Food and Charity : On-the-Farm Training

During the holiday season, the Farm Store, an organic food market and cafe in Culver City, sells living Christmas trees, poinsettias, bouquets of fragrant leaves and Christmas cards. The staff puts together gift baskets of healthy foods, helps cater parties, roasts holiday turkeys. And they’ll make a turkey sandwich any day. Piled high with sprouts, super-sweet grated carrots, tomato, onion and lettuce, the sandwiches--you choose either turkey salad or turkey slices with avocado--rank among the best in town. Dijon mustard adds a tangy note, and you can specify egg-less mayonnaise. The birds are roasted on the premises all year round.

But this is not just a nice place to shop.

The Farm Store is both a vocational training site and fund-raiser for ERAS Center (Educational Resources and Services), an organization that assists children at risk from poverty and abuse, medical and emotional difficulties, learning and developmental disabilities. Headquartered near the store in Culver City, ERAS operates a day school and two group homes and provides camp and outreach programs. The goal is to prepare its young clients for successful mainstream lives.

At the Farm Store, opened in 1992, ERAS students work one of two daily shifts, rotating through all the jobs. Some of the students even designed the Christmas cards on sale. In the small, open kitchen, instructors, a chef and a manager mingle with the students.

*

The variety of food that comes out of this limited space is amazing. There are juices, fruit smoothies and shakes (fruit, nonfat frozen yogurt and nonfat milk). Sandwiches include a vegetable burger and a new “un-tuna” sandwich based on seitan (wheat gluten). Soups can be anything from black bean and curried squash to turkey with wild rice. Vegetable lasagna was a special the other day, and there’s always a Mexican plate that includes chili, brown rice, avocado, salsa and a whole-wheat tortilla. The salad bar has up to 30 options. Baked goods are super-healthy; for instance, there’s a newly introduced non-dairy, non-wheat, no-sugar and no-egg banana-nut muffin topped with a strawberry.

The food, is of course, mostly vegetarian, sugar- and fat-free. But chef Deborah West and ERAS executive director Barbara Cull are considering such holiday specials as gingerbread, persimmon cookies, fudge and pumpkin pies. Cull, who started ERAS in 1980, is contributing an English recipe for steamed cranberry pudding, handed down from her husband’s family.

Located in a busy commercial strip of Sepulveda Boulevard, the Farm Store is designed to look like a country stand. Bales of straw line the front, where most people eat. And some of the produce comes directly from farmers. Another four counter seats are inside, next to the salad bar in the midst of shelves of groceries.

Cull, who founded the store, wants people to come there not just to support a good cause but because the food is excellent. This Christmas, however, the Farm Store needs gifts as well as customers. At the top of the wish list are a pizza oven to help fill a major gap in the menu and warmers to make the outdoor eating area cozy during winter.

* The Farm Store, 4447 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, (310) 572-1223. Open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

*

A rich butter cream sauce is traditional with this pudding and can also be served over gingerbread squares and other desserts. To keep the recipe in line with The Farm Store philosophy, Cull suggests using unsulfured molasses and whole-wheat flour in the pudding. Soy milk can replace half and half in the sauce, but Cull does not recommend substitutes for butter. A fat-free custard sauce made with egg substitute could be poured over the pudding instead.

BARBARA CULL’S CRANBERRY HOLIDAY PUDDING

1 (12-ounce) bag cranberries

3/4 cup golden or dark raisins

2 1/4 cups sifted flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

3/4 cup light or dark molasses

1/2 cup hot water

Butter Cream Sauce

Rinse cranberries and raisins, then drain and place in mixing bowl.

Combine flour and baking soda and sift over fruit. Add molasses and water and stir until batter is smooth.

Grease and lightly coat with sugar 2 (12- or 13-ounce) coffee cans. Turn batter into cans. Cover with foil and place on trivet in deep kettle. Add enough boiling water to come half way up sides. Cover kettle and steam puddings 1 hour 15 minutes, or until wood pick inserted in center comes out clean. Turn out onto racks to cool. Outside of pudding will be moist from sugar.

To serve, slice and top with Butter Cream Sauce. Makes about 12 servings.

*

Butter Cream Sauce

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup half and half

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 to 3 tablespoons rum, optional

Dash nutmeg, optional

Combine sugar, butter, half and half and vanilla in saucepan and heat until boiling. Add rum and nutmeg just before serving. Serve hot over puddings, gingerbread or other desserts. Makes about 1 1/2 cups.