pizza and pigs

yesterday jana and i enjoyed one of the wonderful, wood fired pizza's from Inn at Ship Bay. we had it topped with italian salami and some of the nettle that we had picked earlier was placed under the cheese. we had beers and sat at a very nicely finished picnic table with some friendly locals and their crazy kids.
my brother learner was the lead hired for the construction of their mobile cob oven! when i saw them at the farmer's market last year i resisted their tantalizing pizza because it is made with white flour, and i try to eat only fresh-ground, whole grain flour products (mostly sourdough bread and porridge). but i do occasionally make exceptions and this was a good occasion to do so. the weather was fair and we were on the way home from a strenuous hike up Turtle Back Mountain. i rarely eat out and wanted to share this special treat with jana, my guest from chicago. we even had some marionberry cobbler. i was relieved when i heard that annie, the chef, uses lard in her baking.
pigs are raised at the inn and annie took us and the friendly locals to see them after dinner. they are Mangalitsa pigs, a wooly variety. a bit of nearby foliage, elderberry i think, that i tossed to them was eaten very slowly. i didn't know before that this inn was such a radical place!

peruvian purple potatoes

these are the biggest peruvian purple potatoes i or my brother learner have ever seen(i placed a canadian quarter for comparison). they came out of a bed of jerusalem artichoke i'd planted at Wild's Edge last spring, in which these spuds had been grown previously. i didn't think i'd have the pleasure of digging them, but they were left in the ground all winter, and i dug them when i was there for those few weeks after getting back from Chicago. doing this part of the work of growing root vegetables such as these is like digging for buried treasure. i found it very satisfying. the j-ru didn't produce as much as they may have if the goats had not eaten all their foliage at the peak of the summer.

'j-ru' for short

march 22nd meals

-porridge with wood stove baked yam and two fried eggs for brunch (at noon!)
-banana/chocolate/butter/peanut butter heated in a cast iron pan for my afternoon snack
-leftover stirfry (broccoli, onion, parsnip, yam, shitake mushroom) over red quinoa plus nettles (fresh-picked nearby) cooked in coconut oil with garlic, ginger, and caraway seed plus marinated (in coconut vinegar, garlic, ginger, sea salt, hot sauce), raw fish (snapper?) for dinner. shared with my new housemate.

bread not beard

i've been making a lot of sourdough bread at wild's edge and also have participated in making a batch every time i stay the night at my other brother's house near town. the last batch i baked between 5 and 6am. it rises too fast to make loaves at night. i prefer to start the 'sponge' before bed and then make the loaves to rise during the day. then i can keep an eye on them and put them in the oven at the peak rise.

since i got back i've made some loaves with orange and lemon zest. it adds a nice dimension that many have said they enjoy. i like it for sure. it is said to be especially complementary in rye breads.

need more stomachs

to my great pleasure, at wild's edge we have been sharing meals since i got back and this new couple, gavin and megan, moved into the smaller cabin. on the first night we shared dinner gavin had this complement for the meal:

'this is the kind of meal i just wish i had some extra stomachs so i could just eat all night.'

the blessed meal included:

leftover soup (by gavin + megan), tart vegetable/bean made with beef stock,
raw chooped liver optional
mashed potatoes (davis), with mushroom/oregano gravy of a lard base
squash/onion/mushroom (davis), sauteed in coconut oil w/ rosemary, lemon zest, +
toasted sourdough wheat/rye bread (collab) and kalamata olive/garlic bread (gavin +megan)
with yogurt cheese (davis) italian herb, made in chicago
local lamb liver (megan +learner) breaded with garlic and onion
dried bull whip kelp
red wine

eating old man's beard

on sunday i worked on for a guy clearing some alder branches from trees he had felled. these trees are in a damp area and many branches were covered in these hanging lichen called usnea. i was impressed with by the abundance, and remembered the goats i help care for eating some on a walk the other day.
when my workmates went off to pick something up and have some lunch in town, i stayed behind. after a while i noticed i had left my bag, with my lunch in it, IN THE CAR! i knew i would be getting hungry before they got back, but what could i do? well, i ended up eating some usnea to stave off the pains of hunger. it is very rubbery at first and then yields nicely with continued chewing. the flavors are released and there is a distinct sour (VIT C) present. the slight irritation in my throat was not enough to deter me. i found this a satisfying food to eat in small amounts.

