Eggsellent Spring Supper

Spring Herbs

Dear Reader:

It may be hard to believe, but the garden, thanks to perennial herbs, produced ingredients for a wonderful, fresh-tasting spring supper before I even sent in my order to Johnny’s Seeds yesterday.

Perennial herbs are a gift of spring. Nestled up beside the first little feather fronds of yarrow and the recently divided rudbekia are the healthy clumps of reliable chives. The first grayish-purple flower heads poke up through the succulent spikes, and a few snips of the cooking shears yield a small handful of spicy, slightly oniony flavor.

Chives

Another unassuming, grassy-looking clump perfumes my fingers with the slight scent of liquorice when I roll a blade between thumb and finger. This is French tarragon–useful in soups, sprinkled on roasting chicken or vegetables with olive oil, or stuffed into a bottle of vinegar where it will impart its Mediterranean essence to that humblest of condiments.

French Tarragon

A short walk down to the perennial bed beneath the beech trees, my tiny but refuses-to-die thyme plant has put out new green leaves. I snip a few sprigs, roll a leaf between my fingers to inhale the woody aroma. Thyme is good, of course, in chicken soups and other stews. It is also remarkably yummy with eggs…and this is what I’m intending for this night’s supper.

Fresh Thyme

Bouquet in hand, I stroll to the house. From my ‘fridge comes a carton of locally-raised eggs; delicate shells in various hues indicate a mixed flock. The chickens that produced these eggs get plenty of protein from insects and plenty of fresh air and grass to scratch in. Their beaks haven’t been clipped. They have room to move. The yokes inside the eggs are golden-orange and plump, healthy, reassuring.

If only I’d thought ahead and purchased some local chevre, I think as I whisk a couple of eggs in a bowl and pour them into a buttered skillet on the stove. Instead I make do with some sharp cheddar and feta from the Limerick Market. I vow to try making my own mozzarella soon.

Sprinkling on the chopped herbs, I flip over one side of the set egg mixture. I pop a slice of my homemade bread into the toaster, tuck a handful of organic spring mix (Note to self: next year, use cold frames and start greens early!) onto a large plate, and slide the omelet next to the greens. A little butter on the toast and bon appetit!

Simple Dinner

If I’d started an asparagus bed, could I have added that to my meal, I wonder? Is Maine asparagus ready this early? Another note to self: create asparagus bed this year.

As for greens, I could have harvested all the dandelion any girl could want…wild food is even better than perennial food. (See “Not Your Grandmother’s Dandelion Greens.”) I have the store-bought greens, though, and the dandelions aren’t going anywhere.

Dandelions

Now, imagine some homemade hard apple cider to go along with this meal. Or some home-fries from local or backyard potatoes instead of the toast. Rhubarb pie for dessert. I wanted a quick meal, but the possibility for something more substantial is all right there–inspired by the fresh flavors of perennial spring greens. If you have even a small area in which to plant, these hardy and versatile herbs would serve you well.

Day 5: History . . . Naturally

View from 2nd floor rotunda

Dear Reader:

Another hot and sunny day in D.C. After a morning workout, the Teen and I ventured over to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History to see the lions and tigers and bears and . . . the Hope Diamond.

What every girl "hopes" for

The Hope Diamond has a fascinating–if mythologized–history. It is said to bring bad luck to its possessors, possibly because it was stolen from an idol of the Indian goddess, Sita. According to at least one website, Sita is a goddess of tolerance, so I have a hard time believing she would curse anyone who possessed her pretty blue stone, but there you have it.

Before making our way to the second floor where we found the blue gem, we went on safari in the Hall of Mammals, where we saw some animals that were quite familiar . . .

Moose

. . . and some that were not. This tiny antelope is just a little bit larger than a rabbit.

Many photographs later, we took a trip back in evolutionary time in the Hall of Human Origins. Here we viewed some cave paintings, a prehistoric flute, and skulls and replicas of Neanderthals and other human ancestors. We learned that all modern humans share 99.9% common DNA. In fact, the concept of “different races” is an idea that is facing extinction. The museum is offering an exhibit and programming called Race: Are We So Different? I encourage you to click HERE and see what science tells us about our concepts of race.

Replica of cave painting

For me, throwing away our old schema of “different races” and embracing a schema of “one human race” is a powerful step in the right direction. Maybe once we get that roadblock out of the way, we can begin in earnest the hard work of maintaining our environment, reducing population, developing renewable energy systems that work as well or better than the old petroleum economy.

The “Humans Change the World” area of the “What Does It Mean to be Human” exhibit was a powerful reminder of how we humans affect our environment. Between 1959 and 1999, the human population doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion people. If we keep up at this pace, we will be at 9 billion by 2042. Can you imagine the consequences of that on our planet? On our food and water resources? On health care resources?

Prehistoric flute

Talk about “paying the piper!”

Leaving prehistoric humans behind, the Teen and I headed upstairs to see the diamond, the “bone” exhibit, and a beautiful gallery of nature photography–the Nature’s Best Photography Awards 2010. These were fabulous photos. My favorite was Land Crab by Cristina Mittermeier from right here in Washington, D.C. If you go to the link underlined above, you can view the photos. Better yet, send in some of your own great nature photography and enter this year’s contest.

"Four-sided Pyramid" by Sol Lewitt

I had to stop by the outdoor sculpture garden beside the museum. This one is directly across from the Hirshhorn’s. There are free outdoor jazz concerts in this garden on Friday nights. Hope to catch one or two before the end of the summer.

Farmer's Market Booty

Since the Crystal City Farmer’s Market didn’t open until three p.m. I waited for Hubby to get so we could bike together over to 18th street to see what was being offered. Jackpot! Farmers were selling everything from goat cheese to eggs to heirloom tomatoes to cherries to basil to bison. We settled for some veggies and a loaf of honey-wheat bread and some super-sweet Queen Ann cherries from a nice guy from Pennsylvania. When I told him we were from Maine, he said, “You guys are probably just getting into strawberries up there.” “Ayuh,” I said, and I felt a momentary pang of sadness to be missing out on strawberries from Dole’s Farm.

Somehow, though, ripe tomatoes in June helped ease the pain.

Not sure what’s happening on Day 6 other than trying to find my allergist’s office by Metro and bus. Maybe a trip to the local library? A dip in the pool? Doing some sketching/writing in the park? Tune in tomorrow to find out what we did . . . Outside the Box in D.C.

Soup of the Week–Peas Porridge Hot

Dear Reader:

I have no camera. I left it at my parents’ house over Christmas. I’m goin’ crazy without it. I like to take pictures of my everyday world and think up blog topics to match. Pretty pictures give a blog post a little bit of POP! that makes it more special. Today, unfortunately, we will just have to wing-it without visuals.

