Reinventing yourself

I've done it all my life-- finding a new Xan every 5 years or so. Maybe it stems from my peripatetic childhood as an academic brat, constantly picking up as my father followed tenure track positions from New York to Connecticut to Michigan to Pennsylvania to Illinois. Perhaps it's because once I begin to master something I feel the itch to move on and try something new.

But I've been an artist and a singer, a stay-at-home mom, a working mom, and a telecommuting mom. A skating coach and a gardener, a not-for-profit executive and an entrepreneur.

So what is this new persona, who makes homemade crackers and jam. It's a stay-at-home mom kind of thing to do, but while I may be staying at home, the kids have long since flown the coop. Just the latent hippie in me coming to the fore, I guess.

Homemade wheat thins

1 cup plain flour
1 cup wheat flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons softened butter
approximately 1 cup of milk

Seasonings- oregano, sea salt, cracked pepper, sesame, etc.

Preheat oven to 150'C/ 300'F.

Add the salt to the flour, and in a mixing bowl or food processor, cut the butter in until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Slowly mix in enough milk to form a soft, but not sticky, dough.

Divide the dough into four portions and roll out one at a time, until paper thin (Really really thin. I did the first batch too thick- maybe a milimeter, and they came out chewy instead of crisp). You can do this on a lightly floured board, or you can do it straight onto a large ungreased cookie sheet. This recipe made enough for four 10" x 15" trays and a little more, so divide your dough accordingly.

Lightly brush the sheet with a flavorful oil (nut or olive), then season with sea salt, freshly ground pepper and oregano, sesame or other herb. I also made some with ground ginger (no salt on that one).

Using a sharp knife or pizza roller, cut the dough into crackers. Line cookie sheet with parchment, then transfer crackers to the cookie sheet if you rolled it out on a board.

Bake for 20 minutes, until lightly browned and crisp. Allow to cool on the tray and then store in an air tight container for up to a week. This recipe made about 200 1" square crackers.

Based on a recipe at Towards Sustainability

Economies of scale

One thing about eating "real" and local is convenience. It is terribly counter intuitive. It turns out to be much more challenging, expensive, and time consuming to buy flour, eggs, milk and meat from Wisconsin, 50 miles away, than it is to buy kiwifruits from Chile.

I did finally find a local-ish place to get chicken and eggs, Harrison Poultry Farms, about 15 miles. They weren't on localharvest.com so maybe their farm in southern Wisconsin doesn't make the "local" cut.

There's another Wisconsin farm called Great River that seems to sell flour to Sam's Club, so I'm off to Sam's Club some time this week to buy $2.20 a pound flour, grown and milled in Southern Wisconsin, as opposed to 70c a pound flour, grown and milled god knows where-- you can't tell from the packaging. India for all I know. I worked out the cost-- if I make all my own bread, the expensive flour makes each loaf about the same price as the store brand. If you count my time as having no monetary value.

I can get local milk at Whole Foods; I just have to forsake a 20-year-old vow never to shop at Whole Foods since they closed down all the old locally owned organic grocers that they bought when they moved in, despite promises not to. (And the ones they couldn't buy they forced out of business.) Local cheese is abundant at the regular chain markets, thank goodness. I actually have a neighborhood butcher (!); he tells me his meat is from Iowa, and I'm going to count that as close enough for jazz.

In all, the thing that this challenge seems to boil down to is the American character. As a red blooded rugged individualist I find myself resisting the time I have to carve out of a tight schedule, greater good bedamned. Not counting cooking time, I figure I have about 8 hours a week for non-work work, if you see what I mean, like blogging and meeting these challenges. Instead of one-stop-shopping for groceries, and being able to walk to the store, I have to go to several different shops all over the north side (I just can't justify trekking to the south side or the 'burbs for this). I realize that doing this might start a butterfly effect. If every singleton decides "not worth the trouble" then we'll never create a critical mass to force change. But do I really want to be the pebble that starts the landslide? Do I really have that power?

I guess that's why they call it a challenge.

