Winter Vegetable and Yellow Indian Woman Bean Soup

My favorite approach to cooking is to open the door to the refrigerator, take a look in the cabinets, and just do it.

This weekend, my challenge was an easy one. In the fridge was a bounty of winter vegetables from my CSA and the Concord Winter Farmers Market. Also in the fridge was a two-quart container of fresh vegetable stock that I made earlier in the week. In the cabinet and in no hurry to be cooked, but beckoning, was a pound of Yellow Indian Woman beans from Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food, my favorite source for delicious heirloom beans.

Yellow Indian Woman beans are small, a little smaller than a black bean, so I knew that cooking them without soaking wouldn’t take long. (Spontaneity with dried beans isn’t always possible, at least if you’re hungry.) They’re a beautiful golden color, have a dense, creamy texture and great flavor that stands up well against other flavors in a soup.

And so, a recipe was born:

Winter Vegetable and Yellow Indian Woman Bean Soup

2 quarts good vegetable stock
1 1/2 cups Yellow Indian Woman beans (or other small, light-colored beans)
1 pound carrots
1 pound parsnips
2 or 3 small turnips
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
1 large shallot
4 cups spinach
2 bay leaves
Olive oil

Simmer the beans in the vegetable stock in a covered pot that will be large enough to accept all the vegetables when you’re ready. Chop the garlic and shallot, saute in olive oil for a few minutes, and add to the cooking beans. Add the bay leaves to the pot.

While the beans are cooking, scrub and chop the carrots, parsnips and turnips (don’t peel unless they’re not organic) to approximately 3/4 inch chunks. Wash and chop the spinach and set it aside.

When the beans are nearly done, not quite tender (time will vary according to the size of the bean–about 45 minutes for Yellow Indian Woman beans), add the carrots, parsnips and turnips to the pot. Keep simmering, with the pot covered, for another 15-20 minutes until the vegetables are just cooked.

Add the chopped spinach and season with salt and pepper. (Don’t keep cooking; the goal is to just wilt the spinach so it retains its fresh green color in the soup.)

Absolutely key to the success of a simple soup like this is a good quality vegetable stock. If you’re not using every available vegetable scrap already for making your own stock, it’s time to get into a good routine. (See Tip #6 on this post for more on making stock.) You can even save up your vegetable scraps in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to make a pot of stock. It’s well worth the tiny effort it takes.

If you don’t have these vegetables in your fridge, try substituting potatoes and cabbage. Kale or Swiss chard would both make excellent substitutions for the spinach.

Serve and enjoy.

What’s in your fridge?

Feb 27 2010

My Top 10 Tips for Loving Your CSA Experience

It’s time to think about signing up for summer CSAs, and I’ve had a few conversations lately with both experienced shareholders and people considering signing up. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares require shareholders to pre-pay for an entire season of vegetables (sometimes other produce, meat, eggs or bread, too), providing farmers advance funding and confidence that their products have already been sold. Growing in popularity, the CSA offers a unique partnership between farmer and consumer.

I’d like to believe a CSA can work for everyone, but I believe it must be approached in the right way. It’s not that it’s difficult to enjoy being a CSA shareholder. Beautiful, organic vegetables, week after week? What’s so tough about that? But, like anything else in life, our expectations can get us into trouble. We’re choosing a CSA not because it offers us total predictability and control, but for countless other reasons that enrich our lives and relationship with our food and our farms–not much of that has to do with control and predictability.

