Posts from — April 2009

A little taste of what I’m doing in the garden…

18.75 - tons of soil moved double digging

6840 - number of carrot seeds sown

38- number of wireworms pinched in half while prepping the beet bed

10.75 - pounds of spinach harvested by the “cut and come again” method on Tuesday

8 - layers of compost I added to our piles

27 - strapping tomato plants transplanted into a lower greenhouse

In honor of my lovely dad, who just turned 50 today…

Cute chicks, playing in the sunshine

Thanks for being a great dad
… for being so cool: raising chickens, building your own woodshop, riding a scooter
… for taking care of yourself and taking care of us
… for always being so proud of me and supportive of things I want to try
… for helping me understand myself better
… for hugs, even when I’m being a bum

Happy happy birthday and I love you!

Synergy Farm has gone through lots of different personas over the years: conventional dairy farm, commune where folks played volleyball naked on the front lawn, B & B, and now back to a small-scale organic farm.

The watertower where I live was once actually a watertower, where water was stored, but in the B & B years, it was converted to a cute little apartment. We’ve got all kinds of good stuff: cute decor, heating, lovely little bathroom & shower, a mini wood stove, and a loft with a queen size bed.

Here’s a little tour of the inside:

The stairs in the entry-way. The bathroom is on this first level on the right. On the left is a beautiful stained glass windows that throws pretty red-colored light all over in the mornings.

The dining/work table in the living room space. Sometimes I sit here in the mornings eating oatmeal and wasting time reading articles about agriculture on my Google Reader.

The rest of the living room — Ikea couch, coffee table with my Kombucha hidden inside, lots of great lighting and my minimal decor additions

View of some of the North field from the window shown above. Right now these beds have broccoli, kale, beets, and carrots. Some will lie fallow until June and July.

Looking up from the living room into the loft. The wood beams are so pretty.

My God, I love Mr. Harold McGee.

I saw him once in one of my favorite Google cafeterias, sampling yogurt. I didn’t have my copy of On Food and Cooking on hand, so I couldn’t ask for a little piece of his genius, but I did watch him as he went over and took a little cup of creamy deliciousness for himself. Rumor has it (direct from the head chef of that particular cafe) that McGee himself provided the starter, originally from a friend of his from India, for the delicious, perfectly textured & flavored goodness that we were served each morning.

Yum.

Colin and I tried our own yogurt experiment last weekend. We started with one quart of Heritage Farm’s oh-so-good raw (whole) milk; or rather, a little less than a quart after we each sneaked a little sip, which we heated to 200 F, stirring constantly so a skin didn’t form. I think this was probably a little hot — 175 or 180 is really more like it.

Then we waited for it to cool to 135 F and stirred in 2 tbsp of Brown Cow Cream Top yogurt.

Then it was time to wait. We swaddled our yogurt baby in a warm cloth and rubber banded some paper towels over the top and left it under a grow light in the bunkhouse, next to the tomato starts. 16 hours later, we divvied up the results into our respective refrigerators.

Apparently, our yogurt had tons of these little suckers called exopolysaccarides, better known as EPS which according to Mr. McGee’s article:

“bind to the water and one another and make the whey less runny, thicker and more clingy. EPS producers are the bacteria that dominate in Finnish viili, which is so clingy that you can stretch it a foot or more between bowl and lifted spoon. You eat viili by cutting it into pieces.”

You couldn’t cut our yogurt to pieces, but it did have a certain stringiness and chewiness that I’ve never experienced in yogurt (in anything?). I think we inadvertently stumbled on Nordic fermented milk (viili).

No mistake, the flavor was awesome, and I totally respect the Finns, but I would consider using regular pasteurized milk next time and maybe take McGee’s advice on using typical sweetened, non-organic, no-frills yogurt for starter.

How does the size of a farm and the depth of community involvement relate to the quality of food produced and/or the quality of external products like land stewardship?

Just read this on a great blog:

“Locavorism isn’t about free-range, its about getting closer to the source; shaking the hand that feeds you and thereby knowing, even seeing, where your food comes from. The reason there are no worthy studies [showing more disease in free range pigs] is because grass-fed farmers often run size-manageable and responsible operations. They don’t cut corners precisely because they are held accountable by the community.”