All in all, it seemed appropriate to go rogue here in my frustration, and propose a risotto which I made with imported rice (already in the larder), hothouse tomatoes (yay! local, and extremely expensive) and summer squash. Ah, irony.

Tomato risotto with summer squash

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil (or use the oil from the sundrieds)
1/2 cup minced yellow onion (about 1/4 pound)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 4 cloves)
1 tablespoon sun dried tomatoes, diced
1 cup Arborio rice
3 medium tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 medium summer squash, diced
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (from Wisconsin, hooray!)
coarse salt (optional)

Melt butter with oil in a 2 quart stock pot; stir in onions, sundried tomatoes, and garlic, saute until onions are translucent. Add rice and stir to coat, cook for about 4 more minutes. Add tomatoes. Start adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, simmering each time until all the liquid is absorbed. There may be some stock left over. Halfway through this process, add the squash.

Stir in pepper and cheese, add salt to taste, if desired, and serve hot.

So many challenges

I really need to find a way to make this blogging thing pay. It's taking up all my time. And the reason is: challenges.

Let’s Get Real! Food Challenge. Growing Challenge. Project GROW. And they all want their posts on Sundays.

So one challenge per post, and apologies for three posts (maybe four, also going to Chicago Flower and Garden Show) in one day. Current plan is an appropriate recipe for each one, but we'll see how I feel when I get to #3.

Let’s Get Real! is an incredible challenge, taken to its extreme. With the premise of minimizing packaging and food miles, in the three days since starting just the research (forget the actual eating), I have discovered that, despite living 50 miles south of the dairy heartland of America, most of the dairy products at the chain grocery stores come from places like California. (Can't buy the most ecologically correct brand, because I don't want to fund the on-going political career of the conservative wingnut who owns it.) They're just packaged in Wisconsin. WTF. No wonder my milk always tastes sour. It's been frozen and thawed and is already a week old by the time it gets on the shelf.

Forget flour. There is absolutely no way to tell where your flour comes from, and I'm sorry I'm just not going to mill my own. Which brings us to the main philosophical problem with trying to eat "real." Where does the balance tip the wrong way? I could drive about 20 miles, to where there's a year-round farmer's market. Or I could go to Whole Foods, where I'll pay around 5 times the regular brand price for the privilege of feeling smug and local. And frankly, I don't really trust the labels at Whole Foods. I think those brands play the same sorts of games that Dean's milk does, importing food to be packaged locally so that they can call it local.

FamilyFarmed is trying to find me locally milled flour that I don't have to order from the internet.

Then there's eating out.

I managed to locate just two restaurants where I can be reasonably sure that they source lots of their food locally, because they make it part of their branding. One is too expensive to pretty much ever eat there. The other is fine if the dinner is your destination, but last night my destination was the movies, and this restaurant is on the other side of town (and I live in a big town). We ate at the Golden Nugget. It was food. Not even going to think about how "real" it was.

UPDATE from Abby: Mado, Publican, Blackbird, Avec also source ingredients locally.

I'm sure once all these logistical issues are sorted out I will find that the food is better, but at this point I'm not sold on the concept, and it's not just about the inconvenience. It's about that tipping point. I live in the 4th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Nothing we eat comes from here (unless it comes out of my own garden). The closest working farm is 20 miles away; the bulk of the local food market is 50 to 100 miles. Is it still local?

Which is more sustainable--walking to the local big chain to buy my groceries, or driving 20 miles to go to the year-round farmer's market (and even in summer the nearest farmer's market is 5 miles away).

And to top it all off, I ran out of the Mrs. Richardson's caramel syrup that I like to put in my (shade-grown, organic, free-trade, but, sadly, imported) coffee.

UPDATE: Caramel syrup
The first time I made this, the sugar recrystalized. So here's a method that keeps it smooth

1 c. brown sugar
1-2 T water
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tbsp. butter
1/2 c. cream
1 tbsp. cornstarch

Put the brown sugar in a heavy-bottom saucepan, adding just enough water to make it the consistency of wet sand. Turn on the heat to medium and add the vinegar. This will keep the sugar from recrystalizing. Boil for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the butter and continue to boil until the butter is completely melted. Dissolve the cornstarch in the cream, then add it to the sugar and bring it back to a boil. Cool several hours in refrigerator or overnight.

