Disclosure: I received ICBINB coupons, a Flip cam, and a gift card to create this video and pay for groceries.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter contacted me recently to ask if I’d like to visit a local farmers market to gather items for a lunch party with friends afterwards—created with recipes using ICBINB, or course. I turn down a lot of PR offers, but this sounded like fun, and I had a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in my fridge already, so I do actually use their product. I also tend to be a recluse, so I thought this would be a good way to force myself outside and see what Chapel Hill has to offer.

There are several farmers markets near me. The Carrboro Farmers Market seemed to be the most popular one, but I heard parking was a mess. So I decided to go to the South Estes Market instead since it’s held in a mall parking lot with plenty of spaces. It was also on the way between my place and my brother and sister-in-law’s house, who I invited to come with me.

You can follow my adventures in the video above, which I probably spent far more time editing than was really required. (At least that Digital Video 101 class I took in college finally paid off.) I did have lots of fun at the market, even though I was a little anxious about having to film people and ask them questions. (See above, recluse.) Strangely enough, I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot of things I would never have discovered otherwise. I guess it’s good to move out of your comfort zone once in a while (says the girl who just moved away from half her friends and family).

As for the ICBINB, it tasted good on bread and corn on the cob. (And damn, that was some good bread by The Farm Fairy.) Their pitch is that it has less saturated fat than butter, no hydrogenated oils (those dreaded TRANS FATS!), and no cholesterol. I’d never used it in the spray pump bottles before, but it made it a lot easier to butter my corn than it was with a knife. I tried it on some popcorn later, and it added flavor without making the popcorn too soggy. So, I feel fine recommending their product, and hopefully you found the video to be entertaining enough. You can learn more at the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter web site, including a contest to win a grill basket and a recipe library. There’s also an ICBINB YouTube Channel.

In case you’re interested, here is a list of vendors I spoke to. BTW, if someone was kind enough to talk to me and/or let me record them, I bought something at their stall or threw money in their banjo case. I had to pitch my book at book fairs, so I know what it’s like sitting behind that table.

• Bread and honey from The Farm Fairy
• Corn from Roberson Creek Farm
• Veggies from Timberwood Organics (certified organics!)
• Peaches from Kalawi Farm (the peach people!)
• Music by…some banjo-playing dude.
• Stock music called “Rampaging Bulldozer” was downloaded from FreeSoundtrackMusic.com.

Warning: Tech-girl ramblings ahead
The software that comes with the FlipCam wasn’t advanced enough for the editing I wanted to do, so to edit this video I used a trial version of Videopad Video Editor. I’d give it a C+ (and no, that’s not a computer science joke). It was able to open the MP4 files that the FlipCam exported, and I was able to split the audio tracks away from the video. However, if I tried replacing a video clip or inserting one into the middle of the timeline, all my placed audio effects would because misaligned. Also, when I exported, several of the title frames went missing, so I had to encode it and then edit that and encode it again, which is why the video is a little lower quality than what I’d prefer. Anyone got recommendations for a better, free video editing application for Windows? I considered Microsoft Movie Maker first, but it wouldn’t open the MP4 files.

All right, y’all, the Farm Fresh Delivery peeps sent me some rainbow chard and dill fenouil this week. I only know that they sent me rainbow chard and dill fenouil because that’s what the labels say on these odd, green, leafy plants. If someone had asked me to name 100 vegetables last week, I would not have listed either rainbow chard or dill fenouil because I had never heard of them before. Any suggestions on how to prepare these veggies are welcome. I would especially appreciate any warnings, like if the fuzzy ends of the dill fenouil are poisonous or if the rainbow chard only turns rainbow colored when it’s gone rancid. Thanks!

Farm Fresh Delivery has been delivering vegetables to my front door for two months now, and it’s going fairly well. I have yet to trip over a parsnip on the way out the door, and I’ve eaten several good-for-me plants I wouldn’t have otherwise. Yes, I threw out half the bok choy when it started to rot, after telling myself every night I’d do stir-fry for dinner and then popping open a can of soup instead. And I think they sent me a rutabaga instead of a beet last week. But I have been eating most of the fruits and vegetables before they turn slimy, and I’m content to continue the service.

My best discovery so far was how tasty snow peas can be. My roommate has a vegetable steamer and showed me how to cook the snow peas with it. They made for a crunchy snack that I know I would never have made otherwise. Broccoli and cauliflower definitely taste better chopped up fresh instead of defrosted from the frozen foods section. And I’ve eaten a lot more salads since they’ve showered me in baby spinach and radicchio.

Every week, I get a chance to customize my order, but I have avoided scrolling too far down the page because that is where the extra products lay. There are pastries and butters and all sorts of tasty items, but I took my hand off the mouse before exploring too far because I knew no good would come of it. However, I recently learned that Dillman Farm sells pumpkin butter through the site, and I have allowed myself to purchase a jar. I had never heard of pumpkin butter before this winter, but then I received a jar in a gift basket from a family member. I spread it on some bread and fell in love, as if it were the first time I’d eaten ice cream. Mmmmm, it’s like pumpkin pie in a jar. Perhaps this is how those Europeans feel about Nutella. I am eagerly awaiting my next delivery and whatever vegetable surprises lay ahead!

