Life Preserved

This entry is dedicated to Pop Pop Brugger, who passed away last night at the age of 87. In addition to cultivating a gorgeous, highly notable, and well-photographed garden every year in the town of Bethlehem, PA and making the most delectable peanut butter eggs at Easter, my grandfather made impeccable jellies. There is a story of him going to pick strawberries just a couple of years ago when his physically weakening body had just begun to significantly limit him. Of course hand-picking fruit is essential for the best jellies. So upon arriving at the U-pick, he asked some of the employees to help him to his knees, where he remained until he was finished picking. Though my preserves pale in comparison to his, I can only hope to honor him by carrying on the tradition.

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Pop! Another jar assures me of a successful, spoilage-preventing seal. It’s night number two for canning just this week, and I’ll probably be preparing jars of jam again tomorrow night for the boiling bath. Later in the week, it’s the second round of tomatoes, maybe the last, for the season.

I just recently overcame my prohibitive apprehension of canning. Passive-aggressive germophobia previously deterred me from preserving produce in any other way than freezing. Of course last year I also wanted to spend minimal time handling fruits and veggies outside of farm work, but that was just an easy cover. In my mind, I considered a long list of hazards that would most definitely result in my contraction of—and eventual death from—the surreptitious pathogen that is botulism: non-sterile fruit, non-sterile countertops, non-sterile jars and lids, non-sterile canner, non-sterile air. And what if I did something wrong? What if the jars weren’t hot enough when I poured the ingredients? What if I didn’t remove all of the air bubbles? What if I didn’t screw the lids on fast enough after filling the jars?

I worried myself out of time and stored my newly purchased canner for winter, having never filled it with water.

It would have to be different this season—there simply isn’t enough freezer space. After consulting experienced canners about their method, I was convinced that the books telling me to use only flawless produce harvested THAT day (highly unlikely) and to process quarts of whole tomatoes for 85 minutes were perhaps simply covering their asses. A friend in Italy vividly described the old country way of canning tomatoes with large, open barrels sitting over fires. Was the Italian peasantry worried about a precisely even cooking surface or scraping every germ from the countertop? Of course not. I even came across a website that said that if you can boil water, you can can.

I disregarded all reservations and, enlisting Dylan, peeled and quartered some peaches. Taking our time, we filled the jars with the fruit and a light syrup, screwed on the lids, processed in boiling water for the prescribed time, then counted 6 pops after taking them out of the water: success! Now that I know how easy it is, I’m rolling like the boil, canning at least once a week during the past month.

Of course, I should be careful. I’m toying with a balance, and perhaps nearing the point when a heavier sense of duty plops on the seesaw, thrusting oh-so-light pleasure into a sphere of no return. My boss Jack, in his subtle way, warned me: “It takes a lot of time and energy. I used to take off work when I was younger to can until I wore myself out. Then I decided I wasn’t going to be a slave to my produce—if I grew it, I don’t have to feel guilty about letting it go and compost in the ground.”

His preservation philosophy makes sense, but right now I don’t have the luxury of losing a few dollars to rot or feed for the growing population of fruit flies in the kitchen. Most of our vegetables are free, but fruit is relatively expensive. And now is the time to ensure an adequate supply of local food for the long winter to come (as though I couldn’t possibly go to a store and buy food).

So here I am, on a Wednesday night, canning until 11:30 for the second time in a row. (Weekends are too busy, and that’s when I get the ingredients). I’d just begun Round Three of processing, having transitioned from easy-peasy peaches to a plum-honey preserves recipe. I needed to get through the plums since they’d been in the fridge for three days and were softening. But after a long day at the office and a late start in the kitchen, I was tired.

I paused from the tedious pitting and quartering of plums over a pot and looked at the clock. 10:30. All of this for two half-pints. A sigh. This is stupid, I let myself think. But I was too far along now to stop. I pushed on, finished the chunking, added the honey, and brought the contents to a boil.

What happened next was one of those rare moments in the kitchen when a right-minded person bows in adoration to the magic of chemistry and physics: Though I knew the heat would reduce the fruit, I could have never anticipated the royal color and aroma that arose. The plum skins bled garnet as pulp and liquid sugar fused with the transcendent aroma of harmony. I inhaled fervently over the rapidly boiling potion, now thinning into a translucent fuschia, lusting for a description that would do such godliness justice. You think I’m taking this is a bit far? No. The intoxicating smell transported me to a garden of waking roses, plumeria, and honeysuckle, ripe with dew.

Could I seriously be talking about jam? Yes.

Even Dylan—who claims to not love jams and jellies—widened his eyes with his first taste-test, saying, “Wow. That’s really good.” I hadn’t eaten dinner, but after indulging in my own spoonful, I sank with pleasure, which I surely would have missed had I simply purchased some plum preserves from the store.

I’m probably in for another five hours of processing tomatoes this weekend. But when I use the last jar to make the family sauce come February or March—with four months to go until tomatoes start ripening on local vines again—I’ll wish I’d done more.

PLUM HONEY PRESERVES

Adapted from Preserving Summer's Bounty, A Rodale Garden Book

Yield: Two half-pints

16 medium red or purple plums, slightly under-ripe if possible

1 cup mild-flavored honey (I used rich buckwheat, but it still turned out wonderfully)

1. Use a heavy-bottomed, 6- to 8-quart enamel or stainless steel pot, preferably one that is wider than deep. Pit the plums, and cut them into large chunks (no need to peel), working over the pot to catch the juices. Stir in the honey. Bring to a boil over low heat, stirring frequently.

2. When the mixture looks soupy, raise the heat and bring to a full, rolling boil. Skim off the solid white foam. Continue to stir slowly for 15-20 minutes. It will thicken further as it cools.

3. To can: Pour into hot, scalded half-pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Seal and process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

Sweet Corn Chowder to Stretch Corn Season | Edible Finger Lake Magazine - Local Food Magazine of the Finger Lakes

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Sweet Corn Chowder to Stretch Corn Season | Edible Finger Lake Magazine - Local Food Magazine of the Finger Lakes

A Cornish Slaughter

I slaughtered my first chicken on Sunday. "First" means it probably won't be my last; I was hardly numbed by the experience, and an aspiring homesteader in the Northeast should see any introductory chicken exposure as preparation for the future.