It might be beside the point of the rest of Paula Crossfield’s article, but this benefit of locavorism surfaces again and again. Local is better because you can see the farm and the farmer and that makes them more accountable. This seems to make so much sense. But the social scientist in me (yes, one of my more loathed parts, but a deep-seated one nonetheless) wonders what kind of research has been done to detail the relationship between size of farm, depth of community involvement, and the extent to which farmers “cut corners.” In fact, this could really be applied to any kind of organization or business — how does scale and community ties affect some relatively objective measure of “quality?”

It seems like a very difficult thing to study given the observer effect — people changing as a result of their actions being observed — but I’ll bet someone’s tried. I’m going to ask some sociologists for help thinking about this one.

My amazing mum sent me two galangal stems & tubers, a few stalks of lemongrass and a piece of turmeric from the fridge. I planted them all a few days ago and have been keeping the kitchen steamy and hot in the hopes that they’re tricked into thinking it’s tropical.

Unfortunately, the turmeric rhizome got moldy, so I think it’s going to have to go in the garbage. Perhaps I’ll be able to find a replacement in Bellingham or in Seattle if I ever make it out there.

That’s one thing that gets me about this “eating local” business. In general, I love love what “local” stands for. Eating what’s near you makes sense — it can be fresher, it takes fewer resources to transport, it’s technically easier to involve yourself with your food by actually talking with the farmer or (gasp!) going out to actually visit the farm where it’s produced. Plus, I understand and support strengthening local economies — I do believe when you buy food from your neighbor, you’re ultimately doing yourself a favor.

But then how do I get things I love without guilt? I love cooking Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Burmese foods. Let’s say my little indoor pots of tropical tubers don’t work out or they don’t produce enough for all the lovely curries I want to make. Do I eschew curry or make adjustments that essentially change a dish? I’d say neither.

I’ve certainly been eating differently since I arrived, less meat, more gorgeous produce, and that adjustment has been wonderfully delicious. But I miss curry and spice and tropical fruits. So when do you draw the line between practical, ethical, joyous eating and overzealousness tied up with guilt? Especially when what’s practical and “right” for me and practical and “right” for you is so different.

The NY Times columnist Mark Bittman says we should avoid labels and just strive to eat “wholesome,” “good” food. I agree, but here you bump up against the problem of definition — some folks have been brought up with very different standards for “good,” and folks have different levels of access to “good.”

I guess it really does come down to a question of ethics and making complex moral tradeoffs. I’m going to see what some of these books have to say on the subject and get back to you.

I was on duty this weekend, which meant taking care of lots of chickens, keeping temperatures steady in the flathouses and greenhouses in a lovely orchestration of opening and shutting and venting, some watering duties, and feeding the cats.

In between all that, I managed to squeeze in a little bike ride:

View

in a larger map

This time, I had companions… David who’s a jack-of-all trades who lives out on Sweet Earth Farm and a new friend Pritha who is an intern out on Heritage Farm.

David and Pritha looking at Mt. Baker

Still snowy out there.

We went almost out to the lighthouse at South Beach, but fell just shy (my 4 o’clock chicken date held us back), making for a total of around 20 miles round-trip.

Past American Camp a ways, we headed down a mini gravel path a little ways towards the water and were stopped by this curious guy. Pritha, the fox-whisperer, got him to come real close. Eventually, a friend of his came along with silver fur and eyes that were even yellower and more eerie.

Pensive fox.

Hungry fox.

Apparently, the red foxes on San Juan Island are a non-native species that was first introduced in 1947, and a few times afterwards to control a populations of (also non-native) rabbits which had been introduced in the 1890s and were out of control. Now there aren’t so many rabbits, but you can still see foxes all over the place.

Field + sea + mountains + sky = beautiful

When I was small, every once in a while, my parents would shuttle the three of us kids — me, my little sis Becky and little brother, Cam — to one of our grandparents’ houses.

Generally these weekends were full of fun, fun and fun. We got to eat Kraft Mac & Cheese and Cheetos and Oreos, we made trips to the park to picnic and build dams and catch pollywogs; we went to the movies where Grandma Evie would smuggle in candy we had agonizingly chosen at the drug store; we went down the street to the schoolyard to slide and monkey on the bars.

