A Voluntary Peasant

Last night I went over to my friends new place: high ceilings, hardwood floors, poured concrete countertops and a big old Viking gas range. So dreamy. The plan was to cook dinner together and I ended up taking charge, big surprise. Frankly, the results were delicious. Mickie took photos with her film camera and I was too immersed in the process to remember to snap any of my own shots, so this post will be photo free, so feel free to use your imagination.

Polenta Griddle Cakes with Carmelized Onions and Sautéed Red Chard

Roasted Portobella Mushroom Caps with Sherry and Soy

Carrot and Taragon Salad with Toasted Pecans and Coconut Flakes

First carmelize about 4 medium-sized yellow onions. This always takes longer then I anticipate though the results are always divine.

Carrot Salad:

Grate a 2 pound bag of washed carrots (I never bother to peel them and food processor makes this step a cinch)

Coarsely chop up about 2 Tablespoons of fresh Tarragon

Dressing: I eyeballed a balanced blend of soy sauce, agave nectar, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper

Toast some pecan bits and unsweetened coconut flakes

Toss carrots, tarragon, dressing and toasty bits together.

Roasted Portobellas:

Clean and de-stem 4 generously sized Portobello mushroom caps. In a baking dish or a cookie sheet with a lip drizzle about 1 Tablespoon of olive oil and 1 Tablespoon cooking sherry. Place mushrooms gills down and drizzle the tops with a bit more olive oil, soy sauce, S & P. Roast at 400 degrees until juicy, about 15 minutes. Let them rest for a moment and then slice into 1/2 strips.

Sautéed Chard:

Rough chop chard, including the stem. Sautee in olive oil with a bit of red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt until they have wilted down to about a 1/4 of their original volume.

For the Polenta Griddle Cakes:

3 cups polenta

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon Baking Soda

1 Tablespoon Sweet (I used Agave, honey would be good too, even cane sugar)

1 Teaspoon Salt

2 cups Soy Milk or other milk alternative

3/4 cup canola oil (or vegetable or olive or anything)

In a large batter bowl whisk together the dry parts. Make a well (because it’s fun to make wells) and beat in the wet parts. The goal is to have a heavy batter that can be poured into pancake shapes onto a well oiled and very hot griddle. The consistency should be in between a biscuit dough and cake batter so add more liquid and or polenta depending. Use about a 1/2 a cup of batter per cake. Cook just like a pancake and until each side is a perfect golden brown. I had to oil my pan after each batch.

Plate dinner with 2 cakes piled high with onions and chard, a heaping helping of carrot salad and the portabella strips. It’s pretty delish. It’s also nice combined with good wine, good friends and funny old photos.

I’ve been thinking of writing about my car for a long time. We have quite the tumultuous relationship and we’ve been together leaps and bounds longer then I’ve been with any boy. She’s moved me from Penn Valley to Santa Barbara and back and forth and then up to Seattle and all around the Pacific North West. Since her 21st birthday she really doesn’t make it out of the city limits anymore and her freeway skills have diminished and frankly, I just don’t trust her. But I do love her and this letter/ode to my one and only mobile is long over due.

The Silver Bullet/Volvonator/Volvster/My One True Love/Bertha the Bitch

There, doesn’t she look good covered in snow? Speaking of snow, though she’s from Sweden she does not care for the cold. Every December for the past 5 years she promptly breaks down leaving me car-less for a month or 6 since I am usually too broke and lazy to get her fixed. Once the days turn cold I really and pleased and surprised every time she starts up. So far she keeps on truckin’, but it’s only a matter of time and since it did start to snow today, tomorrow will probably be the perfect day for a break down.

These days I overlook all of the cosmetic quirks and most of the mechanical ones. One of her most delightful attributes is that she mysteriously (i.e. I’ve never had it checked out) leaks. Five winters ago I got home from New York City and there was a big, mouldy puddle on the floor of the passengers seat behind the driver. My dad sopped and bleached that out, but every watery season since she always gets damp. Last winter I ripped out most of the carpet and duct taped the sun roof. That helped with the ceiling dripping on to my lap, but there’s still the matter with the now verifiable puddle on the floor of the back seat. Oh well, maybe it will rust through and create a drainage hole?

Another delight is that the heater only starts to work once I’ve gotten to my destination, and sometimes not even then if the drive is less then 30 minutes, so basically all my drives… The light behind the dash went out earlier in the year. I took her to the car wash about a year and a half ago and that snapped off the antennae, so no more KEXP. Only 2 of the 3 middle seat belts stay clipped in. The passenger window no longer rolls up or down. There is one last hubcap hanging on for dear life. Oh yeah, some punk also hit her whilst she was parked the other day and took out all the back left lights.

She has been most handy in all of my moves since she fits ANYTHING in her cavernous recesses, thought damp they may be. Double bed? No problem, just strap it on. Couch? Again, if I can life it I can fit it. Bicycles, oddly shaped boxes and suitcases and the people that go with them? Anytime. I also love that it costs about $50 to insure her. I also love that the seat heaters still work. I guess all I really need is a warm bum and an umbrella and maybe a flashlight?

