The Finicky Farmer

Shortbread for Aunt Jo

2012-03-09T10:44:00.000-05:00

When I was in grade school, my beloved Aunt Jo introduced me to the deliciousness of Walker's Shortbread. She picked up a box at the grocery store and assured me that I would like it. I was skeptical -- there were no glossy coatings, no sprinkles, no marshmallow fluffiness, no cartoon characters on the box. What was to like?

But she was right, as she usually was. I was addicted shortly thereafter.

Several weeks ago, Steph experimented with the shortbread recipe in Cook's Illustrated, producing the most perfect batch of rosemary shortbread. Ever.

Though we devoured the batch in a matter of days, I vowed that the next batch would be mailed promptly to Aunt Jo as a surprise love gift.

Sadly, I never got that far.

Aunt Jo, one of my forever favorite people in the whole wide world, passed away this week. Her death was sudden, unexpected, but, fortunately for her, very peaceful.

Even as I realize that this is the nature of the world -- that the people whom you love most will be taken from you, that your heart will be broken over and again -- I still can't wrap my head around a world without Aunt Jo, this raucous lover of books, clothes, gossip, and sugar.

She was kin, of course, but she was also soul kin.

And this Gemini feels more than a little unmoored without her favorite fellow Gemini around.

Manic Monday

2012-03-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

Bear with me. I know that it's been a while since I last posted. When I returned reluctantly to the grey New England winter last week, I was sideswiped by crappy news. And then, days later, magnificent news arrived magically in my inbox. I feel ungrounded as I vacillate between these extremes and as I continue to process the good fortune of my recent vacation.

While away, Steph and I couldn't have asked for kinder, more generous tour guides throughout Mexico and Southern California. Ingrid and Bea were so lovely as they opened up their schedules and home to us. Ingrid, by the way, was the genius who contrived the plot to get me there.

Once back in California, they stayed out late for drinks and dancing in West Hollywood. The next morning they were ready -- reliable ones that they are -- for a hike up Echo Mountain.

That's me in the orange.

There, we encountered rain, hail, and snow. In LA. No joke.

When it was time for our departure, they made each of us an awesome care package for our long flights home: hard-boiled eggs, fruits, veggies, generous portions of trail mix, and Cadbury Creme eggs for me.

Isn't that just the sweetest?

What's also sweet are the pictures from our trip to In-N-Out Burger, an experience that lived up to its hype. Honestly, it's reason enough to move to California (as if I needed more reasons). I devoured a cheeseburger, fries, and two chocolate shakes after our hike.

Ingrid and Bea, however, found their shared shake a bit more challenging.

Aren't they just the bee's knees?

Thanks, you two, for everything. Hugs and kisses to the moon and back.

Running Away

2012-02-26T23:03:00.005-05:00

I've run away from home.

Before I knew it, I ended up in small fishing village in Mexico with Steph and two friends.

I don't think I'll bother with my return flight.

Extremely Random and Incredibly Short

2012-02-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

1) Instagram Livingstone is particularly striking.

2) I have a defense date for my PhD in late April. Not even the zombie apocalypse will stand in my way.

3) Having the norovirus is not unlike celebrating the 4th of July. But with spectacular explosions of vomit and diarrhea. I speak from experience, having spent much of the weekend weeping and praying on my bathroom floor.

4) Fortunately, I have awesome neighbors who brought me fluids and medicine. And my best friend kept me company, napping off a hangover from his birthday party, which I missed (see point 3).

5) Because this best friend is the epitome of awesomeness, I'm knitting him a cabled cardigan for said birthday. Pictures forthcoming.

6) Once better, I went back to cooking...

7) ...and washing dishes.

8) A talented former classmate recently published article, which includes a brief interview with me, about local food and systems of privilege in Myoo. You can read it here.

9) I fly away tomorrow morning. I'll post hints about my whereabouts when I arrive. Stay tuned, kids.

My Belated Valentine

2012-02-18T11:55:00.000-05:00

When Steph and I started to spend time together in early 2008, our status was undetermined and, for the most part, undiscussed. And this was cool and easy and uncomplicated. But Valentine's Day reared its wretched head, and we were forced to confront the liminal state in which we existed.

Fortunately, Steph was scheduled to work a cafe shift that night. With her recent ex-girlfriend, in fact. So we agreed to have dinner the following night at my house. (For fans of Parks and Recreation, my brother calls it "Galentine's Day.")

I settled on a menu and biked off in search of ingredients and understated, noncommittal kinds of presents.

While at the grocery store, I ran into a colleague who peered into my shopping basket. Spying the shrimp and asparagus, she grinned knowingly: "Ooh! Who's coming over for dinner?"

