Plant more plants

Last night, I finished reading an excellent book that my friend Amanda recently gave me about women's sexuality. While the focus of Come as you Are is on cultivating a sex-positive attitude amid a sex-negative culture, the parts that resonated so deeply with me were the sections on letting go, on allowing oneself to do what author Emily Nagoski calls "completing the cycle" of painful feelings -- be the feeling fear, grief, or anger, it needs to be recognized and expressed. Crying. Yelling. Exercising. Sharing a bottle of wine with a friend and talking til three in the morning. There are many ways to process painful emotions, and sometimes the process takes a while. Often the processing itself feels painful and endless, but it has to happen if we are to move on. (Yes, this is a blog about gardening and cooking and sustainability and not particularly about sex beyond the occasional reference to the literal birds and bees. Stay with me here....)

This morning, I attended a memorial herb garden dedication for my friend Tricia at Common Good City Farm. I've been mourning my friend's absence over the past two and a half years, grappling to make sense of a senseless murder and struggling to find a way to move on. Her memory, and my sadness, have caught me off guard more than a few times, and I've found myself suddenly misty-eyed while biking around her old neighborhood or meditating during a yoga class or just mixing up a cocktail in my apartment. Apparently I'm still processing. Making bitters, hosting clothing swaps, gardening, joining an herbal CSA to learn more about medicinal herbs -- all of these have been attempts to continue the joy and learning that my yoga teacher and go-to herbalist Tricia inspired over the course of our years of friendship.

It was only today that I finally felt the beginning of real healing around the raw place in my heart, when others shared stories about her exuberance and welcoming spirit and passion for the earth and growing things and building community. When we wrote messages on ribbons and tied them to the fence -- akin to Tibetan prayer flags -- behind the Tricia McCauley Memorial Herb Garden. When we took home smooth stones with Tricia quotes and medicinal herb seedlings to plant in our own gardens. When we honored her legacy by continuing to connect with and educate and look out for each other. I myself picked up some chamomile and holy basil plants for my school garden's herb bed, and mentioned to a few gardening newbies asking about what to grow that holy basil is especially good for calming and quieting the mind -- it's a nervine and an adaptogen, which I learned from my more recent herbal guru, Holly. Everyone left with at least one herb to grow at home or in a community plot. Because if there was one quote we could all agree on that encapsulated our dear Tricia, it was "Plant More Plants!" It's the best way to heal ourselves, each other, and the planet.

The bitter truth

A few weekends ago, I signed up for my first medicinal herb class. Well, sort of. I mean, it did involve quite a lot of information about medicinal tinctures, but it also involved cocktails. One of my favorite people -- my yoga teacher, Tricia, who turns out to be an amazing herbalist -- was offering a class on making bitters at a nearby urban farm. It would be a chance to learn about the basic components, philosophy, and healing properties of bitters. Best of all, participants would have a chance to make our own batch of bitters to take home and age for a couple of weeks.

I learned, for example, that the whole point of bitters, medicinally speaking, is to aid with digestion. Not that I ever need an appetite stimulant -- for heaven's sake, a grumbling tummy is what gets me out of bed in the morning -- but if I did ever feel blase about food, I learned I'd just need to put a drop or two of bitters on my tongue and I'd be ready to eat. Or of course, I could mix it up in an aperetif, or a digestif. (And here I thought the French were just looking for ways to booze it up before and after dîner.)

I learned that there are three main categories of bitters: pure bitters (that are particularly good for digestive help, and are considered to have "cooling" properties), aromatic bitters (more gentle bitters associated with "warming"), and caminatives (the mildest category of the three, and the one that modern cocktail aficionados seem to gravitate towards). I love learning.

We learned about teas (boiling water + bittering agents) vs. tinctures (alcohol + bittering agents), and their approximate concentrations. We also got a primer on the most bitter of the bitters, made from something called gentian root -- which I thought sounded vaguely south Asian, but actually this root that takes around 7 years of growth before harvesting comes from the highlands of central Europe. We had a chance to taste sips of each different type of bitters, from dandelion root and orange peel teas to orange peel, gentian, and calamus tinctures. Wooh! I am disinclined to touch straight gentian tincture to my tongue again, though it would be good for April Fool's Day pranks or a double dog dare some day. Finally, we made our gentian tincture, which I later found out is the main ingredient in angostura bitters...which is conveniently a key ingredient in a rather famous cocktail. Maybe you've heard of an Old Fashioned?