3am Chili

Trying to stay consistent with cooking healthy meals at home is difficult now that Davis has returned to Orcas Island. I find myself struggling to fit in soup making and bread making with my work, social, and sleep schedule. But, with the right timing, things are starting to work out!

For example, yesterday I knew I had to make this lamb chili, and I had to do it that night. The beans had been soaking for 24 hours and the lamb sausage had defrosted in the fridge... everything was go. I went out for a drink with a friend around 8pm but ended up having such a good time talking, I didn't get home until 3 am. But, I had to make that chili. I was determined. So i chopped up everything, and set all of the ingredients to simmer, and went to bed. In the morning I woke up to an amazing aroma coming from my kitchen... now I have lunch for the rest of the week!

Bread has been working similarly... with the right timing, I can wake up early to bake a batch of bread before I have to leave for work.

It was much easier when I had a team-mate around to share cooking and cleaning duties!

classic pie crust

for on 9" pie crust:
1 cup freshly ground WW flour (or experiment with other grains)
1 stick of unsalted butter (or equivalent)
pinch of sea salt
cold water as needed
extra flour for rolling dough out


make sure the butter is nice and cold. straight out of the freezer is best. having the flour and bowl chilled as well helps, and working in a cooler place. this helps the butter pieces stay separate, which leads to a flakier crust.
as the grated (or sliced) fat is added it must be stirred with the flour to keep it from sticking together.









when all the fat has been added, begin to work in cold water by the teaspoon until the dough will form into a ball when squeezed. if it is sticky you have added too much water. work the dough as little as possible. overworking can melt the fat and then you won't get a flaky crust.
press ball of dough onto floured surface. cracks are sure to form on the edges. practice rolling the dough in a way that reduces cracking. it takes a certain technique that is hard to describe. i roll the cracks together at the edges rather than always rolling straight out from the center, which seems to spread the cracks.

be careful to keep the dough from sticking to the surface! turn it a couple times early on and then less after an outer layer of flour has covered the dough. carefully use a spatula or other scraping tool if it gets stuck.
slide the flattened dough into the pie pan carefully. this pat also takes some practice. then you can do what you want with any finishing touches. if you want a pie top just do a double batch of dough. some folks say lard makes the best pie crust. i'll have to try that next time!

compost drop

this morning, on my last day here in chicago, jana and i rode over to the home of a fellow Dill Pickle Co-op member who was willing to accept our compost in his rotating bin. he also has a couple large wormbins. jana and i found one urban farm that was willing to take out compost too, but it was farther away. other folks we contacted were either not allowed to accept compost because of regulations or they did not have capacity. we were able to save up all the compost in plastic bags on the back porch since it was freezing for most of the time. there were no problems with animals or smell. our contribution topped off the rotating bin and as the weather heats up it will become hot and digest all that valuable organic material!

quiche of note

i was tying to figure out something to do with some vegetables that needed to be used... and the perfect thing came along.... a quiche!

maybe i made one of these before... but this felt like my first time. it was very exciting and i was concerned it wouldn't turn out right.
i referred to a kind of generic recipe online and adapted it. of course i improvised a lot as usual.
i made the crust in the way my mom taught her kids. it came out just big enough for the pan and i left the small overlap rough instead of making a pinched edge.


i sauteed the veggies: onion, parsnip, carrot, mushroom, green bell pepper, and celery. in lard.

a few cloves of the garlic, which i participated in growing on orcas island, and a little dried thyme were added.









the mixture of six large eggs, a cup of milk, smoked cheddar cheese, salt, and pepper was stirred in with the vegetables after they went in the crust. there was just enough room to share the pan with three delecatta squash. the only complaint i had was that i overdid it with the salt. i was very proud of the result overall.

jose the farmer

today in speaking with the landlord of jana's apartment building i found out that he grew up on a farm in mexico and wants to buy a farm here in the united states. but he says 'i got stuck'. the main reason he sees it as impossible is that his wife does not want the lifestyle of a farmer, or what she imagines it to be. jose really wants out of this whole mess though. i can really feel it in the way he speaks. he sees that there's something very wrong with the way we are doing things in this society.

he says if we would pay farmers more for their valuable product then things could change for the better. he spoke with a kind of resignation about the chemicals in most foods these days. he wonders what is in the food he is buying. that information is not always available. anyway i can see he has a deep sense of what good food can be, which comes no doubt from growing up on a farm with 'all kinds of animals'. i asked if there were pigs. 'many of them, yes'. he said they are really smelly but they never had a problem getting rid of them. he really lit up when he talked about the farm.

there is a pretty big back yard at this apartment. maybe he would be into starting an urban farm...

