Success!

Thursday morning started bright and early, as I threw together a loaf of bread in the bread maker, just in case someone needed a sandwich. After showering and taking care of the dog, I peeled the potatoes, losing two fingernails and a little skin in the process - but didn't have to worry about keeping my nails nice for a wedding in two days, so I really didn't care. The potatoes soaked for four or five hours to leech some of the potassium out of them, making them healthier for my dad. In an ideal world, I would have kept some of the peels in the potatoes, but my understanding is that a lot of potassium (which is healthy for many people but doesn't mix well with certain medications) is in the peel, so down the disposal they went. I am trying to be good about keeping food scraps, but I've never hosted a big meal like this before (once I had my parents and sister up for a meal and that was a really big deal) so I was trying to keep things simple.

I chopped carrots, celery, and onions to roast the turkey on. I had six carrots from the farmers' market two Saturdays ago, and Michael picked up some celery at the grocery store. The onions are locals that have been hanging out in my kitchen for a couple of weeks.
The 16.5 lb turkey came fresh on Tuesday from a farm in southern WI.


I stuffed it with more celery and carrots, to make it nice and juicy.
I watched a show on the Food Network where the chef soaked a cheesecloth in butter then laid it over the turkey during the roasting process. My mom had heard about this technique from a friend, so I decided to give it a try. Mmm . . . a butter soaked blanket.
I had intended to get the turkey in the oven at 10:00, so I was pretty happy that I got the bird in at about 10:20. I had left plenty of time to get the bird out and the other dishes cooked before we ate at 3:00, so a 20 minute late start was nothing to be worried about.
Then I frantically started to think about appetizers, after Michael's mom and step-dad, and my little sister, my twin and her family arrived. We had WI cheese (of course), Ritz crackers (one of the few processed foods), homemade pickles, and a little plate of cream cheese topped with apple butter, pumpkin butter, and cranberry preserves. My mother-in-law and my little sister were kind enough to follow my uncertain instructions and put it together for me. The pumpkin butter was a big hit. Sorry I don't have a better picture of it - I had delegated the picture-taking at this point! My sister made a dish like this with cranberry chutney once upon a Thanksgiving, and I was inspired as a way to use up some of my pumpkin butter. My mom had the idea of serving with with bagel chips - which they do not sell in Portage, apparently. So my mom picked some up . . . and was the last person to arrive. In the meantime, my mother-in-law jumped right in to chop celery for stuffing, to wash dishes, and to basically do anything else I asked her to do. She's great, what can I say?


Of course I realized sometime after midnight on Wednesday that the turkey baster I bought last Thanksgiving had broken, and I had nothing to baste the turkey with. We improvised. I basted once, but my mother-in-law, my twin, and Michael took over from then on. The recipe I watched on TV did not talk about basting, and I hadn't really considered it, never having made an entire turkey before. (My step-father-in-law suggested I put a couple of cups of water and some chicken stock in the pan, so I did, and was glad I'd taken his advice. I was also glad to have had multiple containers of chicken stock in the freezer.)


I made a large dish of stuffing which was okay, but I think I might skip it next year. I love stuffing but I always make too much.

Michael and I had a private conference about the green bean casserole and decided to skip the lard-fried onions on the top, because the house was very warm from the oven, the stove, and the gorgeous sun beating in the non-curtained windows lining the south side of our house. (The sun was streaming right into the kitchen, so someone had to move the appetizers out of the way before they melted.)
My twin (who had previously been assigned the job of mashing the potatoes) offered to help with the mushrooms and roux. She delegated the mashing to my mother-in-law, who was happy to help, and then I think she handed the pot over to my mom for a while - right when I added the milk and butter, making the whole mashing thing a lot easier. Sorry I don't have any pictures. I have no idea what I was doing at that point! (Possibly microwaving the 2 lbs of sweet corn from the farmers' market that I'd frozen in one huge bag just for this very meal.)


It was plenty warm so even though I took the rolls out of the fridge a little late they had no trouble rising in my kitchen.


We checked the turkey right around 2:00 and it was done.

So it rested under a tinfoil tent for about half an hour, until we woke my dad up to do the carving. In the meantime, the stuffing and green beans went in the oven, and my mother-in-law and I washed the dinner plates, which have spent a lot of time in storage over the last 35 years or so.
My mom made the gravy, which I got to put in the gravy boat that matches the china from my great-great-aunt that my mom gave me as a wedding present. The rolls got a little bit dark on the bottom. I kind of forgot about them, and they probably would not have made it into the oven at all if it hadn't been for my mom - but I never told her that my oven is a bit touchy, and I like to check things a few minutes before the shortest suggested cooking time. They weren't that bad - Adele ate at least three. I served the mashed potatoes in a beautiful bowl that Michael and I got as a wedding gift from my friend Tracy - with whom I have celebrated many Thanksgivings, most of which were in Tennessee with her grandmother. After I took this picture Vern asked about cranberries, so I took the three types of cranberry out of the fridge - my mom's cranberry relish with pineapple, that her mom used to make, my mom's cranberry sauce with cinnamon, based on a different one of her grandmother's recipes, and the cranberry preserves I canned earlier this summer/fall. They were all a big hit.
We were a little bit crowded around the table(s) but everyone had enough to eat!

