BFM summer farm tour (2008)

A few weeks ago I had the fortune of going on a summer farm tour with the Berkeley Ecology Center as part of their Farmers' Market Community Advisory Committee. We headed south to Hollister to see a few places, then over to Aromas and finally Corralitos. It was a full day, packed with home made mezcal, bovine escapee stories, a kiwi forest, free flowers and to top it all off, a scoop of delicious ice cream.

Our first stop was Catalán Farm in Hollister. María greeted us with agua fresca, mezcal, and about the warmest smile you can imagine. Her farm is a testament to the knowledge gained through a life of work in the fields. Like here, where after walking out to her corn, she goes on to explain why the chard is occupying the same space. You see, she planted her corn three times this year due to poor weather beating down the tender starts each time they tried to make a go of it. Making the best of two bad storms and a lack of water (this necessitating the renewed use of an old well) she figured, hey, if I plant my chard there too, then at least I'll be able to harvest something. María has the entire plan for the farm in her head and making adjustments like this are just part of how it goes if you are trying to squeeze in a crop despite mother nature's plans for it's demise.

Being there, I got the impression that I was walking with an encyclopedia of hard earned wisdom. Every few rows there was a different crop, often with several varieties growing together. Or as with the corn and chard combo, sometimes different crops all together. A patchwork of color, we strolled along and I imagined myself picking up the ingredients for a nice salad. Drop by her stall sometime at any of the Berkeley markets. Or read a bit more here about María Catalán, and then go buy something from her farm. You won't be disappointed in the produce or the service.

Moving lengths of metal irrigation piping over several acres is tough with a team of 4. Imagine yourself doing it alone. Like Efren. He must not know the word for sleep. He literally does nearly all of the work at the farm by himself. If there is a superhero of hard work, then he is the one man wonder of Avalos Farm. Fruits, veggies, rooty things........he is the man. I've always wondered why his stuff is so good and amongst the cheapest at the market, but I guess when you never sleep, you learn a lot about growing stuff because you never miss a thing.


Looking out at his land, at first it was hard to tell what was what. I'd see some crazy tall weeds and think it was a fallow area, only to realize that I was also looking at artichokes, tomatillos, carrots, beets and a few potatoes. The strawberries were clearly defined, or about as clear as anything was and this was what enchanted me the most about his farm. Efren grows a lot of weeds at his farm. I'm sure they are impossible to get to as a one person operation. But, they act as cover crop and as long as the rest ain't suffering, why bother. I'm sure he stays on top of invasive stuff, but I got to thinking and when you add them to the biomass of produce he brings to market, it helped me give a new definition to productivity of a single farmer.

A very practical man, anything growing will at least feed the few cows he has. He keeps them in certain areas to avoid eating his valuable produce. This is not how they started out though. Efren didn't intend to own a few cows and start ranching. You see, his neighbors cows got out through the fence and when Efren started work one morning, the entire herd was on his farm. Chowing down on some tasty stuff we were told. When it happened again, a deal was worked out and few never went back.

After Efren's place, we ventured over to San Juan Bautista and had some artichoke enchiladas in historic downtown. I wandered over to the Mission to look at the chapel where my great, great, great grandfather was baptized back in the 1830's when this was Mexico. It was easy to imagine the main street in town not having changed a whole lot since. Cars now, sure. But there are also still places you could tie up your horse and the building across from where we ate was dated 1799. This was one of the hearts of farming and cattle back in the beginning of professional agriculture in California, so it seemed very fitting for a rest stop while out touring modern day farms.

Have you ever seen a kiwi forest? I never had either and in full summer leaf with tiny little fruits on it was a veritable thicket of trees. Sure the trees are laid out in neat rows on a steep hillside, but with how kiwi climb and wind around stuff and get all contorted in the process, the thought "this is what they call a riot of growth" is what came to mind. Robin explained to us that kiwi need pollination, so there are 1 male for every ten females on the property. The flower and growth patterns set them apart visually until the fruit is bearing, but with the tangle of green and the beauty of the farm, I never quite got it straight.

