New Haven Food Summit 2012

Friday October 12,  2012 was the first ever New Haven Food Summit! City and community leaders gathered at City Hall to dig into the New Haven Food Action Plan developed by the New Haven Food Policy Council and their many partners. The Plan has 3 main goals:

1. Increase access to healthy food for all people in New Haven
2. Strengthen New Haven's local food economy
3. Encourage healthy food choices through education and marketing efforts

Within the plan are 16 strategies and a long list of actions for how to achieve these three goals. The Food Summit was an opportunity to engage a wide range of the local community to build partnerships and set priorities for actions and change in food. Youth were well represented at the Summit from a number of schools and groups including: Common Ground High School, The Color of Words, Youth Unleashed (students from Hill House and Betsy Ross schools), New Horizon High School, New Haven Academy, and the Mayor's Youth Council. City leaders from Youth Services, the New Haven Health Department, Elderly Services, Economic Development, and Livable City Initiative were in attendance and Dr. Mayo, Superintendent of schools, and Mayor DeStefano made appearances as well. 

Local Organizations and community members turned out in droves including: CitySeed, CARE, Your Place Youth Center, Why Weight from Varick AME Zion Church, Yale Sustainable Food Project, Common Ground, New Haven Land Trust, Cornel Scott Hill Health Center, New Haven Farms, Little Red Hen Farm, and so many many more! It was an incredible turn out, we had to turn people away, so next time...we'll have to find a much bigger space. But packing City Hall with energized people ready to help make change was a powerful experience....and this is just the beginning!

Some incredible chefs donated time and food to our exciting launch of the Food Summit. We gathered in City Hall and we all cooked lunch together! It was fabulous!
Sustainable Sushi from Miya's,
CT Cole Slaw from Claire's Corner Copia,
Fresh pulled Mozzarella with Grilled vegetables from Caseus Fromagerie & Bistro,
Blackeyed Pea Salad from Cast Iron Soul,
Locally Grown Fall Salads from CitySeed,
Curry Chicken Salad and Chopped Turkey BBQ from Sandra's Next Generation,
Mini Apple Pies from Sono Baking Co,
and Mini Sweet Potato Pies from Katalina's Bakery.


Here is a small clip from the news:

Battling obesity in Elm City

If you want to check out the Food Action Plan, here is the draft. We will be making a few changes to this as a result of the summit!
New Haven Food Action Plan

And, a great short video from the Color of Words and Common Ground High School!

Building the Movement (video #6) from The Color of Words on Vimeo.

Check back soon for more information on the New Haven Food Summit!

And enormous thanks to every individual and organization that helped to make it a great event!

Food Justice

For many years when someone asked me "what do you do?" I had a fairly straightforward answer "I'm a chef".  When the conversation ventured into "what kind of food do you cook?" or "what's your specialty?" I'd try and find some way to explain a lifetime of experience and love of food in a sentence or two; not the easiest task, but people generally left the conversation understanding that I wield a knife and know how to make a royal delicious mess in a kitchen.

These days however, when people ask me what I do, the conversation goes something like this:
"what do you do?"
"I'm a chef, but I primarily do food justice work in the community."
"what is food justice?"

...and then ensues a long and winding conversation about equal access to healthy food for all people, growing food, food education, food policy, cooking classes, composting, food stamps, breastfeeding, economic development and food, food business incubators, food business resource centers, healthy corner stores, sustainably raised food, connecting farms with cities, and so much more....

I have a feeling that people leave this conversation with a vague idea of what I'm talking about, but not really certain what I do. It was a lot easier to just say, "I'm a Chef", but it's so much more statisfying to be living the work that I truly believe in and discovering and building the path infront of me each step of the way....and with so many more wonderful partners than when I stood behind a stove all day.  I often summarize my new work as, "community building through food", and just leave people wondering a bit.

Speaking of wondering, some of you may be curious about the lack of posts on my blog as of late. The answer to this query is much the same as the story of my work life above...it's easier to write about cooking and food than the more complicated world of food justice.... or at least it takes a little more time to write about it, and time is in short supply in the busy life of work I have in front of me right now.

