Community Supported Agriculture: How to Participate

Thanks to the fact that most of our parents and grandparents owned small businesses, Brian and I are both big believers in the "buy local" movement. We're also concerned about the quality and safety of our food, particularly with so many mass food recalls over the past couple of years. To that end, we've decided to choose a local small farmer to supply our produce in 2013 by participating in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

CSAs allow you to contract with a local farmer to buy a portion, called a "share," of the locally grown crops they produce. You get truly farm-fresh (and often organic) vegetables and they're guaranteed their crops will be sold. Here's how it works.

1. Choose a few family farms which offer CSA packages that fit your needs. There are several helpful websites to help you locate farmers in your area that offer CSA packages. Two of my favorites:

• LocalHarvest.org: A website promoting small and family farms. In addition to CSA info, Local Harvest also provides address and hours for farmer's markets, blogs, forums, a newsletter and educational information on small farming and its community benefits.
• FarmMatch.com: This website includes a "Food Profile" option where you can specific which types of farm products you're looking for and it matches you with farmers in your area who grow those items. The tools are handy, but it has fewer participating farms than some other sites.

2. Contact the farmer and request a CSA package. Farms offer a limited number of CSA shares per year based on the amount of food they normally grow. If they have any spaces available, they'll provide you with some contract forms to fill out. Some farmers will even let you come to the farm to fill out your information, giving you a chance to take a peek at the place where your food will be living before it comes home with you.

3. Pay for your CSA food. Nearly all CSAs are "pay up front," meaning you'll pay for your entire season's worth of fruits, veggies and animal products in one lump sum in late winter or early spring. Typical pricing for a "full share" is between $500 - $900 and includes enough to provide a family of four plenty of produce for the week. Many farmers also offer "half-shares," which is enough to feed a couple or individual well and runs about $250 - $450. An average-sized package works out to $15 - $25 per delivery.

4. Mark your calendar with your pick up times and locations. Usually, you'll pick up your food weekly or biweekly at one of the farmer's scheduled pick-up locations. (Many half-shares are basically the same as a full-share but picked up every other week instead of every week.) The CSA package will specify the number of weeks you'll receive food and the growing season, usually April/May until November/December.

Often, farmers bring the CSAs with them to local farmers' markets and you can collect your produce while you're there. Many also offer pick-up directly from the farm, or from some other convenient location such as a grocery co-op or farm stand.

5. Pick up your food. Farmers will bring your food to the pick-up location. It's up to you to come and get it. Be on time, and if you can't make your CSA pick-up for some reason, let the small farmer know that you'll have a friend or family member pick it up for you. If you're vacationing, it's a nice way to thank your pet-sitter / house-watcher / mail grabber by passing on your fresh produce for them to enjoy before it spoils. Remember: You've already paid for the CSA share, so there's no cost when you come to get it.

6. Eat and be proud of yourself! You now have a big bag or box full of the freshest veggies, fruits and other farm products available. You've met the farmers who actually grew your food, you know where it's been and what's been done to it. Plus, you know that every penny you've spent has directly supported a family farm, the original American small business. Good for you!

Copying Clothing: Disassembling Old Clothes

Copying clothing is actually remarkably simple. Many of our grandparents did it all the time. The first step involves cutting the old clothing into its original, unstitched pieces. Here's how I did it with my old faithful nightgown. As you can see, it's seen much better days:

Here's the nitey I'm going to copy...

...It's looking a little rough.

Part of the shoulder seam and trim around the neck

First, turn the item inside out and inspect the seams. Most factory made clothing has seams like these ==>

Notice that the seam allowance (that's the little bit of extra fabric on the edge of the sewing stitches) is cut super-close and serged over the edge. (Serging is the zig-zag stitches over the cut edges of the fabric.) The serge is to keep the fabric from fraying over time and make your clothes last longer. Thanks, clothing makers! The narrow seam allowance is partly to keep those serged edges from rubbing against you, but mostly because they can save fabric - and therefore money - when sewing clothing they make. We approve of all money saving measures, even those of others. :-)

