Cool and Green Cooking in Season at Hilltop Hanover Farm

At Hilltop Hanover Farm, last week's Farm to Table Cooking Class with Laurie Gershgorn coincided with the initial harvests of the season. Keeping it green and cool, the idea was to spring slowly into the season without rushing full speed into the flames of a heavy meal.

"I want the early spring harvest to reveal itself," she said, "so people could enjoy it as nature intended."

Sponsored by Something Good in the World, an educational organization in Cortlandt that partners with the farm, Gershgorn prepared the class of five to ready their vegetables. 

"Let's get all the ingredients together, cleaned and cut before we use them," she said.

The educator, nutritional consultant and personal chef of Healthy Culinary Creations showed the class how to cut while maximizing efficiency and safety. Crop in the fingers of your left hand, raise your right elbow and power down into the green, she said.

In making a beet and green salad, she pointed out why waste is inherently off nature's menu, and hers. With the root low in vitamin B and the leaf high, she said, "nature meant for us to eat the whole food."

She took that sustainable idea to another level in making the next salad. Running the kale and collards through a strainer, she captured the green runoff and offered a natural soft drink that tasted sort of "farmy" and consistent with its color. Otherwise, she said, it suffices quite well as stock to cook with in different ways.

For the salad, the kale, collards, spinach, scallions, garlic cloves and fennel got a massage – so to speak – to soften the crunch. Mixing and stirring with a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, basil and cilantro, the digestive process is eased as the food is softened. In turn, the nutrient levels remain the same in contrast to using the stove fire.

Then participants flamed out with a sugar snap pea salad with garlic scapes and a dressing of olive oil and mint.

"I'm not really big on my greens," said North Salem resident Carol Hamilton, as she was looking for new ideas to break her regular cooking patterns.

Chappaqua's Cindy Forrest was also looking to bring new ideas into her kitchen. She had recently purchased a farm share, so she would bring home the goods and support sustainable local farming, she said.

"I want to take a role in the food I eat and model for my kids," Forrest said.

Rose Mary Reutter, of Mt. Kisco, was there with her nine-year-old son Philip. Her son was showing an interest in cooking, and she felt the class was a good way to apply the idea that teaching your child is sometimes best done by getting someone else to do it, she said. Ultimately, Reutter was hoping to put her son's picky eating style in decline.

No such luck as Philip's plate remained empty but Gershgorn said if he doesn't eat it now, it does not mean the next time would be the same.

"It's all about exposure," she said.

In the end she concluded that one has to trust in the genuine nature of the food, and the rest will take care of itself.

For more info

www.healthyculinarycreations.com

http://somethinggoodintheworld.org/