Food, Glorious Food

Front Yard mom Sara Hinkley shares the culinary joys of the season, and a recipe for a delicious CCC-inspired cranberry relish.

For the past several weeks, the Front Yarders have been busy peeling, mixing, measuring, grinding, cutting, baking and eating. They made applesauce (first making "apple yoyos"), pumpkin pancakes, cornmeal pancakes, cornbread (for the all-school feast) and cranberry relish (which every Front Yarder got to take home for Thanksgiving weekend).

This is the season for eating: for celebrating the last big harvest before winter, for cherishing the foods associated with early Americans (pumpkin, cranberry, corn, sweet potatoes, nuts), for celebrating our own cultural traditions, and filling up on warm, spiced, sweet foods for the long winter. As Allyssa reminded some of us on Friday, food is a wonderful way for children to learn about each other's cultures and backgrounds. The way to each others' hearts may just be through our stomachs!

Recipes for everything but the relish are on the wiki. Here's my adaptation of Allyssa's recipe for relish (almost the same as my mom's, who grew up on Cape Cod, where cranberries are taken very seriously.)

Cranberry Relish
1 bag cranberries (washed)
1 orange (cut into wedges, skin left on but seeds removed)
1 apple (cored)
juice of about 1/2 lemon
cinnamon (optional)
small fistful dried cherries
sugar to taste

Blend in a food processor (or hand-grinder, pictured above) and eat! I've found it does best if you let it sit to let the sugar dissolve before refrigerating. And I try to stop the food processor before it turns into mush.

-- Sara Hinkley, Ethan (FY)