Alison and I recently went to Frederick, Maryland for a little co-op inspiration.

As part of a Mid-Atlantic Food Co-op Alliance meeting, we joined other food co-ops, buying clubs, and start-up efforts from 6 states (DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA, VA) on a tour of The Common Market.  This Natural Food Co-op has a café, meat department and sustainable seafood counter, specialty cheeses, and a community room.  Not to mention a great bulk section (you know I'm a fan).

The Common Market has been around since the 1970's, they have 3,200 member-owners, and this is their 4th location.  Overall it was great to hear how far they have come.  You can read more about their exciting history here.

Bulk olive oil, soy sauce, vinegar and soap...

It was so inspiring to see what the South Philly Food Co-op could be one day.  We have a lot of work to do, but anything is possible with your help!

 

It's August, and that means tomatoes, so the first word that comes to mind whenever I'm trying to pull together a simple dinner is caprese. There are few food combinations that work as well as mozzarella, basil and tomato. You can melt them all together in a sandwich. You can toss them all together with pasta. You can stick them on skewers and call them appetizers, or just stack them in slices and call it a side salad.

I wanted to make a more substantial meal of it, and one easy answer for that is polenta. I had beautiful basil that I got at the farm market because I have officially killed my fourth basil plant of the season.

You can buy your polenta pre-made in a tube, or you can make it very easily with cornmeal, water and salt. Butter if you're fancy. Stock instead of water. I buy the cornmeal that's actually marked "polenta" because it's milled more finely and I prefer the texture, but really, it's just cornmeal. You can add herbs and cheese and all sorts of stuff while you're making it. I tend to make it boring so it's ready to be used in any application. You can make it up, cut it into cubes or slices or whatever and freeze it so it's always ready, but it only takes 20 minutes to make from scratch.

So start with some made up polenta, and let it chill a good while so it firms up. At least an hour, but a day works great. I set mine up in a pie pan, but whatever works for you. I aim for 1-inch cubes, but I don't bust out the ruler or anything.

So cube up the polenta (I used about a third of a recipe for this salad - I made two cups dry and used way less) and freeze any extra.

Coat the bottom of a pan with olive oil and turn up to medium high. Add polenta when the oil is hot (drop of water pops).

And shallow fry, turning to brown each side. About 3 minutes per side. Touch the polenta to check for crispness. It should have a nice toasty feel on all sides.

Drain the polenta on a towel and discard any remaining oil.

While the pan is warm and just slightly greased, add some tomatoes and turn to med-low.

 

Toss them around in the hot pan a bit, to warm them up, but not enough to make them mushy.

I used massaged kale for the base, because I have a kale addiction, but you could do this over any sort of lettuce.

A few pieces of polenta,

a good bit of fresh mozzarella,

 warm tomatoes,

 and lots of fresh basil.

Toss that together with some reduced balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt and pepper and you have a chunky and filling salad.

This made three nice servings, and of course we had leftover polenta to freeze.

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

Ingredients

• 12 1-inch cubes polenta


• 1/2 cup basil, chopped


• 2 large tomatoes, cut into pieces


• 2 tablespoons olive oil


• 1 cup fresh mozzarella balls, cut in quarters


• 3 tablespoons balsamic reduction


• kosher salt to taste


• 2 cups massaged kale or other salad greens

Instructions

• Shallow fry polenta in olive oil until lightly browned and crispy on all sides.


• Remove polenta to towel to drain.


• Drain remaining oil from pan and add chopped tomatoes. Toss to warm.


• Add polenta, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil to greens or kale to make salads.


• Drizzle with balsamic reduction and sprinkle with salt to taste.


• Makes three servings, serve warm.

Details

• Prep time: 5 mins


• Cook time: 15 mins


• Total time: 20 mins


• Yield: 3 servings

According to this essay on the Rodale's Institute's website, the state of New Hampshire gets only 6 percent of its food from in-state production. We've known since 3rd grade American history that the early settlers had a tough time in New England but by necessity they always seem to be able to scratch out enough to live. (Back before trucks and planes, all farming was "local.") Young New Hampshirites are trying to reverse the trend but running into a similar problem as their colonial forebears - lack of land. In the present time, this is because what land there is already has owners and those folks are unlikely to sell it anytime soon. So what's a young, wannabe farmer to do? Borrow the land. The essay tells the story of four cases (including the author herself) in which the farmers have worked out innovative and mutually beneficial deals with the land owners to be able to grow crops on their property. For most landowners, it's not even a matter of getting money out of deal as much as it a sense of satisfaction and pride in seeing their land being used productively and sustainably. Now, anyone in South Philly have a quarter acre they want to lend me?

