Kicking and Screaming

I will never understand why, when those last days of August come into view, people wish for the end of summer and can't wait for fall. Their giddiness over cooler days, cozy nights by the fire, chunky sweaters is understandable, I guess, but I'd still rather be half-naked, outside, in the sun.

Maybe people succumb to this phenomenon because they are just exhausted by the sun-drunk pace of the season. In Oregon, where our summers are gloriously mild, but tragically brief, we try to cram every outdoor activity imaginable into those three short months before the damp and moldy winter sets in. As the days get short and Labor Day comes into sight it's as if these fall-lovers have rung every ounce of summertime enthusiasm out of their cells and welcome the dark and the wet just so they can hibernate until March. By then they'll undoubtedly have cabin fever and start wearing shorts as soon as it hits 65 degrees.

This is not me. Mainly because as the summer draws to a close I look back on my mental of list of things I wanted to do while I didn't have to wear some kind of water-repelling gear and always feel like a failure. I never picked enough berries, or rode my bike as often as I wanted to, I didn't re-landscape the front yard, or invite everyone I know to a barbecue. On and on. I was really meant for more of a temperate, Mediterranean climate where these activities can be spread out over the entire year. (Like Oakland, where I went to school, and where I am as I write this, the night before the first annual BlogHer Food conference).

This last week, the first week of official fall, we got a bonus week of hot weather. It felt like an overindulgent gift (but I'll take it). And for once, instead of letting all the annuals and the vegetables rot into the ground and ignore their brown, slimy selves until spring, I actually pulled out the tired and waning squashes and now-bitter greens and got to extending my gardening season. We planted another round of greens and little root veggies: arugula, kale, chicory, radish, radicchio, broccoli raab (which has always succumbed to bugs before, we'll see if it does better in the cooler weather). I put up new twine lines for beans that I hope to get into the ground when I get back home. I've still got rainbow chard which I might be able to keep going if I get a cold frame built to protect it (another item on the summer list that didn't get done this year).

Maybe I won't go into this fall kicking and screaming like years past. If I can keep my hands in the dirt, even if the rest of me is covered in wool and raincoat, and spread out the garden tasks over these long and dark months, I might avoid my own cabin fever and frenzied do-it-all-now mentality next summer.

Maybe.

Invasion

Last year I had my first vegetable garden. It did okay. I found I can't really do tomatoes (doesn't get hot enough in my beds), greens do beautifully (and I learned I really love arugula), and cutworms are the most disgusting, frustrating beasts in the animal kingdom (and I'm proud to say I got rid of them, knock wood).

So we had our beds, along the driveway where I'd taken out a few of the old roses. And then on the other side of the house, where it's shady, we had some volunteer pumpkins, likely from dumping our jack-o-lanterns in the compost pile there. They were fun, growing up the fence, and we cut some and used them for decoration in the fall.

So I was kind of happy to have some volunteer pumpkins pop up on the driveway side when I planted this year's veggie garden in May. "We won't need to go to the pumpkin patch!" Clara squealed. I love it when the kids get excited about what's growing in our garden.

And so I planted beets and carrots and radicchio, three different varieties of lettuce, cantaloupe and basil and rosemary, and some others. I can't remember everything else. I haven't seen them all in so long...



...because those damned pumpkins have not only taken over the garden, they're taking over the freaking world. And the zucchini and patty-pan squash are their loyal accomplices.

Fred's Roses

My husband rolls his eyes when I tell people this: I can read the personality of a house. Sometimes. If I really want to. Some houses, I don’t want to read. There is too much sadness, anxiety or a sense of resignation. We once lived in a new apartment. It was a like a baby, excited to see what we’d do next. My uncle once lived in a house that hated children.

Our house has always been a house of possibilities. Of invention. Of dedication and perseverance and optimism. Sometimes I think this house has made us who we are now (I’ve essentially lived here my entire adult life). We loved this house from the moment we walked in the door, almost exactly ten years ago. True, we were living in a broken-down, worn-out and totally apathetic 93-year-old townhouse with the most maddening, pothead liar for a landlord. Just about any dwelling would have looked better.

