Grandma's Hope Chest Filled With Salad



My hero and husband, Rob Hunter who makes all my
 projects turn into possibilities.

      Doesn't everyone put salad in their hope chest?  I am from a generation that is re-learning about eating healthier.  Most have heard of Fast Food Nation, Super Size Me and Food Inc.  We are becoming more and more aware of the atrocities involved in mass producing monocultures.  In my time--it seems to have started with slow food, then the localvore movement.  I've watched farmer's markets grow exponentially in the past couple of years.  I recognize that there was a generation way before mine that subsisted on tofu, wheat germ and yogurt.  However, I was a product of the era of shake and bake and casseroles made with canned soups. 

Local goods purchased at a one
day farmer's market in Monkton



     A few years a go I  read Barbara Kingsolver's:  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where she talks about eating within a certain radius of where she lived for an entire year.  She gave up fruits and vegetables that were out of season or not from her geographic region.  And what she ate, she and her family raised, canned or procured from local farms.  Up until I read that book, I  hadn't thought much about where my food came from.

      I grew up in an apple orchard, my family planted a substantial garden, and dabbled in home canning.  But, like many others, my  family grabbed quick and easy things off the grocery store shelves.  We didn't pay close attention to how those foods came to us.  When I went to college the goal was to see how many cans of tuna or boxes of macaroni and cheese I could purchase for my dollar.  Maybe an occasional onion was obtained to add flavor to my otherwise devoid of vegetable diet.  I was all about eating cheap, money could then be spent on entertainment, fuel and other debaucheries. 

Pan seared scallops on a bed of home
grown spinach and our own potatoes.



    

     Fast forward to my sensible forties, where I recognize I don't want to spend all my waking hours traveling to and from a job that helps me pay for the car and fuel that gets me to said job.  I want to celebrate my freedom of choice and embrace it although that means downsizing, or maybe it means living within my means.  And it means living a more self-sustaining existence.  



Pies, bars and brownies I prepared

for a reception.

 
     I start to look at all parts of my life.  Food is pretty high up on my list of things that make me happy.  My husband grew up with a restaurant background and I was raised on a fruit and veggie farm, it's probably why I rank food so high on my list of priorities.  My husband and I are a lethal combination in the kitchen.  My facebook page has a photo album called "Awesome Things I Just Ate" and in it are photos of lobster salad served with pasta and brocolli, scallops on a bed of spinach,  mussels cooked with shallots and wine, glazed pork tenderloin, and an elaborate Indian meal.  My husband Rob is master of entrees and I love to bake breads, cookies, cakes and pies.  We both like high-quality, well-prepared food.  I spent my twenties drooling over Bon Appetit magazine. 

    

  And now that I'm obsessed with growing my own food, almost everything I look at becomes a means for me to grow high-quality food.  And yes, although I'm not physically attracted to Elliot Coleman (I'll leave that to his wife, Barbara Damrosch).  I am in LOVE with his knowledge of growing food, in cold climates without heat!  His book, Four-Season Harvest:  Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long is my bible for hoop house growing.



The fenced in veggie gardens and hoop house.



     During the early part of Spring I told my friend Amy Olmsted "I'm going to make a cold frame".  I had something sitting next to the fire pit, rectangular in shape and box like that would probably work.  Being frugal I salvaged it from the burn pile.  All the better, I woudn't have to ask Rob to help me build yet another garden structure.  Prior to making it's way to the fire pit this wooden box had had legs and a lid, and had been under our screened in porch.  It housed our garden essentials, like remay and pots.  Maybe we put kindling wood in it for a time.  Prior to that the it made a great prop for halloween, looking slightly like a coffin.  In the Spring I took it down to my fenced in garden.  Rob found a window that fit snuggly over the top and voila, I had a cold frame.  It didn't really work.  I worked away from home a lot and I wasn't diligent about walking down the hill to open and close it at the appropriate times.  Things got too cold or hot.  It was my human error that prevented the success of the cold frame. 



Grandma's hope chest, the stripped down version.


     I'm giving that cold frame a second chance.  This time, inside my hoop house.  It  is my grandmother's hope chest that had sat next to the burn pile during the Spring and now it is seeded with mixed greens and tatsoi.  It might seem a little silly to have disassembled my one remaining item that I have of my deceased grandmothers.  I think I can justify it.  The veneer was starting to peel and it had become a little wobbly.  I also don't feel the need to keep a hope chest. It served so many purposes in its sixty plus years for my grandmother and for me.  Instead of sending it up in flames, I've opted to give it one more life.  The cedar innards will be slightly rot-resistant, perfect for the high humidity environment of a hoop house.  I really do hope that grandma's hope chest will be filled with salad this winter!  Wouldn't she be happy to know that she was providing me with such happiness and the great gift of healthy food?