But sometimes these themes emerge in the stories I’m writing, and I find myself mesmerized by a concept or food group. The past couple of weeks, the theme has been fermentation. Some of the people helming the latest food trends are So. Dang. Smart. And I’m thrilled that they’re applying their endless energies these days to perfecting ancient food preservation methods. And to making them taste good.

Kimchi pancakes at Teaism. Savory breakfast of champs.

It seems all our food is going back-to-the-future. Old is new, which means fermentation — the age-old method for making food safe to eat — is finding a prime spot on our tables today. There’s kimchi and kombucha, sauerkraut and pickles, all these new-again ways of getting the healthful bacteria and food safety perks that several other cultures never stopped savoring.

Take Yi Wah Roberts, for example, co-owner with his sister Caitlin of Number 1 Sons Pickles,which sells fermented pickles and kimchi… and could soon be offering a tap of kombucha at area markets. He says people tend to crinkle their nose at the word “fermented.”

Even Vlasic is getting in the what you see is what you get craze. 

But when he tells them that 70 percent of the world’s food economy is fermentation-based (think coffee, chocolate, cheese, country ham), they get a little more comfortable with the idea. They’re a little more willing to buy his flavor-packed pickles. Some people are then likely to inhale them. (He tells of a pregnant woman who returned to his stand 15 minutes after purchasing a quart of pickles with an empty jar and the juice running down her chin.)

“We crave them because they’re delicious, but a lot of things are delicious because we crave them for other reasons,” he said.

In case you were wondering, I took this as carte blanche to appease my pickle-sauerkraut-kombucha cravings as often as I get them. This category of foods is one of my favorite for staving off the other-foods cravings, especially in that dangerous hour or two before dinner. I reach for my sauerkraut jar at snack time (except when my in-laws are visiting; today, I had a cupcake at Baked & Wired).

And then there’s cheese. Who doesn’t love a really good, fermented cheese? Who even notices which ones are or aren’t fermented? I had the pleasure of spending a half-day at a sheep’s cheese operation in Rapidan, Va. last week. The only cheeses they pasteurize are mozzarella and ricotta. Everything else is fermented in an aging cave for at least 60 days, per state law. What’s really incredible is to try the two-month-old version of a manchego cheese — creamy and nutty — and to then try the year-old version, which develops not only depth but also these crunchy flavor crystals that literally burst in your mouth.

It’s just cool what food can become. It makes me think differently about the science experiments that sometimes occur in my fridge. Some are just plain gross. But some could be the next fermentation break-through. OK, probably not. For now, I will enjoy the fermentation exploits of others and continue to research their health properties and risks. And write about them when possible.

Is anyone else fascinated by this stuff? What are your favorite fermented foods?
- W

It began with a little basil. Last spring, I planted some in a window box on the side of our house. The side that apparently got more bugs than sun. It had a good run, providing me plenty to sprinkle into my scrambled eggs, but not quite enough for the giant batch of pesto I had envisioned for my freezer.

It was, however, enough to get me thinking. Knowing that I could grow a few delicious leaves in a window box made me cringe all the more at the thought of buying herbs at the store. Because you almost never need that whole plastic box of rosemary or thyme. Just a few sprigs, and the rest of it is destined to either rot on your counter or command your meal planning the rest of the week.

Substituting the fresh stuff with dried can help avoid this problem, but it’s often not the same. Especially when it comes to parsley, basil, mint and the other really green things that are meant to be eaten, well, really green.

I recall being on a treadmill at a gym once while Barefoot Contessa (OK, Ina Garten) was on the TV screen, working on a batch of hand-blended tomato basil soup. She began the segment by walking out to her back patio, where giant pots poured fourth sumptuous sprouts of green. She clipped the herbs she needed, shoving her nose into the handfuls for a deep whiff, and headed into the kitchen. I was inspired. And then I forgot about it.

It wasn’t until I read the Local Living section in my Washington Post this past weekend that I decided: I SHOULD GROW HERBS! The section featured this beautiful sketch on the front of not just green but multicolored, hand-selected hues teeming from the pots. It was our first Saturday in over a month that wasn’t scheduled to the brims, and I had protected it ferociously for an occasion such as this. I was in the mood for a Saturday project.

And all the best Saturday projects, this time of year at least, begin at the farmers market. We headed to the bigger one in Old Town Alexandria with herbs in mind. I had a mental picture of what I wanted, based on the helpful layouts described in the planting piece (and the descriptions of what Nora Pouillon likes to keep in her edible menagerie). I nearly bought the farm at one stand that was brimming with potted herbs. Thanks to a budget, I stuck with the basics: sweet Genovese basil, mint, cilantro, parsley, rosemary and thyme. And for my centerpiece, a plant to stand straight up and anchor the pot from the center, I chose a unique lemon sage variety with red blossoms. I imagine I’ll stuff it into the skin of a chicken, since I like both lemon and sage for that use. I’m open to other suggestions. For now, it’s just pretty.

