The glean was pretty awesome. The group I was covering, Gather Baltimore, goes to farms and -- after working for an hour or so doing something the farmer needs, like removing stakes and ropes from harvested crops -- gets to go through the "leftover" harvest and pick perfectly useable produce to donate to soup kitchens, homeless shelters and inner-city farm stands.
A photographer and I spent two hours in the cold with the 50 or so volunteers, documenting the glean. We also spent time talking candidly with the farmer - George Zahradka, a man in his 40s whose whole life has been spent farming, and who makes pennies on each head of broccoli or bunch of kale he sells, but works seven days a week, bending and pulling and tilling and irrigating, all so we can eat his hard-earned bounty.
George taught me a lot about the brainwashing of today's consumer, who has been made to believe that potatoes with dirt on them are less desirable than those that are squeaky clean (it's actually the opposite, he says, and hellooo? Potatoes come from the GROUND) or that cauliflower should be snow white, when really it's so much better for you when it's been sun-kissed and has a tinge of yellow. Who knew?
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| This quaint little farmhouse sat toward the back of the 72-acre-portion of Zahradka Farm. Much to my dismay, the farmer and his family do not actually live in it. They rent the land from the county -- at a cost of nearly $150,000 a year! |
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| And look! Here I am, in front of that little farmhouse. (There's my trusty reporter's notebook on the ground - just like old times!) |
As an example, the farmer gave me a gorgeous head of caulifower -- one with a touch of gold from the sun. I admitted to one of the volunteers later that I actually didn't know what to do with it. We didn't really eat cauliflower much growing up, and when we did, it was frozen in a bag and mixed with broccoli or other veggies. As a result, I kinda considered cauliflower a throwaway vegetable, puny and tasteless and not all that exciting.
But the volunteer gave me the easiest and most delicious recipe for roasted cauliflower, which I tried last night. It's just chopped cauliflower, tossed with olive oil, garlic powder and little salt and pepper, and then baked in the oven for 30 minutes on 400-degrees.
It was soooo good, and so easy -- I can't believe I've been ignorant to this for so long! And I explained to the kids that a farmer grew this cauliflower just so people like us could eat it. And that he works really hard to make sure his food is delicious and healthy. It made me feel good to talk to the kids about where the food came from and to actually KNOW the man who grew it.
We are grocery store people; I don't know if that will ever change fully. But I really do want to do more active supporting of our small local farmers -- and more active eating of the delicious real foods they grow.
Maybe a CSA is in our near future!
