WYSIWYG Jenny

Ingedients:
1 T butter
4 small beets, cut into smallish bite-size pieces
½ C broth or water
2 T butter
¾ C couscous
1¼ C boiling broth or water
Salt
Greens from 4 beets, cut into strips (substitute 1 or 2 red Swiss chard leaves if your beets are green-less)

In a small to medium saucepan, melt the first tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add the beets, and enough broth or water to almost cover the beets.

Cook, stirring occassionally, until liquid has evaporated. Beets should be just tender.

Pushing the beets to the sides, add the second installment of butter (yeah!) to the center of the pan. Once it’s melted, add the couscous and stir everything together. Continue to stir for a couple minutes, until you smell the nuttiness of the toasted couscous.

Add the boiling broth or water, salt, and stir. Dump the beet greens on top, cover with a tight-fitting lid, and remove from heat. In 10 minutes, fluff with a fork and serve! (Grate some cheese on top if it’s too healthy for you.)

If everything unfolds the way we’re hoping, by the end of spring Chris and I will be renting an acre of farmland in Petaluma from our favorite bartender. There’s still a bit of iffiness to that if, but … well, that’s not going to stop me from dreaming.

I’ve been reading Gene Logsdon’s Small Scale Grain Raising, and the more I learn about home-grown grains, the more I long for the freshest flour in the world. Imagine: freshly ground cornmeal for polenta, wheat for bread, and all manner of whole grains for rich, nutty pancakes. Mmmmm.

And Chris keeps acquiring books on beer brewing and whiskey distilling. His face already lights up with pride when he hands someone a well-made Manhattan – but if we grew the grain, harvested and threshed it, and made the liquor? Wowee, that’d really be something.

Over the last year-and-a-bit I’ve learned to have a greater respect and love for vegetables and eggs by getting involved in the production of them. I’m hoping that home-grown grains will leave the same impression. I get the feeling that compared to veggies, growing grains takes much more work, and is much less profitable. But I’m planning on setting aside a quarter of our little acre for corn, wheat, oats, barley, and other grainy goodies.

(Oh, we’re also going to plant tons of veggies for a mini/starter-CSA. Pretty soon I’m going to start soliciting for subscriptions — consider yourself warned.)

We’re moving on Tuesday. Our boss/landlord was making noises about how we might want to start looking for a new place to live, and I wasn’t prepared to wait and see if they’d really use the “72 hour notice” clause in our employee housing agreement.

The new place is a cute little duplex in Penngrove — much closer to work. It was love at first sight (there’s a shared veggie garden in the yard!) so we put down a deposit the day we saw it.

Things I’ll miss about our house

• No neighbors in sight, or within shouting distance. We can make as much noise as we want. (And MAN some of our ticklefights get roudy.)
• Living in the middle of a bunch of trees is just COOL. All that moss, the smell of the bay trees in the rain, tromping through the woods looking for mushrooms or figs or berries, and seeing deer and turkeys wander by…it’s just so neat.
• Free chanterelle mushrooms. ‘Nough said.
• I finally (on attempt four or five, I don’t recall) planted some seeds that survived past germinating! Two weeks ago! ::sob:: (I don’t care if I have to break in, I am coming back for those peas when they’re ready.)
• Taking a bath in our unattached bathroom with the door open to the whole world. And drying off in the sun.
• Going for jogs around our orchard, where no one but the animals can tell how pitifully out of shape I am.
• Our insanely comfortable couch. It stays with the house, as well as all of our plates and nearly all of the furniture.
• Not having to really take care of our compost pile. Out of sight, out of mind.
• Knowing that our water comes from a well right by the house, much of our electricity comes from the solar panels and wind turbine in the orchard, and we only consume as much propane as we buy at the hardware store down the road.
• The cob oven. Not that I ever used it, but Chris has made some damn fine flatbread in that thing.
• Living on a property that was once owned by Jack London never quite lost its appeal.
• Bob Shaffer: awesomest neighbor ever.
• Paying next to nothing on rent.