I spent a chunk of the afternoon getting dirt up to my elbows (which is probably not necessary when you’re just potting plants… but I’m still learning). There are also probably too many plants in this one pot, but I’m OK with that. I also picked up some precious fuschia flowers to plant in the window boxes, and at the Wednesday market I fell for some big Gerber daisies to fill the others. (I looked a little silly covered in dirt when we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon at the vet, getting our dog Round No. 1 of stitches after she skewered herself on a fence post. She decided to remove them herself and got Round No. 2 yesterday. Sigh.)

Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been in the mood, but I’ve noticed that the markets are overflowing with plants since they opened this month. I thought the farmers were just reading my mind, capitalizing on my newfound desire to get my hands dirty and pretend to be one of them. But one of the vendors at my Mount Vernon market said there are more plants because more people asked for them last year, and they try to accommodate.

The market manager told me their presence could also be because of the cold spring, which means farmers have had to supplement their first-of-the-season strawberries with still-growing plants, until the garlic and tomatoes come into their prime. Something’s got to fill those tables! Well, maybe it’s just me, but I tend to buy whatever they put out there. And, this year, it seems the farmers collaborated with Barefoot Contessa and The Post to get me planting. And I’m putting the project to good use.

So, anyone else dipping a toe into the potted-herbs realm this year? You know, it’s only a matter of time now before I become a farmer .

- W

It’s been a long winter folks, and I was so happy to see those familiar farmer faces today. Especially Jesús Ochoa, who I wrote about last year. I planned my meals for the week with a big question mark, predicated on what might be at the market. There were strawberries, Yes! And there was rhubarb, Yes! So you can guess what I’ll make for dessert tonight. I already used some of my asparagus in a farro mix for lunch.

Needless to say, I’m pumped about planning meals around my Wednesday and weekend markets. Two days of rain made us all extra primed for a beautiful first day at the market. I was so enthralled, I nearly missed the exercise class I was teaching, lollygagging around, feeling the need to welcome the new vendors. And there were some exciting additions: a milk, ice cream and (soon) cheese curds vendor, a couple selling gorgeous tulips and manlys and lilacs galore (perfect for Mother’s Day!) and a new vegetable vendor whose baby Pac Choy (like Bok Choy) was irresistible. It will be accompanying pistachio-and-pomegranate meatballs (from the new Washington Post Cookbook!) tonight.

I couldn’t help but think, as I met new vendors and caught up with old ones, about a wonderful book I just read to write a review about. In his book, Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers’ Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm, Berryville farmer Forrest Pritchard depicts his journey to save the family farm, largely from the commodity markets to which it was enslaved (earning $18 for five freight cars of corn). He talks a lot about the farmer’s perspective at the market, how new and scary it is to watch customers walk by, contemplating whether your goods are worth buying, whether your stand is even worth entering, while you try not to stare. They give these excuses (why do we feel the need to do that?) for not buying something after they’ve engrossed the farmer in a long conversation about why his grass-fed meat products are superior.

As Joel Salatin wrote in the foreword, the book reads like somewhat of an adventure novel to those of us who only dream about farming, longing to make a connection with the people who actually do it each time we go to a farmers market. Well, if you’re looking for a way to connect between markets — and to understand all that goes into them getting there, I’d recommend Forrest’s book. It’s from the perspective of a farmer who blazed the trails, especially for pasture-raised meat and eggs, for our region just as farmers markets were taking off more than a decade ago.

I read it online and found it serendipitous that my pre-ordered hardcopy was waiting on my porch when I got home from the market. You can order the book here.

Enjoy this beautiful spring weather and the produce that comes with it!
- W

He was talking about housework, specifically about spreading it around — almost like manure on a field (metaphor mine, not his) — among the members of a household. Delving into the inner-workings of the casa de Salatin, Joel said that everyone pitches in at the house on Polyface Farms in Staunton. He said doing so is key to bringing local food to the table, which, admittedly, can take some serious work. If you spread it around, the insurmountable task of changing your life from fast food to slow becomes, well, doable.

And then, he said what may be my favorite Joel Salatin quote yet:

“The person who’s cooking should not have to do the cleaning.”

Amen brother!

I went ahead and applied this quote to the post-cooking cleaning, specifically the dishes. There’s nothing worse than spending a few hours over the stove on a dish that requires far too many dishes only to spend another hour over the sink. The more time you spend at that sink post-cooking, the more likely you are to take cooking shortcuts next time to avoid the same circumstance. (Blanch the green beans before roasting them? Nah. Make my own tomato sauce? Nah.)

As much as you might love cooking, there are days that it just feels like work. The kind of work you have to do three times a day. There are days when you’d much rather give in to your family’s begging for just one night out. And there are days that, as much as you’d like to cook, the thought of doing dishes afterward is enough to send you running to the nearest Chipotle for its compostable containers.

I was fresh out of college when I got engaged (we get married young in Kansas) and was home between internships, planning my wedding. One night, my mom sent me to the store to “get stuff to make dinner.” Sure, I thought, that can’t be too hard. I’d lived in a sorority house for two years, a dorm room before that,  where other people made me food (if we can call it that). But how hard could dinner be?