Luckily, I have a Soup of the Week to share with you. I call it Peas Porridge Hot after the nursery rhyme. Now, I know some of you absolutely hate pea soup. If so, this recipe is probably not for you. However, for those of you who just sorta don’t like pea soup, you may find this “pottage” not only tolerable, but possibly even enjoyable.

My husband tells a story about being made to eat pea soup as a child. Apparently neither he nor his two siblings ever did finish up their bowls despite much parental pressure. He was skeptical, to say the least, when I first tried this recipe, but to his surprise, he liked it!

There are two major differences between this pea soup and regular pea soup:

First, the peas are yellow instead of green. Now, there is probably no real difference in taste between the two, but color plays a big part in palatability. Small children (and some grownups) are suspicious of green food, Dr. Seuss and his green eggs aside. Here, though, we have yummy pea taste in a sunny yellow color. Color-cue alone may account for why my husband didn’t turn puce himself when he looked at his dinner the first time I served this thick, homemade bowl of deliciousness.

Second, I don’t use ham in the soup. Or bacon. Or any other pork-flavored product that is usually associated with pea soup. Without the smoky flavor of pig, the soup takes on a more delicate, carroty-onion character that no one would associate with bad childhood experiences at the table. It is even low-fat!

So, what makes it hot, you ask? Well, a thick soup like this tastes better served steaming from the pot. Eating it lukewarm is about as enjoyable as eating cold oatmeal. Also, I like to sprinkle some cayenne pepper (preferably a sea vegetable/cayenne mix) on top before I serve it or dice up a chili pepper to cook along with the onions and carrots and celery and dried peas in the chicken stock.

Peas Porridge Hot makes a warming, wonderful meal on a cold winter’s night. Try it with thick slices of homemade bread and warm apple crisp for dessert. I think you may be pleasurably surprised!

Peas Porridge Hot

1 1b. of dried split yellow peas
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1 large onion, quartered
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-3 inch pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
chopped hot pepper to taste (optional)
8 cups of water
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Maine Coast Sea Vegetables Organic Kelp with Cayenne granules (optional)

Put peas on a board or in a bowl and pick out anything that doesn’t belong. Rinse peas in a colander or put in bowl with water and swirl around, then drain.

In a large saucepan or pot, mix all the ingredients EXCEPT SALT, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. (I believe that salt makes the peas tough, so we only add it at the end of the cooking period.)

Reduce to a simmer and cook for an hour and fifteen minutes, stirring occassionally.

Remove from heat. Mash everything with a potato masher to desired consistency or for a less-textured soup, put through a food processor. Add salt. Serve in soup bowls. Sprinkle individually with sea veg/cayenne granules if desired.

This soup will thicken up considerably in the ‘fridge. You may want to add more water before heating leftovers. It really is like a porridge rather than a soup at this stage!

If you are very adventurous, you may want to add chopped dulse or some large bits of kelp to the bottom of the pot when you begin cooking. When the soup is ready, you can pull the kelp out with some tongs, chop it up and return it to the pot for added color and nutrients.

Sea veggies are full of minerals and, when cooked in a soup, don’t change the flavor in any noticeable way. It’s just a little Outside the Box addition for extra nutrition. (Dr. Seuss, I’m not!)

If you try this recipe, let me know how it turned out for you.

Soup of the Week–Tomato Bisque

Tomato-y Goodness

Dear Reader:

What is better than a bowl of hot, tomato soup on a snowy, winter day? When we forgo the canned stuff and make it from scratch, of course!

I made this tomato bisque last week, and it was so delicious! Now we are in the midst of a big ol’ snowstorm here in Maine, and I can’t stop thinking about making another large batch for tonight’s dinner.

If you would like to try this creamy, rich, thick, tomato-y soup for yourself, here is the recipe. It is a variation of a recipe I found in a book called FABULOUS SOUPS by Johna Blinn. I double the amount of tomatoes for a more sharp, distinct flavor which also happens to stretch the recipe AND makes it less calorie/fat dense. I also use chopped or grated onion instead of onion powder and add sea vegetable flakes in with the basil for added nutrients.

While the ideal would be to grow and jar our own tomatoes, canned tomatoes from your local market work almost as well. Also, if you know how to make your own beef bouillon from locally-grown beef, you could use that instead of processed bouillon cubes.

Add in the butter and milk from a local farm, and sea vegetables from Maine Coast Sea Vegetables, locally grown and dried basil, local honey instead of sugar, and you can have pretty close to a locavore meal!

OLD FASHIONED TOMATO BISQUE

4 (1 lb) jars/cans diced tomatoes
2 beef bouillon cubes
1 tbs. sugar
2 tsp. salt
one small to medium onion, chopped or grated
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried sea vegetable flakes (dulse works well)
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
4 cups milk (I like whole milk from the farm but calorie/fat conscious people could use skim)

1. Combine tomatoes with liquid in a large saucepan with bouillon cubes, sugar, salt, onion, basil, sea veggies, pepper and bay leaves. Simmer thirty minutes.

2. Remove bay leaves and put the mixture through a food mill or blender.

3. Melt butter; blend in flour until smooth.

4. Gradually stir in milk over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat.

5. Gradually blend in tomato mixture, stirring briskly. Return to heat, stir until hot. Serve.

For the ultimate cold-weather comfort meal, serve with melty grilled cheese sandwiches. (Reubens/Rachels with their hearty rye bread also go nicely with the soup. My friend,Sandy, uses one of those grill pans with the raised lines on the bottom to make her signature Rachels. As an added bonus, these sandwiches incorporate sauerkraut which is loaded with vitamin C to help beat back the winter colds and flu bugs.)

If you decide to make the soup, drop me a line Outside the Box to let me know how it turned out.

Cooking With Shelley

In the kitchen with Shelley

Dear Reader:

In my quest to be more “productive” I decided to start with cooking. I have to make meals anyway, I philosophized. In order to be more productive I could simply do, well, more of it. So, the past couple of weeks I’ve gone a little nuts in the kitchen with mixed results.

First there were the blueberry scones. Good. Then there was the broccoli soup. Nice. Soup needs bread, so I experimented with a bread recipe that didn’t require an entire day to rise and punch and rise and punch and rise again. Eh, just so-so. And since the strawberries ripened just in time, I was finally able to use my rhubarb to make a pie. Score!

Follow along, my apron-wearing, spoon-wielding friends, down my path to productivity in the kitchen. You may be inspired to try some of the recipes yourself. Or you may just like looking at the pictures. In any case, welcome to Cooking With Shelley.