Things I will certainly not miss about this place

• An hour of commuting everyday. The new place is about ten minutes from work.
• The goddamn skunk who decided that the area directly beneath our bedroom would be a great place to call home. (Though it seems to have left in the last couple weeks.)
• That week and a half we went without water — it’s hard not to hold a grudge about that one.
• Living without a working shower for the last couple months.
• The oven door that you can’t close without a ratchet strap.
• Climbing over the gate to punch in the code on the other side every time we leave.
• That 72 hour clause.
• Only heating the house when we’re going to be awake long enough to justify getting a fire started.
• No way to get an internet connection.
• Hearing and seeing gigantic limbs and whole trees fall down in heavy wind or rain. It’s almost kinda cool, but it’s scary — especially when I see one near the house or somewhere we often go and realize if I’d been standing there when it happened, it would’ve been seriously bad scene.
• The midnight/morning dash to the outdoor bathroom. Sooo coooooooold.
• Goddamn turkeys digging up every goddamn seed I’ve planted up till a couple weeks ago. They don’t even eat them, they just see the fresh dirt and go, “Oh, I have GOT to get in on that!” and scratch around like chickens. Assholes.
• Hearing animals get attacked in the middle of the night. It’s one thing to watch it on a nature show, and another thing entirely to wake up to a furry little guy get dragged off as he screams bloody murder. I’ve had too many fox nightmares.

I still want to spend as much of my life as I can living in the woods. Just not these woods.

Turnips: the sweet, buttery underdogs of the root vegetables. Seriously, get some well grown ones and give ‘em a try. Sooooo goooood.

Turnip faux-sotto

Ingredients
4 small-medium turnips, with greens
2 T butter
1/2 t paprika
Salt
2 C leftover brown rice
1/3 C white wine
1/4 cup grated aged manchego or gran pecorino or some other yummy mildish cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Cut tops from turnips. Remove stems from greens.

Cut turnips into quarter-inch bite-sized slices.

Place greens in boiling water, cover, and set timer for 10 minutes.

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add turnips, paprika, and salt, and toss to coat. Continue to cook, tossing occasionally.

When timer goes off, drain the turnip greens well and add to the skillet. Also add brown rice and wine. Stir until excess liquid from wine has evaporated.

Remove from heat, and stir in cheese. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, and be sure to tell your guests about how long you slaved away, constantly stirring this creamy risotto.

Pecan pie is one of the few dishes my mom’s family serves at every single holiday dinner. It was also one of the first recipes I got to help with; when I was little, my mom and I would arrange the pecan halfs on the empty pie shell, carefully resisting the temptation to press them in, so they would rise to the top during baking. As a teenager, I made the pie myself a few times, and was always so proud of my contribution.

We’ve only ever used one recipe for pecan pie, and that’s Grandma’s recipe. I’m not sure if she actually wrote it herself, or if we call it that because she made it for so many years. The thing is, Grandma’s recipe uses corn syrup. In fact, it uses more corn syrup than anything else.

I did a wee bit of research online before last year’s holidays, trying to find a “real” pecan pie recipe that didn’t call for corn. I figured there would be an original recipe that people used before the advent of corn syrup.

As far as I can tell, I was wrong. Pecan pie was an invention of the processed food age, and the original recipe was printed on a bottle of Karo syrup! Yikes.

Luckily, I did find an alternative recipe by John Thorne. In place of corn syrup, he uses golden syrup, a British product that I can’t find around here. I’ve been using agave nectar instead, but I think any inverted sugar syrup — like honey or maple sugar — would work.

With dishes like this, the final product relies more on the quality of the ingredients than how you cook it. If you go out of your way to get truly full-flavored brown sugar, high quality butter (Straus!), and tasty little pecans, the pie will be exceptional.

I made this pie for Thanksgiving this year, and a couple family members dared to call it, “Better than Grandma’s.” Sorry Grandma, but it’s true. It’s unapologeticly untraditional, and it’s reaaaaaally yummy.

