With the canning season beginning and (nearly) two jars of tomato sauce under our belts (note that jar #2 is not quite so full as jar #1), I got curious about meat sauces. Aside from the type of canned food I’d generally stay away from, you don’t often see pasta sauces with meat in the grocery aisle. If we’re using a pre-made sauce, most of us are adding meat at home. With that in mind, I began to wonder what sort of conditions one would need to can a home-made meat sauce: would it be much different from the process of canning vegetarian tomato sauce? I asked this question of the canning expert of the moment over at Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn. Marisa McClellan, author of Food in Jars, gave her answer.

It’s actually a very different process. The reason we’re able to can fruits and some vegetables in nothing more than a boiling water canner is that they are high acid foods…. However, meat is a low acid food, which is the ideal environment for botulism. Because of this, low acid foods need to be processed in a pressure canner.

Read her full explanation here.

I’m thinking of taking advantage of this end-of-summer sale at Chiasso to get a hanging planter for our dining room. At half their original price, this is a deal I thought I’d share.

Not all hanging pots are meant to be used inside, so I was most excited to find these planters are indoor-friendly. I’m hoping that means when I water the spider plant (now living in a small bowl) it won’t drip down onto our hardwood floors.

Image: Chiasso

I love fall; it is my favorite season. But for whatever reason, be it the cold summer we’ve had or how much I’ve been enjoying the summer, I am not ready for fall to be here. So it was pretty jarring to see crates full of large winter squashes at the Midtown Farmers’ Market this morning. Surely it’s not squash time already!? I usually make a point of buying whatever is new in the market any given week, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy winter squash. Not yet.

Luckily, things are not all squash and storage potatoes. There were still plenty of tomatoes, and I got my usual sungolds and assorted heirlooms. Summer is hanging on enough for there still to be sweet corn. There is an abundance of peppers of all varieties—with the deals you can get on red bell peppers at this time of year they are impossible to pass up. Tomatillos are also in season, and you can still buy green beans, although they are getting a bit tougher than they were earlier in the year. Cucumbers are still available but they are either very large or, as with the ones I bought, very, very small. Perfect for cornichons! Herbs and lettuces, which have been available most of the season, are still available. The beets, potatoes and onions are representing the root vegetable contingent; I haven’t seen a lot of turnips yet. More of those in the fall.

In perhaps another sign of fall, apples are everywhere. None of the vaunted Honeycrisps yet (let alone any SweeTangos), but as much Zestar and Gingergold as you could ever want. Given my preference for unique produce, I went for the crab apples. Yes, crab apples. As the vendor pointed out, crab apples have an undeserved bad reputation and, sampling one, I had to agree. They were not quite as tart as I like, but they had good crisp texture and a nice, compact size.

With guests in town for Labor Day weekend, this time Martha’s sister and two nephews, our usual bike ride was traded for the car. This meant we were able to bring home fresh flowers (thanks to Sara!) and eggs, which are usually a bit tough to get home in one piece inside a backpack. Martha’s nephew John picked out some extra-sharp cheddar from the cheese vendor as well.

As you an see, the splendor of summer is still in ready evidence everywhere at the farmers’ market, but the trickle of fall crops will become a steady flow before too long. All the more reason to get to the market as soon as possible.

While checking out this NYTime’s Interactive on Wednesday, part of their “Shopping with [fillintheblank]” series in the Home & Garden section, this bike rack really jumped out at me. It’s slim, it’s good looking, and it’s $13 on Amazon. We’ve talked about hanging bikes in small spaces before, but this one takes the cake at 10% of the cost of the Cycloc. You’ll probably need Da Vinci’s back tire tray as well for $6, bringing you another six away from $25 free shipping.

Image, Delta Cycle.

Couldn’t resist re-blogging this (via Oh Joy! by Dominic Episcopo). I’m just sorry the U.P. is missing… and that isn’t the best depiction of the L.P. either. But hey, when’s the last time you sculpted a steak?

See two more at Oh Joy! and check out Episcopo’s amazing food photography by navigating to the portfolio’s food section on the aforelinked site.