One thing I did learn about kiwi however was that here watercress grows at the bases of their mature 30 year old stock. Planting crops that work well together is one reason Four Sisters Farm has been around for 30+ years. Based on their following at the markets, I'd say they've learned a thing or two. Stuff is packed into their hillside. What will be cut flowers were in rows between everything. This farm is a happy, hyper-productive place. It's easy to imagine four little girls growing up here. All grown up and gone from the nest these days, the nurturing is now full time in the garden.

Blue Heron Farm used to be on another property years back where their namesake would nest in the trees. Apparently some still occasionally do even though the property is different. Avian nesting continuity aside, the passion in the place is readily apparent. Order is the first thing that came to mind when we arrived and saw crops. It wasn't just weed abatement that gave the sense, it was the close planting and uniformity of individual species that impressed. Dennis talked of bio-intensive land use, cover crops, and his fortune of being so proximal to the coast. This means that much of what is harvested can be done early in the morning when it is nice and cool and doesn't need to go in the fridge to be shipped off the farm. That means sometimes much of what comes to market hasn't even seen anything much below 50.

Their small hoop houses used for starting seeds were just packed with little gems. Being cooler than most other farms, the start the plants get is a boon to production and allows the farm to keep rotating crops frequently, leaving very little down time except for the winter. Dennis had a tractor mounted planting frame, designed by experience and many splinters that allows them to efficiently get the starts into the earth. Well planned, orderly and efficient, it's no wonder places like Chez Panisse count on getting some of their produce here.

At the end of a long day, we were sent home with a fresh bouquet of flowers. It was nice to literally smell the farm all the way home. We pulled out back onto pavement and drove on through Santa Cruz, making sure to stop at Marianne's to sample one or two or five of the 70+ flavors made in right in town.

Damn, I sure love field trips!

local junk food: a deep fried relapse

So what is this now, like, the third deep fried post? I don't even want to do a cholesterol test right now, but let's just say I've started running again. Anyway, as the title suggests, I've suffered a relapse and gone and made corn dogs. And jalapeño poppers. And artichoke hearts. Uhh, and, fried chicken. But that was another night and I intentionally didn't take any pictures, so there was no evidence. Well that and I didn't want to alert Biggles to my doings, which I guess I just blew by saying that. (Fried chicken is in your future buddy!) Anyway, it was a dream come true........

As I was cutting the skewers for the hot dogs, I was imagining a way to cook the dogs in a vertical position and hold them in place. With a plan hatched, I whacked the dogs into smaller two-bite portions. I gave the peppers a seeding, blanching and buttermilk bath before their stuffing and first coat of batter. Then they spent some time in the fridge getting nice and cold. I used buttermilk and eggs in the half cornmeal half whole wheat batter. No beer this time. Well, more like no beer for the batter.

I used an old MacGyver technique involving some sticks and a piece of gum. Had I an underwire bra at my disposal it would have been more, well, stable, but my device did the trick. It allowed me to suspend the dogs somewhat upright during the frying. They tended to float off to one side so I would correct this a bit with my hands during the cooking to keep them fully submerged. The poppers I simply tossed in and gave a flip after a minute. Being cold to start out, just about the time the cheese gets melty and begins squirting out, they're done.

The picture is fuzzy because it's an action shot taken while moving at high speed towards the table. This was a sample plate, including corn dogs and poppers. They were simply divine. After I ate around 13 or 14 dogs and 3 poppers (on my own) there was still a touch of batter left. So I tossed in a few artichoke hearts we had in the fridge. These cooked in a matter of about a minute and went down the throat even faster. As you can see, they didn't even make it onto the plate.

So, at this point, I'm not doing anymore lying. I love my deep fryer and you're just gonna have to pry it from my burnt-from-hot-oil-spattered paws if you want to use it!

oaktown hip hops

Yo!
You heard the 411 on the hop crisis?
Well, whether you have or not, for us malt liquor lovers, it's like, damn! Fo' shoe-a.
Luckily, my abode here in Oaktown be in a middle latitude on dis' orb and gots a hella mild climate. Means you can grow'em yo'self my peeps.

