Snow Peas with Dill Dip

By Tod Dimmick, cookbook author and editor of www.tastingtimes.com

Crunchy and cool snow peas are at the farmstand (or in the garden) right about now. Their flavor is so good that my kids tend to eat them before they even make it to the table. But if they do survive the trip in from the garden, this is a good way to serve them. Serves 4-6

3/4 cup low fat sour cream

1/2 cup low fat mayonnaise

3 scallions, dark green leaves removed, finely chopped

1 teaspoon dried Dill

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 lb crisp, fresh snow peas (oriental flat-pod peas), washed, stems removed.

Mix all ingredients except the snow peas in a serving bowl. If possible, chill this dip for several hours to allow the flavors to meld. Serve surrounded by snow peas as dippers.

WWFFP on Rural Votes

Where Hip Meets Crunchy

by Daphne Bishop

When we first met Valerie Gates a few months ago, she’d just started Will Work For Food Project, which offered her design services through barter and reduced rates to help eastern and central Massachusetts farmers market their wares. The project was also about connecting her family to healthy, local foods. Since March, Will Work For Food Project, has grown to embrace farms in Maine and Rhode Island, and products from goat cheese and rhubarb to eggs laid by marigold loving hens.

With the help of an MIT professor and a noted cookbook author, the project is now sprouting 1000 Radishes, a high-tech way to find what’s in season, connect with the people who grow it, and cook it up in delicious recipes.

Or as Valerie says, laughing, “It’s where hip meets crunchy.”

Here’s how it will work: It’s time to do some food shopping and you want to know what’s in season. You have a cell phone with GPS and you just got this new phone app. Where can you find some carrots or those heirloom tomatoes you keep reading about? Using the app, you will be able to click on your phone and if carrots are in season, a GPS map will appear with little carrots marking the locations of nearby farms that have them.

Want to try something new with that fresh produce? You will be able to retrieve recipes that are creative, economical and geared to what’s in season.

Valerie’s partners for 1000 Radishes are MIT Professor Abel Sanchez, Ph.D., and Tod Dimmick, cookbook author and editor of Tasting Times. Sanchez approached Valerie after being inspired by what he had learned about Will Work for Food Project. He suggested there was a way to introduce technology “for added value to the farmer and to connect consumers with farms,” says Valerie.

Dimmick contributes recipes like asparagus vegetable soup and humorous columns like Kohlrabi 101 to the Will Work for Food Project blog. He is developing the 1000 Radishes cookbook, which will offer practical cooking guidance to the growing numbers of consumers demanding locally grown food.

There’s even more. The 1000 Radishes web site will soon have an “Ask the Farmer” column where consumers can glean everything from growing advice to favorite recipes. There will be profiles of the farms Valerie is designing for, a chance for readers to swap recipes (and maybe find theirs picked for the cookbook) and even swap produce. Too much kale and not enough zucchini? Like a 19th century trading post, the web site will allow consumers to connect with each other in a way that “gets neighbors back to sharing with each other face to face.”

With a tag line of Farm Fresh Fast, the creation of this online community is “ultimately a much bigger project,” says Valerie. Will Work for Food Project began as a way to rekindle sustainable relationships between farmers and smaller consumers and to make the sourcing of food a conscious “natural part of everyday life.” Valerie sees 1000 Radishes as something with potentially global reach, able to be replicated anywhere.

”This really is the sexy part,” she says with enthusiasm, “The high tech meets low tech thing.” The phone app piece of 1000 Radishes will debut in the Boston area, in time for this year’s fall harvest. Then, the partners “are hoping that Massachusetts will be a model for the rest of the country.”

By the way, if you want to take another step in promoting local farmers, Will Work For Food Project now has T-shirts for sale at its web site. Valerie was approached by a husband and wife print company, Image76, who “loved what we are doing” and traded organic cotton shirts in exchange for her design work. Another successful barter and the shirts come in tasty colors like blueberry and spinach with a sleek yellow pepper on the front.

All of these exciting developments reiterate what Valerie said back in March. The Will Work For Food Project really is “the right idea at the right time.” It has inspired people, as she hoped it would, to offer their skills in response to economically challenging times, and by doing so, connect with their neighbors and their world.

Valerie’s idea, like the best produce available, just keeps growing and growing. We’ll keep you posted!

WWFFP on Greater Boston on WBGH

Will Work For Food Project featured on Greater Boston on WGBH.

1000radishes.com

Founded by Valerie Gates, the creator of Will Work For Food Project, Abel Sanchez, a MIT professor, and Tod Dimmick, a foodie, cookbook writer and organic gardener, 1000 Radishes exists to establish a connection between people and local farms. We want to make that connection a useful, natural part of everyday life; just like connections between people and farms a century ago.

"What's in Season, where to find it and what to do with it?"

