Homecoming

As my little Volkswagen zipped around the brand new, broad, tilted curve in the exit ramp that takes you from Route 8 North to the bustle of cars taking the long way around the city of Cleveland on I-271, I saw them. They slowly came into view, above the tree tops and before I knew it they were blanketing the sky above me, flowing like waves and puffed like dollops of whipped cream. In autumn, the city of Cleveland, Ohio is blessed with the most wonderful fall clouds I’ve ever known. Great expanses of them move like glaciers from the quickly chilling lake to shade the river carved terrain of the Chagrin valley. Many people who do not call Cleveland home may experience this seasonal gift and assume it to be one more gloomy and miserable thing about the city of Cleveland. Those of us who’ve grown up with the pleasingly calm and cool darkness that lasts from September until the snow falls, we love it. Well, maybe not all of us. How about this: I love it.


My sister and I, together for the first time in a long time.

This past weekend I took my first trip home after moving away eight weeks ago. It wasn’t an ordinary trip with no purpose, but rather a Homecoming. My beautiful sister was flying in from Connecticut on Sunday, and for the first time in several months my entire family was able to be together. My family has always been not just centered around, but nourished both physically and emotionally by food. The roots of our Italian cultural heritage are deeply embedded in the tradition of communal eating. We use food to show our feelings, bringing bottles of wine or someone’s favorite cheese to dinner gatherings. We say “I love you,” with jars of homemade pepper jelly and by fixing the foods we know will induce a desired emotion. When my mother wants to say “I love you,” to my sister with food, she fixes my Grandma’s Lemon Chicken. While it isn’t difficult or abstract, while the flavors are not bold or risk-taking, and while it requires very few ingredients, it is still one of the most comforting, soul-soothing foods my mother prepares. It is a dish that solicits an oral tradition, spoken down through the hierarchy of siblings in my mother’s family. On Sunday, as we all savored bites of silky smooth chicken, tenderly floured and browned, then dressed with tangy lemon sauce and topped with warm, macerated lemon slices, my older Aunts explained how my grandmother originally made the dish with veal, until that became too expensive. There were eight mouths to feed every night, after all. My mother added that she has the recipe written down as Lemon Turkey, and that she started making it with chicken when that became most readily available and required the least amount of extra preparation. I have always eaten and known it as Lemon Chicken. The very thought of it makes me yearn for home. It makes me want to see my sister, knowing it is one of her favorites. It makes me want to be warmed by it on one of those chilled, cloud covered fall days in my parents’ house in Cleveland, Ohio.



The chicken on Sunday was accompanied by my Mom’s piping hot, cheesy Italian rice, cooked and cut green and yellow beans served cold dressed with an Italian vinaigrette and dotted with freshly torn basil leaves, chunks of yellow and pink heirloom tomatoes marinated with slivered onions, and freshly baked, crusty Italian bread. Oh, and two bottles of red wine. For dessert, my mother made one of my own personal love letters: Italian plum crisp. This crisp is something that makes me think of the very same cool, cloudy fall days when I was a child, and my mother preparing one in the hours quickly fading to darkness before dinner. It makes me think of the plastic bowls I used to have, which were adorned with Kellogg’s Cereal characters. It makes me think of curling up on our couch on Luxona Avenue in Wickliffe. I’ve tried to make it myself, time and time again, always failing to get it to taste like my mother’s. I have given up on my efforts. The taste I am searching for isn’t anything I can buy in a store or add to my recipe. It’s my mother’s kitchen, the way my father washes the dishes, the sound of my sister’s car pulling into the driveway. Home is the taste for which I am searching. This weekend, I found it. I traveled three hours for this meal, and I’d gladly do it again. My family gathered, celebrated the joy found in the simplicity of being together, drank and ate until we were content and all was well within and between us.


My family. It is once in a blue moon that we're all four together.

The beauty, joy, peace, and love I had the privilege of experiencing this weekend, from dinner on Friday night until breakfast on Monday morning is a blessing I don’t know what I did to deserve. I found love in places it had been missing. I found joy in just the mere company of those I love. Beauty was all around me, filling and flowing from every sense my body possesses. Peace came to places I thought it had abandoned forever. All of this because of a generations old chicken recipe, some good red wine, and a basket of Italian plums—love your food, love your life, and remember to always buy local.

For resources on local food sources in Cleveland, check out the Northeast Ohio links listing to the left of the blog.

