An urban agrarian

2011-09-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

My dear Austin,

You know me well. I was at Ayers Creek Farm today. For the last day of September and the eighth day of Autumn, it was beautiful. And, the temperature your father calls “perfect”. I arrived at what I consider late, 11:10 am. I drove too quickly up the drive and past the barn kicking dust into the air. First, I heard Tito’s high pitched bark holler “slow down!”. Then I saw Anthony’s glare at my speed, until he recognized the van. I slowed, stopped and opened the door for Tito. He jumped in under my legs and snaked around and onto my lap and covered my face in licks that would have made an anchovy at home.

Carol had laid a string of yellow crates in the tomato rows. A staged field induces more focused work than not. I could tell Carol was ready to work more and talk less today. I thoroughly bent her ear the previous week. We talked about life, death, babies, and lilacs. That happens when I have been away from the farm. Today, we accomplished the same amount of work in half the amount of time. One hour in the tomato rows and ten crates of tomatoes. Four Striped German, five Astiana and one of mixed seconds. The mixed seconds are on the dining room table. They’ll be in the winter stews when you get home.

Lunch was a ceci and shrimp stew. Bread and cheese. Tomatoes. And fresh black-eyed peas. I found a container of them in the fridge while making lunch and added them to the table. The last time I had fresh black-eyed peas was when I visited Gran in Birmingham, after Grandad died, before we moved her out here.

On the southwest side of Birmingham there is an old farmers market and produce exchange. Most of the buildings are empty save one. The one was filled with fresh pressed sorghum, crowder peas, black-eyed peas, field peas, watermelons, real peaches. Sweet potatoes, green peanuts, pecans and okra. And one hundred percent cane syrup. My love for your dad is deep enough that cases of Cane Patch sit in the basement. But the truth is, fresh, one hundred percent cane syrup is a most complex, beautiful and superior syrup.

After lunch we picked tomatillos. It is a job best done on an empty stomach or by a cadre of pre-toddlers crawling through the dense thickets of self sowing small tomatillos. The little fruits are green and purple and wrapped in papery husks. They smell like citrus and honey. More often than not the ones you’ll find in the stores and markets are harvested too soon. Imagine, growing up eating green, hot house ripened tomatoes and not knowing the taste of one, ripened by the summer light, until you are an adult. It seems every year I taste things for the first time. Maybe the language in my mouth has a more expansive vocabulary and the grammar is more complete.

The shelling beans are being picked and the bean room hosts stacks of dutch bullet, black turtle, black basque, zolfino, and the most perfect borlotto. Anthony and Carol are very satisfied with the borlottos this year. The yield is high, the conformation is perfect. The color stunning. Some are ivory with red speckles and some are burgundy with ivory speckles. They look like the eggs of little bean birds. And the sound of them would be a joy to watch on your face. Your ears hear things that are lost on mine. Anthony ran his hands through the collections and said “you can hear how much moisture that has left the seed” and I wished your ears could hear what I could hear only around the edges.

Kibbeh

2011-07-23T11:09:00.001-07:00

Anthony Boutard writes ......

Yesterday, we prepared the middle eastern dish kibbeh using frikeh. In its traditional form, raw lamb is mashed with bulgar wheat in a mortar with parsley, onion and mint. The mixture is dressed and served raw as a tartar. Unfortunately, the raw version is seldom served in restaurants, and it is more roasted with addition of spices. In our version, we ran a half pound of lamb through a meat grinder and then mixed it in with the herbs and frikeh. We dressed it with olive oil and lemon juice, and served it with salad and Siljans, the round rye crisp bread. Linda brought a pan of dolmas, stuffed grape leaves to complete the feast.

Grape Leaves stuffed with Lamb and Fenugreek

2011-07-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Purslane

2011-07-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

In From the Cold

2011-07-15T16:39:00.000-07:00

Frikeh harvest began in earnest this week at Ayers Creek Farm. Anthony and Carol Boutard farm with precision, well, actually a precision that is directed by the grand mother, Nature, herself.

The frumento is right now; the kernels are green, milky and still simple in their sugar structures. In a bit, the kernel flesh will begin to convert to complex carbohydrate chains. Exactly this week, 2011, between rains, is the time to arrest the conversion. It is an especially good year. The crop wintered over well and the seed heads are fully developed. No rust has invaded the stalks and the Oregon House Bill 2336 passed successfully. This year, frikeh legitimately joins other small farm products in the marketplace. Read Anthony's description of frikeh and the bill on Good Stuff NW.

Frikeh is a traditional food in both the cultural and agricultural sense. Whether harvesting or cooking, working with frikeh is a seasonal pleasure. It tastes as good as Dungeness crab in December, strawberries in June, chickories in Winter. Foods are simply their best when they are eaten in season and harvested and handled right.

Today frikeh landed on the lunch table in two ways. First, a cold soup made with buttermilk, followed by a salad, tabbouleh style (nix the mint), with home canned albacore in tomato sauce and chili flakes. The soup was all about the fields in July 2011, the year spring stalled out. Fresh dill, spring onions, fresh cilantro and purslane. The tomatoes and cucumbers were from vendors at the market with jumper cables on the season.

And so, despite hand wringing over odd weather patterns and fickle fields, the plants follow their order and we tag along. Really.

A Trinity of Christmas Tamales & Dungeness Crab

2010-12-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

For as long as I can remember, my family has had a love affair with Dungeness Crab. In summertime, we crab the bay and in the winter I buy live crab via the commercial fleets. Very fresh Dungeness Crab for Christmas Eve dinner. It is one of the simplest meals for one of the busiest days of the year.

In late November and early December, I watch the reports on the fishery. I watch the price negotiations, thinking less about what I'll pay and more about the price the crabbers will get. And I watch the weather. Storms can blow a wreck on the first weeks of the season.

This year the price opened at 1.65/pound and 167.5 after December 12 for the commercial fleets. This is lower than last year with expectations for a high yield. Late this year, the Oregon Dungeness Crab Fishery joined the Oregon Pink Shrimp as a sustainable fishery designated by the Marine Stewardship Council. It is a strong and model fishery; only male crabs of 6 and 1/4 inches across the carapace (5 and 3/4 for sport fishing) are taken. Female and smaller crabs are released live, ensuring future populations. Equipment is single pots on sandy floors and thus, soft on the environment. At least in the spectrum of large scale production, pretty simple. I wonder whether livestock husbandry and production were to follow such simple, straightforward guidelines the natural world imposes on harvests, we, collectively, would pay more and eat less?

A day or two before Christmas Eve, I scatter my son's world with the words "crab", "steamy windows" "crab guts" and "summer, dock smells". I try to give him fair warning of the impending preparations with the hope that in the long run, his memory of Christmas Eve will be fond of crab. He has a sensitive nose and palate and many strong smells coming out of the kitchen have challenged him, always. I am grateful for his tolerance because he understands the importance of setting himself aside for others. As we all should.

This year the table at my parents house will be full. Full enough to warrant another table in the living room to catch the overflow. It's late on Christmas Eve morning and the day is melting away. My daughter, Austin, and I rush out to buy crab from one of the Asian markets in town. This year we get 15 large hard bodied feisty male crabs in three paper bags. The price works well; just under 100 dollars. Last year a dozen crab cost about 125 dollars. While there, I watch an entire tank of the largest crab get marked "出售". Over thirty crab "sold", to be cooked Christmas morning for the buyer. We are nothing in comparison.

The relatively small scale production in my kitchen takes close to three hours. Two pots, that hold 2-3 crabs each; boil, time, cook, cool, clean, chill. Repeat. While I cook, I think about the guests from the past and I long for them to return. Some, I am glad, have disappeared. This year, a few extra crabs are ear-marked for a new family and an expecting one. The babies bring me renewed hope. A dinner is the least I can do in return for such grace in the world.

We also had tamales. It has been awhile since I made tamales for the holidays. Anthony and Carol Boutard's new crop of corn is always an inspiration and the idea of fresh crab and earthy tamale was irresistible. As well, my friend, Mary Kay, brought me a jar of freshly rendered lard (and a couple of jars of leaf lard too). I made hominy out of Roy's Calais Flint corn from Ayers Creek Farm. The lard whipped up nicely and willingly accepted the ground corn.We, my sister Nancy, Austin, and my niece Bella, made three kinds of tamales; pumpkin with bean filling, turkey and raisin and traditional pork with chili. We talked, laughed, and struggled as our fingers tried to figure out the movements, proportions, and tensions of making the little bundles. Privately, I imagined my brother's face from across the table as he tastes the first tamale after a bite of crab.