With that in mind, whether you’re signing up again for a CSA that you love, or trying one out for the first time, my tips for success:

Be willing to stretch your culinary horizons. Embrace the experience of learning about new vegetables. Maybe you’ve been a romaine lettuce person for the last ten years, and haven’t considered another salad green; you may be presented with greens you can’t even recognize (don’t worry, you’ll be told what they are). You might be introduced to kohlrabi or blue potatoes for the first time. Try them. Share them. Talk about them. Form a relationship with a new vegetable. But, give them all a chance, at least once. Let food be the beautiful adventure that it should be.
Buy a cookbook about cooking with seasonal vegetables. My latest favorite is Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Vegetables, but there are many others, and many good websites as well. If you’re like me, reading recipes will inspire you to try new cooking techniques, spices and combinations of ingredients. Last summer, just when I thought I couldn’t eat another zucchini or summer squash, I learned how to grill very thin, long slices of each, roll them up with a tiny dollop of goat cheese and fresh basil, drizzle them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and spear them with toothpicks for a light, healthy lunch or platter of appetizers. I found myself scouring the farmers market for the last of the summer squashes, just to keep that recipe alive into the fall. Inspiration does not always come from within. (In fact, this inspiration may have come from the Food Channel.)
Learn about what’s in season, when, in your area. Why is it that we’re always wishing for what we can’t have? We seem to want tomatoes in May, corn in June, peas in September and asparagus in November. Appreciate that the beauty of a CSA is having fresh vegetables grown at the farm down the road, not 1,200 miles to the south. My CSA publishes a handy chart that gives shareholders a general idea of what crops to expect when, and understanding each vegetable’s season–some very short–makes it that much more special when it finally arrives. Try making that moment even more special by holding off on the grocery store counterpart until your local crop is in. Have you ever tried waiting all spring for the first local strawberry, passing all those grocery store strawberries by? Mmmm…
Arrive early or, at least, not late to pick up your share. This is important if there’s any element of choice with your CSA’s pickup process. My summer and winter CSAs both allow us to choose our vegetables from clearly labeled categories on long tables and we often are asked to choose between options. Obviously, the more there is to choose from, the better. Latecomers don’t leave unhappy; they might just occasionally miss out on their first choice in those situations. I also enjoy the visual feast of tables heaped with fresh vegetables, so arriving early gets me the “best view” of the feast.
Take a few minutes to get ready the night before picking up your share. Clean out the fridge at least enough to know what you have already and to make space for what’s coming. Get into a good routine of pulling forward what’s already in there, and making space for the new, fresh vegetables coming in. It’s going to be really tempting to eat the fresh ones soon after you bring them home, so don’t bury any that you should be using up first. If you really have too much, which can happen occasionally, this might be a good time to…
Make vegetable stock, or learn to make it if you don’t already know how. It’s so easy! Just wash those not-quite-perfect (but not rotting) vegetables, rough chop them, simmer them in a few quarts of water (a cup or two of veggies to one quart of water) for 30 – 40 minutes, and you have stock. Strain it, freeze it, and you’ll be so happy you have it when it’s time to make soup or stew, or just to add a rich dimension to a cooked grain. Flavorful, rich in vitamins and minerals, and reliably MSG-free, you’ll never want to use canned or boxed stock again.
Think about how your CSA share will fit into the rest of your weekly shopping and cooking routines. For example, if your local farmers market is the evening before your CSA pickup, you’ll need to restrain yourself or find out ahead of time what’s going to be in each week’s share. (My summer CSA does a weekly newsletter that gives us some information in advance.) If your pickup is late in the week, and you tend to make special meals on the weekend, learn to utilize the bounty of your share for those meals, only relying on the grocery store or food coop to fill in obvious last-minute gaps.
Get your veggies home safely and protect them by storing them right. Some of us dash out from work to pick up our CSA shares, then either hurry back to the office or on to do other errands. Remember that your farmer just took great care to harvest those vegetables for you, probably early that morning, and they’re bursting with vitality. Don’t subject them to a hot car if you’re not heading straight home. Remembering to put a cooler in your car in the morning will go a long way to keeping your veggies in top condition until you get them home. When you do get them home, take a few minutes to wash and wrap them appropriately before tucking them away into the refrigerator. As much as I’m a fan of reusing plastic grocery store bags, I look for clear bags for vegetable storage. (What I can’t see in the refrigerator doesn’t stand a chance.)
Understand what your CSA promises and the terms of its policies. Do you expect your share to feed your family of five for the whole week? Is that important to you? Ask about quantities before you sign up. You should find out (or read in your materials) what to do if you can’t pick up your share one week, or how to find out if bulk items are going to be available for canning and freezing. One excellent way to understand how a CSA works is to talk to someone who is already a member about their experience, so you’ll have the clearest possible picture in your mind of what the experience will be like. And, after all that, leave your expectations at home and…
Go with the flow. Every week is different and not every week will be a dream come true. A good CSA works hard to provide level quality and quantity from week to week, but farming is a risky business, and there will be rain, droughts, pests and blights. Understanding all of this, and not being protected from it by the supermarket infrastructure, is at the heart of the CSA movement. The closer we as consumers are to the farmers who produce our food, the more invested we will be in creating and maintaining a vibrant, healthy food system.

