May 12, 2007

Arlington’s Neighborhood Day is Saturday, May 12 - the same day as the market, so parking may be a little tighter than usual. Though the big parade isn’t set to head down Wilson Boulevard from Clarendon to Courthouse until 2 p.m., there are a number of activities scheduled throughout Arlington (in each neighborhood, of course) starting at 8 a.m., including stream and park cleanups and tree giveaways to match this year’s theme, "Neighborhoods Green and Fit". Go to www.arlingtonva.us/NeighborhoodDay for more details.

Spring’s first fruit & veg are strawberries and asparagus. Both are in full flush now, so though you may be at the market for the young plants most producers are selling to make your own yard fruitful, don’t neglect to buy something to eat tonight!

Don’t miss the chance to get some uncommon things to grow at home. For instance, Wheatland Farms has been offering tomato plants in several heirloom varieties and posts printed gardening instructions beside the plants. Or ask for help - the stand is staffed by people who live and work on the farm growing these things themselves, and they can tell you what will work best.

And don’t forget tomorrow is Mother’s Day - flowers from Granny’s Gardens, Nguyen Orchids, or Wollam Gardens, or a subtly scented herbal soap from Mount Harmony can help you out here!

Then prowl Gardner’s Gourmet, Musachio Produce, Red Rake Farms, and others for abundant asparagus.

Even Westmoreland Berry has a supply of slim, fresh green stalks. But the line here is for the table of strawberries, mostly early Sweet Charlies now. With any luck, Westmoreland will have strawberries for another five or six weeks - if the weather doesn’t skip straight into scorching summer and prevent the farm from coaxing a second bloom out of these early Charlies. If the line is daunting, browse Toigo Orchards and Twin Springs Fruit Farm where I think I spied some berries last week.

Meanwhile, I may be the only one, but I was excited to see green onions, garlic, elephant garlic, and RHUBARB set out for sale at Laurel Grove Farm. I lost out on the one bunch left, but I did some research (below) in case there's some more this week.

While we wait for a whole lot more produce to appear - and it will, soon, I’ve been promised - here’s what you should do as the bounty arrives.

The Mt. Vernon Group of the Sierra Club has started a program that challenges people in the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church, Arlington County, and parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties to commit to spending 25 percent of their food budgets on locally grown foods. If you’re an AFM shopper, accept this challenge!

Its organizer says, "There are many good reasons to purchase locally grown foods, including taste, freshness, supporting the local economy, getting to talk to the producers of your food to understand how it is grown or raised, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by cutting down on the number of miles food has to travel to get to consumers. With those and many other reasons in mind, the Mount Vernon Group of the Sierra Club is starting the Local Food Challenge. Through the Challenge those who commit to buying 25 percent of their food from locally produced sources between May and November of 2007 can feel good about what they’re doing for the local economy and the environment while also qualifying to win monthly prizes."

That’s right - not only do you get to eat more fresh, vitamin-rich, and healthfully raised products from nearby, but registering for the challenge also enters you in a monthly drawing for gift cards from My Organic Market (aka MOM’s), which now has five neighborhood locations for organic foods and health products.

Go to http://virginia.sierraclub.org/mvg/localfood.html to sign up and learn more. For instance, the site has links to information on sustainable eating.

After you sign up and start eating more local food, keep reading this newsletter as I attempt to meet the challenge myself. It does require a different approach - buying what’s there and figuring out how to use it - so you can count on some recipes that explore meal preparation for the time-crunched using fresh meats, vegetables, fruits, and dairy products rather than the can opener and Chef Boyardee. (Though nothing says you can’t make a fine ear of corn in the microwave ...)

So you bought that rhubarb. You made the strawberry/rhubarb pie. Now what? U.K. natives are much more familiar with this vegetable than most Americans. Yes, it’s a vegetable. Come on, it looks like pink celery doesn’t it? The stalks - the only edible part (the leaves contain oxalic acid, which can be toxic) - are quite, um, "tart" unless they’re cooked with a considerable amount of sugar, but there are more ways to use it than pie. A friend in Belgium swears by the British cooking show Ready Steady Cook (contestant chefs face preparing a dish in 18 minutes after audience members provide two ingredients), which provides a lot of fodder for over-scheduled cooks faced with slightly odd ingredients. Here’s what its contestants have done with today’s vegetable. (All recipes make one serving.)

Rhubarb Crumble
(Brian Turner)

• knob of unsalted butter (try 1 1/2 -2 tablespoons)
• 3-4 sticks of rhubarb, chopped
• 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon white wine
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons caster sugar*
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Gently melt the knob of butter in a pan and sauté the rhubarb for 5-6 minutes to soften. Add the sugar and white wine and heat gently for a few minutes.

Make the crumble topping - work the flour and 1 1/2 tablespoons butter together in a bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and sesame seeds.

Remove the rhubarb mixture from the heat and spoon into a small ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the sugar and scatter the crumble topping over. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. May serve sprinkled with 2-3 tablespoons brown sugar.

* Caster sugar is a Brit thing, but it’s just very fine sugar. So whiz your regular granulated in the food processor for a couple of seconds and there you have it.

Rhubarb, Ginger, and Strawberry Compote
(Lesley Waters )

• 3 oz caster (superfine) sugar
• 2 oranges, zest and juice
• 3 oz rhubarb, chopped
• 2 tablespoons grated ginger
• 2 oz strawberries, halved

Put the sugar, orange zest and juice, and rhubarb in a saucepan. Wrap grated ginger in a clean cloth and squeeze over the saucepan to extract the juice. Cook for five minutes, or until the rhubarb is soft. Stir in the strawberry halves and cook for one minute. Serve. (I’d add ice cream ...)

Roasted Rhubarb with Yogurt
(Lesley Waters)

• 1 3/4 oz unsalted butter, softened
• 2 sticks of rhubarb, cut into 2-inch lengths
• 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
• 2 3/4 oz Greek yogurt (or any thick yogurt; like Blue Ridge Dairy’s whole-milk kind)
• 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped out

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Melt the butter in a small ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat. Add the rhubarb and the sugar, stir well and transfer to the oven to roast for 10-15 minutes, until the rhubarb has cooked through.

Mix yogurt with the vanilla seeds in a small bowl. Serve over roasted rhubarb.

Potato, Green Bean, and Rhubarb Salad with Almond Pesto
(Brian Turner )

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 potato, peeled and cubed
• pinch chili flakes
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 stalk rhubarb, finely sliced
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 3/4 oz green beans, blanched (a good handful)
• 1 3/4 oz whole blanched almonds
• small handful flatleaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the potato cubes and chili flakes. Season with salt and pepper and sauté until golden-brown on all sides.

Place the potatoes into a bowl with the rhubarb, spring onions, and green beans and toss to combine.

For the pesto, blend the almonds, parsley, olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper (to taste) in a small food processor until almost smooth.

Plate salad and top with a dollop of pesto.

Note: Did I mention last week that Barbara Kingsolver made us all hungry on her book tour when she talked about some of her favorite dishes, including a morel and asparagus bread pudding from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors? Maybe I was trying to spare you, because the book has been checked out of the library forever and I couldn’t find the recipe online. Washington Post to the rescue: it interviewed Kingsolver and kindly printed that very same recipe on Wednesday, May 9. (Asparagus & Morel Bread Pudding). Also note the recipe Patrick O’Connell prepared for the Queen: scrambled Virginia farm eggs with morels and asparagus. Sounds fast and easy, plus you know where to find all the ingredients! ( Scrambled Virginia Farm Eggs)