Candied Citrus Peel

On Sunday, 26 April, the third Forage Oakland public event was held, which once again took place at Scott's Temescal home. Scott was kind enough to open his home to about 25 eager fruit mongers, and here is what the day's events were like:

1. An introduction of Forage Oakland, for those who don't know the project very well; guests arrive, and Jan, one of the guest bring along beautiful meyer lemons, which feature prominently in the day's events.

2. Chatting with the neighbors, etc.

3. Iso gives a demonstration on how to make limoncello using Jan's meyer lemons

lemons peels immersed in vodka, and whole, unpeeled lemons tied in preparation for their hanging just above the vodka.

4. Stacie gives a candied meyer lemon peel demonstration with said meyer lemons. Please visit this photo album for the illustrated, step-by-step recap.

5. Lemonade is make with the juice of the meyer lemons

6. We gather a crew and walk two houses east to harvest two lemon trees and an orange tree in the backyard

Separating the edible oranges from the compost

Good enough to eat

7. We return and say our goodbyes, with a few staying on to chat and see the candied peels to the drying rack.

And below we have the candied citrus peel recipe, as presented by Stacie on Sunday.

Meyer lemon: blanch 3 times total and simmer on the 3^rd until knife tender

Valencia/navel oranges,mandarins, and tangerines: blanch 3 times total and simmer on the 3^rd until knife tender

Grapefruit and blood oranges: blanch 4 times total and simmer on the 4^th until knife tender

Blanching: place citrus cups in a pot and cover with cold water (just enough to cover peel) and bring to a boil, strain water well and start process over again with cold water.

On the last blanch, bring to a boil, but do not strain the water, reduce the heat to simmer and continue to cook the cups until knife tender. Once knife tender, strain well and let cool.

Once cool, scoop the inner pith with a spoon and remove the membrane inside where the stem attaches to outside. Do not remove too much of the pith. The pith is what allows the candy peels to have a nice soft texture.

Cut peel into nice long strips.

Once you have your citrus strips ready to go, make your simple syrup.

Simple syrup is 2 parts sugar to 1 part water, put this all into the pot, stir, and heat making sure that the sugar is completely dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved, add peel. You should make enough so that the peel strips will be covered in the pot and can float around somewhat freely. If the pot is overcrowded, the peels will candy unevenly—in this case it is better to get a second pot. Bring the syrup to a simmer and do not stir—stirring may cause the sugar syrup to crystallize. The peel should stay at a simmer, do not let boil too rapidly.

Cook until just translucent. When the peel is nearly done, the syrup bubbles will be quite small “champagne bubbles”, once you’re there check for translucency and taste to see if peel is fully candied. Be sure not to overcook Meyer lemon, it caramelizes easily.

Once peels are translucent, you can lay them out to dry on cooling rack that has been placed on a cookie sheet covered in parchment or wax paper. Using a slotted spoon, lift peels out of the syrup letting as much syrup drain off as you can and spread them on the cooling rack – try to spread them out evenly in a single layer so they will dry evenly (use as many cooling racks as needed for this).

Dry peels overnight or until they feel slightly tacky to the touch. Coat them in granulated sugar (sifting off the excess) and serve. They can also be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one year.

The leftover syrup can also be saved and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Use to sweeten lemonade, cocktails, whatever...

Mobile Fruit Tree Cart

Good Morning All

Please do stay tuned for the Berkeley Art Museum Jam Exchange, which is to take place on 7 June, and is free and open to the public. The jam exchange is part of a larger event called Localize! Environmental Activism at the Grassroots. For those of you who have recently stumbled upon this project, I'd like to give an updated synopsis of it, so that all is clear.

Forage Oakland is a backyard barter network that gathers North Oaklanders around the shared community asset of surplus fruit. Anyone who lives in neighborhoods in North Oakland or South Berkeley is free to join the project and barter their excess fruit with their neighbors in North Oakland and South Berkeley. Exchanges are made with said neighbors, sometimes instantly, but more often, inter-seasonal exchanges are made, i.e. a harvest of hachiya persimmons in the late autumn for the promise of Santa Rosa plums come summer. In this way, too, one becomes increasingly aware of what fruits are in season when, and this knowledge will hopefully encourage one to really develop an understanding of how eating within the seasons can address a handful of issues in one go.

Forage Oakland is a barter project, which means fruit is never sold or harvested under any dubious circumstances. An apple is an apple, and an apple will be bartered for, possibly, a pear.

Ultimately, Forage Oakland should be a project that can sustain itself, having spent time establishing a foundation and a network of committed and loyal Oaklanders who posit themselves within this little movement, and who will be quite glad to gather a handful of harvesters and glean an orange tree, say. Said oranges can then be redistributed within the neighborhood. Eventually, Forage Oakland's membership will be open to fruit tree owners and non-fruit tree owners alike, with non-fruit tree owners being able to contribute in other ways. For example an offer of making Forage Oakland deliveries can result in an exchange of fresh, sun-warmed blackberries.

My hope is that Forage Oakland can become a project that situates itself in the neighborhood in a way that allows it to flourish even after my departure. No one will need to be at the helm, so to speak, rather a committed group of Oaklanders will ensure its survival.

