WHAT’S IN SEASON

WHAT’S IN SEASON FARM TO LUNCHBOX

A farming mom’s own strategies for getting the healthful, delicious fall harvest into your kids’ lunches—and their stomachs

STORY AND PHOTOS BY JAMIE COLLINS

I have always been interested in nutrition, so when I started my farm 15 years ago, I chose to grow the most vitamin–rich varieties of produce that I could find. I planted red bore kale and cosmic purple carrots because of their high anthocyanin properties. e greens I grew were ones I knew to be chock full of vitamins, like pea shoots, dandelions and spinach. I’ve even harvested edible farm weeds like stinging nettles and purslane for their substantial vitamin B and omega 3 content. I’ve appreciated the abundance and nutritional value of the food I’ve grown, but it wasn’t until I had my boy that I realized how lucky I was to have access to all the farm-fresh, organic produce I would need for a growing child. ree months prior to giving birth to my son Ivan, I leased a 1-acre blueberry patch. I was craving the delicious antioxidant-rich berries like crazy, and I knew eating several pounds daily was going to be good for my boy’s growing brain. Later, when it was time to feed him his first food, I roasted and blended up our farm-grown butternut squash. His look of amazement when the sweet, orange, drippy squash hit his lips and his excited squeal after his first bite were all I needed to propel me to blend up all kinds of healthy, seasonal plant-based purées. I had a brand new life to care for that had not been inundated with toxins or chemicals and I wanted to try my best to keep it that way: Ivan was my newest experimental crop, and I was determined to help him grow up healthy and strong by introducing him to nutrient-dense foods.

Armed with the books, Baby Greens: A Live-Food Approach for Children of All Ages and Super Nutrition for Babies, I was inspired to get into his diet nutrient-packed avocados, soft-boiled egg yolks, salmon roe, lacto-fermented root vegetables, chicken livers, bone marrow and sweet potatoes, just to name a few. His favorite snack as a baby was probioticladen Garden Variety sheep yogurt with orange-flavored cod liver fish oil and maple syrup, which provided him with loads of immunity-boosting vitamin D and omega 3s. Expanding my kid’s palate was a priority, and my freezer reflected that in the labels that read: goat meat with delicata squash; coconut milk-stewed rabbit with sweet potato, buttered parsnips and carrots; and roasted beet applesauce.

Ivan is three now and a bit pickier, but we believe not so much as he might be had we not introduced him early to many kinds of healthy foods. We still steer clear of highly processed, so-called toddler foods like chicken nuggets and fish sticks and other foods I consider to be empty calories, like bread and cereal.

Instead, Ivan eats what we are having, and I pack this food for his lunch at preschool in a stainless steel bento PlanetBox (aka “num num box”).

I had a brand new life to care for that had not been inundated with toxins or chemicals and I wanted to try my best to keep it that way: Ivan was my newest experimental crop, and I was determined to help him grow up healthy and strong by introducing him to nutrient-dense foods.

I find much joy filling the compartments with an artistic (and healthful) rainbow of seasonal fruits and vegetables, as well as at least two protein sources like hard-boiled eggs, smoked wild salmon, cheese, sardines, turkey and nuts or sprouted seeds. Leafy greens still need to be somewhat hidden inside a rice stir fry, pasta and cheese dish, or bean burrito, but using a little creativity helps ensure they get eaten.

PLAN AHEAD

So how does a busy farmer find time for this, you may wonder? It’s true that I can grow most of the vegetables we eat, so sourcing uberfresh ingredients is easier for me than a non-farming mom.

But the most important key to building a balanced lunchbox is planning ahead and preparing a base for your meals each week. And you certainly don’t have to be a farmer for that.

My partner Avtonom and I make at least two different protein and vegetable meals a week, with enough to have leftovers for us all to eat for a few days. Ivan’s lunches are planned around the leftovers and often are simpler than what we make for ourselves. For example, for dinner I will cook two whole chickens with root vegetables like sweet potatoes, parsnips or carrots and a cruciferous veggie like broccoli, Brussels sprouts or cabbage chunks. In Ivan’s lunch I might mix the chicken with sweet corn and butter and top it with sprouted pumpkin seeds, or add it to mac and cheese with broccoli or kale. Or I might make it into a chicken salad with dried cranberries and walnuts, or simply put the chicken over rice with chopped cabbage and some cranberry sauce on the side.

And even before Ivan is off to school, I try to pump the nutrients into him with a breakfast of poached eggs over a buttered sweet potato rather than less-nutritious toast; we also hold the hash browns in our house and instead, serve breakfast sides like roasted carrots and parsnips or beets.

MAKE IT TASTE DELICIOUS

e best-tasting fruits and vegetables are those that are in season and are fresh. If you don’t grown your own, you can find the freshest, most flavorful specimens by purchasing them at the farmers’ market, because produce found there is grown from varietals selected for their flavor rather than their ability to withstand being shipped for long distances. Farmers’ market produce generally is also recently picked, at the peak of ripeness.

So many times I hear people saying, “My kid doesn’t like this fruit or that vegetable.” I always ask if the fruit or vegetable was in season when they tried it and if the parents themselves thought it tasted good. Often times I will hear that it was from the grocery store and no, they

didn’t think it tasted very good. If you don’t think it tastes good, don’t expect your kid will either. It’s as simple as that!

To be good tasting, vegetables also have to be cooked with attractive flavor and texture in mind: If a vegetable is overcooked to mush or even if it is undercooked, it most likely won’t be accepted by a kid, let alone an adult.

To make your cooking most palatable for young children, minimize strong flavors like herbs and spices and keep it simple: Use butter and avocado or olive oil on vegetables, maybe a drizzle of honey or a sprinkle of cinnamon and coconut oil on bitter root vegetables like turnips. A light sprinkle of a good-quality sea salt like pink Himalaya also brings out the flavor and provides beneficial trace minerals.