I'll give you a quick intro to some of the projects I'm working on and beg you to forgive me for the lack of postings...I promise they will increase towards the end of October!

Link to a New Haven Independent Article on 
community outreach with the New Haven Food Policy Council and CitySeed


Check out www.NHFoodPolicyCouncil.org for more details to events listed below:

New Haven Food Action Plan - a draft plan from the New Haven Food Policy Council - open for comment until mid October. - see the link on the webpage above.

Community Feedback with the New Haven Food Policy Council  (those colorful post-its to the left are people's ideas of what should be done to improve food issues in out city.)

Feast From the Fields - Saturday Sept. 29, Common Ground fundraising dinner and auction

New Haven Food Summit, w/ guest Will Allen of Growing Power - October 12, 2012

The Big Stink, October 13, 2012 - making a stink about growing food in New Haven, a citywide bus tour and garlic planting.

Food Day 2012 - www.foodday.org


Two other great events in October you  might want to know about:
New Haven Land Trust 30th Anniversary Gala dinner with Will Allen
Tickets available

15th Annual Cook & Care Walk-a-thon
to benefit 4 area emergency food providers

A Food Month poster should be available soon...
Please read the Food Action Plan on the city website and let me know what you think! -Tagan

Gloden Raspberry Jam

Sunday morning / 9:15am / me and my 4 year-old daughter at Bishops Orchards / 20 minutes away from our home in the city of New Haven / sneaking past the dozens of rows of raspberries to the one lane of golden raspberries / hearts completely full and our picking bucket getting there.

Six years ago I left Brooklyn for my home town of New Haven, CT. I still miss some things about living in NYC, but all it takes to make me appreciate the simple pleasures of life in New Haven is the ease of a trip to a pick-your-own farm near by, and a pile of great fruit to enjoy and nourish my family. No traffic, no hassle, just good.

Bishops orchard has a ton of raspberries for picking, and I guess I'll let the cat out of box that they have one row of golden raspberries and two rows of blackberries....you're lucky if you get there when there are many of either of these berries left, as some passionate pickers clean them out good, but this was our lucky year.

My daughter announced that we should make jam, and I readily agreed. We didn't get too many berries, about a pound and a half of golden raspberries and the same amount of blackberries with a few red thrown in (that's just about all my 4 year-old had the patience for). Raspberry jam is super easy to make, just add sugar, boil, and pour into a jar. Done. The seeds have a lot of natural pectin in them which thickens the jelly. I noticed when looking up recipes that the golden raspberry jam seemed to have a ton of seeds, so I decided to add an apple to my recipe to reduce the number of seeds per square inch. Apples have a lot of natural pectin too, so no need to add anything else to the recipe. I cut the amount of sugar in half from the jelly recipes I found, and this jam resulted in a great texture and a sweet but tart flavor.  We cooked up the blackberries too, for the same lovely result (sans apple).

If you are going to eat this jelly over the course of a few weeks, you don't need to properly can and seal the jars, just keep them in the fridge and enjoy. If you want to can them for storage in your cabinet, look up canning instructions online.

Golden Raspberry Jam
makes 3 cups jam

1 1/2 pounds raspberries (about 4 cups)
1  large or two medium apples (or pears), pealed, cored and diced
2 cups sugar
optional: herbs or spices

1. Put berries into a heavy bottomed pot, mash with the back of a spoon or a rubber spatula. 
2. Add apples and sugar, and any herbs or spices you like (I threw in a few sprigs of lemon verbena, since I'm addicted to it)
3. Put a plate in the freezer to use to test if the jam is done cooking.
4. Cook on medium high heat until the jam starts to thicken, about 10 minutes. remove the plate from the freezer. Drop a small spoonful of jam on the plate to cool. Push it with your finger if it seems thick and "wrinkles" a bit when you push it, your jam is done. It will thicken up consideralbly when it is totally cool. If it seems very runny, just let it keep simmering until it thickens more, being sure to stir it so the bottom doesn't burn. Determining the thickness this way is not an exact science, as there is a wide range of acceptable thicknesses for jam, and if it is too thin, it will still taste great!

