Weekend Adventure: Concrete

A couple of weekends ago, Neil and I went on an excursion to the town of Concrete, a small semi-industrial town about an hour south-east of Bellingham along the North Cascades Highway.  Concrete, formerly "Cement City," finds itself along the Skagit River, and tucked between Mount Baker and Mount Shuksan.  In short, it's beautiful.  

The reason for our trip was an incredible farming opportunity offered by a landowner in the area.   Really incredible: 

Seemingly too good to be true, except for the fact that it wasn't.  The only pesky problem is that the town of Concrete has just a handful more than 800 people in it.  And though my past hometowns have included such places as Goshen, Ohio and Royal City, Washington, I'm not sure I'm ready to be in such relative isolation again.  

So it's that persistent quandary: the perks, conveniences and social outlets of more urban living vs. the space and freedom that rural living affords to create a simpler (and, to me, a more intuitive) lifestyle.  So, what's it going to be - a farm or friends?  Unfortunately, land prices closer to population centers in this area make it feel like it does have to be an "either/or" situation.   I know it's not that cut and dry, and it certainly has me ready to dust off the idea of a collective farm and look at it more closely and seriously.  I also want to be a part of reinvigorating the idea of the farm as a central member of the community - a gathering place, a place to work teach learn experiment provide eat grow harvest celebrate.  And I am continually inspired by the many examples I see of this happening across the country.  

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but in case I'm not:  Please please support the local farmers in your area;  they are some of the most hard-working, intelligent and committed people you'll have the chance to meet. Their work and their products are so often undervalued and taken for granted, but they provide much more than food for their communities.   Can't wait to join their ranks.  

Spring ReCap

So allegedly Summer starts tomorrow.  And, in my naively hopeful mind, both the clouds and this mondo head cold I've come down with are going to leave these parts forever in favor of sunshine and clear sinuses.  Time will tell ...  In the meantime, these pictures tell the story of the past few weeks, with weekends that have largely been spent away from home: visiting Jill and Justin for a beautiful weekend in Port Angeles and going down to Oregon to spend some time with Neil's family [a trip that included an epic bike ride (the 39 mile Gorge Ride) with Neil's dad]. Panda Conspiracy's Laser Prom and culinary adventures are sprinkled in for good measure.  

Springtime 2010:

The magic of the Olympic Peninsula hits you quickly as you cross the bridge...

and follows you into the forests.

pre-ride, fresh legs

GORGE-ous wildflowers: balsamroot, yarrow, bachelor buttons

Biking is serious business.

pre-Prom photo-op by our locker

my first solo quiche attempt - kale, garlic scapes, onions and morels

Many thanks to Jill for taking the intimidation factor away from the whole process!

Happy Solstice friends!  

A Saturday Well Spent

Neil scoped out a local strawberry U-Pick for us to go to on Saturday.  11 pounds later ....

the first canning effort of the year - 6 jars of strawberry jam

Sunday wasn't too bad either...

Wild Fermentation

June may not seem like the time to hop on the fermentation train.  Salad greens, rhubarb, radishes, asparagus are all fresh and delicious reminders that we can put away the storage veggies (they've sprouted long ago anyway), Spring has sprung!  Well ... no one told Bellingham that - or most of the Pacific Northwest it seems.  Rain continues to fall down from the sky with the persistence we've come to expect from our winter precipitation here, and occasionally the force I associate with Midwest downpours. 

In any case, I saw a Napa cabbage the size of my head at the farmers' market last weekend and got the urge to make my nose drip right along with the rains.  

Hello kimchi!

Some background...

Kimchi is a spicy Korean pickle, made in an impressive variety of styles.  It is prepared by fermenting Chinese cabbage, radishes or turnips, scallions, other vegetables, and often seafood, with ginger, hot red chili pepper, garlic, and often fish sauce.

Kimchi is a national passion in South and North Korea.  The Korean Food Research Institute estimates that the average adult Korean consumes more than a quarter pound of kimchi every day.  ...  Though factory-manufactured kimchi is gaining in popularity and making it at home is on the decline, according to the same source, three-quarters of all kimchi consumed in South Korea is still made in the home.  It is customary practice for employers to give their employees an annual "kimchi bonus" in the autumn so they can purchase the ingredients to make their annual supply.

