her able hands

When I walked out into the parking lot after work yesterday, a flock of robins landed in the grass and the wind had slowed to a breeze. I smelled spring on the air, warm and tufted. I knew just what I would do the minute I got home. After I dropped my bags inside, I squeezed into my work jeans (which I couldn’t comfortably button thanks to all of the cupcake recipes I’ve been testing in recent months, coupled with a sedentary lifestyle spent mostly in front of a computer). As I tied my shoes, Chris and Lila came in from school pickup and her cheeks were rosy red and the balmy smell of outdoors rolled off of her in warm waves.

I asked her if she knew what I was about to do and she threw her arms up in the air and shouted, “Play outside!”

“Yes! And guess what else?!” She stared at me with her mouth ajar, her face transparent in its wonder of what could possibly be more fantastic than playing outside right this minute. “I’m going to plant the peas and the Fava beans!”

And she was all geared up to help as we carried out the box with seed packs and an envelope of inoculant, a bottle of water and an empty container in which to mix the seeds with the black powder. But the minute we came around the back of the house, she spotted David and Fatou out in the cul-de-sac and they came running like the wind to the swing set. David started pumping, laughing and said, “Here we are! We’re all together again!” and the girls nodded wisely. Then he said, “Let’s play together this year and not fight. We’re bigger now.”

!!!

Their conversation turned over and over the facts of their long, lonely winter spent indoors because their parents don’t like the cold. “And that’s silly because cold is fun. It has snow and icicles and sledding and hot chocolate.”

When did we all become such wimps?

Their mothers came too, and I chatted for a moment, but then excused myself to the other side of the yard where I raked leaves off of last year’s carrot bed and drew a few trenches in the cold, but mostly dry soil then dropped the dusted Fava bean seeds in and patted the soil back over them. My first dirt manicure of the season. Then I raked some of the leaves off of the garlic bed I planted over here so the stalks can get a bit more sun and the bed can warm up more. I’ll mulch back around them in a few weeks again to keep the weeds down.

After the kids went home, I wound my way through the woods that isn’t much of a woods anymore, to the beds next door where I saw the full-frontal assault of how sick I got last autumn. I never finished putting the garden to bed, and the tomato trellis had crumbled in on itself and listed to the north wildly. Chris helped me to take it apart and move all of the bamboo poles into a pile. Then I raked out the bed closest to Carol’s house and Lila and I planted more Fava beans (finishing the packet) and an entire pack of Amish Sugar Snaps.

I am ecstatic. For the first time ever, I managed to get peas in the ground before May! I’ll do another bed of sugar snaps, and some shelling peas, and some more of those phenomenal dwarf gray snow peas. Then some spinach and salad greens.

The bigger garlic bed next door is looking mighty awesome with its light green sprouts sticking up four inches. My mouth is already watering at the thought of all of those garlic scapes curling back towards the earth, and then chopped and tossed with butter and parmesan on pasta. Mmmmm.

I’m going to have to start employing that crockpot over the next few months during planting season, so we can come home to dinner mostly ready, then just head outside. There’s so much work to do and just taking these first few steps last night filled me with such joy that I floated through dinner prep, my feet hovering a few inches above the dirty linoleum floor.

I didn’t take any pictures because time flew and our tummys growled wildly, but I’ll leave you with this image from a little over a week ago. Hard to believe we had almost two feet of snow out there just moments ago and I must remind myself that it’s more than possible that we will have that again before we’re finished with winter for this year.

Not that these two nutbags would believe it.

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I finally moved about 2000 digital photos out of my iPhoto and onto a couple of CDs last night. I edited out the many, many duplicate shots of food and plants and in the process took a wonderful trip down the memory lane of this past growing season. Such a treat remembering the many ways our hands stayed busy all summer long and to see proof again when right now when it’s 17 degrees out and the world is encrusted in ice and snow, and it feels as if nothing will ever grow again. It’s SO good to review all we have put in place so far to become less dependent upon the grinding commercial food industry and to gain inspiration for growing that independence even more in the coming season.

I picked this first hand full of Vermont Cranberry beans too early because I grew impatient with the lack of sun on the pods and the weeks they took to even begin to blush.

