This Humble Mustard

One of the things I love most about urban homesteading is that the movement* is largely filled with rebel gardeners and cooks actively engaged in returning traditional foods to the home cook and away from the corporations who have come to be regarded as the sole proprietors of such condiments as mustard. People have been growing and using mustard for hundreds of years. How is it that so few of us actually know how to make this simple condiment? Because I can no longer purchase my favorite prepared mustard (due to it's not being remotely local) I decided it was high time I learn to make it myself.

Gulden's is a fairly mild mustard and it has few ingredients: mustard seeds, vinegar, turmeric, spices. That's it. No sugar, no flour, no fancy stuff. I'm taking it on faith here that "spices" isn't code for "BUCKETS OF CREEPY CRAP".

I've been searching for simple mustard recipes and found only fancy "gourmet" types with lots of fancy ingredients like wine and shallots. I have no objection to wine and shallots but I would like to learn a basic mustard first. I bought some yellow mustard seeds from Azure Standard and put 3/4 of a cup in a nonreactive bowl then covered it with white vinegar.

While performing this easy first step I was playing Israeli folk music complete with a spirited version of "Hava Nagila". Now I have to let the seeds steep for two or three days. I was planning on just making it today, lickety split, and posting the results for Sara who is going to make some mustard too. However, of the limited recipes I found out there, most of them have you soaking your seeds for "two or three days". OK.

I went to the gym this morning and was wearing this really hideous un-white t-shirt that I've had for a million years and is the only one that is big enough to still fit me. I came home and was about to spend the whole day in that deeply ugly garment when I realized that Sara and I were planning on being "cute and domestic" while making mustard and then share the results on our blogs since I can't actually invite her over to make some with me here in person. I don't have any cute clothes to wear but I did put on make-up and put in my nose ring and I even wore earrings. This picture proves it!

Before embarking on my really simple first step to mustard making I had to go to the store. On my scooter. In the pouring rain. I don't mind getting a little wet. Unfortunately, riding a scooter in the rain is like whizzing through air full of sharp darts. Ouch. I was hoping you would see how wet my face got but it doesn't show up well. People always suggest you can only ride such a toy in the fine weather...which is not true. So if anyone still doesn't believe I go out on it in the rain...

This should prove it! I realize how impressed you already are with my musical taste and it seems so cruel to follow that up with proof of how tough I am in real life, but I can't hide the truth. It's so much easier to live with weather-frightened fruitcakes who cook in gentle cozy kitchens. Ha. Say that ten times fast.

As for the question of houses...much thinking has been done here at the Williamson ranch concerning the Williamson ranch. I don't want a farm. I want what I have. Exactly what I have. OK, I really do want a kitchen that doesn't suck and I want my house to stop looking like a wet band-aid, but I don't need a farm for myself when there are so many local farms to support around here who are producing vegetables with u-pick options that make it affordable to buy their produce for canning. I can grow a hell of a lot more on this property than I have and if I stay here long enough my mini orchard will bear tons of fruit and what fires up my excitement endlessly is how much more self sufficient all of us can become who don't have a large piece of property. I want to be a part of that. I'm an urban homesteader, not a farmer.

As for the fear of losing it after putting tons of work and love into it? The fear that if I get attached to it's humble studs I will have to hand it off to someone else like I had to do with my last house? There's nothing I can do about it. You just have to live as though you get to keep the things and the people you love and let go of them when they're gone.

Besides, Alice heard that the world is going to end in 2012 which will make all of these huge worries seem pretty insignificant by comparison. I just hope I get to eat a whole lotta good food and drink a whole lotta good beer before we all get sucked into a black hole of nonexistence. Hey, can you bring beer with you into a black hole?



*I can't understand why no one else is calling it a movement yet, but that's what it is. It's too rebellious to be a "lifestyle" and too fundamentally wholesome to be a cult. What else do you call people who are taking the power back from the corporate sector of our country by becoming as self reliant as possible in an urban and suburban setting?

At The Starting Gate...
Day one of my local/seasonal eating challenge.

Pink Banana Squash from the garden.

This is the first day of my year of eating seasonally and locally. There have been some more discoveries in the last couple of days which have seemingly complicated my challenge. While there is a plethora of dairy activity here in Oregon, most of the stores around here sell milk that comes from Washington. ??? Philip tells me I will have to go to Safeway or Harvest Fresh to find the one company he knows of that makes milk locally. Which I know is going to be expensive because both those stores have inflated prices. It's kind of funny because we have, less than a half a mile from our house, a huge creamery. They make butter. So a ton of cream goes through there but you can't buy milk from them.

