Category — day-to-day

I hate the ferry this morning. It’s nothing against the boat really, but just the way the rigid, unsympathetic inflexibility of the schedule seems to mock me — makes me feel secure in a plan, and then pulls out of the harbor with a naughty smirk just before I arrive to board.

Really, this morning’s ferry debacle was all on me, but that’s the rub with the ferry — sometimes the system actually foils you, and sometimes it just makes your personal inadequacies really really obvious.

Like it was not my fault the time Jim and Jacqueline came to visit for Jaime’s birthday and arrived more than an hour in advance of the next ferry and were told they could not wait in line until 6 o’clock. Then at 6 o’clock, when they pulled round to get in line, they were told “no, not time yet” by a harried ferry worker on a stress-induced power trip. And by the time Jim had made another round with the car, there were no spaces left and he had to wait for the 10:55 pm ferry. Totally lame.

But today was way lame-r. Sean arrived yesterday with my car, which he drove all the way from LA to the farm. We planned to send him off this morning on the early ferry so he could catch a shuttle to Ferndale to meet up with an aunt and then get to the Bellingham airport in time for his afternoon flight.

I checked the schedule: 6:10 am.

So we both roused ourselves in the dark foggy morning, I fixed him some fig bread and blackberries and fake mocha drink; like the good Navy boy he is, out he came at seconds to 5:50.

We headed out and arrived in town at 6:00 am just in time to see the 6:00 am ferry pulling out of the dock — literally 10 feet away. I was tempted to tell Sean to jump, but he was a sonar technician and not a Seal, so I figured maybe it wasn’t in his MO.

I hadn’t checked the schedule and neither had he and somehow I had gotten it wrong. All I could say was “oh my god, F@#&!, I’m so so sorry” and watch as the ferry continued on its journey.

I’m generally pretty on top of things like schedules, but somehow, today of all days, when I was supposed to get my friend to the ferry on time, somehow TODAY I let things slip and the unforgiving ferry made me pay.

GR!

Last Sunday, I came back from a visit to the Bullocks’ Homestead on Orcas Island in the afternoon, tired, dirty, ridiculously happy, and ready to collapse in a heap on my little blue sofa with some iced tea and The Taste of Place, which I had started on the ferry. But then Lucy came and roused me and told me she had been invited over to Rob’s to pick figs.

Rob is a fellow farmer, known for his pasture-raised meats which he sells at the farmer’s market along with his buddy Guard Sundstrom. Their Meat Wagon is always busy with folks looking for fresh, local, humanely-raised ridiculously tasty meat. Both Rob and Guard are members of the Island Grown Farmer’s Cooperative which is a group of farmers who banded together to design and launch a mobile slaughtering unit that allows for local processing of beef, lambs, and pigs. This unit was the first of its kind in the US and since then groups of farmers’ around the country have come to these folks for help replicating the model in their own communities.

But Rob isn’t just a lamb man, he’s a true farmer and, dare-I-say, homesteader.

In addition to his animals, Rob takes care of a lovely orchard, and a garden on an adjacent property. He started out 30 years ago in a little trailer; he built a lovely yurt, then a beautiful home where his older son now lives with his wife and children.

When Lucy and I arrived at Rob’s place, the two big dogs ran out to greet us, barking madly. No one was home so we poked about behind the house, amidst the chickens and the trees, looking for the fig tree. Being city-folk we weren’t exactly sure what a fig tree looked like, so we stopped off at the walnuts and the pears and the apples before finally we sighted the little bush close by one of the mobile chicken coops.

Right as we started picking, Rob arrived, clean and spiffy from his granddaughter’s birthday party. We picked a basketful of ripe figs, then Rob offered us cling peaches from his trees.

We walked through the orchard, asking about the different pears and plums and apples — Asian pears, Bosc, Red Anjou, Santa Rosa plums and about the history of the place.

Rob told us of wheeling his pregnant wife to the car in a wheelbarrow back in the days before there was a proper driveway to the house. She vowed not to come back until he built a proper house. He built the yurt where he still lives today.

