Belmont Farmers' Market Weekly Message – July 3, 2008
www.BelmontFarmersMarket.org

We celebrate America's 222nd Birthday at the market this week with a
special Independence Day tribute to those who have served our nation.


WEATHER
Thursday should be partly sunny and quite warm, with highs near 90° F
/32° C. There's a 20-30% chance of those afternoon thunder showers visiting the
Market. Remember, that unless there is a very severe thunder-lightening storm,
the Market is open from 2 to 6:30. If necessary, we would try very hard to post
a closing notice on the web site.


NEWS FROM THE BFM
GELATO: We trust the weather will be good because that means Angelato's will be
at the Market! The threatening weather last Thursday (atop violent afternoon
storms Tuesday) left everyone erring on the side of caution. With a desire to
avoid water laden gelato, Angelato's postponed their planned participation for
Welcome Summer Day. We hope tomorrow's warm (and dry!) weather will make gelato
taste even better and provide a tribute to veterans as well.

VETERANS AND FAMILIES: If you are a veteran of past active service or have an
immediate family member currently serving in our armed forces, please stop by
the blue information tent near Cross Street. We want you to have a gift
certificate for the Market, and a gelato, courtesy of Angelato's (please
present identifying information of your affiliation)

PERFORMANCES: We are fortunate to have two performances, both featuring talented
Belmont youth who return to play for our Independence Day celebration:
Violinist Julia L. at 4:30 and a Meyer Family Brass Duo—this time Benjamin on
trumpet and Leah on French horn at 5:15.


VENDOR UPDATES
Speaking of weather, as we write, Belmont is receiving an awesome hail storm!
Last week, Hutchins Farm in Concord suffered crop destruction by an intense hail
storm [the Farm reported ice piles still on the ground the following day].
Hutchins Farm returns this week.

The Municipal Light Department returns, too. Light up your 4th indoors with a
free low-energy light bulb, and find out how to reduce energy consumption in
your home.



NEW VENDORS
Two new vendors join the Market this week:

Glutenus Minimus sells gourmet gluten-free cookies in different varieties. "I
created my cookies to meet the growing demand of people with food allergies,
specifically gluten allergies and nut
allergies," says owner Natalie McEachern, a Belmont native.

Trooper's Treats offers all natural ingredients dog treats. Arlington resident
Maria Day allows your pooch (or you) to select from three different
flavors—peanut butter, beef or chicken.

A visit to our website at www.BelmontFarmersMarket.org
<http://www.belmontfarmersmarket.org/> will provide information and further
details about all our vendors and more. Be sure to check out
the Vendor video interviews, courtesy of BFM volunteers. Present featured
vendor is Fiore de Nonno's Joe Smith who tells us how his Aunt started making
fresh mozzarella. You will find previous videos—for example, Shootflying Hill
Sauce's owner Cory Clarke describing her delicious dessert sauce creations—on
the BFM web site's calendar page.


LATER IN JULY
Please remember that each third Thursday of the month (the 17th in July), BFM
will have a collection for the Belmont Food Pantry. During the summer months,
before the fall "harvest" time, the Pantry's reserves tend to get low. Please
consider donating a few non-perishable foods by bringing them to the blue
information tent. Supplies of jam and fruit juices (large sizes rather than
individual boxes) were low on the Pantry's shelves in June.

Also special for July 17th is a guest appearance by Belmont chef Tom Cutrone of
Savino's Grill in Cushing Square. Look for more details to follow!


WHAT'S IN SEASON?
Some of the many other items offered at BFM this week, should include:

Annuals
Arugula
Baked Goods
Bedding Plants
Beef
Chard
Cheese
Collard Greens
Endive
Fennel
Garlic Scapes
Goat Cheese (and other goat milk products)
Greens (Amaranth, Bok choy, Mizuna, Tat soi)
Herbal soaps & lotions
Herbal teas, vinegar, & olive oils
Honey
Jams, jellies, & preserves
Lettuce, head & loose leaf
Mesclun Mix (salad mix)
Onions
Peas & Pea Tendrils
Perennials
Radishes
Spinach
Strawberries
Vegetable Plants


RECIPE FEATURE

The appearance at last week's market of some items — specifically, amaranth
leaves—usually not found in supermarkets, provoked some "what do I do with it?"
questions. From the Asian
subcontinent of last week's e-newsletter recipe for Pea Tendrils with Coconut,
we move further east to China this week. Below are a couple basic recipes and a
feature on the woman who did for Chinese home cooking in America (for
non-Chinese) what Julia Child did for French!

A bit before Boston's Joyce Chen and long before Ming Tsai, 24/7 Food Channel,
Internet recipes and food blogs, Asian fusion cuisine, or a wok in many American
home kitchens, there was Grace Zia Chu (1899-1999). Grace Zia—or Madame Chu as
she always would be called later—first arrived in the United States in 1920 to
attend Wellesley College.

In a 1982 alumni bulletin, Madame Chu described how she was "far from home, in a
world full of tall strangers and inedible food." She "loved the ice cream," but
tolerated little else that was served at Wellesley then. Diary products were
largely unknown in China of that time and salads, for example, had never been on
tables there. Chu explained how Chinese meals were exactly opposite from the
American ones she confronted. She explained that "Instead of eating meat, a
little starch and fewer vegetables [at Wellesley],…our [in China] meals were
mostly starch, in the form of rice, with a good helping of vegetables and very
little meat. Since we had no ovens in China, everything was cooked on top of
the stove." Although Chu had never cooked before, using a hot plate in her
dorm, she began trying to replicate cooking from home in order to cure her
homesickness.

