Fresh Peach Spritzers

6 fresh peaches, quartered (I leave the peels on, but peel them if you prefer)
2 Tbsp honey, or to taste (I like raw honey)
1 bottle inexpensive white wine, chilled
1 liter sparkling water, chilled
Sprigs of fresh mint and peach slices for garnish

Combine honey and peaches in a blender or food processor and puree well (or use a juicer, if you have one.) Pour through a sieve into a large pitcher and chill thoroughly. Add wine and stir to combine. Add sparkling water to fill pitcher and stir gently.

To serve: Pour into tall glasses (over ice if desired) or large wine glasses and garnish with a slice of peach and a sprig of mint. Serves six.

More summery drinks:

• Summer is the Season for Sangria
• Drink Local: Keeping Cool With Rhubarb Cocktails
• Think Pink

Image credit: Cary Bass via a Creative Commons license

But often there’s a way around it: A herdshare program. Drinking raw milk from a cow you own is not illegal. When a milk drinker joins a herdshare, he’s buying a part of a cow — usually 1/25th of a cow — and paying each month a fee for that partial-cow’s board and care.

I own 3/25ths of a cow (a Jersey named Cinnamon), which I purchased from a local dairy farmer for $50 per share. (If I ever decide to sell my shares, the farmer will buy them back from me for the same price I paid.) Each month, I pay my farmer $22 per share for my portion of the costs of Cinnamon’s care, and each week I drive out to the farm (in Ohio, it’s illegal for my farmer to deliver my milk to me) and pick up 3 gallons of beautiful whole unpasteurized milk. It works out to $5.08 per gallon, which just a few months ago might have seemed like a lot to pay for milk. It was worth it to me because I wanted to buy my milk from a local farmer raising cows on pasture without rBGH — cows living the way cows are supposed to live — and in my area that means raw milk. It’s worth it to others because they want raw milk in particular.

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We took a walk to the beach the other day through an orchard overflowing with ripe plums. Further on, the path was lined with tall blackberry bushes. Needless to say, we had an excess of blackberries and plums for a while. Add to that the fact that a local organic wine was on sale this week, and I naturally just had to make sangria!

My sister lived in Spain for a semester last year, and I had some amazing sangria when I went there to visit her. Of course she knew a recipe for sangria, which the one below is based on. (Thanks sis!) So, with a little local foraging, some fresh-picked seasonal berries, and some local wine, I made a yummy summer drink that can be adapted for any kind of fruit that’s in season.

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Wait — save that ice cube. As a matter of fact, bring out all the ice trays. When temperature and humidity rise, there’s only one word that inspires us through: blender drinks. And look no further than the humble rhubarb for cocktail inspiration that frappes local flavor with a new twist on happy hour.

You have to admit, rhubarb could use a new recipe twist, something other than pie or cobbler. For the gardeners with prolific rhubarb patches, bet you could use a recipe that uses twelve cups of this vegetable that thinks its a fruit.

This cocktail recipe uses a rhubarb-sugar syrup as the base, blended with ice and rum. If you’re in more of a margarita mood, blend with tequila. For a non-alcoholic version, mix equal parts of the syrup with plain seltzer. The syrup readily freezes and is easiest (and most energy efficient on a hot day) made in the crock-pot.

Here’s the Rhubarb Cocktail recipe, using the sugar syrup

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Diego Velasquez, Los Borrachos (The Feast of Bacchus)

“In the beginning, Bacchus created white wine. He saw that it was good and awarded it a score of 90 points. On the second day, Bacchus created red wine and, finding it even tastier, gave it 99 points. (Actually, it deserved 100 points, but in that epoch only wines made in heaven were allowed perfect scores.) On the third day, the god made rosé and saw that it was pink. He started laughing.”

Ben Giliberti, The Washington Post, Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Let’s face it, rosé wines have somewhat of a bad rep. No wonder, if you have only tried “blush” wines, usually low in alcohol and semi-sweet, or mass produced, so-called “white” Zinfandels. In the U.S., pink wine has most often been regarded as sweet, overproduced and unsophisticated. Which for the most part, it is.

Let’s flip the coin. European consumers drink dry rosé wine regularly and in some parts of France, even more rosé than white wine. Why - rosé epitomizes summer. Rosés are all about pleasure - girls in short summer dresses and guys in tight muscle shirts.