Pecan Pie

Ingredients

• 1 packed cup full-flavored brown sugar
• scant 2/3 cup agave nectar
• 3 tablespoons Meyer’s dark rum
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups broken pecan meats
• 9″ unbaked pie shell

1. Heat the brown sugar, butter, and agave nectar to boiling, stirring constantly and scraping foam from sides.
2. Boil for about 1 minute. Remove from heat and cool.
3. Beat eggs until creamy.
4. Temper eggs with sugar mixture, then combine along with salt, pecans, and rum.
5. Pour into shell and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Cool before serving.

From Boys Own Book of Outdoor Sports

A wild turkey trap is made by first digging a ditch; then over one end is built a rude structure of logs, covered at the top. The structure should not be tight, but, of course, sufficiently close not to let the birds through. Indian corn is scattered about and in the ditch, and inside of the pen. The turkeys follow up corn in the ditch, and emerge from it on the inside. Once there, the silly birds never think of descending into the ditch, but walk round and round the pen, looking through the chinks of the logs for escape that way. To make all sure, the ditch should end about the center of the pen, and a bridge of sticks, grass and earth should be built over the ditch, just inside of the pen, and close to the logs; otherwise, in going around the bird might step inside the ditch, and once there it would follow the light and thereby reach the outside of the pen.

I have a hard time believing that there are people in the world who don’t like beets. BEETS ARE AMAZING.

Recently I’ve been braising beets, and it always turns out so goddamn good. I’m guessing it’s the high sugar content of these precious roots that makes it so special — when you reduce the cooking liquid, it turns into a glaze. Yummers.

Braised/Glazed Beets

Serves 4

• 4 T butter
• 1 onion, diced
• plenty of salt and pepper
• 1-2 T sherry vinegar
• 6 giganto leaves of Swiss chard, chopped
• 6 medium beets, cut into thin, bite-size pieces
• vegetable broth or water to cover

1. In a wide skillet, melt the butter. Add the onion and salt and cook until soft and translucent.
2. Add pepper, vinegar, and chard. Cook over medium heat for a couple minutes, until chard is wilted.
3. Add beets and pour in just enough water to almost cover the beets. Clamp on the lid and cook at a simmer, stirring ocassionally, until the beets are almost tender — you should be able to pierce it with a knife or fork, but feel a bit of resistance. (How long this takes depends largely on how thinly your beets are sliced.)
4. Remove the lid and continue to cook, stirring every couple minutes, until the cooking liquid has reduced to a thick glaze. Adjust seasoning and serve — it goes nicely with couscous.

I just made seven pints of spicy pickled carrots with wild fennel, and I’ve got a box of rhubarb waiting to be preserved in syrup tomorrow. Setting aside some of the harvest is a big part of eating locally, and it’s fun! I’ve hardly done any preserving before, but now that we’re past the peak of summer production, it suddenly seems too important to put off.

I’m hoping to get a pressure canner in the next couple weeks so I can get low-acid goodies canned in addition to the pickles and jams. Just thinking about it has got me day-dreaming of a winter full of colorful jars.

A list to ease my excitement:

• pickled beets
• raspberry jelly
• pickled artichokes
• tomato jam
• preserved winter squash
• preserved green beans
• crushed tomatoes
• diced tomatoes
• tomato sauce
• tomato juice
• apple sauce
• apple butter
• pears in syrup
• dill pickles
• pickled watermelon rind
• plum jam
• grape jelly
• pickled lemon cucumbers
• preserved sweet corn
• pear juice
• hot sauce
• ketchup

Yum. What else?

I registered for imdb.com just so I could share my comments on Elizabethtown — the worst movie I’ve seen since Demon Strike, maybe worse.

It won’t be on the site for 2 or 3 days, but I can’t wait that long to share it with the world.

My friend and I went to Blockbusters last night with the express purpose of renting a crappy rom-com. We were up for some cheesiness, but neither of us was prepared for the absurdity and stupidity of this movie.

