Cranky n Stinky.com

Why I love craft beer.

2010-08-31T03:02:37Z

I feel the need to explain why I’ve been so interested in local craft beer after seeing some lists and examples of craft brewed beer in recent articles, like The Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Drink Craft Beer and 10 Great Beers Brewed In Unlikely Places .

These articles highlight a few of the reasons and craft beers without covering my reasons for loving it. Those that read my infrequent posts, will know I’m big on local food. While I’m far from new to good beer, I’ve liked ‘microbrews’ or imports for a long time, the interest or better yet fascination with local craft beer is fairly new for me. I can't pinpoint when the light bulb went off, but I think I became more aware the craft beer movement. Things like this video

and these interviews

http://www.belchingmonkey.com/content/interbrew/interbrew-anderson-valley-brewing-company/878/

Have solidified my interest.

Hearing these brewers talk about their commitment to brewing, their craft, and sustainability, it’s not hard to see how it meshes with my values. This is something they need to do, as they just can’t out cheap, distribute, or advertise the beer water makers. Which is fine, they can do something things the big guys can’t, be local, fresh, unique, and small. This is their differentiator.

Pretty much anywhere you where you go, you can find a local brewery. When I was on a trip to Long Island this past weekend, there were no fewer than 4 breweries with a reasonable drive. Near our home in MA, as you can see on this map (beermapping.com), there are a significant number as well. What I’m getting at, is that you can get local beer everywhere. Not only are you shortening the distribution chain, so you get fresh beer, you are also supporting the local economy. These smaller local brewers can also partner with local purveyors, like Cambridge brewing company (Cambridge MA), using Taza chocolate (Sommerville MA) in it’s Chocolate milk stout. It is that sort of double rainbow that you never see from the big guys.

Even if local does not matter to you, craft beer has much more to offer the beer fan. You can get your traditional pilsners and lighter lagers, if that is what your pallet prefers, but you can also get double imperial stouts, black ipa’s and wild sours, interesting and unique variations that you may not find else where. The reason why craft beer can offer the variety, and the The scale at which craft beer operates means they are faster moving, they can try the newest variety of hops, or offer wet hopped beers, that operations of larger scale just can’t do. They offer something for everyone, and a beer for every season. I personally can’t wait for the release of Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale every holiday season, but also look forward to the next iteration of Alagash’s Fluxus which is different every release.
This variety and scale means that fine craft beer is really approachable. Unlike wine, where you may find premium wines starting at 50+ a bottle, going into many thousands. Unique rare beer seems to be much more available . Don’t get me wrong, there exceptions, like Portsmouth brewing’s Kate the Great, or Pliny the elder, that the average consumer can’t get. However, I find this is the exception, you can get a great six pack for under $10. A unique limited release bomber for as little as $5-7. Rarely do you find a sku that breaks the $20 mark for a single unit. That makes even a very special craft beer accessible to the new comer, who wants to try it all like myself. That’s why I love craft beer.

Farm update.

2010-08-12T00:03:40Z

A farm update is long over due. Plenty of things have changed since my last update... Lets see inside the house, A is quite mobile, following us everywhere, interested in pretty much everything she should not be handling, cords, remotes, laptops, and iphones.
The child proofing has begun, but will be an ongoing project as A finds things we have not yet secured.

Outside the house has been just as exciting. Around sheering time, which we hosted here for the first time, we introduced a few more alpacas to the herd. We are up to 9, which is pushing the number of animals I'd want to have here. It's not too much for the land, but we don't have it equitably divided, or shelter in alternate pastures, so it's one big group for now. We'd ideally divide this into at least 3 paddocks, if not 5, or six, extending the fenced in area down the side of the house towards the lower fences. That is a long way off.

A few months ago we lost 7 chickens to a fox. It was a sunny afternoon, we had let the birds to do their nearly daily roaming, scratching and exploring, which they have enjoyed for the past few years without incident. I look out the window and see a red fox jogging along the side of the house, towards the coop. I immediately ran outside, there were no birds to be found. I was able to scare off the fox, but that was little reward.

