DEVOUR! The Food Film Fest

Do you attend any of the events or workshops, films, or amazing meals? There is such a dizzying array of things available during the 6 days of Devour! that there is literally something for everyone. Over and above the mind blowing meals I’ve enjoyed and thought provoking films that I’ve seen over the years, I’ve also learned how to properly butcher a fresh rabbit, to make bread, to pickle & preserve non-traditional ingredients, and been shown how make cheese, and mix a perfect whiskey. Do you love wine? Devour has you covered. Are sustainable farming practices important to you? Check! What about silly food films to make you laugh, or others so stark and bare and truthful that they make you cry? Yep. It’s there.

Josh, Patricia, Izaak, Lily & Frank have been huge supporters of Devour! for as long as I’ve known them. Besides providing local & visiting chefs with their gorgeous organic vegetables, they also make it a priority to take in as many food films as time will allow. Given the massive span of film topics, it can certainly be an emotionally draining week. i know that I have walked out of the Al Whittle theater on more than one occasion during Devour! with my heart either broken or hopeful, and tears glittering on my cheeks.

With both ticketed and free events taking place all over Wolfville, as well as Windsor and Kentville, I hope some of you have a chance to take some of it in. Even just a walk through the ever lovely Wolfville during Devour! is something special. Every nook and cranny seems filled with clusters of people discussing film or food or workshops, and the town sparkles with such a delicious excitement. You also never know who you’ll meet. I’ve chatted hot sauce with Chuck Hughes, talked farming with Bill Pullman, had drinks with Paul Virant & Jean Joho, shared a bus seat with Lucy Waverman, ate oysters with Bob Blumer, snapped a pic with the legendary Jacques Pepin, and shook the hand of the the late, great, Anthony Bourdain.

So…….. That’s my “Food Thought” for this week. If you have the chance to soak up any of the goodness of Devour! (Oct 22-27) DO IT! You can check out all of the events online or in the printed program, and they’re also very active on social media. When it comes to films about food, farming, sustainability or small scale artisans, there is no better encyclopedia then Devour!

See ya there!

Kim

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This week marks the start of the new summer/fall share season, so welcome to all of the new & returning members! Today I thought I’d go over some storage tips for all of the beautiful fruit & veg that you’ll be bringing home, fresh from the farm. When I was working at Taproot, and in charge of making sure everything that came in was being handled and stored properly, I was surprised that I had been storing some things incorrectly for my entire adult life! Storing freshly harvested fruits and vegetables correctly is obviously very important at the farm- for both quality and to preserve the harvest for later dates when appropriate, but the same principals apply to us at home, just on a smaller scale.

Most people default to storing things in the fridge under the assumption that it will protect and maintain your food for longer periods of time. While that is true for a great deal of the goodies that we receive in our share boxes, there is a surprisingly long list of things that would fair much better at room temperature, or in a dark cupboard rather than in the refrigerator. You can assume that anything on this list that is stored at room temperature should also be stored in a vented container (ie; not in sealed plastic) and out of as much sunlight as is possible.

Basil

Cucumbers

Eggplant

Garlic

Onions

Potatoes

Squash (including zucchini & patty pan style)

Tomatoes

Anything on this list that surprised you? Basil was the one that got me- I’d always put it in the fridge and just assumed that it was substantially more perishable that it is. Hopefully this list will help you make the most of the upcoming share season, and help cut down on unnecessary food waste!

Happy eating and I’ll see you nest week!

Kim

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It is no secret that I’m a giant fan of preserving, freezing, pre-made freezer meals, drying, etc. When the food comes in waves, I love to set some aside to enjoy later. In our share last week was a head of romaine, a head of green leaf, and a bag of arugula, which might seem like a lot of greens to some people. (No, sorry, I have no way of preserving lettuce. If YOU do….. please pass that along!) What I do like to do when we have such waves of leafy greens or delicate & highly perishable veg is to use them as a base, and add preserved goodies to it. Who doesn’t love a perfect marriage of fresh & frozen?

So, in this case, we had a delicious feast of what I’ll call “Taproot Tacos”. I used frozen ground pork, frozen corn, and frozen tomatoes, basil, and cilantro for salsa, and to that I added greens, tortillas, and cheese (or whatever other toppings you love.) This is a great way to utilize those delicate offerings, as is pasta! We do a ton of pasta during the summer because it’s fast, easy, and delicious! Depending on what is in our share, it might be a basic olive oil sauce with sauteed beet greens, chard, or arugula, or maybe grape tomatoes, fresh beans, peas, zucchini, or herbs.

