Adventures in Food in Ann Arbor and Beyond "Food with a story tastes better" -- Wendell Berry
CSA Series: Capella Farm
From Capella Farm Website
Owners: Jennifer and Dave Kangas
Email: capellafarm@gmail.com
Phone: 734-761-3554
Phone: 734-761-3554
Season: May - October, plus large Thanksgiving share (which has about 2-3 weeks worth of produce) in November is included
Pick-up: Wednesday and Saturday at Capella Farm on Scio Church Rd.
Cost: $650, with 15 hours of work for the season. For people who can afford it, $750 and no work hours.
Cost per week: $29…
CSA Series 2010: Time to Sign Up
I'm going to try a bit of a challenge for myself here - I want to do a series on the CSA farms in our area. I've been doing some in-depth information gathering on this, and as you know I think there are a million reasons to become a member of a CSA farm. Among which are that once you pay an upfront fee, in exchange you get a box of gorgeous vegetables and the chance to talk to the person who…
Sweet Valentine for You and ... Food Gatherers
So Tammy over at Tammy's Tastings has been hosting her TT Supper Club fundraising dinners for almost a year now. For $50 per person she serves a small group an incredible multi-course menu, based on what's in season at the farmers market. All funds beyond the cost of the food go to help organizations like: Preserving Traditions, Earthworks Urban Farm and Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit, Growing…
Choosing Your CSA Farm Share: Seven Selection Criteria (plus a consideration)
Mary Wessel Walker of Community Farm Kitchen says "Oh Say Can You CSA?"™
It would make a fitting new national anthem this year in particular. Among our Local Food Victories of the past year, one is an amazing proliferation in the number and kinds of CSA farm shares that are available to the good people of fair Ann Arbor and environs.
In case you haven't heard of it before, Community Supported…
Resolutionary Road
It seems like a lot of people are getting into this local eating thing, taking the 3rd Annual Dark Days Challenge, and since it's the first of the year, making resolutions to do more with the local. I did the first annual Dark Days Challenge a couple of years ago and now it seems hard to believe how I used to shop and eat. Resolved: I will not buy or eat food-like substances. Resolved: I will…
Farmers Marketing in San Diego Christmas 2009
December is the season for Persephone's mythical pomegranates, honey-sweet persimmons, meltingly rich avocados, rare red walnuts, aromatic guavas, and bright citrus - in southern California. If you read Edible San Diego, you'll see that the tents that line the street of the Little Italy Mercato, on a hill with a view of the sky-blue ocean and within a persimmon-throw of the airport, form one of…
Eating Our Greens
We currently have 9 kinds of greens in our refrigerator. All from the Ann Arbor Farmers Market - and most from our Brines Farm winter greens CSA. That nine counts the salad mix - which probably also has nine different varieties in it - as just one. And it doesn't count the cabbage and brussels sprouts lounging in the fridgidaire either.
I spent over an hour yesterday listening to Prairie Home…
Farmers Market Meals: Sauteed Turnips (with Salad, plus Mac and Cheese)
How weird is this: I had regular food in the house, but I made myself braised turnips for lunch the other day. The reason: they are that good. Impossible, you say. But hear me out.
I probably would not ordinarily buy turnips, but we got some pretty pink ones in our Thanksgiving share from Tantre, and some white Hakurei turnips too. It turns out that turnips are the candy of the vegetable…
Rudolph's Gifting Guide for the Holidaze
Are you one of those last-minute shoppers like me? I'm ready to start making the Christmas cookies as soon as the turkey has cooled from Thanksgiving, but I'd rather scrub the pots and pans twice than have to go to the mall. Ever. Over the past few years I've tried to figure out what matters most to me about the holiday season and consequently, strategies for completely avoiding places I don't…
PSA: Kerrytown Kindle Fest - Friday (tomorrow)!
