It is, thanks to the community gardens sprouting up in suburbs, schools, senior centers, and downtown areas.  A community garden is simply a piece of land tended by people who are passionate about helping others.  Although they may keep a portion of their harvest to share among themselves, they also donate their fruits and vegetables to local food banks or soup kitchens.

Want to help?  Fred Conrad is the Community Garden Coordinator for the Atlanta Food Bank, and you can reach him at fred.conrad@acfb.org or call 678.553.5932.

Community gardens help in many ways.  Not only do they feed the hungry, but they also beautify our neighborhoods, encourage fellowship, and preserve green space.  When you join in, you’re not just helping to grow a garden.  You’re helping grow a community.

digging in, to raise a harvest of hope and help

Cheers,
Lynn

Cakes & Ale, in Decatur, is owned by Chef Billy Allin. Come meet him at the show!

“The Good Things in Life” —that’s what Cakes & Ale means to chef/owner Billy Allin.  And yum, yum, yum…. the food at Cakes & Ale is good indeed.

This wonderful Decatur restaurant whips up its meals from scratch everyday, using the best and freshest vegetables in season from local stores.  Their freshly-milled grains are artisan-produced; the meats and non-endangered fish species are humanely raised.  In short, dining at Cakes & Ale means better taste and more nourishment for you and your family.

What’s cooking right now, in the winter of 2009?  Chef Billy shops at this time of year for lettuces, trout, and radishes.

Today’s menu—just to give you an example, as the delicious offerings change frequently–includes entrees like these:

• trout stuffed with bay, lemon, garlic and croutons;
• roasted pork loin with rye bread stuffing, creamed Brussels sprouts, and apples;
• spicy Italian sausage and slow-cooked cabbage on polenta;
• and more.  Are you hungry yet?

I am!  Join me to hear Chef Billy talk about “Cooking from the Garden” on Sun., Feb. 1, at 12 noon on the Home Depot Stage.   Bring your appetite!

cheers,

Lynn

P.S.–don’t forget to look for me at the show.  I’ll be blogging live each day inside the Galleria.  On Wed., Jan. 28, I’ll be there around 5 P.M.

Lynn Coulter, "Master Blogger" for the 2009 Southeastern Flower Show

Is this cold weather making you shiver?  Sounds like you need some comfort food, the kind that warms the body and feeds the soul on a blustery winter’s day.

When the flower show opens, you’ll hear from some fantastic chefs about how to prepare healthy, delicious meals with fruits and veggies from your own garden.   Check out the show’s schedule:

(TIP:  click on the red words to access related web pages)

On opening day, Wed., Jan. 28, Chef Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene will appear with Alice Rolls, from Georgia Organics, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing fresh, locally-grown foods to our tables;

On Thursday, Jan. 29, Chef Laurie Grizzle, former owner of Mustard Seed Cafe, will speak alongside Chad McKinney, of Etcetera Farms, who furnishes Laurie’s produce.

And there are more chef appearances ahead, for each day of the show!  Watch this space, and I’ll give you details as time goes on.

Until we hear from these renowned cooks, here’s a comfort food-type recipe sent in by fellow blogger and flower show follower Lucy Mercer.  Yum—we had pot roast for dinner last night!

“The Gardener’s Reward

One of the nicest things to do for yourself as you spend a few hours gardening on a cold winter or spring day, is to have something nice and toasty in the house to look forward to when the gardening work is completed.  A bubbling stew in the crock pot, perhaps…. If you have help, it’s especially considerate to put a roast in the crock pot or oven and serve it after a hard day’s work.

I learned this well the spring I was pregnant with my first daughter, when my nesting urge manifested itself in a vegetable garden.  This was in those glorious pre-drought days when rain was abundant and so I went a little nuts buying tomato and pepper seedlings, to the tune of 60 tomato plants and 30 peppers.  There were also hills of cucumbers, beans, squash and zucchini. And two rows of corn.   My due date was mid-July, and truly, what was I thinking? That I could harvest a garden and care for a newborn at the same time?

My neighbor Diane, good as gold, agreed to help me plant the seedlings on a windy April day.  I promised her all the tomatoes and peppers she could eat when the harvest rolled in, plus a supper of pot roast following the planting.  This was a few years ago, and my standard pot roast recipe required a can of Campbell’s Golden Mushroom soup and a crock pot.  I’ve since decided that a crock pot takes up too much space on either my kitchen counter or pantry and that the convection oven essentially accomplishes the same task without clutter….