But let me preface the rest of this post by saying that I used to be a vegetarian. I read my first Peter Singer (renowned animal rights activist) when I was a sophomore in college, and it paralyzed me. How could you think of meat as anything other than murder? he asked (with fancier words). Maybe, once, for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, survival necessitated such crime. But now, with the bounty of agriculture, we have so much control over our diet that we can easily cut out meat without sacrificing that oh-so-important protein. And if you think you can evade the criminal accusation on the basis of your superior intelligence to animals, well then, you are simply unintelligent. For pigs are smarter than infants and even some mentally handicapped people, but we certainly wouldn't think it moral to kill them.

This is a gross oversimplification of his arguments, but he and many others have written books on the subject. The point is, Singer convinced me in a few pages that eating meat lumped me in the same evil category as first-degree murderers. And I wasn't okay with that. The next day, I became a vegetarian--forgive the pun--cold turkey.

Two years later, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She devoted an entire chapter to an on-farm slaughter of turkeys that she had humanely raised on her farm, and she, too, prefaced her narrative with some context: Her entire family had practiced vegetarianism for 14 years! But in the late 90s, other issues like the slavery of migrant farm labor, the climate implications of methane-producing cows and food miles, and the rise of diet-related chronic disease called into question our food system at-large. The idea that ethical eating isn't just about whether or not you eat animal products was gaining momentum. Conscious consumption was becoming much more nuanced and holistic, much more about slow food--good tasting, environmentally friendly, fairly produced and accessible food.

Suddenly, when viewing the entire puzzle of food system reform, eating meat--the right kind of meat--didn't seem so unnecessary. In the spirit of a regionally appropriate diet, meat is unavoidable in many places simply because of climate: If you want to eat locally pretty much anywhere except the deep south or California, you're not going to survive the long, dormant-growing-season that is winter on potatoes, carrots, and beets. Sure, you could go to the store and buy some protein-rich meat alternatives like tofu, tempeh, or even canned beans; but what are the ethical implications of these foods? How many insects and mammals were sacrificed for the health of those soybean fields or rows of beans? And how much gas polluted the air during the transportation of those products from the field to dinner plate? And how much space is all of that wasted packaging going to take up in a bursting landfill? Barbara had asked all of these questions and resolved them by putting chicken (or turkey) back on the table.



I later read an argument in favor of eating good meat-- that is, locally and humanely raised--as an even better protest to abhorrent factory farms than not eating meat at all. As the author realized, we must come to terms with the fact that farmed meat isn't going to disappear because a handful of people decide not to buy it. So why not support the small farms doing it the right way? Ensuring their success provides consumers unwilling to give up meat with an ethical alternative.

And so, a mere two-and-a-half years after deciding I had no other choice for maintaining my moral integrity but to go veggie, I started eating meat--good meat--again. I have deemed myself a "conscious carnivore" (I'm still looking for something less pretentious, if you have any suggestions), and buy meat produced only on local farms that I know give their animals a good life.

Now it's time for the real story:

Thanks to industrial meat, on-farm animal slaughter can probably be considered a rarity in our culture (though common in many parts of the world). Aaron and Kara are two young farmers who decided to share with their friends the beauty in this unpopular manifestation of community food security. For me, and I think I can safely speak on behalf of all others there, being a part of this event was not about whether we could or could not kill a chicken. This was about deepening that connection between farm and fork and witnessing how the achievement of this understanding builds community at the same time.

On their small homestead just outside of Ithaca, Aaron and Kara humanely raised 42 Cornish Cross chickens for the sole purpose of meat. Through an email, they let friends know of the slaughter day and invited people to participate and purchase birds for $10 each. This price simply covered the costs of raising the animals. Rather than make a profit, their intent was to provide friends eager for a taste of small-scale meat production with an incredibly valuable and unique educational experience.

Aaron and Kara demonstrate the evisceration stage

When Dylan and I arrived, I felt like I was late for class. About twenty people were already huddled in a shady patch of mowed grass just above the long driveway. Behind a long table covered with cardboard, Kara stood beside Aaron who was in the middle of explaining each stage of the process. Between the teachers and students, there was a propane tank, a camping stove, and two pots filled with water . Several feet away from the table on either side were two trees each with a makeshift contraption that held in place a suspended traffic cone; the pointed end had been cut off, leaving a hole that faced the ground.

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After catching the tail end of Aaron's instructional overview, we joined the group on the first trip to the coop. The first kill neared, and I worried more intensely than I had during the day if I was going to be able to handle this. People photographed and filmed as Aaron and Kara collected as many birds as could be sandwiched in the two bins, then we returned to the station and gathered around the nearest cone. Everyone fixed their eyes on Aaron as he snatched one of the chickens by the feet, holding it upside-down as he rubber-banded the dinosaur legs. Then he placed the bird, now calmer, head-first through the cone, reaching his hand into the hole underneath to pull its head and neck through.

First, feel for the jugular and distinguish it from the trachea. Do not cut the trachea. When you find the vein, pull the feathers back, so you can make a clean cut. Use forceful pressure to rupture the vein on the first slit. Do not saw. Once you have cut one side of the neck, do the same on the other to quicken the death. After his words, Aaron acted, and I braced myself to watch for the first time the slaughtering of another being.

There was silence as that first slit stained white feathers red. The warmth of the blood was visible in the deepness of color that streamed into a bucket below. But people were quick to follow the action with questions, and this set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Dominating intermittent moments of solemnity was an overarching wave of vibrant curiosity, like that in a science classroom filled with kids completing their first dissection.

And so the four-hour slaughter began. A few others had done this before, and, familiar with the process, were quick to dive in. Some of the brave amateurs stepped up, assigning themselves to a specific task or simply grabbing a bird from the bin. Many of us, myself included, were content to observe before doing anything. I watched as my friend Liz slipped an inverted bird through the cone and unhesitatingly moved the knife down one side of the neck. "Have you done this before?" I asked, intimidated by her confidence. "Awhile ago," she said. "But it still hurts." The animal faded as we stood quietly.

