her able hands

Itching to gift a loved one with something homemade but feeling overwhelmed by the time constraints at the holidays? Are you a Last Minute Lucy like I am? Bath salts are easy. Super easy and fun to make. Don’t believe me? Go check out Angelina’s terrific tutorial on WhipUp.

Twelve years ago I made bath salts for my friends and family at the holidays. I designed a snazzy logo and called my fledgling effort Sacred Spiral. The labels had a kokopelli and a spiral and I printed them on earthy paper with lots of fleck. I used the book The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy: Over 600 Natural, Non-Toxic and Fragrant Recipes to Create Health - Beauty - a Safe Home Environment and sat up late nights listening to Indigo Girls and Jane Siberry. I had little pipettes and tiny jars of pure essential oils in scents that frightened me at first sniff—vetiver anyone? Phew. But as I blended the drops using Valerie’s recipes with specific results in mind, the fragrances became heavenly.

I’m not making anything for the holidays this year (except for Pizelles and maybe some cut out sugar cookies with the lingonberry preserves I picked up somewhere last year with that in mind. But I’m not throwing a huge, commercial Christmas this year either. Sure, I’ll end up making one trip to Target for a few things and will likely place an Amazon order next week, but I’ve already done the bulk of my shopping at Etsy and every day this week I’ve pulled small padded envelopes from my mailbox all bundled together with rubber bands. Can I tell you how happy these small packages have made me? Each one I’ve opened to find something handmade that I have picked out for someone I care about and a handwritten note thanking me for my order, a business card or two, and even some freebies—stickers, recipe cards, note cards, bookmarks. So, so delightful. No price tags to rub off with nail polish remover. No credit card balance racking up because I used the money in my PayPal account that has accrued over the last year, from advertising on this site. I’m very pleased to be circulating the money this way in the blogosphere.

I had the epiphany while traveling east for Thanksgiving, sailing past farms and rivers and wide vistas with mountains rolling out from beneath our wheels into the distance.

The world felt so quiet with the kids dozing in the back, Chris’ warm hand wrapped around mine until I slipped out of his finger tangle to snap another picture. I thought about the holidays and the madness and the pressure that I always feel. About the fact that the words I hate Christmas have come out of my mouth so many times in recent years and why. How the words simplify and balance, while ringing with the tone of truth, also make me cringe because they seem so unattainable anymore. As I thought these thinky thoughts, Chris slid into the passing lane and pulled out ahead of the answer.

Why not give a rousing f*ck you to the Big Box? But how? I don’t have the time or energy to make things this year. I just don’t. Images from browsing the blog world rose in my mind’s eye and I thought of all of the talented bloggers out there who create and sell so many different things that are both useful and inspirational. Which made me think of Etsy. And Christmas didn’t seem so awful all of a sudden. Still a little bit awful, but a little less so.

It feels daring to say no to big ticket holidays. Not that we have huge ticket holidays, but we all tend to rack up a little more debt than we should every December. I don’t want that anymore. Doing that makes all of our goals move that much farther away, and I realized as I burned up the miles of asphalt between here and there that what I want more than anything in the world for Christmas this year is for each and every one of the people I love to feel easy in their lives. To not feel worried about money because money worry eats us alive and puts a grimy pallor over everything else. I want to find ways to support those people reaching their life goals and somehow big Christmas shopping lists is tangled up with it all, leading us all astray from our goals.

Here’s an example: one simple goal of mine is to have a week with my family in the mountains or at the beach. One week. But we always spend that money at Christmas instead. Hmmm.

And there they were, those mountains of my dreams, the Catskills almost within reach. This close to waking in the morning to mist rolling through the valleys, steam from my coffee cup rising to warm my face, breath coming easy and moving deep. But we waved to them in the far distance north of the Hudson Valley as we sped through on our way to my family—where I most needed to be and was so grateful to arrive.

So no bath salts for Christmas unless I buy some from Angelina, which I just may. But I’m thinking sometime in February, I’ll pick up some Dead Sea salts and Epsom salts. Pull out my bin of essential oils and my little baggie of pipettes. Pop in Easy Tiger and lose myself in the scents and sounds. Then draw a bath because I’m going to try nurturing myself a little more in 2008.

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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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I forgot to post this recipe! I’m not sure where it comes from, but it’s one my sister wrot e out on a recipe card for me while I was visiting her a couple of years ago. It’s my favorite thing to do with apples, now.

