Quasi-locavore

Preparing Sunday evening’s quasi-locavore menu reminded me that although if it’s awfully difficult to go one hundred percent locavore in our part of the country, it’s always fun to try.

Even Barbara Kingsolver, who brought the concept of a locavore diet to the attention of millions of American readers (including me) in her 2006 memoir Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, allowed each family member one exception, one non-local ingredient that they could sneak in to the yearlong scheme of eating local. Kingsolver herself chose coffee; her daughter chose chocolate. Those would probably be my top two choices as well; I’m not sure which way I’d go if I had to pick just one or the other.

For Sunday’s dinner, to which we’d invited my parents, I started with vegetables I’d bought at Carlisle’s Farmers Market the day before: new potatoes and tomatoes. On Sunday morning, I dropped Holly off to play with her friend Bella, and Bella’s mother handed me a zucchini just picked from their garden.

And the other local cache I had, in addition to these vegetables, was herbs grown in my garden. Some were from cuttings grown in a town close by and others were from my friend Jane’s Carlisle garden, so all the herbs passed the test.

For an appetizer, I made a goat cheese tart topped with herbs and olives. Another year, I would have been able to buy goat cheese right here in town, but unfortunately, our prize-winning goat cheese makers moved out of town earlier this summer. So the cheese wasn’t local, and neither were the olives (which a truly locavore plan would require me to eliminate from our diet altogether, unless we happened to be traveling in Greece), but the herbs scattered over the cheese were. Then I sliced the tomatoes and zucchini, layered them in a baking pan, and made pesto to spread over them. The basil for the pesto came from my garden; the other ingredients – the Parmesan, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil -- were not local, however.

With the potatoes I made potato salad. The local ingredients were the potatoes, of course, and garlic chives from my garden. I theoretically could have made mayonnaise using eggs from local chickens – local eggs are ubiquitously available in our community – but I didn’t, so that was a supermarket item, as was the vinegar, the salt and the pepper.

Since I’m the only vegetarian in my family, I bought sausages to put on the grill: not local at all. I could have increased our locavore score if I’d instead grilled steaks from my parents’ farm. But somehow it never seems right to serve guests food they themselves produced.

For dessert, I made chocolate custard. It would be very difficult to grow cocoa beans in New England or most other parts of the U.S.; chocolate is something many American locavores have to compromise on or give up altogether. The milk and eggs in the custard could have been locally produced if I’d gone to a little more trouble to find those items. Not the sugar, though.

I topped the chocolate custard with raspberry sauce. One of the vendors at Farmers Market had fresh raspberries, and that’s what I should have used, but we’d eaten the entire pint of raspberries we bought before we even left Farmers Market. So that ingredient was grown elsewhere.

All in all, I think my locavore score for this meal was only about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, but at other times of year it would be a 0 or a 1, so it’s a start. Locavore eating isn’t easy, as Kingsolver admits in her book about it, especially in New England, where there are abundant choices two or three months a year but very little in the way of fruits and vegetables at other times (although I realize a lot can be done with canning, preserving and freezing).

Moreover, shopping at Farmers Market carries its own inherent conflict. Carlisle’s market includes a few local farms but mostly backyard gardening hobbyists; buying from those gardeners who cultivate plots at our town’s community gardens doesn’t do anything for the goal of supporting local agricultural businesses.

But it’s fun to experiment with locavore cooking and see how far you can get with it. I’m really enjoying my herb garden so far this year, and I’m grateful so many of my neighbors grow vegetables. Later in the summer we’ll go blueberry picking and peach picking and count those into our options as well. In the winter, I’ll probably cave altogether and buy all kinds of distantly grown items. The intent is strong, but during those long winters, it’s hard to resist the occasional fresh strawberry on the supermarket shelf.

Who's On First Banana Bread, Part V: The conclusion

The kids announced yesterday that they feel ready to give up Farmers Market for the season.

They weren’t exasperated or frustrated. They just thought they’d had enough fun with it and were ready to move on. They’ve baked and sold banana bread nearly every week since July 3rd. Over the summer, it proved to be a great project for them, just as I’d hoped (and wrote about here and here). Our summer was characterized by an absence of structured plans, and I encouraged them to pursue the idea of a banana bread business.

