edible COLUMBUS | Spring 2014 | Issue No. 17

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edible Columbus

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Issue No. 17

Celebrating Local Foods, Season by Season

Spring 2014

Riding to Eat ARTICHOKES & PEAS • JIM BUDROS COMMUNITY PLATES • FOX HOLLOW FARM BACKYARD CHICKENS • OHIO STRAWBERRIES

Contents 2014

Departments 4 6 8 10 14 17 25 28 30 32 40 44 56 62 64

Letter from the Publisher Letter from the Editor The Seasoned Farmhouse Farm Notes Local and In Season From the Kitchen Edible Reads Policy Matters Edible Outdoors Columbus Cooks From the Good Earth Urban Homestead In the Garden Advertiser Directory Last Seed

Features 36

Community Plates One organization’s social media solution to end hunger

By Sarah Lagrotteria, Photography by Catherine Murray

49

Good Water Stewards Ohio’s sustainable farmers innovating clean water solutions

By Nicole Rasul, Illustrations by Brooke Albrecht

52

First Fruit Planting, growing and picking Ohio’s springtime strawberries

By Teresa Woodard

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RECIPES 15 15 15 15 18 19 20 22 23 23 26 34

Fingerling Potatoes and Spring Peas with Lemon Garlic Parsley Butter Blue Cheese Butter Strawberry Butter Artichokes, Steamed or Grilled Classic Aioli Lemon-Braised Artichokes Cheddar Chive Popovers Fresh Strawberry Chutney Classic Strawberry Chutney Mizuna Salad with Cumin-Roasted Cauliflower Anise-Glazed Fish with Asparagus and Fennel Slaw with Yogurt Aioli

COVER PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET; CONTENTS PHOTO BY © RYAN BENYI, RYANBENYI.COM

Spring

letter from the publisher

A

fter the winter we have had, the first signs of spring will surely turn us all into giddy kids. While we experienced many beautiful snow-covered days, we also made it through record-breaking low temperatures and school closings galore. I hope your shut-in snow days were filled with a bit of magic and fun.

edible Columbus Publisher & Editor in Chief

Tricia Wheeler Managing Editor & Editor

Our local farmers who rely on the weather to be kind to them season-to-season experienced all kinds of problems this winter. Fuel required to heat greenhouses and hydroponic farms tripled in price, hoop house crops were lost to the deep freeze and we don’t yet know what effects the cold will have on our local fruit trees. All this uncertainty leads me to urge us all to go out of our way this spring and summer to support our local farmers. Right now they are collecting CSA sign-ups. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) means we support our local farms by buying a share of their farm for the season. We share in the rewards of the bounty and we also share in the risk. Participants receive an array of locally grown vegetables and fruit for weekly or bi-weekly pickups at a variety of locations. Another way to support our farmers is to make sure to visit our local farmers markets each week and spend a significant amount of your food budget on delicious locally grown fruits, vegetables and locally raised meats. Our direct farm support through CSAs and farmers markets is the biggest way we can show our appreciation for all that farmers weather throughout the year on our behalf.

Spring is also a time of new beginnings and my family is looking forward to a move to Clintonville.

This is the year we are going to simplify our lives a little to gain more time for each other and those we love. We hope this new move—where my husband’s work is within walking distance, my cooking school is a few blocks away and our daughter attends school on the same street—will lead to less time in our car and more time together. We are also looking forward to our new yard with plenty of room for gardens and fun. The older I get, the more I want to live in a well-designed space in which we are overtaken not by things, but by memories.

Colleen Leonardi Recipe Editor

Sarah Lagrotteria Copy Editors

Doug Adrianson • Susanna Cantor Editorial assistant

Leah Wolf Design

Melissa Petersen Business Development

Shelly Strange Contributors

Dean Abbott • Brooke Albrecht Ryan Benyi • Bryn Bird Nijma Darwish • Joannie D’Andrea Bambi Edlund • Debra Knapke Sarah Lagrotteria • Nancy McKibben Jodi Miller • Catherine Murray Nicole Rasul • Laura B. Russell Carole Topalian • Teresa Woodard Leah Wolf Contact Us

I hope this issue of Edible Columbus inspires you to connect with and explore some of the amazing things happening this spring in our community. I personally will be getting involved with Community Plates—see our story on page 36. What a good idea to have volunteers pick up food that is going to go to waste and deliver it to food pantries and soup kitchens that can redistribute it! The time investment is small and the return is huge.

Happy Spring!

Tricia Wheeler 4

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P.O. Box 21-8376, Columbus, Ohio 43221 info@ediblecolumbus.com ediblecolumbus.com Edible Columbus

@ediblecbus

Advertising Inquiries

tricia@ediblecolumbus.com shelly@ediblecolumbus.com Edible Columbus is published quarterly and distributed throughout Central Ohio. Subscription rate is $25 annually. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.

PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKITCHEN.NET

This season I hope you have a chance to slow down and take a walk in one of our local parks—see our story on page 56 about the thriving thyme gardens at Inniswood Metro Gardens for a delightful way to spend a late spring afternoon. Or, hop on a bike and experience your surroundings more fully—our cover photo illustrates our ideal way to spend a spring morning. We love filling our basket at the farmers market with plants, tender lettuce and sweet strawberries that comprise the first tastes of the new growing season.

I

came into the world loving strawberries.

As a girl, I remember savoring them in all sorts of ways—atop yogurt, with whipped cream and shortcake, on cereal, in a bowl all on their own. My heart sings when I know fresh strawberries are mine. And not the hard, flavorless, strangely large berries that come from out West. I’m talking about little, wild, bright, red and sweet-in-a-saintly-way strawberries. I’m talking about a berry that’s true.

Subscribe today to Edible Columbus Never miss a single issue with pristine copies delivered right to your door! Subscribe for yourself, or as a thoughtful gift for one of your favorite food lovers.

Subscribe online at: ediblecolumbus.com, or mail a check for $25.00 payable to: Edible Columbus, PO. Box 21-8376, Columbus, Ohio 43221

Edible Columbus, is supported by our advertisers and subscribers.

With your paid subscription, you help support our mission to tell the stories of our local farmers, chefs, growers and food artisans.

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I remember with such meaning my girlish love for strawberries because every time I ate them my body felt its purpose—my sweet innocence, my skin open to the springtime sun, my little fingers negotiating something seedy and leafy, my sense of taste committed to tasting. Despite my naiveté, I knew I was beloved by the Earth because of the zing of a little red thing and how it made me feel.

I suspect you like strawberries, too. We’re lucky since springtime is when they are near, and Ohio makes the top 10 list for national strawberry production. Writer Teresa Woodard tells the stories of local strawberry growers and provides some farms in Central Ohio where you can pick your own. Our new recipe editor, Sarah Lagrotteria, shares some choice recipes for the simplest of spring meals, including Cheddar Chive Popovers and Artichokes with Homemade Aioli. And we feature Columbus’ very own Jim Budros as he reveals to us how he became enamored with barbeque and how his devotion to cooking unfolded in his children, Spencer Budros and Anne Fletcher of Pistacia Vera.

As the warmth of spring welcomes us outdoors, it’s hard to overlook the work to be done, both in our own gardens and in our community. This issue covers topics such as sustainable farmers in Ohio and how they’re innovating clean water solutions; farm girl and activist, Bryn Bird, and her take on the recent win for sustainable farmers against the food safety rules in the FDA’s Food

Modernization Act; and the issue of hunger in Columbus and how the organization, Community Plates, is committed to solving it.

Beyond the work of spring is the beauty it brings. These days, we here at Edible Columbus feel graced, not just by the season, but also by the fact that we’re celebrating our 5-year anniversary.

This blessing is because you continue to find our stories relevant and inspiring to your life, and all of the businesses that advertise with us find purpose in what we do—in what we can do together. In honor of your dedication, we’re excited to share two new departments this year, “Urban Homestead” and “Edible Outdoors.” We hope to highlight stories of people in the community creating, like Ohio’s sustainable farmers, ways that make living the local food movement practical and pleasurable. If you have a garden, homestead, chickens or have favorite outdoor activities and foods that follow it, email me at colleen@ediblecolumbus.com. I’d love to feature your work among the pages of our magazine.

The poet José Ortega y Gasset writes: “Tell me to what/ you pay attention/ and I will tell you/ who you are.” If our paying attention to strawberries and peas and artichokes, and Community Plates’s attention to hunger, and a handful of farmers’ attention to water and your attention to creating a sustainable life rooted in good food make each of us one more body belonging to the Earth, well, then, I know I’m in good company, and there is no other place for me to be.

In Gratitude,

Colleen

PHOTO BY © SARAH WARDA, SARAHWARDA.COM

letter from the editor

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the seasoned farmhouse We hope you will join us for classes at our French Country-inspired cooking school at 3674 N. High St. near the Clintonville Farmers Market. Email questions to classes@theseasonedfarmhouse.com. For full class descriptions and to register, please visit theseasonedfarmhouse.com.

Private Events: The Seasoned Farmhouse is available for private events from corporate team-building to special birthdays. Whatever you’re looking for, we are here to help you create a memorable event. Our space is designed for groups to cook together, dine together and gather for private cooking and gardening demonstrations.

We have plenty of options when it comes to customizing your event.

Spring 2014 Cooking Classes April 2, April 10, June 11: Parisian Macarons In these three individual hands-on classes, you will learn to make Parisian macarons with different fillings, including jam, chocolate ganache and buttercream, as well as assorted colors for the shells.

April 5: Brewing the Perfect Cup of Coffee In this class, we will introduce you to several different brewing methods and help you learn to make a delicious cup of coffee at home.

The Seasoned Farmhouse, created by Chef Tricia Wheeler, is a recreational cooking school, learning garden, cookbook library, specialty culinary boutique and private event space located in Clintonville. The year-round cookery, gardening and educational programming celebrates seasonal ingredients from the bountiful farms and artisan producers throughout Ohio. The school’s rotating instructors come from near and far to share their craft and their passions. We believe nothing is more rewarding than cooking for those you love. The Seasoned Farmhouse is a place to learn and connect with our food and our community.

April 23: Bouillabaisse Come celebrate spring with us as we cook this delicious French Provencal fish stew from scratch.

April 25: French Bistro Date Night Bring your date and help us cook classic French mussels, salmon with a Béarnaise reduction sauce and haricot verts and individual lemon tarts.

April 28: Spring Gluten-free Cooking

Learn how to buy and cook greens as we taste and explore recipes for cultivated bitter greens and foraged edibles.

Get your gluten-free questions answered as we show you how to make a delicious gluten-free menu of southwestern corn and black bean salad, lime-scented coconut rice, steamed broccoli, brown rice chips and a sweet treat to end the night.

April 11: Spring Ravioli | Italian Date Night

May 5: Herbs 101: From Garden to Kitchen

Bring your date for a fun night of stuffed pasta—we’ll make pea tortellini with shrimp sauce, mushroom ravioli with a pistachio cream sauce and strawberry rhubarb agnolotti tossed in cinnamon sugar.

This class will serve as an approachable guide to growing and cooking with tender annual herbs like basil and tarragon, and perennial varieties like oregano, mint and thyme.

April 9: Bitter is Better

May 12: Gnocchi Workshop April 17: Italian-Inspired Spring Dinner Columbus gourmands Rich Terapak and Steve Stover return to our school to share stories and delicious recipes inspired by spring in Italy.

