another berry post...

Yesterday I bought a flat of berries, containing approximately 10 lbs. of crimson gems. I felt blessed and wealthier than I have in a long time, driving away from the farm with a huge cardboard container of berries.

I've been using Russ Parson's recipe from How to Eat a Peach, and since several people have asked me about this recipe, I'll take the time to give you more details of the process than I did in my previous jam entry. First, you slice the berries into bite sized chunks. Then you place them in a big pan with half as much sugar (i.e. 8 cups of berries and 4 cups of sugar). Add some lemon or orange juice, which will help the berries maintain their ruby red hue. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook just until the juices are clear--this means the sugar has dissolved. Let the mixture sit in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

On the second day, I fill my stock pot with water; place 4-5 half-pint jars, lids, and bands around the bottom; and boil for 5 minutes to sterilize the jars. At the same time, I start cooking small batches of jam. I boil 3-4 ladle-fuls of berries/juice at a time until the mixture is thick. You can tell when it's ready when the foamy bubbles start simmering down into a thick molten mix. I then transfer the hot jam into a big bowl and start over with another batch.

When your jars are sterilized and your jam is ready, fill the jars, leaving a scant 1/4 inch of head room, and then place the lids and bands on firmly. Lower the jars back into the water and boil for 10 minutes. Lift the jars out--I use a handy pair of tongs--and set on the counter to cool. If all has gone well, you'll hear little pings as the lids seal. What a lovely sounds!

What I love about making jam is the quiet and fragrant rhythm, the stirring and bubbling and boiling. I feel a deep sense of joy in the pleasures yet to come, as I wrote in my last jam entry.

I have another pot full of sliced berries in sugar ready for the final transformation for tomorrow...

jam (and) bands

I just made jam! I mean, I've made jam before--the quick kind that you store in the fridge because you're going to eat it soon, slathered on biscuits or with some koeze's peanut butter in a delicious sandwich. But this time I CANNED the jam. I have visions of gleaming berry jewels stored on my shelf to carry me through a long winter, and today was the first step in realizing that vision.

Yesterday I drove to the berry farm and bought 2 quarts, sliced and sugared them, cooked for 5 minutes until the sugar dissolve, hit with a splash of orange juice, and then refrigerated overnight, a la Russ Parson's advice in How to Eat a Peach (a delectable and useful book in its own right). I was rather cursing myself for buying the berries and starting the project amidst a hectic and stressful week, but Parson was right--it's not that hard. Today I cooked the berries and juice in small batches on the stove as the jars sterilized, and then ladled the hot molten jam into the jars and plunked them in a water bath for 10 minutes. Simple. And all to the jammin' rhythms of the Dave Matthews Band.

I bought pint jars--in retrospect I would buy smaller jars because after this whole process I only have 2 pint jars. But oh, they are lovely, an opaque ruby-crimson that promises sweetness to come. I'm thinking of how much our ancestors lives were filled with labor to provide for the future--all the canning and preserving of foods available now that wouldn't be available later. They knew the heady power of delayed gratification, as well as the treasure of the taste of sweetness when the snow whirls outdoors. It was a necessity and now, in many ways, it is a luxury to have the chunk of time to devote to preserving our own foods. Does this not seem somehow skewed, slant, wrong?

I just heard the first ping...

berry bliss

1890 watercolor painting from wikipedia, from the National Agricultural Library of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

I've waxed poetic about strawberries before...and I've been waiting a very long time, about 11 months, to experience berry bliss yet again. I was worried that the torrential rainfall and flooding would drown the berries or turn them into a watery mess, but behold, the season's first fruit...

My friend B brought me a handful of berries from the farmer's market (which I missed because I was teaching Upward Bound students how to read a poem), and I waited until after dinner to taste the first one. The color--plush red. The fragrance--warm and floral. The texture--melting and soft. The flavor--delicate, nuanced, and sweet. Ahhh!