It wasn't until New Years Eve that he told me the plate of 50 tamales disappeared out from under his reach. Cracking crab, he looked up and saw a platter full. "Later". Looking up, the platter was half empty. "In a minute, gotta get this claw open". Looking up, three left. "Better get one". Looking up. Gone.

By January 2nd, I am saturated with food, drink, friends and leisure time. For the first time in years, I am not burned emotionally or physically as the holidays end. It takes a lot of time to prepare the meals between December 24th and January 1st. Now, I know, feeding my friends and family is how I make love to them.

Amish Butter and Roy's Calais Flint kernels

2010-12-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

Corn.

Amish Butter. Roy's Calais Flint Yellow. Red. Pearl White.

Dried. Nixtamalized.

Pop. Grind. Blossom. Boil.

Polenta. Mush. Bread.

Hominy. Masa. Grits.

The December sun is low on the horizon. The corn is on the stove.

Hush Puppy.

Red Herring

2010-11-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

Lunch yesterday was excellent. I could leave it at that. But I won't. The sun was out today and I have a glass of bourbon at the ready.

We ate a Basque Ranch center cut, bone-in, pork loin. Last week, Carol handed it to me and said "here, take this home and cook it for lunch next Friday". I became familiar with Basque Ranch when Pastaworks started carrying their products. The ranch brings in a number of protein products. The owner delivers fresh hook and line caught Chinook when the season is open. Basque Ranch is earning a reputation for a new American breed of cattle, the Red Cascade. They feed their animals the Triticale they grow. But lunch was pig.

The menu wasn't particularly difficult; roast pork loin with gray shallots, late peppers and potatoes in a clay pot in a wood fired oven. Green beans, applesauce, and fresh grated horseradish root. First course, a Mediterranean saag, of sorts, inspired by Patience Grey.

Yes, the wood oven and the clay pot are not standard today but still, this dish is easy enough in any situation, with any equipment. Especially with this pork. The fat cap on the loin was 2 cm thick, the tender still attached. The rest of the ingredients were fresh.

Meanwhile, a story is running around town about a certain "local" pork producer (?) who is selling IBP (Iowa Beef Product) pork as their own "local" label. This producer, "X", sells at area farmers markets and to retail stores and restaurants. People trusted "X"'s direct marketing and sales. And the businesses that trusted "X" passed that trust along to the customers. Gee wiz, betrayal has a long lame gait.

This kind of sloppy practice is crazy making and it makes me mixed up and mad. Then I remember working with Greg Higgins on issues around farm direct, good practices and building solid relationships. I think about the stupid useless noise in the media and how fast, ridiculous unfounded stories rip through our fragile communities. And how quickly we follow the stories and start talking trash. Then, I remember the great producers that fill my freezer and pantry. I read the hands and eyes of the people I buy from. I listen to how they talk about their food and the stories they tell about their production. I try to remember to talk to producers instead of about them and rely on taste, smell and mouth feel.

So please, accept my apology. I am sorry for leading you astray with stories that grow by their existence and steer us away from the good things worth mentioning. I am sorry for spoiling a terrific lunch by talking about bad meat. I'll try to remember my manners and talk about good things, like Basque Ranch pork.

Little gems drying on the counter.

2010-11-09T17:39:00.000-08:00

Sweet Seduction and Interlaken grapes sat on my counter for four weeks before finding their way into a walnut and cornmeal gateau. They lingered on the middle shelf of the three tiered rack in the far corner, leftover from an open house at Ayers Creek Farm.

Things; food, equipment, jars, and memories sit on my counter for a time, longer than most people in my family would let them. There is a collection of knicknacks on the shelf above the wainscot. A painting of an outdoor market, feathers from a barn owl and acorn woodpeckers, a ball made out of the hair of my first dog, Toby and a collection of sprays; wheat, barley, sorghum, lavender. And a chain of six paper pockets that held six Italian prunes while they dried.

I was raised in a family that kept the kitchen counters clean and uncluttered. Basements are tidy. My Mom and sister hold annual garage sales to raise a little "mad money" and rid their households of the year's cumulative clutter and stuff. But I married a man who sees value in nearly everything. A man from the deep south who knows how to make things and fix them. It isn't unusual for Sam to ascend the basement stairs with an odd piece of wire or hardware in his hand and mutter "finally a use for this, I am glad I didn't throw it away". My basement overflows with stuff and I, like most married couples, have adopted my spouse's ways.

Ten years ago when Sam re-framed the first floor walls, he saved the studs and stashed them in the basement. The fir coasters that hold my evening cocktail are a birthday present he made for me. Amber colored, clear grained 100 year old growth fir squares from groves in the Pacific Northwest. Wood that was harvested locally and supported a local economy long ago. Every so often, pieces of the wood come out of hibernation in the form of a counter top, a cat scratch post or the frame around an old photograph of gill netters on the Columbia River. Never, ever, junked, it is beautiful, old and free.

The man I married would never pitch the grapes drying on the counter. As long as they don't mold or foster a fruit fly colony, they aren't in the way. So they sit and slowly dry, condensing their sugars, and waiting for a good use.

A Summer Pozole

2010-09-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

A year and a half of Fridays. Last summer and this one, through the winter, into spring and back to autumn. A scarred heart and a place to grow. Sorghum and strong brown hands.

Orange, red, yellow, inky blue and white kernels line the cobs. Corn in from the fields and dry in the barn. Corn for popping and grinding. Corn for polenta, grits and hominy. All along, Anthony talks about corn. There is, in the same words, enough to gather a little more understanding each time.

There is no one way to tell a story or a make a meal. So too, for the rotation of fields and the plantings of rows. Whether nudged by curiosity or responsive creativity, each time something changes. Day in and day out, we practice getting a combination right. Once in awhile, it works.

Pozole is made from stored, fresh, old and leftover ingredients. A hen that has stopped laying. The corn, dry and stored. Tomatillos growing wild in the fields. Onions, fat and salt. Perhaps garlic. At times, greens, fresh herbs, tomatoes or chilies. Other times, pork. Even classics have variations, driven by season, storage and prudence. Different every time.

The August di milpa tomatillos begin the pozole. They are small, walnut sized fruit, in green and purple skins and papery brown husks. Little, tart and sweet, they make a clear and vibrant addition. A chicken comes out of the freezer to make room for the quarter cow coming in a month. A half an onion, waiting to be of use. Salt and fat. And the last cup of Amish Butter popcorn that holds too much moisture to pop with satisfaction. Turning the popcorn into hominy makes the kernels stripped; orange at the tip, yellow band around the middle and white on the wide end. Anthony says they look like Halloween candy corn. They burst open in the simmering broth.

Cool gray days cycling through the summer months. A volcano eruption on the other side of the world. When the rain falls and the amount that falls. A warm ocean current, a pent-up bird, a poor kill. Skilled hands in the field, at harvest and in the kitchen. Every ingredient has a long list of reasons why it tastes the way it does.

Corn, tomatillos, chicken, onion, fat and salt.

Nettle and Egg Soup

2010-04-27T19:18:00.001-07:00

Every spring I am struck by the extraordinary colors and flavors that emerge out of winter. This week, besides the Elderberry Blossoms, there were morels, nettles and pastured eggs overflowing in the marketplace.

Today, there is nettle soup with an egg poached in the broth for lunch and again for dinner.

The nettles sit in large baskets, washed, sorted and prepackaged in plastic bags with directions about gloves, skin, eyes, and boiling water. Easy enough. They grow upright and erect making a clean harvest easy. A quick dip in boiling water and a plunge in ice water steals the toxins and fixes the emerald green.

Every time I see them I remember the first summer I ran through a patch of nettles in the Columbia Gorge. A summer family picnic. I was eight and in my bathing suit. My hair pixie short. It was hot. I had sticky toasted marshmallow in hand as I raced, through the tall weeds behind the large stone fireplace and against my brothers, to the picnic table. Always adventurous and competitive, still, I arrived last and itchy with nettle bumps. My strong memory of a hot and hazy summer day lingers over the stove as I make this soup.