Oh the days of innocence and freeway cruising. Note that there is little visible rust, that the Volvonator has all 4 hubcaps, an antenna, a lambswool steering wheel cover and that I’m about 20 pounds lighter. I guess we all gather a little extra baggage as we age, or in the Volvo’s case we get puddles on the inside.

Oh dear blog,

I have been negligent to the extreme. I am sorry. Here are some tidbits to get back in the groove.

Summer really is over. Fall even seems to be fading some days. Is November really tomorrow?

Many carrots were picked by these hands this summer. Many early morning and nights spent alone in the mist and in the sun on an island in the Sound. I again proved to myself that I am an experiential learner and that things do not always turn out how you wish they would.

Change of scenery: peak of summer in the foothills of Northern California. Everything is gold and washed out in the heat. Spent some time in the place where I am from, celebrated birthdays on the patio where wild horses romp in the back pasture and bats flit in the twilight.

Then in a moment and 3,000 miles later I’m back in New York City. It had been about 4 years since I trotted about this city. As fascinating New York is I also find it infuriating. There’s so much to see and do! Too many choices! I was overwhelmed and the transition between living on the farm and taking it easy in California was almost too much for my heart to bear. But I loved seeing old friends and being mere steps from everything.

Summer 2010 was a memorable one to be sure, full of changes, which though exciting can be stressful and now I hope to lie low for a little while. I’ve made some promises to myself: to bake bread and wake up early, to make those small daily choices like flossing and making my bed, to run in the rain, since it is no longer summer and I do live in the Pacific North West. Oh, and to be better about blogging…

Yesterday was very much a life and death kind of day. We are very sad that Hazel the Jersey cow is no longer a viable milk-making bovine and it’s been arranged that Farmer George, the butcher, will come out to the farm on Monday and pay us a visit. Reeling from the Great Chicken Massacre of last weekend, we’ve been ultra vigilant to prevent any more raccoon break ins to the chicken yard. There are still several carcases under the hut, picked clean by the rats they look like very small dinosaur skeletons. We cheered when Tag, the next door neighbor, shot the racoon he caught in a trap. Out by the corn patch I was pulling up ground tarp, prepping for the rototiller to make a pass down the row. Under a corner of the tarp I found a carefully grass lined nest with 4 newborn voles, wriggling in the foreign sunlight. I dug carefully around the nest and transplanted them, dirt, grass voles and all, into a hole on the other side of the fence, a safe distance from the deadly rototiller. I even tucked a small bit of tarp over them so things were as close as they were before my industrious hands so rudely disturbed them. As I went back to my root pulling I saw a mother vole dart out from under a bush and sniff around where her babes once were. I retreated to the shade of an apple tree so see of mother would find her babies safe in their relocated burrow. She would dart out from under the bush over and over again looking for her little ones. She was heading in the opposite direction! Then she turned back and ran right to the little bit of tarp on the other side of the fence. I saw her pause, sniff and nose around under the tarp. She had found her babies! Since they were found they now have a chance to grow big and furry and maybe one day venture out at dusk and catch insects of their own.

 After the vole saga, I went back to work wrangling old tarps and weeds. Under the same stretch of taro where I found the volies there were numerous slugs. They made a quiet slurp as a speared each on the tines of the pitchfork. Their insides oozed out like mud. As the sun set I mixed peanut butter with rat poison, the kind that melts their bones, and spread bits around the farm. The rats have been eating the new potatoes and they must be taken care of.

On a farm you love your milk cow, chickens and voles (they dine on insects and slugs, who you hate), while you hate raccoons (who dine on your chickens), slugs and rats. It’s sad when the ones we love die, but we celebrate each dead raccoon, boneless rat and skewered slug. I imagine it would be quite the conundrum to be a Hindu farmer and that vegetarians would cringe when they knew of all the animal deaths that it takes to grow a beet or some chard.

Farming is a veritable battle field and in these daily dealing with life and death I try to remember that animals will be themselves: raccoons will always love a chicken dinner, an old milk cow will run dry and be unable to earn her keep, slugs will eat ripe cauliflowers and voles will build nests in the path of a rototiller.

My oh my! June was hectic and gray. I did have a wonderful birthday party and eat some tasty food, but that is all in the past and at the present I have dirt under my fingernails. I just finished my first week working and living as a legitimate voluntary peasant. In the Sound, about 20 minutes by ferry from West Seattle you will find a jewel of an Island called Vashon. There you will find me harvesting garlic, picking peas, feeding chickens, pulling up stinging nettles, shoveling composting manure, expressing puss from the teat of a cow…

I knew my months as an apprentice farmer would be rustic and I’d have to put away my party dresses and suit up in jeans, muck boots and gloves everyday.  I knew I would be working outside everyday, all day and that the work would be hard. I knew I’d be learning. I knew it would be lonesome to leave all my Seattle friends and the comfort of my own apartment. What I did not know, of course, has been surprising. I didn’t know that my cabin would come fully equipped with my very own ‘Humanure’ toilet, which is a bucket with sawdust into which I poop and then cover with another scoop of sawdust. Kinda makes me feel like a cat. I didn’t know that while I’m working with my hands and body my mind is free from the normal thoughts that occupy it and that is quite freeing. I didn’t know just how well suited I am for this kind of work: I prefer to be outside, I am strong, don’t mind bugs, dirt or poop, I love having various projects to do throughout the day and I love that there is a very seasonal, cyclical nature to what I’m doing. Everything is necessary, everything means something and everything is connected.