Hopelessly Devoted to Athens

Athens, Ohio. My love of this place is well documented. I have written previous blogs dedicated to its wonder, I proclaim the goodness of this place to anyone who will listen, and I make pilgrimages to its city limits as often as my wallet will allow. Every time I am there, I fall more and more in love with the place itself. Athens is a small town, lovingly anchored by one of Ohio’s best Universities, and nestled happily in the valleys of Ohio’s portion of America’s older, wiser mountain range. There is something knowing about Athens. It was founded and named after the Greek goddess of wisdom, and for over two centuries it has been cradling young minds, wrapping its loving arms around those who seek beauty and truth, and kissing us until we have fallen madly, hopelessly in love with it. Signed, sealed, delivered Athens, I’m yours.

I began my descent on Saturday, flying South down a county road being touched by the gentle fingertips of the sun for the very first time. To the East it was red and yellow beaming out from behind the shadow cast green hilltops. To the West, the stars were hanging on for dear life, dying slowly and painfully until night would fall again. Morning is the best time to arrive in Athens on Saturday. By the time it was ten minutes until ten o’clock, the Farmer’s Market was already bustling like a beehive on an early-summer day when the smell of blossoms permeates the air. The Farmer’s Market even hums like a beehive. It has its own sounds that meld together making a distinctive song by which it can always be identified. Coins jingle as shoppers drop them into the withered palms of seasoned, Appalachian farmers. Cups full of ice and cool lemonade shake like maracas at the stand where they sell Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern food. The griddle sizzles at the very top of the market where a nice young man in an apron will cook you a burger made with savory locally raised beef and topped with biting, yet creamy Athens Own Cheddar. Crinkled plastic bags are the static undertone, being filled again and again with freshly picked produce and baked goods at every stand. Then there’s the melody, the chatter, the weekly banter between friends and neighbors. There’s a conversation about the difference between grain-fed and grass-fed beef. There’s an explanation of why the sweet potatoes were small this week. There’s a “please” and “thank you” with every purchase. There’s a parent giving in to their child’s request for a Crumbs cinnamon bun, or one of the Wagner’s apples. There are words dancing around you and suddenly you are lost in the song, doing the dance, and being seduced, dazed and dreary in the embrace of late-summer's sun. You are surrounded by color, vivid purple and sleek pearl eggplants, bursting cherry red peppers, terracotta pumpkins, deep emerald chard and kale, and of course, every color of apple known to our region. Cinnamon will cast itself upon the air you’re your lungs crave as you walk past the Crumbs Bakery table. Earthy pesto and tangy asiago caresses you as you glance at the Avalanche booth, full of breads which should be the envy of all other breads for their beauty and style. By the time you pull yourself from this place, you’ll be taken. This is the Athens Farmer’s Market. This is one of my favorite places on this Earth.

I stocked up as I waltzed through the crowd of Athenians and O.U. students alike, picking up a little bit of this here and a little bit of that there. All told, I spent well over $100, which isn’t hard if you trust the depiction provided above. Now, however, I’ve fed myself all week, and have stocked my freezer to the breaking point where heavy frozen tubs of eggplant jam fall out and nearly break my toes. I’ve also canned this week, and am getting myself ready to face head-on my very first real locavore winter. It’s going to be a long season of potatoes, onions, squash and apples, but thanks to my savvy shopping and stocking, I can pull out some almost-like-fresh green beans in February and not feel bad about it, whatsoever.


After my morning, stuffed full of Crumbs Bakery cinnamon buns, gluten-free brownies and some fresh grapes grown right here in Morgan County, it was hard to imagine my day would get any better. Hard to imagine maybe, but this is Athens we’re talking about-there is magic in this place. After watching my Alma mater’s football team take a beating at the mercy of that other college that calls themselves Ohio, my friend Noah and I stopped briefly at the Village Bakery for a little local fuel. His was in the form of two vegan chocolate-chip cookies and a glass of ice-cold, frothy Snowville Creamery milk. Mine was a bit more substantial as a girl cannot exist on micro brews alone. I ordered a bowl of split-pea soup with ham, a cup of coffee and a blueberry-blue corn-corn muffin. If you’ve never heard me sing the praises of Village Bakery muffins before, now is your chance. I like to fancy myself a little bit of a queen in my kitchen, but my muffins have got absolutely nothin’ on the Village Bakery muffins. No matter how hard I try, what recipe I use, modify or change, no matter how organic, local or original the ingredients, I cannot replicate a Village Bakery muffin. They are moist, the way all exceptional quick breads ought to be. They taste like all the ingredients had been carefully selected in order to produce a muffin that leaves your taste buds wondering, “We don’t know what that was, but we loved it.” Blueberry is my favorite. Frozen local blueberries pop like candy, and leave blue stained craters in the tender whole-wheat, bran flecked pastry that surrounds them. If I could write an ode to a muffin, I’d write it for the Village Bakery’s blueberry muffins. Perhaps I just did.



