Gourmet Global

Several months ago I advocated Urban Organic as a wonderful resource for organic produce which is delivered to your doorstep either weekly or bi-weekly. I am going to have to retract my endorsement, due to their lack of customer service.

Starting with delivery, they change the day of delivery at times without notice. So if you are not home on the new date of delivery, the box will sit on your doorstep until the next day, causing some of the products to lose quality - lettuce gets very limp after sitting out in a box all night. Which leads to next problem - the delivery itself.

When you sign up for the service, you are asked if you need an afternoon or an evening delivery. Your request is not honored - so I don’t know why they bother. My box would repeatedly arrive before I am home and sometimes when I happened to be home early, my box would usually be delivered around 3. It is just left on my doorstep or sometimes in the lobby of my building. There were even times when I was home and they did not bother to ring the doorbell. I was discussing this with a neighbor of mine in my building and she would repeatedly find the box outside her door, when she had been home the entire day. We live in a decent neighborhood with decent neighbors - but anybody could come and pick up the box of fresh, organic produce!

I have sent email requesting substitutions for items in my box that I do not like. My requests were not honored and since getting a live person on the phone is virtually impossible, after several attempts, there is no way to verify they receive your request.

The latest problem which is causing me to write this blog entry - I decided to stop service since I have recently joined the Food Coop where I have a variety of organic products at a convenient location. I called and left a message - a live person NEVER answers the phone. You are not given the option to wait to speak to someone. You leave a message and usually do not receive a return call until the next day. I was at a trade show that day at a location without cellphone coverage, therefore, I did not receive the message until it was after office hours. The message said they did not understand if I just wanted to next delivery canceled or if I wanted to permanently cancel. Instead of canceling the next delivery until they received a confirmation from me, they disregarded my message and made the delivery, causing me to have a ridiculous amount of produce because I had gone shopping at the Coop, thinking I would NOT be receiving a delivery.

Although it is a great service for those where fresh produce is not readily available, their lack of customer service may be worth you going out of your way to do your shopping - so that your box does not get stolen off of your doorstep!!

OK - enough venting - I promise my next blog will be back to the normal cheerful mode!!

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mireille@globaltastesinc.com
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I recently joined my local Food Coop - the Park Slope Food Coop which is the largest in the country, in existence for more than 30 years. 100% member supported - the members work at the coop. With the decrease in paid labor, the coop is able to keep the prices very low - cheaper than your local supermarket and the added bonus of mostly organic products.

With the new year, many of us have made the resolution to eat better and lose weight in 2009. Shopping at the food coop is a great aid in accomplishing this by having a very large selection of organic products and especially fruits and vegetables - things like jicama, celery root, fresh tumeric and curry leaves just to mention a few.

Just because you live alone, that is no excuse not to make yourself wonderful, healthful meals that you enjoy. You do not have to be like the Diane Lane character in Must Love Dogs, eating a single chicken breast, standing up in your kitchen alone, EVERY NIGHT.

Make interesting meals for yourself and you will enjoy eating healthy meals, instead of pizza and Chinese food. This was my dinner tonight - just an idea to get you started to making delicious meals for yourself, even if you are single!!

The perimeter of the place is arranged with slices of fresh buffalo mozarella, then a dollop of fig spread and topped with slices of fresh tomato. A sprinkling of any spice blend you like and then freshly chopped tarragon (you can use any herb you like).
In the middle of the plate is a simple vegetable salad - this is what I used - but you can use any vegetables you like. This recipe serves about 4.:
1 bunch asparagus, boiled until tender but still crisp and then chopped into bite size pieces
1 small can of kernel corn
1 tomatillo, thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
10 grape tomatoes, halved
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoons of unsalted sunflower seeds
2 tablespoon dried currants
Dress the salad simply with about 2 teaspoons of olive oil and the juice of 1 lime

Place a little of this salad in the middle of the plate and top with grilled chicken sausage (I used Applegate Farms organic Fire Roasted Pepper sausages made of chicken and turkey).

If you like, you can eat this with a few water crackers.

This is a wonderful low fat meal to make you enjoy your, healthy dinner!!

All the ingredients were from the Park Slope Food Coop - a coop I highly recommend if you live in the NY area!

Organic Produce is something we would all love to have in our kitchen at all times, but depending on where you live it can be very inconvenient to come by. You might have to take a train just for some fresh fruits and vegetables. Since it so far, you would like to be able to buy a lot, but you can’t because you can only carry but so much. Also, since it is produce the shelf life is not very long.

I have the answer for all of you who have been in this predicament and the answer is Urban Organic. Urban Organic is a great company with a wonderful concept. Every week or bi-weekly as you prefer, you will get a box of organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your home. It will be a variety of in season produce. Depending on which size box you order, the price varies from $24.99 to $44.99. It is an adaptable service - You can have a list of certain items you are never to receive, for example I never receive kale because I HATE it. The weekly listed is posted online, so you can also weekly change items for a fee.

I just received my new box on Thursday and received lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, yellow squash, canteloupe, pears, peaches, nectarines, bananas, carrots, plums, corn and red chard. I did not get the kale that was also on this week’s list.

So log on to their website and check out this great service for convenience and a great way to stay healthy!!

Being from the Northeast, rhubarb (photo on right) is not a common vegetable for me. You rarely, if ever, have rhubarb anything in NYC restaurants. From watching television shows and reading books that take place in the South and other parts of the country where rhubarb is eaten on a regular basis, I had a curiosity for this vegetable used in dessert pies. Since I could not find a restaurant that served rhubarb pie, I decided I had to make it myself so off I went on an Internet search for rhubarb pie recipes. And all of the recipes also included strawberries. I could not find a single recipe that had only rhubarb and I could not figure out why, but I said oh well, let me just try it this way and see how it tastes.

Oh my gosh, once I cooked the rhubarb, I realized why the strawberries and ton of sugar needed to be added. This is the the most tart vegetable in the American diet. The only thing that compares to it is karela (see photo on left), an Indian vegetable my mom has been trying to force me to eat since I was a child. Rhubarb is so bitter that it cannot be eaten without a large amount of sugar added. Anyway, I tried the rhubarb strawberry pie and it was so delicious it became one of my favorite pies. Whenever the Amish people come to the Farmers Markets I always buy one, since I don’t always have time to make it.

Rhubarb is not something that you can usually find at your local supermarket - you have to go to one of the gourmet markets to get it - Fairway, Whole Foods or Manhattan Fruit Exchange in Chelsea Market are good places in the city to find it. Of course, it is also available at the Union Square Farmers Market when it is in season. Instead of a pie, here is another way to use rhubarb. - please experiment with this unusual ingredient and let me know what you think of this recipe! In addition to rhubarb, cardamom is used in this recipe. Cardamom is the most common sweet spice used in Indian and Scandinavian cuisine. It is the equivalent of cinnamon, for American cuisine. It is very strong - one of those things you either love or hate - like cilantro!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp with Cardamom and Nutmeg
Serves 6
Ingredients:
Topping
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup sliced almonds
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Filling
5 cups 1/2-inch thick slices fresh rhubarb (approximately 2 pounds)
2 cups halved strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Directions:
Mix first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl. Add butter; rub in with fingertips until moist clumps form.
For filling, preheat oven to 375 F. Butter a square baking dish. In a large bowl, combine all filling ingredients and stir to combine. Let stand about 15 minutes.
Spread filling in baking dish, Sprinkle topping over the top of filling. Bake until topping is golden brown and crisp and filling is bubbling around the edges, about 45 minutes.
Serve warm with whipped cream of vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!!!