I had a big helper in the garden all season and I thrilled to see Lila grow more conscious of what her hands should and should not do while moving in and out of the plants. She was my number one cherry tomato harvester.

Between my garden and the farmers’ market, I set out a giant bowl of fresh salad at just about every dinner we ate last summer. Next summer I’d like to learn some more homemade dressing recipes, I relied a little too heavily on Newman’s Own vinaigrettes which is fine but a little boring. If you have a favorite salad dressing recipe, please share!

Pinch me again! I almost forgot that these black raspberries grow wild right behind the gardens next door, and if we get some early summer rains, they’re plump and juicy just like the ones in this bowl. Mercy, they were so good. I can’t even find words to describe the wild berry explosion that occurred after I popped each one in my mouth. Heaven?

I won’t need to buy any seed potato in the spring because the harvest sprouted in the basement much faster than I thought it would. I guess it’s a little too warm down there, and I’d like to look at eventually turning one corner into a true root cellar by blocking it in with cement blocks.

In about six weeks I’m going to replant the greens boxes and then try not to stare out the window at them to make time move more quickly and bring us back around to that lush, glorious green of high summer. I’m still working on my seed list and narrowing down what to buy. I’ll be planting in the oversize cold frame that Chris built as well — the one with the much too high back and the big bay window that’s too heavy to lift and has a frame so flimsy that it feels as if it will shatter in mid-air. But it’s salad greens real estate and maybe I’ll figure out a way to modify it so it’s less deadly.

Looking back is such an inspiring way to examine the here and now in order to set forth the plan for the future, don’t you think?

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Have you ever tasted pickled turnips and felt the sweet explosion of turnipy goodness waking your taste buds up from a deep slumber? The first time I had them was last year at a local Middle Eastern restaurant. An insert stuck into the menu notified customers that the wrap style sandwiches now also contained pickles and turnips but just say the word if you think pickles are nothing more than cucumber or some other smelly vegetable steeped in evil. OK, they didn’t say it quite like that, just that you can decline the pickled bits if you so desire.

But you and I both know people who shudder visibly at the thought of pickles. S, the guitarist in the lunchtime band thinks pickles are a weapon of mass destruction. Lunch with him on Friday is a hoot because he places his order and then pauses and we all wait. Conversation always stops when he’s ordering. He always turns back to his menu for a moment, studying it as if he’s going to maybe order a side of something (fried pickles perchance?)*, and then looks up at the waitress as if something has just occurred to him and says “Oh yeah, and No. Pickles. I don’t want any pickles touching anything on my plate.” It doesn’t matter how many times I hear this routine, it’s always funny. I love S even though he won’t eat at this particular restaurant and I’m so done with fish sandwiches, Iceberg lettuce salads and cheeseburgers at chain restaurants. I think I may have to ditch the gang and hit Aladdin’s tomorrow (warning: flash on their site).

Aaaanyway, that day I hadn’t made up my mind between the grilled tuna on salad and the grilled tuna and salad wrap. The pickles clinched the deal and boy-howdy, they did not disappoint. Tiny gherkin pickles and sticks of bright pink pickled turnip in every bite. Not a ton of them, just enough to give each bite a spicy-sweet tang and a crunchiness that you just can’t get from lettuce. Heavenly. And I’ve been fantasizing about making my own pickled turnips ever since.

I actually wanted to do it when I first read Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

So a few years later—you know how that goes, right? How three years can go by and your to-do list has only grown longer? Yeah, I thought so. I used to believe I was the only overwhelmed person on the planet who couldn’t reach any of her goals, but then along came the internet and I found out that we’re mostly all like that and the people closest to me were just perpetuating the lie of success and efficiency. Ha! Ha-hah! Heh. I’m kidding.

OK, are you still with me? It’s three years later and I’m just barely out the other side of the worst stomach flu of my life (people, the things I didn’t tell you…except for you and my poor mother and sister. And a couple of co-workers. I told all of you and I’m really, really sorry. Truly. But you know it was funny, too.) I tell you, extreme gastric distress made me crave the pickled turnips in the worst way. I had snapped up some locally grown turnips at the farm stand right before Thanksgiving and dumped them in the bottom drawer of the fridge and they didn’t look too bad, just a little yellowed around the edges. I doubled the recipe I found at astray.com, after comparing and constrasting about twenty others. I settled on this one because I liked the addition of celery leaves and the smaller amount of salt.