I have a tremendous urge to make some roasted tomato soup. Tomatoes are almost finished here because of the rains and cold weather which causes tomatoes to split and then rot. I am trying to convince Lisa K. to take me to Bernards farm today for one last bucket of tomatoes. I'm trying to lure her because she desperately wants me to make some delicious eggplant sandwiches for her but I've explained that the only local source for eggplant is at Bernards. I feel like I might wither and die if I can't have (and freeze) some tomato soup. OK, that's a bit dramatic, I admit. Lisa K. feels that being dragged to one farm on her vacation is quite enough. I told her that if she wants to avoid farms, she needs to plan her visits to me between November and May. How can anyone not love visiting farms????????

Alright, alright...I know. It would be the same as if she took me to a boating convention. Or a scuba diving club. I get that we're all different. Lots of people don't find farm visiting all that exciting and can't for the life of them understand why I would. Takes all types.

I'll have to provide a very strong lure. I can't take my scooter out there in this stormy weather. I do ride it in the rain, but I won't take it on a fast highway in these conditions. Tomato soup...tomato soup...can't you feel the warm sunshine of it in your body just thinking about it?

So, about citrus. I can live without oranges or tangerines for one year. But lemons? This is not something I have thought a lot about. I'm thinking about it now because I don't think there's a local source for them. Growing lemons here is possible, but most people don't because they require serious winter protection. What I realized is that all the teas I make in the winter to help stave off colds or to soothe myself when I've already got them require lemon. I don't think they would be quite as effective without the lemon. If I can find a local source then I need to get a GIANT bag of lemons and freeze them in ice cube trays. This is what I'll do. So if anyone around here knows of a local source for lemons...please speak up.

All day yesterday I was thinking about a drink my mom used to make us sometimes as kids. I have to admit that she made us fast once a week and this was supposed to sustain us. She used to heat up lemonade and sprinkle cayenne pepper into it. Very warming. I mean, this can kick the pants off of a cold. All day yesterday I was kind of wishing I had some.

If not? Well, this is one of those things experiments like this teach us, right? Taking on a challenge like this helps us really understand just how much we've come to depend on oil to fulfill our every desire. What I try to think of is how it was for people back when only things that could really travel dusty bumpy roads well, for months at a time, would be available from outside your area. Spices, for example. We often think that our quality of life depends on being able to get our hands on absolutely everything from everywhere. Modern shipping did improve our lives quite a bit, especially for areas with extremely short growing seasons. But I think many of us, myself included, have failed to recognize that the overall price for this kind of global grocery store is much greater than any of us thought it could be, and the consequences are pretty dire.

Oil spills from ocean liners, pollution from airplanes which carry much of our exotic produce to us in the winter, pollution from trucks, and decreased quality of goods due to picking them unripe, or growing varieties strictly for their traveling abilities... all of this means that every one's quality of life is actually deteriorating. Not enough clean air and water are very serious problems. So, if I look at it like this, and turn my appetite to the things that grow well here, where I am, I think I will be able to adjust to a more locally focused life.

I think I should mention here, though, that I fully intend to plant lemon trees in my yard this year. I don't have room in my house to bring them inside in the winter, but I think they should be alright if I make really large coverings for them for the coldest parts of the season. I've seen such coverings in Northern California where it does actually get as cold as it does here, sometimes, killing off unprotected citrus plants.

A couple of nights ago I finally watched "Babette's Feast" which many MANY people have told me I would love. It's foreign so I did have my reservations. Foreign films are often quite depressing, except for British films. I have to say that everyone who recommended it was right. I loved it. I loved the bleak landscape* in it (I told Philip that I would like to take a little retreat to that pretend village, for a little alone time) but in spite of a bleak landscape it wasn't at all depressing. I loved the food preparations in it. It was marvelous. I will admit that it really made me wish I was knitting again so I can knit myself some cozy shawls. However, we all have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe in another year or two I can take it up again. Oh, but I can make myself a wool cape!! I want to wear puritan style clothes from the eighteen hundreds. Yes I do. Watching that film made me realize that I need to get a new pair of boots.

Boot love.

Portland is such a lovely city. It was raining most of the time we were there and I thought it was such an inviting place to be in such weather. It did make me think of you Violette Crumble! I was thinking about how the grey rainy weather gets to you and I was thinking about how you are in a better overall climate for your spirit now. Still, I was thinking about how you lived there for quite a while and I wished I could have met up with you.

I need to go get dressed so I can package up all of the orders that need to ship out today. Then I need to go and pluck all the winter squashes from my yard that are laying around in mud now. Then I will bend my mind to the job of convincing Lisa K. that it's in her best interests to take me to the farm.