Then he showed us the house that he built back in the early 90s with help from his brothers, one an architect, the other a woodworker. It was a well-conceived house, and very beautiful; white adobe-style walls and huge windows facing out on the orchard and the pond. Inside, the exposed wood beams and gorgeous live-edge counter gave the house a cozy woodsy smell and a warm, friendly feeling. The wood came from trees felled and milled on the property and Rob described the process of forestry management — taking skinny, distressed trees from beside the thicker looking counterparts because their skinniness was indication of slow, dense growth.

Then we went up to the area where his younger son was just laying the foundation for his own home. We toured the sweet outdoor kitchen, composting toilet, and the wooden frame ready and waiting for the concrete truck which would arrive the next morning.

I was inspired, to say the least. My own dad and I have been talking about building a home together. I can’t think of very many things that would be more satisfying.

I ate most of my share of the figs fresh within a day or two — subtle, sweet soft flesh popped into my mouth whole. All that remained was a little pile of stems in the compost bucket below the sink. But then, the remaining fruits started to get a little soft. I didn’t want to eat them all at once, so I looked for a way to turn them into something else to savor.

I wanted to pair the figs with anise — one of our local bakeries makes an amazing yeasted Fig Anise Bread and I’m obsessed with the combination. It’s warm and crunchy and slightly spicy. But I wanted to make a breakfast bread, so I looked around for recipes with fresh figs and fell upon instruction for a Fig Tea Bread by Jenny Colvin of Jenny Bakes. It turned out that the tea in the recipe gave the bread a deep, smoky richness and lovely color and the seeds from the figs distributed through the bread gave a lovely crunch — something like poppy seeds in other breakfast breads. I reduced the other spices and the sugar, so the star anise flavor came to the fore, perfectly complimenting the soft sweetness of the figs.

Figs, raisins, tea, star anise and nutmeg make up the flavor body

I kept the fig chunks pretty big so they’d stay whole in the bread

The figs soak in the tea for just over 10 minutes, then part of the tea is reserved for the bread

Wet ingredients

After the dry ingredients are in, mix in the tea, figs and raisins

The finished loaf is dark brown and almost savory…

Black Tea, Star Anise, Fig Bread
Adapted from Jenny Colvin of Jenny Bakes

1 cup figs, stemmed and coarsely chopped
1 cup Irish Breakfast tea, brewed double strength
1 3/4 cup flour
1 cup golden raisins
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 sections star anise, ground
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup olive oil
2 eggs

Gently combine figs and tea; let stand 10 min.

In a medium sized bowl, beat sugar, oil and eggs to mix. Sprinkle flour, spices, baking soda and salt on top and mix until just combined.

Drain tea from figs, reserving 1/4 cup of liquid. Gently stir in figs and ¼ cup tea; pour batter into well-greased loaf pan; bake at 350º F for 1 hour, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in pan 10 min., then invert onto a rack. Keeps on the counter in plastic wrap for up to 1 week, or freeze slices in plastic baggies and thaw in the toaster or microwave.

The view from the 6am ferry

Yesterday was a whirlwind day: Went on a farm field trip to check out a farm on another island, biked about 18 miles to and from the ferry landings, and when I finally got back to my watertower, sweaty and exhilarated, it was just in time to hitch a ride with Farmers Peter and Susan to a meeting about drafing new farm intern policy for the state.

After the meeting (sobering, but hopeful!) I piled in the car with the Heritage folks and we headed down to the Alehouse where there’s Thursday night SINGALONG! So we all got beers and threw decency to the wind and belted out the na-na-na-na verse of “Hey Jude” till our throats were hoarse.

And THEN I came home and checked my email and realized that Jaden had posted my recipe for Hainanese Chicken on the Steamy Kitchen blog and it was the perfect topping to finish off a beautiful, beautiful day.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m interning with Jaden over at Steamy Kitchen, learning how to take rockstar food photos and write great recipes, and helping out with research, writing and photos for the ingredients section of her site. My plan is still to go to graduate school and study sustainable food, but it can’t help to have some skillz to spice up those papers and presentations!

