May 27, 2010 Fairfield County, CT — Trainer’s Table, LLC has teamed up with Fairfield’s Unquowa School and their chef, Peter Gorman, to initiate a food delivery program for campers this summer. Chef Peter is nationally recognized for the highly successful transformation of The Unquowa School’s meals and wellness program. This summer, area families have the option to subscribe to a delicious, organic, cost effective weekly lunch and snack service delivered to their camper in lieu of a brown bag lunch.
The food for the lunches is sourced from local farmers and prepared daily in the Unquowa School’s licensed NUT FREE kitchen.
Meals are available for pick up at the Unquowa School or delivered onsite (with a minimum of 20 orders) in individual, reusable BPA free, leak proof containers with each camper’s name on it. The containers are easily stackable and streamlined for efficient cold storage.
In addition to their regular offerings, Trainer’s Table will also endeavor to provide options for vegetarians and campers with food allergies.
Trainer’s Table’s partners Amy Kalafa, Alex Gunuey and Kate Ebbott are local parents with a long history in the combined fields of food education, environmental sustainability, athletic performance, holistic health and wellness. Their mantra is real food for real performance. Trainer’s Table incorporates sustainable practices throughout the operation.
To sign up a camper or to learn more about the pilot program, contact info@trainerstable.com.
The perfect cookbook for anyone looking for inspiring ways to eat with the seasons.
Anyone who takes the time to shop and cook from scratch wants to make feel-good choices-but with terms like “locavore,” “organic,” and “sustainable” being tossed around so freely, many are confused about how best to feed their families. In his new book SUSTAINABLY DELICIOUS: Making the World a Better Place, One Recipe at a Time (Rodale Books; April 13 2010; Hardcover; $35.00; 256 pages w/ 75 color photographs), best-selling author, restaurateur, Wholesome Wave Foundation founder, and sustainable food-movement pioneer Michel Nischan, cuts through the confusion and shows readers how to prepare food that is good-in every sense of the word.
“Where there is flavor, there are nutrients, and where there are nutrients, there is health,” writes Michel Nischan.
Nischan has long been an advocate for embracing the most basic of food rules-use what’s readily available, celebrate variety, respect the land, and eschew waste-to create modern, sophisticated food. The 100 recipes featured in SUSTAINABLY DELICIOUS are a testament to Nischan’s respect for America’s culinary and environmental legacy-each one provides a roadmap for delicious wholesome meals and a lesson in how our food choices impact the world around us.
Drawing upon his Midwestern roots and his family’s tradition of creating humble, satisfying meals from seasonal ingredients, the two-time James Beard Foundation award winner transforms even the simplest food into surprising, flavorful feasts: Pork Loin Roast with Dried Fruits and Apple Cider; French Toast with Brown Sugar Bananas; Nantucket Scallop Porridge with Apples and Chestnuts and Homegrown Fried Chicken.
Nischan also includes stories about the farmers, chefs, and others working on the frontlines to safeguard our food systems for future generations. With SUSTAINABLY DELICIOUS, Nischan has created a new kind of cookbook-one that goes beyond local and beyond organic, proving that eating sustainably is not only figuring out what tastes good, but what is good-for the environment, for animals, for farm workers, and for our tables.
Additional Info:
Michel Nischan is the best-selling author of Taste: Pure and Simple and with Paul Newman cofounder of Dressing Room: A Homegrown Restaurant, located at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut. As President and CEO of Wholesome Wave, he catalyzes fundamental change in the nation’s food system. Wholesome Wave’s signature “Nourishing Neighborhoods” Double Value Coupon Program doubles the value of food stamp dollars via farm-to-community partnerships. Wholesome Wave programs are currently underway in 12 states, the District of Columbia and in more than 60 markets. He lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife, Lori and their five children.
Analiese Paik of the Fairfield Green Food Guide was interviewed by Matt Scott on News Ch. 8’s Good Morning Connecticut Show about green food for Earth Day.
One of the easiest ways to make Earth Day every day is to green your kitchen. Here are some delicious and fun ways to reduce your family’s “foodprint” while eating well.
Buy locally grown food from a farmers’ market and learn to cook with the seasons.
Michel Nischan's latest cookbook is perfect for anyone looking for inspirational ways to cook with the seasons
Best-selling author, restaurateur and Wholesome Wave Foundation founder Michel Nischan’s new cookbook, Sustainably Delicious, presents over 100 recipes for home cooks looking for delicious and nutritious ways to prepare seasonal food that is good for the environment, for animals, for farm workers, and for our tables. Michel advises us to “Eat what’s available in season, celebrate variety, respect the land and eschew waste”. His mission is to show that choosing local and sustainably grown food offers innumerable rewards, including some of the very best flavors Mother Nature has to offer. Who thought a humble parsnip could be this delicious?
