Animal Vegetable Miracle

Currently I am on Winter break from school and in the process of catching up on food related books and articles. I want to share a quote from Barbara Kingsolver's book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes about how it is hypocritical for parents to instruct their children to have patience and restraint for life's desires and they should wait until the right time, while when the parents have a craving for out of season produce they must have it now.

"We're raising our children on the definition of promiscuity if we feed them a casual, indiscriminate mingling of foods from every season plucked from the supermarket, ignoring how our sustenance is cheapened by wholesale desires." - Barbara Kingsolver


I feel that this quote fits snugly with our misguided American way of life. We as American's always receive what we want, when we want it, without taking into consideration the effects of greed.

~Aren

Chef Garden produce

Here are some pictures of produce from Chefs Garden.

Michael Pollan

Here are some videos of a wonderful interview of Michael Pollan by Bill Moyers on PBS. Michael Pollan is a inspiring individual of mine. He has written many books on the subject of our food culture in the United States.

Link to videos

~Aren

The Voice

In the current issue of The Washtenaw Community College's student run newspaper called The Voice. I am honored to say I had an article wrote about me by the Editor Colin Fraser. I haven't read the article yet, not because it is a bad artcle, its just that I am much to embarrassed to read it.

Link

~Aren

Avalon Housing fundraiser

Last Saturday I was a volunteer for Avalon Housing's fundraiser dinner. I was part of a team that arranged numerous platters of donated food. The food was donated from Zingermans, Food Art, and Katherine's Catering, just to name a few. It was a great success and I hope to be involved with Avalon Housing in the future. A photographer by the name of William Jordan captured some great pictures of the event.

William Jordan Photography

~Aren

Chef Gardens

I just got back from the American Culinary Federation's Chef meeting for the Detroit chapter. The meeting was at The Palmer Building on U of M campus. The meal was very exquisite, and featured produce from Chef Gardens. Lee Jones was the keynote speaker for the meeting and is the owner of Chef Gardens. He has been a family farmer for the past 47 years and his specialty now is to cater to chefs needs. His produce is well renowned by the most famous of chefs in The United States, including Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten just to name a few. He brought two tables full of morning picked vegetables from his farm. The variety was outstanding. Everything from microgreens to a leaf that is 1000x sweeter then sugar. I was memorized by the taste of all the produce. After talking with him after the presentation, I volunteered to help bring his produce to Ann Arbor. I really want to visit his farm as soon as possible.

Chefs Garden

Healthy eating,

Aren

Kombucha

Since last Saturday I have been brewing my first batch of Kombucha. Kombucha is a fermented beverage that contains a plethora of good bacteria that improves the digestion system. These bacteria are cultivated by a Kombucha fungus. The process to create Kombucha involves preparing a gallon of sweetened tea, I used a mix of green, black and fruit teas along with honey and turbinado sugar. Then a Kombucha culture is added along with a bit of the "mother tea", which is a small amount of the Kombucha from the last batch. After all the ingredients are added, place in a warm, quiet spot and wait approximately 10 days or when the Kombucha's taste is to your liking. The longer the fermentation time, the more acidic it will become. After the desired taste is reached, remove the cultures, there will be a new one on top, along with a small amount of the liquid and start a new batch or keep in a small jar until ready to use. It contains less than .5% alcohol and can do wonders for your health. I have been drinking store bought Kombucha to add much need antioxidants to combat the below average amount of cigarette smoke at work.

~Aren

Concentrate Magazine

This week I am the featured blogger for Concentrate Magazine. I am glad to be a part of the magazine and I hope that I add to it.

Blog

~Aren

The Home Grown Festival

Yesterday I was a volunteer at the Home Grown Festival at Community High School in downtown Ann Arbor. When I called up Jason, the volunteer coordinator, I asked him if I could be involved with food. He asked me if I would be willing to help Chef Seccia of The Henry Ford Museum. I responded with a "hard yes".

I arrived at the festival as the rain poured down. I headed to the Chef demo tent and introduced myself to Chef Seccia. Luckily he had prepped everything already, leaving time to visit The Ann Arbor Farmers' Market. The market had the most bountiful display I have seen all year. Every stand was piled high with even more colorful looking produce -- due to the rain. I wish I had my camera with me -- it was truly beautiful. As Chef Seccia was running around, I had to get my weekly supply of concord grapes. I don't know the name of the farm, but the stand is located over by the entrance to Sparrow Market/Sweet Waters. The grapes are in season for about one month. This is the second week they were at the market. They are by far the best grape I have ever ate. They are sweet, tart, juicy, crisp all at the same time. Chef Seccia suggested I make grape jam with them. I will work on that next week.