An Update: My Back Went Out. Shit.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Part of the reason it is so difficult to figure out what films I would like is that what depresses me is not easy to know. A bleak landscape actually makes me feel scoured clean, it makes me feel weirdly happy. Like rocky cold beaches or rugged unfriendly looking hills. What depresses me most are bad relationships between people. Or people who are small minded and mean. Or people who have lost all hope. I find relationships difficult to watch. But give me a cold grey windy rainy landscape and I come alive. Oh it feels so good!

When The Skies Weep With You

A lot of my titles come to me the way poetry used to. In fact, I think that instead of writing poetry now, I channel all those disconnected sentences that might begin or end a poem and I just put them at the top. Sometimes it's the titles that I put on a post that direct the flow of thoughts. If I don't know where to start, it gives me a place. I was thinking I might someday sit down with my headphones on, and a list of all my post titles, and just see if I can't continue all those floating threads into more developed poems.

The truth is, if the sky is weeping, it weeps without me today. I looked out my bedroom window and felt so calm and happy to see the maple tree bending with the force of wind and rain. I was planning on making a wet trip to Bernards farm to pick some tomatoes to make a huge batch of roasted tomato soup. Isn't this the perfect day for it? Instead I realized that today is the deadline for applying to be included in the Crafty Wonderland Holiday Craft Show. Since no mail runs on Sunday, and even if it did, it surly wouldn't get there today anyway, a trip to Portland is called for. I am going to take my application to the address given and hope to god there's a mailbox I can slip my application into. It's worth a shot, anyway.

We get to drop Max off at Lisa E.'s house so he can play with his friend Rex who he's been missing quite a bit lately. Lisa K. has decided to just stay home today and read. So Philip and I will go out to lunch together in Portland without our child (a very rare event) and pick up some tomatoes at the farmer's market which we hear is open both Saturday and Sunday today and then make tomato soup at Lisa E.'s house. It really sounds like a great day to me.

My original plan was to simply make food here at home. Lay low. Enjoy the rainy view. But sometimes a day shapes up how it wants to regardless of your original thoughts. That's fine with me. A rainy adventure sounds great. I finished the apron that was ordered and will be able to ship out four orders on Monday. That will feel good. Why not run off for some fun?

Irrepressible Dirt

Never am at at more peace than while I'm gardening. Writing is something I have to do, and it is an essential part of me, but it is not a peaceful activity. Today the store is closed and for once we decided that while Max is in school we should do some yard work. So the first thing we did was spend two hours trying to procure all the things needed for our projects, such as dormant oil for the dormant season that has already passed, herb starts, and fertilizer for the blueberries. Then when we got home, Philip had to take a bike ride and I had to fix the deer fencing that the storms this winter knocked down.

Once those tasks were out of the way I was ready to get out there and prune stuff! Except that the groceries that were left on the counter had to be put away first. How sad would I be if I came in from my rigorous garden work to drink a tall glass of calcium-laden milk only to get violently ill within hours and die of some horrible bacterial thingy-ma-bob?

We had friends over for dinner last night so obviously the kitchen looked like it had barely survived the H-bomb. (I never do dishes after eating. It's pure laziness. I have searched in vain for a great and believable excuse, but with no luck. So there it is. I'm a lazy bastard. I almost had to clean the kitchen before going out to prune the blueberries. But then I realized that somehow it was already past noon. How the hell does that happen?

This is the BEFORE shot of my blueberry patch. I know you can barely see them. I did that on purpose. I like people to have to trip over my perennials in order to find them, that way my garden is a constant surprise (also heavily insured against accidents). I'm not obsessed with weeding. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy doing it. But there is no time in my activity budget for anything more than survival weeding. Which is where you weed only when they have strangled a beloved plant or bush. You go out there like the fury hell hath and cut them down just as they think they have dominion. It's a savage world out there.

This is the AFTER shot. OK, I know, I see it too. It isn't perfect. If I could have had a huge pile of mulch delivered I would have covered this entire bed which would have made it look so stunning and really landscaped. But first of all, I'm not sure I can afford a truck load of mulch when I am definitely going to need a truck load of dirt. But, c'mon, it looks better doesn't it? And I didn't just mulch those babies, I fertilized them. With ammonium sulphate. I think that's what the fifty pound bag that almost broke my back said on it. (We spent lots of time choosing the best fertilizer for the job. We also have tons of rhododendrons to fertilize. Even after we shovel prune a couple hundred of them, we'll have plenty more. )

You need to see the improvement more up close and personal to get the full affect.

AAAHHHHH...isn't that better? I love blueberries. It started raining while I was scrubbing my knees into this here soil. I like gardening in the rain when it isn't coming down ice and fast. It's cold outside, but just the way I like it. Philip stayed in the rain to prune the old pear tree. Poor tree. We haven't done it any favors by waiting this long to care for it. It has some kind of mite which needs to be killed already. We can't spray the tree now because it's raining. We'll have to do several weaker applications than is ideal because the tree has already broken dormancy.

