Fermenting a New Culture – Has Begun!

The news from Occupy Wall Street is BIG – the country is in ferment, and yes – we are fermenting a new culture in many ways!  Slow Food is one way we can all participate even if we can’t drive to Washington, New York…SF…

WE CAN ALL Stop shopping at Corporate stores, stop eating corporate food, it is all owned by the same guys & their brothers, the ones that brought us loss of jobs, loss of our homes, loss of our monetary independence.  It makes dollars & sense, it puts money back in the local community, it is sustainable.

It-is-all-connected… & the destination for any continuing abuse of the body politic & your body, temple of our spirit – is sickness in community & in health.

What I am saying is we start spending our precious dollars in our own community, buy locally grown food, go to the Farmer’s Market, make a statement with our pocketbooks – we will feel good about it & will feel better physically too!

I spent the last few days creating and presenting a workshop on Fermentation, the live food chemistry kind.  It fits in with my political rant here as you have let me say – Fermentation of simple, garden grown, local food gives many health benefits & helps stretch inexpensive food dollars, as well as using produce from field & garden.  It keeps us out of the stores & helps us gather some “stores” of REAL FOOD.

We all loved the experience of making sauerkraut together, finding tastes that are new yet delightful & generally getting more deeply informed around the topics of yogurt, cheese, sauerkraut, vinegar, kombucha & sourdough.  You can buy all these things or you can make them at a fraction of the cost, finding many ingredients in your locally owned farm stand or market. I encourage you to find such a class in your area or make one happen, it is about LIVE Food, Bio-available nutrients, Happy enzymes & intestines…all good stuff.   I give thanks to my students who trusted me to guide them into the shallow waters of Live Fermentation…simple cottage ferments, political ferments…  may we all find our way to the middle of the river, where deeper information resides, and a lifetime of experimentation brings new thoughts to the mix!

Certainly discovering the vast stores of knowledge at Sandor Katz’s website will be a beginning no Fermenter will regret.

And, oh yes – it is very political to grow & eat your own food, or get raw milk from a farmer down the road, let’s take that to the streets too!

SUMMER COTTAGE CHICKEN BROTH & SOUP

Rainy Day – the day after an August Family Gathering with lots of leftovers in the fridge…what to do with it all?  I am still trying to eat my way through this food before it is time to close the cottage & go back to California…it will be so sad to leave this beautiful place – Michigan has the kind of puffy white clouds that romantic dreams are made of!!!  I could lie on a float & look up at them for hours…  That is – except that there are so many good books to read while laying in a deck chair & drinking sun tea made from our waterside mint patch.

It is a bit of heaven here…so much wildlife…there are even two swans that cruise the lake at all times looking Fairy Tale-ish. They come around our shore & into our water lilies at about 9am to feed…so beautiful!  Sometimes I hear a loon in the early morning & we saw it yesterday too; lots of Canadian Geese honking & flying past.  As to edible fowl, I am rooted in the modern agricultural 21^st Century & will leave the wild birds to themselves as we eat chickens raised for the purpose.

I have eaten really well this trip.  A far cry from the days when I brought a lot of my own food from California – raw sunflower seeds, brown rice & such as it was very difficult to make a trip into Kalamazoo where there was a great Coop.  The local market seemed to have only browning heads of iceburg lettuce, some soft red delicious apples, and bananas. Nowadays , it seems that every small town market has rice crackers, organic butter, fruit & lettuce.

Truth is – Great fresh & seasonal local foods have always been available during a Michigan summer – my childhood memories include heaps of corn on the cob & fresh tomatoes in August, peas by the bowlful & lots of squash.  August was always a healthy food month for us.  We tired ourselves out with canning many quarts of peaches, tomatoes, grape juice, and made jams and pickles.  I learned to make sauerkraut with my neighbor too.  The root cellar was packed by the time I started school, and could take a break from being my mom’s “peeler & cutter-upper”

So – back to the barbeque leftovers of yesterday… let’s make some bone broth & soup!

Got your leftover chicken bits?

