Tuesday, October 11 @ 4:30pm 2015 S. 8th St, South Philadelphia Help out with this orchard revitalization and replanting!  In partnership with youth from the United Communities Center, they'll be planting new fruit trees, berry bushes, perennials, and groundcovers. The South Philly Teen Orchard has been very supportive of the Co-op and was one of the gardens featured on the South Philly Garden Tour. Please RSVP if you plan to attend. RAINDATE: Tuesday, 10/18 @ 4:30pm  

We're doing our part to spread the word about sustainability-related events happening throughout the city. Fans of the South Philly Food Co-op may also be interested in the Sustainability Walking Tour happening on Tuesday, October 11 from 6pm to 9pm. Get your free tickets here. Meet in front of the PECO building at 23rd and Market. Join Young Involved Philadelphia, the Next Great City, Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Horticultural Society for a guided hands-on tour of what sustainability really means for you and for Philadelphia. As part of the two-week State of Young Philly conference, the Sustainable Philly Walking-Tour will take you to key sites in Center City where green technology and sustainable thinking are already impacting our lives. Stops will include the PECO Green Roof, the new Penn Park, and 30th St. Station. The evening will culminate with free drinks and hors d’oeuvres as we discuss which priorities are most urgent for Philadelphia at the PHS Pop-Up Garden at 20th & Market.

Look what I found!

More tomatoes!  These are beefsteaks, again, but my smaller, pickier beauty queens are also getting tomatoes.  I'm pretty excited - I saw more flowers but kind of thought that it would be too cold for them and they'd die.  Then I remembered that I live in Philadelphia where spring and fall are marvelous seasons and not full of snow (I'm looking at you, Massachusetts.)  In fact, the first frost for Philadelphia isn't usually until the end of October!  Compare that with this, written almost a month ago.  Suckers!

In other veggie news, my chard is getting big!

Though I feel like baby chard would be delicious I think I'm going to wait it out and see how big these get.  I know I've said this before but I just love their bright little red stems.

Lastly, I'd like to show off this lovely one:

This is kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate and it is lovely and tall and easy to care for and hasn't stopped blooming for over a month.  Awesome!  In addition to adding some nice pink color it is also tall so it breaks up the monotony of plants that are all the same height (cough cough tomatoes cough.)  I like you, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, I just wish you had a slightly less ridiculous name.

Not to end on a sad note but...my garden did not win anything in the PHS City Gardens Contest.  Just like college, there was a small, thin envelope in the mail a few weeks ago with a return address from PHS and I knew the news was bad even before I opened it.  Lo and behold it was a nicely written "rejection" letter and I was kind of sad about it.  Not that I thought my garden would win - I knew there were bigger and better gardens out there - but I thought my garden's uniqueness (maybe "weirdness" is a more appropriate word) would win me some points.  Anyway there is always next year...

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

I'm a sucker for rich breads. Somehow, croissants, challah and brioche are excluded from my general disdain for pastry and such. The line has to fall somewhere. So, I got it in my head that I was going to make brioche. I had a sandwich in mind. Brioche is tender and barely sweet, and full of butter, eggs and milk. So, I got to Googling.

Julia Child's recipe has 12 tablespoons of butter and four eggs...

King Arthur Flour is great for bread recipes. But wow... ten tablespoons of butter and three eggs...

Epicurious uses just eight tablespoons of butter...

All of a sudden it was time to re-think. I'd make something brioche-ish (say that three times fast!).

So I Googled a bit harder. There was a less-rich recipe that had gotten around a bit. NYT had published a light brioche sandwich roll. Smitten Kitchen recreated it. This was it. Not only did I have a *much* lighter recipe, but of course it was going to work, because it got passed around and there were pictures. Any fool (read: me) can post a recipe up on the Internet, but that doesn't mean it's going to work. I felt good about this one.

So we start like we start, with yeast foaming up.So this is yeast, warm water, milk, and honey (my adaptation).

And in a large bowl, bread flour, AP flour and salt. Whisked.

Per the recipe, I took my very softened butter and worked it into the flour. I used a scant bit more butter than the original recipe, because I used skim milk rather than whole.

The flour to butter ratio didn't make a lot of sense to me for this technique. This is what we do with crackers and pie crusts and I'm just used to there being more butter. So the butter was gone and a lot of unbuttered flour remained, but I did my best.

I added the bubbly yeast to the flour/butter mix.

And a beaten egg.

And stirred until it started to get dough-like.

So, the next line in the recipe is this: "Scrape dough onto clean, unfloured counter and knead, scooping dough up, slapping it on counter and turning it, until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes."

But I have a nice mixer, I don't do that sort of thing by hand anymore. So I dumped it into my mixer and set it to knead. Plenty of the other recipes I read said to use a mixer, and the King Arthur recipe and the Julia Child one kind of say you can't do it without a mixer.

