| ADD-ON SPECIALS EQUAL EXCHANGE BANANAS BETSY’S OF MAINE APPLE BUTTER DEAN’S BEANS FAIR TRADE SUGAR GRANDYOATS GRANOLA TAZA & EQUAL EXCHANGE HOT CHOCOLATE CAPE COD’S CAVIAR CRANBERRY SAUCE | NOTES & NEWS For the first time in 9 years we canceled an entire day of deliveries due to snow last Wednesday! It’s generally agreed here at Boston Organics that we’ve been really lucky and all of the major storms our area has had to contend with over the last decade have either come in the evening or on the weekends, allowing us to carry on carrying your produce boxes over hill and dale. But this storm just couldn’t be avoided! By the time the noon bell rang on Tuesday, the decision had been made in the interest of our delivery drivers’ safety and sanity not to send any vans out on Wednesday. We moved Arlington and Winchester customers to Friday January 14th and all other Wednesday customers to Saturday January 15th, the first Saturday in our history we’ve delivered! In the future, we will continue to let everyone know with as much notice as possible when we’re changing delivery schedules due to inclement weather with emails, Facebook, Twitter, a post on our blog and an announcement on the front page of our website. If you have any questions or comments, give us a call or drop us an email! On to the vegetables! Winter Moon Farm in Hadley MA supplied chioggia beets, carrots and watermelon radishes this week, and Lakeside Organics, also of Hadley, sent over sweet potatoes and butternut squash on the Atlas Farm truck. Atlas brought their own white potatoes and purple top and scarlet turnips. We’ve got Empire and Mutsu apples from Dwight Miller and Son Orchards in East Dummerston Vermont this week, and we’re supplementing these with Fuji apples from Washington. Our Washington pears are Bosc and Red Anjou. And from the organic citrus groves of Florida we have grapefruit, satsuma, cara cara and navel oranges, orlando tangelos and sunburst tangerines. Many of our customers get bananas every week but we don’t spend a lot of time focusing on them in the newsletter. Today we have an intensive focus! Bananas, a term encompassing Cavendish bananas (the familiar yellow fruit), plantains and many hundreds of rarer varieties, are a very common foodstuff worldwide. In 2008, the world produced about 93 million metric tons of bananas! Next to no bananas are grown domestically for commercial sale in the United States; banana trees need fourteen months without frost to bear fruit, and Hawaii is just about the only place where bananas are attempted in this country. So, bananas, of which US citizens eat a lot of every year, have to come from other places! The U.S. imported 4 million metric tons of bananas in 2008, most of that total came from Central and South America. Roughly 0.08% of bananas imported into the United States are Fair Trade certified, and almost all of these bananas are organic. Many of these bananas are brought in by the organization we get our bananas from, Equal Exchange. Equal Exchange has been in business for over 20 years! They started as a worked-owned cooperative in Boston importing coffee and they’re now in West Bridgewater, importing and selling Fair Trade coffee, tea, nuts, berries, and of course, bananas. Equal Exchange sources their bananas from two grower co-ops in South America, El Guabo in Ecuador and CEPIBO in Peru. Banana trees produce fruit non-stop, year-round. Production is heavier in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, our winter. If the fruit doesn’t get harvested, it just goes to waste! This is true for all banana operations. Equal Exchange is working with some of the member farmers of El Guabo in Ecuador to tailor plantings so that production skews a bit with the swings in demand in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a long term project in the experimental stages now but they hope to get some farmers’ trees producing more bananas in the summer time when North American and European demand is higher, and fewer bananas in the winter when it’s lower. It’s about 4 weeks from the harvesting of Equal Exchange bananas to the time they’re delivered to you in your Boston Organics box. Bananas destined for EE are harvested in Peru and Ecuador and sent on separate boats to Panama. There, the shipments are put on the same boat, and sail off to New York, a trip of about two weeks. From New York, the bananas for the Boston market are trucked to our distributor’s warehouse in Everett, where they are further ripened for a few days, and then delivered to our warehouse. Equal Exchange bananas have been our first choice when we source the bananas for your deliveries for over four years! If we can get bananas from EE, we will, and most of the time the bananas in your boxes are theirs. Due to the many factors that impact the harvesting and transportation of bananas (from bad harvesting weather to waylaid boats), Equal Exchange sometimes can’t get us the volume of bananas that we need. Our first choice for substitution is Fair Trade organic bananas from other suppliers. And if we can’t find any Fair Trade bananas, our last resort is organic, non-Fair Trade bananas. Want to learn more about bananas? The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has a wealth of production and trade data, Wikipedia is always good for an overview, Equal Exchange has more information on their website, and you can always send us an email! Expanded Newton Delivery Area Winter Weather Notes If there is ever anything missing from your order or if there is a quality issue, please let us know. Your feedback will help to make sure that you are receiving the best possible service we can provide. Enjoy your produce and have a good week! Thanks! Upcoming EventsClass: “Cooking Outside the Box with Boston Organics” The cooking class we put on with Chef Bernard Kinsella and the Boston Center for Adult Education was so successful last time we did it in September that we’re doing it again! This class will offer you a little guidance on how to create mouth watering meals with your weekly box of produce. Under the expert instruction of Chef Kinsella and with produce provided exclusively by ours truly, you’ll be immersed in a night of hands-on culinary exploration into organic, gourmet meals that will broaden your vegetable horizon and give you the knowledge and skill set to be a confident, organic cook. Roll up your sleeves and get cooking! Saturday, January 29, 2011, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm Tuition: $50 Materials Fee: $5 Click here for more information, and to register! Dogma Box Update: A box consisting of items sourced as close to Boston as possible. Please check the This Week’s