Tag: cooking

In An Iowa Kitchen

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date August 12, 2016

A Gardener's Breakfast — A Gardener’s Breakfast

The local food movement relies more on kitchens than grocery stores; more on gardens than commercial growers.

While use of locally sourced food by many restaurants has changed to include more of it, a local foods movement cannot be sustained by the hodge-podge of farmers, growers and entrepreneurs who sell locally produced food to restaurants, or for that matter, to grocery stores.

The problems include scalability and sustainability.

We are living in a time where demand for local food exceeds supply. Scaling up to meet demand requires a capital investment most small farmers can’t make. Sustainability relies on creating value along with the food in a way that cooks can afford it and farmers can make a reasonable return on their investment.

Someone recently asked if the area was becoming saturated with Community Supported Agriculture projects and if that’s why some are having trouble growing membership. An answer lies elsewhere. The market for local fresh food has grown so big corporations noticed.

Companies like Hy-Vee, have tapped into the fresh food market by increasing their number of suppliers and offering fresh and local food alongside wares from large commercial growers. They are sucking up market share like a vacuum cleaner as their business model is designed to do – putting pressure on small and mid-sized growers.

Corporate involvement in the local food market is a two edged sword. Growers can sell their best wares to companies like Hy-Vee and get a reasonable return. At the same time reliance on companies rather than CSA members can distract a farmer from his or her core business.

A solution? CSAs should stick to their knitting by getting payment up front and sharing the harvest with members… all of it. It may be tempting to sell some on the side to restaurants and grocery stores, but the further away from the model they get, instead of doing one thing well, everything they do can suffer. In addition, the market share they help corporations grow may be detracting from their core business.

There is nothing wrong with a farmer growing organic greens for restaurant salads and stir fries. In the end, each farmer must make ends meet, and operating a farm —even a small one — is an expensive operation with tight margins. My point is to focus on one thing and do it well.

It is one thing for a farmer to disassemble a barn and use the materials to create raised beds for a ten-person CSA. It is quite another to support a couple hundred families with the variety of produce the market demands. If you ask a hundred CSA members, as I have, why they belong, answers are all over the map. Some want assurance of a grower who uses organic methods to produce food. Some want variety unavailable at Aldi’s or Fareway. Others want to create a cooking experience with young children as part of their education. Most want to feel good about what they are doing with their lives.

One hopes we are beyond the discussion of “food miles” and on to the core value of the nascent local food economy: know the face of the farmer. It’s corollary is know how your food is grown. Try as they might with life-size cutouts of farmers in their stores, corporations have a hard time doing that. Their customers are too diverse, and they have to cater to everyone in the community. If a person combines these two ideas, knowing how our food is produced and creating demand for local, fresh food the local food movement has a chance.

A very few people strive to source every food ingredient locally. It is not with them the future of local food lies. The future of local food is within the potential of every Iowa kitchen.

To sustain the local foods movement requires consideration of what it means to belong to a CSA or buy from a farmers market. Can that fit into culinary habits in a way that is not an encumbrance to what most perceive as very busy lives?

Can kitchen cooks grow some of their own produce? Probably yes, even if it means only a large flower pot with some cherry tomatoes or an herb jar on a window ledge. Even these small things may be a step too far for some.

The trend in food includes extensive prep work done by machines and large companies. Heat and serve has become a by-line for many available grocery items. Along with taking the kitchen work out of meals, risks of contamination have been created and along with it the need for recalls from large processors whose products get contaminated by E. coli and listeria.

In a consumer society it will always be tough for small-scale producers to survive and thrive. That’s why I say the future of the local food movement rests in Iowa kitchens where cooks can use less processed foods and more fresh — secured by buying local and growing their own.

It’s work many can’t do because of choices made about careers and family. What may be the saving grace of the local food movement is the idea of taking control of our kitchens, in part by living and eating local as much as we can.

Tags cooking, environment, homelife, Kitchen Garden, local food, tomatoes

Home Life

Couple Hours to Myself

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date August 6, 2016

Gardener's Breakfast of tomato, salt, pepper and feta cheese. — Gardener’s Breakfast of tomato, salt, pepper and feta cheese.

Hope regular readers are well tolerating my posts from Blog for Iowa. They are different from what I normally write here, but then none of us is one-dimensional — I hope.

I got off work at the orchard a couple hours early. It’s the beginning of the season and we had plenty of staff to cover customers. The apples coming in are mostly tart and useful for baking, apple sauce and apple butter. We had ten varieties available today.

Had a great conversation with a gent who bought a large bag of Dolgo crabs for crab apple jelly. His recipe was basically this one.

“Don’t squeeze the jelly bag,” he cautioned. “The jelly will go cloudy.”

I wished him good luck as he headed for the sales barn exit.

We get a treat for each shift we work. I ate a Zestar apple. Before leaving I bought a 10-pound box of blue berries and on the way home secured a dozen ears of sweet corn at a roadside stand. Tonight’s dinner will be sweet corn on the cob and fresh tomatoes with blueberry yogurt for dessert.

Seconds Bell Peppers Plans for the unexpected mid day gap are to mow the lawn, gather the grass clippings, process bell peppers and Roma tomatoes, fix dinner and freeze some of the blueberries. The freezer is already packed, so I hope the peppers and blue berries will fit. I have no idea if everything will get finished.

A storm blew down a pear tree branch. After inspecting the damage I picked the unripe fruit then cut the branch cleanly from the trunk. Once they ripen we’ll have more than enough for fresh and maybe some for pureed pear sauce. The tree is still loaded.

Working three jobs is challenging mentally, physically and every way in between. It’s hard to keep up and a couple of unexpected hours to myself was a welcome surprise.

Tags apples, cooking, homelife, local food, Sustainability, Working poor, worklife

Environment Home Life Kitchen Garden

New Saturday Night

Music filled the Saturday afternoon gap left by Garrison Keillor’s retirement.

Not radio, but music recorded on audio cassette tapes.

It is amazing there is even a player in the house. (There are two that work). The sound quality of this outdated technology was surprisingly good.

While processing vegetables into meals and storage items, I listened to Shaka Zulu and Journey of Dreams by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon. I hit the pause button when I left the room so the tape wouldn’t run out without hearing it.

When Jacque returned home from work we had our first sweet corn meal of the season: steamed green beans and corn on the cob. As they ripen, tomatoes will replace green beans. There is nothing like seasonal Iowa sweet corn. I made a cucumber-tomato salad as accompaniment using a recipe found by googling on-hand ingredients.

The Saturday kitchen produced a gallon of vegetable soup, refried bean dip, daikon radish refrigerator pickles and sweet pickles made with turmeric. Outside was hot and humid although nowhere near as oppressive as the summer of 2012 when we had record drought.

On Friday Donnelle Eller posted an article about corn sweat at the Des Moines Register. Corn and soybean plants, which cover Iowa farmland, transpire moisture. During pollination and ear formation as much as 4,000 gallons of water per acre of corn is released into the atmosphere daily, making it feel humid. There were a number of articles about corn sweat in the media last week.

What makes this year different is not corn sweat. The first half of 2016 was Earth’s hottest year on record. This impacts the hydrology cycle, change in which is a primary manifestation of climate change. With global warming the atmosphere can hold more moisture until a precipitating event makes a rainstorm. It is more often a gully-washer.

The high winds and heavy, short-duration rain have become more frequent in recent years. This week a storm caused significant damage to the garden. In addition to losing the Golden Delicious apple tree, the cucumber towers blew over uprooting about half of the pickling cucumber plants. The Serrano pepper plants blew over, breaking the stalk of one near the ground. The high deer fence blew down and deer got into the kale and pepper patch by jumping the low fence. The cherry tomato plants blew over, however I was able to upright and re-stake them without damage.

Climate change is real, it is happening now. It is time to act to mitigate the effects of global warming.

Political Event with Tim Kaine at Bob and Sue Dvorsky's home in Coralville, Iowa on Aug. 17, 2010 — Tim Kaine at Bob and Sue Dvorsky’s home in Coralville, Iowa on Aug. 17, 2010

Hillary Clinton announced Senator Tim Kaine would be her running mate this weekend. Friends were posting photos all weekend from the August 2010 event he attended in Coralville. If he wasn’t the center of attention then, as the photo suggests, he will be now.

I’m torn about viewing the Democratic National Convention this week. Hopefully key speeches will be available for viewing afterward and I can avoid social media enough to think clearly about what Hillary Clinton says.

As Sunday begins, I’m not sure listening to recorded music will adequately replace Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. It’s here. It’s what I can do to sustain our lives in a turbulent world.

Tags cooking, environment, homelife, Music, summer, Sustainability, The Climate Reality Project

Kitchen Garden

Cook or Quit

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 22, 2016

I put on my rubber boots and went to the garden in the predawn sunlight. I left a trail where my boots scraped against the dew drops formed on the lawn.

Fresh deer droppings lay moist under the oak trees and two rabbits stopped and watched as I made my way through the clover. I picked cherry tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, daikon radish and everything in this photo.

In the kitchen I made salsa using fresh ingredients, some old relish — everything that made sense. It was tasty and spicy, quite delicious.

The future of any local food movement is in the hands and kitchens of people who do these kinds of things.

If you ask my mother’s generation, “what is local food,” they often mention sweet corn and tomatoes. Hard to argue with the taste and seasonality of those two vegetables, but there is more.

Cooking goes against the grain of a global society increasingly and intentionally seeking to remove creative, engaged prep work from the kitchen and replace it with heat and serve processed food. Here’s an example.

While on break at the home, farm and auto supply store food preparation became a conversation topic as it often does.

A colleague explained how he bought a bag of prepared frozen meatballs from COSTCO and warmed them in his favorite barbecue sauce. He then took a small loaf of white bread, halved and toasted it, and spooned the meatballs on the bottom half making a meatball sandwich. He said it was really good as we listened.

If taste and ease of preparation is all we seek, the industrial food supply chain can meet our needs. In that case, when it comes to local food, what’s here becomes local.

I’ve been spending time in the kitchen this week. At 5 a.m. I stop what I’m doing and make breakfast. Stirfry, roasted vegetables, and because they are in season, fresh steamed green beans with every meal. It feels a little weird, but I felt better all day because I ate mostly what I grew before 7 a.m.

The local food movement is just not going to happen based on a small number of farmers, chefs and advocates and there’s the ceiling. If it becomes a part of our daily lives, which include vegetables from the garden, eggs from chickens we know and preparing food to taste, then the local food movement has a chance.

What it reduces to is either cook or quit.

Tags cooking, homelife, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

Why Not More Celery?

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 10, 2016

Why don’t more Iowans grow celery?

More specifically, why don’t more Community Supported Agriculture projects produce it for members and local food farmers for restaurants and markets?

I’ve been asking this question of growers and the reaction has been surprise at my results and maybe an assertion they will try it. There is substantial demand for the aromatic vegetable in kitchens and restaurants yet the perception is celery doesn’t grow well in Iowa, so farmers mostly don’t.

Celery from my garden tastes better than regular or organic available at the grocery store. In addition, celery is in the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables for use of pesticides, ranking #5. Why buy California celery when we can produce our own at least part of the year? Having the best possible flavor is important to everything cooked with celery.

Celery takes about 120 days and requires adequate water, more than most vegetables. That means seeding trays planted in late February to produce the crop being harvested this weekend. I use Conquistador OG seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine. (OG stands for organic). It took me a couple of years to get successfully from seedlings to the ground to a crop as I experimented with growing. This year’s crop has been the best ever.

I attribute success to using 4-inch drainage tile cut into 8-inch lengths to protect and support young seedlings. I mulch with grass clippings and weed regularly. Each morning I make sure a substantial dose of water is applied. Larger scale farmers shun this extra work, focusing more on crops that can be mechanized (like potatoes) or are popular among customers (like cabbage, tomatoes and peppers). The flavor of local celery, and growing it pesticide-free, make the extra work worth it.

Every head of celery will be used fresh this year. There were only a dozen from the garden in this experimental year and I shared some with library workers in town. Next year I plan to double production and if there is more than can be used fresh, preserve part of it.

In June at the Global Foods Market in Kirkwood, Missouri, I bought a jar of celery salad in a glass jar. The preparation uses celery, apple juice, walnut extract and vinegar and is an example of a shelf-stable item for winter consumption. For the time being, I expect to use everything fresh in soups, stir fry and Louisiana-style beans and rice.

If the local foods movement doesn’t wake up to celery, there is a market for sales to restaurants to pursue. If they don’t exploit it, I will.

Tags cooking, farming, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

Gardeners Are Cooks

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 3, 2016

As the garden produces more food than we can eat fresh, attention turns toward the kitchen where preservation, along with preparation of tasty fresh food meals, are the priorities.

Kitchen work started Saturday afternoon and continues.

I prepared a simple dinner while listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio. For appetizer there was basil pesto spread on a piece of toast, a slice of cheese, and raw carrots. The main course was brown rice cooked in homemade soup stock sprinkled with scallions, steamed green beans, a burger patty topped with home made barbecue sauce, and a Belgian beer. Dessert was fresh cherries mixed in a cup of Greek yogurt. Each plate exuded summer goodness.

A full row of basil produced enough leaves to make pesto. Here is the recipe:

Simple Basil Pesto

2 cups fresh basil leaves (packed)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
Salt and pepper to taste

In the bowl of a food processor take the following steps:
Pour basil leaves in the bottom and add pine nuts.
Pulse for about 30-45 seconds.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add garlic and cheese.
Pulse for 30-45 seconds.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Stream the olive oil into the bowl while it is running, scraping down the sides from time to time.
Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

Pesto must be used quickly or frozen to prevent oxidation. The plan is to make a pasta dish using pesto as the dressing.

On a working class payday it feels like there is money so I did some shopping, buying some special items: two kinds of bird seed, a case of Stella Artois, a case of brewed root beer, and three pounds of fresh, Michigan sweet cherries. The beverages should last the rest of the summer.

Here’s how I told the story on social media,

After work at the home, farm and auto supply store I bought two kinds of bird seed: straight safflower seeds and a mix of sunflower kernels, peanuts, sunflower seed, safflower seed, hulled pumpkin seed, raisins and dried cranberries. We’ve already tried straight millet, and straight sunflower seeds, plus a traditional mix.

Next I went to the warehouse club up the hill where I bought a big bag of garlic (to make basil pesto on Saturday) and some root beer for the holiday weekend.

After that, to the orchard where I bought these cherries. I met Paul’s brother once at the orchard and these are his cherries, grown in Michigan. Know the face of your farmer is my best advice on eating good food. I also confirmed the start of my employment when the season begins July 30. With my other jobs that will be seven days a week of work until November, but it’s so much fun, it’s not really work. Hope my Facebook friends have a great weekend.

Use of greens turned from turnip tops to kale. I gave library workers a reprieve and have a large plastic bag full of kale in the refrigerator. While not sure what to do with it, it will be revealed when I return to the kitchen. Fresh soup certainly; a kale salad for lunch most likely. Kale freezes well, however, if everything goes well in the garden, plants will continue to produce until November — no need to fill up the freezer with kale today. It is encouragement to pick the best leaves now and compost the rest.

It is sad more people don’t appreciate kale.

Kale Comment

Cut stems of oregano are on the drying rack. The herb returns each year and we don’t use much of it. The plan is to dry enough to fill a small jar for winter. Whatever basil is left after another jar of pesto will also go on the drying rack.

One of the deficiencies of our garden is not enough flowers. In fact, the only flowers are some volunteer day lilies and milkweed. After many years of fruit and vegetable growing, I may be proficient enough to plan a flower garden plot. That idea will go into the planning hopper for next year.

We are going home and three events this weekend reminded us of that.

Elie Wiesel died, silencing an important voice for human rights. I will never forget the Holocaust as one of the genocides that make us who we are. While visiting Dachau in 1974 I learned the reason Jews were exterminated with poison gas was bullets were too expensive, according to the Nazis. My visit highlighted the importance of treating every human being with kindness and dignity — a lesson that continues today.

Garrison Keillor performed for the last time as host of A Prairie Home Companion. During a previous “last show” in the 1980s I turned on the cassette recorder and went for a walk with our daughter. I wanted to be with her constantly before she left home for school. As we now know, Keillor’s departure in the ’80s was more hiatus. Preparing dinner with the radio tuned in has become a part of my life, reinforced during the years in Big Grove. I’ll get over the change. I listened to the whole program last night.

Paul Simon is ready to give up writing and performing music. “Showbiz doesn’t hold any interest for me,” Simon told Jim Dwyer of the New York Times. “None.” If he does give up music after his current world tour, it will have been a great run for the septuagenarian. I was a fan of Simon and Garfunkel in high school and have vinyl of their first album with “Hey School Girl.” On the album jacket it reads, “Contained in this album is a generous sampling of two stars of tomorrow who are the talk of the record world today.” Simon continues to be the talk of the recording world, so cross off the part about the future. Early Paul Simon inspired me to write. Modern day Paul Simon teaches us to keep learning and changing.

Celebrity departures from life in society are one thing, but it’s closer to home. My parents’ generation is dying and so many of my high school classmates have left us. There is a meme going around social media expressing this sentiment. Here is a sample with my response:

Boomers Die

Michael Martinez explained why the elves left Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings. While not exactly the same it articulates a relevant sentiment:

The elves were compelled to leave Middle Earth by a spiritual summons of the Valar, calling them to their ultimate destinies within time and space. In The Simarillion J.R.R. Tolkien explains how the Valar — the guardians of the world — felt that the long-lived elves would be better off living near the Valar in the blessed realm, far from the mortal lands where men were destined to build their civilizations and live out their lives.

It is time to let go and let others build their lives. The kale and basil won’t preserve themselves, so I’m off to the kitchen.

Tags cooking, Kitchen Garden, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden Living in Society Social Commentary Work Life

Father’s Day Weekend

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 19, 2016

A benefit of an American lifestyle is having the occasional weekend off.

Yet the weekend is more French than American — le weekend!

In June 1977, over two weekends, I was in France with a French infantry marine unit. Those days imprinted the meaning of “weekend” on me even if I don’t get to weekend very often.

My guide for the exchange officer experience was an infantry marine platoon leader stationed on the Atlantic coast in Vannes. The unit was on alert to deploy to Djibouti, which had recently declared its independence from France. If there was trouble in the transition, the unit would head there.

Upon arrival at the train station I was driven straight to the officer’s club. I drank too many pastis before attending a reception in my honor — no one told me about the reception until several pastis had passed my lips. The non-commissioned officers lined up one aperitif after another in front of me with glee. Too drunk to be embarrassed, when someone mentioned the reception, I decided to leave the remaining drinks on the table, sober up, and listen and learn about the culture.

At the reception I practiced my French and mustered a dim comment about the Concorde, which was still new. The alcohol drove out my vocabulary so it was the best I could do.

In homes and apartments I briefly lived as French do. There was a continuous series of meals and events tied together with a notion of forgetting about work for a while. Weekends continue to be French in Big Grove, although with much less alcohol and no drunkenness. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

Last Saturday of Spring Harvest - kale, peas, carrots, celery, oregano, basil and spring onions. — Last Saturday of Spring Harvest – kale, peas, carrots, celery, oregano, basil and spring onions.

The garden is in, harvest begun and work remains to be done this Father’s Day weekend.

Weekends at home are a way to avoid expenses as I navigate from semi-retirement to full retirement in a few years. There is no extra money to drive into the county seat for “shopping,” nor is there adequate clothing in the closet to attend any galas to which I may be invited. Working at home avoids expense.

Saturday was the first of many harvests from the vegetable garden. Untold hours were devoted to planting, cultivation and now harvest of kale, celery, carrots, peas, spring onions, basil and oregano. It was exciting.

One of my outlets for excess produce has been workers at the public library. I prepared shares of onions, kale, oregano and basil in a cooler and drove them into town. One of the library workers gave me an acorn squash seedling for which I will find room.

Next I went to the grocery store where a neighbor and I talked for ten minutes about beer selections. He didn’t carry the union-made Pabst Blue Ribbon that would have been my first choice, nor did he have made in Canada Labatt’s Blue which would have been my second. Partly as political commentary I settled for a six-pack of a Mexican mass produced brand. Upon return home I iced three of them and two cans of Royal Crown Cola in the cooler.

The garden entered the summer phase and it’s time to break loose the broccoli.

Last year the broccoli crop was a failure. I decided to protect the seedlings with chicken wire a
nd they survived initial growth. It’s time to take the chicken wire off the individual plants and create a close fence that will keep deer from jumping in and allow the plants to spread their leaves. I scoped it out on Saturday and hope to free the broccoli later this morning.

Harvest is unfinished until the produce is washed, distributed and processed. In a kitchen garden like ours that means cleaning, storage and cooking which takes more time than one might expect.

For dinner I made peas and carrots, and kale-black bean-vegetable soup poured over brown rice made with a jar of home made tomato juice. By the end of Saturday I was very tired.

I took a course in African American Studies while in graduate school.

Kale - Black Bean Soup on Brown Rice — Kale – Black Bean Soup on Brown Rice

The late Jonathan Walton made the case that slaves were likely too tired to do much organizing after working a shift on Southern plantations. I learned a lot about the literature of slavery and its narratives because of Walton. I wasn’t sure what to make of his assertion, other than that slaves were people just as we are.

I yawned during class from time to time and Walton called me on it, inquiring about my condition… was the subject matter too tedious? Had I been up late the previous night? I tried to stay awake. It was a dry topic.

Everyone has an opinion about slavery. For the most part, people don’t directly favor it. It is a stain on our public consciousness that has not been removed, nor likely will be in my lifetime. I’m not sure what exactly that means in 21st Century America.

The term “wage-slave” is popular today, especially among people ascendant from low-paying work. Forced labor continues to exist unawares, notably through labor trafficking. Neither is the same thing the peculiar institution was.

Modern life has us removed from the actuality of things like neighboring, sharing and slavery and we are the less for it. This Father’s Day Weekend I plan to commune with what is actual — what is real. By doing so sustain our lives in a turbulent world.

Tags cooking, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability, worklife

Kitchen Garden

Mostly Outdoors

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 30, 2016

Sunday’s indoor task was to process 14 quarts of soup stock made on Saturday in a water bath.

That was easy because mostly it is about filling jars, waiting for the water to boil, then setting a timer.

That part of the mission was accomplished.

The rest of the day was outdoors where I planted hot peppers (three varieties of Jalapeno, Serrano and Bangkok), put Brandywine tomato seedlings in the ground, and filled in the small number of gaps where first-planted seedlings didn’t take.

I mowed and collected grass clippings for mulch — a two hour project that was repeatedly halted to clear the tube leading to the bags. There were more clogs than usual. Once mulched, I re-arranged the fencing and installed a lightweight high fence around the kale-hot pepper plot to deter deer from jumping the fence. It looks home made, but was no cost and will serve.

A rabbit was munching or resting in the former lettuce patch. It ran for the thicket as I approached.

Despite a tiring day of work, not everything got done as planned.

At least there is stock.

Tags cooking, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

In the Kitchen Garden

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 22, 2016

Radishes, spring garlic and turnip greens were ready for harvest.

It was the beginning of a day of gardening and cooking as good as takes place anywhere in the world.

The combination of today’s harvest, previous pickings in the ice box and bits and pieces made for a day close to the soil and replete with tasty and nutritious food.

It’s what gardeners live for.

I started a pot of turnip stock made of carrot, onion, celery, bay leaves, chervil and a large bunch of freshly picked and cleaned turnip greens. After bringing it to a boil, I turned down the heat and simmered it for most of the day. It made about a gallon.

After working in the yard and garden all day I came inside, strained the stock and used two cups to make rice for a casserole. I pulled the last bottle of Pinot Noir from the cooler, poured a glass and sipped while cooking our meal.

The casserole included three eggs from a friend’s farm, sauteed onion and spring garlic, along with wilted greens from the farm. I added a quarter cup dried parsley to the ingredients in a large stainless steel bowl, mixed and turned it into a buttered baking dish. I topped the casserole with Parmesan cheese and baked for 30-35 minutes. Once the casserole was in the oven I made small salads with lettuce from the ice box. There was part of a cucumber, carrot, radishes, Vidalia onion, and prepared kidney beans. Dressing was commercial, organic balsamic from the ice box.

To live life one must either cook or quit. As hard as Saturday’s work was, I’m not ready to quit.

The priority among the endless yard and garden tasks is getting the rest of spring planting finished.

I fenced the sprouted green beans, planted basil, and deconstructed last year’s kale patch for this year’s tomatoes. I left the row of peas.

I measured the plot. If the tomato seedlings are 36 inches apart, there is room for 20 without digging up the peas. The ground was full of earthworms when I spaded it.

Needing mulch for the tomatoes, I mowed with the grass catcher. The second cut was less than the first. I piled them where the bell pepper plants will go. When the sun comes up today I’ll finish preparing the soil.

The day was full of work. I caught a tomato cage in the mower and took a half hour to jack the front end up and remove it from around the blade. There was trimming, raking and watering. Temperatures were close to 80 degrees, but it didn’t seem hot.

After dinner it didn’t take long to fold laundry and fall asleep with the feeling it was a day well spent.

Tags cooking, Kitchen Garden, local food

Home Life Kitchen Garden

Recipe Search

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date April 3, 2016

I called off work at the farm because of the six stitches in my right hand. I had hoped to resume soil blocking today, but not yet.

On deck is transplanting basil into larger plastic pots, preparing containers for potato planting, and radishes, turnips and spinach planted in the ground as the temperature rises to 70 degrees and rain holds off until late afternoon.

With these tasks I can set my own pace and take breaks if pain in my right hand returns.

Over the years I’ve collected several hundred cookbooks, including one from the hospital where I was born. Published in 1977, Cooking For… Mercy’s Sake is full of ingredients and ideas I won’t likely use — American cheese, lard, meat and seafood, and a host of prepared food and food mixes.

Still, I search through the recipes, seeking the name of a contributor I know and recipes that can be adapted to our fresh food, locally produced lifestyle. The cookbook committee wrote this poem as introduction:

Recipes are certainly handy
When making cookies, pies and candy.
On the pages of this cookbook you’ll find
Favorite recipes of every kind.
We thank all our friends who took their time
To write their recipes, line by line.
Good luck to you and may you have fun
Trying these recipes, one by one.

On first reading, there’s not much there. Because of my relationship with the hospital I’ll give it another read to see if I can find something adaptable.

My life is about much more than food. While I write a lot about consumables, I’m also preoccupied with the journey — hopefully a long one — through my later working years to full retirement and old age. I didn’t think this would be the case, but as I finished writing for newspapers and took a full-time job there is an undeniable feeling that a corner has been turned. I know part of what’s around the corner and much is also a mystery. I’ll need nourishment along the way, but the unfolding journey is what life has become about.

My take on this is pretty simple, and it goes back to Joan Didion, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I’m trying to make a life in that sense.

Didion explained, “We live entirely… by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria — which is our actual experience.”

I respect the narratives of others, but can’t adopt them as mine. It is about disengaging from established narratives and experiencing what’s next.

Each day is an adventure in that regard, one to seek joyfully.

Tags cooking