Posts from — June 2009

I love markets. When we were small, every so often, my parents would bring us to the Orange County swapmeet. We’d load into our radio flyer wagon and go from stall to stall, surveying the goods, picking up socks in bulk and new tennis shoes, new plants for my mum, and, if we were lucky, something from the toy stall or later in my girlhood, a mood ring or a ying yang necklace from the jewelry tent.

Then there are craft markets. The froo-froo Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach, the lower-key summertime street vendors in downtown Santa Cruz, the ridiculously hip Sunday Market in Chiang Mai, tourist-heavy Rastro in Madrid, the traditional Weinachtsmarkt in Regnesburg, Germany, and seasonal fairs on the Stanford campus, just in time for Mother’s Day.

And then, my favorite of all, the farmers’ market. Where produce is king and possibilities are endless. Squash blossoms? Apriums? Six strawberry varieties. Torpedo onions, garlic scapes, eggs of all colors. It’s a feast for the eyes and in all other senses of the word. Whenever I travel, I want to see the market; hog heads at Barcelona’s La Boqueria, durian at the wet markets in Singapore, cow stomach and coconuts at the outdoor stalls in Kampong Cham and Phnom Penh, sausage and bread and cheese in Tuscany, flying fish at Seattle’s Pike Place. Then there’s back home in Fullerton and in my adopted home, the San Francisco Bay: in Southern California and at Alemany and the Ferry Plaza and California Ave. in Palo Alto there are fresh berries, pumelos, tomatoes, avocados, and all the other delicious bounty of California’s Central Coast. There’s fruit and veggies to see and smell and touch (not too much!) and often taste when the stall owners are good at marketing.

So farmers’ markets are sensual, and then they’re also full of community; they’re where you go to shop and talk. Studies have shown that many many more conversations take place at the farmers’ market than do at supermarkets. Unsurprising. When you’re surrounded by sun and smiling farmers and mountains of fresh produce, it’s hard not to open your mouth and talk (or sing!)

I’ve always wanted to work at a market and now, with Synergy, I have. It’s fun. The San Juan Island market is full of folks that I’ve just started getting to know and Saturdays at the market are a mix of taking orders and answering questions about our produce (yes, that lettuce is perfect for wraps!) and greeting friends and chatting about the season and our sales and a hundred different things going on in the community.

If you love farmers’ markets too, consider voting here for your favorite!

What fun to cook for a crowd. There’s gathering inspiration, making a plan, working out the details, prepping a few days in advance, tasting, tweaking, more prep the day-of, throwing things together, and voila! If you’ve put in the time, it’s then time to reap the satisfaction of watching the slurps and murmurs of happiness from your table.

Last Sunday, Synergy hosted a farm tour and luncheon to raise money for a local school. Lucy and I conjured the menu (mostly Lucy, really), Susan took care of the logistics and the table and the tour, and Peter was in charge of giving the farm background and history and an overview of our techniques and vision.

The food prep started on Wednesday afternoon when Lucy and I made the borscht, the homemade mayo, and basil dressing.

Borscht

Creamy Basil Dressing

Then, on Saturday, we made cupcakes and frosting and carrot curls for topping.

And finally, on Sunday, came the last burst of activity: picking fresh snap peas and peeling the chicken and frosting the cakes. Then prepping our mini serving stations, and finally, plating and serving the guests.

Soup prep station

Susan and Lucy in the kitchen

The menu and place settings

A history lesson

It was an intimate group: only 7. A family of three, and 4 other local women, all with gardens of their own. Everyone was engaged and asking questions and it felt good to share our stories and our farm experiences with people who were so interested and so well-informed.

Explaining our crop rotation strategy

Checking out the washing station

One day, maybe 5 or 10 years into my farm operation, I’d like to have a cafe. Or at least regular farm banquets like this to share the bounty. Or maybe a side operation in prepared foods for parties. Mmm… I know half the things I dream are unrealistic, but as they say “reach for the moon and if you miss, at least you’ll land in the stars.” Maybe not so true astronomically? But still a nice thought. I’ve found so far in my life, there’s something about saying things out loud to people that seems to make them come true.

Evidence of a great afternoon

First Course
Red Ace and Cabbage Borscht
A ruby red vegetable soup adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook, starring beautiful Red Ace beets; slightly tangy and wholly delicious, lightly spiced with caraway and dill, served with Cafe Demeter walnut bread.