A couple minutes in — around the time that Orlando Bloom said “I’m fine,” for the tenth time — we began to see that we had brought home a true turd of a movie. The 123-minute label on the case was worrying.

It started out ridiculous and uninteresting, but just unraveled from there. Individual scenes were unbelievable, and strung together they make up an unfathomable whole. The writing is so terrible that the question of whether the actors were good or bad is moot.

“Trainwreck” is definitely the word for it.

I have a couple theories:

1) Cameron Crowe was under the influence of horse tranqulizers while writing the script. The disjointed scenes, the odd combination of dull scenes that go on insanely long, and potentially juicy moments that are truncated, abridged, or turned into musical montages (for instance, phrases from relatives’ eulogies are spliced together in about 30 seconds, shortly followed by Susan Sarandon’s truly horrible and drawn-out stand-up/tap-dancing number). It doesn’t seem his brain was functioning properly when he wrote this one down.

2) Does he have a 12-year-old daughter who may have written large parts of the script for him? Reflecting on the supposedly romantic parts of the film, it ocurred to me that they’re in line with what I understood of love and life as a seventh-grader: all-night phone conversations when what you say isn’t as important as the fact that you’re talking, spontaneous declarations of love (and demands for such declarations), laughing at jokes that aren’t funny because you’re riding high on infatuation, and the almighty mix-tape. If Drew and Claire have any chemistry, it’s because they’re both completely embracing the middle school concept of love and life.

3) Finally, perhaps this film is actually a genius artistic masterpiece. Maybe if you removed every other scene and mashed the remainder into a 1-hour film, it would transcend the genre of crappy romcoms and enter the realm of theatre of the absurd.

Our farm is underway.

Just about a year ago, Chris and I left San Francisco to begin our farming adventure. It amazes me to think of our mindset back then; we were sick and tired of working crappy jobs that barely paid the rent for our equally crappy basement apartment, so we took off. We had heard of WWOOF through several friends, and figured we’d travel around and do farm work just to get by.

At that point it seemed like something we could handle, and maybe even something we’d enjoy, but I don’t think either of us expected to be totally sucked in by it. But halfway through our first semester at Green String interns, before the winter was over, it became clear that farming was IT for us.

Since we finished our internships in May, we’ve been f’real farm employees, working long hours six or seven days a week, and fantasizing about having our own little farm someday. We’re living on one of our boss’s properties, and part of his offer to us was that we’d set up a little market garden here, and get a mini-incubator farm going. But between our long hours (and resulting exhaustion) and a couple broken rototillers, it just hasn’t happened.

Well, it *hadn’t* happened. Now…

Now it’s happening! I can’t tell you how excited I am. We picked out the garden spot (maybe about an acre out of the 110 of the property) almost as soon as we moved in, and Chris has been watering it ocassionally to soften up the hard soil.

We’re going to get the rototiller out here next week (finally!), but I’m also doing a little experiment. I’ve planted part of the space this week with turnips (Chinese red round, Japanese shogoin, and French navet des vertus marteau, ho ho) and Italian sugarloaf chicory, because I have it on good authority that turnips and chicory plants will not only thrive in hard soil, they’ll actually bust it up! I’m going to plant another section with cover-crop varieties of daikon radish and chicory, which will probably do a lot more work on the soil but also won’t be particularly edible. The remainder of the garden will be tilled and planted with non-experimental crops — lots of brassicas, greens, root veggies, and herbs — and we’ll go from there.

If all goes well, we’ll start showing up at the Sonoma farmers market on Friday mornings with some goodies to sell. If it goes really well, we may start up a CSA by spring. Whatever form our little garden takes, we’ll be calling it Lazy Fox Farm, in honor of the adorable little bastards who ate our roosters — and probably watch our every move from the shadows.

It’s difficult to find the time to work on our own project when we’re so immersed in our jobs, but heading out there at sunset to rake, seed, and water doesn’t feel like work. Right now, those 8 rows of seed sitting in our beautiful, sweet-smelling soil feel likes new world of possibilities.