A few minutes later, I was standing in the produce section in tears, my poor sister embarrassed to be seen with me. The only recipe I could conjure up on the spot was for guacamole, and I didn’t think that constituted dinner (though, now, sometimes I do).

“I’m not ready to get married if I can’t even make dinner,” I said all sniffly.

Well, somehow, I did get married that August, nearly four years ago. And, somehow, I learned how to “get stuff to make dinner” and even how to cook it. And, though I didn’t realize it at the time, I now attribute much of my success to the man I married (and to culinarily curious coworkers at my first job).

I can attribute much of my tendency to cook and my joy therein to the fact that I have a husband who willingly and lovingly does the dishes.

I can attribute the other part to the fact that I have a husband who eats a lot. There’s nothing better than cooking for someone who loves food and scarfs down almost anything you throw at him.

The first house (OK, the second, but I don’t count the “bachelor pad” he picked out without me) we lived in was cute as a button — but sans dishwasher. It had an excuse for a dishwasher that you could roll into the middle of the kitchen, hook up to the faucet and wait for it to do its magic. We never used it.

A lovely sink for dish-doing, but no built-in dishwasher in our first house.

There’s the little mobile dishwasher on wheels, which we never used.

It was in that house, after meals that made the dishes pile up, that I really grew to love my husband. He’d dutifully take his post at the sink, unsolicited, and begin working through the piles while I put away leftovers. I don’t recall having a conversation about this being “his job,” it’s just something he did.

Now, for those of you who are single and rolling your eyes at me… know that this is how things worked about half the time at that first house. The other half of the time, my husband was deployed, and dish duty — along with all other duties — reverted back to yours truly. When he was gone, I planned my meals around using the least dishes possible, regularly living off a frittata for days and warming up pieces of it on paper towels. I think it was this on-and-off perspective that made me appreciate even more my husband’s desire to step up to the dish-doing plate when he came home.

These days, I overhear him telling friends that he likes doing the dishes (I mean, we do have a dishwasher now). He says it’s therapeutic, gives him time to think, kind of like driving (another thing I’d rather not do if he’s willing). But I get the feeling that he’s learned to like it, that he does it first and foremost out of love for me and, every once in a while, out of thanks for a really great dish.

So, a word of advice to those of you yet unmarried with even a little inspiration to cook in the future: find a mate who does the dishes. It makes meals all the more worth making.

Cheers,
W

After three blissful half-days with the vivacious Alfonso (our Zumba-loving, camo-wetsuit-clad scuba instructor), my husband and I became PADI certified scuba divers!

My husband was the most jazzed about scuba diving, since the weightlessness lets him relive his boyhood astronaut dreams. I took some special coaxing to embrace the idea. Turns out, it was totally worth it. I mean, seeing the other half of creation — the realm of the underwater world that we know less about than space — was pretty breathtaking (or maybe that was just my funky rented regulator). We saw everything I had hoped to see: sea turtles, a nurse shark, eels, barracudas and an octopus and squid on our night dive. (More pictures from the trip and our underwater photo sessions are here.)

We got a kick out of Alfonso, and Stacey and I even attended his real-deal Zumba class for a true local experience. It was led by a professional dancer named Daniel (who we decided to call Enrique) and filled with Latina women easily following his hip gyrations once the salsa music kicked on. I’ve never felt so white, in my sporty spice tennis skirt, but it was an absolute blast. With no a/c in the little gym, I’m glad we tried this in April and not July. 

Then we walked a few blocks for a well-earned meal at what may be the best restaurant on the island ‚ El Moro. I mean, we only went to a few eateries outside of our resort — it’s hard to leave that all-inclusive buffet, but one must explore! — and I can’t imagine any being better.

But what really makes El Moro is the people. I would use the word service but hospitality would be more accurate, since the restaurant is located in what used to be the owner’s home in this off-the-tourist-path neighborhood. The taxi drivers all know where it is and it’s like you’ve cracked the good tourist code by asking to go there (or you had the fortune of sitting next a Cozumel-visiting veteran on a dive trip). I would tell you more, but I want to save something for the story I hope to write about the place. They cook with corazón and you can taste it.

Here’s a glimpse of the goodies… ceviche, guac, to-die-for nachos with this deep red sauce and the creamiest coconut ice cream you can imagine.

Besides diving, some of our favorite memories were made on little visits to town. My cousin had gone to Cozumel a couple weeks before us and tipped me off to the live music scene in the town square on Sunday nights. We arrived to a family-friendly affair, with kids painting at easels and families gathered around tables of confections that looked like little more than a bake sale. Though we knew enough not to eat the fruit, we couldn’t resist the churro stand. Golden, fried, cinnamon-sugared goodness. They were hot out of the fryer (the man obliged me by squeezing out a strand for a photo) and nearly burned our hands through the paper wrappers. I wanted to slap our friend when he mentioned the likes of Taco Bell’s cinnamon twists in comparison. No, no, no.