Choose locally produced food from specialty or grocery stores.
The Farmer’s Cow milk is humanely-produced in Connecticut by a cooperative of six family-owned dairies and is free of artificial growth hormones (rBST). When you choose this fresh milk you support local farms, lower your carbon footprint by reducing food miles, support the local economy and ensure farmland preservation.
Choose organic where it matters most.
Download the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides or iphone app from Environmental Working Group, familiarize yourself with the worst offenders (the Dirty Dozen), and commit to buying organic instead. Lettuce is a among the worst so choose organic from 2 Guys, a hydroponic greenhouse farm that produces year-round gorgeous vegetables for chefs, retailers and consumers. They are at many area farmers’ markets.
Choose eco-friendly wines.
Parducci Wine Cellars, America’s greenest winery, uses farming practices that result in healthier soil, balanced grapes and higher quality wines. Try their Sustainable White and Paul Dolan Vineyard’s Pinot Noir, made from organic and Biodynamic® grapes grown in certified vineyards.A vineyard that is certified biodynamic meets and typically exceeds the standards and regulations for organic certified farming. Biodynamic agriculture began in the 1920s, predating organic agriculture by 20 years.
Choose organic, fair trade chocolate, coffee and tea.
Kallari single origin, USDA organic, Rainforest Alliance certified chocolate is truly a chocolate lover’s dream and possibly the greenest chocolate available. 100% of the proceeds go to the Kichwa farmers in Ecuadorean Amazon who both grow the cacao and manufacture the chocolate. Available online and at Whole Foods Markets.
Use reusable lunch bags instead of single use plastic lunch and snack bags.
Lunch Skins are a completely food and dishwasher safe alternative to single use plastic lunch and snack bags. Use this coupon code for a 10% discount off your online purchase of Lunch Skins: FGFGED10. They’re a hit with the kids and you’ll love knowing that every time you use them, you’re avoiding throwing away a plastic bag. LunchSkins has an attractive co-branded fundraiser program perfect for any school or organization.
Swear off bottled water.
Plastic water bottles are made from petroleum and are designed to be used once, resulting in a product that is thousands of times more expensive than tap water and no safer, according to a report by Food & Water Watch. Most of these bottles wind up in landfills where they take hundreds of years to break down and can leach harmful chemicals into the ground. Carry a stainless steel thermos instead. I love this wide mouthed one from Thermos that lets you guzzle the water and keeps the water cold even in blistering heat.
On Friday, April 23, Audubon Greenwich is pleased to host a very special screen of “Tapped“ an unflinching, award-winning documentary about the bottled water business. As a special bonus, Stephanie Soechtig (the Director) and Sarah Olson (the Producer) will be there to field questions from the audience.Reception at 7:00 pm / Movie at 8:00 pm. There will be a bottle exchange during the reception so bring an empty plastic water bottle (… hopefully your last) and get a brand-new steel water bottle from the film’s producers (while supplies last) Click here to RSVP.
Grow at least some of your own food.
Buy a potted herb or vegetable plants to start an edible container garden and invite your children to join in the care and harvesting. The one show here is from Moorefield Herb Garden, a vendor at the Fairfield farmers’ market at the Fairfield Theater Company. One easy and inexpensive way to grow what you love is to buy organic vegetable bouquets from Two Guys from Woodbridge at a local farmers’ market and give them a second life. After removing the edible portion of the vegetable, plant the root ball in a raised bed or container where it will produce a second harvest.
Choose sustainable seafood.
Download the Sustainable Seafood Guide or iphone app from Seafood Watch and commit to limiting your consumption to sustainable seafood choices under the Best Choices and Good Alternatives categories. You call learn all about sustainable seafood in a fabulous new exhibit called Go Fish! at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk. Pick up one of Seafood Watch’s pocket guides to take home and don’t miss the movie in the sustainable seafood theater, sustainable seafood “cafe”, and the tank of LI fish including cod, striped bass, Atlantic salmon and wolfish. It’s perfect for adults and children.
Marina Marchese, Founder Red Bee Honey, photo jeffbeckerphoto.com
Join us for a Tasting Flight of Seven Artisanal Honeys with Red Bee Apiary’s own Marina Marchese.
Learn how honeybees make this liquid gold we call honey, how location and nectar source determines a honeys color, and flavor and how honey is harvested and extracted from the comb.
Marina will show us how to taste and evaluate honey using the Honey Sommelier tasting guide in her new book HONEYBEE Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper. Each guest will receive one sample 2 oz. jar of Red Bee’s signature Wildflower Honey.
