I’ve got a whole list of reasons why I’ve come to appreciate thrift store shopping:

• I can get kitchen gadgets for cooking for amazing prices. Today, I picked up a hand immersion blender with all it’s attachments, still in the box, for $5.95. Now I’ll be able to puree soups right in the pot.
• When I save large amounts of money on everything from kitchen gadgets to clothes (both my boys got jeans today in great condition for under $5 a piece), I can afford to spend more money on local and organic foods.
• When I buy used, I prevent something new from being created and prevent new resources from being used up.
• Buying from thrift stores usually helps support a good cause. The Red, White & Blue Thrift Stores partner with the Vietnam Veterans of America.
• Expensive items that get rarely used can be found inexpensively at thrift stores. I got my son a pair of LL Bean snow pants today for $$4.95. They look like they’ve never been worn. They may have been worn once or twice, but since kids grow out of things so quickly, things like snow pants rarely get the chance to wear out.

I really liked the Red, White & Blue store. Unlike the Goodwill stores where boys and girls clothing is put together on the same racks, RW&B separates them and sorts by color and item. Even the plus size woman’s clothing is separated from the misses sizes – something that many thrift stores don’t do. The place was clean and didn’t have any overwhelming smells. The one big problem, and this actually is a problem, is that there are no fitting rooms and items can’t be returned. I didn’t buy any clothing for myself because I couldn’t try anything on.

I had the privilege a couple of weeks ago of attending the filming of a new television show currently in production.  Taste That Town will celebrate the tastes and sites unique to New Jersey.  The first town that the show chose to “taste” was Cape May, and the cast and crew filmed that day on the Salt Marsh Safari and at Cape May Winery. I wasn’t there for the Salt Marsh Safari, but the whole gang got a lesson on the ecological importance of the marshes. Now that I know about the safari, I hope to get the boys there before the end of summer.

I did join them at the winery, and I got to be a fly on the wall when winemaker Darrn Hesingtonwhile took the hosts on an in depth tour of the 25 acre vineyard and winery in Cape May. He educated the group about the winery that bottles 20,000 gallons of wine a year – that’s 8,600 cases. Fifty percent of the grapes used for their wines are grown in their own vineyards, 40 percent come from other New Jersey growers, and 10 percent comes from out of state.

Winemaker Darren Hesington extracts Syrah from a barrel for us to taste.

We were shown the barrel room and the tank room. I got my first taste of wine directly from the barrel – that was fun. It was Cape May’s Syrah, and it was interesting because all the flavors in the young, barreled wine were very distinct. We then got the chance to taste the Syrah that had been moved to the tanks. This wine had been aging in the tanks for a few months, and it had more balance. Finally, in the tasting room, the bottled Syrah was served. It was the first time I ever tasted a wine in all three stages of production, and it was amazing to experience the changes in a wine as it ages.

We also got to tour the bottling building, which is a small building that used to house the entire winery. Cape May uses an automated bottling and labeling process and still uses traditional cork stoppers. The question of cork vs screw top was brought up. We were told that since consumers like their cork, Cape May will continue to use cork. (I’ve still got George Tabor’s book To Cork or Not to Cork sitting on my night stand that is a very in depth look at the highly debated issue, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.)

Owner, Toby Craig (far right) talks to the hosts of Taste That Town as they are taken through a tasting.

Finally, we were taken to the new tasting room. While the hosts were taken through a full tasting, I had a chance to catch the ear of Cape May Winery’s owner Toby Craig. He has owned the winery since 2002 and has grown the winery a lot since taking over.  We mostly talked about the new tasting room, but when I mentioned that I had tasted all of Cape May’s wines last year at the East Coast Food & Wine Festival, Toby told me something I found interesting.

He said that the East Coast Food & Wine Festival is a smaller festival than many of the Garden State Wine Growers Association Festivals because the larger festivals are becoming a place where many people go to drink, not necessarily to taste. So the East Coast Festival is limited to just a handful of wineries. I had this in mind last weekend when I was at the Jersey Fresh Food & Wine Festival, and I’ll comment on it tomorrow when I tell you all about the festival.

Okay, back to the Cape May Winery. I enjoyed my day at the winery and my backstage peak at both the winery and Taste That Town. I didn’t do the full tasting because it was at the end of the day, and I didn’t think I should go through a tasting and then hop right in my car and jump on the Parkway. Last year, when I did get a chance to taste their wines, I was particularly impressed with their Pinot Grigio, Victorian White, and Cabernet Franc.

The Cape May Winery is open for tastings from noon – 5pm daily with hours extended until 6pm from June – September. They have a beautiful outside deck that overlooks the vineyards. You can take a bottle of wine that you purchase in their store (or just a glass) and your own picnic lunch out to the patio or out on the lawn. They also sell gourmet cheese boxes in case you haven’t packed your own food. Maps are provided for self-guided tours of the vineyards. Tastings are $6 for 6 samples, and you get to keep your wine glass.