Making soup stock from those old bones & skin…so good for you too!  The vinegar breaks down the bones into Calcium, releases the nutrient in the marrow. And, all of that “gristle” is also melted & becomes liquid in the hot broth.  Bone Broth is medicine food – a healthy builder of bones & ligament for all of us.

Take the edible meat off of that ole chicken whether baked or BBQ’ed,

Add all the bones, skin & gristle into a pot of water & boil for several hours with any herbs you have – thyme, bay leaf, sage, rosemary.  If you have a bit of wine or vinegar or even some Italian Dressing, add a big spoonful of that too.

Strain out the bones & bits, then add cut up vegetables to the broth…

We still had sliced onion & ripe red tomatoes from the hamburger fixin’s, so they went in.

I also had 4 ears of boiled fresh corn on the cob waiting to be used up, as well as a heap of baked potatoes, sliced summer squash, cut up yellow peppers, and some other crudités that didn’t make it into anyone’s salad or sandwich.  Add a handful of celery, carrots, garlic, if you have it.  Cook it all until tender & add your meat back in.  Salt & pepper to taste.   This soup is so fresh & good!   Mine came out very much like a stew from so many veggies added.  Yours will be a unique reminder of the party you just had.  Toasted Hamburger or Hot Dog Buns are almost as good as French bread with this Summer Cottage soup of the day.

Fresh and Local – it was ‘just how things were’

An early relationship with food is something we can all rely on. Certainly memories are selective, and in my case a telling reminder that ‘we are what we remember we ate’…

Fresh and local milk & meat were on the table almost every day – even though fresh vegetables were not really available most of the year in Michigan in the 1950’s. But, in summer we were happily eating a lot of it!

Summer meant fresh food and sometimes it was grown in our backyard or from a garden just outside of town. We had a raspberry patch, a few tomato plants & plenty of rhubarb behind the garage. A black walnut tree by the driveway never failed to give us its strangely green fruit.

My grandparents were farm folk and appreciated fresh eggs. Grandma got them from Aunt Esther whenever she could. Grandpa fished almost daily for pan fish – bluegills, perch, sunfish, bass in Wall Lake where I remember the food being particularly great after a day of swimming & outdoor play. Once we crossed the lake on a boat to Aunt Nonie’s cottage where we picked blackberries & huckleberries too. The roads were full of summer farm stands with corn and squash. It was almost daily that dinners were centered on corn on the cob with plenty of butter and salt. Everything else on the menu from those meals has faded from memory, but the taste of fresh corn lingers in my primal brain.

We loved the blueberries, corn & tomatoes from the farm stands, and ate our way through August and on into September when at some point we noticed that the table was now set with canned beans or peas with a side of iceberg lettuce. Phooey!

I remember long hours helping my mother to can peaches, pears, and tomatoes on  hot August afternoons. I sat on the picnic bench & cut, peeled, lifted skins & pits out so that she could make the wonderful jeweled rows of canned fruit that we relied on during those Michigan winters. One year we made grape juice & the deep purple contrasted beautifully with the golden pears & red spaghetti sauce on the shelf in the root cellar. We drank that juice many a Sunday night with our popcorn as we watched the Ed Sullivan show or Disney. No coke or chips were ever in the house and this was a treat indeed!

Now that I think about it- almost all of our sweets were homemade except for ice cream Sunday drives or penny candy bought on trips to Grandma Bogner’s house. Some special Sundays we made fudge with black walnuts that my sister & I cracked using a hammer on the basement floor. They were ready once the fleshy green hulls had blackened and fallen off while being driven over & pushed into the dirt driveway.

One year mom won a prize at the Diamond’s Hatchery where she bought her eggs & chicken. One hundred baby chicks… They were so cute, and noisy! She enterprisingly traded them to a friendly farmer for the prize of a dozen full grown hens. I remember dropping off the chicks into their heated house lined with straw & fitted with water cans & feed cans. The next thing I remember is a line of chickens hanging upside down from the clothesline dripping blood onto the backyard grass. It was a pretty scary sight, so near to my swing set, and I have conveniently forgotten when or how we ate those birds. They entered the food chain and that was it.  Most of us have forgotten the relationship between our food and its death or sacrifice.  Whether a carrot or a chicken, something ended its life cycle for our health & life.  Better that I should experience this chicken harvest again soon, than to forget about this.

