Information, recipes, gossip, and homesteading tips for those interested in Green Fence Farm's evolution from a not-quite-viable multi-product sustainable family farm to a really really expensive hobby.
Sorry about the fact that you all had to look at Nick’s mug for a solid week, but Viv and I were in California looking at colleges (for Viv – she is trying to figure out the maximum distance she can get from the farm without actually leaving the country). Low point: Disneyland’ California Adventure, where the “Farmer’s Market” eatery celebrating “California’s farm fresh tradition” featured “hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries.” Not even a pre-packaged salad. High point: San Francisco, where you can’t walk five feet without tripping over a farmers’ market.
In any case, we’re home and ready to start the Green Fence Farm buying season. If you are a reader of this page, in the DC metro area, and NOT a member of our buyers’ club, email me RIGHT NOW and get on our list. We’ll be sending out a pathetically short list of products tomorrow evening to buying club members, so make sure you get a chance to order now (and even more so in the future when we have lots to sell).
And for all of you CSA and Buying Club members anticipating the part of year when we actually get some green stuff, check out this link sent to me by Liz, ersatz family member and Austin’s girlfriend/roommate. It answers far better than I can the question, when can I expect produce and what am I supposed to do with it. Click here to play…
Media hound, Nick Auclair, got Green Fence Farm a mention in yet another press piece, this one a Washington Post story on local slaughter houses written by Sam Fromatz, one of our Capitol Hill customers. We quite enjoy the reference to Nick selling "out of the back of his truck" -- it gives us that edgy tinge we like to cultivate.
I spend a lot of February and March shifting through emails signing up (or resigning up) old and new members for our DC CSA (just a few shares left, check here for details). This is preceded by a January that I spend arguing with Nick that there has to be a better way to process orders. Other businesses have automatic web sign-ups with little shopping carts to click and, I assume, wonderful reports generated with everyone’s email, phone number, and payments all itemized. I answer email queries, try to write a personal note to everyone who joins, and read whatever information they want to share with me.
I know this is inefficient, but I think it makes me a better farmer. I don’t want to give a ratty box of strawberries to someone I feel like I know. And I think it gives my customers a little more connection to their food; there’s a human they know handing them that box of strawberries. The last Senator Willaim Proxmire was convinced that the only campaigning he needed to do was shake as many hands as he could across Wisconsin. “A man who shakes your hand will never vote against you.” My archaic ordering system is like that.
Which leads me to the book linked above: Tops and Bottoms. We’ve always had families with kids as customers, but this year it seems like we picked up several more. Tops and Bottoms is a great way to introduce kids(up to about second grade) to farm produce, in a fun, non-hectoring way. It is a classic trickster story of a family of rabbits who trick a lazy farmer. The rabbits offer to farm his land for him and split the crop. First they give him the top half (and grow root crops, like beets, and carrots). Then they give him the bottom half (and grow veggies like lettuce and squash). Finally, they give him the tops and bottoms saving the middles for themselves (corn). Our CSA members will see a lot of the vegetables in this story as our year goes on, and Tops and Bottoms is a fun way to make those veggies less strange to the more suspicious members of the family (not that they’ll eat them; I don’t promise miracles).
I’m doing two things to get ready for St. Patrick’s Day – ordering sugar snap peas to plant (since it is good luck to do so on St. Patrick’s day) and corning my own beef (following this Cooks Illustrated recipe – the picture to the left is the beef right after it got it’s salt rub (ala the finer spa treatments)). Doing both of these has led me to an epiphany about slow food (that is, local seasonal food you process yourself).
Food is better if you have to plan for it, wait for it, and work a little for it.
I can get sugar snap peas right now at Whole Foods. They are from Chile, and while not as sweet or crunchy as the ones we’ll start picking in May, I could have them immediately without any intervening period of crawling in the frozen mud or fretting over vines that come off the trellis during rains or picking for hours in one spot without making any dent in the pea population.