We spend the remainder of the afternoon searching out the remaining birds. Charlie our rooster survived, two year old young birds, wisely flew up into the windows in the barn, and the solitary Balaclava eventually showed up as well. 7 down, 4 left. We pretty much immediately rushed 3/4's of a dozen off to incubate in hopes to save the genes of the birds we knew and loved. On a positive note, we had planned on rotating some of the older layers out once the hatches have grown up. This expedites the plan, and was a deeper cull than we had intended, but does prevent us from having to find new homes for two year old birds. As for the replacements, we had already hatched out 4 birds, 2 blue laced reds, 2 aracanas. It turns out one of the blr's is a rooster, so he'll need to find a new home. Of the 8 eggs we rushed off to the incubator, only two hatched, and we have yet to identify sex yet. I'm hoping for two more hens, to leave us at a 9 birds, 8 layers. Which would be a good volume for our coop this winter.

We've also added a half dozen guinea fowl to the flock. I built a small hutch for them, with the help of Joe. It might be a little too small, after all is said and done, but they now have a home. We placed it on the far side of the barn to hopefully insulate us from the noise of the flock as they can be noisy. Hopefully in a few weeks I can put on the pop door, and allow them freedom to range.

Lets see what else is new... This years Csa has been flying by, I've put up some pesto, a batch of tomato sauce, one batch of jam, but that's about it no pickles yet. I suppose we've also put up some food for A, beets, summer squash, and carrots. I've not really had a lot of time to cook, and with my lack of motivaton it's been tough using it up each week. When I get home I want to play with A, get her to bed, and relax. This however does not mean we have been skipping the farmers market, we have been regular shoppers there, which often is a highlight of my weekend.

So in a nutshell, a lot of little stuff has changed on the farm, but it remains the same.

The dark days of winter...

2010-07-02T01:41:25Z

I told Aaron the other night I have a hard time looking at pictures of Abby from November and December. Maybe someday soon I will not, but right now, it's still a little close in memory. Abby was born weighing 7 lbs 3.5 ounces, and I wanted very much to breastfeed her exclusively. Since she was born over the weekend, the only chance to see the hospital lactation consultant was the Monday of our discharge, and it turns out she called in sick that day. We had told the nursery that I would be breastfeeding, and when she wasn't with us (some time away so we slept), they brought her to me and the nurses tried, though in brief moments, to show me how to nurse. But it wasn't their job, so we were left mostly to muddle through.

Getting home, we quickly made an appointment with a nearby Lactation Consultant, who came out, weighed her, showed me some techniques and so on. We set up another visit later in the week to measure progress. Some of these details are now a blur, but in short she wasn't gaining weight very much early on. She got weighed at home a few times. She never lost more than 10% of her weight, but what she did lose just wasn't coming back quickly. I talked to people, went to the mom's group, kept trying things. I went through the weeks of nipple soreness before things started getting better, including using prescribed all purpose nipple ointment (which, by the way, is terrific!!).

Aaron was so diligent in bringing her to me in the middle of the night, so that I could get precious extra moments of sleep. With her, almost always also came a snack and water or drink. I took Fenugreek, ate oatmeal, drank more water. I read websites and books. I worried about it. Her pediatrician had not indicated any immediate concerns, and at one of her subsequent (I think 6 wk) check up, she finally seemed to be headed forward, even though she was still not at her birth weight. I remember calling the LC with the good news that the pediatrician was telling us to keep going. He did however, suggest we make an appointment for her to be checked by the GI to rule out anything else. I did, but it was going to be several weeks away, given the holiday timing. In the meanwhile, I relaxed, and tried to finally just enjoy being with her.

She smiled and cooed, she had wet diapers and pooped that glorious orangy breastfeeding baby poop regularly, and she slept a fair amount. She nursed both sides, for several minutes, sometimes falling asleep at the breast. All of these were seemingly normal baby activities. By this time, I'd started pumping, so that once in a while she was taking bottles of expressed milk as well. Other milk I was freezing in hopes of putting milk away for my return to work.

Pumping was not easy, I'd get anywhere between .5-2 ounces after feeding her or in between feedings. But all the info I had read said this too was normal, that the breastpump wasn't as good as a baby at expressing the milk and not to measure success by output. It also hurt much more than I'd expected, so I tried different flanges, different intensities, different times. It all seemed about the same. As a new mom, I didn't have a sense of scale - if this was wrong and how so.

And then came the 3 month check up, about two days before the GI appointment. They stripped her down, and she weighed 7 lbs 5 ounces.

At her 3 month appointment.

She was just 1.5 ounces over her birth weight.

