I remember the first year I moved to the pacific northwest. My co-workers began their chatter weeks in advance, and I’d overhear excited snippets of conversation: “. . . coming up on apple season . . .“, or “. . . can’t wait to go apple tasting . . .”

“What the?!“, I thought. I rolled my eyes. And I chuffed! “Apples, psh.”

You can see where I’m going to make this long story short. That fall I sampled my very first Honeycrisp, and from there it was GAME. OVER. I was an apple convert – nay – an apple evangelical!


Pumpkin is nice and all. Butternuts and acorns and all that jazz. Sure.

But really, for me, these days? Autumn is all about the apples.

HA!

I love that you can really predict an apple’s flavor, just by the way it looks. A gargantuan golden specimen won’t be tart, while an under-sized rose-colored sort certainly can’t be bland. All the apples I favor look very similar, a calico of shiny green and bursts of blush; a Honeycrisp, a Braeburn, or a pretty Pink Lady.

















Very Important Question:
What is your favorite type of apple?

A few Sundays back I rounded out the first MoFo weekend with a few snapshots from the Portland Farmer’s Market. This precious weekly ritual, our Saturday morning market, is one of my greatest pleasures. Perhaps these new photos will inspire you, the way that my market always inspires me. Fall is such an exciting season!

Purple potatoes

My fellows in flannel, oh so Pacific northwest!

RAW apple pie – breakfast of champions!

Maybe my favorite thing about the Pacific northwest – the apples!

Waits takes an important call.

I had big plans for this pumpkin . . .

BIG PLANS!

Yes oh yes, I am a happy plant-eater!

* These pictures are coming out totally desaturated when I upload them to WordPress. It’s seriously depressing and I’m sorry. We can’t figure out what to do about it! SAD FACE!

Random pretty lady shows off truly gargantuan beets!

Waits insists on helping to carry the goods! Little guard baby. =)

What’s your favorite autumn fruit or veggie??

But what about people like me? What about people who are, shall we say, somewhat addicted to enamored of their greens? People who can’t go a few hours without wolfing down some kale or rolling up some collards or blending a bunch of spinach ? For us, summer means the end of greens season (they thrive in the cool climate of late spring and early fall), and 3(ish) months of life without local organic green goodness. Summer is a sad time for my blender . . .

Ginormous organic chard for $1/bunch (!!!). I couldn’t turn it down, but how could I use it all up before it went bad? And so began my scheming.

This concept is so simple that I simply can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to me sooner. And I really can’t believe I haven’t seen it elsewhere in the blogosphere! But there you go.

It goes like this:




Procure a large quantity of fresh, local, organic greens (like spinach, collards, chard, dandelion, etc). And I do mean large. In the picture above, I’m holding the entire yield of kale from this year’s garden. That’s about 1/5 of the total greens I used.

Wash and de-rib the leaves. Lay them out flat on dehydrator trays (for a raw powder) or baking sheets (for oven, non raw). Set your dehydrator at 115º and allow to run overnight, or until leaves are completely dried (up to 12 hours). Alternately, you can set your oven at the lowest temperature and use that, but I haven’t tested this method so you’ll have to keep an eye on the timing. Just remember, you’re aiming to pull the moisture out – not to actually cook them. So keep the setting low!

Collards, the morning after.

Next, you’ll need to grind your greens into powder. I like to use an electric coffee grinder which I reserve for things like flax, dried coconut, and other caffeine-free culinary specimens.





You could also use a spice grinder, a mortar and pestle, or a food processor. But this is a LOT of product to work through, and you want to get as fine a powder as possible, so a coffee grinder really fits the bill.


Grind grind grind in batches, until voila! You’ve saved a few months worth of greens.

I had to repeat this entire process four times, and it still barely yielded a couple cups of powder (and I have a 9-tray dehydrator!). But that means this is incredibly concentrated green nutrition. Use it as you’d use any other green powder – for me that means a lot of smoothies. A little bit goes a long way!

This will make a great project for late autumn, when the second crop begins to die back, and once again we need to preserve a stock of fresh local organic greens to make it through the off season.


Enjoy!

This year I’m really excited about the “wild crafted” harvest – that means foods grown and gathered from wilderness. Fiddleheads, ramps, sea beans, sorrel, mushrooms, and more. And oh! The nettles, of course!

Strawberries are beginning to show up, and this Saturday I saw cherries. It’s such an exciting time in the season! The floodgates are about to open . . .

<3 this skirt I made many years ago.

Damian captures me shopping, from afar.

Raw, vegan hand pies at my market? Are you serious?!