That’s it. Join your CSA. Recruit a friend or two to do the same. Please comment on this post and tell me your tips for a successful CSA experience; if I can expand it to a “top 20″ list a little later in the season, I’ll repost it with appropriate credit to all involved.

Ah…vegetables!

Feb 25 2010

Tatsoi and the Gifts of a Winter CSA

What a gift my winter CSA is to me. Every two weeks, with great anticipation, I hurry to pick up my share, always eager to find out what’s in store. Yes, I paid for it–months ago. But, it still feels like a gift each time to be able to fill my bag with gorgeous, organic vegetables, chat for a few minutes and then walk away, just like that.

As I filled my bag today, I imagined what I might cook later. Really, the vegetables seemed to make suggestions to me as I moved along, and the possibilities were way too many for one person, one Thursday night.

Today, we got a variety of apples. No cooking needed.

The beets, turnips, carrots, onions, shallots and parsnips all spoke to me of soups, stews and savory roasted combinations. Wintry things.

The beautiful tatsoi was asking to meet up with shallots, garlic and spices in a quick stir-fry, and to be served over rice or some other hearty grain.

The salad greens, a mixture of tatsoi and a variety of sprouts, wanted nothing more than thinly sliced carrots, making a crisp and fresh winter salad.

My freezer also gives me gifts these days, because cooking for one often means that I put a few containers in the freezer for a rainy (snowy) day. If I take that step when I’m still excited about whatever it is that I’ve cooked (and not sick of it yet, because I made six quarts), then I’m excited about it all over again when I eventually thaw it out.

I was therefore excited to thaw out the thick, roasted root vegetable soup, which I made late in the fall of last year. In this case, excited as I was, I was not entirely able to remember the combination of spices that made it so delicious. (That’s one of the hazards of my free-wheeling style of cooking.) With a crumbling of herbed chevre goat cheese from Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery, it was a perfect and warming first course.

The great luxury of living alone is that I don’t need to please anyone with my cooking, so I’m free to experiment. It can also be a great loss, when I cook something good enough to share. I was able to share tonight’s meal–tonight’s gifts–with a friend who is going through a time of needing nurturing food in her life, and I realized again the extra dimension that sharing food brings to a meal. She’s a curious person, the sort that notices every detail, like the drizzle of olive oil on the soup, and asks why. The conversation around all aspects of this not very gourmet meal transformed it into something special for both of us.

She’s taken to calling my food “restaurant food,” a compliment (probably undeserved) which is ironic, given that there’s no restaurant in our area that serves simple, whole food. I guess it’s more about the restaurant we’re wishing for. I wonder how many other people wish for the same kind of restaurant.

I’m obviously sold on the CSA experience, and grateful to have this year-round opportunity along with a hundred or so other lucky neighbors. It’s about so much more than beautiful, organic, locally produced vegetables. It truly is an experience unto itself.

I love the element of surprise and the experience of “shopping” with no money changing hands. I love the flexibility that the CSA requires of me. Without it, I might cook Brussels sprouts from California several times a week, all winter long–a healthy rut, but a rut.

I love having a regular connection with “my farmer,” Larry Pletcher from The Vegetable Ranch, and hearing little updates about his crops, experiments and plans. Or, that he relies on a Maine vegetable cooperative to fill in the gaps when his storage crops run short.