I was crushed by that news, when I knew her peers were weighing in at 9 or more pounds by now. However, the pediatrician still didn't indicate he saw a problem and to start supplementing. This was unusual, as I'd heard most pediatricians turn to formula pretty quickly. So I was more confused than ever, but I knew this was not right. I spent the next few days very anxiously waiting for the pediatric GI referral.

The doctor listened to what we said, then weighed her, and we sat down to talk. He was not happy with what was going on, and was stopping just short of ordering her hospitalization. We agreed to start to aggressively supplement - after every breastfeeding, we were going to give a bottle of either stored breastmilk or formula. We'd try it for a few days, with a check in call over the weekend, and if it didn't help her to gain weight, we were going to the hospital.

I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. I still do, now... had she been starving all this time?

We went home, ready to execute the new plan. We started her on Similac organic (which in hindsight was ok, but I'd probably choose a different organic if I had to again) after she'd had access to a full breastfeeding. I read more, and we made an appointment with a new lactation consultant who rented us both a scale and hospital pump. I reviewed feeding and pumping techniques with her. She was very calming, and gave me hope that nursing and breastmilk still had a role to play. I switched to More Milk Special blend caps (from the tea/fenugreek), then ultimately Domperidone. We started weighing her every day. It was early December.

And she started gaining. In fact, in just a few days, in time for the follow up with the GI, she'd put on over half a pound. We were relieved it wasn't a digestion or metabolism issue. But I felt guilty about how long it'd been going on, how maybe it was something I'd done, or not done. I broke down crying in the new moms group shortly after the GI appointment. It took me a few weeks to at least find some peace with going to supplementing, but it was made so much easier by seeing her gaining weight, starting to catch up to her birth month babies. And I kept at the pumping and feeding so that as I went to work, each day I was able to send her with two to three bottles of breast milk. The most I ever pumped, as a result of multiple 40 minute sessions, was 11 ounces in a day. Most days were closer to 8, just barely enough for the bottles.

It turns out she loved and loves eating. Over the next three months, she zoomed to the top of the weight chart (over 80%), where she remains today. And ever so slowly, around the six month mark, we started weaning - I cut down from three pumpings to two a day at work. I cut one nursing session, then another. She started eating foods, and loved just about everything we gave her (except peas). In a few weeks time, she wasn't even interested in nursing as she could get whatever she needed from the bottle and food. I was ready too, though I did cherish those last few weeks of nursing the most, and it meant a lot to me to give her the last frozen breastmilk I had stored away... I get little pangs when I hear other moms say they're still breastfeeding at 9 months, a year, whatever. Or that it's been easy for them, that formula is evil... in truth, it's why my daughter is just fine today.

She is the stereotypical chubby baby now, and I just hope those dark days didn't harm her in some way we've yet to see.

In November:

Just recently:

9 months ago...

2010-06-26T11:37:39Z

Abby is 9 months old today, a beautiful little girl. It has passed quickly, especially since January, when I went back to work. Even harder to believe 9 months ago around this time I was getting ready to go to the hospital, still having no idea of who I was about to meet. This is a recap of her birth, which I wrote shortly after we came home from the hospital.

Sept 25 & 26, 2009

At about 10 on Friday night I started getting contractions, spaced at about 5 minutes and lasting 40-45 seconds. After a quick call to the on call doctor (our second of the day) she thought it was early and we should wait until the pain became much stronger. Around 1, I suggested Aaron go to sleep and I continued to have early labor through the night, sleeping for just over an hour. Walked the house, took two baths, and tried to go on as best I could. I woke Aaron around 6; we timed more and they were down to around 3 minutes, and lasting 50 seconds. The pain was also stronger, though not yet scream worthy. But I was afraid to get there too late also. We decided to go to the hospital. They were not expecting us (we didn't call the doc in the am) but got me on a monitor and gave her a call. I was at 3.5 cm, the contractions were remaining regular and our doctor admitted us. There was no one else in active labor during the day, so we had the staff basically to ourselves! It was too early for an epidural, so I went to the birth tub and soaked for two hours. That felt great and seemed to help, as my next exam I was at 5 and ok'd for the epidural. We waited just a bit longer, tried out the birthing ball, and then I got the epi around 1:20. I was at 6 by then. The anesthesiologist had to place it twice due to spinal curvature (the epi doc said I have scoliosis which will bother me as I get older), but once it was in, what a difference! I dozed off, and at my next check was told I was at a 9! About an hour later, it was time to push, and up to this point things had gone pretty ideally. I think I got nervous pushing which probably didn't help.