As evening began to fall, and the red and yellow sun of the morning turned into the bleeding orange sun of the afternoon, Noah and I headed to the Ohio Paw Paw Festival at Lake Snowden in Athens County. Just a jaunt down U.S. Route 50/32 West lies an absolutely charming natural wonderland known as Lake Snowden. It is natural serenity hidden just beyond the crest of the highway. A handful of wooded acres surround a human-made lake, and rustic camp sites border its marshy shores. This particular weekend, the lake was invisible, lost behind a city of festival tent tops, food vendor trucks, and a huge, wagon with wheels as tall as me and a team of draft horses to pull little children from one end of the parking lot to the other. It cost us six dollars and a flash of our IDs to get in and receive our pink wristbands which led us directly to the Beer Garden. The Ohio Paw Paw Festival is what a great festival should be. There were no frighteningly mobile carnival rides, held together by rickety popping screws and collapsible at the end of the night. There were no games where if your dart pierces one of a thousand balloons, you get to pick out a small, insignificant toy made from artificially manufactured material in a factory where little Asian girls work twelve hours for ten cents a day. The food was refreshingly local. The beer was pleasingly regional. The entertainment was what summer should be about—little kids running through the grass barefoot, a bluegrass band, and a host of vendors selling everything from homemade soaps and jewelry, to hand-crafted wooden novelties, to Paw Paw seedlings. I may have gotten drunk on the Marietta Brewing Company’s Paw-Paw Wheat, but I was simultaneously drunk on Athens, and the living, breathing culture of the Athenians who surrounded me. Had I had a pair of Emerald green slippers (not Ruby on Saturday, green and white were the only acceptable colors), I’d have clicked my heels together and wished that anytime I did that, I’d be returned to that place, just then, as the sun was setting and I was sleepily taking it all in from the wooden slat of a picnic bench, a local brew in my hand and a wonderful friend by my side. I ended my night with a paper cup full of free Paw Paw Ice Cream from Snowville Creamery. There were no spoons, and therefore I had to use the utensils God gave me, digging my fingers into the cold custard and shoveling it into my mouth before it melted and slid back into my cup. It was childish, and amazing. My fingers and my face were both coated with the sticky remnants after I drank down the last few drips. I laughed, smiled and thought about how much I wish everyone in this world could appreciate the simple joys of things like eating ice cream with your fingers, feeling the power of fellowship within your own community, and the cool breeze of an approaching autumn night. Heaven.


A treat I made with lots of Athens Farmer's Market ingredients. Grilled whole-wheat pizza with sauteed onions and peppers, herb pesto, parmesan and snipped basil and oregano.


What all did I purchase this past weekend? Just in case you were thinking, "What in the world did she spend $100 on?" ...

Snowville Creamery Skim Milk
Snowville Creamery Half & Half
Half a pound of Athens Own Wisconsin Aged Cheddar
Two whole cut-up, pasture raised, all natural chickens
One pound of the same chicken, ground
One pound of grass-fed ground beef
One quart of hazelnuts
Half a peck of Russet Apples
Five pounds of bell peppers
Five pounds of onions
Two loves of Crumbs Bakery bread
One pound of micro-greens (sunflower)
Two pounds of organic green beans
One Crumbs cinnamon roll
One Crumbs gluten-free brownie
Two heads of garlic
Two quart jars of local dark honey
One pound of crystallized ginger
One pound of raw almonds
One quart of Morgan County Grapes
One pound of red, yellow and orange carrots
Two heads cauliflower



I’ll be feeding myself for a long while from the goods I bought on this trip, locally and sustainably grown, and guilt-free. Please visit your local farmer’s market. It is fall, lots of delicious things are coming into season, and your money loves to stay in your community, I promise. Not to mention the fact that local food is love. It is sewn with love, it is tended with love, and it is reaped with love. It is handed down from generation to generation. It is the farmer's daughter and the young field hand. It is two older women working together in a carrot patch. It is a little girl on her father's shoulders learning how to pick apples. It is nourishing to our bodies and souls. Local food is passion, or else why would anyone still rely on such a difficult, unstable way to earn a living? The way the warm dirt feels between your toes as you tredge through the tomoato plants in the garden, that's passion. The way honey grabs your fingers and drizzles slowly back into the jar, until in a pinch of a second you pull it to your mouth and spread it on your tongue, that's passion. This food is much more than just sustenance. It is substance, succulence, and sultry.


A salad I made with Athens Farmer's Market Micro-greens, orange and yellow carrots, green beans and Russet apples, and my own heirloom tomatoes and honey goat cheese.

