Try Handmade

Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.

Product Showcase: Gray Days

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It’s been raining nonstop in Manchester for many, many days. This is not an unusual occurrence – when I first moved here four years ago, it rained constantly for a full month. My husband and I wondered what the heck we had got ourselves into! I’ve got used to the gray days now, but now and then the gloom does get to me. During this spate of gray, I’ve rounded up some handmade treasures to brighten my day – enjoy!

The above print from Askey Illustration reminds me of jumping in puddles as a child – a common pastime in the rainy North! The inspiration came from stormy spring days, “when the sky is slate grey and the sun shines through the clouds for just a moment making bright colours really pop against the dark sky” – I wish this would happen in Manchester today!

These delicate earrings from RosieJo incoporate pebble-like beads, which inspired the piece. “In this case the wooden pebbles were just so tactile, I loved the natural shape and their lovely colour.” Many of RosieJo’s items feature flowers made from scraps of fabric in silk, satin, cotton or other materials. “I find nothing more satisfying than taking fabric that might otherwise go unused, or from a used or vintage item, and using it to create something pretty like flowers.”

The rosettes for this hair slide were made from fabric from one of MischaM’s husband’s shirts! “It was a beautiful shirt of slate gray, and when he decided it was past its sell-by date I jumped at the chance to make something pretty from it.” Mischa knew that the subtle sheen of the fabric would translate into beautiful fabric flowers, giving new life to an old favorite. “My husband is now under strict instructions not to throw away any shirts without consulting me first…”

This beautiful felt case was inspired by the palette of the UK landscape. Elin says, “I absolutely adore grey, which we have plenty of!!” Elin has recently started to work with Harris Tweed and has a huge passion for it. “The whole ethos and process of Harris Tweed have a consistency and integrity that I like, the landscape of the outer Hebrides speaks through the fabric but not in a corny or literal way. I hope my lichen and mycology work has a similar quality, it’s realistic but subtle as well.”

Does your landscape inspire your handmade creations? I’d love to hear about your inspiration!

What’s In Season Now: November Edition

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Here, last weekend marked the final Farmer’s Market of the year. While it’s a bittersweet passing of time for growers — the loss of convenient, weekly contact with customers is never a welcome thing, but the late fall and winter downtime that is a result of a lightened market schedule is imperative in the planning of the next year’s crop — it’s mostly just bitter for shoppers. Especially those new to eating local and those who are not accustomed to stocking up. Many will have few choices other than to turn back to their local chain supermarket to feed their families.

Last year in On Year-Round Appreciation, I briefly grazed the topic of keeping in touch with your local growers year round, and the advice there is still relevant and useful to this day, but if you’re committed to eating local even in the off-season you may need to dig deeper. The end of organized markets doesn’t necessarily mean the end of local food, but you may have to do a bit more homework to find it. And even if your local Farmer’s Markets are still open, doing your homework may yield you better sources of local food than you had before.

Most locales are still supporting some growth, though the variety will be less impressive than it has been. If your markets are still open be on the look out for those early spring vegetables that are making a comeback for a second season this year. Greens are huge — spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, collards — as are fast growing root crops. Think: radishes. Also keep your eyes peeled for long-season crops that are just now ripe, such as leeks, egg plant and winter squashes, as well as those crops that store well for winter like potatoes, onions and garlic. Those that store well can be stocked up on now, and eaten throughout the coming cold months. Just be sure to ask the grower to make sure the variety they’re selling is one that stores well; not all do.

While you’re out there also ask the vendors you frequent whether or not they’ll have limited crops available during the time when the market is no longer operational. You may be able to pick up local food on-farm all winter. If your market, like mine, has already closed for the winter search Local Harvest for growers near you and get on the phone to line up sources of your favorites for the whole winter season.

Of course the transition to the non-growing season also means a transition to those foods that have no season. Meats, soft dairy and hard cheeses can be produced and harvested year round and are excellent staples for hearty, warming winter meals. Canned products, if you didn’t can your own during the months of summer bounty, are also something you may want to be on the lookout for as December approaches. Think outside the box and even a simple jar of jam can go a long way. Raspberry, spread atop a pasture-raised pork loin is to die for.

However you choose to round out your winter pantry this November, happy local shopping!

The Case for Meat Part 1: The People

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Skinny Bitch

Lately, there have been more than a handful of high-profile books touting a vegan existence. Freedman and Barnouin’s Skinny Bitch (pictured above) and Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet among them; I read one, skimmed several others and I have, to risk the use of a terribly cheesy pun, beef.

While I can, mostly off the top of my head, recite for you the nutritional needs of every animal in my care human nutrition is, admittedly, not my strong suit. For that reason — and because I find it largely irrelevant, another story for another day — I will not argue against the premise that meat is nutritionally detrimental to humans.

What I will point out — over the course of the next few weeks — is that books like those listed have completely overlooked an important and rapidly growing demographic of food producers in North America and that the consequences of doing so, on a mass scale, will negatively affect not just the people, but the animals therein. Yes, even those intended for slaughter. And that it is, as long as we’re speaking in cheesy puns and cliches, possible to have your happy, healthy pig (or cow or chicken or quail or duck or goose) and eat it too!