More on my early food memories: The milkman delivered quarts of whole milk in glass bottles into the insulated box on our front porch on an almost daily basis. He mysteriously arrived before I was up even on the coldest of winter nights. In our cold Michigan winters, the milk would often freeze in a relatively short time and push the little cardboard tops up. Some mornings, you would find a small tower of frozen milk protruding from the bottle. That little top hat of cream rising out of the top of the bottle was so fun to see. My dad always claimed that for his coffee, and would drink it black once the cream was gone. My mom was proud of her absolutely clean empties that she would put back in the box. Those bottles were re-used so many times, I wonder how many, and where are they now? The milk was processed in a small plant just a few blocks from home, and there were lines of big steel cans sitting on a metal conveyor for years after it closed down, until  housewives started collecting them to paint on, I guess.

Yes, I see now that we ate local food all the time, but it wasn’t a bragging point – it was just how things were. More memories coming soon!Things like riding in the wheat harvesting wagon & making bread & sauerkraut…

fixed it myself~!

HEY – A Quiet moment can produce wondrous results…
I was a lucky shopper at a recent Healdsburg Estate sale & carried out a genuine 1955 Kitchen Aid – Model 3C. It is a beauty & an almost solid metal appliance – made to whip cream, beat eggs, mix cake batter, even make mayonnaise – back in the day when things were built to last forever.
After cleaning it up & admiring it on my vintage kitchen counter, we got around to using it for some whipped cream. The first few moments of service seemed as I remembered just before I put my money down in that original kitchen in Healdsburg …a nice starter speed, then speeding up as I took the dial to a higher setting. We turned it off, added some honey & vanilla – & then it just didn’t act right! The speed seemed variable & unrelated to the setting…oh, darn! Had I just bought yet another thing destined for the landfill? Hmm, maybe I could start a restaurant & put this in the window? Maybe Laurel will do the bakery & SHE can put it in the window?…Thoughts running rampant – until the next day – I took a quiet moment & instead of cleaning, gardening, reading email – I did a thing unusual for me – I decided to try & fix the darn thing!

Turns out it has a nice & tidy simple screw that allows you to open the beater mechanism – which was simply a simple hollow area surrounded by a cog & filled with wadding, some really OLD black grease & a heck of a lot of old cake batter!
A few moments later after dropping the important & irreplaceable screw thingie only once before containing it into a jar lid – I proceeded to clean the area out, apply sewing machine oil to all moving parts & then – deciding for expert advice – I called RJ for some thick grease. Turns out most guys have a grease gun around just for such uses…imagine that!  The next day it was brought over & together we determined how much grease to put into the fairly clean wadding, (no, I didn’t change the wadding although it looked vaguely familiar but was not really on my list of things to shop for right now) into the hollow areas plus a little onto the cogs in both parts of the machine works. A few minutes later I was back in business with the Kitchen Aid humming properly at every speed. Now, that is a story that needs to be repeated…
1- I did it almost by myself – using woman’s intuition & a lifetime of some experience with small machines (sewing machine, bike)
2- This older model appliance is made of parts intended to be serviced!  That is the real lesson of this tale – we need to find ways to make things again that aren’t meant to be dumped in a year & a day…
3- And…always good to have a grease gun around with some nice fresh light colored real good grease.
4- Must take quiet moments to make life happier & relieve upsets over small things…
5- Got to bake more, or get right person to bake using old yet happily working mixer appliance.
6- Keep RJ around for grease & other great reasons…

See ya in the kitchen,
Annie

Garden Carrot Ginger Soup!

Today we had a cool afternoon Garden Party in our Gazebo…sweet shady location -

eating cold carrot soup, fresh salads with iced tea, fruit & cookies!