My cabin is quite quaint, bucket of sawdust and all. I have everything I need to be healthy and happy. The water heater only heats about 5 gallons at a time so showers are brief. The water that come clear out of the faucet isn’t exactly sanitary for drinking (though I’m sure it’s better the water much of the world has access to), so every night, before I go to bed I boil a kettle full and by the morning it’s cool enough to pour into my water cooler. My bed is a futon and a free-cycled one at that. I miss having a stove because I miss baking bread, but I do have a 2 burner electric stove top so figuring out how to feed myself is the least of my worries. I have books and music and the morning light filters in through the leaves outside my window.

I am so fortunate to be able to have this experience and hope that over the next 6 months I learn more about what it means to grow good food and maybe I will learn a little more about myself and my world along the way.

P.S. This is one of my favorite image from my best birthday ever. Love. It.

Due to the nature of my current employment I find myself with 3 to 4 hours a day when I need to occupy myself without leaving the house. Admittedly, I have watched my fair share of daytime television and taken a nap or two, but I also troll the blogosphere, read the newspaper, fill the pages of my note-book with lists, recipes and party plans. Along with all the mundane and morose ephemera floating around the world-wide web, there are good ideas galore! Lucky for me there are loads of other people with good taste and quirky sensibilities who share their ideas with the world and every now and then I stumble across something truly magic. To keep track of my finds I usually just add the link to this blog and I’d like to highlight some of my newest good ideas. An interesting aspect they have in common is that these are ideas and projects and jobs I wish I had come up with first or hope to make happen in my life.

Number 1: Sunday Suppers, http://sunday-suppers.blogspot.com/ 

I love a good dinner party with flowers, candles and specialty cocktails and I have thought it would be great fun to teach others how to throw a dinner party. This Sunday Suppers concept ups the ante with guest chefs who come to a home and teach your guests how to make dinner. It look like these Suppers have taken off with press from Martha Stewart.

Number 2: The Seattle Urban Farm Company, http://seattleurbanfarmco.com/

These guys, right here in my own, figurative back yard, are living the urban farmers dream. They help others grow their own food in tight spaces. To grow in the city you’ve got to get creative with light, water and spacial issues. I love what they are doing and this could easily fit into my story. They also have a super cute logo.

Number 3: Heath Ceramics, http://www.heathceramics.com/go/heath/

Just because Alice Watters uses these dishes at Chez Panisse is a good enough reason to love a platter or a bud vase, but when they are also timeless and beautiful, well let theses plates speak for themselves. I don’t think I could ever actually buy of their place settings for myself, but one day when I have a home of my own I wouldn’t say no to this:

Number 4: Forest Bound, http://forestbound.blogspot.com/

Everything is beautiful about these hand-made carry-alls. The girl who makes them hunts for worn materials and pieces them together in utilitarian, yet sweet and every bit unique bags, pouches and purses. Canvas, deer skin and old feed sacks never looked so good.

Another great thing about June is that my birthday is on the 27th. Maybe I will have a garden dinner party with earthen ceramic dishes and I will get a grain sack bag? Of these two things I am sure, I will wear roses in my hair and sip champagne.

This post comes to you in 2 parts and will be the last post sans images since my camera should arrive by post tomorrow.

Part 1: Last Saturday I partook in an epic brunch. We started cooking at 11:30 and then ate from 1:00 until about 4 in the afternoon. There were 3 courses and between the 6 of us we managed to eat just about everything. I am dying for my camera to arrive tomorrow and only wish I could have visually documented this feast, but I suppose my words will have to suffice.

First Course: cheddar and corn scones, Pensacola style savory grits with peppers and tomatoes and farm-fresh scrambled eggs with geuyere, carmelized onions, chives cooked in browned butter.

Second Course: mixed berry smoothies, mushroom tart with thyme and nutmeg, homefried potatoes with more carmelized onions.

Third Course: crepes with Nutella and fresh strawberries.

I was not hungry until Sunday afternoon.

Part 2: Last night I cooked dinner for the neighbors and my newest favorite friend. I basically followed this recipe from Sprouted Kitchen http://sproutedkitchen.com/?p=1197 with a few changes. I added powdered wasabi to the flour the scallops were dredged in and used minced garlic instead of shalots. Oh man was this delicious! We ate it with a side of braised chard and beet greens with gems of roasted beets.Technically I just began a raw foods cleansing diet, but sometimes you’ve just got to have a dinner party and get all your pans dirty and use up all your butter. Fortunately for me, today is a new day.