We're in Martha Stewart Living

How do you turn a story about a vegetable farm into a five-page spread on food and entertaining?

That was the challenge I and the editors at Martha Stewart Living faced for the March gardening issue. Regular readers may recall me writing briefly about Drew and Joan Norman's One Straw Farm in Baltimore County and their hugely successful CSA (community supported agriculture) plan. This was a bit of a stretch for Martha, glamorizing the business of growing tomatoes and onions and kale. If you look closely at the credits you'll see that the photographs were taken by Helen Norman who is Drew Norman's sister and a regular contributor to Martha Stewart Living. They live on nearly adjoining properties in White Hall near the Pennsylvania line.

The Normans' is a remarkable story of hard work and determination in the building of a modern family farm. They met at University of Maryland, where Drew was studying agriculture, and with help from parents bought some abandoned acreage in the rolling countryside north of Baltimore not far from where Drew Norman grew up. For years they grew vegetables organically for the national wholesale market but faced stiff competition from California. Things looked grim when they learned that a load of eggplant they'd sent to Texas arrived frozen (they didn't know they were supposed to wrap the eggplant individually against the cold). But then Whole Foods offered to buy whatever they could grow for the closer-in Mid-Atlantic market. Things really started to move the Normans' way when they discovered CSA.

Their CSA is now huge--they cultivate 175 acres for about 1,400 subscribers in the Baltimore area. They deliver to numerous drop sites but clients are also allowed to select their own produce from any of the five farmers markets where Joan Norman displays their goods. When I was at the farm in July, production was in full swing. I followed Joan on her rounds and managed a long conversation with Drew while he was fixing a tractor. Both of them are definitely moving targets: Drew is mostly in the fields growing and harvesting while Joan tends to the business end. They employ and house 17 seasonal workers from Mexico to help with the field work. Imagine planting 50,000 tomato seedlings.

On Wednesdays Joan is one of several vendors at Boordy Vineyards, a venerable Maryland winery just a few miles from the farm. There's a sinful chocolate tasting along with a local cheese display, buffalo burgers, wine sampling and live music. In the afteroon, hundreds of locals with kids and coolers show up for a picnic and a show outside the old stone tasting room. It's quite a sight, with a very strong feeling of family and community.

That's the Normans' reward for 25 years of hard work in the soil. They both take seriously their role in reviving local agriculture. "Noday gets on a sinking ship," said Joan Norman. "But build an ark and they'll climb aboard two-by-two."

The Normans have built quite an ark.

We're In Martha Stewart Living

This month I play a small role in the never-ending effort to "solve" Thanksgiving. In Magazine Land, that would entail the issue of how to prepare a turkey correctly sized for your particular gathering.

I have to admit, this assignment almost stumped me. Of course, Martha had already done all the heavy lifting, coming up with three different turkey recipes alligned with three very different sized gatherings.

There's a dry-brined whole turkey for 14, for instance, then a wee turkey breast roasted with root vegetables to serve six. By far the most elaborate preparation is a boneless turkey breast stuffed with pecans and sausage, rolled in the manner of a French roulade and roasted in cheese cloth. All you have to do is find a butcher to sell you a boneless breast. Oh, right. A butcher.

You'll notice that two of these Thanksgiving solutions involve turkey white meat. Unless its stuffed between two slices of bread with mayo and cranberry sauce, or smothered in gravy or Bechamel sauce, I don't even really like white meat. If you like to spend idle hours drooling over gorgeous food photos, though, this piece is for you.

Otherwise, my best advice for Thanksgiving is to find a local farmer who will sell you a pasture-raised turkey of almost any kind. Cook it any way you like. You are almost guaranteed to have the best turkey you ever tasted.

We're In Martha Stewart Living

At the time of the Civil War, there were around 800 commercially viable varieties of apples in this country. Now there are perhaps 30, although you will find even fewer at the market at any given time. What a come-down for a noble fruit that arrived here with the colonists and once was considered essential food.

What we are left with are industrial apples that look good and travel well but in many cases are lacking the flavor and individuality of heritage apples. My assignment for the October installment of Martha Stewart Living was to profile one apple grower--Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Claire, Michigan--that has managed to survive with a large collection of antique apples.

Like many family farms, this one had to adapt to a rapidly changing economic environment to stay in business. They still sell apples wholesale--mostly to Whole Foods in the Detroit and Chicago areas. But their main source of income now is attracting visitors from urban areas out to the farm to pick fruit (Tree-Mendus also raises peaches, cherries and other seasonal items) and just enjoy the wide-open spaces. Here's an income producer I hadn't heard of before: you can rent your own tree. Apparently, some families have been doing just that for years and years.

