Tag: local food

Categories
Writing

Autobiography, Blogging and Canning

Apple Sauce 2013
Apple Sauce 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— The afternoon was spent making applesauce with the last of the fallen apples from the Sept. 19 storm. They stored well, and six quart Mason jars and a pint are processing in the water bath canner. It’s local food more so than most: they fell about 30 feet from the kitchen window during the storm.

After experimenting with applesauce techniques, I cored, but did not peel the apples, cut each into about 16 pieces, steamed them in a bit or water until they released their own juice and begin to fall apart, and processed them through a food mill. I also made chunky-style apple sauce, using a potato masher before spooning it into a jar. No spices or sweeteners here. They can be added when serving, but this applesauce really needs no additives.

Is the story of my applesauce afternoon worth writing or reading? I don’t know about the latter, but the process of writing helps me understand life on the plains in a way that takes the rough, dull and lonely parts out, rendering it into a sweet pulp to serve to friends and family, and packaged to give as a gift. Seriously. Who wants to hear about the rough, dull and lonely parts of life anyway?

There is the actuality of the time spent and the image above. If that’s all there were in this post, an autobiography of a moment in time, it would not be worth reading. The hope is that by imagining a life, and writing it down, some value can be added, and if we are lucky, an epiphany reached.

According to WordPress, there are more than 72 million blogs on their site. Add in the other sites and there is a lot to read, many thoughtful, some hate-filled, and more than a person could ever consider. For the blogger, it is a way to write, an outlet for expression in a world where only a very small number of writers get read, and even less get paid. We need outlets.

There is a first draft quality to a blog post. A flawed freshness that can be like the life from which it is expressed. Sometimes it is sticky, syrupy sweet or messy, and that goes with the territory. We’re not the Scientific American or Harvard Business Review in the blogosphere. What we hope to be is an expression of the imagination. Taking the desultory moments of a modern life as the ingredients of something better, something universal. Bloggers mostly fail to reach the sublime, but once in a while, things come together.

So there it is, the ABCs of writing in autobiography, blogging and canning. Write about what one knows, do actually write on some platform, and think in terms of a finite product that is useful to someone, to nourish a body, but more importantly, one’s intellect and spirit. There are benefits, not the least of which can be jars of applesauce.

Categories
Home Life

Random Notes on a Saturday Morning

Last Fresh Garden Tomatoes
Last Fresh Garden Tomatoes

LAKE MACBRIDE— Politicians glom on to veterans like there is no tomorrow. Veterans vote, we live in society, and most of us served and left the military behind without comment or regret. Politicians should work to reduce the number of veterans we are creating as a society, rather than glomming onto our service for political reasons. That could be their service, and the nation would be grateful.

The newspaper work is finished for today. The focus will be on home work. The atmosphere is calm, so the brush pile can be burned, preparing a space for planting garlic tomorrow or next week. There are lots of apples for processing into applesauce, apple crisp and maybe some dehydrated apples. That is, once the dried herbs in the dehydrator are removed and cleaned. The last of the fresh tomatoes will be turned into a pot of chili for supper. There are more turnip greens for soup stock, and a drawer full of root vegetables in the refrigerator— plus whatever else is harvested today. There is a whole afternoon of kitchen work.

Having gone to town this morning I hope to remain on the property, or within walking distance. Maybe once the brush is burned, I’ll take a walk on the lake trail, but no further. It’s what’s called living, and we don’t do enough of it. And it’s time to get on with it.

Categories
Writing

Cleaning Onions

Trimming Onions
Cleaning Onions

LAKE MACBRIDE— Napping when the email arrived, an hour later I woke, read it and made it over to the farm at a quarter to noon to clean onions. It was solitary work removing the tops and roots, and sorting them into crates. It took five hours. While I worked, one person was at a meeting in town, two sorted and cleaned potatoes, and another sorted spaghetti squash. Silent, but communal work in support of our local food system. Around 1 p.m. everyone else had finished and was gone, leaving me with my thoughts and work.

One of the ironies of this year has been that while working a lot of hours in local food production, my time in the kitchen has been limited. I prepared a number of seasonal dishes, but there was little experimentation or cooking for pleasure. Most of the kitchen time was spent preserving food, rather than preparing meals, converting that part of our home to a temporary mini-factory.

