Eat. Drink. Better.

Pear pie. Pear ginger muffins. Pear cordials made from fruit, sugar and vodka. Pears canned in sugar syrup. Pear jam.

When my senior neighbor Mary calls me every year at the end of August with her annual message of “The tree is ripe – come pick,” I turn into the Bubba Gump of pears, gratefully using the four bushels of pears I harvest off her abundant backyard tree.

As the country whines about escalating food prices, there’s often rotten apples falling from some tree near you. Or pears, plums – name your fruit. You know the tree I’m talking about – the one you pass by every day in someone’s yard that is practically falling over with ripe fruit and you think to yourself, “Someone needs to do something with that.” How true – and that “someone” is you.

Talk about an organic homerun: By connecting with and harvesting a local fruit tree, you not only garner more organic, fresh, local fruit booty than you know what to do with – and put something to use that would otherwise have gone to waste. You build community by connecting with others. We’re talking community at its core, most sustainable essence, sharing abundance with others, relishing the gifts of the land.

Step up to the plate – or bushel – and tap into these unwanted fruit on trees in backyards across the nation that could be making the world a better place through more pie – or jam or cobblers or muffins – you get the picture. Here are three tips for foraging a fruit tree near you:
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How great would it be if there were want ads in your local newspaper or on Craigslist for organic fruits and vegetables, grown in your town, by your neighbors?  A new website - Veggie Trader has sprung up that offers exactly such a service, a purchasing and bartering clearinghouse for locally grown fruits and vegetables.

Veggie Trader describes itself as the “place to trade, buy or sell local homegrown produce”.  The idea is simple, you register on the website and then offer to purchase, to sell, or trade any manner of surplus fruits or vegetables.  If you have too many tomatoes and want to see if anyone nearby has a surplus of peaches or peppers, you can log on, run a search, and find out who in the neighborhood may be willing to exchange with you.

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There is new evidence that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may be a culprit in what is known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), or the disappearance of honeybees.

Colony Collapse Disorder has killed off more than one-third of the bees in the United States.

Beekeepers know that when there isn’t nectar readily available to their hives, as in the winter months, some turn to supplements. Traditionally it was (guess what) honey. But that’s what you want to harvest, so many turn to cheaper substitutions. Cane or beet sugar, mixed with water, was seen as acceptable as long as you removed the part of the comb containing the sugar once bees started producing again. It was important to keep the bees fed so they’d keep brooding and ready to produce honey.

Except it hasn’t only been the occasional sugar-water substitution. We’ve substituted the substitute. People have also turned to high fructose corn syrup.

And once again, it seems our need for convenience and affordability has cost us: a new study shows that a contaminant from heat-exposed HFCS may be killing off the bees.

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Two things peak like clockwork every August on our Wisconsin farm: Both the tomato harvest and the flow of guests at our B&B, Inn Serendipity, hit their peak. A time of rich abundance sprinkled with managed chaos, everything dances wildly amidst summer seasonal flow.

Which means I’ll gladly embrace any way I can simplify life right now, particularly when it comes to serving that morning meal daily to our B&B guests. Here’s a serving of our favorite tips and ideas for hosting a summer breakfast of your own, showcasing the abundant local, fresh flavors of the season and featuring our house recipe favorite: Fresh Tomato Breakfast Pie.

1. Prep the Night Before

This Fresh Tomato Breakfast Pie recipe serves up a great example of my ideal B&B recipe: Looks and tastes much more complex than it is. My morning B&B routine is a whole lot simpler if I can prep and organize my dishes the night before and just cook them fresh before serving. This recipe works well for that: Make and bake the crusts the night before. Chop and prep the tomatoes and other ingredients, then just assemble the pie in the morning and bake. Read the rest of this entry »

Portland, Oregon is a beautiful city, known for its roses, organic food, environmentally conscious citizens, and its beer.  It has truly become a destination for Oregonians and travelers alike searching for locally made micro brews and craft beers.

It’s hard to walk two blocks in Portland without encountering a brew pub, ale house, or beer bar, but there’s one that stands out as being truly exceptional.  Located in downtown Portland, Bailey’s Taproom is a cozy, modern facility that specializes in Pacific Northwest microbrews and craft brews.  They serve up everything in every imaginable style from a “brutally hoppy IPA, a clean lager, a sour Belgian, a thick stout, or a boozy barleywine”.

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I’m not a morning person.  When I get out of bed, I want an easy dish to make for my family.  This red potato frittata is a big hit in my house.  It’s a big hit with me because I can do it with my eyes half-closed.

Frittatas are well-known for their ability to absorb leftovers.  Just gather whatever is in your fridge, dump it into an oven-safe dish, and pour eggs over it.  Simple.  Read the rest of this entry »

Give me a piece of paper and pencil and I might choke out a few stick figure drawings for you. I’m not much of an artist in the traditional sense. But give me a chunk of cheddar, some beer, fresh veggies and other local ingredients from my home state of Wisconsin, and I transform into the artistic ninja of my kitchen here at Inn Serendipity Farm and B&B. Give me a palette of local, homegrown flavors and I can channel my inner culinary muse.

Case in point: Wisconsin Melting Pot Cheese Soup, my recent entry into the Wisconsin State Fair’s “Cornucopia Challenge” culinary contest, featuring ten different Wisconsin-produced ingredients. This recipe below garnered a third place white ribbon in this culinary contest category sponsored by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s “Ag in the Classroom” efforts to promote Wisconsin products.

Ready to take on your own private “Cornucopia Challenge,” creating your own signature dish featuring your local fare? Here are four tips to get you thinking creatively about combining your area’s flavors into a state fair ribbon worthy dish: Read the rest of this entry »

My daughter looks forward to shopping at the farmers’ market.  I think she’s excited because she never knows what will be there.  When one booth owner mentioned that he would have blackberries the next week, she talked about that to anyone who would listen and pestered me about it until we went back.  If my husband or I purchase a head of lettuce at the grocery store, even if she’s with us, she won’t eat it.  But she eats the lettuce she buys at the farmers’ market, just like she eats the lettuce she grows in her little garden.

I confess that I would do many things to get my daughter to eat her veggies – including eating vegetables I hate – but I, too, like gardening and going to farmers’ markets, so this one is no sacrifice.  Read the rest of this entry »

“The salad is bitter this year.”

My daughter is referring to the lambsquarter (Chenopodium album).  I pull a leaf from the waist-high plant and taste it.  She’s right; it’s bitter.  We usually eat the lambsquarter raw, but today I’ll need to cook it before she decides to never eat it again.

Sometimes referred to as goosefoot or pigweed (and sometimes spelled lamb’s quarter), this wild relative of spinach and quinoa has been eaten by people for thousands of years.  High in vitamins A and C, and with a sprinkling of B vitamins and several minerals, lambsquarter is an excellent green for the health-conscious  — and for growing kids.

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According to the folks over at Eat This Not That, there are certain nutrients you should try to eat every day for optimum health. In case you needed a few more reasons to cut back on overly processed and animal based foods, all of the nutrients just happen to be found in natural plant based sources. Not only will you be helping your body by following these guidelines, but by choosing to eat a diet rich in plant based foods, you’ll be lowing your carbon footprint and saving the environment at the same time. It doesn’t get much better then that. Here’s a list of my top 5 of the recommended plant based foods, along with the nutrients they provide for your body and easy ways to start incorporating them into your diet today.
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