Don't stress over this, just throw some berries and sugar in a pot, boil, 

and enjoy the miracle of homemade jam!

Grilled Fish Slidders with Fennel Slaw

This season my mother purchased a share at Massaro Farm, a new local CSA farm that providess more than 100 families with weekly supplies of organic produce and donates thousands of pounds of food to people who needed it. My mother's weekly share includes a huge amount of greens, onions, herbs and loads of other delicious produce. There is more than enough for her and my stepfather, so she has been bringing me heads of cabbage, lettuce, onions, fennel and other yummy things (the benefit of living next door). I was planning a special dinner for my mother in-law (who was visiting from Brooklyn, and the cabbage and fennel inspired thoughts of a fresh vinegar dressed coleslaw, and proved to be a great inspiration for delicious grilled fish sandwiches for dinner.

We stoked up the grill, marinated some tilapia and wild salmon in a marinade of garlic, cilantro, vinegar, salt and oil. For simplicity sake the same marinade went on a large bowl of sliced peppers, onions, mushrooms and zucchini, which then got skewered and readied for grilling. The slaw was a combination of finely sliced white cabbage, fennel bulb and "leaves", basil, cilantro, tiny red onions, scallion, vinegar, honey and salt. The whole lot got tossed together to pickle a bit before the meal was served. A mock tartar sauce made of mayo doctored with a little vinegar, salt and honey added just the right embellishment to the fish, and tiny grilled brioche rolls from Judie's made the meal decadent. We topped off the dinner with some homemade pineapple mint sorbet; essentially a delicious smoothie poured into an ice cream maker to freeze while dinner was cooking. 

It was a great summer meal, one I'm sure will be repeated again before fall hits.

 Above: fennel slaw, Below: grilled vegetable kebabs, toasted mini brioche buns, mussels with garlic and tarragon (an extra treat), and marinated grilled tilapia.

 Pineapple mint sorbet:

Have you had any great grilled meals this summer? Please share!

Raw Summer Cereal

Last summer I posted this delicious and very healthy recipe for a raw/live cereal. With blueberries and peaches in season right now, this is the perfect time to make this! The oat groats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and almonds can soak in water over night to "sprout" them and activate the energy in the seeds. You drain it in the morning and serve with yogurt and fruit. It is so refreshing, delicious and energizing to eat. I'm often partial to toast for breakfast, but when I remember to soak some grains and nuts for this wonderful dish packed with protein from the nuts and yogurt, I get up from breakfast feeling energized rather than sluggish.

Oat Groats are available from any health food store, and in the grain section of some regular stores.

For fruit picking info:
www.pickyourown.org

In CT:
www.buyctgrown.com

Enjoy!

Foraging Cherries in the City

Have you ever noticed something resembling fruit on the sidewalk, falling from a near-by tree and wondered if it was edible? Well recently, due to my love of food and my tight budget, I realized that I better start paying a lot closer attention to the free food growing all around me in my city neighborhood. I've written about snagging up free dandelion greens (from my chemical free lawn) and happening upon onion grass in the early spring...these are pretty safe plants, easy to recognize by sight or smell. But, earlier this spring a few houses down I finally decided to explore the cherry like fruits that fall from a huge dark purple tree, littering the sidewalk with it's squashed fruits. 

 

I'd picked a few of the fruits in past years and while they look like cherries, they never rippened like the tender cherries we are used to, and have an orangish flesh, more closely resembling a plum. This year I decided to scan the internet. Dozens of sites identified the fruits and the tree either as a sand cherry or sand plum, a few with "old timey" recipes for sand cherry jam, so I knew I was on the right track. I couldn't find any signs of warning, and honestly wasn't that concerned since they look exactly like a cherry...I know I was taking my life in my hands, and I do recommend that you all use the utmost caution in foraging and exploring new plants so that you are certain what you are eating is safe, but I felt fine about these, they were so clearly fruits, and figured they were better for cooking than eating fresh. I took a little nibble, the fruit was tart, sweet and watery. The flavor would do well with the concentration that would come from a long simmer.