And later on we came back for pie - two types of apple pie from my mother-in-law, cranberry-apple from my mom (with real WI cranberries) and my pumpkin pie with whipped cream (which my mother-in-law, my twin, my mom and I all tried to whip by hand - my preferred method - but eventually I had to get out my whisk attachment for my hand blender because it was too hot in my kitchen!). I sweetened one batch of whipped cream with maple syrup, but that batch developed small dark chunks of ??? in it - so I used sugar in the next batch, just to be safe.
Adele loved her pie. Especially her second "slice" which was just a big pile of whipped cream!

And then someone dressed Anna up in her Halloween costume so I could get a picture with my Raggedies.

Other Peoples' Food and Indy Pictures

On Thursday, my first day at my newest job, I ate alone in the little kitchen downstairs. I'm not sure where everyone else spent the meal. I wasn't really concerned with them. I was more worried about how much I'd forgotten over the past few years and whether I could remember enough about law to do a halfway decent job as a clerk.

Thursday night was the last farmers' market of the year in my little town. I didn't stop by. I knew I was going out of town for the weekend, and still hadn't used the tomatoes or beets I'd picked up the week before. I should have gone to talk to the guy about the turkey, but I secured a different turkey from Jordandal Farms in Madison after my last post. My (approximately) 15 lb Thanksgiving turkey will be ready for me - fresh - on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. That's excellent news because I don't really have room for a fifteen pound bird in my freezer right now. And I won't have to worry about thawing time!

We spent the weekend in Indianapolis with my sister, for my niece's baptism. On Saturday we went to the Children's Museum, where my husband had gone with his grandparents as a child.
The water clock was not working - which was a bummer, because it was the only part of the museum Michael remembered.
Adele was a dinosaur sitting on eggs in the Dinosphere.
Then she was a polar bear.
And and Adelie Penguin!
We went swimming at the hotel pool with Grandma and Grandpa. Adele loves her ballerina tutu swimming suit.
Anna is just an all-around content baby (very different from her sister at this age!) although she didn't like dipping her feet in the pool.
Adele did! But she didn't fuss at all when it was time to go home. What a big girl!
Anna was all dolled up twice on Halloween - once in her baptismal dress, then again as Raggedy Ann for trick-or-treating (although I couldn't stick around for that).
Adele wore her new purple dress to church, and got to sit between her Grandma and her Memaw - what a lucky little girl!

We went out for a fancy dinner on Saturday night - and not just by a two-year-old's definition. I looked at the menu and pondered my choices. Not just because they all looked yummy. On the surface, they did all look yummy. I really wanted the chicken Marsala. My sister found the restaurant's menu online so we'd perused the options before actually arriving at the restaurant. One of the evening's specials, some kind of beef medallions, also sounded good. I kind of thought I should get the beef, since I have been disappointed by mediocre chicken Marsala at other times. But I didn't really want the beef either, because it made me think of feedlots.

I don't cook a lot of beef at home. In fact, I don't really cook all that much meat. I spent several years of my life as a vegetarian - for a number of reasons (all my friends were doing it, it was the environmental thing to do, my uncle raised cows and it made me sad to think about slaughtering animals) but have started eating meat again.

Saturday night I wanted to find a vegetarian option on the menu, because as I tried to make up my mind between chicken Marsala and beef medallions, all I could think about were CAFOs and the inhumane conditions these poor animals endured, just so that they could end up as a cheap commodity on the way to my overpriced plate. As far as I could tell, there were no vegetarian entree options. I could have ordered a salad without meat, but that would have been one heck of an expensive plate of California iceberg lettuce.

I went with the beef. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I have not read of cows having their tails cut off like pigs, or their beaks (okay, noses) snipped off like chickens. Not that the life of a feedlot cow (or steer) is anything to write home about. While we waited for the entrees to come, I seriously contemplated returning to a vegetarian lifestyle.

But I like meat. I especially like meat that has been raised in a humane and environmentally responsible manner. I think I can have a better impact on the world by choosing to eat GOOD meat than by avoiding meat and dairy products altogether. By giving my business to farmers who put the interests of the land and the animals before the almighty dollar, I can make a statement about how I think our resources should be used.

(By the way, I am reading a really good book right now - The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, about the Dust Bowl and how the American government had encouraged people to farm the Great Plains, providing incentives for farmers to cut down the native grasses and plant commodity crops - corn and wheat - that could not hold the soil in place when the drought came and the winds whipped the earth clear across the continent - which is interesting companion reading to what Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and Barbara Kingsolver, among others, have to say about conventional farming methods today. And speaking of books, I requested a copy of Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon at my library today.)

After the baptism, we enjoyed lunch at my sister's house - chopped California vegetables, barbeque sandwiches made with plenty of high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and artificial flavorings, and my mom's famous cheese dip (which I had made for the first time just after midnight, after we picked my younger sister up at the airport) made with a blend of two different processed cheese products and some spices. My brother-in-law's parents made a "homemade" pumpkin cake - which was good, but had been made with canned pumpkin.

My nieces' paternal grandparents always make beautifully decorated cakes for special events like baptisms, but before this year I had not put a lot of thought into the word "homemade." A year and a half ago, before Animal, Vegetable, Miracle caught my eye in a small local bookstore, I would have considered canned pumpkin to be a perfectly legitimate ingredient in fall recipes. And since there was no box of cake mix involved in this cross-shaped novelty, I would have thought it was really something special.

