms. Their number one concern? ‘Changing climate/weather patterns' (chosen by 42% of respondents). As we wrote back in 2007, the changing climate adds a new layer of uncertainty to farming, and to our food supply. At the very least, summers like this one make a strong argument for diversification: if one crop or variety doesn't do well, hopefully others will.

And what does a rough summer mean for people who like to eat local food? What is required of us when the pickings are slim at the farmers market, the CSA box contains too much of some things and too little of others, and all the work that went in to the garden offers little in return?

After complaining my way through most of July, in recent weeks I have been working to have a better attitude. Rather than stomping my feet about the sparsity of choices, I needed to take on an "it is what it is” kind of acceptance, and then I could get out my cookbooks and be more creative with the ingredients at hand. Personally, I also had to be a little more flexible. I really believe in supporting local farmers and eating what my family produces ourselves. Our loyalty to them matters, especially in lean years. And, there came a point when we could not live on greens and cucumbers alone. I had to break down and buy some produce at the grocery store, something I rarely do during the growing season. A little respite did us good, and the next week we were able to return to the farmers market with fresh eyes, happy to take home whatever the farmers had. (Turns out the greens and cucs were still doing well, but the first tomatoes were ready too.)

Ultimately, the thing that supports this loyalty and flexibility and acceptance is a sense of gratitude. Things change when we find the space within ourselves to feel thankful for what the land is providing, even, and perhaps especially, in challenging seasons.

Until next time, take good care, and eat well.

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

What a busy summer it is for us at LocalHarvest! As many of you know, we are offering a relatively new service called CSAware. I am happy to report that it is doing very well, and this month I want to introduce you to it. I also want to tell you about a local food survey we are going to be sending out next week to all LH newsletter subscribers. But first, CSAware. Imagine if you will, that it is your task to coordinate the registration and payment information for each one of your CSA members, keep track of all their vacation schedules, answer an unending series of questions about your business and each of the 45 vegetables you grow, and coordinate the harvest and delivery of a dozen or more crops every week. And this is just the office work! Your main priority is to grow (literally) tons of food, from seed, and ensure that they ripen at the right time, in the right amounts, unmarred by either pests or disease, using methods that will build rather than deplete the soil. In short, you have a Very Big Job.

It turns out that it's a big job whether a CSA has 15 or 1500 members. Over the last decade of working with CSA farmers we have seen the administrative burden grow as the CSA model has evolved. Most CSA farmers try to handle the office work with only a telephone, clipboard, spreadsheet, and a hundred scraps of paper at their disposal. A few years ago we realized that we could help. We set out to build a set of online tools that would save farmers time in the office and allow them to become more profitable. We also wanted to offer CSA members a variety of online services they would love. To this end CSAware was born.

We love to give farmers an online tour of CSAware. The best part is when they start they ask whether we can do anything to relieve their farm's biggest headaches. Jennifer Branham, owner of Laguna Farm , told us that their farm had been doing fine handling its 400+ members, except for the "add-on" shares they offered. "The bread, dairy, fruit and extra-salad shares had become administratively impossible," she says. "We were considering dropping that whole part of our business when we found CSAware." Rather than dropping their add-on shares, since starting to use CSAware they have dramatically expanded their line of optional products. "We now customize our members' boxes and make a lot more money for our farm. And it is super easy to administer," Branham says.

Knowing that each CSA runs a little differently, we knew we had to make CSAware ultra-flexible. Set-up options abound, but we are also willing to build custom features to meet individual farms' needs. For Bethany Bellingham of Farmer Dave's CSA in Dracut, Massachusetts, and other farms in her area, it was essential to offer choice-style shares, where members choose from among a set of available items each week. A farmers' market style "choose your items from a table" option was something we'd considered, and decided to add to CSAWare based on Farmer Dave's need. We also offer customized produce boxes where the farm sets the contents of a default box, and subscribers can change their box contents to their preference in advance of the delivery day. "It's a great program," says Bellingham, "and very well conceived."

One thing Bellingham likes best about CSAware is the management efficiencies it offers. When you're delivering over 1000 boxes a week, maintaining member data gets cumbersome. Some farmers hesitate to adopt helpful technology, though, out of concern that it will reduce their members' sense of connection to the farm. Fortunately, farmers using CSAware are having the opposite experience. "Members enjoy being able to manage their data online," Bellingham observes. "Particularly for the generation that is used to conducting most of their business online, this feels more 'advanced.'"

