Easy Bake Cookie

‘Tis the season to fill the kitchen with the aroma of fresh baked cookies! Yet busy days don’t always leave time for carefully measuring out flour, and remembering to leave the butter on the counter to soften. And when the Martha Stewart time and inspiration do come together, sometimes the cookies come out looking and tasting like, well, like hockey pucks. Let’s face it, some of us just aren’t bakers! There’s always the slice and bake stuff from the store, mediocre products full of artificial preservatives and flavorings to keep the dough intact to withstand transit and storage time, all at a cheap price. (Not to mention one of the major refrigerated cookie dough companies had to recall their product this year due to E. coli contamination.)

We have Stef and Carol to thank for creating their Be Sweet Cookie Dough made with local, organic and all-natural ingredients from a great kitchen space in Dover, NH. The two friends make 15 small batches at a time, pack them in pints and freeze them for freshness. All we have to do is thaw, scoop and bake! Your family and friends will think you’ve made them yourself with Cabot butter, fresh eggs, quality bittersweet chocolate and local maple syrup. You’ll want to keep a pint in the freezer for unexpected company or impromptu occasions. The only problem is deciding which of the five varieties to get: Rush Hour (dark chocolate and espresso), Snappy Jacks (molasses ginger), Birken-Cookie (granola goodness), Hunka Chunka Do Da Day (the best chocolate chipper) or Straight Up Peanut (grab a milk chaser). Hunka Chunka is now also available as frozen dough pops that are a big hit with students at UNH and Plymouth U.

OK, so where can you get your hands on a pint or two?

• Concord Cooperative Market, Concord
• Fiddlehead Farms Marketplace, Dover
• Newfields Country Store, Newfields
• Philbrick’s Fresh Market, Portsmouth
• Seacoast Eat LocalWinter Farmers’ Markets www.seacoasteatlocal.org

Be Sweet Cookie Dough
603-686-0759
www.besweetcookiedough.com
—Ellyn Found

Saving Grazing

Carbon Footprint.We hear more about it each day and what we need to vitally do to lower it as a population. It is both mind-boggling and imperative to consider that our greatest challenge will not be in transportation nor home
heating, but rather food, and the threat to our food supply. As a professor of environmental conservation for 35 years, John E. Carroll offers a response in his new book for New Englanders: grass-based agriculture.

The how and why for a return to grazing, for a full range of dairy and meat products (including sheep, pigs, goat and poultry) is spelled out in detail in the University of New Hampshire book, Pastures of Plenty: The Future of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Conservation in New England by Professor Carroll with a foreword by Steve Taylor, former NH Commissioner of Agriculture. Carroll emphasizes that animal grazing must be integrated with diversified horticulture for vegetables and fruits along with forest management. The book is beautifully illustrated with full page watercolors that alone help to combat cabin fever.

This is a sequel to Carroll’s earlier work on sustainable agriculture at the local level, “The Wisdom of Small Farms and Local Food, Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and Sustainable Agriculture.” In Pastures of Plenty, Carroll takes a close look at the prospects for our own region. “Take advantage of your local circumstances,” Carroll argues, “and reconstruct your world around them.”

This book is a starting point for many of us. Pastures of Plenty: The Future of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Conservation in New England By John E. Carroll $15.00 soft cover This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 603.862.3940
—Susan Alexander

Yes Virginia, there are Local Foods In Winter…

Harvest to Market Online allows buyers and sellers to come together through e-commerce. The site maintains a local foods inventory list for New Hampshire farmers with consumers buying directly from the farmer. The online connection appears to mainly service the Monadnock region at this time. www.harvesttomarket.com
LebanonWinter Farmers’ Market, Saturdays 10am-1pm: Dec 19, Jan 16, Feb 20 Lebanon United Methodist Church. 603.448.5121 www.lebanonfarmersmarket.org
Local Foods Plymouth is a virtual marketplace connecting farmers, growers and local buyers. Every other week during the winter months, orders placed on Mondays and Tuesdays can be picked up in Plymouth on Thursdays. www.localfoodsplymouth.org
Newmarket Farmers’ Market, 3rd Saturday of month through March, Stone Church 9am – 1pm: Dec 19, Jan 16, Feb 20, March 20, 603.659.5900 www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/M28473 Rye Farmers’ Market Jan 16, Feb 20, March 20, 11am-2pm in the Congregational Church, 580Washington Road, http://web.me.com/ojgrote/RFM/Welcome.html
Seacoast Eat Local has organized 11Winter Farmers’ Markets for the 2009/2010 season. For the third year running, the grassroots organization works to ensure consumers can buy local food from farmers all winter. From 10 am – 2pm on Saturday, these markets are typically jam-packed with crowds seeking coveted sell-out items.
Check the website for dates and locations. www.seacoasteatlocal.org
Valley Food & Farm is a non-profit program fostering the relationships that make agriculture a vital part of community life in the Upper Connecticut River Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont. The online guide offers resources where you can find local farm products, restaurants, caterers and local gift ideas. www.vitalcommunities.org/agriculture/onlineguide

A Taste of Place

We have become a society obsessed with lugging around bottles of drinking water driven in large measure by marketing designed to convince the public of bottled water’s purity and safety, and capitalizing on concern about tap
water quality. According to industry estimates, as much as 40% of bottled water is sourced from a municipal water supply that is run through a reverse osmosis system. Although reverse osmosis does extract some contaminants (and minerals), the semi-permeable membrane cannot prohibit very small chlorine molecules and volatile organic chemicals (VOC’s) from finding their way through the water.

