This week more spring greens – they’re in everything, even if not listed. In the photos some items are shown paired with other items than listed – it’s a long story!
*Pinto bean daikon and turnip salad with sweet potato, potato, spinach and turnip green pancake
*Mixed vegetables in spring green sauce with brown rice, carrot and turnip pilaf
*Tempeh and snap peas in smoked paprika sauce with quinoa-jicama pilaf
*Chole with spiced beets
When we eat locally produced food we are participating in an act of unification, rather than separation.
Eating locally, by default, means eating seasonally. This unifies us into the organism of the earth itself and brings forth an active participation in the evolution of the planet. It also implicitly presents an understanding that the nourishment that nature provides is correct for the environment we find ourselves in at any particular time.
Eating locally improves nutrition first by providing fresher food with a longer shelf life. It moves us closer to the solar source of all energy on earth. The vitamin c in an orange has depleted by 50% in 24 hours. Who knows what’s in it after three weeks in a warehouse and time on the shelf before purchase. The quality of the foods produced at certain seasons are ideal for a body within a certain environment at a certain time. Here in Iowa we may appreciate to cooling qualities of tropical fruit, but their dampening qualities are not so favorable in our humid summers. However there’s a whole season’s worth of berries available here from late spring through summer and into autumn.
Eating locally also allows us to participate most effectively in our economic system, retaining dollars and taxes for local redistribution and preventing a drain of currency away from a locale to a distant place. All these transactions allow us to be integrated into our economy in a very real way.
Eating locally almost a
lways involves a person in a social way, whether it’s via the local Farmer’s Market, the connection to the farmer through a CSA or through work in a community or school garden project. It helps unify our individual body into the body of society.
Local eating helps maintain a cultural identity while allowing an evolution of that identity as 
new species of foods are experimented with, or as new immigrants bring foods and cooking techniques into an area. The predictability of the foods at certain times of year and in certain areas allow local classic dishes to be defined. So now we can sear our tatsoi, bok choi, arugula with our spinach in GMO free asoya soy oil with a little garlic, and it’ll only be the lemon juice that’s come from a far.
What to do with all those spring greens? Kale chips are popular but experiment with other greens that often end up yellow at the bottom of your crisper. Radish greens, beet greens, mustard greens, turnip greens. Just make sure to cut the spine and make a thinnish layer on the oven pan.
Use the stems, cut finely, to thicken sauces, or toss into the stockpot for great added flavor and depth to your home made stock.
Spring green chips
1 bunch kale or other spring/fall green
2 tsp sunflower oil, or extra virgin olive oil
1/8 t salt
1/8 t paprika
Optional: pinch cayenne
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Strip the spine from the greens either with a knife, or by pulling your hand firmly along the spine to remove leaf, Cut leaves into bite sized pieces. Sprinkle salt and paprika over greens. Be sure to sprinkle widely so that the powders do not clump in one place. Drizzle oil over greens and gently toss to evenly distribute the oil over the leaves. Place the in a thinnish layer on an oven pan or cookie sheet. It doesn’t need to be a single layer, just not a bunch of them piled on top of each other. Check after 5 minutes, but usually takes 7 or 8 minutes. May take 10 or 12 minutes if it’s a thick pile. Greens should be browning and a little crispy. Transfer to a paper towel to remove excess oil if necessary.
This week we are heavy on the spring greenery: asparagus is in peak form and what a great long season for this delicacy; likewise spinach and braising greens (beet greens, arugula, kale, chard, mizuna). These vegetables came from Echollective Farm up the road in Mechanicsville, Iowa.
Green grows strong at The Iowa City Farmer’s Market last Saturday, May 12. Young and old check each other out (above left) while folk dance around the greenery.
Four Square Meals 