From Here: Thanks+Giving

“I haven’t a clue how my story will end, but that’s all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, that’s when you discover the stars.” ~Nancy Willard

Until about five days before Thanksgiving I was not clear about how, or with whom, I would share this holiday, meal, or other form of gathering that I hoped would take place. In years past plans were always a given, smack in front of me, from days leading up to, then following, the holiday, time filled with duties, shopping, sourcing, cooking lists, and fun. I knew what I’d bring to the table to share, I knew how to get where I was going, I knew who I’d be driving in a car with. I’d look forward to the walk up South Road with my Mom and sisters after the meal as much as I’d look forward to sharing the meal with our (often) big, and loud, family and guests.

This year, somehow, my lack of plans felt okay. Welcome, even. It’s an interesting time when things glow in the night, when I cajole myself to look up and take notice.

poignant memories from blurred glimpses

beverages and turkey: lots of both!

Thanksgiving is rich with ritual and food-centric wonders but also reflective as it marks days that are shorter, harvests slowing or even coming to an end. It seems to be a holiday when things can be laid back enough, without the hype that other holidays carry, to really, thoroughly, enjoy oneself and her surroundings.

Plans to share Thanksgiving dinner with a sweet friend from college, Sabina, and her family and friends, appeared and worked out seamlessly. I made something new – a Wild Rice and Winter Squash dish – and though it turned out a little watery and sort of bland I felt good about it in the end, taking my disadvantage of cooking with borrowed camping cookware on an electric hot plate into consideration. Of note is the fact that I was cooking hand-harvested wild rice from my abundant supply – a gift from Bob, in Devil’s Lake, Minnesota – and loaned camping gear (from Paulina and Chris), special lava salt (a gift from Cheng), and the use of a sailboat oven and enthusiastic cook mate to round vital aspects of this out. Many people, both new and old friends, are around.

And so I am thankful. Indeed, everyday.

Dr. Beth Netter once said that if you ask for what you need it will always appear. I’ve found that she turns out to be right — often and about many things, but certainly about this. We may not be able to get what we want but we are always provided with what we need, when we know how to simply ask and graciously receive.

……..

Months ago, I was sharing lunch with my cohorts at Food Farm in Wrenshall, Minnesota, when Catherine’s father, a Holstein Dairy expert and tradesman from Iowa, pulled out a small note card with explicit contact information for me: addresses and phone numbers of trusted people and places (plural!), for me to stay with in North Dakota. I was preparing to pass through on my way to Montana, had mentioned this to Catherine who thoughtfully sought her father’s trusted contacts. His gift meant so much to me: the thought behind it and what it offered. It is completely possible to get by and through with little money, safely, comfortably.. And at rare times this clarity is presented in neat handwriting with every detail outlined, plus other trade tips written in the margins for added moral support. I would have called the folks he recommended to me, would have loved the conversation if I stayed with them, I’m sure. But I drove right through the state, feeling high and dry and an urgency to move, arrive somewhere for a while. Until I made it to Billings, Montana.

From the hotel room in Billings, MT

The chain hotel room cost $80/night but was worth the cash: I stocked up on soap and shampoo and free breakfast in the morning, ran on the treadmill, swam in the pool, and sat alone in the hot tub feeling indulgent and quiet. I remember watching Saturday Night Live in this giant bed until I fell asleep with the TV on, thinking “how can New York comedians be Live in such a far away place as Billings, MT?” The TV remote and notebooks, maps, pens, papers shared the other half of the giant bed.

The photos that follow are for, and of, many people that I am thankful to know. They are people I’ve met this summer and fall and winter and have worked hard alongside, lived with, learned from, and people I look forward to seeing again. And some photos are just of people I love because they’ve also been with me, if not always present.

I am continuing here with a slowness that winter demands. I wish I had photos of many others I’ve met along the way. Someday I will.

a celebration!

my new friends and gracious hosts in Milwaukee

in the Wisconsin Dells, Michele and Ian could not have arrived at a more perfect time

sisters are sustenance

my Mom took this photo: I like it!

Pumpkin Pie: By and For The People

It’s romantic and it’s true.

Like any great place, there are special, small things that happen on this island that leave a daily, lasting impression.. adding up to lots of excitement, encouragement and joy.

Last Saturday was no exception. I was smart enough to stop by Vashon Island’s annual, radical pumpkin pie contest, held at the VIGA Saturday Farmer’s Market, before jumping on a ferry to Seattle to soak in some big city lights (really: to babysit my nephew and spend the night reading Sarah and Dan’s almost-week-old Sunday NY Times + Magazine).

Eating pie, or anything, on a real plate, with a real fork, feels so much better than contributing plastic and paper waste to an overflowing garbage can - a typical sight at almost every Farmer's Market. This system is pretty simple and, clearly, also efficient.

There are two contests, one table, real plates and forks to eat things off of, and at least 20 desserts: one winner reaches for a best traditional pumpkin pie award and another for best non-traditional pumpkin influenced dessert. Contestants are encouraged to use local ingredients, which weighs on how their pies are scored, from island grown pie pumpkin (Baby Boo, Musque de Provence, and Long Pie are a few of the varieties I saw available at farm stands), to your neighbor’s eggs, Hazel’s cream, and her butter, if you’re willing spend a little time to make it yourself (like this year’s winner). The result, resoundingly, was beautiful and tasty and different pumpkin pies – debatably an ideal breakfast food because pumpkin packs a fair amount of nutrition, honey, instead of sugar, makes a slightly less sweet option, and a whole wheat crust constitutes a serving of whole grains…right?

