Category — beautiful things

Last weekend was the Singapore feast, and this past Saturday we hosted another big dinner in honor of Jaime’s arrival — this time, representation from the (arguably) best known of the Southeast Asian cuisines: Thai.

The cooking only took a day this time (not counting some minor prep the day prior) but I had a lot of help from Jaime who can fry Pad See Ew like nobody’s business, among his other many talents.

We ended up with a crowd of a little over 20, and we estimate we fed everyone for a little under $3 a head — not bad, given the variety and the fact that we made two meat dishes, and fresh rolls with shrimp. Yum.

Prep work took most of Saturday morning and early afternoon

Mise en place — almost all the ingredients, ready for cooking

The chef snacking on a mango pit

The feast!

Jean serving up some noodly goodness

Patio arrangement courtesy of Lucy and Colin. Flower arrangements by Jaime.

Green Papaya Salad (The papaya was verging on not-green, but it still turned out dee-licious)

Tom Kha Gai, Galangal & lime chicken soup (This soup was a major triumph, just the right amount of coconut, and the dried galangal and leftover kaffir lime leaves from last week infused the soup with a fantastic flavor)


Ground Pork Lettuce Wraps (Simple stir-fried crowd-pleaser)

Pad See Ew (Very similar in style to the Char Kway Teow from last week, but Jaime’s mad frying skillz made it so that the noodles stayed beautifully intact during the frying process)


Basil Tofu (Simple, quick and tasty vegetarian dish)

Fresh Rolls with Shrimp (Made with fresh local spotted prawns bought at the farmer’s market that very morning!)

Dessert
Black sticky rice with mango and toasted coconut

Synergy Farm Thai-style Lettuce Wraps

1 red bell pepper, diced finely
1 1/2 cups carrots, diced into 1/4” cubes
6-8 brown crimini mushrooms, diced into 1/4” cubes
1 cup snow peas, cut horizontally into 1/4” strips
3 garlic scapes diced into circles 1/4” thick
1 small onion minced
1 large shallot minced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 lb ground pork

2 tbsp oil for frying
2 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
black pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or mint or basil

2 lettuce heads (preferably a butter lettuce variety or trouthead for perfect lettuce-wrapping cups)

optional: 1 tbsp oyster sauce, two green thai chilis, minced finely, other vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, sugar snap peas, green beans, etc.

Heat 2 tbsp oil on high heat in your pan or wok. Add in shallot and onion and fry for 10 seconds until fragrant, then add in garlic and fry another 20 seconds. Add ground pork, breaking it up with your spatula or wooden spoon. Fry for 2 minutes, or until browning, but not yet cooked.

Add in carrots and snow peas and scapes and fry another 2 minutes, stirring well. Add in mushrooms and bell pepper and fry another 2 minutes. The meat should be cooked, and everything should be well mixed.

Add in sauce and chilis, if using. Stir well to coat all ingredients. Add in chopped herbs (cilantro, mint or basil) and stir until wilted.

Serve at room temperature with washed lettuce leaves.

On Sunday, Jaime woke up around 9:30, washed a few more dishes from our Thai feast the night before, bungeed our picnic lunch to the back of our bikes and rode out to the 11:40 ferry out to Lopez Island.

It was a gorgeous day of biking, beach, birds and ice cream cones. By the time we made it back for the 7:05 ferry to Friday Harbor and home, I was exhausted.

In all, including the ride from the farm to and from the ferry landing, we covered around 35 miles.

Sunning ourselves on the ferry ride over

Fast-moving currents at Shark’s Reef

Agrarian scenes on Lopez

Turkey vulture enjoying the remains of little creatures torn up by the haying equipment

A short visit to Spencer’s Spit inspired a promise to come back to bike camp later in the summer!

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I love this photo essay on people’s refrigerators. It inspired me to do a little photo of my own refrigerator the other day… if only I could compare to what my fridge looked like when I worked at the Googs.