So somehow seeing into the future and anticipating the shortage of some hops for craft brewers, about this time last year, I bought a few hop rhizomes and planted them out front. Really, I bought them down at the Oak Barrel because they had some, I love growing things, and a town named Hopland is under two hours away so I figured they'd do at least alright. Anyway, they were planted in half barrels containing crappy soil that needed much amending and aerating. No worries. I read they don't do much their first year. Sure nuff, they went up about four feet reeeel slowly and then all the greenery died about November during our first almost frost.

This year, I looked at our garden space more closely and hatched a plan for hop production. I transplanted them into a patch that I used an acidic conditioner on (sulfur bits). Apparently, the new environs and second year of growth have coincided nicely, for we now have a few plants climbing. Getting them to grow is one challenge. Directing their growth is another. So, to push the learning even further, I put strings I tied to tomato cages at ground level and to a few rusty screws near our roofline (placed so fortuitously by a former tenant) for the Northern Brewer to climb, while the Cascade are being directed to go out horizontal above the cold frame and toward the street.

Looking out the bathroom window now involves a leafy view, particularly downward. The bines grow clockwise around the strings and haul themselves up rather nicely. And if you like watching things grow, these are fun. On that hottest day a few weeks back here in the bay area, one of them seemed to grow about eight inches. I couldn't believe my eyes, but it corresponded with it coming up over the gutter and finally onto the roof so it was easy to see its progress over the course of the day. It was amazing.
I love plants.

On closer inspection a few days later, I noticed that what I thought might be the developing cones, must indeed be. From a distance, it looked like the plants had blurry spots on them. I hauled myself up for a closer look and there they were in open flowering mode, fuzzy and hoppy. I went back inside and did a little happy dance feeling totally stoked at the prospect of a future hop harvest. I thought to myself sheee-iiiit damn! DIY rules! (followed by whispering to myself) Just don't fuck it up now.........

The little ladies in the neighborhood have been diggin' on the hops too. I guess it it still technically spring for a few more days and they might as well make the best of it. I welcome any thing that pleases them for there have been no pests of any kind so far. By the looks of these critters, I can probably count on aphids at least being out of the picture. Or can I? A horrid thought crossed my mind: we had some enormous garden pests last year, chiefly in the form of the North American bastard corn swiper. They better not return and like hops too!

Well, I'm off to go make a few bamboo stake booby traps and maybe a slingshot or two. So, remember, whatever you may consider doing in my yard, make sure you have explicit permission!

hell (deep fried heaven part 2)

Please Lord, grant me the strength to walk away from my deep fryer.

If I don't succeed in this endeavor please at least give me the strength to perhaps gift it to someone or put it out on a very lengthy visit to another kitchen.

Please Lord, there isn't much time.

Like, seriously, my brain is infected with the greasey goo. As the oil's carbon chain profile of the fats alter with each use, a powerful mind numbing chemical is released. It must be, I can feel the change. One that destroys your ability to reason.
You briefly ponder the question: can't I just fry everything? And the immediate response is OF COURSE!
That right there is trouble.

Really, I have to step away from the fryer. This time for sure. I had discovered beer batter and once that ball starts rolling there's no stopping it. With home brew fermenting and being enjoyed, and multiple flours about the place it is easy to get into gut busting, artery plugging, button popping, acne inducing, kitchens gonna be smelly for three days kind of trouble. Also, the children might start expecting all of their veggies to be fried.
And like, damn, that sure sucks.

Just when I thought I could step away on my own, I reasoned that tacos would be the appropriate fishy finish for the oil and then I could quit because I'd have to. Too smelly. I also justified the cholesterol intake by using my new 3-2-1 system of keeping in shape. It goes something like 3 people powered by 2 legs on 1 wheeled vehicle. I figured if I could haul the kids across town to the Thursday BFM market by pedal power for the fish, then I could eat about anything that night.

