This week we started a culinary world food tour in our “food appreciation” classes and our first stop outside the District of Columbia is the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where fall means apples. Kids love using a mechanical apple peeler. It used to be every family had one, apples were such an important food. We [...]
At the time of the Civil War, there were around 800 commercially viable varieties of apples in this country. Now there are perhaps 30, although you will find even fewer at the market at any given time. What a come-down for a noble fruit that arrived here with the colonists and once was considered essential [...]
Tags: apples·Martha Stewart
Here’s a case of things not turning out quite as planned. Last weekend on our trip to the farmers market I bought three pounds of apples. Apples are in plentiful supply, even with most of the farmers markets closed for the season. My plan was to make the kind of apple torte we used to [...]
Tags: apples·dark days challenge
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
What's in your turkey? We killed and butchered more than 80 birds on the farm of Mike and Michelle Klein in Prince George's County. Thankfully, Michelle did the gutting. Unfortunately, Mike bought his turkey chicks earlier than usual and they did not stop growing. Our prize for helping was a carcass that weighed nearly 40 pounds. It barely fit in the oven. Here, Mike is subjecting a slaughtered bird to the "magic fingers," a machine with a nubby, rotating barrel that removes most of the feathers. 
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