After our discussion and tincture-making session at Common Good City Farm, it was time to walk to nearby El Camino, where Mick let us get up close and personal with many of the locally made bitters he uses in his expertly crafted cocktails. We sniffed lavender bitters, orange bitters, cardamom bitters, and more. Needless to say, 3 cocktails later, I was hooked. (I was also ready for a nap. I'm getting too old for day drinking....)

Though I am hardly an accomplished mixologist, I do like to add my own twist to things. In this case, it was actually my mom who suggested the modification to the classic Old Fashioned as I mixed up a set of trial cocktails for her and dad and I when they came over for dinner last night. Here, I offer you one of my new favorite cocktails:

The New Fashioned

Ingredients

• 1 sugar cube
• 3-4 drops homemade gentian root tincture*
• 1 tsp water
• ice cubes
• 1 shot bourbon
• 2 shots chilled tonic water
• 1 maraschino cherry, plus a splash of its juice -- optional

Directions

Put a sugar cube in a sturdy tumbler, then squirt a few drops of your fancy homemade gentian root tincture onto it.

Sprinkle water over the cube, then use a spoon or pestle to muddle the cube at the bottom of the glass.

Toss in a handful of ice cubes, then add the remaining ingredients. Stir well. Enjoy!


*To make your own gentian tincture: Combine 1 part dried gentian root to 4 parts Everclear, age it for at least 2 weeks, then strain it. Kept sealed in a cool, dark place, your tincture will last for years. And trust me, you don't need to make much. I think the 25g gentian root + 100mL grain alcohol will last me a long, long time. Even with regular consumption of New Fashioneds.

Support DC's urban growers!

Hello, dear readers. I'm writing to you today with a call for help on behalf of my urban farming and community gardening friends here in the District. The Field to Fork Network is trying to raise some funds to get a collaborative market stand up and running this growing season. The goal: promoting healthy eating and community engagement at a number of markets around the city. (It's a project after my own heart, to be sure.) A number of groups we visited along the DC urban farms bike tour are involved, and a few that were not able to be included this time around. (As it was we had five stops!) Some of my favorites from around the city, many of whom have been working on food access and education for years, are coming together to make this project happen: the Neighborhood Farm Initiative, Beet Street, Washington Youth Garden, City Blossoms, Bread for the City.

Yes, it's a Kickstarter campaign... something with which I am intimately familiar. In this case, the funds will kickstart the project with funds to purchase needed supplies and materials, which will in turn allow the Field to Fork urban food educators and growers to operate small market booths. It also includes a modest stipend to fund a market coordinator to keep all of the necessary ducks in a row and get the systems in place for future -- hopefully expanded -- market seasons. They're looking to raise funds for the following, but if you (or someone you know) can donate any of these items, it'll help the group out immensely: tables, tents, scales, banners, chairs, calculators, camping stoves (probably my weathered beercan stove will not suffice, alas), cooking supplies. There's a bit set aside for educational materials and transportation as well, but $4,000 is a drop in the bucket when you consider all of the public good coming out of this. Actually, here's the video so you can see for yourself what they have in mind:



Now, people, they only have 30 hours left to raise the remaining $820 of their $4,000 goal to get things off the ground. Help an urban farmer out, eh?

If you plan it, they will come

I have to admit I got misty eyed a few times yesterday while leading the (rescheduled) DC urban farms bike tour. I think it really hit me when we arrived at the Washington Youth Garden, part of the National Arboretum, which was the second stop along the route to five urban food growing spaces around town. The near-tears state was no doubt partly due to the near loss of 15 cyclists en route -- a few folks had stopped to help a fellow biker change a flat and had only my less-than-stellar, turn-by-(mis)turn cue sheet to lead them to the next site -- and relief when they showed up about 20 minutes later. God bless smartphones. (Note to self: do not type up cue sheets after wine-filled dinner party the night before the bike tour. It was a lovely meal, even so, Sheffy.) However, I suspect that part of the emotion as I rolled onto the Arboretum grounds with 50-some cyclists in tow surely came from the realization that it was here, just over 2 years ago, that my friend Tom helped me practice shifting gears on my first real bicycle. I know! Ollie and I are all grown up and leading tours now. Well, one so far.

