If rabbits ran your farm

Becca of Heartbeet Farm brings the tractor in from the field.

Greenhouse shared by Heartbeet and Easy Yoke Farm.

      Last night we saw a local showing of Greenhorns – a documentary about young farmers around the country who are trying in unusual places and ways to bring nutritious, pesticide-free food to the table and earn a living at the same time. I’d recommend viewing it. These young people are energetic, innovative, educated and very thoughtful about what they’re trying to do. (Is that a little excessive, Margie?)  They are building greenhouses on empty lots in the middle of urban mission districts, reclaiming broken farms, and setting up small shops to sell true artisan foods in the midst of cities. They face enormous financial hurdles, relentless labor, and discouraging government policies. We admire them because we’ve witnessed how they love what they do and we’ve eaten their crops as fast as we could shove shitake mushrooms and potatoes into our mouths.

This was a full-grown rosebush complete with yellow roses sitting on top of the stand

Eaten down to nubbins.

She looks slightly evil as she ignores the radish tops.

     While we were busy watching the film and listening to the discussion that followed, Honeysuckle was busy at home. We had a small rosebush sitting on a stand on the porch. She decided to harvest it before we could transplant it. We never imagined she’d pull it down and eat the whole thing, thorns, yellow blossoms and canes right down to nubbins. On a tiny scale this is proof of what animals can do to your investments if you allow them to run the business. Turn your back for a second, leave the gate unlatched...  just another hazard to factor in if you farm animals.

Not your average farm dinner

Friends, John & Leslie, treated us to dinner at Blue Hill Café at the Stone Barns in New York where an earlier generation of Rockefellers grew up. Now whoever owns the barns and acres around, whether it’s a public trust or private ownership, I don’t know. All the land in sight of this hill raises livestock, gardens and orchards specifically for the menus. The barn is magnificent with stone and timbers and arches and copulas and heavy doors built to last for centuries. They make you think being a dairy maid might have made you very happy (brilliant Margie). It’s now an event center and restaurant co-owned by Dan Barber, one of the first garden-to-table chefs. You might say his calling is about being conscious of food choices and the effort required to eat healthy, nourishing food, and how our options should include natural, organic, local and all those important, over-done, oft exploited words.

     John and Leslie choose a multi-course meal built around what was overwintered or harvested in April. You don’t get a menu – you get what the chef wants to give you, although we were all a little relieved when the staff asked whether we had reservations about eating organ meats, and we all got shifty-eyed and gently said, may we pass, s’il vous plait. It began with amuse bouche – foofy French word used in restaurants I can’t afford, (thankfully the staff interpreted for me: snacks), and herbal infused elixirs (I grinned at “elixir” which I freely associate with fairy stories or poison – can go either way). Each was a wonderfully complex flavor of this flower or that herb. I hadn’t thought of drinking beets. Most of the bites were small tastes, appropriately brilliant or just sweetly, softly themselves. Loved them. Some were so simple, I fancied I could DO them myself if I got away from the peasant mentality of more is better. However, the square inch of congealed vichyssoise wrapped in a leek leaf would challenge my patience.

 Smoked kale and a sweet potato chip

 Mini Beet Sliders.

 L to R: Elixirs oatmeal/honey, yellow beet, berry

 Leek-wrapped vichyssoise.

      At the end this came out and we can’t remember what that little square was called. Chocolate, obviously, and something pistachio. The round things were chocolate covered hazelnuts. The white frothy drink - icy vanilla shake aka time to go home.  

     I kept wanting to stay in the moment, okay, the three hours. Trying to keep things real. Wanting to keep on talking about really important things like luh-ove and how to solve the world’s problems. I reminded myself this kind of celebration every day would not be possible nor wanted. But once, maybe in a lifetime? Mine, anyway? Eating at a 3 Star Michelin as a guest? You’d at least hope your conversation measured up. I doubt mine did. I know. Some things you can’t give back. This was a gift. A celebration. And like most graces you don’t get to deserve them, you should accept them gratefully, thankfully, and hope God will bless the giver(s), because you sure can’t. 

