Brine And Brine Again

I have a problem, and that problem is too much produce.

See, I live by myself, and at the farmers market I always shop with my heart more than my head. I'll be going along, when all of a sudden, "Ooooh, kohlrabi! OH and basil! And sorrel! I MUST HAVE IT ALL."

And then some well-meaning fellow farmer will come along and offer me a bag full of produce, which of course I will take, conveniently forgetting the square footage of my mini fridge (tiny), not to mention the capacity of my stomach (even smaller).

At any rate, when I just can't find time in the day to fix everything I've got, I turn to the ancient methods of food preservation for help. You know, canning. Brining. Fermenting. And so forth.

Yesterday, on a whim, I pickled a quart of string beans that were starting to look a little sad. I didn't have any dill, so I used some fennel stalks, tossing in some bay leaves and a clove of fresh garlic for good measure.

I haven't tried them yet - I'm giving them a few days to cure - but I'm excited.

Anyone else out there have some ideas for interesting pickles? Or other summer time preserving ideas? My ears are open.

Kitchen Experiment #176: Homemade Yogurt

Continuing my string of dairy-product-making-attempts (some more successful than others, I must say...mozzarella continues to elude me), I tried my hand at yogurt recently.

The process is fairly simple... heat a quart of milk to 185 degrees, whisk in yogurt starter (or yogurt with live cultures, which is what I used), pour it all in a quart jar, and then do your best to keep your yogurt-to-be around 110 degrees for the next six to twelve hours, which is more difficult than one might think. In my case, I filled two more quart jars with boiling water, swaddled all of them in a sweater, stuffed them in the non-working oven in my camper, then continued to anxiously check on it every few hours like a new mother looking in at her sleeping infant.

For a first yogurt, I don't think it was too shabby. It has a pleasantly tangy flavor, which I prefer. It is a little thin for my liking - closer to a kefir consistency than yogurt, really - but absolutely fine mixed with granola, which is how I always eat it.

And why is that, anyways? I think my yogurt starter was a little too old, for one thing. The fresher the yogurt, the better, where live cultures are concerned. Also, Clare told me that she lets the milk cool a bit before adding the starter, since the high heat can kill the cultures. And next time, I'll probably use a strainer to catch all the little bits of scorched milk that settled to the bottom of the yogurt, because that's just kind of gross.

I'm a little stumped about what to do about the skin that develops on top of milk when you heat it, though. Do I just need to stand there, whisking maniacally until it's ready to pour? I'd really rather not, if there are other options. Any ideas out there?

Butter Is Better

I am happy to report my first (successful) attempt at making a dairy product in my tiny own kitchen!

Blog, allow me to introduce you to Butter.

If you're anything like me at all, butter is absolutely indispensable. I saute asparagus, I bake cakes, I create tart crust, I smear pieces of baguette.

And, fabulously, butter has to be one of the easiest things to make ever. Observe:

Take one cup of cream and let it sit out until it reaches 50 degrees F. At the same time, put a clean quart jar in the fridge.

Once the cream has reached the desired temperature, pour it into the quart jar and screw on the lid tightly. Then start shaking the dickens out of it.

The cream will start out like cream, then frothy. After a few minutes, without any warning, it will have a whipped consistency. Do not be alarmed. And do not stop shaking.

After another few minutes, again with no warning whatsoever, the contents of the jar will turn from whipped cream into a large yellow lump and some milky liquid. Ta-da! You have made butter. This entire process should take somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes.

Pour off the buttermilk and store in the fridge for a refreshing pre-bedtime drink. 

Pour cold water over the butter and shake to rinse, then pour off. Do this three or four times, until the water runs clear.

Knead the butter with your hands (or with a pair of spoons, if you're fastidious) to remove any remaining liquid. This is important, since leaving the extra liquid can make your butter spoil. Stir in 1/4 tsp. of kosher salt, if so desired.

Spread on a piece of bread and enjoy.

 

Note: Do not be alarmed by the taxi cab shade of yellow that is my butter. It is representative of butterfat from grass-fed cows, and is caused by high levels of Vitamin A and beta-carotene - the same reasons that eggs from free-range chickens have similarly, shockingly colored yolks.

The One About Strawberries

There's a cycle to eating seasonally.

Step one: Wait in restless anticipation for <insert food here> to be available.

Step two: When <insert food here> finally becomes available, gorge yourself until you can't bear to look at it anymore.

Step three: Wait another eight or nine or ten months until <insert food here> finally comes around again.

Of course, there is an alternative extra step - Put up <insert food here> so that you can continue to enjoy it when it is no longer in season.

For me, this food is currently strawberries.