WAPF meeting

on tuesday, the 12th, i went to a meeting of the Westin A. Price Foundation's Chicago chapter. before i arrived here the chapter learder, Jill Eloise, had provided me with helpful information regarding nutritious and holistic food sources around Chicago. that's her job, among other things like coordinating these meetings.

there were many people there this time to catch the presentation from Green Pasture, a producer of high-quality nutrition products. some members of my family have been consuming cod liver oil and butter oil from them for over a year now. i have taken doses of cod liver oil occasionally and am interested in making it a regular thing for a while and observing the results. you can read about the purported benefits, supported by sound scientific research and historical evidence, at their website. the WAPF site also provides information on the benefits of traditional cod liver oil and high quality butter.

Dave Wetzel of Green Pasture provided us with an outline of the history of cod liver oil, along with the visual aid of slides. i found the slides of adds and packaging particularly interesting, and i know jana would have liked them for their design. he told us a bit about how the cod liver oil is fermented and the rigorous testing that is done to ensure the high quality product. the results of these tests were all shown in slides, though we skipped over many. lots of data. there was some discussion about the importance of certain nutritional elements in the product. all very informative.

i tried the samples of 'emulsified' cod liver oil. the mint was rather strong for my taste. i enjoyed the sweetness of the licorice flavor. these products are going to be available in a month or two. because of the addition of other ingredients there is a little less cod liver oil in each bottle, and it is the same price as plain. i ended up buying (with cash for an additional discount!) two bottles of cod liver oil, one of butter oil, and one of skate liver oil.

there was a woman there selling kefir grains and i got a small amount for $3. after two batches i have not had any good results.
i talked to jill and shared samples of dried bull whip kelp with her and the kefir lady. i gave jill a jar of dried sugar kelp on behalf of my brother and i, who harvested it together on orcas island last summer. he is the WAPF chapter leader on orcas so i thought this an important connection. i also gave jill a small container of dried fairy ring mushrooms i foraged and dried on orcas in september. there was no wonderful potluck, but there was a lot of information shared and friendly conversation enjoyed.

hot buns

when i have a burger out, even if it is otherwise perfectly crafted with grass-fed beef and cheese, house-made, sugar-free condiments, and organic vegetables, the bun is almost always white and lacking in nutrients. the bun is wonderfully fluffy, and sometimes freshly baked. but was the flour ground fresh? probably not. nor did it benefit from the long fermentation of sourdough.

so i decided i would see if a satisfyingly fluffy bun could be made from WW sourdough with just a little booster of active dry yeast. to be continued...

Conversation Pies

Yesterday my awesome co-worker "Michael" gave me two leftover pieces of a couple of savory Finnish vegetable pies that he made for a valentine's day potluck held in his department. They were made using chopped cabbage, carrots, parsnips, green onions and garlic. To add even more deliciousness, sunflower seeds, brown rice and Emmentaler cheese were added. They were seasoned perfectly and were really filling.











Instead of having them for dinner Davis and I had them for breakfast this morning. I heated the hefty slices up and topped them off with an egg over-easy and some yogurt cheese.

I wanna eat that every day.

davis' notes:

yes this pie was quite a pleasure to behold and to consume. We decided it would be okay in this case to eat flour that wasn't fresh-milled or fermented (as in sourdough), and the little bit of cane sugar that was used in the crust, even though we have recently renewed our commitment to limit these in our diets.
the eggs were perfectly cooked and this is jana's first great success with this style! she tells me scrambled is how she has always done. it gives me pleasure to observe her trying new things and gaining new skills in cooking. she really does have a useful intuition about the elements involved.
the yogurt cheese was very fine-textured, like frosting, as it was made from a very unusual batch of yogurt. i may have just needed to let the yogurt incubate longer than the eight hours. the next batch took nearly eleven hours! it turned out nice and thick and not too sour. the cheese was just a little finer than in this picture, which is of the batch made from the other jar of that day's yogurt.