Local jokesters are calling it the Amazon Kindle Fest, after the spiffy electronic book gadget, but the idea of the Kerrytown Kindle Fest is actually based on the German Christkindlmarkt. These little Christmas Markets spring up in every little town across the Bavarian countryside as December and Advent roll around. The Christkindlmarkts I've seen are usually charming little tent cities, filled…
Ann Arbor Cooks - With Natalie Marble
Risotto Four Ways
If your idea of heaven is a kitchen where the knives are always sharp, the ingredients are always beautiful, and a competent assistant is always tidying up, you’ll want to sign up for one of the hands-on cooking classes at Ann Arbor Cooks.
Smiling and looking relaxed, a winsome Natalie Marble in chef’s whites makes the consummate organization appear effortless. We're each…
Farmers Market Meals: Squash Lasagne
Suppose you help organize a harvest cook-off and come home with a forty pound Italian heirloom Long of Naples squash. What do you do with your green submarine besides soup? Turn it into lasagne of course. Oh, and then roast and freeze the other 36 pounds of it for pies and muffins later on.
My friend Rachel told me that she and her husband finished off an entire pan of this squash lasagne…
Forgotten Fruits
Judging from the recent spate of articles on the topic, there's an awakening going on regarding the mass extinction of heirloom apples. These articles chronicle the many unique and once-beloved antique apples, and their role in the botany of desire and original sin and the ways in which apples convey a sense of place, apples that go beyond the macintosh. According to Slow Food USA, of the…
Autumn Update: All Roads Lead to Pie
The Wednesday market is shrinking - a sure sign that the descent into winter is underway. Even though Wednesday's market shutters up after December, it's comforting to know that the stalwart Saturday market goes all the way through, come rain, come snow, come dead of night, which is what time they seem to set up in the winter. And I'm looking forward to seeing who's there on the coldest…
Sweet Gem Confections: Spicy Dark Chocolate Almonds
I don't think Nancy Biehn of Sweet Gem Confections knows David Lebovitz (that lucky man "living the sweet life in Paris"), but she should. Lebovitz's rhapsodizing about Pimandes, chocolate covered almonds with chile, sent us on a pilgrimage to Da Rosa last time we were in Paris. And they were good. But now that I've had Biehn's Dark Chocolate Spiced Almonds, I don't know that I care to make that…
Antique Apples at Lutz Orchard
Lutz Orchard
11030 Macon Rd., Saline, MI 48175
Phone: (734) 429-5145
Hours: Seasonal - call first
Bill Lutz's dairy farm and apple orchard are located amid lovely centennial farms that line Macon Road (an old Indian trail, he says) between Saline and Tecumseh. Outside a sign advertises both Apples and Åpfels, a nod to the German lineage of Lutz's family, one of the many German families that…
Downtown Home and Garden Jam and Pickle Contests
If yours is among the 1 in 4 American households that preserves and "puts by" some of its food these days, you might be excited to know you could be rewarded for your domestic industry. Downtown Home and Garden is hosting its 11th Annual Jam Contest and Tasting on Saturday October 3rd. And new this year, DTH follows the lead of the New York Food Museum's International Pickle Day (9th Annual…
September is Local Food Month
Play the Pie Hole game at the HomeGrown Festival!
Even though several of us involved in the HomeGrown Festival have been working away at it for months, it came as a (happy!) surprise that Mayor Hieftje read and signed our Local Food Month Proclamation for September (see text below) quietly and without fanfare at a recent city council meeting. Just a day or two after that we learned that Governor Granholm had just done the same thing by…
Grange Kitchen and Bar: Old Meets New
Not a week goes by lately that the New York Times, and now The Atlantic, doesn't have a big article on urban farming or local stone-ground flour or artisanal cheese-making. Farm-to-table dining is more popular than molecular gastronomy these days, as people make the amazing discovery that food with a known provenance may be even better than hot carrot foam.
It was really just a matter of time…
Naked Lunch: Variety Matters
The so-called Minimalist in the NY Times had a piece on 101 Simple Salads for the Season this week. But I'd suggest those dozens of salads are not nearly simple or minimal enough.
There's something primal about the absolute freshness of food in season now that makes me regularly want to eat it plain and unadorned, except perhaps with a little butter and salt. How else to taste the sweetness of…