It was perhaps one of the most gorgeous days I can recall experiencing in the District: 78 and sunny with a light breeze. What perfect weather to introduce a whole new group of bicycling food lovers to some of the more amazing farms and community gardens around town. Things kicked off with seed packet spoke card making and a tour of the Neighborhood Farm Initiative's main garden in Fort Totten. Then the group proceeded to get an introduction to youth gardening and environmental programming at the aforementioned Washington Youth Garden (sweetened by some trail mix goodies, courtesy of a store credit from GLUT), a primer on composting and bee keeping at the Farm at Walker Jones (with fresh fruit and granola bars donated by Whole Foods), a look into intergenerational gardening and youth enterprise at City Blossoms' Marion Street garden (featuring lovely fresh herbal teas and lemonade for thirsty riders), and, only slightly behind schedule in spite of everything, an overview of permaculture, rain collection, and community programming at Common Good City Farm. The excitement and enthusiasm of farmers and cyclists was positively infectious, and I found myself grinning uncontrollably. Yes, even before a couple of beers at the closing happy hour at Big Bear Cafe. (Love that place.)

As things wound down, one person after another came up to thank me for organizing things and ask me when the next ride would be. Well, avid cyclists, future urban farming volunteers, and potential supporters, I hope this is the beginning of a tradition of local food-focused bicycle adventures around my favorite city. We shall see. (I will be sure to get a second opinion -- and a little less wine in me -- before printing out the cue sheet for round two.)

Thank you to The Greenhorns for providing the impetus for this bike tour, to the nearly 60 cyclists who attended the event, to the organizations that donated snacks. But most of all, thank you to my urban farming friends who are teaching us how to grow food, build community, and live more sustainably in the nation's capital.

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May 21: Join the (rescheduled) DC Urban Farm Bike Tour

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After many, many requests from urban farmers, cyclists, and food activists for information on a rescheduled DC Urban Farms Bike Tour, I am elated to let you all know that you can break out your bikes (and helmets, ahem) in less than two weeks. And there are two exciting new additions to the tour, bringing us up to five -- yes, five -- stops around the District. It's going to be GREAT!

Here's the schedule:

9:00am: Pray for sunshine....

1:00-1:45: Neighborhood Farm Initiative site
100 Gallatin Street, NE (near Fort Totten metro station)

1:45-2:30: Biking: head toward Washington Youth Garden

2:30-3:15: Washington Youth Garden
The National Arboretum, R Street entrance (near 24th Street, NE)

3:15-3:45: Biking: head to The Farm at Walker Jones

3:45-4:15: Walker Jones (w/ Vinnie Bevivino of Seed & Cycle)
New Jersey & K Streets, NW

4:15-4:30: Biking: head to City Blossoms' Marion Street intergenerational garden

4:30-5:00: Marion Street garden
1517 Marion Street, NW (Shaw neighborhood)

5:00-5:15: Biking: head to Common Good City Farm

5:15-5:45: Common Good
V Street, between 2nd and 4th Streets, NW (Ledroit Park)

5:45-6:00: Biking: head to Big Bear Cafe for happy hour

6:00-8:00: Happy hour
(featuring Arcadia's Farmer Mo with a word on the Greenhorns MidAtlantic chapter)
1700 1st Street, NW

The sites will all have water, so bring your water bottles. I'm working on getting some snacks, but I'd advise those of you with similarly ravenous appetites to bring a little something to nibble on. And don't forget your helmet and a sturdy bike lock.

Please RSVP to me (ibberoo2@gmail.com) so the farmers know how many to expect for workshops (and I know for snacks). See you at 1pm on Saturday, May 21!

Lactobacillus: your friend and mine

So apparently one can ferment just about anything. In fact, experimentation was encouraged by the fermentation workshop leaders at Common Good City Farm last week and in the book they so often cited, Sandor Katz's "Wild Fermentation" (which is now officially on the ibti wishlist).

Fermentation's easy. Basically, you just stick some veggies and whatever spices you want in a jar with salt water and let the naturally occurring lactobacillus on the surface of the produce do its thing. Salt keeps other kinds of bacteria from growing, and water on top keeps mold from forming below the surface. (I do believe I've talked about mold a bit already.....) Stay away from metal or plastic equipment -- so, in other words, stick to glass and enamel storage vessels (and wooden mashing implements if you're making sauerkraut or kimchi) -- and you're good.

So when I found myself with a pile of beet greens -- left over from five bunches of beets that Mike and Boris and I'd pickled and canned a few days prior -- and a bag of fresh cucumbers from my friend Liz over at the Ft. Totten garden, I got myself some jars and heavy flower vases and got cracking.