Blanche nettles quickly and chill in ice water. Saute spring garlic or leek in butter. Add nettles and water or chicken stock to cover. A handful or rice is optional too. Cook uncovered at a low simmer for about thirty minutes. Cool. Puree. Season with salt. Finish with olive oil.

For a bit more heft, add a poached egg. Either poach the egg in the nettle soup or poach separately and drop into soup. This'll do fine with many other spring greens too; pea shoots, green garlic, spinach and turnip too. None, though, are like the woodsy nettle tonic.

Elderberry Flower Syrup and a cake

2010-04-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Spring Water Farm had bunches of Elderberry Flowers at the Hillsdale Farmers Market today. I bought three bunches. One bunch would be dedicated to a cornmeal cake I had learned about over the winter at Ayers Creek Farm. With the other two bunches, I'd make a batch of Elderberry Flower syrup to flavor soda and gin drinks with and brush warm cakes with.

The cake is a dense traditional cornmeal cake that China Tresemer made over the winter while we were working with various corn recipes at Ayers Creek Farm. I learned from Anthony that it is an old recipe from when corn slowly moved it's way across Europe replacing millet in fields and kitchens. The recipe asks for six spoons of Elderberry Flower blossoms. The delicate citrus scent and earthy undertones transform the whole cornmeal giving the cake a unique flavor. There were no Elderberry Blossoms at the time we made the cake, so we used dried Pozegaca plums to great effect. Still, curiosity lingers now that the flowers are in season.

The Elderberry Flower Syrup will take a few days of sitting quietly on the stove top. Equal amounts of sugar and water (4 & 4), the zest and juice of two lemons, and about a cup and a half of Elderberry Flowers. Bring the sugar syrup, lemon juice and zest to a boil, pour it over the Elderberry Flowers and let sit for 3-4 days. Then strain and store in the refrigerator.

The first time I had Elderberry Flower syrup was with my friend Cecilia. She had brought some back from Romania in a odd "package". In Central Europe, Elderberry Flower syrup is common. So common, that FANTA, until recently, flavored one of it's drinks with Elderberry Flower syrup. Now it is hard to find. Central European soft drinks are much less sweet than the ones in the United States, so the Elderberry Flower scent is notable.

The cake is out of the oven. I've robbed the syrup pot before it's time and soaked the cake with a little more springtime Elderberry Flower essence.

2010-02-22T14:32:00.001-08:00

This morning I roasted the root I harvested on Friday and ate it with a shirred egg. Sadly, it will be the last rutabaga of the season.

The February warm patch has hung in the Willamette Valley for a week now. Sunny high skies, lower 60 degree days and cold nights. The winter garden is readying its reproductive responsibilities.

For months the rutabaga has been tender, sweet and full of flavor. A month ago it was perfect but not any more. The coarser flesh and diminished flavor had me reaching for more salt and fat with the hope that the cold weather rutabaga would represent itself on my plate. It wouldn't and it couldn't.

Funny how I am sad to see it go. Usually, I am ready to move on after cooking, preserving and eating seasonal fruits and vegetables. By the end of a production cycle, I am looking forward to the arrival of next crops. Whether an environmental shift or a dietary one, I am ready for the season to change. But this year I have not had nearly enough rutabaga. I am glad there is a half gallon of Sauer- rutabaga in my refrigerator to keep me satisfied until November comes around again.

2010-01-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

Post-collective agricultural fields in Sepsiszentgyörgy, Transylvania

Last Friday, rain sprinkled the day in fits and starts. A Bald Eagle sat in the top of a Douglas Fir and a Harrier sat on the wall outside the kitchen window. The Hazelnut catkins are in bloom and the large swathes of warm gold orchards crouch against evergreen and lichen dappled hillsides.

We ate chicken posole for lunch and saved China's cornmeal cake for after the hard work of digging roots. We'll stand in the kitchen, eat cake and drink tea.

The section of row where the gobo grows is dense from a higher percentage of clay. The clay holds water unlike a sandier soil. We dig deep trenches on either side of the gobo row, leaving a wall of roots between. The dense soil is hard to dig. As the gobo gives way, I note a markedly different harvest from those over the previous two months. The plant is coming out of dormancy. The snap of the roots is livelier and the cold soil, redolent of minerals, exhales. The hard freezes of December have ended and the slime from last years foliage gives way to new leaves. Small worms move through the fine root hairs and soil on the vegetable. They feed on the flow of micro-nutrients released by the gobo as it comes out of winter dormancy and into spring.

Natural History prevails at Ayers Creek. While working, we chatter about the Tundra Swans, the hunters across the lake, and the various discoveries each of us make in the fields. A few months ago, Anthony found a Giant Pacific Salamander in the chicory row. A full grown six inch long brown Dicamptodon enstatus in a vole tunnel. We watch the change in the atmosphere, soil, and plants. Organic food production is at the mercy of natural systems largely beyond human control. Mastery comes from years of observation and experience with a multitude of variables including human emotions. Like most things, the more time invested the greater the return and the more resounding the rhythm of production. The land heaves worms and casing, bushels of beans, and gasses. It delivers root vegetables up and draws the long toed cornstalks deep. One year echos another years glorious success, which in turn, absorbs the disappointment of an anemic production in another field.

In Pig Earth, John Berger writes about the peasantry. Now, in the 21st century, this class seems easily replaced by the farmer. He writes,
"Peasants live with change hourly, daily, yearly, from generation to generation. There is scarcely a constant given to their work lives except the constant necessity of work. Around this work and its seasons they themselves create rituals, routines and habits in order to wrest some meaning and continuity from a cycle of remorseless change: a cycle which is in part natural and in part the result of the ceaseless turning of the millstone of the economy within which they live.

And so, memories of cornfields explode upon my tongue as I eat a bowl of warm cornmeal mush sweetened with milk and honey this cold January morning.

2009-12-30T07:30:00.000-08:00

A birthday greeting from Peyrusse Vieille.

Field Tamales

2009-11-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

What began as a conversation about how to move corn from the field through a drying, into a simple chemical process to access valuable nutrients became a lovely experience for the mouth.

Fresh ground hominy from slaked corn and sweet new lard. whipped nixtamal, filled with beef tongue or pumpkin and dried grapes. Steamed.

Pig Kill

2009-11-25T07:53:00.001-08:00

2008
Romania
I am in the Unitarian villages of Transylvania. It has taken another ten years to work a kill back into my life.

The pig arrives in a metal crate; front loaded onto the village forklift and delivered to the cultural center on the fair morning of the kill. She comes from a barn in the village. At ease but hungry she pushes her snout through the bars of her confinement, nibbling the October grasses that edge her boundary. Her assertive rooting unlatches the cage and she is free in the enclosed yard. She is hungry and rambles about, nibbling on living greens and fallen apple. She wanders while the men arrange and pace themselves, their tools and rituals before the kill.

First, shots of palinka are passed about. Locked eyes and shared drink weave the threads of many kills. Denes-bacsi stands with palinka in one hand and the orange plastic “pig-rope” used to bind the pig’s feet dangles from his left hand. This killing, like any other, follows the same communal passages from before into now. Little has changed. There is joy and celebration in the familiarity of the work. There is no disquiet here.

A placid flow of life runs smoothly over the soft rounded morning. The pig’s stress lies dormant until the edges of the men’s intent throws boulders in her way. The energy in the enclosure shifts quickly as the men tighten their circle round her. She darts, annoyed at the interruption. For the men, a merry chance ensues throughout the yard. Her tail is caught tight in a grip. She is guided onto her right side by the smells and voices of men she has known her whole life. Voices that have greeted her, talked to her, fed her. Hands, knees and shins hold her to the grass. The pig-rope whips around three feet immobilizing them and leaving the left foreleg free. The hands upon her are gentle and firm, guiding her from an easy life in the barn to a quick end. She screams and struggles briefly against the men before a quick stick in her neck. The incision, enlarged by the pressure of her heavy flowing blood has tipped Denes-bacsi’s right fingers red. Using her heart, her leg, and her deep exhales; Denes-bacsi empties her life into the red enameled bowl, all the while, soothing her and coaxing her life away with gentle assurances. Denes-becsi has refilled her emptiness with silent gratitude. She has moved quickly from alive to meat.