Rendering fresh produce into a shelf-stable product is a vital part of summer abundance. This year there are some new items: dill pickles, sweet pepper sauce, and grape and raspberry jam. As fresh cooking turns to pantry cooking, the household is ready.

In the declining light of the barn, something enveloped me. It was as if the world had been shut out as my pile of onions leaves mounted. I returned briefly to youth, and the holiday time. When there were trips to the drug store to see what seasonal offerings were made. There were trips to used book stores, to secure a supply of winter reading material, even though there was plenty to read already in the house. An trip to the liquor store to buy some wine made of German Riesling grapes, or distilled French spirits: Armagnac, cognac and Calvados. The luxuries of plain living all.

When the onion cleaning was done, the sun was setting and I headed home along the gravel back roads littered with fall foliage and deer crossings. For dinner I cooked veggie burgers and served them on buns bought from the day old rack at $1.40 for eight. Condiments were ketchup and a slice of onion, sides of coleslaw and baked beans. Comfort food for a hearty meal.

What did my onion day dreams mean? It’s hard to say, but the actuality of that feeling took me back to a time of less worry, and living in each moment. A time when our potential seemed unlimited as we left home to see what the world had to offer. In some ways, that journey was never completed. Who knew it would end up in a quiet barn cleaning onions?

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Root Vegetables in November

Farm Greeting
Farm Greeting

LAKE MACBRIDE— As the sun set on Monday I was washing 75 pounds of spinach at a friend’s farm. The two acres is a community supported agriculture project, and that morning, a lot of food remained in the field. The day’s work was to get as much of it harvested as five of us could. During a nine hour shift, we harvested spinach, carrots, daikon radishes, rutabaga, turnips and beets, loading up a 1973 Econoline van until we tested the limits of its capacity. A second vehicle was needed to transport the produce to off-site storage.

We left three rows of daikon radishes in the field because 600 was all we needed for member shares. Farm workers took home seconds of carrot and daikon, so today at home will be cleaning them and preparing a few dishes.

The season’s farm work is winding down, and as it does, thoughts turn to what’s next. It’s not clear right now. Maybe clarity will come with keeping my hands busy in the kitchen where there is a full refrigerator and all the root vegetables in canvas bags, waiting to become what’s next. Better soup than compost. If choices in life were as simple as making soup from the bounty of November’s root vegetables wouldn’t that be the top?

Categories
Work Life

Last Day of the Season

Wilson's Orchard
Wilson’s Orchard

RURAL IOWA CITY— Thursday was the last day of the 2013 u-pick season at Wilson’s Orchard. There were a few cars in the lot, and pumpkins displayed outside the sales barn. Out back, the flatbed truck was loaded with a tall pile of pumice left from apples just pressed for cider. Inside, there were five or six types of apples in the cooler, along with cider, apple turnovers and the numerous items in the gift shop. An employee was positioning apples slices on a dehydrator shelf. There was a sense in the air of counting the hours until closing up shop for the season. 2013 has been a great year for apples.

Stopping on the last day is a habit worth forming. It has the potential of being a  personal tradition— the kind we build our lives around. I hope to work at Wilson’s Orchard again next season.

The Gold Rush apples are not in yet. They have parentage of Golden Delicious and were cultivated for their long storage properties, perhaps as long as seven months. It will be the first year we tried them, and it is only one of many varieties sampled this year. I’d say they are delicious, but that would be an apple joke. According to a colleague, the chief apple officer will pick them from the Solon orchard next week, and they will be available for purchase on Nov. 16-17 when the sales barn is open for holiday shopping.

Pumpkin Display
Pumpkin Display

During 2013, Wilson’s Orchard was a local phenomenon. People came from all around the area to pick apples, seeking the fruit, but also family entertainment. Being the mapper, and later in the season, one of four tractor ride drivers, I was part of the show and met people from all over, each with a personal story about what brought them to the orchard. It was great fun, and one of the best work experiences I’ve had since leaving my career in logistics and transportation. The intersection of apples, farming, small business management, customer relations and speaking opportunities hit my sweet spot.

At the end of the season, this unique experience stands out, and hopefully will live long in memory. Lessons learned there will be applied elsewhere in a life on the Iowa prairie in a turbulent world.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Making Soup and Applesauce

Potato Digger
Potato Digger

LAKE MACBRIDE— At the end of the season, before the last gleanings from the garden have turned to compost, home cooks prep and cook and preserve to make use of summer’s bounty.