At my Kong-Kong (grandpa) and Grandma Sharon’s house, I would do experiments with my chemistry set, tumble rocks till they were smooth, and play dress up with out special bin of scarves & costume jewelry. We had season tickets to a special children’s performance at the symphony and afterwards, we would go out to dinner where I would eat a full rack of ribs, a baked potato (hold the greens!) and a “Pie-in-the-sky” for dessert.

Our trips varied predictably — the same activities in different orders — but a few weekends stand out in my memory. One such weekend was the weekend of the neighborhood block party at Kong Kong and Grandma Sharon’s. There were fireworks, there were hula-hoops. I think there was even a magician. But most of all, there was food. It was the middle of a Southern California summer, and hot. Everybody brought out their oven-fried chicken legs, their weenies and potato chips, their potato salad and watermelon. I remember roving from house to house and getting food handed to me along the way.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a block party since then. This is an American tradition that really needs reviving. With all the labels and “do-nots” surrounding food issues these days, it’s nice to switch to the more positive once in a while and celebrate the bounty we do have. Sharing food in the community seems like the right venue to get conversations going about our values and what we care about in food for our neighborhoods, families, planet.

This seems to be a modern-day take on the “Block Party” that’s been taking place in some big cities across the world. Cool idea — we have lots of potlucks on the island, but maybe I’ll try to put something bigger together on the farm.

Today Susan and I planted four more beds of potatoes, two beds of Corollas:

and two beds of Yukon Gold (don’t those arms look like something out of Dr. Seuss!):

The Rose Finn Apple fingerlings aren’t quite ready to go yet — still a couple of weeks before their little tubers are quite big enough to start in the ground.

Potato planting is fun and easy. It’s the perfect kind of gardening for little kids — not fussy or delicate like lettuces. Plus it’s an amazing testament to the awesomeness of plants that from one potato comes many new potatoes (unlike beets or carrots where 1 plant = one beet or carrot)!

So you start with what you call seed potatoes — either leftover potatoes from the year before which have been kept in a dark pretty cool place, or certified seed potatoes, purchased from a purveyor of such things. I guess the certified seed potatoes are promised to be free of diseases and other sorts of yucky imperfections, but I tend to think it’s cool to grow lots of little potatoes from potatoes that you yourself grew just the year before.

Anyway, once the potatoes get a few little “chits” or sprouts (like when you keep those russet potatoes in the bag in your pantry next to those old onions that are slowly decomposing and you pull them out one day to make stew and they’re all shriveled and have crazy alien growths)… then you’re ready to go.

The beds had been cleared and double-dug (yay Dylan! yay me!), so the next step was to twist in some compost with a spading fork. Then we hoed the 4×25 ft bed into two long valleys with a big peak in the middle and two lesser peaks on the outside.

Next, we placed the potatoes in, 12 inches apart. Then we “hoed” the potatoes in — or basically covered them with dirt. EASY!

Once they get going and sprout some leafyness, we’ll be moving the middle mountain, to pile dirt up around the stem and keep the potatoes well buried so they don’t get any sinister hints of green.

I got some nutmegs at the store the other day.

Cool facts about nutmeg:

• It goes well with cheese sauces
• Back in the day, the only source of nutmeg was the Banda Islands — a small group of islands in Indonesia that also has good snorkeling
• There’s something called nutmeg poisoning, which may cause delirium

They smelled so spicy and sweet that I felt compelled to make something. Thankfully I found this lovely and simple recipe for Indonesian Nutmeg Tea Cookies (Kue Kering).

I didn’t have a blender, so I melted the butter a bit too much in an effort to make the mixing easier — I think this made the cookies tougher than they should have been. I also took one batch out after 10 minutes and left the other in for 2-3 more and the consistencies were totally different — biscuit crunchy v. crispy and soft in the middle. I like crunchy myself, but I’m not totally sure how they were intended.

Anyway, if I were to do them again, I would add crushed almonds to this recipe to make them more crumbly and maybe dip the tops in crystally sugar.