(Here are some views of our food & garden)

You can enjoy a 3 minute garden party yourself – A trip to the Local Produce market & a recipe for Carrot Ginger Soup in 25 minutes – now, how easy is that? There are lost of ways to make carrot soup – raw, complex, avocado based, chicken stock based…well, I usually make up my own using what I have on hand.

Check out this video on Youtube- the 3 minutes is fun & will give you an idea for dinner!…oh, yes -  I substitute raw goat milk for the cream because that is even more local for me…or try coconut milk if you are a vegan – maybe not local, but very good for you  & tasty too!

Buy some carrots at your local market or grow some! 

Ginger…well, that is actually possible to grow in a greenhouse or potted plant…but, might be one of those “trade items” we will have to import…enjoy the flavors, good tasting & good for ya!

Buying Organic Eggs – what to know…

What to Know Before You Buy Organic Eggs at the Grocery Store

One of our favorite breakfasts is Local Fram Eggs..scrambled with lots of garlic & fresh garden greens, especially Dino Kale or Spinach.  Some times – if I had made Goat Cheese, we add that too!  I know that breakfast lasts for me most all morning & into the afternoon if I am busy & forget lunch until late…

I love buying my eggs from a neighbor or friend & knowing how they were handled & what life the chickens had.  I have contemplated geting some chickens, but adding yet another daily task on our little homestead brings resistance…so, local eggs = local economy!

Eggs are one of the most beneficial foods you can eat, and it’s a shame they’ve been vilified for so long in the United States. In the U. S., roughly 280 million birds give us about 75 billion eggs per year, which is about 10 percent of the world supply.

But not all eggs are created equal.

Here’s what Dr Mercola’s site has to say about all of this – in detail…

Eggs from truly organic, free-range chickens are FAR less likely to contain dangerous bacteria such as salmonella, and their nutrient content is also much higher than commercially raised eggs. The dramatically superior nutrient levels are most likely the result of the differences in diet between free ranging, pastured hens and commercially farmed hens.

If you are eating organically, then you have learned how important the diet and care of an animal is to the quality of its meat, and in this case, their eggs. But have you ever thought about what happens to these eggs AFTER they are collected?

You would think that organic eggs would be your best choice when picking them up at the grocery store. However, most states have laws that make them illegal unless all the eggs that are sold commercially are processed in a way that could damage them.

Some states require that all eggs receive a chlorine bath and mineral oil coating before they are nestled into their cartons.

There are vast differences in how eggs are processed and handled, even under the “certified organic” label.

As it turns out, what happens outside the shell is as important as what happens inside the shell, and that is the focus of this report.

Your Egg’s Journey from Hen to Market

Ideally, eggs should be processed the day after they are laid. The USDA requires processing within 30 days of lay. High quality eggs are processed within seven days of lay.

Egg processing involves the following six steps:

1. Egg collecting

2. Cooling

3. Cleaning/Disinfecting

4. Candling (a measure for assessing the interior quality of the eggs whereby eggs are held up in front of a high-intensity light and visually examined; among other problems, cracks can be identified that necessitate disposal of the egg)

5. Grading

6. Packing/Labeling

It is the cleaning process that you as a consumer should be aware of, because in this step, chemicals and contaminants may be introduced that compromise your eggs’ quality.

Why Eggshells are Like Your Skin

Did you know that, like your skin, eggshells are actually a porous membrane rather than an impermeable barrier?

An eggshell contains approximately 7,500 pores or openings. The outer surface is covered with a waxy cuticle (called the bloom when on a chicken egg), sealing the egg and helping prevent bacteria from entering.

Gases are transferred and moisture is lost through these pores.

When moisture is lost, carbon dioxide is also lost, speeding up the breakdown of the egg.[i] Loss of carbon dioxide causes the egg’s pH to increase, which results in thinning of the albumen.

Why is this important?

Because commercial processing regularly destroys this protective cuticle.

As it turns out, it is standard industry practice to wash chicken eggs. Depending on the method of washing, the cuticle can be easily damaged, which leaves your eggs vulnerable to contamination and faster spoilage. The egg industry knows this, so to replace what Mother Nature put there for good reason, they must coat the egg with something—often mineral oil. It’s akin to adding preservatives to processed foods.