Here are tentative ideas I've had regarding the development of Forage Oakland:

Fruit Tree Steward Project: a collaborative neighborhood fruit tree planting project involving students, residents of a given neighborhood and possibly funding from the City of Oakland to plant fruit trees.

Mobile Fruit Tree Cart: Following the gleaning for a prolific fruit tree, the mobile fruit tree cart will deliver fresh fruit to anyone in the neighborhood who'd like to receive it. There is small grant to make this project a reality.

***

A regular Forage Oakland public event will take place each month now, so please do stay tuned for May's event. The calendar is not up quite yet, but it should be up soon enough.

If you think this project is doing valuable work, please do donate. Thank you!

Citrus Soiree, Sunday 26 April

Sunday was a very lovely day, and I'll give a full briefing of it later. For now, suffice to say that activities included the harvesting of two lemon trees; harvesting an orange tree; making lemonade with meyer lemons brought by Jan; a limoncello demo by Iso; and a candied meyer lemon demonstration by Stacie. Fresh citrus and preserved citrus was also brought along to swap.

Here are several photos and later today I will post the candied peel recipe and more information about Sunday and future events.

Jasmine blossoms + lavender

Jasmine blossom and lavender harvesting yesterday at the house of Sam and Oliver (photo: Oliver Monday).

Last week, I sent an announcement to the Forage Oakland mailing list detailing upcoming events. Here are a couple of excerpts, in addition to the PlaySpace networking/ opening party Friday evening:

Seeking Fruit Delivery Cyclists

Having a year under my belt, a few things are clear to me now, one of which is the importance of having regularly scheduled harvest and delivery days. I'd like to experiment with Tuesdays and Sundays as spring harvest days and Wednesday and Thursday as spring delivery days. While it's best to keep to these days, please do let me know if these days don't agree with your schedule so that we might make other arrangements.

I am seeking a small crew of cyclists to make deliveries in and around the North Oakland/ South Berkeley neighborhood at most twice a week. This would be a six month commitment-- great fun, and very satisfying. It would basically entail you meeting me or a Forage Oakland volunteer who would hand off a small brown paper bag package (or two) full of neighborhood fruit. A delivery address will be given, and you can expect to bike to the house in no more than twenty minutes. Fruit deliveries can usually be left on the front doorstep unless specific directions are given otherwise. Once you have left the fruit, you'll contact me to let me know the delivery has been made.

It promises to be a lovely way to meet your neighbors, enjoy the spring time weather, and learn a new geography of how fruit travels from one hand to the next, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've played a part in it all. If this appeals to you, please email me. If you've previously emailed me expressing interest in becoming a Forage Oakland harvester, this might be a good alternative. Assembling a harvesting crew proved to have legal impediments (i.e. purchasing accident insurance, for example) that might be more costly than it's worth. You are encouraged and welcome to make the entire experience quite interactive, i.e. record the fruit harvest; processing; packaging; cycling to the delivery home; and the delivery itself. Or, photos could be taken as well. Or a hand drawn map of the cycled route could be included. It is up to you.

And also

There has been quite a bit of interest in mapping the public and private fruit trees in Berkeley and Oakland, and at this point, we are in danger of reinventing the wheel. Several projects are mapping overlapping neighborhoods, and rather than waste time and resources, why not collaborate? I propose that we start a wiki for anyone who is actively mapping fruit tree locations in East Bay neighborhoods. While it seems next to impossible to ever actually coordinate schedules to meet in person, this great Internet has made it entirely possible that we can accomplish a fair amount of useful work online, and then meet periodically to celebrate and share our work with one another. If you are interested in being part of an East Bay fruit tree mapper wiki, email me. Let us collaborate and create a tool that can be useful to many. Together we can decide what form it can take and what sort of information will be disseminated.

Please email me directly if either of these propositions sound appealing: forageoakland@gmail.com.

Citrus Soiree, 26 April

Please mark your calendars on 26 April between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm for a Forage Oakland Citrus soiree that will include the following:

1) Marmalade/jam/ syrup exchange (for those of you who missed the first event, or who'd just like to replenish your supply)
2) Citrus harvest party (in which several prolific neighborhood citrus trees will be harvested. The fruit will be brought back to the host's house, processed and redistributed to everyone in attendance)
3) 'Preserved Lemon' demo
4) Copies of various citrus themed recipes for all attendees to take home
5) Limoncello how-to

The event will once again take place at Scott's lovely home, located at 411 51st St., Temescal, North Oakland. It'll be an afternoon of meeting the North Oakland/ South Berkeley neighbors (though this event is open to anyone, whether or not you live within the Forage Oakland radius); exchanging recipes; enjoying the early spring weather; trying your hand at using a fruit picker; and really just an excuse for Sunday afternoon revelry. If you are interested in attending, please do RSVP so that I might let our generous host know how many to expect. You can call (510) 289-7557 and leave a voice message, or better yet, email forageoakland@gmail.com. Bring your children, too!

Grapefruits Are In

Chabot Street grapefruit.

And again.

On Wednesday, after being away for a week, I returned to find Monica at the front door with a large bag of Chabot Street grapefruit in hand. Thanks to Monica, there are grapefruit to share. If you'd like to sample grapefruit, please send an email to forageoakland@gmail.com