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Gain hands-on experience making potato gnocchi Bolognese, ricotta gnocchi with tomato sauce and basil and herbed sautéed gnocchi with mustard greens.

May 14: Taste of Travel: English Country Cooking Be whisked away to the rolling hills of central England as you learn how to make cottage pie pockets, bacon and Stilton salad and a delicious summer pudding, while sampling a traditional drink from the region.

May 15: Spring Inspired Meals for Healthy Eating In this class designed to help you get healthy and psyched for summer, we will show you how to make veggie rolls with shredded chicken and nut cream, asparagus with mustard vinaigrette and toasted pecans and barley with lemon and herbs.

May 16: Edible Flowers and Herbs for Kitchen Gardens In this class, we will discuss raised-bed gardening, how to select plants and maintain the garden; then as a group, we’ll plant a bed of herbs and edible flowers.

May 17: Family-Friendly Fermentation In this class, you will learn the basics of wild fermentation and participate in a hands-on demonstration of how to make pickle relish, dilly carrots and ketchup.

May 21: All About Artichokes

June 7: Vegetable Fermentation

This demo class will take you through how to prepare, cook and properly eat artichokes, a delicious spring delicacy no one should miss out on.

Learn how to take advantage of fresh vegetables sourced from the nearby Clintonville farmers market as we teach you the basics of fermentation and create sauerkraut and other simple vegetable ferments.

May 22: Beer and Cheese Pairing Class In this class, we’ll taste and discuss six seasonal beers with cheeses specially chosen to best complement their flavors.

May 28: Cooking from Sunday

Suppers at Lucques In this advanced hands-on class, you’ll join us in creating a four-course meal from one of our favorite cookbooks: Suzanne Goin’s

Sunday Suppers at Lucques.

June 1: Spring Sunday Brunch For this hands-on class, we’ll cover every aspect of brunch, from fruit, bread and cheese platters to egg-making and our grand finale: Dutch Baby soufflé-style pancakes.

June 2: Container Gardening 101 Get your hands dirty with this class that gives you all the information you need to brighten your outdoor space with interesting container gardens of tropicals, foliage plants and herbs.

June 2: Summer Berries Enjoy Ohio’s bounty of berries as we share our favorite places to pick berries in Central Ohio, cook several recipes for tasting and share how to preserve these fruits by drying, freezing and canning.

June 3: Taste of Spring This class celebrates fresh spring produce— we’ll source asparagus, peas, strawberries and mint from the local farmers market and transform them into dishes you’ll look forward to every year.

June 4: France’s Cider Trail: Normandy Classics In this class, we will explore Norman food and drink traditions while learning to make creamy Chicken Normandy, a traditional vegetable side dish, and a crustless custard cake, known as flaugnarde.

June 20: Infused Pasta | Italian Date Night In this Italian Date Night class, you and your date will learn how to transform fresh pasta doughs with different infused flavors, and pair them with rich sauces that make your meal even more unique.

June 8: Middle Eastern Cooking Learn to cook the simple, exotic and vibrant cuisine of the Middle East in our hands-on class that will give you the confidence to recreate the experience at home.

June 9, 16, 23, 30: Fresh from the Farmers Market: A Four Week Series This four-week series is a hands-on lesson in preparing fresh meals with ingredients sourced from our local farmers market the Saturday before each class.

June 10: Spring Strategies for Vegetarian and Gluten-free Eating This class will share tips for healthy living and show you how to make cream of asparagus soup, seared tempeh with dried cherries and pine nuts over arugula, baked zucchini casserole and a sweet treat.

June 13: Wood-Fired Cooking at The Seasoned Farmhouse

June 21: A Farmers Market Lunch with Founder Lynne Genter: Featuring Strawberries and Artisanal Cheeses Join Clintonville Farmers Market founder Lynne Genter for a behind-the-scenes tour of the farmers market and an informal lunch featuring ingredients sourced from the market.

June 22: Food for Babies Learn how to make homemade healthy food for your baby! We’ll provide an overview of the early eating stages, and then the group will make and taste meals from each developmental stage.

June 25: Vegetarian Entertaining In this hands-on class, we’ll share tips for entertaining and create a vegetarian feast that will help you gain enough confidence to entertain vegetarians and carnivores alike.

June 26: French Bistro Date Night

Local culinary expert Jim Budros will be bringing his wood-fired oven to class, where we’ll feast on Neapolitan pizza Margherita, Tuscan grilled flatiron steak, roasted mussels and fennel and more.

June 17, 24, July 1, 8: Master Canning Series In this intensive series, students will master water bath and pressure canning techniques while building a pantry of jams, sauces, pickles and more.

In this fun, romantic class, we will cook a frisée and blue cheese salad with homemade French vinaigrette, a classic chicken vol-au-vent with chive mashed potatoes and honey thyme carrots, then finish our meal with lavender crème brûlée.

June 29: Fresh and In Season: Summer Lunch for Kids This class will help your kids transform fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables into a delicious summer meal. Ages 7–12.

June 18: Exploring Spanish Tapas Based on The Book of Tapas, this class explores the Spanish style of cooking small plates of cold or hot appetizers that can be combined to make a meal.

June 19: Indo-French Cuisine A fresh twist on French technique, this hands-on class is for those curious about the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine (or those who just love Pho).

Thank you to our Pantry Sponsor

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farm notes

...this next phase of sustaining and improving requires a broader ownership of Ohio women farmers.

W

omen Farm (WF), a Columbus-based, statewide business, aims to create new opportunities for women farmers through mentoring, method sharing, encouragement and support.

“We intend not only to encourage women to aspire [to] and to start farming but to also sustain profitable farm operations,” said owner and co-manager Sharon Sachs.

Established in 2011, WF had its share of startup experiences. “We started with one vision.

Then we understood that perhaps we needed to scope differently,” Sharon said. “We needed to do less, or different things, in order to be more valuable to women farmers and more sustainable organizationally.”

Although they were offering a unique product, WF soon realized it wasn’t at a price point that worked for other women farmers.

“If you are going to offer training services to women farmers, they’re going to have to be subsidized, whether that’s by public funds or private endowments,” said Sharon. “Even though we worked hard to keep our market price affordable, it wasn’t affordable enough.”

WF also recognized the need to build a stronger network at the regional level. To help address the problem, the company shifted from a twoowner/two-visionary model to a multi-visionary and 11-woman management model.

“That’s a big change and will definitely enhance the organization because all new managers are farming and most own farmland,” said Sharon.

By adding to its management team, WF will have more members across the state grounded in local knowledge and information-sharing, making it easier to operate and cultivate new partnerships successfully. The change will also allow the organization to deliver its services to other women farmers without requiring them to travel far distances.

WF focuses on woman-to-woman mentoring and method sharing as opposed to small-group training, according to Sharon. “Peer support and the wisdom of another woman who has already been there are very effective approaches to developing women farmers.”

With all of these changes, the women at WF hope to create more opportunities for women farmers to interact with one another, allowing women farmers from different regions a chance to meet each other, blog on specific topics or actually get together periodically.

“It’s about that relational learning,” said Sharon.

“In our first years, Women Farm established a new system and tools are in place for Ohio women farmers to engage and learn more with and from each other.”

visit womenfarm.com.

—Nijma Darwish

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nine of whom own Ohio farmland, are investing managers of Women Farm with owner, Sharon Sachs. These include: Mary Bridgman, Bridgman Farm, Washington Court House, Fayette County, Central Ohio Phyllis Duncan, director, Granny B Farms, LLC,

Sharon explained that this next phase of sustaining and improving a “think-do-work-learntogether” network for WF requires a broader ownership of Ohio women farmers. To achieve this goal, WF invited other women farmers to invest in the organization. This adds even more voices to the 11-woman management model, allowing investors the chance to take part in the growth of the organization relative to what they see as real needs in their communities.

To learn more about Women Farm,

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Ten Ohio women farm operators and managers,

Centerburg, Knox County, North Central Ohio Kristie Fisher, Rush Creek Gardens, Piqua, Miami County, Southwest Central Ohio Amy Forrest, A Tasteful Garden and In Good Taste Catering, Mechanicsburg, Champaign County, Southwest Central Ohio Val Jorgensen, Jorgensen Farms, Westerville, Franklin County, Central Ohio Jenie McGrath, Manchester Hill, Circleville, Pickaway County, Central Ohio Heather Neikirk, Neikirk Family Farms, Paris, Stark County, Northeast Central Ohio Lisa Schacht, Schacht Family Farm, Canal Winchester, Franklin County, Central Ohio Sandy Sterrett, Elizabeth Telling Farm, Barnesville, Belmont County, East Central Ohio Geraldine (Geri) Klein, The Klein Farm, Jamestown, Greene County, Southwest Central Ohio

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farm notes

The International Year of

“2014 will be the year when the women and men family farmers, peasants, artisan fishers, pastoralists, indigenous communities, and landless people, will be on top of the international agenda, gaining rights that have been postponed for too long,” explained Jose Osaba, The International Year of Family Farmer 2014 (IYFF-2014) civil society coordinator and member of the World Rural Forum Association (WRF), an organization helping to promote the initiative.

The United Nations has designated 2014 to highlighting the importance of the family farmer on a world platform and the potential family farms have in the guarantee of food security. “[Family farming] produces 70% of the food consumed in the world and 40% of world households depend on this activity. Therefore it is the most efficient means to combat hunger, malnutrition and poverty,” Jose stated.

Launched in 2013, IYFF-2014 is aided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and supported by more than 360 civil society and farmers’ organizations in more than 60 countries. According to the FAO, the worldwide celebration honors more than 400 million family farms in both developed and developing countries.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WORLD RURAL FORUM

Family Farming

The family farming model includes a variety of agricultural, forestry, fishery and aquaculture activities throughout the world. All share a common thread that distinguishes family farming from industrial farming, according to FAO family farming officer, Francesco Pierri.

“Their activities are directly managed and operated by them, which includes what is possibly their strongest common characteristic of relying predominantly on family labor…they are [also] intrinsically linked to their territory because they are historically rooted there.”

Industrial farming is seen as an intangible investment. As soon as the agricultural business lacks benefits, the company will move on, unlike family farmers who, by producing locally, help preserve food traditions. “They [family farmers] generate jobs and income at [the] local level,” Francesco stated, “and by spending at [the] local level they help local economies. In a word, family farmers are a key to sustainable development.

They are part of the solution.”

that might not know these issues and create a better impact,” said Danielle Nierenberg, president and co-founder of Food Tank. The group plans to generate awareness by using social media and implementing other strategies involving supporters throughout the United States.

Supporters of IYFF-2014 hope that by encouraging open policy dialogue across the globe and addressing challenges that family farmers face, innovations will be created to help save this important agricultural model. According to Francesco, it can only be a real celebration if advancement occurs and “concrete pillars” are built. “When 2014 will end, they [supporters] want bills for family farmers passed into acts.

They want credit and technical assistance. They want platform for dialogue. They want political commitment.”

To learn more about the initiative or take the lead yourself by joining the cause, visit fao.org.

—Nijma Darwish On a national level it is important to recognize the triumphs and challenges of the IYFF-2014.

Food Tank: The Food Think Tank, a non-profit organization out of Chicago, is collaborating with the FAO to showcase the worldwide celebration. “We’re really hoping that working with them [FAO] that we can really reach an audience

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local & In Season

What to Eat Asparagus • Broccoli • Breads • Cabbage • Cheeses • Cilantro • Collards • Eggs • Honey Kale • Maple syrup • Meats • Milk • Microgreens • Mustard greens • Radishes Rhubarb • Spinach • Strawberries • Swiss chard • Turnip greens

What to Plant

Garden Notes: 1.

