Categories
Placeholders
Category: Kitchen Garden
Gardening, Farming, Cooking, Recipes, Local Food, Everything that goes into meal production.
Categories
Where Will We Secure Our Food?
LAKE MACBRIDE— A common belief about our food system is it’s a struggle between conventional and organic farming. Or, another way to frame it is industrial versus sustainable farming. To embrace any one of these over the others is a step down a slippery slope. According to the much hated agribusiness Monsanto, “the biggest problem with the debate over ‘organic’ and ‘conventional’ crops is that it suggests there are only two ways to grow food: a ‘good’ way and a ‘bad’ way. The reality is far different.” If a person knows anything about agriculture, it is easy to agree.
The global food system cannot be accurately characterized as any one thing because a transition to a sustainable food production model, one that can feed a global population expected to reach 9.6 billion people (potentially within my lifetime), is more complicated than any either/or scenario. In order to produce enough food, agriculture has to be diverse and scalable, but locally replicable. What does that mean? What it doesn’t mean is a bunch of Iowa farmers getting rich by exporting corn and soybeans overseas.
My friend Ed Fallon, organizer of the Great March for Climate Action, posted on Facebook, “it’s important to find ways to keep one’s food budget affordable while not violating one’s principles. For me, a combination of growing my own food, buying directly from local farmers, barter, and shopping at my local grocery store… keeps my food budget on par with what most people spend.” Whatever one thinks about Fallon, in this simple post he describes a food system that is sustainable, replicable and could be scalable.
A simple truth is that consumers, including home gardeners like me, should consider a food system that favors locally and sustainably produced food. The idea that we should exclude anything from our food system represents a step toward the extreme we shouldn’t take. Freshness and seasonality play an important role in developing a local cuisine and cuisine engenders life and makes it worth living.
The thing is, the cuisine I develop in Big Grove may be different from what I would develop anywhere else on the planet, based on what’s available. Fallon’s example relies upon supplementing one’s personal effort to secure food, and includes a commercial retailer. The one he mentioned in his post is a sponsor of his webcast program, but I don’t believe it matters a bit to substitute any retailer who is at the end of a world-wide food distribution system. In my case, I use several grocery stores to secure food I can’t get in my garden or through bartering. What matters more toward sustainability is decreasing reliance upon any one source of food when stocking the pantry. As Fallon indicated, it is possible to do so without violating one’s principles.
When we consider the meaning of my tagline, “sustainability in a turbulent world,” a local food system is as important as anything else we do. We have to eat to live, and while food obsession would not be a good thing, our outlook toward a local food system is as basic a need as anything. It is better to be inclusive of everything because as we develop a system of production, outside purchases, bartering, preparation, preserving and cooking food, the potential exists to sustain ourselves more locally. From a global perspective, each iteration of such a process is what makes a local food system scalable. This more than any one agricultural process or crop production system.
I’ll leave the macroeconomics of food production, packaging and distribution to others. What is more important is how individuals leverage what exists to improve the quality of their lives: a complex web of interdependence that is often forgotten, but remains as important as anything during our brief lives on the planet.
Categories
Garden Planning 2014
LAKE MACBRIDE— In January, the vision of the future is a weed-free and abundant garden. Beginning with a stack of blank pages, through several iterations, vegetables are considered and a plan is made. The change in 2014 is that I am ordering some of the seeds online from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, an employee-owned company used by some of the local growers. It’s time to get the order in and make a schedule for the work of soil preparation and planting.
In past years, some seed catalog companies took my order and money, then blew off sending me the seeds. Heck of a way to run a business, but that is what happened. After that, I bought seeds locally at the grocery store or the discount house. The varietal options are much better at Johnny’s, so I am going to give it a try. I am particularly interested in pelleted seeds which make some of them easier to plant. Fingers crossed.
The garden plan includes the idea that we are part of a local food system and bartering labor for food. I struck two deals similar to last year, to process farm seconds and share the results; and to exchange a fixed number of hours of labor for a share in a CSA. What this means is certain vegetables will be plentiful from the farms and my garden can contain less tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, onions and peppers. That frees up space to plant more carrots, broccoli, cucumbers and other vegetables of which we can’t get enough. We can experiment with new items, like I plan to do with celery and Daikon radishes. In a local food system, produce used in the kitchen comes from a network of suppliers, and my garden will be an example of how that will work. In some ways, being part of a local food system is the opposite of “growing your own food.” It is about community and shared labor more than about what’s in it for me.
The rest of the year’s planning will be about how to fund cash flow through our household. When I re-directed in 2009, it was unclear how things would shake out. Now I realize the importance of budgeting income and expenses, and am working to generate enough income to live, and add to our net worth. The year is off to a good start as I start a second part-time job next week. Outside the bartered positions, I have four paid gigs lined up in 2014. I would like more, and the prospects for finding them seem pretty good. What I don’t want is to rely upon a single job as the main source of financial income.
Being optimistic about life comes with the turf of home gardening. I am hopeful 2014 will be another good year in a garden situated in a turbulent world.
