A farmer’s story
and a recipe for a wonderful celeriac and parsnip soup to warm your belly
Winter vegetables are never going to win Mother Nature’s beauty contest.
Like the weather outside, they’re gnarly and brown and difficult. Capricious frost and rain can be their friends or enemies, the harbingers of the snow that will put an end to the growing season. Harvesting them before that happens is the work of luck and timing, often resulting in long hours of labour.
It’s easy to forget that at the grocery store in January. After all, there are still plenty of bright and shiny fruits and vegetables to be had. California berries, Mexican tomatoes, South African citrus, Peruvian asparagus. But if you’re lucky enough to have a year-round farmers’ market close by, as we are, you can’t help but pay attention to the natural cycles of the seasons.
It’s made all the more real and personal through the relationships we’ve developed with the farmers we’ve met. Now, every snowfall or bout of freezing rain in Toronto takes on added meaning when we hear about the adverse effects of the weather during our weekly shop. A string of blazing hot days might be welcome in the city, disastrous on the farm. As with everything, perspective is essential to understanding.
Dishing the dirt
Ayse Akoner and Jens Eller, from Marvellous Edibles, are two of the farmers we’ve gotten to know over the years. Restauranteurs who bought a century-old farm in the Niagara Escarpment 17 years ago, the couple never planned to be full time farmers. As they describe it on their website, their food obsession fuelled their dreams of “growing the most delicious and beautiful organic produce, rearing the best treated livestock while doing “no harm” to the environment.”
Ayse and Jens took that obsession and created a wonderful business, one that is focused on every aspect of the food chain, from seed to table. On any given Saturday at the Marvellous Edibles stand, one might find a wide array of seasonally driven produce, along with an assortment of homemade preserves, fruit and meat pies, quiche, pork liver pate, empanadas, hummus, sauerkraut, beef stock and leaf lard. Come Christmas, stollen and fruitcake make an appearance.
But perhaps the best part of all are Ayse’s wonderful weekly newsletters. Chatty and personal, the newsletters provide a snapshot of life on the farm, and previews what we’ll find at the market on Saturday. There’s the all-important weather report. We get a glimpse of the farm’s planning cycles, dreams of spring flowers, new crops, seeds being ordered and what’s cooking in the kitchen. Chewy the dog might make an appearance, and reminisces about life in Turkey too.
“It has been miserable up here the last 4 days. It was wet and cold, hovering around 2-4 degrees and constantly raining. And finally, last night the rain changed into wet snow…Of course when it gets so miserable for days and days, it is very hard to work outside. We still have apples, carrots, onions, cabbages, beets, daikon, turnips to pick and put away. The carrots are showing signs of the wet weather; there are a lot of them with soft, rotten tips. Not sure about the last few onions yet.”
“I just ordered next year's strawberry plants, 10000 of them! These bareroot, frigo plants will arrive in May, they will be planted and hopefully brought up to large healthy plants that we do not allow to flower. So these plants I just ordered will be bearing berries in 2024.”
“We will plant more baby salad leaves in a second greenhouse next week. They will grow very slowly and be ready sometime in mid March. This week we planted a few thousand flower bulbs; tulips, Irises and nasturtiums. Some in a greenhouse and some in the garden. I am hoping to have an earlier flower offering at the markets.”
Jens was busy and made a wonderful chicken pot pie filling which I will convert into pies tomorrow! In addition, I am making apple, pear plum and pumpkin pies. I am planning to make apricot galettes and 5 different kinds of empanadas.
It’s my favourite read of the week, one I’ll miss in the long month ahead as Ayse and Jens take much-deserved time off, she to go to Turkey and he to do some renovations on the farm. While I’ll miss them for the next few Saturdays, I’ll be all the more grateful when they reappear, baby salad in hand. (To sign up for Ayse’s newsletters, click here; she’ll be resuming them in March).
Creamy celeriac, parsnip and potato soup
serves 6-8
Don’t be lured and seduced by wooden winter tomatoes or anemic asparagus. Pick up that gnarly celeriac, peel the parsnips and potatoes, or make use of any other root vegetables you have rattling around your bin, and make your farmer happy. The rewards of this in-season winter treat, adapted from Melissa Clark, are well worth the effort. Richard is the soup maker in the family and this has become his new favourite.
Ingredients
⅓ cup unsalted butter
3 leeks (white and light green part only), sliced and rinsed
3 celery stalks, diced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Handful of thyme branches
2 bay leaves
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
4 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 large celeriac, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
8 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
Juice of ½ lemon, more for serving
Extra-virgin olive oil
Flaky sea salt
Crushed Aleppo, Urfa or other chile flakes, optional
Melt butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Stir in onion and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in garlic, thyme and bay leaves; cook 1 minute more. Add root vegetables, 8 cups stock, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender, 30 to 40 minutes.
Remove and discard thyme branches and bay leaves. Using an immersion blender, purée soup until smooth. (Alternatively, you can purée the soup in batches in a blender or food processor.) If the soup is too thick, add a little water. Season with lemon juice; taste and adjust for more more salt or pepper as desired.
To serve, ladle soup into bowls and top with a drizzle of olive oil, a few drops of lemon juice, flaky salt and Aleppo pepper.