If you are starting seeds under lights, make sure that the lights are close—2–

March

3” from the emerging seedlings. Raise

Starting plants from seed inside: Tomatoes • Chilies • Kohlrabi • Leeks • Lettuce

the lights as the seedlings grow. If you are growing different species or cultivars of the same species, this will

Direct-sow outside (as soon as soil can be worked): Edible peas • Sweet peas • Kale • Collards

become more challenging as the Planting outside: Shallots (as soon as soil can be worked; also planted as a fall crop) • Trees and shrubs

season progresses as the plants will

(dormant plants can be planted when the ground can be worked)

grow at different rates to different heights.

April

2.

Direct-sow outside (as soon as soil can be worked): Carrots • Beets • Swiss chard • “Seed” potatoes

Some seeds need bottom heat to germinate well.

(mid-April) • Eggplant • Leeks (late April) • Lettuce (late April) • Rhubarb • Summer and winter squash 3.

For some plants you have the option to

Planting outside: Asparagus crowns • Kale • Kohlrabi (if you started them from seed in March)

start seeds inside or direct-sow later in

Lettuce (transplants) • Herbaceous perennials • Trees and shrubs (until mid-May)

the season.

4.

May

Many recommendations are given as a range of time because Mother Nature

Direct-sow outside: Beans • Melons • Pumpkins • Summer and winter squash (after last frost date!)

is not predictable.

Corn (sow seeds outside when the soil is warm; early to mid-May)

—Debra Knapke Planting outside (after last frost date!): Tomatoes • Chilies • Eggplant • Tender annuals

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Compound Butter Three Ways So easy to make and yet makes such a huge impact. Slather compound butter on good bread; melt into pasta or onto your favorite

PHOTO BY © RYAN BENYI, RYANBENYI.COM

meat or seafood.

A good template to follow when you’re first exploring is 1 stick of butter plus 2 tablespoons of any combination of fresh herbs, citrus zest, spices and/or fruit. Compound butters with herbs will keep up to 5 days in the fridge. Butters without herbs can be frozen for up to 1 month.

Blue Cheese Butter Perfect on a steak or a burger.

What to Cook

1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened 3 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese 2 teaspoons fresh thyme, finely chopped

Fingerling Potatoes and Spring Peas with Compound Butter

Lemon Garlic Parsley Butter

Serves 4–6

Delicious on warm, toasted bread and over 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened

To make the compound butter: combine the butter

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

and the next 6 ingredients (Dijon through tarragon)

1 splash white wine 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons fresh chives, finely chopped 1½ teaspoons fresh parsley, finely chopped 1 teaspoon tarragon, finely chopped 1¼ pounds fingerling potatoes, rinsed 1½ cups fresh spring peas, rinsed Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

in the bowl of a food processor; process, using a spatula to scrape down the sides, until mixed thor-

seafood.

1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened 2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, finely minced

oughly. This can also be done in a bowl with a spatula or spoon. The butter can be made the day before. Chill until ready to use.

Zest of two lemons 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon salt

To make the potatoes and peas: in a medium pot, cover potatoes with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat and add a generous pinch of salt. Boil

Strawberry Butter Delicious on waffles or pancakes.

until knife-tender, 6–8 minutes. Drain immediately.

1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened While the potatoes cook, bring a small pot of water

2 tablespoons good quality strawberry jam

to a boil and season with a generous pinch of salt.

1 pinch sea salt

Add the peas and boil until tender but not soft, about 1–2 minutes. Drain and set aside.

—Sarah Lagrotteria When the potatoes are cool enough to touch, toss with two tablespoons of the compound butter. Add the peas and toss gently. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve warm or at room temperature.

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from the kitchen

Spring

By Sarah Lagrotteria Photography by Ryan Benyi

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Artichokes Three Ways Greek myth tells the story of a beautiful, young mortal whom Zeus wooed and brought with him to Mount Olympus. When the girl complained of missing home, he flung her back down to Earth in the form of a seemingly undesirable thistle. But come spring, we find these pinecone-shaped buds irresistible. Here’s how we’re cooking artichokes at The Seasoned Farmhouse.

Artichokes, Steamed or Grilled, with Homemade Aioli Whether you choose to grill, the basic preparation is the same for both recipes.

For Steaming

For Grilling

4 globe artichokes

4 steamed artichokes

1 lemon, sliced in half

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves

Juice of one lemon

1 bay leaf

Splash of white wine (optional) Salt and pepper to taste

Choose a pot tall and large enough around to hold

While the water comes to a boil, trim the artiWhen steamed artichokes are cool enough to

meaty part near the base of the globe. Peel the re-

touch, cut in half lengthwise and use a knife or

maining stem with a vegetable peeler and rub the

spoon to scoop out and discard the fuzzy choke

cut areas with lemon. Pull off the small, tough lower leaves. Cut off the top inch of the artichoke

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice and wine. Brush

and rub with lemon to preserve the green color.

the olive oil mixture onto the cut side of the arti-

Use kitchen shears to snip off the top half inch of

chokes and place directly onto the grill. Grill until

each remaining leaf.

marked and warmed through, about 5–8 minutes.

Enjoy immediately with homemade aioli.

the simmering water. Add the garlic and bay leaf.

Carefully place the artichokes in the steaming liquid, bottoms-up. Lower the heat to a simmer and weight the artichokes with a heat-proof dish or pot lid that fits into the pot to keep the artichokes submerged.

Simmer until the base is knife-tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the artichokes from the water and drain upside-down in a colander. Enjoy warm with aioli. See directions for eating on right.

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in the aioli and then pull through your teeth, leaving the edible vegetable meat in your mouth.

Discard the remaining leaf. Continue with re-

When all the leaves are gone, use a knife or spoon medium-high.

Squeeze the remaining juice from ½ lemon into

to the dark end of a leaf, dip the light-colored end

maining leaves.

While artichokes are steaming, preheat grill to

chokes. Slice off the end of the stem, leaving the

Pull off the outer leaves one by one. Holding tight

Steam artichokes as instructed above.

all 4 artichokes and fill halfway with water. Bring to a boil over high heat.

To eat a whole artichoke

to scoop out and discard the fuzzy choke. The remaining cup-shaped bottom is the artichoke heart.

Cut into pieces and enjoy dipped in aioli.

Classic Aioli Makes ¾ cup

1 large egg yolk, room temperature 1 clove garlic, finely minced or grated*

Drape a kitchen towel over a small saucepan and set a small metal bowl on top of the dishtowel. This will hold your bowl in place while you whisk.

Juice of ½ lemon ¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard ¼ teaspoon salt plus more to taste ¼ cup grape seed oil ⅓ cup olive oil Freshly ground black pepper

Whisk yolk, garlic, lemon juice, Dijon and ¼ teaspoon salt until well-blended. Combine the grape seed and olive oils in a liquid measuring cup. Use a ¼ teaspoon to slowly add oil from the measuring cup to your egg mixture, one droplet at a time, whisking until combined. Continue adding drop-by-drop, whisking all the while, until you have a thick emulsion and have used about ¼ cup of oil.

Add the remaining oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking all the while, until the mayonnaise is smooth and creamy. Season to taste with salt, pepper and more lemon juice as needed. Keeps in the refrigerator up to 5 days. *A microplane works well for grating.

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Lemon-Braised Artichokes Serves 4–6 This recipe can be enjoyed in many ways: as a warm accompaniment to a beef or fish dish, on top of risotto or served cold as part of a charcuterie and cheese platter. However you serve it, the tactile experience of eating an artichoke remains. You’ll need your fingers to suck the meat out of the tender leaves circling the heart.

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Juice and zest of two fresh lemons 1½ teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme leaves Splash of white wine (optional) ¼ cup chicken broth 2 cloves garlic, finely minced 1½ teaspoons kosher salt

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, thyme, white wine, broth, garlic, salt and pepper in a large, heatproof saucepan or Dutch oven with a lid. Mix well and set aside while trimming the artichokes.

Cut off the top half of the artichokes and use a paring knife to trim away the leaves until you reach the lightly-colored inner leaves, rubbing the cut surfaces with the lemon half as you go. Cut in half lengthwise and use a knife or spoon to scoop out and discard the fuzzy choke.

2 grinds black pepper 4 artichokes 1 lemon, cut in half

Immediately turn each artichoke half in the marinade to coat completely. When all the artichokes are trimmed, arrange the marinating artichokes cut-side up, put the pan over high heat and bring the marinade to a boil. Cover and place in the oven. Braise until the hearts are knife-tender and the outer leaves are golden brown, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve immediately or let cool depending on how you will eat them.

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21

Cheddar Chive Popovers Adapted from BLT Steak, New York, New York Makes 6 in a popover pan and 12 in a muffin pan Like soufflés, popovers sound scary. That is, until you find a recipe that works and realize how simple popovers are to make. During my private chef days, our clients requested popovers every weekend. Of the many we tried, this recipe is the best tasting and most reliable.

Feel free to play with the flavoring. Instead of chives, steep the milk with a sprig of thyme (remove before adding to eggs) and sprinkle the batter with grated Swiss cheese. For a sweeter version, steep the milk with a cinnamon stick, sprinkle the batter with cinnamon sugar and serve with softened sweet butter.

For spring, I like the bite of chive against a rich cheddar. Serve straight from the oven with softened, salted butter and fresh strawberry chutney (recipe on right).

1½ cups milk 1½ cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt 3 eggs Non-stick baking spray 2 tablespoons good-quality cheddar cheese, finely grated 2 teaspoons chives, finely chopped Special equipment: 6-cup popover pan or 12-cup muffin pan* Place a 6-cup popover pan or a 12-cup muffin pan in the bottom third of the oven. Remove any upper racks so the popovers have space to rise. Place a baking sheet lined with parchment on the rack below to catch any drips.

Preheat the oven to 400º.

In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, warm the milk until small bubbles form around the edges. While the milk warms, sift the flour and salt through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until frothy, about 2 minutes. Slowly add the warm milk to the eggs, whisking all the while to keep the eggs from cooking. Gradually whisk in the flour mixture until almost smooth.

Using oven mitts, remove the pan from the oven and spray the cups and top with nonstick baking spray. Fill the prepared cups about three-fourths full with batter. Sprinkle the chives on top of the batter, dividing them evenly between the cups. Repeat with the grated cheese.

Return the pan to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees. Continue baking until the popovers are browned and puffed, 15 minutes more for the muffin pan and 20 minutes more for the popover pan; do not open the oven after rotating the pan.

Serve immediately. *The popovers will “pop” either way, but they will be taller in the popover pan and more horizontal in the muffin pan.

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Strawberry Chutney Two Ways There’s no better way to enjoy a small, juicy strawberry than plain or with a fresh cream. But if you have more berries than you can possibly eat, a quick strawberry chutney buys you more time to enjoy this favorite spring flavor.

Fresh Strawberry Chutney Makes ¾ cup Designed to accompanying the cheddar chive popovers, this chutney has the right amount of sweet to balance the savory chive and cheese and a depth that goes beyond a simple jam.

