Friday, August 28, 2009
Area vegetable growers are split on whether the summer's wet weather helped or hurt their crop.
"Grow your own" used to refer to those spindly nine-leafed marijuana plants under a grow light in the basement, but 40 years after Woodstock, the reference conjures up neat rows of corn, bushy tomato plants, and twirls of squash-heavy vines in well-tended backyards. This summer, South Orange vegetable gardeners are out with a vengeance. For some, the wet weather complicated the crops; for others, it worked miracles. Kobi Josefsberg, who has transformed his back and side yard in South Orange into a farmlike haven, found that the rain increased the number of bugs and contributed to the tomato blight that weakened some of his plants, turning their leaves yellow. Since the weather has become warmer and dryer, the plants are staging a comeback…
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Local reactions to the national controversy stirred by Whole Foods CEO's Wall Street Journal health care op-ed are mixed.
Many progressive Whole Foods shoppers were shocked when CEO John Mackey wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that questioned the need for government-run health care. In the piece, headlined "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare," Mackey said health care is not a constitutionally guaranteed right, and argued that health is largely a matter of individual responsibility. The piece caused a stir among healthcare advocates. Shoppers in Austin, Texas, and Berkeley, California, have picketed Whole Foods stores. A “Boycott Whole Foods” Facebook group has almost 28,000 members. Locally, the reaction has been mixed. Some customers, initially drawn to Whole Foods for its politics as much as its food, have questioned their loyalty to…
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Friday, August 21, 2009
A look at farmers markets this year compared to last: what's different, what's selling and what's not.
Where we get our ingredients is often as important as what we do with them. Watch any food show, read any food book or talk to any chef and the first thing they’ll tell you is to start with the freshest, highest-quality ingredients you can afford. With that in mind, I went to the capital of fresh, minimally-shipped and stored produce, the local farmers market. I peppered the poor vendors with questions, wanting to know how the economy and weather have impacted them, how business is and if customers' buying patterns have changed. A big difference all of the farmers mentioned has more to do with the weather than anything else. Most vendors sell a combination of what they grow themselves and what they buy from other farms. Since our farmers …
Sunday, August 16, 2009
With tomatoes ripening in home gardens and cropping up in greater volume at farmers markets, here are ways to keep up with them, including a recipe for Tomato Pudding.
When I got home from vacation, my vegetable garden was bursting with its first bounty of ripe tomatoes. I should have thought, "Oh yay, the first tomatoes of the season! What exciting dish can I use them in?!" Instead, my reaction was: "Oh crap, what am I going to do with these tomatoes?" I love growing tomatoes. There is a huge difference between homegrown tomatoes and what you can get at the market. There's a certain zing the homegrown ones have that just can't be duplicated (or described very well, for that matter). Not to mention the fact that grocery store tomatoes are most often bred to be blemish-free and hold together longer as opposed to being bred for optimum taste or texture. The best-tasting tomatoes aren't always the most …
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Here's a recipe and tips for an over-abundant produce.
There may be too much of a good thing. Witness the photo of a recent zucchini in my community garden plot that got too big for normal consumption within just a few days. While it may generate some envy, zucchini are best when they are about 8 in. long. When zucchini get large, the inside becomes very fibrous with hard and overly large seeds. To avoid getting more produce than you can manage, you can harvest and eat the flowers, either dipped in batter and deep fried or stuffed. Flowers are considered a delicacy and often are expensive in stores because they are difficult to ship and store. Fortunately, zucchini is versatile because it can be steamed, boiled, grilled, stuffed and baked, barbecued, fried or incorporated in other recipes like…
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Peaches are in season and available at the Millburn Farmers Market.
If you are bananas about peaches, then August in New Jersey is the month for you! New Jersey farmers are harvesting their peach crops and the bounty should be showing up at farmers markets throughout the state. Be sure to visit the Millburn Farmers Market today in the municipal lot at Essex and Main streets from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. And if you are looking for recipes for those peaches, visit the New Jersey Peach Promotion Council Web site. This Patch writer really wants to try the chicken skewers with peach salsa dipping sauce).
Mary Mann
11:36 am on Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Great piece, Lois! I was wondering how this was going over locally. more ›