All I could think of when my mom asked if I'd tried a piece of the "real, homemade pumpkin cake" was "That's not real food. It's made from a can of hubbard squash labeled as pumpkin because consumers don't know the difference." This was probably not a very kind thought. It's the kind of snobby "foodie" thought that gives the real food movement a bad name. But I don't really care. I'm not going to buy any canned pumpkin for my holiday cooking. I'd rather be labeled a snob than buy into (literally and figuratively) the conventional food system in the US. I still have two pumpkins from my garden and one pumpkin from the CSA in my kitchen, waiting to be roasted and pureed, and turned into something yummy. Something real. My sister had tried to explain my beliefs about food to her mother-in-law earlier in the weekend, because three consecutive cooking shows came on her public television channel as we vegged out while the little girls napped. The America's Test Kitchen show made some kind of pasta with several tomato ingredients that come out of tin cans sold in ounces that do not correspond to the size of Ball Canning Jars. (Gee, do you think they do that on purpose?) My sister must have seen me roll my eyes at the third can of tomato product the chef poured into the bowl. But there was no sneer in her voice when she tried to explain my crazy liberal food ideas to her mother-in-law, bless her heart.

I wasn't even going to bother. My beliefs about food are kind of complicated, and, in case you haven't figured this out yet, I can be a little long-winded at times. (My boss is going to realize this out as soon as he glances at the memo I wrote him this afternoon.) I often don't go into them with people because I don't even know where to start.

My mother-in-law has many inherent real-food beliefs, and if I could just form my wildly swirling food thoughts into a coherent paragraph or two we could probably have a discussion about why making chicken soup from scratch from pastured chickens is important . . . if only I could move beyond "the cornfields. They're too big. They're unnatural. They're destroying our country. Corn is the enemy. It's in everything" she and I could probably have a really interesting conversation. Since I can't seem to summarize the evils of corn in one or two sentences in order to move along in our dialogue about real food, I just loaned my mother-in-law Michael Pollan's Food Rules. She read it, but we didn't have a chance to talk much about it. I think I should have loaned her In Defense of Food first, but it's a bigger book and it doesn't fit in my purse.

At work today, I heated a container of homemade chicken and wild rice soup for lunch. The soup was old - from the batch I made last week - but it was still good. I had an apple and a homemade roll to eat with it but I saved them for an afternoon snack. My boss was eating a grilled cheese sandwich when I arrived in the kitchen. His daughter heated up a package of rice-a-roni macaroni and cheese to share with her dad, who also had a container of peach yogurt. One of the support staff ladies had a chicken and broccoli hot pocket for her lunch. Another support staff lady (I'm still trying to figure out exactly what everyone does around there) ate an apple and a bowl of Kraft easy mac.

We had a discussion about the hot pocket. My coworker was eating it because she had bought them for her daughter, who, as it turns out, doesn't like them. My boss noted that none of our lunches were particularly appetizing, with the exception of my homemade chicken soup, which made him a little bit jealous. I was glad he recognized the superiority of my soup.

What he probably didn't know about my soup is that, except for the celery which came in a Dole bag from California, my soup was actually a political statement in the guise of a yummy meal. My soup stands for the proposition that the best food comes from real people, who only take cash or checks, not credit. With the exception of the celery, which is more of a personal shortcoming, my soup stands for the notion that food should not travel on interstate highways or railroads. The roll that I saved for a snack embodies the philosophy that food tastes better if you have to roll up your sleeves, work hard, and be patient before you can eat.

At the grocery store on my way home (I ran out of flour making rolls last week . . . literally ran out, while trying to knead dough that was too sticky) I picked up some heavy cream and cheese, thinking I could make some real macaroni and cheese for dinner this week. I've never made it before, and didn't know what ingredients I would need, but I figured cream would be good. My Betty Crocker recipe doesn't call for it, but I might sneak some in anyway.

I've been thinking a lot about food recently, but something that is starting to worry me is the upcoming winter. I have a few quart jars of applesauce, a couple of quart jars each of spaghetti sauce and tomatoes, and a couple of pint jars of pickles left, along with frozen soup, frozen veggies, and a few frozen berries. I am probably going to have to start relying more on the grocery store for my meals. I know there is an indoor farmers' market in Madison for most of the fall/winter, and our CSA has an online store where we can order produce to pick up on Sundays, but the hardest part about eating "locally" for me has been finding times to go to these relatively far-away pick-up points. I clipped an article from the paper recently about local organic meat that can be ordered online, and I know I can still get eggs from my CSA farmer.

But the opening of the Portage Farmers' Market in May of 2011 is a long way away.

Holiday (Comfort) Food

COB, who write Table of Promise, recently said, "Most of the time, we accept the food we eat because it is familiar. But how much of its contents are really up to our own standards? How much of it could we make in our own home kitchens? And when you find out what is in something, do you still want to feed it to your children?" This was posted on KidHaven, where COB has just become a regular contributor! In the post she talks about her project to get herself and her family off of processed food.

This has also become my goal. I have read most of the books that COB read, and we were similarly inspired to change our lifestyles based on what we had read. I don't know COB at all in real life, but it is so exciting to learn about regular folks out there who are doing the kinds of things I want to do in the kitchen.

But our common reading list is not why I bring up this comment. COB often says exactly what I'm thinking, and she puts it so nicely that I can't help but wish I'd thought to say it first so I don't look like a copycat! And this sentence got me right in the gut. Literally and figuratively, I guess.