Hazel is the Jersey cow I’m feeding and learning how to milk everyday at GreenMan Farm. The routine is disciplined and not without trials but what results is amazing: raw milk, yogurt, fresh cheeses. Thanks to this fresh (and, for me at the moment, freely available) source I’ve come to crave and eat crispy cereal flakes with cold milk in a way I never have in my life. The milk is flavorful, transforming this humdrum, well known convenience meal into something other-worldy, exquisite even.

Hazel, the cow.

I find myself wanting to eat this for lunch and sometimes dinner, or in between meals, tired after shoveling and moving heavy manure. I’m sure it’s just a phase, but my point is this: if you have never had raw milk before, and if you can find a safe source to get some from (grass fed cows, organically cared for), I beg you to do it. Try it, tell me about it! It’s wildly different from pasteurized, homogenized milk – heat and pressure processes that most, if not all, states have made into laws mainly to protect consumers from unsanitary practices that are the result of running a large(r) dairy. Large dairies are typical since it became unreasonably expensive to own a single cow, or even a small herd, as the price of milk dropped decades ago and land use policy has changed dramatically in most parts of the US. If you know the dairy farmers you are sourcing your milk from, or can ask the buyer at your food co-op or grocery store to visit and check out the local dairies that they are purchasing from, and if they are confirmed as being meticulously sanitary, with clean processing facilities, treat their animals without hormones, antibiotics, feed them a balanced diet, etc., then choosing to drink raw milk is not only safe, it delivers many added health benefits, too. Which makes sense in the same way that nutrition is superior in all minimally processed foods.

To return to the contest, and the pie: when judging is officially over, winners named and an “award apron” passed on (Jasper won last year – here’s a link to her famous recipe and glory days!), the pie slices sell for $1 each. All proceeds from sales benefit a different charity or cause each year. This year that cause was the Chautauqua Elementary School’s Local Foods Program. A relatively new inception, student, parent and teacher-motivated and sustained, it replicates one of many school programs jumping on the national bandwagon trying to brilliantly, directly, and simply bring affordable, local & organically grown produce and other foods into school cafeterias. Chef Ann Cooper began, and fuels, a lunch room revolution focusing on this subject and I’ve pasted in a few more favorite links below.

I wonder if there is comfort in the fact that we still rely on baked sales to get things done? It would be great (and at some point should be necessary) if there were more national or state dollars to fund this kind of work, actions that strengthen communities in a variety of ways. Of course, it starts with changes being made through grassroots efforts, by and for the people who are affected by the process and its results. If buying 7 pieces of pie can play a small role in this, I’ll do it every Saturday.

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Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard

Two Angry Moms – doc film about the nationwide movement to bring healthy food to every school

The Lunch Box – a project of Chef Ann Cooper’s

From Gleaned Potatoes, An Onion, Fresh Eggs

Putting a vegetable bed to rest for the winter can be a meditative task, calming in the repetition it demands, satisfying in the sense of near completion involved: as energy moves through me to soil by means of a hoe – a simple, vital thing, like all good tools are. The process that transpires, the work itself, takes and gives energy. What’s living within the cow manure (it has gone through five stages/weeks of decomposition and is mixed with other organic bio-mass along the way) joins with the dirt to make something new. Sometimes I stop and am amazed that I am a part of and witness to it all. I’m in a good spot.

But yesterday, in the midst of contemplation and work, the whole thing left me soaked to the bone. I think it has been raining for 47 hours straight. I should probably stop counting things like this. I’ve changed full sets of bottom inhabiting clothes – jeans, underwear, socks – twice already, and the work day is only half over. Wet hangs over every last surface in my normally cozy woodshed-turned-cabin (today, Jasper handed me rain pants: thanks!).

In all of this, little potato gifts appear – round, oblong, smooth and scabbed, from a planting season one, or more, back. They surface like air bubbles, signs of another life form that are happy to be discovered. I take care not to nip them with the hoe’s edge, collect them in a pile off to the side with intention and desire to cook them (mmm.. actually, just to eat them, but I know the drill). And, so, a classic potato recipe, perfect to make with gleaned potatoes, comes to mind. These hearty roots, able to survive years in the dirt without any fuss, only require one to cut around the nicks, blemished or rotted parts. What remains should be fine to use.

cleaning out the once potato beds is like an ongoing easter egg hunt: they just keep surfacing

Tortilla de potato is a recipe I’ve got down: one of few that is relatively new to committed memory and so conjures good-gone times, shared meals, old friendships. Making it was perfected in Albany, NY, under the careful instruction of a former neighbor and friend, Jesus, who is originally from Spain. Part of moving around so much means that as we leave places we also leave people, and then other people connected so tenuously (who could’ve known?), then more places.. Somehow the spiraling effects of loss can only be accepted as a natural extension of modern life. Though I can’t fathom how to control this I am grateful for wisdom that is shared and passed; recipes, stories, skills and traditions. This is the stuff connecting generations, lifetimes, and I’m thankful that they die harder than the weaker, human parts of us.