Foraging in the refrigerator as if it were foreign turf, forgetful of how the mix of cut onions, diverse greens and leftovers arrived, the best is culled for a hearty fall soup. Kale and onions, Brussels sprouts and broccoli stalks, celery and carrot, a turnip, some potatoes, frozen sweet corn, and everything else suitable goes into a large, stainless steel stock pot.

Tomatoes are selected from the counter, their numbers diminishing without replenishment from the garden patch. Cutting away the soft and dark spots, they were cored and pulsed on low speed in the blender, skins and all. The red puree was poured all at once into the simmering ingredients. A handful of leftover farfalle, bay leaves, some dried red and black beans, and chervil were added. The pot simmered more than an hour on low heat. It was soup for dinner.

At 3:15 a.m. I brought the graniteware water bath canner from downstairs to the kitchen. Using the wire rack, four quarts and a pint of applesauce, plus the pepper puree made this weekend, were lowered into the pot which was then filled with warm tap water. Moving the heavy pot to the stove, I turned the heat on high to process the jars of summer goodness. Now breakfast.

While working in the local food system, one never knows when or where the next paying job will come along. I finished the season at the orchard yesterday, at one CSA the work is clearing the field, which won’t take too long, then there is the planting in the high tunnel and fall share help, which will end soon as well. There is the prospect of cutting firewood at another farm, but weather seems likely to intervene before long. It begs the question, what’s next?

While invited to return to the warehouse after the season, it doesn’t pay enough given the investment in health and well being required. It is a fallback position to pay some of our bills should no other opportunities present themselves. There are a lot of low wage jobs around town, but they present the same problem of occupying space without providing enough income. I’m confident something will materialize.

While there is fresh food, I’ll continue to eat well and stock the pantry for winter. Mostly, we eat to live, and there is still time to make deposits in the food pantry. Hopefully there will be enough reserves to see us through until spring.

Categories
Reviews

Savvy Coffee and Wine Bar

Muffins
Muffins

SOLON— Savvy Coffee and Wine Bar has been a place for friends to gather in Solon since the strip mall at 417 E. Haganman Lane was built in 2005. It is the only coffee shop in town, although the cachet of coffee shops has dulled with passing years. Nonetheless, there is Wi-Fi, coffee, a selection of pastries, hot food for breakfast and lunch, and ample space to meet with friends or hold a meeting. If you are gathering in Solon, this is a good place to do it.

Breakfast Burrito
Breakfast Burrito

In between jobs, I stopped for breakfast, and was the only customer in the place. Not sure what, if anything, that means, as it was a Hawkeye home game day, and I am not plugged into the college football season.

I took a photo of the menu and ordered a black coffee and a breakfast burrito. The bill came to $6.47 which seemed reasonable. When the order arrived, it was enough food to split and serve two. The dish was made fresh and for the price was a bargain. I have had the quiche ($4.25) and it has been good, and the muffins pictured ($2) were tempting. Everything I have ordered has been good, and the coffee is what one expects from a coffee shop. The food is an attraction, if not ready for three stars in the Michelin guide.

Like other restaurants in town, Savvy has changed owners a number of times. They have a tough row to hoe to stay in business because the wine bar aspect of the shop has been eclipsed by the new microbrewery in town. The number of bottles of wine stored in the restaurant has declined since last I visited, and it appears that aspect of the business is no longer being emphasized, even if the lights are on some evenings when I drive by.

A person needs a place to have coffee with friends from time to time, and Savvy serves that purpose in our town. Our life would be the less without them, so patronizing them is about more than just coffee.

Categories
Writing

Flesh Wouldn’t Yield

LAKE MACBRIDE— Friday morning the frost was thick. While walking the kitchen compost jar to the bin, the blades of grass crunched under my plastic shoes, leaving green footprints in the frosty lawn. After emptying the jar, I stopped by the vegetable plots, and as expected the tomatoes and peppers were bitten. Chard, collards, turnips and arugula looked like they might recover this time, but another milestone in a season of gardening has been passed.

