Shop Local, Eat Fresh at the Saratoga Farmers' Market | Food, Crafts, Music in Saratoga Springs

Shop Local, Eat Fresh

Did You Know

Saratoga farmers helping to fill food pantry with fresh and local items

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Did you know…

that the Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendors have donated more than 400 pounds of fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and other food items to the Franklin Community Center’s food pantry in Saratoga Springs since October 15?

food-donationsThe donations are part of a new initiative launched by the farmers’ market and the food project that is being facilitated by the volunteer Friends of the Market group. Its goals are to:

• ensure that produce from local farmers that might be less saleable by the end of a market day but still healthful and flavorful not go to waste;

• build a stronger alliance between the farmers’ market and the communities it serves;

• encourage consumers of all income levels to see the Saratoga Farmers’ Market as a welcoming space where one can purchase locally raised produce and farm produced items at an affordable price;

• encourage food pantry clients and others to use local produce to bolster the health not only of their budgets but of themselves and their families, as well.

The project began as a result of outreach from the Capital District Food Pantries, which is dedicated to helping farmers and food pantries connect with one another. How it works is fairly simple. Toward the end of each Saturday market, Friends of the Market volunteers visit food vendors and ask them if they have any items that they would like to donate to the Franklin Community Center’s food pantry.

I volunteer with both the market and the food pantry. I gather the donated items and transport them to the center. There, I sort out the donations, weigh them, and store them in appropriate refrigerated or shelving spaces.

Often, I leave notes for the other volunteers at the center as to how to prepare such donated items as pea shoots, braising greens, watermelon radishes, pickles, and herbs. All of these items are greatly appreciated by food pantry users but often create an initial question of what to do. My farm-to-fork sampling program at the center and a garden established on site also are part of the project to interest more people in taking advantage of the diversity of produce that our region has to offer.

We would love to see the program expand so that farmers are feeding not only consumers who seek emergency food assistance at the Franklin Community Center but also other food banks in the region. We also commend the many Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendors who have been donating to the effort and thank those who also contribute to other food pantries. These efforts are changing the perception of food pantries as recipients of only surplus canned or boxed items, and are increasing awareness of the value of nutritional health across all income sectors.

The Friends of the Market encourages market customers to join the effort. Shoppers can buy a small amount of extra produce for the Franklin Community Center’s food pantry while making their regular purchases. Donations can be left at the Friends of the Market table (located on the ramp behind Shushan Hydroponics). Please leave only items purchased at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market. Other goods can be donated directly to the Franklin Community Center.

And what about parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme?

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

I recently got the chance to sample one of the hummus blends that Mark Bocian sells through his business Freddy’s Rockin’ Hummus. This one blended the traditional smooth, nutty chickpea base with a sweet hint of cranberry and a dense herbal flavor. I asked Bocian what herbs he used. With a grin, he responded: “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.” The name of the hummus appropriately was Scarborough Fair.

Since then, “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” has been on my mind. I have wondered how music and this medley of herbs might offer a salve for the current state of national politics.

Searches of the Internet revealed connections between the town of Scarborough in England, medieval fairs which served as precursors to farmers’ markets, and the culinary and curative properties of the four herbs. On the surface, Simon & Garfunkel’s use of the herbs in the refrain to their 1966 song “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” appears to hold little meaning. The herb names, when sung together, form a pleasant cadence, and the references to Scarborough Fair can be said to connote the medieval fairs, of which Scarborough was one.

But what about the herbs?

food-fact2According to Raw Food World (rawfoodworld.com), parsley contains oil components that can inhibit tumor formation as well as flavonoids that function as anti-oxidants. Sage is said to enhance memory, which is perhaps appropriate given the equating of the word “sage” with wisdom. Rosemary can serve as an immune booster and an anti-inflammatory. And thyme is not only packed with vitamins but is seen as an effective treatment for coughs.

For about five years, I have maintained a small perennial herb garden. It is full of sage and thyme (along with oregano, tarragon, and lavender), and each year I have planted rosemary and parsley in the same space with a rather ungrounded-in-reality desire to see these annuals come back to life. So far, little luck, and I end up replacing the winter withered plants with fresh ones in spring. Still, the garden and its herbs offers a reminder that even as the times might be changing the day has not yet come that the music has died.

Try using parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme with roasted chicken, in stuffings, or quick breads. Or try this simple side salad with bacon and eggs by Molly O’Neill of the New York Times: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11601-parsley-sage-rosemary-and-thyme-salad-with-scrambled-eggs

Creating Your ‘Horn of Plenty’

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Food blogger and photographer Pattie Garrett and I were trading ideas for cooking various vegetables last month when the traditional Thanksgiving cornucopia came up. Pattie recalled that her mother had always had a “horn of plenty” on her Thanksgiving meal tables but that she herself hadn’t carried on the tradition. Pattie’s stories raised memories for me of seeing cornucopia displays in department stores as a child but never quite understanding what exactly they were.

