Getting on the wagon

I woke up Saturday morning raring to go after a night's rest in an unbelievably comfy bed. Luckily, Linda had planned a hike with a few friends up Turner Mountain so I had a chance to move around a bit and get the blood flowing while the ladies caught me up on the past few weeks of national and international news. Afterwards, we stopped by the bustling but decidedly not organic Four Corners farmstand down the road and I picked up a gigantic onion that I needed for the evening's meal prep -- an eggplant and tomato ragout over polenta. We made our way back to the house in West Newbury, VT and I got to work baking a chocolate torte for dessert. (The word on the street was that Linda is a bit of a chocoholic. The rumors are true.) While it was cooking, Stan and I wandered out into the yard in search of berries. It was still too early for blackberries, but we managed a few handfuls of raspberries. Sweet.

A bit later, Stan read me a blurb from a copy of the "Valley Food and Farm Guide" he had picked up in anticipation of my visit to the area. We hopped in the car (sorry Ollie, but at least it's a hybrid) and headed over to Crashed Wagon Farm to see if the write-up was too good to be true: a small, new CSA devoted to soil health, environmental stewardship, organic practices, and heirloom varieties. I was greeted in the field by Eileen, the co-manager of the operation, who cheerfully answered the plethora of questions I lobbed her way as we weeded a row of beets. She introduced me to the other manager, Nicholas, and a few of their friends who had come to help out, and gave me a pretty comprehensive tour of the farm. I could tell from the practices she described and the way she meticulously described each -- varied cover cropping, minimal spraying (of even organic sprays), a general distaste for black plastic, the pride in open-pollinating vegetable varieties and seed saving -- that she and her partner were committed to the land and preserving its diversity while supplying their local community with fresh, healthy food.

A word on black plastic: I don't understand why it is ubiquitous on organic farms. Using giant rolls of non-biodegradable and rarely reusable plastic seems antithetical to the spirit of sustainable farming. After doing quite a bit of hand weeding these past months -- far, far less than folks who farm day in and day out, I'll admit, but still a heck of a lot more than your average city slicker -- I can understand the desire to curb weed growth by any non-chemical means possible. (Back at Maggie's Organic farm, I recall the guys joking about their hands cramping into "asparagus claws" from the constant weeding of the asparagus patch.) Mulching with straw is preferable, most organic farmers agree, as it not only stifles weed growth but also slowly breaks down to further enrich the soil. (Newspaper -- with soy-based ink, which includes most of our nation's larger publications -- works well, too, I recalled from my work at the Master Peace Garden.) Straw is also, however, much more labor intensive to put down and harder to get enough of locally than black plastic. Hmmm. I am hardly in a position to wag a finger at the hard-working farmers who are devoting their lives and energy to growing our food as sustainably as they are able for using plastic to protect their tomato and pepper plants from an onslaught of weeds. But I do have a nagging feeling creep up whenever I come across the giant plastic ground covers, and I have noticed them often along my journey thus far.

Emboldened by her openness to my other queries, I asked Eileen about this issue, as I noted a couple rows of squash lined with plastic sheets. She explained that the plastic really does cut down on weeding significantly and there are some plants not damaged by the increased heat and moisture levels that the black plastic invariably creates. She loathed using the stuff, she admitted, and told me that the little bit of plastic that Crashed Wagon uses is all recycled -- from the plastic that construction companies use to wrap around drywall (I'd only seen the white side, who knew the other side was black?) to some gardening screen cloth that had been donated -- and reused whenever possible. Eileen seemed genuinely agitated by the thought of the hundreds of tons of black plastic that must wind up in landfills each year as a result of the collective farms' use of the weed suppressant. Using what you have and being thoughtful about it seems to be the mantra of the farm and small (15-share) CSA, run solely by Nicholas and Eileen, with the generosity of their landlords and the help of their friends. If they recycle a little bit of plastic to manage the weeds on a few rows, I'm at peace with that.

Stan swung back by the farm to pick me up and I left feeling hopeful that Crashed Wagon, which means to some day be able to support itself solely as a financially sustainable CSA, and other farms like it grow and spread across the country. These are the sorts of farmers we need to support: thoughtful, generous, local.