And so I tucked the remaining berries back in the fridge, and when I returned home from class (teaching college students the satiric pleasures of Candide), I spooned some plain cream top brown cow yogurt in a bowl, topped it with sliced berries, and a sprinkle of turbinado sugar. Oh holy bliss.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a colleague about why I only eat local strawberries. She was confused and I don't think my tentative explanations--of something I'm so passionate about--made a dent in her consciousness. How do I have food politics discussions without seeming pretentious or elitist? How can I communicate my passion for eating locally, seasonally, ecologically, and deliciously, without alienating people I care about in some capacity, and don't want to offend?

And I'm saddened that the berries don't speak for themselves. How many people have REALLY tasted a strawberry as it's meant to taste? Not bred for travel and color only, not communicated via "natural" or artificial flavors, but the berry itself, in its most berry-ness state of being.

I want, to quote Alice Waters, a delicious revolution for everyone. And berry bliss galore:)

soup primavera

from dharmagirl's kitchen:

Today I finally cooked a small package of flageolets that my mom purchased for me at Dean and Deluca. Flageolets, according to Mark Bittman, are very young kidney beans. Uncooked, they're pale green, narrow, with only a hint at a kidney shape. They have a light, delicate flavor. I followed Bittman's directions for soaked, quick-cooked beans which worked beautifully. I covered the beans with 2 inches of cold water; boiled for 2 minutes; let stand, covered, off the heat for two hours; then brought to a boil again; and finally, simmered until tender-ish, and only then added salt and pepper. I've recently learned that adding salt to beans too early in the cooking process makes for a tough bean.

Then, I had a giant pot of beans and I wasn't sure what to do. I decided to make a farmer's market soup. I heated olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot, added thin slices of garlic, chopped spring onion, and small rounds of asparagus, which I sauteed briefly. I then added water and brought the mixture to a boil. I threw in a handful of amish egg noodles and set the timer for 8 minutes. When the timer binged, I added a generous ladleful of flageolets, a splash of whole milk, salt, and copious amounts of black pepper. Just before I served the soup I added spinach and a dusting of parmesan. The soup was surprisingly good, and would've only been better with some herbal infusion or a splash of lemon juice, which I easily could've done, but didn't.

I toasted up my last cheddar scallion biscuit, made a simple green salad, and enjoyed my very GREEN, my very Spring soup, and my delicious, slow food meal.

Incidentally, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a flageolet is also "small wind instrument, having a mouthpiece at one end, six principal holes, and sometimes keys."

a day at the farm: saxon creamery

photo taken by J.K. and ever so graciously shared with me

"Eating is an agricultural act," writes agrarian philosopher and author Wendell Berry. I've been thinking about the ethics and practice of eating lately, partly because I'm coordinating our campus' Common Theme for next year. We've selected the tagline "It's Easy Being Green" to energize folks on campus to think and act more sustainably. The theme will be carried out through intellectual inquiry, classroom tie-ins, practical changes, and nifty programming. I can't wait! Truth be told, I'm more than a little nervous to be coordinating this initiative, but I have so much help that I know it will be a collective effort and it will be wonderful.

My personal focus for the project (because I can't possible DO everything, just coordinate everything) is two-fold: green food issues and eco-literature. One of the primary goals of the green food issue is to explore local food connections. So, when I recently received an email from the Southeast Wisconsin Slow Food Convivium inviting me to tour a local dairy farm, I quickly signed up and invited my friends.

And so, on a windswept Saturday in mid-may, A, J, and I drove to Saxon Creamery in Cleveland, Wisconsin for a morning of tasting and touring. Our tour began with a brief history of the farm; you can check out their excellent website for more information on their history and excellent cheeses. We then toured the production facility, a spotless and cool converted beer warehouse (only in Wisconsin, right?). We peered through a series of windows to see the gleaming stainless equipment, white cheese-shaping molds, and marveled at 16 pound wheels of cheese floating in salt-water brine baths. Racks of cheeses lined the last room, the aging room, where the temperature and humidity is carefully monitored to simulate a cave.

