The Basics of Home Fermentation

Let’s Ferment a New Local Culture !

…creating probiotics from the orchard, field and garden…

Saturday, October 1^st, 2011 -10am to 2pm

Little Lake Grange  Kitchen

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An introduction to several delicious and easy ferments:

Vinegar – Make your own vinegar from this year’s “Bad Apples” – take home a vinegar “Mother”

Yogurt – Easy to make from Raw or Pasteurized Milk & a simple starter

Cottage Cheese “Curds & Whey” – simple and nutritious

Sourdough starters and breads – how to make your own starter & take home a starter

Sauerkraut– A tasty & health giving condiment from cabbage & veggies

Kombucha – Sparkling “Health Beer” from common wild & garden herbs for health & well being.

It’s hard to imagine life without refrigeration, but humans have been preserving and preparing foods without refrigeration for eons.  Fermenting vegetables, dairy, and fruit preserves them through the winter until the next harvest. But even more importantly, fermentation allows critical organisms to colonize in our food and our gut, protecting us and balancing our ecology and health. We can’t maintain health without our symbiotic organisms and bacteria. So even if you can’t manage to grow food where you live, you can still ferment foods and populate your gut with their bounty.  Let us learn yet another way to restore our health and ourselves by preserving & using local seasonal foods.  We will focus on Vinegar since it is the season to use those juicy apples, grapes & pears, but cabbage is ready to harvest too!  Let’s get started creating a new culture right at home with our healthy local foods.  Sourdough starters are provided by several local “Sourdough Personalities”.

Natural fermentation precedes human history, it happens by accident when the conditions are right for ripe fruit to slowly age in the heat of summer, or when honey and water mix in warm weather. Since ancient times, humans have been controlling the fermentation process. Thusly humans have been preserving foods without refrigeration for eons. Fermenting vegetables, dairy, and fruit preserves them through the winter until the next harvest. But even more importantly, fermentation allows critical organisms to colonize in our food and our gut, protecting us and balancing our ecology and health.

Every successful & healthy indigenous culture appears to use some form of fermented food in their daily diet.  Dr. Weston A. Price studied these surviving cultures & found that the Austrians have their yogurt & sauerkraut, the Russians make their yogurt, the Swiss their Sourdough Rye, the Japanese – Miso, Natto.  The Chinese eat Taosi fermented beans, Africans eat soured grain breads in many places.   There are also many cultural fermented drinks, beyond the wines & beer we are familiar with.

Lactic acid preserves food by inhibiting putrefying bacteria. This organic acid is produced by a beneficial bacterium present on the surface of all plants and animals – even our own skin! Traditional cuisines from around the world prized lactofermented foods and beverages for their medicinal properties as well as delicious taste. Most traditional cuisines included at least one fermented food or beverage with every meal, which worked to improve digestion and nutrient absorption

Think of lactofermented foods as “super-raw” foods; the enzymes in lacto-fermented foods more than compensate for the enzymes lost in the foods that are cooked. Regular consumption of traditionally fermented foods and drinks promotes the growth of healthy flora and overall balance in the intestines.  Healthy intestines equals long life & reduced incidence of Arthritis, Heart Disease., and more. Lacto-fermented foods are rich in enzymes as well as beneficial bacteria.  Eat some with every cooked meal.  Teach your children to love them from an early age.  Yogurt is surely the easiest to learn to love at a young age.  Let’s make some home made yogurt & other tasty ferments!

If you miss this class, I can let you know when it will be repeated.  Email me at awaters@pacific.net or call 77-459-6362.

 

 

LOCAL FOOD AT RISK! Raw Milk shut down

…right here in teeny Willits, it has happened >> the eye of Sauron has turned in our direction & the yummiest raw goat milk filled with goodness, love & really potent nutrition has been made illegal.  Now, who is going to tell those goats that they cannot produce anymore?

You have a right to know what is in your food, and further – you have a right to eat what you think is healthy & good for you.  it is a matter of Freedom to choose.  Why cry over spilt milk?

Here are the facts…

Green Uprising Farm has received notice of violation from the California Department of Food and Agriculture demanding that they “cease and desist” the sale or giving away of milk produced at their small dairy.  Green Uprising has been providing wholesome, fresh milk to shareholders who have purchased an ownership interest in their herd for some time.