So after 10 minutes I had a near-liquid.

I figured I had to dump it only an unfloured counter and move on as instructed. Unfloured, wow, that's bold. Hm.

So scoop it up and slap it down?

How about just spend the time scraping it off my hands? The dough was incredibly sticky. I tried to work it. I tried hard. But finally, I had to bust out the flour. Actually, look at my hands, finally I had to yell for Sous Chef Brian to open the flour and just dump it into my "workspace."

It was rainy out. Maybe that was part of it. Either way, I added a quarter cup of additional bread flour at this point. I worked it into something kind of like a ball and put it in a bowl to rise.

I was fairly certain things weren't working out at this point.

Two hours later, the dough had really risen. Like, risen, formed a skin and deflated.

So when I turned it out onto my board, it was like this.

Oh, that's perfect. Now I'll just hit that with the bench scraper to cut it into eighths, and we'll be all set.

I was absolutely certain things weren't working out at this point.

With the help of quite a bit more flour, I managed to get eight lumpy balls.

It was an ordeal.

So those balls rose for about half an hour - the recipe said one to two hours, but despite the cool, rainy weather, something in this dough was set to rise quickly.

Now egg wash. I really don't like to do egg washes when I'm just cooking for the two of us. I don't see the point in making it shiny and brown, and I don't like the waste, but things had gone poorly enough that I wanted to go by the book.

All this leftover egg/water mix got trashed.

My shiny rolls were ready to go into the oven.

But the oven needed to preheat for a few more minutes, so they sat on the counter.

Notice how my pictures are dark and shadowy? Yeah, that's because I got a new lamp. It's the wrong lamp. But I didn't realize how wrong until it fell down and landed on my ready-for-the-oven-brioche.

Yeah. At this point, the brioche were obviously disappointed in me.

But hey, the oven was at 400. So I put them in, sad faces and all, with a pan of water. Seven minutes, turn, ten minutes (recipe says 15 total).

 And they looked like rolls. Pretty rolls, even.

And they cut like rolls.

And they tasted awesome. Not like a guilt-ridden pastry, but like an awesome sandwich roll. Soft and light, a little bit sweet. Just a little bit.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups bread flour, divided


• 1/3 cup all purpose flour


• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt


• 1 cup warm water


• 3 tablespoons skim milk


• 2 2/3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened


• 2 eggs, beaten, divided


• 2 tablespoons honey


• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Instructions

• Warm the water and milk to body temperature or just above, mix in honey. Sprinkle in yeast and set aside to get foamy.


• Whisk together all purpose flour and 3 cups of the bread flour with the salt.


• Beat one egg.


• Add foamy yeast mix and beaten egg to flour/salt mixture.


• Stir to combine and form a dough.


• Work the dough until smooth and elastic - I had difficulty with the mixer and chose to go by hand. Use extra flour if necessary.


• Set dough in a covered bowl to rise until doubled in size.


• Divide risen dough into eight equal pieces. Roll into balls (I needed extra flour to do this) and place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until doubled again.


• Preheat oven to 400 and set a shallow pan of water on the bottom rack.


• Brush remaining beaten egg over rolls and bake 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown on top. Turn sheet once during baking.

Details

• Prep time: 1 hour


• Cook time: 15 mins


• Total time: 3 hour 15 mins


• Yield: 8 rolls

I'm back!  And so is my garden (okay, that never went anywhere) and now I have figs!

To be honest, I'm not sure what kind of figs these are so I'm just kind of waiting to see.  I don't even think I like figs!  But I won't make a final judgement call on that one until I eat my first home-grown fig.

The rest of the garden is pretty quiet.  The cooler weather and cloudy skies haven't brought everything to a halt, but the difference from mid-summer is amazing.  On those hot, steamy July days you can almost see things growing right before your eyes.  In the spirit of that (and fall is always a time of reflection for me) let's take a look back at my garden's progress through these past few months.

Here's when I first started moving my tomatoes outside, May 1st.

And here's the tomato patch on May 11th:

And here's the first flower:

Here's May 22nd:

Here's May 31st and they're starting to grow over the wall...

And here's June 2nd, with lots of flowers and some tomatoes:

Here's another June 2nd shot, starting to fill out a bit:

This is June 16th:

Here's June 20th with the first tomato turning red:

This is July 4th, with new stakes:

Here's July 26th full of tomatoes:

By August 15th, things were getting pretty big:

And here's August 31st:

It's all been pretty interesting and I think it's good to look back once in a while and remember when I just started.  Even more impressive than the tomatoes are the sunflowers, I think - they grew so fast!  Maybe I'll take a look at them next week.

This weekend I plan on cleaning up some things (I'm looking at you, sunflowers) and transplant my little swiss chard and kale.  Stay tuned!

