Good Press

The elephant in my kitchen all summer has been a turkey. This year for Thanksgiving, I decided to reserve a live turkey from a local farmer who sells produce at the farmer’s market across the street from my house. On the market’s opening day in June, I sought him out and signed up for my bird. Only then he tells me how big the birds were last year – and how much they cost per pound. Last year, his family cooked and ate a 48-pound turkey. That’s dressed weight, meaning the turkey had been stripped of feathers and other inedible parts. And his price, derived from the cost of organic feed, was $2.75 per pound. That would be $132 for my Thanksgiving turkey. He called to another shopper, Loretta Wotring, to tell me her story. She bought a 38-pound turkey. It barely fit in her roaster pan. And she had just served her family the last of the frozen leftovers that spring. I started to sweat. As the weeks slipped by till Thanksgiving, I tried to save money and I occasionally worried how I was go...

I bought a mess of kale. It was in the middle of butter-white flour-sugar season and I felt compelled to do something really healthy for myself and my family. I remembered having a spicy kale dish with peanut butter sauce two autumns ago at a potluck celebrating eating foods grown within 50 miles. Going against that principle, regretfully, I bought a 1-pound plastic bag of prewashed and chopped kale greens. Wouldn't you know, when I got home, I couldn't find my cookbook with the recipe in it? Searching for one like it, I found two recipes for other kinds of dishes that I tried this week and used up the kale. I say "I tried" when I should say "My husband made them." I've been sick with the respiratory crud that seems to have everyone down. No better time than to eat nutrient-rich leafy greens, and in hot soup, too! Thanks for picking up the slack, honey! A champion of local foods shared the recipes with the newspaper for which I used to work. Susan Sauter...