To describe the difference succinctly: less meat, less fruit, more veggies, more food I grew, no doggie bags.

Next, I want to my own version of this awesome set of pictures — one week’s worth of farm food…

The babies arrived today.

Peter was at the post office when it opened to pick up our 123 new chicks.

Lucy and I were on “mom” duty for the day, checking on our broods every hour to monitor the temperature in the hoop houses out on the pasture. Baby chicks need to be kept at 90 degrees for the first week or so of their lives, which means a lot of raising and lowering of heat lamps and opening and shutting of the vent flaps on the side of our hoop house.

The very first thing we had to do, though, was teach the little ones how to drink. Each chirpy fluff had to be carefully lifted out of the cardboard mailing crate, dipped beak-first, carefully in a water tray, and then placed in the enclosure with its mates. The little guys and gals haven’t had a drop to drink since their hatching the day before and this little baptism ensures that they get the idea of H20 and don’t get dehydrated.

Our birdies got the idea all right, and were soon hopping over one another to splash into tiny water trough like hot little kids in a fountain in summer. Once in, they dip their little beaks down, scoop out a few drops, then throw their heads back to gulp gulp gulp. This week we have temperatures in the 80s, which is good, because in our last batch, 3 little birdies who got too wet in the trough ended up with fatal cases of hypothermia.

They really are adorable, but it’s easy not to get too attached since we’re now all-too-intimate with where they’ll eventually end up.

Tonight, I put together a Singapore-styled feast for a dozen friends over at Sweet Earth Farm. Elaine, one of the farmers, grew up in Singapore back in the days when the Satay man came calling down the street. We found this random connection while chatting at the farmer’s market a couple of weeks back, and jokingly talked about having a “Singapore Night” to reminisce about the place and share good food.

In the end, Amanda, Elaine’s daughter, suggested we throw the big party in honor of Elaine’s birthday, so that’s how we ended up out on the lawn tonight with full bellies and fire in our mouths, talking about Thieves’ Alley and the Singaporean National Anthem.

The birthday girl and the chef share a celebratory satay skewer

Happy people stuffing faces

Happy faces feeling stuffed

A dinner 2 and a half days in the making, with ingredients all the way from Bukit Batok (thanks to Soy-lau-ko for sending them to Jilly and Jilly for sending them to me in a big care package!). All in all, a HUGE success.

Whole Wheat Paratha
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 cup ghee/butter
around 1 cup water oil

If using butter, bring to room temperature. Mix flour and salt, and water slowly and stir until it comes together into a dough. Turn it out onto a table and knead 6-7 minutes, until well mixed. Cover with oil and let it rest 30 minutes in a plastic bag or under a wet towel. Cut the dough into 8 even sized pieces. Shape each piece into a ball. Cover with oil and let rest 10 minutes under the towel or in the bag — this gives the dough a chance to rest and makes the parathas much easier to roll!

Take a ball and push it flat with your palm. Using a rolling pin, roll it out to 9-10” in diameter. Rub a 1/2 to 1 tsp of butter/ghee on the round. With a sharp knife, cut a radius of the circle, then starting from one side, take the edge of the dough and roll it round the circle, until it meets itself in a cone. Place the cone upright and smush down onto the table. Repeat this with all 8 pieces.

Starting with the first paratha you rolled out roll out the smushed spirals again into flat rounds about 8” in diameter. You can fry these right away, or keep overnight — just be sure to wrap them well in plastic.

Heat a flat pan. When it gets hot, add the paratha and let it cook about a minute. When it begins to get small bubbles, flip over and add a small teaspoon of oil around the paratha. When brown spots appear, take it out of the pan. Serve warm with curry or for dessert with sweetened condensed milk.

Tuesdays are harvest days and it’s only fitting that in the evenings, there’s a standing celebration down at Jackson Beach.

Heavy rain was in the prediction, but both times, the rain gods were thwarted by the rarely seen, but heartily worshiped sun.

