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turkey

Rhode Island Community Food Bank Holiday Meal Drive 2013

chefs & restaurants cooking farms news

News Bites: RI Community Food Bank, Easy Entertaining, Southside Community Land Trust

by David Dadekian January 2, 2019

written by David Dadekian

Current news releases—Eat Drink RI is not the source for these items—please follow any links for more information.

Rhode Island Community Food Bank

Holiday Meal Drive
November 1 – December 31

Rhode Island Community Food Bank Holiday Meal Drive 2013

The need for food assistance in Rhode Island remains at record high levels. Every month, the Food Bank’s network of food pantries and meal sites is serving more than 68,000 people. One in three served is a child under the age of 18.

Here’s how you can help the Food Bank collect 350,000 additional pounds of food between November 1 and December 31.

Drop off donations of non-perishable food any weekday (excluding holidays) between 8 am and 5 pm at the Food Bank, 200 Niantic Avenue, Providence.
Organize your own food drive in your neighborhood, school, business or organization. We can provide posters and collection bins. For helpful tips, click here.
Make a financial donation to our Holiday Meal Drive by clicking here. Every dollar you gives enables us to acquire three pounds of healthy food for a family in need.
Visit our Kids’ Page and learn more about how young people can make a difference.
Attend our Holiday Meal Drive Open House on Saturday, Dec. 7 — see details below!

Most needed items

Tuna, peanut butter, canned and dried beans, canned soups and stews, canned fruits and vegetables, nutritious breakfast cereals, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, boxed macaroni & cheese, granola bars, and tomato sauce.

Holiday Meal Drive Open House
Saturday, December 7, 9 am to Noon

Rhode Island Community Food Bank, 200 Niantic Avenue, Providence

Bring the whole family for a festive and heart-warming event at the Food Bank.

On this special day, all ages are invited to drop off donations of non-perishable food and join in the work of the Food Bank, with hands-on sorting and packaging of food for families in need.

Entertainment will be provided by the a capella group, Voices of Christmas, and local teen singing sensation Emeline Easton , along with celebrity appearances by the new Miss Rhode Island USA and Paws from the PawSox.

There will be activities for the whole family, including tours of the Food Bank, a scavenger hunt, a make-your-own donation box activity, and hot chocolate and cookies prepared by our Community Kitchen.

Remember to bring your donations of our most-needed items (see list above or click here for a complete list).

For more information on the Holiday Meal Drive Open House, call 401-230-1674 or email celder@rifoodbank.org.

Many thanks to our event sponsors: Unilever and CVS Caremark.

Easy Entertaining

Easy Entertaining Serves Up A Locavore’s Thanksgiving
Skip the stress, don’t worry about the mess. Easy Entertaining Inc. has Thanksgiving covered this year!

Easy Entertaining Inc. is preparing gourmet Thanksgiving meals to order. The holiday menu features traditional farm to fork favorites such as Baffoni Farm turkeys, herb rubbed and ready to roast. The menu also features a choice of three appetizers, including homespun pumpkin cheese & pretzel roll dippers, ten gourmet sides, such as their signature stuffing with or without sausage and two desserts, including mouthwatering apple spice cake with caramel buttercream that serves 12-15 guests. Customers can head over to the Easy Entertaining Inc. website for the full menu and to place an order.

This is the seventh year Easy Entertaining is preparing Thanksgiving for customers and their first year offering online ordering. “In the last few years we have sold out on dinners and sides. Our staff preps for months to be ready to fulfill our customers’ holiday needs” said Katie Roberts, owner and executive Chef of Easy Entertaining.

“As a sustainable company we are so excited for this time of year to be able to share the local fall flavors of New England with everyone. Thanksgiving is the time of year to harvest and give thanks, and being farm to fork, we embody that concept completely.” Said Roberts.

Customers can order a complete meal that serves four to twelve guests. The deadline for ordering Thanksgiving dinner is Thursday, November 21, at 5 p.m. Customers can pick up their dinners on Wednesday, November 27 or even have their meal delivered.

To place an order click HERE or call 401.437.6090

For more information please contact 401.437.6090 or email Katie@EasyEntertainingri.com.

Senator Jack Reed (far right) with members of the Providence community

Southside Community Land Trust

New Federal Funds to Help Grow Urban Agriculture in Providence
U.S. Senators & SCLT announce $255,000 to help refugee gardeners plant roots in the community and cultivate food security

Today, U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse joined with Margaret DeVos, Executive Director of the Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT), non-profit leaders, community gardeners, and volunteers to announce a new $255,000 federal grant to support urban agriculture and refugee resettlement in Providence.

SCLT has been selected as one of 11 organizations nationwide to receive a federal grant from the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program (RAPP). Other sites selected include New York, NY; Oakland, CA; Tampa, FL; Cleveland, OH; and Nashville, TN. Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island will also be working under the grant to support the initiative.

Rhode Island Department of Agriculture Chief Ken Ayers (left) with Senator Jack Reed

This funding will allow new refugees to grow food for their families and neighbors and accelerate their transition to becoming self-sufficient and active members of the community. In addition to providing fresh, affordable, and locally grown food, SCLT’s initiative will turn underutilized land into plots of verdant, sustainable, community assets.