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

I had the great pleasure of staffing a table at the Dickinson Square Park Farmer's Market yesterday morning on what started as a hot, close, humid morning; transitioned into a partly sunny, breezy day; and ended with a fighter jet flying so low overhead I could practically read the pilot's driver's license. (Anyone in Pennsport at the time knows what I'm talking about!) With me at the table was Matt, a new co-op volunteer and soon to be new homeowner over in the Newbold neighborhood (which, he said with a smile, is called Point Breeze by people who hear what his address is). We had plenty of folks stop by the table and answer my opening question of "Have you heard of the South Philly Food Co-op?" with various levels of recognition from "Of course and I'm sending my check for member-ownership soon" to "We're in South Philly?" (just kidding). Matt is making the move with his girlfriend down from Weaver's Way territory in Mt. Airy to South Philly. As we were talking with a passerby I introduced Matt as a soon-to-be South Philadelphian and he said that one of the factors in figuring out where to move was the fact that there will soon be a food co-op in the area. He loves being a member and shopping at Weaver's Way and was thrilled to hear about our efforts to open a cooperatively owned grocery store in South Philly. I was floored. Now there's somebody who is taking a much bigger leap of faith than I am. My household only had to put down $200 on this yet-to-open co-op while he's putting down roots in the neighborhood and purchasing a house, in part, because of it. Granted, there were plenty of other factors in the decision making but the fact that a co-op will be opening soon made the decision that much easier. Hearing that just made my day and kept making my day even as the Eagles were coughing up a late-game lead and Antonio Bastardo continued to pitch like... well... me. Just imagine a near future in which neighbors and friends are pitching the attractiveness of their neighborhood and including "and there's a food co-op" as one of the positives. Realtors will start including the bullet point "- easy access to the South Philly Food Co-op." And open houses will include food trays prepared "by the community" at the South Philly Food Co-op. The shops and restaurants along E. Passyunk Avenue, the Water Department's streetscape improvements on 13th Street, the improving test scores and education at the neighborhood schools and the beautiful work being done at the neighborhood's various parks and playgrounds are all making South Philly a great, hot place to be for the long term. The co-op, by strengthening the community even more, can play a big part in that progress as well. Several other people who stopped by the table picked up member-owner applications, many of whom I have a pretty good feeling about in terms of how likely they are to follow through and join up. And Matt took another leap yesterday by becoming member-owner #96. That's 11 new members since just last week when we started our drive to 250, the number we'll need so we can start the process of looking for a location. Why don't you jump in too? After all, presumably you already in live in South Philly so you don't need to buy a house. All you have to do is fill out a member-owner application and make the first payment toward your $200 member-owner equity. You'll become one o our 250 Founding Members and help to make the future of South Philadelphia happen. (And, hey, no matter where you are, if you want to move to South Philly and become a member... we say "Welcome to the neighborhood!"... but you better hurry!)

It's time for an update on the progress the South Philly Food Co-op is making on our attempt to open a cooperatively owned grocery store in South Philadephia. I could write a long missive about how we've been setting some goals for the next six months and working with professionals to write a business plan and do a market analysis and feasibility study. But why spend all that time when the good folks at Naked Philly did it for us in a recent story about us! Check out that link for some details on our immediate goals for the next 6 months, including reference to our own magic number of 250 - the number of member-owner households we want to have before we start the process of looking for a location. We'll be sharing more about our goals, next steps and accomplishments at our first member meeting on October 17 at The Church of the Trinity, 2300 S. 18th Street (on 18th Street between Wolf and Ritner). You can sign up to be a member-owner on the spot and participate in the meeting. The agenda for the meeting is here.

Hi folks! Sarah is taking the week off from writing about her awesome garden this week. She assures us that it is still thriving and that she is getting ready for the fall harvest. We'll have another installment of Sarah's Garden next week for your enjoyment. In the meantime, we should mention that Sarah herself is a a member-owner of the South Philly Food Co-op. Join Sarah and our other fantastic blogging member-owners (like Rose) and become a member-owner today. You can be counted as one of our 250 Founding Members and get us to our next goal which will allow us to start the process of - get this - looking for a location! Click here to find out how to join. And don't think that other people are going to get this done for you. If you don't join, there's a reasonably good chance that this co-op just won't happen.

Treehugger shared the video below because of how proud they were that their website appeared, however briefly, on screen. (Hey, I'd do the same if SouthPhillyFoodCoop.org appeared in a video produced by Google!)