From a purely fiscal perspective, it went better than we ever imagined: selling 25 to 30 loaves a week, they raked in the cash. And from the perspective of a learning experience, they acquired new skills as well, just as I’d hoped they would: marketing, sales, customer service.

But it’s possible that no skill they’ve displayed throughout the Farmers’ Market experience was quite so valuable as the one that clued them into the fact that now was the right time to give it up. With homework after school and a need to relax at the end of the day that they didn’t have throughout the summer, they stopped enjoying the process of baking together. Nor did they find it so easy to wake up early on Saturday mornings and load up the car with all their Farmers Market equipment – table, signs, samples, product, cash box – once Saturday became the day they could sleep late after a week of early rising for school.

I admire my kids for this. I know how to bake bread. I know how to talk to customers and count out change. What I’m not so good at is knowing when enough is enough with any given project. But it turns out they do.

It’s harder for me to put an end date on something I’ve decided to do. When I joined the society of “streak runners” – runners who run a mile or more 365 days a year without taking any days off, per the definition of the United States Running Streak Association – I thought it would be a hard commitment to maintain, but three years and one month in, I’m not finding it difficult at all. Getting out there for my few miles every day feels necessary, and I’m never tempted these days to give it up. It’s easier to just get out there and go every day than come up with a reason to stop.

The commitment I find somewhat more difficult to maintain is blogging five days a week. Sometimes I can’t imagine how – or why – I plan to do this day after day without any idea of when I’ll end it. But I can’t seem to entertain the possibility of just changing the schedule. When I launched my blog thirteen months ago, I set out to post every weekday, and that’s what I’ve done. I find it very hard to imagine giving myself permission to change the rules.

My kids, it turns out, are a little less rigid than I am. “Farmers Market was fun. We will definitely do it again next year,” they told me yesterday. “But we’re finished for now.”

I thought about that. They weren’t burned out. Unlike many adults I know, who devote far too much energy to work or volunteer projects, Tim and Holly don’t even know the meaning of “burned out.” True, as children, they don’t have livelihoods that depend on facing down fatigue with persistence, but maybe that’s just one of the perks of childhood: there aren’t that many difficult things that you force yourself to do past the point of where you want to do them.

And for the two of them, it was easy enough to wrap up the Farmers Market season cheerfully. They’ll be back next year. They’re not burned out; they’ve just had enough, and they are able to recognize that fact. I could stand to learn a lot from them in this regard, I suspect.

Who's On First Banana Bread, Part IV: An eight-year-old with deep pockets

When I suggested back in May that my children go into business together as banana bread vendors at Carlisle’s all-inclusive Farmers Market, I wanted to see if they could develop the cooperation skills to work together and the determination to stick with an ongoing project. I hoped the undertaking would help them to learn patience, organization and customer service skills – and as I’ve written about here and here, they’ve learned a lot from the experience after their first eight weeks at it.

Interestingly, what I didn’t give much thought to when I first made my suggestion was the fact that if successful, they’d be raking in cash in a manner previously unknown to them. And they’ve been very successful indeed. So their piggy banks have swelled astoundingly over the past two months.

In Tim’s case, it hasn’t affected his spending habits much. He’s a saver; he’s sensible; and the material items he covets tend to be relatively expensive, like X-Box games or online memberships. So he tucked away his earnings for several weeks in a row and then bought a video game he really wanted. Now he’s saving once again.

Holly, on the other hand, is like a crow. Put simply, if it glitters or sparkles, it catches her eye and she wants it. And I don’t just mean jewelry or rhinestones; I mean kitsch. She’s been spending money ever since she started earning it. As the summer progressed, she put her hard-earned cash toward everything from earrings to quiz books to refrigerator magnets to hair clips to the ever-trendy Japanese erasers. And yes, she even bought a pillow pet: a giant stuffed bumble bee that unfolds into a plush pillow.