Some bottled water marketing can be misleading, implying the beverage comes from pristine sources. Bottle labels reveal whether the water has been drawn from a municipal supply or from protected natural sources such as springs and wells.

Consider every time you select a bottle of water at a café or a mini-mart: most often your choices are Dasani or Aquafina. If you are not already enlightened, you should be aware that Dasani is bottled and sold by the Coca-Cola Company while Aquafina is a Pepsi product. Both companies use municipal water supplies to bottle their products, trying to restore their market share from declining soda sales. Poland Springs, another likely choice you’ll find, is in fact bottled at the source, a spring in Maine and now owned by the huge food conglomerate, Nestle.

Enter NH2O spring water, bottled at the source in Alton, New Hampshire by Chamberlain Springs, to fill the local water quality gap left in the market. The water flows from the 282-acre farm that’s been owned by the Chamberlain family for almost 70 years. Free of chlorine and VOC’s, NH2O is bottled into both 750 mL glass and recyclable plastic bottles and sold only in New Hampshire so that the revenue remains within the community and further transport fuel costs and emissions are avoided. The glass bottles weighs just 440g, much lighter than a typical wine-size bottle. NH2O bottles fit nicely in car cup holders and sport lovely watercolor labels reflecting each of New Hampshire’s four seasons. Ask for NH2O at your favorite café and general store, or refill your own bottles for a nominal fee right at the source. —KCWright

NH20 at Chamberlain Springs
real new hampshire spring water
166 OldWolfeboro Road
Alton, New Hampshire
603.875.7562
www.chamberlainspringsnh2o.com

Peace, Love & Bread

Tucked along a rolling ridge in EastWeare on South Sugar Hill Road, Abigail’s Bakery which mills their own wheat berries, is not a convenient drive for most. Unassuming as it may be, the little bakery churns out mouth-watering Oatmeal and Anadama Breads and WholeWheat Garlic & Rosemary Foccacia along with Millet and Brown Rice Buns. If you live in the neighborhood, you’re in luck. Fortunately for the rest of us, New Hampshire’s only certified organic bakery delivers to 70 small and large markets throughout the state, Massachusetts and Maine. You might also find a bountiful table of the yeasty goods at aWinter Farmers’ Market. But, don’t ask the dimple-blessed young woman wrapping your bread if she’s Abigail. That beaming smile belongs to third generation baker Jenny Chartier who as a nurse, took over the bakery her mother and grandmother once owned, as she found rolling in dough was better suited for family life. In fact, Jenny and her bakery team begin at 4am each day making breads with seeds from Jenny’s farm grown sunflowers, wildflower honey from local bees and certified organic eggs from their own free-range chickens. The bakery team finishes up around noon each day, proud of the wholesome and nutritious breads they’ve made, keeping an eye towards conservation. Customers can also order the breads online along with organic pies, cookies and brioche for the holidays. How about a gluten free German Chocolate cake? Abigail’s bakes gluten free breads as well, and uses only agave nectar, honey, molasses or cane juice for sweeteners in the nut-free facility. Abigail’s is something to slice into! —Ruth Hurford
Abigail’s Bakery
352 Sugar Hill Road
Weare, NH
603.724.6544
www.abigailsbakery.com
Mon-Thur 7-3, Friday 2-9pm

Ice Day Cometh

Cutting blocks of ice for summer hotels and to provide for warm-weather refrigeration was once a common winter activity around many New Hampshire ponds and lakes. On Kezar Lake in North Sutton, NH, sawyers still demonstrate Ice Cutting by hand along with an early gas-powered saw. The blocks are then pulled from the lake with a fulcrum and hauled to an ice house at Muster Field Farm where they are stacked and covered with sawdust for use during the farm’s summer events. The ice becomes all-important when making homemade ice cream at the August Farm Days.

Muster Field Farm is an 18th century historic homestead with restored farm buildings and a bicentennial working farm. The farm’s 250 acres of fields and woods are ideal for hiking, ski touring and snowshoeing while the fruit, flower and vegetable gardens that flourish in the summer lie dormant for the season. During Ice Day, the grounds of Muster Field are open, including the 1810 school house to warm up with homemade hot soups. The Remick Farm in Tamworth also holds an Ice Harvest where visitors can try their hand at techniques from the 1800’s to cut huge blocks of ice from their pond by using specially shaped saws, chisels and tongs. It’s estimated that the ice on Remick Farm Pond thickens about an inch a day when the region enters a period of sub-freezing temps. Snow covering the pond acts as an insulator, so staff clears it off to prepare the ice for harvest. Oxen herded by 4-H youths haul the frozen load to the ice house for storage. Remick’s Ice Harvest is part of theirWinter Carnival where visitors can also enjoy the thrill of a dog sled ride or compete in a snowball-throwing contest. The Remick Museum offers a hearthside fire for a welcome respite along with hearty refreshments. The working farm and museum explores over 200 years of self-sustained living to help preserve the agricultural way of life in New Hampshire. —John Hull
Ice Day at Muster Field Farm
January 24, 2010 9 am ‘til about 2pm Harvey Road, North Sutton, NH
603.927.4276 www.musterfieldfarm.com
Ice Harvesting &Winter Carnival Festival
February 13, 2010 Remick Country Doctor Museum and Farm
58 Cleveland Hill Road, Tamworth, NH 603.323.7591 www.remickmuseum.org