One can make kimchi from cabbage, so why not beet greens? (Also, I had to figure out what to do with the pile of greens before leaving for Chicago, and with no basil around and a shortage of walnuts, pesto was right out.) Into my sadly underutilized flower vase went some minced ginger and garlic, a few chopped scallions, and the chopped up greens from about 10 or 12 beets, some salt, a hot chili pepper from cousin Caroline (which reminds me: I need to do a little write-up on the Labor Day weekend trip to visit my dear cousin and help out at the Poconos garlic festival), and lots of sea salt. About 10 minutes of mashing with a wooden spoon and viola: Beet green kimchi! (Isn't it beautiful? I almost want to keep it out on the dinner table to impress friends and loved ones with my eye-pleasing culinary prowess.)

Phase 2 resulted in three jars of fermented cucumbers, featuring garlic (of course), scallions, whole peppercorns, salt water (roughly 1 tablespoon per 2 cups), dried dill weed (still unsuccessfully trying to locate dill *seed*), and some fresh parsley I was also needing to use up.

The key to crunchy pickles, I'd heard, was including a few leaves containing tannins. Yep, like the stuff in red wine. The best things to use are apparently grape leaves, but after a jaunt around Columbia Heights with Ollie, scouring my neighbors' yards for any sign of a grapevine, I returned home defeated. Actually, cherry, horseradish, oak, or currant leaves would also work, but I didn't read this until I got back with a handful of what I thought were perhaps some form of maple leaf and which I thought looked innocuous but potentially tannin laden. Don't worry, in the end I was too scared of accidentally poisoning someone to integrate them into the pickle mix. In fact, I discovered a grapevine in my friend Alicia's yard later that evening during a garden consultation and made my way giddily home with a mittful of leaves to crisp up my pickles.

My fermenting beet greens and cucumbers only had a day on the counter before they were tossed in the fridge yesterday morning -- I had to leave for a friend's wedding in Chicago this weekend (and, no, I didn't bike here this time, sadly) -- but I'm looking forward to some taste testing when I get back in about a week and a half. After a little detour to check out the burgeoning urban food scene in Detroit.

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Aw, just scrape the mold off, it'll be fine

I admit that I have myself uttered these very words (to myself, under my breath), usually in relation to a nice cheese that I'd lost track of in the fridge that I couldn't bear to throw out or, depending on how flat broke I was, stale bread that I would run under some water and then toast. (Now I just stick the hunk of stale bread at the bottom of a bowl of hot soup and pretend I'm French. Scraping any mold off first, of course. I mean, I have some standards.) The mold scraping is something I would only do in the privacy -- okay, the secrecy -- of my own kitchen, as mold on things is generally frowned upon and not something to admit to in public. (I would never serve mold-scraped food items to others, mind you.) But last week I attended my first workshop on fermenting foods at Common Good City Farm and wouldn't you know it, mold scraping one's food came up. Turns out it's nothing to be embarrassed about. (Whew!)

Now, in the case of homebrewing -- which I hope to undertake as soon as I get my hands on the remaining materials -- mold getting into things is cause for concern. But for fermented fruits and veggies, it seems, mold growth is quite common, especially in warmer temperatures, and its presence is no big deal. The key to mold prevention is to keep the fermenting produce under a layer of liquid -- usually brine (aka saltwater) -- "But if mold appears on the surface," our workshop leader, Bradley, smiled, "simply scrape it off and dig in. Everything's fine." Yep, skim off the mold and keep eating. Sounds kind of, I dunno, contrary to our modern, shiny, germaphobe culture. But who am I to judge? (The Ledroit Park folks likely already have us pegged as a bunch of dirt-loving, food-obsessed, activist hippies, which is not entirely off the mark.)

Bradley, and her capable co-leader, Dave, talked a group of us through the basics of fermentation: ingredients (produce + salt + water), equipment (glass or ceramic vase/jar + mashing implement), techniques (mashing + submerging + covering), things to watch out for (smells like dead rodent; otherwise ok). Then, after having us taste and discern between canned vs. fermented pickles, the pair demonstrated the process of making cucumber pickles and kimchi. The workshop concluded with the fermentation newbies making our own little take-home batches of kimchi using chinese cabbage, scallions, chili pepper, and minced garlic and ginger. And lots of salt and elbow grease. Mash, mash, mash, add salt, mash, add salt, mash.... If you mashed hard enough, and the produce was fresh enough, you wouldn't even need to add water. (Sounds like good stress relief to me!)