They are going to be supported by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

The long story is posted on my friend Dave Smith’s blog, and here’s the short version…

As Sara Grusky, who manages the dairy herd, says:

“According to the Calif Dept. of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) this is a threat to the public health. Our children, our grandchildren, friends, family, neighbors and shareholders all drink raw milk directly from the teats of goats boarded at our farm (my goodness!) and we are all alive and well, happy and healthy. In fact, if you go back three or four generations most everyone who consumed milk drank it raw from a family farm in their community. But, according to CDFA, our shareholders don’t have the right to drink raw milk from a goat herd they have purchased an ownership interest in. According to CDFA, they know better than you what’s good for you. And, they think that pasteurized milk from a feedlot dairy where large amounts of antibiotics are used (due to the unhealthy conditions) and Bovine Growth Hormone (a genetically engineered artificial growth hormone) may be given to stimulate milk production, is healthier than the milk I hand milk into glass jars from my ten precious goats. You have got to be kidding…”

Friends…this is a frontal assault on our right to choose our food.
Action Alert-  GET INVOLVED!  This is not a test!.. or a meeting to plan
for an idealized future – this is action needed …on the ground… right
now - a need for all of us who love local food to show up & create our future of food, keep our ancient human food rights!

What can you do???

1- Come to the movie showing & community discussion on July 15th at the Willits Grange -7pm

FARMAGEDDON – The Film

Link to Trailer >>see it & click here…

Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under
attack.  Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging
farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights
to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods
safely and free from unreasonably burdensome regulations. The film serves
to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing
movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want
is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its
voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.

2- Come on the 15th & hear what Sara, her husband, and their shareholders plan to do in the face of CDFA’s demands and how you can help.
3- ALSO READ MORE ABOUT RAW MILK & YOUR RIGHTS:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/15/ron-paul-vs-the-fda-milk-police.aspx

4-  To take action on National Milk issues, send a Fax to Your Legislators – Ask Them to Co-Sponsor & Pass HR 1830

112th U.S. Congress – House Bill HR 1830

(Go to http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php)

Congressman Ron Paul has once again introduced a bill that would allow the
interstate shipment of raw milk and raw milk products for human
consumption, HR 1830.

* We believe that there is a fundamental right to produce and consume the
foods of our choice including raw milk, contrary to FDA’s claim that there
is no such right in its response to a lawsuit over this same matter.

* We believe the federal ban against transporting raw milk for human
consumption across state lines is a violation of our rights, despite FDA’s
assertion that any transaction that involves crossing state lines with
such milk is illegal.
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php

ALSO READ MORE ABOUT RAW MILK & YOUR RIGHTS:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/15/ron-paul-vs-the-fda-milk-police.aspx

Annie Brigit Waters

Thus does the public evil come home to each of us:
Straining, the courtyard gates no longer hold fast,
The evil leaps o’er the high walls; it finds everyone,
Even him fleeing to the inmost chamber.

– Solon

“The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest
are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the
qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and
conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing
conditions.”

Tulsi Solar Oven Electric Hybrid – awesome!

I am in Love!!!  Just got my first  demo TULSI solar oven to play with – a few days  & a pile of cooking later has had us eating baked beans, kale & tree collard chips (secret recipe to be revealed later), sourdough bread, vegan pizza, cornbread, steamed veggies, and chicken cacciatori.  The sweet thing made some ‘sol chai tea’ in minutes too…check it out for yourself, I am now an official dealer of this solar hybrid oven… So, so you want to get off the grid, reduce your electric or gas cooking bills?  This oven is the best one I have ever used, and I have used many cardboard & foil homemade ones, also the Sun Oven (which is a great oven & you can buy one of them from me too)

Tulsi®  Solar Electric Oven Hybrid

Experience for yourself the “Solar Electric Oven” advantages!

It’s the ULTIMATE in solar cooking technology

• Operates three ways: On FREE solar power alone or on 110v. AC electric power alone or using in tandem both solar and electric.
• Nationally recognized the solar electric oven is a greener way to cook outdoors. No smoke, no open fire or fossil fuels required.
• Thermostatically controlled to save energy & increase reliable and safe operation.
• Cooking on “electric mode” keeps your food safe should the day’s solar energy be lost.
• Cooks cloudy days, partly cloudy days and all the sunny days, too.
• Easy learning curve. Start cooking from the first day.
• Save on your electric bills with our low wattage solar electric oven.
• Keep your house cooler, think “Summer kitchen”
• Completely reliable & economical the solar electric oven puts FUN back into cooking.
• Even when the weather is less than ideal you can still enjoy delicious food cooked year round.