"A friend," I admitted. "No big deal."

"Looks like a pretty nice meal for a friiiieend," she returned.

Once home, I prepared dinner -- shrimp scampi, garlic cheddar biscuits, and roasted asparagus. I made an enormous carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. At Steph's place setting, I arranged her present. She arrived soon after, and I felt nervous when I saw that she was dressed up in a sweater and collared shirt.

The whole thing seemed (and abruptly so) rather serious. Our efforts to seem effortless were falling short.

When we exchanged presents, though, this tension dissipated, for we had given each other the same gift: a potted plant, one bar of expensive organic chocolate, and a card. At least our efforts, in other words, were well matched.

Though the chocolate is long gone, both plants are very much alive. I even have her first Valentine's Day card on my desk. And I still make this meal every single year on February 15th.

Which is a damn good thing because, on this year's actual Valentine's Day, Steph was in a wretched mood and went to bed at 8PM. I knit angrily for several more hours. While I have no doubt that she would suggest that I was at fault as well, she's not the one writing this post, is she? And the one who writes is the one who controls the narrative.

On the 15th, though, I set aside my grievances and set about making our annual dinner.

For my garlic cheddar biscuits, I swear by this recipe. For shrimp scampi, I refer to my Cook's Illustrated Cookbook. And for roasted asparagus, I just drizzle some olive oil and pop them in the oven at 400ºF for a few minutes.

This year, I amended the dessert menu. In lieu of carrot cake, I made salted caramel chocolate mousse. With freshly whipped cream.

I prefer my orgasms at the dinner table, thankyouverymuch.

Seriously, this dinner was killer. Afterwards, I rolled myself into the living room and passed out in front of the wood-stove while Steph generously tidied up the kitchen.

Sometimes love consists of little more than passing the peppermint tea when your partner groans: "That was so good. But I never, ever, want to eat again."

Pssst...

2012-02-16T06:16:00.001-05:00

You looking for me?

Today, I'm over at Creative Soul in Motion, where Erin has generously allowed me to write a guest post for her blog. Check it out!

Dark Days Challenge: Caribbean Shrimp and Vegetable Soup

2012-02-14T23:21:00.004-05:00

Here's what I ate for breakfast.

A bowl of soup. A bowl of the best freaking soup in the whole wide world.

Hyperbole aside, this soup is worthy of my undying devotion. Unfortunately, I don't make it often -- shrimp is expensive and my budget meager. Usually, I serve it when entertaining because I'm better able to rationalize such purchases when they're for other people.

(Incidentally, this same rationale is at work when I procure sumptuous skeins of yarn for Steph...even though she doesn't really knit anymore)

Last night, we enjoyed a full house as Steph's sisters and their partners came over for dinner. Later, our next-door neighbor dropped by for a bowl as well. In all, this batch fed 7 adults with leftovers...for my breakfast.

Just bringing it full circle, folks.

Nutritionally speaking, the soup is a veritable gold mine. Together, the limes, tomatoes, and bell peppers offer an excellent dose of vitamin C. Sweet potatoes are great sources of vitamin A, and the full fat coconut milk enables its uptake. Ginger treats colds and fevers while shrimp provides a wallop of vitamin D.

Caribbean Shrimp and Vegetable Soup
Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special

Ingredient List
Produce: 1 large onion, 3-4 cloves of minced garlic, 1 minced green chile, 3-4 T freshly grated ginger, 2-3 large diced sweet potatoes, 1.5 c chopped tomatoes, 1.5 c diced bell peppers, 2-4 T chopped fresh cilantro, 2-4 T of fresh lime juice

Spices: 1/4 t tumeric, 1/2 t thyme, salt and ground pepper to taste

Fats and Seafood: 1 T olive oil, 4 c vegetable stock, 1-1.5 lb large unpeeled shrimp, 1 can of full-fat coconut milk

Dark Days Note: With the exception of oils, spices, limes, and coconut milk, all veggies were from local farms. And yes, we even found someone nearby who grows ginger. It's mind-blowing, I tell ya. The shrimp were caught off the coast of Maine, which is close enough for me!

1) Combine onions, garlic, chile, ginger, and oil in a dutch oven. Saute on medium heat until onions soften (@5 minutes).

2) Add tumeric and thyme. Saute for an additional 5 minutes, and stir occasionally.

3) Add sweet potatoes and stock. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower heat, and simmer potatoes until just tender.

4) Drop in tomatoes and bell peppers. Cook for another 3-4 minutes.

5) Add cilantro, lime juice, coconut milk, and unpeeled shrimp. Simmer until the shrimp turn pink.