After we got back to the festival, Chef Seccia prepared a Squash Bisque and an apple Chutney. He runs the Squash bisque at his restaurant regularly. All of the ingredients for the Chef demo during the festival were donated from Plum Market. Over all the festival was a great success. The Ann Arbor News ran an article in the Sunday, September 14th newspaper on the festival and they said that 1,500 people attended. For the first year out, that is decent enough. Also, I was featured in the article as well. http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/09/rain_cant_dampen_homegrown_fes.html They interviewed me about helping Chef Seccia and I threw in what I did over the summer. The only mistake in the article was that I couldn't find milled flour. I did find sources of milled flour, Jenning's Brothers Flour and Westwinf Milling Co. Other then that the article was great.

On a side note I want to apologize for not updating this blog more frequently. Between school starting up and my new job, I have been quite busy. My new job is at The Black Pearl Seafood and Martini bar on Main Street next to Starbucks in downtown A2. I am going to be working behind the bar. Our opening day is this Wednesday, the 17th. See you there!

~Aren

Eggs and potatoes

As I analyze the diet I have been eating, my main staples for the diet are: potatoes, eggs, meat, honey, flour, milk and butter. I eat vegetables also, but I usually end up eating from the list of staples. It's not that I don't enjoy eating vegetables, it's mostly a convenience issue. I can prepare a meal from my staples with ease. If I have to wash, dry, trim, chop and cook vegetables I don't end up eating them. I am willing to change, but my staples taste so good. I have gained three pounds since I started this diet--I am the only person that went on a diet and gained weight...

Also, I don't think it helps that I love that taste of maple syrup and honey mixed with melted butter on my pancakes. Or my garlic-pesto mashed potatoes with a liberal amount of Calder butter added--I can eat these anytime.

Aren

Homemade salt

Before I began this diet. I knew there would a few exceptions I would have to make. One of them being the water and the other salt. I still consume salt in my locally made items, such as Calder Dairy butter or Zingerman's Creamery cheeses. All the salt I add to my food will be home processed from raw rock salt. The salt comes from the mines below Detroit.

The process we used to clarify the salt was very simple.

First we took raw salt from Detroit.


Then we dissolved the salt in boiling water, and cooled the salt water until it recrystallized. My dad, a chemist at Dow Chemical, says that by not forcing the salt to recrystallize makes it safe to eat. I'll take his word on this...


Then we spread the crystallized salt on to a tray and dried it in the sun.

Tantre farm

Located about 20 miles west of Ann Arbor, Tantre Farm has been operating for the past 15 years. They grow about 50 verities of vegetables and have a manageable amount of animals, including LaMancha goats, chickens and Guernsey cows. The farm sells their produce at a variety of locations, such as the Ann Arbor Farmers Market and The People's Food Co-Op to name a few.

My friend David, who works at the farm told me about a open house to harvest crops. He said that the garlic needed to be pulled. At the farm, I found the garlic patch and the garlic pulling team. It was lead by a woman named Rosie. She instructed me to pull the plant out of the ground, tear of a few layers of skin, to clean the bulb, and then to twist off the roots. I did this for the next three hours straight. I became decently fast by the end of the day. Three were about 8 of us total working on the garlic and we cleared one whole patch and the others were still working on the other bigger patch when I left.


I really enjoyed getting out of the city and feeling dirt between my fingers. I choose not to wear gloves to increase this experience. I will be heading back to help out some more throughout the summer. I am looking forward to me return.

Westside Farmers Market

Every Thursday, June 19th, through September 25th, from 3pm -7pm
The Westside Farmers market is held on the corner of Maple and Jackson Road in Ann Arbor, located in the parking lot of Zingerman's Roadhouse. I live on the westside of town at Sunward Co-housing, making this market very convient for me--to bed it only meets once a week. I headed down there this past Thursday, to check out it out. West side has most of the expected venders in our area, incuding: Ernst Farm meats, Zingerman's products--from the creamery and bakehouse..ect. My favorite features about Westside is the great location and the abundance of parking. As much as I love the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, it can be troublesome to park in the Kerry Town area. Thus making The Westside Farmers Market very appealing. Also, I am glad the market is open into the early evening, so I can work on other activities during the day, and that it meets on Thursday, which allows me to restock my supplies during the week.


