2012 In Progress (March)

reading:

Mycelium Running - Paul Stammets

One Thousand and One Nights

Lexicon of Sustainability: Food Miles

Amazon buys army of Robots - CNN

viewing:

Why we're storing billions of seeds - Ted 

Tenacious D - To Be The Best - New album announcement from Tenacious D!

listening to:

FEaB # 1

The Benson Interruption # 13 

coffee: 

Working our way through the wonderful Bard Coffee - El Salvador Cup of Excellence Lot # 13. I am still singing the praises of this slightly sweet and balanced cup, absolutely love it! 

Dark Days Meal #17: Broccoli and Fontina Ravioli, Homemade Sauce, & Maple Sausage

The Dark Days Challenge is on! Running until March 31, 2012 over 100 participants will be doing our best to cook and blog about one meal per week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients. Recaps will be hosted by the blog collective Not Dabbling in Normal where you can follow along with all of the other participants.

This is it. Our final Dark Days Meal for this challenge. Sadly no good pictures came out, but how exciting is another shot of ravioli, homemade sauce and sausage? Not very exciting but it tasted damn good!!
For this our 17th and final Dark Days Challenge meal we enjoyed a broccoli and fontina ravioli with homemade sauce and maple pork sausage.
The Broccoli and Fontina Ravioli is courtesy of Valicenti Organico, the sauce from our pantry, and the Maple Sausage from the farmers at West River Creamery. The sweetness of the sausage was a great balance to the richness of the fontina. 

I will be wrapping up and reflecting on this season's Dark Days Challenge next week.

re:char & The Black Revolution

There are a number of food related Kickstarter campaign's out there from Wood-Fired Pizza Carts to Urban Farms and dozens of other projects in between. One such project I recently stumbled upon is more garden related, but the end outcome is greater vegetable production so it falls into the food category. I decided to support Jason Aramburu's Black Revolution Biochar project!
Jason Aramburu is a Princeton graduate who is interested in soil science and Biochar. Biochar is a charcoal produced at very high temperatures from plant waste and was used by farmers in the Amazon Basin as early as 3,000 years ago to help increase the fertility of croplands. Many believe products like biochar can be used to reduce carbon emission because once plant waste is turned into biochar it doesn't decompose into CO2. See what Jason has to say in the below kickstarter campaign video:

From the Black Revolution Kickstarter page they are looking to test biochar with a variety of growers (a few potted plants all the way up to small farmers) and skill levels. Backing the campaign gives you the opportunity to be part of the US trial of Black Revolution as they will "ask backers to measure the height and yield of their plants at multiple points for publication into a comprehensive study. We will also determine how much carbon we have all offset through the use of Black Revolution. All backers will receive results of the study upon completion..." 
I pledged $35 and had the honor of being the donor to bring the project over it's fundraising goal and guarantee it will be funded. For my pledge I will be receiving a small bag of Black Revolution (enough for 4-5 potted plants).
I look forward to receiving the Biochar and sharing the results with the re:char team as well as here on the blog!

SoWa Winter Market 3/25

Gail visited the SoWa Winter Market yesterday for what is definitely one of our smallest trips of the season. We have a refrigerator full of leftovers and weren't in need of much but decided to make the trip anyway to see some of our favorite vendors and get out of our apartment for a few hours.
We got 3 apples and a red onion from Silverbrook Farm. Green Peppercorn Pappardelle & Broccoli and Fontina Ravioli from Valicenti Organico. 2 gorgeous looking rib steaks from John Crow Farm, and a pair of Chocolate Sea Salt Biscotti from Joanna's New World Biscotti.
Not picture was the 1 additional item we picked up, a 6" tall rosemary plant from The Herb Lyceum.
The rosemary will have a temporary home on our windowsill until it is time to bring it to the garden, which will hopefully be very soon!

2012 In Progress (March)

reading:
Mycelium Running - Paul Stamets
Seeking a Sustainable Path for Coffee, and Coffe Farmers, in Haiti   New York Times Dot Earth 

viewing:
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race- The Big Picture
Impermanent Sand Paintings- Andres Amador
Rangers & Celtic (5 Parts)- vice.com

listening:
Nerdist - Neal Patrick Harris
Freakanomics - Show & Yell

coffee:
This week we starting drinking Bard Coffee - El Salvador Cup of Excellence Lot # 13. This is a sweet and balanced cup, with a hint of vanilla. It is makes the ideal cup at home. Probably the best coffee we've had this year and I really look forward to welcoming spring with this great brew.

Dark Days Meal # 16: Braised Pork Rib, Roasted Potato & Relishes

The Dark Days Challenge is on! Running until March 31, 2012 over 100 participants will be doing our best to cook and blog about one meal per week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients. Recaps will be hosted by the blog collective Not Dabbling in Normal where you can follow along with all of the other participants.