I love learning crazy facts like daikon radish being good for the skin when used in your bath.

Especially with this winter CSA, I have a deeper than ever appreciation of what it takes to bring food to my table. The planning, caring and hard work that goes into putting those shares together every two weeks is a big commitment for one farmer, all so that I (we) can enjoy the gift of this wonderful experience every two weeks until May.

Do you get any of that at the grocery store, or the food coop?

I want this for everyone.

Feb 21 2010

Concord Winter Farmers Market to Be Held on Saturday, February 27

The dark days of winter are growing longer and brighter; March’s chilly winds are right around the corner and it’s time for another winter farmers market in Concord, New Hampshire.

The next market will be held at Cole Gardens on Loudon Road on Saturday, February 27. In addition to most of the vendors participating at the January 30 market, organizer Joan O’Connor has added a few more to the list:

Milk and Honey Farm – Canterbury, NH (vegetables)
Molly Lane Gardens – Pittsfield, NH (jams and jellies)
Sanders Fish Market – Portsmouth, NH
Meadow View Farm – Sutton, NH (lamb, beef and eggs)
Rising Stone Bakery – Derry, NH (baked goods)
Bonnie Brae Farms – Plymouth, NH (venison)
Grand View Farms – Canterbury, NH (lamb, maple syrup)
Two Sisters Garlic – Canterbury, NH (garlic and garlic jellies)
Will n’ Rose’s – New Boston, NH (granola and trail snacks)
Rolling in the Dough – Sanbornton, NH (breads and pastries)
Abigail’s Bakery – Weare, NH (organic breads)
Kelly Corner Farm – Chichester, NH (lamb, chicken and eggs)
Mrs. Beasley’s Gourmet Dog Treats – Weare, NH
Twist of Fate Farm – Dunbarton, NH (beef, pork, lamb and chicken)
The Mill Fudge Factory – Bristol, NH (fudge)
Catamount Farm – Barnstead, NH (dairy products)
The Vegetable Ranch – Warner, NH (vegetables)
Miles Smith Farm – Loudon, NH (grass-fed beef)
Hackleboro Orchards – Canterbury, NH (apples, honey and maple syrup)
PetChew – South Sutton, NH (dog chews)
Joan’s Famous Composting Worms – Henniker, NH
Eric’s Greenhouse – Pelham, NH (vegetables, honey and eggs)
Bible Hill Farm (baked beans and pizza)
An organic bread baker, with a wood-fired portable oven

If you missed last month’s market, or if you were there and want to remember the fun of sharing good food and conversation with your neighbors in a sunny, warm greenhouse, check out this short video. Be sure to tell a few friends to come on Saturday; the best way to see more events like this in the Concord area is to keep those vendors busy counting change for customers from 10 am to 2 pm.

See you there!

Feb 18 2010

Bode Miller, on Organic Farming in New Hampshire

Skier Bode Miller, New Hampshire’s own two-time World Cup finalist and three-time Olympic medalist is also a life-long vegetarian. A few years ago, he purchased a 630-acre organic farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, not too far from where he grew up.

He shares some thoughts on eating an organic diet in the following video, produced by Stonyfield Farm.

Feb 17 2010

Ode to the Cannellini Bean

It’s possible that I’ve found my favorite bean. Or, perhaps the cannellini bean is just a most blissful stop on my winter bean exploration. Whatever the case, I’m in love (this week) with this plump, beautiful, white bean.

The cannellini bean is a white kidney bean, and also goes by the name “fazolia.” Dry, it’s about a half-inch long; cooked, it plumps up to a good three-quarters of an inch or more. One cup of dry beans equals between two and a half to three cups cooked. Because they’re so large, soaking overnight helps to cut down the cooking time.

All beans are nutritious, of course, and the cannellini is no exception. A one cup serving of cooked cannellini beans (225 calories) provides 15.3 grams of protein and 11.3 grams of fiber. That single serving also provides more than 20 percent of a day’s requirement of iron, magnesium and folate. They have twice as much iron as beef! They’re a good source of calcium and molybdenum, a mineral critical to the production of detoxifying enzymes.

