Pandemic Gardening | 'Grow Roots' Fundraiser | Recipe: Greek Frittata
Issue No. 46
In this week’s edition, a garden makes us feel victorious in these chaotic times.
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The current state of the garden I tend here at the residency is giving me major agita. There is a very large, very unwieldy tomato plant covered in rotten fruit. Bugs are getting to all of my hot peppers before they ripen. Too many of the field peas I planted as cover crop are so parched and straggly I doubt they’ll make it to next week. There is a jerk of a pigeon that traipses through the beds, stealing whatever it pleases. And the weeds. THE WEEDS! I can’t even.
But also, that garden is a flipping miracle 🌱
The Thai basil won’t quit. The Italian basil has no right to look as good as it does in this heat. There is a big bunch of perfect, fat bananas almost ready for harvest. The sweet potato vines are starting to snake around the field peas. I’ve got one little shoot of galangal and another of turmeric peeking up through the soil. The bees are buzzing, the moringa flowers blooming, the worms wiggling, the compost cooking, and the baby ospreys chirping away in their nest above the entrance (although they are actually quite intimidating 😳).
While I have mostly neglected the garden since the start of the pandemic, it has also sustained me in many ways. I’ve channeled some feelings battling the weeds. I’ve fed myself on collards and katuk and Seminole pumpkin. There is something incredible about shepherding a little seed through the trials and tribulations of it’s growth, and literally getting to enjoy the fruits of your labor. That connection with the basic act of feeding oneself feels so satisfyingly primal. It can also feel centering — a much needed tether in turbulent times. There’s actually been a resurgence in Victory gardens — wartime veggie plots grown to counterbalance food shortages — during the pandemic.
Victory gardens were also not just about food: cultivating fruit and vegetables boosted morale and built momentum. Growing for the greater good banded together communities and enabled those stuck at home to play a part, however small. Perhaps this is why the gardens’ legacy can still be felt today. While using the analogy of war to describe a viral pandemic is controversial, it makes sense that we‘ve connected the two moments in time. It is the sense of community spirit we want to revive — and a victory garden quite literally says we are in this together.
And in that “victory garden” spirit, we are excited to be organizing a fundraiser for Grow Roots Miami. They are building free gardens in Miami for “folks hardest hit by covid-19, who not by coincidence, are also those historically marginalized by systemic injustice.” Check out the details in Small Bites below.
The act of feeding myself has helped calm the chaos of the pandemic. Gardening, baking bread, trying new recipes — these have all been valuable acts of self-sufficiency that have provided a much-needed sense of security. But just as important as that independence, food has served as a bridge to others. I have loved answering your sourdough questions, dropping cakes off to friends and neighbors, and seeing people from around the world come together on the gram over their shared love of fermentation. It is this independence within the comfort of community that many of us need to feel safe and secure. And what better place to learn about that delicate balance than in a garden.
love,
Jackie
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NEW Workshops (and a fundraiser!)
Donate and then join any/ all of these sweet workshops
Along with some of our Florida food friends, Sunshine + Microbes is organizing a food justice fundraiser for Grow Roots Miami. This BIPOC-led group builds free home gardens for marginalized community members with a goal of fighting food insecurity while building spaces of sanctuary and connection to nature and ancestry.
When you donate, you’ll get access to six online workshops (!!!) throughout the summer from some incredible Florida food producers.
Here’s how it works:
Donate to Grow Roots Miami GoFundMe. Give what you can. We’re suggesting $25 or more. Match us!
Send proof of donation (a screenshot works) to sunshineandmicrobes@gmail.com. And if that feels like too much of a pain, just send me an email that says “I donated!” We honor the honor system ✋
We will send you a schedule and details for how to access the workshops. Workshops will be offered live online throughout the summer, and if you can’t make them live, we’ll also be posting recordings on social media.
WORKSHOPS
“Wicked Jack Hot Sauce” with Sarah Arrazola of St Pete Ferments
“Fermenting Veggies” with Susan Cartiglia of Radiate Kombucha
“Koji at Home” with chef Alex Henao
“Yaupon Jun” with Jennifer Holmes of Hani Honey Company
“Composting” with Tiffany Noe of Little River Cooperative
“Yogurt” with Jackie Vitale of Sunshine + Microbes
-jackie
Fresh Links
🥛How conspiracy theories about the NYPD Shake Shack ‘poisoning’ blew up | NY Post
In the middle of the police brutality protests, cops have started to accuse restaurant workers of targeting them despite no evidence of wrongdoing. See this bizarre story of the NYPD union claiming food poisoning at a Shake Shack and turning the fast food place into a crime scene -- even though no officers actually got sick!