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Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.

I bet you and your friends have a few summertime traditions. An annual 4th of July BBQ? Maybe a no-excuses-we’re-going-to-the-beach-the-same-weekend-every-year outing? Or perhaps a camping trip instead? A group of my friends, who have long scattered across several state lines and life stages (singles, newly weds, divorcees, and new parents are all among them), come together one night a summer to sit under the same tree in a big back yard, drink a lot of beer, play horseshoes and pretend for a little while that we’re still carefree and 20.

Quite frankly though, I’ve outgrown what little taste I had for a keg of lager beer. So, this year I decided I’d try a taking along the ingredients for a cocktail. Spurred by my success with the Lavender Lemon Soda recipe, I thought I’d try another simple syrup infused with a fresh herb that would add a little somethin’-somethin’ to my cocktail. The rosemary plants in my garden called out to me immediately.

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1. Add a sliced cucumber and lemon to your water pitcher for a subtle, yet incredibly refreshing, flavor.

2. Slice a tablespoon or two of fresh ginger and two small limes into your water pitcher for a cooler with a kick to it.

3.  You absolutely can’t go wrong with mint tea.  Add three mint tea bags to a pitcher of water.  Let steep in the sun for a few hours.  Chill in fridge.

4.  Muddle a sliced orange in a large pitcher.  Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Add water and ice.  Reminisce of youth spent eating dreamsicles.

5.  Check out Jennie’s Lavender Lemon Soda recipe for a carbonated treat.

Need something sweeter?  Add a touch of honey or raw sugar to any of the above.

For another tasty summer beverage, check out Megan’s Lavender Lemonade.

Step #1: Move to Belgium

For purists, this is a must. Only in the Senne valley of Belgium can the brewer encounter the true wild yeasts of lambic beers which contain the essential bacterias, Bretanomyces bruxellensis and B. lambicus. In fact, to move to Belgium is the only way to enjoy an authentic lambic experience without compromising the eco-friendliness of the endeavor with trans-Atlantic shipping.

Step #2: Mash Up

A lambic wort is traditionally comprised of 60-70% barley malt and 30-40% unmalted wheat.

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Guess I’ve always been an unconventional American patriot. No red, white and blue holiday t-shirts for yours truly. I haven’t seen a parade in years. But I do put a lot of thought into the picnic menu. The Fourth of July reminds me to remember and rekindle Thomas Jefferson’s vision of our democracy as citizens’ everyday participation in the political system – in my case, through conscious food choices.

Make a democratic statement with your food choices this weekend. Here are the criteria that resulted in my patriotic choices:

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Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden. 

“Hot. So very hot.”  These words, or some variation of them, echo through my head at least a dozen times a day now that summer is officially here.  Interspersed among them are a sundry of other fleeting thoughts, most prevalent among them being, “Is it lunchtime yet?”   You see, laboring as I do outside so much of the day in my horticulture work, I tend to quickly get a little parched and hungry.  Concocting refreshing icy beverages has become a priority.

This desperation for refreshment brings us to a truly revitalizing Lavender Lemon Soda that is the ideal remedy for a sweaty brow.  It is downright cleansing with its effervescent flavors. I have been intrigued by herbal sodas since last summer when I had one at a local café, but I surprised even myself with how tasty this particular combination turned out to be.  

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So how do we get our morning cup without a side of guilt? How to decipher real world impact from a multitude of coffee labels after the jump.

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Who’s thirsty?

Between the barbecues, national holidays and beach vacations, cold beers become a necessity in many households over the summer months. As we pay more attention to the way our food is grown, harvested and transported, perhaps we owe it to the environment to be as vigilant with our beer. But how easy is it to find environmentally-conscientious breweries?

Beer brewing is not the most environmentally-friendly of activities, particularly regarding water usage. On average, six gallons of water are required to brew one gallon of beer - a ratio that must be drastically reduced in dry areas. Wastewater, carbon emissions and huge energy generators also contribute to the environmental sins of the industry.