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Sing to your supper

The other day, Phyllis and I found ourselves once again engaged in one of our all-over-the-map discussions about food. One issue that we talked about was what it means to be an omnivore, a conscientious meat eater. As I describe myself as something of a foodie, an omnivore with vegetarian leanings, I recognize that were I to actually have to butcher my own meat, I would return to my erstwhile vegetarian days in short order (sorry, dad). I have been making a real effort to buy and prepare humanely raised and slaughtered meat from local sellers. It's expensive, so I don't eat much, but I do eat it. I tend to subscribe to the belief that animals, if given a life of animal joy -- a chicken with lots of lush grass to strut around and bugs to peck at, sheep with hills to roam and clear streams to drink from, deer with forest to traverse and time to raise fawns -- and a dignified death, are okay to eat.

One point that Phyllis brought up that keeps turning in my mind is the idea that all life has value, be it plant or animal, and that animals raised in a happier environment are not only healthier for us, nutritionally speaking (less fatty, less likely to get sick and need medicine or hormones to survive), but they have a different energy that is passed along to us when we consume them. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed, right? I think of life energy along similar lines, but more... karmic.

Now, I'm not getting all New Agey here. In fact, most of the "life force" stuff I have stumbled across is too out there or flaky sounding for me to incorporate into my worldview. (Perhaps it's my literary critical nature: "The Celestine Prophecy" was the first work I had come across which dealt with these issues, but even reading it in high school I felt it was too poorly written for me to buy into some of the ideas; "What the Bleep?!" on the other hand, I saw more recently, and it got me thinking a bit, but again some of the attempts at a dramatic presentation were a bit ham-handed.) Nonetheless, the idea that the energy of formerly living things that we consume is transferred to us makes sense. Life is comprised of more than molecules and electrical currents. Is it so strange to think that food is, too? Years from now, I would not be surprised if science bears this out. (In the meantime, it can't hurt to continue singing to your plants. You never know.) ;)

Certifiable

I've been reading about some of the complications surrounding what it means for food to be certified as organic. Now, with produce, to be "certified organic" seems to mean that no synthetic pesticides or genetically-modified seeds have been used. There are also some guidelines addressing harvesting and packaging, but things get a little hazy when it comes to what counts as natural preservatives (or whatever the heck "food stabilizers" are). There have been lots of studies to support the environmental benefits of organic farming methods, as well as strong evidence for the nutritional superiority of food raised this way. I'm still reading up on a lot of this and trying to engage folks in conversation to better my understanding of why organic is better than conventional. Some farmers feel that our government's rather recent acknowledgment and standards pertaining to organic certification go against the spirit of what organic production means. Terms like "agribusiness" and "mega-organics" are bandied about by some of the more vocal critics of large-scale organically-certified operations. Isn't a large, organic operation better than a large conventional one? I suspect it is. I don't think, however, that "organic" necessarily trumps "local."

I'm not just talking about supporting your local food economy by keeping your dollars in the area, or the carbon footprint bit -- all of the fossil fuels used to process and transport produce from large-scale, so-called "industrial organic" operations -- that might recommend more local food acquisition, though both are very valid reasons. I mean that when you are presented with organically grown stuff from somewhere far away, it may not be in line with the kind of practices you want to support: wasteful growing, harvesting, and packaging. Take Trader Joe's, for example. I love -- love! -- their stuff, and much of it is organic, even free trade, but it is shipped in from all over the place (and "organic" -- never mind "sustainably grown" -- in one country more than likely means something different in another) and there is the issue of packaging. Oh, the packaging! I shudder at the image of the tons of saran wrap and styrofoam they contribute to landfills each year. (Then again, if TJ's didn't shrink wrap everything, the dumpster diving culture would probably wither and die of malnutrition.) I try to stick to farmers markets and food co-ops as much as possible, as they tend toward high quality, seasonal stuff without all of the packaging, and the pricing is comparable. (I do make the occasional stop into TJ's -- but not for produce, if I can at all avoid it. Nobody's perfect, certainly not me. Hey, even Michael Pollan buys Fruity Pebbles sometimes....)

More to the point, though, is the sketchiness surrounding what it means for meat (and animal products such as milk or eggs) to be "certified organic." It apparently *doesn't* mean that animals are raised or slaughtered humanely. It doesn't mean they're any less crowded or stressed than their conventionally-raised counterparts. What it means is that they are fed organically-grown corn and are not pumped up with hormones. This is a good start, but it's not good enough. What's better? Talking to the farmer or rancher directly, asking questions about their practices. If you can, visit the farms, see how the animals live. Do they have a place to roam, walk in the grass, feel the sun on their faces? This -- a happy animal life and a humane death -- is the best a meat eater can hope for in her food. I am grappling with issues related to eating meat again these days, so I suspect there will be future posts as I try to flesh things out. (Oy.)