Ollie and I brought our first fermented food back to the apartment and I checked my little jar on the counter regularly for the next two days. (I think the worms were glad to be out of the spotlight for a couple of days, frankly.) When Mike and I tried the inaugural kimchi as part of yet another eclectic what's-in-ibti's-fridge dinner we agreed that it was pretty good. Hooray!

With this early success, you'd better believe I promptly got things together for my own lactobacillus experiments. Stay tuned for part two of fermentation madness....

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Uncommonly good

Since my return to DC a couple of weeks ago I've been visiting quite a number of farmers' markets (and have a ridiculous amount of fresh produce and local dairy to prove it: thus piles of chocolate zucchini muffins, dozens of carrot oatmeal cookies, and veggie stirfries galore). I've also been volunteering at a number of urban gardens in the greater Washington area, from Fort Totten to Girard Street, and had the good fortune to help out at the District's only urban farm last weekend. Yes, we only have one.

Why is it that DC is behind the curve on local food? I mean, for heaven's sake, we're the nation's capital, we should be setting an example! I don't mean to sound competitive -- I'm not competitive by nature, except perhaps when playing Pictionary -- but we're being left in the dust by places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Oakland, and Chicago when it comes to local food production, food justice, and education. Urban agriculture here has only recently had visible and vocal champions, most notably in the form of Michelle Obama. Her organic garden (I am still scheming to figure out a way in there -- maybe if I offer to help with composting or chaperone a visiting school group) and various related programs are gaining national attention. (I am as enamored as much with the "Chefs Move to Schools" cafeteria reform as the "Let's Move" diet-and-exercise initiative. Hmmm, I wonder if they're hiring....) We also have some help from the USDA, thanks to Ag Secretary Vilsack's "People's Garden" and Kathleen Merrigan's "Know your farmer, know your food" work. Things are just getting started up here at the country's political center, but we're still nibbling on the amuse bouche of the larger, local food movement.

It's not like people were unaware of the need for fresh, healthy, local food grown in these parts before last year. But the folks who started The 7th Street Garden back in 2007 were the first to *do* something about it. When the garden outgrew its original lot on 7th Street, it was the Ledroit Park community that reached out to the brilliant (yet notoriously elusive) Liz Falk for her help moving the city's only urban farm to their neighborhood. In addition to growing food in the veritable food desert and offering work-share arrangements for residents, the farm conducts regular, low-cost workshops and welcomes youth groups for garden-centered lessons that tie DC standards-based learning together with outdoor, hands-on experiences. Pretty sweet.

Now I must admit that Common Good's volunteer program seems a bit rigid, with a waiting list for mandatory orientation sessions offered once monthly and online registration required for helping out at the limited times the green space is open. Yes, even in this sweltering heat one must sign up to haul manure. I believe this is due to a combination of quite a small staff (almost all working on a volunteer basis on evenings and weekends) and quite a large number of interested volunteers. (Seems like a pretty clear indication that more land and funding should be devoted to bolster Common Good and start up other urban farms in DC, but what do I know?) Luckily I came to help out last Saturday via DC Food For All, circumventing the usual volunteer wait time, and had an opportunity to help with weeding and mulching while chatting with other volunteers and staff about food issues and community building in the city.

I learned, for example, about the Green Tomorrows program that encourages residents of the low-income Ledroit Park neighborhood to help out at the farm for a couple of hours each week during the growing season in exchange for a bag of freshly harvested food. A work-share of sorts, with an emphasis on knowledge sharing and empowerment of the local community. Sounds like my kind of program. (I may not be on the road any more, but I am still a huge proponent of the barter system. Let there be no mistake: I will work for fresh food and gardening supplies and a chance to pick the brains of experienced farmers.) Participation in the program nearly doubled since the previous year, Chris (one of the farm's education coordinators) told me during the post-workday potluck, with around 15 neighborhood families participating in the program. Slowly, slowly, the community is steadily getting involved.

Makes one wonder why the farm, going into the final year of its initial 3-year-lease, is in danger of closing. Yep. A local politician is once again stalling the development of a public park on the adjoining property, threatening the continued existence of this model program. Once I have details on what's going on with the lease, and how we DCists can help advocate for the continuation of our only urban farm, I'll post them here. Stay tuned!

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