Since I wasn’t anticipating this newfound wealth on her part, I didn’t think about how much control I should have over it. At eight years old, Holly is old enough to understand what it means to be spending her own money, and she certainly understands the work she put into earning it: she’s right there at Tim’s side every week, greasing pans and beating eggs during the baking phase, and then staffing the booth with him every Saturday morning. So for the most part I’ve taken a hands-off attitude, merely reminding her frequently during our many shopping expeditions that she should think twice about what’s really worth buying and what’s not, but then letting her make her own decisions.

Rick did intervene once in a purchase he simply considered too irresponsible to watch transpire: she wanted to buy a rubber duckie from a sidewalk vendor. “She doesn’t even take baths,” he pointed out to me after firmly steering her away. “And even if it’s her own money she’s wasting, we have to take some responsibility for the environmental side of it. We have the right to tell her she can’t buy useless plastic that will end up in a landfill.”

I agreed with him in that case, but it’s not an easy call. Even as she spent money on odds and ends all summer, she was still saving a lot of it, and eventually she shared with me her scheme: during the last week of vacation, she hoped to do a spending spree at the Build-a-Bear Workshop at the mall.

She’s been asking for weeks now, and yesterday I finally caved and took her to the mall. On the one hand, I was loathe to see her lay out cash for stuffed animals (of which she has dozens already, naturally) and stuffed-animal outfits. On the other, as I’ve been telling her all summer, it’s her money and she has to decide for herself what to do with it. At Build-a-Bear, I asked her as she selected each item – first a stuffed owl, then a pile of outfits and accessories for the owl – “Is this really something you want? Do you really think this is worth buying?”

She did. I did not. And so I struggled with the question about whether to allow it. But I reminded myself these were not impulse buys; she’s been talking about the Build-a-Bear excursion for weeks. And I do believe that mistakes in spending are low-hanging fruit as far as object lessons go: surely as soon as she wishes she had the money for something else, she’ll start thinking more seriously about whether that workout suit and matching headband for the stuffed owl were really so important, and she’ll probably think harder about a similar purchase next time.

More significantly, she didn’t spend all her money at Build-a-Bear. She spent about two-thirds of it, but made a point of keeping some for later. And that amount went right back into her piggy bank when we returned home.

At the cash register, the Build-a-Bear associate tallied up the owl’s outfits and told Holly the total. Then she gave Holly the standard spiel about how she could add an extra dollar to the total as a contribution for a particular charity the company supports.

Holly looked uncertainly at me. “You don’t have to do that,” I told her.

“I do want to give the extra dollar,” she announced firmly. “I want to help.”

That made me feel a lot better about Holly’s spending habits. Not that a dollar for charity is much compared to her overall total, but if spending is going to be a long-term habit of hers, then I can only hope the donation to charity will be as well. In the end, I was proud of that decision if not so much the Build-a-Bear trip in general. But most likely as she grows older, Holly will put less of a priority on stuffed animals and outfit changes for them.

And as that change happens, I can only hope that her priority on charity remains.

Who's On First Banana Bread: Part III

The kids have been officially in business together now for a month. (And when I say “officially,” I mean not that they filed for licensure from the Better Business Bureau but that it’s been a month since they put the finishing touches on their sign, a large piece of crimson poster board that says “Who’s On First Banana Bread” in white stencil letters.) As I wrote about in Part I and Part II of the Banana Bread Blogs, the learning process began long before their first day of sales, as they divvied up the tasks required to produce their flagship product, banana bread, and set themselves on a schedule that would enable them to churn out two dozen loaves a week – which is what they’ve been selling every week so far within the first three hours of the Saturday morning market.

The next major lesson began on their first day of business earlier this month: customer relations. Rick and I sat at their table with them, and at first they were shy, hanging back and waiting for me to greet and chat with customers. “But Daddy, Mommy already knows everyone!” Tim protested when Rick urged him to follow my lead in making conversation.

“Well, how do you think Mommy got to know everyone?” Rick asked. “She makes an effort! She meets people and remembers them!”

