By Elizabeth Wheeler
Blueberry picking, that late summer ritual of voluntary tedium and toil, is my idea of peace on earth, as long as I don’t have to do it for a living.  It is a quiet pleasure, standing in a fully laden berry patch, branches drooping under the weight of dark blue fruit, chittering birds and buzzing insects, berries thunking against the bare bottom of the pail, then the softer thud as berries meet berries.  The “king” fruit at the end of clusters, the first to ripen, are the biggest, …

In my past life as the director of the Holcomb Farm Community Supported Agriculture project in Granby, Connecticut, the state’s largest community based farm, I spent most of my time learning. How to raise money or in-kind donations to operate a start-up 25-acre nonprofit organic farm, to support a farm staff, obtain tractors, seed, fertilizer and equipment, and renovate buildings.  How to manage the Whole Earth and Whole Foods expectations of summer farm interns, undergraduates from Yale, Brown, Williams, and other elite schools.  How to attract both white middle class …

by Liz Wheeler
Call him crazy, but you have to admire Doug Vaira for his vision. A journalist by training, Vaira decided to open Dish, a bistro in downtown Charles Town, in October 2008, just about the most challenging time ever to launch a restaurant, given the tanking economy and his ambitions to help spur downtown development—in addition to featuring locally grown food on the menu. “My goal is to bring simple, real food to a bigger audience,” he said. “We use local seasonal ingredients, and dishes made from scratch—nothing too …

Winter Squash often arrives at the table as a creamy soup or pumpkin pie out of the shell: sweetened puree spiked with cinnamon and nutmeg. This hard-shelled, mild-flavored, and nutrient-dense fruit offers many more delicious possibili-ties for the curious cook, and is a nutritionist’s darling. Its firm smooth flesh can be roasted, puréed, or mashed into soups, casseroles, breads, and muf-fins. Its rich nutty flavor makes a superior pie, much better than pumpkin.Botanically speaking, But-ternut squash is a fruit with a hard, inedible rind and orange flesh that has been …

By Elizabeth Wheeler
Late this summer, my friend John Turenne called with the news that his company, Sustainable Food Systems, was working with British chef Jamie Oliver on a healthy food intervention in Huntington WV’s community and public schools.  And, by the way, ABC was taping it for six episodes of Jamie’s prime time reality TV show, the “Jamie Oliver Project” to be aired in early 2010.  The Associated Press had recently reported that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) had identified the population in metropolitan area of Huntington, WV and …

By Elizabeth Wheeler
October is high apple season in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, where you can find orchards large and small selling an impressive range of varieties.  The following websites list commercial orchards in the area: www.allaboutapples.com/orchard/wv.htm and www.pickyourown.org/WV.htm.
If you are interested in the art and science of fruit production, the premier Federal Kearneysville Tree Fruit Research and Education Center is right in our backyard on Route 9 between Charles Town and Kearneysville.  Tours of the Fruit Research Center are provided in conjunction with the Mountain State Apple Harvest Festival on …

By Elizabeth Wheeler
When I first began cooking for my 12-year-old stepson Peter, he was a deeply conservative, fearful, and argumentative companion at the dinner table. In addition to reminding me that I was not his mother, Peter would trumpet “I won’t ever eat that,” when served anything green, red, or yellow that was not mint chocolate chip ice cream, expensive steak, a carrot, baked potato, or Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. My everyday French and Italian peasant supper dishes and fresh vegetables were utterly foreign, disgusting and appalling. Greens? Zucchini? Peppers? Eggplant? …

By Elizabeth Wheeler
Of all vegetables, tomatoes seem to ignite the greatest passion and generosity among gardeners, especially those who start their plants from seed. In July, as I contemplated the 20-foot-long wall of towering tomatoes, I decided I had tipped over into loopy excess. Then I met Angela Faulkner.
Faulkner is a graphic designer. During the growing season she devotes a good share of her waking hours indulging her fascination with growing unusual vegetables, especially tomatoes. This year, she is growing 65 varieties of heirloom tomatoes she has collected over the …

Even though I know better, I planted too many greens in my garden. By mid June the once tiny plants were practically gushing from the earth in luxuriant green waves, thanks to compost and the almost perfect spring weather. Though most spring greens will bolt in hot weather, the biennial chard soldiers on in its first year, as long as it is cut regularly. My plants boast gigantic glossy leaves, beautiful and overwhelming. After a few too many dinners with variations on sautéed greens, I turned to my Middle Eastern cookbooks for inspiration.

Swiss chard, a cousin of beets, has a delicate flavor and a sturdier texture than spinach, which makes it ideal for stuffing. Recently I treated dinner guests with this: [...]