We’ll begin with the scones. Usually scones are dry and crumbly and maybe a tad . . . well . . . bland. I wanted something a little more soft, a little sweeter. Something you might actually enjoy with your cup of tea in the afternoon.

In my quest for a kinder, gentler pastry, I took a regular Betty Crocker Cookbook recipe (I have the 1991 edition. Click on the link to see how “Betty” has changed over the past seventy-odd years!) and tweaked it by doubling the sugar content, adding frozen blueberries, using farm-fresh whole cream instead of half-n-half, and bread flour rather than all-purpose. The result was SOFT, crumbly, sweet scones. The ladies in my craft circle gave good reviews (okay, there were just three of us at craft time last week, but still!), and I’ll definitely be making these the next time I’m invited to a morning brunch or afternoon tea.

Don’t these just look yummy? The key to pretty scones is an “egg-wash” brushed on top of the scone triangles before popping them into the hot oven.

Now, on to broccoli soup. This recipe I took directly from the latest Weight Watcher’s Cookbook, and is low-fat, healthy, and delicious. Basically, you chop a bunch of celery, carrots, and onion and sautee them in olive oil for a few minutes. Then you add broccoli florets and chicken (or in my case turkey) stock.

Soup, salad, and bread

Add salt and herbs to taste. To make the soup creamy, finish with a can of fat-free condensed milk. If I wanted to make this a more “local” soup, I could substitute the canned milk for fresh, heavy cream from Laura’s farm . . . probably cooling the broccoli/veggie mixture first so as not to accidentally curdle anything.

What made this soup special for me was the addition of fresh thyme from my garden. Just a few little leaves scraped from the stem and voila! Fragrant, delicious soup.

Along with the soup, I served my homemade bread and a salad which included some of the last greens from my garden boxes for a nice, summer meal. The bread was adapted from a Betty Crocker “streamlined wheat bread” recipe. I used molasses instead of sugar which turned the bread a lovely brown color. I also substituted some buckwheat flour and rolled oats for part of the wheat flour. The bread didn’t rise as well as I’d hoped (or else I just got too impatient and put it in the oven too early), so I ended up with rectangular bread, about the size of half a sandwich loaf.

This went fine with the soup, and as I still have some left-over this week, I’ll probably cut it up today, brush it with oil, sprinkle it with salt, pepper, and herbs, and toast it into homemade croutons. For awhile, I was making my own bread regularly, but then I got out of the habit. Like anything, the more you practice, the better you get. From now on it is homemade bread at my house.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie Filling

After the bread-baking and soup-making, it was finally time for the “piece de resistance” . . . strawberry-rhubarb pie. I spent a lovely morning up no’th picking strawberries with my parents at Tate’s Strawberry Farm in Corinth. (If you click on the link, you can view a video that shows the farm and the lovely strawberries. You just have to wait and get through the car dealership commercial first:)

At $2 a quart, these berries were a bargain. The beds were edged with clover and chamomile, so we had to dig a little to get to the sweet, scarlet gems, but the scent of the berries mixed with the herbs and flowers puts the “aroma” in aromatherapy. Who needs spas when you have berry picking?

Unbaked Pie

Now I’m going to share with you my secrets to making good pie crust: practice and bread flour.

I love bread flour for pastry. In the past, using all-purpose flour resulted in umpteen tough, impossible-to-roll-out, breakable pie crusts in my kitchen. A few years ago I had run out of all-purpose and, serendipitously (how many times do you get to use THAT word in a sentence?) chanced the bread flour lurking in my pantry . . . with amazing results! For some reason, bread flour makes a dough that is stretchy and pliable, pastry that is much less likely to rip apart when I fold it into the requisite fourths in order to lay it on top of the filling. Did I read somewhere that bread flour has more gluten, making it more stretchy? Note to self: research bread flour. Anyway, even this time, when I’d accidentally used the 9-inch pie crust recipe instead of the 10-inch, I was able to roll the dough out thin enough to fit the larger dish.

My rhubarb

Now, I’m not a huge fan of rhubarb, but no self-respecting Mainer can cultivate a garden without a patch of the giant-leafed, pinky-green stemmed plant growing beside it. As a kid, I used to run down to the rhubarb patch in my bare feet where I would break off a stem and bite into it, feeling my eyes water at the sharp, tart, sour taste. I don’t know why I did this. Same reason I used to eat Hot-Balls, I imagine. In any case, when I started my own garden patch, I asked my mother to bring me a division of her plant.

Now I have a piece of home growing just behind the bee-balm.

Rhubarb really does give a nice, tart, complimentary taste to the sweetness of strawberries. For this pie, I used a 1:3 ratio of ‘barb to ‘berry instead of the 2:4 the recipe called for. Both husband and child were generous with the compliments.

One last discovery: pistachio ice-cream goes really well with strawberry-rhubarb pie. I only know this because I forgot to buy the usual vanilla bean and only had pistachio in the freezer. Something about the nutty flavor really complimented the sweet-tart filling. Maybe the Valley Girls were right all along with the pink/green color combo. The dessert was, like, totally awesome.

So, Monday morning has rolled around again, and it is time to figure out my menus for the week. The sugar-snap peas are almost big enough to pick in the garden boxes. Maybe a stir-fry? Tune in next week to find out . . . Outside the Box.

Of Arugula & Lilacs

Dear Reader:

It is the time of arugula and lilacs–a juxtaposition of sweet, heady scent of flowers in the air and the cool, peppery tang of herb on the tongue. We seem to be bouncing between extremes of late. One week it is sunny and seventy-degrees, and the next week we are shivering in the a cloudy, forty-degree chill. One day the stock market is steadily climbing and jobs are added to the economy, and the next day we shake our heads as the Dow plunges a thousand points in a matter of minutes–a drop attributed to a computer “glitch” of all things. The Greek economy tanks, and then it is bailed out. People protest in the streets. Meanwhile, the grass grows, the dandelions turn to fluffballs, and we plant our cool-weather-loving peas and kale in hopes of a good crop in a month or so.

Here at “the cottage” I’m keeping myself occupied by scanning my favorite doom and gloom websites–Whiskey and Gunpowder and James Howard Kunstler’s peak oil/new urbanism blog–and cooking up a batch of homemade beef stock. Last fall, I picked up my beef order and stuck the large brown paper bags into the freezer. Once I found the hamburger bag and the steak bag, I didn’t bother to open the rest until a few weeks ago when I discovered, to my delight, soup bones. Soup bones! Could I learn to make my own beef stock? Why not!

