"The Dirty Life"

"It was the first time in my life that my experience as a high school cheerleader helped me. The steer hit me just below the hips, and as he lifted his head and tossed me in the air, I tucked my chin and piked. I believe I pulled a half gainer, because I landed sitting, slightly stunned but completely unhurt. The other steers stopped, staring."
-Kristin Kimball, The Dirty Life

You can begin to picture the woman who wrote this - Kristin Kimball - in her new book, The Dirty Life. She grew up in the suburbs and is part cocktail-drinking city girl, part farmer's wife, with all of the confusion that comes from trying to balance these identities. It's this quality that makes her completely and utterly real...at least to me. Like Kimball, I love my city life: walking to our favorite, crowded bar for a drink, hopping on the creaky, smelly T to see friends, seeing the sun set over the beautiful city skyline. Despite my content in the city, there is still something in me that yearns for space, land, and a home (and maybe a big truck?) where we can extend this local life that we have started. Kimball, who opts to flee the city and bunk down with a farmer in upstate New York, shows us how this can be done - on a grand scale. Because her husband is an experienced farmer, they start a CSA that provides the full diet; not just vegetables, but meat, maple syrup, grains, beans, and more. This involves a tremendous amount of work, and their adventure is recorded in her lovely book. I escape into its pages when I'm on the Metro during rush hour, which is evidence enough for me of how engaging this story is. Put it on your list!

Please Follow!

Hi faithful readers - we would love to know who is visiting our site, so if you read us regularly, please consider becoming an official "Follower"! Click on "Follow" under our picture and read the directions.

-Catherine and Andrew

Views of the farm

Grammy's persimmon tree - this incredible fruit wasn't quite ripe, but when it is ripe it can be dried, eaten fresh, or used in baking. They remind me of orange lanterns.

Our visits to Andrew's family in Sebastopol inevitably involve local eating. While these are not food pictures (for once), I thought I'd share some of the sights from our Thanksgiving visit. This is a magical place where we find peace and relaxation...and where Andrew has some of his happiest childhood memories. We spent our days eating, lounging, walking through the farm, visiting the ocean, and having good conversation.

Being on east coast time meant I got to see the beautiful sunrise melt frost on the orchard below.

Topsy and Turvy are growing up - is it my imagination, or is Topsy smiling for the photographer?
The apple orchard in the afternoon light.

Local Thanksgiving

Sebastopol Quince

Autumn has almost passed, and we celebrated a lovely Thanksgiving with Geri and Dick in California. Our menu featured many local ingredients and local flavors, and we were so happy to be together.

Menu
Willie Bird, Free-Range Turkey - Sonoma County
Apple Salad - Sonoma County (and the orchard at home!)
Mashed Potatoes - Sonoma County
Millet-quinoa bread stuffing - maybe not so local,
but oh-so tasy and homemade.
Quince Crisp - Sebastopol fruit

Geri making Bassett gravy - giblets and all. It is rich and delicious.

Our Willie Bird turkey. This turkey was raised free-range in Sonoma County by a family that's been working in the area since the 1940s.

A play on Waldorf salad, this family favorite "Apple Salad"
features apples from the Bassett orchards below Geri's house and
celery from Green String Farm.

The Crowning Glory - Quince Crisp. We made this from quince Geri found in the green space on Gold Ridge Road, New England maple syrup, and an almond biscuit crust. It was spectacular, especially served with whipped cream from a local dairy. We adapted the recipe from the November 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Autumn Adventures

Audrey (and Peanut!), Andrew, and Catherine picking pumpkins in Montgomery County.

Fall is absolutely, no contest, my favorite time of year. Christmas carols, spring flowers, and a summer swim cannot compete with the crispy leaves underfoot and the lovely cool nights. While I am not in New England to experience the true essence of fall, DC's sunny weather and changing leaves have inspired me to think about my autumn food adventures. As my previous post indicated, I have wavered from my local food commitment at the moment, but I still found time to go apple and pumpkin picking this year (and to eat apple cider donuts, of course).

Apple picking with Anne in Massachusetts.

With all the apples coming from our WFCF apple share and Andrew living on his own, I found 7 full bags of apples waiting for me during my last visit home. These were a wide selection of popular and heirloom varieties, and I simply combined them all to make luscious apple sauce. Because of my food strainer, I am able to quarter the apples, add a small amount of water, sprinkle in some cinnamon, and let them boil 'til soft. Because these apples had been sitting in the fridge for some time, they were full of natural sugars (reminiscent of honey, in my opinion) and I made enough to freeze for the whole winter. We can eat this on its own, with homemade cookies, or even blend it with roasted squash to make our favorite soup.

Wait, what?

Confessions

Photo courtesy of http://www.thehappyrock.com

Well, here we are, 6 weeks after I moved to DC and started my post-doc. Many of you have asked me how the local eating is going, and I must confess: it's not going. While Andrew is whipping up batches of "kitchen sink" soup from fresh farm vegetables and roasting succulent Massachusetts meats, I am indulging in boxed macaroni and cheese, bubbly water with lemon slices, and vegetables from goodness-knows-where. These sinful purchases can be explained by my long work hours...and my desire to indulge myself! I must admit that I feel very little guilt and it's pretty nice to wander in to the grocery store in downtown Bethesda and buy whatever I want to. However, in all honesty, my food is less nutritious and certainly doesn't taste as good as it used to...so, maybe once the dust settles on this fabulous job of mine, I'll return to the patterns of old. For now, though, I'm going to savor those lemon slices and maybe even try a banana or two.

Freezer and Kitchen Sink (Soup)

We finally broke down and bought a chest freezer.  With the meat share coming every month and Catherine in DC, some of the quantities have been overwhelming and the small freezer on top of the refrigerators has not been sufficient.  My family has a long tradition of large chest freezers full to the brim (see Mother and Grandmother), so I was initially reluctant to follow suit.  However, Catherine convinced me that we could just get a small one that would fit in our kitchen and that it would alleviate the avalanches cascading from our other freezer due to the delicate balancing act of over-packing.

We bought the freezer at Sears (with the help of Tim Jones), which was super easy (and on sale) and just rolled in next to the refrigerator (yes, it has wheels) and plugged it in!  It's about 5 cu. feet, which seems like plenty of space for now (however, I am worried that my genes are programmed for bigger and better models). I immediately transferred MANY things from our other freezer including the muffins of pesto (pesto frozen in muffin tins) that we recently made from the last basil of the year from our farm.

New freezer all set up (basket and all)!

With Catherine in DC and our visits being less frequent over the last month, I have been having trouble getting through all of the veggies from Waltham Fields.  Some keep for a long time, but others need to be eaten immediately.  Last weekend after Susan, Tim and I went to the farm, I decided it was time to use some veggies.  I saved the squash for Catherine (not my favorite) and decided to make a soup I called Kitchen Sink Soup.  Basically, my plan was to use everything that needed to be used up (sans the cabbage, which I made a delicious coleslaw using mustard - yum-MEE).

Some of the veggies to be used for Kitchen Sink Soup

So I started with some leeks, and onions, got them nice and cooked and then added our home made chicken stock and a little water.  I then added a bunch of potatoes, an onion, a ton of carrots, a couple heads of cauliflower, some kale, some diced hot peppers, black and white pepper and salt.  I let it simmer for several hours and voila!  Only thing left to do was use the hand blender to get it all silky smooth.  It's thick, a little spicy, and delicious (think potato-leek soup taken up a notch) - and made with everything but the kitchen sink!

Kitchen Sink Soup all ready to go into the new freezer - after I had a bowl of course.