Buy your new full sized SunFocus™ or the Mid-sized Tulsi® solar hybrid electric oven from me – Annie Green Jeans.

Call me at   707-459-2418 or   707-459-6362   to place your order.

We accept MasterCard, Visa, PayPal or cash.

Open Circle  190 North St  Willits, CA 95490

Proprietor:  Annie Waters

~~~

The Sun BD Corporation is so sure that you will be 100% satisfied with the performance of our solar electric ovens that within the first 30 days of purchase, should you for some reason not be satisfied, we will refund your full purchase price, no questions asked!

COMING SOON!

SunFocus™  Solar Electric Oven

FULL SIZED SOLAR ELECTRIC OVEN

The SunFocus™ solar electric oven offers superior cooking performance, high quality workmanship and the largest cooking capacity of any other solar electric cooking oven on the market today and it’s made in the U.S.A.

~~~~~~

New Improved  Tulsi®  solar electric oven:

 

Hybrid Oven Features:

• High performance solar oven with “energy miser” back up AC 110v electric elements…
  (Allowing ANYTIME cooking)
• Ultimate in solar oven technology up to 400F… (Convenient, reliable, economical)
• 90% reflective scratch resistant reflector panel for longer wear and higher cooking temps…
  (Higher reflectivity than a standard glass mirror)
• Double paned oven window instead of the typical single pane…
  (Holds trapped energy longer for superior heating)
• Double rubber oven seals instead of a single seal… (Better long term heat retention)
• Attachable “Temp. Booster” reflector panels… (Higher Temperature Cooking)
• Larger internal cooking chamber…
  (Cook 4 different food items at one time or how about one large pizza)
• Slow baked for better tasting food
• Smoke Free cooking
• More environmentally friendly than burning “traditional” fuels like wood, propane, or even charcoal
• Keep you electric bills down and your home cooler…
  Think outdoor “summer kitchen”.
• Accessories… cooking pots, oven thermometer, padded hot pad/mitt
  (Everything you need to get started solar cooking from day one)
• 24/7 electric back-up system is energy efficient using typically 75% less electrical energy than your standard in-house oven…
  (The cost to operate is pennies)
• Rugged suitcase design offers clamshell like protection to internal parts.
  (Sets up in seconds: Simple as opening a suitcase)
• Portable for easy carrying or transport…
  (Suitcase style design fits easily in car trunk, camper, RV, or boat)
• Larger range: Canada to the tip of South America… (You cannot ‘out travel’ the Tulsi™)
• In case of an emergency… Always be ready! (Solar Electric/Daytime/Nighttime/Anytime)

How It Works!

Use the Tulsi-Hybrid Solar Oven to make an ENTIRE Dinner.

The solar electric oven IS easy to use, portable, set up in seconds and are safer to use because there are no dangerous open flames. Our Solar Electric ovens can be operated in any one of three ways:

It’s the best of all worlds. You can solar cook more often and never have to worry about clouds again. We call using both solar and electric in combination – peace of mind. When the sun is out the oven acts as a solar oven but when the sun disappears the oven acts as an electric oven cycling itself on and off between electric and solar when the sun reappears. Forget the roller coaster cooking temperatures and the threat of bacterial food poisoning that can happen with solar only ovens. Our solar electric ovens are thermostat controlled and maintain the cooking temperature inside the oven chamber so your food is always safe and cooked to perfection even when the weather isn’t.

Solar ovens heat up in proportion to solar UV input.

UV solar input blocked by clouds?  No problem!

TULSI keeps your oven temperature even no matter what the weather, using as littel power as necessary

Solar cooking made practical now and forever!!!

Try a hybrid Solar Electric Oven for Year-Round Results

Cos Law – © Dr. A. Marsh, Square One, www.ecotect.com

The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not circular but elliptical, meaning that it is closest to the Sun in late December – early January and farthest away in late June – early July. However, this has only a slight effect on the intensity of solar radiation. Of more importance is the axial tilt of the Earth at 23.45°. This means that the path of the Sun through the sky changes significantly throughout the year.