Gradually, those who had initially held back jumped in to find their niche. When I finally gained the confidence to say, "My turn," Dylan had already moved one chicken through the process and most people were engrossed in the routine of the stages. This and the technical difficulty of the task before me subdued any remaining moral considerations; I had made up my mind that I needed to do this, and so I had to force myself to focus on doing it correctly. Don't screw up, I kept telling myself. Don't cut the trachea. I enlisted the help of Chris (remember my former crew leader?) to guide me. Preoccupying my mind only with his instructions, I did it.

The ability to rationalize this killing as a necessity does not make the animal's death any easier. A few long minutes pass before the bird dies, which is plenty of time to remember its aliveness, look into its ever-more weary eyes, and question the humaneness of initiating this slow death instead of swiftly cutting off the head (rupturing the trachea apparently makes for tough, unpalatable meat because it violently tenses the muscles).

And I didn't even help with--though I witnessed--what I thought to be the most painful part: collecting the birds from the coop. This is the first step. Watching the birds noisily, frantically back away from a merciless hand as it reaches in for the next victim is a reminder that animals feel. They feel fear just as we do because they, too, know death. As we carried from the coop to the killing "floor" the next round of wrangled birds, I wondered whether their insides were knotting with anticipation. This is when the words of Peter Singer and the like begin to strangle your conscience like a grapevine. How can I kill something that coos so pitifully?

Scalding at a water temperature of 142 degrees Fahrenheit makes the feathers easier to remove

But once it's done, it's done. Having respectfully observed several somber minutes of spiritual contemplation and gratitude, you break from the suffocating grasp of the philosophical vine. With each of the following stages, the chicken's animal identity diminishes as it looks more like a hunk of edible meat--a welcome reminder that it lost its life for more than sheer curiosity. First the scalding, then the plucking, eviscerating (gut-removal), cleaning, and finally ice-bathing. The plucking was tedious, even with the help of other people, and the evisceration was almost chokingly technical. But with each step, I had the help of a fellow participant--both new and experienced--to see me through. Soon enough, my chicken looked ready for the roasting pan.

Though certainly not required or pressured, everyone took an active role in the slaughter. By the end, each person had killed at least one chicken. No one fell prey to squeamishness. And no one was overcome by the moral discomfort of the act. Surely everyone grimaced with ethical uncertainty when wielding the knife, as I had myself. But, as Dylan said, the fact that killing the bird made everyone cringe only enriched the humanity of the event as a whole.



We talked about all of these reflections at the end of the night when we closed the slaughter with a proper, shared meal made by our extraordinary hosts. Our slow food dinner featured--you guessed it--grilled chicken hearts. "It's the best part of the chicken," Aaron said. "They taste like really good hot dogs." He's right. But hot dogs aside, slipping a heart off one of the skewers being passed around our dinner circle and popping it into my mouth was the most perfectly symbolic tribute to our human and animal friends that I could have imagined. A mere educational experience transformed into a true communal ceremony.

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Having already expressed gratitude for the chickens, the only individuals left to thank before we left long after sunset were Aaron and Kara. As was the case with the chickens, words didn't feel like enough. If it hadn't been for them, I don't know when or where I would have had the opportunity to do this. As I reached to hug my friends and tinged my nostrils with the sour smell of soap and vinegar that failed to cover the lingering stench of chicken innards, I couldn't have felt more human.

Summer's Return

Did the rancid aftertaste linger these long six months since my last, gloomy post? Forgive me, please. My extended writing coma was, in truth, unintentional, and I had originally planned on following that last rotten nut with something a little crunchier and sweeter.

But anyone in the Northeast knows it was a rough winter. I guess we say that every year, but I felt it with every stiff bone, frozen nerve, and depressed brain cell in my body this winter--it's an eighty-degree night in July, and I'm still talking about it! As you may have guessed from my previous post, the transition from farm life into, well, real life was stormy. Literally. It seemed as though every other day snow cemented my 45-minute commute into an hour-and-fifteen-minute slither through treachery. The gloom was all-encompassing. Anything beyond going to work, making dinner, and crawling into bed--like blogging--was deemed too unnecessary in this time of death.

But enough excuses. My slow food senses have now fully reawakened with summer, and for the past month, I've savored the effort to reverse my post-winter (disgusting) rate of toxicity. Where's the raw produce??

Oh, there it is. In our garden. Not in our absence of a yard downtown, but rather at the Ithaca Community Garden. Receiving our plot confirmation in March was my first glimmer of light: Spring is near! We wasted no time buying the seed-starting essentials and fashioning as best a set-up as possible in our studio apartment. After a month, a decent number of blank spots remained in our seed trays--our system has plenty of room for improvement--but enough heads popped to plant half the space in our 15'X 15' plot. With some supplemental seedlings from farmers' market vendors, we took care of the gaps. We've been watching with empowerment our first personal garden bloom during the past six weeks. Already we've harvested plenty of herbs, lettuce, and spring onions.

We'll still be enjoying bounty from the farm too, since Dylan is working a second season part-time. Jealousy pinched a little when he brought home the first pint of strawberries, and I remembered the glory of a bloated stomach after a day of endlessly picking/endlessly eating the fruit. But then I remembered the skin rashes from the micro-prickers on the bushes and the discomfort and annoyance of endlessly scavenging as fast as possible for just the right berries from inconvenient knee-high bushes, then the envy morphed into gratitude. I'm thankful that I may still delight in such organic pleasures without the pain. And I'm thankful that I still feel deeply connected by both memory and the work of my partner to the place that taught me about local food at its most fundamental level.

In truth, I value my exchange of the fields for the office. Much work lies ahead to strengthen the system that supports farms like this one. It just so happens that the reappearance of sun and heat coincided with my mid-point AmeriCorps evaluation in June (halfway done my one-year term already?!), when I could finally reflect with confident pride on how I've contributed to this overarching effort during the past six months. More to come.

Having wriggled the last lazy inclinations of hibernation from my core and having witnessed the sprouting of seeds--both literal and figurative--into adolescent life, it is now time, again, to write.

I'll continue with The Farm Book, but at some point I'll also be contributing to the new Edible Finger Lakes blog Edible Voices: http://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/edible-voices.htm. (For those of you unfamiliar with Edible publications, visit the following site to learn more about these local-flavored food magazines across the country: http://www.ediblecommunities.com/content.)