Beyond food, there were plenty of street performers in the square: fire-baton throwers and a woman who did unthinkable hip gyrations while standing on stilts, not to mention the silver-painted cowboy who had my friend Stacey fooled he was a statue until she posed for a picture with him. He put the NYC versions to shame.

We left the square to linger in a little street-side bar that — either we lucked out or they’re all like this — served the best mojitos we’d ever had. We bought the glasses with the puff-painted ingredients written on the side and returned to our all-inclusive resort on a mission to train the people making our free drinks (Ahem, please blend my mojito — mint and all — and add some coconut rum and extra lime. Gracias.)

Though the Mayan ruins in Cozumel are sort of anticlimactic (I mean, only 1,200 years old, compared to the others), we enjoyed another must-try eatery on the way back, tucked inside a beautiful old mission house called, as it were, La Mission. It had the best ambiance by far, walking through an expansive garden — complete with parrots — to the open-air seating and art deco archways. And a table full of locals seemed to be celebrating a special occasion next to us, which is always a good sign. Stacey gave us all order envy with her coconut shrimp, served in a coconut filled with a yogurt and mint sauce that absorbed the coconut-y goodness. So good.

And if you go to La Mission, you have to do the tequila tour in the courtyard. None of us are tequila drinkers or particularly like the stuff, but that Sandra is pretty convincing, with her “my family has been making this for generations” schtick. She offered more samples than we could handle — their butter pecan-flavored tequila was too good to have on hand; and Sandra reportedly has the coffee-flavored one with her breakfasts. We fell for all of it, hook, line and sinker, and each brought home a bottle of LOS 3 TOÑOS “sipping” tequila. To get a glimpse of the tour, here’s a video of Sandra’s impassioned presentation on tequila. Did you know “the good stuff” comes from blue agave plants that are at least a dozen years old? And that, as Sandra repeats twice in this video, it is an aphrodisiac?

After collecting our drinkable souvenirs in town, we spent our last half-day relaxing from all the dives and watching other people do the work. Midway through the week, we noticed an increasing number of chiseled individuals from all over the world arriving at our El Cozumeleño Beach Resort. When the men started sporting speedos and the women eating piles of pasta at the buffet, we knew something cool was going on. Turns out, the World Cup of swimming — a 10K race in the ocean — was to be held at our resort this past Saturday. We quizzed the physiologist from the British team (if only to hear her lovely accent) about the details.

First fun fact: the swimmers eat some 6,000 calories a day while they’re training with two-a-days. It must be nice to be at an all-you-can-eat resort, we said. And then she told us, much to our chagrin, that they can’t actually eat the meat at the resort, because the meat in Mexico has too much steroids in it and could cause their swimmers to fail the no-doping tests. “WHAT!?” my organic-eating friend and I said, after we’d been gorging on the buffet for three days. Awesome. Great. So we tried to focus on ocean-grown proteins for the rest of the week.

It was a fun ending to our vacation to cheer on the Americans (and the Brits a bit) as we saw the start of the women’s race Saturday morning. The race took more than 2.5 hours, with each lap taking three times as long against the current as on the way back. It looked exhausting, to say the least. But maybe they enjoyed the fish while they were swimming!

We sure did.

Adios!
W

I’m a bit anxious about the whole ordeal, but I’m sure doing our checkout dives — and doing them in sunny Cozumel instead of brr-cold Maryland, thanks to PADI’s online program — will make me feel better.

Any weeklong vacation necessitates some thinking about how to de-stock the fridge before you hit the road. A couple weeks ago, I decided I’d plan meals around those back-of-the-cupboard items I needed to breeze through soon. And the past couple of days have been a lesson in creative, clean-out-the-fridge eating. I’ll include a recipe for a Ground Beef Hash below that’s good for using up your veggies and eggs, not to mention Paleo-friendly.

I’ve been nursing my last cartons of chicken and quail eggs this week, trying to time their use so we’ll have some hard-boileds for the plane ride. The quail eggs — those irresistibly cute little boogers that I can’t stop instagramming — were polished off this morning. Which leads me to tip No. 1:

• Mix stuff together.

I know, it’s profound. But I was too lazy to fire up a pot to use the last of my coconut shavings for a porridge this morning. So, in attempts to use other fridge items. I added the shavings to a bowl of applesauce, mushed in my last banana, added chia seeds, sliced almonds and heated the concoction into a quite-good fruity porridge.

I applied this concept and No. 3 at lunch as well, mixing together leftover veggies from two different meals, heating them and adding a couple eggs. My Asian-inspired cooked cabbage actually went quite well with black beans and other leftovers from taco salads, and the egg yolk (and an avocado) tied it all together.

• Put stuff on toast. 

Have a handful of spreadable items that are nearing expiration? Spread them on those few pieces of toast that are shoved to the back of your fridge, not quite stale but in need of some toasting. My preferred toast to have on hand (if any) is the rye bread from Trader Joe’s. It’s super thin, low on carbs, wheat-free and nutty. This morning I spread the last of my ricotta cheese on it, then half of an avocado that was beyond ripe (his brothers will be made into guacamole). Then I…

• Put an egg on it.

