The Locavore’s Bookshelf: Public Produce

As a landscape architect and city planner, Darrin Nordahl is in a unique position in regards to understanding and articulating the feasibility of urban agriculture in modern US cities. Unlike many authors, such as Micheal Pollan, Nordahl has first-hand experience with designing public landscapes in urban environments, and so he can see the viewpoints of those who favor of adding edible plants to urban landscapes and those who oppose the idea.

All of these facts work in Nordahl’s favor as he wrote Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture. In it, he outlines the hows and whys of changing our public policies regarding food in the urban landscape. He makes a cogent argument that municipalities can and should take the lead in feeding the public through other means than the usual community garden. He suggests that cities can plant fruit and nut trees in public venues such as parks or city plazas. He tells stories of unused parking lots being turned into community gardens staffed by public employees where the food is available to everyone and anyone. He suggests, again, with straight reasoning behind his thoughts, that the traditional community garden plan is not sufficient to feed those in need, and that it is not only up to individuals or private charities to take up the slack, but that governments can and should step up and lead the way into a new way of integrating food into our daily lives in the 21st century and beyond.

I loved the ways in which Nordahl suggests to incorporate food into many different types of public venues, and I loved his arguments against the usual naysayers who declare that food plants have no business in the public view because they are unattractive and messy.

What I found lacking in the book, though, was a certain eloquence–while it is obvious to me that Nordahl is passionate about the subject and is more than knowledgeable, his writing style is a bit dry and lackluster. The stories he tells are factually interesting, but are told in such a way that they are bloodless and cold. There is a lack of human warmth in the book that made it very hard for me to read–which is odd because I can usually devour books of this type in days.

This book, though it is a mere 149 pages, took me over two weeks to read.

Compare that to the 450 pages in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I read in less than a week.

But be that as it may, while the book is not an entertaining read that is easy to tear through, it has a worthy message and is filled with useful informatin, especially for people who are interested in helping alleviate the food inequity in our country.

And for that, it is quite worth slogging through the less than sparkling prose.

Meatless Monday: Indian-Spiced Twice Baked Potatoes

I thought of this dish the last time we had baked potatoes with dinner, which was oh, just last week. I thought of it, because while I love twice baked potatoes, I hardly ever make them. Why is that?

No good reason, really. I guess that while I like them, I just don’t much often think of making them, because the usual ingredients: cheese, butter, sour cream and bacon–while all delectable, mind you–just seem to take a perfectly good vegetable and turn it into an orgy of saturated fat.

Don’t get me wrong. I love me some saturated fat, but there are limits. I’d rather spend my saturated fat calories on butter and lard pie crust, bacon-filled waffles and any egg dish than on a twice baked potato.

That said, I have to admit to loving the way my Grandma made them. Hers were the first ones I ever tasted, mind you, so I suspect that her version biased me by its brilliance. She used Grandpa’s beloved Kennebec potatoes (which have a wonderful earthy flavor all their own) from the garden, and paired them with no bacon, only a little bit of butter, no sour cream and two vegetables: broccoli and green onions. Oh, and cheddar cheese. LOTS of cheddar cheese. (She had to make up for no bacon, only a little butter and no sour cream, you see…..)

It was the broccoli and green onion that did it for me. I just loved the way that the blanched broccoli and uncooked green onion melded together with the sweet, lightly nutty potato, and then was enhanced by the cheese. Wonderful stuff, that.

But, I never make it that way at my house, unless it is for a solitary lunch, because Zak is no fan of either broccoli or uncooked green onions.

So, until I thought of these, there were no twice baked potatoes at my house!

However. Now that I’ve come up with these, Zak is a convert, and has requested we have these more than just this once. In fact, next time I make them, he has requested that we do the second baking on the grill so the woodsmoke flavor can permeate the potatoes and make them just that much more exciting!

How did I come up with the idea for this Indian spiced version?

It was easy.

I was craving Samosas.

And lacking them and lacking the will to haul off and make the pastry dough myself (it is a minor pain in the tuckus), my mind fixated on the baked potato I was eating. And, like a bolt of lightening, my imagination could taste both the baked potato in my mouth and the filling of my favorite samosas–potatoes and peas.

