Tagged

While the primary election results rolled in last night I was tagged.

Yeah, that's what I said the first time I was tagged a few months ago. I was clueless.

But now it's happened again.

And this time I was kind of excited. And then I read the rules and wasn't, because, well, I'd have to reread my own blogs and I've already read them 54 times editing them to begin with.

Still in the dark? The person that tagged me, Chile, does a great and succinct job of explaining (thank you!).

Even more succinct -- link up five of your favorite blogs on five different topics.

It ended up being fun, almost as if someone else had written the blogs but I had the memories.

I tasted the salt on the strawberries all over again choosing the blog on family.

The blog about friends wasn't that long ago but it was still sweet to remember. It reminded me of the lentil wreaths the Chronicle did on the front page of the food section this morning.

The blog I picked about me is embarrassing. Who is that crazy woman?!

I went straight to strawberry heaven for the someone I love topic.

And the last one about anything was the hardest. It was a toss up between two haikus. Here's the winner.

The best part of doing this was realizing that all the choices were interchangeable as to the category I picked them for. And that was the best part of all.

Carrots

I used to buy little carrots in plastic bags. Sometimes organic, cut to a polite size, peeled. I assumed they were clean, ate them straight from the bag and was happy to live in such a progressive part of the world.

Some nights I would dump the entire bag in a double steamer, top them with olive oil, salt and eat them. All. Call it dinner.

But I could have been eating bagged rutabagas, or bagged potatoes, no offense to either, but the carrots weren't exactly distinguishing. They were orange, crunchy, the bag said carrots and the resemblance to a real carrot ended there.

They didn't have the earthy fragrance of carrots. They didn't have Bugs Bunny greens. And they were missing the veins of dirt in the skin. I didn't want to think about it but they were missing taste.

Maybe I pay more for the carrots at the farmers' market, I'm honestly not sure, but they are carrot-carrots, free range artisan carrots. They are rays of sunshine pulled from the ground, the difference between a Nestle's candy bar and an artisan dark chocolate with gold leaf. They are free of machines, warehouses, brands and trucking lines.

Farmers' market carrots taste like I remember on my Grandmother's back porch, the greens tossed to the cows and the tops placed in a pie tin bath while I crunched and waited for them to sprout leaves.

And these carrots come without a bag. Their only label is their impossible orangeness. And without cows across the fence the farmer is usually happy to keep the greens for their own chickens or compost.

I can still eat a bunch for dinner but they rarely actually make it to the pot.

Haiku Friday

Smelling fresh baked bread
He moves the butter closer -
Anticipating.

Foodshed Celebration

"What's the occassion?" the cute guy asked. I'd prepared four different foods for the same meal and used the big plates reserved for company.

The night before there had been five different foods but he hadn't noticed as one of the foods was salsa which required I layer everything in a bowl to properly enjoy.

It was two days of unplanned celebration. In September I was confident that I would not be able to sustain local food meals through the winter. And stomp-my-foot sure that the summer foods I'd put up in the freezer would be gone by the end of the year. I pictured us withering away cold and hungry.

But I was happily wrong. The year round farmers' markets augmented with my freezer stash have completely kept me from the grocery store with the exception of one item stops for such necessities as baking powder, dish soap. Local Straus milk.

So I cooked. The big plate dinner was an egg and Santa Rosa cheese omelet. It paired beautifully with Marin Root Farm's mixed greens braised with leeks, along side roasted tiny potatoes (nearly too cute to eat). We had flat and ugly home baked bread with homemade butter that would make even a cereal box taste good.

The next night the salsa dinner started with a Sonoma County tortilla topped with leftover butternut squash, fried hamburger (it's been fifteen years since I could say that!) from a cow pastured on Grandma's old chicken farm.

The salsa was from my tomato and pepper freezer stash. And the final topping was inspired by another Dark Days Eat Local Challenge blogger, Green Bean. I mixed cilantro, shallots, ginger, olive oil and sea salt in the food processer. After inital pinched tastes we piled it on in great spoonfuls. Read - No Leftovers!