However this ain't just anything. It's eclectic, but delish, deep fried fish. Beer battered black rock fish topped with spicey kraut, goat cheddar and a few pickled jalapeños on a corn tortilla.
Deep fried bliss.
But hell.
Straight up addictive.

Please...........someone. Have mercy on my plugged artery soul.
Come take my deep fryer over to your house.

Please.
If you want more posts...........please save me!

deep fried heaven

For the little dude's birthday we fired up our deep fryer. It had only been a year since I got the thing at my mom's neighbor's garage sale and finally I was brave enough to go buy a gallon of oil. That's right a gallon. We started with fries, but owing to it being a birthday party with guests and much food to bbq and consume, not many photos were happening of the final product. Oh well, well just fire up this artery plugger another time and take more photos later.......

What better way to do it, than with some tater tots? My dear loving wife thought to herself. She got a recipe out, poured in the gallon of yellow gold and turned on the heat. She got down to work with the two kids alone at home while I was doing my volunteering at the Farmers' Market thingy. I was damn impressed to come home to these. Mmmmm, nothing says lovin' like home made tater tots!

Well, except for maybe some doughnuts. Glazed raised ones to be exact. You see, my dear partner had really been dreaming of these the entire year the fryer was in the cabinet. Correction: dreaming of these for her whole life. But, that is another story entirely. What you need to know dear reader, is that at this point in our frying adventures, the next thing just had to be doughnuts. They were hot and now. Super yummy and delicious. We ate them by the half-dozen apiece.

I asked my wife "maybe you could do a guest post? You've got some pictures of killer fried items and I don't have shit for anything to write about."
She laughs. "When would I have the time?"
A few days later she makes another batch of doughnuts. I kid her about doing the guest post again. She says "If I did, it would start something like this:"

Put milk in pan to scald, start to measure the flour, put fussing baby in chair and slice banana, wash hands and resume measuring, holler out "hold on honey, I'm in the middle of something" then go see what she's hollering about, threaten her with no doughnuts if she doesn't get dressed, take burning and overflowing milk off the stove, read down the recipe again to see where I was, google "bulk yeast equivalent for 1 packet",
get the fussing baby some blueberries, start to measure yeast, pour cereal for big girl who got dressed, wash hands again, finish measuring yeast"... You get the picture.

So, now I'm off to go get some restful sleep before a really long walk tomorrow morning. Perhaps to work on some recent pudge around the love handles, or maybe just work on pulling it together and posting something else in the near future.......

out of focus

Man, I've been dragging lately on this bloggy thingy. Whatever I have worked on this month just hasn't been finished. For one reason or another my last couple of posts have failed to get to the "publish" stage and right about now it's really driving me bonkers.

Take this dish for example. I was attempting to make a pink rice torte but it just wasn't working out. My working title was "pretty pink princess torte: the case of the missing betacyanin" but the nerdiness involved in explaining it was just all wrong.

It was a lovely color before going in the oven. I had diced my beets and steamed them. The water was a vivid hue that I wanted for my rice. I spooned some into my rice and milk and began cooking it, but ten minutes in all of the pink was gone and I still had brownish rice. I added some of the beet chunks and cooked it more, but this just resulted in pink horizons of rice around the chunks. Hmmm, what to do? I added more beets to the whole mess and stirred it all together and threw it in the oven. It looked great before, but based on the rice experience I had my doubts......

Doubts confirmed. The torte was yummy, but only had those damn pink spots and none throughout. It looked like princess torte with pink bits and was nowhere near what I had intended when I started off. Somehow the beet stain would cook away in each process except the steaming and I was left with a muted color. I had a Belgian ale and tried to forget about it but the question nagged me. Are the red colors in beets (hence the betacyanin reference) deactivated by cooking them?

I tried to forge ahead, even taking a few pictures along the way.


I've really been digging the grain products we started getting from Windborne farms a few months back. The flours are all super fresh, and the pancake mix absolutely superb, but the rye, well, I can't get enough of. I made some pretzels with it for a Berkeley Farmers' Market committee meeting with great results, so I bumped up the whole grain aspect and tried my hand at a sourdough whole wheat and rye baguette.



