The Local Food Report

It's been a slow squid season this year, so why not use all of what you catch? This week on The Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay learns about the many culinary uses of squid ink, from risottos to martinis.

Get detailed instructions (with photos) for cleaning squid, and a recipe for Risotto Nero alla Fiorentino on Elspeth's blog, Diary of a Locavore.

Local Food Report audio posted above.

Most cooks have heard of broccoli rabe. But what about other rabe varieties? This week on The Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay talks with growers at the Orleans Farmers' Market about this spring delicacy from the Brassica family. 

Watercress was introduced to North America hundreds of years ago by European settlers. This week on the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay goes foraging for the edible aquatic green in the Herring River in Wellfleet.

Most people think of stinging nettles as an obnoxious—and painful—weed. But this week on the Local Food Report, Falmouth resident Fiamma Straneo takes Elspeth foraging for stinging nettles and remembers nettle recipes from her childhood in Italy. 

Under a canopy of tall hardwoods in Truro, there grows a small forest of Cinnamon ferns. On the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay harvests these edible local greens - a springtime ritual - with forager Charlie Grimm.

Find out more and get Charlie Grimm's recipe for preparing Cinnamon ferns.

Audio posted above.

This episode of the Local Food Report is a rebroadcast of one that originally aired on May 19, 2011.

Temperature is important, and so is humidity, when incubating eggs. On the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay speaks with Susan Knieriem of Miss Scarlett's Blue Ribbon Farm in Yarmouthport about raising chickens from egg to bird. Susan does it using an old-fashioned incubator—it looks like an old wooden icebox, and it holds about 100 eggs. She collects the fertile ones—which is most of them since she's got roosters—and dates them and lays them on the trays. After 21 days: peep. Peep. PEEP. PEEP! Babies.

Spelt is an ancient grain—a hybrid of regular bread wheat and another wheat variety called farro or emmer. On the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay talks with Ed Miller of Wellfleet about a slow-rise spelt bread made with locally grown grain. 

Read more on Elspeth's blog, Diary of a Locavore.  

You don't often see cusk in local fish markets. On the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay learns about this unusual species of groundfish. She delves into where it lives, how it's caught, and why despite a lack of demand, cusk populations are still in decline.

Read more on Elspeth's blog, Diary of a Locavore. 

It's that time of year: still cold, but avid gardeners are itching to get outside. On the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay asks Truro farmers Drake Cook and Tessa Gifford what we can do to get started. First on the list? Prepare your soil...

Read more on Elspeth's blog, Diary of a Locavore.

Farm-to-table restaurants are incredibly popular right now. On The Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay talks with farmers and chefs at the Chatham Bars Inn resort, which recently bought a 7.7 acre farm. Will a large scale farm-to-table model work here, where soil is sandy and land prices are high?

For more information, check out Elspeth's blog, Diary of A Locavore.