This week, I rode out the 5 or so miles to Jackson Beach with the intention of riding back before dark, but what with volleyball, hummus, a bonfire, and the famous “Chili Willy” playing his charango, I couldn’t tear myself away.

Showing off our mad volleyball skills

Not being able to tear myself away

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One of the things I miss the most on this island is good, really good, Asian food. Though I’ve mastered a few of my favorite dishes, there are things I crave that I know I can’t make as well as my aunties, and when it gets down to it, the real barrier is lack of ingredients. Oh, what I would’ve give for a 99 Ranch?!

Example: I tried this jar of chili sauce from the market.

There’s a lovely little shop called Gourmet Galley that sells some great stuff, including dried galangal and some of your staple sauces: ketchup manis, black bean paste, even tamarind paste… but it’s marked up quite a lot and I still have no where to go for all the fresh goods: decent bean sprouts, decent lemongrass, thai basil, Asian greens… and noodles… all I’ve found are some overpriced, tiny packages of bee-hoon tucked way away on a bottom shelf. They’ve probably been there half-a-century.

Not to mention, the island meat is expensive and the conventional store alternatives are unpalatable to say the least.

I guess this is an argument for living somewhere semi-urban, or becoming much more adept at the online-food-shopping thing. I suppose I could also go chat with the proprietors of the China Pearl or Golden Triangle, the two Asian-y eating establishments in town. Maybe we could work out a procurement deal?

But for now, I’ve decided to take comfort in my bottle of Sriracha and wait patiently for my first visit to the mainland.

PS. I was so so happy to see the excited responses to my last Sriracha post and to the photo I posted on Facebook. I was also super-psyched to see the NY Times article on Sriracha last night. David Tran’s story is pretty amazing.

Lucy spotted them while we were putting up trellises this morning. The plants were transplanted into the beds about 3 weeks ago and have been battling with the schizophrenic elements — frosty nights, warm, warm days.

Despite the hardship (or maybe because of it? I suppose plants can get going early due to stress) here’s are our first Stupice tomatoes:

Thanks a billion to our new friend Nels for some awesome photos from the “not a potluck” BBQ and dance party at the A-frame on Saturday night.

As I’ve mentioned, most everything out here is a potluck. Even the “not a potluck” BBQ turned into … you guessed it… a party where people bring food to share: also known as… well you get the picture.

Anyway, at least this party was unique in the unusually high proportion of meat-to-veggies up for grabs. There were – count them! – at least 5 kinds of meat:

• steak
• lamb roast
• hot dogs
• unidentified white fish
• salmon

Yummy! And also Cheese-its, or some organic equivalent that tasted very close to the real deliciously processed thing.

Lucy poo-pooing the cheese-its.

Any excuse to get closer: massage circle around the kitchen island.

Getting the party started, slowly, slowly.

Me and Steve the Geologist, tearing it up.

Lucy looking happy, staring out at the awesome starry sky.

What does this have to do with farming, you ask? Well, not much, only it proves that farmers really do have the most fun.

Today Pritha and I went by University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Marine Station Labs to check out the open house.

We got to hear a rockin’ presentation on the effects of CO2 on ocean pH and the role of phytoplankton in carbon sequestration. We got free popcorn and we got to pet a sea cucumber. But the best part was checking out the diatoms in the room with the microscope.

These two guys were unstoppable. They showed us baby clams, baby jellyfish, copepods of all sizes, crazy worms; swimmers, floaters, predators, prey, and the prettiest of all, the amazing pillbox-shaped diatoms. Diatoms alone, diatoms in crazy stacks just like in the cartoons when someone piles up ice cream scoops to the sky.

They captivated the little girl below in the lifevest and it made me remember the day when I first unwrapped my microscope when I was 9 or 10, and looked at a drop of water from my grandma’s fishpond.

Sometimes I wish I was a scientist.