Seasonal Salon: Food and Exchange

Last night Davis and I attended the Seasonal Salon, a monthly presentation and discussion exploring a chosen topic. It was hosted and put on by Ryan Wilson, an involved and motivated member of the Palmer Square community.

The topic tonight was "Food and Exchange" and there were 3 exceptional speakers:
Stephen Vick of Intelligensia spoke about his experiences as a coffee buyer and how his relationships overseas with growers in Africa mean better coffee for us in the states and better prices paid to the producers.
Annie Lambla, the Yogurt Pedaler, shared her story of riding her bike across the midwest, visiting dairy farms, and sharing the magic of yogurt at farmer's markets along the way.
Catherine Muller told us about the Mobile Food Collective, a project that was started to re-emphasize the importance of sharing in food culture, whether it be through food stories, recipes, bites, or advice.
Each speaker brought a different aspect of "exchange" to the table; I felt the selection was perfect. We hadn't known what to expect exactly, but left feeling excited and satisfied with our experiences.
-------

Jana's experience notes:

We got there around 8 and were greeted by lots of friendly folk, beer, Intelligensia coffee and yogurt with pomegranate seeds. Friends Nick and Erin gave me a bottle of Flywheel from Metropolitan Brewing and I proceeded to talk to a slew of nice people. It was great. The salon hadn't even begun and yet I felt like this was what I wanted to be a part of more and more... More community events bringing together people who might be neighbors but are strangers. And for it to be focused around food made it all the more wonderful.

All of the presentations were done well. Every speaker was 100% behind their passion, and that alone was something to note. Catherine's was especially interesting because she asked everyone there to share one of their "food stories"... I shared one of my favorite food memories of eating unsalted butter on white bread at my Latvian neighbor's house as a kid. I thought it was some weird European kind of butter for a long time until years later I realized it was just unsalted. Even to this day when I eat unsalted butter I am reminded of her. Getting to hear all of the other stories shared was really something. Not a single one of them was uninteresting.

The speakers gave their presentations and a discussion/Q&A followed. We ate more of the yogurt that Annie brought and had a fun time talking to her about fermented dairy. We rode home around 10:30, full of knowledge, yogurt and happiness. Probably the best Valentine's day I've had in a while.

davis' notes:

we resisted the cupcakes and moist banana bread! these were also present, though they had nothing to do with the presentations... i ate a lot of the yogurt, which was a particularly good batch. annie said she had not had such a good one in a long time and was becoming discouraged. the yogurt was well paired with the pomegranate, which was sweet in comparison. i also tried just a little of the coffee. it was brewed very carefully in the appropriate way to bring out it's best qualities. also special about this particular coffee is that the roast, made from beans carefully selected through steven vick's work in, had that day been released in shops for the first time!

during the sharing of stories i spoke of my special food experiences in umbria and tuscany while touring there by bike in summer 2007. i got excited when someone before me mentioned figs! not everyone told a story, but it was a rich part of the evening, right at the end, when we all got a chance to connect more with everyone in the circle (we sat around the edge of a large, rectangular room).

lard for the road

jana called the Butcher and Larder on Friday and placed an order for some pork fat for rendering into lard. the butcher there told us he would be butchering that evening and would hold some of the best stuff for us. what he told jana when she inquired about back fat is that it is less desirable than many of the other pork fats for rendering. they always use the back fat in sausage and salumi. whatever he gave us did render out quite nicely, though the first batch gave off a moderate gamey smell. this could have been from some stinky hairs that had touched the fat.

we got 5 and 1/2 pounds of fat, with almost no meat on it, and this yielded almost two quarts of lard. the second batch i rendered, on sunday, went for longer than the first and was not scorched. i am learning how to tell when it's done. the cracklings should look almost translucent and golden brown all over. if you have it on a low enough heat, and stir regularly, there should be no problem with letting it go until you reach that stage.