I'm struggling with something right now. It's called Planning A Thanksgiving Meal for my Family. It could become a full-time occupation over the next few weeks. The guest list includes my niece who is allergic to peanuts, oats, eggs, and possibly other things. Also, her dad (my brother-in-law) who would like us to believe he is allergic to vegetables. Then there's my younger sister, whose palate has expanded since she was a young child and only ate peas, baked beans, bananas, and hotdogs, but I am never really sure about what she'll eat on any given day. (The day after Thanksgiving in 2001 I was shocked to watch her pour balsamic vinegar and olive oil on her salad. I wondered where my *real* sister had gone. I'm actually still looking - if anyone has seen the namesake of the "Jenny Beans," please let me know.) The other guests are easier to please, but to complicate matters, I am trying as hard as I can to make this an entirely local meal, and as organic as possible.

I have secured a pastured, organic turkey. I have bag upon bag of frozen corn in my freezer. I have recipes to make whole wheat rolls from scratch. I have a surplus of potatoes that should last until Thanksgiving, but if they don't I think I will be able to find some at a farmers' market. (I'll even let my twin sister mash them.) I have carrots in my garden. I will use apples in the stuffing instead of raisins, and homemade bread instead of the store-bought variety. There will be cornstarch in the gravy but it is a family recipe and I feel okay about using it. It's all covered.

Except this one pesky little dish. Traditionally my favorite Thanksgiving food. The one whose recipe calls for Michael Pollan's favorite ingredient - a can of cream of mushroom soup.

Can it really be Thanksgiving without green bean casserole?

Again, COB asks: "Most of the time, we accept the food we eat because it is familiar. But how much of its contents are really up to our own standards? How much of it could we make in our own home kitchens? And when you find out what is in something, do you still want to feed it to your children?"

Green bean casserole is familiar. When I spent 3 hours a day driving to and from college, and then student teaching placements, I listened to a lot of NPR. My favorite part of the afternoon program "All Things Considered" is during the holiday season when they discuss holiday recipes. A year or two ago I was shocked and horrified to hear the host and a chef talking about how to substitute fresh green beans with slivered almonds for the usual soupy green bean casserole which they claimed was "blech," or something similar.

My mind rebelled. "What??? Green bean casserole is holy! You can't skip it on the Thanksgiving table." In the words of my mother, "that's not right." I remember distinctly having my own little conversation with the chef while driving on Hwy 23 between Princeton and Montello, explaining to them how very wrong it would be not to serve green bean casserole on Thanksgiving. I made it at my sister's tiny apartment the first Thanksgiving she was married, where we ate chicken instead of turkey, and my dog Frodo saved us from a grease fire in the kitchen. And I made it the next year when we ate off of her fancy china in her new dining room. It has always been a part of the Thanksgiving table.

But as I begin to prepare my menu for this Thanksgiving, at my house, with my new husband, Michael Pollan speaks to me. On page 200 of "In Defense of Food" he writes, "As cook in your kitchen you can enjoy an omniscience about your food that no amount of supermarket study or label reading could hope to match. Having retaken control of the meal from the food scientists and processors, you know exactly what is and is not in it: There are no questions about high-fructose corn syrup, or ethoxylated diglicerides, or partially hydrogenated soy oil, for the simple reason that you didn't ethoxylate or partially hydrogenate anything, nor did you add any additivies. (Unless, that is, you're the kind of cook who starts with a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, in which case all bets are off.)"

I'm not kidding, guys. He's standing in my kitchen, shouting this at me while I try to brainstorm local, seasonal family-friendly appetizers.

But it's comfortable.

It's familiar.

It's a holiday.

I don't know what's in Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, but I know I could make my own cream of mushroom soup at home with three ingredients - cream (or half-and-half), chicken stock, and mushrooms. But the green bean casserole recipe doesn't call for homemade cream of mushroom soup. It calls for a condensed, salty, hydrogenated (Maybe. I don't really know.) food-like substance. I'm not ready to condense or oversalt or hydrogenate a beautiful cream of mushroom soup I make from scratch just so I can add it to green beans for a Thanksgiving casserole. And honestly, I don't even want to think about those french fried onion things that go on the top. Really.

Okay, the truth of the matter is that even though I really used to love green bean casserole, the thought of putting those crunchy little onions into beautiful luscious green beans I grew in the garden is revolting. And since I successfully (in my opinion) skipped the cream of mushroom soup in my shepherd's pie, I know I can skip it for Thanksgiving.

But it's going to be a little weird. And I'll probably have to eat my words about how wrong it would be not to serve green bean casserole at Thanksgiving. And I'll have to mentally apologize to the NPR host and the guest chefs who have been trying to get cooks to replace green bean casserole with real green beans.

Green Bean Casserole, which was probably invented in the 1950s and hailed by women across the country as the best thing ever because it tasted a little bit fancy, but only had three ingredients (canned beans, canned soup, and canned crispy onions), and was a snap to make, is familiar holiday food. It is definitely something I used to look forward to.

But it does NOT live up to my standards. I could not make those ingredients in my kitchen and recreate the dish without, well, let's be honest - a bunch of corn and soybean products for texture and color and consistency. And I don't really want corn and soy in my green beans. I don't have children (yet) but I'd feel better about feeding my toddler niece "boring" old green beans with butter (even if she doesn't eat very many) than I would about introducing her to canned beans drenched in sodium, corn, soy, and more sodium.

Thanks for making me be honest with myself, COB. It's not hard to eat well, but it can be hard to let go of old favorites sometimes.