Pickled Turnips
Yield: 1 pint

* 1 large beet
* 4 small turnips or 3 medium size turnips
* 3-5 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced (I used 2 cloves per jar because my belly wasn’t in the mood for garlic. But I knew it would be later, so I kept some in.)
* Young celery leaves (no measurement on the recipe. I used about 3 tablespoons, very barely chopped.)
* 1/2 cup each white vinegar and water
* 1 tablespoon coarse salt (I used Kosher.)

Boil beet in water until tender and peel, cool, slice and set aside. Drop turnips into boiling beet water for 2 to 3 minutes, take out and peel. Cut into French-fry size sticks.

Sterilize 1 pint wide-mouth jar, layer turnips, beets, a few slices of garlic and celery leaves.

Combine water, vinegar and salt and bring to a boil, making sure salt dissolves. Fill jar with vinegar mixture (I left about a half inch head), seal and store in a warm place for ten days. (I put plastic wrap over the jar before I put the lid on and also set the jars in plastic containers in case they leak. I hear that can happen with fermenting.)

After opening, store in the refrigerator. These get better the longer they sit - which the recipe promises seldom happens, which is why I doubled it.

If you’re interested in reading about the benefits of eating fermented foods, here’s a pretty comprehensive article from Natural Health written by Jill Neimark.

If these come out as good as I expect them to, then I’m going to try some of the lacto-fermentation recipes from Nourishing Traditions. Eight days left, people. Any suggestions for what to try the turnips with first?

* Fried pickles are apparently a local delicacy. I have yet to try them because I’m told that I need to wait and have them at a specific diner in Akron whose name I can’t recall, but I’m promised that they’re worth the drive. I’m skeptical and people, I love me some pickles. But fried? I don’t know. It seems so Ohio State Fair Cuisine. Followed by a fried Snickers Bar. Some things really are just wrong. That right there is definitely one, and possibly two of them in the same meal. Pass the TUMSâ„¢.

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Making it to the 5:00 bell (not a real bell, just the figurative bell that clangs loudly in my head at the end of the day, dismissing me from my desk and back into my life) felt like a huge accomplishment today—ridiculously huge.

I cleared out my inbox (for the most part) and only brought one thing home to work on over the weekend. It’s proofreading an instruction manual that’s due first thing Monday morning. It’ll be the thing that keeps me from working on that essay I’ve been struggling with, but I’m in deeper doo-doo than I’ve been in all week if I don’t get it finished.

Can I tell you how grateful I am to no longer feel as if I just swallowed a bottle of vinegar and a box of baking soda? To be able to sit upright for more than ten minutes in a row? Really, really, really grateful.

Yes, lunch was a quandary and I definitely should have bowed out of the group trip to the local swill hole. I really botched it when I ordered a fish sandwich and french fries. But that was the only thing on the menu that didn’t come smothered in pepper jack cheese and chipotle sauce. Or bourbon.

Dear Damons,

Your menu sucks. Twelve bucks is too much for a salad. Especially one with iceburg lettuce. And the four bites of sandwich, three french fries and pickle that I ate gave me gas pains so extreme that from 4-5 pm I seriously worried that I might be having an appendicitis attack. I almost called you to transport me to the hospital. But then the 5:00 bell rang and I scuttled off to my truck. Fortunately I commute alone. If only I could have somehow used that gas for good.

Sincerely,

Kelly

I look forward to a good night’s sleep and beginning the deep disinfecting of the house tomorrow morning. I may even turn off the heat and open some windows and doors for a little while.

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I agree with Angelina’s statement that urban homesteading is a movement. A growing and necessary movement—and an excellent way to say screw you to the ridiculous, unsustainable systems our country has put in place to feed and give “comfort” to its citizens. It has become my chosen form of political activism.