2 cups strawberries, hulled and quartered 2 tablespoons shallots, minced 3 sprigs fresh thyme ¼ cup brown sugar 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar ½ teaspoon sea salt 10 grinds black pepper 1 tablespoon unsalted butter Combine the first 6 ingredients (strawberries through salt) in a small heavybottom pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Let simmer until sugar is dissolved and strawberries have melted into a thick, jam-like texture.

Remove from the heat and add the pepper. Season to taste as desired and stir in the butter. Let cool and serve at room temperature.

Chutney will keep in an air-tight container for up to one week in the refrigerator.

Classic Strawberry Chutney Makes ¾ cup Sharp with ginger and mustard seeds, this chutney makes a beautiful springtime addition to your cheese plate and will transform your grilled cheese into something sophisticated.

2 cups strawberries, hulled and quartered 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds 1 cinnamon stick ¼ cup brown sugar 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 3 sprigs fresh thyme Salt and pepper to taste 1 tablespoon unsalted butter Combine the first 8 ingredients (strawberries through thyme) in a small, heavybottom pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Let simmer until sugar is dissolved and strawberries have melted into a thick, jam-like texture.

Remove from the heat, season to taste with salt and pepper and stir in the butter. Let cool and serve at room temperature.

Chutney will keep in an air-tight container for up to one week in the refrigerator.

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edible reads

T Brassicas Cooking the World’s

Healthiest Vegetables

By Laura B. Russell

he vegetables of the brassica family—broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts and more—bring to mind the hearty fare of a cold December night: ribbons of Savoy cabbage simmered slowly in a soup, the burnished crust of a cauliflower gratin or a salad crafted from the sturdiest kale leaves. Though these vegetables sustain us throughout the winter like no others, the very same family surprises and delights with its springtime treasures, providing some of the most intriguing produce of the year.

Take a stroll through the farmers market—an early-season excursion that still warrants a sweater seems ideal—and you’re sure to encounter a bounty of brassicas. Mounds of mustard greens convey a pleasantly spicy bite, but lack the overt sassiness of their warmweather counterparts. Collard greens, just a bit more tender than usual, beg for a quick sauté instead of a tenderizing braise. All of the leafy brassicas, in fact, are well represented at the spring market: arugula, cress and even the more elusive delicacies like tatsoi and mizuna.

When you spot mizuna at the market, grab it while you can. Visually, the feathery bunches of serrated pale green leaves beg for special attention. Its flavor, reminiscent of the mildest mustard greens, conveys barely a hint of bitterness. Showcase mizuna in a simple salad with a bright, citrusy vinaigrette, or wilt it gently under the heat of a warm dressing. Finish a stirfry with a handful of the leaves, or lightly pickle them for a unique side dish. Do take care, however, to enjoy mizuna to its fullest during its fleeting season.

Laura B. Russell is a food writer and recipe developer based in Portland, Oregon. She is an Oregonian FoodDay columnist, and author of

Brassicas: Cooking the World’s Healthiest Vegetables and The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen (Ten Speed Press). Find more of Laura’s recipes at laurabrussell.com or visit her on Facebook at Laura B. Russell or Twitter @laurabrussell.

Reprinted with permission from Brassicas:

Cooking the World’s Healthiest Vegetables by Laura B. Russell (Ten Speed Press, © 2014).

Photo credit: Sang An.

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Mizuna Salad with CuminRoasted Cauliflower Serves 4 You get a double dose of brassicas in this North African-inspired salad that calls for both mizuna and cauliflower. My husband loves mizuna, a mildly mustardy salad green, so we tend to eat a ton of it when it shows up at the farmers market in early spring. If you cannot find it, baby arugula (another brassica) makes an ideal substitute. Don’t forget to add the dates; their honeyed sweetness creates a perfect balance of flavors with the cumin-laced cauliflower and greens. I like the taste of honey in the dressing, but for a vegan-friendly version, substitute agave nectar.

1 small head cauliflower, cored and cut into bite-size florets (about 4 cups) 5 tablespoons olive oil (divided) ¾ teaspoon kosher salt (divided) 1¾ teaspoon ground cumin (divided) 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice 1 teaspoon honey ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 large bunch mizuna, large stems removed, or 1 (5-ounce) package baby arugula (about 12 cups loosely packed) 4 fresh or dried dates, pitted and finely chopped (about ½ cup)

Preheat the oven to 450°. Put the cauliflower on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the oil, sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of the salt and 1½ teaspoons of the cumin, and toss to coat evenly; spread in a single layer. Roast the cauliflower, stirring once or twice, for about 15 minutes, until golden brown and tender but not mushy. Taste a floret for doneness; larger florets may take slightly longer to cook.

While the cauliflower is roasting, make the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, honey, the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon cumin and the pepper. Whisk in the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil.

In a serving bowl, combine the roasted cauliflower, mizuna and dates; drizzle with the dressing, and toss to coat evenly. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Serve immediately.

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27

policy matters

Local Food Wins

P

olitics at the dinner table have long been taboo. But what happens when politics dictate how and what food gets to your table? Most folks would prefer to eat their carrots in peace. But a smart mentor once told me, “Democracy is not a spectator sport,” and the recent Food Safety Modernization Act rulemaking demonstrated that when food-loving people come together, awesome change can occur.

You may not pay attention to the news, announcing yet another food recall. In 2013, food recalls by the Food and Drug Administration averaged six a day, affecting 18.4 million products. And while these recalls are far too many for the average American to follow, the dangerous reality is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s estimation that 3,000 Americans die annually from food-borne illness.

How a recent grassroots campaign proves democracy is not a spectator sport

By Bryn Bird

They want to hear from you, and so often tell those of us working on Capitol Hill they never do. Your voice—while small— should not be quiet.

On January 4, 2011 the U.S. government decided to step in and President Barack Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law. The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 and FSMA are the first federal regulation changes in the food industry since 1938. With the enactment of FSMA the government will now regulate the way food is grown, harvested and processed on the farm. Congress effectively shifted the FDA’s role from one of contamination response to prevention.

When it came to the development of the rules, however, the FDA placed an unreasonable and large burden on small and independent farms. Some of the proposed rules included strict restrictions on the use of manure for soil amendment and costly water testing for farmers using surface water for irrigation purposes. The government estimated the cost to implement the new policies as potentially higher than $12,000 for small farms and $30,000 for large farms. Farms, such as my family’s farm, would not be able to absorb $12,000 into their budgets. It would jeopardize their ability to be an economically viable family operation.

On January 4, 2013, the FDA released for public comment its proposed rules for FSMA. Members of the local food community soon realized the proposed rules would almost certainly inhibit the growth of small and diverse farms. Smaller farms would not be able to afford implementation, and those organic growers utilizing manure rather than chemical fertilizer would not be able to adhere to the strict new rules without cutting production. The local food movement was quick to react through grassroots advocacy, social media and helping farmers and eaters alike to understand how these rules would directly affect the food on their tables.

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The FDA was overwhelmed with 25,000 public comments from concerned citizens and organizations representing hundreds of thousands people.

Less than one month after releasing the rules, on December 19, 2013, the FDA announced it would redraft parts of FSMA and seek more public involvement in rulemaking. It was a win for citizens concerned about the government’s involvement in our food choices. And it happened because people spoke up and got involved.

This recent success is evidence of the need for grassroots advocacy and citizen involvement. As we work to transform our current food system and develop a more sustainable and robust local food infrastructure for the next generation, it must include stronger policy and governmental reform. In order for the concerned consumers of America to stand a chance against the lobbying power of agribusiness, we must call, write and visit, to make sure the government hears our voice. Consumers need to not only “vote with their fork” but also hold their elected officials accountable.

They want to hear from you, and so often tell those of us working on Capitol Hill they never do. Your voice—while small—should not be quiet.

The challenge is first to be sure you can name your representatives and then email them. Heck, even just tweet them a message that you are paying attention to how they vote on agricultural issues.

The government does work for us. We need to stay informed, get involved and work for the change we seek in our current food system.

For more information on food policy and how to get involved visit: sustainableagriculture.net, policy.oeffa.org/home, and ohfarmersunion.org.

Bryn Bird is a farm girl hailing from a dirt road outside Granville, Ohio. She grew up raising livestock and produce on her family’s farm, Bird’s Haven. She gained a master’s in public health from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and is now empowering the rural lifestyle while working with Rural Coalition.

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edible outdoors I fell in love with Columbus from the seat of a bike. I went to Ohio State for college and brought along an old green mountain bike to help me trek across campus. When summer fever made it impossible to stay inside and study, I took off north from my dorm up the Olentangy Trail. Past Ohio Stadium, I followed the trail through leafy trees and the river wetland research park, through the beautiful neighborhood north of North Broadway, next to dams and benches overlooking the river until I reached Whetstone Park and a blooming Park of Roses. Something about taking life slower and experiencing the journey more fully sweetened my destination—Whetstone is still my favorite place in Columbus.

Bicycling is many things to many people—exercise, an environmentally and wallet-friendly commuting option, time with family and friends—but one common thread is the way bicycling makes you experience life, and food, in a different way. People who love outdoor activities know how food serves as a powerful motivator when your stomach is growling and you’re miles from your destination.

When biking leads to good eats, and good eats lead to more biking

By Leah Wolf

M

y family’s love of bicycling started in the mid 1980s, when my grandmother’s restless spirit drove her to find freedom on a bicycle, after her knees were no longer strong enough to support her love of tennis.

My dad started bicycling during his junior or senior year in high school.

When a friend introduced him to distance biking, he bought a nice eightspeed bike and explored Central Ohio before today’s many bike-friendly options were available. In addition to exploring Columbus, they rode to Powell and Plain City, Portsmouth and Hocking Hills, experiencing Ohio with that unique combination of speed and intimacy that bicycling provides.

Mary says that food (including ice cream, my favorite reward) helps make bicycling outings fun for families. Columbus has many bike trails that connect to food destinations for people looking for motivation. The Olentangy Trail runs from Worthington Hills down through downtown near everything from North Market to the many classic Columbus restaurants in German Village. My ideal stop is Whetstone Park, where I can relax under shady trees and enjoy a picnic brought along on the back of my bike.

A year before he graduated college, my dad took his bike to France for 10 days to explore the country he had seen through the lens of the Tour de France. He was struck by the beauty of the countryside, the rolling hills and quaint stone cottages. On the back of a bike, he was close to the land and the people in a way he couldn’t have been behind the windshield of a car.

He would roll into a village and be drawn to stop by the smell of fresh bread wafting from a local bakery. Something about the fragrance of bread baking and sharing it with the French villagers, whose language he barely spoke, gave my dad the understanding that even when you are far from home, the lives of those around you are similar in many ways to your own.

Pick up a Columbus bike map from Consider Biking to learn about all the routes throughout Central Ohio: considerbiking.org.

Leah Wolf is a freelance writer whose love of food and nature is only surpassed by her love of words. In addition to working as an editorial assistant for Edible

Columbus, Leah is an assistant at The Seasoned Farmhouse, where she’s excited to learn about food while helping the new cooking school grow.