In an effort to enjoy some of the meat we have in our freezer I decided to make a country style pork rib for Gail and I to share. I braised the pork rib with beer (Harpoon 100 Barrel Series Catamount Maple Wheat) and an onion. I finished the pork with a reduction of apple cider and a hint of maple syrup. I roasted up some garlic and butter potatoes with a hint of dill and added some relishes and pickled goods on the side. An easy meal that used a variety of items we had on hand!

Country Style Pork Rib from Pete & Jen's Backyard Birds, cooked in Harpoon Beer (brewed in Boston, MA & Windsor, VT) with Red Fire Farm onions and garlic. Charlton Orchards cider and Cook's Farm maple syrup for the finishing sauce. Pickled carrots and grapes from Grillo's Pickles and the corn relish is from our own stash. The Potatoes are also courtesy of red fire farm as was the garlic they were tossed with, and the butter was Kate's Homemade.

Next week looks to be the last week of the challenge. Just in time for this blog to transition from less eating to more gardening, though I will try and keep a balance. Look for 1 more Dark Days Meal next week and a wrap up/recap following that.

New Kitchen Utensils

Gail and I picked up some handmade kitchen tools this past weekend at the Paradise City Arts Festival. Gail had previously bought a butter dish and spreader from Jonathan's Wild Cherry Spoons and was excited for us to check out their full selection at Paradise City.
We ended up with a bundle of assorted utensils and made plans to purchase even more in the future as we both really like Jonathan's work. Here is a look at the spoons that made it home with us:

The Spice Spoon & Honey Stick. Given my honey obsession
I am sure to get some miles out of that one. 

A pair of slightly curved cooking spoons and a fancy tasting
spoon that we picked out of the irregulars box.

Marmalade Spoon & Pickle Fork round out
the utensil shopping spree.

We were definitely in need of a few more basic wooden spoons like those in the 2nd picture but others, like the Honey Stick and Pickle Fork were impulse buys that I was happy to make. The spoons, along with the butter dish and spreaders and the cutting board set I previously gifted to Gail have started us off with a nice collection of handmade wooden kitchen items that I am sure will grow bigger over time.

Real Progress towards a year round Public Market in Boston.

It was announced on Monday that the Boston Public Market Association has won the bid to operate a year-round market in downtown Boston that will sell produce, meats, dairy products and more all made or raised in Massachusetts! The site, the first floor of a building on the corner of Hanover St. & John F Fitzgerald Surface Road is not expected to open until the Summer of 2014.
Despite the multi year time frame before the market is open this is a huge step forward to having a real public market the city deserves, one on par with Seattle's Pike Place, San Francisco's Ferry Building, or Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market to name some examples. For those of us who frequent farmers markets and get excited about local food the Boston Public Market represents a huge step towards year-round access to locally grown and sourced produced and goods here in Boston, all under one roof!
I can't even begin to imagine how much work and planning has to go into getting this up an running, even with a target opening that is more than 2 years away I know that countless farmers and market vendors will be buzzing about this as the summer markets start up soon and I can't wait to hear what they have to say about this great news!
Congrats to the BPMA and all those who've worked so hard on this project.

2012 Garden Plan

I finally finished my Garden plan for 2012! Just in the knick of time... with the unusually warm winter I might be trying to get into my plot at the end of this month or early next month to get a jump start on this years gardening.

I'm doing something different this year: I sketched out, in 2 week intervals my garden plan from Late March/Earl April - Late September. Though it was fairly tedious I found it to be a great constructive exercise that allowed me to use the space available as effectively as possible.
My first season lacking any real knowledge I severely over planned and last year I only made a rough list of  what I wanted to grow and winged it for the most part. This year I am trying to strike a balance between over and under planning.
Sketching out the Garden in 2 week intervals allows me to produce an 'ideal' road map if all goes according to plan and the weather cooperates. It also let's me adjust plans on the fly as life and weather dictate my gardening time - one of the challenges of gardening in an urban community garden!
I'm ready to start growing! I just need to find the time to get to the garden and see how it looks after an unusual Winter.

Another Mushroom Harvest

No visits to any local Winter Markets this weekend as I was busy helping out my family and unable to plan a trip, so instead I am providing an update on the Back To The Roots mushroom kit.
Though it was slow going with the second fruiting we were able to finally get a small harvest last week.

When we left for Florida one side of the kit was showing a few signs of fresh growth and a few dried out mushrooms that seemed to stop growing out of nowhere. When we returned I saw this entire patch had grown in the 4 days we were gone! A small and unexpected harvest of 2.65 oz.
The kit looked to have lots more growth in it so I soaked it for an additional 24 hours between Thursday & Friday night and returned it to the box hoping for another fruiting (or 2 or 3).
I have also added a mushroom harvest tally in the left hand column to keep track of current and future harvests!