(Here I will fess up. As much as I love meat, the best samosas are the vegetarian ones with the potatoes and peas. The ones filled with keema–while I love keema and I love samosas–in my mind they are two great tastes that don’t taste great together.)

So, I decided I had to make the samosa-inspired twice baked potatoes happen, and why not on Mother’s Day? What’s more fun than kitchen experimentation on a holiday? Especially when the experimentation follows an afternoon of planting herbs and flowers and is fueled by a celebratory mojito? So, that is what I did.

When you look at the recipe, you will note several things–one that I use ghee and Greek yogurt as the dairy components of the dish. You can use butter and either regular yogurt or sour cream instead, but I will tell you–the dish won’t taste nearly as good. It just won’t. The nutty aroma of the ghee is part of what makes the filling taste really Indian, and the Greek yogurt, being strained, is thicker and thus adds body to the filling, not just its lovely tangy flavor. So, at least try to use the dairy products I used.

One final thing before I present the recipe–you will notice that I use a tiny bit of curry powder in the filling. You will seldom see me use it, but here it serves a distinct purpose. It gives the filling just the right fenugreek seed and turmeric flavor (and color) without accidentally using too much ground fenugreek seed. If you don’t ever use curry powder, you can substitute the same amount of powdered turmeric mixed with 1/4 teaspoon ground toasted fenugreek seeds.

Indian-Spiced Twice Baked Potatoes
Ingredients:

2 large and one medium to small baking potatoes
canola oil
1 tablespoon ghee
1 large yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt
3 fresh curry leaves
2 thai green chilies, thinly sliced
4 large cloves garlic, finely minced
1″ cube ginger, peeled and finely minced
1 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seed
1 teaspoon whole black mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon mild curry powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 cups frozen peas (or fresh, blanched shelled peas)
2 tablespoons ghee
1/2-3/4 cups whole milk or 2% strained Greek yogurt
salt to taste
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon thinly sliced green garlic tops or green onion tops
Aleppo pepper and minced cilantro leaves for garnish

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Wash potatoes well, scrubbing the skins with a vegetable brush. Dry potatoes, and prick in three or four places with a fork. Rub the skins all over with oil.

Place potatoes directly on oven rack and allow to bake until completely done–about one hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool until you can handle them.

While the potatoes bake, heat the first tablespoon of ghee in a heavy-bottomed, deep frying pan. Cast iron is perfect. Add onions, and sprinkle with salt, then cook, stirring, until the onions have turned a nice warm golden color. Add the curry leaves and the chilies and keep cooking, stirring all the while, for another minute, or until the curry leaves are very fragrant. Add the garlic and ginger and the whole cumin and mustard seeds, and cook, stirring, until the onion’s color deepens to a reddish golden brown, and the mustard seeds sputter and pop like miniature popcorn.

Stir in the curry powder and smoked paprika, then add the frozen (or blanched) peas. If using frozen, they do not need to be thawed. Cook, stirring until the peas thaw and begin to take on a yellowish tinge–just a couple of minutes.

Add the rest of the ghee to the pan.

While the onions are cooking, cut the two large potatoes open using two cuts made perpendicular to each other in the center of the potato. Scrape out the potato flesh, leaving enough connected to the skins to make a nice shell that can stand upright on its own. Cut the smaller potato in half lengthwise and scrape all the potato out of it. Put the potato innards into the pan with the peas and spices, and cook, stirring and lightly breaking up the potato with the back of your spoon, until the potato has turned yellow, is mostly mashed up, but with some definite lumps remaining. DO not think to puree the potato-it ruins the texture.

When the potato mixture has taken up the color of the spices and onions in the pan, add the Greek yogurt and stir well to combine it over heat. When it is combined completely, take off heat and stir in the cilantro and green garlic or onion tops. Salt to taste.

Refill the potato skins with the potato-pea mixture, mounding the filling up and out of the potato shell. (You will likely have a few tablespoons left over. Save them to eat later or give them so whoever is hanging out in your kitchen watching you cook to eat.)

Turn the heat of the oven down to 300 degrees F. and put the potatoes into an oiled baking dish so that they will stay upright. Put into the oven and bake until the top of the filling is lightly browned along the edges.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the Aleppo pepper and cilantro leaf garnishes and serve with a large salad filled with seasonal greens and root vegetables like radishes and carrots. Another good dish to go with this would be saag paneer–or mild cheese fried and then cooked with mixed greens.