When I worked on farms, by mid-summer we were already beginning to think about the next season, especially about all the things we wanted to do differently. If this sounds familiar and you'd like to know more about how CSAware might work for your farm, please let us know. We'd love to show you around. Alternately if you're a CSA member and you think your CSA could use CSAware, please tell your farmer!

With the momentum of increasing activity and interest in local food, many new opportunities -- like CSAware! -- are being created in support of local and regional markets. At the beginning of this article I mentioned a survey we will be sending to all LH newsletter readers next week. We want to learn more about what draws you to good food, how you define it, where and how you shop for it, and what food and farming related activities are happening in your community, and we are hoping you will take a few minutes to tell us. We feel lucky to be partnering on this survey with PureBranding, a market research company that specializes in organic and natural brands. Our hope is to get both a more complete picture of what's happening with local food across the country, and your ideas about what needs to be done to further strengthen regional food networks. We look forward to sharing the findings with you in a newsletter this fall.

We are hoping that thousands of you LH newsletter readers will share your thoughts so please watch your inbox next Tuesday, July 26 for a special email from us!

Until next time, take good care, and eat well.

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

While spring came achingly slowly to my part of the country this past month, I spent a lot of time pacing in front of the window looking out at heavy gray skies. The soil being too wet to dig, I had extra time for rumination, much of which revolved around what LocalHarvest most values.

In last month's newsletter I said that in this period of budget cutbacks we as a society need more public dialogue about how to make sure that everyone has enough good food to eat. My article struck a chord with many. With a number of others, it hit a nerve. There was plenty of emotion to go around. Readers from across the political spectrum wrote in to voice their frustration or support, aimed variously at the federal government, the media, Wall Street, liberals, conservatives, the system at large, and the poor. In addition, a number of people wrote to express their disapproval of LocalHarvest being vocal about the federal budget process. These writers argued vehemently that I should stay out of politics.

Most people don't give a hill of beans what we write about, but others absolutely want our work to reflect at least some of what they hold dear. This is particularly true for some of our members, the 25,000 people who list their businesses in our directory. Partisan politics is something we have always avoided in the newsletter because we know that our members' leanings cover the entire political map and then some. Steering clear of particular political parties or heads of state is relatively easy, but avoiding politics all together is impossible. Being a strong advocate for local food is itself quite political, given our current food system.

We stand behind our belief that having an adequate and steady supply of good food is a basic human right, and that those with plenty have a moral obligation to look out for those who do not. There is ample room for discussion and debate about how far that obligation extends and how it gets paid for.

Meanwhile, the rest of our manifesto reads like this: The best food is that which feeds body and spirit. This food can best be found at a farmers markets, through a CSA, and in your own backyard. Cooking fresh, unprocessed food and sharing it with people you love is one of life's great pleasures. We support farms which place primary importance on building healthy soils, protecting the ecosystem, fair treatment of farm laborers, humane treatment of animals, and a sustainable life for the farmers. Protecting biodiversity on farms and seed saving are both good ideas. Genetically modifying crops is a bad idea, as is the current approach to farm subsidies. Local and regional food systems are of vital importance in this changing world and should be encouraged on every level. There is plenty of work to be done to strengthen and expand these systems, work in which each of us can play a role. Onward!

As always, we appreciate hearing what you think.

Take good care and eat well,

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

photo by Jenn Rensel

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Like many of you, I have been following the recent goings on in Washington with equal parts disgust and concern. The shenanigans speak for themselves and don't require further comment, but one aspect of the budget problem deserves our collective attention. Some of the proposals that have been put forth to address the national deficit would damage the food stamp program and slash foreign food aid, further increasing the likelihood that poor people here and around the world will go hungry. As people who love good food and shared meals, who seek out local farmers and work for change in the food system, many of us know the blessings of an abundant table. Having been thus blessed, I believe we are called to speak out and make sure all are fed.