It's a lovely tree and I now wish I had taken a before and after picture of it too. It also had codling moths last year so we got traps to put out. Poor tree. I love old fruit trees. When I saw that tree in the back forty (just kidding) I found this house more irresistible. There's also an incredible patch of tulips right underneath it which is budding out right now. Photos will be taken and shown.

Boy, wouldn't it be cool to have a "back forty"?

But I've decided to be happy with exactly what I have. Which, while not being a farm, is a huge yard for a city lot. I'm doing my best to make good use of it to grow the things I love. In a few years I will (hopefully) have the time to really make it shine.

For now, I'm just happy to have gotten a chance to get out there and do some damage to the weeds which I like to pretend are politicians that I feel are evil. Yank! You think I don't know what you're trying to do to our civil liberties? Yank! You think America will sleep forever? Yank Yank Yank!!!!

Now it's time to make food. Today I will eat healthily and not store cheese in my chipmunk cheeks. I will also not store any kinds of crackers in there. Or heavily buttered bread. I will, however, learn to make cream of broccoli soup using low fat milk.

Pantry of plenty

This is one of those glorious Oregon rainy winter days that everyone is always complaining about. Philip is in Portland with my mom and Max and I stayed home. I placed my seed orders, I cleaned the kitchen, and I gallantly played legos with Max for over an hour. All day I've been thinking about making fresh pasta. I planned on Max and I bicycling down to the grocery store to get some extra provisions, but I just couldn't drag us out in that wet cold world when everything is so cozy in here. Besides, Max is still in his pajamas and would like to remain in them.

So I'm baking two old yams and a butternut squash. Meanwhile I made a batch of fresh pasta from my new "Naked Chef" book, which is now "resting" in the fridge. It never ceases to amuse me that dough needs so many rests to work well. Like a singer who must not speak a word for the whole day leading up to her performance. It's no wonder so many people shy away from making their own breads and pastas. Anyway, the question is: what the heck am I going to do with my pasta without much fresh stuff in the fridge. I've been examining the contents of my pantry for two hours now.

This isn't tedious to me. Few things please me as much as hanging out in my pantry looking at all the potential. However, there really wasn't a lot on offer in there that sounded inspired. I really had my mind set on making a ravioli with a butternut-herb sauce. But without ricotta or spinach, the ravioli would have been kind of empty inside. I could put the squash inside the ravioli and do a butter and herb sauce, but I'm not that crazy for buttered pasta. After examining the possibilities I realized that there were actually quite a few options, just not what I had originally had in mind. But I've been working on my attitude about things a little lately.

I'm not a thrifty person. And even if I could get into the spirit of trying to save money, I don't see myself being any less annoyed by people whose main obsession in life is spending as little money as possible. There's a weird kind of conceit in that that I find unattractive. Never the less, I believe in finding middle ground whenever possible. I don't have to start chewing on shoe leathers instead of licorice to save money. What I'm trying to get myself to do is to think in terms of using what I have on hand and not always rushing off to supplement my supplies. I'm trying to get into the whole crafty spirit of recycling*, and also developing a greater ability to live with slightly less specific needs.

I am a very specific kind of person.

Which is why I am always running to the store. If I have walnut pasta sauce in mind but I don't have any Parmesan I will run out to the store and get it rather than eating the pasta without it, or thinking up something different to make. I am trying to get myself to be more creative with less on hand. Like my friend Chelsea does. She could make a stellar dinner out of the most meager ingredients. I am endlessly impressed with her creativity. I want some of that.

So the result of today's pasta quandary is that I am going to make pasta with sun dried tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, fresh minced herbs (from the garden), and feta cheese. We'll also have a salad with pears, pine nuts, and red onion.

I was really pleased to pull out this jar of sage I dried this summer, and the jar of cayenne that I dried. I am going to use the sage for the butternut squash (which I will make into a soup that can double as a sauce) and I am going to crush the red pepper into the pasta.

Ahhhh. Other than the fact that Max is now pestering me to play more legos with him, which may escalate into a battle royale, this is a good day. Why on earth do so many people hate the rain? Maybe they just aren't putting squash in the oven often enough. Or maybe their homes aren't welcoming enough. Because even if you have to go out in the rain, day after day, the joy of rain is always in the whole coming back part. Always so delicious!



*I am already on board with actual recycling, and I reuse things that have obvious re-uses. What I'm not doing is knitting my plastic bags into sweaters. I haven't learned to re-evaluate items on such creative terms, and that is what I'm striving for. It's not as much about not spending money as it is about not wasting resources.