This Spanish tortilla, or omelet is a traditional picnic food but can also be brought to parties and celebrations. I’ve enjoyed it equally for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But never topped with salsa, hot sauce or the like, as tempting as that sounds. Jesus would say that’s sacrilegio. Just eat it as is.

So: Jesus’ explicit instructions, as I remember them, on making a tortilla de potato.

You will need a few medium sized russet potatoes, one medium sized white onion, a few eggs, good olive oil (very important), salt, pepper.

1. Slice as many russet potatoes as you want to use, thin. You can use Yukon Golds or whatever you have but Russets, being starchy and low moisture holding roots, really work best. Slice them in consistently sized and shaped pieces (I tend to make half moons out of them – seems easier).
2. Slice 1 medium sized onion, thin. Be consistent in the way you slice it so that the pieces cook at the same speed, temperature, etc.
3. In a well-seasoned cast iron pan sauté the onion in a high quality, preferably organic, olive oil with some salt and pepper. Do not use any other kind of cooking oil: the flavor of this dish is best with high quality olive oil.
4. Sauté the potato slices in a separate, well-seasoned cast iron pan in a lot of high quality olive oil, salt and pepper. Since the potatoes cook at a different speed than the onions it’s important to keep them separate at this stage (you combine them later). The oil should almost cover the potato slices because potatoes absorb a lot while they cook. Stir now and again, gently enough to avoid breaking the pieces apart. Cook them through: you should be able to stab them with a fork but they shouldn’t crumble, get soggy, or break too much.
5. Combine the cooked potatoes and onions in a bowl, let cool mostly but there’s no need to wait until they’re completely cool. Pour off any olive oil: you can reuse this in the next step.
   

   cooked potato and onion slices, cooled mostly, then combined with beat eggs, salt and pepper

6. Prepare the pan that you’ll cook the tortilla in while the potato/onion combo is cooling. To do this decide whether the cast iron pan you have is truly well-seasoned enough for things to not stick and burn to the bottom of it. If it is not, admit it and use a non-stick pan. I know we all hate them but most of us have one anyway.
7. Whether using a non-stick coated OR cast iron pan heat it to a low, consistent temperature and add enough olive oil so that it puddles in the bottom of the pan (again, use high quality oil and don’t skimp on quantity).
8. Break several fresh eggs into  a bowl – as many as you think will cover the potato/onion mixture, and beat them with a fork. Add salt and pepper.
9. Add the egg mixture to the potato and onion mixture, stir once or twice with a wooden spoon just to coat and combine everything. Immediately pour this in to the heated, olive-oiled pan.
10. Allow the tortilla to cook, covered. Check on it frequently and when the edges are browning and firm consider making your move:
11. This is the hard part: using a spatula, ease the omelet off of the bottom and sides of the pan. If it is cooked it will want to be released but, still, always seems to need a hand. Once it is free from the pan slide the omelet in one single motion, if possible, onto a dinner plate.
12. Prepare your pan to cook the second side of the tortilla: on a consistent and low/medium heat, olive oil supply replenished.
13. FLIP the tortilla, quickly and suavely, so that the uncooked side falls onto the pan. Cook this side until it is also brown, firm and done.
14. Move the whole thing onto a dinner plate and allow to cool. Actually, one has choices here: eat this right away, warm, or savor the smell and warmth it brings and enjoy it hours later, even the next day. I’d refrigerate it before going to bed or cover it if you’re just going out for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking this fills any kitchen with a sweet thickness, a lingering joy that is worth every moment of time it takes to make. Although there are a lot of steps to it there are only SIX ingredients, all of which you probably have at home, can source locally (predominately) most times of year in any growing zone, and once you’ve made it twice it’s just there: appears when you’re in need and doesn’t disappoint. As a dish it is lasting, simple, dense and decadent.. can even taste better the second day it’s enjoyed.  Jesus A.G. – thanks for showing us this recipe, ages ago, it seems. And thanks, too, for years of friendship.

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For an engaging, fictional read/contemporary commentary on industrial potato farming in the Midwest check out “The Potato Gleaners” in Sweet Land: New and Selected Stories, by Will Weaver

For a more bookish version of this recipe, and great food blog in general, see Smitten Kitchen

Oh, Chard

Here’s a joke told more than several times by my friend, Peter Alexanian.

PA: What’s a pirate’s favorite vegetable?

Me: What?

PA: Chaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrd, matey.

And a second version –

PA: What’s a gay pirate’s favorite vegetable?

Me: Uhh.. what?

PA: Rainbow Chaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrd!

I’m not good at telling jokes, have even been criticized in the past for not laughing (hard enough) at them. This joke made me chuckle and smile the first time I heard it – a feat, of sorts, for someone who secretly fears not responding properly/under pressure. It’s clever, easy to get, and swiss chard is my favorite green vegetable. Thoughts of it make me smile. And pirates, the cute, nice ones, anyway, have long held a special place in my heart.

I could go on and on about swiss chard: its incredible nutritional profile, recipes that I love using it in, how hardy and easy to grow to it is, or how each plant gives and gives, the leaves only getting sweeter as it gets colder outside and the season goes on. Mostly I just want the chance to share some beautiful pictures. The sun was out for a long time today.