I have put an egg on just about everything I’ve eaten for the past three days. Nothing makes a meal out of toast and leftovers like plopping an over-easy fried egg on top. I learned this bit of wisdom from one of Washington Post Food Editor Joe Yonan’s columns. And I was happy to see that, despite his recent coming-out as a vegetarian, he will still be eating and creating recipes with eggs (phew!). Pizza, pasta, salads, toast, you can really put an egg on anything. Try it!

• Make veggie-centric meals to clean out your crisper.

We buy most of our meat in bulk, like a bunch of lamb at once or, this week, in the form of a local meat variety pack from Relay Foods. So, with the bulk of our meat in the freezer, using up veggies is the main concern. If you’re like me, there are certain veggies you buy every time you’re at the store, just in case, with almost no regard to your list or meal planning. I have too often been out of onions, garlic and celery, so I tend to overcompensate by over buying them now. The good news is there are tons of recipes that use a gob of vegetables in one dish. Stir frys are a go-to for that, as are massive salads and soups. But my new favorite is the below hash recipe, which is great for using up those wintry vegetables as the weather slowly gives way to spring.

Hash is one of those malleable meals that is good for any time of day and can be made out of almost anything — or even cooked in tinfoil at a campsite. It’s perfect for those ravenous, post-workout moments, whenever they may occur, and it’s made fresh by — you guessed it — adding a fried egg.

Ground Beef & Veggie Hash

Ingredients:

• Whole onion, diced
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• Two big sweet potatoes, cut in cubes, skin on
• Two turnips or parsnips, cut in cubes, skin on (or another root vegetable)
• 1 lb ground beef, grassfed organic if you can swing it (The way I stretch the more expensive meats is to do 1 lb of meat to two pounds of veggies.)
• Greens for cooking, like kale, collards, chard or a mix. Two handfuls.
• Fresh parsley and fresh or dried thyme, about a tablespoon of each
• Salt and pepper
• Eggs to fry, runny yolks best (quail eggs, even better)

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place the potatoes and parsnips on one or two cookie sheets. Drizzle with olive oil and most of the thyme, parsley, salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Roast in oven for 20-25 minutes, until browned and tender.

Heat a little oil in a big skillet (I’m into coconut oil these days, but olive oil is great). Cook the onions and garlic until translucent. Remove to a bowl.

Add beef to pan and cook, separating the chunks with a spoon to make crumbles.

Once cooked, add the onions, cooked potatoes and parsnips back to the skillet. Add the greens and toss to wilt. Add more spices to taste. Heat everything or leave the lid on while you wait for your spouse to get home.

When you’re ready to eat, dish out a pile of the goodies and fry an egg or two to put on top of each in a shallow bowl. Salt and pepper those eggs.

Enjoy! And feel free to share some of your fridge-emptying recipes — or spring break vacations! I’ll check back in after sunny (but hopefully not sun-burning) Cozumel.

Cheers,
W

I wrote a story for NPR’s Kitchen Window about our home group’s little experiment with lamb: Lamb for Four Sundays, Four Ways. You can read it here, along with the four recipes we used, all of which are prime material for an Easter or spring feast.

But I wanted to continue to conversation about lamb. I find the meat can be as controversial as it is delicious (just see the comments on the story). I am reminded of the scene in How to Lose a Guy in 10 days in which Kate Hudson’s character sentimentally sings “Mary had a little lamb” before feigning to be repulsed by the rack of lamb before her. (Anyone else think of that?)

I truly do love the taste of lamb, and am an unabashed carnivore. But the flip-side to being closer to the source of your food is often facing the way it becomes food. Though I have yet to pet a lamb that ends up on my plate, per se, Scott (whose parents provided the lamb) did hesitantly show me pictures of the precious babes after he visited his parents’ farm last week. They were cute. Really cute, and fluffy. And the thought that we had eaten one of them a couple weeks prior was a bit weird, but not necessarily unsettling. (I mean, it tasted really good — as good as they were fluffy, I’ll say.)

I don’t have any especially profound thoughts on the topic right now, but I did enjoy a recent post by Hank Shaw, the game cookbook author and writer, about the Imperative of Protein (http://honest-food.net/2013/01/28/the-imperative-of-protein/) and what it takes to put it on your plate — even if you’re just buying it at the market.

On that note, is anyone cooking with lamb this Passover or Easter week? Do share your recipes and plans! We will be fortunate to join our friends with the lamb-loaded parents again for Easter Sunday. Yes, we’re having lamb. And I’m bringing one of my favorite Easter side dishes, a saffron-infused couscous with pine nuts (recipe from Bon Appetit: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2009/04/saffron_scented_couscous_with_pine_nuts). For more lamb inspiration, check out the story at NPR.