Another round of palinka. Poised like a sphinx in the grass the carcass is covered with hay, doused in gasoline and set a fire. The hair is singed and the skin seared. The pig is scraped, washed and scrubbed until the pink pliant and animated creature is now a 30-minute memory. The skin, with its yellow crackle, is clean. The body, still life warm inside, is lifted onto the multipurpose wooden table and the butchering begins.

Another round of palinka and the hooves are knocked off, the trotters removed and the hocks jointed. The teats and tail and ears are taken and dropped in a red bucket. Another round of palinka and the first bites of crisp skin and warm raw flesh are eaten. Attracted by the warmth and protein of the carcass and sugars of the sweet palinka, the slow angry yellow jackets arrive. The pig is forty-five minutes from alive. An incision, behind the ears, down through the jaw joint and across the palate leaves the lower mandible intact. The head goes into a red bucket. A long cut is made down the back and the spine is splayed bare. The fat on the back is three fingers deep and the men nod and smile happily and congratulate each other as they think of the szalona, a cured and smoked fat, they will eat this winter. A parallel cut is made, a cleaver severs the rib cage from the spine, and the entire length of the backbone is peeled away from the body revealing the full abdominal membrane holding every organ. Carefully, the membrane is opened, and the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and spleen, revealed and removed, are sent to the women in the kitchen. A separate basin holds stomach, large and small intestines.

Next to the heart, a small muscle is gently pulled away, wrapped in plastic and hurried off to the village veterinarian who will test it for parasites. The butchering continues. Two hours from alive in the yard and hams, fat, skin, scraps and roasts are sorted. Bones are scraped and boiled for stock. The women make a meatball and sour-cabbage soup with carrots and parsnips for lunch and cleaning intestines for stuffing. After lunch they’ll be make blood sausage, kielbasa and liver sausage for the large dinner that night.

It is difficult the whole day to find my place. I am at ease with the men, drinking palinka and eating the crisp skin and raw meat. I am a woman and belong inside. I want to lay my hands on the warm meat and work along with them. I never idle well. And I hope, in my life, that I will stick a pig, catch its blood, break it down and feed my friends and family. What higher compliment can I pay them, knowing what I am.

Linda's World

2009-10-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

I spent hours and days on my knees in a particular patch of rows this spring and summer. Sweet potatoes, melons, edamame, bitter melons occupied my mind, my hands, my feet and legs. One afternoon, the farmer arrived with a grin and a twinkle in his eye. At the end of the patch row he pounded a sign with the words "Linda's World".

The sweet potatoes occupied most of my time in my world. I cut and propagated slips in May. I planted and re-planted slips in June. I ate the tender young sweet potato shoots in August and I walked the rows in September looking for signs and dreaming of tubers clusters below the ground.

On October 2nd, after lunch when the weather was warm and the soil was dry we began harvesting the sweet potatoes. First we dug the mixed slips at the south end of the east row and collected trial tubers for next years crop. Then we moved north and began to unearth and harvest again. The vines were cut back leaving a thick 5 inch stem above the soil. With each of us standing on either side of the furrow, we wedged the harvesting fork at barely an angle and together upheaved a mass of soil and sweet potatoes. This north end of the row was a mixed planting for market. Up came red, purple, white, yellow and orange bouquets of tubers. As we worked our way down the row, I looked back at the distance at the newly dug bundles which would eventually amount to tonnage.

In town, I look daily at the "camote" patch. In general the leaves at The Little Land are slow to turn. The sweet potato vines are not yet yellowing. The pole beans are still green and every day I harvest a few more. Mid summer heat delayed the flowering and now the ripening of the beans and peppers. I have only harvested one red pepper off my 5 plants. The peppers I brought back from Transylvania are beautiful in color and shape but they are not red and I wonder if they will eventually ripen in the house, drying and coloring from the ceiling. I hope so.

The 2009 baseball season has accompanied me for many harvest and preserving hours. Now, the pennant race punctuates the games with the sweet potato challenge; how to cure sweet potatoes for a week at 80-90 degrees in a house that is 65 degrees and has with closed rooms or closets.

It's October 22 and I finally harvested the sweet potatoes at The Little Land. I have wondered and fretted about them. Will they amount to anything? I try to anticipate the possible responses; disappointment, excitement, assessment, and satisfaction. When I arrive at the Little Land, it takes me an hour of filling my time with other tasks before garnering the courage to clip the vines and begin to fork the tubers free. I pull and coil the irrigation tubing. I photograph the peppers I brought back in a dirty kleenex from Romania. I dig the former squash bed and prepare it for garlic. I trim back the sweet potato vines. Feeling the soil through the ends of harvesting fork I move into the loose and moist soil. The long and proportionately large tine cuts through the soil and strikes one of the few tubers. I back off and reset the fork, lifting and shaking the soil from the small but gratifying bouquet. My heart soars.

I have about 10 pound of modest sweet potatoes in yellow and orange and white. There are a surprising number of "rat tails", the long skinny guys that seem like probable tubers had time, sun, heat and local been different. The two beds I used were a bit challenged. The first needed more sun. The second, more space. I make my notes and move on the the garlic bed. In go two rows of Brown Tempest, one row of Bogey and two rows of GxH along the south edge of the bed. The soil feels right, the clove seeds slide easily down and away from my thumb. The garlic planting takes the edge off the slight disappointment of the sweet potatoes and my renewed optimism has me dreaming, with a bit of impatience, of where I will plant them next year.

A bounty of plums

2009-10-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

Plums, corn, shell beans, winter squash, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers and the trailing summer vegetables have consumed my days and nights in the last few months. I remember my brother going to Novosibirsk Russia in 1996 to study migratory birds. He and his family arrived in late August just as the harvest was beginning in earnest. In the end his research lagged behind his expectations simply because the of the amount of harvesting, storage and putting by his colleagues and their families did in Russia in the fall.

I understand. One night, I pitted tens of pounds of Pozegaca plums. The Pozegaca plum is a German prune plum. It is of medium size with a slight belly perfect for cupping in your palm. It has a deep yellow to orange flesh and a thickish skin that makes a distinctive crunch when you bite through. It is both sweet and tangy with a firm flesh that cooks well without breaking down.

I sat and pitted- thank god for free stones- and began drying and freezing and soaking. Times like these I appreciate a little creativity and so it began. I filled a gallon glass jar with pozegaca halves, covered it with white wine vinegar and let it sit for a month. I strained the plums out and was left with a beautiful deep rich plum vinegar and many tart fleshy vinegared plums. Inspired, I dried them and last week, I popped them in a pot of chicken with vinegar and shallots. I doubt I'll waste them on a cake. I'll try not to eat to many out of hand. I've sketched a recipe for them to adorn pork.

This notion of using something over and again has captivated me this season. Last week I needed to pull the lovely Mirabelles out of their grappa bath and let everyone re-harmonize. Once again, the bowl of "leftover" plums were still too perfect to compost. I made a light lavender syrup and canned the plums (hot pack). Come January I'll open a jar of grappa soaked plums in lavender syrup and raise a glass of plum induced grappa. I love the idea of taking two ingredients, putting them together and then taking them apart and having two new and improved ingredients to build upon. wow.

A bowl, a glass, a stew, a tart, a cake for you.

Nehalem Crabs

2009-09-07T10:33:00.001-07:00

A forty-five year family tradition of sport crabbing in Nehalem Bay, Oregon and 2009 brought in a record catch. 110 regulation sized, male hard bodies. All keepers. But who's counting.

Reports from the early morning crabbers came quick. A dozen, twenty five, forty. By 10:30 the count was called in at 85. Knowing my two conservation minded brothers were at the helm, I defaulted to believe 85 caught but not kept. No way. The processing alone would be a full days work.

At 11:30 the catch was called off. Over a hundred. Crabs were handed to tourists on the dock and tossed to boats with fewer hands. Pots were pulled in. Damn. Twenty more.

Thirty were culled from the crowd as the best to cook and eat on the beach. 80 odd were transported to the docks for a quick cook, clean and ice. Stable and deal with later.