This morning I cut up some onion, celery, and carrots and put them in the bottom of a stock pot with a couple of bay leaves, some peppercorns, and a sprinkling of dried parsley. I then roasted a meaty soup bone in a 400 degree oven for thirty minutes, pried the bone off the bottom of the roasting pan, and placed it in with the veggies.

Covering the whole mess with some water, I set the pot to simmering on the stove. My whole house smells divine. In a couple of hours, I will be able to strain the stock, skim the fat off the top, add some stew meat and potatoes and carrots and more celery and maybe a can of stewed tomatoes and have myself a fine evening meal.

Baby Arugula Thinnings

In the meantime, I moseyed out to the garden to have a look at my cool-weather crops–the arugula, claytonia, and mache beds. The arugula needed thinning, so I now have a nice bowl of baby greens to go in a salad this evening.

No matter how grim the news in the outside world, there is always something to celebrate and enjoy if you take the time to look around you. Lilacs, for instance. Arugula, for instance.

Coffee with a friend. A favorite book. A special meal. A short nap. A brisk walk. What pleasures have you enjoyed today . . . Outside the Box?

When life hands you chicken bones . . .

… make chicken soup!

(The picture here is actually a pumpkin/carrot/sweet potato soup, also very healthy with betacarotene. Sprinkled on the salad is dulse–a sea vegetable with lots of vitamins and minerals.)

Dear Reader:

Tis the season of sniffling–and coughing and aching and shivering with fever. Colds and seasonal flus and H1N1 are spreading thoughout our communities this month, weakening our immune systems, keeping our kids out of school, and making us feel miserable. The television news serves up fresh doses of anxiety every day with stories of severe illness and death and urgent warning to get vaccinated. Of course, the vaccine isn’t even available yet in many communities, so many people feel scared and helpless and stressed. Negative emotions like these do not boost the old immune system. In fact, they wear us down even more. Aside from getting adequate sleep, taking a multi-vitamin, drinking alot of water, washing your hands, avoiding crowded places like the mall, and quarantining your school-age kids as soon as they get off the bus so as not to contaminate the entire household (kidding), what can we do to make this season of sickness a little more manageable?

While waiting for the Swine Flu vaccine to finally arrive and kick in (I heard it takes a week or two), consider the simple power of chicken soup. Made from leftover bones and meat from your Sunday dinner with the addition of a few humble vegetables sitting in your refridgerator, homemade chicken soup is inexpensive, nutritious, and delicious, especially if served with a fresh loaf of homemade bread or maybe some apple muffins. Click here for a good recipe.

So, does chicken soup merely soothe your sore throat or are there some actual, scientific health benefits? According to Dr. Stephen Rennard, chicken soup does contain chemical properties that can ease cold and flu symptoms. The amino acid cystein, found in chicken, thins mucus, helping a sick person clear his/her lungs and nose. When you add onion, the anti-histamine properties of that pungent vegetable can offer some relief. Vegetables contain all kind of vitamins and minerals as well as delicious flavor for your soup.
Read all about it on Sixwise.com.

Also consider purchasing some sea vegetables such as kelp or wakame or dulse, soaking them for a few minutes, chopping them up, and adding them to your soup. Commonly known as “seaweed”, these greens contain concentrated amounts of vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin A, Calcium, Iron, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamins B 6 and B 12, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Iodine, Fluoride, Chromium, and Zinc. Maine Coast Sea Vegetables out of Franklin, Maine offer a large variety of seaweeds. Their products can be found in many grocery and natural food stores, or shop online by clicking on the link above. Sea vegetables can add a slightly more salty flavor to your soup, but there will be no fishy taste. If you chop them fine enough, and mix in some herbs such as thyme, parsley, and rosemary, even the pickiest eaters will never know they are eating, gasp, seaweed.

Do you have any immunity-boosting suggestions? Share you ideas and knowledge here, Outside the Box.

Cooking The Old-Fashioned Way

Bread Pudding

Dear Reader:

I wanted to use some version of “The Ant and the Grasshopper” for my title because while I’d really like to be down at the canoe landing and staring out across the sparkly lake, I decided I had better make like an ant and work before I play. The grasshoppers have been buzzing in the grasses these late summer afternoons, and the sun has finally ripened a couple of my cherry tomatoes. One of the big beefsteaks was starting to turn color, but something took a big ol’ bite out of it. I suspected a creepy-crawly tomato worm but could find no trace of the sucker last evening. I threw out the two or three fruits he/she had sampled (why not eat the whole darn thing before moving on to the next, I’d like to know?) and decided that pests are simply a part of the big picture.

It’s easy to be philosophical when one’s parents have stopped in with a bag of free produce from their larger and much more productive garden.

I digress.

Summer weekends are a fabulous time to shop . . . in your neighbor’s yard. No, I’m not advocating late-night raids of the blueberry bushes and corn rows. I’m tallking about yard sales. Some readers may remember an earlier entry regarding old cookbooks and my quest for pre-World War II tomes. I scored one beauty at an antique store in nearby Cornish village a couple of months back. It is a musty, solid little book entitled LEFTOVERS MADE PALATABLE: HOW TO COOK ODDS AND ENDS OF FOOD INTO APPETIZING DISHES by Isabel Gordon Curtis.

LEFTOVERS MADE PALATABLE circa 1901

This little jem was published in 1901 by the Orange Judd Company. The first chapter begins, “Do not throw away scraps of fat” and procedes to explain how to save all the bits of cooking fat and drippings and suet, to clarify them, and to use them for frying ala the ubiquitous vegetable shortening of today. “If only a teacup of fat is added to this supply once a week, it will save the buying of fat for frying purposes, even in a large family.” (pg.1)

The book goes on to give multiple recipes for using leftovers of every type: stale bread, cold coffee, cereals, sour milk, cold potatoes, vegetables, sauces, beef, veal, pork and ham, poultry, stale cake, cheese, and fruit. You know the recipes are old because each one lists only a few simple ingredients and absolutely no canned soup. Take Plain Cabbage Salad for instance: “2 cups shredded cabbage, 4 tbs. oil, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tbls. vinegar. Shred cabbage very fine and leave in ice water for an hour. Drain it and marinate with the dressing. This is a favorite supplement to fried oysters.” (pg. 75)

While the simplicity and lack of processed food products pleased me, I was dismayed by the frequent mention of refrigeration. Isabel Curtis must have been referring to old-fashioned ice-boxes, right? It got me wondering when the first refrigerator was invented. Off I went to cyberspace to find out.

I turned first to Wikipedia. (See here) According to the section on the history of the refrigerator, the first refrigerator coil which condensed aromatic vapours as a coolant was invented in the 11th century. The 11th century! Okay, I just about fell off my chair. Wasn’t that medieval times? The Dark Ages? And yet, in America at the turn of the 20th century, half the population used ice-boxes for cooling food while the other half just used the even more natural method of root-cellaring.