A little culture

So I spent yesterday morning harvesting and packing greens and herbs for today's deliveries. Kale, collard greens, chard, 6 different kinds of lettuce (including one related to the Chrysanthemum which tasted mildly like parsley and had me daydreaming about tabbouleh for the last hour before lunchtime), oregano, sage, and thyme. There were also some beets and asparagus that were too small for shipping so we divvied them up among ourselves. Yum.

As we worked, I had the opportunity to get to know some of the full-time folks at Maggie's: Phyllis, Eric, and JJ. (Cliff was on mowing duty for pretty much the whole day, so only a few jokes and sarcastic comments back and forth there.) Inevitably, the conversation turned to food. Sure, I can talk about all kinds of other things -- books, music, art, film, the need for universal health care coverage, the decline of the public education system in our country, the evil powers responsible for the inane Washington Sports Clubs' member cancellation policy (and how a lack of a forwarding address should not bring the system to a screeching halt) -- but food is my favorite. And as we worked in the cooler for hours with gorgeous, newly-harvested produce, I began to brainstorm. Arugula pesto. Sauteed chard with garlic and nutmeg. Roasted asparagus with mint and lemon juice. Baby beet salad with mustard vinaigrette.

[Writing intermission: snack break.]

Clouds lingered after lunch and the weather seemed iffy, so I worked with Phyllis for a few hours on the "Defragging Phyllis' Brain" project -- essentially, it was a download of a lot of information from the farm manager's brain onto a working spreadsheet to map out weekly, monthly, and seasonal plans for the farm. Again, during lulls in the work, food occupied the majority of the conversation, so once we got to what we deemed an appropriate stopping point for the day, Phyllis let me into her kitchen and I fiddled with some of the miscellaneous organic ingredients in her refrigerator and some herbs I'd snipped from around the farm. I'd cut some fresh lettuce in the greenhouse and we proceeded to enjoy an herbal salad dressing sampling for the prototypes I was working on, each one featuring a seasonal herb: oregano, chives, sage, and thyme.



It seems both Phyllis and I liked the thyme one best, which had fresh orange juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and mustard; I seem to have overdone it on the chili powder in the chive vinaigrette; the other two were fine, but nothing too crazy. As we nibbled, Phyllis told me of a gentleman in town with 6 Jersey cows who sells raw milk. I think I may have been out the door and let myself into her car and had my seatbelt on before she finished that sentence, but I can't be sure. Raw milk! We picked up a gallon, stopped for a few dozens free range eggs from another neighbor, and headed directly back to the farm....

I am perhaps a little overzealous about my affinity for fresh, plain yoghurt. It's hard to find these days outside of farmers markets. (I wouldn't characterize my frequenting of the 3 dairy suppliers at the Dupont Farmers Market as "stalking" per se, but I would get a little panicky when the supply of plain yoghurt ran low as I tried to wait patiently in line.) Phyllis pulled out her recipe and we got to work. The next morning, it was ready... and ridiculously delicious. We devoured about half the quart between us, garnished with raspberries frozen from last summer. And it was so easy!



If you want to make it yourself, here's the recipe:
- Heat 1 quart of raw milk (or store-bought milk is fine, too) in a saucepan to 180 degrees.
- Remove from stove top and cool milk to 116 degrees.
- Stir in 2 tablespoons of plain yoghurt culture. (This can be the last 2 TBSP of previous yoghurt batch or simply 2 TBSP of store-bought, plain yoghurt, preferably organic)
- Pour into a glass container and cover. (We covered a large glass jar with some tin foil.)
- Store at 116 degrees for 6 hours or overnight. (We wrapped the covered jar in a small towel, then a wool blanket, and placed it on a wooden cutting board set atop a small, metal space heater set on low overnight.)
- Chill for an hour or two. (This may apply to you, but certainly applies to the yoghurt.)

Soooo delicious.... and easy. I'll bet it would be a blast to make with kids. But then you'd probably have to set a good example and share some of it. Hmmm.... maybe make two batches.