Of course, a giant salad is also a great idea for using bulk amounts of tender veg. Or juicing. Or a stir fry. Or lettuce wraps….. So many options! My point is, while we wait for these fresh offerings all winter, sometimes the speed and volume that they come on at can seem a bit daunting. Think of them as the foundation of your meal, and build around it with whatever else you have on hand, either fresh, frozen, or canned.

During this incredible season of bounty, here are some of the things that I will always make sure to get extra of in order to save some for the winter, because who doesn’t love a bright green garlic scape pesto or strawberry dessert on a cold January night?

garlic- roasted then frozen

garlic scapes- blended with a bit of oil then frozen

tomatoes- frozen or canned

zucchini- grated then frozen

all berries- frozen or canned/ jams & jellies or compote

herbs- frozen in oil, dried, or mixed into butter and frozen (tarragon butter is amazing)

Peas & beans- blanched and frozen or pressure canned

Corn- frozen

carrots/beets/radish- pickled

Ok- I have to stop writing this list because it’s making me really hungry. I don’t know what is in our share this week, but, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be setting a little bit aside for another day.

Happy local eating! See you next week.

Kim

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With temps a few degrees below average and substantially more rain than normal, most local farmers are lucky to have even 50% of their crops in the fields that are simply too wet to work in. Some crops won’t survive all of that standing rain, and some won’t even get planted before it becomes too late for them to have time to mature and be harvested. Then there are the crops with such delayed growth that the second planting seedlings, waiting patiently in the greenhouse, have almost matched the size of those planted out. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, except that it is. Rather than a steady stream of succession planted vegetables stretching over the whole season, the bulk will now be ready all at once. The market becomes flooded, prices drop, and the already slim margins in food farming all but disappear. Farm labourers are also working less hours, getting smaller pay cheques, and adding fewer dollars back into our local economy. The trickle down gets scary when you really start to think about it.

It’s not all doom & gloom….. Josh recalled a year that saw a total crop failure of Ontario apples, creating a massive spike in demand for those grown in Nova Scotia. A farmers loss is usually another farmers gain with an unusually large market share. Up & down, feast or famine. Most farms will struggle through, but some won’t. Others that had managed to limp through the losses of last year’s killing frost in June may buckle under the weight of a fresh wave of setbacks. For the rest, there will be that frustrating time of the year- deep into the dog days of summer- where people who don’t farm have all but forgotten this waterlogged spring. The farmers who are getting half of their normal price for zucchini or who are seeing locals buy corn from other provinces because ours is so late to market haven’t forgotten.

This is all part of why buying local matters. Why signing up for a CSA matters. If we want the option of beautiful, locally grown food, we need to support it with our dollars, or it will disappear, one field, or one farm at a time. If you’re reading this post, chances are that you’re already a Taproot CSA member, so how can you help, given that you’re already supporting your local farmer?

Easy. Spread the word.

Local matters, farms matter, good agricultural practices matter, as does good stewardship of this land. Spread the word that good food matters so that we’re all ensuring it remains possible for farmers to keep providing us with it.

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Let’s take a critical look at the age old saying, “You are what you eat!” This statement stands true weather you’re a human being, a chicken or an earthworm! The things we put into our bodies have an effect on us, physically and mentally. And with us human beings at top of our food chain we have the privilege of access to lots of different foods that influence our well being. Plants, fungi, animals, and water are all part of our varying diets, and all of these foods have intakes and diets of their own to help them grow, just as we use them to eventually help us grow.

It’s important to recognize where our food is coming from. If that piece of spinach we are eating was grown in a poor soil environment, and it needed a lot of human inputs ie. fertilizer, pesticides and fungicides to grow. It will not be able to give your body the full spectrum of nutrience a green is capable of. This is simply because the the beginning of it’s food chain was not able to supply the amount of nutrience that spinach needed to grow. Let’s compare that, to a piece of spinach that was able to use the healthy bacteria and readily available nutrience in a healthy soil environment. Plants and animals that grow in healthy nutrient rich environments are able to supply our bodies with more energy and vitamins. They too need to live healthy lives so that when their energy is finally passed onto us, it is done in the most clean and healthy form possible. If you are eating plants or animals fed foods that you yourself would not consider safe for consumption, what is the point in consuming that animal, “you are what you eat” right?