Food I've Been Eating

I am definitely enjoying summer! Here are a few things we have been munching on.
Raspberries from the farmer's market, tomatoes, sweet corn, and blueberries from the farm stand, basil from our CSA.I think sweet corn is my all-time favorite food. Ever. Michael and my dad have volunteered to help me freeze some this summer. Maybe I'll even share some with them when the time comes ;)

Last Thursday I stopped by the farmer's market and the farm stand that sets up in late spring in the Culver's parking lot, and sticks around through early fall. (Then I went to the grocery store where I actually had to walk down aisles. I felt completely overwhelmed. I'm not kidding. I'm not used to buying things at the grocery store anymore - I didn't know where to look for things like peanuts and candy.) Michael and I thought we were going up north to visit my uncle (the farmer) in his new cabin. Our plans didn't work out, but we didn't know that they wouldn't until I'd purchased all kinds of packaged, well-traveled food for our trip. (Sausage, gatorade, M & Ms, and peanuts - did you know there are a LOT of ingredients in Planters Dry Roasted peanuts? I opted for the Emerald brand instead. They were more expensive, but only have three ingredients. Plus, my cashier found a $1.00 coupon on the top of the jar, so they were actually a better price!)

I also bought local raspberries and blueberries, along with guilty, oily cherries from the grocery store (I wish I got cherries in my CSA box!). My uncle once said I'd "make someone a good wife some day" based on the fact that I make a mean pie. (And that was before I could roll out my own crusts.)(How did he know I was going to marry a pie lover?) I thought I'd make a pie to show off the fact that I still have the knack.

We dined on sweet corn and caprese salad. Summertime, and the eatin' is easy.

Eventually it became obvious that we would not be able to go up north for the weekend. My dad was in the hospital, someone had to dog-sit for my sister, and Michael was kind of overloaded with homework. I nixed the plans to make pie. Michael and I certainly did not need huge quantities of dessert sitting around. We still had zucchini bread and muffins! So I froze three-quarters of the blueberries (I read somewhere online that blueberries do not have to be washed before they are frozen - in fact, they are better if you don't wash them. To remind myself, in December, that they are not washed, I wrote "WASH" on the bag along with the date.) I had blueberries and milk for dessert. My friend's mom taught me to eat this a long time ago. (My grandma used to eat peaches and cream, but Joyce introduced me to blueberries and cream.) Yum.

On Sunday, I baked a chicken with zucchini (from the garden and the CSA), onions (garden), and garlic (Farmers market) and served it with beets (garden and CSA), turnips (garden) and cucumber salad (with cucumbers and onions from the garden). I did not take any pictures :( But, on the positive side, we have been enjoying the leftovers!

My intention had been to buy a whole chicken, and save the carcass for soup. Unfortunately, when I went to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon (because I didn't think of it on Saturday, when I opted to skip the farmer's market, since we had plenty of produce in the fridge from our CSA, and I took home a flat of produce from my garden), they did not have the kind of chicken I was looking for. Their only whole birds were Tyson, and I would rather go vegetarian than buy a Tyson chicken, after watching Food, Inc. and reading Fast Food Nation. The grocery store sells a brand of chicken called Smart Chicken, which may or may not be a good brand. Here is a blurb from their website:

Smart Chicken® was the first poultry produced in the United States utilizing the pure air chill technology in place of water immersion. We then pioneered the utilization of Controlled Atmosphere Stunning in the U.S., ensuring that all birds are handled with care in every aspect of production. In addition, all of our birds are raised without the use of antibiotics, animal by-products or hormones. We are also Certified Organic & Certified Humane to provide you with the most premium product, produced with the highest standards, from egg to shelf.

The part that bothers me about this blurb (and I admit, the entirety of the research I did on this topic was to google "Smart chicken" and browse their website a little bit) is that it starts out with the "pure air chill technology" instead of the "Certified Organic & Certified Humane." I don't understand that, and a little more research on the website shows that Smart Chickens are fed corn and soybeans, rather than being pastured, but the company does meet the Certified Humane standard, which can be viewed in this pdf file. They are supposed to be "Free range" which means that they must "have access to the range by 4 weeks of age and for a minimum of 8 hours each day except when the natural daylight period is less." page 10. http://www.certifiedhumane.org/uploads/pdf/Standards/English/Std09.Chickens.1AD.pdf
Of course, that doesn't mean the chickens actually go outside, it just means that there are doors and a yard available . . .

Anyway . . . other than buying a fryer from an Amish farm near my home, or buying a pastured chicken at the farmer's market (which might not be possible right now, due to the fact that the spring chicks have to grow up before they will be slaughtered), right now my best option is the Smart Chicken at my grocery store. But they didn't have any. They had one packet of thighs, and possibly some boneless-skinless pieces, but no whole birds.

Row upon row of plastic-wrapped chicken with brightly colored labels showing smiling, winking chickens looked up at me from the grocery store. But all I could see was the scene in Food, Inc. where the poultry farmer throws a bunch of dead birds onto her tractor.

