Saah-weet Sweetgreen

Fast food can be tricky.

Actually, no. I'm being too nice. 

Fast food can be disgusting. 

Sorry. I said it.  So often I have to ask where does the food come from? How removed is it from real ingredients? Should one bitty food really have over fifty ingredients? And two thousand calories?  And how is the chain sourcing enough food for the billions it's serving?

And yet, I absolutely do not judge anyone who eats fast food. In fact, I am jealous of people in my life who eat fast food.  After a little stomach ailment that left me unable to eat any processed food whatsoever for over three years, if there is one thing I know it is how LONG it can sometimes take to plan, shop for, cook, and clean up after a healthy meal at home.  My over-three-years of continuous cooking for myself, as so many people with digestive ailments, has left me exhausted and killing for a quick and easy option at the end of a long day.  Let me introduce you to a great one that is A) fast, B) healthily responsive about ingredients you cannot put in your body, and C) local, local, local!

Sweetgreen (found in a number of metropolitan areas, but specifically for this blog, in Back Bay, Chestnut Hill, Fort Point, Prudential Center, Lynnfield, Downtown Crossing, Fenway, and Harvard Square, all in the Boston area) has got the goods.

Can I just tell you?  I love to walk into a place and see a local farmer supported. Combining FAST food with truly whole, healthy -not McTwisted concepts of healthy- foods is what a quick restaurant pit-stop should be all about!  Getting a little Sweetgreen as we speak... Look at me; I'm eating fast food!

Masters, Indeed

Before I sound elitist here, know that I probably cannot afford a number (translation: any) of these pieces. 

But I can drool over them just the same.

As an interior designer, I love me some custom-made furniture.  Quality, hand-crafted, lasting pieces of art!  So you will understand why I adore the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association. They carry-on a 300 year old tradition of handmade museum-quality furniture and you should see their pieces!  Gor. Geous.

Dedicated to preserving, promoting and expanding the art and craft of fine furniture making, the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association was created in 1993 to build public awareness of New Hampshire’s fine furniture makers and to cultivate an audience for their goods closer to home. The concept of banding together was that not only could artisans benefit from creative relationships with each other, but they could draw greater local interest and support in their work while sharing traditional skills desperately needing to be kept alive. The Furniture Masters, working out of all corners of the state, work collaboratively and leverage their amazing body of collective knowledge and experience to stimulate one another’s creative output of furniture for museums, collectors, and every-day users combined. Each year, the organization showcases a select group of the members’ creations in a series of exhibitions, house parties, and an annual auction.

I have used pieces like these in the nicest of my Manhattan penthouse projects.  But this furniture is not something everyone can take home. However, having the right finances for this furniture or not, it can still be a pretty awe-inspiring art to behold.  Things like the bowtie and pocket joints, the intarsia, the colorful marketry, or just simply the curve of a piece of wood can illicit appreciation from art collectors to novices alike.  What incredible things we human being can do with simple tools and our hands! No matter what your bank account tells you, DO check out the website of some of the most inspiring local artisans I have ever seen: http://furnituremasters.org/

 

Ted Talking about Local

I love me some Ted Talks. 

If you're not familiar with them, Ted Talks are organized by a non-profit devoted to ideas worth spreading.  Through their annual conferences, experts tackle some of the biggest and littlest ideas that could change the world.  Their speakers are some of the most important thinkers, doers, researchers,  and idea generators in the 21st Century.  On a random side note, if you've never checked them out before, here are the 20 most watched Ted Talks thus far:  http://blog.ted.com/the-20-most-watched-tedtalks-so-far/

You're welcome.

So what does this have to do with living local?  I came across a Ted Talk right up Living Local New England's alley, discussing our economy of corporate consolidation and how it affects consumer choice.  Sound depressing?  Nah.  It's also got a number of great statistics about the efficiency, necessity, and productivity of community-scaled enterprise (fancy word for small business) that hit the nail on the head. 

While the speaker, Maine's own Stacy Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self Reliance and the Community-Scaled Economy Initiative, does not seem the most comfortable onstage, her talk sure is. It's worth a 15 minute listen for sure...

Why We Can't Shop Our Way to a Better Economy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6rAgHcuYtE

Want more of Stacy Mitchell's thoughts? Her book, Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, has appeared on several top-ten lists. Described by Bill McKibben as “the ultimate account of the single most important economic trend in our country,” it's a searing indictment of Big Box chains and an encouragement for returning to our local main street roots.

