Somerville Farm to School Project

One of my favorite things about summer and fall is the food! Not just eating the food but visiting local places where food is grown and sold. My family and I spend countless hours shopping at farmers' markets, listening to music on farms, picking our own fruits and vegetables and meeting up with friends at food events and festivals. If you're wondering how to improve your family's connection to real food and the people who grow and produce it, here are a few tips. Left to right: Strawberry picking at Verrill Farm , Buying veggies at the SomervilleMobile Market, Attending the SomerStrEATS event   Visit a farm! See goats, chickens, sheep, cows and pigs! Learn about the fruits and vegetables that grow in and around Somerville! Chat with a farmer! Listen to live music! Pick your own food directly from the farm! For lists of farms and farmers' markets visit the MDAR (Massachusetts Department of Agriculture) and Mass Farmers' Markets websites. ...

"They have learned so much!" That's what one of the Transition to Kindergarten teachers said to me as I left her classroom for the last time. I had been visiting 6 different classrooms once a week for the past four weeks to teach the students about the plant parts we eat and what plants need to grow. Another teacher quipped, "I didn't know which plant parts I was eating until I went to college. It's great that they are learning about it now." That was our goal: to get students thinking about where food comes from and to get teachers thinking about how to incorporate food literacy into their lessons. Our first day started with Sunbutter and seed collections. Chef Guy Koppe from Project Bread led the kids in preparing Sunbutter, using this recipe. The students watch toasted sunflower seeds transform into creamy Sunbutter right before their eyes.    Preparing and tasting sunbutter   After reading Seeds, seeds, seeds! by Nancy Elizabeth Wal...

If you are anything like me, you associate cranberries with winter holidays - think cranberry sauce and turkey!  But after meeting with Cindy Rhodes, owner of Cape Cod Select with her husband Matt,  I learned that cranberries can be used in all seasons! And for both sweet and savory dishes! The cranberry harvesting season begins in a few short weeks. Grab the fresh ones while you can! For a year round treat, you can find Cape Cod Select berries in the freezer section of your grocery store. Naturally tart berries are a perfect pairing for sweeter meats such as pork and turkey. Coupled with fruit such as mangoes and bananas they make a delicious smoothie. After a recent visit to Cape Cod Select cranberry bog as part of my Boston Local Food Festival guest blogger stint, I challenged myself to develop a few savory recipes using cranberries. For the first recipe I paired cranberries with thyme to create a topping for focaccia tiles.   Using this recipe ...