But during all that crawling, fretting, and picking, I’m also anticipating that first crunch and spurt of sweet. I’m thinking about the way the farm will be when I eat those first peas – warm, green, noisy with baby animals. The Chilean peas are easy and available, vegetable sluts, really. But they also come without sensory baggage, the good kind. They aren’t special; they are just food.
I could also buy corn beef – and the cabbage and potatoes I’ll serve with it (instead of using the cabbage and potatoes from last Fall I have stored). But I wouldn’t do that, mostly because I don’t really like corned beef, or I didn’t think I did.
The recipe for making corned beef came to my email this morning, and I decided to use the sirloin tip roast I was going to braise for this instead (not the cut the recipe calls for, but I bet the Irish didn’t just use the brisket, since, like flank steak, there just isn’t that much of it in a cow). While getting the beef ready, I thought about St. Patrick’s Day when I was a kid. We always had corned beef, cabbage, and boiled potatoes – the only time we ever had it. I remember not really liking it, but appreciating the shot at potatoes with butter, a rarity in my house where my mother practiced a strict anti-starch religion.
And I can see my Dad tucking into it, relishing it like a memory of the Old Country, claiming he loved it and why didn’t we have it more often. My father was not Irish, though he did resemble a happy Leprechaun. And he did enjoy a good holiday designed around food and drink. Opera night he was Italian, tears running down his face at arias he didn’t understand and plates of spaghetti washed down with Bolla Valpolicella at Chicago’s Italian Village. Oktoberfest it was beer and brats at the local Kicker’s Club. His birthday, he became a good ol’ boy, eating my Texan grandmothers lard fried chicken with Pinot Grigio (which my grandmother pronounced “pee-nee-oo gree-gee-oo” In an “ee-i-ee-i-o” rythmn).
And St, Patrick’s Day, beer and corned beef cabbage, a meal I am, to my surprise, eagerly anticipating next Wednesday. The more we slow our food down, the more it gives us in taste, context, and pleasure.
Click here to read the article, which also appeared in the Dupont Current, the Georgetown Current, and the Foggy Bottom Current.
The article appeared a few weeks back, but I only now figured out how to load it on the website. We really loved the write-up, nice to see in print an accurate report of exactly how much money we are losing doing this. They picked my favorite pictures too – especially the one of Viv aggressively NOT picking beans….
Remember that stock we made last week. Here’s how to use it to make the best soup ever.
By the end of the week, I have a refrigerator full of odds and ends. In the freezer, there are always a few containers of frozen one or two serving dinners that just hadn’t made it back to the table.
These are the building blocks of Leftover Soup – a fabulous and fabulously easy recipe that lets you revisit favorite meals, costs nothing, and is probably good for you.
The result is a soup that has hints of everything you ate the week before – a little Chinese spice from the leftover General Tsao’s, a beef flavor from the Tuesday meat loaf, some crunch from fried chicken Friday.
In its most basic form, leftover soup is made by saving all the leftovers from a week’s meals – leftover bread or other starches included, taking them on (for me, usually) Monday, dumping them in the crock pot, adding stock and water (if your stock is reduced down), cooking on low all day, and eating when you get home. Do take meat off the bones, but no other prep is needed. If you want Cream of Yesterday soup, use an immersion blender on the brew before serving.
OK, that is the no frill, no work version of Leftover Soup. But to make the Best Soup Ever takes a little more thought.
I discovered this Saturday, a day I was in the city, but without plans, child, or husband. I also had a refrigerator full of bits and pieces of leftovers that I I had hoped to eat during the week, but were still there come Saturday.
I started a sauté pan with some butter and added green onion (grown from one of our onions that had gone old and started to grow – you can do that you know), garlic, three whole dried cayenne peppers (from our garden, dried in the bathtub in the basement). I added some leftover harissa from the Capitol Hill restaurant Cava (harissa is a hot pepper and oil dip, I believe of African origins, but made by Cava, a greek mezza restaurant on Capitol Hill, and available at Whole foods). I also blended in Curry powder, garam masala, and ground fenugreek seeds.