Sourdough: check
Whole wheat and rye: check
Fluffy: no check
Tasty: check
Flash for the dark conditions: no check
Use of brain: no check

Yep. Like I said before: out of focus. I stopped right there and haven't done shit for the blog since.........there you have it!

With some luck and better focus, maybe I'll get to another post before the month is out. I sure hope so, because the stone fruits are coming into the market and the first summer squashes are here. At the very least I can rant on and on about eating fruit and steaming something besides winter root veggies.

Later taters!

wood fired pizza or corn in my cob

I've been dreaming of owning a wood fired oven for a long time. To me, it just seems like the ultimate marriage of simple technology and fantastic results. Besides, with all the home made bread we do around here, it seems inevitable that it would be high on my wish list. Over the past year I've done some reading on the subject to familiarize myself with the probability of building my own. I figure, I'm a do it yourselfer, right down to the doing it yourself part, so this past week I finally "got my ass in gear" and did something about it.

I started by making a willow frame to help shape my earthen oven. A few days previous, I trimmed the willow in the backyard, so I had ample material on hand. I stripped off a few switches and started weaving a basket of sorts. It reminded me of tying together sticks into an "x" way back in grade school and then weaving yarn around the sticks to give them strength. I repeated this procedure a few more times and added several sticks. When I was happy with the shape, I set it on the floor to let the kids have at it. I thought, if they don't destroy it after abusing it for an hour, then it just might be strong enough to support some mud on top of it.

When the willow was being trimmed, I also played with the various bricks we had in the backyard to envision a base for my oven. With the arrangement I felt would work best with the materials at hand (one of the biggest goals of the whole endeavor) I placed our willow basket on top. It appeared that the size would work nice. I scraped the nice topsoil from our garden and dug a hole in the nice clayey stuff at the bottom. Tossing the dirt into a wheel barrow along with a bucket of trimmed, leftover hay from last year, then adding some good old H20 and mixing thoroughly, we were ready for some construction.

The princess "Cobina" was on hand to bless the work. After mudding in the bottom bricks to keep them stable and in place I started working my way up. When the willow frame was reached, I covered it with some thick paper bags and newspaper and tried to tuck this in to keep it in place. The weight of the mud was pushing in and distorting the paper layer so I packed the void space with some small blocks of wood and a few bricks. I continued on my way up, and after reaching about two-thirds of the way to the top, began just slapping mud everywhere and concentrating on achieving a nice round shape.

After sitting overnight, I was anxious to see if it fared all right and had dried ever so slightly. All looked well, no slumping or distortion had occurred during the night, so I went ahead and cut access to the packing material and emptied it. I now had a pile of small blocks of peach wood that would be returned a few at a time to their former residence, though much, much hotter. After about 6 hours of flame, the outside of the oven was nearly completely dry to the touch. The inside was blistering hot, so I put a large tile over the entrance and went inside for an hour to see how it held heat.

When I came back out, there was still some heat, but not enough for baking some pizza. I tried one anyway, but the bottom was the only thing cooking rapidly. I took it out and re-lit a small fire on one side. After it was burning for about twenty minutes, I raked the coals over to the other side, swept up the ashes some and put in another pizza. This time, the bottom cooked nicely, but the side nearest the flame was getting burnt to a crisp. By pizza number three, I had the heat and rotation aspects worked out and started making some decent looking pies.

Well, there you have it: wood fired pizza from my cob oven. The sourdough cornmeal crust, carmelized onions, mushrooms and pesto were all locally sourced. The mud for the oven came from under my feet. Now that, is local.

So come on. If this looks intriguing to you, go do some reading and build one yourself. Really, they are quite easy. You play with sticks, dirt, water and bricks......how hard can it be? In fact, while making the cob part I was thinking how it was like the adobe bricks and tiles we made as school children back in 4th grade at the Sonoma Mission while on a field trip. Simple technology, simple building materials, just give 'em a little knowledge and watch 'em go!

