Tag Archives: Farm to Table

Farm to Table

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

Farm to Table has become a big bullshit buzz phrase over the last half dozen years in the culinary world. I started this piece a while ago and sat on it because I wasn’t sure how to write it without sounding like a pity party or an asshole. I’ve now decided I don’t care if I sound like either of those things. Read on…

Oh the People You Meet

Not too long ago, I had a very brief conversation with a man who tried to tell me that “The foodie movement really started in Napa”. I patted him on the shoulder and said, “Nice try buddy, but New York’s food scene has been killing it for ages.” He looked outraged and exclaimed, “But Chez Panisse!” I kinda rolled my eyes at him and said, “Well that’s a whole ‘nother story.”

My hackles raised because I had lived the farm to table life, and it isn’t all pretty pictures and photo spreads in magazines. I eyed this guy up and down, took in his brand name, designer clothing, and without getting into an in-depth conversation with this guy (whom I did not know), I was able to GUESS a few things about him (judge-y much? YUP!). I am guessing this guy has always lived in a city or suburbs, nowhere near a farm, or farmers, or a rural community of any kind. If he honestly thought Alice Waters invented farm to table cooking, that would be my guess. I am guessing he grew up privileged in one fashion or another. It would also be my guess that he never grew his own tomatoes, or anything else for that matter. I would further guess he was repulsed by the smell of manure and had never visited a “U-Pick” farm and odds were 50-50 that he even knew what one was.

Alice Waters Just Made Farm to Table Chic

What I really wanted to tell this guy was that farmers and the rural poor around the globe have been cooking farm to table for centuries. When Chez Panisse opened in 1971, I was in first grade, living on Long Island. In 1973 we moved “to the country”, upstate New York. and THAT is where I learned about farm to table cooking. People who didn’t know there was any other way have been doing just that for their entire lives. It wasn’t trendy, it was just the way to eat. Alice Waters did a lot of good things in opening the eyes of city-folk to farm fresh food, but in NO WAY did she invent farm to table cooking. Alice Waters just made it chic…and expensive…and over the top.

The Business of Growing Food

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

The town where I grew up had some terrific home cooks who worked wonders with whatever was in season. They cooked everything fresh from the farm during the season. As the summer turned into fall, the canning and freezing began so they would have home grown vegetables and fruit for the colder months. We knew people who had commercial farms, orchards, and dairies. It was not uncommon to see a large family, or blended family, or extended family in the business of growing food. We grew our own and picked our own from commercial farms to sustain our family, we never grew enough to make a profit on it. In high school I made friends with a set of identical twins (yes, I can still tell them apart). Their family owned a dairy and potato farm. And yes, they had milk and potatoes at every damn meal. Because that is what they had plenty of at all times. I’ve always wondered if the fruit growers had fruit at every meal and do those now adults love or hate what their families grew.

What the Country Folks Do

As I reflect further on this incredibly brief convo with this unknown man, I think about my friend Kim and the book she is writing. She is writing a book about poverty and food insecurity in America. Where I grew up there were two classes of people – the Haves and the Have Nots – we were decidedly the latter. We lived in the country, about 5 miles from the center of town. While we were poor, we rarely went without food during the warm months. My stepfather was a butcher and got meat at cost. We had chickens, so breakfast for dinner was common because we had eggs. We grew our own tomatoes, squash, and other vegetables. Our 20-acre property was bracketed by fruit orchards where we would cross the property line and “snitch apples”. Never enough to cause them loss, but enough for us to eat and the owners knew about it, saying better us eat them than the birds. Everyone who lived out by me canned, froze food or made their own jam. My mom’s grape jelly was SO good that it has ruined me for store bought grape jelly for the rest of my life. I don’t know what the people “in town” did, but I hope some of them, if they read this, take the time to comment and let me know.

The August 2021 issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a “day in the city” piece for a few different cities. The idea is a local foodie, chef, food writer, takes the “reader” where the locals eat in their city. My hometown was one of those cities. I nearly choked on my tea. I can promise you, that town was NOTHING like that when I was growing up.

Cover photo – Photo by Peter Wendt on Unsplash

Summer is Over – Fall Means Canning in My House

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

I can’t believe it is already September! Where has 2016 gone? Shit! I sound like an old woman, railing against the passage of time! Fall means I need to start canning and here in the desert heat I end up doing it late at night.

We knew we were going back to school the Wednesday after Labor Day

This summer was such a whirlwind of activity and travel that I have barely had a chance to catch my breath. As a child, summer was a time to rest, rejuvenate and enjoy. We knew we were going back to school the Wednesday after Labor Day, so we made the most of summer. We took advantage of every sweet bite before fall and back-to-school sunk their claws into us. Trips to Lake Taghkanic (pronounced tuh-CON-ik ) were the norm, but so was weeding the garden. Going to Gram’s house on Long Island was a forgone conclusion with visits to Jones Beach. We’d go early in the morning and grab fresh bagels on the way as the icing on that particular cake. (Moment of Truth – I rarely go to the beach without wanting a salt bagel with lox cream cheese now.) If we were lucky we got to go to Lake George and to Storytown (now Six Flags Great Escape). I know my mom worked her ass off all summer so we COULD go and do those things. In fact, one glorious summer she was the concession manager at Lake Taghkanic and we went with her most days. [I honestly don’t have a lot of great memories of my childhood, but that summer was epic in my now adult mind. I learned how to do crossword puzzles, run a cotton candy machine, make popcorn in a movie theater style popper and had swim lessons with cute lifeguards whose names I still remember.]

