Freezer wisdom

Yesterday, we picked the first fruits of the season from our garden; three plump strawberries. The arrival of even just a few of these early fruits means that it really is time to finish up the the frozen berries from last summer’s u-picks. 

Inspired by a rhubarb cream pie I made earlier this week, I made a raspberry blueberry cream pie with bags of fruit that were lingering in the bottom of the freezer. This pie contains the spirit of one particular Saturday last summer spent on Sauvie Island picking fruit with friends. It evokes memories of the angle and the heat of the sun on that day, and of our conversations about what we would make with the berries once we got them home. All of this just frozen in time until yesterday. 

In late fall, a full freezer imparts a wonderfully secure feeling to a home, providing a sense of bravado so strong that one might go so far as to secretly wish for a long, harsh winter. And although it is incredibly satisfying to eat from the freezer during the long, dark days of winter, I think perhaps the best freezer is a nearly empty one, for in its emptiness lies endless potential. 

Save two cuts of pork from Square Peg Farm, a couple of loaves of bread from the Grand Central Baking class madness, several quarts of peaches and a couple of bags of roasted tomatoes, the freezer is now nearly empty; the cycle is on the brink of renewal.

Unconditional gardens

About two weeks ago, I began (once again, and in earnest) pining away for a life spent in rural Oregon. Then, somewhere between touring a friend’s new blueberry farm in Lebanon and helping my dad build a dry creek bed on our family’s land in Gaston, I decided that I don’t have to choose between Portland and farm country. I don’t have to quit my job and leave Tom for a life in the country living with my parents and eating from Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery. But, I also don’t have to spend my days in the city tied to a desk and a computer screen wondering what is going on outside in the natural world. I’ve simply got to get a little better about making sure I’m having regular rural experiences and weaving them gracefully into my urban life. 

Whether on the farm or in the city, the garden is constant, grounding and nourishing. My community garden plot changes in tiny and huge ways each day.  Several spring crops have already come and gone, having been replaced by tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and beans. Others are still taking their sweet time to mature. Will I ever eat a beet or sugar snap pea? The garlic is finally making flower stalks, the arugula is making chipper white flowers, carrots have been sown again, the second and third plantings of radishes have been devoured, and chervil is in full swing. And, there is a tiny yellow flower on my tomatillo just waiting for a bee to pay it a visit. 

The woman I’d like to be

...Lives and farms on Marsh Road, a dead end on the edge of Verboort, Oregon.  She is in her 60s. Large oval tinted glasses rest low on her nose as she ambles along from the greenhouse to greet me in her aquamarine gardening apron, which gently cascades over her plump center. 

She asks what she can do for this young lady, and twenty minutes later, I’ve admired her twelve chickens, toured her herb nursery, and met the farm dog, Dutchess, whom her husband used to call Suzie but for some reason started calling Dutchess some time ago.  I say I’d like some eggs and she says, "12 for 2 or 18 for 3?" This is when I know I’m dealing with the type of rural person I grew up with, and love. She is practical and resourceful, and beats to her own drum. No $7-a-dozen-eggs-because-the-market-will-bear-it on this farm. Barbara simply sells the extra eggs she and her husband can’t eat. She’s washed them, she says, but can’t guarantee them against salmonella. I take my chances.  They are the most perfect eggs I’ve laid my eyes on in a while.

I ask about the tomato starts, which she propagates herself. One in particular caught my eye, 'Bonny Best'. I ask her about it and she tells me that when she first moved to this land in 1973 there was an old man in Verboort growing this one. She loved it and has grown it ever since. 

When all was said and done, I’d been set back $9 and had a truck full of diverse farm treasures— a fuzzy leaved peppermint scented geranium, eighteen beautiful multicolored eggs, 'Bonny Best', and a sprouting garlic bulb and three stalks of lovage that she threw in, because I liked them, and she is generous. But best of all, she gave me wise words. When I expressed my appreciation for her green thumb, she said: "When we are children, we start with just a tiny sprout in a window sill. And when we are old, we might have a small potted geranium on the table in the retirement home. And, in between, well, we get to do this."

This weekend, I lived up the in-between. Life is short and growing is long, and so I went a little crazy in my barely 400 square foot plot of land. Here is what I planted:

Big Leaf Cilantro, Carrots, Asparagus Bean (Dow Gauk-Yard Long Bean), Mideast Prolific Cucumber, Blue Lake and Treviso bush beans, Jalepeño Pepper, Sweet Marconi Pepper, Demon Hot Thai Pepper, that garlic bulb Barbara gave me, onion sets that I found on the community table at the garden, Italian shell beans given to me by a friend that are rumored to be the same ones that Ayers Creek grows, an insectory mix by Wild Garden Seed,  and of course, old man Verboort’s 'Bonny Best'. 