I want to share this song with you this week, not only because it is appropriately titled "Syrup & Honey," but also because the relationship she is singing about in this song is exactly how I feel about Athens. If I could spend my days lazily drifting about the city, going from place to place, eating, drinking, seeing friends and laughing, and letting Athens have its way with me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I want Athens to spend its time on me.

Food Photos Galore

Two weeks ago, my Mom and Dad bought me a camera because they are awesome. Since then, I've been clicking away photos of the food I prepare for blog posts. Here are some shots which may or may not have made it into other blog posts or on my Facebook page. Enjoy. Buy local.


A classic French peach tart, sort of. Spiked and spiced whole-wheat crust (ginger and bourbon added), fresh peaches from Wagner's Fruit Farm in Washington County, and a homemade nectarine glaze made with nectarines from Arnold's Farm in Morgan County. I have no idea if it was good or not, as it is patiently waiting in my freezer for a party.


Julia Child's Ratatoullie, classicly prepared, no funny business. It was so, so delicious. The recipe is in her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking if anyone wants to give it a shot.


Apples from Shrew's Orchard for my brew of applesauce on Labor Day. We all know apples look different on the outside, but I was so taken by how different these varieties of apples look after being peeled. At Wagner's Fruit Farm in Washington County, they grow a centuries old variety of apple called Russets, which have rough, brownish-mustard colored skin and deep golden flesh. Then there are apples like the Cortlands in this picture, whose flesh looks so bright and white, it could've been bleached. Mixing apple varities always makes for the best apple concoctions, I think.


Eggplant, Godfather Peppers and Hillbilly Heirloom Tomatoes from my family's garden. The original idea was that my father and I would tend it...then I got a job and had to move away. So, my Mom and Dad have tended and harvested tons and tons of produce since we planted it in June. These things made, respectively, Savory Spiced Eggplant Jam, Autumn Minestrone, and a simple Heirloom Tomato Salad.


My Heirloom Tomato Salad, with slivered red candy onions, fresh basil and a honey mustard vinegrette, over a toasted, halved multi-grain baguette, drizzeld with olive oil. This proud Italian-American could eat this daily.


Savory Sweet Potato Pie, made with fresh sweet potatoes from Arnold's Farm in Morgan County, farm-fresh brown eggs from New Lexington, local honey chevre and rosemary from my front porch. The crust is a whole-wheat shortbread, which was crumbly and fantastic with the smooth texture of the pie. This has been the main component of my dinners this week.


A birthday cake for my supervisor, Connie. Julia Child's Le Marquis, or chocolate spongecake. No leavening ingredient, just stiffly whipped eggwhites and a gentle hand. Topped with a chocolate buttercream, which I have, I believe, perfected. Swirled with almond buttercream, this cake was awesome. Le Marquis is also in Mastering the Art of French Cooking if anyone would like to make it.

Hope you enjoyed these photos, more are to come. I can't help myself. Oh, and did I mention that when shopping, you should try to buy local? Okay.

Re-thinking a Classic--Ohio's Cuisine Part One

Ohio’s cuisine, what does that encompass exactly? It sounds nice. The words flow nicely and it seems like something I, as an Ohioan, should understand and be able to explain to others. However, when I thought about it this week, I realized I needed to do some digging before I could stand in front of a consortium of the states and speak for the cuisine of the great state of Ohio, the place I proudly call home.
When one says the word cuisine, what exactly does it mean? Most of us imagine it to mean food, period. When we think of Italian cuisine, we think of tomatoes, spaghetti, meatballs, olives, Parmesan cheese, etc. When we think of Mexican cuisine, we think of beans and rice, corn, enchiladas, tacos, guacamole, etc. The word cuisine, however, actually means something a little bit different, something more specific and developed. I’m going to do something now that I try very hard not to do given the open-ended source of its information—I’m going to add a definition of “traditional cuisine” from Wikipedia to give you a good sense of where I’m coming from.

“A traditional cuisine is a coherent tradition of food preparation that rises from the daily lives and kitchens of a people over an extended period of time in a specific region of a country, or a specific country, and which, when localized, has notable distinctions from the cuisine of the country as a whole.”

After reading this definition and using it as a foundation for the rest of this blog about Ohio Cuisine, I got a bit discouraged. Ohio is certainly not a region, but the Mid-West is a region. However, I’m an Ohioan, and no offense to those folks from Iowa, Wisconsin or Michigan, but I want Ohio to be special. I want Ohio to have its own traditions of food preparation, and I want it to be different from what folks in Indiana or Illinois are doing. So, in hopes of getting to the nitty-gritty of what I could proudly proclaim to be Ohio’s Cuisine, I turned to another frighteningly omniscient resource...Facebook. I decided to ask around.