Sandor Ellix Katz, Wild Fermentation

Wild Fermentation has been my fermenting bible as of late - yogurt, kombucha, sauerkraut, mead, sourdough pancakes, you name it - there are great recipes and, like the one above, great backstories on the many intersections of food and culture (people cultures and microbial cultures alike).  

I've been drawn to the process of fermentation because it makes food feel more alive, digest more easily, taste tangier, store for longer, and because it is just that - a process, a way to take time, more of a long-term relationship with food.  And it's a process that seems to be slipping away, particularly in the States.  Whether that's because we feel like we don't have the time or have been persuaded to believe that there is no such thing as beneficial bacteria - especially in the kitchen - fermentation has largely gone by the wayside.  But there's no time like a rainy late-Spring day to reclaim it!

And kimchi is a really delicious and easy way to start: 

Kimchi (Adapted from Wild Fermentation)

Ingredients: 

Sea salt

1 large head of Nappa cabbage

2 Carrots 

(Daikon Radishes, Bok Choi, Red Radishes, Snow Peas, etc)

 Green Garlic (garlic pulled before it makes a full head) -    2+ stalks

Leeks/Onions/Scallions/Shallots -    1 to 2+

Hot Red Chilies -  5+

Grated Fresh Ginger -  3 to 4 inch piece

The HOW TO:

Kimchi is made up of 3 main parts: Brine, Veg, Spice Paste

1.  Mix a brine of about 5 cups of water and 5 tablespoons sea salt.  Make sure the salt has really dissolved - the brine should taste good and salty.
   
2. Coarsely chop the cabbage and slice up whatever other veggies you're adding.  Let them soak in the brine overnight, keeping them submerged with a plate or other weight.  The veggies should feel softer - but still slightly crisp - in the morning.
3. Get that spice paste together: grate the ginger, chop the garlic onions leeks etc, chop up the chilies or throw them in whole.  The quantities on the spice paste are what I used on this most recent batch and are going to vary based on how spicy, garlic-y, tangy you want your kimchi to be.  Experiment!  Mix all of those flavoring ingredients together.
   
   
4. Drain the brine off of the vegetables, reserving it for later.  Taste your veggies to see if they're at a pleasantly salty level - Too salty? Rinse them off a bit.  Can't taste the salt? Now's a good time to add a couple extra teaspoons.  
5. Mix the veggies with the ginger-chili-garlic-etc paste and stuff it into a clean quart-size jar.  Push it down pretty tightly so that more brine rises up to cover the vegetables.  If the brine isn't rising high enough, add some of the reserved brine to make sure everything is submerged.  You can weight the vegetables down with a smaller jar, or a water-filled ziplock bag OR check in daily and push the veggies back down using your fingers.  Whichever way you choose, make sure to keep the jar covered with a towel to keep out dust and bugs. 
6. Keep the jar in a warm place - your kitchen should be fine.  Fermentation happens particularly fast in warm weather, so make sure to find time for a daily taste test - it's amazing how much the flavor changes in 24 hours.  And LISTEN - There's auditory enjoyment to be found in food too, particularly fermented foods.  I could definitely hear my batch of kimchi fizzing away with activity.  When your batch reaches the level of sourness and flavor you like (for me this took 3 days or so), move it to the refrigerator to slow the fermentation process.  ENJOY! 

WARNING: Fermentation will cause shrinkage.

Sandor writes about a fruit kimchi which I may have to try when fruits start coming on (if I can get my mind around the idea of mixing cilantro grapes apples garlic and ginger together ...)  Right now I've got my eyes on a few more of those mondo Napas.  Kimchi part deux.

Thursday Morning Thoughts

1. Find bra and motivation - time to substitute teach: Mrs. Wood's 5th grade class, here I come!

2. Exciting Ski to Sea weekend coming up, very exciting weekend visitors.

3. This oil spill in the Gulf is real and horrifying - these pictures from the Boston Globe are gut-wrenching, and only begin to touch on the devastation.  Thinking about a trip to the coast this winter to see if I can help in the ongoing clean-up, demanding of myself that I reduce my own dependency on oil. 

Maybe I'll hijack class today and get these 5th graders thinking about it too ...