The Real World of Real Food

It didn't take long, but I miss farm work already. Unfortunately, I'll have limited opportunity to rekindle my relationship with growing organic food next season. Instead of straining in the fields, I'll be spending most of my time over the next year sedentary in--what I told myself I wanted at the end of the season--an office.

It won't be meaningless. Through Americorps, I'm serving with an organization called the Food and Health Network of South Central New York (FaHN), which is based forty-five minutes outside of Ithaca in the town of Whitney Point. The group is a collaboration of partner organizations that align with the mission of FaHN: basically to create food secure communities by increasing local food consumption. As the FaHN coordinator, I keep all of our partner organizations in-tune and on-track: basically lots of emailing, scheduling, website updating, newsletter writing, and report drafting. Staring at a computer screen (that dreaded glare) all day won't be as immediately rewarding as harvesting hundreds of pounds of food for a three-hundred-person CSA. But it will be a necessary first step to facing the realities of both adult life and the real food scene.

On Thursday, I attended my first conference: the New York State Agricultural Society annual forum. The moment I arrived, I wished I hadn't misread the conference schedule; I thought registration mingling was from 8:30 to only 9:00, but instead, it lasted a whole hour, ending at 9:30. I wandered into a room divided by lines of display tables where refreshments were being served. Lots of white men in suits. Some women, too. But lots of men. (Later in the day, I spotted two African Americans and one Indian woman—the conference definitely wasn’t celebrating diversity). I hightailed it to the refreshments table, ate my scone as slowly as possible, then weaved through the exhibits, looking interested enough to make it look like I belonged yet deter elicitation from the question-answerers stationed behind the foam board presentations. Most of the tables weren't relevant for me (they were targeting farmers or people who work directly with farmers). Everyone in the room seemed to know each other and be engaging in conversation. I finished the round in a mere ten minutes, having picked up only one (irrelevant) pamphlet from the Cornell Cheese Club table, where I'd sampled some cheddar. After returning to the refreshments table for some juice, I wasted the next hour with three more aimless circles around the room, struggling to think of some meaningful questions to ask someone, anyone.

At last, the sound of a cowbell herded everyone into the main presentation room dotted not with side-by-side chairs arranged in neat rows but with, uh-oh, round tables. I found an empty one at the end of the big room. The first person to sit with me--a woman who actually turned out to be someone I would have met at the end of the month--seemed like she was feeling similarly awkward (she's relatively new to the scene as well). After everyone found a seat, the long day began.

The first presentation addressed, somewhat surprisingly, improving the global (not regional or local) food system. I was immediately skeptical--how can we possibly tackle feeding the world's hungry before making our closest communities food secure? But these people are experts. I tried to keep an open mind, which was ultimately a task that proved difficult. The presenter spewed high-and-mighty geysers of data coupled with conclusions: to feed the growing population (9 billion people by 2050), we need to DOUBLE food production on a dying planet that will decreasingly offer viable farmland and reliable water sources—how will we do this? Surely a well-intentioned and, perhaps, necessary conversation. But I cringed when he said that "one of the greatest crimes against humanity" has been committed by European NGOs (non-governmental organizations) discouraging the cultivation of genetically modified organisms/crops (GMOs) in underdeveloped countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

To explain all of the arguments against GMOs is far too lengthy of a discussion to explore here (I suggest starting with the film Food Inc. and the book Soil Not Oil by Vandana Shiva). However, one of the greatest criticisms, in short, is that introducing GMOs, especially in underdeveloped countries, will effectively strip small farmers of their independence by making them rely on seeds that they must annually purchase every year from the GMO companies, in addition to purchasing all of the (environmentally destructive) fertilizers and pesticides that must be used to help that crop grow; GMOs will render the traditional practice of saving seeds from this year's crop to use for planting the following year's crop useless, increasing the amount of capital that farmers (who are already poor) need every year. All of this is promoted under the respectable guise of the probably impossible task of eliminating famine.

Surely, I wasn't the only person in the room aware (and supportive) of anti-GMO arguments. But during lunch, the GMO topic resurfaced, and I found myself in a minority of opinion. One woman, shaking her head with contempt, said, "Well of course the Europeans aren't going to support [GMOs]--they're not hungry!" While this may be true, this woman's assertion reflected a shallow and short-sighted view that has characterized the transformation of agriculture into a practice that is damaging on an environmental and humanitarian level. In an era of destruction and decline, we cannot afford reactionary decisions that fail to deeply assess in multiple contexts the pros and cons of implementing a new practice (what is the value of reducing famine with GMOs if only to further indenture a presently poor population?). Of course, I write much better than I speak, and I had difficulty shaping these thoughts and verbalizing articulate words before the conversation moved to a different topic. My grossly minor age and experience in comparison to those surrounding me didn't serve my confidence either.

A few more presentations focused more on the potential value of New York State agriculture and how the producers and consumers of this state might realize such value. I found this subject more promising. I didn't fail to notice, however, the absence in every presentation of the words "organic" or "holistic" or "sustainable". Not that agriculture should be discussed solely in these contexts. But surely these words deserve a place in the lexicon of 21st century agriculture. Instead, the "buy local" movement was subtly swept under the rug, regarded, by both a scholar and a farmer, as purely a niche market that has already been filled and will not further expand. Not particularly hopeful. Realistic, perhaps—who am I to counter the bottom-line claims of a long-time fruit farmer? But certainly not hopeful.

A bleak sky ushered me into the cold as I rushed out the doors of the Holiday Inn. I got into my car, praying the snow would wait until my hour-and-a-half drive was over. So much driving; I’d have to stop for gas again (the second time in one week!) on the way home. As I drove past the broken buildings and smoky factories of Syracuse, my mind sifted through the words of the day, exposing broken shells in place of tiny treasures. I had just listened to some of the biggest players in New York agriculture and not one of them discussed its potential role in reviving the depressed rural communities of the state by restoring food security. Everything comes down to economics, I kept telling myself, as I considered the implications of my own eye-opening post-graduate budgeting. Thoughts about the conference ebbed into thoughts about my service with FaHN. Tomorrow I would exercise my long commute to Whitney Point, sit in front of my computer, and set to fixing the very things that a room full of agriculture specialists said, in so many words, could not be fixed. Maybe this is a sign that I have not yet completely surrendered the romantic idealist from college. But I am working in an office.