So, if you doubt your own abilities, then ask yourself: have you graduated 4th grade? Do you have some dirt in your backyard? Love wood fired pizza? Then get to work and make yourself a cob oven. Do it!

stores well on counter

Ever have a butternut squash on your counter for a month before using it?

How about two months?

Three?

Four maybe?

If the answer is four then you win because I was tired of the one on mine after a mere 3 months of taking up space and collecting flour and other dust. Besides, it finally had a slightly puckered look around the stem end, so I put the steel to a big knife and did something about it. First stop: vegan calzone.

Start with the secret ingredient for super-hella bomb big taste, every time. Can you say carmelized onions? They act like sauce AND filling at the same time when forgoing the cheese. Add some thinly sliced mushrooms, a pinch of garam masala and some old-ass winter squash and you're in business! (Please bake on a pre-heated stone and make sure the dough or mushrooms aren't as old as the squash and this will come out great.....)

And now for the onion segue to our second stop.....

Why is it we only buy the bulby round part of the onion plant? Why don't we use more? Probably because we are no longer growing them regularly in our own yards. You see, when onions are getting big and mature, like a lot of other plants they wanna bloom. Since you're typically only after eating the bulb part, the bloom stem or "scape" is of no use and is generally cut off and discarded. I've seen garlic scapes bundled together and sold at the BFM, so why not use onion ones? Since we have twenty or so torpedo onions out front currently 'scaped, I figured it was time for a little experimenting. We ventured out and I hacked off a few while my daughter snapped the picture. Now, actually cooking with them. Hmmm, let's see.........

How about adding freshly chopped onion greens to pan browned beef and then smothering in a nice tomatillo sauce? Yeah, when I first thought of it, it sounded good to me too. It just had to happen. Now we're getting somewhere! Let's get on to the Second stop: butternut verde.

I looked at the remaining two-thirds of the ancient, now decapitated looking gourd. Grown and harvested by my father in-law back in October, sitting with it's own kind and some larger pumpkins in his barn on a wooden pallet for a few months, then transferred to my counter for another three, only then, or more really two days since I cut the stemmy portion off and used it.....(gasping for air) it was time to finish off this winter squash from hell.

Big, somewhat dry chunks of butternut went in beside our last little harvest of potatoes from the yard, pulled the week before. It made me very happy to be using up the rest of these foodstuffs before they turned to compost on the counter. I tasted the concoction and it needed adjusting, so I tossed in a touch of sugar to cut the acid and bitterness from the green sauce and let it begin simmering until all was nice and tender. I got my rice going and contemplated making a hollandaise sauce.

Well, maybe no sauce for the spears (as we'd had with our second round of asparagus this season) but plated up, I still think it looked good. More importantly though, the beef chile verde with butternut and potatoes had enough kick to accompany the homebrew IPA rather nicely.

Oh, and the squash from hell lives no more.......

Welp, I guess that's it, so remember, like, Everyday is Earth Day man!

march 35th

Some folks go wine tasting. I've done it before, and it can be fun and all, but this past weekend, my buddy N and myself decided to go beer tasting. It was to celebrate his b-day and for me, certainly serve as a mini daddy-needs-a-break-for-his-sanity trip. So last Saturday morning with bikes on the roof rack, we wandered on up to Anderson Valley and procured a camping spot in Philo to leave the car and gear behind at. At only about 5 miles away from the Anderson Valley Brewing Company (AVBC) in Boonville, and seeing the route while driving in, we were confident our plan would work. Taking only the essentials, we mounted our two-wheelers and rolled on over for a few pints before the tour. It was a splendid way to spend an afternoon.

The tour begins here, where the mashing of the malted barley and boiling of the wort happens. In this case, that means the big-ass, old-school, rescued from a defunct German Brewery, kind-of huge-normous copper kettles. Four in all. They gleamed. Rumor has it the head brewer came across these while on vacation. What a bitch to lug these babies through as a carry-on for the trip home huh? No, really though, it must have cost a fortune to dismantle and ship these babies from across an ocean and then a continent too, as well as reassemble them, but tasting the beer, I sure appreciate it. After this, it was all stainless steel tanks, frothing drums acting as blow-off valves, bottling equipment and quick-connect hoses. Pretty standard fare for a brewery these days. But the shiny copper was stunning and testament to a certain kind of commitment, and the folks running the show behind the bar were as kind and generous as it gets. This place is awesome.