So a great big welcome to everyone who’s come over from Steamy Kitchen — I’m so pleased you’ve stumbled upon my humble little blog — it’s lovely to have you.

We had our second chicken processing last weekend, August 2nd. We slaughtered, dipped, plucked, and eviscerated 117 Cornish Cross broilers and a couple of ornery hens who had been cannibalizing eggs from the laying boxes for the last few weeks.

It still amazes me that feed, water, breeding and a lot of labor can turn this:

into this:

…and all in about 8 weeks. It’s really a miracle of science (breeding a chicken to grow so quickly into something so edible) and nature and I feel blessed to witness and take part.

More practically though, once the chickens make the transition from creature to meat, it becomes time for us to figure out what to do with the food we’ve produced.

Our chickens taste good. Really good. And roasted whole, they’ve been said to make older folks weep (only a slight exaggeration) and exclaim that they haven’t tasted anything so chickeny since they were growing up in XYZ pre-industrial country.

But sometimes it’s easier to have chicken pieces rather than the whole kit-and-kaboodle, so the other day, our neighbor Megan (a former chickenstress herself, and an expert on many things poultry) came over to show me and Susan how to cut up a chicken for storage.

The main trick Megan taught us was how to separate the chicken into the traditional bits: breast, wing, leg, thigh, back, without muscling our way through bones. Instead, she showed us how to feel out the joints and cut around them. In the whole process, the only place we had to cut through bone was a 2” section between the breasts. Pretty amazing.

The main tips I got from the lesson were:

• use a really really sharp knife. it doesn’t have to be big. even a paring knife will do for everything except that small section of breast bone
• always cut away the skin and flesh around the part you’re working on to get a better view of the bone to separate
• move the joints to locate the points where your knife can cut through
• I may never be able to do this as fast as Martin Yan, but I sure can do it better than before!

1) Cut off the neck fat and reserve for tasty broths and soups

2) With the chicken breast-down, feel for the joint of the wing by moving the wing back and forth. When you’ve located the round joint, cut away the skin and flesh around the joint, starting with the top and working your way around. Once you can see the white joint, use your knife to separate the two (you may need to also pull a bit to “pop” the two pieces apart). Repeat with the wing on the other side. You don’t have to do the wing first, but it makes it a little easier to deal with the leg.

3) Turn the chicken breast-side up. Holding the drumstick in one hand and pulling away from the chicken’s body, begin cutting the leg and thigh away. When you reach the joint that connects the leg, wiggle it back and forth to see where it’s attached.

Be sure to cut away all the skin and flesh so you can see well, then cut through the cartilage between the joint to separate completely. Repeat on the other side.

4) To separate the thigh and drummet, hold the piece of meat perpendicular to the cutting surface, drumstick bone pointed down, so that the point of connection between the drumstick and thigh is pointing up. With your finger, feel along the top edge for a bump and small indentation — this is the joint and where you should cut (the bump stays with the drumstick). You can also wiggle the leg and thigh joint to feel it out. Cut the two apart, and separate the cartilage between the joint with your knife (you may need to apply slight pressure to “pop” it apart). Repeat with other side.
5) Voila! You have your chicken body left. Look inside the cavity from the back and notice where the rib bones come together on each side of the chicken. You’ll see that the bones don’t actually join, but have a small gap.

Cut down the gap on either side to separate the top from the bottom.

To completely separate, either grab the two halves (top and bottom) in each hand and pull, or for those with more finesse, it’s possible to feel out the bones holding the two halves together and separate with a few knife strokes.

6) Leave the back as is, or cut into two pieces. Starting just below the ribs, cut away flesh and skin, then grab either end and crack apart.

7) To separate the remaining breasts, you can place the piece, flesh side down and chop in half with a heavy knife or cleaver OR you can start flesh-side up, feeling out the breastbone and cutting the skin and meat close right up against one side of the bone. Cut through the cartilage until you reach the last bit of bone. Prop the breast up perpendicular to the table, bone part on your surface, and use the butt end of your knife to break the last piece.

And that’s a wrap!