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PHOTO BY © CATHERINE MURRAY, PHOTOKICTHEN.NET

Riding to Eat

The avid bikers in my family say, “We bike to ride and we ride to eat.” My aunt, Mary Plumley, is the administrative coordinator for the Great Ohio Bike Adventure (GOBA) tour program for Columbus Outdoor Pursuits, a local non-profit that provides outdoor recreational education and opportunities ranging from biking and hiking to kayaking. She helps plan the route for GOBA’s eight-day, 50-mile-a-day bicycle tour that rolls through different areas of our state every year. Four generations of my family have participated in this ride that leads people of all ages to explore Ohio’s small towns, simple pleasures and delicious food stops that wouldn’t usually be on their radar. In GOBA, each stop has food to propel everyone through the day—places like R&M Southside Diner in Mount Vernon that are always delicious, but even more relished after you’ve arrived atop a bicycle.

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columbus cooks

The J Budros Way

im Budros’s passion for cooking began as a Boy Scout. While other scouts were scratching their heads over charred franks and beans, Jim meticulously constructed perfect fires, the key to edible campfire meals.

“Because I was so interested in the fire, my food seemed to turn out better than my friends’,” Jim explained matter-of-factly.

From barbecue to macarons, Jim Budros and family share their love of cooking with Columbus

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Since his boyhood days of campfire cooking, Jim has sustained his interest alongside his successful wealth management firm, Budros, Ruhlin & Roe. Over the years, the hobbyist has done it all: co-founding the ever-popular City Barbeque chain; co-hosting a restaurant review program on WOSU for 14 years; teaching numerous grilling classes throughout Columbus; even taking courses at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.

That list barely scratches the surface of Jim’s culinary feats. Still, though many in Columbus would disagree, Jim insists he is simply a hobbyist in the kitchen, reserving the title of chef for those who dedicate their lives to the practice.

“I cook but I’m not a chef,” explained Jim. “It’s a verb, not a noun.”

Big Risks If you think of a hobbyist as one who merely dabbles, Jim surely falls closer to expert on the continuum. Dabbling, it seems, is not in his DNA. In 1998 Jim’s interest in barbecue (the origins of which can be directly traced to his time as a scout) peaked when he and friends won the American Royal World Series of Barbecue for their brisket. Jim recalled his days travelling the country from one barbecue festival to another. After experiencing world-class barbecue of every regional variety, Jim and his pals would return to Columbus where quality barbecue simply was not part of the landscape.

Never one to wait for someone else to step up, Jim and co-founder, Rick Malir, opened City Barbeque. Twenty-two barbecue joints later, he reflected with a smile on his side business.

Chef, Spencer looked around his hometown and struggled to find a place for his talents.

“I was discouraged and motivated to do something on my own.” Like his father, Spencer decided then and there if he wanted to see growth in Columbus, he would have to take a risk.

At the same time, Spencer’s sister, Anne, and her growing family were also preparing to relocate to Columbus. Settling back home with her family and a new job in the banking and financial planning industry, Anne initially planned to help Spencer with the books in her spare time. Yet, watching the business take form drew her in and soon enough, she quit her job and came on board full-time.

“We never dreamt of owning a business together one day,” Anne recalled.

“We just wanted a place to be proud of for doing great barbecue,” Jim said.

Little Confections Some years later, Jim’s son, Spencer, prepared to return to Columbus with his family after more than a decade away, apprenticing under a pastry chef in Phoenix, Arizona. Armed with experience and the title of Certified Pastry

Just as their father, Jim, brought the best of America’s barbecue traditions to Columbus through City Barbeque, Anne and Spencer hope they have brought a little something new to Columbus. Opening Pistacia Vera in

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Anise-Glazed Fish with Asparagus & Fennel Slaw with Yogurt Aioli Serves 6 Seafood has an affinity for anise flavor that can be achieved, in this case with fresh fennel and an anise-flavored liqueur. I planted an asparagus bed of the Purple Passion variety last year at the Community Garden at Franklin Park and I can’t wait for a limited harvest this spring. Lemony fennel slaw is a favorite of mine. The “aioli” is a flavor theme, not the real mayonnaise-based sauce, but more refreshing for this preparation. I prefer to serve family-style, which promotes friendly sharing. – Jim Budros

The Asparagus & Fennel Slaw 6 big spears asparagus, thinly sliced with a vegetable peeler and refreshed in ice water for a few minutes or up to an hour.

1 bulb fennel, raw, very finely shaved (a mandolin helps) and refreshed in ice water for a few minutes or up to an hour.

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice Zest of ½ lemon 3 tablespoons olive oil Salt and pepper to taste

Yogurt Aioli 6 teaspoons plain yogurt ½ teaspoon serrano pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped ½ teaspoon garlic, finely chopped 1 teaspoon finely chopped fennel fronds Salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste

Anise-Glazed Fish 2 tablespoons anise liqueur, such as Pernod, Absinthe, Pastis or Richard 1 tablespoon sugar, honey or agave 6 4–6-ounce fish steaks or filets, such as sea bass, snapper or salmon To make slaw: Spin-dry the asparagus and fennel. Mix the slaw with the olive oil, lemon juice and zest. Consider the tartness of the slaw and add lemon juice and olive oil to your liking. Start with 3 parts olive oil and 1 part lemon juice.

Don’t overdress the slaw.

To make aioli: Mix the yogurt, serrano pepper, garlic, fennel fronts, salt and pepper, adding serrano and garlic to your taste; omit if preferable. You only need 1 teaspoon per serving.

To prepare fish: Mix the anise liqueur with the sugar, honey or agave to achieve a sweet anise flavor. Paint the fish with the anise mix and broil close to the heat to your preferred degree of doneness. Don’t turn the fish. Try to achieve some browning. Paint the cooked fish with the anise mix for additional anise flavor.

Platter family-style with a bed of slaw, arrange glazed fish on top with small dollops of “aioli.” Coarsely grind black pepper on the fish and slaw and drizzle good olive oil.

This dish is good at room temperature, so it could be a fancy salad.

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“I cook but I’m not a chef,” explained Jim. “It’s a verb, not a noun.”

2004, the pair chose to remain true to their focus on traditional, French dessert and pastry. Enter the macaron.

When Pistacia Vera began making macarons, the treat was unfamiliar to many in Columbus. Five years ago, macaron fever hit the US and Pistacia Vera was firmly established as experts. Spencer said that legacy is a point of pride: “In a small way, I feel like we had a part in the appreciation of that little confection.”

To the Budros family, Columbus is an ideal setting to introduce culinary experiences.

“We love more than anything when we look out on our dining room and there’s a lady in pearls sitting next to a 17-year-old boy with a nose ring,” said Spencer, “enjoying the same dessert, existing in the same space, having the same amount of appreciation.”

Where Brisket Meets Macaron Jim Budros’s rustic, recipes-out-the-window barbecue and his children’s exquisite, technically-precise French pastry share a common thread. Both are rooted in ingredient and process-driven food.

Watching their father joyfully create meals for the family, Anne and Spencer developed a reverence for simple food made with care, presenting food in its most natural form.

The best food, Spencer said, embodies, “a lot of complexity but [is] never fussy. I think my dad personifies that, very complex…”

“But never formal,” Anne finished his sentence.

Spencer continued: “It would be very easy to stick a chicken in the oven, but [my dad] would rather build a perfect fire, wait extra time and enjoy the process. It tastes better. It just does.”

For the Budros family, food and family go hand in hand.

“We want to speak through the food,” said Spencer. “Everybody loves good food.”

Joannie D’Andrea credits her passion for flavor to her years working under Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. In her time as a Dairy Heiress, Joannie worked as a scooper, a baker, a writer for the marketing team and everything in between. These days, Joannie is in pursuit of a career in special education. She lives in Columbus with her husband, Nick, and their houseplants.

Most nights, she rushes home from work to try out a new recipe with Nick.

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Community

Plates One organization’s social media solution to end hunger

By Sarah Lagrotteria, Photography by Catherine Murray

I

n Africa, doctors are using mobile apps to stop malaria. In Silicon Valley, scientists are using Google’s glucose-measuring contact lenses to beat diabetes. And here in Columbus, everyday people are helping to pioneer another 21st century solution to a problem that affects more people worldwide than both of these diseases combined: hunger.

The organization behind this offensive is Community Plates, a nonprofit traditional in its goal—to end hunger— and innovative in its use of social media. I get my first taste of Community Plates when Columbus Site Director Susan Keiser-Smith pulls into the parking lot of Chipotle in New Albany and opens her trunk to reveal two huge plastic bins.

“We’ll need them,” she said.

Inside the restaurant, a manager waits with yesterday’s leftovers: grilled chicken, shredded beef, braised pork and black and refried beans, each packed neatly in its own bag. Minutes later, Chipotle in the trunk, we head toward Bob Evans where another manager waits with frozen biscuits and bread. The baked goods go to Holy Family Soup Kitchen downtown. The Chipotle haul we place in one of two deep freezers at Body of Christ Food Pantry in Westerville.

About 45 minutes have passed since Susan and I first met and already we’ve completed two “food rescue” missions.

The Community Plates model is simple: volunteers hear about food surpluses via social media and transfer them directly to a receiving agency using their own vehicles. Rescue missions are organized to keep transfer and, by extension, volunteer time to a minimum. The average mission lasts 15 to 30

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minutes. Our trip covered more ground than usual because Susan tailored it to her work commute.

For something so simple, the potential gains are stunning. Since May 2011, Community Plates in Fairfield County, Connecticut has rescued and redistributed more than one million pounds of food, a number that Community Plates Executive Director Kevin Mullins predicts Columbus will soon match.

According to Cierra Rider, founding site director of Community Plates Columbus and now the national social media director, convenience is why Community Plates works, not only in Columbus but also in Fairfield County and New Haven, Connecticut, as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“People want to do good,” said Cierra. “But they don’t want it to take away from their time. The thing I hear [from volunteers] is always that it’s so simple. It’s so easy. It literally takes less than 30 minutes to go pick up food and drop it off.”

Cierra has carried the issue of hunger “in her heart” since she was 8 years old.

That’s when a group of people on the street asked her family for food as they walked to a restaurant. Rider refused to eat until her parents ordered appetizers and distributed them among the hungry men and women out front.

“I just didn’t get it,” she said now. “I had never understood before that there were people who couldn’t just go to a restaurant and order food.”

Hunger. We think we know what it looks like. But recent statistics suggest a picture very different from the stereotype. Hunger in the United States is not confined to the homeless, the rural poor or children of unemployed addicts.

In the wake of the 2009 recession, hunger has spread freely across class, color and community lines. It now affects 14.5% of all U.S. households or nearly 50 million Americans, including one in five children under 5 years old. For families struggling to make ends meet, hunger might result from choosing to pay the mortgage rather than buying enough groceries.

For Cierra, the numbers fail to communicate the urgency of the problem at the local level. She relies instead on the image of Ohio Stadium. In Franklin County alone, there are 208,940 people who struggle with hunger on a daily basis: enough to fill the stadium more than twice.

Cierra was well acquainted with soup kitchen and food pantry models by the time Kevin, a family friend, approached her to start Community Plates in Columbus. She leapt at the chance.

“I just thought it was so different,” she said. “And I definitely saw the need because I always saw so much restaurant food getting thrown away. I knew it was a model I wanted to get involved with.”

According to its mission statement, Community Plates is committed to ending hunger in America by directly transferring fresh, usable food that would have otherwise been thrown away from restaurants, markets and other food industry sources to hungry families throughout the United States. The speed of transfer allows Community Plates to focus more on perishable food items than other larger-scale operations.

“Most of the fresh food we rescue doesn’t have much more than 48 to 72 hours in it. There’s no time to schedule the trucks for a pick and distribute it [via the food bank]. We get it to where it can be used as quickly as possible,” Kevin explained.