These babies came out of the oven and the entire neighborhood smelled like warm cinnamon and apples.

Apple Crostate
Makes 6 individual

Dough:
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup chilled, unsalted butter cut into small pieces
2 eggs lightly beaaten
1/2 cup sour cream.

Combine the flour & salt, work in the butter with a pastry knife until it just forms crumbs (I used the food processor because I had just finished using it to make the dough for the wonderful, blunderful Chard Tart). Combine the sour cream and eggs in a separate bowl, then add to the flour mixture (not in the food processor) and mix until just combined. Then knead until it just comes together. Form into 6 flat, round cakes. Wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Filling:
6 large apples (Cortland, Rome Beauty, — I used Opalescent, a local heirloom variety.) peeled and sliced thin
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375*
Form tarts to liking– roll out on a lightly floured board, into thin circles about 9″ across. I floured the board with a 50/50 whole wheat and white mix, so the dough picked up luscious flakes of wheat.

Pile 1/6th of the apples onto one side, fold the dough over, fold the edges up and press down to seal. Repeat five more yummy times.

Move them to the ungreased baking sheet as you go.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Cut one up into small pieces to appease the kids in the neighborhood who have now gathered around the picnic table.

Eat one yourself in place of dinner. Pick up and eat every little amazing flake of sweet and salty dough that has fallen on your shirt and lap. Lick the plate. Trust me.

Technorati Tags: recipes, apples, apple crostate, flaky dough, sour cream dough, autumn cooking

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This is a fairly straightforward recipe, but there’s one important step and that’s the step I skipped. When you roll out the dough, you’re going for a nice, even 15 inch circle. Easy enough, right? Except the recipe says to roll it out in between two sheets of wax paper so you can then lift it onto the baking pan without it tearing to ribbons. Well, I didn’t do that. Not only did I not do that, I also then piled my wet ingredients right on top of the thin dough, right there on my cutting board.

Then I folded the edges up, working counter-clockwise around the tart, until I had a neat little tarty package to pop in the oven.

Except, whoops! How am I going to move this nice neat tart onto the baking sheet? Hmmmm, braniac?

After some pulling and turning and dumping out of ingredients all over the place, I did manage to shift it onto the pan without tearing it asunder, though now it looked like a wrinkled old ball sac filled with chard. Sorry, but it’s true. And I kind of like it better. It’s even more rustic in appearance, with more texture than usual.

It was bittersweet making this recipe as it used up most of the rest of my chard. My fall plantings of greens have officially become the local buffet for another group of rabbits, so I won’t have any greens at Thanksgiving direct from the yard. Thank goodness Hilgert’s will have kale and collards.

So, on to the recipe!

Chard Tart
serves 4-6

Pastry
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt, preferably kosher
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
In a food processor, combine the flour, salt, oil, and butter, and process briefly. Drizzle in 1/3 cup cold water and process briefly. Test to see if the dough sticks together. If not, gradually add more water, a tablespoon at a time. Remove the dough from the processor, knead it a few times on a lightly floured surface, and form it into a ball. Flatten it a bit, wrap it in wax paper, and refrigerate for 1 hour or as long as 6 to 8 hours.

Filling
8 large Swiss chard leaves, stems removed, thinly sliced
Salt, preferably kosher
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 leek, white part only, washed and thinly sliced (I skipped the leek, but added a few baby shallots).
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 medium potato (or 1 large red), boiled until tender, peeled and cubed (I used 4 fingerling potatoes from the garden with skins on).
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup cubed Fontina cheese
Salt, preferably kosher
Freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (I used thick shaved Romano).
Preheat the oven to 375F. Place the Swiss chard in a colander, sprinkle with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and set the colander aside over a bowl for 30 minutes.

In a small saucepan, heat the 2T olive oil over medium heat. Add leek and onion stirring until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the chard to the bowl, along with potato, parsley, feta, Fontina, salt and pepper, eggs, and 2T of the extra-virgin olive oil. Mix well.

Lightly flour a sheet of wax paper, and place the dough on it. Flour the dough lightly and cover with a piece of wax paper. Roll the dough out to form a 15-inch circle. Remove the top piece of wax paper. Invert the dough round onto an oiled baking sheet and remove the other piece of wax paper.