Fortunately for Chu, even at that time, Boston had a Chinatown with a few stores
where she could buy soy sauce and dried shrimp. Rice, cooking oil, salt, sugar,
and vinegar could be more easily obtained. "I had three major limitations," she
recalled later. "I had very little money to spend; I had no means of
refrigeration and had to buy everything just before I cooked it; and I couldn't
create exotic odors that would offend the girls in the dormitory whose idea of a
foreign spice was an onion." Perhaps it was that foray into bringing home
cooking to America during her college years that decades later enabled and
inspired Madame Chu to introduce Chinese cooking to a wider American audience.

Grace Zia returned to China after her 1924 graduation and taught physical
education in Nanjing. In 1928, Zia married Chu Shi-ming, whom she had met while
he was studying military science at MIT. An officer and official in the
Nationalist Government, Chu was stationed in Washington at the Chinese Embassy
during the early 1940s. In the diplomatic community, his wife became known for
her culinary skills and was referred to as an "Ambassador for Chinese food" (NY
Times obituary, April 19, 1999). Madame Chu returned to China, but after 1950,
made the U.S. her permanent home, living in New York and later in Columbus, Ohio
where she died at the age of 99.

Beginning in the early 1950s, Madame Chu further popularized Chinese cuisine for
non-Chinese through cooking classes in Manhattan, articles and cookbooks. The
late Craig Claiborne, one-time Food Editor of The New York Times, noted in his
1972 introduction to the 2nd edition of Chu's The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking
(1st edition, 1962): "…traditional Chinese cooking is among the most
sophisticated on earth. It is infinitely more varied than French or Italian
cuisine and, in essence, less complicated. There is probably no one…who has
done more to familiarize the public with the food of her homeland than Madame
Grace Chu." This was an era when most Americans believed chop suey and chow
mein (Chu refers to as "its [chop suey] faithful partner" in her chapter "The
Business of Chop Suey and Chow Mein.") were THE only Chinese classic dishes.
Claiborne's introduction and Chu's cook book serve as reminders that cook books
can provide not only instructions, but historical windows to society and
life at their time of writing.

Chu's chapter "Stores Where Chinese Foods Can Be Purchased" lists less than two
dozen stores in six American Chinatowns—in pre-Zipcode era!—including four that
filled mail order. We suspect that in the `60s Madame Chu did not envision an
era when Asian foods' inspirations have entangled America's eating habits to
such an extent that soy, bean sprouts and curd are stables of college dining
halls. We can image her pleasure could she have purchased
produce grown and sold by Asian and non-Asian farmers at farmers' markets such
as Belmont's!

The two recipes below, adapted from Grace Zia Chu's cook book, offer some basic
instructions that can be applied to many greens found in the Market. Both
recipes highlight the simplicity of some Chinese cooking which usually requires
more preparation than cooking time. This tenant works well in our present
time's concern for energy: less cooking time usually equates with less fuel
used!

**Chinese Mustard Green and Bean Curd Soup

In her notes with this recipe, Chu mentions that bean curd may be found canned,
presumably ordered from the stores in her list, "if not available in your local
supermarket" for purchase. She touts bean curd's "high protein content," a fact
not widely known in 1962! Chu also notes, "The soup should be cooked without a
cover so that the mustard greens will retain their color."



½ pound mustard greens
1 square fresh bean curd [tofu] 3"x3"
4-6 cups clear chicken broth [any other broth—vegetable based, for example—may
be use]
1 tsp. salt, if desired

Preparation

Wash and cut mustard greens into 1" pieces

Cut bean curd into 1½" x ½ " pieces

Bring chicken broth to a boil and add salt if desired. Add mustard greens and
cook uncovered for 8 minutes; add bean curd and simmer another 2-3 minutes.
Serve hot. Makes about 4 servings


** Spinach, Chinese Style

Chu notes "All leafy vegetables such as water cress, romaine lettuce, Boston
lettuce, celery cabbage and Chinese greens can be cooked this way." This would
include pea tendrils, amaranth, bok choy and other greens available now at the
Belmont Farmers' Market. Chu suggests that since this preparation takes only a
short time, you cook
it last in your meal preparation, just before serving, in order to retain
tenderness and green color.



Ingredients

1 pound fresh spinach (or other leafy greens)

1 clove garlic

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. peanut or corn oil


Preparation

Wash and drain—shaking in a colander, spreading on a towel, or a swirl in a
lettuce spinner also works—the spinach (or other greens), removing any wilted
leaves and detaching roots if present. Stems are more of a personal preference:
removing thick ones produces a more uniform, soft dish; leaving them produces
more varied texture in the
dish—never mind less waste and probably more nutrients. Guess where our
preference lies!

Crush the clove of garlic.

Heat the oil with the garlic in a wok or other heavy pan on high heat.
Discarding he garlic is again a personal preference. It may be removed if a
more subtle flavor is desired. Add spinach and toss until oil is
thoroughly mixed with spinach.

Add salt and sugar, sprinkling over leaves and stirring, cooking for about two
minutes. Greens should be soft and bright green, shimmering in their own juices
mixed with the touch of oil.

Serve this very healthy preparation hot as a side dish or at room temperature as
an addition to many things—salads, sandwiches, baked potatoes—or as a base for
simple grilled fish, seafood or meat. Or add some of the latter to the greens
and serve with rice for a meal. Could Madame Chu have imagined the versatility
(and embrace!) of
"Chinese Style" in 21st century America? Probably so!