What happened is some cops placed an order for shakes online. They picked them up, thought the shakes tasted funny, threw them out, and were offered vouchers. But somehow that story became this:
QUOTE But by 10:45 p.m., the Detectives Endowment Association was declaring that Finest had become “ill” after being “intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack” — as Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch made a show of visiting Bellevue while his union declared at 10:47 p.m. that police officers came “under attack” from a “toxic substance, believed to be bleach.
....
Around 3 a.m. June 16, the department was reviewing a statement on the matter, and at 4 a.m. — just over eight hours after the cops picked up their shakes — Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison announced on Twitter that there was “no criminality.”
It’s a cautionary tale about how misinformation spreads because the media and influencers blindly accept “authoritative voices” (in this case the NYPD) without the bare minimum of fact-checking.
🌮🌮🌮Cooks are nourishing protesters and a social movement by sending food to the front lines | Washington Post
We love us a story on the intersection of food and justice, and here Kari Sonde writes about the chefs providing some fuel for the Black Lives Matter movement. Initiatives range from the virtual bake sale fundraiser created by Bakers Against Racism to the artist Rob Mazz’s taco-making drive. Mazz fed protesters in New York with approximately 3,000 plant-based tacos, while also raising money for groceries for at-risk transgender people.
The story also highlights the role of cooking during past civil rights struggles, like Georgia Gilmore, “a cook and midwife who used her home kitchen to literally feed the civil rights movement of the 1960s and rallied other women to do the same.”
🍞Inside the Flour Company Supplying America’s Sudden Baking Obsession | Medium’s Marker
After the country stocked up on toilet paper, nothing but fresh-baked goods could soothe an anxious public stuck inside at the onset of quarantines and lockdowns. David Freedman chronicles how baking became a pandemic phenomenon by speaking with workers at King Arthur Flour — the epicenter for the country-wide baking obsession. See how this historic flour company adapted to demand that saw them selling half a million bags a week of flour to customers.
King Arthur Flour has its own Baker’s Hotline, where yes, anyone can call in with questions about bread-baking, like what’s the proper “hydration ratio if you’re using a mixture of white, whole wheat, and almond flour? How long can you keep the unbaked dough in the refrigerator if you want an extended rise?” But this spring, the hotline became overwhelmed:
But in early March, [Linda] Ely noticed a change in the questions. Partly it was an increase in the sheer number of calls, a jump that seemed more sudden and pronounced than the normal mild pre-Easter build-up. But even stranger was how many of the callers seemed, well, clueless. How do you tell if bread is done? Do I really need yeast? And strangest of all: What can I use instead of flour?
Ely and the other half-dozen or so hotline experts share an open office with the employees who take call-in orders from customers, and they, too, were getting a flood of odd calls. Namely, countless people were calling in to order as many as 10 of the company’s five-pound bags of flour at once. Who would need that much flour in their homes? “That was another data point that told us this wasn’t just the holiday build-up,” recalls Ely.
Greek Frittata
^^Give this very good girl some frittata please
A frittata is a chameleon meal. It works as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Easy enough to whip up in a hurry, but classy enough to serve for guests. Hearty without being heavy. Excellent vehicle for whatever needs to get used up in your kitchen. Here is a Greekish version inspired by the contents of my refrigerator.
Serves 1
Ingredients
2 eggs
1/4 cup creamy liquid (milk, mylk, half and half, or heavy cream)
1 teaspoon salt
olive oil
1/4 cup sliced onion
red wine vinegar
1 tomato, chopped
handful of arugula or spinach
1/4 cup crumbled feta
handful of kalamata olives
2 big pinches oregano, fresh of dried
big pinch red pepper flakes
Special Tools
small oven-safe saute pan
step-by-step
In a cup, marinate the onion slices in a glug of red wine vinegar. The longer the better, but 5 minutes is enough in a pinch. Reserve onions and use the vinegar to dress a side salad
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Whisk together eggs, milk, and salt and let sit at room temperature. Giving the eggs and salt time together for 5+ minutes will produce a fluffier texture. If you have extra time, let the mixture come to room temperature for even more fluff.
Add a healthy splash of olive oil to the pan (enough to coat bottom and sides) and heat over medium.
Add onions, tomatoes, greens, feta, olives, oregano, and red pepper flakes to egg mixture and stir to combine.
Pour mixture into pan. Cook on the stove until the bottom has solidified, about 10 minutes.
Transfer to top rack of oven and cook until the top of the frittata has solidified, about 7-8 minutes.
Everyone hates those banana boogers.
Talk to Us
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.