We have been working hard this summer and have some exciting news to share with you! The Wharton Community Consultants have accepted the South Philly Food Co-op's application and will be working with us for approximately three months starting in October to help answer the following questions: - What approximate size should our co-op be? - What locations should we consider? - What can we learn from other co-ops to be successful with our store opening? This is a great opportunity to get an independent opinion of how we should proceed at     no cost and will be used to help guide our future decisions when opening our store in 2013.  A Board Member will meet regularly with the WCC team and will update us when possible.  We can't wait to share the outcomes with you! One step closer for our Future South Philly Food Co-op Shoppers!

(In the interest of blogger etiquette, you'll have to click through the links below to see the charts since I didn't create them myself. But keep reading for even more fuel for the why we need to change our food system argument and how a co-op can do its small part.) I've been meaning to share this post from Grist's food section for a long time. You can see the date, I've had it sitting in my queue since April. Better late than never! The main point is that from 1970 to 2008 the American food system has gone from producing 2,168 calories per day per person to 2,673 calories per day per person. As if consuming about 500 more calories per day weren't bad enough (not to mention the toll that producing 500 extra calories per day per person for about 105 million more persons takes on the environment), the portion of those calories that come from added sugar and added fat (the sugar and fat not naturally found in whole foods but added to food during its processing) has gone from 37 percent to 41 percent. Basically, on average, we're producing/consuming 300 more calories from added sugar and added fat per day than the average bell-bottom wearing, Grand Funk Railroad listening 1970 American. So if you click through to the Grist post it will take you to another post that has a fun (wait, I mean horrifying) chart that shows the change in the make-up of the American diet between 1970 and 2008. 2008 is the last year of available data. I have a feeling it hasn't gotten better since then. Silly Grist even suggests that if the food processing industry simply cut the number of calories per person per day that it produces down from 1100 to 550, our total caloric intake would be back around where it was in 1970. You know... when everyone was skinny (though, in fairness, a lot of the skinniness was achieved by smoking). As if those numbers and charts weren't enough to send you into a rage for change, Vegansaurus rages on about another pretty well known inequity in our food system: the percentage of agricultural subsidies that go towards meat and dairy (that would be 63) vs the percentage that goes towards fruits and vegetables (that would be 1). Grains, sugar, starch, oil and alcohol combine for 35 percent. I highly recommend that you click through to read what she has to say if you're looking for some colorful language to take with you to your next cocktail party when you can preach to your friends about these issues (which probably explains why I don't get invited to as many cocktail parties as I used to). She says something about a breast pump and social change that you won't want to miss. So, loyal readers, any idea what we can do about this situation? Even more importantly, how can a co-op become an agent of this change? This isn't a quiz so there are no wrong answers. Fire away in the comments. (Oh yeah... and if you haven't done so already "Like" us on Facebook and vote for us in this great contest sponsored by Intuit. We could part of $50,000 in grants toward start-up costs!)

Hello!  I found something exciting in my garden this past week, and it wasn't (another) animal skull.  It was far more exciting!  It was...

That's right, the beginnings of some flowers on my eggplant!  Woo hoo!  These eggplants sure are delicate little things (the variety is Black Beauty for anyone interested) but luckily they like it hot hot hot!  So go, little eggplants, go!  I am so excited to eat you!

The other things that have taken off with this massive amount of heat are the sunflowers:

Seriously, I guess I should have researched this a bit, but these sunflowers are super tall.  I'm gonna guess they are about 8-9' tall.  When I got these seeds I was all like, I don't want a dwarf variety cause I want TALL sunflowers!  I want them to be really TALL!  Well they are definitely tall so Sarah of a few months ago needn't have worried.  To top it off, this variety is Mammoth Russian which I chose over all the other varieties with things like "giant" and "large" in their name.  "Mammoth" is clearly bigger than "giant," right?  Yeah so the moral of this story is that these sunflowers are really really tall.  So tall, in fact, that it's hard to see the flowers.  But there are totally flowers coming!

See the flower starting in the middle of the picture?  Yes, sunflowers, yes!  Even though you're towering over the rest of the garden!  I guess I'm lucky we have a nice big window on the second floor overlooking the garden because that's pretty much the only way to get a nice view of the sunflowers.  Unfortunately (or not?) that window is in the bathroom.  Hey a nice view is a nice view, right?  I can't complain.  Next year, however, I might not be so aghast at the idea of a dwarf variety...