I was pleasantly surprised and relieved by the results. Without giving the definition of the word “cuisine,” the responses were overwhelmingly just foods—as in objects, the things themselves before we chop it, broil it, fry it, season it, cure it, smoke it, and so on. Many responses were companies whose products are native to our great state, or products themselves which are really an Ohio thing (buckeyes to be exact...the chocolate and peanut butter ones, that is). This was a good basis for the formulation of my personal lexicon of sorts of Ohio’s Cuisine.

One thing that did surprise and excite me was that my fellow Ohioans were, whether they knew it or not, in tune with seasonal eating. Two popular responses were squash and sweet corn. I think, had I asked this question in June, the response might have been something more like strawberries. Or had I asked in April it might’ve been maple syrup. We are now firmly treading into fall, just trailing out of the sweet corn field and beginning to stumble into the gourd patch. One thing that is for sure about Ohio’s food is that we grow some exceptionally good stuff. This is the heartland. If that word doesn’t conjure up images of baskets full of fresh vegetables, white and golden ears of corn, and buckets of shiny red apples, I don’t know what else would. Say it again and imagine it...heartland. We grow a thousand different varieties of things, and we’re blessed enough to live in a place where we get four seasons a year. Yes, this is a blessing, even in the dead of February when we’re all complaining about the snow that comes every winter, year in and year out, as if we thought it wouldn’t come this year. We get rain in spring that sends our crops climbing out of the ground. We have a steady increase in temperature as summer wears on, making it easy for almost any plant you’d want to grow to develop almost to perfection. Then we have fall, cool season crops, and harvest classics like butternut squash and pumpkins. We’re not Arizonans, who have to import water from huge reservoirs thousands of miles away to irrigate crops which should never have been grown there in the first place. We’re not Minnesotans, who have a hard time getting a tomato to ripen before frost crushes the dream. We’ve been growing the same things year, after year, and we’re known for it. Now...we have to start eating it.

One response to my question about Ohio Cuisine was the infamous green bean casserole. You all know it, we’ve all eaten it—the canned French-style green beans, cream of mushroom soup, milk and those french-fried onion things. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING in that casserole came from Ohio, unless you’re using locally produced milk. Yet, it is a staple in Ohio’s kitchens and has been ever since the Campbell’s soup company decided to kick us out of our kitchens and plop us in front of our televisions, because why should we have to put effort into the food we eat.

Also, green bean casserole isn’t a part of Ohio Cuisine by definition, because we don’t just make it special here in Ohio. They make it in Florida, Texas and even Alaska I imagine. You know why? Because nothing about it is special or specific to Ohio, and everyone in America has access to all of the ingredients to make it at anytime of the year. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s green bean casserole parade here, because I know many, many people who live and die by it on their Thanksgiving tables each year. What I’m trying to say is...Ohioans, be proud. Why do we love this casserole so much? We don’t love it because we prefer the taste of California grown beans, packed in water and shipped thousands of miles across the continent before they hit our store shelves for months at a time. We don’t love it because we love the heavily processed and preserved glop that comes out of the can when we tip it over and shake it really hard. We love it because Mom made it and probably even some of our Grandmothers made it. We love it because Aunt Sue and Uncle Bill always brought it in that stupid yellow Pyrex to Christmas dinner. Or because it used to be Grandpa Joe’s favorite food and he’d eat plates full of it without his teeth in on Easter Sunday. We love the idea, the history, the memories, and the love that comes along with green bean casserole. It is our comfort food, and that comfort is, I believe, what we seek when we go dipping into it on turkey day.

The major ingredient in this casserole, the green bean, grows abundantly here in Ohio. Between the green beans, the history of the dish, and the love that it emanates, these are the makings of what could be a shining star in Ohio Cuisine. This sounded like a challenge to me, and my God do I love a culinary challenge. This is where I start making some people mad, if I haven’t already.


This green bean casserole we know and love, well, frankly, we could do better. This is Ohio, we grow some pretty amazing green beans, we have a few local creameries where we can get our paws on some delicious local milk, and if you go to a farmer’s market in Ohio and can’t find an onion, you might want to check the map and make sure you really are in Ohio. Green bean casserole needs a make-over, one that’s good for our Ohio farmers, and good for Ohio hearts, physically and emotionally. If it is going to be a part of Ohio Cuisine, it needs to contain food that is actually from Ohio. Look at the “cuisines” I mentioned in the very first paragraph of this blog. Regional Italian cuisine is rich with tomatoes, garlic, olives, olive oil, semolina, home-cured meats, regional cheeses...it uses products that are grown in, raised in, made in and abundant in Italy.