Once a friend told me that he was so dehydrated he had to take a shower. I suggested instead that he drink some water. He had already drank as much water as he could but knew that his body needed to be in it, submerged, in order for his thirst to go away. I always thought this was a little crazy until I had a similar experience with swiss chard. No joke.

I want to grow it, be around it, see it in bouquets on the table, in flower boxes on windowsills, or in those big planters that city beautification teams maintain. And, of course, I want to eat it in lots of different ways. Some examples include adding delicate baby leaves in with other salad greens, adding chopped, fresh leaves to the inside of an omelet with onions and cheese, or cut into chiffonade and lightly sautéed in olive oil or butter until it’s still bright green but wilted, then served right away with a squeeze of lemon, sea salt, maybe more olive oil. It’s a quintessential ingredient, really, in Greens and Beans and makes a great alternative burrito or taco shell (softer than the collards in this recipe).

My sister Katie and I grew so much of it one year in our community garden plot that I thought we’d tire of it (I think our respective partners at the time, less attached to this particular harvest, did). But in November, when it was one of the last things remaining in the garden, it was wonderfully appreciated by everyone at our table.

As you can see, there’s a sweet rainbow swiss chard explosion happening now at GreenMan Farm. And even signs of a nice pirate: I have a new friend who lives on a boat on the Puget Sound.

If someone had told me a year ago that I would be farming and thinking of sailing and living on an island the following November I would never have believed them. Not even for a minute. That I am is possibly one of the greatest things about being alive.

Peter - I know there is question about the joke inspiring this post being yours originally.. but you told it so well! Nice pic I thought - hanging out in the Spikenard Farm Cafe.

 

 

 

 

Harvesting Rain

Sometimes I wish that my cell phone auto-saved text messages for longer than it does. Or, I need to learn to write some of the best ones down when they come through, fleeting and complete with misspellings and funny grammar.

I received a classic message from my sister Sarah about 6 weeks ago when I was trying to figure out where to live for a few weeks between farm gigs. I had asked her, via text message, if it was really okay if I came to Seattle for a while. I was in the process of confirming plans to stay at GreenMan Farm on Vashon Island, just across the Puget Sound from Seattle, and would have a few weeks of time to spend somewhere before that commitment, which will last through December, started. I requested that she check in with Dan, her husband, about a long-term visit (their house is relatively small, they have a young son, etc). But Sarah texted me back immediately, something like: “Most def okay to stay! Rainy season starts then – don’t want you to hate seattle + leave – ruff”

I smiled, hoped that Dan might share a little bit of my sister’s unbridled enthusiasm and sincere concern, and then started to mentally pack up (real bags are still always already packed) and embrace this next step into the west coast. Honestly, I didn’t think twice about what a rainy season in the Pacific Northwest might entail..

Rain doesn't (entirely) keep shoppers away from the Vashon Island Grower's Association Farmer's Market

..until I arrived. And, then, I was just in it. Every day.

I’ve found myself impressed by the gamut of styles of rainfall here: from gutter shaking water bullets and wind wars that scare you even when you’re buried under the covers to consistent drips that twang against metal surfaces, soldierly like a snare drum beat that never quite crescendos. There’s sometimes light, sideways flying drops that cut through sunshine (and you smile because it doesn’t seem like it’s really happening – or maybe because the sun is just in the background), and sometimes just so much of it, washing everything away, you wonder how things stay put around here at all. I was less impressed when my camera got wet on the ferry ride over to the island and now doesn’t work.. but when it has dried out I’ll post pics of the sound and of island living – amazing.

I found it funny, then, when I arrived to live and work at this small plot of presently soggy, well-tended, bio-intense farm land, to find that I would not only be harvesting the last of the greenhouse tomatoes, and leeks, celeriac and beets, all of which will be plentiful through November and December, plus kale and chard – so sweet this time of year thanks to dipping temperatures. At GreenMan Farm we also harvest rainwater.

Goodbye til next year, tomatoes. To ripen the last of the green ones we'll place them in a dry place in a paper bag with an apple amongst them.

The farm grounds, farmhouse, food processing kitchen and guest house all share water sourced from a very shallow, 16 foot deep well. Typical island wells are dug 200-300 feet, about the same level that we sit from the sea.  While it seems like water is everywhere, surrounding us and falling from the sky on a daily basis this time of year, summers are hot and dry and there’s a real threat that the well could run dry. Japser and Will have a system set up to supplement the well water supply by collecting rainwater in 1,100 gallon black bins as well as an array of open containers on the property. To save even more water there’s a water-free toilet in my cabin. The refuse from this, after decomposing for 2+ years with other compostable materials, is used to fertilize ornamental plant beds.

There are three 1100 gallon black bins on the property that collect water from the rain gutters. Additional open bins are used to provide water for the cow and goat.

 

 

 

Here's the Humanure or Composting Toilet: a bucket with a seat structure over it, basically. There's a 50-50 peat moss and wood chip combo added to the bucket and used to cover everything. Guys have to pee in seperate containers, not in the bucket, because of territorial smell issues, I'm told.

