Local food Thanksgiving

For a couple of months we’ve been planning a Thanksgiving meal made up of as many locally grown foods as possible. Thanks to the great folks who provide the CSA this endeavor just got a lot easier.


Let's start with the Thanksgiving centerpiece....turkey. We went looking for a non-industrial turkey after having read about mass production in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle . The great thing about Barbara Kingsolver's book is that even though she speaks to the inhumane side of the industrial food process, she also talks about the alternatives and people who are creating better food options. So we went looking for someone who raises heritage turkeys that were living a good turkey life. I started my search with the Slow Food preservation project called the Ark of Taste. This developed into email discussions with heritage turkey enthusiasts from all over the country who gave me tips on how to locate someone closer to home (I love the Internet!). We found Lisa Leonard at Wind Dancer Ranch. A group of us went in on a bulk purchase and Mark and I will be going to pick up the harvested birds right before The Day. Local food is generally considered to be anything produced within a certain range of where you live, and though Wind Dancer Ranch might not be considered local by the strictest standards the ranch is still within a reasonable distance. It's a day trip! And, this shopping trip will be way more fun than going to the grocery store because Lisa is eager to give us a tour of her ranch where she raises all kinds of heritage breeds. The Wind Dancer Ranch website is beautiful and informative...the attached image is just one of many that chronicle their life with heritage animals. You can still get one of these amazing birds in time for Thanksgiving; if you want the purchase to be cost effective get some of your friends and family in on a group purchase.

Next you'll need all the other dishes that make Thanksgiving and fall meals so special. This 2007 season is the second year for the spring/summer CSA program. The program coordinators and producers are amazing and they have accomplished great things in a really short period of time. As they manage the daily duties, like harvesting and packing, and the emergencies, such the loss of a pickup-spot volunteer, they continue to look for ways to meet the food needs of a diverse and complex demographic...us! With this in mind The Great Basin Basket CSA is offering fall programs this year; a fall basket and a Thanksgiving basket. I won't go into details here because the buzz has just surfaced and there are questions that only Pauline Hamilton at Great Basin Basket can answer. Email her today because you don't want to miss out.


This will be our first ever Thanksgiving planned with an emphasis on using the increasing number of locally produced foods. Those that aren't available through local producers we'll select sticking as close to possible to our food ethic without sacrificing too much. I'm not at all concerned about sacrificing taste, though, because if the turkey and fall CSA produce are anything like the other local foods we've eaten this year it will taste better than anything we've had before.

CSA - the veggies are coming in now!

All along we've been warned that CSAs start off slow in June, with lettuces and the few other Spring-friendly vegetables, then explode in abundance around August. They weren't kidding. I'll keep this entry short because we have veggies to eat. Here are a few of the dishes we'll be making with the produce we received in the last CSA and the beef we purchased from Home Grown Nevada.

Eggplant sandwiches from the Too Many Chefs blog; warm zucchini salad, again from Too Many Chefs; Warm beef salad; Melon gelato from Chez Panisse Fruit.

Slow Food Truckee

What is Slow Food? It is the celebration and preservation of a lifestyle that is intimately tied to good food grown and prepared by people who care, eaten in a mindful and appreciative way while engaged meaningfully with those we love. The movement originated in Italy during the 80's and has spread across the globe. And now there is a local convivium centered in Truckee, CA.


Tuesday night Mark, Dave, and I drove up to Truckee to attend the first Slow Food Truckee meeting. This meeting afforded us the opportunity to meet the people who are at the heart of this movement in our area: Lisa Boudreau of Lisa's Central Market, Mark Estee of Moody's Bistro and Lounge, Billy McCullough of Dragonfly Cuisine, Gary Romano of Sierra Valley Farms, Kaili Sanchez of Project Mana, and Maria Martin of the Nutrition Coalition, to name a few. The local movement is in its infancy but if this meeting was any indicator of the level of community interest and enthusiasm look for great things to happen. To learn more about what Slow Food means go to the Slow Food website or read Slow food nation: why our food should be good, clean, and fair and/or Slow food: the case for taste, both by Carlo Petrini, the father of the Slow Food movement.