Ohio Cuisine may never really be something that is distinctly Ohioan, because we’re a part of the Midwest and people living just over the border in Indiana or Pennsylvania have access to almost identical food products. However, I think the least we can do is start making our favorite “Ohio” things to eat with food that is grown, raised, and produced in Ohio, from Ohio’s soil, Ohio’s sun and by Ohio’s hands. There’s a fantastic new campaign going on called Ohio Proud, to help consumers buy products that were produced right here in the Buckeye State. That’s what we need in our green bean casserole: pride. People need to start calling it, “Ohio Proud Green Bean Casserole,” don’t you know.

Needless to say, I got right to work. And yes, it was work. This is holiday food, it shouldn’t be easy. We should take some time to lovingly prepare food the way our ancestors did, especially when we’re preparing a celebration. The inspiration for this came, obviously, from the widely popular green bean casserole perfected in the Campbell’s test kitchen. I also thought about another comment left on my Facebook wall about fresh green beans and baby potatoes. I thought about the way my Mother fixes potatoes, and how to incorporate that to make this dish even more special to me. Finally, I thought about available Ohio produce now and in two and a half months from now when we’re all buckling down to prepare this for Thanksgiving. I decided to use local green beans, cooked to crisp-tender, incorporate fresh onions into the casserole itself, make a homemade classic French cream sauce instead of the soup, and top it with a potato crust. I’ve inserted comments, thoughts and suggestions throughout the recipe. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did, and as always, please buy local. It’s good for you, and your community.

Ohio Proud Green Bean Casserole

2 lbs. locally grown green beans, washed and snapped
2 small locally grown yellow onions, halved lengthwise and slivered
1 TBS. dried parsley
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
1 ½ cups garlic soubise (recipe included)
4 small, locally grown potatoes, washed but not peeled, sliced paper thin
1 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil
¼ tsp. garlic salt
Pinch of pepper
1 tsp. dried parsley

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Using a drizzle of olive oil, oil the bottom and sides of a 2 quart casserole dish.

2. Put the green beans in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, and boil for four minutes, or until the beans are still bright green and retain a crisp-tender texture. Drain and set aside.

I know in November fresh green beans and fresh onions won't be available any longer. What I did, while I was preparing this recipe, was to freeze 2 lbs of fresh, local green beans in a single layer on a cookie sheet for 4 hours or until they are hard. Then I popped them into a Ziploc bag and put them away until I need them again (Thanksgiving, perhaps). I chopped up two extra onions and put that in a Ziploc bag in the freezer as well. Your freezer is an excellent way to eat local all year round.

3. Make the garlic soubise as follows:

2 TBS. extra virgin olive oil
½ cup locally grown yellow onions, finely minced
1 clove of locally grown garlic, finely minced
2 TBS. unbleached white flour
2 cups local low-fat milk (2%)
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper

1. In a medium size pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the finely minced onion and sauté for three to four minutes, or until the onion begins to turn translucent and releases its juices (sweats) but is not browning. Add the finely minced garlic and sauté, stirring, for ten seconds. Stir in the flour and cook for thirty seconds, or until the mixture becomes thick and bubbles a little around the edges. Whisk in the milk all at once.
2. Whisk well to incorporate the flour paste (roux). Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium heat, whisking often. Turn the heat down slightly, but not so much that the simmer dies out. Simmer the sauce for twenty minutes, whisking very often, every ten or fifteen seconds. After twenty minutes, the sauce should be thick and creamy. Be careful not to let the sauce scorch or burn on the bottom.
3. Press the sauce through a sieve to remove the pieces of onion and garlic. Stir in the salt and pepper. This should make 1 ½ cups of garlic soubise.

If you do one thing from this recipe, make this sauce. This sauce was silky, rich and yet light and so very flavorful. It is definitely work, and a commitment once you begin. You will want to have the onion minced, the garlic minced, the flour measured out and the milk measured out and ready to go. Show this sauce some love and after the first taste you'll know it was worth it. It will blow the socks off of the soup in a can.

4. In a large bowl, toss together the cooked green beans, slivered onion, 1 TBS. dried parsley, 1 tsp. salt, ¼ tsp. pepper and the hot garlic soubise. Pour this mixture into the prepared, oiled casserole.

5. Lay out, in a single layer, the paper thin slices of potato on a cutting board or piece of waxed paper. Using a pastry brush, brush the slices evenly with half of the 1 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil. Arrange the slices, oiled side down, in a circular, overlapping pattern on top of the green bean mixture. Brush the tops of the potato slices with the remaining olive oil, and sprinkle them with the garlic salt, black pepper, and 1 tsp. dried parsley.