Home refrigerators did not become commonplace until 1927 with the General Electric Motor-top model, long after my 1901 cookbook was printed. Take a look at the frontispiece photograph of young ladies in floor-length dresses and long aprons and little white caps ranged ’round a table at the New England Cooking School of the Good Housekeeping Institute.

Lady cooks from 1901

Thinking about refrigeration, or lack of it, one can certainly appreciate the important place of the family milk cow in 1901. At this stage in history, fresh milk meant that morning’s milk, not the stuff in the jug with this week’s date stamped on the side. However, clabbered milk and butter and cheese and sour cream had their place in the home cook’s repertoire. LEFTOVERS MADE PALATABLE includes thirty recipes for using up sour milk, including cottage cheese. (Those of you who read last week’s entry will appreciate this discovery.) “4 Quarts sour milk, 1 tsp. salt, dash white pepper, 4 tbls. cream. Put the sour milk in a large pan and into it pour four quarts of boiling water. Allow it to stand for five minutes, then turn it into a pointed muslin bag like a jelly bag. Hang this up at night over a pan and let it drain. In the morning it will be dry and ready to mix with the cream and seasonings.” (pg. 47)

One of these weeks I’ll order an extra gallon of milk from Downhome Farm and try to make cottage cheese. Maybe when the weather isn’t quite so warm. The old warnings about diptheria and whatnot are hard to purge from the deep, dark recesses of the brain, no matter how much I’ve read on the subject of the nutritive value of raw milk. Is nutritive a word?

Yes. A quick look at the old Webster’s Dictionary confirms it on the page with guide words nuciature – nux vomica. Nux vomica? Sounds just like what I was worried about, n’est ce pas? Or some spell from a Harry Potter book, one of Severus Snape’s conconctions, perhaps. In fact, it is only the latin word for a poisonous seed. See, you never know what you’ll find out here Outside the Box.

Anyway, on the same shelf as LEFTOVERS, I spied another book with the enticing title NEW ENGLAND FLAVOR. Unfortunately, this tome by Haydn S. Pearson turned out to be a charming memoir of a New Hampshire childhood and not the cookbook I was hoping it to be. Fortunately, I also like charming memoirs of New England persons, and so this well-preserved volume with pretty little pen and ink illustrations by Leonard Bosburgh came home with me, as well. It should make for some cozy reading this fall when I sit outside wrapped in the shawl my sister sent home from Venezia this summer and sip Earl Gray from my favorite Monroe Saltworks mug.

So what does this have to do with the formentioned yard sale? I’m getting there, trust me. This weekend on the way home from Parsonsfield to pick up my milk, I noticed a table loaded with cooking pans and decided to check out the yard sale as two of my Reverware lids have recently lost knobs, forcing me to gingerly pick lids off boiling pots with dishtowels in hand to prevent scalding myself at the stove. (Can you imagine trying to diagram that last sentence? Actually, it might be fun. Who needs Sudoku? We ought to turn our kids on to sentence diagrams.)

The Rumford book

Not only did I find a nice set of stainless steel pots for $5, I also scored a pretty, tatted-edged table runner and a treasure-trove of cookbooks. There’s the RUMFORD COMPLETE COOKBOOK, copyright 1908 in its 43rd printing in 1948. In this book, consomme is made with a quart of defatted meat stock . . . not a bouillon cube. Excellent. The baking powder is, of course, Rumford, which makes me wonder about those Anne of Green Gables books. Was it Rumford baking powder that Ann wrote about? A quick search on the web tells me no. It was Rollins Reliable baking powder. However, I came across this interesting site which gives in great detail how to visit Prince Edward Island and find all kinds of places referenced in the Anne books. Take a look if you are interested in visiting the island.

I may have to revisit Green Gables from the comfort of my couch corner this winter. Funny how this entry on cookbooks into turning into an entry on books-I-want-to-read-this-winter. Must be the Ant in me.

Continuing onward in history, I also picked up Marjorie Standish’s cookbook, KEEP COOKING-THE MAINE WAY. Printed in 1973 by the Maine Sunday Telegram, this book also delivers lovely pen and ink drawings of a girl, eleven or twelve year’s old, I’d guess, stirring a pot, fishing from a pier, canning perserves, and eating cake under the watchful and envious eyes of a large cat. Mrs. Standish was well-known for her weekly recipe column in the SUNDAY TELEGRAM according to the note “About the Author” at the front of the book. At the time of the book’s printing, I was four years old. Here I discover the expected “cans of soup” ingredients . . . expecially cream of mushroom. Flipping through the pages, one encounters “packages of cream cheese” and “packaged stuffing” and even frozen packages of peas. Still, some of the recipes use authentic, whole ingredients, most noteably in the Fish and Shellfish section. The Fillet of Sole with Oysters looks particularly appealing with its quart of fresh mushrooms, sole, oysters, chicken broth, butter and lemon juice. (page 35).

Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook

Two other books I picked up but haven’t had much time to peruse were the PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH PEOPLE’S COOKBOOK with the charming bird graphic on the front. This one was published in 1978. Also, the WISCONSIN COUNTRY COOKBOOK AND JOURNAL by Edward Harris Heth with some beautiful woodcuts by Arlene Renken. What is it I like so much about these black and white illustrations and recipes mixed together?

Wisconsin cookbook

I guess they go together like, well, cabbage salad and oysters. This book was written in 1956, but I suspect the recipes may be older than the hills, passed down from one country cook to another before Edward Heth captured them for the printed page and posterity. I will review and share, maybe later this winter after I have tried out some of the Potato Pancakes, Dill Bean Roll Ups, Beef Goulash with Red Cabbage, and whatever Lupscush is. Am I becoming a foodie?

Maybe it has something to do with all this talk of impending peak oil doom, but I’m obsessed with food these days. Not so much the eating as the growing, storing, and cooking of it. I’m thrilled to see the yellow summer squash growing on the vines. Picking the prickly pickling cukes from my boxes is a thrill. I’m going out this afternoon and plant the old green bean squares with a late crop of lettuce. We ate the last of the green beans sauteed in a little olive oil and dried garlic with a splash of soy sauce. Delicious hot and even better cold the next day on top of a salad with some lettuce, onions, cherry tomatoes, and a bit more olive oil.

As for leftovers, a few weeks ago I found myself in possession of a half-loaf of homemade bread going stale,a few eggs from Sarah, and milk that needed to be used up. Remembering bread pudding from my childhood (in the 1970′s, but my mother knew a thing or two or three about real cooking), I hauled out the book of recipe cards she gave me at my wedding shower, and proceded to make a good, old-fashioned dessert. I will share it with you, my constant readers. Bon Appetit!