But that’s not true. We did look at other houses, after this one (it was the first). And we just loved this house. It’s a 1912 Craftsman bungalow, wide, with a full front porch, and four dormers. I especially loved the kitchen (it seemed huge then, before kids). It had solid bones, a proud character, and we could afford it (we actually rented it for almost a year, then bought it). And we wanted out of that crazy townhouse.

Fred

It wasn’t until we’d been here a few months that I started to think about Fred. We pieced together, from stories we were told, that he probably grew up in this house, and lived most of his adult life here. We don’t know much else about him, except that he was frugal and self-reliant, handy and committed. We could see it in the things he left behind.

I started to read this house, once we’d settled in and arranged our ratty towels in the linen closet, organized our cheap cookware in the white melamine Home Depot cabinets our landlord installed. Fred had left a deep impression here, from the jar lids nailed to the rafters in the basement (presumably to secure containers that held small items, such as screws and nails, up out of the way) to the old hybrid roses that lined the driveway. And when I read this house I knew it was ready to be ours. Fred was leaving, knowing that his home was in the care of people who truly loved it and would care for it.

I don’t remember when I really began to think about the garden. I do remember, after living here a year or two, Aaron said something about taking over all the yard work knowing I was bored by the whole idea. He was tired of the unwelcoming juniper in the front, the suffocating hedge in the back, the mishmash of immortal calendula and random, forgotten perennials in the driveway beds. I’d done some of the basic maintenance here and there, and I’d worked very hard at taking out the blackberries at the behest of the mortgage company; they could attract pests, you know. (Incidentally, this company also made us exterminate a bumble bee nest under the porch, which I will always regret, much the same way I wish we’d just tended down the brambles.)

Later we learned that Fred was out practically every day tending those blackberries. “To keep active,” the lady next door explained. Now I know he probably enjoyed a bumper crop of berries, too. I’ll always wonder what he did with them. Eat them? Give them away? Did he bake? Make jam?

Gardening to distraction

Though my container garden at the townhouse threatened to take down the whole dilapidated balcony with the weight of clay pots, I was uninterested in the garden here. Until, that is, about 2001, after we’d lived here about four years, when the economy was in shambles and no one in this town, who worked in marketing or design at least, could find a job. We were chronically under-employed and, for a few months, lived on the equity in this house. At the end of the summer I took over the struggling web design company Aaron started and he got a job in web analytics. Then September 11th happened and things went for horrible to, well, a blur.

Landscaping the yard was our escape. That summer we pulled out the juniper. We put in a basalt rock wall and planted native shrubs. We weeded. We fertilized. We shoveled dirt, a lot of dirt. We thought about anything but our derailed careers and our shrinking bank account. Don’t ask me how we paid for all this gardening. Or all the cocktails we consumed.

Still, as far as maintenance went, I mostly ignored the roses. Because I could. They were old and healthy and unfussy. They simply asked for water, a lot of water. And I didn’t mind if they were a little blackspotty, or if the aphids sucked the life out of their buds. I just pulled off their fungus-infested appendages and stuffed these colorful long-stemmed beauties in vases I set around my house and enjoyed their charm.

A garden designer told me that I should break them up and move them. “You’ll enjoy them more,” she said. I was shocked. As a native of the City of Roses I always knew roses in rows. I would not move them. And what if they didn’t survive the trauma? This is when I knew I loved these rose bushes, all twelve of them.

Clearing out the old

Earlier this year, when I started to crave space for growing food, we consulted a garden designer, Laura Baughman. She advised us to take out three of the rose bushes, the peace roses close to the carport. I knew she was right, though I felt horribly guilty at sacrificing these old bushes for this new project. A few weekends ago we decided we would take them out as part of our big three-day yard maintenance marathon.

That Sunday morning I heard a commotion on my porch.

“Anybody home?” It was Neighbor Joe, delivering more plums. He’d never stopped by here before; I always met him while visiting my friend, who lives next door to him. We chatted a while. I promised him jam. He looked over the railing of my porch toward the driveway. “Do you still have those roses?” he asked.

“Yes, they’re still there,” I said. In a few hours I wouldn’t be able to answer this question the same way.

“That old man, you know, he used to be out here every day taking care of those roses,” Joe told me. “He was real old, you know, about 90.” (Joe is 89.) “Then he’d invite me in for a drink…” He laughed his dirty-old-man laugh.