This has an effect because the lower the Sun is in the sky, the more of the Earth’s atmosphere the solar radiation has to pass through in order to reach the surface, thus the more scattering and absorption it is subjected to. When the Sun has a lower elevation angle, the solar energy is less intense because it is spread out over a larger area reducing its intensity and its heating capacity as per the Cos Law.

Simply translated do not expect any solar ONLY cooking device to obtain summer maximum cooking temperature during winter, spring and fall seasonal phases. However, seasonal variation in solar heating capacity is not a problem for our versatile solar electric cooking ovens with built-in thermostatically controlled energy efficient low wattage electrical back–up. Now that you know about Cos’s Law would you ever want to solar cook without back up?

Despite solar cooking’s great potential benefits, it has been held back from achieving universal acceptance due to its one fatal flaw: No sun, No fun, Cold Food! The fact is that solar cooking is a weather dependent activity and that weather conditions constantly change. Successful solar cooking has always depended on clear skies and intense sunlight. But no longer!

Buy your full sized SunFocus™ or the Mid-sized Tulsi® solar hybrid electric oven

from me – Anniegreenjeans.

Available online at our websites : www.solarovenhybrid.com or  www.ancientcircles.com

Call us at   707-459-2418 or   707-459-6362   to place your order.

We accept MasterCard, Visa, PayPal or cash.

Open Circle, 190 North St, Willits, CA 95490

Proprietor:  Annie Waters

The Sun BD Corporation is so sure that you will be 100% satisfied with the performance of our solar electric ovens that within the first 30 days of purchase, should you for some reason not be satisfied, we will refund your full purchase price, no questions asked!

 

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…

Ethical Eating – Food and Environmental Justice

I have been watching movies & reading so many diet & health books lately – trying to get my head around the deeper ethics of diet. Beyond eating for best health – what are the other issues? For one – Food Ethics – finding a worldview that incorporates the rights of humans to choose their food with the rights of all Beings to live successfully in harmony on this finite planet. That sounds simple enough – yet, why the raging controversy? You’d think we are discussing religion or politics! Well, maybe we are…

While studying for the endocrine nutrition classes I recently taught, it became very clear that references & resources are now legion in any one camp of belief, especially with Internet resources, multiple books promoting any one theory, and very few of us capable of reading actual peer-reviewed studies. In fact – my own history of study using peer-reviews in technical journals, is that the studies themselves seem to be funded by a well-off corporation who managed to get some academics to perform the study with an intended result. Am I being cruel? Is there no way out of this entanglement of beliefs & truth?

I can only reach deep inside myself & feel my way out when this happens. The heart “knows” more than the brain when it comes to first perception. I choose from there.

Have I lost you yet?
If not – back to my topic in mind – food ethics – determining what foods humans should choose with full consideration of planetary balance & the rights of all living beings. (Let’s say all of those still alive & those who have died due to our lack of eco-ethics)

Let’s say also that… we need to BE healthy instead of BELIEVE healthy.

What food choices really work for YOU? Can you know now what to eat – in advance of the probably years it will take to see the results… once your health is compromised – or worse – wrecked?

Simple thoughts:
Whenever I can – I choose to eat locally & organically, a variety of foods produced with minimal impact on water use, soil degradation & while also recycling maximum nutrient back into an almost closed loop system. Can we artfully achieve this noble goal in our daily life – replete as it is with the temptations & delights – indeed – the wondrous tastes of foreign foods- rich roasted coffee drinks, creamy chocolate desserts, bananas, blueberries in winter, fish from foreign shores, the entire range at Trader Joes for Gods sake! In order to eat ethically you have to stay home & garden, or shop quickly with a list & get out before your eyes linger on the specialties waiting to grab your attention at checkout. The demons of imported foods are all around us.

Oh, now where was I? (as she eats cute small tangerine & handful of almonds -where were they grown? – during mini-break) I was hoping to at least give you a list of ethical discussions now in print…recommended by me in my own slanted style of current favorites…reader warning – they don’t all agree!
Viola! Finally you come to it….(forget cultural bias, availability, health theory or practice when considering this aspect of food choice)

(a partial list of “Ethical Eating” resources)

BOOKS:

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon, Mary G. Enig PhD (A full-spectrum nutritional cookbook with a startling message–animal fats and cholesterol are vital factors in the human diet, necessary for reproduction and normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. Includes information on how to prepare grains, health benefits of bone broths and enzyme-rich lacto-fermented foods.)