Remnants of the Roamers

Leftovers are, arguably, the best part of Thanksgiving. My family struck extra gold this year because a) due to a minor misunderstanding, we prepared enough food for three more people than actually came, resulting in half-full platters at the end of the night, and b) we had the privilege of roasting a heritage bird that was pasture-finished on the land of Dylan's family's farm in Vermont.

At first my parents--used to the factory-farmed birds bred for plump breasts--expressed a lack of faith in our thirteen-pound free-ranger. Deeply concerned about having enough meat for dinner and leftovers, Dad bought an extra turkey breast (to be deep-fried). I tried to empathize with his last-minute decision: The long trunk and legs of the turkey certainly exhibited a lean quality. "This is one athletic bird," Dad kept saying as he moved the legs back and forth as though the dead animal was a toy. "Look! There's not a scrap of fat on this guy!"** The enviable shapeliness of the turkey, however, caused one of those dreaded last-minute-and-the-grocery-store-is-closed problems that could not be ignored: gravy. With so little fat to drool from the corpse into the roasting pan, my parents rushed to the nearest gas station to find some cheap canned chicken stock as a means of beefing up the anticipated meager drippings.

As these things always do, everything worked out in the end. We did use the chicken stock to ensure a healthy (or unhealthy) serving of gravy. But we never needed the extra hunk of meat. Even if everyone expected had come, the store-bought turkey breast would have been unnecessary. Our farmed athlete surprised us with its hidden reaches of edible tissue. And who needed more white meat anyway? The unusually deep-brown legs, thighs, and wings of the turkey so excited the palate that for the first time on Thanksgiving, I filled my plate with dark meat instead of white. And I had many more opportunities in the coming week to relish the otherworldly meatiness.

Over the next few days, Dad and I ruled the kitchen counter at lunchtime, enlisting a cohort of condiments, supplemental veggies, and cheese to make the quintessential Thanksgiving leftover meal: turkey sandwiches. Sadly, the meat dwindled quickly and soon enough we were left with nothing but the carcass. Never before had we utilized the culinary potential of the bones, but this year Dad declared, "We're making stock. Then we're going to make soup." He quartered an onion, sliced a few carrots, trimmed some stalks of celery, added water and the turkey remains, then let it simmer.

Later in the week, I took the lead on the soup. I didn't do anything extravagant--for about four quarts of stock, I added a large chopped onion, five medium coined carrots (from Early Morning Farm, incomparably sweet), three diced stalks of celery, and two cans of white beans. After generously salt-and-peppering, I stirred in a thin layer of fresh parsley, a generous sprinkle of dried rosemary (harvested this summer from Dad's garden), and roughly two teaspoons of fresh thyme. The soup simmered for forty-five minutes. Nearly forgetting, I added a bag of frozen kale (aside from red peppers, the only item I managed to preserve from the farm's bounty, disappointingly, but that's another story) just before serving with steamed broccoli and homemade spaghetti in a sage butter sauce with crushed red pepper. It was one of those meals that reinforced the savoriness of ridiculously simple cooking; with quality ingredients, a little foresight, and the increasingly rare attitude of thriftiness that encourages one to use as much of anything as possible, tasty food comes with little effort. Many days after the holiday itself, I remain thankful for the animal itself, for the people who ethically raised it in a manner that imparts superior flavor, and for our ability to enjoy it.

**A short story to serve as a humorous reminder that our Thanksgiving feast was once a living being with its own interests and quirks:

In addition to fluttering about the sweeps of pasture, the Black Spanish turkeys of Common Crook Farm enjoyed climbing cars, a hobby that undoubtedly gave way to their toned muscles. Typically, this leisure activity remained confined to the vehicles in the driveway. But one day a cop pulled someone over in front of the farm. As the officer approached the parked car in front of him, the turkeys spotted the blinking blue and red--a new climbing opportunity!--and bolted for the cruiser. When the officer turned back to his car, several turkeys perched contentedly on the vehicle. He laughed and took a picture as Dylan's mom rushed to lure the troublemakers away with bread scraps.

Beet Emotions

We harvested the last of the root crops—beets and radishes—in cold rain on Friday. The wetness stuck to my skin, and at one point, after hours of violent shivering, I was convinced I had hypothermia. But, as Dylan said, quitting on our last day would have been like running 26 miles of a marathon and dropping out before the last 385 yards. So I took a quick break to make some tea, and I pressed on. Just as we finished storing the topped and washed roots in the walk-in cooler, the sun reached through the thick sky for the fields, highlighting the death that saved us.

“You guys are badass,” Chris said with a pat on the back (this coming from the person who at the height of the season worked seven days a week and who will continue to work in even colder weather by himself over the next few weeks preparing the farm for next year and harvesting greens for market—he is badass). Mostly I could think of nothing more than changing into dry clothes after a hot shower. But an inkling of pride forced a meager smile in response to Chris’ praise.

After all, making it through the entire season was no small feat, as evidenced by the continually decreasing number of workers on the crew. At the beginning of April Anton hosted a potluck orientation for the seven enlisted crew members. I spent the evening fantasizing about my farm experience, having wanted to work on an organic farm for the past couple of years. Anton wasted no time subduing my eagerness though, when he said, “Farming isn’t for everyone. If you reach a point where you’re thinking about quitting, don’t have any reservations.”

Most people didn’t. One girl, having worked on much smaller farms prior to Early Morning, quit during my second day. She was the first crew member, with Chris, to begin working and had already acquired hours for three weeks before telling Anton that the scale of the farm was too big for her taste. The second girl quit in the middle of June, discontent with the work to pay ratio and our crew leader. The last two ended their terms at the beginning of September (quite possibly the busiest time of the season), which left me, Dylan, and Chris mostly alone (with the exception of temporary help) for the last two months.

Truthfully, I thought of quitting more than once, and I’m currently reveling (for what will surely be a short period of time) in the disgusting indulgence of laziness that comes with unemployment. I am unsettled by my hypocritical content with the ability to retreat from growing food, though. If I hope to provide my own sustenance in the future with a small garden or a large homestead, I will have no easy escape from the work.

In reflecting on the experience, however, I’ve realized that farming is not personal gardening, a hobby that in many ways offers more incentive and gratification than working for pay at a commercial farm. More importantly, I’ve grown aware of the fact that the intensity of the work buried the root of my frustration.