OLD-FASHIONED BREAD PUDDING
3 cups soft bread crumbs (okay, I took the bread, sliced it, and then cut it into cubes)
2 cups milk, scalded with 1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
14 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon or nutmeg
(raisins, 1/2 cup if you have them)

350 degree oven. Place bread crumbs in 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Blend in remaining ingredients. Place baking dish in pan of hot water 1 inch deep. Bake 40-45 minutes or until silver knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean. Serve warm, with cream. (That you skimmed from the raw milk from the local farm, of course. SB)

Still much to do this summer–pickles and blueberry jam, cotton wrap skirts, and finishing my research on “the weed.” What have you been up to in August? What tasks lie ahead. Remember the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper, take the time to do the work necessary for a comfortable winter, but don’t forgo the grasshopper stuff altogether. Find an hour or two to sing and play in the summer sun. Make some bread pudding, or get an ice-cream maker and churn some homemade blueberry ice-cream. Check out the yard sales around town. Drop me a line anytime . . . Outside the Box.

Community and Family Elders

Dear Reader:

I’ve been thinking about my grandparents lately.

My grandparents were farmers. They were other things–journalist, mechanic, painter, carpenter, photographer, County Commissioner, Mason, Granger–but they were farmers, too. My grandmother’s parents had a farm, sold vegetables. My grandfather worked one summer for her father, and that’s how they met and began dating. (I want to use the word “courting,” but it seems too precious and silly.) I recently read in one of my grandmother’s diaries that when he asked her to marry him, she made him wait for an answer. I wouldn’t have guessed that. I wouldn’t have guessed she kept a diary, either. She never mentioned them, and they only turned up after her death. They’d been hidden in her vast accumulation of stuff for, wow, over sixty years. She’d probably be mortified to know I read them. (Note to self: burn old diaries.)

Even though they moved on to other careers, my grandparents continued to cultivate an extensive vegetable and fruit garden on the floodplain of Temple Stream which ran beside their house. In the summer, my parents would load my sister and me and the dog into the car, and off we’d go to Farmington to pick Bampy’s strawberries in the front garden. The next month we’d scratch up our arms collecting the heavy, red globes of raspberries from the patch out back by the old shed. Come August, we’d drive up for a corn feed–eating ear after ear of fresh, sweet corn just picked and quickly boiled and slathered with butter. Corn has never tasted so good since.

In the fall, my grandmother put-up jar after jar of vegetables, some of which went to the Grange exhibit at the Farmington Fair. She did this canning in between stints at the typewriter–later, the computer–writing up that day’s news articles for the Lewiston Sun or the Frankling Journal newspapers. She made jellies and jams, too. My grandfather did the planting and hoeing and weeding.

Lettuce was big at their house. We’d eat it sprinkled with apple cider vinegar and sugar. Beet greens were boiled for a long time and served in bowls with butter, vinegar, salt and pepper. There were green beans and wax beans and broccoli sometimes. Cucumbers for eating and for pickling. In the fall, squash. One year, I remember them putting up a barrel of sauerkraut, but I don’t remember the sourish stuff being served much. When did they eat it? I wish they were still here so I could ask.

My grandparents lived through the Great Depression and knew how to make-do. Nothing was thrown away.

Nanny’s mother used to sell butter in town. My mother recently unearthed a wooden cheese-maker (with an ancient box of rennet included) in the varied and voluminous pile of Nanny’s “stuff.” My grandmother knew how to make homemade cottage cheese. One year when she was getting on in age, my mother and I went to her house and cleaned the kitchen. I turned up my nose at a carton of milk left out on the counter and dumped the lumpy, sour mess down the drain. Awhile later my grandmother asked, “Where is my cottage cheese?” She’d been starting the lacto-fermentation process in that milk carton. I felt bad about it. Now I feel irritated that I didn’t ask her to teach me what she knew about curdling milk into cheese.

I’m struck by the disconnect. Sometime between my great-grandparents’ time and my own, we lost the knowledge, the ability to produce things for ourselves. It’s been a gradual loss of knowledge, but if I had to put my finger on when everything shifted, I’d guess it was with the advent of the car and the discovery of oil. Tractors changed farming. Oil-derived fertilizer changed farming. Almost overnight, it seems, the small family farm no longer made sense.

My grandparents left the farm for jobs in town. My grandmother worked as a telephone operator. My grandfather got a job with the John Deere retailer. Even with three children to rear, my grandmother started and maintained a journalism career that spanned fifty years. My grandfather became a County Commissioner. They both were active in various fraternal organizations, rising in rank to the top posts. They were members of the Baptist church. They grew a garden. My grandfather did great carpentry work. My grandmother knitted and crocheted and tatted. But these activities were hobbies, not necessities. The world had moved on.

Their children, my mother and aunt and uncle grew up in the fifties. They grew up with big cars and black and white television. The big war was over, the space race was on, and the country enjoyed a wonderful period of plenty. Some craftmanship was still practiced, though. Take sewing, for example. My mother went to college to be a home-economics teacher. Growing up, I wore clothes she cut and sewed up for me. I loved the bag of scrap cloth and tried to make clothes for my Barbie dolls. She taught me to sew. She taught me to cook, too. My parents always had a garden, canned and froze vegetables, and picked berries for jams. There is nothing better than the June smell of strawberry jam boiling and bubbling in a large pot on the stove.

But in our family, neither of the two generations preceding mine kept chickens or goats or milk cows or horses. Some families did. We’d go to the Farmington fair every fall and watch the teams of horses pulling concrete blocks through the dirt. We’d watch some of the 4-H goat, pig, and cattle shows. Some kids my age were practicing their animal husbandry skills.

The knowledge hasn’t been lost. Not completely. Not here in Maine. Not yet.

Recently, my friend Sandy let me borrow a few FOXFIRE books she’d picked up at the library book sale. These books are compilations of articles written for a magazine of the same name founded in the 60′s, the brainchild of a teacher in Appalachia who was desperate for some way to engage his English students. They students interviewed community and family elders about the culture, traditional crafts, life skills, and stories from the region and then wrote them up into articles to be published in the magazine. Here is a link if you want to explore this further.