Spread the filling on the dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border all around. Fold the border over the filling, overlapping itself slightly every 2 inches or so. Brush the dough with 1 tablespoon of the extra-virgin olive oil. Sprinkle filling with the Parmigiano-Reggiano, and drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the crust and filling are lightly browned. Slice, and serve hot or at room temperature.

All this dish needs is a bright salad and a glass of chilled Rose to make it a perfect meal. But it’s also quite scrumptious eaten while standing over the hot pan.

Technorati Tags: recipes, chard, chard tart, feta cheese, eat local, locavore, garden, kitchen garden

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This is more of a round-up last weekend and Monday. It’s late because I’ve had something going on every night after work and have slept late every morning because I’m fighting a bit of ick, but keeping it at bay with lots of water, vitamins and herbs. Though I’m less hopeful after last night’s class meeting at the preschool. I walked out of there feeling like about a thousand little germies had hitched a ride home in my head and this morning my throat is all sore and my nose has the onset of viral infection garbage smell when I breathe in. I’m popping cold care and stopping at the pharmacy for some zinc on my way in to work.

I should probably also make a big, spicy pot of garlic and escarole soup with my homemade chili powder.

I dehydrated a bunch of the hot peppers I picked at the farm two weeks ago, a mix of banana peppers that had turned red, chilis and cherry hots. While we waited for Chris to get home from work on Saturday, Lila played on the swingset with her friend Fatou, and I set up at the picnic table with all of my half-finished food preservation projects. The day was hot, but not insufferably so because a light breeze kept the air moving and the shadows are so long that we stayed in partial shade.

I worked the dry pepper bits into flakes and some powder with the mortar and pestle and as I worked I thought about my sister, so when I finished that task, I sat down and wrote her a letter to send along with a little baggie of the pepper.

I miss her more than I could possibly communicate here and hope that one day we’ll be able to live close to each other so we can get our food and garden geek on together on a regular basis.

I started this labor-intensive red pepper relish on Friday night. The recipe for Pugliese Pepper Relish—which I got from the great site, Kitchen Gardeners International—takes three days to complete. What you see here is the vegetables soaking in salt and their own juices.

Shortly after I snapped this shot, I dumped them into a colander and rinsed the heck out of them, let them drain, then dumped them back into the bowl and covered with the vinegar. I didn’t have enough white wine vinegar so I mixed in some cider. I guess it won’t taste quite as refined, but that’s okay, this kind of substitution suits my peasant nature.

I’ve been meaning to take a photo of the twelve half-pints of finished relish, but anytime I’m home it’s dark and my indoors nighttime shots are worthless. You’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that, hott damn, they’re red and purty. I can’t wait to pop open a jar to smother on some fish or chicken or something.

So now we arrive at the question of the pot of cooked plum tomatoes sitting in the fridge. I cleaned off the food mill and while the girls lay back in the grass and chatted, I eavesdropped on their deep conversation, lulled by the turning of the handle.

Lila: But if you die then I will die too. Right?

Fatou: But if I die my mommy will be sad. Right?

Lila: Yeah, but if you die then I will be sad too, right?

Fatou: Uh-huh.

Lila: My Grandpa Ron died. His body stopped working. He’s in the trees and the stars now, right?

Fatou: Uh-huh. My Grandpa lives in Japan, right?

Lila: Well, my other Grandpa isn’t dead and he lives with Pink Grandma Carol in Massatoooshits, right?

Fatou: Uh-huh.

I ended up with a quart of juice that might be nice for Bloody Marys with Sunday brunch, but I’m not seeing an open Sunday for a few weeks, so I need to get it into the freezer. For the sauce, I sautéed a bunch of vegetables (garlic, onion, red and green pepper, mushroom and carrots) to add to the tomato, which I simmered with some of my dried herbs, then fresh basil and parsley at the end. This sauce made a great topping for the pan of stuffed red peppers I made the night before. I missed out on one more photo of red with that meal, too.

At midday, just before we left to head down to the old house to mow and grab another load of crap we have no room for, I took this blown-out shot of the same Dahlia from last week. Totally the wrong time of day to take picture, but goodness, this flower is incredible.

I remember my teacher back in New York, Fiona, telling me to give plenty of attention to the deep and bright colors of autumn, to really take them into my body. The reds and golds and oranges would help sustain my energy through the gray, cold days of winter. I do this with my pantry, as well.

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