Tree-Mendus fruit farm now hosts more than 200 varieties of heirloom apples. Many are for sale in the farm store. If you really want to learn more about how apples have morphed in this country and around the world, read "Apples" by Frank Browning.

Oh, and they will ship many of their products, including frozen blueberries.

Writing About Edible Weeds for Martha

I've been meeting lately with our local schoolyard greening organization, planning an annual seminar to teach teachers about how to build and utilize school gardens. It takes me back to last year's event, when the menu for our garden lunch included a pesto dish made with chickweed out of my own garden.

Well, the chickweed is back with a vengeance. I'm feeling the urge to make pesto again. Not so coincidentally, this month's Martha Stewart Living magazine contains a piece by yours truly on the edible qualities of a number of weeds.

Weeds? Why do we call them weeds? The definition of a weed would be a plant that has no particular use, that serves only to annoy us. Yet the common dandelion, while it may unhinge the homeowner in love with his perfect lawn, makes a dandy addition to a salad, or a side dish collected in a heap and braised. Purslane wants to drive us round the bend, poking its head out of every crack in the sidewalk. Yet, once you get past the slightly mucilagenous texture, purslane is full of nutrition, and you don't have to pay a cent for it.

Shades of Euell Gibbon! Is foraging making a comeback? Well, I don't see my neighbors rushing out to pick the dandelion greens that are just now emerging everywhere. It's a bit amusing to see those very dandelion greens selling in big bunches at the local Whole Foods, or the purslane being hawked at the farmers market. But it's true that many of these and other wild things are being cultivated for the more sophisticated markets. Look closely and you may find one of your favorite vendors selling the seeds. I planted an Italian variety of dandelion last year, and it produced like a champ.

The star of the show without a doubt is the wild leek, known hereabouts as ramps. Soon they will be popping up in forests all over the eastern half of the country. They, too, have started appearing in farmers markets and in white tablecloth restaurants. But no one has found a way to cultivate ramps--not yet. They're still a wild child, and there's so much picking going on, the national parks have had to ban foraging for ramps.

The Martha Stewart article includes a tantalizing recipe for rabbit with pappardelle, ramps and wild garlic. There's also an intriguing flatbread with sorrel pesto and "edible-weed salad." Again, what's with the "weed "? After doing a bit of research for the text, I was inspired to purchase some burdock seeds. And now I'm curious to know if lamb's quarters really taste like spinach.

It makes you want to carve out a day soon when you can just poke around the neighborhood for the proverbial free lunch.

Writing About Rhubarb for Martha

I notice that new leaves are beginning to unfurl on the rhubarb plants in our garden. Truly, this is an amazing plant that starts pushing up new life in the middle of winter.

Coincidentally, the March issue of Martha Stewart Living is out with an article about rhubarb written by yours truly. Martha has kept me busy the last few months. March is the garden issue and a good time to be thinking about rhubarb. Again, I just wrote the text. I had nothing to do with the recipes. But this time I was writing not just about food, but about the history of rhubarb and how to grow it.

My first experience with rhubarb was watching my dad plant it in the back yard. He dug lots of manure into the soil. I happened to walk up behind him while he was spreading cow manure and got stuck with the tine of his pitchfork right between the eyes. I suppose I was lucky to come away with both eyes intact. I remember quite a bit of excitement about getting me to a doctor for a tetanus shot.

We don't think too much about rhubarb today, but for centuries it was among the most valued of all plants. The roots of rhubarb have a purgative effect that fit perfectly into the ancient medicinal scheme of balancing the bodies "humours." It used to be that a cathartic was good for just about anything that ailed you. For centuries, the dried root of rhubarb plants were exported from China. The Russians valued this trade so much that they monopolized it under the royal crown.

Naturally, certain Europeans had an intense interest in getting their hands on some living rhubarb and growing it themselves. China would have none of that, so although seeds sometimes made their way west, the identity of the rhubarb so valued in medicine remained a mystery. Thankfully for us, that did not stop rhubarb from being planted, leading to the discovery that the stalks--with lots of sugar--could be turned into a fine dessert. As refined sugar became more readily available, rhubarb as something to be eaten caught fire.

While the stalks are merely sour, rhubarb leaves contain enough oxalic acid to make them toxic. The same effect in a more pleasant form can be found in a rhubarb cousin, the sorrel or "dock." If you do decide to grow rhubarb, keep it out of the reach of children and grazing animals. Compost the leaves.