Main Course
Pastured Chicken on Fresh Greens with Creamy Basil Dressing
Flavorful and moist pasture-raised chicken tops a bed of crisp flavorful greens tossed in farm-made dressing featuring fresh basil and homemade mayonnaise from Synergy eggs.

Dessert
Napoli Carrot Spice Cakes
Tender, wholesome cupcakes from super sweet Napoli carrots, topped with freshly made cream cheese frosting and a flavorful carrot curl.

served with:
Freshly squeezed lemonade or home-brewed ice tea

For more recipes from that afternoon, check out the Synergy Recipe Blog.

Late June Russian Borscht

adapted by Lucy from The Moosewood Cookbook

1 1/2 cups thinly sliced potato
1 cup thinly sliced beets
4 cups chicken stock or water
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 scant teaspoon caraway seeds
1 1/2 tsp salt (or more, to taste)
1 medium sized carrot, sliced
3 to 4 cups shredded cabbage
freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried dill
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons Bill’s honey
1 cup crushed tomatoes
fresh dill and sour cream for garnish

Place potatoes, beets, and stock in a medium-sized pot. Cover and cook over medium heat till tender (20 to 30 minutes).

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven. Add onion, caraway seeds, and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent (8 to 10 minutes).

Add carrots, cabbage, and 2 cups of the cooking liquid from the potatoes and beets. Cover and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are tender (another 8 to 10 minutes).

Add remaining ingredients, including all the potato and beet liquid, cover, and simmer for at least 15 minutes. Taste to correct seasonings, and serve hot, topped with sour cream and a pinch of fresh dill.

Last week, Madden Surbaugh, the chef at a wonderful local restaurant was interviewed on local King 5 News about local island food, including Synergy’s own carrots and potatoes!

If you’re local, you can check it out at 7pm on Thursday July 2nd! If not, it may be posted here later in the week.

Here’s Madden’s original message:

Hello Everyone,

This Thursday (July 2^nd) steps will be on “Evening Magazine” on King 5 News at 7:00. I do not know how much coverage we will get, but they interviewed me asking about our local producers, filmed a little bit of cooking in the restaurant and a handful of our dishes. It should be great as they will also be showing some of our local kayaking and other venues around the island. Come on in for happy hour from 5-6 that night and then run home to catch it at 7:00.

See you soon,

Madden

It’s hard to believe that its nearing the end of June. I’ve been on the farm nearly 3 months, or half of my tenure. It feels like no time has passed, and yet it also feels like so much has happened and I’ve taken in so much.

I’d like to do a better job documenting everything I’ve been learning in a more thorough way… I haven’t been keeping a daily journal, but a look around the farm makes it very clear just how much has happened since I’ve arrived.

That’s one thing really wonderful thing about gardening — you can really see the fruits of your labor. Seeding flats, digging, composting, watering, weeding, thinning: the tasks yield results that you can see and feel and taste; to me, that’s exciting and fulfilling.

On my recent road trip to Portland, I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. At one point, Gladwell discusses the three criteria for meaningful work: “autonomy, complexity [i.e., it occupies your mind], and a connection between effort and reward.” It seems to me that small-scale farming has all three in abundance, especially once you have your own piece of land.

Sweet basil starts transplanted for sale at the farmers’ market

Thai basil growing in deep flats in the greenhouse

Carrots with fallen tops disturbed by a late thinning. This 100 sq ft bed will yield at least 1600 big fat carrots. Remember when we planted these?

Red Ace beets have been part of the harvest the past 2 weeks — soon to come: Chioggas!

Lettuce successions…

We transplant 2 new 100 sq ft beds each week to ensure enough lettuce through the season

Tomatoes are just starting to ripen. We’re crossing our fingers for some early red ones for the Fourth of July.

Broccoli didn’t do well this year, perhaps because of the 5 days of extreme heat in the beginning of June

But the cabbages are looking beautiful — ready to go in a few weeks

Stuttgarter onions, planted in May, starting to flower

Winter leeks, just in the ground

In the outer garden, summer squash bloom prolifically. Baby zucchini get longer day-by-day.

We’ve been harvesting new potatoes for the past two weeks. The purple flowers are from fingerling potatoes which should be ready to harvest pretty soon.

Peas are in their heyday…

We expect maybe two more weeks of heavy harvest before the vines are spent.

Beans are still small, but coming along.