this is the first batch...
... and after a night of cooling.

magic, healing chicken

the other day when i went to the butcher and larder to pick up our order of fat i saw the whole chicken in the case and had to get one. jana and i were both feeling the effects of a cold, her worse than i, and i thought this chicken could help us get well. the chicken had the added quality of being fresh, not frozen, as the butcher and larder provides all their meat.

i went to two events before making my way home. at the Green City Market i dug a little hole in a snow bank and tucked the bag of fat and chicken in there to stay cool. i didn't buy anything there. i asked the guy making donuts from locally grown grain what kind of frying oil he was using. canola. "i'd buy some if it was an animal fat", i told him, but gave them props for using local grain. i asked the gals at the one local bakery stand how fresh the flour in their bread is. they didn't know even how often the flour is delivered to the bakery. i said, "that would be a good thing for you to know."

at the WAPF chapter meeting i left the bag to stay cold outside, tucked under the stairway. it was above freezing that day so no worries about not having it insulated. see the post about the meeting.

anyway that evening i got home just before jana. once she was home i realized that i would like to roast root vegetables with the chicken. so i went over to the co-op and got some goods: purple potato, rutabaga, carrot, parsnip, and brussels sprouts. leftover rice and sprigs of sage, thyme, and basil were stuffed in the cavity of the bird. while the chicken was in the 450 degree oven for about twenty minutes (as per the butcher and larder's instructions) we chopped the vegetables into large chunks. then we stuffed them in with the chicken, added some salt, put the lid on, and turned the oven down to 350. it was done after another forty minutes. the meat was delicious and tender, but the skin was not delectably crispy since we had cooked it with moisture.
our neighbor levon joined us for dinner and brought wine and a stack of sliced "fluffy" bread for jana, which she accepted politely. it was really nice sharing this special, healing meal with a pleasant friend such as lev. our housemate lauren was also invited, but had to leave before the chicken was done. too bad for her.
























some of the meat was set aside for later and the rest of the carcass was put back in the pot with some veggie scraps we had been saving in the freezer for broth. with the addition of a little apple cider vinegar it cooked overnight. we seasoned it and cooked it a little longer after straining everything out. that day this was received by both of us in a couple doses. the effect was as miraculous as i had hoped it would be.

community soup night

last night jana and i attended a community soup night at Logan Square Kitchen. we heard about this through the co-op, who donated food for the event. there were two kinds of bread there baked by an 'underground baker' in the area, and i also brought some of ours, fresh out of the oven, to share. folks really liked it. i also offered that if anyone was interested, i could give them some starter to make their own bread at home. five people were, and gave me their e-mail addresses!

there were representatives there from several important, food related organizations including Cob Connection, Food and Water Watch, and Chicago Rarities. i met a woman name Sue who is friends with Nance Klehm!

indulgence

these days i am often tolerant of deviations from what i know to be the more wholesome food choices. this is just an example:

spiced hot chocolate with coconut cream















i made this from the last of the Trader's Point chocolate milk we were given by Ned. it contains
'organic dehydrated cane sugar juice'(too much i think), so i diluted it with some whole milk. then i added some cinnamon and other spices while it heated. it was a nice treat before riding our bikes out in the snowy streets.

maybe Trader's Point would be into the idea or offering a sugar-free chocolate milk...

home yogurt

i've been honing my yogurt-making skills for a few years now. since arriving in chicago i have made it a regular practice. we have access to some pretty awesome milk, from Kilgus Farmstead and Castle Rock Farms. always use whole milk. if you want to have a nice layer of cream on the top (i recommend it!) then go with non-homogenized. support your local farmers who are using holistic practices when you can. the milk will be higher in nutrition if it is raw and from pastured cows.

BEGIN by starting the milk heating over a low flame. heat it slowly and stir more as it gets hotter so you don't singe the milk. it's common for some to stick to the bottom, but it shouldn't singe brown.

WHILE the milk is heating:
--- make sure you have one Tbs yogurt starter* for each quart of milk you want to inoculate.
--- put a jar of very hot water in the incubation chamber to preheat it. also preheat the glass containers^ you will be using for the new yogurt. they should feel warm to the touch when the milk is poured into them.