In our family, spring meant tons of something we called "rhubarb sauce." This was actually a stew made from the stalks with lots of sugar. There would be a large pot bubbling on the stove, then what seemed an interminable amount of "sauce" that we ate for breakfast, for lunch, on ice cream. Pitchers of it filled the refrigerator.

The spread in Martha Stewart Living has some lovely recipes for rhubarb tarts, poached rhubarb, a rhubarb tea cake. If I had any quibbles with the article, it might be the lack of a savory rhubarb treatment. Apparently the Iranians and the Afghanis use rhubarb in stews, and chefs in this country are pairing it with wild game.

This year we'll be making rhubarb pies from our own rhubarb. Now that's something I can get excited about.

Poaching With Martha

One of the best meals I ever made was before I knew anything about cooking, and that was the poached whole chicken with tarragon in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume II.

Until that moment, I had no idea a chicken could taste so good, or that there was anything in the world like the bechamel sauce made with that poaching liquid infused with tarragon.

As usual, Julia's instructions were lengthy and detailed to a fault, but resulted in immaculate flavors. Since that time, I've poached lots of things--and not just eggs. There's something extremely pleasant--meditative, even--about the act of poaching. No clanging pots or spitting flames. Just you, your ingredients and very little else standing in the way of pristine flavors.

The January issue of Martha Stewart Living contains a four-page spread on poaching for which I wrote the text, the captions and a short how-to for poaching fish, chicken and fruit. Again, I had nothing to do with the recipes or selecting what to cook. That was all done in-house.

The dishes all involve vary spare, clean flavors and little fat. That should please those of you watching calories. There's halibut poached with lemon-fennel court bouillon, poached chicken with salsa verde and an intriguing pear poached with green tea.

This is the second halibut recipe I've run across in the last month (December Food & Wine being the other), only to be told at the local Whole Foods that halibut is out of season and won't be back in season until March. News to me.

I also remain unsettled on the issue of testing fish and poultry for doneness while poaching. One problem with fish: they are subject to breaking if you mess with them while they're suspended in the poaching liquid. So how do you know when they're done? One method I like is tying a fillet in cheese cloth. That makes handling the fish easier and certainly helps when moving the fish out of the poaching liquid onto the plate. But then you have to remove the cheese cloth.

Also, using an instant-read thermometer on a chicken breast has its drawbacks. The photo in the Martha Stewart spread shows a thermometer being plunged vertically into a chicken breast. But we all know that the actual sensor on a conventional instant-read thermometer is about 1 1/2 inches above the tip of the probe. (We all know that, right?) You really have to insert the probe horizontally and almost precisely into the middle of the breast to get an accurate reading. All this while trying to juggle a wet chicken breast that's about 160 degrees hot.

Sometimes knowing when things are done is more about touching, eyeballing, smelling the food--things nobody can show you in a magazine article. You just have to practice to learn.

We're in Martha Stewart Living

And folks, it's certainly not for my photography. But if you turn to page 92 in the just-out December 2007 issue, you will find The Slow Cook's byline atop a holiday story called "Cocktail Companions," about pairing inspired libations with simple hors d'oeuvres.

The challenge was to tell readers how to create a sophisticated cocktail hour without a terrible amount of cooking or bartending--all in 200 words or less.

Longtime readers will notice a different sort of voice--the suave, utterly in-the-know voice--that is seldom heard on The Slow Cook blog. All I can say is, it was a bit of a stretch for yours truly to match the production values at Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Let's just call this a miracle of modern publishing.

In fact, I am a secret fan of Martha's magazine. Does this come under the category of guilty pleasures? The recipes are tight and never too complicated, usually an update of one classic dish or another. People may rib Martha for being too much the busy perfectionist, but you can't say she doesn't have great taste. Too many food magazines are trying too hard to impress with trendy recipes that just fly right over the top. As you all know, we travel pretty much against the latest trends here at the Slow Cook. You might even call us anti-trend.

I can't take any credit for the recipes in this story for Martha. My job was to draw on some of my own experience entertaining and for me that means making the food ahead. Nobody likes to watch the host experience a meltdown while trying to greet guests, prepare food and play bartender simultaneously. In our house we like to keep things simple and, where possible, offer a featured cocktail so there isn't a traffic jam around the liquor cabinet.

The food and drink in this particular spread fit easily within that scheme. I think there just might be something good enough you'll want to give it a try.