Category — nice to see your face

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!

View

in a larger map

First on Monday, the baby chicks. Then, on Tuesday, my baby!

Jaime’s here for June and July! I can tell the summer’s going to be awesome. Today was the first day at the swimming hole with the lovely Pritha + tadpoles, and then a spectacularly delicious dinner:

Jaime and Jess reunited salmon cakes

1 can pink salmon from Alaska
1 bread slice’s worth of yummy bread crumbs from the sourdough boule I baked up yesterday
1/2 a garlic scape, chopped into small rounds
1 cracked egg from the discard pile
1/2 shallot minced
3 cloves garlic minced
5 sprigs thyme
BUTTTTTTTER

Saute the garlic and shallot in BUTTTTTTTTTTER. mmm… savor the smell. Break the bread into little crumbs and mix up with thyme. Add everything else in and mix well. Fry up with a little more BUTTTTTTTTTTER in a well-seasoned cast iron Griswold you bought at a restaranteur’s garage sale in Cole Valley for $2.

Last night around 10:30, Pritha and Adam picked me up and we headed over to our friend Sarah’s house on the north side of the island. She was hosting a fire in the little gully where she lives.

We drove through dark tunnels of trees with eerie Swedish ambient music lulling us into just the right mood for a lowkey little campfire in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually we found the deadend turnoff, and headed up a hill until a sign advertising “Bullfrog Ln.” seemed to point us off into a huge field. No ATV, so we decided maybe it was a case of bad sign placement and kept on straight, winding down a dirt path scrunched up between tall dark forest, until Pritha decided we had gone too far. We went just a little bit further, saw the sign for “Mystic Way” and we had arrived.

We parked the car with the keys still in and made our way through the brambles and over a couple of bridges to the campfire where a dozen or so friends were lounging in a quiet, post-grilling, sated, happy glow.

I got a tour of Sarah’s home, glowing in the light of her one propane lantern. Herbs drying from the ceiling, jars and brik-a-brak scattered around, a bottle of cod-liver-oil on the kitchen counter next to a number of beautiful ceramic bowls, ribbons decorating the eaves of the loft, and a beautiful, smooth, wooden ladder heading up to her bed. No refrigeration, no running water, no electricity at all. An rustic, but pretty darn idyllic island retreat — one of the homiest homes I’ve seen.

Some of the sated glowing fire friends were headed back to the farm, so I decided to manage risk and spare Adam and Pritha the extra trip, what with the gas tank on empty, and head back with the earlier crowd.

On the way out, half a dozen tromped on ahead, and I followed up in the rear, trying to squint to use what I could of the headlamps and flashlights bouncing ahead. I hadn’t walked 20 steps when I took a step and suddenly felt like I was falling. I could see lights way down below, and I was falling and giving out a little yelp, gasp…. and then I hit the water. And the mud.

I mostly felt relief as I my immediate sensation told me I was going to fall and fall and fall. And then there was the unavoidable flood of embarrassment, and then shivering.

Doesn’t actually look that bad, but my clothes weighed a ton.

Just like after a long hike in the rain. Squelch, squelch, squelch.

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

View

in a larger map

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.

This evening I’ve been writing cover letters and resumes and sending them off into the internet ether. I’ve been mildly stressing over what to do when I leave here in September and to that effect, have put together a detailed spreadsheet of options. Top contenders include:

• Applying as an Americorps Vista volunteer at one of many food and ag-related organizations… Sustainable Connections in Bellingham, Farms for Families in Montana, and Laurel Valley Farm in Eugene.
• Putting together mish-mash of part-time work in the Bay, including Farmers Market managing for the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association, an unpaid internship with the Chez Panisse Foundation, work with Free Range Productions, tutoring, part-time field work at random local farms…
• Working on a slightly larger organic farm that has more than 200 CSA shares, more than 30 cultivated acres and some value-added production.
• Getting a job at a farm/non-profit like this or this or this that combines farming and education/non-profit programming

All are exciting. All are making my heart sing, but my brain hurt.

Thank goodness my personal savior, made a delicious dinner tonight and forced me to take a mini break:

Check out my girl’s pockets. Now that’s class!

Romantic, methinks.

And yes, another ridiculously yummy mish-mash.

Friends, farmers, countrymen… what do you think I should do?

I’m taking a page out of my beautiful sister Becky’s Parisian adventure log and counting down the days to the arrival of my beau.

Jacqueline and Jim posing on the peak of Mt. Finlayson to “prove” they were here!

On Sunday, Jacqueline and Jim came to visit me at the farm. It was my first time giving a tour to visitors and it was fun! It made me want to coerce more friends and family to come out here to visit. It’s impossible not to feel pride when showing off the beds I’ve cultivated, the little plants I’ve planted, the seeds that are germinating. I think Jacqueline got some ideas for planting this summer — we did a little tasting of the tatsoi (relative of bok choy, which we use in salad mix) and she was impressed.

After fresh bagels and the farm tour, we set off to hike around and search out some of the local flora. Jacqueline’s botanist background helped the identification:

Fairy Slipper Orchid

Chocolate Lily

The cool looking red & green groundcover is broad-leaved sedum, a native succulent

Corn Lily

Pacific Madrone

Maybe a Sitka Spruce?

Common Camass

From the summit of Mt. Finlayson

After summiting all 290 ft of the “mountain,” we headed back to the car and down to town to find food. Delicious crab enchiladas, and then time for the ferry. All-in-all, a glorious Sunday.

This is what it’s like to ride home to the farm hot-cheeked and smiling, eyes-closed, sprawled on a barley pillow in the covered bed of a pickup truck next to a guitar, a box of tools, a sandbag, and dirty potluck plates at 11pm after a May Day party where you acted the part of “the ladder” in an impromptu play put on by two little girls with freckles and short bangs respectively, who called themselves Brazil from China and something clever you can’t remember, soon after which you left for a delicious gingery drink and hot water for tea poured mistakenly into your drinking glass at a magical gem of a restaurant tucked away in what seemed like an abandoned parking lot.