CONTINUE to monitor the milk for the right temperature. if you are using raw milk and want to keep it raw i would recommend using a thermometer. you can experiment with whether your yogurt culture will yield a thick yogurt with milk heated only to 108 degrees (above which it becomes denatured). some have had success with this. otherwise a thermometer is not necessary. you can tell when the milk has reached the right temperature when small bubbles start to appear on the surface. learn to observe this affect.
--- at this point you can remove the milk from the heat and put the pot in a cold water bath to speed the cooling process.
--- place one Tbs (no more!) of room temperature starter into each quart container.
--- when the milk cools the the right temperature (you can hold your finger in the milk without it hurting) then you must get it into the warmed containers before it cools more. if the milk becomes too cool, before putting it in the containers you can bring it back up to the right temperature.
--- make sure the starter gets dispersed fairly evenly throughout the milk.

PLACE the containers of inoculated milk into the incubator with an additional jar of hot water to maintain the heat. if the incubator is really well insulated and warm when you put the containers in, you may not need any additional heat source.
--- i've been incubating our yogurt in rectangular plastic tub placed in our bed. get creative and use what is on hand. just make sure all the air space is filled and there is plenty of insulation. many use a cooler and towels, as we did at Wild's Edge.

*any plain storebaught yogurt can be used for starter, as long as it contains 'live active cultures'. we started with Trader's Point Creamery yogurt. one way to get a more consistent result is to freeze portions of the original yogurt in an ice cube tray and thaw them as needed. i discovered that a full cube is a little more than a Tbs. so be careful. if you don't have a freezer then you can make a new batch using some of the yogurt from your last batch. it will likely become more sour in later generations.

^you can use glass containers of any kind. it's not necessary for them to be air tight. i've been using the Trader's Point bottles. their thin necks require us to shake the yogurt in order to get it out. if you want an undisturbed product then use a wide mouth jar. be careful when pouring hot water into cold jars!

Brunch at Lula

Brunch at Lula Cafe in Logan Square. We went with our neighbor Lev. I ordered the rabbit bi bim bap, Davis ordered the banana mousse stuffed french toast with candied kumquat. Quite the delicious meal. Lula always hits the spot.

free fat

on friday i went down to pick up some back ribs we'd bought from a local farm who was selling them at discount. the place i picked them up was in the old meatpacking district, just west of Little Italy. i was so cold by the time i got there i was dancing to try to keep circulation in my feet. and it wasn't warm inside either! so after leaving there i had to find a place to go in and warm up for a while. the first place i went in was a little butcher shop/grocery called "Nicholas Quality Meats". i just looked around at all the cheap products while i tried to warm up. gallon jars of pickles, a wall of herbs and spices in 1lb, clear plastic containers... i noticed tubs of lard (half gal.) for $5.99 and tubs of 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' (1 lb. more in half gal.) for $8.99. i know which one i would buy (if i had no better option), even though it contains some hydrogenated lard and also preservatives...
i decided to ask about whether they sell just the fat of the meat they butcher, so i could render it at home. when i talked to the owner, the only one who spoke english well, he told me he had some beef fat and proceeded to put a bunch in a bag for me. as he did this he said he was thinking of using it to fry with himself. very sensible i agreed. but i think he was not used to being so open about this choice of his. i was thinking i would offer to pay $1 a pound or something but he said just to take it for free! how nice. i told him i would bring him a loaf of sourdough bread if i was in the area again. he said his wife used to make bread at home but now she doesn't have the time. i am more fortunate, and yet he was the one being generous with me.











these scraps are of course of questionable quality (probably not grass fed or free of hormones), but i wanted to make use of it since it was free. i ended up eating way too much of the fat the day i rendered it and the day after. i fried up the pieces with meat attached. this may have led to the upset stomach. i wonder if it has to do with toxins that are in the fat or just with eating too much fat?












this suet (beef fat) yielded a bit more than a pint of tallow. i might use this for some deep frying later! i'll need to combine it with more, maybe just another pint, to have a good size bath. neither jana or i have done deep frying before!

p.s. next i went to a nearby Starbucks and enjoyed some Tazo 'green tips' tea, for which i paid $2.16 and a $1 tip. i didn't really see how screwed up this is until just now...