But all that good nutrition wouldn’t be so exciting if cannellini beans weren’t as tasty as they are. They have a deliciously nutty flavor, and a creamy, fluffy texture. Their skins are relatively thin, but remain intact unless you really cook them until they explode. If you’ll be using cannellini beans in a salad, it’s best to cook them just until done; for soups and stews, it’s nice to cook them longer, until they start to come apart.

My beans were destined for an Alice Waters recipe (or my distant version thereof) called Cannellini Beans and Wilted Greens. The recipe, from my new copy of Chez Panisse Vegetables, intrigued me because it called for roughly mashing half of the cooked beans to form a sort of sauce, before introducing them to the wilted greens.

To be truthful, that’s where I parted ways with the actual recipe. I cooked the beans in a rich, homemade stock and couldn’t bear to toss the extra cooking liquid, so my result was more of a soup than the recipe intended. For greens, I used beautiful red Swiss chard and mustard greens, which I braised lightly in a covered skillet with olive oil, garlic and a little stock. I mashed half of the beans, then added both the mashed and whole beans (and stock) back with the cooked greens.

That was it; it was ready to serve.

This is definitely not Alice Waters’ recipe. Hers called for other seasonings (rosemary, thyme and bay leaves) and chicken stock and would have resulted in something a lot less soupy. I appreciated the inspiration to mash the cooked beans, leaving half of them whole. Doing so was an easy and flavorful way to thicken the stock, making this a hearty, rich winter soup.

My next cannellini bean adventure will be a simple salad. Let’s hope Rancho Gordo has more in stock, because I’m just getting started.

Feb 15 2010

Pondering the Evolution of Local Food Movements

Saturday’s winter food exploration took me to the Winter Farmers Market in Exeter, New Hampshire, followed by takeout vegetable soup from The Loaf and Ladle in downtown Exeter. Both stops left me with a slight feeling of envy for those lucky people who live in the seacoast region.

I’ve experienced this before–that feeling of being somewhere where all the pieces are in place. The place is alive with both offerings of and appreciation for a vibrant local food culture, and I come away wishing that I lived there. New Hampshire’s seacoast offers a diversity of farms, farm product businesses, restaurants and markets, all ready to serve an eager group of informed, excited consumers who are willing to pay for top quality local food. They understand what they’re buying, why it’s special, and they’re open to paying a little more to get it.

Yesterday’s Exeter Farmers Market, one of several of the Seacoast Eats Local series of winter markets, offered a bounty of vegetables and food products and shoppers came in droves to participate.

Normally in short supply at winter markets, several farmers offered potatoes, carrots, shallots, parsnips, cabbage, braising greens, radishes, baby turnips with greens and more. Plenty to go around. This well-rounded market featured meats, dessert items, breads, granola, cheeses (goat), soaps and even flowers. I truly could not have asked for more.

Richly stocked information tables at both the entry and exit doors provided shoppers with CSA information, Slow Food Seacoast information and dozens of fliers about various seacoast food initiatives.

Uncomfortable with this feeling of envy, I’ve been pondering the whole idea of food movements in communities. How do they begin and how do they evolve? Does it take one leader, or is it a movement of many? Clearly, the seacoast’s “movement” is more mature than that of the central area of New Hampshire, around Concord, so there are probably lessons to be learned.

Talking with a volunteer from Slow Food Seacoast, I learned that a great deal of momentum resulted from Carlos Petrini, author of Slow Food Nation, speaking at the University of New Hampshire four years ago. The volunteer energy following that event resulted in an impressive array of public education and celebration events, all focused on raising awareness about food and celebrating food in community.

But, it probably hasn’t been one factor, one person or one organization that created such a vibrant local food culture on the seacoast. Nor could it have been a solo force creating the same in Vermont or San Francisco, the two other places where I’ve experienced that same uncomfortable feeling of envy. One person or one organization could not inspire or sustain such a deep and multi-dimensional shift in behaviors and in the economic makeup of a region.