I also hear the truth in Angelina’s statement that she doesn’t want or need a farm. Part of me still longs for that possibility, but reality intrudes, thank goodness. I briefly explored that option three years ago when we lived on a piece of land that was certainly large enough to make a small farm and a tiny living. I researched forming a CSA but found that my customer base would have been too far away and not interested in making the trek out to the country to help. Consequently my prices would have had to be a lot higher so I could hire warm bodies to keep up with the work. Those higher prices made it a lot less interesting to that same customer base.

I went the farmer’s market route and while it was an amazing experience that I have sorely missed these two summers since, it wasn’t the most effective way for one person to make a living. I know that time and trial and error would have improved my model, but I also know that I would have hit a ceiling on how much I could earn because I’m only one person. When I did the math at the end of that season of dabbling, I had made about $900 profit, but that worked out to be about 1.80 an hour.

Now I’m trying to apply what I learned out on the “farm” to my life here in the city (rural city, but still city). I know that I (mostly) don’t want to be a farmer. But I also know that I want to grow a lot of my own food and continue to form connections with the other dedicated growers in my community. It’s a slow process because I work full-time outside of the home. One of my biggest complaints about what it takes to collect such a nice paycheck every two weeks is the fact that I have to spend more hours than necessary chained to my desk in a cubicle.

In terms of efficiency, I could get my job done in 3 days most weeks, four during super rush times. That is, if I could just focus on the work and not get sucked into the constant stream of interruption that is endemic in the corporate office culture. I’m trying to not get bitter about the productivity I could have enjoyed at home during those wasted hours at work. About the tomatoes that never made it into canning jars. All in good time, I tell myself, all the while looking back over my shoulder at the looming shadow of change building on the horizon.

I’ll try to drop my jealousy when I see photos of other bloggers’ stocked freezers and pantries this fall and keep my eye on the prize of progress. There’s always next year. Or, at least, I hope there is…

Saturday’s market boomed with activity, such a great thing to see. I should have brought the camera—the light was perfect—long, slanting shadows and a golden hue made all the deeper by the piles and crates of pumpkins and winter squash. Such a boon to our small city to have this market growing exponentially each summer. The fact that I walked away from the second to last market day with this haul is just amazing.

My haul:

2 eggplant
1/2 peck paste tomatoes
2 heads lettuce
1 bag mesclun greens
1 bag mustard spinach
1 large bunch collards
1 large bunch curly kale
1 quart green beans
1 pint edamame
1 pint habaneros
3 sweet yellow peppers
3 yellow crookneck summer squash
onions
2 small loaves of bread from Rafael
1 pint maple syrup
1 pint maple BBQ sauce
1 pie pumpkin
1 bag Black Arkansas Apples
1 giant cabbage
1 quart yams
1 giant frosted pumpkin cookie for Lila
1 big bunch of flowers with purple dahlias for Cheril
and finally…
one pint of raspberries—the last raspberries of the season!

We had dinner at Cheril & Greg’s last night, and I cranked in the kitchen from noon until six. I brought the bulk of dinner because Cheril’s been at a yoga training for the past two days, and also because I felt like cooking for my people, dangit.

I made a big salad of just greens that I tossed some Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes into before dressing with a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

One of the eggplants and a lone zucchini got dredged in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, then fried golden, layered in a casserole with mozzarella and asiago cheese, and the sauce I made of eggplant, onion, garlic, tomato and herbs. End of the season Veggie Parmesan. Without the parm, but still yum.

I also tried the scrumptious looking recipe from Smitten Kitchen, for butternut squash and caramelized onion galette and I must say, it was heavenly.

Finally, I did up a 12 x 9 inch pan with an apple, blueberry, raspberry cobbler. Time to buy new baking powder…the biscuit dough didn’t rise at all. Yuck.

We watched the Indians/Red Sox game 6 and sipped wine after dinner. Chris and Lila both fell asleep on the couch. I enjoyed the quiet, sitting in the dark with my dear friends…their doggies groaning in pleasure from their respective spots of repose. Life is good.

Technorati Tags: eat local, homemade, recipes, farmers’ market, farm, urban homesteading, garden

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