Community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs bring farm-fresh fruits, veggies, and more right to your table. Here's a list of CSAs that are ripe for the pickin'.
We’ve exhausted our recipes for root-vegetable dishes and hot soups and polished off our fruit preserves from last season. And it seems like ages ago that we last bit into a summer peach or stained our fingers red eating a pint of fresh strawberries. But we know that spring asparagus, sweet corn, and juicy tomatoes are just weeks away (so what if a lot of the trees are still bare and it’s freezing at night?). How can you take full advantage of all of that soon-to-come produce? Sign up with a farm to be part of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program.
At the beginning of each season, CSA members pay farmers a set fee for a regular share of their harvest, which translates into weekly or biweekly boxes of fresh produce. Shares typically feed a family of four for a week, and many farms offer half shares that can provide fruits and veggies for a couple or a hungry single person. Although each farm runs its CSA differently—some ask you to pick your box up at the farm, others have drop-off locations in and around DC—most programs run for 20 to 24 weeks beginning in May. Some farmers post the available fruit and vegetables on their Web sites each week and allow customers to custom-design their selection, while others pack the boxes themselves with whatever comes up that week—consider it like having a personal shopper.
The demand for CSA shares has grown considerably, so lots of farms sell out early—and have waiting lists for 2010. But we found some programs with remaining shares. If you’re interested, act quickly—most of these farms have only a few slots left.
The season is here for one of our favorite gooey Easter candies: Peeps. But you’ll no longer be restricted to marshmallow chicks and bunnies. Here, Restaurant 3’s Brian Robinson and Sean Mooney show you how to make your own so you can put brightly sugared flamingos, pigs, and even tie-dyed sharks in your Easter basket. Watch the video to find out how.
The economy may be gloomy, but you can welcome spring without digging yourself into a hole. Josh Short and Alice Gaber show us how to throw together a cherry-blossom-themed dessert-and-cocktail party for less than $75.
Forget Charlie Bucket. I’ve scored the last golden ticket with this cherry-blossom-themed Frugal Foodie. Buzz pastry chef Josh Short and Firefly bartender Alice Gaber accepted the challenge and agreed to whip up a dessert/cocktail party for ten for less than $75.
My Willy Wonka fantasies, however, are quickly sidelined at the grocery store. Short, notepad in hand, is all business. He and Gaber discuss a menu and budget, then traipse through the supermarket picking up groceries. When the bill rings up at just more than $40, leaving Gaber plenty for alcohol, Short visibly relaxes. Willy Wonka, I realize, wasn’t constrained by a budget.
Local chefs show you how to make their signature dishes.
Welcome to the first edition of our How to Make videos, where local chefs will show you how to make a quick and easy dish—on video. To start things off sweet, pastry chef Josh Short of Buzz Bakery in Alexandria shows us how to make his signature Bumble Bee Cupcakes—Valentine’s Day style. Ingredients? A lot of sugar and a lot of love. Watch the video, then get the recipe and ingredients below.
Mario Repole, co-owner of Three Brothers Italian Market, stands amid the bounty at his Bladensburg store. Photograph by Chris Leaman.
Whether you're shopping for a big pasta dinner or just restocking the pantry, Three Brothers Italian Market is hard to beat. The range of goods is impressive—one-pound tins of rosemary leaves and colorful jars of spicy pickled peppers share shelf space with sauce pots, pans, and pasta makers.
With Henry’s Soul Café selling 50,000 sweet-potato pies annually, chances are you may have eaten one of them—whether your hostess fessed up to buying the pie or not.
The owners of the Oxon Hill cafe—an offshoot of Henry’s Deli Carryout, which opened on DC’s U Street in 1968—realized it had a good thing going and now offers pie kits online. For $27 plus shipping, two tins lined with pie crust and two vacuum-sealed pouches of filling are delivered to your door ready for assembly.
The pies are sweet—some might say too sweet—but there’s an unmistakable depth of flavor that can’t be masked. Plus, they’re aggressively spiced, made from all-natural ingredients, and when you’re baking them, sugar gathers around the edge of the crust to form a delicious ring of caramel.
While it's still worth visiting the cafe—at least until it figures out how to vacuum-seal and ship its delicious ribs or turkey legs with gravy—sweet-potato pie fans need go no farther than henryssweetpotatopie.com. And then you can tell the truth (sorta) when someone asks whether you made the pie yourself.
Electrolux induction stovetop, $1,799 to $1,999 For a diehard home cook who wants to sauté like the pros, Tosca chef Massimo Fabbri’s advice is to install an induction stovetop. Fabbri is pining for a four-burner Electrolux version for his about-to-open casual trattoria, Posto: “It cooks super fast, and when it warms up, there’s an even distribution of heat. And it doesn’t use gas, so it’s a little greener.” The commercial version can go for up to $15,000, but we found you one for $1,799.
Gone are the robust bureaus for the Los Angeles Times, Newhouse News, and other once-healthy news organizations. Digital media bureaus now are taking their places with as many reporters and plenty of swagger.
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Though Ann Limpert graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in art history and creative writing, she spent most of her time in New England debating the merits of warm, buttery lobster rolls vs. cold, mayo-y ones. She spent two years covering the internet for Entertainment Weekly magazine (highlights include interviewing the Beastie Boys and dancing to "Livin' la Vida Loca" with Penn Jillette), then left to hone her kitchen skills at the Institute of Culinary Education. She has worked as a cook at several New York restaurants, researched and edited cookbooks, and now writes about food and restaurants for the Washingtonian.
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Kate Nerenberg
Kate Nerenberg started as an editorial intern at The Washingtonian in January 2008 and became an assistant editor in September 2008. A native of West Hartford, Connecticut, she spent the first half of her writing life as a sports reporter, and was the editor of the athletics section for the newspaper and student-run magazine while at Middlebury College. A joint Spanish and Art History major, Kate graduated in 2005 and took off on a year-long journey around the world. After tasting everything from fried crickets to lavish Turkish breakfasts, she realized she wanted to devote herself to writing about food, a lifelong passion. She lives with three roommates just east of Logan Circle in a house that's often filled with the smell of sauteed garlic, warm banana bread, or fried bacon and eggs.
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Rina Rapuano
Rina Rapuano's English degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond put her on the path to becoming a managing editor of a weekly business magazine; a freelance copy editor; and assistant managing news editor—and later the lifestyles editor—at a weekly paper in Maryland. But she realized her true calling when her descriptions of meals to friends and colleagues always seemed to end with the same statement: “You're making me hungry.” Frankly, it was making Rina hungry, too. She chucked her day job in 2006 to become a full-time freelance writer focusing mainly on food, and now works as assistant food and wine editor at The Washingtonian.
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- Cooking at Home
Electrolux induction stovetop, $1,799 to $1,999
