Conspiracy Theories
Although conversations are limited to transactional times, customers often ask the same question within their window of opportunity—What can we do to help you?Of course my first response is always to keep shopping at the market through one of the three ways available since the outbreak of COVID19—in person, via pre-orders with curbside pick-up or through the Farm to Fridge delivery service. But if they’re asking me, they’re already shopping at the market which leads me to my second request—stock up on what is in season.With warm weather within reach, the bounty of spring is upon us and the abundance of summer just around the corner. Right now think berries and asparagus. Now, wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy those flavors later in the year without having to enter a grocery store?The parting shot is always the excuse: I don’t have time. I don’t have space. I don’t know how. Just like pandemic conspiracy theories, today’s Dishing the Dirt is dedicated to debunking these fallacies.I don’t know how. Seriously? Have you not heard of YouTube? There is a video for teaching anything and everything, especially food related. In their boredom with restaurants closed or operating with limited services, chefs are on Instagram and Facebook Live walking us through everything from fileting a flounder to cooking pizza in the woodfired oven they taught you to build in last week’s video. I’ve even seen chefs tweet culinary instructions in a single massive thread.If you’re a luddite, there’s still television. How many food channels are there now? When I gave up cable TV Iron Chef was still in Japanese with English subtitles.Let’s not forget books. Cookbooks are still hot properties when it comes to something like putting up seasonal goodies as they will get pulled out regularly for reference instead of recipes. My 1977 Special Deluxe Edition of Stocking Up by the Editors of Organic Gardening and Farming is by far one of the most used books I own. I paid $6.95 for it in a used bookstore in Santa Barbara while I was in college and it’s nearly five hundred pages has guided me through freezing, canning, drying, pickling, juicing, curing and culturing. Several newer food preservation books on my shelves offer added insights into making my own catchup and charcuterie.A little common sense will also go a long way. Want strawberries for your yogurt in December? Wash them, cut the green tops off. Let them dry on a paper towel and then freeze them in a bag. Yes, it’s that simple. I freeze whole peppers—both hot and sweet. Even when frozen, they chop up well straight out of freezer. Nothing beats a little jalapeño in your scrambled eggs when there’s snow on the ground.I don’t have time.Time is exactly what many of us now have. We’re passing around sourdough starters and baking so much bread that a 1,000 year old mill had to be brought back online to help meet the demand for flour.
Canning jars can be in the water bath while you’re Zooming away with your co-workers. Fifteen minutes of blanching and bagging green beans for the freezer means a better Thanksgiving casserole.Here’s a little trick I’ve discovered over the years. Don’t do it all at once. Each week I procure extra of something I want to stock up and do a batch. It may be something as simple as freezing blueberries one week and another week I’ll devote to several days to a big batch of pickled vegetables. When the San Marzano tomatoes are in season, one week will be puree and another week a batch of sauce complete with onions, herbs, peppers and mushrooms.
Another great way to preserve food is dehydration. My workhorse is an Excalibur of which I have owned several versions over the last 30 years. Once you begin dehydrating your own fruit you’ll never go back to store-bought. It’s so easy and there is no comparison in taste. An added bonus—I can make my own yogurt in the same machine.I don’t have space.This is the big one, especially when it comes to freezer space. Even if you live in a basement studio, a 3.6 cubic feet freezer only has a 22”x 22” x 33” footprint and you can get a heck of a lot of food in that little of space. Throw a tablecloth over it and use it as a small table, a plant stand, a pedestal for artwork. When I was growing up my family kept a large chest freezer in Mom’s sewing room. It was her big workspace for laying out material.I keep many of my jarred goods in the original box that the canning jars came in for easier storage under beds and chairs or in closets. A dozen pint jars take up 10” x 13” x 6” or about the size of two shoeboxes side by side. At that rate, I could get about two years’ worth of food under my bed alone!These last few months have been a wake-up call to everyone concerned about our local food system. It’s one thing to support it, but it’s another to fully participate by actively stocking up on foods that are in season.There has been a renaissance of food preservation over the last several years with everything from artisan pickles to home-cured bacon. It’s time to quit telling yourself it’s too {insert excuse} and start stocking up. Take a detailed look at what you like to eat, what you regularly cook and then go from there. With a little effort you’ll end up with a full pantry that can go a long way without ever having to wear a tinfoil hat.