            I decided to do some research. Here’s what I found:

The word “cornucopia” literally translates from its Latin derivations into horn (cornu) of plenty (copia). The horn is a container of goodness overflowing. The cornucopia of today’s Thanksgiving tables usually are not quite horns but rather wicker baskets. They tend to be decorative but filled with colorful foods and such things as feathery strands of wheat or fuzzy cattails. The foods range from apples and grapes to squashes, ears of corn, and other somewhat durable vegetables. The main goal in creating a cornucopia is to represent it as abundance overflowing.

Where did this image come from? How did it come to be associated with Thanksgiving? Interestingly enough, the first question is easier to answer than the second.

According to Greek tales, the cornucopia is an actual animal horn. In one story, the god Zeus is hidden from his father Cronos who wants to kill him. As a baby, Zeus receives care from a goat named Amalthea. One day while romping Zeus accidentally breaks one of Amalthea’s horns. He rectifies this act by using his godly powers to keep the horn filled with whatever foods, drinks, or other comforts Amalthea might need. In a sense, he is filling the horn with abundance to ensure that his caregiver’s needs are met.

In a different Greek tale, Zeus’s son Hercules is vying for the affections of Deianira, who is the daughter of King Aeneus. His principal rival for Deianira’s heart is the god of rivers, Achelous. As Achelous and Hercules do battle with each other, Achelous changes forms numerous times over. At one point he becomes a bull, and Hercules manages to break off one of the bullhorns. This is enough to send Achelous back to the rivers, in defeat. Hercules and Deianira celebrate the victory by filling the horn with flowers and fruits, once again symbolizing plenty.

These are just stories, of course. But over the centuries the cornucopia turns up across cultures and across artistic genres, in paintings, on pottery, occasionally in poems. There doesn’t appear to be a definitive moment when the cornucopia began to serve as a symbol for the modern-day Thanksgiving. Yet, subtly, we all know that this is what it is.

According to the educational resources website BrightHub Education, the cornucopia is said to represent blessings and a sense of abundance, particularly of food. They usually exist in the form of wicker baskets shaped like a horn and are filled with fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, and breads. BrightHub author Sarah Malberg also noted that one could obtain a cornucopia made of such materials as clay, wood, or stainless steel.

So how does one assemble a cornucopia? Are there dos and don’ts for getting it right? Again, the answer appears less than definitive. The main goal is to fill them with foods so that they overflow, creating the idea that there’s plenty of food for everyone, that nobody should go hungry, especially on Thanksgiving.

What would you put in your cornucopia? What signifies wealth in the way of food to do? How might a farmers market horn of plenty be put together? Ponder these questions as you prepare for your Thanksgivings, and create your own horns of plenty. The following recipes, based on seasonal vegetables at the farmers’ market, may provide further food for thought on that idea.

World’s Easiest Acorn Squash Recipe

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This recipe, adapted from Southern Living, allows for the hard winter squashes that provide the perfect stored crops for the winter an opportunity to cook while you sleep. All you need is butter, maple syrup, and a crockpot (or slow cooker). And, of course, the squash.

½ cup water

2 acorn squashes, cut in half and seeded

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons maple syrup

optional additions: diced bacon or ham, salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Put water in cooker dish.
2. Place squash halves in water, arranging so that they are not piled on top of each other.
3. Put a tablespoon of butter and of maple syrup into each half, and add optional ingredients, if desired.
4. Cook on high for one hour, and then lower heat and cook on low for 6 hours.

I was attuned to the possibility of cooking winter squash in this way after roasting a sweet delicata squash for the farm-to-fork food sampling program that I do at the Franklin Community Center. To cook that particular squash, I had to bake it in a hot oven for nearly an hour. After it was soft, I sliced it into rounds and drizzled them with butter. The squash was a hit, but I had to admit that it required more planning and more work than those accustomed to the ease of yellow crooknecks or zucchini. My husband suggested putting it in the slow cooker. I bookmarked the idea, and finally got a chance to try it out tonight.

Other websites propose using a slow cooker to avoid the prep work of winter squash. Delicious as it is, these squash often are a pain to prepare. They require sharp knives (and patience) in order to be cut into halves, and then time to scoop out the seeds and fleshy, unappetizing innards. The work is much faster if the squash is already cooked. Cutting them becomes as easy as slicing through butter and the cleaning of innards goes much faster.

You can do the same with spaghetti squash.

 

More Than a Can of Beans | Did You Know…

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by Himanee Gupta-Carlson

For the past two weeks, I have been collecting donations from Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendors for the Franklin Community Center’s food pantry. The goal of this program is to connect those who need food the most with the local farmers who grow it. As a volunteer for both the market and the food pantry, I am collecting unsellable but still edible foods and taking them to the Franklin center to be weighed, stored, and ultimately distributed.