It took me a while to figure out what to do, and I pushed for what seemed like ages (2.5 hrs). I had my moments of doubting I could do it, but also had moments where I put everything I could into it (including some real screaming/yelling, very rare for me to do anything like that!). By the end though I was growing very tired and out of it so I was getting worried about the delivery but unable to express that well. I saw a lot more people in the room, and recall that Aaron said the baby was almost here, and the dr said were going to use the vacuum. I knew next option after the vacuum was C-section which I didn't want so I pushed super hard when they turned it on and I think she came out in one push then (but I didn't know she was a girl yet)! I heard her cry, and started crying uncontrollably myself, as they reassured me she was fine and I was fine. I couldn't believe somehow I got her out, so I was very relieved about everything. I did require some stitching up but I didn't care at that point. They brought her over to me (Aaron got to help with the weighing, cord etc) and I finally saw our little girl.

Abigail Celeste, about 1 hr after her birth

Thoughts on the Gulf

2010-06-05T00:32:10Z

I realize I haven't blogged in almost a year, not even on our daughter's birth and amazing life unfolding. This is a big topical leap for such a long time... but I want to capture some of my thoughts on what's been going on in the Gulf because I will be asked about this someday by her. And rightly so. I often picture her asking about many events in human history, most of which I will have only read about myself. I'll do my best to answer those questions based on what I've learned, rather than experienced. But not this. This will join an already painful set of 9/11, the wars, and Katrina as the American experience in the early 21st century. She'll ask what happened, how we let it happen.

There's no soft-shoeing, we're failing here. I see that BP was just the breaking point in the chain of events. It could have been Exxon, Conoco, or some other oil company. When the platform first blew up, the public didn't really know the extent of the leak; maybe BP did not either. BP certainly did not seemed very concerned, and even now the concern from the company seems more about itself then the spill.

We mostly watched at first. Surely this would be contained quickly, impact minimized, and we could go on with our lives. Lives that depend on plentiful, cheap oil. Lives where most Americans give little thought to how we get our energy. We drive or fly ourselves and our food everywhere, we use plastic bags, toys, tools, medical equipment. For the vast majority of us, even with concerted effort to minimize our oil use, it is pervasive. We like what it gives us for a lifestyle, it makes a lot of tasks easier. And if it's not oil, it's coal, also dangerous and destructive to source, and polluting to use. This oil spill came on the heels of a horrible coal mine disaster where 29 miners lost their lives, where another company was scrutinized for safety violations in an effort to save money and speed production. It'd be reflexive to say we didn't learn the lesson, but these two events were nearly simultaneous symptoms of the problem, the energy appetite unchecked, yet in crisis.

So, in the case of the oil spill, the government deferred to industry; industry said it would be handled quickly. Hours passed into days and weeks. All the while it flowed, estimated 29 million gallons that oozed its way across the ocean, wreaking havoc on any life crossing its path. Now, 46 days later, the oil is still coming. The blame for the lack of clean up floats heavy on the surface, just as the oil does. The blame for its cause, a dark and bigger undercurrent.

The oil has washed up on the shores, covering pelicans to the point where they can only flail in its midst, where even the best efforts of the most numerous and dedicated volunteers will only save some. Humans are so good at damaging each other, which is hard enough to witness. When what we've done is put upon animals and ecosystems that have no anticipation, defense, or response, it is numbing, embarrassing. Unlike the claimed intangible damage of climate change, the impact of this human behavior on the environment is laid bare for all to see.

And so we are at a crossroads. What will I tell my daughter in 10 or 15 years, when she asks me these questions? Will I be able to tell her that this was the true gut check to the American people (if not all people), the waning of the days of energy at any cost? Will I be able to tell her that we finally moved to more varied and more sustainable sources? That human and animal lives became more valued in the end, not less so? Will I be able to tell her that her parents played a small part in making this happen?

Or will I be telling her of the opportunity missed, apologizing with heavy heart?

It's on like donkey kong; CSA round 2.

2010-01-15T22:47:48Z

We really enjoyed the CSA in 09, found it made us use a lot more vegetables than in the past. The variety and quantities were good for a family of 2, and we decided to do it again in twenty ten.

    Dear Aaron,
    Thank you for signing up with the Dragonfly Farms Community Supported Agriculture program this year! We look forward to providing you with fresh produce during the 2010 season.

    CONFIRMATION

    You are signed up for a half share of vegetables at our pickup location in Pepperell, Mass at the farm. The pickup starts June 24, 2010 and ends October 30, 2010.