My Happy Mother’s Day Gift

To all the mothers out there in the world, Happy Mother’s Day.

We celebrated here in the best way possible. I got to go plant shopping and then Kat and I planted flowers in the deck planters, my herb planter for the deck, bunches of mint in my yard, and my favorite mother’s day present–from Zak–three baby curry leaf plants.

We potted them in pretty pots and put them in the sun porch to stay until the nights warm up.

I am emboldened by my failure to kill my rosemary plants and my kaffir lime tree over the winter, so I decided to go all out and get the curry leaves. I even ordered lemongrass seeds.

Zak’s parents, Tessa and Karl gave me a gift certificate which I used to buy seed-starting equipment, gardening books, and a compost bin.

It was a very merry, foodielishious, gardener’s Mother’s Day.

Look What I Found: Vegetable and Herb Seeds From India

Today started out sunny and beautiful, so out to the garden I went. I dashed out and into the car so fast, I forgot to take my methi seeds that I had soaked overnight in a mug of water (it helps them sprout) and left them on the kitchen counter.

No worries–instead of running right back home to get them, I settled in and thinned the mizuna, planted some more spinach, replanted some carrots, planted some cilantro seeds and replanted some beets.

Then, I weeded and finally sauntered home to pick up the methi seeds. Zak wanted to go out with me, so while I was waiting for him to get ready, I decided to wander the Internet and see if there were any seed companies that offered Indian varieties of herbs and seeds.

Last year or the year before when I looked I found nothing, but today, I found Seeds of India, a company that offers seeds for traditional Indian vegetables such as bottle gourd, snake gourd, winged beans and a huge array of chili peppers. And, happily, methi seeds, and tulsi (holy basil) seeds. (I have always used methi seeds that I bought as spices in the market, but I’ve always had a fairly low germination rate working that way, so I wanted to get seeds that were specifically meant to be planted in the year in which I bought them!)

The website doesn’t look like much, but the varieties of vegetable and herb seeds offered makes up for a lack of design sense. The chili offerings include the long, meaty green chilies that are used to make mirchi pakora–battered and fried chilies, as well as some of the typical fresh and dried chilies found in Indian markets.

Of course, I had to make an order, though I anticipate making a larger order next winter so I can start a variety of eggplant and chili pepper plants for next summer. I ended up picking out packets of cucumber, zucchini, and methi to try out this year.

As soon as the seeds are planted and germinated, I will keep you posted on my findings.

My Favorite Seed Companies

My Six Favorite Seed Companies For Vegetable and Herb Seeds:
(In no particular order)

Renee’s Garden: Why do I love Renee’s Garden? Well, her seeds have a high germination rate in my experience, and her seed packets are among the most informational I have ever seen. Not to mention that the packaging is BEAUTIFUL, with lovely full-color watercolor art on each and every packet of seeds.

The fact that the founder, Renee Shepherd, also is a cook helps. She has recipes using her unique varieties of vegetables and herbs on her website, and she also has two cookbooks available: Recipes from a Kitchen Garden and More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden.

The vegetable, herb and flower varieties sold by Renee’s Garden come from growers around the world, all of whom are hand-chosen for organic and sustainable practices. Many of the varieties are unique to the company, and in my experience, all of the seeds germinate and grow very well.

Evergreen Seeds: If you want to grow gai lan, bok choi, Japanese bunching onions or mizuna, you need to turn to Evergreen Seeds. If you want more than one variety of daikon radish to choose from, if you want to grow winter melon, or if you want a choice in which type of bitter melon you grow, you need to check out Evergreen Seeds. Their company is THE place you go to for Asian vegetable and herb varieties that you have tasted in restaurants, read about in books or seen recipes for in my blog.

The seeds provided by Evergreen have a high germination rate, and their seed packets, while not pretty, are QUITE informative, and I have had a great success growing with their seeds for years. This year, I am trying out many more varieties than I did previously, so look for reports later in the season as to how well the seeds perform in the garden plots.