I washed the cherries well, tossed them whole into a pot, added a little water, a few cups of sugar and let it simmer for as long as I could, praying that the seeds and skins would add enough pectin to thicken the fruit up to a syrup or jam. As luck would have it, it worked! I poured the cooked fruit through a stariner and we got a nice pint of cherry jam all for the cost of a little curiosity and a few cups of sugar.

Keep on the look out, wine berries are ripening now, and wild apples are on the way.....

Do you have any favorite wild edibles? Please share!

Kale Crazy

Among the healthy/ local food focused community there seems to be a bit of a recent infatuation with kale: cooked, raw or turned into chips. It's a leafy green, and is very green, so therefore really good for you, and it's also easy to prepare, you don't even have to cook it. I know, I didn't really believe it would taste good raw either, until I tried it. Kale, chopped and  "massaged" with a little olive oil, salt and lemon juice....and anything else you'd like is tender and delicious. My recent favorite version was kale tossed with a creamy avocado dressing made by blending an avocado with the juice and zest of a lemon, and some salt and pepper, topped with some toasted almonds. Simple and delicious, and nutritious, because it actually tasted great, so people ate it!

For the salad pictured above, I tossed the kale with olive oil, lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper, then topped it with diced avocado and roasted pumpkin seeds. 

To prepare the salad, take one large bunch of kale and remove the thick part of the stems.  Roughly chop or tear the kale into 2-inch pieces. Toss with your favorite dressing or just a squeeze of lemon juice, oil and a pinch of salt which helps to tenderize the greens. Gently squeeze the greens with your hands as you toss. This salad is delicious with nuts or seeds, cheese, or other vegetables such as bell peppers or thinly sliced red onion. 

Enjoy!

Any favorite kale recipes? Please Share!

Blistered Smoked Potatoes

I finally got a grill.

Six years ago I got a backyard, but it took me a little while to fill in this important component: a place to cook over a fire.  My family opted for a basic fire pit with a grill top, which means we have to build a pretty big fire to cook over, but lucky for us there is a big pile of logs and tree cuttings in a pile next door, that need to be burned, so our food is getting flavored with real wood smoke, and it tastes a lot better than charcoal!

 One of my favorite grill top treats has been smokey roasted potatoes. I steam the potatoes in the kitchen while I'm making a marinade or salad, then heat my large cast iron skillet over the fire and toss the tender potatoes in with some olive oil, salt and pepper and herbs. The skins blister and brown, and the wood smoke infuses the whole potato. It really doesn't get much better than this. 

Blistered Smoked Potatoes

2 pounds small potatoes (fingerling, yukon golds or red new potatoes work well)

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

handful of fresh herbs such as marjoram, thyme, rosemary, etc...

1. Steam whole potatoes in a pot on the stove. Remove from pot when tender.
2. Heat a heavy bottomed skillet with a heat proof handle over a wood fire.
3. Add olive oil to pan and quickly toss in hot tender potatoes and season with salt and pepper.
4. Turn potatoes occasionally so that they brown on all sides.
5. When potatoes are nicely browned, add fresh herbs, toss and serve.

For the rest of the meal I usually add an assortment of grilled vegetables, and some marinated meat or tofu. For this meal we had chicken thighs using a garlicky marinade similar to the one in this recipe, and tofu with the same salty, sour, sweet marinade. 

The joy of building a fire, cooking over it, and watching the coals burn together with my family and friends has brought me incredible joy and made me thankful for all the simple blessings I have. Life can be very challenging at times, but sometimes it's the tiny moments of joy that help me to have perspective and give thanks. I know it seems corny to get all deep and mushy over a backyard BBQ, but  I hope all of you are blessed with more than a few moments of happiness and thanks for good food, family and community this summer.

Are you grilling this summer? Please Share your recipes, thoughts etc....