PS – I know I have not written about Beck week three, yet. Teach, can I have an extension on my paper? Thanks!

At first glance they appeared to be a mutant strain of lettuce and a set of reindeer antlers. However, I have since determined that they are bok choy and ginger root. I figured this out after eliminating everything else on the invoice that I could identify.

I have absolutely no idea how to cook bok choy or ginger root. Actually, I’ve seen ginger root in the grocery store and considered buying it for my old Lick the Produce series, but decided it look far too funky for me to attempt cooking with it. Am I supposed to slice it? Grate it to get ground ginger? Tape it to a headband, paint my nose read, and call myself Rudolph? I have no clue, but now I have some in the house, so I’d better do something with it!

After some Googling, I’m leaning towards trying this recipe for Balsamic Vinger and Ginger Bok Choy, but I thought I’d also solicit my readers for recipes. Anyone got some hints or clues as to what I should do with this stuff? Thanks!

Farm Fresh Delivery is a service offered in Indianapolis and Cincinnati that delivers to your door, fresh, organic produce that has been grown locally. There are similar services offered across the country, so I’d recommend that you search Google to see if there is one in your area. This site, Greenling, seems to have a directory.

I have been thinking of signing up for Farm Fresh Delivery on and off for several years now, ever since a blog reader left me a comment mentioning it. Several times in the past few years I would go to their web site, browse around, think about ordering, and then drop the idea because I wasn’t sure if I could afford it or if I’d use all the produce before it rotted.

This year I finally gave them my credit card information after I did some budget analysis. You have to place a minimum $35 order, and you have the option of receiving deliveries every other week. That means I’d be spending about $70 a month on produce. I’ve been tracking my expenses carefully lately, and when I looked at my grocery budget, I figured that I probably spend at least $70 a month on produce anyway, so why not get it delivered directly to my door? Organic foods are supposed to taste better anyway, and I’d be supporting local farmers, so I can feel good about it.

The real tipping point though was the home delivery. I’ve gotten sick of going to the grocery every 4 or 5 days just to buy fresh produce, so the idea of having the food arrive on my doorstep is really appealing. I’m also the kind of person who likes the idea of organic foods and supporting local farmers and eating “real” foods and not processed “fake” foods, but I don’t want to have to go out of my way to do it. I don’t want to visit a farmer’s market every weekend. So, this is a nice compromise. There is also the option to add other food items to your cart, such as coffee, honey, milk, baked goods and more, which I might take advantage of later.

Opening my crate was so much fun! It was like someone had sent me presents: green, leafy, organic, edible presents. I enjoyed peeking into the brown bags to discover what was in the crate this week, and then trying to match the items to the list on the invoice. It took me awhile to identify the beets, which I initially mistook for turnips. The food items change weekly depending on what is in season, so hopefully I’ll get better at playing Name That Vegetable.

I also hope receiving this crate of veggies will encourage me to make new dishes, and to eat more vegetables. I’m good about eating fruits, since they are sugary and delicious, but veggies have never had much appeal to me. Hopefully I will keep up with the deliveries and eat everything before it goes bad. I’ll let you guys know how it goes!

PastaQueen reviews the Stonyfield Farm Oikos Organic Yogurt, reminisces about her grandparents’ farm, and gives away coupons, a pot holder, and a spatula.

Before my grandparents died, they bought the farm. After years of living in a small house in Princeton, Indiana, they purchased several acres and a farm house which I would visit back when I was only as tall as the kitchen counter. They had blackberries that we helped pick. They had cows that gave you mean looks. They had a creepy bathroom that was more frightening than any rest stop’s facilities. They sold eggs on the front porch whose shells were not a uniform white, but also brown and beige. The farm was dirty and odd and different from the city where I came from, but it was memorable and it had tractors. My best memory of my grandfather came when we were walking through the chicken coop together, gathering eggs, and he lifted up a chicken off its roost and tossed it halfway across the room. Who says a chicken can’t fly?

When we ate at my grandparents house, the food was different. The chicken wasn’t as plump as the ones from the stores. The green beans tasted nothing like the frozen veggies we got from the grocery. However, the angel food cake was delicious, thanks to the eggs from those flying chickens. I wish I could try eating those foods again, because what tasted weird and funny to my eight-year-old tastebuds might taste sweeter or more savory now. I didn’t know it, but I was eating organic food which was grown close to the earth like people had done for centuries before me. My parents had a farm, not a factory.