I hadn’t thought about Fred in a long time. Little by little his imprint on this house has faded and our family’s has settled in. Our modern ways, or at least our sense of aesthetics, necessitate making substantial changes to this house. He probably wouldn't recognize the kitchen with it's shiny steel appliances. The (sort of make-shift) office where I write this, and where my home-based business is headquartered, was once his basement workshop. Soon we’ll put in a master suit in the semi-finished attic. And we've brought back the old things he tried to do away with. The year Clara was born we re-installed the period moldings around the doors and windows, bringing back the “old” look that Fred no doubt tried to remove sometime in the 60s in favor of something modern.

But that Fred. With Joe’s out-of-nowhere comment, he just had to make sure I knew how much he loved his roses. I didn’t tell Joe that I planned to take out three bushes, the peace roses, that day. When the time came I watched Aaron unceremoniously stick a spade under each plant and scoop it out, practically without effort, which surprised me. Did they know their time was up? It happened so fast I didn't even get a picture. I'm kind of glad. It's makes it easier to move on.


The blessing
But I made sure Fred knew I’d gotten the message, just by speaking this story. And I told him the other roses were staying and that I intended to grow food in this newly cleared bed. I imagine he’d grown tomatoes and zucchini and lettuce somewhere on this lot or perhaps in the once empty lot next door where the 1950s cottage now sits.

At the end of the day I think I got another little sign from him. Clara appeared at the front door dangling a bunch of blackberries in her fingers. Aaron took out a fence and all the brambles around it and gave this to her to bring to me. These were the progeny of Fred’s blackberries at the peak of their season. We went to the kitchen where Iris was perched in her highchair and the three of us ate them all in about thirty seconds flat.

“Mmm, they’re sweet,” Clara said. “And this one is sour.”

A little snack, courtesy of Fred. I think he approves of our new garden plans.

Eat Local Challenge is almost here!

The Eat Local Challenge is upon us again and we’re going to take this opportunity to step up our game a bit. It’s summer and it’s been easy to eat mostly local since the farmers’ markets opened but we know we can do a little better. I’ve been meaning to search out local providers of some odds and ends—like vodka and vinegar, goat cheese and farm-fresh eggs—but I’ve needed a kick in the pants to get me going. This is it.

And since eating local, for us, isn’t just about what we eat, but about keeping dollars in our local economy, reducing our usage of fossil fuels and building community, we’re going to add a few other commitments to our September Challenge. Because I’m totally insane.

Here’s what we’re committing to:

1. As much as possible, eat produce grown and meat and eggs raised in Oregon and Washington. I thought about doing the 100 mile thing, but the kind of research involved is just not realistic for us right now (though I'm finding in my prep that I'm still doing plenty of Googling as it is). This regional approach isn’t going to be all that different from what we’ve been doing but I’m going to do my best to find some local suppliers so I’m buying from them and not the grocery store. This, I’m sure, will be my biggest challenge given the time involved, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to do anyway. I especially want to find farm-fresh eggs. After eating local, fresh eggs on Orcas Island, we’re all totally hooked.

2. If it’s not local ingredients, buy from a local company. We want to keep those dollars in our own economy.

3. If not locally produced nor a local company, then organic. Now if you’re familiar with Jamie from 10 Signs Like This and her tips for eating local published on the Eat Local Challenge website you know that her #2 is if not local, then organic, and following that if it’s not organic then buy from a local company. For us, we’ve reversed these and here’s why: the vast majority of organic products in our local grocery store are made by companies that are owned by giant conglomerates [see a chart here] and I’m not convinced they’re committed to sustainable farming or reducing their carbon footprint. So most non-local organic is low on our list.

4. Bring lunch to work. This mainly applies to Aaron, since I work at home, but realistically it’s going to be up to me to make it possible, since I do all the food shopping and cooking. hopefully, Aaron will be happy with local leftovers.

5. If we eat out, eat at locally-owned restaurants that use locally-grown ingredients. We usually do this anyway. Portland is pretty anti-chain. Though this may mean neither Thai Ginger nor any Fire on the Mountain Buffalo wings this month.