Summer heat sends spinach bolting. The last harvest was last week. Now the leaves are all too too bitter.

Winter crops push their way up in the warm flathouse. There’s no rest for the year-round farmer…

Our farm plants mostly follows the biointensive method, which was largely popularized by an amazing man named John Jeavons. More on him later, but the basic idea of biointensive growing is to grow a lot more food on a lot less land while maintaining and improving the soil and considering other aspects of sustainability like water use.

Jeavons’ biointensive model is mostly directed at small, subsistence type gardens and it has been wildly successful helping growers in developing countries like Kenya. Biointensive requires labor and don’t necessarily scale easily — for example, planting in extremely close-set hexagonal patterns rather than rows makes drip irrigation difficult to install and makes weeding with a hoe mostly impossible. So here at Synergy, the farmers have done all they can to adopt the aspects of biointensive that make the most sense and tweak other pieces to fit the requirements of a market garden.

One of the parts of biointensive that we do use, that’s different from some other types of farming is the process of “flatting and pricking out.” Many farmers sow seeds directly into the ground, sometimes by hand, often with a tractor with a seeder attachment or another type of tool.

Instead, we plant our seeds into 3” by 14” by 23” flats. Once the seedlings have reached a good size (their cotelydon leaves — or “seed leaves” — are up, and their roots are well developed, but not too long, we transplant or “prick out” these seedlings into a deeper flat 6” by 14” by 11.5.”

Seeding bush and pole beans into a flat with 1” spacing.

This process of seeding, pricking out, and then transplanting into a bed accomplishes a few different things. The first four are things Jeavons notes in his most famous gardening book, the last one is something we’ve taken advantage of here on the farm.

• Even spacing means better growing conditions for plants: seeding into flats, pricking out, and then transplanting ensures that each plant has equal space and equal access to sunlight, nutrients, and water
• Double selection means healthier plants in the garden: By selecting for the healthiest seedlings during pricking out, and then again during transplanting, you ensure that you’re picking the best squash or peas or cucumber plants for your garden. This way, you won’t end up with wasted garden space;
• Saving water: Starting seeds in flats uses less water than direct seeding.
• Transplanting stimulates plant growth: Moving seedlings into a new environment with fresh, loose soil means they have a chance to snack on fresh nutrients in new dirt that hasn’t yet been compacted.
• Many flats can live in flathouses or coldframes, which is an easy and economical way to lengthen the growing season: Flatting seeds and keeping them warm in our flathouse allows us to get a headstart on some plants weeks before the outdoor soil temperatures (and even greenhouse temperatures) are high enough.

With all that explanation, here’s a little demonstration of what pricking out looks like:

1 shallow flat of squash seedlings will fit into 3 1/2 deep flats. I pricked these out back in may; first, I prepped the soil in the deeper flats, a mix of half old stuff and half new potting mix from Gardner and Bloome.

Then I water in the flats with a can and check the dampness with a water meter — around 7 will be perfect for planting. Be careful of too much water — seeds can drown!

The dibber (best name ever?!) pokes holes big enough to accomodate the plants’ roots. They’re spaced 2” apart with the help of the fencing frame I put over the top.

It’s amazing. Thanks to Jaden from Steamy Kitchen for hosting this awesome prize.

Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to buy… put it towards my dream Le Creuset Dutch Oven? The cheap and oh-so-useful Kyocera mandolin (thanks Lucy)…. a new digi-read thermometer?

The possibilities are endless and I have a feeling I’m going to end up spending more than this $50… I guess that’s how they make their bucks!

The past two Thursday mornings, I’ve woken up at 4:30 a.m. to take Lucy to her early shift at the bakery. We’ve had some hot afternoons, and despite growing up in California, I don’t always cherish the sweat that comes with composting and digging in the heat; plus, I tend to really like mornings, so getting to work early is actually something of a treat.

So on these early mornings, I’ve started off double digging beds. The lovely Lucy says more about that here, but basically it involves clearing a bed of old plants and weeds, moving around the topsoil and forking the subsoil to aerate things and make them nice and fluffy to accommodate new plants.

Anyway, this past Thursday, my bed just happened to be full of bunches of volunteer potato plants, which I had to pull up as weeds. Happy surprise, when I forked up the roots and pulled up the poisonous green leaves, I was rewarded with bunches of new potatoes!