Americans agree about the need for fiscal responsibility, and a majority believe we will need to both raise taxes and cut spending to address the deficit. Given that common ground, the questions before us are about exactly how we allocate our resources. Years ago, in college, I was part of a discussion about a philosophical dilemma classroom teachers face: after teaching the regular lesson and engaging the majority of kids, where should teachers invest the small amount of time that remains? Should they focus on the kids who are in danger of failing, giving them a little extra help so they can pass? Or should they give that time to the A students to offer them valuable extra enrichment? Arguments were made on both sides, and the debate got heated. We all cared about kids, but it was hard to agree on a single educational philosophy. So too here, in our current national crisis of conscience. To whom will we give a little extra: to commodity growers in the form of subsidies? To wealthy individuals in the form of tax breaks? To society's most vulnerable in the form of safety net benefits? To the military? As has become increasingly clear over the last few weeks, the budgetary process reflects our moral philosophy. What we value, we fund.

Recent research by the Pew Research Center indicates that thus far there is very little agreement from people, regardless of party, on exactly which benefits we are willing to cut. That tells me that more discussion is needed. My hope is that we could move beyond sound bites and have an honest and substantive dialogue, as a nation, about who and what we are going to protect. We need to put even the untouchables on the table, things like agricultural subsidies and the defense budget. Let's talk about it. Here is one example of a serious examination of several approaches to addressing the budget deficit.

Many times last week I turned on the radio to hear a member of Congress saying, "What I'm hearing from the people in my district is that they're serious about cutting the deficit!" With Congress back in their home districts for the next two weeks, now is a good time to tell them that we are also serious about making sure that future federal budgets protect the food safety net. America can and should feed all its people. We who love good food can help make it happen.

Until next time, take good care and eat well,

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

photo by Capriole

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Last year I heard a true story that keeps coming back to me as much of the country approaches the beginning of the local fresh produce season. In this story, one mother is considering joining a CSA. She has heard, rightly, that she's likely to receive many vegetables that will be new to her family. So she calls a friend who has been a CSA member for some time, and asks how their family has dealt with the expansion of their vegetable repertoire. "Easy," says the friend. "If we don't know what it is, first we fry it in a little butter. If that doesn't work, we try it with a little Ranch dressing."

Now, I grew up watching a lot of television, including that great series of health education spots that ABC ran in between Saturday mornings cartoons. One was an animated song called "Don't Drown Your Food," in which Our Hero rescues a variety of foods from a surfeit of dressings. "Food's so much better when it's practically plain!" he sings, while pulling a baked potato from a vat of sour cream. Sound advice in the 1970s, and probably even more needed now. The chorus rang in my head when I heard the Ranch dressing story.

Still, I think this story points to a greater truth: we all need to start where we are. If it's a choice between familiar but negligibly nutritious tater tots or kohlrabi dipped in Ranch, I say go for the kohlrabi. That might not be the desired end point, but it's a place to begin. Whether we're trying to eat more vegetables, less meat, better meat, or what have you, I think that a real shot at change starts with two things: being honest about where we are starting from, and acknowledging that most change happens incrementally. These first steps remove the false hope that change is going to happen magically, without effort. Thus freed, we can make a realistic plan for how to get from where we are to where we want to be. Maybe it starts with a schmear of salad dressing on the foreign vegetable, and later moves to ketchup, then salsa, and eventually a little swirl of olive oil makes everybody happy.

Spring is the time when many of us make plans for how we're going to eat this summer, whether we're signing up for a CSA, laying out a garden, or counting the days until the farmers market opens. We say go ahead and be adventurous this year! It will likely be a lot of fun if you start with small changes and build from there. If your family has had success changing its eating patterns for the better, we'd love to hear how you did it. You can post your ideas here.

To Spring and new beginnings!

Eat well, and take good care.

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

photo by Coyote Creek Farm

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Last week a LocalHarvest farmer said something that has had me thinking ever since. This gentleman sells his products through our online catalog, and mentioned that compared with many of his other customers, LocalHarvest patrons tend to be, shall we say, 'discerning'? In his words, "If there's something not right, they're not bashful about letting us know." It's not just him, we see the same thing across our catalog sales and throughout our directory. Many LocalHarvest fans consider themselves foodies, and take food and its quality seriously.

Surely there is nothing wrong with that. I am the same way. But for myself, at least, it can go too far. I notice in myself a growing tendency to see the marketplace as the only arena in which calling for a higher standard or expressing displeasure seems worth the bother. With dispiriting news coming in from all corners of the environmental and political spheres, if I'm not careful, speaking up as a consumer could become the only place I expect results, the only place righteous indignation can gain a foothold against skepticism and pessimism. When "But I paid for that!" moves me to the phone, and "But that's not right!" doesn't, that is a problem.