I wanted more chicken than four thighs, and I didn't want to buy boneless-skinless, so I picked up the "Manager's Special" quartered chicken from unknown origins. I considered asking a manager where this particular chicken had come from, but the kid working behind the counter in the meat department looked like he was 17 and there was a fair chance that I'd subbed in his classroom during the school year. I've learned that very few people in the "food" industry (grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries) know where their food comes from, or what it contains. I'm not just talking about national chains, either, I've encountered this kind of ignorance in independent businesses. Granted, usually the person I'm speaking to is "just an employee" not a manager or owner, but it can be painful when the person goes to get a manager, who acts like I'm interrupting him or her from ridding the world of cancer, and who can't answer my question anyway. (That, or they give me an answer I'm hoping isn't the case. No, the butcher shop between my house and my garden which advertises local meats does not stock any grass-fed beef - although they do have eggs from grass-fed hens, which they sell for $3.50 a dozen. The saleslady laughed and said, "Well, if you say so" when I said that was a decent price. No, the cran-apple pies at the small chain we like to stop at in Cranberry Country on our way to Minneapolis are not made from local cranberries. No, the "chop shop" in town does not sell organic meat, just regular old commercial grade beef, thankyouverymuch.)

So I was disappointed, but not shocked, that my grocery store didn't have the chicken I was looking for. But I politely let my cashier know that I was disappointed in their selection. (I had previously let this same cashier know that I really liked buying their grass-fed milk, and that I was sorry to see that they only had nearly-expired milk on the shelf that day. I haven't had a problem with finding good milk there since that day.) My cashier seemed slightly annoyed (maybe he remembered me?) when I named the brands of chicken I didn't want to buy. He asked me which brand I'd rather see. I said "Smart Chicken." He said something like, "Yeah, those really fly off the shelves. But the truck comes in tomorrow and we'll probably have more then."

I am so glad that my grocery store stocks these items, along with cage-free eggs (although I still prefer other sources for eggs and meat).

Finally - Michael and I bought a chest freezer today. I think it has a 7 cubic foot capacity. We bought it at an independently owned business here in town. (Then we went to the grocery store for milk, and saw the appliance delivery guy, who knows our landlord, because he delivered their new washer and dryer several months ago. I love living in a small town.) It will be delivered on Thursday morning. I can't wait. In fact, I made two loaves of zucchini bread tonight because 1. I still have a LOT of zucchini in my fridge and 2. I knew I would have a place to put the extra loaf soon. (My mom also made two loaves of zucchini bread today. Would you like some zucchini? How about zucchini bread? What's that? You're overloaded too? Okay. Just checking.)

Holy Zucchini!

Since this spring was my first attempt at gardening, I have a lot to learn about the topic. I especially have a lot to learn about buying seeds. While my dad was making plans for, and getting help with building, four piles of dirt for his raised bed garden, my mind raced ahead to the fall - what vegetables and fruits would I want to have in my freezer to get me through the winter? I made a long list of the foods I wanted to grow, including (in no particular order):
corn, peas, green beans, onions, zucchini, butternut squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots, celery (that idea bit the dust), basil, potatoes, beets, cucumbers, and spinach.

We went to a garden expo when there was still quite a chill in the air. (I have no idea what month that might have been.) My dad bought several Seed Savers seed packets, including a variety of watermelon that grows well in our short Wisconsin summers. Later, when the rows of dirt had been mixed with composted manure and topsoil and a little bit of sand, and I had been freezing, canning, and otherwise preserving in my head for weeks, I started throwing seed packets in the cart when we found ourselves in garden supply stores.

I was looking for two main qualities in my seeds - organic, or heirloom. Something about Barbara Kingsolver's mission to raise heritage turkeys who reproduce in the natural way inspired me to keep my foods to varieties that have been around for a long time, and haven't been meddled with. (Maybe Michael Pollan's discussion of the New Leaf potato in The Botany of Desire also had something to do with my two criteria.)

The incredibly warm spring made it hard to tell when a reasonable planing time would be (the last frost was a distant memory but the normal last frost date was still weeks in the future), but eventually dad and I gathered all of our seed packets and carefully read exactly how the seeds were supposed to be started, when they would germinate, what soil temperature they liked. We drew potential layouts for the garden, we researched companion planting, we made charts detailing the growing conditions for each seed, and eventually we actually started digging.

I had been reading the backs of these seed packets for days, learning the ins and outs of how to grow vegetables from seeds. Seed packets in hand, I walked out to the fourth bed of the garden, ready to plant peas. Only when I started to look at the peas that were about to be planted (we had three different packets) did it occur to me that I had overlooked a crucial element of seed selection. I did not pay enough attention to the variety of seeds I had purchased. I could almost quote the correct soil temperature, the days to germination, the height of the plant at maturity. But I didn't know a thing about the quality of the peas that would grow from these seeds. Last year my dad grew the most delicious peas I'd ever eaten. Did I shop for the same variety? Of course not. I'm not sure what I based my decision on, but I ended up three very different varieties of peas. All of them were good, but harvesting them was a little bit haphazard. One variety was for shelling, one was a snow pea variety, to be harvested before the peas inside matured, and one was a hybrid, with gorgeous peas inside, but also a very sweet edible pod. I'm not complaining about my choices - they were all very good - I'm just embarrassed that I overlooked some thing so crucial - food quality!

When I bought my zucchini seeds, I was looking for a variety that would produce a reasonable amount of produce. Plenty of authors have warned me about overzealous zucchini vines. The variety I bought (sorry I can't be specific - the seed packets are in my dad's garage, an hour away) said that the zucchini should be harvested when it is about one to six inches big. That sounded reasonable. If the zucchini is small when it is harvested, it can't overtake all of my kitchen counters, can it? But then, when I saw those ripe fruits hanging on the vine, I started asking questions. Six inches in length or diameter? It doesn't say. The first zucchini I picked, last Wednesday, were all at least an inch in diameter, and all were at least six inches long. I was eager to eat them. The tomatoes hang tantalizingly on the vine, green and hard, laughing at me because I can see how beautiful they are going to be, but they know I can't eat them yet. Wednesday's zucchini proved too tempting. They were the size of zucchini I have purchased at farmers markets and at the grocery store, so they must have been ready.