Plant and Animal Updates

A morning tour of our Douglas Ave homestead...

Chicken Tractor for the Broiler Hens (AKA "meat birds").  You can't see the wheels in this picture, but we move this portable coop around each night to give the hens more grass to pick through and quickly poop all over in the quintessential nutritional exchange. 

These ladies and gentlemen are bred to put weight on at a remarkable (and likely unhealthy) rate.  Keep in mind that they are the same age (5 - 6 weeks old) as the laying hens in the pictures below AND that they are already half-way through their lives at this stage.  This isn't meant to be morbid; these chickens are well taken care of, and, despite what many people assume, they are active foragers and quite mobile.  That said, there's little doubt that their rate of growth must be causing tremendous strain on their internal systems (an issue that the industrial food system is all too willing to gloss over - Food Inc: see it! ).  SO ... I'm glad to have had the chance to be around them, happy that our farming group has decided against raising these types of chickens next time, and happier still to be a vegetarian (though always impressed by and encouraging of those who want to raise their own meat in a humane and intentional way). 

One of my favorite Spring sights: pea blossoms. 

Crawling Hops Vines

Chicken Tractor #2 : Interim mobile home for our 6 laying hens 

(4 Road Island Reds, 2 Barred Rocks)

The Garlic Patch: Garlic Harvest is usually in early July - but, for those of us who can't wait, the scapes (garlic's long loopy flower stalk) should be coming on any day now.  Same great flavor in a new decorative package: great pickled!

The Bird Farm Continues: Heritage Turkeys, a couple of weeks old. 

life starts here.

Our Bodies, OurSelves

I remember sitting at the dining room table, having dinner with my family, a short length of 2x4 wrapped to my forearm with an ace bandage thinking, 'I bet most kids don't do this.'

No, not the whole family dinner thing, though that too has definitely become more and more rare.

I'm talking about the 2 x 4.

It was summer of one middle school year or the other, and I had come home from a basketball camp with a sprained wrist (and a small trophy, but that's another story). My parents are both doctors, so the news of my injury wasn't alarming or even that exciting. In minutes I was outfitted with this new brace, and I have to admit that what it lacked in comfort and style, it certainly provided in stability. Nonetheless, it was a 2x4. And thank God I didn't have to wear it to school.

Similar instances came up throughout my childhood - tape instead of stitches, going to school with colds, and avoiding X-Rays at all costs. (I still do this, because as my dad would always remind me - Knowing whether it's broken or sprained won't change anything, Erin; the healing process is the same. Plus, they charge an arm and a leg for those things.)


I would never say that my parents were neglectful in my health. No, confusingly, they were more protective about things like rollerblading, 4 Wheelers, and trampolines than most parents (because, as they would also remind me, those were some of the main causes of countless injuries they had treated). And my mom is still my long-distance doctor, the first person I call when I need medical help or advice.


Whether it's due to the financial burden healthcare always seems to impose OR the fact that my parents' DIY style of treatment has rubbed off on me (I've often said that I'm a doctor by association) OR the idea that I'm 25 years old and still delusional about my own physical invulnerability, the fact is I'm sometimes too hands-off about seeking treatment, getting check-ups, dealing with pain.


But I've had some wake-up calls recently. The aches and pains of friends turned into more serious life-altering issues. My own exhaustion (potentially due to anemia) as of late. The reality that my livelihood is dependent upon my body - and that sustainability isn't something to keep externalized; it's an integrated system that includes me. Yes, we are so much more than our bodies. But we are our bodies.


It's hard to know where to go from here, in part because there are some other realities to consider: the healthcare system can be hard to navigate - 1) finding practitioners who are compassionate, knowledgeable, and affordable is a challenge (though not impossible!) and 2) there's still an obvious bias towards specialized reactive medicine as opposed to holistic preventative care.


Ultimately, I think we do know our own bodies best. But we're not always ready to listen to what they have to say. So in the spirit of dancing (farming, running, swimming, hiking, making love in every sense of the word) together 50 years from now, let's encourage each other to open our ears, to dig deep (but not too deep - and always ergonomically), rest, stretch, and be patient patients when we need to.


with love and every intention to do some morning yoga,
erin.