Over the course of my six months at Early Morning, I learned more about people (others and myself) than I did about growing produce. In the end, I believe that the personalities of my coworkers ultimately fueled the mental exhaustion about which I wrote in previous posts. This is not to say I disliked anyone with whom I worked. My moodiness undoubtedly affected others negatively in the same way that the idiosyncrasies of others gnawed at me. When you spend forty-five hours working with the same few people every week, interpersonal issues are inevitable. As bodies are confined to the same space in a bed of vegetables for long periods of time, so are individual quirks; the tedious physicality of fieldwork compounds the mental stress, and what starts as tiny pricks on the skin quickly mushrooms into a sore that festers. Apparently all of those job seekers aren’t joking when they underline the importance of good interpersonal communication skills in the workplace.

Despite all of the unexpected drama that erupted over the course of six months though, I couldn’t leave the farm on Friday without saying to Chris, “We’ll probably be back next year.” I had barely thought of the words before blurting them, and I immediately knew I wasn’t kidding myself.

Saturday night we hosted a potluck and most of the people who had worked on the farm came. It was the first time of the season that all of us spent time together outside of the farm, and everyone was in high spirits. As we savored the good food, drink, and conversation, it became clear that any petty issues to have arisen between one another in the field, died in the field with the plants. As I cooked a stew with vegetables from the farm, I thought of all the dinners we shared with others and that our customers undoubtedly shared with others, using the produce we had helped grow. Surely we’ll continue to enjoy collective dinners during the next few wintry months, but I think the degree of one’s connection to the food enhances one’s connection with other people.

An inexplicable emptiness seems to always accompany the coldness and the gray of winter. I imagine this void will deepen for me without tangibly creating peace through the growing, harvesting, and communal distributing of good food.

I Once Envied Those with a Year-round Growing Season

The CSA has officially ended. Though Early Morning Farm will continue to appear at market every Saturday for the next few weeks, the main purpose will be the sale of a dwindling supply of produce--mostly root crops, onions, and, for a short period of time, hardy greens like kale.

We have emptied the greenhouses, relieving the tomato vines from their losing struggle against the heaviness of cold air. We have relieved our backs of the weekly bent harvest of peppers. The eggplants, having curled their paling tips into themselves like shriveling grapes, were mowed. Blackened basil decays next to crisp sunflowers bowing to gray sun. I am now bowing to early evenings and late mornings.

There was a celebratory picture of the crew after setting up the stand for our last market haul. After the photo, I stood at the center of the pavilion's three converging wings and watched other vendors set up and mingle. This would be my last day at market for the season--a long season--and I devoted my pause to appreciating the moment's finality. My gaze traveled down the central wing to the dock and over the lake. As I took in the sudden bareness of the surrounding trees, stark in the morning sun filling the air, I took comfort in my preference for fall.

Planting Ideas

Twice a year, my dad's cohort of cousins (spouses and children included) escapes the melancholy of suburbia to the wildness of the Poconos for a weekend of "roughing it". Next to a picturesque stream at Council Cup campground, the gaggle of thirty-some Italians, ranging in age from five to fifty, assemble their camping stoves, deep friers, stereos, and Taj Mahal tents--complete with air mattresses and/or cots (sometimes even bunk beds) and space heaters--on a Friday night then light a fire and commence intoxication.

There is no denying that little, if any, true natural reflection happens here; the woods merely offer a sanctuary away from those who would condemn the roaring voices of thirty Zonetti's in the same area at once and free of the distractions that prevent one from doing nothing but eat all day. The hell with inside voices and mealtimes. It is a weekend of deafening loudness and feasting, of Sunday morning headaches and Metamucil. It is a weekend of excess.

After pregaming Friday night, we begin Saturday morning with pastries and bagels, then move to eggs with bacon/sausage/scrapple/steak, and end breakfast with some form of fried potatoes. This dictates the manner of the following lunch and dinner hours: eat, clean, eat, clean, eat, clean, drink, sit, drink, sit, drink, sit, eat more. Alcohol is always present--waking up with mimosas and baileys, easing into beer and wine, then crashing with liquor. The picnic tables continuously offer platters of meat; a typical day consists of multiple chicken dishes, london broil, fish, beef chili and/or soup, AND, maybe even a deep-fried turkey. Whew. I'd have to worry a lot more about constipation and short-term weight-gain if I didn't eat CAFO meat.

Of course I disapprove of almost all of the food present. No free-range, local, organic, or preservative-free labels here. Of course I say nothing. I don't wish to sound ungrateful for the free grub I willingly gobble in large quantities all weekend or for the mounds of unused food I take home. But I also wish to avoid accusations of food snobbery. Though I take pride in my pretentious attitude toward eating, people simply aren't receptive to preaching. Many family members are familiar with the motives behind my meat consumption choices, but I only engage in discussion of food politics when others raise the subject.

Fortunately, plenty of opportunities presented itself this weekend. What are you doing these days? How's the farm? With little else in our lives to talk about, both Dylan and I related our farm experience as a way of spreading the word on producing and eating good food. I even received a number of compliments (or something like that) on my work hands, caked with callouses, cuts, and dirt.

Around lunchtime, Dad and I set up an unplanned exhibition. I was making salsa, he a tomato salad. Like fishermen bobbing cast lines, we lured family members with smells and colors as we stood next to each other chopping the only homegrown goods there. "Is that a green tomato?" my aunt asked. I sampled the ripe "Green Zebra" tomatoes from the farm and explained the richness of flavor that distinguishes ancient varieties of vegetables. Others approached us to praise the perfection of my Dad's juicy "Early Girl" tomatoes, picked just the day before from his backyard garden. To heighten interest, I cut strips of the sweetest of sweet red peppers, an Italian variety by the name of "Carmen", to demonstrate their gustatory intensity and textural tenderness. Father and daughter shared the ultimate slow food moment as we cooked together with sustainable produce and simultaneously educated others.