The potato crust was inspired by the fact that I wanted to use another Ohio grown ingredient in the casserole. I couldn't find any locally raised mushrooms, or even locally raised dried mushrooms, so I thought of my friend Eleanore's addition to our Ohio cuisine discussion (fresh green beans and baby potatoes) and decided to add the potatoes. I sprinkled them with garlic salt, black pepper, and parsley because that is what my Mother uses to fix fried potatoes and the smell and taste of it makes me think of her, and think of home.

6. Bake the casserole in the 375 degree oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the green beans are bubbling and the potato crust is browned and beginning to crisp on the edges. Cool slightly, but serve very warm.




My dinner of Ohio Proud Green Bean Casserole and Savory Sweet Potato Pie with Goat Cheese and Rosemary.

Now, I know things like olive oil, and flour are not made locally (for me at least). My rationale for using these products is that I purchased them from a local bulk food store. While they weren't produced here in Southeast Ohio (or even the United States as far as the olive oil is concerned), at least I bought them from a locally owned and operated store. Most of the money I spent on these things will still stay in this community and not be funneled off to the corporate headquarters of some national chain of grocery stores. I try to buy food products at stores like Jo-Ad Specialty Market, where I bought these products, to help support my community.

Anyone can cook, everyone should cook.

Anyone can cook. Or so that is what Chef Gusteau from Disney-Pixar’s “Ratatoullie” told me. Days like today I believe it to be not only true, but also necessary. Anyone can cook, everyone should cook.

The more steps I take away from the American food industry, the clearer the picture becomes. While there is much to be said here about American consumer culture, as far as food goes, we’ve super-sized our consumerism. There was a time in American history when we had to actually think about feeding ourselves. There were actual hours of a day dedicated to preparing the food for our standard three meals. The task of preparing food was actually considered a valuable task. The ability to produce one’s own food was not a hobby, but a necessity that held invaluable. Eating was not gluttonous, but crucial. There was a time in American history when food was fuel. Now the tables have turned, and food eats up fuel as it is shipped day and night, in and out of season, ripe or not ripe, fresh or frozen, from farms that are thousands of miles away to the cardboard box designed to fit in the cup holder of your car, from which you are pulling out pieces of chicken, engineered into the shape of french fries, using the hands you ought to be using to drive, to stuff them into your mouth as you travel from the drive-thru window to your poorly neglected kitchen table. I used to do it too, I am not an innocent bystander.

Yet, we are not a people beyond appreciating good food. At a party I recently attended, a gentleman twice piled his plate with piping hot barbeque beef and sloppy joe out of a row of crock pots, explaining that he was a “single guy,” and didn’t get a “home cooked meal” often. We obviously know that home cooked food has value. Our media driven minds are addicted to shows like Top Chef, No Reservations, and 30 Minute Meals. We are not blind to the fact that good food is out there, and it is worth our time to watch it being prepared. We rationalize occasionally splurging our hard earned American dollars on a “good meal,” at a “fancy” restaurant. We easily could’ve spent that money on some other form of self-indulgence. We know that good food has value. My question to you is, when did food have to be “good,” to have value? And when did “food” become less than good?

Unfortunately for Americans, food fell just as hard as the rest of our cherished crafts and trades when industry became the wave of the future and left value to kick a can in the dirt. Food became fast, easy and cheap, yet somehow we haven’t demonized it as we would demonize other things that take on those characteristics. We have whole-heartedly embraced it. We have lost the life-sustaining connection we once had with food. While we all still eat to survive, many of us no longer eat to stay alive.

This is a blog about food, which means I don’t want to delve into politics or subjects about which I am not informed. I think, however, that anyone who has been paying attention to our recently observed “obesity crisis,” can clearly see that there is one thing about Americans that is blatantly obvious and true: We are sick, very, very sick. People living in America suffer from heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and different forms of cancer more than any other population of people in the world. We are eating the wrong kinds of foods, we’re eating too much of them, and we’re consuming food and industry recklessly. Should our fastest growing industry really be “healthcare”? If we could all break that concept down to the idea that more and more Americans are finding employment in a field that treats the diseases, ailments and injuries of other Americans, would we finally get the message? The message is that we’re all getting sicker.

We’re too good for that. We’re Americans. We don’t let things beat us. We’ve prided ourselves in progress, expansion, and being the best of the best. We were founded on and by the best of the best, and because of them we’ve set an example for the rest of the world. Our children are the first generation in American history that will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents do. We’re dying. More Americans are dying every year from diseases that are a result of our diets than the total number of American soldiers who have died in the past 10 years of the Iraq-Afghanistan war. Why do we place such value on their lives and place so little on our own? We’re losing this battle. We’re Americans, we don’t lose.