I believe the values are present in the Concord area. It’s evident by the hundreds of shoppers who turn out for the summer (and now, winter) farmers markets; by the growing number of people signing up for CSAs throughout the year; by the numbers of people who turned out for showings of Food, Inc.; by the active community gardens and gardening culture in general; and by the overflowing local food forums that took place in the fall.

The energy is here, but it’s not yet an organized and mature “movement.”

This is my home, and I’d like to stay here. I love discovering and experiencing vibrant food cultures near and far, but I believe there’s energy here to create the same for this region. I believe it will be a community effort and will not come from one person or one organization. It will probably come from small groups of energized gardeners, farmers, consumers, farmers, business owners and others who are ready to give their time and energy to make it happen.

But one thing’s for sure: any change will begin with individuals choosing to work toward change themselves. Realizing that what I want for my community is this vision of a vibrant local food culture is my first step in helping to create it. Finding my personal place in that mix, and working toward creating a local food “movement” where I live is up to me. It won’t come to me if I just wait for it.

I look forward to the day when my local grocery store and coop provide signs informing customers of the exact source of produce for sale–because so many customers are requesting it that doing so is an obvious customer service.

I look forward to the day when Concord has a restaurant that can sustain itself by offering good quality homemade soups and bread, maybe even using organic, locally grown ingredients.

I look forward to the day when bloggers from afar write about their feeling of envy upon experiencing Concord’s vibrant food culture, and even dream about living here just to be a part of it year round.

One day, we’ll look back and realize how far along in our evolution we have come. And, we’ll each know that we played a vital role, as individuals, in creating the “we” that made it happen.

Feb 7 2010

Souper Sunday and Mangoes in February

Souper Sunday found me doing what I often do on Sundays: considering what kind of soup to make.

Today’s soup was neither a masterpiece nor a bust, but just a good, hearty winter soup. I made lentil soup, using green lentils, potatoes, carrots, shallots and garlic. All but the lentils came from either my winter CSA or the Concord Winter Farmers Market.

Most recently, the lentils came from A Market Natural Foods in Manchester, New Hampshire, one of my favorite almost-local food stores. I love it for its organic produce, hundreds of interesting products and helpful staff who’ve been there forever. They also have good sales, hot soup and millet/brown rice bread from Abigail’s Bakery.

The store was unusually busy yesterday, maybe because people were shopping for today’s football gatherings. While contemplating kale for a few moments in the produce section, amidst mangoes, bananas, limes, avocados, oranges, peppers–you name it–I overheard a woman asking her male companion if he saw any grapes. He quickly (and rather smugly, I thought) answered, “Grapes aren’t really in season right now, and all of these things would be locally sourced.”

Wow. It was 18 degrees outside.

Five hundred miles to the south, a blizzard was underway, dumping two feet of snow.

I believe we feel good about ourselves when we shop in stores like A Market and our local coop, and we should, especially if we’re buying the organic produce they offer. But, I don’t believe that gets us off the hook for knowing where our food comes from, and from thinking about that every single time we make a purchase.

The responsibility is a shared one. Looking around the produce section, I realized that, beautifully stocked as it was, it lacked any helpful information about the source of any of the items. I recalled the little signs that I’d praised Hardwick, Vermont’s Buffalo Mountain Food Coop for, that noted the exact source of each item (even the farm, if local) and warned about high carbon footprint items from the west coast.

I went on to buy my green lentils without a thought, happy that they were organic and happy that they were on sale.

It wasn’t until making the soup today that I gave them another thought and realized that I didn’t even know what plant lentils came from, let alone where they grow. It turns out that lentils are a legume and can be grown almost anywhere. In fact, Canada is the largest producer of lentils in the world. Whether farmers in New England are producing lentils and selling to stores like A Market, I don’t know, but I’m guessing not. My green lentils were not likely to have been locally grown.

Voting with our food dollars is so important. Knowing what we’re buying is equally important, but in a different way. It feels good to have taken a moment to know a little more about lentils, to see what the plant looks like and to contemplate what growing them might be like. (With two seeds to a pod, I imagine growing and harvesting lentils in the home garden would be rather tedious).