    Your pick up day will be Thursday between the hours of 5pm and 7pm.   Please note that the pickup hours will be changed to 4pm - 6pm in October as the daylight hours get shorter.



    We have received your                 X_ Full Payment of $300 for the vegetable share
    We will be sending out a FAQ as we get closer to the start of the season to give you more details on the CSA program.

    Thank you again!

    Sue and Frank Ventura

    Dragonfly Farms

    40 Prescott St.

    Pepperell, MA 01463
    www.dragonfly-farms.com

    farmer@dragonfly-farms.com

Just a reminder if you have a local farmer tis the time for sign ups, so get out there and get your share early. They need the money now, to ensure a stable year. Think of it as a future investment in summer meal diversity.

Aaron

PS. We are still around, just busy with a family addition, that's kept us from doing all sorts of stuff, not just blogging. Look for more from us in the coming weeks.

We're jammin'

2009-08-18T23:24:07Z

Aaron and I have been busy doing other things this summer too. We haven't (obviously) been spending time on the blog. But, in general, this does not mean we don't have things to say and eventually some of them will get posted. Here are some highlights of what we've been up to.

-Picked over 30 quarts of berries (straw, blue, rasp, black)
-Made 3 batches of jam, our first ever. I have great pictures somewhere. We have made straw, blue, and a mixed berry. We'll make one batch of peach jam next.
-Have gotten several interesting CSAs incl. beets which means we've made some interesting salads and stir frys
-gone to baby birthing class, had two baby showers, and are setting up the nursery (in progress)
-Aaron's ridden two big rides - the B2B, and Trans NH
-Have had three sets of family visitors (my parents, my brother's family, and my sister's family) for a total of 11 visitors over 16 or so days
-work has been stressful and busy for us both
-we had 3 more male crias, making it 11 in a row (and had one pass away earlier this summer)
-put in a clothes line

so, all in all it is just another run of the mill summer here where we sit around and do nothing...

We have two more baby related classes coming up, then whatever else we feel like doing... truthfully I am ready to not have to do ANYTHING major for a while. We still have a lot to do, but whatever gets done, gets done. The rest will happen at its own pace.

I'm beyond tired from what we had on the plate...

Squid update

2009-08-18T23:12:59Z

This may be the shortest blog ever.

I haven't updated my Squid stats in a while, so here's some info...

Aug - $22.81
Jul - $12.56
Jun - $22.92
May - $7.32
Apr - $6.95
Mar - $2.99
Feb - 0
Jan - $2.18

which makes a total of $77.13 for the year. I am hoping to have some more time for it when the baby comes (yeah, and a million other things). I just haven't had any inspiration for it recently...

Week one with the CSA

2009-07-03T03:08:33Z

I figured I should try to write up week one before we go and get week two's goods. Tasha had to pick up this weeks items, as I was some where between Littleton NH and Lebanon NH on my bike when it came time to retrieve our reusable bag from Dragonfly Farms this past Saturday. The week one newsletter stated it was going to be a bit lighter than planned due to a bought of cut worms that took down much of their greens. Instead they were able to acquire some local strawberries, and supplemented the vegetables with them. Our first bag contained a bunch of baby red onions, a small bundle of garlic scapes, a bag of the freshest snap peas, a head of green lettuce, a small head of golden cauliflower, and a quart of strawberries.
Not bad for a 'light' bag. I estimate the retail value of this to be around $10.
The first thing we did with our bounty was snack on strawberries and those amazing peas. I made a large fritatta using 1/2 the onions, a garlic scape, some green and red pepper. This was followed up by a meal of a sausage w/ peppers and onions, served with mashed cauliflower. The recipe was provided in the newsletter, and surprisingly rich. We had the last of the strawberries macerated w/ local honey, myer lemon juice over a biscuit w/ whipped cream. Last night we had a big salad, finishing off the onions, using 1/2 the lettuce, the last of the beans, it was much like the god salad from river gods. For the last bits I'll make a pesto to freeze with the remaining scapes, and the last of the lettuce will be used in sandwiches or a salad. I'm glad we were able to use all of week one's goods, and even made a recipe or two we wouldn't normally make.
Here are my goals for next weeks bag:
Take photos of the contents.
Take photos of the prepared goods.
If I have time, see if I can chat up some of the other CSA members.
Make at least one recipe I've never made before.
Write blog three before I collect bag 3.