Dedicated hours:
Day One
crabbers- 6 primary and 5 trainees (11) in two boats x 4 hours = 44 hours
Dock cookers and cleaners 4 x 1.5 hours = 6 hours
Beach cookers and cleaners 2 x 1 hour = 2 hours
30 eaters

Day Two
6 pickers x 1.5 hours = 9 hours

total
61 hours of good clean fun
380.00 for boat, pot and bait
20 pounds (+/-) crab meat with street value of 500.00

menu
Boiled crab on the beach
Crab cakes
Crab and cheese melts
Crab Tortelloni
and frozen crab for later

But who's counting.

(photo courtesy of Conor Colwell)

In the Orchard

2009-09-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

Friday, Mirabelles and Senecas came in from the orchard. This was, for me, the second of two stints in the orchard

The first trip culled the Coe's Golden Drop misfits. The second trip brought in as much fruit as possible before an early seasonal shift brought in bands of cool southern rains and split the overladen branches, dashing fruit and hopes to the ground.

I process information slowly and I work slowly. I am slow. It takes a long time for my fingers to understand what the farmer has told my brain to understand. Switch fields, switch varieties and I have to learn over. On top of it, the requirements of every harvest, whether plum, bean, berry or corn, is different. The Mirabelles have resistance on the branch, slight give in the flesh and a rosy blush. They ripen quickly on the counter. Senecas will store longer and counter ripen. They come off the tree before the rains, before they are ripe, before they are lost. Reine Claude de Bavay is green and rose and hard. A courtship has started. We taste every tree before picking. Yes. no. no. no. YES. The harnessed picking belly bucket is 17 pounds full and my back is angry from this 40 minute gestation.

I try to accelerate my understanding. I close my eyes and practice harvesting with the tips of my fingers only. A patch of warm wind drops down and into the orchard carrying honeyed particles of ripe fruit from another tree. I'd like to follow. I hear the young kestrels hunting and acorn woodpeckers mocking in the pine stand. The family of California Quail are to the south. The farmers voice has moved on. "Here. This is young but bite off the end of the fruit. The skin is thick enough to draw all of the flesh into your mouth leaving a carcass of pit and skin." Another week away to look forward to.

2009-08-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

A cool August morning. A bowl of warm blue barley porridge with buckwheat honey and cream.
Mmmmm.

Pick and Pickle, Pick and Pickle

2009-08-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

On Pete and Xander's kitchen counter in Le Gers, the little cornichons reflect a moment of the days work. A highly quaffable, inexpensive and local pink wines is perfect for hot summer days. A loaf of bread, a bowl of ratatouille that begs volumes of words and discourse and Sam's portrait of Mattie the dog. Perfect.

The cornichon at the Little Land produces rapid a succession of blossoms and fruit to seed and reproduce. I undermine it's success. I pick and pickle as fast as I can. Day in and day out. Slowly, the stores are filling.

On the dining room table sits an old American stoneware crock passed down from my mom. Right now it holds about 30 half sours. Before the half sours, it cured two gallons of tarragon vinegar and years of sauerkrauts. The crock's previous life is a mystery but it is a warehouse of beneficial microbes and secret ingredients that provide the layers of patinated smells that shape every batch.

On the counter, to the left of the stove, is a pottery bowl that holds little cornichons in batches large enough to fill a pint sized jar. One jar and two days at a time the shelf in the basement gets a little fuller twice a week. The cornichons are a crispy noisy bite. Picked when tiny, young and crunchy, they sit overnight in a bowl of salt. They weep. They absorb salt. They turn a brilliant emerald green. Then, into a pint jar with a dousing of wine vinegar, add some herbs and something from the allium family. "Shoo! Off to the basement with you!" There is no recipe, just a basic brine adorned with whimsical accessories and the mood of the day. On the six month horizon I can see ham, butter and pickles on a baguette for a gray winter lunch.

The refrigerator has a half gallon mason jar of senfgurken curing. Anthony at Ayers Creek turned me on to senfgurken. Anthony, will pickle anything. His inspiration is contagious. Senfgurken requires large, yellow cucumbers that are lost in the dense vine foliage. No time to lament the lost harvest, these oldies are as good as gold. The recipe uses a similar process as the cornichons but requires mustard seed. Lots of mustard seed. A plate piled high with pale white spears of senfgurken will add a special "je ne sais pas" to most meals.

The half sours in the dining room are a different story. They are the current occupant of the American crock and require testing daily. At this rate, they will be gone on the day they are done. Thirty cucumbers, thirty days. What a pleasure. Everyday the fermentation smells a little different and the texture of the pickles changes. Some mornings, the smell of the live brine escapes and climbs like tendrils across the dining room table, beckoning another taste, another sample and another entry in the pickle journal. It is just so hard to resist.

Peyrusse Vieille

2009-08-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

Peyrusse Vielle is a little village in Le Gers. It is at the heart of a triangle whose boundaries are defined by The Pyrennes, The Mediterranean and The Atlantic. Consequently, Le Gers sits where glorious summer thunderstorms are common. Here, the weather is just another guest passing through. Some days you can spend the whole day waiting for this tempestuous and overly dramatic diva to arrive. Some days she is a gentle and constant presence that you hope will stay a while.

Le Gers is the most sparsely populated area of western Europe. The pastoral landscape is cut and divided by valleys and rises that are dappled by sunlight, fields and forests. Life is slow and even tempered. Modernization is discrete. Homes have internet and other conveniences but the landscape is void of visual and noise pollution. The oceanic sky rolls over the horizon, swallowing and releasing The Pyrennes.

The forests are rich in deer, pheasant and wild boar. The communes, or municipalities, annually declare how many animals will be taken from the forests. At the seasons end, there is a feast of wild beasts and jars of fat preserved sanglier go home to the pantries. Of course there are memberships and dues, taxes to be paid, accounting to be done and reports to be filed with the Department. All in all, a good system of wildlife and land management, allocation of food preserves, and the continuation of traditional cultural ways.

Specifically, Le Gers is rich in duck and we ate duck daily. We pan seared magret, the large breasts of the fatted duck, and ate it with bread and salad. We ate duck hearts sauted in duck fat with enough left over for a potato and heart hash the next afternoon. We roasted a whole split duck over the fire in the garden. Not to lose our tacky American roots, we roasted yellow and purple Peeps over the fading coals for dessert.

Duck is the foundation of the regional diet. Containers of duck fat grace the refrigerated shelves in supermarkets and homes. Indeed, the highest percent of people over the age of 90 in western Europe live in Le Gers. They eat mainly duck, legumes, red wine, vegetables and potatoes. The combination is clearly good provided human characters mellow with age.

While my freezer holds pork, beef, chicken, and lamb from the Willamette Valley, it is hard to source good fatted ducks here. Not that there is a shortage of fats in the pantry, but freshly dug new potatoes, or any vegetable, sauted in duck fat are simply dreamy. But my goal is to build a diverse and interesting pantry that is self reliant and seasonal as well as flavor and nutrient dense. All this and a short jaunt to the dinner table. The geographic and commercial isolation of both Le Gers and Transylvania inspire cooking from the source. Limited ingredients are available and markets are a 20 minute drive away. Consequently, creativity and home economy are pre-wired with frugality. But a priceless frugality cannot be imported so it does little for the global economy and is dismissed as seemingly useless and too much work. Ah, but there, for the love of work, go I.

For additional love of work and all things ducky and more in the urban farm world, read Esperanza Pallana's exploits at pluck and feather .

(photo: Peyrusse Vieille from Nora's house)

My Sally in the Fields

2009-08-14T19:49:00.001-07:00

After readying garlic, Frumento, Arabian Blue Barley, Fava di Carpino, and shallots for the market I make my way through the rows, roads and mounds of Ayers Creek Farm. As the summer wanes, the fruit blooms in rapid successions. Tens of pounds of Triple Crown and Chester blackberries ripen daily. Greengage plums show off their dusty bloom while tight clusters of yellow Mirabelles weigh heavily on bowed limbs The sweet smell of ripening grapes rides the warm air pockets that drift through the fields.

The cooler weather comes for a brief visit, the light is soft in the fields and the air blankets the valley in worn flannel. The wildlife responds to the shift. The voices of the young Acorn woodpeckers in the oak stand more consistent. The babies are now adolescents and the adults have given way to more freedom. The bees at the marble watering hole are less in number. Perhaps the cooler temperatures require less drinking water or maybe the rich fallen fruit in the orchard provides them with seasonally necessary nutrients. I don't know. But the frogs have moved upland.