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“The social media has a direct effect,” said Cierra. “If people like us on Facebook or Twitter and they are checking their normal stuff, they can see, ‘oh there’s a pick up at the North Market at 7 and my plans got cancelled. I can go do that.’”

Direct transfer also negates the safety concerns that frequently stall food donations, like controlling temperature for meat and dairy donations. Most runs are designed to take about 15 minutes.

Susan Keiser-Smith (left) and Cierra Rider (right) of Community Plates

This new approach to fighting hunger would not have been possible without the power of new technologies.

“We recognized that it would be impossible to make a real difference without an app,” explained Kevin. “We were never going to exist without one. Using the old ways, by which I mean text message and email, you could be the most on-top-of-it community organizer and still the most people you could possibly mobilize would be 100 or so. We wanted to do more.”

The award-winning GoRescue app functions as Community Plates’s command central, eliminating the need for organizers to constantly act as middlemen. Volunteers sign up for a run in less time than it takes to buy a movie ticket online. Push notifications alert volunteers of last-minute pickups. Runners can also connect with others to coordinate runs, share feedback and ideas and plan meet-ups.

In addition to the app, Community Plates relies on witty email blasts, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep its volunteers informed and engaged.

“The social media has a direct effect,” said Cierra. “If people like us on Facebook or Twitter and they are checking their normal stuff, they can see, ‘oh there’s a pick up at the North Market at 7 and my plans got cancelled. I can go do that.’

“Even just putting things on my personal social media accounts [helps]. It’s as simple as if my husband and I go on a run, I might as well take [a photo] of him picking up food and taking it to the Faith Mission and from that through my friends on [social media] and sharing it on the Community Plates page, it literally triples my sphere of influence from just one post.”

Community Plates also fosters a tangible community.

“We are living in a transient society where people no longer have the sense of home they once did,” said Kevin. “We’ve had people say that participating was the first sense of community they’ve felt.”

Rider echoes the sentiment, saying the feedback she receives from runners is often about the people they meet.

Angela Douglas helps organize the Body of Christ Food Pantry where Susan and I delivered the Chipotle. Open twice weekly, Body of Christ served more than 3,000 people in 2013 with a combination of donated canned and fresh goods, as well as what they purchased from the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.

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According to Angela, it’s the personal connection that sets Community Plates apart. Chipotle donates on a day the pantry is closed so Susan lets us in and assumes the responsibility of safely storing the food in the freezer and locking up behind us. The feeling is neighborly.

Including Body of Christ Food Pantry, Community Plates currently delivers to seven receiving agencies, including Faith Mission and Hazel’s House of Hope. Regular donors include Bluescreek Farm Meats, Omega Artisan Baking Co. Aldi, Chipotle, Starbucks, Bob Evans, Auntie Anne’s, the Park Street Cantina and the Clintonville Farmers Market. At this moment there are 30 registered volunteers. Cierra wants to triple that number by summer.

New donors are waiting to schedule regular pickups, but Community Plates can’t commit without more manpower.

“The first, second and third most important thing to do is to become a food runner,” said Kevin. “We can raise the money. There is plenty of food. The only thing that holds us back is the number of food runners.”

Susan agreed.

“When we started out, there were suggestions that it wouldn’t work. It is working. We just need more volunteers.”

Sarah Lagrotteria is a FCI-trained chef who has worked for Mario Batali, taught writing classes on food culture at Stanford and contributed to numerous cookbooks. In 2003, Sarah co-founded Apples & Onions, a private chef company in Malibu, CA. She now lives in Worthington with her husband and daughter Marlowe.

Volunteering at Community Plates Columbus There is no minimum requirement to remain active as a volunteer. Volunteers participate according to their own schedule, as often or as little as they want. Options include scheduling regular runs or checking in whenever schedule permits.

All volunteers receive the weekly email blast, regardless of whether they have recently participated. Volunteers are encouraged to post feedback on GoRescue and/or Community Plates’s Facebook page.

To join: visit communityplates.org and select “Join Us” from the header.

Choose your role: food donor, food runner or partner (receiving) agency.

Submit the corresponding information form via the site. Runners will immediately receive a welcome letter that includes a link to the GoRescue app. Create your app account (on any supporting smart device or browser), and sign up for runs with a just a few clicks. You may be on the road the same day.

Donors and partner agencies will receive a phone call from the local site director (Susan Keiser-Smith) to discuss the types and quantities of food available or desired, as well as scheduling.

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from the good earth

Fox Hollow Farm How one farm became the center of a growing local food community

By Dean Abbott Photography by Jodi Miller

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ox Hollow Farm is a pretty good place to be a blade of grass. Standard practice on the 280-acre farm near Fredericktown is to move the flock of sheep and herd of cattle, referred to collectively as “the flerd,” to a new pasture every day to graze on fresh vegetation.

“A blade of grass on this farm will only see a sheep or a cow four days a year,” said Bruce Rickard, who, along with his wife, Lisa, founded the farm in 1987. The other 361 days per year the grass grows and strengthens the operation in other ways, by anchoring topsoil, keeping water on the farm and providing wildlife habitat.

The Rickards’ sustainable approach to grazing is just one of the practices that has made Fox Hollow Farm a leader in Knox County’s vibrant and growing local foods scene.

“In addition to their work on the farm, the Rickards have been instrumental in helping interest in local food flourish in the county,” said Howard Sacks, director of the Rural Life Center at Kenyon College. The Rickards are longtime members of the Knox County Local Food Council, an independent group of citizens interested in furthering the cause of local foods.

The work of the council has manifested itself in unique ways in the county.

“We’ve tried to build a countywide local food system,” Howard said. At this point, that system includes not just farmers and other local producers, but the Mount Vernon Farmers Market, the Owl Creek Produce Auction, a local-foods store, an active community garden program and plenty of community outreach and education.

The Rickards have been part of these developments from the beginning.

“They were early adopters in the local food system,” Howard said. “The Rickards were willing to try this out long before it became fashionable and popular.”

Their willingness years ago to take a chance on the burgeoning Knox County local foods operation is unsurprising. The Rickards have a record of taking chances. In fact, Fox Hollow Farm only exists because of risks the couple took.

Bruce and Lisa met and married in New Jersey while working office jobs for AT&T. Their jobs required spending hours in small, enclosed, windowless spaces. “We’d go whole days without seeing the sun,” Bruce said.

Over time, the couple became dissatisfied with their professional lives.

“When we were at AT&T, we said, ‘We can keep these jobs, or see how we can fix it’,” Lisa said.

“The plan,” she said, “was that Bruce would transfer to an AT&T-related facility in Columbus and I would start the farm.” The couple followed their plan, purchasing a 65-acre farm in Knox County.

Sheep were the farm’s first project. The original flock was small. “We started with nine sheep,” Lisa said. Those days were devoted to learning to raise the animals and then to selling them at the livestock auction in Mount Vernon.

From the beginning the couple farmed according to organic principles.

In 1994, the Rickards sold their first farm and bought a second, moving Fox Hollow to its current location. When the Mount Vernon Farmers Market

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began operating in the early 2000s, they decided to stop selling at the livestock auction and take a chance marketing directly to consumers.

That decision has helped Fox Hollow Farm grow its reputation. The Rickards now sell beef, lamb, eggs, pork, chicken, pet treats and some vegetables to consumers all over Central Ohio. Many of those transactions happen at farmers markets in Mount Vernon and Westerville. But because the farm’s website allows orders to be registered online, its products have been shipped from Toledo to Akron, though many orders are still delivered in a more personal manner.

“We have a lot of people who just walk up on the porch,” Bruce said.

Demand for Fox Hollow Farm products is booming. Jesse Rickard, Bruce and Lisa’s 26-year-old son who is now working on the farm, said the desire for the farm-raised goods keeps the whole crew busy.

“We can’t keep up with the customer base now. It’s a very good problem.”

In spite of all the activity, the Rickards’ goal for the farm is the same as it has always been. “[We wanted] to do worthwhile work,” Lisa said. Consumers across Ohio seem to think their work has been worthwhile indeed.

The dim cubicles in that office building in New Jersey are far behind the Rickards now. These days, they work in a more organic environment, one humming with the energy of living things.

“Each year,” Bruce said, “we want the farm to be a little more alive than it was the year before.”

Dean Abbott likes telling stories about farmers and is happy to do so in this issue. He lives in Knox County with his wife, two daughters and their threelegged dog, Celia. When not working on a story, he is assistant professor of Communication at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

Upcoming Events at Fox Hollow Farms Fox Hollow Farms welcomes guests to the farm to experience all they have to offer. This year there is the possible addition of mushrooms to the farm’s offerings and they’ll continue to work with interns from the nearby Kenyon College. In August, they hope to host a permaculture workshop. Readers can find out more at midwestpermaculture.com.

The farm is also planning a number of farm-to-table events this year.

The dates for those events are: May 25, June 29, July 27, August 31, September 28 and October 26.

Find out more by visiting foxhollowfarmnaturally.com.

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urban homestead

Kit Yoon and her family have backyard chickens in Bexley. Children are Miller Yoon MacDonald-10 and Claire Yoon MacDonald-10. They have two chickens named Butternut and Squash.

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The Chickens Come Home to Roost Urban chickens strut their stuff around town

By Nancy McKibben Photography by Jodi Miller

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orothy, Mabel, Pearl and Hilda.

Buffy and Ginger. Peggy and Betty and Joan. In the winter, the girls put their heads together to cluck over the latest neighborhood gossip. Come spring, they fly the coop and linger outside, having hen parties.

Chickens like Dorothy and friends have lived in American yards since their arrival on the Mayflower. Their re-introduction into the city may initially raise hackles (and not just those of the neighborhood fox), but neighbors soon learn what productive citizens chickens can be.

Broody in Bexley Spacious brick homes, eye-catching architectural features, landscaped lawns and chicken coops.

Traditional, upscale Bexley boasts one of the most enlightened chicken ordinances in the country.

Residents Andrew and Jessica Mills, a philosophy professor at Otterbein University and an academic coach respectively, obtained their hens shortly before the city wrote its chicken regulations. They opened their coop to a city council tour after a woman complained that chickens in general were “dirty and mean and smelly.�

But as Jessica pointed out, a few pet chickens are not the same as 100 on a farm.

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“The city council was really open-minded,” Jessica said. “It was small government in the best sense.” At the public meeting, “there was a guy from OSU Ag [College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences], from OEFFA [Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association] and some master gardeners. It was one of the best-attended city council meetings we ever had, and everyone was pro-chicken.”

The resulting legislation requires a permit, an inspection and a coop shielded from the street.

Chickens (hens only!) are counted among the five pets permitted residents. (See Bexley City Code Sec. 618.24.)

The Mills’s chickens, Tami Taylor and Tyra, scratch and peck in a fenced run with mulch and straw on the ground and an awning for summer shade. They roost on a pole and lay eggs in a coop. Their most exotic accessory is a heated dog bowl for winter.

Andrew said that keeping chickens helps the couple “feel connected to food production.” And baby Lolly will grow up understanding where her delicious morning egg comes from.

In another part of Bexley, 10-year-old Claire and Miller Yoon list the virtues of chickens while Butternut and Squash range outside in a picturesque enclosure that contains a two-story coop, a chicken yard and two raised vegetable beds, covered to keep the chickens out. Although they keep bugs down, chickens can be destructive to plants.