Johnny’s Select Seeds: For a real live socialist like myself (not like our President who is just called a socialist but is obviously a capitalist) Johnny’s Select Seeds is not just a purveyor of quality seeds and innovative gardening tools, it is also a model of how an employee-owned company can be run successfully, providing good customer service while also adhering to the principles of worker-ownership. AND, they have neat varieties of seeds, like their Atomic Red Carrots–carrots that are sweet and you guessed it–bright red. (I love unusually colored vegetables, so long as they taste good.)

The worker-owners also are committed to providing non GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) seeds to the public.

The company carries all kinds of cool stuff, like a wide variety of cover crops–those are seeds you plant to grow during the fall, winter and very early spring after your garden is done, or during the summer if you let your garden bed go fallow for a season–that means not planting crops in it. Cover crops are great, because not only do they keep out weeds, they also provide nutrients to the soil after you till your cover crops under at the end of their growth.

Seed Saver’s Exchange:Oh, how I LOOOOVE Seed Saver’s Exchange. I remember loving them back when you could only get their seeds by mail order or from the Internet. Now, you can get packets of their heirloom vegetable, herb and flower seeds, illustrated with lovely photographs on the front, and covered with information on the back, from garden stores, grocery co-ops, natural foods stores and feed stores nationwide. You can even get them down the hill from my house at The Village Bakery!

The special thing about Seed Saver’s Exchange is that their seeds are all heirloom and rare open-pollinated varieties that had previously be passed down from generation to generation and traded from gardener to gardener. Their seeds represent our gardening heritage, with varieties that go back to the founding of our nation.

I don’t know about you, but not only do I like to eat my food, I like to know its history, too. I wasn’t called “The Culinary Nerd” for nothing–I am utterly fascinated by types of beans that were grown by my Native American ancestors, or the types of squash that Thomas Jefferson particularly liked.

The seeds you buy from Seed Saver’s can be harvested and saved for use next year, meaning if you buy from them and save your seeds by their instructions, your first purchase of seed from them is a one-time expense. After that, the plants, with your help, just propagate themselves year after year.

Territorial Seed: I have to admit that this is my first year using Territorial Seed’s products, but so far, I am impressed with the selection of vegetable, herb and flower varieties and their customer service. They have lots of unusual selections, including beautiful purple haricot vert (slender French snap beans) that you -know- I had to plant. (And they are coming up happily right as we speak and are about two and a half inches tall.)

Their seed packets are extremely informative and their customer service is fast and friendly. So far, so good.

Burpee: I saved the most “corporate” seed company for last, but I have to admit that Burpee has great customer service, their seeds and live plants are all top notch and healthy and they carry a variety of hybrid AND open-pollinated varieties of vegetable, flower and herb seeds. They also carry a large variety of bare-root fruit plants, from strawberries to blueberries and bramble fruits (raspberries and blackberries), and I have always had great luck with their strawberry plants.

First of all, Monsanto does NOT own Burpee–it is privately owned, though it is true that the owner is an employee of Seminis, a large wholesale seed company that is owned by Monsanto. (If you are interested in learning which seed companies sell all non-GMO seed, check out this blog post from Garden of Eatin’, an organic gardening blog based in Salem, Oregon.

GMO seed aside, most of my life, I have used Burpee seed–starting as a kid, in fact. My Grandpa used almost exclusively Burpee seed, so some of the first seeds I dropped into furrows and covered up with grimy fingers were from that company. And their seed always grows true to type, has a high germination rate and grows well. Also, their bareroot fruit plants have always been healthy and have arrived alive and happy. The same can be said for the live plants they ship.

I guess I started using Burpee seeds and plants years ago because of my experiences at my Grandpa’s farm, and then continued because I found that the company did produce quality seeds and plants. This year, however, in view of their connection with Monsanto and their distribution of GMO seeds and plants, I ordered less from them and more from my other favorite companies, though I did buy fifty day-neutral strawberry plants from them.

Their prices are higher than they were when my Grandpa used them, though, and have gotten higher each year. The other companies listed have more reasonable prices, so I feel better using their seeds instead of Burpee’s.

So, there we have it. My six favorite seed companies. If anyone has any other favorites, let me know–I’m always happy to try out new sources for good quality vegetable and herb seeds!