Where are all the vegetables?

The first thing that hit me when I walked into the Chicago Flower and Garden show, through the back entrance, was the smell of dirt.

Wonderful.

It's a scent that gardeners crave, and the more delightful for being oddly unexpected in this gigantic forum of fake gardens.

After that it was a little downhill for me. I'm not sure exactly what I thought it would be like, having never gone before, but certainly more variety in garden design. There were very clever themes to be sure, and the overall theme of musical theater was near and dear to my heart. But taken as a whole, there was a depressing sameness to the layouts, despite clever corners and pretty plants.

But what disappointed me most of all was the utter neglect of food gardens. There was one tiny farm illustrating the tale of the Three Little Pigs, and liberal use of lettuce as an ornamental. The American Girls booth had a pizza garden for one of the dolls (not kidding). And that was it. There are seminars on edible gardening. There are back to back cooking demonstrations. But not a single display focused on edible gardening. One display, in fact, didn't even focus on plants. The central feature of Kia's "The Street Where You Live" suburban garden was a huge SUV taking up at least a third of the booth's square footage.


Flickr set here.

And because I promised always to include a recipe, a wonderful recipe from Epicurious/Bon Apetit

Artichoke, Potato, and Portobello Mushroom Casserole
Bon Appétit | April 2006

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 large artichokes (I didn't have any, so I subbed celery and broccoli)
1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced
2 large portobello mushroom caps, thinly sliced
small soft fresh goat cheese
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup dry white wine (didn't have any, so I used sherry)

Preheat oven to 425°F. Brush 2-qt casserole with 1 tablespoon oil. To trim artichoke, add the juice from half a lemon to a large bowl of cold water. Cut off the artichoke's stem; rub cut surface with the other lemon half. Peel off all the leaves. Cut off top one inch of artichoke. Using a spoon with a serrated edge, scrape out the fibrous choke from the center. Rub the artichoke all over with lemon and drop it into lemon water. Drain before using.

Slice artichoke hearts. Arrange half of potatoes in dish, covering bottom completely. Top with half of artichoke hearts and half of mushrooms. Coarsely crumble half of goat cheese over. Sprinkle with half of garlic, salt, and pepper, then 1 tablespoon Parmesan. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil. Cover with remaining mushrooms, then artichokes, goat cheese, garlic, 1 tablespoon Parmesan, and 1 tablespoon oil. Top with remaining potatoes. Pour wine over; drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Cover dish with foil. Bake 40 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400°F. Sprinkle top with remaining 1 tablespoon Parmesan. Bake uncovered until potatoes are tender and top is brown, about 25 minutes. Cool slightly and serve.

This was incredibly delicious. Wonder if they'll make it at the garden show?

Seeds for Shady Swap

Here's what I'll try to bring to the Shady Swap (assuming I can get them all packaged, eek)

Canterbury Bells
Pink Cleome
Variegated Purple Cleome (probably a bastard, if you know what I mean)
White Cleome
Small Sugar Pumpkin
Prairie Coneflowers (seeds a couple years old, never planted any so don't know viability) From a wild stock
Snow Peas, oregon sugar pods
Mustard Greens, Green Wave
Columbine (another bastard)

Might be a few others, haven't scrounged the actual seed box yet.

Bringing back the birds

The house next door to us has had a fascinating garden history. When we moved here in 1986, the next door yard was the territory of two big mean dogs. Separated from us by a flimsy wire fence, they prevented us from even walking through our back yard, let alone using it. We used to have to get to our garage by going through the yard on the other side when those dogs were out.