Clip your seams as close as you can

You might be tempted to try to pull all of those millions of little stitches out to separate the clothing parts so that you don't waste any fabric. Don't! It's a huge waste of time. Those tiny seam allowances will never lay flat when you're trying to mark out the new piece, and they're easy to replace later when you're cutting out our new fabric. Instead, just look closely to see where the actual sewing line is...not the zig-zags but the ones running in a line along the edge of the fabric, like this: - - - - - - - -  Now, grab some good, sharp sewing scissors and clip just inside of those stitches, like so:

Do this for all of the stitching that joins two different pieces of fabric together. Don't do it for hems at the bottom of the garment, at the ends of sleeves or legs, around the neck, etc. Only clip apart the seams where the parts of the garment have been joined.

 I forgot to do it so the photos don't show it (sorry!) but use a permanent marker to label each piece as you free it. Front, back, front right, front left, right sleeve, left sleeve, waist band, etc. It's amazing how alike individual pattern pieces can look when they're not attached to anything. When you're sewing your own clothing, a second spent labeling your parts will save you a lot of time later. It keeps you from having to tear your new garment apart when you have sewn the right front where the left front should be...and this time you'll disassemble with a stitch puller, on stitch at a time. Yuck.
 
When you're finished, lay all of your fabric "sewing pattern pieces" out where you can inspect them. Double check that you haven't missed any seams. Waist bands are usually a separate piece; so are collars and many bodices have linings, an extra piece of fabric on the inside of the tops of ladies' clothes to make them less see-through and lay more smoothly. Check for sleeve cuffs, pockets, zipper covers, belt loops and lapels as well. All of these are almost always a separate piece of fabric. Here is my disassembled nitey: 

It was made of a front, a back and two little cap sleeves. See that little pile of stringy-looking stuff below the scissors? That's the total amount of fabric I had to remove from this garment to separate the seam. It will be easy to add an extra 1/2 inch when I'm cutting the replacement pieces.

Next step: repairing existing damage.

Copying Clothing or Hiding from the Department Store

One of my great-aunts once told me that when she was a child, her mother would take apart old, worn out clothing and use the pieces as a pattern for copying clothing as a replacement. I love that idea!

Because I am likely in the Hall of Fame of cheapskates, the notion of buying a pattern that I can only use once appalls me. I've made brown paper bag copies of purchased patterns I intend to use a couple of times because the tissue paper isn't durable enough for a second round and I'll be danged if I'm buying two of the same pattern. It's a sickness.Tearing apart an old garment means I get an infinitely reusable pattern, people! It's glorious.

The second reason is that it means that I can actually resurrect my favorite clothing items when they wear out. This is important for me because:

1) I detest clothing shopping. I have the old-fashioned 1950s body - lots of boob, lots of hip/thigh, slimmer waist. (Though not nearly as slim as it used to be. Sigh) Sounds great, right? Wrong. Many of today's clothes are designed with straight-bodied figures in mind. Tops that fit everywhere else stretch and gap across my chest, showcasing my snazzy 18-Hour-Bra for unsuspecting grocery store checkout people. Pants that fit comfortably over my hips bag at the waist, displaying my panties to anyone who stands behind me. For me, clothing shopping involves multi-hour frustration as I search for the one shirt in seven different stores that fits just right. If I could copy the Perfect Shirt, I'd rarely have to set foot in the ladies department. Hooray!

2) Because of reason number one, once I find an item that I really love, I wear it until it actually disintegrates on my body as I'm wearing it. For those of you who update your wardrobe regularly and aren't aware, this is in fact possible with natural-fiber fabric. The item gets thin and develops holes that have no known cause. If you touch said hole, it gets bigger without any real effort on your part. The fabric just sort of fall apart. Being able to copy poor, decrepit items means that with a little effort on my part, I get to keep the Perfect Shirt forever.

Case in point: Recently my favorite nightgown began to crumble. I got it as a Christmas gift when my oldest son was about four years old. (He's in college now.) As I was pulling it on last week. the fabric next to the seam of the sleeve tore in a long gash that runs about halfway down the back. Holes have begun to appear near the neckline, on the back of the other shoulder, and near the hem. In a word, it's done.