New potatoes are just as they sound: the little new potatoes that form first on potato plants. They don’t store too well because their skins haven’t yet hardened, so you don’t always find them in supermarkets, but their thin skins and buttery soft texture makes them absolutely delicious and perfect for potato salads and all kinds of yummy dishes that call for minimal prep and potatoes at their most potatoey.

Brand Spankin’ New Potatoes with Dill

1 pound new Yukon Gold potatoes, washed well
1 tbsp dill
2 tbsp butter
salt to taste

Cut bigger potatoes into manageable chunks (or not, if you don’t mind cooking a little longer). Steam potatoes in a steaming basket for 15-20 minutes, or until done (you can check by poking one gently with a fork).

Throw into a bowl, and toss with butter and dill while still hot. Add salt to taste (more if you’re using unsalted butter)

The simple bowl of potatoes goes quickly in a crowd.

The potatoes are the perfect topping on a bed of greens. We also added some blackened pink salmon chunks, roasted pumpkin seeds, and black olives for our own Northwest version of salad nicoise.

Lucy and I do insane amounts of cooking here on the farm. When you’re subscribed to multiple-score food blogs and you’re constantly checking out cookbooks from the library, your list of recipes -to-try tends to grow more quickly than sugar snap vines in the height of the season (i.e. fast)

Anyway, many of these things end up being pretty yummy and many of them end up using lots of farm produce, so we decided to start a farm recipe blog to share some of our cooking successes with CSA customers and other Synergy Farm enthusiasts.

The beginnings of the blog are here with 8 recipes posted as of today, June 15th, and many more in the works. We’re hoping it’ll help inspire some folks to use things like garlic scapes that they might otherwise just skip at the farm store.

Maybe we’ll print out little cards advertising the recipe blog for the farmers market this Saturday.

This weekend Jaime and I headed off-island to the big city of Seattle for Jaime’s bro Liam’s graduation. We got up a little after dawn to make the 6am ferry to Anacortes and the Subaru pulled up outside Liam’s apartment in Seattle a little after 9am.

It felt strange to be in a city again. I spent a couple of days back in SF en route to the farm back in March, but that was familiar territory, friendly streets, friendly faces. This was folks who hurry by without smiling back at you, and over-tan girls in short short skirts and chainlink fences and unkempt grassy patches on sidewalks.

Of course there are things that are wonderful about cities, like eating a HUGE plate of migas at Portage Bay, dinner in Chinatown, a trip to the famous Uwajimaya, but for the most part, I felt out of place like my heart was being tugged back farmward.

After Seattle concrete, it was lovely to arrive in Bellingham on Friday night. Saturday and Sunday morning were spent lying in the sun, reading, playing with little nephew Adyn, walking into town and eating — lovely lazy time with the whole family. It was wonderful, but it made me miss my own family something awful, and it also made me think of what it’s going to be like when Jaime leaves again.

Since I first visited Jaime five-and-some-months years ago, I’ve come to think that Bellingham is a pretty awesome little town — it seems to have such vibrant community life and a thriving local economy. I know it has it’s issues, but it seems like the very sort of place I’d like to end up. If only there were cheap land, and it were closer to California…

Feasting in Bellingham: Farm-fresh greens, Orzo salad, Grilled wild salmon, Chili crab, and a big glass of milk

If I ever have my own farm, I think I want to focus on some kind of value added product. This article has me gunning for dry-cured meats.

I can still remember with joy the Palacio de Jamon and Museo de Jamon in Madrid, and the thin flavorful slices of pink goodness. And wouldn’t it be awesome to produce my own amazing version of this Jamon Iberico Bellota selling for 105 euros per kilo? Apparently Bellota hams command such a high price because the pigs forage for acorns and producers must provide at least one hectare of land per pig.

Jamon Iberico
thanks mtoz

According to this article, the first whole Iberian Jamon de Bellota hams were imported to the US only in 2008. Just this January, less than a year after their arrival, they’ve come up against US import restrictions which will required that the hams signature black hooves be removed for “food safety” reasons. Boo.

A quick Google search doesn’t help me figure out whether I could procure Iberian piglets somehow in the states. I did find three postings on ag-search sites from folks looking for their own acorn-eating porkies.

On the other hand, maybe I’ll try to go into cheesemaking (passe!) or fermentation of my own fresh produce (too trendy!) or hard wheat to sell into a local market.

Ah, the joys of dreaming.

Museo de Jamon in Plaza del Sol, Madrid
thanks shoey