The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability - Lierre Keith (discusses alternatives to industrial farming, reveals the risks of a vegan diet, and explains why animals belong on ecologically sound farms.)

Full Moon Feast – Jessica Prentice (Jessica Prentice champions locally grown, humanely raised, nutrient-rich foods and traditional cooking methods as she recounts her relationships with local farmers alongside ancient harvest legends and methods of food preparation from indigenous cultures around the world.)

Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall (Goodall focuses more on the product of “factory farming” techniques: mountains of waste, nutritionally depleted soil, polluted water, displaced organic farmers, and severely compromised food.)

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution by Alice Waters (the Waters mantra: eat locally and sustainably; eat seasonally; shop at farmers markets)

Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe (eating lower on the food chain -i.e. more grains and vegetables- is crucial the key to ending worldwide hunger, author’s theory is that non-meat proteins are much more efficient and sustainable to produce)

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (In a journey that takes us from an “organic” California chicken farm to Vermont, Pollan asks basic questions about the moral and ecological consequences of our food)

How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine by John Jeavons (Jeavons lays out a comprehensive guide to growing the most food you can on the least amount of land in the most sustainable way – on an ongoing basis into perpetuity, most healthy both for your family, your land, and the wider world.)

MOVIES:

I am happy to see more and more “good food” documentaries coming out. While I think movies like “Food, Inc.” are important to educate us on food issues, I appreciate the solution based films even more.

DIRT! The Movie, tells the amazing and little known story of the relationship between humans and living dirt. Why Dirt?

Dirt feeds us and gives us shelter. Dirt holds and cleans our water. Dirt heals us and makes us beautiful. Dirt regulates the earth’s climate. Dirt is the ultimate natural resource for all life on earth.

Edible City: A new (more grassroots) film prides itself in showing what people are doing in their own backyards in an urban environment, and with their own resources. It shows the movers and shakers in sustainable ag in the SF Bay Area.

FRESH - Ana Joanes (“FRESH brings more of the solutions and ideas for positive change to the table while Food Inc. focuses on the overwhelming power of industrial ag, its problems and challenges, leaving the viewer very troubled.”) I really enjoyed seeing the film “Fresh” recently on the shift towards sustainable food. It was great to see Will Allen’s Growing Power. He was growing sooo much food on a small urban plot, and loves his composting worms! And I loved finally meeting farmer Joel Salatin.

Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan (takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world – seen from the plants’ point of view – the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato – evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control)

Nourish: Food + Community: (With beautiful visuals and inspiring stories, Nourish traces our relationship to food from a global perspective and suggests the steps individuals can take to create a more sustainable food system and live more healthful lives.)

Want more?
Read some great thoughts…

Lia Huber about Nourish -

Further interesting discussion threads form on this vegan web page – a China Study critique. Vegan insights – yet of course – in support of my current theme of moderate eating of all healthy foods, animal or vegetable – locally grown with closed loop inputs….plus a questioning of the results of our last 10,000 years of agricultural practices & the future of food…

Invite response? Yes! I may be impatient & a poor scientist, but am an eater of food therefore deserve an opinion. Also – as avid debater in the realms of art – in which I have always thought that nutrition & food belonged – I get to enjoy my own my “taste”.

How should we eat? Damned if I truly know…yet. Can we even afford to debate this matter of ethics & choice considering the spiraling descent of food availability planetary -wide? Best to debate it while we work in the garden & rest a moment on our shovels – just in case the narrowing gap between the starving & the well-fed continues to affect more & more eaters, mainly those of us in the USA blessed with choice & variety of nutrient & taste. The debate continues even while the deserts enlarge & the waters are poisoned.

PS For those who are still concerned with the effects of diet on personal health – and I am one of them….the important discussion on health & community should remind us that it doesn’t matter how much conviction these various authorities have on their own theories, if it doesn’t work for you it’s worthless. We’ve each got to find out on our own what we should include in our own diets using the advice of others merely as a framework. Wholeness & Health? Cancer? Perfect energy? Endocrine disruption? Arthritis? Athletic prowess? It’s all around us, let’s perceive with our hearts & choose with our deepest feelings before we say grace over that next meal.