Happy Easter week!
W

My friend Lauren is having a baby in about a month. And she still wears heels just about every day. She wore them to the shower. She wears them to work and church. She has dozens of them. So when we set out to plan a baby shower to welcome her little girl and to honor Lauren, we thought what better theme for a girly party than high heels? I was giddy to find a cookie cutter in the shape of a high heel on Etsy. I used it to make sugar cookies with a lemon drizzle icing, the recipe for which I’ll include below.

But first, some pictures from the party…

With the help of three amazing co-hosts, we put out quite a spread. Truly, the way to host a party is with help. And a great way to save on decorations — and not end up with a bunch of decor you don’t want — is to use baby clothes. We decorated by making swags out of onesies and outfits, hanging them on every surface that made sense. And our guest of honor requested we each sign baby or children’s books instead of cards — which was a great idea. I mean, who keeps baby shower cards anyway (OK, I would, but I’m a card hoarder).

And I put to use the talents of a dear friend who just started her own bow-making biz on Etsy. She custom made these three bows for me, one with the high heel theme of the party, one for Lauren’s alma mater, Virginia Tech, and one because all girl babies should have a little leopard. There’s still time to have her make your little one a precious Easter bow!

The shower was great fun and, most importantly, Lauren made out with a carful of baby goodies! And I still have plenty of cookies and chicken salad cups and fruit kebabs to get me through the evening.

So, without further ado, the sugar cookie recipe. This one worked really well for cookie-cutting. It didn’t expand and bleed past its cute boundaries in the oven and was not overly sweet. I think the flour you use matters, and the King Arthur all-purpose I included may have made all the difference. The lemon frosting adds another depth of flavor, a zing and freshness and just enough tart. I did have a lemon wedding cake, so I might be biased. I know some people still expect a sugar cookie to taste like, well, sugar. So let’s call this a sugar cookie for grown-ups. Oh, and the lemon zest sprinkled throughout? That’s grown-up sprinkles.

Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
Makes about 30-40 cookies, depending on cutter shape. Or 2 1/2 dozen rounds.
Adapted from All Recipes and a little Martha Stewart.

Cookie Dough

• 3/4 cups of butter, softened (I used Kerrygold)
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (again, I used King Arthur Flour)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Lemon Frosting

• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour, or overnight. If chilling overnight, give it some time on the countertop to soften before hitting it with the rolling pin. It will soften with a little elbow grease.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on un-greased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Remember, they will continue cooking on the pan until you spatula them off onto a cooling rack or paper towels. So I’d lean toward the 6-minute mark for light-colored, soft cookies. Cool completely.

Whisk together frosting ingredients in a medium bowl until smooth. Arrange cooled cookies close together on parchment paper or paper towels. Use a pastry brush to liberally brush frosting onto each cookie, brushing the excess from one cookie to another. The amount of frosting should be more than enough, so don’t be afraid if some gets between the cracks (the more for you to “clean up”… with your finger later). Allow frosting to dry and harden until opaque, about 15 to 20 minutes, before stacking or arranging on platters.

This recipe would be great for making Easter bunny- or egg-shaped cookies for the upcoming holiday (my personal favorite of the year). He is Risen!

Cheers,
W

We first discovered the gloriousness that is spaghetti squash in a CSA farm box a few years back. I cut it in half (which is no small feat), scooped out the seeds and roasted the halves face down with olive oil until they were soft (what I’d been instructed to do with any mysterious squash). But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the squash’s meat came out not in spoonfuls, but in spaghetti-like strands that, with a little garlic, salt and olive oil, can stand on their own as a side — or make a too-good-to-be-true substitute for pasta.

We probably discovered eggplant the same way, using it in the go-to recipe of eggplant parmesan (which is one of the few meatless meals my husband requests by name).

But only recently have I fallen for this pair together. They both take on roasting in olive oil, with a little garlic, very well, growing a rich, almost meat-like (in the case of the eggplant) flavor. You may have a spaghetti squash or eggplant lingering in your fridge from your winter vegetable share, just waiting to be ousted for the hoards of asparagus and peas on their way (can’t wait!). So here are a couple of great recipes to put them to good use.

And if you, like me, are preparing to go on a spring break trip that involves a swim suit (scuba in Cozumel!), you may be cutting back on your pasta- and simple carb-based dishes these days, too. So when that craving for a pasta-like something hits, try this instead. It will hit the spot.

Spaghetti Squash Pasta with Eggplant & Marinara

• One spaghetti squash, sliced lengthwise, innards scooped out (try to separate and keep the seeds for roasting with salt, pepper & olive oil — great snack!)
• One medium eggplant, cut into 1/4-inch cubes (suggest cutting like you’d dice an onion to make it easier)
• 4-6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• Olive oil (I don’t measure that stuff)
• Protein of choice (or go meatless) — we like an organic garlic chicken sausage, cut into pieces, for easy weeknight dinners. You can also make turkey or beef meatballs under the broiler in about 7 minutes.
• Pine nuts, roasted for a few minutes (watch them, they burn easily)
• Baby spinach leaves
• 2-3 cups of homemade or store-bought tomato/marinara sauce, well seasoned (I like a light coating)
• Other pasta add-ins you prefer

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees while you chop the vegetables and prepare the squash. Place squash halves cut side up on baking sheet with edges and drizzle olive oil, salt, pepper and minced garlic liberally across the top, rubbing it in with your fingers. Place in the oven and cook for about 40 minutes or until tender and easily forked out.