I had to smile at Tim’s perception of me. Knowing everyone, or ninety percent of the shoppers and vendors, at Carlisle Farmers’ Market is no great feat: it’s a small town, and a rather select demographic chooses to spend their Saturdays at Farmers’ Market: old-timers, people of all ages who are already knit into the town’s fabric in various ways, or families with young children. In other words, the kinds of people I’d be likely to know.

Still, I was a little bit pleased to hear that in Tim’s eyes, I know everyone: not because the appearance of popularity amidst the Carlisle population is important to me – this isn’t middle school, after all – but because what has always been important to me is imparting the message to my children that they are among friends. That’s one reason we live in a small town, the same one in which I was raised: so that they can enjoy the rare feeling of being surrounded by familiarity. Having been an overly anxious child myself, I’ve never believed in teaching my children about so-called stranger danger; I feel they’re far safer believing that most of the adults around them are people they can trust. I believe that sense of comfort will help them be better judges of whom not to trust and whom they can turn to when a problem occurs.

But Rick convinced Tim it didn’t matter if I seemed to know everyone and he didn’t; he still needed to reach out to potential customers. So together we urged the kids forward. We reminded them to encourage people to try the samples they’d put out and to greet shoppers with “Good morning!” if there was nothing else to say. A few visitors to the market engaged them in conversation: one man told them an intriguing piece of trivia about banana distribution, and another customer quizzed them on the ingredients to prove that they really did make it themselves. By the second week, we didn’t need to push them even gently: they were into the rhythm of greeting passers-by, offering samples, chatting with their customers.

So it’s turning out to be yet another positive lesson from Farmers’ Market: greet people as friends and soon they will be. The third week, I left for an hour to go running, and when I came back, the kids gave me a rundown of who had purchased bread. “The lady whose mailbox is across the street, the lady who goes barefoot, the man from church with the plump head, and the people who do yoga with Grandma,” they said. “And some other people we don’t know yet.”

So they’re not great with names, but it’s a start. And they acknowledge that they’ll get more familiar with the clientele if they stay at it. Right now, their biggest incentive to keep their business going is sheer sales: the past two weeks they’ve sold out nearly an hour before the market closed, and needless to say, they love divvying up the cash once they get home. But they’re learning about customers and community and friends at the same time. I’m not sure which lesson will last longer, but I’m happy to see how much they’ve benefited already, with nearly three months yet to go before the market season ends.

Who's On First Banana Bread: Part II

Last month I blogged here about my children’s plans to go into business together baking banana bread and selling it at Carlisle’s Farmers’ Market. With two weeks of Farmers’ Market under their belts, they are off to a marvelous start, and it’s interesting to itemize the skills developed and lessons accrued so far.

The first Saturday, they baked 20 mini-loaves and priced them at three dollars each. In the four-hour stint of Farmers Market, they sold 17 loaves, which was a fine number. As I told them, it left one for us to put in the freezer for whenever we next needed a ready-made “hostess gift”; one to cut up for samples the following week (as avid Whole Foods shoppers, we are well entrenched in the culture of samples, and the kids believed this was an important attraction at their booth); and one for our family to eat in the hours following Farmers Market. ("It's hard baking for other people and not getting to try any ourselves!" Tim had commented earlier in the day.)

The second Saturday, they baked 21 loaves and sold out within the first two hours the market was open. At ten o’clock, just as the parking lot was filling up, Tim and Holly sold their last two loaves to one chatty customer who said her children would be delighted with the treat. Farmers Market still had another two hours to go, but we were out of inventory – and the kids had collected a total of $63, mostly in ones, which they divvied up when they got home. Astounded at their commercial success, they set a goal of 25 loaves, maybe even 30, for the next week’s market. It would require them to spend a lot of time baking, they knew, but they were elated by their initial success and inspired to work harder than ever.

So far this week they’re halfway to their goal, but they’ll keep baking over the next two days. It doesn’t take them very long to make a batch from start to finish.