Red Bee's honey tasting table
Red Bee Honey Tasting Menu
Farmhouse comb honey
Red Bee’s signature wildflower
Alfalfa honey
Goldenrod honey
Blueberry blossom honey
Tulip poplar honey
Star thistle honey
Featured Bread:
Fairfield Bread Company’s “The Flaxette”, a baguette with a crisp, caramelized crust surrounding a flavorful, tender and chewy center that’s studded with ground organic flax.
The tasting will also include some locally produced cheeses and garden accompaniments.
Where: Red Bee ® Apiary and Gardens, Weston, CT MAPQUEST
When: Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 1:00 pm till 3:00 pm
Rain Date: Tuesday, May, 25th, 2010 at 1:00 pm till 3:00 pm(This event takes place outside in the garden apiary)Red Bee will provide samples of their own herbal bug repellent, if needed.
Sometimes very small changes in how we run our kitchens can translate into tremendous savings over time - both for our pocketbooks and the environment. Isn’t it time you gave your kitchen a little green update? Every day more than 20 million sandwich bags from school lunches go into landfills in the US. 3 Green Moms thought this was wasteful so they invented Lunch Skins, an eco-chic, reusable, and dishwasher- safe alternative to disposable plastic sandwich and snack bags.
Lunch Skins hold more than just sandwiches; I've successfully sent pickles ot school in them!
Hand-sewn in the US, Lunch Skins come in a variety of attractive, child-friendly patterns that include animals and fruits. According to the manufacturer’s web site, “these reusable, colorful cloth pouches are made from a high quality, moisture-proof German fabric used worldwide in the food industry. These bags are food safe, extremely durable, grease-proof and can even be thrown in the dishwasher.” We’ve been using these bags every day in my house for about a year and they’re still in great condition, even after being run through the dishwasher. I love that they are lead, Bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalate-free.
Little hands can easily open and close the velcro flap.
Make Every Day Earth Day by replacing your plastic sandwich and snack bags with reusable Lunch Skins. 3greenmoms is offering my readers 10 percent off any online order through May 15. Just use coupon code FGFGED10 in the comments field to receive this offer. This socially conscious company donates one percent of online sales profits to the C&O Canal Trust, an organization formed to protect and restore the historic C&O Canal near our nation’s capital. See www.canaltrust.org for more information.
Going green at your school, business or organization? If you’re interested in a green fundraiser, 3 greenmoms has a fantastic program that allows you to co-brand their bags with your logo with a minimum order of 50 bags. Visit their fundraising page for more information.
Stoneledge Farm Certified Organic CSA has drop/pick up locations in Stamford, Wilton/Norwalk and Southport. As of today there are a few CSA shares available in each location.
The shares from this 90 acre, NOFA-NY certified organic farm located in South Cairo, New York are varied and generous. I particularly liked all the herbs last summer because I learned to use more of them in my cooking. I didn’t expect to love summer savory, but I do. If you don’t pick your own fruit during the summer, I suggest signing up for a fruit share too. The plums, cherries and other tree fruit were gorgeous and I saw varieties that were new to me.
Stamford pick up is at Zion Lutheran Church, 132 Glenbrook Road on Wednesdays, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. Visit the site for a brochure describing the program or just keep reading below.
Wilton/Norwalk pick up is at 345 Belden Hill Road on Wednesdays, from 4:15 - 6:30 pm.
Thanks to the dedication and passion for local, organic food of Sarah Bollman and Leann Weaver of Fairfield, a CSA location was added last year at Trinity SouthportChurch, 651 Pequot Avenue on Wednesdays, from 4:30-6:30 pm.
The cost is $490 for 24 weeks, June through November. That’s $20.42 a week for an abundance of fresh, local, organic produce! Fruit shares are available to vegetable share members for $225 and run for 20 weeks. Berries are grown at Stoneledge Farm and orchard fruit is grown by Stoneledge Farm’s neighbors, who take a light approach in protecting their crops.
Visit their web site to register online by credit card or check. Click here to sign up online. The farmer keeps members very involved, emailing about crop yields and what’s included in the current week’s share. Every week at least one or two herbs are included in the share. Any unclaimed shares will be donated to programs including Operation Hope and the Connecticut Food Bank. Members share recipes and the Fairfield Green Food Guide will post them too because I renewed my share!
Visit the web site to learn more, register for a share or join the waiting list.
The Farmer’s Cow is holding an Ice Cream Naming Contest for their 10 new flavors starting February 1 so start thinking of names! The Farmer’s Cow is a cooperative of six family-owned farms that supplies milk to retailers throughout Connecticut and parts of New York and Massachusetts. Combined, they milk 2,300 cows on nearly 7,000 acres of land. Their collaboration has been so successful that they’ve branched out into other products like eggs, half and half, heavy cream, and cider. Read more about the company in a previous article on this site.
