Busy Bea

Dreamy lunch pairs well with dreamy weather

Is this February?

Fifty-six degrees in the shade and not a cloud in the sky!

I managed a hike up the great hill and wanted to stay outside planting things until sundown, but a pressing deadline (Valentine's Day!) won't allow it. Let this be a lesson to me to stay on top of my work to better take advantage of these glorious surprises when they appear.

As consolation I'm treating myself to this working lunch of sunshine on a plate: sweet potato hash and mixed greens all drizzled with chili-lime-ginger-garlic vinaigrette, lacto-fermented dilly beans, and a perfectly boiled hen's egg dusted with fancy red finishing salt on my favorite rye crisps. Oh, and don't forget the sour cream.

Jason is appalled and claims this plate is his worst nightmare (things that are touching, things that don't go together, egg things, and what are you doing with those beans?!), but I think that along with a pot of gunpowder green (okay, and a pile of dark chocolate chips) it will give me the brain power needed to quickly write up brillant and effective listings for the Valentine goodies Bea and I have created for our etsy shop. Okay, lunch is consumed, better get to work!

Holiday Lists 2011

 

 

treats:
Eric Kimmel author reading of his new book Golem's Latkes
Oregon Symphony holiday children's concert

latkes & sour cream
olive & cream cheese penguins

 

Hanukkah party with friends in Happy Valley
pomegranates & clementines
decorating cookies with homeschoolers in Amboy
layered Italian almond cookies (with homemade almond paste!)
homeschool cookie exchange
sea salt caramels
Finnish pulla

 

homemade gravlax & Swedish limpa bread
oat cakes, quince paste, salami, Papa's favorite olives, & CHEESE!
Grandma Cam's cookies shipped from North Carolina
Christmas Morning popovers
homemade baileys irish cream
malfatti con burro e salvia (spinach dumplings in a butter-sage sauce with homemade ricotta)
Papa home for eleven days in a row!

 

things found in Bea's stocking:

Nighty Night Tea (how did he know, mom?)
orange fizzy bath powder
unicorn & penguin Japanese puzzle erasers
pick up sticks
a real fountain pen!
watercolor pencils
metallic colored pencils
modelling clay
and a baby emperor penguin finger puppet named Cheep Cheep

 

things that didn't happen:
ginger bread houses
lighting the candles all eight nights
mama's favorite maple pecan caramel corn
pumpkin seed brittle
going to mass
snow

surprises:
carolers!

 

Venersborg Community Club

The events hosted by the Venersborg Community Club at their 100 year old school house are definitely planned by kindred spirits. Seed exchanges, wreath making parties, Sweethearts' Dances, Homestead Days...Next up is Apple Fest this Sunday, October 23. I'll be there cutting (and sampling) some of the more than 200 (!) heirloom varieties.

I was lucky enough to be invited to demonstrate soap making at their recent Homestead Day. It was an opportunity for folks to share some of the skills that would have been vital to the community when the schoolhouse was built a century ago. I had a chance to learn a little about spinning and wool, ogle Brenda's Heirloom Hens and the beautiful quilts made by the lady set up next to me in between demos, but missed so much more like the pickling demonstration.

Oh, I also got a lesson from Jacqueline Freeman of Friendly Haven Farm on how to make real whitewash for the chicken coop. Jason got a chance to ask questions about the finer points of goat keeping, check out the school house's old school construction, and take some of his panoramas. Bea made delicious strawberry jam with other children and helped to ring the school bell! There was a nice article and photo gallery in the Columbian about the day.

 

Day Six

A lovely morning in Houghton and Hancock (Michigan).

I do believe this is the world's largest lift bridge.

 

Goofing around at one of Grandpa's favorite stores.

Flags across the street from one of my favorite independent book stores, Northwind Books at Finlandia University.

I like to spend Bea's birthday and Christmas dollars from Grandma Margaret on books from here. It was a treat to shop in person this time and we left with a rare Richard Scarry ABC book in Finnish, a new Jan Brett tale involving armadillos and cowboy boots that we just had to have for the Texas portion of our travels, a stuffed deer aptly named 'Dearest' and the comprehensive Book of Finnish Elves by Mauri Kunnas. We were first introduced to Kunnas by Uncle Alan's gift of The Canine Kalevala which is a nice introduction the epic poem for anyone and a real favorite of Bea's.

I didn't get a good photo of any, but street signs in this part of Hancock are bilingual, too, Finnish and English.

Ama, Grandpa Bob, Bea, and Dearest pose in front of the Suomi Restaurant sign. After a yummy breakfast here (pulla toast!) we were ready to head to Aunt Kathe's home and help with preparations for the reunion.

 

Sent from my iPhone

Foodclubbers Make News

Our food club and the folks who helped us get started made it into the Oregonian today. Check out the fancily aproned beauties cheerfully doing the loathsome task of dividing tahini.

Can they dew it?