Time to start storing up...

2009-06-14T01:13:16Z

Amazingly, and probably in part due to the fact that I didn't want to eat much for 3 months, we saved enough berries last summer to get us through the winter. We have two small bags of blackberries, half a gallon bag of strawberries, and a small bag of blueberries we are finishing up.

But with the arrival of pick-your-own season, it is time to start thinking about the upcoming winter, and with a little one on the way I want to have some extras on hand. Although the baby won't be eating foods right away, knowing we have a good amount of fruit saved up will be a big morale booster for the middle of winter.

Today, I put aside our first two trays of fresh strawberries. I'll go picking at least two more times for strawberries, but coming soon will be blueberry, raspberries, and blackberries. Not to mention the produce that will begin to ripen soon now.

We did plant strawberry plants of our own, and I have gotten one small berry, but I don't expect much from the transplants other than to settle in for next year.

Mystery eggs

2009-05-16T02:45:58Z

It's time for a quick farm update. Well, I actually have a lot more to say than this, but I'm too tired to write a full blog at the moment. Last Friday was shearing (I took the day off), which included 34 alpacas to do. It was an exhausting start to a busy weekend. Sunday, we had a different adventure to tackle.

Some of you may recall we had a dozen eggs make a trip a few weeks back. Well, here are the results of the journey:

That's right; 8 of the 12 eggs became adorable, fuzzy, healthy chicks. These are crosses of our Blue Laced Red Wyandotte rooster (Charlie) and our Easter Egger hens. The two grey chicks (blue in chicken parlance) are offspring of the roo and our Black Star hens. I had forgotten how fun chicks are, before they get big.

We will see how many turn out to be male or female. It's impossible for me to even guess right now. At approximately 5 days, they all have Charlie style combs (flat), and are getting wing feathers already. It won't be long before they have to go to the big brooder, but for now the little tub in the barn is working out well. These guys should be very winter hardy with Charlie's extra feathers and comb style.

CSA post number 1

2009-05-02T04:17:38Z

This is the first post that I hope will become a series of posts about our CSA share. Tasha and I are buying a 1/2 vegetable share in a local CSA. What is a CSA you ask? It is when a farm sells shares of it's harvest for a fixed price at the beginning of the season. The farmer gains financial stability, and the share holder gets weekly boxes of fresh vegetables for a reasonable price.
We are fortunate enough to have a Dragonfly farms very close to the house. The farm / pickup spot is about 2 miles away, so I plan to pick up our box via bike. I've already exchanged emails with the owner, and they seem very friendly. They grow everything from potatoes and onions to melons and garlic scapes. The CSA lasts for about 19 weeks starting mid June.
This has been a tough decision for us. There is so much to consider about a CSA. It is an unguaranteed commitment of $275, there's no telling what could happen this year on the farm. You have no choice in what you get each week. It's a lot of vegetables, and sometimes you get ones that you have no idea how to cook. Other times you maybe getting beets for the 4th week in a row.
Even with those 'downsides' I look forward to the challenge of using a random box of veggies each week, and I really like the idea of supporting a supporting a local farm.
Don't worry, we still plan on patronizing the farmers market, shopping at Lull, and picking in season local fruit, as this is mainly vegetables. Also how else would we get our regular Bagel Alley bagels?
So for those of you keeping score at home, we are still enjoying are own eggs, locally grown beef and chicken, and our own black berries. You can now add a seasons worth of local vegetables to the list. We've still got a lot of food miles in the other foods we eat, but this is another step towards eating more local goods.
Next up, I'm going to get some local honey, and see about finding a more local source for organic dairy products.

Homemade pasta in just a few minutes

2009-04-26T01:29:32Z

This isn't a recipe for pasta, we'll post that some other time. I can say that we used ingredients we had around already for this dinner; flour, eggs, lemons, some parsley, garlic, tomato paste, and pine nuts for added crunch. However, I found the process of making the pasta very easy and enjoyable, which I wanted to share. I did make some of the pasta, but Aaron was showing me since he's made it before. We had enough to save and freeze what we didn't eat, for some other day.

First, you start with the appropriate dough pieces. This shows the before and after states.

We have a Kitchen Aid mixer, and the corresponding pasta roller and cutter attachments. Pasta can be rolled out by hand or dedicated machines as well, but the mixer attachments made this quick work. This picture shows rolling out the dough. You start at the widest setting then gradually get to the thinnest one or two settings. As you go through this process, you need to add flour on the noodle surfaces periodically so the dough does not stick to the rollers.