Pillowy bliss

Tonight, I was in a rush to get home. Some people have children or dogs that they rush home to care for. Others have important emails to send, papers to write or chores to do. Me, I rushed home to tend to four cups of day-old homemade ricotta. 

At the time of making the ricotta, I thought it would be easy to consume the delicious treat within the three day time frame advised by the recipe. This has turned out not to be the case. This is surely not a problem for those who practice menu planning, which is something I am always saying I should do. But the reality for me is that experimenting in the kitchen usually comes from a visceral, often impulsive, place. I feel pulled to made a specific item, but not necessarily to place it in the broader context of a menu. This spontaneity is fun for a moment. But, what starts as a leisurely and enjoyable pursuit quickly becomes a time bomb in the fridge. What was once a treasure to be savored, is suddenly a left over with a short shelf life, demanding attention.

So, in an attempt to address my ricotta onus, we made ricotta gnocchi. But first I had to run down the street to my friend’s house to gather eggs from her chickens for the recipe. In return, I left her a pound of fresh ricotta, with stern instructions to consume it right away, essentially passing along the onus. Some friend. Eggs in hand, I headed home to make the dough. 

As commanded by the Cooks Illustrated recipe, I let the ricotta drain until it was quite dry, toasted bread crumbs until they were a perfect golden brown, mixed up the dough, rolled it out with a delicate hand, cut perfect gnocchi pillows from it, and plopped them into a pot of simmering water. One by one, they gently floated to the water’s surface. After a couple of minutes simmering on the surface,  Tom removed them to a pan of warm pesto sauce he’d made from last year’s frozen pesto. Along with the gnocchi, we ate fresh asparagus and radishes from the garden. 

We just finished eating it about 45 minutes ago. Late, to be sure. But who cares? We are just grateful to have lives that allow us the luxury of being rushed by ricotta. 

Some things old and lost

You can only keep a farm girl inside, working on a computer, for so long. In fact, I’d argue, that you really shouldn’t keep any person inside doing such a thing for too long. My ability to remain engaged in an activity that involves little more than moving my fingers across a keyboard and eyes across a screen, is thankfully, quite limited. Eventually, I go mad. 

This week, when my madness surfaced, it did so in the form of four cups of homemade ricotta cheese, four loaves of homemade bread, three batches of homemade scones, a few hours puttering in the garden, and time spent admiring a bunch of afghan squares my great grandmother had knit a long time ago, but that never made it into a quilt. 

It perplexes me to no end that so many tangible, useful and beautiful activities are no longer a part of our common experience. We have so willingly given our time and attention over to cold, inhuman objects and made-up activities that give us little benefit in return.  And so, at my breaking point this weekend, I vowed to not lose sight of what feels real. The type of things people might have once done because they had to in order to survive. The type of things my cat and plants still do: get some sun, eat food, drink water, and play. 

I’m going to get these things back.

May Day harvest

Yesterday we ate our first meal from the garden. Placing a big bowl of radishes, young mustard, kale, arugula, turnip and radish greens, and raab sprouts (from that kitchen window planter box) at the table was like making room at the table for an old friend who’d been gone for too long. I couldn’t wait to dig in, but also found myself apprehensive. Would everything taste the way I’d remembered? Would the greens be different this year than last? Would I fall in love all over again with these vegetables, or decide it was all a waste of time?

With our salad we ate a substantial heap of pasta topped with pesto that I’d frozen in ice cube trays and popped into freezer bags last summer. And although I’m grateful to be able to enjoy pesto all winter and spring, fresh pesto is now in sight and I couldn’t be happier. 

Spring meals are complex experiences. First, they are full of anticipation for the flavors that have been absent during winter’s long reign. Then, with the first bite of radish, anticipation gives way to satisfying relief. Spring also presents a merging of flavors, young greens mingling with preserved foods that hark back to last summer’s warmer, drier days. Mostly though, spring reminds us to trust this natural system. Each plump pea pod reminds us that tomatoes will also soon fruit, that beans will overcome the harassment of slugs and grow tall, and that despite any doubt we might have, renewal is inevitable. The cycle persists.