Here’s how I make my pot roast, using shiitake mushrooms.  Cremini or button shrooms will work, too.  You could also leave them out, but the preachy part of me will look over my glasses with a disapproving gaze, and tell you that you’re missing the very best part.

Pot Roast with Mushrooms

1/2 pound sliced bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 (1 lb. or so) beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat
2 medium onions, peeled and cut into wedges
4 carrots, peeled, trimmed, split lengthwise and then into 2-inch sections
2 stalks celery, trimmed and sliced into 2-inch pieces
4 medium red potatoes, peeled and sliced into 2-inch chunks
1, possibly 2 small containers of shrooms, rinsed, dried, trimmed and sliced (for shiitakes) or halved (for buttons)
4 small bay leaves, or 2 large
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup or more, red wine, or perhaps beef broth, or just water, to deglaze the pan
1 (28 oz.) can whole organic tomatoes
salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 or find your crock pot and plug it in.  Get a good-sized Dutch oven and place on burner set over medium.  Fry bacon, until fat is rendered and bacon is crispy.  Make the most of this time to multi-task by chopping the vegetables.

2. Remove the bacon from the pot and drain on paper towels.  Pour off all but a couple tablespoons of the bacon fat and discard in an appropriate manner (translation: not in the sink drain).  Season the roast with salt and pepper and brown in bacon fat.  This is a crucial step and will take at least 20 minutes and possibly longer, depending on the size of the roast.  Do not skimp on time here.  Your goal is to have a crusty piece of meat to roast to perfection.  The key to brownness is for the meat to release, if you’re using a regular, not nonstick pan.  Do not tear the meat…the meat will release when it is ready…. When meat is completely browned, place either in a crock pot (if using) or on a plate, if oven-braising is your method.

3. Still over medium heat, in the Dutch oven, with the roast removed, brown the tomato paste for a couple minutes.  Deglaze the pan with the wine, broth, or water, and scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan.  Pour in the can of tomatoes and heat through.  This is a good time to taste for seasoning.  Return the meat to the pan, top with vegetables, bacon, bay leaves, additional salt and pepper if needed.  If you like a little heat, toss in a dried chile pepper.  If using the crock pot, place all ingredients in the crock, cover, and cook for a couple of hours at high, or at least four hours on low.  If using an oven, place all ingredients in an oven-safe Dutch oven or casserole, top with a lid or foil and bake for at least 2 hours at 350, or longer at a lower temperature. I know that’s kind of imprecise and Zen and sounds like how Miles Davis would quote a recipe, but that’s how you learn what works.  Trust me, each time I make this, I do something different, and it’s always delicious.  The roast is done when it’s fall apart tender and the vegetables, especially the mushrooms, have soaked up the yummy sauce.

4. Be sure to remove the bay leaves, then serve to your hungry garden helpers… If you need a go-with, try buttered noodles, creamy polenta (the baked polenta recipe from Fine Cooking magazine is especially tasty and easy), or cheesy grits for the starch.  You could serve some warm bread, and maybe a salad, but that’s beginning to sound like a lot of work. If you need something sweet at the end of this meal, I’d say go for brownies, but that’s another story…

Lucy Mercer

www.acookandherbooks.blogspot.com.

See you at the show, where I’ll be blogging LIVE each day! Watch my blog and I’ll post the times.

Your “Master Blogger” for the Southeastern Flower Show,

Lynn Coulter

author, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds

Mike McGrath, passionate organic gardener

Flower show fans, want to know more about Mike? Mike McGrath, that is, who’ll be speaking from the Home Depot stage on the opening day of the show. At 11 A.M. on Wed., Jan. 28, Mike will tell us all about his passion for organic gardening, and share “Seven Secrets of Successful Organic Gardeners.”  Here’s a quick preview:

“Want to grow twice as much in half the space, and half the time? Utilize these secrets that every good organic gardener knows to greatly increase your chance of success while dramatically decreasing the amount of work you have to do. Workshop leader Mike McGrath will walk you through those easy-to-learn tips, including:

• feeding the soil instead of your plants
• inviting beneficial life into your garden to devour insect pests before they can devour your precious plants
• preventing weeds by using a rich organic mulch rather than fighting them toe-to-toe all summer
• the overwhelming importance of utilizing water as a weapon
• and much more.”

