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Michael Pollan: Sec'y of Agriculture?

First thought: "I wish...."

Second thought: "WHY NOT?"

If you're of like mind, please sign the petition.

If you've never heard of Michael Pollan, you may have heard of his books -- my favorite is The Omnivore's Dilemma. Wikipedia has a decent summary of his work (scroll down for linked essays and interviews) and you can even view some of his talks online.

January Feast

Yes, I know, it's February. It was a good dinner.

Beets, I hardly knew ye. First encountered from a can, at a church supper, and avoided everafter; until I saw this Beet and Goat Cheese Salad over at Slashfood, that is. I didn't follow the directions exactly much at all, and my beets weren't quite as lurid-looking. But they had a subtle, earthy sweetness, and I'm a convert. For the dressing I improvised with goat cheese, too much cider vinegar, and plenty of honey to balance out the vinegar.

We had some stale sourdough bread in the fridge, so I tossed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and baked at 350 F (I think) for about 20 minutes, checking every 5-10 minutes and shaking the pan.  Croutons are yummy; nay, addictive.

But the salad looked like ham. Never mind, on to the main course.

After making beef stock a couple of weeks ago, I had (local, ahem) stewed beef loitering in the freezer. Pot pie is a perfect vehicle for leftover stewed beef. It doesn't dry out the beef any further, the veggies can impart a lot of flavor, and it speeds up the total time needed to make the pot pie. Leftover roast beef works as well, but you might want to cut it into smaller pieces.

Recipe for Beef Pot Pie

• 1 generous double pie crust, and a deep dish (my favorite recipe for pie crust is Julia Child's -- should really branch out, but this one is pretty dependable). It should be at the ready-to-roll-out stage and waiting in the fridge while you make the filling.
• Have a package of frozen peas thawing and ready to go in at the last minute.
• 1 large bay leaf, 1 tsp (or more) whole mustard seeds, 1 large onion chopped, 1 very large clove garlic minced -- Fry these in a little hot olive oil in a heavy pot (enameled is good).
• When the spices and onion have sizzled and are just beginning to brown, add a little more oil and let it get hot. Add 1 cup cubed potatoes (small cubes). Fry these along with the rest. Some starch will stick to the bottom of the pot. This is goooood. Just avoid burning.
• Transfer the cooked veggies to a heatproof bowl. Add some more oil to the pot along with 3 diced carrots and 2 stalks celery, also diced, both a little smaller than the potato cubes. Cook for another 3 minutes or so, till partly softened.
• Throw in some sliced mushrooms according to taste (I think that's about a cup up there) and cook several minutes, till they have released their liquid and it's pretty much cooked off.
• Put the onions/potatoes back in the pot. Add 2-3 Tbsp flour (hold off on that third tablespoon until the first two are well stirred in) and stir with the veggies. This should form a thick (delicious) paste. Cook for a minute or so, stirring. Add 1 cup beef or veggie broth, or beer, or red wine cut with water, a little at a time. This should loft the paste up into something admirable.
• Turn off the heat under the pot. Stir in about a cup or so of leftover beef chunks. Put the lid on the pot, preheat the oven to 400 F, and roll out your pie crust. Get the top crust rolled out too before you fill the bottom crust.
• Stir the peas into the filling and check the seasonings (need more salt? Parsley?). Assemble the pie, crimp the edges, poke some holes in the top, and put it in the oven. When you can hear the insides bubbling, and the crust is golden, it's done. Wait too long and it can dry out. This time, it took about half an hour, but it really depends on the oven and the pie.

Dig in.

Slow Growth

It's been a blessing to have three weeks at the turn of the year, not with nothing to do (far from it), but with a total breakup of routine. Work gave everyone two four-day weekends in a row, and before that we were traveling, so it's been a while since we had a five-day workweek. It's the kind of timing that lets you set your own constraints, for the most part. You can pick your goals for the day and revise them as often or as whimsically as you like.

I didn't sit down and reassess my life at the cusp of the new year -- it's more of a constant process -- but I did have some time to think. I miss the bounty of summer, the light and warmth that are there for just soaking up, and the ease of getting outside, and staying outside, for hours at a time. Fall and winter brought major changes to our day-to-day life and perhaps it has taken some time to absorb them. Or perhaps winter just slows things down some for me. I would like to grow, write more, find more local foods and put down roots in our new town, but it's not happening as rapidly as it did when I started this blog.

On the other hand, I'm not fussing about the pace. Growth happens in cocoons, too. And in winter.

[Click for larger version]

Back In a Few

The heat broke, it's fall for sure, and we are leaving for a few days' camping in Acadia. Just running around trying to find the tent stakes and other sundries before we hit the road.

The change of seasons has shown up another minor change. I love the local food thing, but right now it feels like a chore to blog about it. So that will probably fade into the background for a while, and other projects will take the stage. I'll probably keep participating in the Eat Local Challenge, but with a very low profile. Ravelry is sneaking up on my time, hard. Not to mention, some actual knitting!

So -- see you in a little while -- enjoy the weekend!

(More photos from the field work... spinners are a nice reward for being up before dawn.)

Season Confusion

Seems like New England can't decide whether it's summer or fall, and personally, I can't decide which I'd prefer right now, so we're even. A little rain would be good, though. It is HOT and DRY.

No dinners this week for the Eat Local Challenge -- it feels good to take a bit of a breather. Dinners out with friends are not something to be ignored on a busy busy week. And there are Concord grapes in the fridge, along with a ridiculous number of tomatoes, so once the heat breaks (tonight? please?) I'll be putting up some grape jam and the family chili sauce. (Think condiment, not entree.) Finally, we decided to go ahead and buy a dehydrator, after playing with our friends' for a couple of weeks. Gots to get our Schnitz on!

It's Habit-Forming

The Eat Local Challenge is starting up as OLS ends, so I'm going to just roll right into that. What, you thought we'd stop eating local foods just because the party wound down? Hah. It just tastes too damn good. Not to mention I love the macro mode on our camera.

Funny how the ELC steps read just like a Girl Scout badge ("Learn more about a farmer or local producer by talking to them"...) -- it would be neat to earn a big red tomato badge at the end of the month. This would be a good project for my Scout troop too. They got more excited about food than anything else last year (they're teenagers). To qualify as a "real" Scouting badge, there would have to be a service component as well; e.g. "help your local food bank hook up with local food producers" (actually I think a lot of them ARE hooked up for "seconds" and day-old baked goods). Getting your school cafeteria hooked up with local food producers would be a terrific service project.

Not done thinking about this.