Mud and Magic

Subject: Ernie

“So your potential date [Ernie] stopped in at the farm today. Drunk.  Before 9am.  Dave says to let him know if you’re still interested.  (btw, he still has as many teeth as he did 2 years ago)  Hope you’re well!” ~Janaki

A message from Janaki, friend and farmer at Food Farm, CSA, in northern Minnesota, showed up in my inbox the other morning. It has been over a month already since I started driving west so it felt great to get word, however brief, from a friend in the middle of the country. Is it a good sign that Ernie (still) has as many teeth these days as he did two years ago?

I have yet to meet the mysterious subject of Janaki’s email although I’ve heard a share of intriguing stories about him. Some went down like this: Dave, who has worked at the farm for over 15 years, was enthusiastically proposing that I meet one of his single guy friends in Duluth, with whom I’d be a “perfect” match, (and therefore consider a longer stay in that part of the country – aww, sweet Dave). In the middle of this proposal, however, he jumped instead into telling me more about Ernie… an interesting character like so many others I’d get to know, or just have the privilege to hear about, in Wrenshall, MN.

Once Ernie traveled by foot from 20 or more miles away to a party that Dave and his wife were hosting in Duluth, was already drunk (as is his style, I guess), and proceeded to make things interesting for the waning late night crowd who considered themselves P.C. and what not. He goes missing for months at a time but is always spotted walking or hitching rides when he decides to appear again. Apparently, he is missing enough teeth that his smile often scares children that he meets along the way, he is an expert fisherman, and shows up to work at the farm when he’s moved to (or needs cash?), often unannounced.. I couldn’t help but think about how these are the kind of details that must fuel Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Minnesotans. There were others, in addition to Ernie, like Uncle Dougie the strawberry farmer who visits and talks with a toothpick just hanging precariously, constantly, from the corner of his mouth who grows beautiful red things one month out of the year, Karola & Rick, the super cute Buddhist-Christian farmers who live close by and love Minnesota with a vengeance, the elderly woman looking to buy a cheap heap of dill for her son to make pickles with, the Vietnam Vet who wears this fact on his baseball cap and just wants to find a good tomato. These people envelop you quickly into their stories and histories – all tied to the land they live on and know in some way – and you can’t help but want to hunker down, stay a while to hear more, or forget that you had anywhere else to go at all.

The stories become farm news, gossip, a version of the same magazine-type stuff (maybe better) that I’ve been known to pay $3.99 for at the airport to stay loftily fixated on (anything but the fact that I’m 37,000 feet off of the ground, traveling hundreds of miles an hour to get to faraway places).

Without lively exchange we may have found ourselves lonely scattered souls in a field pulling things out of it. The fun banter, the friendly people, the gossip and rumors, all fueled what turned into thoughtful conversation and then, at times, some beautifully concise and genuine advice, much of which I’ve scribbled into notebooks and still reference. Harvesting together brought out a real desire to connect and engage: with the land, with one another. For me, this was an introduction to a whole new work environment and one I could find myself getting used to. Of course, there were times when this labor was just plain backbreaking, hot, and difficult, but I found myself caught up, happy, in love even with the work itself.

There is something magical about the process of pulling carrots from dirt. Each and every time I harvested them I was surprised to see how consistently beautiful these organic vegetables could be, heaving themselves just above ground, full of nutrients, color, and life. What’s not magic, but science, is that organic farming can transform the world. Check out the Rodale Institute’s good news with a glimpse into how, here

“(the) growing organic movement is proving that we can not only feed the world with healthy food, but also reverse global warming, by capturing and sequestering billions of tons of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases in the soil…” ~Ronnie Cummins

Food Farm CSA harvested 32,000 pounds of potatoes this year. Despite cold and wet weather they are still in the midst of harvesting many thousands of pounds of carrots, parsnips, and rutabagas, too. The amount of people they feed with this organized place in Northern Minnesota is another kind of magic. Again, not wizardry, probably not even science. It’s this extraordinary thing that is the result of hard and smart work on behalf of a totally dedicated, small staff and volunteer crew. With speed and efficiency, stories and jokes, there is also an important place for complete and wonderful silence. The process is like an entire field of onions that we work steadily along, pulling each one out of the ground and leaving them to cure there: round bulbs resting in the dirt while the bright green stems turn yellow, dry, then brown, all toppled over on top of one another until – alas! –  they are born again in our kitchens as the days get colder and shorter and we need that onion-cooking-in-the-cast-iron-smell to warm the air, soup on the stove, to keep us going.

I look forward to visiting my friends in Wrenshall again someday, maybe meeting Ernie for real the next time around and certainly to check in on Catherine’s progress. Catherine is an amazing farmer, and person, who I had the privilege of working with at Food Farm. She has just purchased land to start her very own operation! She’s one to watch, for sure: part of a new wave of young people and women who are taking this work on and can hopefully benefit from the customer demand that Food Farm, after twenty years of operation, has helped cultivate.

My visit will wait until the winter’s over and soup’s no longer the first thing on my mind. Oh, and hoping that things work out with my car.. another story for another time, though.

