Home-grown veggies cry out for home-made mayo as a dipping sauce or as a spread for those delicious tomato sandwiches many of us are enjoying this month. KGI's friend, Chef John of Foodwishes.com, is with us in the good fight against sugary, corporate mayo. Check out his video above and recipe below.

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
1 tbl fresh lemon juice
1 tbl white wine vinegar
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup olive oil

Warning: watching John's video is likely to give you a bad case of stick blender envy if you don't have one already.

Posted by at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Each year, the US Department of Agriculture compiles and publishes data about America's food habits and purchases. 2005 represented a turning point in the way Americans eat: for the first time since statistics were kept in this area (i.e. 1953), we ate more foods prepared outside our homes than ones we cooked ourselves at home. While the US has been famously dubbed "Fast Food Nation", it seems like "Eat-Out Nation" might be a more accurate term.

For those interested in seeing the raw data, you can find it here

Posted by at 10:23 AM | Permalink

Dear Kitchen Gardener,

Walking through the well-known farmers' market in Uzès, France, as I recently had a chance to do, is a religious experience for food lovers.  The olive stands alone are worth the trip.  Add to that heaping tables of sun-drenched produce, artisan breads and cheeses, a mind-boggling choice of honeys, meats and seafood fished from the nearby Mediterranean Sea and you have all the makings of a memorable meal, if not several.

In fact, the quality and variety of the produce is so dazzling that you might be tempted to ask yourself why any area resident would bother growing some of his or her own.  Yet, despite the fresh bounty on offer twice a week at the Uzès market, the kitchen garden, or "potager" as the French call it, seemed much alive and well where I was staying. 

I had a chance to meet and speak with a few gardeners while I was there.  If they grow some of their own food, it's for the same reasons that you and I do: taste, variety, freshness, economics, concerns about the environment, and, most importantly, because they enjoy the process.   My trip reinforced what I already knew: kitchen gardening is a universal language with many different dialects.  What's different is that some of us have a better garden view out our back door than others!

I learned a lot while I was there.  Rather than try to share it all in one gush, I'll let the stories, pictures, and recipes trickle out over the course of the next several months.  In fact, if there's sufficient interest, we may at some stage even consider organizing a KGI trip for those of you interested in seeing and tasting the pleasures of Provence firsthand. 

I'll look forward to updating next month in the week leading up to Kitchen Garden Day.  I hope you'll find a way of recognizing the day in some small way.  We've got a lot to celebrate and share with others. 

Warm regards,

PS: Interested in starting a local kitchen garden group in your area?  Check out our new info page on gPods

Posted by at 11:36 AM | Permalink

Plants tell us a lot with their leaves. In the case of garlic, they tell us when the bulb is ready for harvest. Or do they?

Scanning some of the literature written by expert growers, we saw differing opinions on what harvest signs we should be looking for:

Garlic is mature when the tops fall over (mid July to early August).
-Eliot Coleman, Author of the Four Season Harvest

When half to three-quarters of the leaves turn yellow-brown, it's harvest time.
-Organic Gardening Magazine

Each green leaf above ground represents a papery sheath around the cloves. Once the leaf tips begin to yellow and die back, its time to dig the garlic. The lower six to eight leaves still being fully green indicate optimal harvest timing: This allots 5 to 7 protective wrappers around the bulb after curing. Our harvest here in northern New Hampshire begins the latter part of July and gets completed by the first week of August.
-Michael Phillips, Heartsong Farm

It's time to harvest garlic in the late summer when the bottom two or three leaves have turned yellow or the tops fall over.
-Ed Smith, author of the Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Harvest in summer when the bottom leaves are beginning to yellow and before more than one or two leaves turn brown (July through August).
-University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension

Fully green, yellow, or brown: so who's right? Well, in a way, you could say that all of them are. It depends on what your garlic goal is. The longer you wait, the larger the bulb. The danger in waiting too long is that the bulb will start to split apart into individual cloves. If Michael Phillips urges an earlier harvest when the plant is still upright and showing a lot of green, it's because he has a different goal: long term storage. An earlier harvest helps insure that the garlic cloves are "well-wrapped" for fall and winter feasts.