You catch the pasta as it flattens out and carefully feed it back in. Be careful the motor is not taxed too much by feeding in dough that is wider than the current setting will allow.

As we were doing this, we had a nice hot pot of water heating up to boil the noodles.

we dressed the noodles with: lemon zest, pine nuts (slightly browned first), garlic, parsley, and a little bit of tomato paste (not shown).

It is finally time to swap to the pasta cutter attachment; here is a picture of the fresh pasta after slicing.

Next, we boiled and drained it. We combined with our ingredients, and it was time to eat the fresh pasta. It was delicious!

What will these be?

2009-04-21T01:02:22Z

I promised more pictures once the weather started getting nicer, and finally it is. First, a fresh dozen of our eggs from this weekend.

They made a special journey to a neighboring town. We'll know more soon...

Next up, our first blossom of the year. We now have three daffodils out, but this one was the first. I've been driving by other people's flowers in bloom for maybe a week now, and wondering when ours would show themselves.

Well, they have, and though it's going to be rainy the next few days, it was sure nice to have a warm sunny afternoon to enjoy them. We need the rain anyway, it's been a very dry spring. Great for not having too much mud, but it's also keeping our grass from getting established. Speaking of, we were working on cleaning up some leaves from the fall, which meant going in between the paddocks with loads of leaves. Well, today at work I got a text message midday - 'The boys are in the paddock!' I knew right away what this meant. Sure enough, I looked at our web cam and there they were, happily munching away at the young tender grass. Aaron went to investigate and determined what had happened. Seems someone cough, looking innocent forgot to latch one of the swing gates after she brought in the rakes...

The gates are secured again, and the boys left to gaze longingly at the greener grass.

The big business of organic food...

2009-04-16T00:59:09Z

I've been thinking a lot about organic food recently, as several topics have crossed my path over the last week or two. On a mother's forum I read the views of moms who buy organic milk versus moms who do not. A farmer friend sent me a concerned email about the recently introduced bill to remake the functions of the USDA and FDA into one concentrated food safety agency. One of the main fears around this bill is how it will affect small scale producers and organics. And just today, Aaron sent me a report of different organic milk brands, painstakingly rated by the Cornucopia foundation on criteria such as involvement in dairy operations, pasture available to cows, herd cull rate and more. This led me to do some checking out of the Cornucopia site and other information available there.

There is no mistake that interest in organic and local food is increasing, and overall, this is a great development. However, certainly for most consumers buying organic doesn't mean they have any greater transparency about where their food is coming from, or that it is being produced with any of the notions often attributed to organic food, notions such as production resulting from a small family oriented farm, free roaming happy animals, and so on. This is not to disparage the organic industry, because there are many small scale farmers doing exactly what we as consumers associate with organic farming. But as this market sector has grown tremendously, big food companies haven't wanted to miss the boat. One of the ways they've protected their economic interests is by getting involved - buying or creating organic brands, and lobbying through industry associations to alter standards that ostensibly will favor their interests more. Over at the Cornucopia site, I found this graphic to be particularly compelling. Many major organic brands have been acquired by a top 25 food company (such as Coca Cola, Kraft, Heinz and Cargill), and many organic brands are private label brands of larger supermarkets and food distributors (such as WalMart, Safeway, and Whole Foods). With the interest in and consolidation among organic food producers, it is nearly impossible for a consumer to really know what kind of entity is behind the food in question. Amazingly, at least as of 2007, there were a handful of brands that have held out as independents.

My own revelation was that of the organic milk brands we prefer, only one rated 3 cows in the survey. That brand is owned by HP Hood, not by the company we thought it was (they licensed the name). I am not totally dismayed by this; both are New England companies that I think have reasonable business practices, but there is still some level of deception here. The others rated no or one cow due to lack of information on the actual production methods. I still believe in and prefer organic milk, but this certainly removes any idealistic impression of who we are supporting when we buy these brands.

This in turn brings me back to the localvore movement. I know where I am now getting most of our meat and produce from - real people we have talked to, real farms we have visited that are nearby, real relationships we will cultivate this year. Before we'd really started this effort, about this time last year actually, I didn't even think it'd be possible to get half of what we've found locally or done ourselves. It's been an incredible journey and one in which I keep looking for the next steps.

Got milk?