Since it's made of a knit that's basically just four pieces made of ribbed t-shirt material, I've decided that it's a great candidate for my first attempt at copying clothing. I'm going to start tearing it apart this weekend. Here goes nothing.

What Fiscal Cliffs and Poor Man's Beef Stroganoff Have in Common

We're all inundated with news of the "Fiscal Cliff" looming if a workable budget isn't passed before the end of the year. As the last day before the deadline, today's news has been almost a blow-by-blow of the financial discussions in Congress. I know I'm rather at odds with most Americans when I say that I can't help but be a little bemused by it all.

Everyone I know talks about nothing but the Fiscal Cliff. My husband, my in-laws, my mother, casual acquaintances - shoot, even people in the grocery store - look at me with wrinkled brow and worried eye, telling me about what they're going to do to "survive the Fiscal Cliff."

It's got to be the first time in history that we've named the beginning of a recession. I have no doubt that America's economic future looks dark. I'm reviewing all of the money-saving measures that my parents used in the 70s, looking for ways to cut our spending and make our things last longer.  I expect things to get more difficult, but I'm not as terrified as some of the people I know - a few of my friends have built a "flight bag" in case they must flee their homes to avoid roving bands of marauders or forage for food - and I think it's because I know the magic of names.

My oldest son was very suspicious of foods he'd never tried when he was young. I could make something out of all of his favorite foods that tasted like ambrosia and he still wouldn't eat it if I said I just "whipped it up." He'd eye it suspiciously, squint at me and say "I don't think I like that." He wasn't interested in anything that wasn't a real recipe.

I eventually learned that if I named all of those homemade concoctions, he'd snarf them down like a starving dog. I make a dish I now call Poor Man's Beef Stroganoff: hamburger, brown gravy, egg noodles, onion and if we have them, mushrooms. Super easy, cheap and filling, it works great for hungry males squeezing in a bite between school and football practice. Until it had a name, Matt didn't like it. Once it was "Poor Man's Beef Stroganoff" he requested it at least once a month. It was like magic.

I think news reporters, pundits and political speech writers know that same magic. Making people worry about things is the easiest way to keep them interested, and "We need to pass a budget or we're going into a major recession" doesn't sound nearly as dire as "We must reach a deal to avoid falling over the Fiscal Cliff." One sounds like you might have to tighten your belt, the other sounds like you'll probably die. Cut spending vs. imminent death. Which will keep you tuned in? It's a no brainer.

So, I'm ready to tighten my belt - and in our house, there aren't many rungs left on that belt so it's going to be pretty tight - but I'm not worried about falling off any cliffs. My grandparents survived the Great Depression (named after the fact, by the way), my parents survived the 70s, and I'll survive this one. Without a flight bag.

Coffee Socks

I've decided to cut back on caffeine this year, with a goal of dropping to one...one...cup of coffee in the morning per day. It's a lofty goal but, I believe, attainable.

I typically make my coffee in a very nice French press that I received as a gift, but I've found making less than a full pot troublesome. A full pot is easy: a big cooking spoonful of coffee and fill with water to the top. Easy peasy. But somehow, if I have to use part of a spoonful or some of the water, things go awry. As the levels of coffee grains and water shift in relation to each other, my partial pots of coffee typically end up as either brown water or stand-your-spoon-in-it. I like strong coffee but there is a line.

To me, the obvious solution was to create a sort of makeshift tea-bag-type coffee set up similar to the Folgers singles you can buy in the store. I scrounged around for a good "filter" as I lost my snazzy tea infuser in one of our many household moves; that would have been perfect. Nothing fit the bill until I finally remembered something I'd learned when we'd tried a raw diet a few years ago: pantyhose.

I once made raw almond "cheese" by soaking almonds in water, grinding them up and then pouring them into an unused knee-high stocking to drip drain. (Surprisingly good on crackers, by the way, especially the garlic and herb variety.) If pantyhose drips the juice out of almond paste, why not coffee grounds? I found an unused black knee high stocking in my drawer and rinsed it with water to wet it. Then I put a teaspoon of coffee in it, poured my boiling water into a coffee cup and dipped the coffee-in-stocking tip into it until the coffee was ready. Worked like a champ. I rinsed the sock out with the dishes and it's now hanging from my kitchen cabinet, waiting for tomorrow. Yay for coffee socks!