Oh yea, it’s true!

The solstice is tomorrow: the very first day of summer! How will you be celebrating?

What seasonal produce have you been enjoying lately? What are you looking forward to?

Happy Summer Solstice!

Last year was the first the I focused on really eating seasonally, getting the bulk of my groceries straight from the farmers. I’ve never felt so connected to my food, so tuned in to my surroundings.

Spring is all about new radishes, tender greens, raab and rapini. There’s wild-crafted mushrooms and last autumn’s leftover taters. Mostly, there’s that whiff of promise. Shallots will make way for snap peas, and strawberries will follow before we even know it.

Chard, anyone? Such a lovely rainbow!

Hot new food trend = kimchee (Korean spicy pickles). It’s everywhere! I say, hooray for more fermented veggies. Always love it when healthy goes mainstream.

These guys are new to the market this year and their kimchee is divine.

See? Radishes, greens, and leeks. That’s a quintessential spring spread!

Happiest little market-goers.

This year I also made a weekly stop at the very wee, but very fun, year-round Farmers Market. There’s not a whole lot that grows through the northwest winter, but it helped me so much in staying mindful around my food. There’s always new and strange hardy greens, fermented foods and artisan (raw!) crackers, exotic cultivated mushrooms, fresh-baked breads, and homemade hot soups. Waits and I braved all manner of bad weather and always had a blast.

Spring!

Mushrooms are so strange . . .

Darlings, what are you most looking forward to in the coming season? Do you have a favorite Farmers Market, and has it opened yet this year?


To any tech savvy readers, I use Photoshop to re-size my images and then save the files to my desktop. Somewhere between iPhoto and the end product – somewhere in Photoshop – my pictures are getting dulled and de-saturated. Help help! I’m just clueless if there’s no baking soda involved . . .

~~~

Ah, to have a garden. A space all your own to use your green thumb to its full advantage, providing fresh, organic sustenance right from your own backyard. Well, for many urbanites, a backyard is nonexistent as more and more city dwellers become accustomed to compartmentalized living. Apartments are great: You can live smack dab in a thriving metropolis with a great view and only the space you need for yourself, but that doesn’t leave very much room for growing your own food.

Thankfully, you don’t need very much room to start an apartment garden. Don’t expect to be able to live off the land (or in your case, soil in pots), but do expect to see some great accoutrements for main dishes sprouting on your balcony. Here are five great foods you can and should grow for your apartment garden.

1. Tomatoes: Every apartment garden should grow tomatoes when the weather turns just a bit warmer. Tomatoes really don’t need a whole lot of space or soil to grow. A standard terra cotta pot will do, or if you want to be creative, an old boot or similar-shaped vessel will work great and look funky. Tomato plants are pretty hardy and don’t need a ton of sunlight, just make sure they’re well watered. Save yourself some trouble and buy a starter plant from a nursery, plant it in some good soil, and give it a trellis cage to grow up. You’ll be enjoying juicy tomatoes in your sandwiches, salads, or pastas in no time.
2. Herbs: For the gardening enthusiast with no space to spare, herbs should absolutely be grown. Enjoy fresh parsley, oregano, rosemary, or other herbs for all your cooking needs. For a makeshift greenhouse, use half-gallon plastic bottles of milk and punch wholes in the bottom for drainage. Keep the caps on to create a nice mini-greenhouse for sprouts, then cut it off as they mature. They won’t need much more sunlight than a kitchen window sill can afford either, so these herbs can be grown in the most minimal spaces available.
3. Strawberries: There’s nothing like a fresh, sweet strawberry in the summertime – on its own, served with alt ice cream, or as part of a delicious smoothie. Strawberries need very little space to grow and are pretty low-maintenance plants; especially for a fruit. Strawberries are not invasive either, so you won’t have to worry about it trying to take over your deck (which is why I wouldn’t recommend most other berries). Get a specific strawberry pot at most gardening stores with little balcony openings going up the sides to maximize your strawberry-growing potential.
4. Lettuce: Buy or make yourself a small garden box, and grow lettuce. The plant doesn’t root much further than the surface, so the box doesn’t have to be deep at all. Sunlight and decent weather are important though, so if your deck doesn’t receive direct sun, lettuce may not work. Otherwise, with a little bit of fertilizer and some water it’ll take off. This is one of my favorite plants to grow, because there is seriously nothing like crisp, crunchy, fresh lettuce straight out of the ground for the perfect salad or sandwich.
5. Beans: As a vine plant, beans are great for when you don’t have a whole lot of square footage but do have some vertical space available. Get a standard-size pot, some good soil and fertilizer, and firmly plant a long stake or bean pole toward one of the edges. Plant seeds directly in front of the pole, toward the middle of the pot. The plant will quickly grow up the vine and give your great picking for the months to come. Beans are one of the most adaptable and hardy plants around and can survive most conditions – even a balcony garden.

Good Luck!