“I commend Southside Community Land Trust and am proud to help make this grant possible,” said U.S. Senator Jack Reed, a senior member of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds RAPP. “In addition to providing healthy food and a potential source of income, this program helps refugees plant roots in Rhode Island and connect with the greater community through food and farming.”

January 2, 2019 0 comment

cooking

Charcutepalooza December: Thank You

by David Dadekian December 6, 2011

written by David Dadekian

Charcuterie Board (see lower photo for descriptions)

And so it goes. Our year of meat has come to a close. For the final Charcutepalooza challenge we were told to show what we learned all year. In Cathy’s own words, do some “showing off” with a celebration. Personally, I think a lot of the Charcutepalooza participants have been showing off all year long—and I mean that in a very positive way. I’ve had an immense amount of fun, a little frustration and a minor failure, but mostly huge fun.

The final challenge for me involved my family and the weekend after Thanksgiving, a leisurely weekend of chopping down a Christmas tree and putting up lights and decorations, all while enjoying the meats and cheeses you see on the big board above. The bresaola I had made for the previous challenge, all the rest of the charcuterie I slowly assembled over the month of November in preparation for the bittersweet end.

As I said, it was the weekend after Thanksgiving. My parents were visiting us from their home in Florida. My wife had four days off from work. My daughters were constantly excited from all the grandparent attention and all these Christmas decorations coming out—there’s a tree in the house! I knew I wasn’t going to want to cook too much after the multi-day extravaganza that is Thanksgiving, but I knew we’d want to eat something else besides leftovers so thought, what’s better than a spread of charcuterie that we can pick at as we work and play?

I made all these photographs and then we proceeded to clear the board over the weekend, cooking up the sausage and some of the lamb bacon, steaming the pastrami until it was moist and tender. My mother loved the pâté, something she doesn’t get that often, and I avoided mentioning to her that using Jacques Pépin’s very classical recipe calls for half a pound of livers with 3/8 of a pound of butter as the base. As much as I would love to see my girls eat everything on the board, they’re not there yet, though Brigid did sample all the Farmstead cheeses at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market and helped pick out two of them.

When I was making the pâté the day before I had taken out a bottle of Armenian “cognac.” I use quotes because it’s obviously not made in the French region of Cognac, but that’s what Armenian brandies have been called for many years. Supposedly Armenian cognac was Winston Churchill’s drink of choice. My dad hadn’t seen a bottle in years and wanted to try it so my wife, in perhaps a bit of whimsy, took out a couple of shot glasses with shamrocks on them for us to have a drink. The bottle from Armenia alongside the Irish shot glass kind of summed up our whole family so I made a photo, but this being a Charcutepalooza feast I had to stick the pâté in the photo too.

So with that memory and image of all my now eaten charcuterie (there’s a little lamb bacon left, but won’t be for long) I close my year of meat. But I certainly can’t end without a huge thank you to Cathy Barrow and Kim Foster for coming up with all this fun. I’ve been making charcuterie for years, but never as regularly or as focused as I did for the last year. Also, for me, the best part was expanding how I would photograph these things. I started with some different ways with the duck prosciutto, became really happy with my style as I got to the pancetta and the last three months of meat pie, galantine and bresaola have been very satisfying for me. I appreciate all the kind comments and Kim’s choosing a few of my photos for her monthly wrap-ups. I can’t thank her and especially Cathy’s inspiring challenges and tweets enough.

Special thanks also to Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, authors of our manual for the year Charcuterie. I eagerly await their salumi book. Finally, I can’t possibly think of a way to say thank you enough to all the wonderful Charcutepalooza participants. I can’t say enough about the joy of “conversing” with all of you on Twitter. If I begin to try and list everyone’s Twitter name I know I’ll miss someone, so check out this great archive of every tweet with the #charcutepalooza tag and follow them all.

Thank you again, Cathy @MrsWheelbarrow and Kim @KimFosterNYC!

Turkey & chicken liver pâté with Armenian brandy ("cognac")

Charcuterie Board

Turkey & Chicken Liver Pâté

Bresaola

Lamb Bacon

Pastrami

December 6, 2011 0 comment

chefs & restaurants cooking farms news

A Local Thanksgiving: Purchasing a Turkey or the Whole Meal

by David Dadekian November 9, 2011

written by David Dadekian

turkeys Whether you cook a big Thanksgiving dinner yourself or purchase a complete meal, there are several options for locally raised and produced dinners. This isn’t a comprehensive list of everyone in the area doing turkeys and Thanksgiving meals, but a select group for truly local eats. Here’s to a southern New England Thanksgiving! Raise a glass of local wine or local beer.

Turkeys

If you’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner, locally farm-raised turkeys are definitely the way to go. They’re more flavorful with better skin than mass-produced turkeys and, since they’re available fresh they’re usually much more moist than frozen birds. Broad-breasted whites, your typical meat turkey, are well raised on pasture with no hormones or other chemicals. The turkeys I’ve had from local turkey farms have been so juicy that I don’t brine them, something I had been doing to grocery store turkeys for years.