Something Of The Sublime

Geysers, glaciers, tall, tall mountains, blazing wind gusts, dry bear grass, huckleberry bushes, huckleberries (already picked, for sale from an old man who climbs slowly out of his truck parked on the side of the road), grizzly bears, black bears, elk, mule dear, bald eagles… All of this and so many additional details, surprises, photographs trying to document the vastness of the national parks over the course of a few days, many hundreds of miles in a truck, a few dozen miles of hiking. We explored: saw, felt and tasted snow, heat, sunsets, sunrise, fire, wine, bikes, truck bed sleeps, cold feet. Still, nothing touches the memory of the latest adventure as succinctly as the smells, lingering and unique, of these awesome places and times.

What a powerful sense: in Glacier National Park a grizzly mama with two cubs found us walking dangerously close before realizing that we were. I looked up, after being quieted by my hiking partner, was made quickly attentive, and saw her nose high in the air, the upper part of her body stretching and arching. Her whole self was behind the search of the source of foreign scent as her cubs innocently ate off of nearby berry bushes. Stunned, I wanted to run the other way but (thought) I knew better. I had neurotically read all of the literature about defending oneself from bear attacks and preventing ‘encounters’ from turning in to said attacks. The words are hard to recall when you’re in the midst of a real encounter, though!

My hiking partner, Aaron, much more experienced having lived in the west for years and years now, was equipped with bear spay (like pepper spray) and, though I could sense his nervousness, he was also intrigued. When we were a certain, safe?, distance away Aaron got binoculars out to get a better look at the grizzlies. I said something like, “Hey, can we get out of here, can you see how my hands are shaking?” Without looking away from his binocular view he replied, “No. Can you see that I’m looking at these amazing grizzly bears?”

So we were on the same path but not exactly the same page and laughed about fear and our varying needs for distance to what could quickly become an end. We continued to briskly make our way back to from where we came along the Garden Pass. Running through my mind as the sun started to set was camp to set up, wood to split, food to prepare, and, of course, other bears to potentially meet.

The Garden Pass at Glacier National Park is the trail we spotted the grizzly bears from

The muskiness of elk urine, left throughout the woods when they’re looking for a mate, or the alpines, yellow, amongst swaths of fragrant, green Douglas Firs, ashes and coals that have smoldered all night, are sincere, sweet smells from Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks I’ll hang on to.

The mildew smell of the church pews I grew up playing and praying on, Upstate NY woods in October and my parents’ house after an absence of months are also the kind of visceral smells that conjure deep memories. In less than one day a place that took me three full, busy, life-changing months to reach – the Pacific Northwest – sent me right back to where I was born, where I can always and only be from, to Troy and Cropseyville, NY. We went back to the church, the house, our family, for closure and with small but impossible hopes of offering support.

I cannot yet imagine losing a sister or my mother. They are, or can be, the dearest people to us, collectively: best friends, comrades, loves, supports, social networks, our lives.

Aunt Ann, Uncle Sonny, my cousins, some years ago

My father and the Centanni-Winters’ loss of Ann, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, taken too young by cancer, is sublime in a way not totally unlike being among wild nature and second on the food chain for a change. Death marks a new kind of travel that we’re so uncertain about, scared of, and saddened by, but that lingers around us quietly and patiently each day, whether hiking in extreme places, riding our bikes, maintaining our daily routines. Death is sublimity pushed to an end – encounters with it either make us stronger or leave us with a big hole, empty and quiet. Whether it happens quickly or draws itself out, it always hits us in a way that’s impossible to prepare for. Place changes how some news travels but grieving reaches beyond geographic boundaries. And it follows us for some time, indeed.

I cried plenty for the loss of my aunt. I will miss her voice (wonderfully squeaky and unique) and the fabulous stories she would share, the listening and supportive ear she would lend when you needed her to, the fact that she would always show up, that she cared endlessly, with pasta fagioli to share with everyone.. Of course, there’s much more, memories and details, stored and held in a place that’s not easy to communicate from right now.

Somehow we find comfort in hot food on a Styrofoam plate. Sharing lunches after funerals is important.

We miss you, Ann Centanni Winters. The sublime – a fear you may encounter when grizzly bears stand just off your path in the middle of nowhere in the Rocky Mountains, or climbing a rickety fire tower for a view of the familiar, still breathtaking, Berkshire and Green Mountains in Grafton, NY – is also felt deeply in the connection you may make with your love, your friends or your family. That which centers us can also shake us so hard into knowing that life is fragile and meek despite all of our fussing. And, really, it’s precious.  It is only right in front of us for fleeting moments. May we view it, taste it, drink it, hold it, hear it and smell it. And share it.

my sister looks out to NY, VT, and MA

Mike at the Fire Tower in Grafton

the descent home is to know where I’m from (and the sun falls as we hover near Albany).

Elk Stew On A Snowy Day In Montana

Sometime last week here in Bozeman, I was challenged to turn some frozen, thawed, elk meat from Aaron’s hunting trip last October into dinner. Among the multiple cuts in the freezer I decided to use a roast, most likely from the elk’s front quarter or leg muscle, to make a hearty stew, perfect to enjoy with the wood stove blazing and snow falling outside. I have a grocery bag full of broken wild rice, or mazan, hand-harvested and gifted to me by a friend I met along the way at White Earth Land Recovery Project. I figured I could thicken anything that seemed too soup like, less stew like, with this. Otherwise, I was utterly clueless about how to start the process. I’ve been pretty much vegetarian for the past 13 years before being on this journey. I would cook and eat fish now and again but never other meats or poultry of any kind. Since I developed the vegetarian habit I have not only never cooked meat at home before I’ve also, sadly, paid little attention to my Mom, one of the best cooks I know, as she’d assemble Grandma Centanni’s meatballs or the ultimate comfort casserole, chicken tetrazini, among lots of other family recipes and traditions.