I pack a lunch the way I would want it; I try to create a balance of flavors and textures as well as a pleasing presentation. If most of the food in the box is soft, I like to balance it with crunch like raw vegetables and sprouted grain crackers. Eating from the rainbow is not only fun, but a good way to get a balance of nutrients so I take that into consideration as well.

SAVE MONEY

Eating seasonally makes sense monetarily—farmers have abundance of the crops that are in season and will often give bulk discounts. Ask your apple farmer if he or she will sell bruised fruit at a reduced rate; it will save the farmer the trouble of schlepping them back to the ranch and most likely compost them.

Tomatoes are also a crop that keeps producing, and ripe ones won’t hold until the next market. e farmer will surely be happy to sell overripe or soft tomatoes at a discount, so be sure to inquire.

U-picks are also great places to stock up on fruits like berries (which can be frozen for use in smoothies and baked goods through the winter) and vegetables like winter squash at great prices. We at Serendipity Farms have a winter squash and 20-variety tomato U-pick this season starting Saturdays in September in Carmel Valley. Live Earth Farm in Watsonville will hold tomato, apple and pumpkin Upicks this fall and Crystal Bay Farms in La Selva Beach holds an annual pumpkin patch. (Watch the websites and social media of these local organic farms for details.)

All this bounty and the discounts that come with it also make fall a money saver if you can set aside the time to preserve some of the harvest by canning or freezing it for future lunches and dinners, too.

Before putting up the season’s best, consider making the tomatoes into pasta sauce, soups and ketchups free of high fructose corn syrups. Apples can be turned into cider, pie filling and applesauce. Cucumbers can be fermented into pickles that last in the refrigerator for several months—and most kids love whole dill pickles. I have fond childhood memories of getting a giant sour pickle at the local deli each weekend and eating it slowly, making it last several days. Cabbages can be made into krauts that will inoculate your family’s bellies with good bacteria and last for months. Krauts can be a tough one to introduce though, so adding grated carrots or fennel can sweeten it up, making it more palatable to kids.

All in all, I estimate that the seasonal and nearly always organic ingredients that go into each of Ivan’s lunches cost just $2.50 to $3.50, a savings over many less healthy options for home lunches as well as school lunch programs. (Carmel Unified School District charges $4 for lunch, for example.)

DON’T GET DISCOURAGED

If your kid doesn’t eat your healthy options right away, be patient and offer them again. Studies show it takes up to 10 exposures to a food before they decide whether they like it or not.

I learned this the hard way when I made blueberry banana muffins to celebrate Ivan’s third birthday.

My first mistake was that I called them cupcakes, which they kind of were because they had a traditional cream cheese (OK, with a bit of Meyer lemon zest—I couldn’t resist) frosting. But they were not as sweet or as conventional as the cupcakes Ivan’s preschool classmates were accustomed to.

Within two minutes, 12 kids had either decided they hated the frosting or hated the muffins.

Some kids’ little fingers scraped the frosting off while exclaiming, “eeeeeeeeewwwwwww’’ or “is is gross!” before eating the muffins; other kids licked up all the frosting and then dumped the muffins with a thud into the garbage can.

But there was my boy, who has had many opportunities to learn to love blueberries, cream cheese and, yes, it’s true, a little Meyer lemon zest, wearing his birthday crown and scarfing down the whole thing, not caring what any of the other kids were saying.

I sure hope that lasts.

Jamie Collins is owner of Serendipity Farms and has been growing organic row crops at the mouth of Carmel Valley since 2001. She distributes her produce through a CSA, u-picks and farmers’ markets.

MORE: See Serendipity Farms’ Veggie Burger Recipe and Collins’ Fall Seasonal Lunch Box Tips online at www.ediblemontereybay.com.

LOCAL FOODS IN SEASON SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER

Fruits: Apples • Asian Pears • Avocados • Blackberries** Cactus Pears • Dates • Feijoas**** • Figs • Guavas**** • Kiwis Kumquats • Lemons • Limes*** • Mandarins**** • Melons Nectarines** • Oranges • Peaches* • Pears • Persimmons Plums • Pluots • Pomegranates • Pomelos**** • Quince Raspberries • Strawberries

Nuts: Almonds • Hazelnuts • Pecans • Pistachios • Walnuts

Vegetables: Beans • Beets • Bok Choy* • Broccoli • Brussels Sprouts* • Burdock • Cabbages • Carrots • Cauliflowers* Celeriac • Celery • Chard • Collards • Corn • Cress Cucumbers • Dandelions • Eggplants • Endive • Fennel Garlic • Herbs • Horseradish • Kale • Leeks • Lettuces Mustard Greens • Okra • Olives • Onions • Orach • Parsnips Peas • Pea Shoots • Peppers • Potatoes • Radishes • Rhubarb Rutabagas*** • Salsify • Scallions • Shallots • Spinach Sprouts • Squash, Summer and Winter • Sunchokes • Sweet Potatoes • Tomatillos • Tomatoes • Turnips

* = September only ** = Only through October ***= October and beyond ****=November only

Fish: Abalone • Halibut, Calif. • Lingcod • Rock Cod/Rockfish • Sablefish, aka Black Cod • Sanddabs • Sole Sea Bass, White • Spot Prawns • Squid, Market • Tuna, Albacore

Note: Fish species listed are all harvested by local commercial fishermen and rated “good alternatives” or “best choices” for sustainability by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.

Research assistance by Real Good Fish and Serendipity Farms.

For schedule of local Farmers’ Markets, go to www.ediblemonterybay.com.