Good Ol Bean Soup Recipe

We had a ham for Christmas dinner - which means my family had ham and I ate lots of sides as a lifelong non-ham-eater. But there is still a place for the old pork butt in my life: the leftover ham bone is the basis of one of my favorite foods, what my mom always referred to as "good ol' bean soup."

My grandparents farmed a lot of "white beans" - better known as Great Northern Beans in the grocery store - and all of the family always got about a bushel per household for home use. We kept ours stored in an old popcorn tin in our basement cold room. I can't remember that tin ever being empty.

Whenever Mom made a ham for our family, she saved the bone for bean soup made with those white beans. We always knew there would be bean soup after the holidays, and it was something to look forward to -- thick and rich and piled up nicely on crackers. It's just what you want in January when your toes stay cold all the time.

Now, my husband loves it, too, so much so that he's been diligently finishing off the leftover holiday ham so I can make some good ol' bean soup. He says that's why he's been eating so much ham, and I'm choosing to believe his motives are completely altruistic.

Ham and Northern Bean Soup (a.k.a. Good Ol' Bean Soup)

1 meaty ham bone, preferably leftover from a good dinner
1-2 pounds dried Great Northern beans or navy beans
1 lg onion, chopped coarsely
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Pour the beans into a big bowl or pot and cover with enough cold water so that there's about 2 inches of water above the surface of the beans. Cover and leave sitting on a counter overnight, at least 12 hours.

2. Drain the water off the beans. Rinse well and discard any debris; it's common for dried beans to have dirt blobs, leftover bean pod bits or tiny stones in the package.

3. Place the ham bone in a big soup pot, 10 or 12 qt size. Add beans and chopped onion. Add 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper per pound of beans to get started. Cover with water, allowing 1- 2 extra inches of water above the top of the bone/beans.

4. Heat on high until it starts boiling, then turn down to medium-low. Cook for about 3 hours, stirring regularly to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. As it cooks, the beans will soften and begin to break up, and the soup will become thick and stew-like. Sample the juice every so often and add salt and pepper to taste. Add water as needed to keep it at the density you like. I like mine super thick like my mom always makes it - almost like porridge - but you can adjust it by adding extra water.

Before serving, remove the bone from the pot and scrape off any meat still stuck to the bone, mixing the meat into the soup. Serve with crackers or bread.

Note: This soup cooks up well in the crock pot, too. Just put the stuff in a crock pot instead of a soup pot and heat on medium for about 6 - 8 hours or so. Also, some people like to put vegetables in it -- celery, carrots, peas, potato chunks or even turnips. It's all tasty. Enjoy!

Seed-free Mitten Puppets

Sadly, the off-season thwarted me when I went to place my order for my selected heirloom seeds. They're taking inventory right now and I can't order until they're finished. So, I wait.

I guess I'll just have to get started knitting my nephew's mitten puppets for Christmas. Naturally, I didn't have the right sized double-point needles (dpns), so I had to order them. I prefer bamboo needles because they don't make my abnormally cold hands ache the way metal ones do. The pattern I have requires size 4 and 5 dpns, so as all knitters know, I have sizes 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 9 -- but not 4 or 5. It's the Murphy's Law of knitting. But next time, look out!

I order all my knitting supplies from eKnittingNeedles.com because their bamboo needles are much cheaper than in the store, they have free shipping for orders over $15, they always ship quickly and everything always arrives in good condition. What more could I want? I broke down and ordered a dpn case too because my collection has gotten out of hand. I started to make one a year ago, but it's lingering in the unfinished objects (UFO) pile. Sigh.

Anyhow, time to make mitten puppets. They'll be regular old little boy mittens, but I'm going to add some ears and eyes so they can be puppets. My six-year-old nephew liked the puppet mitten/scarf combination so well last year that he requested new mittens from Aunt Stacie for Christmas. How about that? A budding handmade-item connoisseur in the family, maybe?