There are several farms in the area raising pastured turkeys so please look around your home. I mention these two farms because I’ve had their turkeys. The first is Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm near my home in Sterling, Connecticut (the farm is about 4 miles over the R.I. border). They’re well into their reservation period right now, but because they raise so many still have turkeys available, though I would advise calling now to get the size you’d like. We regularly buy Ekonk Hill turkeys and they’re some of the best birds I’ve ever cooked.

The other turkey I recommend is from the farm I work with, Blackbird Farm. I cooked last year’s turkey from Blackbird Farm on my charcoal grill and everyone raved about it. Unfortunately, our turkeys are already all reserved at the farm stand, but I’m happy to pass along the inside scoop that Persimmon Provisions, a marvelous butcher shop in Barrington, has purchased 30 of the birds to sell at the store. I have no idea what their reservations are like, so I would recommend calling.

Catering

So you want to have a big family dinner at home but aren’t able to cook? You’re going to want to look into one of these options:

Easy Entertaining, Inc. is offering a number of complete dinner packages or a la carte choices. From their order form, “Easy Entertaining Inc. prides itself on sourcing over 70% of products from a 250 mile radius, year-round. Serving a Thanksgiving package from Easy Entertaining Inc. is serving locally raised vegetables from Schartner Farms, Confreda Farms, Cooks Valley, Barden Family Orchards and many more. Feasting with Easy Entertaining is roasting a humanely raised, hormone and antibiotic free, grain fed, happy bird from Baffoni Poultry Farms. Thanksgiving with Easy Entertaining is serving a homemade cranberry-apple sauce, with cranberries grown in bogs less than 30 miles away.” Easy Entertaining’s form with directions can be found here. The deadline for ordering is November 17.

Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro‘s Chef Ben Lacy is putting together a Thanksgiving dinner to be picked up, based around an organically raised farm fresh turkey from Misty Knoll Farms, which you can also purchase uncooked if you want to prepare the bird but not the rest of the meal. Tastings is offering several soups, salads, pies, rolls and 11 different side dishes. Their deadline is November 18 and the order form can be found here.

Tallulah on Thames in Newport is offering a “Farm to Table” Thanksgiving to Go for the second year in a row. The meal includes a heritage breed turkey from Brambly Farms along with many sides made from locally farmed produce. More information can be found on their “To Go” page. The deadline is November 19 and the order form can be found here.

Ripe Hospitality is offering a Thanksgiving meal that not only feeds your family but also gives back to feed others as well. “Ripe Hospitality is donating a portion of all of the proceeds from Thanksgiving meals to several Rhode Island and Boston based non-profits including the Rhode Island Food Bank, the Genesis Center, and Kids Can Cook! As always, we’ve created a menu using organic, all natural products that come from the finest farms, local producers, and specialty suppliers New England has to offer!” Ripe Hospitality’s deadline is November 19, though they recommend reserving sooner if you’re interested in the unique in-home preparation option. Their menu and contact information can be found here.

November 9, 2011 0 comment

chefs & restaurants farms news

Persimmon Provisions Now Open in Barrington, RI

by David Dadekian November 18, 2010

written by David Dadekian

Persimmon Provisions, an artisan butcher shop in Barrington, is now open. The store is stocked with turkeys for Thanksgiving, both all-natural and organic varieties. A side of Blackbird Farm beef, from Smithfield, Rhode Island, was brought in and butchered to offer local steaks, roasts and ground meat to customers. Another local farm, Round the Bend Farm from South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, is supplying pork, veal and lamb. The freezer is full of offal, bones, stock and Mangalitsa pork, a highly specialized breed that produces some of the world’s most juicy and flavorful meat and fat products, from Heath Putnam Farms. The shelves are stocked with a number of extra-virgin olive oils, specialty vinegars and salts. There are cheeses and cured meats in the display cases and many more exciting meats to come.

Persimmon Provisions is a full-service butcher shop and the staff looks forward to custom cutting meats for customers, though they will package some of the more popular cuts fresh each day for people on the go. All of the staff at Provisions are trained cooks, so if there’s a cut of meat you’ve been wanting to try but just weren’t sure how to cook it, they can tell you. Wondering what to do with salted capers or Aquidneck honey comb? They’ll have suggestions for you. The display cases are also stocked with foods prepared at sister restaurant Persimmon in Bristol.

From the owners’ web site: “Provisions was borne out of Chef Champe Speidel’s passion for the craft of butchery (he was, in fact, a butcher for ten years before culinary school beckoned) and the desire to bring responsibly raised, carefully sourced animals to the local marketplace. The small shop stocks fresh meats, charcuterie, house-made sausages, sauces, stocks, some cheese, dry goods, and a handful of prepared foods (from the Persimmon kitchen). Special orders, of course, are welcome, too. Want your bird brined? Or your roast trussed? In search of a no-fail way to prep foie gras? We’ve got you covered. Please spread the word!” Persimmon Provisions, 338 County Rd., Barrington, RI (Prince’s Hill Place; next to Prestige Cleaners). 401-337-5885. Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.