The App
The 1000radishes iphone “app” enables users to easily find what is in season, find where is the closest farm that has it, and decide what to do with those ingredients using latest technology

The website
The 1000radishes is a community where you can meet the farmers, ask farmer's questions, trade and submit recipes, rate and find local farms and even find people to trade backyard produce (ie tomatoes for cucumbers).

Join us at 1000radishes.com

Running Brook Winery Site Redesign

We just launched the redesign of a lovely winery in Southern Mass called Running Brook Winery. We especially liked their Vidal Blanc and Unoaked Chardonnay.

"Valerie and Barry, Thank you again for helping us with something we most likely would not have had, were it not for your talents and interest in local, sustainable agricultural business."

Scott at Running Brook Winery

Kohlrabi 101

By Tod Dimmick, cookbook author and editor of www.tastingtimes.com

Kohlrabi looks sort of like a cross between a turnip and Sputnik; a big greenish white globe (some are purple) with a few leaves sticking out of the top at odd angles. The flavor is that of mild broccoli or turnip. It’s technically a bulbous stem, a member of the cabbage family, and it’s hard to find in grocery stores. The first time many of us see it is on the table at our local farm. It’s also an opportunity for an easy, tasty vegetable dish. In early summer, fresh kohlrabi can be eaten skin and all.

Kohlrabi can also be boiled, steamed, or sautéed in oil. I chose baking for this recipe to take advantage of the oven, already going strong with a roasting chicken.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4 as a side dish

2 kohlrabis, scrubbed and cut in to 1/2-inch chunks (Peel if you prefer)
1/4 cup water
1 TB butter
1 TB olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350F. Place the kohlrabi in a baking dish with a cover. Pour in the water, drizzle with the olive oil, top with pats of butter, and sprinkle to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and bake for 45 minutes or until tender.

Will Work For Food Project T-shirts

Hot off the presses of our printing partner - Image76 who did a fabulous job with these very soft, subdued colored comfortable t-shirts. Has a yellow pepper image on the front with the WWFFP logo on the back near the collar.

Be the first to wear one to your local farmer's market this summer and let everyone know that you support local farms and small producers.

You can order through the link to the right (scroll down a bit on the page for the add to cart button).

WBUR on Will Work For Food Project

Valerie Gates will work for food. Standing in her kitchen, the marketing expert, who doesn’t cook much, reaps the harvest of a barter system she devised five months ago.

Salad greens and herbs spill onto her counter top, thanks to Jake Ferreira. Gates fashioned a logo for his fledgling farming company, Beetlebung Farm LLC. Ferreira and his business partner help people and schools build vegetable gardens on Martha’s Vineyard. They also cater using local ingredients.

Ferreira’s here making good on his part of the deal, unloading a cooler packed with fresh, prepared meals: Sole baked in parchment, baby arugula pesto, asparagus with spring garlic and homemade cheese.

The Will Work For Food Project idea came to her because she wanted to find a way to offer her services to farms. “I realized that farms usually don’t have money set aside for a marketing budget,” says Gates. “But they do have produce!”

Jake Ferreira explains why it’s a win-win situation: “We were looking for tools that could better establish our brand, and in turn she wanted to learn more about food and locally-grown produce and the ability to cook.”

While bartering is new to Gates, Jake Ferreira is well aware that the concept is age-old.

“In a down economy it makes sense to return to certain traditions,” he says, adding, “It can work out well, where people can trade for like items. For us in the agriculture field, it’s very easy for us to barter. It’s not quite an apple for an apple, but maybe it’s chives for onions.”

Andrea Shea - Arts Reporter - WBUR

Rhubarb Sauce

Rhubarb Sauce
By Tod Dimmick, cookbook author and editor of www.tastingtimes.com

Many gardeners have a patch of rhubarb; quietly growing those elephantine leaves and thick red stalks. You’ll also see those stalks showing up now at farm stands. This sauce is dead simple, tart and sweet, and delicious warm or cold.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

1/2 cup water
3 stalks (about 1 lb) rhubarb, scrubbed and cut in to 1-inch segments.
1 cup sugar

Heat the water in a large saucepan over medium heat. Place the rhubarb in a large bowl, pour the sugar over, and mix. Scrape into the saucepan and cover. Cook for 15 minutes or until rhubarb pieces are completely soft and the mixture is more like a thick liquid.

“Important* - The stalks are edible, the leaves are not – they are toxic!

Ideas for use:
• Ladle warm rhubarb sauce over vanilla ice cream, and all is right with the world
• Serve in bowls with a little bit of cream stirred in.
• Add a little rhubarb sauce to your favorite muffin mix for a delicious sweet/tart/moist kick.
• For bread bakers, a little rhubarb sauce adds great flavor and promotes a terrific rise
• Rhubarb is also the perfect match for strawberries in Strawberry Rhubarb Pie – stay tuned!