Not only is mineral oil a non-natural agent, but it’s a petroleum product that was never intended for you to eat.

Some egg producers use vegetable oil as a more natural alternative.

If you are a culinary talent, you might be surprised to hear that using eggs whose shells were oiled will prevent those “stiff peaks” from happening, because some percentage of the oil seeps into the egg white.

Not all eggs undergo oiling, but many larger producers do, particularly if they are preparing their eggs for long-distance shipment and/or storage.

According to the “incredible edible egg[ii]” website, about 10 percent of all eggs are oiled. I could find no statistic about what percentage of eggs are cleaned in a way that their cuticle has been wiped out, but I suspect it is much higher than 10 percent.

Like your skin, what’s put ON your egg goes INTO your egg. Meaning, whatever the eggshell comes into contact with can cross over this semi-permeable membrane and end up in your scrambled eggs, from chlorine to mineral oil to dish soap — to salmonella.

Your Organic Eggs May Be Chlorinated or Rinsed in Lye

According to A Guide to On-Farm Processing for Organic Producers: Table Eggs[iii], detergents and other chemicals used for “wet cleaning” eggs must either be non-synthetic or among the allowed synthetics on the National List of allowed non-agricultural substances (205.603 of the National Organic Standard).

These synthetics include:

• Chlorine (sodium hypochlorate)

• Potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide (lye)

• Sodium carbonate

• Ozone

• Hydrogen peroxide

• Peracetic acid (peroxyacetic acid) — a mixture of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide

These agents serve mostly as sanitizers, rather than washing agents.

If chlorine is used at levels over 4 ppm, it must be followed with a clean water rinse at no more than 4 ppm residual levels. Chlorine itself is relatively benign and breaks down to chloride in your body — which is not much different from the chloride ion in table salt.

However, chlorine can interact with organic materials to form highly toxic compounds called DBPs (Disinfection Byproducts), which can be carcinogenic and mutagenic. And eggs are an “organic material,” which bears the question of what chemical interactions are occurring in a chlorinated egg that have yet to be discovered?

Instead of harsh chemicals, the guide cited above4 recommends cleaning eggs with plain vinegar (mixed with 3 parts water) because it is non-synthetic and quite effective at removing both bacteria and stains on the eggshells (which some people find objectionable).

Some farmers report rinsing eggs very quickly in water, just to dislodge any debris, and believe this is adequate. Others use a dry brushing process — no liquids at all — just a brush, sandpaper, or a loofah sponge.

This dry brushing technique is highly recommended for small producers.

If eggs are rinsed in water, it is very important that the wash water be about 20 degrees warmer than the eggs, and at least 90 degrees F, but not more than 40 degrees above the eggs’ temperature because of the risk of thermal cracking. This proper temperature gradient encourages the contents of the egg to swell and push the dirt out of the pores.

If the water is too cold relative to the egg, the egg can literally “suck in” the washing solution — along with the bacteria in it. Water exposure should be as brief as possible to minimize the potential for contamination, and the eggs dried immediately.

Mineral oil is not listed in the National List of allowed substances.

I think it is unlikely that an organic farmer would choose to use mineral oil, but the regulations are so variable from state to state, and the national guidelines so nebulous, that there is lots of wiggle room.

Scrambled Federal and State Regulations on Eggs

There are different federal and state regulations for egg farmers, depending on what the eggs are intended for.

Eggs that are going to be used in egg products (i.e., those that will be cracked and emptied) are subjected to one set of regulations, and eggs that are sold as “table eggs” or “shell eggs,” which are sold fresh and whole “in the shell,” are subject to another set of regulations.

And then there are state regulations, in addition to federal regulations.

In 1970, Congress passed the Egg Products Inspection Act (administered by the USDA) to ensure that eggs and egg products are safe for consumption. This act imposes specific inspection requirements for both shell eggs and egg products for anyone who sells eggs to retailers (grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, etc.).

In 1972, on-site inspections of all shell egg producers became required quarterly. However, any producer with a flock of less than 3,000 birds is EXEMPT from this act.