Later in the day, a second impromptu education session (in case anyone missed the first one while playing horseshoes or taking a walk) occurred as I prepared veggies for dinner. Golden delicata squash, radicchio of the deepest magenta, red onions the size of softballs, and bunches of fresh leafy kale, arugula, and basil colored the table. As they walked by, my cousins echoed Farmer's Market customers: "Those vegetables are beautiful." I sampled some more peppers; I described the difference between heirloom and hybrid plants; I explained organic pest and weed control. After trying my squash saute later that night, one of my teenage cousins asked again for the name of the variety, having enjoyed the new flavor so much.

I've come to mentally prepare myself when leaving Ithaca for the norms and attitudes--the general lack of interest in food--that characterizes the outside world. And so I didn't expect such genuine curiosity in my produce endeavors during this blissful weekend of escape. I remember a couple of years ago instigating the first conversations with my parents about sustainable consumption choices; I preached, and while they didn't blatantly ignore me, they didn't change the way they fed themselves. I remember thinking, If I can't even convince my own parents to change their attitudes of food, how can I convince anyone?

After three years of sharing stories and recipes and food experiences with my parents, my father rediscovered his love of growing food and has harvested from a backyard garden for the second year in a row. In the span of a day, I sparked a teenager's interest in organic delicata squash, a vegetable she was completely unaware of--had never before seen in the store--before this past weekend.

I am learning that changing the attitudes of others is not impossible, but rather, that it requires dedication, patience, and strategy; it requires a suspension of one's assumptions about the way in which others think. Knowing how to properly entice the easily skewed senses is, perhaps, the key to inception.

Rejuvenation

I knew my romantic visions of farm work would quickly dissipate after a few months in the fields, but I anticipated the fault resting with an aching body. In fact, the physical rigor of this work appeals to me in a masochistic sort of way. Rather, my weariness of farming (to be expected at the height of the harvest from novice and experienced farmers alike) has grown more from mental exhaustion.

The work is tedious. Repetitive. Uninteresting, after awhile. One reaches a point at which he/she must force oneself to look up from the soil and stare flatly at the sky or the flowers or the butterflies to remember the beauty of the place. But even this is not enough to keep the spirit at ease in the harvest season, after months spent working day after day with the same three or four people. The thirteenth planting of lettuce. The umpteenth picking of equally tired kale. Another day of back-bending tomato picking. And still two-and-a-half months to go.

Admittedly, I've been struggling to retain sanity. More than once this summer I've crumbled. Other factors compound the stress, but the farm remains at the center of the web. Not once before starting this job did I expect to feel stressed out during the day. Growing vegetables, however, is anything but frolicking in the fields. Chaos regularly ensues, especially on harvest days (which, at this point in the season, are virtually every day) when the work MUST be finished--no stopping simply because it's 5:00.

Something else unexpected: The peaceful expanse of undeveloped acres that surround me offer little escape. It's quite the paradox, feeling trapped amongst rolling hills of country. But the isolation of rural life, even a mere thirty minutes outside of town, can constrict just as much as the buildings and roads of a city. I mostly enjoy living on the farm but imagine leaving your workplace only once or twice a week.

I remember Anton talking about the demands of this work during my first week at the farm; he said, "You've got to be here for something." At the time, that motive was at the forefront of my mind, but the exhaustion gradually buried it. Until this week. Today I worked market for the first time. I look forward to going every week as a customer, witnessing a community--a community that cares deeply about its local food system (Ithaca has the highest rate of CSA participants in the country--10% of Ithacans belong to a local CSA!)--come together and revel in artisan food and crafts underneath a gorgeous wooden pavilion on the bank of Cayuga lake. But today, standing behind a glimmering display of produce that I helped create made me feel like an artist watching people awe at her work in a gallery.

"Everything looks gorgeous!"

"These are the sweetest peppers I've ever eaten."

"Oh my goodness, the basil, the cilantro, these tomatoes--it all smells amazing!"

People walking past the stand literally gasped in admiration. As CSA members packed their share for the week and market customers opted for farm-fresh produce instead of retail food, I remembered that every week five other people and I grow clean, healthy, tasty food for about 1,000 people. "We are awesome," our crew leader Chris said the other day, referring to this accomplishment. We laughed at the crudeness of the statement, but, seriously, it's hard not to feel a cocky sense of pride. After witnessing the visible respect fellow community members have for our work, two-and-a-half more months doesn't seem so bad after all.

Sometimes I Want to be a Housewife

A couple of weeks ago, I bought Bringing it to the Table, an anthology of essays about farming and food by Wendell Berry. After studying the cover of the book (above) for a few minutes, I thought, This image would have probably offended me at one time. The antiquated picture depicts a woman in an ankle-length dress and apron coming from the kitchen to serve a table of men in overalls. Why was it that the women had to serve the men? is what the defensive feminist inside me, typically subdued, would have sneered.

In a way, such a comment wouldn't be out of character. In the memoir Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, author/farmer Barbara Kingsolver empathizes with today's generation of independent women who, after years of fighting to get out of the kitchen and into the workplace, would loathe day after day of nothing but housework.

But just a few months of farming has illuminated the reality of common life before grocery stores, a reality that actually makes this image, for me, somewhat idyllic.

My love for cooking brought me to the farm. I used to feel stifled in the kitchen because I didn't have this or enough of that when I was trying to follow a recipe, but on the farm, I have plenty of almost any vegetable or herb I could want. What I don't have enough of now is time or energy. Cook? After nine or even ten hours of physical labor? Start making dinner right after work, eat at 8:00, then go to bed? Meh. For the first couple of months at the farm, I favored peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or even pre-made cans of soup over energy-intensive fresh vegetables. Even Jen, the partner of our farm's owner and a professional chef, told me, "Yeah, Anton and I use so little of what we grow on the farm. It's ridiculous."

I often fantasize about Dylan leaving for the fields in the morning while I stay at home, set for a day of cooking hearty and healthy dinners or staging food for winter (preserving summer's bounty definitely has not found a spot in the weekly routine). I would have time to play with recipes and make everything--butter, yogurt, pasta and bread even--from scratch. I would let little of the produce left over from market go to waste and can, freeze, or dry as much as possible. I find myself romanticizing the housewives-in-aprons, who undoubtedly filled a crucial role in days past.

One of the paradoxes of the modern small farm is that it is not nearly profitable enough to allow time for kitchen work. I'm sure some small farm families manage the old-fashioned style of living in which the husband farms while the wife does housework, but they probably constitute a tiny minority of an already minute percentage of small family farms. The more common scenario rather: Both partners toil in the fields all day to produce enough for market or one partner has a job off the farm, leaving the house empty for the day. Perhaps there's enough time for a quick dinner, but quick food often partially relies on store-bought food.

