Market Economy

What brings together the mayor of Miami, Miami’s greatest chef, Homestead farmers, Haitian refugees, tatted hipsters, Overtown residents and guys in suits? Jewel-like heirloom tomatoes. And fresh, locally grown collards, carrots, eggplants, green beans, loquats and more. It all happens at Roots in the City, Miami’s newest farmers market and magical convergence of cultures.

Well, you know how skeptical I am about magic. I’d like to have faith in the universe’s benevolence and all that, but usually I find we’ve got to help it along. Roots in the City has had some serious magical muscle behind it, including Daniella Levine and the folks at Miami-Dade’s Human Services Coaltion, our community shared agriculture maven Margie Pikarsky, Michael’s Genuine chef Michael Schwartz, whom I have long worshipped and Michel Nischan, new to my pantheon but ensconed there evermore. Chef and author of Sustainably Delicious, Michel is also founder of Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit working to make fresh food accesible to everyone. Wholesome Wave has sponsored over a hundred farmers markets in 12 states, the latest being right here.

Roots in the City not only brings fresh produce to an underserved part of Miami, it offers double value on food stamps. A dollar’s worth of food stamps gets you two dollars’ worth of veggies, and lifetime Overtown resident Sarah Wallace was going for it. In the past, getting fresh produce had been too much struggle -- too much money and too much travel, because Overtown, like many of America’s food deserts, has convenience stores and liquor stores, but nowhere selling anything fresh.

When Roots in the City opened, Sarah didn’t have to take a bus or three across town, just leave her apartment and cross the street. She was the first person at the market when it opened, buying up bags of vegetables, hugging Michel, sampling some of Michael Schwartz’s braised collards and politely listening as the mayor gave her an earful about how important Roots in the City is. Like she doesn’t know. Still, she posed next to him for a photo op, her arms full of fresh collard greens, carrots and tomatoes.

This is the Miami I’ve always hoped for, one in which we all come together, whoever we are. Because we all gotta eat. And we all deserve to eat well. So it's in everyone's best interest to make the magic happen.

Roots in the City Farmers Market Scramble

Feel free to switch out the veggies for whatever’s fresh at your local farmers market. Lacto-ovo lovers may likewise swap eggs for tofu and cheese for nutritional yeast, but honeys, tofu, unlike eggs, adds little fat and no cholesterol, and nutritional yeast tastes cheesily fabulous without the fat and gives you a hit of mighty vitamin B-12, besides. Open yourself up to possibility. I’m just saying.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion or 3 scallions, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1 small zucchini or yellow squash, chopped

OR 1 cup greens, fresh spinach, chopped or blanched collards, sliced into ribbons

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1 tomato, chopped

12 ounces firm tofu, drained and squeezed to get rid of extra water

1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped fine

sea salt and fresh pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chopped onion, jalapeno, red pepper and zucchini, if using. Continue to saute, stirring, until vegetables soften, about 7 to 10 minutes.

Stir in cumin, turmeric, nutritional yeast, chopped tomato and optional chopped greens. Stir together until fragrant and golden, about 3 minutes.

Crumble tofu into skillet. You may mash with a wooden spoon or have a wonderfully tactile experience smooshing it with your fingers. Scramble together in merry fashion, breaking up any odd tofu clumps. Cook until combined and heated through, another minute or 2. Add chopped cilantro, season with sea salt and pepper to taste and tip onto two plates.

Serves 2 generously, 3 people if you’re adding rice and beans or cornbread or something additional. Recipes doubles, even triples but is best eaten hot, fresh and at once.

Chaos, Conspiracy, Carrots

I comfort myself by believing in chaos theory, that seemingly unrelated events are linked. A garden in Milwaukee can have consequences for a girl in Miami.  There is a great shiny matrix of connection, something that binds us all. You just have to be open to the signs. There's the rub.

But I've been seeing signs lately. Yesterday, I went to hear Will Allen, who heads the nonprofit Growing Power.  At 60, Allen still has the build of the pro basketball player he used to be and the forearms of the farmer he is. He's an urban farmer.  Okay, he does have a 30-acre farm in rural Wisconsin, but Growing Power also has a farm in residential Milwaukee. Allen creates sustainable urban farms and vegetable gardens in Chicago, Kenya, the Ukraine and hopefully soon somewhere near you.  His sustainable farm systems are on a scale that puts my postage stamp-sized garden to shame, yet he says I'm on the right track.  He says we all need to grow our own food.   He spoke to my heart when he said, "We cannot have sustainable communities without a healthy food system."

Allen spoke at Temple Israel yesterday, a talk that came about because the temple's rabbi Jody Cohen had been thinking of how in Leviticus, farmers allowed those in need to harvest fruits and vegetables from their land. Cohen wants to make that happen now at Temple Israel, in the middle of impoverished Overtown.  You know, I just get to thinking that we're inherently design flawed as a species when people like Allen and Cohen prove me wrong and make wonderful things happen.  They bring out the better part of my nature.  Must hang with them more.  

So I was blogging away about how fresh, sustainable food is a right, not a luxury and urban farms put what seems like a dream within reach, that growing healthy food improves our health, our lives, our connection with our food and with each other when the doorbell rang.  It was my postman (who does not ring twice) delivering my copy of T. Colin Campbell's The China Study.

Campbell's study has come up in almost all my nutrition research but I'd resisted buying the book because 1) I'm cheap and 2) I'm already on board with his message -- a vegetarian diet can save your life.  But in the name of due diligence, I bought the book, here it was and I flipped it open.  "Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence," Campbell writes. "All parts are interconnected."  Spooky.

See?  It all comes back to the same thing -- caring, whether it's caring for ourselves, our communities, our planet or about what's for dinner.  I can multitask and do it using these gorgeous organic carrots from my community farm share.  It's a divine conspiracy.

Tomorrow -- what to do with a cow.   

Tunisian Roasted Vegetables

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 red pepper, cut into strips

3 carrots, sliced

1 zucchini, sliced 

2 ribs celery, sliced

8 ounces mushrooms, quartered (or halved, if small)

1 large onion sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon harissa (Moroccan chili sauce)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon lemon juice

sea salt

1 bunch cilantro, chopped fine

Slice and chop vegetables.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, add olive oil, tomato paste, harissa, cumin and lemon juice.  Stir together until smooth.  Add vegetables and toss to combine.

Place vegetables on cookie and roast at 400 for 15 minutes.  Stir vegetables.  Roast for another 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Salt to taste and garnish with chopped parsley. Kinda spicy, kinda festive, very easy, very healthy.

Serves 4-6.