Categories
Making Soup
LAKE MACBRIDE— It’s hard to go wrong making soup. The dish is tolerant of variation, and is as diverse as can be. Soup is a pantry-based dish, good to use vegetables up, and has been the basis for meals since forever. It’s a never ending experiment in living. Here is how I made it today.
There were five components to this batch of soup: roots, soup base, canned soup, barley and frozen corn and peas.
I picked five different types of root vegetables from the refrigerator drawer and counter: hakurei and purple top turnips, rutabaga, kohlrabi and potato. The point was to use what was on hand. These roots were grown in my garden, and on three different farms, so I know them well. I peeled and diced them into small, uniformly sized pieces, then covered them with cold water in a Dutch oven, and cooked until tender. I poured the whole lot into a strainer placed inside a stainless steel bowl to separate the roots and save the cooking water. The roots went back into the Dutch oven, reserving the liquid.
Soup base is a form of local frugality. In our kitchen, I make and use a lot of vegetable stock. What I call soup base is the remains of vegetables after straining away the cooked stock. I process the cooked vegetables through a food mill and can the result in a water bath. Soup base adds both flavor and texture to soups, and helps thicken them. At this point, I added a quart to the roots.
A farmer friend had a lot of kale at the end of the 2012 season. She typically mows everything down and plants a cover crop, but called me the day before to ask if I wanted any kale. I took a bushel and made soup from the pantry and canned it. The quart jars can be eaten as-is, but lately I prefer to use them as an ingredient. I added a quart of vegetable soup to the pot.
After stirring the mixture, I added enough of the root cooking liquid to cover, along with a quarter cup of pearled barley.
The mixture simmered the better part of four hours— until it was soup. At the end, I added a cup each of frozen peas and cut corn.
The next step to making a meal is flexible. The old way was to lay a plank of thick, coarse bread in the bottom of a bowl and ladle soup on it. It could be topped with bits of browned meat for omnivores, or seitan or fried or baked tofu for vegetarians. Salt and pepper and you’re ready for a hearty winter meal made from local ingredients, one that stands up to the test of time.
Categories
Tart Cherry Coffee Cake
LAKE MACBRIDE— Six pounds of tart cherries from Michigan were buried below frozen corn, eggplant and broccoli in the freezer drawer. The cherries were frozen in one bag, so I thawed them and separated and strained the liquid to use in a separate dish, and make coffee cake with part of them.
The recipe calls for one can of cherry pie filling, but substituting fresh frozen cherries takes only a bit of preparation. In a large pan, measure three cups of pitted cherries and place on medium heat. Add one half cup of honey, a tablespoon each of white flour and corn starch, and a scant teaspoon of cinnamon. I’m from Iowa, so I use corn starch, but other thickeners will work, including potato starch, arrowroot, or flour only. Stir gently until the mixture thickens completely and set aside to cool.
The batter is in two parts, the cake and topping.
Cake dough: Cream one stick of softened, unsalted butter with one cup of granulated sugar in a mixer. On low speed, add two cups of white flour and one teaspoon baking powder. Mix thoroughly and add 3/4 cup of milk. When the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, press the dough into a greased, spring form pan. I line my pan with parchment paper, but that is optional.
Topping: Cream one stick of softened, unsalted butter with one cup of granulated sugar in a mixer. On low speed, gradually add one cup of flour and mix until the dough turns into crumbs.
Pour the cooled cherry mixture on the dough in the pan and sprinkle on the topping.
Bake for 45 minutes in a 325 to 350 degree oven. Allow coffee cake to cool before serving, although it will be hard to wait. I reserve superlative descriptions for dishes like this when I say, “it is insanely good.”
Categories
Breeding Season
LAKE MACBRIDE— Breeding livestock is as old as dirt and the season for cattle and sheep is wrapping up now. Bulls and rams have begun their fall courtship, and the question remaining is whether or not the ladies are pregnant during the first go-around. Some farmers can “tell” if the females are pregnant, while others consult with a large animal veterinarian. The idea is to impregnate the livestock now for spring lambs and summer calves.
As a flexitarian, I’ve given little thought to where meat comes from since my days of working in a slaughterhouse more than 40 years ago. The animals with which I am familiar now are grass and grain fed and well cared for. While confinement operations are de rigueur in Iowa, in the local food system, we don’t talk much about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), except to criticize the environmental issues associated with them. We believe our way of managing livestock is better.
That said, my intersection with raising livestock is more tourism than economic activity. I enjoy reading about the complex solutions to cattle feeding involving corn, silage, alfalfa, distillers grain, corn stalks and grass, but wouldn’t want to spend my life in a constant analysis of nutrient values and costs. There is a knack, rather than a science to this, and farmers seem to do what pleases them with an eye to what others may be doing and saying.
At the end of the day, when a person works in the local food system there is exposure to the entirety of things people consume as food. Learning more about livestock this year has been another valuable lesson in sustainability.
Categories
Thanksgiving Menu 2013
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today, among many things, I am thankful for the readers of On Our Own. Whether we have met or not, having an audience is an encouragement that provides a sense of validity when I write. So thank you.
