It is the dead of winter but we are looking forward to spring and have started our planning for year 4 of the Harvard Farmers Market.  Would you like to help us out? We can really use some extra hands.   We have lots of jobs for all kinds of volunteers.  Please email us or leave a note in the comments if you would like to get more involved.

Want to make them at home?   Recipes below are provided by Simple Balance, www.aboutsimplebalance.com.

Kudos to Kelly for her great demonstration of this healthful dish and for her ongoing support of the Market!

Our lovely friend Erin at Fresh 365 stopped by the market last week to scope out our goodies and gather inspiration for some new recipes.  As you know,  it is apple season so she has created yet another seasonally inspired delicious dish with Harvard’s favorite fruit.

Apple, Cheddar & Thyme Galette
serves 4 as an appetizer

1 puff pastry sheet, rolled thin
1 c and 1 T shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
2 t fresh thyme leaves, plus additional for garnish
3 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4″ slices
juice of 1 lemon
2 T honey
1/2 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400F. Place pastry on a non-stick baking sheet, and trim edges to make a circle. In a small bowl, mix together 1 c Cheddar, salt, pepper and thyme. Sprinkle pastry with cheese, leaving a 1″ border on all sides. In a large bowl, combine apple slices, lemon juice, honey and cinnamon. Mix well. Arrange apples on pastry, on top of Cheddar. Fold edges of pastry toward center, pressing gently to seal (dough will only partially cover apples). Sprinkle with 1 T Cheddar and garnish with thyme. Transfer baking sheet to oven, and bake for 30 minutes, pressing pastry sides in every 10 minutes, if needed, until crust is golden brown.

At lunch today, a friend who lived in Italy for several years shared a great story…

Parmigiano-romano cheese takes loads of hard work and two full years to mature. While the cheese wheels sit in giant vaults awaiting their day of infamy, Italian cheesemakers must still feed their cattle, pay wages, mortgages, taxes and the like. So what’s a poor cheesemaker to do for two years while his cheese ages?

The Italian banks have a solution ~ The cash-for-cheese loan scheme. Here’s how it works: The farmers borrow money from the banks to get them through the two-year wait period, and the wheels of cheese become the collateral.  The loans are cheap, and it allows farmers to keep their businesses moving forward while their cheeses harden.  The banks, once the loan is given, take over care of the cheese wheels, turning them once or twice a week and checking for any gone soft.   The BBC reports the vault of one bank in Northern Italy has 300,000 wheels of cheese as collateral worth over 2 million dollars!

This ‘one-way’ bartering system seems to work for everyone, and most importantly helps to sustain local agriculture. The lesson: when it comes to helping keep things local, think outside of the cheese-box.