I let this concoction sauté for a while, mostly to enjoy how great it made the house smell. Before the garlic burned, I added a couple cups of stock and some water (since my stock was quite reduced down and gelatinous). I covered the mixture and let it bubble away for a while – maybe an hour. If your lid is not tight and the liquid reduces down, add more back as you notice the level falling.
About 30 minute before I wanted to eat (maybe less), I first pulled out the dried chili pods. Then I threw in the low simmering pot the leftovers I had gleaned from the fridge – a bowl of Asian noodles in peanut sauce, a bowl of spicy chicken tikki masala (off the bone), a bowls of lightly cooked mixed veggies.
That’s it – the final result was incredibly spicy – which I wanted – probably the result of the harissa. But I loved it – and it was a one bowl meal, with a selection of veggies, tasty chicken, and Asian noodles.
The beauty of Leftover Soup is that you can choose the flavors from the last few weeks you want to revisit, you can add any herbs or other flavors you just want in any dish (for me, garlic and hot peppers), and you can use your own delicious stock.
OK, I know I promised to post Guinea fowl/hen recipes here soon, but I was waiting to fix my favorite recipe and remember not to eat it before I took pictures. For the record here’s the recipe,
And the reason I haven’t made it yet to photograph is that all my potatoes are at the farm and I am in DC. One of the best things about this recipe is the potatoes roasted along with the Guinea, crispy and tasting of hen and butter. I sometimes take the birds out of the pan to sit and settle a bit and put the potatoes back in the oven for a little more crisping.
In any case, I knew it was time to post this recipe when I got a call from Nick this morning saying he had “looked through the blog and couldn’t find the guinea hen recipes.” This is unprecedented – Nick does not cook or read recipes (or follow instructions of any kind), and Nick does not read our blog or website (his comments: “that looks like OUR Thanksgiving turkey on there”). He had, however, promised a couple of potential buyers that, if they took our hens, he could tell them, in a nice way, what to do with them. So here you go, potential buyers – get your checkbooks out!
And in searching for a picture of a cooked yet uneaten Guinea hen, I found this post on Principia Gastronomica that describes the care of taste of these birds much more succinctly than I.
I know some of our Buying Club members have bought Guinea fowl, and if you have done something with them besides curse the space they are taking up in your freezer, please post your ideas here – or email them to me with pictures.
(You have to watch this trailer -- if for no other reason than it took me about three hours to figure out how to make it appear here).
I know, even with 10 movies on the “Best Picture” list this year (I haven’t even seen 10 movies this year, and that includes counting Food Inc. twice), my favorite isn’t on that list, but is nominated for best full length documentary. And it should walk away with the prize (not that I have seen, or even know of, any of the others. In fact, I don’t like documentaries, and I don’t think I’ve watched one in the theater since I was a kid and The Ra Expedition was the only movie playing in our one-horse, one-theater town for three whole weeks).
And it is not just that this movie is a two hour infomercial (a good one! Not the creepy type for hair removal products with Cher) for the kind of food we produce. Not just that our mentor and neighbor, Joel Salatin, is the good guy in the movie (they show him slaughtering chickens in a facility that could be ours). And not just because I have a crush on Michael Pollan (he is my old lady version of Davy Jones) who is featured throughout the movie speaking in his smooth, slightly amused voice sounding all smart and reasonable but with a tinge of passion.
More than all that, Food Inc. changed the way I think about what I eat, the way I eat, and, as a result, the way I live. And this is from someone who had, well before I saw the movie, decided to grow most of my own food, and what I couldn’t, to source locally.
I know what you are thinking – I know because several of you have already told me -- you don’t need to see a movie that puts you off your hamburger with gruesome slaughterhouse scenes. But even though Nick calls this movie a modern-day Sinclair Lewis-s “The Jungle,” its yuckiness factor is quite low. I’ve watched episodes of Law and Order that were much worse.