6) Season according to taste. Garnish with more cilantro and lime zest.

Please note that if you plan to enjoy leftovers, reserve some shrimp and add right before serving your next bowl. While the soup reheats nicely, the shrimp, unfortunately, do not.

Put a Plant in It, or, How to Make a Terrarium

2012-02-12T19:04:00.002-05:00

As a child, I once spied a vintage sketch of an enormous terrarium with salamanders and birds and lushly exotic plants. Living in a terrarium became my new childhood fantasy. Barring that, I wanted to have my own. With cute amphibians.

Now, almost 25 years later, I decided to make one this winter.

And guess what? It's not only alive; it's thriving. Two fiddleheads are unfurling at this very moment.

To make your own, gather the following materials: glass terrarium with a lid (available at Michael's for $15), small rocks, charcoal or ashes, soil, plants and moss.

1) Place a 1-2 inch layer of rocks at the bottom of the terrarium.

2) Sprinkle 1-2 inches of crushed charcoal over the rocks. For mine, I used ashes from the wood stove.

3) Add 2-3 inches of soil.

4) Secure the plants in the soil. Ferns and African violets are excellent options. Fill in the holes with moss, and press firmly into the soil.

5) Mist everything until damp (I refuse to use that wretched m-word!). Put a lid on it, and wipe off any smudges.

6) Every month or so, mist gently to add moisture. Place in a moderately sunny corner to enjoy.

An Average Day

2012-02-08T21:08:00.000-05:00

On an average day, there are cookbooks scattered around our kitchen.

On the floor, one can find goalie gloves from the previous night's game.

In the living room, Steph works diligently on the seed order.

More seeds are located in the kitchen. Radish and buckwheat seeds sprout in a jar, and extras spill onto the counter-tops.

Pastry dough for tonight's empanadas rests on a plate. Flour is scattered onto the floor.

Yards of batik wait to be pieced together into a quilt.

Blue merino wool grows into a birthday cardigan for a dear one.

Novels and nonfiction and seed catalogs vie for space on the desk.

By all accounts, these seem like the trappings of a rich and joyful household.

But, oh sweet Jesus, is this place a freaking mess. However high you suspect the breakfast dishes are stacked, elevate your suspicions. However much dog hair you imagine to have accumulated in a mere three days, imagine more.

Really. Our house is, to put it euphemistically, a freaking disaster.

On the recommendation of a friend, I've ordered this book. Once it arrives, I'm going to feng shui this shit into order. In the meantime, I'm off to muddle through the mess.

Not to Get All Sappy But...

2012-02-05T14:37:00.001-05:00

...it's finally collection time!

Yesterday, an assortment of farm workers and volunteers collected over 200 gallons of maple sap.

Livingstone was pleased as punch to lead his pack.

A few folks brought their own containers.

But most assisted with the already full buckets.

The weather has been perfectly maple-ly, urging the sap along with cold nights and warmer days. After collection, the sap is taken to the sugar shack (a good name for a brothel, no?), where it's boiled for many, many hours until it thickens into syrup. Then, farm workers will bottle the syrup to sell at the sugaring off festival in mid-March.

Good to the last drop.

First Signs of Spring

2012-02-02T18:45:00.003-05:00

Though I might be sneezing and coughing through tonight's tutoring hours, my spirits are lifted.

Today, I received my first Cadbury creme egg of the year. Which can only mean one thing.

Spring's a comin'.

Dark Days Challenge: Healing Foods

2012-01-30T13:49:00.000-05:00

As Emily mentioned in the last blog post, I was wretchedly low with a cold on Friday, and Emily, in solidarity, or just because it was sad, gray, and rainy, took the day to lay abed with me and watch non-stop episodes of Breaking Bad. Almost non-stop...she did also manage to whip up an amazing batch of chicken soup to boost up my immune system!

Starting off with a jar of turkey stock made from the turkey carcass at "Thanksgiving", as well as a couple of thighs from our local meat share, Emily simmered the chicken for an hour or two until the meat fell off the bone and the broth was fragrant (even I could smell it!). To the broth and chicken, she added carrots, celeriac, and rutabaga from our outside storage container (i.e., the portable cooler) as well as onions and garlic. Once the root vegetables were softened in the broth, she tossed in some fresh parsley for the Vitamin C (parsley has far more than even citrus fruits!), some more salt, thyme, and the soup was perfection.

Almost. Because then she topped it off with homemade dumplings cooked in the soup. Delicious! The only thing that I added to my bowl was a hell of a lot of hot red pepper for more Vitamin C (thanks to Hilary's homemade hot sauce) and a good nasal flush. Voila! We had an entire stockpot of delicious, locally-sourced soup with which to chase away my cold. Homemade chicken soup is so easy to make if you have a flexible afternoon, and it is well worth it! No canned soup could ever compare.