Here's an example. Many of you read about the Obama administration's recent move to deregulate genetically modified alfalfa, and Big Organic's tacit endorsement: after all, we can't expect to keep organic meat GMO-free forever, can we? Within a week I had received a half a dozen emails encouraging me to call the Administration and urge them to make it right. I deleted them all.

Then I read an article in Time, talking about how the local food movement is the new environmentalism. I don't agree with it entirely, but the author's point about the flavor factor being a strong motivator is one with which we at LocalHarvest wholeheartedly agree. We hear the same story over and over again: people join a CSA, start shopping at the farmers market, or plant a garden because it seems like the right thing to do, but more often than not the rationality of "good reasons" quickly gives way to pleasure. They go back to the market week after week (expand the garden, re-up for the CSA) because in some little or big way they've fallen in love with the sumptuous pleasures of food at its best.

Which, in the end, is food worth defending. If the food movement is the up and coming grassroots political force, then people like me have to get over our pessimism and general reluctance to speak up, and pick up the phone. Allowing ever more genetically engineered crops to bury their untested roots into our precious soil is simply not acceptable, agribusiness behemoths be damned. Washington has been moved by a couple hundred thousand phone calls before and will be again. Why not over the issue of GE alfalfa, which, besides the usual threats of genetic engineering, promises to introduce herbicides to millions of acres of alfalfa that currently grows just fine without them? Since the USDA has already approved the altered seeds, we need to take our comments right to the top: the President Barack Obama Comment line, at (202) 456-1111. Or you might prefer to use the White House contact web page. Let's speak up about the things that matter.

Take good care this month, and eat well. And as always, we'd love to hear from you.

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

photo by Maplewood Organics

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

I spent the weekend thinking about what motivates people to join CSAs. 'Tis the sign-up season, after all, and tens of thousands of you are coming to LocalHarvest to look for a CSA farm near you. Researchers say that most people joining a CSA anticipate that their dinner menus will change as a result, and they are up for the challenge. "Veggies we've never heard of? Bring them on!" This is brave. There are few things as personal as our habitual eating patterns, and to consciously turn over some portion of the control for what you'll cook night after night for a some months is a big deal.

Often it goes swimmingly. I can not tell you how many times I have heard people compare opening their weekly CSA box to Christmas morning. Whether it's the freshness and flavor of the food, the feeling of belonging to a farm, the knowledge that their children are eating better, the satisfaction of eating locally, or all of the above, many people simply love being part of a CSA.

And it's not for everyone. Many CSAs lose 10-40% of their members at year's end. For some members the necessary culinary creativity becomes a burden instead of a joy. Others find they don't actually cook as much as they thought, or hoped to. Still others get a bad case of greens fatigue. For all of us interested in seeing the CSA movement thrive, it is as important to pay attention to the rationale of people who decide not to re-join a CSA as it is to take in the praise of the enthusiasts.

If CSAs are to keep up their impressive growth trajectory, farms will need to attract more and more "mainstream eaters". That, in turn, requires CSA farmers and CSA members to work together to find the right balance of unfamiliar items and old standbys, the right quantity of food so members don't waste, and where feasible, giving members some level of choice.

We would love to hear about your experiences with CSA. If you've been a CSA member for years, what do you like best about it? If you tried CSA but decided not to join again, what was your reason? For both groups, what do you wish you'd have known about CSA before you joined? If you'd like to share your thoughts, please do so here.

We saw a great little video this month called, "Community Supported Agriculture: What to expect when you join a farm." I highly recommend it for all who are considering joining a CSA for the first time. Great advice, straight from CSA farmers themselves!

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

My husband spends his days teaching science to 150 seventh graders. If you remember your seventh grade science teacher, you know that one of the job requirements is being utterly unflappable. Check: virtually nothing fazes this man. So when he came home last week all worked up about a news story, I put down what I was doing and listened.

It seems that in this land of milk and honey, the home of the free and the brave, one in six children don't always have enough to eat.