But more breweries are taking notice of the eating public’s environmental awakening. While the biggest multinational breweries are beginning to make structural changes that promote sustainability, most of the greenest beers are (unsurprisingly) local and regional ones. Microbreweries are great agents of change because they interact with the communities that surround them. Their smaller size and community feeling make them more amenable to change, so it is easier to petition them and request more sustainable practices. Below are the top five eco-minded, North American mid-sized breweries:

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By now, most of us have heard about the high-octane health benefits of acai berries, cultivated exclusively and naturally (without pesticides or chemicals) from the Amazon rainforest. Called by some* to be the “most nutritionally dense” berries, these little jewels apparently have more antioxidants than blueberries and more heart-healthy anthocyanins than red wine. They’re also rich with protein, dietary fiber, with high levels of Omega-3, Omega-6, and Omega-9 fatty acids. Plus, they’ll reduce the prices at the gas pump. (Okay, I’m not certain about that last part….)

But the trick is getting the acai berry pulp as close to the source as possible, and without being over-processed (which depletes the nutritional value considerably). Raw acai is the only sure way to get all the benefits of the berry, and unless you’re planning a trip to Brazil anytime soon, that can be tricky. Even though I’m very mindful of “food miles” and eat locally grown foods almost exclusively, I was eager and curious to try raw acai pulp that is processed as little as is safely possible. Enter Amazonfrutas….

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As a friend pointed out to me though, you’re almost more hard-pressed to find wineries that don’t have some sort of green aspect to them, these days. From solar panels, to wind energy, to organic growing standards, wineries are becoming more and more eco-friendly every day.

There are a number of resources on finding green wineries in California. The Bay Area Green Business Program lists wineries both in Napa and Sonoma counties that meet their requirements. You can check out this sustainablog post rating some Bay Area wineries. And though this winery guide from Green Girls LA is a few years old, it’s still fairly accurate and comprehensive.

Of the wineries my group stopped at this past weekend, my favorite by far was Grgich Hills Estate in Rutherford, CA. Don’t let the difficult to pronounce name deter you; Grgich Hills is the only winery in Napa Valley that features exclusively biodynamic wines. When you first start explaining biodynamic processes, you’re met with a lot of skepticism. (As soon as I said “cycles of the moon” I could see eyes rolling in my group.) Fortunately our server at Grgich was able to explain it in a very practical way.

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That’s an awful lot of chemically-laced poop and pee (as we say in my house) being flushed each year. For some reason when the story broke it didn’t hit home to me. I don’t live in a metropolis, but as I stood there with that sippy cup I realized I don’t want my son drinking birth control pills, no matter what the dosage level. And what if he had been exposed to this when he was an infant?

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I really only drink two things - water and tea. And I’m pretty fussy about the quality of each. Since I gave up the sauce (caffeine that is), I’ve been enjoying Yerba Mate as my new primary tea source. Guayaki sent me some samples to review for the magazine and I am now addicted to their Organic Yerba Mate. Not an awful addiction as addictions go. The company is a cool triple bottom line, fairtrade, responsible and sustainable company.

Beth’s blog is The Expatriate’s Kitchen, “Musings on food and life, with my original recipes, and a cynical wit as sharp as my ten-inch French knife”.

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According to the Humane Society, 17% of the U.S. beef supply comes from spent dairy cows. These cows no longer produce financially viable quantities of milk and are sold at steep discount to slaughterhouses. In fact, prices for dairy cows can be as little as one-tenth the price of a well-fed beef steer on the meat market. This partially has to do with net meat gain: the dairy cow is bred for optimum lactation, not muscle mass. The price differential also has to do with condition: the dairy cows tend to be older and more feeble, depleted of calcium and afflicted with a multitude of bacterial infections, the result of sedentary, unifunctional lives.

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See, I’ve got kids? And, see…they’re kind of…energetic enough? I mean really, truly. Spend five seconds in my house and you will see: they are doing just fine bouncing off the walls of their own accord. So, I’ll thank the world for not encouraging them to bounce off the ceiling, as well.

Oh, but I can‘t thank the world, because apparently the world is instead choosing to fill them with caffeine when I’m not around.

As this great article from Metroactive explains, “these days, constraints on caffeine consumption for kids and young teens are nonexistent. Kids are having caffeine early and often.” It’s not just in their drinks, apparently. Candy bars? Increasingly filled with the stuff.

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