I was fascinated by the articles, the instructions (sometimes detailed, sometimes scarily vague) for making soap or medicine or wooden shingles for siding a house, but it got me thinking: who in MY community knows the old crafts and skills necessary for living in a lower-energy world, the world of my great-grandparents who worked a farm for their living? Crafting has enjoyed a bit of a revival. Enthusiasts practice spinning and knitting, pottery and cheese-making. There are herbalists with extensive gardens and woods-knowledge about the gathering and use of wild, medicinal plants. Kids still show livestock at the agricultural fairs. Their fathers still train teams of work horses to pull cement blocks. Some people use horses and oxen for farming and wood harvesting. Bee-keeping is gaining popularity. Chicken coops are popping up in suburban backyards. I’ve seen more garden boxes and raised beds rimming front lawns this summer. Some knowledge has been retained . . . but is it enough? What have we forgotten? What have we forgotten we’ve forgotten?

We might want to consider surveying the community and our individual families to discover who knows what. One individual cannot master every craft and skill necessary for survival, let alone comfort, in a world with less energy than the one we enjoy now, but if enough individuals make a point of learning one or two basic skills, communities will have a knowledge base from which to draw. Skills should be taught to our children, as well, so their generation will be equipped for the whatever future they find themselves in. Perhaps every community should engage in FOXFIRE-like projects, recording the lore and knowledge of the elders who are still with us. In the end, knowing how to milk a cow by hand or how to dig a well without power equipment may be more important that how to run a computer system or an espresso machine.

In conclusion, I’ll share a couple of poems inspired by my grandparents, Stanton and Barbara Yeaton of Farmington, Maine. One I read at my grandmother’s funeral a couple years ago. The other I read at a Grange meeting when my grandparents were both alive. They were an inspiration then, and the memories of them inspire me still.

INTO GRANDFATHER’S GARDEN

Should I leave the white house–
green shuttered windows filtering the sun–
and the solidity of old, solid farmhouses?
Should I cross the sandy drive
on tender feet,
painted toes dusted and losing gloss?
Should I feel the grassy wetness,
morning lawn,
sloping downward
toward
my grandfather’s garden?

There the silly, white moths
dip and float and duck
among the pea-blossoms.
They tumble through tendrils,
soft green leaves,
the pretty blossoms
that could be moths if they would fly.

There the earth is dry
and crumbly and my foot sinks
as if it, too, wishes to be planted.
Oh, such order!
Each row straight, and spreading
checked by heel and hoe.
Small peas then tall peas;
shiney, leafy beans
then squash; squat hills of potatoes;
spikes of onions; feathers of carrots;
feet!

I’ll plant them deep in earth,
toes cool in underdirt warming
swiftly to ankles
and me–aboveground.
I’ll let the worms kiss my skin
and converse with white moths
flirting with my hair.
The rain will wash
my fingers
outspread like leaves and the sun
will nourish me.

In autumn, then, I’ll have grown
to outrageous perfection.
What a specimen I’ll make
at country fairs!
If only I would leave
the house and cross the drive
and slip my feet into the earth–
into Grandfather’s garden.
–1990

THE PASSING DOWN OF A RECIPE

Standing in the kitchen
watching, stirring, testing
my gradmother glows in her knowledge
of life’s important things:
marriage & children & gardens & news;
the program for tonight’s Grange meeting
& how to make mint-apple jelly.

There on the windowsill, the wee jars gleam
ignited delicate green by the sun.
And there Nanny stands in an apron–
passing down a recipe.
She learned it from her mother,
how to boil the peels, the cores,
nothing to be wasted,
sweetened with sugar and mint.
“Recipes are family things,” she says.

She dips a silver spoon
into the smallest of the jars.
“You taste it,” she says.
She lifts it to my mouth.
“It’s good,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “Of course it is.”
–1989

And there is this poem I wrote after my grandfather’s death.

IN MEMORIUM

A poem about cycles–
how we age
into our parents, then
our grandparents. They are gone,
or going now
a little at a time,
breath by breath
as we are.
And we begin to wonder why
the first wrinkle,
hair without color,
pre-arthritic throb in the joints,
death?
Why death
when there is spring-moist earth
to plant with bright dahlias
and pole-beans?
When there are freshly-cut boards
to plane and smooth
and fit together in sharp angles?
When people love you?
But if there were no death, no harvest,
no dropping of the brown petals
to nourish the spent soil,
there would be no life
in the beginning.
It might nice
never to have pedalled these cycles,
to have enjoyed some other awareness . . .
but then again
to have lived
to have LIVED!
–1992

Sarah’s Chickens

Here Chicky, Chicky, Chicky

Dear Reader:

This week while I’m laid up with a broken foot (don’t ask), I thought I would write about chickens. Yes, chickens. Following is my own, personal chicken-appreciation timeline. Enjoy.

1970′s: When I was growing up on the last dirt road in Carmel, “Grammy” Murray had a chicken pen up at the big white farmhouse on the hill. I don’t remember much about these chickens except a vague alarm that they might escape the pen. Someone may have used the words “rooster” and “mean” in the same sentence. I was young. It’s all pretty vague and misty. What I do remember is the not unpleasant, dusty, barnyard smell near the chicken pen and the homey clucking of the hens. At some point, the chickens disappeared, and I never thought about them again until much later.

1997: My husband and I moved to the quaint, western-Maine town of Norway where we purchased a hundred-year-old house not far from the center of town. Norway is one of those old-time, traditional New England towns that evokes Norman-Rockwellian nostalgia of the very best sort. There is a busy Main Street with a variety of shops along the sidewalks, a clock tower, quiet residential streets laid out in a sensible grid, the public library, and a bunch of white-steepled churches. It’s a walkable town, though the grocery chain moved over to the more spawlish Rt. 26 in the neighboring town of Oxford. Not to worry, though. I heard that the local food co-op, The Fare Share Market has expanded now to a larger venue right on Main.

I liked Norway. Every nice day, I would load my child into her stroller, and we’d walk a big loop along a couple residential streets before hitting Main and circling back home again. Imagine my surprise when I discovered chicken coops and yards on a couple of in-town lots! I’d always thought chickens were for farms, and farms were out in the country down old dirt roads, but here were these cute little cluckers contentedly scratching around in someone’s back yard. Cool, I thought. But even then, it never occured to me that I might raise chickens on MY large backyard lot. I was more interested in planting some evergreens to hide the housing complex behind us and revamping the flower beds around the house.

2001: My husband was studying engineering at the University of Maine, and I had taken a job as a secretary in the Continuing Education Department. One day while looking at the Bangor Daily News, I saw a big, full-color photo of a chicken along with an accompanying article. For some reason, I was so drawn to that picture that I cut it out and stuck it up next to my computer monitor . . . much to the horror of one of my work colleagues whose unhappy memories of egg-gathering chores as a child gave her an abhorrence of anything to do with raising poultry. She asked why I liked the picture, and I could only shrug and say “who knows?” Maybe I was missing my home in Norway. Maybe it brought back memories of those carefree days of childhood on my old dirt road. Maybe I just liked the looks of that chicken.

