The Inadvertent Gardener

I know my readers come from far and come from wide. There are those of you who live in Eastern Iowa (particularly in the Cedar Rapids or Iowa City area), though, and I just know some of you were jealous of me when you read about my coolest-ever CSA farmer last year.

There’s no need to be jealous anymore, ’cause I have an opportunity for you.

A week from today, Local Foods Connection will be rocking the Robert E. Lee Community Recreation Center, at the corner of Gilbert and Burlington Streets in Iowa City, for their annual Community Supported Agricultural Fair. From noon to 4 p.m. on March 22, you can come meet local farmers and sign up for a CSA share.

What does that get you? Well, weekly fresh and local produce. Seasonal stuff. Those goodies that just aren’t the same when you buy them at your local, faceless grocery store. Plus, by purchasing a share, you’re guaranteeing income for farmers, which means they’re more likely to continue providing healthy, local produce, and continue being good stewards of the land.

If that’s not enough for you, you’ll be able to meet me! I helped organize the fair this year, and I’ll be there with some Inadvertent Gardener swag that you can take home with you.

Hope to see you out there!

I have not been very good at storing garden food. I did a better job with freezing things this year, sure. But storing food in such a way that it hangs out and survives for a whole winter? Not so much.

That’s not the case, though, for California native David Cavagnaro, a Decorah-area photographer who, with his wife, spend much of the winter eating out of the root cellar they built 17 years ago on their property. “We have almost as much fresh food here year-round as we did in California,” he told me.

Cavagnaro’s root cellar is one of the ones I profiled in my latest article for Edible Iowa River Valley. The winter 2008 issue, which features my piece, as well as features on locally-made maple syrup (including an amazing-looking recipe for Squash Bisque with Maple and Templeton Rye), a tour across the Iowa Wine Trail, and a profile of Jude Becker, who raises organic pigs outside Dyersville.

The magazine just hit the streets here in Iowa City—even the never-ending snow hasn’t kept it away. You can find a free copy in the usual locations, or pony up and order a subscription to have it delivered to your home. And if you aren’t local and don’t want to subscribe, just be patient—the article will be up on the Edible site once all the current issues are distributed.

At BlogHer ’07, I attended a fabulous dinner with a group of other food bloggers, some of whom attended the conference and some of whom live in the area. At the table that night, we got to talking about my particular obsession with Lost. I told my table neighbors about my friend Betsy, who lives just up the street from me and whose basement (aka The Cave) sports a 9-foot projection TV system, and that she and her husband share my Lost obsession, so I planned to join them for as many minutes of Season 4 as I possibly could.

“I made the fish biscuits,” said Kat of KungFoodie, who was sitting to my right. “Well, they were sugar cookies, but I have the recipe on my blog. I even made a template.”

I don’t remember what I sputtered in response, but I’m sure it included the words “awesome,” “omigod,” and “that’s hi-LAR-ious.” If I’d had a laptop on me, I would have looked up the template right then and there.

It was all I could do to keep my secret for the next six months. I told Betsy back in August that I had a surprise awaiting the season premiere of Lost. And so, last Thursday night, I took my carefully made Fish Biscuits (which, I might report, are citrusy and delicious), and trudged through the snow up the street to Betsy’s for the first night back from a long, Lost-less era.

It was just the ticket for a snowy night during a winter so bitter even everyone I know who is from Iowa has been marveling. We ate our fish biscuits and stared at the nine-foot projection of an island that, even with weird creatures and enemies all around and a serious lack of a good bar and a shower, looked a heck of a lot better than the world outside The Cave.

And I’m just going to go ahead and admit it. When I showed Betsy the fish biscuits? I literally jumped up and down like I was four years old or something. I adore surprising people, and I had kept this under wraps for so long, I am probably lucky I didn’t cause myself some sort of bodily harm in the process of hopping around the kitchen.

I missed tonight’s episode, because I was off to see B.B. King with The Mint Killer. In the snow. We got eleven inches yesterday, and just as I was getting ready to leave for the show, I looked outside to find snow falling again. The forecast for the next four days? Snow flurries, snow showers, occasional snow and snowy snow.

Luckily, I have just enough dough in the freezer to make another fish biscuit or two. Because with this much snow, there’s something to be said for pretending I’m eating one on an island somewhere.

Photo credit for photo of me: Royce Chestnut

My parents and I tried something a little different over the holidays this year — we celebrated in New York City. We hit all the typical requirements of Christmas in New York: the Rockettes, FAO Schwartz, Rockefeller Center, the New York City Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker — but also included plenty of unexpected stops along the way.

Among the most interesting of these stops was a backstage tour of the Metropolitan Opera, where we stood on the stage, tromped around amidst giant set pieces, and peeked into the dressing rooms.

Let you think it was all papier mache and union guys shouting at each other in thick Brooklyn accents (and there was plenty of both of those), let me assure you that opera singers and their behind-the-scenes team think about more than just the next entrance cue. As our tour guide whisked us through the maze of passageways behind and under the stage, I caught a glimpse of an article tacked to one of the company bulletin boards: “Let Farmers Fill Your Fridge.”

Because the Met has strict rules about making sure you are stepping on the heels of your tour guide at all times, I wasn’t able to take the time to skim the article or figure out in what magazine it appeared. However, it made me grin to know that even opera folks in the middle of Manhattan are concerned about the origin of the food that graces their table.

Last year, I encouraged my readers to participate in Menu for Hope, a blogging fundraiser that raises money for a worthy cause each year. Last year’s effort raised $62,925.12, which was donated to the UN World Food Programme.

Here’s how it works: Food bloggers from around the world donate prizes to the effort. Anyone around the world can buy a raffle ticket (or more than one – there’s no limit on the giving!) for $10 per ticket. You then designate which prize you’re trying to win for each ticket purchased.

This year’s effort starts today and runs through December 21. Once again, the money will go to the UN World Food Programme, but this time the donation will be targeted specifically to the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. The goal? To not only help feed children, but by doing so, to keep them in school so they are more likely to be able to make the money they need to feed themselves as adults.

The Lesotho program, as well, not only helps the affected children, but purchases the food for the program from local farmers. If you’ve spent any time reading my blog, you’ll know that’s a cause after my own heart. Feeding kids with local food? That’s a slam-dunk, in my opinion.

I know I’ll be heading over tonight to buy a few tickets, after I get done drooling over the variety of prizes. Last year, the hardest part of participating was choosing what I most wanted to win! I hope you’ll consider participating as well—and, if you’re a blogger who wants to help support the event, head over to Chez Pim to grab a banner or graphic to use on your blog. Together, we can make the fourth year of this event exceed our wildest expectations.