~~~

Edward Stern is a guest blogger for An Apple a Day and a writer on online nursing classes for the Guide to Health Education.

This is what my kitchen looks like Saturday afternoon, midsummer. Heaven!

I’ve written a lot about my adventures at the Farmer’s Market this year, and I’ve often referenced the ‘game’ that D and I always play. We make it our mission each and every week to find at least one *special* item amidst the many. Ideally it’s something I’ve never cooked with (or never eaten at all!), but maybe it’s something just come into season, all new and nostalgic and treasured (hello, berries!).

So along with all the standards and staples, these are the specials we picked up each week. I love how this list paints the progression of the seasons.

*Star means I’d never cooked with it before.
**Double star means I’d never even eaten it!

1) Mustard Greens**

2) Asparagus

3) Fennel*

My spin on a clasic soup: Split Pea With Fennel And Potato.

4) Raspberries

5) Yellow Zucchini** & Escarole*

6) Fava Beans**

My first ever experiment with Favas – fresh Farmer’s Fava Bean Dip.

7) Sylvan Berries**

8) Blueberries & Sugar Snap Peas

9) Peaches & Shiitake Mushrooms*

Raw peach and berry tart with cashew cream.

10) Snow Peas & Abalone Mushrooms**

11) Cubanelle Peppers**

12) Italian Artichokes

Steamed Italian Artichoke served with a chunky three-olive dip.

13) Brussels Sprouts* & Maitake Mushrooms*

14) Pickling Cucumbers* & wild-gathered “Chicken Of The Woods” Mushrooms**

15) New Zealand Spinach**

16) Japanese Eggplant* & King Oyster Mushroom*

Vegan nigiri with seared Japanese Eggplants.

17) Miniature Honeydew Melon** & Parsnips

18) Yellow Finn Potatoes** & Long Beets**

19) Spaghetti Squash**

Waits helps me prepare my very first Spaghetti Squash.

20) Romanesco*

21) Walnuts

22) Tat Soi**

23) French Fingerling Potatoes

24) Black Truffle Salt**


Question: I treated myself to some ohh-la-la fancy Black Truffle Salt from the very last Farmer’s Market. What on earth should I do with it??!

Deep Roots is one of my very favorites, they’re un-certified but all organic and always have amazing prices. Best peppers, best soft squash. Cheapest tomatoes.

Our final buy from Deep Roots (for Damian’s favorite, of course!)

There was evidence of the impending holidays:




And the flower stands had to get creative (yep – that’s cabbage!)


There were so many treats to be had:

Petunia’s gluten-free vegan pastries.

Gluten-free artisan breads.

Insert joke about eating Freddy’s nuts. But seriously, these are the best hazelnuts I’ve ever tasted; we gave away bunches of them as gifts this year!

Dave is an ex-con turned baker, and Dave’s Killer Bread is the best sandwich bread you can buy, just ask anybody who’s ever had it.

But really, it’s about that gorgeous produce.

So until next year . . .

Here’s to the market!

But I grew up in California, where “seasons” meant a change of 20º in either direction. Here in the pacific northwest the summer really means something, and the winter is all-consuming. My life is guided by “light” in a way that that I’d never understood before. And for every blissful moment of sundown-at-ten midsummer madness, there’s a difficult, up-before-dawn and wind-in-your-bones winter counterpart.

Damian and I celebrating our first Winter Solstice together, circa 2006.

Tomorrow, 21 December, is the shortest day of the year. Ever since the Autumn Equinox, the days have been shorter than the nights – and getting shorter, shorter, shorter. Tomorrow marks the height of darkness. The following day the light begins to grow again.

The Winter Solstice is celebrated worldwide and across all cultures. We are all tied to the earth and her seasons; we are all affected by light. And this shortest day of the year offers a unique opportunity for reflection. It’s a chance to examine our own relationship with the darknesses of the world. A time to hold space for our own dark thoughts.

Back home the Solstice was a favorite holiday. It meant reuniting with lifelong companions, it was deeply steeped in tradition. There was a shared and sacred sunset, and the ritual making of fire. There was the rock labyrinth; there was feast and drink. There was always the circle for sharing. And, there was always the reading of this poem:

“WILD GEESE”
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Blessings for your Solstice,