What is it about fresh strawberries? I don't even bother buying the grocery store versions anymore. Strawberries at the store aren't so delicate that they bruise their tender little bodies merely sitting on top of one another in a container. Strawberries at the store don't seduce you with aromas that entice you like a mauve-colored, come-hither, beckoning hand from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, stroking you under your nose as you pass by. Let's face it - strawberries at the store suck.

The strawberry cycle started two weeks ago, when a table of the delectable fruit lured me into another farm's tent at the Falls Church farmers market. I got a quart, and spent the rest of market surreptitiously opening the cooler where I had stashed it, the better to enjoy its scent as it billowed out of solitary cooler confinement. I spent the following week enjoying strawberries on my oatmeal, my granola, and - most memorably - eaten for dessert in a pool of our own yellow-tinted cream.

So when, at Arlington's farmers market this past Saturday, our neighbors started putting out basket after basket of the little red fruit, I was overcome, and purchased half a flat. I used some of it to make strawberry compote to top my traditional boyfriend-is-visiting breakfast, the German Pancake, and I reserved a bit more so I could luxuriate in strawberries and cream later that week, but the bulk of it ended up in little quilted 8-oz jars.

Preserves - the perfect way to make sure that I can get my strawberry fix any time, any place. And they're so easy to make that it's actually a little disturbing - equal weights strawberries and sugar, cut up and mixed with the juice of a lemon, and left alone overnight, then heated up in two-cup increments and ladled into the appropriate sterilized jars and boiled for ten minutes, leaving me with five jewel-bright additions to my tiny kitchen.

But, naturally, I dropped my first piece of strawberry preserve-bedecked toast, sticky side down, in the garage the next morning after only eating two bites.

Holey Darned Socks, Batman!

Yesterday, I darned my first sock.

I know what you're thinking... isn't this blog about farming and agriculture? Indeed it is. So why am I telling you about my socks, which are clearly in need of replacement?

The lure of self sufficiency is a very strong motivation for me. I normally think of this in terms of growing my own food, and being self sufficient from that perspective. But, while I am no seamstress, I regularly repair rips in my shirts and jeans, sew buttons, stitch hems, put in darts, and do other handy little sewing projects that extend the life of my clothing as much as possible.

One of the problems I see with our conventional food system is how wasteful it is. Alternative food systems such as organic and biodynamic agriculture seek to minimize that waste. The ideal farm is a closed system. For example, vegetable waste and manure become compost, which nourishes future growth. But why seek to minimize waste in your food system if you aren't going to do the same elsewhere?

I've ranted discussed previously the issue of the "hidden costs" of conventional agriculture. The same is true for any purchase one makes. When you purchase a cotton T-shirt, as Annie Leonard (of The Story of Stuff Project) explains, you are also buying into a system that uses toxic pesticides and chemicals to grow, bleach, and dye your shirt; uses fossil-fuel driven machines to card, sort, and weave your shirt; and exploits workers in foreign countries who don't make a living wage to sew your shirt.

So if extending the life of one measly little sock by darning it helps me feel like I'm making a difference, however miniscule, then I'll do it. Gosh darn it.

I'll close with a pertinent quote from Annie Leonard's book The Story of Stuff. (Emphasis mine.)

Cherish the T-shirt you have. Wear it and care for it with the same persevering love you have for an heirloom piece of jewelry. Resist the urge to replace it with the newest color or neckline. I keep my T-shirts until they're too worn to wear even to the gym, and then I turn them into rags... Because even though the price tag said $4.99... that doesn't come close to reflecting all the hidden costs or true value of one plain white cotton T-shirt.

Veni, Vidi, Seedy: I Came, I Saw, I Seed

 

Seed saving is something that has gone the way of processing your own chickens and milking the family cow... it's something nobody does anymore. Most folks probably wouldn't even know where to begin. Before I got here, I certainly didn't.

Most seed saving that happens at the home gardener scale is for heirloom plants. Heirloom vegetables are usually older varieties, although there are some exceptions, and are open pollinated,* which also means that the second generation will be the same as the first generation.** Heirloom varieties are usually known for their flavor, and often look a little funky, especially to those used to buying mono-vegetables at the supermarket that are all bred to look flawless and exactly the same.

These are some big differences from hybrid plants you usually buy from stores - if you save seed from a hybrid, the third generation will be quite different from the second generation, which is what you planted. If you remember your high school genetics lessons, you'll see why - the third generation will have recessive characteristics from the first generation that don't show up immediately. As a result, seed companies have a monopoly over that seed. Anyone who wants Sun Gold Tomatoes has to buy their seed year after year if they want the same product.

How you save seed depends on the vegetable. Tomatoes, watermelons, eggplant, cucumbers and squash are wet processed; beans, corn, lettuce, brassicas, spinach and peppers are dry processed (although peppers can be wet processed, as you will see). Last week, Autumn and I visited Twin Oaks Intentional Community and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange as part of the CRAFT program, where they did demonstrations of various types of seed saving.