6. Stick to the average American food budget. We need to do this anyway, and the Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge of last April is a great inspiration. Our budget, according to their guidelines (from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau Statistics): 2+ persons in the family, 2 wage earners: $144 a week. This will definitely be a challenge. I often spend twice that.

7. Start a garden. I’ve got the tomatoes going. Now it’s time to get going on those late fall crops. Did I tell you that recently I was mistakenly referred to as a farmer? And it was better than being told I look like Gwyneth Paltrow?

8. Preserve. I don’t know if I can commit to any more than the jams, butters and straight freezing of fresh produce I’ve been doing. I just commit to keeping it up.

Our exceptions:

1. Pamela’s Ultimate Baking Mix. I justify this because it’s not going to do us any good to hunt down a local supplier of wheat; we can’t eat it. I do have a local supplier of wild rice – Oregon Jewel -- but at $6+ for 4 servings we can’t afford to buy this to mill into flour. I don't even know if wild rice can be used as flour. And I already use Bob’s Red Mill’s Rice Flour (the rice if from California). The Pamela’s mix is the product that helps me incorporate a lot of leftover local produce into our diets.

2. Gluten-free pastas. Again, if I can find a local supplier, or local ingredients, I’m there. But this is a staple that makes the local stuff come together.

3. And along those lines, if I can’t find a local or organic or gluten-free or dairy-free version, I’ll buy whatever. We’ve got a lot of birthdays coming up this month and I think I’m going to have to buy a lot of margarine for baking so no one gets a horrendous exzema breakout from butter.

4. We’ll eat whatever is already in the house, wherever it came from. I’m not letting perfectly edible food go to waste.

5. And the ones that gets everyone: coffee and olive oil. We already either buy coffee from a local company and/or fair trade. And I buy olive oil that’s produced in California rather than Italy. I wish I could use butter for sautéing, like the 100 Mile Diet folks did, but that’s too much dairy for Aaron and Clara.

Some other challenges we’re taking on, again, because this isn’t just about the food:

1. Bike, walk, or train as often as possible. Again, we do this already, but we’re going to really try to stay out of our cars as much as possible. This requires a lot of planning ahead and takes extra time. But since I’ve been walking Clara to preschool a few days a week and walking or taking the train to the farmers’ markets I’ve managed to work off the final pounds of pregnancy weight. Aaron recently started biking to work a few days a week, too, and loves it. He’s committing to taking the train, instead of driving, on the days he doesn’t bike.

2. Buy (almost) nothing new. This is just for me, and there are going to be a lot of exceptions. We’ve got some remodeling projects going on and I’m going to try to get a lot of materials salvage, but I won’t be able to avoid Home Despot, I know. I’m talking about clothes, random things for the house and kitchen--the little things you can go without for a few days (or forever) until you find a used version or make it yourself.

3. Tell friends about what we’re doing. I feel like I must talk about local food constantly and I’m boring everyone. Actually, I don’t. (I just think about it. Sometimes, obsessively.) The best way I can think of to do this is have a potluck with all of my favorite people. Oh, yum.

In my head this all sounds easy and only a step-up from what we’re currently doing. And now that I have it all down on paper I’m, uh, panicking.

Can we really do all this?

If you're taking the Eat Local Challenge, even if you're just committing to one local meal a week, let me know in the comments below! I need all the company in this that I can rally.

If this is the end of the world, at least we're eating well

Back from our annual pilgrimage to Orcas Island and my head is full, so full. I’d like to say it was a relaxing trip but I was actually on the verge of an anxiety meltdown most of the time because I’d decided that Armageddon is actually here and we’ve brought it upon ourselves.

And I’m not at all exaggerating.

I’m feeling a little more even-keeled now that we're home. I'm hoping daily distractions and writing will keep me from going to the dark place again.

I’ve got lots of “real work” to catch up on first, then I’ll get back to the documenting of all the food and cooking and parenting and gardening and farm policy ideas I've got swimming around inside.

But for now, I can leave you with this, which has been going on in my oven all day (and is still going on as of 10:44 PM PDT):



This is what tomatoes look like after they’ve been drying in the oven at 170 degrees (the lowest setting on my electric oven) for four hours. They’ve got about eight more to go. I’ll report back and supply the recipe, if it all works out.