DIG IN ! a LOCAL DINNER at LITTLE LAKE GRANGE

HARVEST DINNER MENU

LOCAL SOURCES 2010

The 5^th Annual Little Lake Grange Harvest Dinner is one of over 400 many Slow Food & Gardening Events happening around the country this weekend!

This year we feature a gourmet multi-course meal created from locally grown food products. Our reason for producing a “LOCAL” dinner is to showcase the best of farm products available in our valley and within 100 miles of  Willits.

We want to offer  a  fine dining experience celebrating local sustainable food and farming.  The finest and freshest of foods  prepared with loving care by our extraordinary local chefs – Patty Rede & Linda Relin, and their joyful crew of talented kitchen sou-chefs & assistants.

This is a Grange sponsored all-volunteer community collaboration that brings us all closer together in the supply of food for our health & our future

* ALL DONATIONS listed below are marked with a * (ASTERICK)

* Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! *

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Local Organic Wines: (Organic wines from Mendocino County)

–     *Frey Winery, *Barra Winery, *Parducci Winery, Fetzer, *Vin De Tevis, *Husch Vineyard

–        Decorative Wine Grapes – *Marsha Pratt

Appetizers:

Almonds, Fresh Fruit & Grapes, (the Santa Rosa farm of Don Rosenburg)

Walnuts, *Baldo Farms  ~  Pepper Jelly, *Fairall  ~ Fig Chutney, *Stella Bonnet

Artisan Cheeses – Triple Creme Brie (*Marin French Cheese), Classic Cheddar (*Clover)

Local Goat Chevre’ (*Redwood Hill Farm), Dry Jack  (*Springhill farm)

Crackers – Wheat harvested in Mendocino, Handmade Italian crackers by our own local cooks

- Olive Oil, Local Sea Salt

Dinner & Buffet Table:

Moroccan Tagines - Ford Ranch beef and local vegetables from Brookside Farm, *Golden Rule Garden, *Senior Center Garden, *Wendy Wilmes & Chris Baldo, Covelo Organics, *Mariposa Market, *Inland Ranch Organics, *Salt Hollow farm

-         Fava beans from *John Wagenet, October beans from *Golden Rule Garden

-         Walnuts from  *Chris Baldo & Baldo Farms

-         Paprika from Richard Jeske

Moroccan Chermoula Sauce

– Parsley from *The Drell Farm, Mint from *Karina McAbee

Rice Pilaf – Rice from our own Granary stores (origin- Sacramento Valley)

Olive Oil  and Spices

Tomato Platters & Seasonal Local Vegetables with Moroccan spices – Many local farmers:

*Hue de Laroque,  *Wendy Wilmes & Chris Baldo, Brookside Farm, *Annie Waters – thanks to you all!

Pickles – from Brookside Farm & Amy Rouse

Local & Seasonal Mixed Greens – *Green Uprising Farm

Lemon vinaigrette dressing – Lemon juice from *Golden Rule Garden, Local Olive Oil – *Chris Baldo

Dessert Table:

Fruit Gallettes & Crisps  – *Sweetie Pies (fruit from Green Uprising Farm)  Thanks Allegra Foley!

Local Pears by *Green Uprising Farm with *Mendocino Queen Honey

Whipped Cream from *Clover Dairy

Pan Forte’ by Mary Senerchia

Beverages:

Local Filtered Water

Herbal Tea (Mint & Lemon Balm) – *Sara O’Brian, *Annie Waters

with Honey from Karina McAbee’s hives

Pressed Apple Cider from *Golden Rule Garden

PS to all – LOCAL NOTES:

~Locally grown grain is still in limited supply- Golden Rule is experimenting with teff, quinoa, amaranth.  Doug Mosel is growing some wheat, rye, oats & barley, but the supply is still limited.

~There are few beans or other vegan proteins easily available from local sources except Fava beans.  This limits the ability of our dinner to supply vegan food and we apologize for that.

~ Locally madeVinegar cannot be found!  It is easy to make & should be available from local apples or grapes – seems like a business opportunity for someone…

~Salt is also available from the ocean 24 miles away, but is expensive in the quantities now available.  We have used just a pinch of  local salt, with our apologies since it seems unaffordable for this large dinner.