Thanks to Emily's soup, elderberry syrup, and multiple cups of real lemon ginger honey tea, I only spent Friday miserable and in bed. Take that, virus!

Those Grey Kinds of Days

2012-01-27T12:46:00.002-05:00

Steph's in bed with a bad cold and headache. Her persistent sniffles are the only signs of life. It's been raining, it seems, for ages. By this point, I'll need to don my wetsuit and galoshes in order to complete my errands. There are papers to grade and a knitted sweater to finish. The house is a disaster covered in dog hair. Oh, and we leave tomorrow at 5:30 AM for a wool workshop in New York.

In a surprising moment of zen, though, I'm trying to relax into today's rhythm.

There is time today, I'm convinced of it, to cook chicken noodle soup, to cuddle and rub backs, to run a few errands, to pack, to bake bread, to watch a movie, to ignore my grading, to tidy the house, to knit happily.

And I'm not sure that, in order to do this, I need to yell and stress and tell everyone who'll listen that "I really, really don't have time for this." Which is what I usually do (ask anyone close to me).

To make this tea, pour boiling water over fresh slices of ginger, whole cloves, and lemon juice. Sweeten with raw honey.

Because today, as opposed to other days, I do have the time.

Elderberry syrup. Here are directions to make your own.

More Light! More Color!

2012-01-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

To stave off the winter drearies, I steal Steph's seed catalogs and visit nearby greenhouses. But even as a child, I was hungry for flowers and other colorful plants. It's in my genes, I suppose. My maternal grandparents ran a flower shop, and my paternal grandmother grew sunflowers, towering hollyhocks, and petunias. My mother's rosebushes tower over me, and Dad dotes on his little lemon tree.

As the New England winter has finally arrived, I'm particularly drawn to orchids, those extravagant and erotic plants. Though I haven't mastered the art of caring for them (and they're a bit much for my budget these days), perhaps someday I'll enjoy a sunny window full of them.

Community Challenge: Round One

2012-01-23T10:10:00.001-05:00

After only two weeks, Community Challenge participants are off to a great start as they combine a commitment to local foods with social justice to broaden food access!

At EatLocal365, Lindsay and Erik researched local volunteer options and decided to work with Community Servings in Boston, an organization that delivers meals to the chronically ill, provides nutrition education, trains individuals in food service to enter the workforce, and offers access to local veggies, seafood, and herbs for clients in need.

Steph contacted a fellow farmer, Meryl of Powisset Farms, to offer market assistance. Powisset Farms is a proud supporter of the Dorchester Winter Farmers' Market but relies on volunteers to do so. If you're interested and in the Boston area, please contact Meryl at meryl.latronica@gmail.com. Shifts begin at Powisset at 9AM (to load up) and end by 4PM. Volunteer opportunities include February 5, 12, 19 as well as March 4 and 11.

I'm spreading the news about a potential lawsuit against Monsanto, the world's largest biotech and chemical corporation. According to Food Democracy Now, "in March 2011, [it] joined the lawsuit Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto during the first round of plaintiffs, in what could be an historic lawsuit that protects family farmers and challenges the legitimacy of Monsanto’s patents on their genetically engineered (GMO) seeds and their right to sue farmers indiscriminately. There are now 83 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including sustainable and organic farmers and food, agricultural research and environmental organizations collectively representing more than 300,000 farmers and citizens across the country. Shortly before the New Year, Judge Naomi Buchwald agreed to hear oral arguments on Monsanto’s motion to dismiss OSGATA et al v. Monsanto in federal district court in lower Manhattan on January 31."

Stick it to Monsanto! Sign the petition here and spread the word, please!

I'm also excited to start volunteering in the Community Servings' kitchen next week. I'll attend the food preparation orientation this Wednesday at 6PM such that Steph and I can volunteer together on Friday morning. Maybe we'll run into Lindsay and Erik sometime soon!

I had the good fortune of reconnecting with an old friend (Rachel) from high school, who writes for Myoo. In her latest article, Rachel writes about equitable access to local food. She's also generously spotlighting our Community Challenge project. Thanks, Rachel!

Finally, Mel brought the following to my attention: "The MBTA is proposing MASSIVE cuts that will severely affect those who most depend on mass transit (buses, T routes, the Ride) to get around Boston. Those folks tend to be the ones who cannot afford vehicles, and those who are physically incapable ofgetting around by foot or bike." And as Mel rightly observed, these cuts "will disproportionately affect people who are already disadvantaged."