Wet processing involves cutting or smashing up the vegetable in question and letting it ferment for several days. This, by the way, is definitely the best-smelling part of the process.

Then you add water and pour off the pulp and floating seeds, and keep adding water and pouring until the water runs clear. Then the seeds are put on a screen, where they dry out, which should take about a week. Once they're dry, they're ready to be stored.

With dry processing, the process depends on the plant, but often involves crushing everything together (most memorably by sandwiching the plants between tarps and dancing on them) and then winnowing the seeds using a fan.

 

We're actually saving seed for Southern Exposure this year at the farm, so the demonstrations helped us answer a lot of questions.

One of the vegetables we're growing for seed is Lipstick Pepper, a red pepper that is incredibly sweet and delicious.

 

We decided to wet process our peppers, since it seems to be a slightly easier process than scraping all the seeds off by hand. First, you cut out the crown of the pepper, with the seeds still attached.

 

You put all the pepper crowns in a container...

...and cover them with water. Let them sit for a day. The seeds are then much easier to remove by hand. After removing the seeds, you add more water and pour off the excess water and the floating seeds. You keep adding water and repeating until the water runs clear - with peppers, that takes maybe one or two more tries. (Tomatoes take forever.)

The seeds go on a screen in a well-ventilated area (preferably with a fan running). They need to dry for five to seven days. And voila! Home-processed pepper seeds.





*Open pollinated plants are pollinated naturally by insects, wind, etc. They are not self pollinating.
**Assuming you didn't accidentally cross pollinate your plant with another type, that is. For open pollinated plants, this is a real possibility. Isolation distances to prevent crossing differs from plant to plant, from 40 feet for string beans and lettuce to 600 feet for corn and squash.

The Farming Internship, Part One

I started this blog in order to document my WWOOF-ing adventures. I know this. But that does not change the fact that sometimes, circumstances change.

It is my duty to now inform you, dear readers, that you have been misled. This blog will no longer be the blog of a WWOOF-er. I accept full responsibility for the deception, and will attempt to make any repatriations necessary for those who feel hoodwinked. But I must be allowed to state my case - then, and only then, can you take me to task if I have been neglectful of my duties as a blogger for and devotee of the organic and local food movement.

Basically, it comes down to what I feel will serve me best as I attempt to educate myself about small farm operations. I think WWOOF-ing is wonderful, and it's still something I'd like to do in the future - possibly for some months next year as I wait for grad school to start. But in the meantime, I am directing my attentions to the ever-useful Farming Internship.

I started thinking about farming internships as an option after a friend/co-worker directed me to the ATTRA website (also known as the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service... nothing close to "ATTRA," now that I think about it), which has quite a detailed and informative directory for farming internships and apprenticeships in the US and Canada. You can search by state/province, city, farm name, or keyword. After perusing a few descriptions, I started thinking about whether an internship was for me. And...I decided it was.

Two words: "Learning Experience." The whole point of WWOOF-ing (apart from the travel, the adventure, and the free food, of course) is that I want to be learning about organic agriculture - I want to network with farmers who rely on it for their livelihoods, I want to learn about issues in the field*, and I want to pick up lifeskills like plucking chickens, canning tomatoes and making things grow out of a field without managing to kill them in the process.

Yes, WWOOF-ing can and does expose you to these things, but internships are designed to put education first. A lot of the internships I'm looking into have relationships with other farms and organizations that allow interns to visit and learn about other types of organic ventures, attend workshops, take classes, etc. And the whole point is to educate people like me, who have barely a scrap of farming experience.

Also, as a WWOOF-er you might have some say in what you do. It probably depends on the farm and what they need, how many WWOOF-ers they have around, and how much experience you have. But your chances are better with a farmer whose intention is to teach you, rather than just have you do whatever work they need done.

Money and stuff. Not to be too crude about it, but while WWOOF host farms give you room and board in exchange for your work, you're on your own for any other expenses. A lot of internships have stipends - not much, but if it pays for my toothbrush and soap and gas for my car, then it certainly helps. And actually, a lot of the stipends I've seen pay as much (if not more) than my stipend as an AmeriCorps NCCC volunteer. A couple even provide health benefits, although I think that's outside the norm. Who knew?

What about travel and adventure and being a free spirit? So I'll be in one place for six to eight months instead of traveling around that entire time - my experience will be all the richer for it. I'm not saying you can't make good friends in a month or six weeks, but I like the idea of really getting to know the location, the other workers/interns, and the farmers who are teaching me. And it's not like I won't be traveling - as you'll see eventually, I'm applying all over the US... although my home territory, the good ol' Midwest, isn't receiving any love. Not that I don't love Indiana, but I want to travel, and that means going away. Far, far away.