As much as I celebrate my foodshed I become ever more aware of the challenges facing our national and global food systems in terms of accessability, fair trade, enviromental sustainability, labor rights and our own national food security.

But change starts at home; Right?

Anemones

The first anemones on the market always remind me that spring is near.

I found these long stem anemones yesterday at the Ferry Building farmers' market. For $3. I wanted to whisper in the farmer's ear, "You should raise the price. These are really, I mean really, nice."

This is what I love about anemones. The best time to buy them is when they are still curled up, closed, playing ugly ducking to the swans they will become. They are hardly worth a second look.

But then, after a few hours, a day, depending on temperature and freshness, they begin to reveal themselves. And that, the slight opening tease, is the beginning of the pleasure. They curl back up at night.

And they perform this dance every day; opening a bit further as time goes on, showing off the colors and patterns previously hidden, closing up less in the evening until they drop their petals all together.

The dropping of the petals is its own enjoyment though. They do it slowly. The anemones loose their petals like a strip of silk stockings, their naked black middles remaining on the stem. No less beautiful in my eyes.

And it's a sin to remove even a petal before they have made their final bow. Which they will do when they are done.

I can't let a year go by without them.

Homemade Butter

I experienced a miracle.

The last year has been full of revelations; where our food comes from and it's staggering effects on the environment. All of which has led to my getting religion in the form of local foods.

Now the mysteries of food are actually unfolding to me.

Yesterday, and it was Sunday, the perfect day for a miraculous occurrence, I saw one of my favorite foods, butter, created from a bottle of cream. And I am here to spread the word.

"We are going to make butter," I told my aunt.

"We need a mixer," she said.

"I don't have one. We'll use a whisk."

"We'll have sore arms," she tried while I began whipping.

"Here." I handed her the bowl licking whipped cream off my fingers.

"We need paddles," she said.

"Keep whipping."

"It's spitting."

"It's spitting!? What do you mean it's spitting!?" I approached her tentatively. And the contents of the bowl spit on me too.

I took the bowl to the sink then and with a spoon and smaller bowl kept up the whisking stirring motion and that's when the miracle occurred.

"Come and look." I felt like I was giving birth. Well, not really but it was an omnipotent moment. The contents of the bowl completely separated. Think the parting of the red sea.

A clear liquid splashed in the bottom of the bowl and the butter separated from it, sticking together, sloshing around.

"It's butter!" I yelled. "It's butter!"

No Moses. Only a hell of a lot of whisking. And no sore arms which is the biggest miracle of all.

Banana Squash

Tonight I off loaded three quarters of the ten pound banana squash I've had in the pantry since September.

I remember the Saturday afternoon at the Petaluma market when I bought it. "I keep them in the barn all winter," the farmer told me. "Then I sell them to the market down the street. They cut them up and sell them by the pound."

I carried my apricot colored squash off then, proud to be a step ahead of the grocery. And I kept it in the pantry for four months and had to bully my friends, they are still my friends, to take a chunk home.

"I have two squash at home you already gave me," one complained.

"They aren't cut open. They'll last. Eat them for lunch." I commanded.

"I have one too," another tried.

"One is nothing," I countered. "Here."

They were more compliant than usual though as I'd invited them for dinner. "It's local," I said at one point.

"Duh," they responded in unison.

I was effusive of the mustard greens in the salad mixed with arugula and a hand full of my back deck baby greens. The salads were plated with Pt. Reyes blue cheese, rounds of pink lady apple, roasted pecans and drizzled with honey and olive oil.

"It has layers of flavor," my cook book friend complimented on the soup with Rancho Gordo tepary beans, summer stock, peppers and tomatoes from the freezer. I couldn't have hoped for higher praise.

The soup also had layers of story though. Other people have their summer vacation adventures to show and tell - I have soup. The buying, preparing and preserving of the summer harvests. It all went through my mind.

The best part though - sharing the meal. Even if it was merely a bribe to off load more squash.