While we were touring the facility, Elise had shaved off generous slices of the three cheeses: Big Ed, Saxony, and Grassfields. When Jerry brought us back into the front room, we enjoyed endless slices of cheese, trying to detect the subtle differences in the cheeses, from the sweet&salty Big Ed, to the nutty Saxony, to the creamy&buttery&tangy Grassfields. I love each of the cheeses and have a hard time settling on a favorite, though later that day I bought a wedge of the Saxony (for comparison, think of a mountain cheese, like and aged Fontina). Jerry surprised us all with bottles of maple syrup from the farm as take-aways.

We then drove through downtown Cleveland, bustling with Saturday morning rummage sales and the quintessential Wisconsin celebration, the Brat Fry. After driving over the interstate, we pulled over on the side of the road, and saw the farm spread before us under billowing clouds. To our right was a ten acre woodlot (home of the maple syrup) and surrounding us were fields of grass and specks of cows far in the distance.

Our tour concluded at the farmstead, where Jerry explained the seasonal process of breeding, and how calves are taught/encouraged to pasture. We gazed at a small field filled with adorable calves gently mooing and staring at us (likely wondering what the dumb humans were up to now). One paricular caramel colored calf stared straight at us, looking happy and sweet.

We then traipsed over to the farmstead where Jerry explained what each of the red wood buildings was used for, and then took us into the milk parlor. This milking facility is modeled after New Zealand farms, where the comfort of the cows is paramount and human comfort is secondary.

Jerry's passion for pastured, grass-fed dairy is palpable, and his dedication to this particular farm and its bounty is deep. His message to us was to supprt farms such as his and to support our local communities. Education and knowledge about our food has the power to change all of our lives--producers and consumers.

I don't feel virtuous or self-righteous as much as I feel committed to truly knowing this place where I now live. And I feel a deep gratitude to the farmers whose labor is invisible in the foods that grace my plate so many times each day. I want to really think about the lives that have contributed to my food--human and non-human alike--and to truly appreciate and support them through the power of my fork.

field to fork

One of the most exciting finds from my Wisconsin trip is a restaurant/gourmet shop/foodie gem in downtown Sheboygan. After a day filled with frustration, tears, annoying calls from a quasi-stalker potential landlord, and a decision on a cute apartment a few blocks from Lake Michigan (not owned by aforementioned landlord), Mom and I drove down the coast to Sheboygan for lunch. I had seen an ad for Field to Fork in a brochure at a local coffee shop (more on that crazy place later), and hoped that the food, ambience, and grocery would be as wonderful as I imagined.

High expectations can be dangerous, and many, many a time this tendency of mine towards grand visions has ended in serious disappointment. I am, therefore, elated to report that Field to Fork exceeded my expectations. The restaurant has wide, old, knotty wood floors, an open grill, a handful of tables on the ground floor and an open loft with more seating. Our waiter was bubbly and kind, and the food! The food was delicious and well/ethically sourced. The philosophy of the place is to use local, sustainable foods where possible, but not to exclude other delectable gems from around the world (like the San marzano tomatoes in my Ceci bean soup). The grilled cheese feature Wisconsin cheeses, of course, and was a real treat grilled in butter (unlike the more healthful olive oil I use at home).

I ate a few bites of my soup (ceci beans--like garbanzo?, tomatoes, rosemary pesto) and felt the jangly edges of new beginnings and uncried tears soothed by the comfort of good food. I envisioned Saturday mornings spent driving down to Sheboygan for yoga classes, a delicious lunch at F2F, a quick shopping trip from their gracious cases (they have milk in glass bottles! and Italian pastas! and San marzano tomatoes!), and then meandering back up the lakeshore to settle in with a stack of student papers...okay, there is where my dreamy fantasy breaks down when faced with prosaic reality.