If you are like me, it is difficult to take in statistics like this. It is hard to believe that our nation has to grapple with both a childhood obesity epidemic and millions of hungry kids. The issue is made more slippery by the irony that in some cases these are the same children - overweight because junkfood is cheap, and living in homes where they sometimes have to skip meals. But as my husband shook his head in disbelief, "One in SIX, Erin - here!" I knew he was thinking of his students. Five classes of 30 twelve year olds: statistically, 25 of his kids would fall into the "food insecure" category. That's not a lot of kids compared to the 17 million who sometimes go hungry, but five per class sure does make it real.

I went back to the CNN story that Ed had read about the "new hungry." The line that got me was this, "And, the winter school holidays add to the woes of families in financial despair. Many parents will need to find alternative ways to provide breakfasts and lunches." Right - when kids are home from school for a break, the grocery bill goes way up. So in addition to the incalculable internal pressure to do right by their kids in the Christmas gift department, millions of parents are also worrying about whether there will be enough in the fridge to make lunch over break.

That's just the quantity issue. Quality is another thing. It's no secret that the dominant food system is making us sicker and fatter than ever. I could go on and on about this, but let me give you a visual instead, an obesity animation from the Center for Disease Control. It is amazing.

The good news is that there is so much work to be done on this one that there's plenty of room for everyone to find something they can do to help. Last week I received two emails from representatives of food banks looking to work with local farmers to increase the amount of fresh produce they can offer their clients, and another email from someone working to encourage CSAs in her area to offer subsidized shares for low income people. These community based efforts give me hope that in 2011 we will make some progress toward feeding our children not only enough, but well.

We'd love to hear your thoughts. If you'd like to comment on this story, please do so here.

Here, with thanks to John Robbins, is my prayer for the New Year.

May all be fed.
May all be healed.
May all be loved.

Take good care,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Several years ago when eating at a good friend's home, we joined in her family's table blessing: "We are thankful for this food, and that we are together." Doesn't that just about sum it up? We loved it. When our daughter was old enough, we taught the blessing to her and it became part of our family's supper ritual. Now our girl is about to turn four, and of late has been having a hard time making it through the entire grace before pulling her hands from ours and digging in. When that happens we all take a breath and start the blessing over. If we race through the words, or miss half of them, it doesn't really count. It is the pause that is important.

All told, our blessing takes just a few seconds, but those few seconds are important to me. In them I arrive more fully at the table, after rushing around preparing food and taking care of the business of the household. In them I really look at my family and at the food in front of us and in seeing them and it more deeply can move into the evening with more grace than I otherwise would.

It's a good week for a much longer pause. Though it is easy to look around and see much that needs fixing, there is also so much for which to be grateful. On my list are Rae, Nick, Kathy, Paul and Emily – the farmers from whom my family buys much of our food. I am grateful to them, and to all family farmers, for their labor and the love they put into it.

In a time of increasingly rancorous political polarization, I am grateful for every instance of civil and engaged debate. Last month I wrote a short article about Walmart's plans to begin stocking local food in its grocery aisles. Figuring that some of you would have something to say about the idea, we had intended to open up the article for public comments, but somewhere in the flurry of preparing the newsletter for publication, we forgot. Several people took the time to write to me, which I appreciated. They raised such disparate valid points that we thought the whole conversation ought to continue. With their permission, we are reprinting them below. If you would like to add your two cents, please do! We would like to hear what you think. And if you missed the original article, here it is.

On my list of things to be grateful for is Judith McGeary of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. Judith has been working tirelessly to protect small scale farmers from illogical and overly burdensome regulations in the upcoming Food Safety Bill. Legislative action is hard slogging work, and Judith and her comrades have stayed with this one for some 18 months now. Thanks, Judith! The final vote is near, and success is within reach! Judith says the Senate needs to hear from a lot of people, so please see our action alert below, and call your Senator in support of the Tester Amendment.

Finally, I am grateful for the millions of people who are making a habit of purchasing some of their food locally. We are creating a sustainable food system, one strong family farm at a time! May this new system serve all of us well: may we all find wholesome, affordable food there, may the labor that went into raising it be valued, and may the food itself be consumed with gratitude.

In this Thanksgiving week, may your tables be laden and your hearts and bellies full.
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

In college I dated someone whose response to ambiguous news was always, "Who's to say what is good and what is bad?" At 22 I thought myself an excellent judge of the good and the bad. Needless to say, the relationship didn't last. I have thought of his question often over the years, though, and it came back to me last week when I read the New York Times article describing Walmart's decision to make a major investment in local and sustainable foods.