Every state has its own specific egg laws, which makes it more complicated to figure out what process your eggs have gone through. Although the USDA does not allow immersion washing (allowing eggs to soak in water), most small producers are not subject to those restrictions.

And most state egg laws do not specify washing methods.

For an extensive list of egg regulatory agencies, you can refer to this USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service “fact sheet.”

Egg Cleaners and Sanitizers

According to the USDA’s publication “Guidance for Shell Egg Cleaners and Sanitizers”[iv]:

“Compounds used to wash and destain shell eggs are potential food additives. Therefore, they are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Unfortunately, FDA does not have any published regulations dealing with shell egg cleaning and destaining compounds.”

Leaves it wide open, doesn’t it?

The publication goes on to give some guidelines for egg cleaning chemicals, basically instructing farmers to use substances that are “GRAS” (Generally Recognized as Safe), but these substances are not limited in any way.

Since organic egg producers are interested in producing high-quality eggs, many of them—especially small, local farming operations—have implemented gentle washing methods that don’t compromise the cuticle.

Interestingly, in Europe, Grade A eggs are not washed. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service[v]:

“This practice is a result of research done in the early 1900s that indicated washing eggs before storage resulted in unpredictable and sometimes deleterious results. However, the length of wash time, cleanliness and temperature of the water and the proper use of sanitizers varied widely in these studies.

Older egg production books do not recommend washing eggs at all. In the past, it was important to protect the cuticle because refrigeration was not always possible.”

To Refrigerate or Not to Refrigerate

Despite what you’ve heard, eggs that are fresh and have an intact cuticle do not need to be refrigerated, as long as you are going to consume them within a relatively short period of time.

In other countries, including most of Europe, eggs are frequently not refrigerated.

In the U.S., refrigeration of eggs became the cultural norm when mass production caused eggs to travel long distances and sit in storage for weeks to months before arriving at your superstore. The general lack of cleanliness of factory farms has increased the likelihood that your eggs have come into contact with pathogens, amplifying the need for disinfection and refrigeration.

Not only that, but as a culture, we are rather “germ phobic” here in the U.S., compared to other countries.

So, IF your eggs are very fresh, and IF their cuticle is intact, you do not have to refrigerate them. According to Hilary Thesmar, director of the American Egg Board’s Egg Safety Center[vi]:

“The bottom line is shelf life. The shelf life for an unrefrigerated egg is 7 to 10 days and for refrigerated, it’s 30 to 45 days. A good rule of thumb is one day at room temperature is equal to one week under refrigeration.”

Eggs purchased from grocery stores are typically already three weeks old, or older. USDA certified eggs must have a pack date on the carton, and a sell-by date. Realize that the eggs were often laid many days prior to the pack date.

For cracking the egg carton dates code, click here.

For more information about how to maximize the health benefits of your eggs, please review my earlier article.

Hello, Big Farma

About 95 percent of the eggs produced in the U.S. come from gigantic egg factories housing millions of hens under one roof.

According to the American Egg Board:

• Prior to World War II, most egg production came from farm flocks of less than 400 hens. By the early 1960s, technological innovations caused a shift from small farms to huge commercial operations.

• There are currently about 245 egg companies with flocks of 75,000 or more.

• Of these 245 companies, 60 have at least one million laying hens, and 12 have more than 5 million hens.

You can only imagine how difficult — if not impossible — it is to keep 5 million hens healthy and happy, under one roof… a clucking nightmare!

This is just another reason you should buy from your local organic farmer.

According to Robert Plamondon’s Poultry Pages[vii], the most common sources of dirty eggs are the following:

• Hens who sleep and poop in the nest boxes

• Hens who enter the nests with muddy feet

• Broken eggs (from insufficient nest litter, or too many hens jammed together)

• Traffic (too many hens coming and going in a small area)

It is much easier to produce clean eggs than to clean dirty eggs.

Preventing dirty eggs is best done through better management of the hens and their nesting spaces, which greatly reduces the need for egg cleaning in the first place.