So what about the people? For the first time in decades the U.S. is seeing a significant increase in the number of small farms in operation. Perhaps since WWII herself, when the industrialization and centralization of our food system hit full stride, David is wiggling from under the thumb of Goliath. And, most significant, he’s being backed by consumer dollars. The very thing that makes the world, or at the very least business, go ’round.

But it’s not just David either. “Donna” has also entered the brawl. Between 2002 and 2007 the number of female farm operators increased by nearly twenty percent. Like medicine, engineering, mathematics and countless other industries agriculture has always been a boys’ club, but today women are playing a major role in the restructuring and revival of it from within. They’re supporting their families, strengthening their communities and paving the way for a healthier, more equal society tomorrow while implementing systems that can sustain both the earth and its people.

In fact, organic produce was harvested from more than 200,000 acres in 2007. That’s just from the farms that are not so small they’re flying under the census radar; and where there is organic produce, there are small meat producers not far behind. In many instances they are one and the same.

Small, diversified farms may, as a matter of fact, be the single most sustainable model on the agricultural landscape today. Able to produce natural fertilizer off their land, by way of animals they feed from it, they can create a cyclical balance that cannot be reproduced. And the people behind those farms are the ethically astute people we need behind the scenes of our Agricultural Evolution. Stop supporting them and we stop supporting the sustainable restructuring of our food system.

So how do we cut through the jargon and find the right meat, milk and egg producers? Join me next week when we’ll look at just that.

What’s In Season Now: October Edition

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While other months may be able to stake claim to being most bountiful October is probably one of the most interesting months during which to eat local. Many places, even in the cold northern regions, still have the tail-end of summer harvests trickling in as the short-season, cool-weather crops we saw at the beginning of spring make their reemergence and the long-season, fall-specific crops make their debut. It makes for a combination of flavors and textures that cannot be accomplished during any other time of year; meals based on cool weather staples — many green and leafy — spiked with the fading flavors of summer and complimented by the hearty, warming hints of autumn and the impending winter.

As you venture to your local farmer’s market and on-farm stands this month take both plenty of reusable produce bags — small, lightweight — and larger, heavy duty reusable sacks to cart back your finds; they’ll range from tender baby spinach leaves to heavy, heirloom squashes. Here’s a short list of what you should be on the lookout for:

Greens

  • Spinach
  • Lettuces
  • Collards
  • Kale
  • Cabbage
  • Chard

Winter Squashes & Pumpkins

  • Buttercup
  • Butternut
  • Spaghetti
  • Pie Pumpkins
  • Jack-o-lanterns
  • Cinderella Pumpkins – like that pictured above, actually a scrumptious variety of squash.

As a bonus, hard-skinned squashes and pumpkins store well under even adverse conditions, making them prime candidates for edible decor. Stack a few of your favorite small varieties atop a cake stand for a center piece, allow larger varieties to adorn front walkways and porch steps until they make their way to the dinner table.

Root Vegetables

  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Radishes
  • Rutabega
  • Daikon

Late Summer’s Leftovers

  • Peppers – hot, sweet, mild and bell.
  • Beans – bush and pole
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Summer Squashes

Of course I would be remiss to leave out the star of last week’s column, apples, like those pictured above. And, since I couldn’t possibly include every in-season item in any one column, do be sure to check out previous installments of What’s In Season Now for more ideas.

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All Produce featured in this week’s column was photographed by the author and sourced from local, Michigan farms. To find farms and farmer’s markets near you check out Local Harvest.

Just Add Sauce

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Sauces, dressings, salsas, chutneys, spices, rubs; depending on how you look at it they’re either my guilty little pleasures or my best kept secret weapons.

The fact of the matter is local, fresh, artisan eating can be boring. I think it’s what turns so many people away. Especially today when quick and convenience, for many, are not self-indulgent luxuries but rather must-haves just to get by.

Sure, it can be both convenient and exciting, but few of us have the pocket book to back such a diet in its entirety, myself included. And void those funds one can only eat so much cabbage before wishing that cabbage itself was extinct, after all. That is, unless of course, one has a pantry so chock-full of sauces, dressings and spices that cabbage is never really cabbage; potatoes are never just potatoes and even brussel sprouts become beautiful and awe-inspiring.

I believe this so whole heartedly, in fact, that many of my friends have stopped asking me for recipes. And not just because they know everything will be measured in handfuls, dashes and ‘just drizzle a little in’s either. They’ve simply started asking me what sauce I put on it this time instead, because that, when it comes right down to it is the recipe.

Toss it, drizzle it, brush it on. Want an exciting socially and environmentally sound meal in less than thirty? Get creative. Toss chopped cabbage with an Asian inspired dressing and serve it beside grilled, pastured poultry that was basted in the same or similar; Brush halved brussel sprouts with a spicy mustard and drizzle with olive oil before roasting in the oven; baste some grass-fed pork with your favorite jam and grill or oven bake until just done and still juicy.

Three of the most exciting sauces on Foodzie right now — all on my list to try next — are Terra Verde Farm’s Peach-Pear-Apple Hot Sauce, Uncle Berch’s Jimmie’s Mixed Berries and Chipotle Jam (destined for the pork as outlined above, if you’re interested), and Anija’s Finnish Style Mom’s Mustard.

However you apply it, as they say, the proof is in the pudding — or in this case, the flavor is in the sauce. What are your favorite quick and easy flavor enhancers?