Because I still haven’t had the guts--ahem--time to can anything yet (I've actually never done it--this is another of my food fears), I decided I’d try this method of preserving. Our tomatoes are finally truly in season here, red from the vine and not from the greenhouses. Though I’ve happily eaten those, too, as they have infinitely more flavor that the square hybrids you get from our friendly neighbors to the south. It’s just been so wet and cool here since June that no one’s tomatoes have done well. Until now, at least.

I didn’t grow these tomatoes. I bought these at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Saturday (not sure the farm or the variety—must start keeping track). Knowing the tomatoes were finally in this weekend I went to buy a ton and see what I can do to preserve them. If this drying thing works I may dry the lot of them and perhaps share them with friends (and encourage them to do some of their own preserving) or make sauce. I have to say I’m more tempted to make sauce since it will keep for months while my recipe says the dried tomatoes will only keep a month or so.

And here’s a note about costs, since people are talking about the cost of local foods from the farmer’s market vs. buying from the grocery. (Check this out, if you’re in the mood to be stunned, or if you just want to see a fabulous food blog, Becks and Posh.) These tomatoes were $1.79 per pound, the best deal I found at the market. My grocery store had local tomatoes advertised for $1.99 per pound. I saved $1.20 in total and the farmer got all my money, about $11.50, instead of a smaller percentage (stats I've seen estimate that growers get anywhere from 3.5 cents to 18 cents per retail dollar price when their food is sold through grocery stores, rather than directly to the consumer).

And here’s what else is on my counter this moment (if the kids haven’t eaten it all in the time it took me to write this entry, which is entirely possible):




--Juicy plums from the garden of my 86-year-old neighbor, Joe.

--Ripe and flavorful pears from Leah’s garden, my dear friend and neighbor.

--Tomatoes from the garden of my friend Kim Gaffi, of GRuB fame in Olympia (we stopped there on our way back from the island).

--And those pear-shaped tomatoes are actually from my garden. Go, me!

All foods that were picked either within a block of my home or with my own hands.

Don’t those pears just look so bossy?

“Us first! Look at us! Oh, please please please work your simmering magic and make us into peaaaar buuuuuttterrrr.”

Mmmm. Sure thing.

Slow to ripen

Here’s something funny about me:

I’m afraid to grow food. I mean, in my garden, like tomatoes and zucchini and strawberries. It scares me.

It scares me because while I can be a total diva in the garden when it comes to just about any other kind of flower or shrub (I even start from seed! Well, sometimes…) I am totally intimidated by the planting schedules, worrying about frost, and pests and all the other things that can go wrong with a plant. And, I am not the best at watering. It’s no big thing to kill a pot of pansies (there will always be more at the grocery store), but if I kill a pepper plant then all my farming genes (of which I have many) go off and I think we’re all going to starve.

I know this is ridiculous. I’m trying to get over this. I am making slow progress.

My parents didn’t grow food. My dad, the gardener in the family, grows flowers like he’s a retiree and has nothing better to do (he is and he doesn’t). He doesn’t even bother with design or ambience, he just grows as many flowers as he can get out of his dirt (and his Miracle Grow). My mom just puts things in pots and leaves them on her deep shade deck and doesn’t care what actually happens to them, though she does water religiously.

I am certain that they are the first generation in their respective families to not grow food. My maternal grandparents grew up on dairy farms in Cornelius, Oregon. My grandfather always had a kitchen garden in the parking strip in front of his house on Killingsworth Street. My dad’s family was always in some kind of farming, though not successfully, I’ve gathered. But that’s another story.

It’s not that I have a black thumb. I have a nicely landscaped yard that I did myself. Well, I used to. My yard is in a total shambles since we had kids.

But I have a gorgeous new garden plan (thanks to the incredibly talented Laura Baughman) and a designated section for food crops for next year (it involves sacrificing some roses, wah). Because, dammit, I’m going to do it. You can’t exactly advocate for local eating if you’re too chicken to grow tomatoes.

But I couldn’t wait for the big plan. So I went ahead and bought starts and took my first tentative steps at growing real, edible food.