On one hand, the thought of Walmart sticking its gigantic foot in the local food door seems potentially ruinous. The company is known for setting extremely low prices with its suppliers, and the margins on real food are already achingly slim. Would contracts with Walmart actually help farmers, or ultimately hurt them?

On the other hand, Walmart is going to get its apples and broccoli and onions from somewhere. It might as well be close to home, with some type of sustainable practices. Decentralizing food production is a good idea. If the planet's biggest grocer turns sustained attention toward buying a significant amount of local food (which, according to the Times, they define as within the state) they could do a great deal to encourage the establishment and growth of mid-sized farms across the country. That would be a good thing.

Walmart may be able to procure foods grown within certain geographic boundaries, but for many of us, local food means more than that. For me, "local food" is a kind of shorthand for an entire ethic. In this ethic, food is produced under quality conditions, on a scale that feels human rather than corporate, by people whose focus is on natural resource stewardship as much as it is on the bottom line, in a business whose owners do right by their employees. On the consumer side of this ethic, the food is purchased, prepared and eaten with awareness of its true value.

All week I have been thinking about what single word would capture the feeling behind this ideal. The word I came up with was 'kindness'. In my estimation, there is a broad, radical kindness that underlies the emerging alternative food economy, which ultimately is an economy based on relationship. It is hard for me to imagine that kindness and relationships are at the heart of the megastore's buy local campaign. But it is also hard for me to imagine a future without grocery store chains. I fully expect that the groundswell of support for authentic food and small farmers will continue to grow and flourish. If, alongside it, the nation's grocers begin engaging local farmers in their response to consumer demand for higher quality food, and if farmers are able to get fair prices, that would also be a good thing.

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Late summer and fall find me in the kitchen a few more hours a week than usual, squirreling away food for the winter. Pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, pickled jalapenos, frozen greens, applesauce, dried tomatoes - every year the list gets a little longer and we eat a little better. I am not alone: home canning is making a comeback, thanks to both the recent surge of interest in gardening and the growing number of people looking to eat local food throughout the winter. "It's almost like a three step evolution - first people recognize the benefits of eating local food, then they grow some of their own, and then inevitably they realize that a whole lot of food is ripe at once and you have to do something with it!" says Lori Evesque, who teaches canning classes in Southwest Michigan. Her well attended hands-on workshops are drawing people with a wide range of ages and experience levels, from those who have never laid eyes on a hot water bath canner, to those who used to preserve food years ago but want a refresher course before starting again.

Lori's experience is being repeated all over the country, as practiced food preservationists step forward to teach interested people the necessary skills. Tess Schaffner, owner of Off the Vine Market in Lanexa, VA, the food preservation classes offered by have also been well attended. The owner, says the main hurdle for people is time. "When they hear about our classes, many people's first reaction is, 'I don't have time for that!', but we show them how an investment of time making and freezing marinara sauce in the summer leads to quick, healthy meals in the winter."

As the bags under my eyes this time of year will attest, if you get bit hard by the food preservation bug, the time investment can be significant. Midnight seems to come earlier at the end of tomato season! But Tess is right about the time savings later. Last month I froze a dozen bags of enchilada sauce after experimenting with how to adapt my favorite recipe to use homegrown fresh tomatoes instead of canned sauce. It is delicious, if I do say so myself. Even better, I'm all set up to make some very fine, reasonably easy meals. We freeze a lot of greens too. Once a week through the winter I will pull out a bag of blanched kale from the freezer in the morning, let it thaw until suppertime, and then in about 15 minutes have a beautiful white bean, rosemary, kale dish on the supper table, with enough left over for lunches the next day. Nutritious, quick, and home made - worth a few late nights in the summer.

One recipe I would recommend if you want to try making just one thing this fall is homemade applesauce. It is easy, delicious, nutritious, inexpensive, and almost everyone loves it. You can freeze it in bags, can it in jars, or eat it right away. There are lots of ways to make it, but one recipe is found in a great new book about food preservation, Put 'em Up! Thanks to Storey Publishing, we will have a copy of this new title for six lucky newsletter readers. See below for details, and try something new!

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest