LAKE MACBRIDE— There were big coolers full of garlic scapes and kale available at our CSA pickup point this week. It’s time to make:
Kale and garlic scape pesto
2 cups garlic scapes cut into thin slices
8-10 leaves kale, stems removed and rough chopped to make processing easier
2/3 cup toasted walnuts
Extra virgin olive oil to achieve desired texture (1 to 1-1/2 cups)
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Place scapes, kale, and nuts in the bowl of a food processor and grind until well combined and somewhat smooth but not completely pureed. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until desired texture is achieved (hint: not too much). Empty the contents into a mixing bowl and add cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Put it into small canning jars and keep one in the refrigerator and freeze the rest.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The Cedar River was swollen with recent rain as I crossed on the Solon-Tipton Road bridge for my sawyering job. Water moving to the sea on this water planet.
It was a physically demanding day, and I slept well last night. What for breakfast? Now the trouble begins.
Being a wheat eater, the first meal of the day usually includes bread, pancakes, muffins, or the like. There may be dairy in the form of milk, eggs, cheese or butter. If I feel like grating potatoes for hash browns, that will do. All of this indicating a diet that has changed little since my forebears arrived in North America from the British Isles some 350 years ago.
Occasionally I make some granola, or buy a box of cereal at the market. Oatmeal is a winter staple, and if there is fruit around, that’s nice too. The fact that a leftover grapefruit sits in the refrigerator since Saturday indicates fruit has not been an important part of breakfast, even if it should be.
The pantry is loaded with things to spread on toasted bread. Several kinds of pesto, half a dozen types of apple butter, preserves from locally grown grapes, wild blackberries and raspberries. There are more types of spreads forgotten than remembered. Too, there is more to life than jam on toast.
In the end, breakfast is easy to figure because the ingredients have been around for a long time. It typifies my cooking that I don’t really want a plan of what to have for breakfast.
If we rethink breakfast, it should be in the moment, a creation based on what’s available, what’s going bad soon and what’s possible. The list of variables is not that long, so “creation” is the better usage.
Lately breakfast has been my main meal, with snacks and sandwiches carrying me through the rest of the day. It is time to better consider this important meal and make it better.
SOLON— Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Dairy Queen in 1998, and after that, it became easy to associate the purveyor of dairy treats, Coca-Cola, burgers, hot dogs and fries company with his corporate governance. It is our local outlet in the industrial food chain with ties to the deepest memories of growing up in the late 1950s and 1960s, when the stores closed down at the end of each season— the owners packing it in for Florida or other warm places to avoid Iowa winters. Like a sundae topped with Buffett’s intellectual construct.
I stopped on my way to the county seat to get a vanilla cone. I was loathe to do so because the restaurant is less about food and more about the cognitive dissonance created when juxtaposing childhood memories with a strip mall experience. If I dined at our Dairy Queen on fare other than cones and Dilly Bars, the experience was forgettable.
Six illuminated menu boards above the transfer space from the kitchen to the order prep area display the offerings. There has not been much change in the staple lunch and dinner items since they were developed. The changes in food occur in the supply chain leading up to this Buffett cultural outlet.
On the positive side, the staff was friendly, courteous and efficient. I had my cone in a matter of minutes and the cool, soft experience evoked memories the way a Madeleine might over tea. Perhaps that’s the point.
The trip to Dairy Queen is one I delayed for as long as possible on the restaurant crawl. Except for memories, there is little reason to stop by, even if locals have made ours one of the longer term restaurant successes in town. There are likely other Buffett outlets in town, but none so conspicuous as this summer treat full of memory tainted by its association with the fifth largest company in the world. It is part of our small town dining experience, where the food is local, but not “local.”
LAKE MACBRIDE— One day per week usually shapes up to be a garden and farm day. Yesterday I planted peppers for 3-1/2 hours at the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project, followed by tomato planting and mowing/mulching at home. There will be plenty of grass clippings, and a host of relieved neighbors once I bring it all in. The tomatoes are in the ground, and victims of transplanting have been replaced.
The pepper plants from last week were shocked, with the leaves characteristically turning white. Today it appears few of them will survive. Afterward, I moved most of the rest of the seedlings outside to harden them. Luckily I have a few additional bell pepper seedlings and can get more from the CSA if needed. The hots are aplenty.
Summer Beer
At a meeting last night, we had a conversation about what to do about arugula that bolted (produced flowers), and decided we would eat the leaves. I also gave away some of my excess tomato seedlings and two heads of lettuce, a bag of kale and one of braising greens to young city dwellers who don’t have gardens. There is plenty of food around our house and giving it away is a gratifying part of a local food system.
Last week I purchased a case of beer for after the garden is planted. It is an annual ritual. The beer lasts until fall as I ice them down in a cooler and down them a couple at a time in summer’s heat.
While gardening and farm work aren’t all that was going on yesterday, it seems better to combine those activities, if for no other reason than to dirty only one set of clothes. Something minor, but important as laundry time becomes more precious and limited.
LAKE MACBRIDE— There is a lot of spinach in the garden. The trick is to harvest it before the sun gets high in the sky. I got a bushel this morning, and it is washed and drying between terry cloth towels.
In the space left from radishes, I planted bell pepper seedlings, clearing a tray out of the bedroom (finally). One tomato plant in the slicer patch had died, so I replaced it. The rest are looking good. Just one or two more rows of tomatoes to plant and then the growing. Outside work broke up my gardening morning.
LAKE MACBRIDE— I planted Acer and Beefsteak tomatoes today, commonly referred to as slicers. Also harvested some radishes for dinner. It was about 2-1/2 hours all-told. The first tomato seedlings seem to be surviving, although they haven’t grown much. There is one more variety of tomato to plant, the Best Boy.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The tomato seedlings weathered the afternoon sun and overnight rain, and each cage has at least one survivor from the transplanting. The next threat is bugs that chew on the young stems. I’m ready with extra seedlings should some be stricken.
The plot of spring vegetables looks nice after yesterday’s hoeing. Dark wet soil between bursts of green. The carrots did not germinate. It won’t be long before the radishes are ready to harvest. The ground is too wet to work in the garden this morning.
Mike Carberry, Diane Dunlap, Lisa Green-Douglass and Janelle Rettig
The local Sierra Club, Iowa City Climate Advocates, 100 Grannies for a Livable Future and my organization, Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, hosted a county supervisor forum at the Iowa City Public Library last night. Since we were a co-sponsor I felt obligated to attend.
Martha Norbeck moderated, and the way she crammed three or four questions into a single one gave the candidates license to answer how they would around the topics. I would have picked other questions, but was not in charge of that.
The forum went like this.
I’m supporting Carberry and Rettig because I know them best, their strengths and weaknesses, and believe they will work to do well as supervisors. The other two would likely work hard if elected, but I don’t know them at all, and picking a candidate is far from being a logical process on a level playing field.
Only two weeks until the Democratic primary, which in Johnson County has been the election for local races. The lone Republican supervisor, John Etheredge, is expected to be sanded off in the Democratic wood shop that is this county’s general election. For the time being, I’m planning to vote at the polls, but get back to gardening as soon as the ground dries, and there is a break in my outside work schedule.
LAKE MACBRIDE— We agreed I could skip soil blocking at the CSA this week. There is a lot of planting to do on the farm, but the summer help has arrived, and the greenhouse needs emptying into the high tunnel and fields before planting begins again in earnest. I spent a seven hour shift in my own garden.
First task was planting tomatoes. I finalized a plan and planted the seedlings according to this plan.
Final Planting Schematic
It began by digging holes for the seedlings. They looked like this.
Tomato Holes
After a lot of work, delicately trying to plant the tomatoes without damage, the plot looked like this. I left a small strip for herbs on the north end.
Tomato Patch
I watered, staked and caged them before moving on the next plot. I transplanted the remainders in case I need them to replace failed plants.
Surplus Seedlings
I found a couple of cloves of garlic in a ditch and planted them last summer, and they came up. Because I have a supply of garlic chives, I trim off the green leaves, compost them, and use the thicker part of the plant in cooking. The leaves are definitely edible, and I would slice and mince them finely and use the same way you use chives for a very mild garlic flavor.
The plot had been left as it was at the end of the season, so there was a lot of work to be done. I removed all the fencing, the aforementioned spring garlic, and brought the John Deere up from the garage to mow it short. I dug a bit, but the day was getting late, and I stopped at about five spade rows.
Spring Garlic
It was a busy day and a lot of work. Seven hours was about all I could take before heading inside for a shower. It was a constructive day in the garden.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Farmers are back in the fields after a wet spell. According to today’s hourly forecast, there is a window for planting that lasts until 2 p.m. when scattered thunderstorms are expected.
Suddenly the house is full of greens and soup vegetables, mostly from the CSA— there is plenty to eat. But if planting isn’t done soon, there will be only a slight garden harvest.
After proof reading six late breaking stories for the newspaper, and making soup from last night’s asparagus steaming water and bits of asparagus ends, the rest of the day is mine for the garden.
Turn off the Internet and walk into the garden. That’s how today will be spent.
SOLON—My first reaction to Salt Fork Kitchen was accurate— except the part about struggling in the old, well used space. Great food will make the restaurant, even if the old church pews are uncomfortable, and the cheap, stackable restaurant chairs don’t rise to the food’s quality. Bent forks and all, the restaurant has become a popular stopping spot at 112 E. Main St. It’s because of the food.
Breakfast is the foundation of the restaurant according to their website. “Salt Fork Kitchen is a made-from-scratch, locally sourced restaurant that works with area farmers to provide exceptional, in-season food. We believe in quality first at a fair price.” They are open from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. On Saturdays from 9 a.m. until noon they offer a market of farm fresh products which supplements their sales at the nearby Iowa City Farmer’s Market. They also offer farm-to-table dinners on special occasions for a fixed price. A list of their local food sources is here.
Breakfast is a meal best made at home, but from time to time, people want a place to meet, or overnight company needs an easy transition to a road trip home. Salt Fork Kitchen serves these basic needs. If you stop there for breakfast or lunch, don’t expect fancy— just great food.
Read my previous posts about Salt Fork Kitchen here, here, here, and here.
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