These days, I am glad to announce that the meat I choose to eat tastes delicious and makes me feel wonderfully warm and satisfied. My choice of sustenance is always informed by knowing who raised and killed the animal or animals on my plate. That they did so ethically, with integrity, preferably using organic methods and organic supplemental feed or, best, perhaps, hunted or recovered the animal themselves (recovered, here, means found dead or dieing along side the road, which is more common in parts of the west as roads cut through places where wildlife live and cars drive pretty fast), makes a big difference to me. Meeting these standards, I am comfortable and happy to eat it as well as excited to learn how to cook with it. My friend Donna, a chef in the Deli at the Honest Weight Food Co-op, believes that “stew is stew” and shared the recipe posted below. Thank you, Donna, for hooking us up with dinner and lunch and dinner again – even better the second day!

Animal feed lots are shit shows, figuratively and literally (we drove by a few on the way to Glacier National Park and the smell and sadness are unavoidable, even from a moving vehicle). CAFO’s, or Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations, are large factory farms with a single mission: to produce as many animals for slaughter, growing them as quickly and as big as possible. The animals often live through cruel, stressful and confined conditions, are pumped with hormones and antibiotics to ward off disease (a result of the aforementioned conditions), and are responsible for many pollution problems. For example, animals on CAFO’s in the US excrete six times more fecal matter than that of humans on the entire planet. Storing and disposing of this properly becomes a serious problem, often contaminating water supplies, spreading disease countered with more antibiotics that end up in the water system, etc. On smaller scale farms animals fertilize the fields that they are allowed to graze on, enriching them naturally for better vegetable yields the following season. All of the rotting mess that CAFO’s are attached to, in exchange for cheap meat, doesn’t add up to the cost, or “savings”, depending on how you look at it, for me.

greatest thing about this stew is that you can use whatever veggies you have on hand - and drink any wine that's leftover with dinner

But, alas, there are safe and healthy meats out there. It may take more time and work to catch, kill, process and cook, or be more expensive than factory farmed counter parts to buy, in co-ops, direct or at farmer’s markets, but I am glad I’ve found and tasted a few.

DONNA’S STEW (my additions/choices are in parenthesis)

1. Dry meat, dredge in flour/salt/pepper and cook in skillet in olive oil until browned. Do not crowd skillet or it will not brown.
2. For 2 lbs meat add 5 cups broth/red wine (I used 1 or so cups wine and 4 cups water), dried thyme and bay leaf if you have it.
3. Add what you have and like of the following: onions, carrots, celery, parsnips, tomato, tomato paste and did I say wine? If elk is lean – cook for 45 minutes; if elk is fatty – cook for about 2 hours. (I used 2 cans of stewed tomatoes and 1 can paste, celeriac, celery, onions, carrots, garlic – all sauteed first – and added cooked wild rice just before serving). To make thicker sauce, make a roux (flour/butter) and add; I like to saute mushrooms in garlic and oil and add just before serving..

A concise and thorough resource for food issues and info like those about CAFO’s, above, is a popular book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. I credit Steven Hopp’s essay, The Price of Life, found in Kingsolver’s book on page 91 for some of the what’s noted.

Here's a bull elk with slightly broken antlers, possibly from fighting for this young cow, in Waterton, Canada.

Forty-Five Babies Back East

Judy’s voicemail came just when I found myself wondering what the end of September meant in other parts of the world. I am spending days in this small, slow and forgiving city in Montana, relishing free time in the very comfortable, newly designed public library while winter weather (about 18 inches of snow are expected to fall today!) whirls from a safe distance just beyond big windows that overlook running trails, trees, branches getting heavier with white. Judy called to report on the garden she maintains, from the Catskills, in New York. Some 45 heads of lettuce, from seeds that we planted together about three months ago, are ready to harvest (or are covered at night to protect them from frost) and, ultimately, cherished, because who doesn’t love garden-grown lettuce in NY in October?

beds of lettuce at Shalom Mountain

The thought of leafy greens working their way out of the soon-frozen ground rekindled how circular the growing process is. Anchored by place and care, seeds go in the earth and, with sun and water, plants come up, as the seasons allow. All of it seems pretty predictable though varying from place to place. Certainly, natural and other disasters happen to shake this up, including climate change that is presenting some new and bizarre conditions, but there is always a desire, something I can’t totally understand, that happens in all forms of life to return to the powerful order witnessed in the growing cycle.

Though I’ve not been in one place to watch my personal garden grow this season the reminder that we are all tied to this cycle, as eaters, travelers, caretakers, growers, people, is comforting. In a place where time and calendars and seasons feel so different than I’m used to the reminder of green October lettuce in New York holds me still.

The snowy Bozeman streets

the earth's thin crust at Yellowstone National Park

Special thanks to Judy from Shalom Mountain! She took the photos of bright green lettuce that you see in this post.