They still rely on me for a few tasks – they don’t like handling the well-ripened and slightly mushy bananas, so I do the peeling and drop the pieces into a mixing bowl, and I always take on the job of sliding the loaf pans in and out of the oven – but they’ve got the rest of it down to a well-managed routine, with Holly greasing the pans and whisking the eggs, Tim beating the bananas with sugar and combining the dry ingredients. They take turns when it comes to stirring the dry ingredients into the wet, and then they’re done. I help them clean up; ideally they’d do this part on their own too, but it’s a lot to expect.

Week Three is this Saturday. I’m hoping faces will become familiar and the kids will be rewarded with repeat business. I’m already happy with what they’ve learned and look forward to seeing them further develop their business acumen, baking talents and time management skills as the summer progresses. Business is brisk so far, and we’re off to an encouraging start.

My children, the entrepreneurs

Back in 2006, I wrote this article for the Boston Globe, about the tweens and young teens who were using Carlisle’s new Farmers Market to develop their entrepreneurial skills. As so often happens when I work on a feature story, I became enchanted with my subjects and developed great admiration for these young entrepreneurs.

But, with the typical nearsightedness of a parent, I couldn’t imagine my own children standing among their ranks. At ages three and seven that year, my kids’ only interest in our local Farmers Market was how many free samples of chocolate chip cookies they could cadge before I would notice, and how many dogs they could play with while I chatted with the other browsers.

It doesn’t seem as if four years have gone by, but Farmers Market starts up for the summer this weekend, and my kids are ready. Not to eat or play: to sell. They’ve been practicing their baking skills all week. Their product, they decided, would be banana bread. At the time they settled on this plan, they’d never made banana bread, but they knew it was a specialty of mine, one that they’d heard guests at our house and recipients of our gifts compliment many times. I agreed to help them get their baking abilities up and running.

They chose the business name themselves: Who’s On First. It was over a month ago that they selected the name and made a sign, using stencil letters they found at Staples. Earlier that week, Tim’s fifth grade teacher had played a You Tube clip of Abbott and Costello doing their best-known routine, and the class had been in stitches over it. I love the juxtaposition of old and new: the fact that with all the media currently available to them, nothing is funnier to the fifth graders than a 1940’s comedy routine – but also the fact that they’re all familiar with it now thanks to an innovation as state-of-the-art as YouTube.

I started teaching Tim and Holly, co-proprietors of Who’s On First, my method for making banana bread earlier this week. The first step, I reminded them, is always to wash hands. That part they had down pat. I explained the other steps and they discussed it for a while to determine how to best divide the labor. Because Holly is so much physically smaller and a bit less manually dexterous than Tim, it was fairly easy to decide who should do what. And calling Holly “less manually dexterous” is a euphemism of the first degree. Normally I just refer to her as “the Gravity Queen.” She’s never yet picked up an object she couldn’t manage to drop within moments. So I wasn’t too enthusiastic about her handling much of anything in the way of cooking ingredients, knowing whatever she touched, I would end up cleaning up off the kitchen floor.

I overcame that reservation early on, realizing that cleaning up was just going to have to be a big part of this endeavor for all three of us. And the kids settled into a routine as we practiced with one, then two, then eventually four batches of banana bread. Holly greases the pans while Tim peels the bananas. Tim melts the butter while Holly breaks the eggs into a bowl and beats them with a whisk. (To my surprise, the Gravity Queen isn’t bad with eggs. But I’m not letting her anywhere near the flour.) Tim mixes the dry ingredients while Holly beats together the bananas and sugar. When they’re done, I pour the batter into the pans for them and slide the whole set into the oven.

I’m looking forward to their first day of sales (or their IPO, as my husband calls it). They’ve worked hard together, and I’m hoping they get a gratifying response in the form of lots of customers. I’m also curious to see if they can maintain a regular baking schedule throughout the summer and not let the novelty wear off. If they can, they could each enjoy a satisfying amount of spending money over the next few months, and learn something about running a business and working together. If they can’t sustain their interest, we’ll eat the results of their initial efforts and try again another year.

But my fingers are crossed for a fine opening day on Saturday. Although I couldn’t have imagined it back when I was an objective on-the-scene reporter writing about other kids working as Farmers Market vendors, my children will now stand proudly among them. And I can’t wait to see how it goes for them.