So although that recent heat wave was pretty unbearable for me apparently it did wonders for some of my slower-moving plants.  Keep it up, plants!  I'm rooting (pun intended) for you!

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.

Hello friends!  My tomato harvest is still going strong:

 

 

And of course there are still more to come:

and more...

And my squash, eggplants, sunflowers and basils are still going strong (or not so strong, in the case of the eggplant, but I'm still holding out hope.)

But!  The time has come to think about the future...of my garden.  Right now so much space is being taken up by tomatoes that I can't do too much until they're done and I finally pull them out.  I'm going to start slowly reclaiming pots and sun space for the fall planting:  kale, rainbow chard, spinach, arugula and maybe some broccoli and carrots.  So things are going to start looking different around here!  But hopefully still nice.

Because I don't have too much else to show you, let's look at that weird tomato again!

 

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.

The blog has been a little quiet this summer (at least compared to our Facebook page... wow! 1007 fans!) but that doesn't mean we're not still working hard at getting this Co-op open. And thanks to our loyal corps of bloggers (Sarah, Rose and the crew) who keep the great content coming. We've been to a number of events this summer including Gold Star Park's Music in the Park summer concert series (where our awesome garden writer Sarah was among several volunteers staffing our table... thanks, Sarah and everyone else!). The first week we signed up five new members and then got a few at the two following weeks, all while hearing some great music and tasting some really great food. Last weekend we hung out on Passyunk Avenue in the blazing sun at the car show, an event I like to say "celebrates cars in one of the toughest neighborhoods to park in the whole city." We even got a new member there! (Thanks, Patrick!) And we're not done yet. There a number of events coming up that we are trying to get to (pending volunteer availability) and the first one is TONIGHT (I'll be there). If you are interested in helping out at our table at any of these events, you can email us at [email protected]. 1. August 4: We will have a table at Newbold Civic Association's Movie Night featuring Happy Feet. If you haven't become a member yet, bring your check book and get ready to climb on board! Guerin Rec Center at 16th and Jackson at 6pm. 2. August 15: The Transition movement grew out of the theory of permaculture and we happen to have a Transition group that meets in South Philadelphia. TransitionPhiladelphia's August public meeting will take place on Monday, 8/15/11 at the South Philadelphia Older Adult Center (E. Passyunk Ave and Dickinson St.).  This meeting will focus on the theme of community -- what's good, bad, changing, needs to improve in our communities. (Umm... more co-ops?) What anchors a community and creates the bond that makes it grow? How do communities keep members involved, accountable, and contributing? We hope to be able to have someone at this meeting to offer how the South Philly Food Co-op can answer a lot of the questions above. Please consider attending and giving your own feedback about why you have joined (or are considering joining) the co-op. 3. and 4. August 18 (ruh, roh... two events!): Gold Star Park is hosting the Music in the Park event that was rescheduled from July 7. We will be there again with our Bobby-Flay-style Throwdown pitting local, seasonal produce against conventional, who-knows-from-where produce. As I recall from when we did this last week, it wasn't much of a contest. On that same night, Lower Moyamensing Civic Association (LoMo) is having a Summertime Meet & Greet in Marconi. And it appears it will be a produce happy night since the theme of the event is tomato season. Guests are invited to bring some of their prize-winning backyard tomatoes to show off and snack on, or a tomato-inspired dish to share. LoMo Blue ribbons will be awarded. We hope to be there since this would seem like the perfect event to be selling tickets to our Fall Garden Tour. (Have you purchased a ticket yet?) And that's just some of the events. We're also trying to line-up a presence at a Community Appreciation Day in Point Breeze and September brings LoMo's Fall Flea Market & Community Fair. If you happen to see us at any of these events, please stop by and say hello. And if you haven't become a member yet, any one of these events is a perfect time to do so. (But really, what are you waiting for?! Mail it in. Our folks LOVE when they find a new membership in the P.O. Box.)

I had these poblanos, because I went to Headhouse for one poblano (and other things) and they were going for next to nothing by the pint. This is how I ended up with all those jalepenos that one time. But poblanos are nothing to worry about. They're a notch or two above a bell pepper, in terms of heat. But what to do with them? Luckily it rained.