Summer squash - two standouts from Home Grown Nevada

It's squash season and time to enjoy the wonderful varieties you'll never see at the supermarket. I've said it before but I'll say it again...I've never really been a summer squash person. I've eaten it in restaurants because it was the veggie of the day which included the typical zucchini and some other yellow squash that I couldn't identify either by taste or by appearance. Though the squash was certainly edible it wasn't anything I'd take the effort to cook at home. Then we started getting summer squash in our CSA baskets. OMG!

We've been eating or freezing all the squash that comes in our basket. However two of the varieties are so good we've been picking up extra from the Home Grown Nevada stall at the California Street farmers' market (Saturdays from 8:00-1:00):

Tromboccino Rampacante zucchini and Starship.

Not only are they wildly different in appearance they each have their own distinct taste. Summer squash is surprisingly versatile so the meal possibilities are endless. We ate our last batch in Summer Squash and Corn Pasta (from Chez Panisse Vegetables) while we watched The Fellowship of the Ring with our dogs (they love that movie).

Now that we can get a huge, delicious variety at the farmers' markets summer squash is back on the menu! Woo hoo!

Rediscovered flavors - cauliflower and Sod-Busters' chicken

I stopped eating chicken years ago. Not due to ethical or nutritional concerns but because it was so bland it wasn't worth eating. I found that dishes that included chicken could be tasty but it was primarily due to the numerous other ingredients in the recipe. I figured if I couldn't taste chicken why eat chicken. Sod-Busters chickens changed my mind.


Last Saturday we picked up the first couple of chickens from Deborah and Cliff Shirk's Sod-Busters Farm. I drove up to find them in the yard processing the chickens getting ready for all the people who'd ordered in June. They were friendly and professional, and seemed happy with their first effort with the new chicken breed. I was thrilled to find that these whole birds are nothing like what you'll find in the supermarkets. Huge chickens -- plump, fresh, immaculate, and having lived a "happy chicken life". Deborah and Cliff even helped me pack my family's order into my car as I had neglected to bring my cooler, in spite of Deborah's specific instructions to do so.

Since I'd rarely eaten chicken I didn't really know what to do with a whole one. I'd been on the lookout for recipes when I stumbled across a cocorico roaster in a NapaStyle catalog. It promised to do exactly what I needed. It arrived within a couple of days so we had it in time to cook dinner for our friends that Saturday. The NapaStyle website includes a recipe and instructions for using the cocorico, which we adapted to use with Hearts of Gold cantaloupe glaze from Lattin Farms. The Sod-Busters' chicken was larger than the one called for in the recipe so we added the fresh potatoes and cauliflower about 30 minutes after the chicken went into the oven. These chickens are so juicy it was necessary to remove some of the juice from the cocorico before we put the veggies in to cook.

Peaches and Arugula!

As usual, I went to the Saturday farmers' market to pick up a couple of things. Specifically, any tasty fruit to make a crostata for a friend's baby shower, and anything else that looked good. As it turned out blueberries were available and luscious...so blueberry crostata was on the menu. I conducted my usual produce inventory then stopped by the Home Grown Nevada stall to say good morning to Tina and Ann. Tina's garden has taken off and the stall was full of Nevada grown beef, vegetables, and melons. And she had arugula....I love arugula! This made me remember a recipe I'd seen in the Aug 07 Bon Appetit--Peach and Arugula Salad with Creamy Chive Dressing. I didn't remember all the other ingredients that were necessary to make this dish but figured if I had the best parts, how bad could it be? So I picked up some of Tina's arugula and wandered across the pathway to K & J Orchards to take a look at peaches. They had a small yellow cling-free variety, firm but wonderfully fragrant and, I later discovered, bursting with peach flavor. Nummy! As it turned out the recipe required only a few more ingredients: I had most of them at home and improvised with the others. It was stupendous! Easy and impressive if you're having company. Easy and decadent if it's just you, a loved one, and dinner on the patio in your pajamas.