Box page on our website for the most up-to-date box contents! From Winter Moon Farm (Hadley MA), we have chioggia beets, carrots and perennial customer favorites, watermelon radishes. We have onions, red or yellow depending on your delivery day, from Porter Farm (Elba NY). Dwight Miller Orchards (East Dummerston VT) provided the Empire and Mutsu apples. Atlas Farm (South Deerfield MA) brought over purple top and scarlet turnips and white potatoes, and Lakeside Organics (Hadley MA) sent butternut squash and sweet potatoes along on the Atlas truck. TIPS No-Lists! You can create a new no-list or modify your existing no-list right up until 12PM on the day before your delivery, so feel free to change it whenever you would like to! On occasion we may receive a mix of lettuces (red, green leaf, romaine) or a mix of winter squash (acorn, butternut, pumpkins, delicata). If you strongly dislike a particular type of lettuce or winter squash, we recommend adding squash and/or all types of lettuce to your No-List. Recipe Search! You can now search for past recipes on our blog. Simply type the main ingredient into the search bar, and all past newsletters that have relevant recipes will be returned. We plan to improve on this, but it’s a start! We are always looking for recipes and cooking tips to share. Please email them to us at [email protected], or feel free to post them on our Facebook Page. (For those that submit a recipe/tip, you may find a surprise in your delivery!). For produce storage tips, please visit the storage tips section of our website. RECIPES A note: Last week’s recipe for Beijing Radish Salad was sent in by our customer Jennifer, but Jennifer lives in Medford, not Watertown. Oops! · Chard and White Bean Stew 1 lb chard (or kale, or collards), ribs and stems removed and cleaned 3 tbsp olive oil 1 c (5 1/4 ounces) chopped carrots 1 c (5 ounces) chopped celery (fairly optional) 1 c (4 1/4 ounces) chopped white onions, about 3 medium 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 cup sherry or dry white wine 2 15-ounce cans (about 3 3/4 cups) white beans, drained and rinsed, or cook your own from scratch 2 cups broth of preferred type 1 cup pureed tomatoes Salt and freshly ground black pepper 3 thyme sprigs 1 bay leaf 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar A few toasted bread slices, poached or fried eggs, or grated Parmesan or Romano to serve (optional) This recipe is a keeper. We took many liberties with the Smitten Kitchen recipe (like omitting the cheese and the celery, and using sherry instead of white wine) and it was still delicious for dinner and lunch the next day. Bring medium pot of salted water to boil. Cook chard, or your preferred hearty green, for one minute, then drain and squeeze out as much extra water as possible. Coarsely chop chard. Wipe out medium pot to dry it, and heat olive oil over medium. Add carrots, celery, onions and garlic and saute for 15 minutes. Try not to brown them. Add sherry (scraping up any bits that have stuck to the pot) and cook it until it reduced by three-fourths. Add beans, broth, tomatoes, a few pinches of salt, freshly ground black pepper, thyme and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes. Add chard and cook for 5 minutes more. Remove thyme and bay leaf. Add more broth if you’d like a thinner stew and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Serve as is drizzled with sherry vinegar. (This step is worth it, make sure you do this.) Or you can ladle the stew over thick piece of toasted country bread or baguette, top that with a poached or fried egg and a few drops of sherry vinegar and/or some grated cheese. (Another great recipe from Smitten Kitchen.) · Romaine Wedges with Tangy Blue Cheese Vinaigrette 1/2 c extra-virgin olive oil 3 tbsp white balsamic vinegar 1 1/2 tsp anchovy paste 1 garlic clove, pressed 1 c, or about 4 oz, crumbled Maytag blue cheese 2 small hearts of romaine, halved lengthwise 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced Combine first 4 ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Whisk in cheese, leaving some whole pieces. Season with salt and generous amount of cracked pepper. Place romaine wedges on plates. Drizzle 1/4 cup dressing over center of each. Top with onion. (From the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen, Bon Appetit April 2008) · Moroccan Carrot Soup 2 tbsp (1/4 stick) butter 1 c chopped white onion 1 lb large carrots, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 2 2/3 cups) 2 1/2 c low-salt chicken broth 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1 tbsp honey 1 tsp fresh lemon juice 1/8 tsp ground allspice 1/2 c plain yogurt, stirred to loosen Melt butter in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion; saute 2 minutes. Mix in carrots. Add broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until carrots are very tender, about 20 minutes. Stir cumin seeds in small skillet over medium-high heat until fragrant, 4 to 5 minutes; cool. Finely grind in spice mill. Remove soup from heat. Puree in batches in blender until smooth. Return to same pan. Whisk in honey, lemon juice, and allspice. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Drizzle yogurt over; sprinkle generously with cumin. (From the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen, Bon Appetit April 2010) · Warm Potato Salad With Goat Cheese For the dressing: 1 tbsp white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice Salt to taste 1 tsp Dijon mustard 1 small or medium garlic clove, minced or pureed 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, or 1/4 cup low-fat yogurt or buttermilk and 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil For the salad: 1 1/2 lb potatoes Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste 2 to 4 tbsp finely chopped red onion (to taste), rinsed with cold water and drained 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley 2 oz soft goat cheese 2 to 3 sage leaves, cut in thin slivers (optional) Make the dressing first. Whisk together the lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and garlic. Whisk in the olive oil or the yogurt and olive oil. Taste and adjust seasonings, set aside. Scrub the potatoes and cut into 3/4-inch cubes. Steam above 1 inch of boiling water until tender but not mushy, about 10 to 12 minutes. (If you use white potatoes, check rather often, they get tender faster than Yukons or reds.) Remove from the heat and toss while hot in a bowl with salt and pepper to taste, the onions, parsley, goat cheese, and the dressing. Sprinkle the sage over the top and serve. (Based on a Martha Rose Shulman recipe in the New York Times, October 23, 2008) · |