Surely, this isn't the worst aspect of modernity known to the world, and I'm hesitant to excessively sentimentalize traditional ways of living. But part of me wishes that I didn't have to feel grateful for the existence of grocery stores.

A Tribute

One of the many intangible miracles of food is its ability to act as an agent of memory. I have never forgotten the origination of what I deemed in the previous post as my mom’s meat sauce; in fact, long before I wrote that entry, I wrote a piece during my junior year of college that awards proper credit for the creation of the Zonetti family tomato sauce. The following is the first half of the piece:

The Italians of my father’s family share many features—short height, raucous voices, and flamboyant gestures, to name a few. But when I think of the quintessential trait that binds us all, I think of sauce. We like sauce a lot. We like sauce so much that it’s a crime to leave dirty streaks of red coagulating on your plate after you’ve finished your homemade pasta; acceptance in the family requires swabbing your dish with a piece of crispy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside Italian bread to absorb the previous remains. My grandfather once scolded a newcomer (my mom) to the family who, innocently trying to help my grandmother clean up after dinner, nearly washed the sauce platter used to hold the spaghetti. “What are you doing?” he exclaimed, frantically seizing the dish and grabbing a piece of bread. At home, store-bought sauce is illegal and cause for scoffing and/or chastising if spotted in the pantry.

When I was born, my family wasted no time with my Italian baptism; they introduced me to the sauce as a toddler, just after my teeth had developed, at the weekly Sunday night family dinner. My parents placed me in the high chair in my grandparents’ dining room and set in front of me a dish with my grandfather’s made-from-scratch spaghetti smothered with my grandmother’s homemade tomato sauce. Then the two of them along with Dad, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Joe, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Gary crowded around me, wide-eyed, leaning forward, as Mom fed me my first bite of the family meal. Will she like it? Will we be able to accept her into the family as a true Zonetti?

The recipe for this sauce originated with Patty, or Nanny as I called her, my paternal grandmother. Her mother, who came from Northern Italy, had made a light, chunky, and watery tomato sauce. As a married woman in America, Nanny would diverge from this recipe and create a thicker, smoother, meatier sauce; through trial and error, she worked to establish this keystone family recipe. I was the first-born grandchild, so my potential aversion to the sauce would have betrayed not only Nanny but also every member of the family, all of whom inhaled her heavy, unsweetened, slightly tangy creation. And so my family waited for me to swallow that first bite. Will she disappoint us?

Not in the least. I eagerly opened my mouth for more and have savored the dish ever since. Nanny died when I was four, ending the tradition of weekly family dinners. But several times throughout the year, the family reunites to celebrate. The memory of Nanny dwells in pouring her sauce over pasta from the same luxurious glass spout that once graced her table and which now rests in my parents’ hutch, used only for this special meal.

Farm luxury

We shit in a bucket that we must empty medieval-chamber-pot-style every few days. In the loft of a barn, we co-reside with dust, fleas (thanks to the feral cat and her five kittens who have learned what cat food is), a bat that occasionally flies into our room, bees that have colonized the central beam of the roof, and relentless mosquitoes. We wake up at six o’clock every morning to work a ten-hour day of planting, weeding, seeding, and/or harvesting fifteen acres of organic produce. We often do the same activity in the same position—kneeling, bending, stooping, standing, lifting—all day. We work in one hundred degrees, thirty degrees, sun, rain, and snow. We shower once, maybe twice a week. We earn minimum wage and receive no overtime pay. Farm life, for all its surface beauty, is difficult.

But then, there are the evening hours. Watching the sun cast its dying glare over the fields that are our backyard. Listening to the frogs on the banks of the pond commence their choral croaking. Sitting. Drinking. And, of course, there is dinner.

How fortunate we are to enjoy regular meals made almost entirely of organic food produced right outside our window. Last Friday, I snatched some of the first ripe tomatoes from the two 144-foot-long hoophouses in an eager frenzy to make fresh tomato sauce. I grew up in an Italian family, and there is no food that makes my knees weaker than my mom’s meat sauce (it is the only dish that I could not refuse during my two years as a vegetarian). I made some recipe revisions: I used local, grass-fed Italian sausage instead of store-bought beef chuck roast, some fresh basil, oregano, and parsley instead of the generic dried Italian seasoning, and, most importantly, I replaced canned tomato sauce and paste with the real thing fresh-from-the-vine. But I maintained the integrity of mom’s execution—first browning the heavily salt-and-peppered sausage in some olive oil, then removing the meat, adding the crushed tomatoes with a bit of water and the herbs, bringing it to a boil, placing the meat in the sauce, and finally letting it simmer.

To serve, I tossed it with some whole-wheat penne alongside a fresh sauté of just-picked yellow and costata squash with kale, and a glass of 2006 pinot noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon (not local, but it was a gift). The wine was smooth and the sauté was crisp, but the sauce was bold—a medley of flavors independent yet harmonic. And oh, the tomatoes—how can I possibly go back to canned now? We finished with a simple dessert of newly-ripened raspberries from the field and dark chocolate. Engrossed in gustatory pleasure, we hadn’t talked much through the meal, but Dylan, holding a berry, appropriately punctuated the experience by saying, “This is why we do it.”

The Fruits of Cultivation

It is already dusk. The fields glow with gleaning eggplants and squash, glistening hoophouses of transpiring tomatoes and peppers, and flowering wild mustard that flanks the rows of brassicas and lettuce. Invisible crickets have started chirping in the purpling expanse. I no longer feel the lasting marks of the scraping soil on bare knees or the straining stretch of planting a bed’s third row or the blistering of a hoe—I only feel the roughness of fingertips and palms itching bugbites or massaging overworked muscles. I am callused already.

The romantic is not lost, but spring has passed. Summer bears fully developed life—wanted and unwanted—the fruition of reality. Now it is time to write.

Welcome to THE FARMBOOK—a blog cataloguing observations, reflections, interviews, and reviews of the fields, foods, and flavors that sustain us.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082736: "The Necessity of Agriculture," Wendell Berry