Oh, the Iron-y

The irony is not lost on me.  I assure you.

Yes.  This is a snowball maker in my child's

hands.  Because we only purchase really smart

things with our allowance money...

Not only am I sitting here on the second day of spring, but I am sitting here on a SNOW DAY on the second day of spring.  (Pictured left) is how Connecticut is doing spring these days.

But the real irony is that I have just finished reupholstering four of the cutest outdoor patio chairs that have ever wanted to see sunlight. 

As they sit in my living room -my dark, cold, wintery living room- I'm not sure if they are a comforting reminder of our coming summer, or a taunting indication of the weeks of drear that possibly lie ahead.  Good thing they are so cute.

Though this blog often features local items to purchase from our geographic region, I also know some of the most awesome local items a person can have are the ones made in their very own home, by their very own hands.  Here is just such a recent project I have undertaken, with not an ounce of consideration for the weather....

When I came across these four wrought-iron chairs sitting -for free- on the side of the road, I knew why.  They were rusty. They were torn. They were -gasp- a titch on the ugly side. But they had a few things going for them, too, as they were local treasures that could easily be renewed for a few dollars rather than purchasing new versions from faraway places for much higher prices.  So I led them home with a trail of breadcrumbs and promises of sweet nothings in their ears.  Don't they look happy in my warm basement?

 

Once home, these chairs just needed a little TLC (here is a good guide on how to clean up rusty wrought iron), some new outdoor canvas clothes for their in-great-condition wooden seats (I picked something that echoed the iron swirls), and four thousand staples (and who doesn't love a reason to use a staple gun? ... said my six year old...). 

Taking these puppies apart was a dirty job, with four layers of old fabric inside.  But the elbow grease and twelve dollars of fabric was well worth it.

And voila.  A whole new set of chairs, locally acquired, saved from the big bad landfill, bright and cheery and ready for their new life. 

Outside.

In summer heat. 

Any day now.

Local Recipe: Berry Cream Puffs

I pretty much hate puns. Whenever my husband pulls one out (which is way too often, and, I suspect,  for the simple enjoyment of getting under my skin) I always remind him that they are considered the lowest form of humor.  Still, between you and me, it's so hard not to do an egg pun.  After all, there are about 500 to be had. (no yoking, I'm cracking up, eggstremely, eggcetera, etc!)  So please know I am hitting the restraint hard as I share this favorite quick and local recipe with you... a recipe I love so much I don't even have it written down.  It just rolls around in my little ol' head, waiting to be made when the urge for a pretty low-sugar dessert comes a calling.

Today I am inspired by the fresh eggs on our counter and the distant hint of spring in the air.  Or maybe it's just my ridiculous Connecticut imagination and an urgent sense of longing for warmer weather.  Either way, I love an excuse to make a cream puff.  And though there are oodles of ways to take advantage of having local eggs at the ready and local berries on call in the freezer, I can't think of a better use for them together!

The first time my husband's co-worker approached my husband with a dozen of her just-collected eggs from her small family farm, she apologized, saying, "These do not come washed off, like they do in the store."  My husband had laughed, as she apparently had not seen the eggs we lived on in Africa, purchased with feathers and poo as a standard requirement.  We have done our best to assure her we never mind fresh local eggs!

Local eggs are one of the easiest foods for a person to find year round from their region.  Do a quick search wherever you are and you will surely be able to find small farms that love to get their eggs out to nearby families.  But enough about eggs.  This recipe is also about beautiful New-England-grown berries.

It's not hard to find local berries in the northeast in Spring or Summer.  From strawberry season to blueberry, black berry, and raspberry picking time, there are plenty to go around!  But come winter,when my freezer empties and the price of berries imported from places like Chili and Argentina are high, I like to mosey into the freezer aisle.  Wyman's of Maine, a local berry supplier located in Milbridge, Maine, always has the best and most affordable products I can find in almost any grocery store. I love their Website, which is less about pumping themselves up and packed more with recipes, health articles, and nutrition facts that remind me just how awesome a super food like berries can be!

Now, I am no food photog.  And while I work on that, never mind my poorly-lit cream puffs.  Just try a batch and you will not care about their hot looks (and really, they are gorgeous in person, I promise).  Taste them and you might just say they are berry egg-cellent.  (Sorry, couldn't control myself...) Enjoy!