Today is a family cooking day in our house and we prepared a special vegetarian menu that will nourish us today and feed us leftovers for days to come. Our family is scattered around the U.S. and we’ll be thinking of them all as we prepare this meal:
Relish tray of pickled vegetables, Kalamata olives, bell pepper, young carrots
Deviled eggs
Cranberry relish
Lentils with carrot
Wild Rice
Baked beans
Sage dressing
Steamed broccoli
Sweet potatoes
Root vegetable stew
Apple crisp
Iced water
Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading On Our Own.
LAKE MACBRIDE— With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us, thoughts turn to turkey in a lot of households. Unlike during most of our vegetarian holidays, I am dealing with 100 locally grown, free range slaughtered birds tomorrow. Along with others, we are taking delivery from a local farm, sorting and weighing, and preparing them for delivery in the CSA shares next week. I’ve never been a dead (or live) turkey wrangler before, so despite the implications, I am looking forward to a new experience.
We see a lot of wild turkeys near our home. Mostly, they browse in the field near the lane to the highway, or are seen flying over the road. For those of us that remember when Iowa turkeys were an endangered species, it is always a happy sight. But enough turkey talk.
If the farm work has been winding down, it comes to a halt after delivering the final shares on Tuesday. We’ll settle up and settle in for winter. That it’s snowing as I write this post is a sign of the time of year. Confronted with the end of year holidays, it’s time to take stock of home life and work life, and make plans. This year’s planning will be as important as in any previous year.
Home life is patterned by habits formed over a lifetime: more indoor work— cooking, cleaning, writing and reading— and the part of work life devoted to research and development— studying opportunities and determining viability. As with most who live an alternative lifestyle, funding cash flow during 2014 will be a pressing issue, although I am not yet willing to sell plasma to do so.
If 2013 was anything, it was an experiment in lowly paid work, first in a warehouse, assembling kits for Whirlpool, and then on a number of farms. What I’ve found is my aging frame can take the work, but there are limits to how the tendons and muscles can tolerate increased physical activity. I am optimistic about performing physical work in more active jobs.
That said, I don’t plan to return to the warehouse, even though they invited me to return when the farm season was finished. The pay was low, and the social networking not good enough to distill further benefit. So what’s next? That’s the question for answering during the next few weeks. There are ideas, but no plans yet. I am thankful for the ability to be in this position as the snow falls and winter approaches.
Categories
Restless Night of Pickles
LAKE MACBRIDE— Reaching for the two empty quart Mason jars in the cupboard, I filled them, and another pint— with daikon radish pickles. Rather, there will be pickles once the mixture of sliced daikon, vinegar, filtered water, salt, agave nectar, mustard seed, peppercorns, garlic cloves, jalapeno and Serrano peppers has been in the refrigerator a few days. The kitchen work was finished before 4 a.m.
There is more to the story of a sleepless night. Perhaps there was solid sleep, but after midnight, it would not return. As the screen from the mobile phone illuminated the room, I found a recipe for pickles in my twitter feed. The ingredients were in the refrigerator and pantry. The allure was too much, the daikon radishes too many. I turned on the light and started to get busy.
The day was ruined after that. Not enough sleep. A couple of hours at a farm planting garlic, then to town to get a gallon of milk and some limes. An afternoon of dozing in and out of activity. No dreaming. That’s the worst of it.
For if dreams kept me awake that would be good. Instead, it was a restless night of pickles, such restlessness leading to a day of discontent, and dreamless wonder— wondering about what’s next. Was it concerns of advancing age, with a spicy pickle to distract from quotidian blandness? No, it was the idea of pickles, as they were just made, not ready to eat. Not what I’d hoped for when I was young, this imaginary pickle making life.
As the sun moves toward the horizon, the day is coming back to life. The pickle disruption is over, with ingredients melding in the refrigerator. Fully awake, filled with wonder, I’m ready to take on a project. My restless pickle-making finished, at least for now.
Categories
Being a Farm Hand
LAKE MACBRIDE— While we were washing root vegetables, the ambient temperature started at 34 degrees and made it to 51 by the end of our shift. A cold, wet day that yielded the soundest sleep I’ve had in a long time. My hands are chapped, and application of lotion and salve to re-moisturize them has had no effect. The repetitive motion of grasping a carrot and squeezing the water nozzle to wash it would be problematic if continued. Once the carrots are washed, it’s done for 2013.
As a paid farm hand, my view of local foods production is different from the farm owners and managers. Where there is inefficiency, or extra production, there is an opportunity to perform paid work.
Part of local food production is a constant discussion about how to improve efficiencies, and my participation is welcome. However, each planting, at each step of the process, is surrounded with a complex mix of issues, challenges, techniques and possible courses of action. In order to answer a question, broad experience is needed, and usually, I don’t have much to add.
The season is winding down, and eventually the crops will be harvested, prepared and distributed, hopefully by Thanksgiving. It will be time to move on, richer in knowledge and experience if not in money. That matters in our life on the Iowa prairie.
Journey Home 
You must be logged in to post a comment.