Yesterday, Lucy and I took photos for the invitations of the second farmraiser we’re helping to organize at Synergy. The first lunch was such a success that now we’ve been entrusted to cook and plan a dinner for 30 heads.

We’ve been getting glorious Red Ace beets and Napoli carrots lately, so we decided to feature these veggies in a simple photo on the front of the invite. We wanted the invitation to say “rustic elegance” — so we kept the veggies whole, dirt and all, but positioned them on Susan’s nice white china.

Friday, we’ve a date to brainstorm menu ideas. We’re doing our best to feature in-season farm produce supplemented with local ingredients like goat cheese, pasta and meat, plus a few other staples. Can’t wait for the testing to commence…

These days I guess I’m getting pretty close to living my childhood dreams. Each week during harvest time, we cut lettuce, pluck basil, slice off squash, pull carrots, onions, and beets, clean garlic, and head out to the top of the farm behind our farm store to the berry patch where we stand and crouch and thrust our hands into the thorny canes to get at the warm, ripe berries.

Me and visiting little brother Cam, raspberry picking.

We grow blueberries, lingonberries and raspberries in our small patch. There are also a couple of thornless blackberry canes that were a gift from another islander, which haven’t yet produced.

This year on the farm was the first year that there’s been enough yield to sell any raspberries. In the past, most of the fruit has gone to the “house shelf” where the farm family gets our bounty of cosmetically imperfect, but ridiculously delicious, produce. This year, there have enough berries to sell in the farm store and even at market, and still some left over to top waffles and cakes.

Most things on the farm are extremely precise — bed rotations are planned and replanned to ensure the right rotations of plant families; transplants are placed just-so to maximize nutrition and water for each plant and minimize weeds and water-loss. But the berries represent slightly wilder side of the farm, an unpredictable section filled with plants of different varieties (quarter-sized raspberries, translucent jewel-y red and sweet next to deep purple tiny berries, fuzzy, opaque, and deep in raspberry flavor).

Picking berries is an exercise in restraint and patience. Some fruit calls out — plump, shiny magenta but upon reaching out to pinch and tug, the fruit is still hard and resists pulling. You can keep pulling and force off a tart and tasteless berry, or you can leave it be and come back in two days to sweet, softened maroon perfection.

Then there are the moments when a huge full perfect berry calls out to be eaten. But on a working farm, berries are a cash crop — even in our small quantities — and there are plenty of less-beautiful berries that can’t be marketed, but can be enjoyed warm, right from the bush.

Yes, it’s a stretch, but I can’t help but draw lessons from the berries. Lately, I’ve been trying and trying to figure out where to go and what to do with myself post-farm. I’ve been trying to settle on a path and “pick” off a niche, but having just entered the field of sustainable agriculture and food and having just hit the 4-month mark on the farm, I guess I can’t expect any of my berries to be quite ripe. For now, there’s observation and waiting and maybe some preparation tasks (life weeding?) to get myself ready for what comes.

The canes have been winding down over the past couple of weeks. Their slowing seemed to signal the start of the end of summer. But yesterday, my visiting siblings and I took a walk in the summer sun and found some of the first ripe blackberries of the season. Being so close to food is nice — when one thing goes, another thing comes. Very cyclical and very reassuring.

On Tuesday night, a couple of friends, Heather and Eliza, gave a presentation on seed saving out at the “Blue Sky Room” at Sweet Earth Farm.

Everyone brought desserts: Lucy and her visiting friend brought a delicious bread pudding, I contributed zucchini bread, Elaine had warm fresh country loaves with butter, garlic scape pesto and hummus, there were some mystery Vegan cookies, and a bowlful of luscious red cherries from Eliza’s tree.

We convened at a bright blue canopy in one of Sweet Earth’s outer fields, past the orchard, listening to the pair recount their experiences from a workshop they attended at Michael Ableman’s Foxglove Farm in BC.