   Although we've been coddled and treated for a whole week, going home to rice and stir fry is way okay, too.

Days of heaven, maybe

A couple nights ago we took another supper out to the farm. Anita and I got inspired by a peppery sort of Mexican menu and before the food was planned she had pulled a red Mexican blanket from the trunk of her car for a tablecloth and I’d chosen a cd - Flaco Jimenez – All Said and Done. Joe and Becca’s interns Nathan & Sarah joined us, Hannah was there, and Daniel, Joe’s good friend, arrived on his motorcycle with his new puppy, Franky, riding in a box on the back.



While Anita and Denis set up, I finished the poblanos, frying them up in Becca’s cast iron skillet.





Sitting down together in the yard with friends and a loaded table had the distinct feel of eternity – the scent we sometimes get being hundreds of miles or years



downstream from the source. What with the long rays of evening crossing the fields diffusing through the trees, the blend of flavors and textures, sharing stories – it roused hope, the reminder that one day these won't be such a rare moments especially when life is…
Cheez. I’ve been reading too much nineteenth century nature writing. Sounds like I’m channeling James Audubon essays. What I’m saying, okay, is that sometimes God gives grace-filled days and I really, really need to bank them against bad times. Not that I’ve lived with a pessimist or anything, these many years.

This was our menu:

Cucumber-Yogurt Soup with Pepperoncini
(now my favorite cold soup with perfect amount of creamy tanginess)
Flat enchiladas (an easy dish from Hispanic neighbors)
Stuffed Poblano Peppers
Tomato mint salad with pomegranate molasses dressing (unusual foody items like this can make me crabby, but this specialty molasses was worth it)
Challah bread & butter
Fresh lemonade
Café Flan with whipped cream and Kahlua. (a flawless melting of flavors when a spoonful is slowly pressed to the roof of your mouth)

You know, if there was interest, I might post some of these recipes. But only...

Chicken Salad

The other night we took a supper out to Joe & Becca and their interns. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked for such grateful people. Pretty simple meal. I made a chicken rice salad that looks really sexy when done. (Of course, I forgot to snap a pic of the finished dish.) With savory bacon/cornmeal muffins, fresh lemonade, and chocolate chip cookies…man, I just killed my back trying to stomp on something running across the floor really fast…okay missed it…made by Anita. Joe showed us the hens’ nests he’s building in the shop, nice three-storied condos. They even have carpet inside. The chickens began laying this week. Suddenly, 13 eggs the first day, 8 the next and they’re off. Pretty exciting. But sad thing is they’re mainly white laid by the white leghorns and customers are beginning to prefer the brown. They think that when the dog got in and killed so many earlier this spring he got mostly the other breeds which are a bit more laid back personality-wise. The leghorns are wary freaked-out creatures and probably ran away like that centipede I just tried to kill. They sent us home with a huge bag of basil and some other vegetables.

Still, went to market today and took some pics. (See more on my Facebook.)




Here’s recipe for the chicken salad. It can easily morph a lot of directions and is always a little different every time I make it.

Chicken Rice Salad

1 cup cooked chicken breast or thighs (can substitute crab or shrimp)
3 cups rice (I use brown and wild)
¼ cup sliced celery
¼ cup chopped green pepper
¼ cup chopped red pepper
¼ chopped green onion
½ cup mayonnaise
salt, pepper
Combine and chill. (I often add calamata olives.) Serve on platter or large shallow dish on a bed of greens. Mound the salad and garnish all around with alternating wedges of avacado, lemon and tomato. Beautiful.

Organic Vegetables

I just got back from the market with this. Most of it is from Joe and Becca's stand. Fresh eggs, butterhead lettuce, baby bok choy, a head of broccoli, scallions, sugar snap peas, beets and greens, strawberries, pea vines, spinach, and radishes. Should keep us in vitamin K for the week, no? I think I'll make a spinach and strawberry salad later today when Denis gets home from the CIVA conference. (he's giving a workshop on beauty found in ugliness) Although I don't have strawberry vinegar I think I have raspberry. That should do.