Why is that lucky? Because poblanos do well roasted or baked. They get slightly sweet and tender and they just want to be cooked in the oven. And finally, we had a cool night. I mean right now, it's 72 degrees out. Quick, make a lasagna! Put on a sweater! We'll be back to the 90s tomorrow.

So late-ish in the evening, Sous Chef Brian and I were staring at the whiteboard in the kitchen, the one that lists all the stuff we have to use up. Damn if I can find a way to use fresh mozzarella without fresh basil or fresh tomatoes, so that was out. Carrots. Yeah, carrots. Yogurt. Blueberries. But I also had good local corn. So good that the corn salesguy (you know, the guy who sells you corn) said it'd be a waste to cook it, and that we should eat it raw. So corn it was. Note the cooked corn sacrifice.

So I got to Googling stuffed poblanos. Not that I can't put my own stuff inside a pepper, and I did, but I wanted to know what was out there. You know what's out there? One recipe. Everyone makes the same thing. It's from a Martha Stewart Cookbook, and seriously, there are a dozen re-creations out there. I'm no Martha fan, but that woman deserves royalties on this one.

I make the mistake of imagining everyone is exactly like me. I search recipes when I'm going to cook something new, to find out what others have learned before me. Do I really need to marinate it? Should I take off the lid towards the end? But in the end, I aggregate what I've read and what's in the fridge. If it's close, I cite the source (see Martha above), but unless it's something totally unfamiliar, I make stuff out of what I've got. And I write my blog imagining you do the same. Here's how I do it, now do it your way with your own fridge. But apparently this one was hot enough for lots of folks to replicate.

So I followed some of Martha's guidance. But mine has a peppery sauce and roasted corn and no cornmeal or cumin. Let's begin.

We started, of course, with the poblanos. Two each.

 Uncapped them.

And Sous Chef Brian hollowed them out.

 

Hollow them out carefully - one got slashed in the process, so we cut it up and set it aside. I had a backup, so we're still at two each.

I put an ear of that beautiful, fresh, eat-it-raw corn on the stove. Just on it. If you don't have a gas stove, use your grill, because a match would take forever.

I moved it around a few times, and then Sous Chef Brian un-cobbed it. Shucked it? I don't know. Set it free.

We also diced up a cippolini onion, because that's what we had, and set half aside and put the other half in a bowl with the corn.

I added just a few tablespoons of black beans. Soaked and cooked, canned, or even drained out of soup would work.

And some jarred jalepenos, because it's what I had, but fresh is best.

 And cheese. We had a fairly boring local cheddar, but I'd love to have used my favorite Hillacres Pride smoked cheddar. Or some pepperjack or something.

That all goes into the bowl with the corn and the beans and such, and we call it stuffing.
 Stuff the peppers.

More than that. Wedge it in there.

I used a chopstick to make sure it got all the way in.

Now the oven. Don't do this when it's 90 out. Dial it up to 450.

Ok, breathe a moment and make sauce.

I had nearly two cups of tomatoes without skins but with juice. You could use a 14oz can of whatever for this. Plus the reserved half an onion.

And the poblano from earlier that didn't make it. Seriously, buy five, and the one that suffers the most in the hollowing-out process gets added to the sauce. So worth it.

I also added half a can of these, but you could just roast your own red pepper, like the corn above. Pepper, stove, paper bag, 10 minutes, rinse. I used about 4oz of roasted pepper.

 And some terribly-photographed salt and pepper. 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp kosher salt.


And blend until smooth.

Then I searched my kitchen for the baking dish that would fit the peppers the tightest. I thought crowding the pan would keep them together and keep the sauce on top of them. This was the best I could do.



And sauce. Be sure to get sauce under the peppers as well.



And I had a bit more cheese on hand, so I added it now, but you'd do better to wait.

40 minutes covered, then cheese and 15 minutes uncovered. Note my burned cheese. Leaving it uncovered at the end helps the sauce thicken (thanks, Martha).



My sauce looks like it's had a rough day.



This would be good over rice, if you're rice-oriented. I am not. Four peppers served two pretty well (see the rice note). Might still be an ice cream night.

They were outstanding. I added no dried spices (ok, salt and pepper, but really) and they were bright and fresh tasting. Just cheesy enough. The jalepeno added just enough heat to start to hit the back of your throat, but not enough to send you for the milk.

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

Ingredients

• 5 poblano peppers


• 1 ear corn


• 1 small onion


• 3 tablespoons black beans, cooked


• 1/4 cup shredded cheddar


• 1 3/4 cups tomatoes, seedless, skinless in juice


• 2 tablespoons jalepeno, sliced


• 4 oz roasted red pepper


• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• Hollow out four poblanos, and chop one and set aside. Reserve caps.


