Woodstock Farm Festival: Eat Seasonally, Shop Locally (May 20th, 5pm)

May 14, 2020May 14, 2020Leave a comment

We want to help you eat local and seasonal, now more than ever!

For this online workshop we’ve teamed up with Chrisso Babcock of Coyote Kitchen Workshops to guide you through what’s in season this Spring season, meal planning around the market offerings, and how to prepare for a trip to the market each week. Workshop takeaways include seasonal recipes, Spring market meal planning PDF, and specific protocols for shopping amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

Workshop tickets are available on a sliding scale from $10-$50. The higher the ticket price, the more impact your purchase will have in our local community. Proceeds for this workshop are split between WFF and CKW, with one third of total sales going to The Table at Woodstock, a local organization we love that provides no-cost, nourishing, hot meals to anyone in our community who needs it. In addition, select the “get one, give one” ticket option and we’ll extend an invitation as a free resource to low- or no-income families around the region who could benefit from having these tools in their back pocket.

Food shopping in these unprecedented times can be overwhelming and fearful. We believe that shopping at your local farmers market is always the best way to get the freshest, healthiest food in your area. As we navigate this public health crisis, it’s hard to deny that the open air market with short supply chains and direct connection to the farmers is truly the safest, most secure food shopping you can do right now. Here in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains, we have an abundant regional and hyper-local food system, where delicious and nutritious food is available year round. We want to help you know what to look for and how to prepare it, so you can eat what’s in season, shop close to home, and strengthen the local food system in the process.

The Woodstock Farm Festival opens May 27th, and we stand with farmers markets across the country that are fighting to stay open, accessible and adaptable throughout this experience. We encourage you participate even if you’re not a Woodstocker! Together we can keep our local food system resilient, our local economy moving, and the health of our community strong.

Fiddleheads (aka fernie sanders)

May 12, 2016April 4, 20201 Comment

First of all –

I want us to pause and acknowledge that I just coined the term fernie sanders to describe these little green cuties. (#ferniesanders) (crowd chanting: fernie, fernie, fernie….)

Now, on to business –

Harvesting –

Make sure what you have found are indeed fiddlehead ferns. (plant ID book, tried and true spot, knowledgable friend, etc) They are best harvested when they are young and tightly curled, in the early spring. There is a bit of a window, a month or so, as each fern plant sends up many fern leaves in succession. Don’t bother with ones that are larger longer or starting to uncurl and leaf out. Also, do not cut too many shoots from any one plant. Scissors and a bag will do you well as you move kneeling through the ferns.

Eating / Preserving –

Trim the base of the stalk, freshening the cut. Blanch them — bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil, turn it off, and toss in the curls. Give em 30 seconds before removing them quickly to a cold water bath for a minute or so. At this point, they are ready to cook and eat (cook em as you would green beans or other similarly sized morsels). Or, preserve them for later use. There are many ways to do this. I used a 4-1 water to apple cider vinegar ratio, with some whole black peppercorns thrown in. The jars were filled to the tippy-top with the pickling solution, which was just boiled hot, and then capped and flipped upside down to cool. This neat trick creates a seal as would a proper canning process. I prefer Lactofermentation whenever possible when preserving, but in this case I figured they would come out too soft and slimy. Vinegar pickling tends to yield a crisper result. Let em cool overnight and then store in a cool dark place or a fridge.

Goal for next year –

Transplanting some of these lil fernie sanders before they leaf out next spring, and trying to propagate some new groves for future harvest.

Fermentation 101 at the West Hurley Library

March 17, 2016March 31, 2020Leave a comment

On March 5th I taught a workshop on Lacto Fermentation at the West Hurley Library. Thanks to everyone who came and got their hands messy, and left with a quart jar of homemade Kraut / Kim Chi / Salt brined veggies ~~

I have been pondering lately just how important it is to reconnect with our food, and our bodies, in this way. We are a culture that has largely lost the most basic kitchen arts. I sometimes encounter college students who have never chopped a cabbage, or don’t recognize a beet. Nourishing our families in this way, while also starting, even in small increments, to remove ourselves from the modern system of wasteful / low quality / long distance food production, shipping, and marketing, is a huge step in the right direction…

But ’nuff preaching. Heres some of my favorite photos from the March 5th workshop, which was filled to capacity with about 14 participants. All photos taken by the lovely Dawn Iler.