Your ticket for the tour can be turned into cash toward merchandise at the gift shop. Since they have a disc-golf course on the property (30+ acre lot, not really typical of a micro-brewery) I applied mine toward a "putter." We grabbed a beer for the thirst we would work up walking through the calf-high grasses. The course was ours alone, the skies were mostly sunny, and maybe most importantly, I didn't lose my only disc. We made it to the tee for the 17th, when a small car appeared on the gravel road nearest us. It was the bartender.
"Oh, hey, I gotta lock up the front gate there fellas."
Thinking through the haze of a few beers, sunshine, and a full gut from the nice sandwiches we had earlier, it took a while to realize it was 6pm already and officially closing time.
"Sorry 'bout that one guys, but if you wanna come back tomorrow and finish up your round you can."
Like I said, kind and generous folk.
We walked the few hundred yards back to the front gate, and got back on our bikes, feeling quite refreshed from the physical activity and B-vitamin sports drinks. With our bearings figured out and sobriety check done, we pedaled our way back to camp for some further "tasting" of a few bottles from the cooler.

The following morning after catching a nice breakfast at a local cafe, we made our way down to Barney Flats. If you look at the map you'll see the area called Hendy Woods State Park. As witnessed here, there are at least a few trees that are really frickin' big. This tree ain't no Giant Sequoia from the Sierras, but it's probably a bit taller and still quite a specimen at some 12 feet in diameter. This place is worth checking out, as it is only part of a tiny bit of remaining virgin-growth coastal redwoods. It is but a taste of what probably filled most of the river banks around southern Mendocino County some 150 years ago. Tons and tons of thick, dark, spongy soiled redwood groves that just oozed clear water back into the goundwater table, supporting healthy salmon bearing streams, with big hogs for salmon.
Used to be, that is.
God damn, as a species we can really, really suck.

Wow.

Sorry 'bout that tangent there. Caught me off guard too.

Anyway, I arrived home to Lemon curd, Irish soda bread and english muffins on the way. When these were all done, seeing the muffins made me think of it as a full wallet; that I have to do some shopping with some more muffin money soon. Before the night was over, everything just had to be tasted.
Mmmmm......lemon curd on soda bread. Who the hell am I kidding? I had gobs of it.
Mmmmm.....muffins. And heaps of marmalade. I'll take three. Sweet!

I love coming home!

Oh, and the weekend beer spoils? How's a new beer glass for them Belgian kinds and a new growler filled with one zany good double IPA.
Mmmmmmm, and a growler. That there is a 1/2 gallon of beer.

So, like, seeing that it has taken me 5 extra days to post this (after what is now last weekend) it would appear that it takes 3 days to consume this much beer and another 2 to get much anything done. 'Tis a nice way to suffer I suppose.........

So this year, today, on my calendar, it is officially March 35th, 2008. So in advance for tomorrow, April Fools!

doughnation

I'm a breadbaking fool, living in a nation filled with bread. To justify my madness, sometimes I just gotta give it away. It's nice to get feedback in the form of deep moans, grunts, lip smacking and chewing sounds. I also like the blurted out "you made this?" That one always gets me. But enough said.......

It was my friend M and his mention of a Fermented Food Feast that would benefit City Slicker Farms here in Oaktown that was the recent reason for a big give away. So, I spent a few days building up the starters to mammoth amounts and then commenced doughing. From left to right in my kitchen, the morning of the event.......

Let's see here. That's two 1/4 whole wheat, free form loaves doing their final rising under the glass bowls. Well, the one on the right should be. Oh, and three sheets of english muffins rising in anticipation of the griddle. These will turn out being part of Shuna's birthday present and represent batch number two of the day.