Acquiring that new knowledge (not a time-consuming task) feels good in a deeper way than does shopping in the right store or knowing that I’m buying organic. Having an understanding of the ingredients I’m cooking with feels important. It’s kind of like knowing where my water or electricity comes from; shouldn’t I want to know?

So, I’m celebrating Souper Sunday in my own way, enjoying hearty lentil soup made with New Hampshire vegetables and lentils from an unknown place.

On my next trip to A Market, I’ll be asking them where those lentils come from, just so I’ll know. I’ll also suggest that they provide information in the produce section about the origins of all that beautiful, organic produce…in case anyone really does think mangoes grow on trees in New Hampshire in February.

Feb 6 2010

Feeding Woman’s Best Friend: What About Dog Nutrition?

I put considerable effort into my own nutrition. I research, discuss, learn by my own mistakes and continually adapt my shopping, cooking and eating habits–all to create a healthier me. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s worth all the effort; I feel better than ever and I’m healthier than ever. The connection between food and health is clear to me.

I recently realized a disconnect between this set of values around about caring for myself and my values around caring for my dogs.

My two dogs expect me to tend to every aspect of their health and wellbeing, and I believe I do that. They’re generally healthy, so I haven’t given much thought to their food, which is an “all natural” kibble that I buy at the local farm store. For what it’s worth, it’s a brand that their vets have, over time, approved.

But Charlie, the lab, is almost eight years old, and has developed an itchy skin problem that just won’t seem to quit. Most recently, he’s been scratching so much that he has a little lesion on his cheek. I realized that if this were me, I’d be looking to my own nutrition for answers. Why would I not do the same for my dogs?

Dogs are carnivores, and have almost no nutritional need for carbohydrates in their diets. And yet, most brands of dry dog food contain a few different grains, both as cheap fillers and to bind meat products together in order to shape the food into kibble. I checked the nutrition panel of Charlie’s food: after chicken meal, four grains were listed. Corn gluten meal, one of them, I now understand to be a hallmark of a cheap dog food.

Research tells me that a primarily raw meat diet would be ideal for my dogs. Although they’re carnivores, I’m not, and I’m not interested in preparing homemade food for them. I simply don’t want to handle so much meat, so often. I do recognize that their nutritional needs are quite different from mine; they need animal protein, and a lot of it. And, not much more than that.

I sought advice from Barbara at Jamil Kennels in Loudon, New Hampshire. Her love and devotion for her own animals (several dogs and cats) and the dogs that board with her impressed me from the start when I met her a year or so ago. She’s been using a little-known brand of dog food called Abady since 1980, since meeting Dr. Robert Abady, the company’s founder at Westminster. Her stories of chronic health problems disappearing in her dogs and those of other breeders compelled me to give it a try.

Dr. Abady, now deceased, was a biochemist. His research in canine nutrition led to the creation of this small, decidedly un-commercial dog and cat food company in the late 1970s. The Robert Abady Dog Food Company website is peppered with his articles and “genius-level thinking” that give a glimpse of the eccentric that he apparently was. The fact that Barbara was able to pick up the phone while I was there, call the company and get specific questions answered impressed me. Abady Feeds has a veterinarian on staff, and the phone is always answered by a human being.

Charlie was excited–the new food clearly smelled great to him. (Ginnie, the Westie, was excited too, but she’s camera-phobic, so there’s no evidence of her excitement.)

The new food is a meal, not a kibble. It’s higher protein than the kibble formula (which they do offer) and does not require heat during processing (as kibble does for the extrusion process), which destroys vitamins.

It’s likely to be a few months before I know for sure if changing my dogs’ food was a good idea or, specifically, if it helps Charlie’s itchiness problem. Because this food is so much higher in protein (30 percent) and fat (20 percent) than their old food, they’ll be transitioning into it slowly for a couple of weeks to give their digestive systems time to adjust.