On Saturday I took another look at the zucchini. I knew I had more green beans to pick, so I put on my gloves (and bug spray because it was evening by this point and the mosquitoes were vicious) and waded in among the huge squash leaves. At first, I only saw small zucchinis. I picked some anyway, because I wasn't sure when I'd be back in Madison, and, at least this early in the season, they are SO GOOD! Also, many of the very small little squash on the vines were starting to get rotten, and I didn't want to wait for the ones I picked to grow, only to find out that they'd become brown slimy messes.

After I had a few mini zucchini in my basket, I saw a monster, hidden in the back of the row. I must have missed this guy on Wednesday. He fits in well with the giant kohlrabi that just kept growing . . .

That is a 3 lb zucchini and a 4 lb 6 oz kohlrabi! Also pictured: basil, green beans, turnips. (Why didn't I bring home a few more onions?)

I intended to do something with these vegetables on Saturday night, or Sunday at the latest, but it is Monday morning now and they're still sitting in my kitchen. I was too wrapped up reading blogs yesterday to worry about kitchen doings.

They're not getting any fresher. Zucchini bread, here you come.

Happy Birthday 2010!

To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question.

I've been pondering this question for weeks. I've had long lists of ideas for resolutions for the new year. Unfortunately, I can't remember most of them now. The two that are still floating around in my head are:
1. Write letters to friends/sisters at least one Sunday a month . . . more often after I finish student teaching. This was a dear tradition I started early in the almost past decade. I loved spending Sunday mornings drinking coffee, eating pastries, listening to soothing music, writing letters, and chatting with the other regulars. Cafe La France is something else now, but as far as I know, Bristol, Rhode Island is still the most patriotic city in the U.S.

2. Eat LOCAL foods. Not too much. Mostly plants. I've been inspired by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan this year. I stumbled upon Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer at an awesome new book store in Portage, Books 'n Beans, and life hasn't been the same since. Then, while Christmas shopping, I saw a copy of Michael Pollan's book that stirred up quite a bit of controversy on the UW-Madison campus this fall - In Defense of Food - and couldn't resist supporting my local book store. I would love to start the new decade with a new outlook on food. Part of this resolution definitely involves joining a CSA, which Michael and I have already agreed to do. It might also have to involve gardening, which is less exciting, because I don't really think I have an aptitude for caring for plants, but teaching seems like a good match for gardening, except for the fact that my first harvest will (hopefully) fall during my first semester of teaching in my very own classroom. But both the gardening and the teaching will only get easier, and it might be nice to have an outlet during the early part of the school year. Particularly if that outlet can help to feed us all winter!

I'm really not sure what the rest of my resolutions were going to be. Probably something about being less stressed and more relaxed, getting more exercise, keeping my house cleaner, and being more productive in general, being more positive, networking in the teaching field, etc.

I may make a resolution to read at least a page or two of a book for FUN every night before going to bed. That would be a good stress reliever for the last three weeks of student teaching, and Michael and I still have a gift card to spend at Barnes and Noble, and I've promised myself a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. (I'd get it at Books 'n Beans, but she mostly stocks only newly released books or used books, and I did not see it on the used book shelf when I was in there last week.)

But the question remains when I start getting into long lists of resolutions . . . should I make a bunch of them, and fail to keep them all, or should I just make one, and really concentrate on it? I don't think I have to worry about the local food resolution, because I'm excited enough about it to keep it up without actually having to make a resolution to do it . . .

Well, I have 52 minutes left to ponder . . .

In the meantime, I'm still working on a best of/worst of list for the 2000s . . . stay tuned.

Summertime, and the eating is easy

I know I haven't blogged in a long time . . . student teaching takes up a lot of time. Not more than I expected, necessarily, just a lot. Oliver is trying to make do with only two or three good brushings a week. Right now, though, he's enjoying a tiny soup bone.

I'm making home-made, all-local (except the lentils I threw in because they've been in my cupboard for many months) vegetable beef soup today, and Oliver got one of the scraps. There are three more bones, if he's good. We actually had an old soup bone when we got Oliver, and he ate it right up. We're in the process of transitioning him onto hypoallergenic food, but haven't cut out all of his old food yet, so I figured why not give him a bone. I know bones aren't great for dogs, but I'm keeping a close eye on him.

Last week I also made a pizza with all local toppings (cheese, veggies, pesto sauce) and home-made crust which was almost a disaster, and broke my spatula . . . maybe I'll put some pictures up when I get a chance!

Locavore In Training

I don't have a whole lot of time for a blog post right now, but I really wanted to post about what I've been up to since I bought the Best Book Ever. Barbara Kingsolver and her family moved from Arizona to Virginia, and made a pledge to live off of their own land (or the land of nearby farmers) for an entire year. In March, their food pickings were pretty slim - fresh fruit was limited to rhubarb at the first farmer's market of the season - but as the summer progressed, they found themselves up to their eyeballs in tomatoes and squash.

The whole idea of this project - and the greater Locavore movement - is to encourage sustainable farming practices, and to cut down on the amount of fuel that we're guzzling when we buy bananas in Wisconsin (or Virginia). Kingsolver calls well-traveled food "oily."