“Chickens are definitely a good addition to the family,” Claire said. “Honestly, to me the eggs taste better than store-bought. The yolks are orange and huge.”

Miller likes bringing table scraps to the chickens.

“They consume all the food we don’t eat. They are practically garbage cans.”

The twins believe that chicken-keepers need to have “the right size yard, the right conditions, patience and tolerance to getting a little dirty every time you step in there with bare feet.”

Their mother, Kit Yoon, a licensed acupuncturist and reflexologist, added that once you’ve raised the chicks and built the coop, the daily care of chickens is “not that much work.”

Flying Under the Radar Chicken keepers outside Bexley are more wary, especially those who have run afoul of a local chicken ordinance. Certain areas outlaw chickens altogether. Columbus rules require impermeable coop floors and a veterinarian check, which slows the permit process.

“Just refer to me as a retired chicken hobbyist,” said an anonymous Clintonville chicken-keeper as she shows off her lovingly built, regulation-compliant coop. “It’s a fun hobby. Some people raise orchids. We ask whether we have any eggs today.”

Although her husband is a “city slicker” who could not fathom his wife’s yearning for poultry,

he is now the one who checks on the hens each evening.

“We’re older adults and our kids are gone, and we cannot believe how entertaining the chickens are,” she said as she stroked a handsome brown hen. “Anyone is welcome to come over and meet the girls.”

Another woman who did not want to be identified raises eight chickens on the north side of town. “I’m a composter and wanted the manure,” she said. “The chickens are my master gardeners.”

“When we moved in, I fenced in an eight-footby-eight-foot square where the chickens pecked for four or five hours a day. They’re little rototillers. By the fall, there was no grass and lots of poop. Now that garden is four times as big and the chickens started it all.”

Productive Pets City people keep chickens for different reasons, but generally regard them more as pets than livestock; all chickens mentioned in this article had names. Neighbors may be tolerant or amused, but are rarely hostile. Children are especially fascinated by the chicks.

Kit called chickens “productive pets.”

“They actually give us something. It’s good for kids to learn how food is made. And at the end of the day, touching base with the kids at dinner, it’s nice to ask how many eggs did the hens lay today.”

(To learn more, see the sidebar for City Folks Farm Shop, a vast reservoir of chicken lore and supplies. Jessica Mills’s blog is bexleychickens.blogspot.com.)

Nancy McKibben is happy to combine her loves of eating and writing with the opportunity to advocate for local food in the pages of Edible Columbus. Her suspense novel, The Chaos Protocol, the first book of The Millennium Trilogy, was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award for Fiction in 2000. The second, Blood on Ice, followed in 2012 and the third is in the works. (The series is set in Columbus, and the books are available at amazon.com.) She is also a poet and lyricist, the mother of six and the wife of one. View her work at nancymckibben.com; contact her at nancy@nancymckibben.com.

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City Folk’s Farm Shop: Chicken Central for Columbus Let proprietor Shawn Fiegelist give you expert chicken advice at City Folk’s Farm Shop in Clintonville. The store offers books, weekly classes and a private Facebook discussion group that boasts 150 members.

Tour urban coops with the store-sponsored, self-guided CLUCK (Columbus Lovers of Urban Chicken Keeping) Tour on Saturday, April 12. Chat with chicken owners. Find maps and details at the store and the website.

Buy chicks—spring is the time. Shawn coordinates monthly orders from February to May, picking them up from Meyer Hatchery in Polk, Ohio, and distributing them from the store.

Buy chicken supplies: •

three types of feed: conventional, organic and non-GMO

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bulk grain for mixing your own feed

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pine shavings for coops and runs

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feeders and waterers

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brooder lamps

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grit and oyster shell

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chicken wire and fencing

Take Shawn’s advice; she and her husband have six chickens named for great-aunts.

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Do your research.

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Talk to your neighbors.

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Check out your city or township ordinance regarding chickens.

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Think about breed. Easter Eggers lay colored eggs. Golden Comets are friendly. Buckeye Chickens are coldhardy. (See Edible

Columbus Fall 2012

“Ohio’s Ark of Taste” for the story of Ohio chicken breeder Nettie Metcalf).

•

Chickens are social and prefer to live in a flock, a minimum of three birds. Plan to buy four, just in case.

City Folk’s Farm Shop, 4760 N. High Street, Columbus; 614-946-5553; cityfolksfarmshop.com

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Good Water Stewards How Ohio’s sustainable farmers are innovating clean water solutions

By Nicole Rasul, Illustrations by Brooke Albrecht

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n a 1,250 acre farm in Carroll, Ohio, lives David Brandt, one of the nation’s leading experts on soil health. David is producing an abundant supply of healthy food through his innovative farming practices while serving as a responsible water steward by ensuring that agricultural runoff does not escape his farm’s boundaries.

Through his use of cover crops and no-till farming, David believes in always keeping his fields layered with plant life, allowing the natural cycle of plant decomposition to feed the soil and in the philosophy of minimal disturbance to the natural physical processes occurring underground. David practices these farming methods to work more sustainably, slash his dependence on fertilizers and to increase his yields. An added benefit, however, is that water runs off his fields in much lower quantities than from the fields of the conventional farmers working around him.

Agricultural runoff is a type of pollution in which water from rain, snow or a farm irrigation event is not absorbed into the soil and instead travels to nearby water supplies carrying with it excess nutrients, such as dissolved phosphorus and nitrogen, animal manure or other matter from a farm. In the careful balance of nature, innovative farming methods like David’s are proving more and more valuable as today’s farmers must both produce high yields and protect the natural systems that they work within, including our nation’s waterways.

In fact, now more than ever, farmers who recognize their roles as water stewards are needed. According to statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture is the number one polluter of America’s waterways. When managed improperly, the 330 million acres of agricultural land in the U.S. can wreak havoc on our water supply as a result of runoff.

Dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coasts of Oregon and Virginia, as well as in the Great Lakes, have made headlines in recent years. Runoff from farms has led to the extensive growth of harmful algae blooms in waterways.

These algae blooms suck oxygen from the water, which limits natural aquatic life in an infiltrated zone.

However, dead zones can be reversed if their pollution causes are eliminated.

Much debate and research has been dedicated to agricultural runoff and its impact on waterways. While politicians, academics and industry actors search for solutions, perhaps looking at the work of several innovative farmers, such as David, will help.

Cover Crops and No-Till Farming David, who has been recognized for his work by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, The Ohio State University and the local farming community, where he was named the 2011 Person of the Year by Ohio Farmer magazine, began the practices of no-till farming in 1971 and cover-crop farming in 1978. He has seen firsthand the benefit of these methods in preventing runoff from his farm into the region’s waterways.

David grows corn, soybeans and wheat; raises steer and hogs; and harvests enough produce to sell at local farmers markets. In the summer, his Midwestern fields look like those of his neighbors. In the winter, however, a real metamorphosis happens and his fields are brimming with life.

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In cover-crop farming, fields are planted year-round with diverse species of plant life with the intention of building soil fertility. This happens due to the breakdown of the crop’s organic matter, which naturally adds nitrogen and other needed nutrients to the soil. While there are many benefits to using cover crops, water management is a big one as cover crops help to reduce soil erosion and lessen the need for fertilizer applications since the health of the soil is persevered and maintained.

No-till farming is centered on the philosophy of minimizing disruption to the soil. In this method, fields are not plowed for planting. Instead, seeds are sowed directly over previously harvested plants, which act as a mulch for the new seedlings. Benefits to no-till agriculture include increased capacity for water infiltration on the seeded land and less soil erosion.

Manure Management Proper manure management is another key to serving as a good water steward. Mardy Townsend, who owns Marshy Meadows Farm, a 226-acre grass-fed beef farm located in Windsor, Ohio, knows first-hand the challenges of manure management as a livestock producer.

“Managing manure properly is more expensive than managing it improperly, and this means that a livestock producer who is managing manure appropriately will often sell a more expensive product due to this unseen production cost,” Mardy said.

Mardy manages her manure responsibly by testing her soil to check for phosphorus levels before spreading manure on her fields at an optimal time of year.

“I pile my manure in the winter and spread it on the fields in the fall. You should never spread manure on snow-covered or frozen ground as it’s more likely to run off.

“Additionally, I soil test every two years to check my farm’s phosphorous levels. Should the levels become too high in a specific field, then I won’t spread manure there until the levels have dropped. However, the chance of excessive levels on my fields [is] remote because I don’t have too many animals for the carrying capacity of my farm. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have high numbers of animals on acreages too small to handle manure without excessive phosphorous build up,” she said.

permaculture instructor, practices innovative methods for managing water on the farm to prevent runoff.

Fox Hollow Farm, which is partially positioned on hilly land, uses swales to intercept runoff. Swales are ditch-like depressions dug into the ground, which are designed to collect water.

Additionally, the Rickards practice mob grazing. In this management method, cattle and sheep graze together on less than three-quarters of an acre. Each day the animals are moved and the land that they had grazed on the day before is allowed to sit fallow for three months. Mob grazing is modeled after natural patterns that occur in the wild, such as on the plains of the Serengeti.

This method is recognized not only for its nutritional benefits for the livestock, as they consume the prime forage in the short timespan they are in each section of the pasture, but also for helping to improve a farm’s soil health through the build-up of organic matter. This has a domino effect for water conservation as this higher-quality soil absorbs more water and acts as a buffer during high rainfall events.

Consumer Understanding and Advocacy What role can consumers play in supporting farmers who serve as good water stewards?

Many agricultural producers note that understanding the issue is key and, beyond that, supporting farmers who practice sustainable methods, which enable them to serve as good water stewards, is also crucial.

“Knowing your producer is key,” Bruce noted. “It’s important to understand how your farmer is running his operation. Visit the farm, learn about what they are doing to be sustainable and manage runoff.”

Not only can consumers vote with their wallets by seeking food that is raised in a sustainable way, but consumers can also advocate for conventional producers to adopt better conversation practices that protect America’s waterways.

“A key to solving water runoff issues lies in convincing conventional farmers of the importance of having cover crops,” David noted, “Cover crops not only help to loosen the soil and bring nutrients to the surface, helping to cut down on the need for fertilization applications, but they also increase water infiltration into the soil, reducing runoff from the fields.”

Finding Solutions in Permaculture Bruce Rickard owns Fox Hollow Farm in Fredericktown, Ohio with his wife, Lisa (see page 40). The livestock farm has 180 acres of pasture and, at the height of production in the summer, the farm has nearly 90 head of cattle and 500 sheep. All of the animals on the farm are naturally raised and on pasture for almost the entire year.

In addition to properly managing and treating their farm’s manure, including an impressive composting operation, Bruce, who is also a certified

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Nicole Rasul loves all things related to food and is especially inquisitive about food history and culture. She and her husband recently moved back to Ohio, her home state, after many years on the East Coast. They live in Clintonville where they enjoy the farmers market and their backyard garden.

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First Fruit

Planting, growing and picking Ohio’s

springtime strawberries

PHOTO BY © CAROLE TOPALIAN

By Teresa Woodard

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or Ohio strawberry fans, nothing beats a bite of the season’s first fruit.

The taste of the long-anticipated juicy, sweet, red-ripe berries spurs visions of a June-filled bounty of these delicious treats. Sliced over cereal. Spooned over shortcake. Piled high in a pie. Oh, and yes, preserved in jam or frozen for smoothies yearround. Whether starting down a row at a local U-pick farm or harvesting one from a backyard garden, sampling that initial strawberry is definitely a welcome rite of spring.

