spring salad

Last week for dinner we made a lovely simple salad with romaine lettuce, strawberries, asparagus, sunflower seeds, homemade balsamic vinaigrette, brie cheese, and grilled steak. Served with fresh watermelon water (an entire watermelon, minus the rind, blended with the juice of a few limes or lemons, and served chilled), it made for a delicious meal. We devoured it in our sunny dining room, with the front  door open, the warmth of the May sun pouring in, and a lazy Lola dog at our feet. Ah, warm weather days!

By the way, asparagus tastes better - earthier, chunkier, asparagusier - in season than not in season. The skinny flavorless stalks of year-round, out-of-season asparagus don't seem worth the money now that I've realized how much better spring asparagus tastes. Barbara Kingsolver waxes poetic about April asparagus in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in which she chronicles her family's experience of moving to a farm in rural Virginia to spend a year eating only what they can grow or buy locally (and therefore, most likely seasonally). If you haven't read this book, here is an excerpt in Orion magazine to pique your interest. If you're like me, you will read this book and immediately start daydreaming about your future hobby farm. Mine, if you're interested, is located somewhere in the Pacific Northwest and involves llamas. Or maybe alpacas. I can never remember which one I have hypothetically decided on, alpacas or llamas. Alpacas are smaller but produce more wool, so probably alpacas. Anyway, the point is, you should read this book and then call me so that we can talk about how cool our lives will be when we're out on the farm baking bread and spinning alpaca wool.

Now, go forth and enjoy the last of the spring asparagus!

P.S. I am shamelessly pinning my own image to my Eat, Drink board on Pinterest. Check it out for other summer-worthy meals, like the Tomato Panzanella with Ricotta (our favorite meal of summer 2011) and the Spaghetti al Limone that I plan to make very soon.

it's the strange little snacks...

Kevin and I love us some Trader Joe's. Both of our families have shopped there for years (my family affectionately refers to it as "TJ's"), so by now we know all the exact little products and treats that we love and that are exclusive to this awesome grocery store. In Minnesota, Trader Joe's is relatively new, and people seem to be loving it as much as Californians do (don't even think about trying to get into that teeny parking lot on a weekend - it's a zoo!). Although we also very much heart our local co-op, The Wedge, it can get a little spendy (how do you like that use of MN vernacular?!) to shop there exclusively, so we've developed a nice system that involves weekly trips to three different grocery stores: Trader Joe's for the bulk of thing (snacks, lemonade, breakfast juice, vitamins, sparkling water, hummus, cheeses, some meats, relatively healthy frozen entrees for those nights when cooking is not an option, tortillas, pizza doughs that are only $1.00, big cans of marinara sauce that are less than a $1.00, sourdough bread, peanut butter, tiny tins of smoked oysters, recycled paper towels, hand soap, shaving lotion, organic Greek yogurt, organic free-range eggs, organic milk, salsa, dried fruit, soups, polenta, nuts, frozen berries, etc.), Whole Foods (for organic grass-fed bison meat, great quality fish, free samples of fancy cheeses, and my beauty products), and The Wedge (for delicious and very fresh local produce, the gnocchi Kevin likes, some meats, some vitamins, bulk foods - especially oatmeal, quinoa, and raisins - organic non-fat frozen yogurt, and the unbelievably tasty chicken curry salad from the deli case).

Usually, on Sundays, we make a meal plan for the entire week, write out our grocery list, and then head out to Trader Joe's first (which happens to be the furthest away), hit up Whole Foods next (on the way back to our house), and then head to the Wedge for the final items. It sounds crazy, but it actually works out great and we are able to stick to our budget and still buy the type of food we love. The only little glitch in our system is that Minnesota has a very dumb (and irritatingly non-secular) law about not selling alcohol on Sundays, so, if we want to buy some of the crazy cheap and delicious beer and wine that TJ's sells, then we have to remember to make a special trip on another day. Other than that - the system works!

I used to think that I hated cooking and that making a meal plan would be a giant pain, but ever since we've started doing both, and it's become routine, I can't imagine going back to how we used to handle the food situation in our house (just sort of stroll through the grocery store and put things - usually pre-packaged, not-so-healthy things - in the cart, and hope that, somehow, you've accounted for enough meals to last the week - ack!). Making the meal plan is especially great, because it forces the two of us to only buy what we need and we get to look forward to good meals ("Ooh, falafel on Thursday!") all week, and it takes the "What the heck am I going to make for dinner?" stress away from daily life.

On that note, I thought I'd share this little love song to Trader Joe's that I recently found through another blog I read:

Love it!

farm groupie

My new favorite shirt from one of my favorite places.

farmer tammy

I just learned that the food box program we signed up for is part of something called CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and apparently goes on all over the country. Here's a little blurb I found about CSA:

Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

How cool is that? I love communities and I love agriculture, and I often embrace my inner-hippie, so there you go. Before you know it, I'll be dragging Kevin off to be a member of some group that looks like this:

why, it's a veritable cornucopia of deliciousness!

Kevin and I just signed up to receive a box of local, organic, seasonal, farm-fresh produce every week from May to October. We heard about it from our friend, Rebecca, and I am so glad she asked us to go in on this with her. Our two households will be splitting the contents of the box each week, and we are each paying only $300 for 20 weeks of incredible food! The program is run by an organic farm here in Minnesota that also offers "field days" where you can tour the farm, have a picnic, pick some fresh food, or take a class like "salsa making." Nice, ey? I will, of course, be blogging about this more once we begin to receive our boxes of food. In the meantime, enjoy these intoxicating pictures of nature's bounty last season.