So here they are. My first tomatoes.

Holy shit. I did it.

10 Tips for Eating Healthfully on a Budget

Got this from Canadian Living via sk*rt. Original author is Cindy Burke who wrote To Buy or Not to Buy Organic: What You Need to Know to Choose the Healthiest, Safest, Most Earth-Friendly Food.

1. Shop the farmer's markets for food in season. The best prices and the freshest organic produce come from the farmer's market.

2. Buy seasonal produce in large quantities and freeze what you cannot use immediately. You can make shakes and smoothies all winter from a couple of flats of frozen organic strawberries or raspberries. The flavour is better, too!

3. Shop around at different stores to see where the values are found. Plan your shopping trips around your findings.

4. Join a food co-op. Members often receive a discount or monthly coupon for five to 10 per cent discounts.

5. Buy a share in a CSA (community supported agriculture). Shares are typically about $400 (you can pay in installments) for a weekly box of produce during the growing season. The cost typically works out to about $30 or less per week.

6. Use coupons. The best way to obtain coupons for natural or organic foods is to visit the website of the manufacturer, or use an Internet search engine and type in the words "grocery store coupons" and "organic" for printable coupons.

7. Buy from the bulk bins. Organic flour, sugar, cereals, pasta, spices and many snack foods are less expensive (and easier on the environment) if you purchase them from the bulk food section. Some stores even have peanut butter, maple syrup, cooking oil and even cleaning products available in bulk. Bring your reusable bags or containers and reduce your waste at the same time.

8. Grow your own healthy foods.

9. Shop the sales. Buy organic or shade-grown coffee beans on sale and freeze the excess. Organic meats, frozen foods, butter and bread products all freeze well for several months.

10. Practice cooking creatively. When you have leftovers from dinner, try to use them in another meal -- add them to a pasta dish, veggie burrito or omelet, or fold them into a soup or sauce. Don't waste food.

Keep it Simple

It’s the witching hour. We’re all starving. I’ve been running all day and now it’s past 5 o’clock and who knows when my husband will be home to watch these kids. I’ve got great food in the house—oh, I had the best intentions-- but I’ve been too busy with work and playdates and the bajillion other things going on to plan out whole meals.

The baby is dribbling water from her sippy cup all over the kitchen floor and her muddy little feet are painting brown streaks that I’ll have to wipe up later. Clara is pressing my patience to the wall asking question after question jumping from idea to idea so quickly my answers come out as tongue-twisters. If I answer at all. The fact that she dances around the kitchen like a mayfly while she does this makes me wish I’d made it to yoga more often so I could do that ujjayi breathing thing.

Even the radio, tuned to NPR, is exhausted with its habitual recitation of death and destruction.

I’m pulling chicken and lettuce and carrots and broccoli out of the fridge, happy for the fresh, lovely farmers’ market finds, but frustrated because I don’t have a chunk of uninterrupted time to really concentrate on a recipe or try something new.

“Can I help?” Clara is just getting to the age where she’s interested enough in cooking that I can give her something simple to do and she’ll be entertained for 1.354 minutes. Tonight it looks like I’m just chopping things and throwing them together and I can’t think of an activity for her that doesn’t involve a sharp knife.

“No, honey, I’m just going to make something really fast.” First I can’t think of anything new to cook and now I can’t even conjure up enough imagination to find something for this poor child to do. I understand the allure of pre-made, frozen dinners.

She heads for the door to the back deck where I’ve got a few herbs growing in pots.

“Mom, how about we put some rosemary in the salad?”

Rosemary? She knows what this is? And what to do with it?

Since she was a baby I’ve been rubbing her hands in the rosemary bushes we pass on our walks and encouraging her to breath in its spicy smell. She pulls a sprig off the smallest plant, brings it up to her nose and inhales with her whole body.

“Mmmmm,” she sighs. “That smells yummy!”

The dinner is simple and fine. Moist and flavorful chicken breasts fried in a little olive oil with salt and pepper. Enough to make leftovers for lunch. Salad with romaine lettuce, broccoli and a little rosemary with a dash of balsamic (my guilty, non-local pleasure).

Maybe I’m over-thinking this food and cooking thing. Simple and improvised seems to be working just fine.