Over-Winter Green: Sweet Spinach
Also, register for Friday listening session on black farmer restoration
In This Issue
• Sweet on That Winter Spinach
• Friday: Online Event to Support Black Farmers
Sunrise Before the Storm
This gorgeous scene greeted us early risers this morning. It was fortunate, because it looks like we won’t see much of Old Sol for a couple of days. Overcast quickly filtered in ahead of rain and then a pretty significant snowstorm.
Forecasts have conflicted over how much we’ll get in the city, because the storm is supposed to have a sharp northern edge and we’re near it. Nonetheless, there’s a Winter Storm Warning and the consensus seems to be we’ll get at least a few inches, maybe more.
Over-Winter Green: A Sweet Spinach Story
Spinach, like kale, is a cold-hardy leafy green. That makes it one of the few warm weather crops planted in the fall and harvested in winter by our region’s farmers.
But that’s not the best part of the story. While cold weather would kill off most in-ground plants, it actually makes winter spinach more delicious — much sweeter than the spinach grown under the hot summer sun.
Here’s why, as described in a 2017 article in Saveur magazine.
“They tend to be delicious and sweet,” says chef Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore, a restaurant that hews closely to local producers and seasonality. “They’re around when we most need something that’s green on our menu,” he says referring to the moment when the restaurant’s preserved vegetables are running low.
Overwintered vegetables tend to taste sweeter than their seasonal counterparts because, as a defense, plants produce more sugar to keep themselves from freezing to death. The result is more residual sugar on the palate. A lot of vegetables, including cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, carrots, and kohlrabi, can be overwintered, but greens are especially common.
Winter spinach actually played a key role in the development of Chicago’s farm-to-table restaurant culture. Chef Rick Bayless was committed to sourcing from local farmers when he opened Frontera Grill in 1987 but found it difficult to make those connections at the time. Snug Haven Farm in Belleville, Wisconsin, reached out to Frontera, though, and wowed Bayless with, as he has said, “the sweetest spinach I’d ever tasted.”
Bayless loved Snug Haven’s winter spinach (and frozen tomatoes) so much that he loaned the farm $10,000 to build a hoop house and increase production. After making loans to other farmers, Bayless in 2003 created the nonprofit Frontera Farmer Foundation, which over the years since has made more than $2 million in grants to regional farmers for capital improvement projects.
I have been purchasing delicious spinach this winter from Three Sisters Garden in Kankakee, Illinois. [Small world note: Tracey Vowell, Three Sisters Garden’s owner, was formerly executive chef at Frontera Grill and played a key role in establishing the restaurant group’s local sourcing program.]
Spinach is very versatile. This week I’ve used it in stracciatella, often referred to as Italian egg drop soup…
… and simply sautéed in a little garlic oil.
Feel free to share your favorite spinach recipes/serving ideas in the comments.
And from the food is medicine angle, the Nutritional Data website says spinach “is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Niacin and Zinc, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Copper and Manganese.”
Though while spinach can help make you stronger, there is no scientific evidence that it will really give you humongous forearms.
Friday: Online Event to Support Black Farmers
Learn about Illinois’ proposed Black Farmer Restoration Act from state Rep. Sonya Harper and her staff in an online listening session this Friday (February 4) at 5 p.m.
The Black Farmer Restoration Act would create the Black Farmer Restoration Fund to purchase farmland on the open market and grant it to eligible individuals. It also would establish that the State will provide training to socially disadvantaged farmers, and would establish an Equity Commission to continue studying historical and ongoing discrimination by the Department of Agriculture.
Rep. Harper, a co-sponsor of the bill, represents a district on Chicago’s South Side, is Joint Chair of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, and serves as executive director of Grow Greater Englewood. Your participation and personal story will help her provide input on how these programs can better serve you and our community.
Participants will be asked a series of questions to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers faced by Black and socially disadvantaged farmers which will help inform how the bill is written and implemented. Priority is given to BIPOC voices.
Click the button below to register for the listening session.