With all the positive attention the “local food movement” is getting these days, some reaction is inevitable. While I think there are fair criticisms to be leveled at locavores, a lot of what is written against eating local leaves me scratching my head. Such was my reaction when, reading a review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a critic discussing the practicality of local eating for non-upper-middle-class folks asked the question “After all, when was the last time you heard someone talk about the great bargain they found at a farmer’s market?”

It seems like I always get a good deal at the Midtown Farmers Market. I look forward to the summer farmers’ market season not only as a time to enjoy delicious fresh produce but also because my grocery bills will be significantly lower. You can get a lot of local vegetables for twenty bucks. This was just a gut feeling, though; I had never actually compared what I spend at the farmers’ market to what it would cost to buy the same food at the supermarket. But with my curiosity piqued by the locavore naysayers, I thought I’d try to put together some numbers.

I started by going to the Midtown Farmers’ Market on Saturday (Week 18 if you’re keeping track) and buying produce as I usually do (impulsively). I ended up with 3 Gingergold Apples, green/yellow beans, Celery still attached to its root (celeriac), sweet banana peppers, red peppers, six ears of corn, a pint of cherry tomatoes and a quart of beautiful heirloom tomatoes (I have been buying this exact tomato order from Honey Creek Farm for the past three weeks and will continue to until that sad day when there are no more tomatoes). The total for all this? $26.

For comparison, I went to two grocery stores. I chose the Wedge, our local co-op, because it is the place where I do most of my grocery shopping when the farmers’ market is not available. But since it won’t surprise anybody from the Twin Cities for me to say the Wedge is kind of expensive, I also checked out the prices at Rainbow, which is a generic, low-priced grocery store. For my readers in Michigan, Rainbow is kind of like Kroger or Meijer (not as extensive as Meijer though). The results of my shopping are summarized in the table below with the low price for each item highlighted.

I started by weighing the produce at home, since most produce is sold by weight, and calculating the price per pound at the farmers’ market based on what I paid. Next I set off for the Wedge and Rainbow to record their prices. Back at home, I calculated what the same mass of vegetables would have cost at each store (I did not use mass for corn since it is sold by the ear, and instead used the price per ear). I was able to find the exact same produce at the Wedge as I could at the farmers’ market (not all of it local, though). Rainbow was slimmer pickings, with no celeriac, parsnips, or heirloom tomatoes. For the latter, I used the price of the beefsteak tomatoes they did have.

If I had bought everything at the Wedge, my $26 dollars worth of vegetables would have cost $49.38, almost twice as much. At Rainbow, ignoring the two vegetables that were not available and substituting bland beefsteaks for sweet, delicious heirlooms I still would have spent slightly more, $27.57. And if I subtract the parsnips and celeriac from the farmers’ market total to reflect the goods available at Rainbow, the total for the farmers’ market was only $22. The farmers’ market is unequivocally cheaper than even a pretty cheap grocery store. This makes sense: at a farmers’ market you should be cutting out one or several middle men, dealing directly with the producer.

I don’t want to overstate my case: even if the raw cost of the goods is lower, there are a lot of other costs associated with shopping at the farmers’ market. It takes more time to shop at the farmers’ market; you have to pick out the goods, choosing between stalls that have similar produce. And, the market is only open on one or two days during the week, which can be inconvenient for someone with a busy work schedule. You probably still need to go to the grocery store to get additional items, more food-buying time. Then when you get home you have to clean and store the produce — I have spent more hours than I’d care to admit washing, drying and bagging greens. And then you have to know how to cook what you bought, a skill that takes time to develop.  There’s not much at the farmers’ market that is ready to eat after four minutes in the microwave (then again, there is plenty that is delicious to eat raw). It doesn’t hurt that all this shopping, storage and cooking is very fun, but it does seem to require that one be willing a fair amount of leisure time to food.

But when people talk about “getting a bargain” they’re usually just referring to the final price. By that standard, the last time I got a “great bargain” at the farmers’ market was the last time I went.

Hailey, Dave, Nicky, and Peter went to the State Fair. Then Nicky made a video. More words are not required…

See Hailey’s full post, The Minnesota State Fair 2009, at Hailey’s Comments. Video, formicadinette.com.