~Spices have been traded from the Far East for thousands of years & we hope will always be available and will probably always be an “imported item” on our LOCAL menu ingredients.

What Spices can we grow here that will give us our beloved cinnamon & spice & all things nice?

updated 9-24-2010 – Ann Waters, Producer coordinator

Front Page News

NOW & THEN FILM SERIES PRESENTS!

In Willits – Thursday, November 19th, 7pm

Little Lake Grange Film Night

What Would Jesus Buy?

- 2007PG 91 minutes

Taking on rampant American consumerism with a focus on Christmas shopping, the Rev. Billy (Bill Talen) and the Church of Stop Shopping go on a cross-country journey to save citizens from the Shopocalypse in this hilarious documentary produced by Morgan Spurlock.

Reminding shoppers of the true meaning of Christmas, Reverend Billy exorcises demons at Wal-Mart’s headquarters and preaches his message at the Mall of America and Disneyland.

Cast: Bill Talen

Director: Rob VanAlkemade

PLUS – a  Heartening Film of the true nature of Gifting that makes a difference in people’s lives…

Heifer International “12 Stones” documentary

See this sample – a Five-minute short of 22-minute Heifer International “12 Stones” documentary produced by Sandy Smolen.

“12 Stones” illustrates the heart of Heifer’s work: Passing on the Gift, through the transformation of a community of women in Nepal, from helplessness to hope

Join us for movies, discussion, fair trade chocolate & Organic Popcorn.  Suggested Donation $5

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!

THE FIRST SHEAF

THE FIRST SHEAF

Ever since primitive man learned to cultivate his own crops, harvest festivals — thanksgiving ceremonies and celebrations for a successful and abundant harvest — have been carried out throughout the world.

The celebration of harvest in Britain dates back to pre-Christian times, when the success of crops governed the lives of the people. Saxon farmers offered the first cut sheaf of corn to one of their gods of fertility to ensure a good harvest the following year. Corn dollies (symbolizing the goddess of the grain) were traditionally made from the last ears of wheat to be cut.  (Referral link)

Today we cut the first sheaf of the harvest, and in fact – it is the first grain to be harvested in Mendocino County in any great amount in almost 60 years!  As the Chaplain of our Grange, I carried a sickle into the field & cut this first sheaf with prayers & thanks for abundance, and with hope that it will continue on into the future cycles – as we sow the seeds of the harvested sheaf once again in the sacred circle of life.

We of the Grange honor this time of the yearly cycle as the bountiful harvest of CERES.  The Roman Cereal Goddess Ceres is the giver of life.

I wrote a play using the initiation liturgy of the Grange (Refer to the Manual of Subordinate Granges), and some of it follows here…

We filmed some film footage today in the vineyard- with the intention that a short film about Grange, the reverence for grain & the cycles of agriculture will be made.

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Ceres: Grass is the basis of agriculture.  Without it the Earth would be arid, barren waste.  It is emblematic of man’s transitory state upon the earth, and of a brighter and more glorious truth. (page 21)

Lecturer: Ceres offers the grain that holds all of humankind in our agricultural ways – from the first ancient wild grasses that were cultivated into bold and heavy grains that can feed many from one field.  Ceres lives in the sheaf of wheat, the bundle of corn, the drying rice on the roofs of dwellings.  Her gift offers our lives stability – thusly have humans settled in one place with no need to roam nomadically, looking for foods in the wilderness.  Ceres represents the first harvests of late summer – as our life cycle turns to Adulthood, both symbolized by the Sickle and the Ripened Grain.  We are both Harvester and Gleaner.  Secure in our abundance we can begin to practice CHARITY.

Ceres: I am the giver of life, the seed becomes the sheaf, becomes the bread and the feast, from which the seed is saved for planting again.  I am all of the cycle in one.

From The Grange Manual: To live in the country and enjoy all its pleasures, we should love rural life.  To love the country is to take interest in all that belongs to it – its occupations, its culture, its improvement.  To gather the flocks around us and feed them from our hands, to make the birds our friends and too call them by their names, to rove the verdant  fields with a higher pleasure than we could have in regal courts and high towers, to inhale the air of the morning  as if it were the sweet breath of infancy, to brush the dew from the glittering fields as if our paths were strewn with diamonds, to perceive this glorious temple all distinct with the presence of Divinity, and to feel, amid all this – the heart swelling with and adoration and a holy joy absolutely incapable of utterance. This it is to love the country, and to make it not the home of the body only, but of the soul.  These teachings would make any home the brightest and happiest on Earth.