As the guide states, “Disease prevention in organic systems starts with clean birds.” Your egg farmer should be paying attention to proper nutrition, clean water, adequate housing space, and good ventilation to reduce stress on the hens and support their immunity.

Crowded conditions in factory farms are a major reason why so many commercial eggs have to be bathed in caustic chemicals in order to be “safe” for you to eat!

How Can You Guarantee Clean, Fresh Eggs?

So, how can you tell if your eggs have been washed in chlorine or lye, or in some other chemical, or coated with mineral oil?

You certainly can’t tell by looking at them.

The only way to know if your eggs have been washed or oiled (and using what agents) is to ask the producer — and the only way to do that is to buy from small local farmers you have direct contact with.

It is important to know where your food comes from. And if you don’t ask, they won’t tell you.

The key here is to buy your eggs locally. About the only time I purchase eggs from the store is when I am travelling or for some reason I miss my local egg pickup.

But finding high quality organic eggs locally is FAR easier than finding raw milk as virtually every rural area has individuals with chickens. If you live in an urban area visiting the local health food stores is typically the quickest route to finding the high quality local egg sources.

Farmers markets are another great way to meet the people who produce your food. With face-to-face contact, you can get your questions answered and know exactly what you’re buying. Better yet, visit the farm — ask for a tour. If they have nothing to hide, they should be eager to show you their operation.

Remember, clean and happy chickens lead to healthy eggs.

[i] “Fresh Farm Eggs—Marketing and Regulations” (Agricultural and Natural Resources Fact Sheet #511), Washington State University Cooperative Extension for King County http://king.wsu.edu/foodandfarms/documents/eggfsfnl.pdf

[ii] American Egg Board (AEB) http://www.incredibleegg.org/

[iii] Fanatico, A and Keupper G. “A Guide to on-farm processing for organic producers: Table eggs”

[iv] “Guidance for shell egg cleaners and sanitizers,” USDA Regulations and Policies, Food Safety and Inspection Service

[v] Fanatico A. and Conner B. (2009) “Small-scale egg handling,” National Sustainable Agricultural Service (ATTRA Publication #IP348/346)

[vi] “Storing eggs differs in Europe, America” (May 6, 2009)

[vii] Plamondon R. “Egg quality/egg washing”

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/06/08/why-you-dont-want-to-buy-organic-eggs-at-the-grocery-store-.aspx

JAMIE MAKES A HOME VISIT

Just when you thought it was safe to eat some doughnuts  & chips…Jamie Oliver shows up & puts it ALL on the table!  See it at this link –

!Jamie Oliver – Grassroots

Time magazine has some good thoughts on it all too…

There are lots of ideas on how to fool ourselves into eating less – or better…
Even after eating a large meal, we often “make room” for dessert, because a desire for sweets hasn’t been satisfied. Ann Gaba, a registered dietitian at New York Presbyterian Hospital, says that sometimes all it takes is a bit of fruit in a salad during a meal to curb a sugar craving.

Jamie’s Food Revolution

Jamie Oliver is at it – again..this time in the USA…change the food, change the future…

See it on Hulu…just 5 minutes to get a glimpse of how we can all help!

http://www.hulu.com/watch/134896/jamie-olivers-food-revolution-5-things-you-need-to-know

Beekeeper’s Delight -Stolen Gold – Honey

The Beekeeper’s Delight…Springtime Flowing Liquid Amber!

Today I harvested a top box from 2 of my neighborhood hives… & they each were about 70% full of honey.   It is a dark amber capped honey from …when?  Last fall?

The 4 hives are all healthy & strong – lots of foragers going in with an orange pollen.  I am glad for that, as many other hives have been lost this year…not sure of the percentage, but each loss is a blow to the health of honeybees & the hopes for our pollinated future.

Pictures of the rogue comb from one box that was left with a large open area (4 frames missing) in the center – see how they started to make comb in the other direction – nicely spaced & very orderly in some places.

