Beautiful Food

After a winter of potatoes, dark leafy greens, and celeriac, the local farmer's market is a wonderful sight! Here's what I brought home: strawberries, broccoli, radishes, zucchini, fava beans, bread, and fresh basil.

It takes skill and a certain mindset to cook food based on what you have without always running to the market for that extra ingredient you need in order to make a very specific dish you had in mind...it takes a flexible and creative cook to look in the pantry, evaluate the produce on hand, and then come up with a menu that doesn't require extra trips to the store. Forgot to get fresh milk? Cook without it! I have lots of home canned tomatoes left on the pantry shelves, I've been so afraid to run out that I have been very frugal with my stash. Here we are in June and only a month left until fresh tomatoes start to trickle into the market.

Usually the basil shows up at the same time as the tomatoes but this year it's early. So what to do with a gorgeous bunch of basil? Tomato bread soup!! It's such a simple and quick soup to make. I just cooked an onion in some olive oil, added about a tablespoonful of pureed garlic (from cubes in the freezer), and then added one quart of home made tomato sauce and one quart of stewed tomatoes.

I splashed in a generous amount of white vinegar and then when the onions were soft I added a bunch of julienned fresh basil and after a couple of minutes I pureed the soup. I cubed six slices of stale sourdough wheat bread, added it to the soup with salt and pepper. Turn off the stove but let the bread soak up the juices for a few minutes. Done.

For an extra touch I also made a sauce of oil, fresh basil, and a handful of walnuts. Tomato bread soup is hearty yet summery. My version allowed me to make use of pantry goods which is a plus in the early summer season.

Foraged tea: the community garden had a decorative old wheelbarrow planted with sage and fully flowering chamomile that no one was going to harvest. I asked permission and harvested and dried it. They were covered in thrips so I had to wash the buds several times to ensure that I won't be eating (or serving anyone) reconstituted thrips.

On a quest for cheese making supplies my friend Lisa B. and I went to Kookoolan Farms where if you are very lucky you can get raw goat and cow's milk*. Yes, it is legal. I asked about the legal aspect of selling raw milk and found out that there are very stringent laws about selling it in Oregon: you must have a small number of livestock (there are specific numbers allowed) and you cannot advertise your product and you can only sell it direct to customers who come to pick it up at your farm personally.

Raw milk is only dangerous if the people milking the animals don't practice very clean and safe methods. Keeping your operation clean is the main safeguard against any dangerous organisms ending up in your product. This is why large farms aren't allowed to sell raw milk. The more animals you have, especially in confined spaces, the more chance of contaminating your milk.

Pasteurization, in my opinion, is just a way to allow large dairies to cover all manner of sins. As long as you heat the crap out of your product it doesn't really matter how much contamination enters the product during milking.

I don't actually drink milk. Plain milk grosses me out. I won't drink it. But I use it in cooking and now in cheese making. If I could always buy raw instead of pasteurized I would. I couldn't afford to anyway, so it's not a real issue. However, this is one of those things that is a no brainer for me: the less processed your food is when you bring it home, the better the quality.

At the farm I got to meet the three cows who provide my community with raw milk and they are so pretty, gentle, and sweet. I love cows, I always have, and these gals didn't disappoint in their beauty and soulful glances.

I also got to meet two baby goats who played with the kids like puppy dogs. I have always really liked goats as well. As everyone already knows I don't eat goat milk products or eat goat meat. I just like them for their curious ways. If there is any farm animal with a stronger personality I have yet to meet it. Even my hens don't have so much play in them and don't engage in frolic the way goats do. I would love to have a couple of them just for their lawn mowing ability. I was told that one of these little guys is going to be slaughtered for meat. I can't say that that rests easy with me yet it's all a part of our natural role in the food chain.

Have I mentioned recently how much I loath lawn? In California if you don't like lawn it's easy to kill: just don't water it. Dead within minutes. Here in the Pacific Northwest it grows no matter what. You can make it brown from not watering it all summer, but as soon as the rains come in the fall it springs back to life instantly. In the mean time it grows. And grows. Very tall, very fast. We hate lawn. Max is even mildly allergic to lawn so it's not like he's dying to roll around in it. We can never keep up with our lawn. I would like to remove it all and put down some crushed granite paths and turn the rest of the yard into garden beds.

We'll have to wait for that. The weather yesterday was gorgeous so Philip finished roofing the chicken run and I built another four by four raised bed and planted some herbs. I am so relieved to have gotten them in the ground at last. Growing herbs is, for me, one of the most important things I do, with very few ingredients and some fresh herbs you can make almost anything taste good. I planted: tarragon, winter savory, lemon verbena, thyme, parsley (the curly kind is my favorite), oregano, and marjoram. I need to plant a lot more thyme, oregano, and marjoram because all three dry exceptionally well and I use them A LOT.

It's been a great few days for beautiful food and I hope you all have had your share of it too!