It is not the pictures that are disturbing in this movie (though it is often visually stunning); it is how it lays bare how big agri-business and food processors have enriched themselves by selling us food that has made us one of the sickest, fattest nations on earth. And I don’t believe we are a country of dolts. But Food Inc. shows that we have been lied to, injured, even killed in great numbers for money.
Yeah, that’s heavy stuff, But Food Inc. -- with cool but creepy music, crisp editing, the complete absence of a lecturing tone, real, charming characters (the aforementioned Pollan and Salatin to name two), and a positive ending – is not a heavy movie. Believe it or not, it’s fun to watch.
At its end, Food Inc. gives you realistic ways to escape the unhealthy, dishonest food we’ve all lived (and died) on for too long – and not horrible, unrealistic ideas like becoming a vegan (no offense to you already there) or never having another Ho Ho. In fact, if you are reading this blog, you probably are already removing yourself from the polluted food mainstream, buying from us or other local producers, demanding to know where you food comes from and who produces it before you feed it to your family.
So see the movie (or at least watch the trailer above), validate choices you already made, and let me know what you think.
Food Inc. is out on DVD and available to rent on Netflix and to buy at Amazon.
Mostly, this blog is about food, specifically the food I and you make from Green Fence Farm products. But sometimes the blog is about the farm and the souls that make it work. Leah, on the right with her sister, Lily, to the left, was one of those; today Nick pays tribute to her:
Leah, our Great Pyrenees sheep/goat guardian dog, died recently. She was an amazing dog—a gentle giant with an old soul. Despite a long history of hip dysplasia, she performed her duties wonderfully, without complaint. She asked for nothing—except for a bear hug or to sit on your feet. Several ewes were her friends—sitting together. Leah, during lambing time, would always find a ewe giving birth in the woods and lay protecting her in a most vulnerable moment.
Her greatest joy was for a person to sit on the ground so she could lie on top of them. She would have made a lousy pet—a big hairy, slobbery, ottoman sized dog—but as guard dog with hundreds of years of breeding she was well suited for her work. As we laid her to rest near a burial spot for past sheep and goats—so she could continue to perform the work she loved-- a flock of geese flew by in a seemingly memorial fly over. I’d like to think that her nemeses, the pack of coyotes that prowl the woods nearby, stood in silence for a moment to honor a fallen adversary. It will be hard to find another Leah—but her sister Lily will need another partner. I found more coyote tracks outside the perimeter fence and possibly a mountain lion track. The fight goes on—Leah would want that.
When we started to farm for a living, the way I cooked changed – more than changed, turned inside out. I used to start with the recipe and searched down the ingredients, clutching my Gourmet, hunting that spice only found in “specialty Asian markets.” Now I start with ingredients – what’s in the freezer, garden, cold storage, and what can I do with it.
I wish that I made the change because I had become a cook who had advanced beyond the cookbooks – hardly. It is much more because that “making a living farming” comment above is really a joke. There is no room in the budget for pheasant from France when I have three chest freezers full of Guinea hen from my backyard.
And I don’t have to be a very good cook to work in this “ingredients first” way – because when the produce is straight from the garden and the proteins are pasture raised and processed well, it is hard to wreck a meal – and even harder to justify doing much more than sautéing in butter (or bacon fat!) or roasting over potatoes.
Which brings me to stock – if you are cooking by following ingredients rather than recipes (or, the technical term, “winging it with what you have”) you have to have good, homemade stock around – for instant soups, sauces, braising liquids.
My favorite sort of stock falls into the category of Ghosts of Dinners Past – stocks made from the leftovers of a roasted bird, most deliciously, turkey (though I am becoming partial to roasted Guinea Hen stock too).
We had a 19 pound turkey on Sunday for an open house. As Nick carved it for the platter, he tossed the carcass into my stock pot. Later as we cleaned up, the extra garnishes from the turkey platter went in as well, as did the carrots and celery from a veggie platter (on Thanksgiving, we throw the leftover potatoes and brussel sprouts in too, sometimes broccoli, cauliflower, rolls – Nick swears he can taste Thanksgiving in the soups made from that broth, like a wine connoisseur tasting the Burgundy spring air in his plonk ).