The video is one of several "Search Stories" produced by Google to demonstrate how internet searching helped some cool thing happen. (Any time they want to profile South Philly Food Co-op for when Alison first searched "how to start a food co-op," we're ready.) Anyway, my point in sharing the video is because of one other similarly short moment in which the hero of our story mentions that he got his idea to start the solar energy company (or whatever it is) from his friend who is the manager of the food co-op in Ypsilanti. Footage of the Ypsilanti Food Co-op is included. (I really do love the name Ypsilanti.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK7lUK0711E]

My point in bringing this up is to show the potential that a Food Co-op can be a place where dedicated, creative people come together to shop for food and exchange ideas. We're busy concentrating on getting this Co-op open so we can have a place where locally grown and responsibly raised food can be found at fair prices and where we can help connect members of the community to the food they put on their table. But it's nice to know that it could have these kinds of great spin-off effects. Besides, who doesn't have their best ideas when their noshing on some great, locally made breads with their friends?

So what can you do to make this happen? Easy. Become a member. Today. We're at 86 87 89 paid members as of the writing of this post. (We actually added one while I was writing this blog post! edited to add: And two more after I published it!) It's simple. When we get to 250 member-owners we can form a real estate committee to search out a location and start talking to lenders.

At 500 600, we can start the process of signing a lease and doing construction. At 700-800 we cut the ribbon. But that 250 mark is crucial. Plenty of folks will jump on board once we start looking for a location and even more will sign up when we have that location and start building. We need you to be one of our 250 Founding Members who will get us to that critical mass. Click here to join. Fill out an application and either pay by Paypal or send it a check. Your member-owner equity is a TOTAL of $200 and payable in low installments over the next 15 months. It's WAAAY easier than starting a solar energy company. But who knows? Once you join the Co-op maybe it's the place where you'll get YOUR next great idea.

Yay, Autumn!

I don't know about you, but while I'll miss zucchini and tomatoes, I'm alright with summer's passing. Not being outdoorsy, or in school, or wealthy, I just don't get it when people ask me, "How was your summer?" No one checks in during March and asks how winter went. We don't summer in the Hamptons, and I haven't had a summer "off" since before 12th grade. Summer's just a lot of sweating, and mosquito bites, and air conditioning, and trying to find a way to work around the heat (salted radishes for dinner).

But then there's autumn! Autumn with it's crispness and calmness and leaves changing color and chasing each other down the street in the wind. Autumn. Skirts with sweaters! And autumn is apples and squash and cabbages and greens.

We got our first load of autumnal fruit in the CSA two weeks ago. And somehow, didn't jump into high gear eating apples and pears every day. Time to make sauce.

Apple-pear sauce is exactly the same thing as applesauce, only pear-ier. It's a little bit less crisp and somewhat more earthy. If you can call pears earthy. I mean, they're not root vegetables.

Rarely do I post a recipe where there are required tools. Typically it's like, "mix this using whatcha got," but a wire mesh strainer is key here. Or a food mill, but I don't have that.

Gather your fruit.

With a paring knife (or an apple corer, or whatever), core your fruit. Toss out any bruised or ugly spots. We'd had these fruit for nearly two weeks, so I lost about a pears-worth in the process. I started with a pound of pears and two pounds of apples, pre-coring and cleaning. Four pears, five apples. No idea what kind of apples they are, something from somewhere around here.

Toss the fruit into a pot, skins and all.

And add the juice of a lemon.

Add enough water to just about come up to the top of the fruit and simmer, medium, no boil, for 20 minutes or so.

When the fruit is soft - and think like, boiling potatoes for mashed potatoes soft - turn off the heat and get your strainer set up over a large bowl.

Scoop your fruit out of the water and into the strainer - hold on to the water. Smush through the strainer with a wooden spoon.

Remove peels from the strainer as you go, just to make it easier for the fruit to pass through the mesh. Just keep working it with the back of the spoon.

 After it's all passed through the strainer, I like to give it a second pass, so scrape out the skins and what didn't go through, give a rinse and dump the sauce back into the strainer for round two. If you like it thicker, stop here and don't give it a second strain.

After two passes, I add back some of the liquid from cooking, just enough to get the texture I want. I like it pretty fine.

Sure, you can add sugar and cinnamon and all, but depending on the apples you have, it might be pretty awesome just like this. You can always reheat it and simmer it with spices before serving, but natural, unsweetened, unflavored sauce is delicious straight up or for baking.

 This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

You don't so much need a recipe, but this is a great way to use the apples and pears that are coming in this season. Ignore the measurements and use what you have.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds apples


• 1 pound pears


• 2 cups water


• 1 lemon

Instructions

• Core the fruit and place it in a large pot.


• Add water almost to the top of the fruit.


• Add the juice of one lemon.


• Simmer medium low, avoiding boiling, until fruit is tender.


• Work fruit through a metal sieve with a wooden spoon.


• For finer sauce, take two passes through the sieve and add some reserved cooking water until you have the texture you want.

Details

• Prep time: 15 mins


• Cook time: 20 mins


• Total time: 35 mins


• Yield: 6 servings