Going entirely local doesn't seem entirely feasible for me right now, since I don't have a garden, and school will be starting in a few weeks - I'll probably be very grateful for frozen pizzas with ingredients that have been shipped back and forth across the country a few times before ending up in WalMart's frozen pizza aisle . . . but that doesn't mean I can't start making more sustainability-conscious food choices right now.

Which is why I was so excited that it's Thursday - Farmer's Market day in Portage. I walked down to the farmer's market today with $11.00, all the cash I had, intending to get the ingredients for a couple of meals, at least.

I found fresh basil at the first stand I saw - which was very exciting, because somewhere in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle there's a sentence about how actual fresh basil is unbelievably better than even fresh basil that you can buy in the grocery store. (I wanted to type it out for you here but I can't find anything about basil in the book's index - available online only - and I flipped through the book a few times looking for the passage, but can't find it. Besides, you should just read the book yourself!) The most exciting thing about the basil that I bought today is that the huge bunch only cost $1. I would have had to get 3 or 4 of the little plastic containers at the grocery store to get this much basil - and Kingsolver is right, the taste of the fresh stuff is unbelievable.



Unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at comparison shopping at the farmer's market. Yet. I'll get there. Today I shelled out $3 for a single heirloom tomato.



I spent the rest of my money on some early apples, garlic, and fingerling potatoes. I wanted to make Caprese salad, so I had to run to the grocery store for fresh mozzarella, and I decided to stop by the little farm market that's always set up in the Culver's parking lot down the street from the grocery store - I've gotten great tomatoes, blueberries, and a couple of onions and cucumbers from them. The best part is that they're right on the way to the grocery store, so I can get all the fruits and vegetables I need before I spend money on oily produce.

Michael and I did a taste test, comparing one of my $1 Flynt's Farm Market tomatoes with the $3 organic tomato. Michael preferred the Flynt tomato. I think the heirloom tasted a little bit tangier but I guess I'd have to go with the Flynt tomatoes next time.



The Caprese salad is great. Michael did a taste test, and the basil is really so amazing that I had to take it out of the salad and chop it a little smaller to make it less potent. Yum!


I'm not sure how far I can go with eating locally this year, but next summer my dad might expand his garden (which is already producing a ton of squash in addition to yummy beets, awesome green beans, lettuce, and lots of different kinds of tomatoes), and Michael and I will probably buy a share (or half a share) from a CSA farm.

I'm very excited about making environmentally responsible food choices. I guess I'm just going to have to say goodbye to banana bread (and it's too bad because I just found/created a really great recipe for banana muffins using all whole wheat flour - instead of just half - and local honey instead of sugar, plus I substituted flax seed for the oil, and they turned out great - with the addition of a little vanilla and chocolate chips) but I'm looking forward to zucchini and pumpkin muffins in the not-too-distant future!

Distracted

I wanted to start a blog in part because I spend too much time reading blogs. Some of the blogs I read are written by people I know well and love dearly. Other blogs are written by complete strangers, and have very little to do with my own life (although I do sometimes get awesome recipes from bloggers I have never met).

Strangely enough, just as I started my own blog, I got so busy that I although I've been racking up things to write about, I haven't actually put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, or somehow emitted little electronic (?) signals that make my words appear on the internet for all two of my blog readers to see.

First, there is that pesky dog to groom. Okay, he's not pesky, he's a little four-legged cloud, according to a local woman who sells soap at the relatively tiny Portage Farmer's Market. (If you're from a large town or small city, you would laugh at the postage stamp sized Portage Farmer's Market that lasts a mere four hours on Thursday afternoons, but if you happen to hail from Beaver Dam, the Portage Farmer's Market just might overwhelm you with all 20 or so of its booths.) (Really, I only spend about 30 minutes a day on Oliver, but dog grooming is still a relatively new phenomenon in my life.) (Like jogging.)

Plus, last week Michael and I noticed a new store in town. It's called Books and Beans, so from the name alone, I was insanely curious, and Michael knew he shouldn't let me near the place unsupervised. I wandered in early last week, just to see what they had, without plans to buy anything (except maybe a cup of coffee . . . ). I felt a little bit silly browsing the Young Adult section, but I'm trying to keep up on the books that are being marketed to my future students (which is why I have a two-month old email from Amazon in my inbox with the subject of "hottest books for teens" or something to that effect, and is also why I'm sort of reluctantly in the middle of the Twilight series). I was, of course, the only customer in the store, and I was afraid the lady behind the counter was going to start looking at me funny, so I moved on to the adult section. (Okay, I also noticed that I had a pile of three books in my arm and I wasn't sure how I'd be able to pay for our wedding limo if I kept going at this rate . . . )

Amid several pieces of fiction that looked like they'd make great book club selections, I found a nonfiction book by the novelist Barbara Kingsolver called "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral." I'm not sure why the book called to me. The shelves were sparse, but there were many other titles that my eyes simply passed right over. (The shelves are sparse because the book store opened on August 1, and the owner thought it would be wise to get some consumer input before stocking her shelves with . . . well, I can't think of a book that I wouldn't want to buy . . . but other customers might be more discriminating.

Anyway, this book is so great I'm going to post about it later . . . right now Michael wants his computer back. And seeing as how it is his computer, I suppose I ought to give it to him. (But I totally won't after we're married - because then it will be my computer too, right?) Just kidding sweetie!!