The stock pot can sit quietly on the stove, carcass covered, during dinner or the party. At night, we tie the lid on and set it outside (if it is going to be freezing, might as well treat the world as your own walk in freezer). In the morning, it goes on the stove, filled with water, and covered. Do not salt – later you will want to reduce the stock down – and even later when you use it for who knows what, you may reduce it down more. Salt doesn’t reduce down, and your stock will be nasty salty if you start salting at the beginning.
At night, back outside to cool. The next day, I scoop out as much of the bones and other junk as I can and boil the remaining liquid down to at least on half, and often more than that. . Cool, strain, freeze. The next day (or when you use it), scrape the fat off the top.
And what to use it for – oh come on, EVERYTHING, but stay tuned. Saturday, I think I’ll use some of this batch to make one of my favorites, leftover soup.
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to update this blog more often, or at all. Another one of my New Year’s resolutions was to carry through on at least ONE of my New Year’s Resolutions sometime around New Year’s itself.
Oh well, Happy Chinese New Year, and here we go. I am going to update this sucker every day, or at least more than once a week. We have all sorts of new Buying Club and CSA members who I am sure will be happy to see I am typing my thoughts on food rather than cashing their checks or ordering seeds so that there is something in their baskets come June.
But here is the thought I was having about food yesterday: There are a lot of roasts in a cow. There is a lot of hamburger too (and only a teeeeeny bit of good stuff like filet and flank stead), but I can easily think of things to do with hamburger (like, say, make hamburgers). The roasts mostly need braising -- which would be fine if I didn’t live with Nick who won’t eat anything that can be described as “stew.”
So that leaves me with pot roasts that don’t fall off the bone or involve mushy potatoes or carrots (the latter, Viv’s demand).
Last night I tried a version of this unstewy, uncarroty braised meat dish sent to me by CSA member Mike Davis. I used a top blade chuck roast, though I imagine this could work on the tougher pieces of meat (it better, because we are out of top blade and the cow we had hoped to take to the butcher this month just isn’t the right size yet). I also got to use some oranges and fresh tomatoes I picked up on the way home from Florida last week. And this was the perfect dish for my very favorite big ol’ (yes, that is the official size) cast iron pot with a lid.
Brown the roast on both sides in some olive oil in the big ol’ pot on top of the stove. Remove the meat from the pan. Add to the hot and brown crunchy oil a couple rough chopped onions, maybe 3-8 (I like 8) whole, peeled garlic cloves, and a whole cinnamon stick. Cooks those until the onions are translucent, 5-10 minutes.
Turn off the heat, add a couple of peeled and halved oranges and a large rough cut tomato. Pour 2-4 cups of homemade chicken or turkey stock (I had stock going on the stove from turkey the day before, so yay me!). Salt and pepper to taste, and braise (covered with the big ol’ lid) in a preheated 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours (Mike used 275 degrees, but I was running behind and needed it to be done more in the 3 hour range).
When it’s done braising, remove the meat and keep it warm. Throw out the cinnamon stick and as much as the orange as you can recover (mine mostly disintegrated). Puree the remaining muck and boil it down to about 2-3 cups for sauce. Mike serves it over egg noodles – I used rice. It was great.
The picture above is of the meat right before it went in the oven. There was supposed to be a fabulous “here it is done” picture but we ate it too quickly – which I guess is a good thing.
Sorry about the fact that you all had to look at Nick’s mug for a solid week, but Viv and I were in California looking at colleges (for Viv – she is trying to figure out the maximum distance she can get from the farm without actually leaving the country). Low point: Disneyland’ California Adventure, where the “Farmer’s Market” eatery celebrating “California’s farm fresh tradition” featured “hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries.” Not even a pre-packaged salad. High point: San Francisco, where you can’t walk five feet without tripping over a farmers’ market.