Later that day, at 2 P.M., Mike will discuss “Ornamental AND Edible:   Kitchen Gardening A to Z.”   Here’s a “taste,” if you’ll excuse the pun, of what you’ll learn:

“The best ‘kitchen gardens’ really are located right outside everyone’s favorite room in the house.  Join Mike McGrath for a lively discussion on how to grow great tasting edibles right close to where you’ll enjoy them, including varieties so ornamental, you’ll be tempted to put them front and center in the flower garden!  We’ll delve into the secrets of successfully growing:

• true ‘vegetables’ like broccoli
• fruits we use as vegetables, like tomatoes,the single vegetable we use like a fruit
• fruits we use like…well, like fruits!
• AND the edible flowers of vegetables, like squash
• the edible flowers of FLOWERS—like pansies and nasturtiums
• the giant grass we enjoy with salt and butter every summer   (Lynn’s note: guess what this grass is??)
• and, of course, those absolutely essential herbs.

Mike grows to cook and cooks to grow.   So join us as we kick off a season of great eating with tips on how to enjoy your tastiest garden ever.  Oh, and start saving your eggshells now—you’ll never grow tomatoes without them after Mike reveals how they’re the secret to both great taste and defeat of the dreaded blossom end rot!”

Starting today, I’m saving those eggshells.  (I also save banana peels.  Has anyone else heard that they’re beneficial when planted around your roses?  Gotta ask Mike about that.)

Remember, I’ll be blogging LIVE from the show, so look for me when you visit.  I’ll post the times that I’ll be there as the opening day gets closer.  Also, I’ll have free bookmarkers to give out, along with small packets of mustard seeds for your kitchen garden.  They’re give-aways for my new book, Mustard Seeds: Thoughts on the Nature of God and Faith.

Mustard Seeds, by Lynn Coulter

See you at the show!

Lynn

Here are just a few items I’m putting on my list to order:

• Mississippi Silver Hull peas, a runner type that produces very well here in the South.  The beans are large and tan and delicious.
• D’Alger melons. I’ve never eaten this kind of melon, but it sounds great.  The catalog says it’s a “colorful, ancient, French cantaloupe (possibly from Africa)…(T)he flesh is highly perfumed and very smooth and creamy.”  The photo shows a dark green-black rind with silvery splashes.
• Sugar Snap peas.  These are for my hubby, who loves to eat them sauteed or raw in salads.  I like that they’re produced on bushy vines that don’t need staking.


Hungry? Try sugar snap peas in Chicken Marsala. Then visit the show to get more ideas on cooking from your garden!

There are lots more things I want to grow, but Thai Long purple eggplants won’t make my list.  We grew them last year and I found them annoying skinny and too bland.

The Baker Creek catalog has many exotic seeds for sale.  For tips on using unusual fruits or vegetables in your kitchen, don’t miss the cooking demonstrations coming up at the 2009 Southeastern Flower Show. On Wed., Jan. 28, you’ll hear from Chef Linton Hopkins, owner of Restaurant Eugene, about “Cooking From the Garden.” He’ll speak at 12 noon on the Home Depot Stage. The next day, Jan. 29, Laurie Grizzle, of the Mustard Seed Cafe, will also talk about preparing homegrown produce. She’ll speak at 12:30 P.M. from the Demo Stage.

When you visit the show, be sure to bring your questions for these knowledgeable cooks.  See you there!

Lynn

Author, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds

1. keep my indeterminate tomatoes staked as they grow, instead of waiting until they start to fall over.
2. weed more often, so the cat doesn’t get lost in the bushy stuff.
3. plant only ONE zucchini this year, so I won’t have to run out at night and leave bags of those prolific little veggies on my neighbor’s porch, just to get rid of them
4. not rush the season by transplanting before the soil is dependably warm (nursery owners love me, because invariably a late cold snap kills my tender plants, and I have to buy more and start all over).
   
5. plant a row for the hungry.
   
6. replace my half-dead blueberry bushes and read up on where I went wrong with the first ones.
7. start a strawberry bed.
8. use more organic controls and less chemicals and sprays.
9. plant a border along the split-rail fence with lots of butterfly-friendly flowers
10. reduce our water usage by turning some of our grassy yard into flower beds (hubby should like that because it means less mowing).

And…..well, let’s face it.  I’ll be lucky if I can stick to these, so I’d better stop.