Mercifully they left 18 months after we moved in. The people who replaced them never had an idea they didn't like, and had a chaotic but charming garden with every plant known to humans, structures, ponds, walls and walkways. Maybe 8 years later new people moved in and imposed some order on the chaos. Then after about 12 years, they sold it to a young family who didn't really take care of it, but didn't actively destroy it either; however, they were victims of a bankruptcy and bailed on the property.

And there it sat for more than 2 years, with no resident. I did what maintenance I could, as did the neighbor on the other side, but over the years it got wilder and wilder, becoming quite literally a wildlife habitat, to the benefit of the entire neighborhood.

But eventually, new people moved in, and completely destroyed the garden. They took out every structure, path, and plant (yes, the plants too) including 25 year-old lilacs and hydrangeas, and a 15 foot tall redtwig. They filled in the pond. With the garden went the wildlife and we suffered through a summer with no birds or insects, except large flocks of pigeons that kept coming because the new people kept throwing out bread "for the birds." (Hey, if you want birds, leave the plants, idiots.) What we did get were all the little furry things that had taken refuge in the tiny wilderness- voles, moles, rats, mice, rabbits, coons and possums- and now had no homes.

In an effort to lure the birds back, I completely reconfigured my garden. I added a bed with shrubs and berries, constructed a trellis (we don't have any large trees in our yard) redirected paths, and upped the number of bird-and-butterfly plants like coneflowers. We put in bird feeders, something we never had to do in the past.

Last month, counting along with the annual backyard bird count, we observed juncos, cardinals, a robin (in February!), two different types of apparent sparrows, a catbird, two types of woodpeckers, flickers, those shiny black ones that I can never remember the name, and crows.

And in honor of our feathery co-habits, of course, a chicken recipe (sorry, couldn't resist)

Papaiachne (pa-pa-ya-chnee)
Cut up whole chicken
1 large onion
1 large carrot, sliced
2 large potatoes
2 stalks celery
1 can whole peeled tomatoes (no salt added)
2 cups fresh green beans
2 T fresh oregano, chopped fine, or 1 T dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Make broth with the back, neck and wings of the chicken plus the onion and potato skins and celery ends, plus salt and black peppercorns. Use enough water to make 2 cups of broth.

Brown the chicken in olive oil in a deep pot, turning once. Add the onions and celery and sautee until soft. Add the broth and tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Add the potatoes and carrots and simmer until soft. Add the green beans and cover, simmering until beans are al dente (about 15 minutes).

Serve over rice.

This was a staple of our diet when I was growing up, and I have always known it as Greek chicken stew. However, it's one recipe I have never found in a book or on line quite in this form. I've never been able to find the Greek word transliterated, so the transliteration is my own; anyone with a better spelling, please let me know. I suspect this dish is an export from my grandmother's turn-of-the-century childhood in an ethnic Greek village near Smyrna, Turkey, and possibly a dish typical only of her village, or even her family. Which makes it kind of wonderful.

Sporonechinosiphobia

Never heard that word?

That would be because I made it up. It means "fear of seed starting," and I spent 20 years as a gardener in its throes.

It seems so complex--grow lights and trays and shelves. Staggered timing, potting soil, coir, soilless mix, seed starting mix. Fungus and sterilizing. Finding room. Hardening off. Damping off (one's good; one's bad). A whole new vocabulary.

But after spending a year reading about starting seeds indoors on MyFolia, I tested the waters last year with some wintersowing, and then this year jumped in with both feet, doing indoor starts on several herbs, onions, leeks, a couple of ornamentals, Brussels sprouts, parsnips and of course tomatoes. I'll wintersow (outdoor early seed starting in mini-greenhouses made from milk jugs) my vining vegetables and brassicas (greens and broccoli).

The thing about early seed starting is the green. It's hard for a non-gardener to understand the yearning for the dirt, and the need to see those shoots come out of the earth. So starting seeds allows you to get your fingers in the dirt, and to somehow feel like you've created this plants yourself, in a way that even direct sowing doesn't. Nursery starts, or what I've called "outsourcing" your seed starting, never give you the same feeling of ownership.

But these tiny sprouts are mine.

So no recipe today. Just my tiny sprouts. Because I made them.