Contest Rules:
You may enter up to 10 names, one per flavor, making sure that the names reflect something about farming and the benefits of local agriculture. Entries will be accepted online from 12:01 a.m. February 1, 2010. through midnight on February 14, 2010. Click here to enter the contest!
Their farmers and marketing team will review all the names submitted.
A winner will be drawn at random from all of the entries received.
One lucky entrant will receive a summer’s supply of ice cream from Memorial Day 2010 until Labor Day 2010. The winner will be announced at the end of February 2010. All names become property of The Farmer’s Cow. Click here to enter the contest!
Please direct any questions to farmers@thefarmerscow.com
The season for sweet, Maine shrimp is here but not much, if any, makes it to Fairfield County. That’s about to change.
Yesterday’s New York Times had an article about Maine shrimp that said the season is so bountiful this year that “the State Department of Marine Resources has extended it to May 1.” How crazy are people about these shrimp? According to the same article, Community Supported Fisheries programs where consumers sign up to receive “frozen hand-peeled shrimp in five one-pound bags once a month for five months” are popular, but the closest drop sites are in Brooklyn. The article’s end note states that the shrimp are sold “fresh in the shell in Manhattan for $9 a pound at Wild Edibles at Grand Central Market.”
Look for this sign on the building near the entrance doors
Don’t go to Manhattan or ask your spouse or friend to do you a favor and pick some up at Grand Central, because you can get them this Saturday from 10-2 at the new Norwalk Indoor Winter Farmers’ Market at 61-65 Wall Street at a fraction of the Manhattan price.
If you see this sign on the building (Not THAT Wall St.!), you're in the right place.
It’s easy to drive right by this market since there’s no street signage, so slow down. It’s just down the block from The Stand and you enter from behind the building, just across from Garden Cinemas. The building is being gutted for renovation so bundle up and bring a cooler for the shrimp and bags for the other local foods sold there.
Follow that truck!
Find Tom and Tracy Pennimon of Pemaquid Lobster & Seafood and ask for some fresh whole Maine shrimp with the shell and head on. Cook these delicacies briefly in highly salted water (no other seasonings please!) and then crowd around the table for a local, seasonal feast. Tracy told me they usually sell out on Fridays during their first stop in Naugatuck, but I asked her to please hold back 40 pounds for the market. If you want to place a special order for Saturday, please call Tracy at 203-350-7054. Each week’s availability is subject to the Wednesday catch. Please call 207-677-3202 to place special orders for future weeks.
Fairfield County Child is a blog dedicated to informing parents about all the unique places to eat, shop and play with your little ones in Fairfield County. Blogger mom Meg Robustelli is prolific in her posts, many of which include special offers and giveaways. She was recognized as an influential suburban blogger by the New York Times last summer and her site is worth a regular visit.
Planet Zero Gravity's 1 Liter Stainless Steel Water Bottle
I got to thinking that you might enjoy this contest too! So here it is - all you do is copy and forward this message to your friends via email and invite them to subscribe to the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s e-newsletter. Be sure to ask them to type your name in the “How did you hear about us” field. The reader who refers the most subscribers wins a pair of Lunch Skins and the runner up wins a free stainless steel water bottle from Planet Zero Gravity. Got green foodie friends? Join the contest! Your friends can sign up for the e-newsletter from the icon in the left sidebar of the Fairfield Green Food Guide home page.
I first heard about Lunch Skins, eco-chic resealable, reusable, dishwasher safe lunch bags, from SuzySaid and immediately bought them. They’re a hit with the kids and I smile every time I use them knowing I’m not throwing away a plastic bag. And my kids think they’re pretty cool.
According to the manufacturer’s web site, “these reusable, colorful cloth pouches are made from a high quality, moisture-proof German fabric used worldwide in the food industry. These bags are food safe, extremely durable, grease-proof and can even be thrown in the dishwasher.” Honestly, I have not put them to the dishwasher test. I just hand wash them along with the thermoses and food jars.
This Earth Day, you can make a meaningful contribution to stop global warming by spending $12 to buy 3 Lunch Skins instead of using disposable, resealable plastic bags. 3greenmoms, the manufacturers, are offering my readers a free bonus white customizable bag with every 2 bag order (green/orange or brown/blue) for the next 3 weeks and they are shipped in recycled padded mailers. Please enter “Fairfield Green Food Guide” in the comments field to receive this offer. Give the kids a colorful Sharpie and watch them customize their white bags. Trust me on this one, the kids think they’re cool, especially the ones they design themselves.