Over here we have one huge bowl of sourdough starter. It was fed recently and is not yet looking like a madly bubbling cauldron of chalky goo. That will come soon enough. The jugs are soon to be 1.5 gallons of starter for give-away. The red bowl and mostly hidden green covered casserole are focaccia doughs doing their first rise. 1/4 whole wheat and an herbed all white version respectively. The glass bowl contains a free form white sourdough loaf.


Damn, like will it end? How about two all white baguettes in my favorite loaf pan. The tub of muffins is from round one earlier. The bags of flour are empty for now but will contain muffin give-away six packs. Turning further to the right and taking another picture revealed the dirty dishes and my filthy floured self, so I'm stopping there with the kitchen tour.





I took advantage of some afternoon light to take a picture of what came out of the oven. I especially like the golden hues on the crust. It made me think of the spring currently popping out in the desert and how I'm missing it. Content with the loaves, I packed them in the car with the other goodies and made my way down to the party.



To round out the yeast gift, I included a three pack of fermented apple cider. Two of them were from farmers' market produce, the third from store bought for comparisons sake. All of them are equally dry and bubbly. Not exactly a wild fermented item like much of the other items at the fundraiser, including the sourdoughs, but I figured everyone like a little hooch. All in all I was very pleased with my output and proud of my wares. Looking at it now, it appears like a photo of my yeast repertoire.

The following day I still had a quart or so of active starter and I just couldn't see it go to waste. Those poor little cultures of bacteria and molds needed my help. They needed to go out burning up feeding my family. I made up a huge batch of herbed foacaccia, cornmeal laden pizza dough, and a sourdough version of Tea's Russian Black Bread. It was another few rounds of mincing, mixing and kneading but most of the time I couldn't be happier doing anything else.

The pizza dough worked out very nice for pesto with mushroom and jack cheese calzones. The black bread formed a nice dense looking brown bomb. It smelled of absolute delight before baking. During, I almost tore off a piece to burn the shit out of my mouth with.......and then thought better about it and decided to preserve my taste buds for enjoying it for the next few days. I started thinking of how it would pair with salmon and cream cheese.

So if this looks good to anyone out there, and you have a sourdough and a hankering for a nice earthy dark rye loaf, well then feed the starter and get some ingredients because this one will become an instant favorite. Dark, molasses, rye and yum. Just add some fish and cow extract and you're in business.

Thanks for the recipe Tea! I'll go ahead and add my own, scaled down sourdough version of it, based on what was in the house if anyone feels like playing around with it. Enjoy!

SOURDOUGH BLACK TEA BREAD

make 1 cup of strong ass coffee with a moka pot or espresso maker.
drink half, you'll need it.
in a large bowl add:
1/4 c molasses
3 T butter
2 T cocoa powder
nuke it, or heat it up in a pan and transfer back into the bowl. add 1 T apple cider vinegar and the remaining half of your coffee. when this is just warm or near room temperature add about 2 cups of sourdough starter.
in another big bowl add:
2 c rye flour
2 c all purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c cornmeal
2 t salt and give it a mix
add bowl of mixed flours to the dark liquid starter combo bowl or vise versa, depending on whichever bowl is big enough to contain the flour you will inevitably start throwing everywhere while mixing it up. make a huge mess until the dough comes together, then knead it for about five minutes. then let it rest a bit. let yourself rest a bit too. maybe make yourself more of that coffee or crack open a nice dark beer. maybe a homebrew.
when you feel like it, mince up:
3 T of onion
then measure out:
1.5 T caraway seeds
1/2 t of fennel
incorporate these into the dough and knead for about five more minutes or until the dough is nice and smooth.
let rise in a well oiled bowl in a fairly warm spot and punch down when doubled.
form into a large round and let rise (I do mine on parchment paper) until nearly doubled.
place onto a pre-heated baking stone at 475 degrees for about twenty minutes, making sure to turn halfway through. if bread ain't sounding hollow yet, take off the stone and bake at 425 degrees for another 5-10 minutes.
wait until it's most the way cool and then eat it for the next two days with just about anything, like butter, fish, beer, cheese, chutney, coffee, air...........