My friend Jill - one of the hosts of Taste That Town.

When the first episode of Taste That Town airs, I’ll be sure to inform you so you can get an in depth tour of Cape May Winery, too. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the beautiful hosts of Taste That Town is my friend Jill. I want to thank her for helping me hook up with the show’s cast and crew, and I want to thank Ryan Mayfield, executive producer, for inviting me to join them for the day. You can keep up to date with what is going on with production on Taste That Town’s Facebook page.

So I thought I’d take a moment and talk about our local seafood. The fact is that while seafood is a very healthy choice (provided it hasn’t been tainted with pollution) for humans, the way some of it is harvested can be damaging to the environment and wreak havoc on the seafood population. So while I’m all for supporting our local producers of food, I’m also for making sure the food produced is sustainable.

The other day, I mentioned that Wegmans is carrying local scallops. Before I purchased them, I was able to quickly determine if they were a good choice sustainability-wise by using the Seafood Watch app on my iPhone. The app is  created by Monterey Bay Aquarium and rates seafood and sushi in an easy to understand manner – Best Choice, Good Alternative, and Avoid. You don’t have to an iPhone, however, to get guidance from Seafood Watch. You can download a printable pdf version of their recommendations that you can carry around your wallet. It’s not as detailed as the app, but it’s very helpful. You can also use their website to research different seafood choices.

As Dan Cohen, a Cape May oyster fisherman said in the NJ.com piece, there’s no pleasure in another person’s calamity. If the oil spill disrupts the sea life in the gulf as many believe it will, it will be an environmental and human tragedy. If it does happen, however, there will be more opportunities for local seafood. If that happens, choose your seafood wisely, even if does come from right off our NJ coast.

I searched for some specific information on sustainable New Jersey seafood, and I didn’t come across any websites that were dedicated specifically to our state’s seafood. If you know of any other resources that will help us all decide which New Jersey seafoods are our best choices, please leave them in the comments.

Related

• New Jersey’s 2009 fish consumption advisories
• Help for diners looking for sustainable seafood

Image: French Duck

First daffodil of the year - March 17, 2010

This is what greeted me this morning as ran out the door to get the boys to school. The very first daffodil of the season! Made me very happy.

Which is good because I had bad gardening dreams last night. In my dreams, everywhere I went people had their gardens planted already and the gardens were starting to produce. It was clear that everyone knew some gardening secrets that they were very unwilling to share with me, and they had some sort of vested interest in keeping me from getting my garden started. I think my frustrations about not getting in the garden last weekend due to the rain were showing through. I rarely have new dreams – usually they are just a variation on a theme. This was a new one though.

It does let me know how important growing my own food for my family has become to me. Five years ago, gardening would have never crept into my dreams. Now I have this relationship with the dirt in my backyard that’s stuck in my subconscious. Heck, I’ve got a compost bin out there, just to create extra nourishment for the dirt. The ultimate goal is for that dirt to send nourishment into the foods that I’ll feed my family, but somewhere along the way I’ve formed a relationship with dirt. I’ve come a long way, baby.

I feel like I’ve come full circle. It’s a small circle. There are bigger circles that I still need to travel around. But in this area, I’m back where I began, and I learned a little along the way. I started really paying attention to the environment and how my family’s actions affect it about four years ago. I started making small changes, but none of them had anything to do with food. Then I heard great things about Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Since I’m such a fan of her fiction (and I needed to order a second book to get free shipping when I ordered one of the Harry Potter books – must tell the whole truth here), I bought the book. It sat for a while, but I started reading it around the holidays a little over two years ago.

I remember being part way through the book, sitting in a chair next to my Christmas tree, and planning a garden. It was December, but I had this sudden and desperately important need to grow a garden in my backyard. Kingsolver’s book introduced to me to the concept that what we eat and how far our food travels has a huge impact on the environment.

So as I sit here this morning, thinking about my gardening dreams from last night and thinking about the things I need to do to make the dirt healthy so I can grow tomatoes, eggplant, cantaloupe, green beans, herbs and lots of other things that are making my mouth water just thinking about them, I realize that I’ve completed a small circle – from caring about the environment, to caring about food, back to caring about dirt.

End stream of consciousness ramble.

I’m all ready for the weekend. We’re stocked with food, wine, DVD’s and good books.

• Last week, I mentioned the Wine & Chocolate weekends that many of our wineries are having this weekend and next. I thought they were worth another mention. I’d definitely call ahead this weekend if you’re venturing out to make sure the snow hasn’t shut your destination down.
• There’s a prepared food store in Haddonfield that I’ve been in a few times called Apron. I’ve been meaning to talk to them there about what they do for a piece for this blog. They use fresh, seasonal ingredients and their website says “they are proud to be able to make use of the many natural resources of the Garden State.” They have a special Valentine’s menu (opens to PDF) with four different dinner menus and one breakfast in bed menu. Deadline to order is Feb. 10.
• You can have a light dinner at Mirabella Cafe in Cherry Hill – a member of South Jersey Green Dining – and learn “How to Implement the Whole House Approach to Energy Efficiency” at the same time. On Thursday, Feb 18th the restaurant will be hosting the event. Click here for more information and pricing.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy your weekend.