Ceres: Be as a grain of wheat.  Begin in innocence in the darkness of your inner thoughts; allow the cultivation of knowledge and then the ripening of wisdom to guide your harvest.  Share these grains of wisdom with all you meet.  Teach this to the next generation of seeds that they may continue the cycle of diligent labor and reward.

Master: The SICKLE is an ancient and honorable tool.  It speaks of peace and prosperity, and is the harbinger of joy.  It is used not merely to reap the golden grain of the sheaf, but – in the field of mind and heart and soul – to gather every precious stalk, every opening flower, and every desirable fruit.  Thus it is a reminder of honest employment, diligent labor – teaching the present lesson of prosperity and peace, and a prophecy of future plenty and rejoicing. (Grange Manual – page 44, paraphrased)

Lecturer: As we begin the harvest of grains – the rustling corn is waving as ripe and ready for the reapers and gleaners – may we feel as well the attendant lessons.  We must reap for the mind as well as for the body, and from the abundance of our harvest, in good deeds and kind words, dispense CHARITY.  The grain is ripe and ready for the harvest.  It is, however, important that the best of intelligent and skillful labors be employed.  Gather only the good seed, both for feasting and for planting in the next cycle.  Our associations in life are the fields in which we reap.  Use judgment, and while you glean let your example be such that others may profit by it.  Cultivate an observing mind; perceive the beauty that everywhere abounds.

Pomona: The harvest time of your life consists not only of that which you take from the seeds planted for your own use – the ripe grains that fall into your hands, but also is a time of CHARITY – sharing the harvest with those in need around you.  As flowers and vines have covered the rough paces in nature, so I charge you, cover the faults and failings of others with the mantle of CHARITY.  Speak well of others, rather than dwell on their shortcomings.  Gather up the sheaves of their virtues, and pass by their faults, just as you gather the good seed, and leave the rest.  Such are the great aims, labors and rewards of the planting, the cultivation and the harvest of life. (Paraphrased from page 43)

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Note:  This wheat is being grown in between the rows of grapes in the Vineyards of the Frey Family Winery. 

The standard 8 feet of row space is most of the land use in a vineyard ,and by planting down the center of this space with vegetables & grains, they hope to see a fuller overall usage of acreage, and a reduction of pests & weeds.  I wish them the best of success with this innovation and with luck – the future will see many more California vineyards growing grains!

Harvest festivals in ancient cultures

• The ancient Egyptians celebrated their harvest festival in honour of Min, the god of vegetation and fertility. The festival of Min was held in the spring, the Egyptians’ harvest season. After a grand parade, a great feast was held with music, dancing and sports.
• The ancient Chinese celebrated their harvest festival on the 15th day of the eighth month. The day was believed to be the birthday of the Moon and special Moon cakes stamped with the face of a rabbit (perceived to be the face of the moon) were baked.
• The ancient Greeks worshiped Demeter as their goddess of all grains. Demeter’s daughter Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Demeter, the source of all growth and life, withdrew her powers from the Earth during her time of grief. Demeter’s refusal to eat or feed the world until the other gods resolved her conflict with Hades over Persephone brought on winter, and no plants or grains could grow. Because Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds given to her by Hades, she was condemned by the gods to spend half of the year in the underworld and half of the year on earth with Demeter. Every year, when Persephone is in the underworld there is winter, and when she is on the Earth, there is spring and summer.
• The Romans celebrated the Cerelia festival, where offerings of the first fruit of the harvest were dedicated to Ceres (Demeter in Greek). Some believe the festival was held in October, others say that it took place in April, to coincide with the arrival of spring.

P.S.  I also hope to obtain some grain for baking into loaves of bread for our annual Harvest Dinner at the Little Lake Grange.

URBAN PEASANTS

More chickens, this time in an upscale neighborhood overlooking Lake Washington in Seattle…a beautiful setting for a small coop of clean & well managed chickens…Eric says he has been keeping chickens since 1974 when he was named an “Urban Peasant” by a major publication…I like the term, let’s take back – both the urban chicken & the term Peasant – it is very close to pleasant…a word that pleases me…

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