One surefire way of knowing whether your garlic is ready is to dig up a test bulb. If it's a decent size and seems well formed, then you can harvest the rest of your crop with confidence.

Posted by at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mark Bittman of the New York Times has done eaters of the world yet another public service by writing up 101 ideas for simple summer fare. As cooks know, it's not possible to please everyone all the time. Many of Bittman's suggestions call for ingredients that are neither local or seasonal, at least not to the East Coast. That said, we were inspired and think you will be too.

Here are are a few ideas that caught our eye:

13 Gazpacho: Combine one pound tomatoes cut into chunks, a cucumber peeled and cut into chunks, two or three slices stale bread torn into pieces, a quarter-cup olive oil, two tablespoons sherry vinegar and a clove of garlic in a blender with one cup water and a couple of ice cubes. Process until smooth, adding water if necessary. Season with salt and pepper, then serve or refrigerate, garnished with anchovies if you like, and a little more olive oil.

88 Cut the top off four big tomatoes; scoop out the interiors and mix them with toasted stale baguette or pita, olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs (basil, tarragon, and/or parsley). Stuff into tomatoes and serve with salad.

Posted by at 10:24 AM | Permalink

Tons of tomatoes, and over 70 different varieties are represented at the Portland (Oregon) Farmers' Market annual tomato fest. These farm fresh tomatoes have character, beauty, and yes, even charm. Oh, and did we mention taste?

For more on tomatoes, see the links below:
8 easy international recipes using fresh tomatoes
Saving tomato seeds
Building tomato cages

Posted by at 10:07 AM | Permalink

You've heard of an iPod and a pea pod, but what about a gPod?

The g is short for gardener. A gPod is a group of kitchen gardeners and other garden-variety foodies who get together from time to time, regularly or irregularly, to share information, plants, know-how, their gardening victories and defeats, and delicious, seasonal foods. More than being focused on just themselves, members of a KGI gPod also look for ways of giving something back to their community through their combined knowledge, time, and resources.

In his critically acclaimed book "Bowling Alone", author Robert Putnam writes about how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, and neighbors and how we may reconnect. Kitchen Gardeners International is encouraging its members and supporters to form gPods because we believe that we are better and stronger together than apart. By banding together at the local level, gardeners can help alleviate global problems such as food insecurity, climate change, and tasteless supermarket tomatoes. We can also have more fun!

Efforts to bring about compost-pile-powered community revival are already under way. In the course of the past year, KGI gPods have started forming and their members have worked together to plant new gardens in their communities, behind homes, schools, and churches. They have organized garden tours. They have hosted educational talks. They have helped to raise funds for local kitchen garden projects. They have held tastings and have organized potluck meals made with local ingredients.

As with peas, to start a new gPod, someone has to plant a seed. Why not you?

Below you'll find some resources we're offering to help local organizers start new pods in their areas. Once you have a group of 5 or more people organized, we will help you get your local effort organized by setting up an e-mail list, helping you pick a group name, creating a group logo, etc. Please let us know what additional organizational resources you need and we'll do what we can to help.

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1. How to start a KGI gPod. An inspirational and informational guide to local group organizing by John Walker, founder and lead organizer of Kitchen Gardeners Bluegrass (Kentucky, USA).
2. KGI informational flyer for downloading, printing, and posting in your area. Add your name and contact details on the tear-off tabs so that people know how to reach you.

Posted by at 1:59 PM | Permalink

We loved this photo when we first saw it. Note the paper towel for catching all the juices.

Do you have a great food or garden photo to share? Feel free to send it our way here.

Photo credit: Savannah Grandfather

Posted by at 2:01 PM | Permalink