2. Place eggplant cubes on another baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Place in the oven for the last 10-12 minutes of the squash’s cooking time, so they come out together. Toss the eggplant cubes once halfway through for even cooking. You want a bit of a char but they do burn quickly. You can also toss in the pine nuts for the last 1-2 minutes of the eggplant’s cooking time — which means everything would come out together!

3. Once the roasting is done, fork out the spaghetti squash into a skillet or sauce pan over low-to-medium heat. I suggest holding the squash in an oven-mitted hand and scooping out with a fork in the other. Add roasted eggplant and pine nuts, spinach leaves, pre-cooked sausage or meatballs and marinara sauce. Stir until ingredients are heated through, adding salt and pepper to taste, blending in sauce to coat. Serve hot and enjoy!

Egg{plant and Spaghetti Squash} Rolls

• One medium or large eggplant, cut lengthwise into long strips.
• One spaghetti squash, halved and innards scooped out. (extra strands can be used to plate the rolls)
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• Olive oil
• Salt & pepper
• About 1/4 log of chive- or garlic-spiced goat cheese, or another creamy cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. As you cut the eggplant, lay the slices on a paper towel and sprinkle with salt, then top with another paper towel and another eggplant layer. Repeat. This will help absorb the extra moisture so they roast nicely.

2. Roast the spaghetti squash on a baking sheet, halves cut side up, drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper and minced garlic, for 40 minutes or until tender and easily forked out. Once cooked, fork out the squash strands into a medium bowl. Add garlic, garlic powder and olive oil if not enough flavor or moisture. (Some people might add butter, too.)

3. Lay the eggplant strips out on several baking sheets and roast them in shifts while the squash is cooking, 15-20 minutes for each sheet, or until the edges are nicely browned. No need to flip the slices.

4. Once the roasting is finished, (I also roasted a pork loin to go with this side dish, filling up my oven.) you can assemble the egg(plant) rolls. Leave the eggplant strips on the baking sheet and spoon a small dollop of the cheese near one end, followed by a mount of spaghetti squash. Roll the eggplant around the stuffing, tucking the loose end underneath on a plate (you can use toothpicks, but I didn’t find them necessary). You’ll get the hang of how much stuffing to put on each one. Keep rolling and repeating until you’ve run out of eggplant. If you have leftover spaghetti squash, pile it underneath the rolls to hold them in place on a plate. Serve alongside pork loin or another simple roasted meat. If for a party, you could roll these ahead of time and warm them in the oven.

I’ve been wanting to share both of these for a while. Let me know if you have any questions about the recipes in the comments below. I like to just make things up as I go along, substituting the ingredients I have. Feel free to do the same!

Cheers,
W

Photos from the past year, covering Virginia agriculture.

I got an ag email today that I just have to share. You see, it’s Virginia Agriculture Week starting March 17, so I’ve been getting all sorts of info goodies from the state’s Department of Agriculture (and it’s fabulous communications director, Elaine Lidholm) in the week leading up to it. Today’s email contains a fun, David Letterman-like Top Ten list from ag commissioner Matt Lohr.

It’s his TOP TEN LIST OF MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT AGRICULTURE. 

And, as someone who interfaces with the agricultural, political and consumer communities, he has a pretty good grasp on what people have wrong about the folks he represents. It’s a good reminder — even to those of us who try to keep a pulse on the local farming community — that the best way to know it and write about it is to make fewer assumptions and meet more farmers. 

Starting with Assumption No. 10 and working his way to No. 1, here’s Matt Lohr’s list:

10: Small farms are unimportant. In many ways, small farms are the backbone of Virginia agriculture. They range in size from three or four acres to 150 acres or so, but they probably do the best job of any farms to provide local food. Many small farms sell directly to the consumer through roadside stands, on-farm sales, farmers’ markets and events. They are at the heart of the Buy Local movement and not only provide food but also provide that all important one-on-one relationship between farmer and consumer. They are also one of the fastest growing segments of Virginia agriculture.

9: All large farms are corporate farms. In Virginia nearly 90 percent of our farms are family-owned and operated. Many family farms are incorporated for business purposes or to ensure an orderly transition from one generation to the next, but incorporated is not the same as corporate. The vast majority of our farmers live on the land they work, and they have a very special bond with the land that may go back generations. Their roots run deep.

8: Farmers are destroying the environment. This is absolutely not true. In fact, farmers are the original good stewards of land and water resources. These resources are, after all, how they make their living, so it makes sense to protect them. I find it interesting that many of the complaints to our Ag Stewardship Program about perceived environmental problems are unsubstantiated. What the public perceives as an environmental problem often is not. At the same time that farms give us environmental benefits such as green spaces and wildlife habitat, they use far fewer resources than the average urban or suburban home.

