Tomato Sisters

When 3 equals 3000

2009-09-12T13:36:00.001-04:00

I was at an office holiday party once, where everyone was asked to bring either an appetizer or a dessert. Our boss, who was also our host, provided the victuals in between. I brought my killer brownies which are made with Scharffen Berger, that dense and intense chocolate without which I believe the Sun would implode, Mercury (along with the rest of the planets in our solar system) would wobble on its axis and go rogue, and all life forms on earth would shrivel and die---your basic apocalyptic nightmare. As it is, I almost had a stroke when I found out that Hershey's of all companies had bought Scharffen Berger. I was convinced that once they got their mitts on this artisanal product, they would wrap it up in little foil-covered pyramid shapes sprouting tabs that read "Death to all real chocolate!"

But I digress.

Anyway, all my office mates were assembled at this party and we were hovering around the dessert table in that usual ritual of "Let's wait and see who is the first hog to take some food while I pretend that eating is of no interest to me." Of course, in my case, my co-workers know that food is of intense interest to me but that I am a discerning (OK, they call it picky) eater. So one of my colleagues---I'll call her Sue, because, well, that's her real name---indicated a dish she made, turned to me, and said "Randi, you'll like this. It only has three ingredients." I was trying to be polite, so I murmured something noncommittal like "ahh," but I couldn't tell exactly what it was. There was brown fluff and white fluff, and brown-speckled white fluff, all neatly layered in a glass bowl. Mousse, perhaps?

As Sue spooned out a generous dollop of the brown and white fluff for me, she revealed the secret three ingredients: vanilla ice cream, crumbled Oreo cookies, and Cool Whip.

I must have looked stricken, because as she was about to pass the dish to me, her hand faltered and she turned to someone else and gave it to him instead. Thank God there was another victim standing nearby. Three ingredients?! More like three thousand! Cool Whip alone could keep a Chinese industrial city of chemical factories humming 24/7.

Which brings me back to farmers. They're the ones who keep our ingredient lists truly simple, brief, and healthy. To their credit, some big food companies are finally catching on to this. Take Haagen-Dazs, for example. (Yeah, take it, but not too often!) They are touting ice cream with only 5 ingredients. In the case of that tried-and-true favorite, vanilla ice cream, it's skim milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Now maybe that's just good marketing, but it's also good sense. Keep it simple, stupid.

In a kind of Twitter reductive (yes even that is possible), I heard on the radio yesterday a challenge to distill health care policy down to three words. So people came up with things like "quality, affordable healthcare" (that last word is really a composite of two words, but it counts as one here), "no death panels" (referring, I assume, to the fact that there are none).

Well here's another health care policy distillation: thank your farmer.

And here are three (and only three!) of my favorite ingredients and my favorite way to prepare them: kale, olive oil, Kosher salt.

Roasted Kale

Pre-heat your oven to 450F.
Wash, dry, and rip up the kale.
Brush a cookie sheet lightly with oil.
Arrange the kale in a single layer on the sheet.
Put a little more olive oil in your hands, rub them together (diabolically, if you wish), and dab the kale with a little more oil.
Sprinkle on a bit of salt.
Roast for 5-7 minutes until the tips of the kale just start to brown.

What could be better?

My Favorite "Martian"

2009-08-30T18:10:00.001-04:00

To some of us, farmers are as alien as Ray Walston's character was to Bill Bixby's on that 60s TV show "My Favorite Martian." We don't really know their backstory, what they do, how hard they work, and just what it takes to grow that great food we sometimes take for granted.

I wanted you all to meet one of my favorite Martians in the short video below that I made with the help of the folks at Devour.tv. Her name is KK Haspel, and you might think she really is an alien because her whole approach is pretty out there. KK is a high priestess of biodynamic farming. It's all about calling in the cosmic forces, she says, so the Martian analogy really is apt here. And the thing is, when KK talks to her plants, which she does on a regular basis, they talk back!

I wouldn't have believed any of this if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Now you can too. Enjoy the video!

Keep supporting women farmers. When we do, we'll all eat better, feel better, and look better too!

What the heck is a Tomato Sister?

2009-08-15T21:32:00.000-04:00

My dad used to use the expression "She's a real tomato." He meant it as a compliment to women who are fun, sexy, and smart.

When he said that, I'm pretty sure he wasn't thinking of lady farmers. Are they fun? They get up at 5 am and what fun is that? Are they sexy? The only woman I ever saw in a rural setting who looked sexy (but in a trashy kind of way) was this lady who tottered out of her barn wearing high heels and a bustier.

OK, she was French, which explains a lot.

Alerted by our car tires crunching on her gravel drive, she came running out—as best she could, given her footwear—trailed by squawking chickens. We had pulled in to sample her Floc.

Don't worry, I had never heard of Floc either, before eating in a restaurant owned by a real tomato named Ariane Daguin who founded the organic meat company called D'Artagnan. I met Ariane when my husband and I decided to visit Gascony in southwest France. Ariane is from Gascony, so we headed for her Manhattan restaurant (now defunct, sad to say) in the hopes of meeting her and talking to her about the delicacies of the region.

Not only was Ariane in the house that night, she very generously sat with us for half an hour and even pulled out a map of the area, telling us about all the great places to visit there, including must-see Roman ruins and the famous caves lined with prehistoric paintings.

The Floc revelation came when a server with a heavy Spanish accent asked me and Benj if we wanted to try "fock." We looked at each other with shock bordering on panic. Did we hear correctly? Did he just say...fock?!

Alright, calm down everybody. The nice man is just offering you a traditional Gascogne aperitif: grape juice and Armagnac. It tasted great and we've been Flocking ever since. In fact, Ben's mom became so addicted to the drink, I started referring to her as a "flockaholic." (Sometimes I even call her a "motherflocker" which she doesn't seem to mind. Of course, she's over 90 and since she's seen it all, there's not much that bothers her.)

Anyway, getting back to farmers of the lady persuasion: are they smart? Well, consider this: the first farmer to receive a MacArthur grant—the so-called "genius award"—was a woman named Cheryl Rogowski who owns a farm in upstate New York. Cheryl is credited with a number of farm innovations:

She diversified crops on her farm and cut down on herbicides and pesticides.
Early on, she started selling directly to consumers—including inner city buyers and seniors who got discounts—through CSA (community supported agriculture) programs.
Cheryl helps the Spanish-speaking laborers who work for her by offering English classes. And she advises immigrants who want to farm through a farmer development project.

Cheryl is one of the growing ranks of women farmers who are leading the charge:

Even as the number of small farms has dwindled in this country, there are 80 percent more women farmers today than 20 years ago.
In the Northeast alone, nearly 20,000 farms are run by women.
Recently, the U. S. Department of Agriculture found that the number of women who are primary farm operators in Pennsylvania surged 41 percent between 2002 and 2007.
Nationally, the number of women farm operators climbed almost 30 percent in that same period.

Which brings me to Tomato Sisters: that's what I call people who support and celebrate women farmers.

And that's what I am hoping you will do. I'm going to keep you posted on some of the amazing women in farming out there. I'd love to hear from you about the women farmers you have met. Maybe she's a neighbor, or someone you met at a farm stand, farmer's market, or your local CSA. E-mail me your pictures, stories, and videos, and together we'll figure out a way to advocate for them. Tomato Sisters Unite!

We'll all eat better, feel better, and look better too...

tomatosisters@gmail.com