It’s clear from the start that they both love it. Charlie approaches it the same way he approaches a special delicacy like a bowl of chicken skins or leftover eggs: carefully, with his lips sort of peeled back, like he’s trying to take tiny bites. To my nose, it has a strong, but not unpleasant, meaty smell. It’s heavy, moist and dense–much heavier than the equivalent measure of kibble.

I guess we come to realize things when we’re ready to, and it was time for me to realize that my dogs needed something better than what was coming from that convenient blue bag. At the same time that these thoughts were percolating, a friend randomly mentioned that one day in his dog’s life must really be like a week (since one year of a dog’s life is the equivalent of seven in a human’s). So, waiting one more day to take care of something that could really make a difference to my dogs is like asking them to wait a week.

We’ll give this a try, and be ready to try something new if this isn’t right. After all, wouldn’t I do the same for my other best friends?

Feb 3 2010

Roasted Cabbage and Fingerling Potatoes with Mascarpone Cheese

It’s February in New Hampshire.

Green vegetables, other than sprouts, are getting hard to come by. I’ve had a few conversations lately with people who aren’t too fond of cabbage, are getting tired of it or can’t stand the smell of it cooking.

Some say that adding a little vinegar to the cooking liquid cuts the odor. Another technique is to shred the cabbage very finely and only lightly stir-fry it, maybe with sliced chile peppers, caraway seeds and a little lemon juice. Since the production of hydrogen sulfide doubles after five minutes of cooking, keeping cooking time short can help a lot.

In my experience, roasting cabbage not only is less smelly, but is consistently delicious. As it does with other vegetables, roasting at temperatures above 400 degrees caramelizes whatever sugars are present (even in tiny amounts) and creates a yummy, sometimes gooey brown crunchiness. As an added bonus, it couldn’t be easier.

Cabbage is sort of a blank slate for flavors and it can accompany many things. I tend to eat it, along with another vegetable, as a main course. I often roast it plain, with olive oil, salt and pepper. It pairs really nicely with either apples, potatoes or carrots.

Tonight, I used cabbage and yellow fingerling potatoes from my winter CSA. Preparation is simple: cut the cabbage into wedges, cutting out the bitter core. Wash and cut the potatoes (I used one) into big chunks. Place it all into a baking dish (it’s good to leave a little space between pieces), wedges sitting wide side down, and drizzle with olive oil. I sprinkled it all heavily with dried oregano, black pepper and lightly with sea salt.

I roasted it at 425 degrees for about 40 minutes. After 30 minutes, I checked it and flipped a couple of the larger wedges over. (Ideally, my wedges would have been uniform. I have a hard time with uniform.)

That little caramelized piece of cabbage on the right side of the photo tasted just like a charred marshmallow from a campfire! Seriously!

I happened to have just a little mascarpone cheese on hand, so I served my roasted cabbage and potatoes with a dollop of that on top. It melted down through the cabbage and combined with the olive oil and herbs to make the most delicious sauce, right in the bowl. Unusually decadent.

Delicious and healthy, too.

Cabbage is high in vitamin C, vitamin K, beta carotene and fiber. One half cup has 16 calories and 2.9 grams of fiber.

Phytonutrients in cabbage work to disarm free radicals before they harm DNA, cell membranes and fatty molecules like cholesterol. They also signal genes to produce enzymes involved in detoxification: cleansing our tissues of harmful compounds. Eating cruciferous vegetables in general protects against colorectal, prostate and lung cancer–up to a 49 percent decreased risk in colorectal cancer in individuals in a study in the Netherlands. Three to five servings per week of cruciferous vegetables will lower your risk of these cancers.

It’s a couple of months before we’ll be seeing any spring vegetables around here (maybe even three) and I’m not ready to give up on New Hampshire’s local vegetables yet. With all that cabbage has to offer for health benefits, and its ability to shine in a simple recipe such as this, I’ll surely stick with it through the rest of winter.

Who knows, maybe I’ll find another cabbage recipe or two.

Nourishing Words

on food, sustainability, gardening and healthful living

Monthly Archives: February 2010