Why We Raise Animals

Soil resilience and soil health are incredible important to vegetable farmers. As organic producers it is  fundamental for us to  raise our animals on pasture. As farmer Josh says, “The animals at TapRoot Farms are on pasture because that’s where animals need to be, on the soil!” It is not only fair to the animals to be able to live healthy lives but “It’s very beneficial to the soil to have the animals eating, and foraging on the grass. There is a symbiotic relationship between animals and soil and the biology. On our farm the animals are a big part of recycling the nutrients in our fields. They eat the grass and ruminate, and if they are not ruminating animals, their food passes through and essential nutrients from their digestive systems comes out the other end more available for the grass or the vegetables to grow!” We are proud that eating our meat benefits our bodies as much as it benefits our farms resilience and soil building. 

The Costs of Raising Pastured Animals

Having our pigs and cows out on pasture, and our chickens, running free range on the farm, are some of the ways we ensure resilience. We supplement our animals grass and vegetable scrap diets with NON GMO grain, and soy based feed from Purina. Sourcing non GMO grain is extremely important to us. Josh says, “we aren’t really sure about the health risk to the animals (when using GMO seeds), and so we avoid the potential risk.” And in terms of using GMO seeds or grains, “we don’t like that the GMO seeds are patented. They are basically Frankenstein seeds. You can’t reuse them and we like the practice of seed saving, and the continued use of seeds!”

Raising our animals in this way means that when we bring our meat to market it has a comparably higher price point. But raising happy animals with healthy diets also means our meat has high nutritional value, flavour and provides buyers with a more holistic understanding of their meat. “There is really no other way we would farm, we are animals lovers, we are omnivores and we enjoy eating meat, especially when we know were it comes from and how it was raised” Says Josh.  You can find our pasture raised, non GMO meat in the Freezer at Noggins Corner Farm Markets, offered as a share in our weekly CSA and soon in the cafeteria at Acadia University. 

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Hi all! Sorry if this is a little ramble on-ish but it’s what’s been on my mind this morning, particularly after seeing all of the pictures on social media of so many valley farmers losing tunnels & greenhouses in the recent wind storm.

We’ve all seen the hashtags; #buylocal #supportlocal #knowyourfarmer but what do they actually mean to YOU? While probably stemming from a similar place for most people, I think it’s important to recognize that this movement based on supporting local, eating local & in season, probably manifests itself in many different ways for each individual or family. For me personally, it means that every meal that I cook is created with a very high percentage of locally sourced ingredients, which in turn, obviously means that my fridge and pantry are stocked with a high percentage of products grown or produced or made locally.

But I really like bananas. And mangos. I use mountains of freshly ground pepper, am liberal with fresh squeezed lemons, fish sauce, and curry paste. I understand that many people may see that as a weird juxtaposition to my support of eating local & in season, but I respectfully disagree. I don’t think that any of those things take away from my support. Having said that, I wouldn’t dream of buying an apple or cherries from Washington, no matter what time of year it is, but I’ll certainly buy oranges from Florida or papaya from Mexico. I don’t expect to be able to eat asparagus in Nova Scotia in January, even though I could (though after you’ve tasted it in season, fresh picked & brought to market that very same day, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to) and I’m not interested in strawberries from California, despite our relatively short season here. I just figure that I have to eat my body weight in them daily while they’re at the height of locally grown perfection. Same goes for fresh corn….. I’m eating it almost daily in season, freezing bunches for winter, and then I wave goodbye to it for another year.

This is just how I feel, and while I don’t believe that anyone can do everything, I do believe that everyone can do something. Even if that something seems as small as one person not buying grape tomatoes or peaches from away, because we grow them so beautifully here.

Farming is hard work, and, as this recent damaging wind has shown us, it’s fraught with challenges. So, do your thing to support local, no matter how big or small, because every single dollar, locally spent, helps.
Every. Single. One.
If we want local we need to support it, or it will vanish as quickly as all of those greenhouse covers did.
Love up on some local goodies, and I’ll see you next week.
K

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Perfect roasted beets
As many beets as you can fit in a roasting pan
A big drizzle of oil
Salt & pepper to taste
A sprinkle of rosemary or thyme, or whatever other herb you have available (fresh or dried)
**Optional
1 lemon or orange
Directions
Wash, trim ends, and cut beets into quarters or thick discs. You can peel them if you want, but the skin is just as delicious as the rest so I don’t bother
Put them in a large roaster, drizzle over with enough oil to thinly coat everything, and toss in whatever herbs you have (whole is fine)
Cut the lemon or orange in half (if using) squeeze juice over beets and then toss them in too.
Salt & pepper to season
Bake covered at 350 for 40-45 min until barely fork tender.
Let them cool & store covered in the fridge.
You now have a fantastic ingredient waiting for you all week that has the speed and ease of fast food, but with all of the flavour and goodness of farm fresh.
Love some local food & I’ll see you next Monday!

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