We don’t lose, and this brings me back to the title of this blog. Anyone can cook, everyone should cook. We must place value on our lives. We must eat to stay alive and not just to survive. We are worth it. This weekend we are celebrating our annual holiday—Labor Day. There was a time in America when we used to labor. We’d labor at work, we’d labor at home, and we’d labor over our meals. We used to have to work for things, and even so, we still managed to grow and progress. Hard work and simplicity are not synonymous. We must get back to a place where we labor for things again. We will not be reverting to the dark ages, we will not be giving up all aspects of modernization, but we will be saving ourselves. We must learn how to eat to stay alive. We must, must, must learn how to cook again.

The following recipes are recipes I created last night, in the spur of the moment, inspired just by what was available at my local farm stand. This was my meal last night, and I cherished every bite of it. I had the privilege yesterday of being able to cradle warm sweet potatoes in my palms, picked out of a basket and smelling like dirt. I placed each candy onion to where it was just barely touching my upper lip and I could inhale its pungent smell to make sure I was picking out the very best of the crop. The basket of pears I bought was crawling with fruit flies—that told me they were sweet, ripe and ready to be eaten. I was given two ears of the very best corn I’ve eaten so far this year. It was dull, buttery yellow when I husked it, studded with pearly white kernels here and there. After I boiled it, it took on a popping shade of yellow that artificially colored margarine longs to be, and the white kernels stood out like the little white boxes of a highly complicated crossword puzzle. These are real foods. Corn on the cob is real food, not like corn in the form of heavily refined syrup that laces every ounce of a can of soda or sneaks into fat-free products to make them taste better. Real food is good food. The food our bodies crave in order to make ourselves feel better, and stay alive is good food. The food our grandparents and great-grandparents ate was good food.

This meal is not hard to make. There are several elements to the meal itself, all of which are prepared individually. It’s going to take a little bit of time and a little bit of work. In the end, it’s going to be worth it. This is a meal prepared with real food. It tastes like real food, and it is good and good for you like real food. Why don’t we just call it “food,” then. It’s what “food” should be—good, real and something of value.

Learn how to cook again, after all, anyone can.


Menu:
Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Red Candy Onions & Bartlett Pears over Whole-Wheat Cous Cous with mixed mesculin greens, Honey-Chevre goat cheese, Olive Oil and Honey

Roasted Sweet Corn on the Cob with Honey Butter

Crusty whole-grain bread



Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Red Candy Onions & Bartlett Pears

3 medium size sweet potatoes, peeled and cut to 1” chunks
3 small red candy onions, quartered
3 medium size Bartlett pears, peeled, cored and quartered
2 ½ TBS. extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves only
Large pinch of ground cardamom

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Brush a 9x13in glass or ceramic pan with ½ TBS. of olive oil.
2. Add the sweet potatoes, red candy onion, pears, 2 TBS. olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary leaves and cardamom to the pan and toss to coat well.
3. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 20-30 minutes, tossing occasionally, until the potatoes and pears are tender and lightly browned.


Whole-Wheat Cous Cous

1 cup water
1 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp. salt
1 cup whole-wheat cous cous

1. In a medium sauce pan, combine the water, olive oil and salt. Bring to a boil.
2. Remove from heat and add the 1 cup of whole-wheat cous cous, mix well. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes.
3. Fluff with a fork and serve.


Roasted Sweet Corn with Honey Butter

2 ears fresh sweet corn, husked
1 TBS. salted Amish butter
1 tsp. local honey
Ground black pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Make honey butter by creaming together the butter and the honey until smooth and combined.
3. Break each ear of corn in half and place in a medium size stock pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes. Remove the corn from the boiling water.
4. Place ears of corn on a large piece of foil. Spread honey butter over the hot corn, and sprinkle with ground black pepper. Wrap the corn in the foil.
5. Place corn on rack of oven. Roast for 10-15 minutes or until you open the oven and can smell the corn.
6. Before serving, roll ears of corn in the melted honey butter collected at the bottom of the foil.


This will serve 4 people a healthy and appropriate portion of food. When I served it, I first bedded down the cous cous (about 1/3 cup cooked), topped it with a handful of mesculin greens, topped that with a scoop of ¼ of the roasted sweet potatoes, then dotted it with 1oz per serving of honey-chevre goat cheese, poured evenly over it one teaspoon of olive oil, then drizzled it very lightly with dark honey. I served one half of an ear of corn as a side, and one slice of crusty whole-grain bread.

For this blog, I am as always going to encourage you to buy local. However, all of these things are available at most grocery stores, and if that's where you have to shop, that's totally okay. We need to eat well again. We need to cook again. Period.