The Pacific Tree Frogs, hyla regilla, congregate late winter through early spring in the wetlands and waterways of the Pacific Northwest for breeding. In the summer they retreat to a more solitary existence on land to dine on spiders, beetles and other insects. Because the Pacific Tree Frog is an indicator species it responds quickly to the health of it's environment. In exchange for a good home and plenty to eat, hyla regilla provides pest management services for the farm. Unfortunately, there is no cost benefit analysis of these services into the overall economic profile of this organic farm. For now, these partners get the goodness of caring for the other's best interest and that is not a bad thing in community relations.

Bees Belly Up to the Rock

2009-06-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

On a day a week, when I am not on The Little Land, I am on a large farm helping out with what needs to be done that day.

The bees in this picture are integral to the whole farm. They pollinate a lot and I cannot walk past their watering hole without stopping and admiring their perfectly stripped abdomens bobbing up and down as they drink. "It is a good idea to stay away from the hives these unusually hot early June days because they are especially feisty". This makes me curious and I wonder if bees are at all like dogs who can sense the tenor of a visitor and respond accordingly. A friend of mine described parting the hanging mass of a swarm with her hands to find the queen buried inside. She learned how to do this in South America and said that bees know if you are afraid.

I sneak up to the blackberry canes and find an especially buzzy and busy area to photograph. When I get settled, they all disappear, moving off into other flower clusters. I think they are avoiding my lens and I follow them. They move quickly from flower to flower. There are two kinds that I can see. The European Honey Bee and the Black Russian Honey Bee. The Black Russian is a very mean bee.

On the kitchen table of the farmhouse sits a squat quart ceramic jar for the honey. It is raw, thick, waxy and crunchy. It smells like blackberries in the heat of ripeness. For breakfast, the farmer eats honey when it is sunny and jam when it is not. Last week I brought home blackberry honey from these bees. The whole long drive, I thought about making honey lavender ice cream to go with the sweet ruby strawberries on my counter. It was better than I imagined. Hard to improve on a good thing, none the less, I will try honey ginger next time.

Honey Lavender Ice Cream
Open the fridge and get two cups of heavy cream and one cup of whole milk. Show some respect to the fat. It is supposed to be there. Eat less. Pour into a sauce pan and add a half cup of honey. Walk past the dog in front of the door and politely ask him to move. Pick a few lavender buds from the bush in the garden and give them a bath in the milk, cream and honey. Watch as the white liquid creeps up the side of the pot and forms little bubbles around the edge. Quick! Turn it off! And wait for the flavors to begin to creep out of their locked in the closet darkness and infuse the cream with a bright sweetness and fresh suggestion of the herbal summer to come. Strain the lavender buds. Chill very well. Taste it all along, when it is warm and as it gets colder. The temperature and fat molecules change. The flavors move from a full warm embrace to a peck on the right cheek. Churn in ice cream maker. Freeze. Mmmmmm. Thank you bees, again and again.

Photos from The Little Land

2009-05-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

The Little Land

2009-05-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

An Early Bean Springing in The Little Land

My neighbor and I are sharing the crops of The Little Land. The owners of the land, Jeannie and Doug, have a triple and a half lot urban parcel that is rich in history and botanically diverse. The house was built in 1890 which is old for this area. It has a well in the basement. There is an english walnut tree and a black walnut tree that are as old as the house. Jeannie is a potter and tends two bee hives and one third of their property for their food. The lawn, which takes up another third of the property, was bigger before we dug it up. Now the lawn is about 1000 square feet less than it was.

Originally, sharecropping was an agricultural system for non-landowners, especially former slaves, to have land to till. At the end of the season, the sharecropper paid the land owner a portion of the crop profits. The system evolved across the southern United States after the reconstruction of the post Civil War south with the intent to provide a means of livelihood for the highly skilled and newly freed agricultural laborers, in most cases former slaves. Certainly, a variety of arrangements between land owner and sharecropper evolved. Some were mutually beneficial for laborer and owner while other arrangements were weighted heavily towards the owner. In fact, this old system still wields a strong hand in shaping our modern migrant and farm laborer rights.

But The Little Land's arrangement is an arrangement born out of community. This modern sharecropping came about through conversations and relationships that have evolved out of living in a neighborhood for a number of years. My farming partner Robin taught the landowners children acrobatics. I first met the landowners when our lives intersected in non-profit food education. Robin and I know each other because we are neighbors and we have something in common; we love to grow food, cook and eat together. This year we were looking for a way to grow more.

The three and a half lot place had a lot of food growing on it when we arrived. In addition to the owners vegetable garden, walnut trees and bee hives, there are numerous fruit trees. I watch and photograph everything on The Little Land as it changes. There is a plum tree, two different cherry trees, an apple and a pear tree. Also there are raspberries, rhubarb, grapes, currants and a very crazy hairy kiwi. Thank you bees.

The Little Land will have artichokes, summer and winter squash, tomatoes galore, lettuce, spinach, eggplant, garlic and a host of peppers. Coming up are beets, carrots, corn, beans, cucumbers and mustards. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, basil, cilantro and frisee. On these heels will come collards, onions, kales, turnips and potatoes. We are growing what we like to eat.

So far the sharing of crops is a verbal agreement and remains open to design much like the way the kiwi grows. In my mind I am canning jams, jellies, pickles, making walnut liquor and tomato sauce and putting jars on the shelves and in the freezers of three houses. There will be dried cherries for winter manhattens and scones and corn for grinding I hope. I like to believe that this bounty of diverse foods will promote a movement of edible goodness to and through the households without a lot of accounting. And the benefits will far outweigh the need to provide an rigid economic accounting system and instead will include value added for time, relationships and gifting. Though I am wary of assumptions about who's is what and in what amount, I am also reluctant to keep a close tally of expenses though I am- partly for our records and partly to keep the scales balanced.

And yet so far as I can hear, the owners are simply happy that the soil is being productive and the water that previously nourished the lawn will soon be nourishing bodies. I feel that this experiment of good intentions will have no problems other than too much of a good thing.

2009-05-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

Traditional pig killing and butchering in the Transylvanian villages of Romania.

2009-05-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

A Recipe for Transylvania Rose Hip Jam

2009-05-02T14:10:00.001-07:00

Daily over five weeks, I see rose hips in the wild, in cars passing by, on the backs of Romas and in the heavy bags sitting in the sun up against Emeneni’s house. She has two full bags of hand picked wild rose hips, about forty pounds in all. These wild rose hips are small and seedy and not at all like the big beach plum rose hips of the North American Atlantic coast. The Transylvanian rose hips are more like the wild rose hips of the Nootka or Dog roses in the Pacific Northwest, maybe smaller. Good for bears and birds, a lot of work for people.

It is Friday morning and Emeneni is already working. Large red and brown enamel pots simmer on the wood stove and hips are sorted into three qualities- perfect, rotten and use immediately. Her friend, a widow dressed for years in black, comes, goes and sets the pace for the day. She brings more equipment- grinders and screens- but little labor; “the arthritis is too bad”. The cat, splayed in the warm sun on the concrete threshold, measures the morning in naps, forages, and chases. Emeneni’s husband Imre brings tools and solutions. Clouds gather in the distant sky, calling down the high cool air of late October.

During my stay, I eat rose hip jam with bread. I eat the jam mixed into polenta for dessert after a course of polenta with milk and a course of polenta with cheese. Yes, three courses of polenta for dinner. Rose hip jam is a silky good balance of sweet and tart and bridges the distance between the two. It can play with cured meat, onion, cheese, corn, nuts, butter and cream.

Sitting next to Emeneni on the old chipped chair and with our backs into the morning sun, she instructs me with hand signs and smiles and shows me what she wants- the right hips to perfect her standards. Though there is no way to tell what the process will be, the vast amounts of rose hips, the simple equipment, time of day and number of hands involved in the work all say “ long and slow”. I settle into this work meditation and remember gossamered thoughts about staying in a monastery.