2002: My husband graduated, got a job. We moved to southern Maine. I forgot about chickens. We bought a home in a subdivision, and I contented myself with the creation of a few cottage-style perennial beds, Girl Scout leadership, library work, and writing romance novels.

2008: I read Barbara Kingsolver’s ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE. The world shifted. I learned about slow food, local food. I began to think about farmer’s markets and growing vegetables in my front yard. One book led to another, and I read about the superiority of raw milk over homegenized. I found a local dairy farmer from whom I could buy milk. His son raised chickens, the farmer said. Did I want to buy eggs?

Eggs from Sarah's chickens--note the little ecru one?

These eggs were so different from their tasteless-by-comparison counterparts in the grocery store that I resolved then and there to always buy local eggs whenever possible. As summer went on, the eggs grew to giant proportions. Then a bluish or khaki-colored egg woud show up in the carton, the product of some unusual breed of fowl. I was hooked.

2009: Now I get my eggs from my friend, Sarah, who lives right here in town. The yolks are dark yellow and large. The flavor is amazing. For awhile, I boiled an egg every day for an egg-salad sandwich, but I’ve had to cut back due to my expanding waistline. I suspect the eggs weren’t the problem so much as the mayonnaise I was mixing into them. I love the eggs. I don’t mind paying for them. However, I’m not totally content . . .

Because I want to raise my own chickens.

I know this poultry obsession is ridiculous. For one thing, I’m not allowed to have chickens in my homeowner’s association/subdivision. Bent on creating a rustic, private, lakeside community of vacation and weekend homes, the association’s original developers nixed the mixing of humans and livestock within the confines of the development. Can’t really blame them. They were designing this place in the late sixties, when the space age was revving up, technology was going to solve all our problems, and zoning conventions leaned toward the separation of industrial areas from retail areas from residential areas from agricultureal areas. We had cars. Who needed to live within walking distance of work, stores, or farmland? Besides, nobody was going to live here full-time. It was now supposed to be vacation-land , not farmland. It was what people wanted . . . in the 1960′s and 1970′s.

Now, though, more and more people are coming to realize how important it is to support local agriculture and to grow and raise our own food. Chickens are making a comeback! In 2008, Falmouth, Maine–one of our state’s more upscale towns, by the way–changed its zoning ordinance to allow the raising of chickens for personal use. Read about it in this article from the Portland Press Herald.

Even Portland is looking into changing their zoning to allow backyard poultry. Check out this news report by NECN.

So, even if the zoning and/or association rules could be changed, does raising your own poultry even make economic sense? Raising your own chickens isn’t going to save you money in the short term. According to an article for Associated Content by C. Jeanne Heida, chicks costs between $2.00 to $5.00. Between supplies, food, heat lamps for the chicks, feed, materials for a chicken coop/wire pen, Heida figures a back-yard poultry farmer won’t recoup (grin) her initial outlay for at least three years. However, saving money in the short run isn’t really the point. The point is eating locally. The point is knowing that what you eat is safe and highly nutritious. The point is knowing where your food comes from. Where better than from your own back yard?

Knowledge, or lack of it, is another hurdle. How does one learn how to raise chickens, anyway? Here is a list compiled by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension of places you can purchase chicks and other poultry information and supplies. It is called Resources for Small-Scale Poultry Keepers. It is not a comprehensive list, but there’s lots of information there.

Besides cost and a learning curve, what are some other perceived drawbacks to back-yard chicken coops? Smell, I suppose. Raising any kind of animal means shouldering a certain amount of responsibility. Cleaning up the coop and composting the straw and manure would be necessary in a suburban setting.

Noise. Even the new zoning ordinances prohibit roosters as they are preceived as being loud and obnoxious. I suppose they are, but how much more obnoxious than the neighbors hunting beagles kept in outdoor pens throughout the entire year? For that matter, what about those doggy droppings left on your front lawn? I’d rather step in chicken poop, thank you very much.

Repurposing

When I visited Sarah’s backyard chicken coop, I did not notice any smell. The chicken yard was a few yards from her back door next to the raised garden beds. The soft chuckling cluckiness of the different breeds brought me right back to the Murray farm, much more pleasant than the baying of the hounds at three in the morning. In fact, the entire back yard felt like a little, cozy haven of domesticity.

eggs in one basket

Inspired by my visit, I came right home and boiled and egg and made myself a yummy egg-salad sandwich on my homemade rye bread. I might not be allowed to keep my own chickens, but I am grateful that I can at least enjoy the wonderful flavor of these local eggs. Maybe one day my association will realize we are not so grand. If Falmouth and Portland, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, Gorham and Westbrook can allow backyard chickens, why not here? After all, we’re rural over here.

We have the dirt roads to prove it.

* * * * * * * * *

pretty, pretty peas?

I may not be allowed to raise chickens, but I have carved out a spot in which to try to cultivate vegetables. Out in the garden, things were not looking good last week. Two weeks of all rain and no sun had leached the nutrients right out of my raised garden boxes. I went down to my local hardware store and asked if they had any organic fertilizer. Off course, they did!

Plummer’s Hardware always has just what I need, each and every time. The employees are knowledgeable and helpful. It’s amazing and the best of all arguments in favor of local business over big box retail stores where you can look for twenty minutes for an orange-aproned employee who may or may not know where anything is in the giant warehouse of a store.

Anyway, I purchased a small bag of organic blood-meal–high in nitrogen–figuring it couldn’t hurt to amend the soil a little and see if my spindly, pale plants could somehow revive. I’m pleased to report that a week (and quite a bit of sun) later, most of the plants look better if not exactly lush. When I hopped out on my crutches to look at the boxes, I discovered pea pods hanging beneath the twisty pea stems and pretty little white pea blossoms!

The cucumbers are trying to grow, the beans look as if they are about to blossom, the pumpkins and squash look vigorous if small. The carrots finally took off, and their feathery stalks are growing. I even have hot peppers on the most stunted little plants you’ve ever seen. Poor peppers. I may pull out every spare plastic pot I can find in the cellar and garage and plant them all with lettuce and other greens, just to see what happens.

I’m also going to make a real effort to hit some farmer’s markets and farmstands next week, so hopefully I’ll have pictures and stories to share as well as some good, fresh veggies for my table. I still want to put up some pickles and some jam, and I noticed today that the local pick-your-own blueberry operation has already opened for business. Now, if I can only figure out how to pick berries while on crutches . . .

Do you have a poultry passion? A chicken story? Share with other readers by posting a comment. As always, I love to hear from you.