     Berry Cream Puffs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  In a saucepan, heat on medium:

1 cup of water
1/2 cup of butter, or, to be dairy-free, Nutiva (a wonder product like butter but made of coconut and red palm oil)

Once all butter is melted (it may boil before this happens), add:

1 cup of flour (all-purpose gluten free flour works, too!)

Mix flour in while the pot is still on the heat. It will form into a ball in the middle of the pot when it is well mixed and heated. Once this happens, take off the heat and add:

4 eggs, added and mixed in one at a time

When the eggs are mixed in well and the batter is uniformly gooey, place piles of approx. 1/2 cup-sized worth of batter onto a baking sheet.  Bake until lightly browned on the outside, about 15 -20 minutes depending on your oven.  

Cool baked puffs. On a plate, cut open cooled puff by cutting off a lid (I liken this to carving a pumpkin- your lid should be slightly smaller than the diameter of the puff). 

Scoop out some of the interior if desired (we like the eggy inside, so usually I just move it aside with clean fingers to make space for filling) and fill with whipped cream.  My dairy-free family loves using So-Delicious Coconut whipped cream, a low-sugar alternative.  But if you use milk-based whipped cream, it's another great opportunity to use a local product!

Spoon some delicious thawed berries on top of the whipped cream (some will roll out onto the plate and that is gorgeously okay!), then replace the "lid" of the puff.  Sprinkle with a few puffs of powdered sugar for a professional look and a sweet touch.  On a paper plate or in a fancy dish, this sweet treat is great all year round!

Circling In On Local Furniture

   

Shhh.  I will let you in on an awesome secret...

Think it's hard to resource locally made furniture?  It couldn't be easier.  I have the answer for you....

I used to think that locally resourced furniture from New England must mean wooden furniture only.  With so many hardwood forests in the Northeast, it was easy to believe that wood products could be resourced locally, but upholstered goods?  No way.

Thank goodness Circle Furniture has rebuked that notion.  At almost sixty years old, a reputation for local craftsman furniture has beckoned customers through the doors of Circle Furniture and kept them coming back for generations.  Notorious for its Harvard-student following --causing many a young adult to trek across Massachusetts for its stylish, custom, and lasting products-- this successful business has grown from one location to six.  Though I sometimes cringe at growing corporate entities, as it has grown Circle Furniture has maintained its service to the community, environment, and employees.  Though the company has expanded from selling furniture made by Massachusetts artisans to those also located throughout the Northeast, it truly adheres to the concepts of supporting a regional economy.

Circle Furniture believes a healthy home starts with a healthy environment. While offering customers products that come from forests managed according to strict environmental, social, and economic standards, the concepts of preservation and conservation are important to it. Circle Furniture offers upholstery with soy-based cushions and frames that are made from responsibly harvested hardwoods certified sustainable.  The fill for seat, back, and throw pillows is inserted into a 100% woven cotton ticking. Seat cushions are wrapped and back cushions and throw pillows are filled with post-consumer regenerated fibers, keeping drink bottles out of landfills! Their fabrics can also be ordered without flame-retardant chemicals, great for the chemically-sensitive and environmentally conscious.

Though I love all these details, my one complaint is that a number of the fabrics used by the company are not locally, or even nationally, made.  So if you use this company, take the time to choose your fabrics carefully and ask questions.  Though it is virtually impossible to locally resource any fabric other than wool in New England, it's still nice to give yourself a pat on the back for using cotton grown just a few states away!

I could go on all day about some of my favorite products (Cute lil' Roma slipper chair? Yes please!), but will instead just say that I love to use this company in a variety of ways in my local designs; their products come in a number of styles that appeal to a variety of client tastes. I invite you to check them out for yourself!  Explore the Website below for this quietly awesome New England secret that needs to be shouted from rooftops!

Eeek! Can't. Stop. My. Self...

Must. Post. More. Pretty. Pictures....

 I could just eat this coffee table...

   

Find them on the Web: http://www.circlefurniture.com/

New England Made

Woot, woot!  Heads up, New England! Gathering the community for the New England Made Giftware and Specialty Food Show! Mark your calendar for one month from now and check it out:

Spring Show

March 19-21, 2016 

March 19-21, 2016 | Portland Sports Complex | Portland, Maine

BIGGER than ever! We've added an additional 50 booths!