Rose hip jam is a welcome gift. Not many people make it at home anymore because it is a tedious process. Mothers, daughters, daughters-in-law, aunts and friends politely disagree about the general process, about how much cooking and sugar is needed and whether or not to use pectin. This is the women’s world and the men ante their assistance without crossing the threshold. There is constant reassessment and adjusting to do.

The longest day is ten hours and we eat, at 3:30, in a tired silence. We eat Emeneni’s old school pork sausage stored in the pantry in pork fat. She cooks them in sour cabbage and serves them with mashed potatoes. We drink local bottled water. We eat in the not-for-working kitchen and then go back to the for-working one. Emeneni’s grandson comes for money to get an ice cream at the corner ABC store. The neighbor checks on our progress and shakes her head. The cat is kicked out from under the stove. There is a constant flow of work, silence, laughter and people passing through the day, the door, and the production. We leave at 8’o clock at night in a downpour and with two large pots to finish at home over the next two days. The potholed drive home sloshes the jam into the seat beds and I smile as I think of child size fingers and sticky seat belts during the next drive to school.

The Recipe
Get the rose hips after the first frost. They are sweeter. Hand-sort the rose hips. Toss the ones with black spots to the chickens and split the remaining between two buckets: softest ones for “immediate use” jam and firmer ones for stored jam. Boil the hips long enough to soften. Cool ever so slightly. Pass through a meat grinder. Loosen with boiling water. Remove the seeds by passing through a sheet metal screen with holes and mounted in a wooden frame. Bury the seeds. Loosen with boiling water. Pass through a fine mesh screen in a wooden frame to remove the hairs. Boil to reduce water content. Add sugar. Reduce more to thicken. Put in jars. Store. Use to stave off winter colds.

Yield: Enough for a winter of family and friends.
Labor: Set aside plenty of time.

Of old and wild mothers

2009-04-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

High over a village in the medieval ruins on the hill tops grow wild pear and plum trees. There are many wild pear and plum trees here. They are old trees with old lineage. They are high in tannins and dry the inside of your mouth. They are the mothers of all plums and pears. Happy Mothers Day.

A Cast of Characters

2009-03-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

The dame, Marguerite, in the fishnet neck is the oldest. She is caramelized brandied cherry liquor. To her right are two young whippersnappers Jude and Dane. They are brothers from black currants. The dark square bodied Guy on the left is an eight year-old French styled walnut liquor. He’s eccentric and sweet though a little cloudy with age. And the rotund matron in the middle with the lumpy figures is Matilda.

These characters live in a cupboard and come out when it is cold and dreary, viruses abound and cheer is in order. Sometimes when infected with a spring fever like giddiness they’ll court some dish and consider themselves a perfect match. Often they are a quick shot or an eye-to-eye toast to a committed friendship. They are the bee’s knees.

Marguerite’s outfit has been in the family for generations. It is an old acid etched decanter with little stemmed glasses to match. Down to three from four after a tumble into a firestone sink, these glasses are fraternal triplets. Clearly intended to be identical they differ ever so slightly in shape and stance. Their hand blown uniqueness is a reminder of pre-manufacturing days. Mysteriously, Marguerite is improved by the vintage packaging that hides her flaws so well. Her cherries are all gone. They were sucked on when colds came knocking, laid beside fat rich charcuterie and scattered about in little bowls when guests arrived. Her pips remained inside, slowing down the mouth and entertaining the tongue. Indeed, there is something sad about the torn flesh of a perfect cherry.

Marguerite’s cherries were dark and juicy Bings from the Columbia River Gorge where the volcanic soils, cold winters and hot dry summers make some of the best cherries in the world. Cherries from here have a young history and names like Lambert and Black Republican. They’re relative elders, pushed aside, ripped out and replaced by young durable offspring with less character but the structure to travel long distances for export markets far away. Marguerite is burnt sugar syrup and brandy from 1996.

The whippersnappers, Jude and Dane, like many farm grown youth, are fresh and direct. Their fruit is thick skinned and seedy. Quite simple, they are a vodka and black beauty base with eight months of basement storage. A bit of sugar. And time. They fly through the mouth in a sweet and tart volley. The boys’ roots are on a Gaston OR farm where they were raised in a clean and wild environment. They are naïve and pleased with themselves. They are versatile, lean and bright. They can stand on their own or dress up with a splash of soda water. Recently, these dashing young men chased a toasted nut gateau down the gullet. I anticipate their maturation and mellowing.

I’d like to say Guy and Matilda are married but they are not. Guy is a mature old French recipe sometimes called 50-50-50- equal numbers of June green walnuts, sugar and alcohol. He leaves his dark stained mark on hands and wood. He comes from a walnut tree felled two doors down that dropped a mess too large to tolerate and cracked the sidewalk. He is her stubborn remains, hanging around to keep the memory of her alive. He is a devoted old son.

This Guy is strange. People either like him or not. There is an odd familiarity to him. He tastes a bit like Coca Cola. Yet, his sweetness quickly dissipates and is replaced by the bright memory of embryonic walnuts- he’s a flirt really, an old man. A ladies’ man.

He started in a jar on the kitchen counter. A chartreuse colored mass of ground green walnuts that bathed in the early summer sunshine and slowly turned brown-black from top to bottom. He is the subtleties that come with a stick of vanilla bean and fruit peels. A few handfuls of mint and lavender and some quality vodka. Then, like Jude and Dane, he spent a long dark winter in the basement with Matilda.

Ah, sweet Matilda. Matilda is Brooks Prunes and Armagnac. Look at her! So beautiful! Somewhat of a wallflower, I first met the likes of her about 27 years ago, a gift from a friend.

Nuggets of fleshy dried fruit soaked in booze, Matilda is more complicated than the others. She is soaked in a strong black-flower infused tea to bring tenderness back to her flesh. She bathes for years in an Armagnac and light brown syrup. The infusions of flavor are deepest in her nooks and crannies.

Matilda is happy stuffed inside a pork loin or nesting in the crook of a leg of duck confit. She’ll drape a bowl of homemade ice cream or drop in on a cup of coffee. She does well in nut cakes and fruit pies. She cures scratchy throats, angst filled teens and their parents. She soothes nursing mothers and their babies. Old ladies love her. Matilda courts and cultivates my love interests. Matilda has a poor reputation with the un-indoctrinated but is quite enchanting.

I adore these characters and their diverse personalities. I relish the anticipatory waiting from start to finish and the slow doling out of precious reserves. They are more than their origins, process and shared values. They are the loss of a valuable tree or a diverse palate. They are preserving for the future and hanging onto the past. They are appropriately self-centered at the peak of their fruit. Their seasonal immediacy is pertinent to their long-term success. They, and I, are parts towards a good end. I have to listen to their qualities and coax them along. Every year is a different year. They too are mastered by their own set of influences that may or may not bear a good year. And yet, there, in the pursuit of perfect, comes the nuances of their personalities. Cheers.

Szivesen means with my heart

2009-03-08T15:18:00.001-07:00

This started when someone said, “Isn’t it a lot of work to grow, can and cook food?” “Work?” I wondered aloud, “I think it is about love”. We all have our own.

I fall in love easily. Last fall, I fell in love with a man named Csabi. It was not for the way he smelled, rather, I fell in love with every expression of who he is and what he loves. I fell for the integrity and sensibility with which he works. I fell in love with the way he works; fully and completely in love with what he does. I fell in love fast and it lasted about eighty minutes. Now, I marvel at this unusual love. I work with my hands. I love with my hands. And I try to create something meaningful today from what he unknowingly gave me.

When I arrived at Csabi’s farm, I closed my eyes. The dairy smelled of warm sweet dung and the moist, healthy exhalations of animals living in a good place. The gentle lowing in the dairy barn spoke volumes of satisfaction. There was a quiet hum from a tractor and birds twittering. The animals were happy. Their eyes were bright and alert. They were curious. The cows demanded privacy during milking. The bulls stared, two together, resolutely bullish. And the wary calves moved in skittish side steps and uttered insecurities. Csabi, a veterinarian, has made a model dairy farm from knowledge, common sense and natural systems.

We use words like sustainable, green, clean, good and organic to describe what Csabi is doing. The words antibiotics, growth hormones, transitional, organic tried to find a toe hold in my questions as I took in his farm but they were useless and frankly irrelevant. From one framework, these are good descriptions of his farm, yet Csabi’s methods of running a dairy are rooted in his traditional values. He produces clean milk and delivers it to the community. It is a simple, straightforward and honest plan.