Work called me to a farm where I was hired to help clear the field. The biggest part of the work so far has been deconstructing the tomato cages. Tomatoes are an important part of a CSA, so producing enough good looking ones is important. Some put in a lot of plants, hoping to glean the best for customers and offer bulk crates of seconds for those who may want them. Others cast the die in an amount that seems right based on prior experience. Tomatoes were a mixed bag around the county this year, and those who had a surplus of good ones sold them to others who didn’t. There were plenty of seconds for processing and my pantry .contains plenty of canned tomatoes.

When I arrived at the work site, we walked through the pepper patch. When I tried to take a bite from a perfect looking green bell pepper, the flesh wouldn’t yield. Frozen solid and ready to be plowed under. I thought, if the rest of the good peppers were harvested and placed in the freezer now, they could be preserved for later use. However, there was other work to do and once the day thawed, it would be too late. The exigencies of work life intervened with my frugal impulse.

The rest of the day we dug potatoes, harvested Brussels sprouts and polished green peppers picked before the frost. We also continued the tomato cage work, although a few hours remain to be finished. The focus was on getting the fall share out Monday, and there is an abundance of produce to be processed for delivery.

As winter arrives, and food thoughts turn to the pantry, I stopped at the orchard and bought a bushel of WineCrisp™ apples for their storage capabilities. When they are ripe, I’ll buy a bushel of GoldRush for the same reason. While it is kind of apple-geeky, you should know about the propagation work being done at Rutgers, Purdue and the University of Illinois in developing these apples without genetic engineering. Fit reading as we move indoors and settle in for a winter not far away.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Work Life

Carrots and Farm Work on a Blustery Day

Fresh Carrots
Fresh Carrots

RURAL SOLON— It was a blustery day at the two acre farm where work took me yesterday. Carrots to harvest, tomato cages to deconstruct and roll up, and irrigation line to find and remove to the roads for later pickup. It was cold to the bone.

My time in the military prepared me for days like this. The key is to focus on the work and the cold will take care of itself, falling neatly into the background. Once one accepts there is no place to go to get warm, and nothing to do but the work, life doesn’t seem so bad and neither does the cold.

September HeatIt was recently reported that September was the 343rd consecutive month of above average global temperatures. No surprise there, and October will be the 344th. What I would rather see is a tally of the actions people take, on a daily basis, to reduce their carbon footprint. That and a measurement of the aggregate impact it has on global warming. We would do better to collect our progress and see how we are doing than tick off the number of months of doom.

Working in a sustainable agriculture operation is said to help solve the climate crisis. According to Wikipedia, sustainable agriculture is the act of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment. A couple of things seem most important. Sustainable agriculture is site-specific. What one farmer does on his/her land may last over the long term to satisfy human food and fiber needs, sustain the economic viability of farm operations, and enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole. It is hard to find fault with this, and the connection to the climate crisis is clear.

Where it gets sticky is that as the environment changes, so too do the organisms encountered on a parcel of land. This suggests that the work of adaptation is never really complete in sustainable agriculture. Most farmers I know are engaged in a process of constant experimentation to determine what does and doesn’t work to solve ecological problems. What is worrisome is they seldom, if ever, talk in terms of adaptation to climate change, even if that is what sustainable agriculture represents at its core. Note to self: initiate this conversation.

After noon, the two of us harvesting carrots and working in the field were called to the barn for lunch. Grilled cheese sandwiches, vegetable soup and sweet carrot bread for desert. Much better than restaurant fare, and an unexpected perquisite to break the cold. Not to mention the conversation about the fall share, and our hopes, dreams and experiences. Brief and pleasant interval in another day’s work in our ever changing environment.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Stuffed Peppers

RURAL SOLON— While finishing a shift of deconstructing tomato cages, I walked along the row of frosted bell pepper plants toward the gate. It snowed yesterday and hard froze last night. I picked six pepper survivors for the flat side upon which to sit on the baking sheet. There was a lot of food that survived the snow and frost, but we enjoy stuffed peppers a time or two during each year, and that was my choice.

When it was time to begin preparing the meal, I cored, parboiled and stuffed the peppers with a mixture of rice, eggs, a blend of Italian cheeses, cooked onion and garlic, and dried rosemary and sage. They were topped with leftover pasta sauce and went into a 350 degree oven for 22 minutes. We had a working family supper, served with sweet corn and fresh tomato slices.

On a cold day food fresh from the oven, made with local ingredients raised by people we know is as good as it gets. It is a simple pleasure, one that bears repeating if that is possible.