I saw the movie Food Inc. this weekend, and I recommend that anyone who had a problem with my cannoli entry never, ever see this movie or else you will have to retroactively vomit 80% of everything you have ever eaten. The film exposes the predatory business practices of the meat, corn, and soy bean industries, shows disturbing footage of how our food is made, and probably also has a negative effect on concession stand sales. It shows how food is grown in factories, not farms. It’s gross, really, really gross. If my grandparents had owned a chicken factory instead of a hen house, I would not be reminiscing about the good times I had picking up chicken corpses smeared in feces. Overall, the film emphasized the importance of organic foods to me in a way that ramblings from hippies never really has.

One of the “good guys” interviewed in the film is Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm and reformed hippie. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy who takes a bit of twisted joy from getting organic products onto Wal-Mart shelves. This reminded me that Stonyfield Farm had sent me coupons for their yogurt several months ago and I’d never done a review because my life got hectic. Last month I finally decided to grab some of there Oikos Greek Yogurt to review, but because I had moved to the south side of town, far away from the Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and Fresh Market, I couldn’t figure out where to buy it. Then a friend let me know that Kroger has a secret organic foods section away from the other foods, as if not to contaminate the organic yogurt with aspartame. So, if you can’t find this stuff in the yogurt section like I couldn’t, search for the organic section of the store.

I tasted the Oikos Greek Yogurt with Honey because I knew the tart taste of plain Greek Yogurt alone would turn me off. The honey is located at the bottom of the yogurt cup and you can mix it together with a spoon. It was yummy and the kitties licked the container clean. Like most Greek yogurt, it’s thick and creamy. It’s also nice to know that the cows that helped make the yogurt were like the mean cows on my grandparents farm and not the corn-fed cows writhing in their own manure like in the film.

Stonyfield Farm is giving away one prize package that consists of an oven mitt, a spatula, kitchen magnet and coupons for free and/or discounted yogurt. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this entry naming what your favorite farm animal is and why by Wednesday, August 5th at 11:59pm. A winner will be drawn randomly. US entries only please, because I don’t think the coupons will work in other countries. If you don’t win, it looks like they also give away coupons on their web site here.

Though he has not cured me, I like my allergist very much. I was hesitant at first, sitting in his waiting room which looked like it had not been renovated since the early 80′s. I further psyched myself out as I waited in the examination room reading a chart with about 90 things I did not know you could be allergic to. Then the doctor walked in, an older man who has seen it all and is on the case and poked at the problem from all angles (including poking me in the back). He demonstrated quick knowledge on a breadth of topics, which impressed me. “I haven’t given up on you,” he said, which was nice to hear even if I’ve basically given up on myself. So I’m trying some new pills and getting some new tests.

The allergist also suggested I try an organic diet, which essentially means if you can’t pull it out of the earth, don’t eat it. No artificial preservatives. No artificial sweeteners. No pesticides or growth hormones. “The 21st century may not be good for you,” he said. I’m rather fond of the 21st century, what with the civil rights and the Internet and the ability for women to vote and own property. But I get his point. “You can eat Amish chicken!” he said, which made me wonder where I would find any Amish people around here. I’ve seen hitching posts at the Meijer in South Bend, but that’s three hours away. I suppose I am supposed to shop only at Trader Joe’s now, even though it’s a bit of a drive.

So, I’ve been trying to do this organic diet thing since the weekend, but it is really, really, really, really hard. All the food at the grocery store has fake sweeteners or preservatives in it like my flavored yogurts, my beloved easy TV dinners, and my diet sodas. I’ve been drinking water. Water! And I bought….sugar. Real, organic, authentic sugar. Not Splenda. Not Aspartame. Sugar. It felt so wrong. It felt so dirty. All those calories packed into tiny white crystals in a bag. I may as well have been buying crack.

Then I discovered that Splenda actually is sweeter than sugar. It’s not just their marketing tag line. To get my coffee to taste as sweet as it does with two packets of Equal, I have to use three packets of sugar. So not only am I using more product, it’s costing me 45 calories. Ironically, I only started drinking coffee because it has essentially no calories. Now I’m hooked and it’s costing me the equivalent of one fat-free cheese stick for every cup.

I can’t chew sugar-free gum.

The only positive part of this experience is that the organic apples are sweet and delicious, much better than the wax-coated non-organic ones. But I have to pay extra for the deliciousness. And I don’t even know if any of this will work. Most likely my headache will persist and I will simply be slightly poorer and have eaten more calories. There was a study awhile ago that said artificial sweeteners make you gain weight because they’re not as filling. My only hope is that it turns out to be true and eating real sugar keeps me satiated. I’ve only been doing this a couple days, but I’m willing to accept it might be true. I haven’t been hungry right when I come home as I normally am. This might be because I’m getting real sugar in my coffee, so I’m more full from more calories. I dunno. We’ll see if it continues. It’s weird not eating right when I come home. I want to do it just out of habit.

I still have a headache though, and even if it didn’t, figuring out this organic diet would have given me one.

* Please do not comment on suggest remedies for my headache. I’ve heard it all, y’all and being the 40th person to tell me to see a chiropractor is not going to win you a warm spot in my heart. In fact, it will put you on my shit list.