Olivia has been organizing fantastic bulk buys of local fruit for our buying club. I ordered a flat each of apricots and peaches with visions of a winter's bounty of organic unsulphured dried apricots dancing in my head. These drying racks are my first solo carpentry project. It took over a week of sunshine to dry tiny red currants. I'm wondering if it is possible to really sun dry fruit in this climate. An electric dehydrator may be in our future, but I hesitate. I am certifiably kitchen gadget crazy and shouldn't give in to this base desire willy-nilly. This year alone an apple peeler, cherry stoner, blender, rice cooker, meat grinder, pasta machine, mandoline, potato masher, skimmer and others have come to live with the toaster, stand mixer, cuisinart, crockpot, grain mill, and ice cream maker. I had planned to dry blueberries and cranberries for a year's worth of muesli as well as sun-dried tomatoes. Is an electric dehydrator a need or a want? We could make salmon jerky with it....

Little Wonders

    

Our container garden is fruiting like crazy! The 15 or so tomato plants are heavy with green fruit, but when oh when will they ripen? We purchased all our seedlings at the Urban Farm Store this year. They had a lovely variety of heirlooms and others that struck our fancy. We went heavy on the dark purple and paste varieties. The sweet and hot peppers are profuse, as are tomatillas.

The ever bearing strawberries are still putting fruit in our morning yogurt. My favorites are the mingnonettes. I would like to quadruple our supply for next year. We have half a dozen corn stalks in a maybe 40 gallon container with the pumpkin vines. They are all very happy. I'm pleased as punch that the corn is doing so well. It was really an afterthought.

I've been picking all the cucumbers at 1-2 inches and picking them as cornichons. Yum! I think we'll head out to Sauvie Island Farms later this week for real pickling cukes, more beans to dilly, and whatever else we can find. Bea and I spent some very satisfying days there last year. 

Finally, all three chickens are all laying.  First off was Heena, a Rhode Island Red. What an exciting day that was! We knew it must be her. She left clues of reddish brown feathers near her brown eggs. Sally Henny Penny, the Plymouth Rock Barred, is, I think, our favorite chicken. I just love to watch her feathery bottom waddle around the yard. She also seems to be the gal most affected by her new bodily function.  She started sneaking into the house  and climbing up into bushes to peek in the windows a few days prior to her first egg. Last but not least, Hammock, an Araucana, took her sweet time, but now supplies the prettiest blue eggs. They have all become a bit more friendly, especially with Bea. She's become quite the expert poultry wrangler. And, my gosh, have they all gotten LOUD! Bea has an idea that they all need husbands now.

Dinner Diary: Fettuccine Alfredo with Elderly Veggies

I splurged on fresh locally made egg pasta from during a quick market stop yesterday. I usually only pick up the half price packages with the bright orange sticker. Tomorrow our food buying club will get a new shipment of organic produce from a local wholesaler and so tonight's dinner is made up mostly of the bits and pieces left from the last delivery two weeks ago. 

To the cooked pasta I added about a stick of bright yellow grass fed butter, 2/3 cup barely pasteurized cream from the same local dairy, half a cup of so-so Italian parmesan, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and not-quite-enough finely chopped fresh lemon thyme from our new plant. To the sauced noodles I added chopped, steamed veggies: two sad carrots, two sadder broccoli crowns, and one zucchini so disgraceful it had to be peeled and the piece de resistance: two jumbo red bell peppers redeemed by a bath of fire. It is my most satisfying dinner this week in terms of taste, ease, and thrift. Jason thinks it's just okay and Bea is offended, as always, by the peppers. She asked for seconds of the broccoli trees, though, which is encouraging.

I've had a little more time lately to put some thought into our meals and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's arrivals. Our family will be on the receiving end of the following organic bounty meant to last the next two, no THREE by the calendar (yikes!) weeks:

4 lbs Japanese super sweet potatoes (baked whole or sliced and baked with cream and fresh horseradish) 
1 lb  green beans (minestrone?)
4 lbs Meyer lemons (lemon bars, lemon curd, and lemon meringue pie for my birthday!)
6 Fuji apples
3 bunches of baby broccolini (served with a marinated, grass fed London broil from our deep freeze)
1 lb carrots (we've discovered Beasy loves carrot sticks!)
2 heads of orange cauliflower 
2 cucumbers (we love them marinated with rice vinegar & sesame seeds)
1 lb crimini mushrooms (risotto? stir fry?)
1 lb mini mixed bell peppers (fajitas?)
4 lbs of Yukon gold potatoes (steamed with local sour cream, yum)
2 bunches of watermelon radishes (grated, with butter and salt on rye crackers)
5 lbs of Roma tomatoes (salsa for the fajitas? fresh cream of tomato soup with dill?)
2 lbs of fairly traded bananas
5, count 'em, 5 lbs of California grown strawberries, 
and 1 coconut and all organic. 

Any other suggestions about what to do with these goodies?

Jaime Oliver vs Chocolate Milk