Seeds are fundamental to what we do on the farm; so fundamental, in fact, that they barely register on my consciousness. After all, as an apprentice, I’m not doing the ordering or choosing varieties. I see seeds every day, but they’re a fact-of-farming life that’s I take for granted. That they come from a packet from Johnny’s or Fedco or Territorial, or some other such company, that they appear outside the barn door out-of-the-blue, from the hands of the delivery man some afternoon, that they’ll germinate when planted, and produce whatever was promised by the glittering prose of the seed catalog: all these things are assumptions I make without thinking.

But if I’ve learned anything from my recent forays into food and farming, it’s that nothing should be taken on assumption, or taken for granted, and the same can be said for seed supplies, especially of heirloom and “rare” varieties. As seed companies continue to consolidate, as new seed technology changes the bounds of “intellectual property,” as farmers lose the knowledge to save and breed seeds, and as universities continue to focus on research that benefits large corporate donors rather than small organic growers, it becomes more and more important to pay attention to the alternative seed-saving networks and businesses.

Some particularly interesting tidbits I came away with in our little discussion:

• The state of heirloom seeds may actually be degrading because large-scale growers don’t tend to select carefully or maintain “pure” lines of heirloom seeds. Instead, they tend to invest more time and effort in keeping hybrid varities pure.
• Some plants need huge isolation distances (miles!) to decrease the chances of cross-pollination and subsequent deterioration of the line. So in places like the Skagit Valley in WA, there are pinning maps to keep track of farmers growing certain types of seeds, and extension offices have the responsibility of figuring out who’ll have the right to grow certain seeds, where, in a given year.
• Seed packet dates are the packing dates not the dates the seeds were grown or harvested. Seed growers often pack and sell seeds at least one, and up to three years after the seed is grown.
• Obvious, but also not so obvious: Seed growers have to actually “grow out” their seed to make sure it’s going to perform as expected. For most seeds, this isn’t a problem — farmers grow seeds one year, test them the next year, then sell them in year 3. For things like onions that don’t keep, farmers must send seeds directly down to the Southern Hemisphere for testing so they can sell them immediately.
• Most seeds aren’t really selected for flavor, but more for germination, disease resistance, cosmetics, ease of harvesting, and other “efficiency” factors.

Apparently, there are already about 1,400 seed banks worldwide. This doesn’t appear to include informal seed exchanges or small-scale heirloom breeders and producers. The 1,400 “banks” that are accounted for operate under all sorts of models. Some are distributed, with members across a country or region sharing and documenting particular varieties, while some are consolidated at one site. Some are “working” banks where seeds are propagated and possibly bred and improved, while some are simply vaults.

The world’s largest seed bank for edible plants is on a remote Norwegian island near the North Pole. It was opened in February 2008, and its operational costs are covered by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an organization which has received funds from various governments, as well as philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So far, the vault contains approximately 400,000 of 1.5 million known edible plant species.

After our own island discussion, we discussed a couple of options: creating a seed “coop” where farmers take responsibility for growing and saving seed from particular varieties well-suited to the local climate. Eliza also talked about starting a small business in one of the seed crops particularly well-suited to the islands: something like broccoli or cabbage or kale. Either one seems like it would be a step in the right direction.

There are multiple businesses popping up, dedicated to the production, improvement, proliferation, and conservation of high quality heirloom and organic seeds. Wild Garden Seed in Oregon is one. This new rare seed bank, awesomely housed in a renovated actual bank, is another.

There are also lots of nonprofit and membership organizations that are trying to do some of the same things through seed exchanges and seed banks.

• www.seedsavers.org – Non-profit, member-supported organization that saves and shares heirloom seeds from around the world
• www.seeds.ca – Canada’s seed-saving organization for gardeners; maintains an online database of over 1900 varieties of fruits, vegetables, grains, flowers, and herbs.
• www.neptl.org – Northeast Portland Tool Library’s pilot seed exchange project
• http://www.navdanya.org/news/4dec07.htm – One of India’s many seed bank projects
• http://www.kew.org/msbp/index.htm – A seed bank for wild plant species, managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Click forward in this video to 3:16 and 3:58 to check out our baby Napoli carrots in their 15 seconds of fame.

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.