And like I said, I still see myself WWOOF-ing in my "off months". By then, I'll have more experience under my belt, so maybe I won't be stuck picking grape tomatoes for seven hours a day.

And what about trying new things, learning different skills, and not getting stuck with one job? I'm glad you asked. According to my recent bedtime reading partner, a small family farm is a tightly contained, sustainable organism in a way. It doesn't produce a monoculture of just one crop - corns, soybeans, wheat - because not only is that unsustainable and terrible for the health and chemistry of the soil, but no one can survive on just corn or soybeans or wheat. A local, small, family farm has its fingers in a lot of pies - it grows a variety of produce, it puts up jams and jellies and canned goods for winter, and it often has livestock such as poultry, sheep and/or beef running around. The crops are rotated every year, since different crops require different nutrients and the farmer doesn't want to deplete the soil; the poultry eat pests and scratch up the soil, helping to prevent weeds; food waste goes to the pigs, and manure from livestock is in turn used to fertilize the growing produce. Also, if one crop (say, tomatoes) goes kaboom one year, Mr. Farmer isn't royally screwed for not growing anything else.

My whole point here is that working on one farm for an entire growing season doesn't mean I won't get the opportunity to do a variety of jobs. In fact, that's something I've taken into account as I've researched farms. I'm only applying to places that grow produce and keep some variety of livestock, with the hopes that I will get the chance to do a bit of everything.

Join me soon for Part Two, in which I struggle with deciding..... WHERE I SHOULD GO. (dum dum dummmm)



*This pun will never get old for me. And if you don't like puns, don't read this blog. And don't ever meet me.

The Game Plan

So now that I have decided to actually WWOOF, the next year and half or so are starting to loom in a rather alarming way. I've made the big decision (What do I do next?) and now I have to start making those annoying little logistical ones (So... how do I actually do this?).

Frankly, the task is a daunting one. Let's start at the beginning: first and foremost, I need to decide where the heck I'm going. There are 195 countries in the world, give or take one or two (do we count Taiwan? What about Vatican City?), and 99 of those host WWOOF-ers. But while I would love to backpack my way across international organic landscapes, learning how to say "permaculture" in seventeen different languages , there are two big reasons why I won't.

First: the money. I do not have much of it, and I would like to not spend all of what I have. Second: I am interested in learning about the issues surrounding the agricultural systems of this country, where I intend to live and work and play and eat for all my days. So it makes sense, financially and for my future career, to stay here in the US of A.

Not that this simplifies things, really. I go to the WWOOF USA website and what do I find but a giant map of the Fifty Nifty United States. Fifty. Five-Zero. That's a lot of states, people. And while I may pretend to be whimsical and happy-go-lucky in my day to day meanderings, there is no way I'm pulling a Doctor Doolittle and going wherever my finger blindly falls in the atlas.

Rather than approaching this from the outside, I think I need to take it the opposite direction, and examine my own needs. What are my reasons for WWOOF-ing? What do I hope to gain? If I identify the "why" for myself, I can use that to whittle away at the myriad farms and organizations out there, and find the ones that address what I'm specifically interested in.

So here are my thoughts, such as they are:

Variety is the spice of life. I don't just want to plant corn for a year (although I do love corn). I want to sample a broad swath of what's available the organic agriculture horizon, working in a multitude of different areas. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Ranches (or anywhere with livestock, really)
• Dairy farms
• Orchards
• "Traditional" farms with your average produce
• Winery
• Apiary (a.k.a. a bee farm)
• Wherever I can tap trees and make maple syrup

Being skilled and savvy. Related to the above is another list, which grows longer daily, of skills I'd like to learn along the way. How to make cheese. How to can tomatoes. How to build a fence. Increase my upper arm strength by chopping wood. Learn the basics of gardening. Dry herbs. Milk cows. Collect eggs from chickens.

Increase my organic know-how. Well, that's the whole reason I'm doing this, after all. Ultimately, I want to get my Master's in Food Studies (more on that eventually). What better way to learn about the issues facing today's organic farmer and the industry of organic and sustainable agriculture than to actually go out and do it? By WWOOF-ing, I will meet people who are invested in this industry and this movement. I can talk to farmers and the future leaders of the organic initaitive, make connections, and learn first-hand what is out there and what needs to change.

Gotta sow those wild oats. I'm young and limber (ish). I can handle sleeping on the ground and spending a few weeks bent over a row of beets. Plus, I need stories to tell my grandkids.

So - new game plan:

• Make list of the types of farms I want to visit and learn more about (started above)
• Defile the snowy-white screen of my untouched farm spreadsheet with information about interesting-looking organic farms
• Contact farmers and learn more - what kind of accomodations are available, what tasks will I do, are there cows around (I like cows), are there cats (I like cats too), etc.
• Create a loose itinerary that takes into account all of the above