There she was, over a cinderblock fire pit canning everything and anything as if we were preparing for the coming of The Walking Dead

And I remember Mom canning in late summer and early fall. If you know my mom at all, you know how hilarious this sounds. She HATES to cook. Loves to bake, hates to cook. Late summer and early fall were always the worst for Mom because of her allergies. Yet, there she was, over a cinderblock fire pit – no, I am not kidding – wasps flying around, canning everything and anything as if preparing for the coming of The Walking Dead (Moment of Truth #2 – I am completely addicted to that show and can’t wait for the season premiere). I know I have shared this thought before and I wish I had a picture, because my 51 year old brain still can’t make sense of it, even though I witnessed it.

I am not sure what it is about fall that makes me want to live in my past

So now, in my middle age, I find myself prepping for the zombie apocalypse. I am not sure if it is an imperative of generations of farm to table living, needing to prepare for the known cold winter coming through my DNA. Maybe it’s that what once was old school is now fashionable again, or just simple nostalgia. I am canning, preserving and baking. In recent weeks I have made and canned tomato sauce, meatballs, chicken stock and peeled and canned fresh tomatoes. I’ve dried herbs and gotten them into storage. And I am weeding the garden that I allowed to go fallow this summer. I am not sure what it is about fall that makes me want to live in my past because I rarely want to revisit that. You know, Hakuna Matata and all that. But here I am, acting like some country housewife of days gone by.

This is what a quarter bushel looks like canned (minus a few that we ate fresh). Approximately 9 qts.

This is what a quarter bushel looks like canned (minus a few that we ate fresh). Approximately 9 qts.

Make no mistake, I live in a CITY (where I personally belong), not in the country any more. I am surrounded by concrete and desert landscaping, just the way I like it for most of the year. The siren song of water – lakes, beaches and rivers – holds no sway over me as it did in my childhood, although I do love a good thunderstorm. Vegas could never be called the cradle of the Farm to Table movement. It could never be called the Breadbasket of America. But just for now, in my little corner of the city, what constitutes fall in the desert feels like a modernized version of my past.

Farm to Table

Posted on by LeAnne Notabartolo

I have been a slacker and I am sorry. As August is “Month of Happiness”, there is MUCH to be happy about as we near harvest season in many parts of the country. Here are some thoughts…

Back in the dark ages (haha) farming was a way to feed one’s own family. You ate what you could fresh and then you preserved what you could and if you couldn’t preserve it, you THEN sold or bartered whatever was left for other goods for your house. The same was true for hunting and animal husbandry. “Farm to Table” was a way of LIFE not a catchy menu phrase or marketing option.

Growing up in upstate NY on the Hudson River there were farms and farm stands galore. My family owned one. We grew what was easy to grow and sold it, just like everyone else and I can promise you that I ate more than my fair share of zucchini (Moment of Truth – there are some members of my family that STILL won’t eat squash). We did “farm to table” because it was cheap and relatively easy. Did we always LIKE what we ate?  No, but we were brought up to eat what was put in front of us (Moment of Truth – I despise those parents who cook 3 meals every night NOT due to food allergies, but “because this kid won’t eat this, and that kid won’t eat that”…they’d starve in my house).

What was a way of life, and continues to be a way of life for many in the world, has become a catch phrase for trendy seasonal dining.  Because everyone is so focused on fresh produce, people frequently forget that part of the “farm to table” model includes preserving food for later use. My Mom canned, pickled, and made jelly and jam. I find it mildly shocking to type that, because her favorite thing to make for dinner these days is reservations. I am forever ruined for grape jelly because all of them taste too sweet to me after Mom’s version using concord grapes that were grown on our property. I remember her canning on an open fire – yes, really – in a concrete block fire pit because that was the only place large enough to hold the canning pot. I have learned to preserve food beyond the freezer and I take great pride in knowing that I can my own food.  I love the little “plink” sound when the jars seal. As I write, I am eagerly anticipating tomorrow’s Bountiful Basket Co-op delivery.  I have a case of Hatch green chiles and a case of corn coming.  I am thinking corn relish, canned corn, charred chiles frozen for later use, pickled peppers and of course eating a bunch fresh!

Learn a new skill this year and try canning. Yes, I know it sounds corny (see what I did there?), but it is really satisfying to say, “Yes, I did that!” and hear all the little plinking sounds when the jars seal themselves.

To see what I am eating, follow me on Instagram – all of my food porn shows up there as well as pics of my produce and canning in the next few days. And if you want to know more about the town I grew up near, read this piece, although I can promise you it wasn’t this cool when I lived there.