As we count down the hours to midnight, I wish you a very happy and green New Year!

blessings,

Lynn

P.S.—Enjoy these beautiful photos contributed by Kersten of Athens Select.  For more info on Athens Select plants, which are heat and drought tolerant, look for my post dated 12/29/08 or visit www.AthensSelect.com.  Remember, you can click on most of the images on my blog to enlarge them.

Tomato Growers, as you’d guess, specializes in tomatoes, and there are some delicious new varieties coming onto the market. I like ‘Bella Rosa,’ a VFFNA hybrid that is said to be both heat tolerant and resistant to tomato spotted wilt virus. The fruits are large with bright red flesh. ‘Shilling Giant’ also looks great. It bears huge, heart-shaped fruits with a meaty texture, fine for making into rich tomato sauce. Check out the catalog at Tomato Growers Supply Company.

I can’t wait to hear Jenny Levison, owner of Souper Jenny, when she speaks at the flower show next Jan. 30 about “Cooking from the Garden.” Laurie Grizzle, owner of the Mustard Seed Cafe, will also discuss cooking from your garden on Jan. 29. I want to ask them both about their recommendations for the best varieties to grow for making homemade sauces and soups.

No catalogs in your mailbox yet? Be patient. They start arriving around this time of year. Meanwhile, enjoy this picture, which comes from a book published in the mid-1500s. Seems artists have been fascinated by the beauty of humble tomatoes for centuries!

From a garden book published circa 1640

green blessings,
Lynn
www.LynnCoulter.com

The catalog was packed with classes on every kind of art and craft, from basketry to blacksmithing, metalwork to music, painting, woodcarving, quilting, and more.  Two courses that caught my eye were gardening and cooking.

I drove to Brasstown and spent a fantastic week living at this Danish-style folk school in a beautiful mountain setting.  The submarine captain was just one of many friendly people who also came for a relaxing yet educational vacation. 

We learned to preserve, or “put up,” mouth-watering, organically grown foods from the school’s garden.  We picked raspberries for fresh, thick jam and gathered tiny, sugary-sweet ”Matt’s Heirloom” tomatoes, along with green beans, cucumbers, squash, and peppers.  Our group worked together in a huge, well-stocked kitchen to preserve Meyer lemons; can Dilly beans; process spicy salsa; cook up chow-chow, and more–and we took our goodies home with us at the end of the week.

The not-for-profit folk school is a wonderful place to learn about both gardening and cooking, and if you’re looking for a gift for the person who has everything, a certificate for one of its courses is bound to be a winner.  You can find out more about the school at www.folkschool.org

But what if you or your friend-who-has-everything can’t spare a week or even a long weekend?  Problem solved.  Come to the 2009 Southeastern Flower Show for a day, or for several days, when it opens next Jan. 28.

You may not sit beside someone who regales you with tales of the deep, but you’ll hear from floral designers from across the country; great chefs and popular authors; brilliant designers and experienced landscapers.  And when you’re sitting in the audience for a lecture or demo, take a look around, and consider chatting up your seat-mate.  Who knows who you might meet?

cheers,

Lynn

www.LynnCoulter.com

Mike McGrath, passionate organic gardener and tomato fan

No offense, but –leave your Lima beans at home when you visit the Southeastern Flower Show on opening day.  Why?  Because keynote speaker Mike McGrath, host of the nationally syndicated public radio show, ”You Bet Your Garden,” hates Lima beans with a passion, that’s why.

Hey, we’re cool with that, Mike.  After all, the theme for the 2009 show is passion, and that intense emotion doesn’t always mean you love something. You can passionately hate a certain flower or veggie, too!

Luckily, Mike is passionate in a positive way about many other garden delights, like the tomatoes pictured in his cartoon.  He’s also crazy about organic gardening, and he’s eager to teach you how to raise your own bountiful organic harvest.  Don’t miss his keynote lecture, “A Passion for Nature:  The Seven Secrets to Successful Organic Gardeners,” on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 11 a.m., or his workshop that afternoon at 2 p.m. 

If you’re got a lust for Limas, and you think you raise the most lucious legumes around, feel free to stop and talk to Mike while you’re at the show.  Ask him to give yours a try. 

Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

cheers,

Lynn

visit Mike McGrath at http://www.whyy.org/91FM/ybyg/index.html

then visit me, your passionate Master Blogger, at www.LynnCoulter.com