1. Reduce your food miles. The fewer miles your food has to travel, the less environmental damage occurs.
2. Eat fresher food. When you buy at farmers markets and farm stands, the food is usually picked that day or the day before. When you buy local food at the grocery store, it’s still fresher than the food that’s been shipped hundreds of miles.
3. Eat better tasting food. Ever wonder why the strawberries you get from the local farm taste so much sweeter than the ones you buy in the middle of winter at the grocery store? To get strawberries to your store in the middle of winter (unless you live in a climate where they grow all year long), they are picked before they are ripe and force ripened along the trip to your store. It makes a big difference in the taste.
4. Eat more nutritious food. Food loses its nutrients as it sits around waiting to be shipped and then on the long trip to your store. Fresher food not only tastes better, it is better.
5. Financially support local farmers. According to sustainabletable.org, when you buy food in a grocery store, about 3.5 cents of each dollar you spend makes it to the farmer. When you buy directly from the farmer, 80-90 cents of each dollar you spend makes it in the farmers pocket.
6. Preserve open spaces. In the South Jersey region, when a farm closes and the land is sold, it invariably becomes a cookie cutter development or worse, the parking lot for a big box store. I can imagine that’s the same all over the place. By putting money into the farmers’ pockets, you’re helping to keep the farm running.
7. Help the environment. When farmland is turned into a suburban development or a parking lot, lots pollution occurs, lots of critters lose their homes and lots of traffic starts pouring in. Open farmland is good for the environment.
8. Preserve genetic diversity. There are hundreds of tomato varieties out there, but you’re grocery store only carries a handful of them. Go to the local farmers market, and you’ll find dozens of varieties. Why? Some tomatoes “travel” better than others. Some varieties of tomatoes just can’t survive the difficult trip over hundreds of miles. Because of this, large scale farms only grow a few varieties. Local farms can grow the less hardy varieties because they don’t have to travel far to get to you. If the local farms go away, we could lose genetic diversity in crops.
9. Give animals a better life. Local food isn’t limited to fruits and vegetables. Most small farms that raise animals for meat treat their animals more humanely. They feed them the food that is natural for them to eat and give them room to roam around. When you buy locally raised meat, you help to support this type of meat production instead of the cruel factory farms.
10. Get inspired. Once you get a taste for local foods, chances are you’ll want to grow a little of your own in a container garden or a full fledged garden. Or, you’ll look at that butternut squash on the table at the farmers market and say, “hmmmm. I’ve never made butternut squash before, but I think I’ll give it a try.” You’ll try things you’ve never tried before.

Spring is here and with it – new growth, new life and new ideas at The Tortilla Press.

First, after much thought and consideration, The Tortilla Press is going green. I’ve examined every single aspect of our restaurant and we are making changes everywhere in lighting, heating, take out containers, fair trade products – well, many things – and I am making a pledge to dedicate this restaurant in as many ways as possible to using eco friendly materials. We’ll join other chefs in this effort as part of the SJ Green Dining Association.

Chef Smith is already a supporter of local food. He shops the Collingswood Farmers’ Market during the season and takes part in Farm to Fork week.

The Tortilla Press is located at 703 Haddon Avenue in Collingswood. It’s a block from the Patco High Speedline, making it easy for Philadalphians to get to, too. If you’ve never been to the Tortilla Press, you can bring your own wine, beer or even tequilla (to put in their awesome margharittas), the restaurant does not serve alcohol.

In the Wegmans circular for 2/1 – 2/7, they are advertising Energy Star Earthmate CFL bulbs, 15w or 20w, for $1.99 each. They are regularly $3.99. The Earthmate CFL’s are

energy saving, eco-sensitive CFL light bulbs are designed to reduce electricity consumption, prevent greenhouse gases, and fight global warming – all while providing long-lasting, economical, and reliable lighting for your home or business.

Earthmate light bulbs use 75% less electricity than comparable incandescent bulbs, which helps conserve natural resources used in energy generation – such as coal, oil, and natural gas – while reducing green house gas emissions. Replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient Earthmate bulbs will not only reduce your energy cost, but you’ll be helping to fight global warming and preserving our planet for generations to come.

If you haven’t bought CFL’s yet because of their price, here’s a chance to pick them up at a really good discount.

If you’re concerned about how to handle a CFL if it breaks because of the mercury contained in it, the EPA website has detailed instructions.

If you’re concerned about disposing of your CFL’s once they burn out, you can go to Earth911 to find a disposal center near you.