On another frame, the comb got completely out of hand – looks like comb/cells on top of other cells, till it hung down dangerously & filled the available space…a surrealist sculpture – created in community!  We keepers have a job to do – to help the hive by keeping “bee space” for them so that they are not obliged to fill the spaces with rogue comb which must be hard to navigate on an hourly basis.  It takes a few minutes & focused intent in our buzzy lives… you could say -  Bee conscious!

My latest tidy trick…I used the “Bee Quick” natural oils with a fume board to move those girls down the box so that when I took the box off, it was almost entirely empty & could be quickly & easily de-framed into a plastic bin with lid.  I laid the fume board on the top of the open tub while I worked the frames & was pleased that no bees found the opening.  No more hive-side stress of brushing off the bees, handling & scraping frames into a bucket  while angry bees buzz around…of course, I now need to open the hive again tomorrow to replace those dripping frames & their super.  It is SO worth it!

I am cleaning out older honey & messy old comb to make room for the fresh seasonal crop – it is better for them & a bonus for those of us who value this golden treasure

After the hot work of harvesting, I got the chance to present a little home schooling to the “Blue House Gang” as I scraped the honey from the foundation in the safety of my kitchen.   We all admired the shape of the wax cells, ate some chewy comb honey, put a couple of bees safely outdoors, & most of all – watched the rich golden sticky stuff fall gracefully & deliciously from my spatula into the strainer – it was pure magic to see for the first time!

And now?

Honey is still slowly dripping fro the top strainer inside my big pot, so – before bed I will pour it into jars & get to watch the amber golden flow one more time!

Bees Here Now,

Annie

PS Saint Pat’s Day – and yes, I am wearing green…from top to bottom!

SIMMERING SQUASH in my Crock Pot

Simmering Squash in my Crock Pot

LAST CHANCE WINTER SQUASH SOUP

How to eat what you have on hand…
End of winter finds me cleaning out the pantry just like my great gramma did – and indeed – finding a small box of our homegrown butternut squash.  They are all so tiny (4 inches long) & in fact – have no seeds … these little babies were the ones I grew in my only-slightly-successful circle bed of the Three Sisters…beans, squash & corn, the ancient inter-planted companion staple foods for simple nutrition & long storage. Mostly I struck out in that cute little circle bed – no beans to pick, a dozen small, short ears of corn & these few puny squash. Ok – I did have one fabulous and huge squash, but she seemed out of place with the others…

The bed was a converted hard pan walkway in partial shade that I dressed with compost & turned, so maybe I shouldn’t feel too bad – but, still – wished I could have eaten a lot of lovely sweet corn last year!! I won’t be trying corn again with my shade problems & space issues…look out Farmer’s Market!

Back to the cooking…

So, easy to make a dinner with them – after breakfast – as Richard is doing the dishes, I just cut them up slightly, clean out the centers & pop into a slow cooker for a few hours of slow steaming.  By afternoon they are cooked up and soft.  If you are at work all day, you can leave them as long as you need, it won’t hurt the result.

Dinner is almost ready when you walk in the door – 5 minutes to chop one large onion – sautéed until soft in olive oil, then add a scoop of Thai spicy sauce (you could just use Italian seasoning or even simply salt & pepper to taste) and use your handy stick blender right in the crock pot…or transfer everything to a jar blender & give it a whirl!  Leave chinks of squash & onion for texture.  This delicious & hearty soup dish has no protein, but is a perfect serving of slow burning carbs, with very little but high quality fat calories from the olive oil.  With an addition of a cold bean or chicken salad, it is a simple yet balanced meal for the busy cook and her(his) family!

I love squash & pumpkin soups all winter long, and am sad to see the last of them go with the end of these lovely little baby squash from my pantry.

So – DO try making a simple squash soup before it is too late!  Or, plant some of those seeds & by September you’ll be eating this yummy vegetable again… Seeds from my biggest squash are already to sow & start in the  “greenhouse that is becoming”…now, that is an exciting thought!  The miracle of the seed & the harvest, the on-going cycle of nature & the seasons…seed to squash to seed to squash to seed…

Blessings on your Planting and Eating,

MORE yummy squash planted soon – started in my own greenhouse…now, that is exciting & VERY LOCAL!

-Annie

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