Not surprisingly, strawberry fans are notorious for hastily calling local farms for berry-picking updates. They’re ready to swap their shipped-in plastic quarts of super-sized hollow berries for fresh-picked, bite-sized, candy-sweet varieties like “Earliglow” and ‘“Jewel” from local strawberry farms.

“People will start calling in April when they first mow their grass hoping the berries are ready for picking,” said Kerry Sullivan of Plain City’s Jacquemin Farms, which typically opens its three-acre U-pick strawberry farm around Memorial Day.

Fortunately for Central Ohioans, local growers like Kerry annually open their U-pick fields for the month of June, while others are experimenting with new ways to expand the growing season.

At Mitchell’s Berries in Plain City, managing owner Shelly Detwiler said her farm has adopted a plasticulture system that produces ripe berries as early as Mother’s Day weekend. Unlike the traditional matted row approach that relies on plants to spread into dense rows the first year then produce fruit for two to four years, this labor-intensive approach involves planting a new crop of berries each fall.

In August, Shelly and her family till their oneacre patch, create three-foot-wide raised rows, lay irrigation lines and spread a black plastic film overtop. Over Labor Day weekend, they plant 15,000 strawberry plants through the plastic and thoroughly water them to help establish the young plants before cold weather arrives. In midNovember, they cover the planted rows with blankets, or “put them to bed for the winter” as Shelly said. They remove the blankets in the spring when threats of frosts have cleared. Still insulated by the plastic, the plants begin to bloom and set fruit.

Kerry understands their passion.

“Ohio berries taste so much better, because we can leave them on the vine so much longer to sweeten,” she said. To further illustrate the extremes strawberry fans will take to enjoy these fleeting spring fruits, Kerry shared a story of one impassioned customer: A man was picking strawberries in the U-pick field and kept returning to his van to pull out more metal bowls and buckets to fill with berries. “When everything was gone, he grabbed his hat and filled it, too,” Kerry said.

acres with a combination of early varieties like ‘“Wendy” and later ones like ‘“Jewel.”

Ethel Sullivan of Circle S Farms in Grove City said she and her late husband, Doug Sullivan, were among the first strawberry farmers to try the plasticulture system. She said they tried it for three years but found the intensive fall planting didn’t fit well with the farm’s busy pumpkin season.

Having farmed seven to 14 acres of strawberries for the past 35 years, Ethel has become a bit of a legend in the local strawberry community.

Whether she’s selling her gourmet strawberry salsas and jams at local farmers markets or weighing customers’ berries at her farm stand, she generously offers picking and storing tips.

For picking, she said to pinch the stems and avoid grabbing the berries, which can bruise the fruits. To store the berries, she recommends placing them in the refrigerator unwashed, then rinsing them before eating or cooking. Extra berries can easily be frozen. She says simply flashfreeze whole, un-stemmed berries on a cookie sheet, then place the frozen fruits in plastic freezer bags.

Now in their fourth season using this approach, Shelly said she likes the plastic film because it cuts down on the weeds, warms the plants for earlier harvest and keeps the soil moist.

Teresa Woodard writes, scouts and produces home

Jason Wish of Wishwell Farms in Bellefontaine said he is planning to try this approach and will be planting a half acre this fall. He said he’s also “tinkered” with growing ever-bearing strawberries but was strapped for help picking berries through the fall when his student employees had to return to school. Like many other local strawberry growers, he focuses on making the most of June’s ideal growing conditions, planting three

dening with two other writers at heartland-gar-

and garden stories for regional and national magazines, including Columbus

Monthly, Ohio Magazine, Ohio Gardener, Midwest Living and Country Gardens. She blogs about Midwest gardening.com. She’s also a master gardener and gardens on two and a half acres along the Little Darby Creek in Madison County. She and her husband Brian have three teenage kids, a cat Shadow and a dog Tucker. Most mornings, you’ll find Teresa writing or looking for inspiration as she walks Tucker in a nearby preserve.

“Ohio berries taste so much better, because we can leave them on the vine so much longer to sweeten.”

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U-pick Strawberries Ohio produced 2.8 million pounds of strawberries in 2012, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The state is among the top 10 in the

Barrett’s Strawberry Farm, 11434 Fairfield Rd.,

Legend Hills Orchard, 11335 Reynolds Rd., Utica,

Leesburg, 937-780-4961

740-892-3090

Circle S Farms, 9015 London Groveport Rd.,

Matt’s U-pick, 8155 Landis Rd. SW, Amanda,

Grove City, 614-878-7980, circlesfarms.com

740-969-4159

nation for strawberry production. Here are a dozen local growers.

Doran’s Farm Market, 5462 Babbitt Rd.,

Mitchell’s Berries, 9331 Mitchell-Dewitt Rd.,

New Albany, 614-855-3885

Plain City, 937-243-0635, mitchellsberries.com

Folck Family Farm, 6843 State Rte. 54,

Stir Family Farm, 8050 Madison-Walnut Rd.,

Mechanicsburg, 937-828-0233,

Ashville, 740-497-2935

folckfamilyfarm.net Stokes Berry Farm, 2822 Center Rd., Hann Farms, 4600 Lockbourne Rd., Obetz,

Wilmington, 937-382-4004

614-491-0812 Wishwell Farms, 3381 Rt. 68 N.,

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Jacquemin Farms, 7437 Hyland Croy Rd.,

Bellefontaine, 937-592-2173,

Plain City, 614-873-5725, jacqueminfarms.com

wishwellfarms.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHELLY DETWILER

Backyard Berries According to Dr. Gary Gao, extension horticulturist and associate professor with The Ohio State University, backyard gardeners have

gested adding six to 12 day-neutral types like

Edible groundcover: Strawberry plants form a

“Albion,” “Tribute” and “Tristar” or everbearing

dense matt that can make an edible groundcover

ones like “Ozark Beauty” and “Quinault.” Cover

with attractive flowers and lingering green foliage.

unripened berries with netting to keep away

Gary said to plant day-neutral or everbearing vari-

hungry birds.

eties in full sun or under a less-densely canopied

several options when it comes to growing strawberries.

Stock-the-freezer patch: For an abundant harvest, Gary said a raised bed of June-bearing strawberry varieties is the way to go. Start with a 6-foot-by-6-foot raised bed and fill it with 25 plants. Gary said plants can be purchased from a mail order company or local garden stores.

Plant them in April to harvest the following year.

Be sure to bury the roots but only half of the crown to avoid root rot. Water the plants thoroughly and mulch them with straw or black

tree, like a honey locust. He says the strawberry Patio berries: For gardeners with limited space, con-

plants grown as a ground cover will produce some

tainers are a great option for growing strawberries.

berries but not as abundantly as a raised bed of

Besides, containers are easier to protect from pesky

June-bearing berries.

critters. Gary said to choose a large container or hanging basket with holes in the bottom for

Note: While strawberry plants are perennials (re-

drainage. Fill the container with a quality potting soil

turning year after year), they typically produce

mix. Plant day-neutral or everbearing varieties to

berries for only three years. After that, they need to

enjoy all season long. Remember to water the plants

be replaced with new, more productive plants.

daily since containers dry out easily. At the end of the season, the containers can be over-wintered in a garage or the plants can be discarded to be replaced next season.

plastic. Some favorite June-bearing varieties include “Annapolis,” “Earliglow,” “Honeoye” and “Surecrop.” To extend the season, Gary sug-

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in the garden

The Thymes of

Inniswood A local garden where thyme thrives in abundance

By Debra Knapke Photography by Catherine Murray

A

s you walk through the herb garden at Inniswood Metro Gardens, you will notice that thymes are planted throughout the different rooms of the garden. Thyme has a very long recorded history of culinary and medicinal use, dating back to biblical times. On a warm day during the growing season, you can smell the essential oils that emanate from the leaves. While we enjoy the fragrance, deer and other mammals do not. As with most species of the mint family (Lamiaceae), thyme’s essential oils are too strong for most animals’ sensitive noses. In May and June you can watch butterflies, bees and other pollinators feeding from the nectar of the flowers. At times the symphony of buzzing can be quite amazing.

The backbone of the herb garden at Inniswood is the collection of thymes planted along the central curved wall and other areas of the garden. The story of this collection is one of research, rescue and love.

The Central Ohio Unit of the Herb Society of America (COU-HSA) wanted to establish an herb garden in the Columbus area. In the early ‘80s the founding members of COU-HSA reached an agreement with Metro Parks and initiated the planning for an herb garden at Inniswood. At the same time, several members heard that a large collection of thymes at Cornell University was due to be plowed under to make way for another research project.

Imagine a field of some 425 species, hybrids and cultivars of thymes—a four-year commitment by Harriet Ballard Flannery—soon to be compost.

Instead, a part of the collection became the focus for the new herb garden.

In 1981, COU charter member Sherran Blair and her husband, Roger, drove to Cornell, dug and divided a representative sample of thymes, and brought them to Columbus. For two years the thymes resided at Inniswood and in Sherran’s garden as the herb garden was being built.

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The design of the garden is atypical. Many herb gardens are based on the four-square plan of late Persian gardens, with a very symmetrical, structured geometrical form. In contrast, the Inniswood herb garden has a curvilinear, asymmetrical layout that moves smoothly from “room to room.” And thyme is the repeated plant note.

Worldwide, there are approximately 350 species of thyme. They are found primarily in Europe and Asia in gritty, freely draining, neutral to alkaline soils. I would like to repeat: gritty, freely draining soils. “Wet feet,” especially in winter, guarantees a premature death.

Initially at Inniswood there were drainage problems for many of the thymes that were planted in what is now the thyme lawn. These problems were resolved by moving the thymes up to the central curved wall and to higher areas around the herb garden.

The plants in the garden are representative of what is commercially available.

Thymes are very gregarious and freely hybridize with each other in their natural habitat, and also in the garden. The thymes in the herb garden are made up of these hybrids, as well as the cultivars of the more common species.

In the kitchen, thyme is so versatile. It enhances the flavor of vegetables, meats, breads and ethnic recipes. Historically, thyme was one of the herbs that preserved meats as its essential oils have antibacterial and antifungal properties. But take note: While all thymes are edible, not all are tasty. The species and hybrids that are most flavorful are French and English thyme (Thymus vulgaris species and cultivars), mother of thyme (T. pulegioides sp. and cult.), lemon thyme (T. x citriodorus) and caraway thyme (T. herbabarona). If you are trying to decide whether to use a particular thyme—or any culinary herb—smell it. If you like the smell, you will like the taste.

And, finally, the love: For years the members of the Central Ohio Unit have lovingly tended the thymes of the herb garden. So, in the language of flowers, I wish you thyme: happiness and strength.

Debra Knapke is a teacher, lecturer, garden designer, photographer and gardener. Her gardens are eclectic combinations of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that she has stuffed into ⅔ of an acre. She is the co-author of five books and is a Heartland Gardener: heartland-gardening.com.

Thymes have either an upright or low-spreading habit. The spreaders make an excellent groundcover in sunny, dry, well-drained locations, and can be a good substitute for grass in low-traffic areas. One of the best uses in the garden is to plant them between stepping stones and in the crevices in stone walls. The creeping thyme (Thymus praecox and its cultivars) is my favorite as a groundcover. It provides a green carpet that only a few weeds can breach.

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last seed

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