7: There’s no future in agriculture. I’ll admit that for a few years, many of us were concerned about the future of agriculture and the next generation of farmers. But things are changing. Fox News recently ran a feature that said ag degrees are the hot ticket for job growth. They quote data from the Food and Agriculture Education Information System that says enrollment in U.S. college and university agriculture programs are up 21 percent since 2006. The data show more than 146,000 undergraduates in ag programs. This growing interest is critical for the future of food production, as world population growth is creating a greater demand for food, and the average age of farmers in many states is near 60.

6: Farmers are uneducated. This is a persistent myth and one we need to bust. The days are long gone when you learned everything you needed to know about farming from your grandfather. That doesn’t mean we discount grandpa’s advice, born from years and years of experience. It does mean that today’s farmers need post-high school training in a variety of areas: animal science, agronomy, environmental science, business, marketing, communications, perhaps even law and psychology. Today’s farmers also need to be life-long learners. If you’ve been on a farm recently, you’ve probably seen a farmer using his cell phone in the field to make decisions about planting or applying pesticides or fertilizer. That’s the kind of on-the-job training every farmer needs these days to stay competitive and make a profit.

5: The cost of food goes directly into the farmer’s pocket. A persistent myth in the eyes of the public and the media is that the only factor in food prices is what the farmer charges. Don’t we wish this were true? But in reality, only 15 to 16 cents of every food dollar goes into the farmer’s pocket. The rest goes for things like transportation, processing, packaging and marketing. Farmers can barely pass along their direct costs for feed, fertilizer, labor or insurance. Their indirect costs are even more difficult, and when drought, hail, hurricanes, flooding or other natural disaster wipe out a crop, they can lose most of their year’s income but still have to bear all of those direct costs.

4: Food costs too much. In some parts of the world, this definitely is true. It not only costs too much but is unavailable to many people. But in the United States, we have one of the most abundant and affordable food supplies in the world. In 2011, the share of final household consumption on food in the U.S. was 6.7 percent. The percentage in Switzerland was 10.2; in Japan, it was 14. China checks in at 21.3 percent and in Cameroon it’s 46.9. (Source: Economic Resource Service, USDA)

3: Our food is unsafe. Sometimes we get overwhelmed by the headlines of a problem with one commodity or one producer. The reason these stories are called news is because they are not normal. Normal in the U.S. is a safe, abundant, affordable food supply. I Googled “safety of the U.S. food supply” just to see what would pop up, and I found many articles and studies with this same fundamental message: The American food supply is the safest in the world thanks to industry and government efforts. Because our food supply is so safe, we have a luxury people in many countries don’t have; we can take it for granted.

2: Farmers abuse their animals. The very idea sends me into orbit. In any industry you will find a few bad players, and agriculture is not immune. But consider this, why would a farmer abuse his or her animals when those animals are the source of his livelihood? That’s just nuts. It may be a marketing ploy, but there is a lot of truth to the statement that “Our milk comes from contented cows.” Contented cows are going to produce more milk than cows that are stressed, neglected, starved or otherwise treated ill and farmers know it. The same goes for any other food animal.

1. All farmers are rich. Do I hear the farmers among you laughing? I can’t think of a single farmer I’ve known whose goal was to get rich. In Virginia it’s usually more like, “I hope I can make a decent living for my family.” If your goal is to get rich, frankly, there are many ways to accomplish that goal that are easier and quicker than getting rich through agriculture. We do have some wealthy farmers in Virginia, and I am proud of them. But even among those who are wealthy, I think the motivators for farmers tend to be of a more noble nature. We farm because we love it or because we love the lifestyle or we think it’s a good way to raise our children. We may farm out of a deep-seated desire to help, to make a positive difference in the world. Or we simply may realize that farming is not only the world’s oldest profession, but that it is the only one that is truly necessary. Bottom line, when we can’t feed ourselves, nothing else matters because we will be dead in four or five days.

SO what would you add or remove from the list? Or what would be on your own list of misconceptions about ag?

I find Matt’s No. 7 especially interesting — and true — given the number of young people I see interested in farming and pursuing education and careers in the field. At a sustainable ag happy hour on Monday, I met a farmer from Maryland who is studying how farming can be used as therapy for the developmentally disabled, kind of like horseback riding. She found an online degree program along those lines and is working toward it as she works at a farm that does just that in Maryland.

But there are several misconceptions listed here that I think you can only hold if you have NEVER interacted with a farmer. Have one conversation with or write one story about a small farmer, and you’ll know that they are the furthest thing from uneducated, money-hungry, environment-destroying people who don’t care about their animals or the safety of their products. Thanks for the piece, Matt and Elaine! It’s a good thought-provoker for us all.

So I raise my morning cup o’ tea to those Virginia and other farmers I am privileged to know and write about. Here’s to effective writing that can dispel stereotypes and reveal what farmers are really like.