I'll be back,
-Aren

The Farmers Marketer

Ingrid, of Think Local First, just sent me link to a very cool website www.thefarmersmarketer.com. It is a very comprehensive list of local growers and businesses.


Thanks Ingrid,


Aren

It's getting better all the time.

Yesterday, Cameron and I ventured downtown to the farmers market. The Wednesday market is not as abundant in venders as the Saturday market. I ended up purchasing some almost ripe tomatoes, a large head of cauliflower, green bell peppers, amazingly sweet cherries, and some Zingerman's goat cheese and cream cheese. After that we went to check out the Food Co-op. They have a large selection of Tantre Farm produce and meat from Ernts Farm. I bought a pound of ground beef.

For dinner I ate ground Ernts Farm pork, that I purchased last Saturday at the farmers market. I added chopped garlic, and onions in with the pork, formed patties and cooked them in a skillet. I also sauted a few summer squash, cut battonet from Bella Vino I plated the food and finished it with Zingerman's cream cheese on top. This meal made me forget about the limits of my diet.

-Aren

Pancakes are on the menu

This morning for breakfast I made local pancakes.

This is the recipe I used:

-3 eggs
-1 cup flour
-1/2-1 cup milk (depending on how thick or thin you like them)
-Butter for the skillet and to top the pancakes
-Honey --to top the pancakes

I used the Jenning's Brothers spring wheat blend of flour--which had spelt, buckwheat and whole wheat flours, eggs from a local Amish farm, and milk from Calder Dairy. I whipped the three eggs until they were fluffy, added a bit of milk and sifted in the flour. The pancakes were very hearty, and flavorful. I topped them with more butter and honey from The Ann Arbor Community Farm. I could eat these pancakes with a smile everyday, and I might just do that.



-Aren

First day out!

I woke up this morning and my diet started. I had my final tastes of food from the outside last night. I almost took a sip of my dads tea, but I came to myself as I was raising the mug. I made an omelet with two eggs for my morning meal and I prepared a salad for lunch at school. The salad was composed of produce from the farmers’ market and The Ann Arbor Community Farm. The dressing consisted of melted Calder Dairy Butter, garlic from The AACC, and oregano from my front yard. Next time I will clarify the butter to have a smoother texture.

After school, I ventured over to Bella Vino on Plymouth Rd. They have their own farm off of M-14, called Bella Vino Farm, which supplies some of their produce. Mark, the manager, said they try to have 30% of their produce to be local--some of which come from the farm. Mark also told me that they raise their own goat and lamb on the farm. They were out of goat at the meat counter, but I did purchase one pound of ground lamb. Also, the summer squash they had was from a Amish farm located in Homer, MI. I will check back in to see what other local produce they have coming in.

In preparation for the diet, my dad and I went to the Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market and purchased a large amount of food. The biggest find, besides the two foot diameter head of lettuce for two dollars, was a source of flour. Archie Jennings operates a farm 97 miles away near Kalamazoo, MI. On this farm he grows a variety of wheat and corn. We got one bag of wheat mix and a bag of cornmeal. He threw in a me a bag of bran also. Not having flour this summer was my biggest concern. Now we can make breads, pancakes, pasta…ect.

Tonights dinner consisted of sauted red skin potatoes, with green onion, garlic, carrots and herbs. Steamed green beans, coated with Calder Dairy butter and lamb patties with garlic, hot pepper and herbs. I piled my plate high with food and ate while I watched the movie Sideways. This meal was delicious and didn't take very long to prepare. The lamb patties were very moist and tender. I am nervous and excited going forward with this adventure...

-Aren

Eating local

Hello, my name is Aren Stobby and I am 19 years old. I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I am enrolled in The Culinary Arts Program at The Washtenaw Community College. I have a passion for eating fresh, healthy, locally grown food. This will be a very exciting and involved summer doing the 100 mile diet. I am looking forward to seeking out local farmers, businesses and organizations. I hope by the end of the this ordeal I will know every local source of food. If anyone reading this has any suggestions or questions for me, I would love to hear from you at AStobby@gmail.com.

Eating local,

Aren Stobby