Last Saturday, it was wet, windy, and quite chilly. Neither I nor the farmers wanted to linger past the closing bell. Against that scenario, John Otrembiak asked me a question: “Would they take soup beans?”

Soup beans are beans that often sell in the final two or three weeks of the summer market’s summer season. The term, on the Otrembiak’s signage, refers to beans that might have been planted for fresh-eating purposes but ended up drying out or being exposed to frost before they could be harvested in full. Instead of eating the whole bean – pod and seed – one shells the seeds from pods. The seeds range in quality from plump and juicy to dry enough to be stored for months of winter eating in jars.

Soup beans are like dry beans that are soaked and then cooked slowly in crock pots, pressure cookers, or soup pots for hours to produce hearty high protein soups, stews, or such dishes as cassoulet. Unlike dry beans, however, soup beans require only minimal – if any – soaking, and can be cooked to eat within an hour. They are fresh and highly nutritious and if shelled and stored properly can ultimately keep in storage for months, if not years.

john-otrembiak
John Otrembiack of Otrembiak Farm

Otrembiak’s question got me wondering about how such beans would fare as food pantry donations. Unlike their canned or dried counterparts, soup beans require some work. They must be shelled, washed, and then, of course, cooked. They are labor intensive, but they are local and delicious.

I decided to give the beans a try. Otrembiak handed me a plastic bin’s worth, and I put them in a plastic basket slatted to allow the wetter pods an opportunity to dry. Monday morning, I arrived at the food pantry.

“What happened to the soup beans?” I asked.

“They’re out on the free table,” responded one of the volunteers. “People are helping themselves.”

Cooking soup beans

My method is simple and basic: Shell about a cup’s worth of beans, and soak them for 20-30 minutes in water with a dash of salt. Drain and rinse.

In a soup pot, heat some oil or butter. Add some chopped onion or garlic, along with perhaps a root vegetable like diced carrots, turnips or potatoes. Add the beans, and then enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a low simmer, and cover. Cook until the beans are soft. Add a couple of chopped leaves of kale, collard greens, or perhaps some fresh herbs at the end.

Here’s a more formal recipe: http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2011/01/farmers-market-soup/

 

 

Colorful, Impulsive, and Quick

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

The other night I came home at sunset to find a kitchen turned upside down. With about ten minutes, I needed to prepare vegetables for dinner.

I turned to three key words: color, impulse, and quick.

In the garden, I picked a handful of the last of our deep green komatsuna (one of the many varieties of Asian greens that are especially sweet after the first frosts of fall), and on an impulse, plucked a couple of purple kale leaves, as well.

Inside, as I cleared space on the counters to wash and prep these greens, my eyes fell on a red bell pepper that I had purchased at the previous day’s Saratoga Farmers’ Market from the Owl Wood Farm. Quickly, I sliced off one of its walls and diced it up.

food-fact-2I opened the refrigerator to get out a bottle of Bragg’s Amino Acids (a low-sodium substitute for soy sauce) and spotted an ear of sweet corn, leftover from an earlier dinner, wrapped protectively in Saran wrap. My eyes also fell on a bag of carrots that I had purchased from Denison. I pulled one out.

On the chopping board, a rainbow of vegetable color lit up: green from the komatsuna, red from the bell pepper, slivers of orange from the carrot, nuggets of yellow from the corn, and finally a flourish of purple from the kale.

I got out a wok that I often use for cooking vegetables, though any deep skillet or saucepan will do. I turned on the heat and put in a teaspoon of olive oil, a dash of sesame oil, a squirt of the Bragg’s, and then all the vegetables, all at once. With two wooden spoons, I tossed them to coat them with the oil and the amino acids, and gave them about two minutes to cook.

I turned off the heat, and brought the wok to the table with a hot pad. The vegetables were crisp in their freshness and the quick preparation allowed them to retain their distinctive flavors while complementing each other.

The best part about this dish was its sheer spontaneity. No plan, no rhyme, no reason. All I had to do was think color and act quickly on my impulses.

food-fact-3

Recipe
6-8 leaves of a leafy green such as pac choi, cabbage, collard or kale
2-4 leaves of a purplish green such as purple cabbage or kale
¼ red bell pepper, diced.
½ carrot, slivered
½ ear of corn (or perhaps a few strands of spaghetti squash)
oil and Bragg’s amino acids (or Balsamic vinegar or soy sauce)

1. Wash and dice leafy vegetables.
2. Heat oil and add amino acids in a cooking pan.
3. Toss vegetables into oil, and toss for 2 minutes with two wooden spoons.
4. Remove from heat and serve.