That was the first time within those eighty minutes that I fell. The second time was when I visited his home. I fell hard enough to crack something. Hungarian hospitality is exceptional, though not unique. An offer of a coffee and the use of a bathroom is a given. Csabi opened his home and more. He fed us things he made with his hands; ham, mangalicsa, bread, drink.

Csabi’s home life reads like a perfect short story that tells more than the words written. He knows what order things belong in and his place in that order. Like the best chefs and farmers I know, he tinkers and creates from a deep understanding of the animals and life he husbands. Knowledge and practice sit on a continuum of acquired experience, work at hand and hope for what may come out of his efforts. At his home he maintains a quality and shape of place that is enriched by an ethic of work and love, two sides of the same coin.

Csabi lives on the Hungarian Plains in a small town. He has three pigs with unique genetic histories; a mangalicsa, a wild boar and a mangalicsa/duroc cross, if they are still alive. If they are not, they have become blood sausage and meatballs and they are becoming hams, szalonne and mangalicsa szalami. His curing room and smoke house hold the meats of four pigs. The storeroom is filled with pickles, peppers, jams and palinka, a homemade fruit brandy. The house, summer kitchen and nuclear yard are their own small-scale integrated production system stewarded and guided by principled decisions. The raising, butchering, curing, eating and sharing of an animal is one long chain of reverential events.

Csabi, like many of us, has all the ingredients for a good life. I fell in love with his ability to sincerely combine the elements of his world. I fell in love with his love of mastery and his participatory love of making good quality things like milk, delivery systems, animals, breeds, spaces, food, drink and hospitality. Work, one way or the other, provides what we need and it is an expression of our capacity to love.

I am in love when I am in my yard. I work the soil as if it were my daughter’s hair. I brush it into braids as I think about what can come out of the future.
I am in love when I am in the kitchen, standing before the window that overlooks a small potential of urban land. I am kneading dough on the counter in the sun. With work, it becomes satiny, soft and pliable. Some bodies will be happy.
I am in love when I am alone in my language, in fields, picking corn with my eyes closed.
I am in love when there is a quartet of pots on my stove, simmering, boiling and still. People are coming.

In Hungarian, “szivesen” is how to say, “You are welcome” and it means literally “with my heart”.

A Righteous Pot of Beans

2009-02-12T10:47:00.000-08:00

It’s February and I am thinking about the beans left in my basement, a stash that has dwindled down to four and a half pounds. They live in a cellar trove of quince paste, delicata squash and pickles. There is a lonely little jar of rosehip jam from Transylvania which I am reluctant to open for fear that my memories will disappear with the jam.

In December I was rich. I had over twenty pounds of dry beans squirreled away in the basement. They were tucked here and there, including a stash in the kitchen under the flour sack towels. I sneak a peek at them once in a while and admire their perfect beauty. They are money in the bank, like stored fabric, nuts and bolts in the workshop and leftover skeins of yarn. I am greedy to make them last until the next season brings in more. “No way, ain’t gonna happen”. They will become the centerfold of a Sunday supper or a quick Tuesday night dinner.

There are Fava di Carpino and native Oregon Peregion. Small Colorado and Maine yellow eye. Blue Tepary, Jacob’s Cattle, Tongue of Fire, Carioka, Purgatorio, Zolfino, Tarbais, Borlotto Lamon, Black Basque and Turtle. Peruano. Bianchetto. A list worthy of a large lunged opera singer who can cascade a glorious articulation of their names with equality and justice for all.

On generous occasions, I reluctantly pass them on as Christmas gifts and wonder if the recipient can feel the hesitation and strings I have attached to these bags of jewels. Sometimes the gift is greeted with bright eyes and a palatable enthusiasm in anticipation of the flavor, the story embedded in the embryo and the satisfaction of such simple pleasures. They are a just bag of beans worthy of feeding the finest and steeped in history. And they are just a bag of beans, pretty, lowly, simple and good.

I know I can satisfy my need for more. I have friends in the right places. Getting more means visiting the farmer that grows them or the chef that sprinkles them in a rich and salty broth with bitter winter greens. More means to arrange a marriage with fresh bay leaves, sweet winter leeks, and sour cabbage juice. More is to boil them madly on the back burner, furious until they render up their proteins and become soft floating nuggets in a milky broth. Enough is a pot of beans cooked in a broth with a few confetti root vegetables to brighten the grey winter of the North Willamette Valley.

That I can find such soul food without growing it myself is perhaps a miracle of this postmodern urban existence. That I can love the transformation of a dry seed into a beautiful, nourishing and soulful experience is easy to the degree that I can limit my focus when sourcing and cooking these jewels. As I assess my place in the urban environment, the ease with which I greedily acquire ingredients is challenged by my lack of knowledge and naked assumption that the hands that weeded the rows, harvested and thrashed the beans were as cared for as the beans were when they landed in my hands. When my pot contains Chris’ hock, Anthony’s bean, Sheldon’s leek and Mt. Hood’s water, I continue to ponder the transformation of the soil, water and their hard work into my nourishment. This community is with me when I eat and I am nourished by them and spiritually fed by their labors.

Recent and popular efforts to “change the food system” stem from a desire to clean up the significant mess we have made. And yet the campaigns to “grow organic”, “eat local”, and “know where your food comes from” seem vacant and leave me spiritually starved because they pander to the prevailing cultural norm that I can get and do what I want. I can buy my salvation. Somehow it feels hollow when a sensibility is distilled into marketing a behavior change that supports the ease and thoughtlessness with which we nourish our bodies and souls.

Perhaps, whether a pot of beans or an entire meal has spiritual integrity is driven not by the act of buying into a certain behavior but determined by the honesty of the ingredients, the thoughtfulness with which the table is set and the wholesomeness of the food eaten. Food and community are the essence of a rich and genuine life and as righteous as a good pot of beans.

A Different Order

2009-02-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the sugar cube is a good place to start. After all, I spent hours and days in the filtered sunlight of Emikaneni’s summer kitchen watching the drama play out on the windowsill and listening to the voices ask questions.

Fall arrived softly in the rural Transylvania village of Ujifalu. Ujifalu means “new village” but “new” is relative and means newer than the village that is centuries older. In other words, Ujifalu may be 200 years newer than the village next door but still older than the western migration of Europe into North America.

Well into October the sun continued to shine, the corn was drying on the stalks and a few storks lingered before departing for a gentler winter roost. I had a bed and food in exchange for labor. One day my work was to help harvest the field of corn behind the barn at Emika and Imre’s house. The walk to the village that morning was memorable and I arrived early to sit and wait in Emikaneni’s summer kitchen for when the time was right to head to the fields.

The morning sun filled the kitchen, streaming in through the old wavy glass in the paint- coated frames. On the windowsill of poured concrete, dark grey and worn with years of exposure, I saw a sugar rectangle. Unlike a new cube fresh from the box, its edges were worn and rounded. I kept myself busy tracking the light, looking for movement in the barnyard and talking to the cat. Emikaneni went about her usual business of keeping a home.

By ten fifteen the ants arrived. One by one until there was a basis of seven or so. They came for sugar. The first ones left and more came. As I marveled at this parade, my mother arrived and then my friend and then my husband and his dead mother until I was no longer alone in my thoughts. They all had something to say about the scene before me. One offered a small white disk ant trap with enticing odors and doorways. Another squashed the little beasts with a translucent forefinger and another threw the sugar away.

In Emikaneni’s kitchen I watched common sense prevail and my own cultural non-sense unravel. Though work is hard, movement and actions are efficient. There is little need for poison when a sugar cube will do. In the hall beside the bag of nuts there is a little red bowl of food for the mice- that is if the cat doesn’t get them first. Outside on the hen house a fox pelt or two hangs. Barnyard voodoo.

During my stay I watched a different order present itself and one that challenged the western capitalistic consumption-production model that provides a solution, redefines normal and creates a problem.

In Ujfalu it is not just barnyard voodoo but an understanding of and appreciation for an intricate system, natural order and practicality that is straight and to the point. At times, brutal in its honesty and yet relieving too.