The New England Made Giftware & Specialty Food Show is a juried, wholesale buyers show featuring 300+ manufacturers of unique, quality New England made products including home décor, pottery, apparel, accessories, jewelry, toys & games, candles, books, cards & prints, glassware, bath & body products, furniture, spices, candy, sauces, gourmet mixes, baked goods and other specialty food items.

Each year the show attracts over 2,500 national and international buyers who expect the highest quality New England made products.

March 19-21, 2016 | Portland, Maine

http://www.nemadeshows.com/

  

Rooting for My Team

Yup. Who'd have thought I would actually post a picture of the inside of my fridge on this blog?  

Classy, I know.  (Can I at least get some extra credit points for the surrounding fresh veggies and herbs?)

But don't call me lazy. These sodas are actually working hard, getting their chill-on next to some local beer, while I fly around the kitchen, all in the name of one awesome Superbowl evening ahead...

Though strong in flavor, these puppies are even stronger in spirit.  Born in Portland, Maine, these sodas are not only Fair Trade Certified and organically sweetened, but a potent way to introduce adult and child guests to the awesome tastes of the Northeast.  This great company, started by environmentally- and socially-conscious brothers Matt and Mark just six little ol' years ago, has soda flying off the shelves by big distributors like Wholefoods, Lois's Natural Marketplace, Hannaford Brother's, and Central Market.  Not bad for six short years...

The products speak for themselves. Flavors include: sasparilla, pumpkin-pie, ginger-brew, lemonade, maple lemonade, Mexicane-cola lemon-lime, mandarin-orange, blueberry (I have got to try this one!), and, of course, the ever popular root beer.

Check out their website, or like them on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maineroot/

Now onto the game!

Favorite Local Recipe: Chocolate Beet-Apple Cupcakes!

  

Yes.  This picture of my child and the beets we used to grow in Africa has pretty much nothing to do with this cupcake post.  But who can help but pull out cute beet pictures when it's the topic of the day?!  Humor me here.  I mean, how often do I get to use beet pictures?!?  

Today, middle-of-January-today, I bought local beets, grown right next door in good old -freezing cold- New Hampshire.  

Surprised?  Me, neither!

If you have ever been to a local farmer's market in mid-winter, you probably know that oodles of foods are still producible in the coldest of climates thanks to something I lust after all the time: a greenhouse.  (My latest obsession? The super affordable underground greenhouse called a walipini, which I may just have to try one day soon!  But I digress...) My point is, fresh local produce in mid-Arctic-winter is not only possible, but an awesome thing to support!  I'd like to say the local farmers benefited today, but I will save that argument. My family entirely reaped all the benefits on this one, as we enjoyed some healthy, chocolaty beet cupcakes after a long day of school-time and errands.  

A few years ago when our African beets were abundantly showing up in every foot of our garden, this awesome recipe fell into my lap.  I've never let it go since.  Look up the health benefits of beets and you will be quite proud of trying this recipe for yourself.  When these cupcakes are packed with all sorts of locally-fresh produce, it's hard to say no to seconds...

 

Chocolate Beet-Apple Cupcakes

* This recipe can be made dairy free and/or gluten free!

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups pureed beets (I usually wash, roughly chop, boil, and mash. But microwaving works, too. Make sure you save the greens for a different healthy dish!)

2 cups all purpose flour (One to one gluten-free flour works, too! Check out these local g-f flours!)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup cocoa powder

Wet Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup applesauce (I just cook down some chopped, peeled apples and mash them.  This was a local element that came from our trees during our fall harvest.)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large eggs (always available locally!)

3/4 cup chocolate chips (To make this recipe dairy-free like my family does, just use dairy-free chocolate chips. We like Chatfields!)

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

-Line 24 cupcake/muffin tins with liners or an olive oil/dusted flour coating.

-Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl.

-Mix all wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

-Combine two bowls of ingredients together, mixing out all lumps.

-Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

-Spoon batter into prepared cupcake tins.

-Bake 15-20 minutes, inserting a toothpick or fork to check for doneness.  

-Cool before frosting.  Yum!!  Enjoy!

* The FDA recommends not eating raw batter that has uncooked ingredients such as eggs or flour.

*These cupcakes can be frosted with your favorite dairy-free or cream-cheese frosting, or eaten plainly delicious!