To Grow In Chicago

Late August saw me pass through Chicago for a week: to visit the exciting city I called home for a brief time (from ’02-’03), to pay an overdue visit to a best friend, Charlene, who still calls the city her home, and to volunteer with Growing Power’s Chicago Projects for a few days, as possible.

I had received an enthusiastic email from one of the volunteer coordinators of Growing Power, excited that I could spend some time working for the organization who were seeing their youth programs draw to a close as school was starting in a week or so. Summer doesn’t stop for school schedules: the gardens were exploding with produce, the need to plant second and third waves of vegetables was calling, and harvesting some of the bounty that was just arriving was also on the week’s agenda. Growing Power Chicago gardens grow produce to sell at two different weekly Farmer’s Markets, plus coordinate community outreach projects like garden parties, bbq’s and pot lucks, garden maintenance projects through the summertime at three different sites and, in the wintertime, after-school educational programs that motivate students around food justice & access, nutrition and cooking.

The first volunteer shift I worked was at the Chicago Avenue Community Garden at Cabrini Green. Cabrini Green, a famous housing project just west of downtown Chicago, is located right along the Chicago River and has seen incredible development and gentrification within and all around it in recent years. At one point, all of the buildings in this complex were high rises housing about 15,000 people. Now it’s home to less than 5,000 people and the high rises are diminishing and modest sized, mixed-income homes populate the area more and more. Six years ago I would ride my bike past the housing project every weekday to work. I don’t recall the community garden out front then (if it was there it may have looked pretty different: it is raised beds over an abandoned, concrete basketball court). There were definitely fewer condos as well as fancy billboards advertising imminently more to come, as far as I can remember. I recall slightly more broken glass and garbage on that part of Chicago Ave., but landscapes can seem to change quickly in big cities, especially passing on bicycle or bus.

Nowadays, that part of Chicago Ave. is clean and signage, bright and colorful on the garden’s fence, welcomes passersby. Adult and youth gardeners working in the bustling, blooming garden in front of the housing project were really nice and helpful, plus grateful for our (brief) volunteer labor.  It was early evening and Char and I were weeding and pruning tomatoes, watering where need be. After a distressed young woman approached us asking if we had noticed someone breaking into her car, parked all day in a makeshift lot less than 100 yards from the garden we got nervous about my home-in-my-car, also parked close by. We cut our volunteer shift there shorter than we wanted to. There’s a really interesting discussion about displacement and renewal in this shifting area and Growing Power’s Community Garden at Cabrini Green plays an important role in that transformation.

Dill grows as high as buildings: a view from the "Art on the Farm" Potager in Grant Park

different salad greens planted in diamond shapes

Growing Power’s urban garden in Grant Park is an edible art project, a classroom for marketing and botany skills for local interns, and a public beautification tourist stop, to name a few roles that it plays. Designed by Erika Allen, daughter of Growing Power’s founder, Will Allen, the mere design and layout of the vegetables, their colors and textures, are worth checking out. On the day I volunteered there was a dedicated and friendly youth team working busily – not only in charge of growing all of the fine vegetables and flowers here but also responsible for marketing and selling them at a few farmer’s markets around town. There was also a group of about 20 people volunteering that day as part of a local advertising agency’s team building exercise. We were all kept busy weeding, reseeding, harvesting, picking weeds up for compost that were hauled off site. It was exciting, that day, to play a small part of a diverse group of people who came together to work hard, beautify a public place and grow food for other people all at the same time.

Curious about whether any food was ever stolen from the public garden – either by tourists, hungry locals, or critters – a regular garden worker explained that since wildlife is at a minimum in the center of the city there is no need for fencing, tourists and locals were generally very respectful of what was growing, and there was only a single, bittersweet memory she had of the gardens being damaged. She told me a story about election night, last year. She was in Grant Park for President Obama’s victory speech and recalled so many crowds of people, excited, crying, overwhelmed, and, lo and behold, standing on the garden beds because there was no where else to stand. She let the historical moment rush over her, deciding not to freak out about the soil structure and late harvest plants being crushed underfoot by excited crowds.. instead taking in the excitement herself. I looked up from the pile of dirt we were crouched over and saw the Lincoln Memorial in front of me.

In addition to the work that Growing Power is doing in Chicago, I was introduced to all sorts of other great food and art and big idea projects happening around town: a honey cooperative, lunchtime lecture series that’s sponsored by Hull House Kitchen, Char’s exciting handmade stationery business that operates in an art studio shared with a dreamy violin maker, and more. The real highlight of Chicago was connecting with my old, dear friend. Over coffee or drinks, breakfast or dinner, we had a chance to talk about our lives, Life, futures. The thought occurred more than once that perhaps I should have stayed in Chicago all along, grown with it and all of the amazing urban gardening and good food revolution projects and people.

Alas, I didn’t, and I didn’t stay in Albany, either, where there is a vibrant local foods movement complete with exciting community gardens and youth gardening projects: YO! and Roots and Wisdom. Maybe I could have made a good life in the windy city, but that’s not how it works. Maybe it brings us on this roundabout road to exactly where we need to be. Maybe that’s the road in front of me.

Wisconsin cheeses and Turkish Delights for breakfast!

James and chickens at a lunch spot in Hyde Park