alicia jabbar

Earlier this week, Alicia Jabbar wrote an illuminating post about farmer's markets from the farmer's point of view. You get up at the crack of dawn, work in the dirt -- in the blistering sun and the pelting rain -- picking and cleaning vegetables, all to just pack it all up the next morning. Then you drive, unpack, sell, talk endlessly, offer samples, re-pack and drive again. This is the process that brings snap peas for $4 a quart to a farmer's market near you. This is fresh food grown by real people. I don't know about you, but I usually take it for granted.

Today's Memorial Day, so we're kind of taking the day off here at Simple, Good and Tasty. Instead of writing an original blog post, as we do just about every other day of the year, we're going to refer you to a collection of previous posts about grilling. (Among them, by the way, is the top-viewed SGT post of all time.)

So enjoy your day off and grill up something delicious. Back to the usual routine tomorrow, right? Right.

Better Burgers: A Guide to Buying Top-Quality, Great-Tasting Ground Beef -- Founder of the Artisan Beef Institute Carrie Oliver gave great tips for finding "artisan" ground beef and convinced many of us why the extra time and effort are worth it.

There are many ways to celebrate the Earth Day: plant a tree, sign a petition, say hello to a polar bear, go fly a kite, buy a bus pass. And I’m going to suggest one more: start a compost pile.

I admonished myself last summer, as I canned tomatoes for days at a time, that I would certainly not need this many tomatoes! Well, I realize now that I was just tired of canning. This week, as I find myself heading down to the pantry, staring at shelves that used to be well-stocked, but are now almost empty, I'm reminded that, at these latitudes, March is the hardest month to eat local.

Yes, there are still plenty of root vegetables available. But who isn't tired of potatoes, parsnips, celeriac and beets by now? As for everything else, it's just too early. Last week, there was still snow in my yard, and nothing but mold, as far as I know, grows in the snow.

For years, I would see a vegetable like okra or mustard greens in a grocery store and imagine what it would be like to make a delicious meal with such exotic ingredients. I was constantly promising myself that next week I would find recipes to fulfill my culinary fantasies. But as the weeks passed, it became obvious that I needed something else to get my creativity going. Fortunately, my fiancé knows me incredibly well, and he gave me a CSA subscription as a gift.

After years of living in a city, I find myself a bit confused about what to do with the backyard in my new rural home. How do I maximize the space to provide myself with local food in the truest sense of the word? First, I sketched a plan for a garden, which was easy after a seven-month gig working on an organic vegetable farm. But I’m not a vegan, so I find myself wanting more.

For years, I’ve tracked blog posts and articles battling out the pros and cons of backyard chickens. Plus, I learned how to take care of chickens myself during my time on the farm last year. So I decided that the missing piece in my plan for a backyard farm is chickens.