• Roast corn on gas stove or grill, turning regularly until charred. Remove kernels from corn with a sharp knife.


• For filling, dice an onion, reserve half and add half to filling bowl. Add corn, jalepeno, black beans and most of the shredded cheese to stuffing bowl.


• For sauce, Blend tomatoes, roasted pepper, reserved poblano, reserved onion and salt and pepper.


• Preheat oven to 450. Stuff poblanos with filling, using fingers, chopsticks, or whatever's necessary to get it to the bottom of the pepper. Use all the filling, if possible.


• Arrange poblanos in a small baking dish, and replace caps. Cover with sauce.


• Bake covered for 40 minutes at 450. Remove cover, add any remaining cheese and bake another 15 minutes.


• Serve with remaining sauce from pan.

Details

• Prep time: 20 mins


• Cook time: 1 hour


• Total time: 1 hour 20 mins


• Yield: 2 servings

The tomato harvest has started!  Here are some:

None of them are all that large:  here are the two largest in my hand for scale

These are the two biggest tomatoes I've gotten so far - all the earlier ones were smaller.  I'm not too worried about the size because we all know that fruit grown without chemical fertilizers and pesticides is smaller, right?  Thought so.  And there are more tomatoes coming!

I realize that lots of the tomatoes in the above picture look like that perfect shade of tomato red but apparently (one of) the drawbacks of relying solely on the iPhone camera is that it does not pick up colors well.  I've noticed that lighting is really important to making my photos look good (I should say better) and natural light is best, which is why my pictures are always taken outside.  And for some reason a broad spectrum of red gets reduced down to a nice, bright cherry red instead of the nuanced, orangey colors it really is.  So while these tomatoes on the vine may look just as red and delicious as the ones I've already picked, I'm actually leaving them to ripen a bit longer so they can get reach full growth.

But!  Not everything is coming up roses.  This little guy, for instance, got pretty dry the other day and is now a bit wrinkly:

so we'll see how that goes.  On the whole, though, the crop looks pretty good - no more blossom end rot or rot of any kind (fingers crossed!) and only a few of them are having issues with the skin splitting.  And I'm still waiting on my Beauty Queens...

I know I keep saying this, but I am going to make some changes to the tomato set-up once it is, well, bearable to go out there again and I'm not at work.  In the meantime let's look at some other garden residents.  First up:  sunflowers!

You are some tall monsters, sunflowers!  They're probably over 6' now - the raised bed they're in is a little less than a foot tall but they are way taller than me and would be even without that extra foot.  And I'm 5'9"...

And Mr. Fig is also doing well I think:

I am particularly fond of Mr. Fig because I tried to grow one last year and after surviving the summer I put it in a cooler, dark place (as I was instructed) for the winter and all the leaves fell off.  Which was what they were supposed to do - figs need to be dormant in the winter to produce fruit (or something - I have a long list of meticulously-typed instructions on growing figs from some fig grower in Massachusetts but my eyes start glazing over every time I try to read it) so I didn't water it that often and when I did I felt a little silly because it looked like I had just stuck a dead twig in a pot of dirt and was misguidedly caring for it.  But then!  One day this spring!  When I was dutifully watering it along with many many tomato seedlings, I noticed a bud on the tip of the stem!  Amazing!  So I continued to water and the bud got bigger and greener and looked like it was about to open when...it just stopped growing.  I kept on watering it and even put it outside once all threat of frost was gone but alas the poor thing did not make it.  I thought it was particularly cruel that it started to come back but then apparently gave up.  Come on!

Fig #2 seems to be doing better but we'll see.  I even gave it a stake!

And lastly, my search for garden kitsch has taken me the seashell route...well maybe it was spending time on the beach.  But regardless, I now have shells!

Since I don't grow flowers in a bed frame (FLOWER BED, GET IT?) or a toilet or a sink or a tire or have one of those wooden things that looks like a person bent over (surprisingly a Google search of "garden butt" didn't turn up what I was thinking of...) I have to get my creative side out somewhere, right?  Shells all around!  I am also collecting donations of plastic or ceramic animals to live in my little jungle.  I'm sure I won't regret saying that nothing is too tasteless!  And some day I'll get one of those rocks that says "Sarah's Garden"...

See you next week, hopefully with a slightly more substantial post!