Green Letter Day & Two Good Books

Pictured here: lemon cucumbers at the farmers market Friday afternoon, on the west side of town.

Yesterday the sun broke through the clouds for the first time in a couple of weeks—and I'm not talking about the weather.

It started at 9 AM with a letter from a Daniel Sullivan, a senior editor at The New Farm (I wrote about them a couple of days ago). I had been brazen enough to contact them via the website, inviting them to look at this blog, and to tell them how great I think their site is. (It really is attractive and well-designed, but I would expect no less from the Rodale Institute.) He praised my blog and said he was going to pass it around to the rest of the New Farm team. They intend to promote Small Farms on their site, along with another blogging farm team, Gardens of Eagan. (Check out the essays, please: very moving.) Gulp. Oh, and wheeeee!

About an hour later, I was alerted via e-mail to a new comment on my blog: the executive editor of New Farm had stopped to see the site. Exclamation point. Make that two. (It's at the end of the post previous to this one, on Windmill Farms.) Well, I was thrilled, of course. I was light-headed, and I couldn't leave my computer for an hour or two: I kept wondering what else was going to happen.

The something else was the Food Bloggers Global Map, a little project I "organized" for my own amusement, just to see how farflung we all are. I checked into the "message board" section at the bottom, where it's easiest to see a list instead of clusters of markers. There at the bottom was the name Shepherd Ogden, which rang a bell. I mean, it just looks illustrious. I clicked his link, and found his "GardenKlog." A short poke around (the guy is informed), and I landed in the photo album, Adventures in the Seed Trade. That's when it clicked: Shepherd Ogden founded A Cook's Garden seed company.

Now those of you who know me or who've read this blog from the beginning know that I do not garden: I point. (Bob is the gardener in this house: I am the cook.) But having a black thumb has never stopped me from ogling seed catalogs, if only for the beautiful names, Latin and common, for flowers and plants.

Kirsten Roehler recently sent me the list of the crops they're growing at Everett Family Farm. It's pure poetry (this is just a partial list):

PUMPKINS
Autumn Gold
Cinderella
Baby Pam
Giant Carving
Wee Be Little
RADICCHIO
Indigo
Tauro
RADISHES
Easter Egg
Red Meat
Pink Beauty
TOMATOES
Early Girl
New Girl
Brandywine
Yellow Brandywine
Green Zebra
Cherokee Purple
Sungold
Mr. Stripey
Rose de Berne
Striped German
Black Krim
WATERMELONS
Early Moonbeam
Icebox
Triple Crown
Sugar Baby
Moon & Stars
Yellow Sunshine

SWEET PEPPERS
Lipstick
Ace
Yellow Bell
Purple Marconi
Yankee Bell
Antohi Romanian
Labrador
Apple
Italia
King of the North
HOT PEPPERS
Hung. Hot Wax
Jalapeno
Aji Crystal
Boldog Hung. Spice
Thai Chile
Habanero
Long Red Cayenne
ONIONS
White Bunch
Sweet Spanish
Purplette
Mars
Heirloom Cippolini
LETTUCE
Little Gem
Freckles
Pirat
Red Cross
Red Salad Bowl
Yugoslavian Red Butter

How can you not love those words? They're so elemental and evocative.

So, here is Shepherd Ogden (who is working with NewFarm.org, which is how he found my blog) signing the Food Bloggers Global Map--and his connection to food is even more primal than mine, because he grows the stuff. I left a comment that probably came off like a bodice-ripping novelist, but like I said, I was all giddy from the morning. Yowsah. My little blog has officially arrived.

I am working on a couple of things that are Very Helpful, and hopefully that will help farmers put themselves on the map, so to speak. I'll post more later about all that.

Meanwhile, y'all go poke around Shepherd's GardenKlog.

NOTE: as of today, I am the happy owner of a new book I've been coveting: Real Food Revival (is that a great cover, or what?), co-authored by Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas. Vinton says on her website: "Eaters everywhere are reclaiming their food chain — enjoying food that's full of flavor, isn't loaded with chemicals, and is raised with great sensitivity to the environment, and any animals in its care. I call this empowering movement, The Real Food Revival, and it is taking our food supply out of corporate hands and returning it to the growers, chefs, market owners, and most importantly, to the eaters who want a more sustainable, delicious future!

"I hope this website will be a tool for such eaters. Sign up for 'Sustainable Solutions,' a monthly newsletter full of tips for finding and enjoying food that's produced the way it should and used to be. This summer I'll have the great privilege to spend some time at farmers' markets and food-minded festival — come on out, I want to meet you and talk about all things food!"

Check out her links, too. I haven't delved in yet, but I will soon.

Another book arrived, too, and I am just as excited about it. I've long been a fan of Mollie Katzen's cookbooks: she is so very user-friendly and clear in her writing. My most battered (so to speak) cookbook is Still Life with Menu. So Rowan (my ex's little boy, who is my "best friend," as he tells people) turned eight last week or so. He's been my cooking buddy since he was big enough to stand on a chair next to my stove (age two). He thinks I am the best cook in the world (and I'm not going to correct him).

Mollie has three cookbooks for kids, including:
• Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers & Up
• Salad People And More Real Recipes: A New Cookbook for Preschoolers & Up
• Honest Pretzels and 64 Other Amazing Recipes for Cooks Age 8 & Up.

It's the Honest Pretzels book I got for Rowan, and it's FABULOUS. The recipes are in these categories:

• Breakfast Specials: 10 recipes including Giant Baked Pancake Puff, Scrambled Eggs, and Corn Muffins
• Soups, Sandwiches, and Salads for Lunch and Dinner: 15 recipes including Tomato Soup with Crispy Croutons, Egg Salad and Cucumber Sandwich, and Tossed Green Salad with Two Dressings--Ranch and Apple Juice Vinaigrette
• Main and Side Dishes: Helping with Dinner for Real: 12 recipes including Lasagna, Torn Tortilla Casserola (aka Chilaquila Casserole from Still Life with Menu, I bet), and Carnival Baked Potatoes with Mild Red Pepper Sauce
• Desserts and a Few Baked Things: 12 recipes including Dinner Rolls, Cinnamon Swirl Sticky Buns, and Made-in-the-Pan Chocolate Cake
• Snacks and a Few Special Drinks: 18 recipes including Hip Bean Dip, Crunchy Zucchini Circles, Icy Strawberry Slush, and Frozen Fruit Pops

Every recipe has an illustrated diagram of steps, which include things to ask an adult to do (those things appear at the beginning of the recipe, where she explains it, as well as in the step-by-step diagram, in bold). The writing is typical Mollie: Don't be afraid of the dry mustard in the recipe. Even if you don't like the kind of mustard that some people like to put on sandwiches and hot dogs, you'll find that this mustard is not too spicy. It gives this cheese extra flavor boost, and the whole thign will taste really good because of it. (A couple of kids said, "Eeuuu—mustard!" when we tested the recipe, but they loved the result.)

Many recipes also have some kid quotes on the intro page: "I like how the vegetables are strapped down by the melted cheese." —Sam (on the "Grilled Cheese and Broccoli Sandwich").

She tells them everything, from equipment to ingredients to little tricks to food history. I couldn't be happier, because Rowan's love of cooking and healthy food has already begun, and he knows good produce from accompanying me to the farmers markets so often.

BIG thumbs up for Honest Pretzels.

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SWF GOT2{HEART} FARM-N: Pieter DeHond, a 41-year-old divorced farmer in Canadaigua, New York, planted an 18-acre personals ad in his cornfield this summer. Read the story here.