Liveable Streets is spearheading the fight against proposed cuts. While transportation might seem removed from food justice, it's not. Transportation is a food issue insofar as it determines what is local, feasible, and accessible.

If you're interested in joining the Community Challenge, please contact me at finickyfarmer@gmail.com; we're excited to expand our numbers. To be included in the next round of updates, please send submissions by Sunday, February 5th at 5PM EST. Big hugs to this round's participants and supporters!

Winter Farmers' Market

2012-01-21T14:12:00.001-05:00

Not even the snow could keep me away from the Winter Farmers' Market in Wayland this afternoon. My insistence, along with Steph's four-wheel drive, ensured that we made it without incident.

To rein in my spending, I arrived with a list and a limited amount of cash. I purchased a delicious salad mix with microgreens and nasturtium blossoms.

Much to my delight, I discovered generous bags of cider donuts, which were not on my grocery list.

In the showdown between sensibility and impulsivity, can you guess which one won?

Wiping my sugary fingers off on my jeans, I kept shopping while Steph purchased fresh eggs, Greek yogurt, Bloody Mary mix, and...

local cheese!

The market also featured gorgeous skeins of yarn and roving. Be still my heart...

Because I just received a large shipment of yarn, I couldn't rationalize purchasing anything here. Maybe next time.

To reward myself for acting like an adult, I enjoyed a cup of gelato from Giovanna, purchased with my remaining dollars.

Stracciatella e gianduia (chocolate hazelnut), to be exact.

On the way home, we dropped by the library for more books and DVDs. Right now, Steph's fighting with the woodstove to keep us toasty and magically metamorphosing into the laundry fairy to keep us clean. (Man, did she ever earn those five bites of gelato!)

Later, I'm looking forward to an afternoon that includes reading by the fire, knitting furiously, and hiking through the snowy woods with the dog.

What do your weekend plans include?

Images of a Weekend. And a Birthday!

2012-01-16T19:45:00.003-05:00

On Friday night, Steph and I were invited to Cuban Shabbat, which was hosted by a dear friend and fellow farmer. The menu included arroz con pollo, fried platanos, black bean soup, and flan. I baked some challah loaves...

but, sadly, I forgot to take pictures of our beautiful meal. The food and conversation were too captivating, I suppose. I inhaled both.

On Saturday, we enjoyed a "sisters' night" in which Blanca fed us sopes and mashed pinto beans. I "helped" by surreptitiously sampling the ingredients (i.e., quality control) while Steph fried all 35 sopes in oil.

Topping our sopes with pinto beans, queso fresco, salsa, and fresh cilantro, we enjoyed this deliciousness while watching the Patriots game. When it became clear that the Patriots would win, we swapped secrets and exchanged unsolicited advice. Laughter and liquor flowed freely, as it always does on "sisters' night." Also, I (somehow) agreed to dye to my hair red; I blame the wine.

Then we stayed up past midnight to sing "Happy Birthday" to Stephanie, who turned 35 this Sunday.

On the following night, we celebrated Stephanie again with her entire family.

Happy happy, dear one. May this next year bring bountiful love, health, joy, and adventures!

Put a Bird on It!

2012-01-12T23:23:00.004-05:00

Taken by Steph in Seattle, this photograph is for fans of Portlandia.

Put a bird on it, indeed.

And for those of you who don't catch the referent, you can watch the clip from Portlandia here.
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Enjoy!

Lurching Towards a Vacation

2012-01-10T18:32:00.002-05:00

It's been three years since Steph and I have taken a vacation together. By ourselves. In something other than a tent.

On the day we left for Seattle -- what was to be a vacation of sorts -- Steph was still recovering from minor eye surgery. She looked not unlike this. In an attempt to be "more helpful," my dear Cyclops combined coffee with a dose of Percocet. Sadly, this combination didn't have the intended effect.

The dog ran away. Much to my irritation, he was later returned.

Existing on little more than fatigue and adrenalin, I was, well, high-strung and imperious. I repeated in urgent tones that I needed to "focus," but I had trouble locating clean underwear. I suggested that we "work together" in a sing-song voice that did little to mask my mounting levels of stress. I snapped at the Cyclops when she tried to help me navigate Boston rush-hour traffic to arrive at the airport.

In line, I texted my mother to ask if it was this hard to travel with two small children. She replied: "Honey, that's why we always drove."

But when the Cyclops and I moved through security with unprecedented ease -- if only because officials suspected a case of highly contagious conjunctivitis -- I thought that our vacation was finally beginning. Clearly, that was before I sat violently upright for 6.5 hours in a seat that would not shift a degree backwards. Rows apart from the Cyclops.

At least the Cyclops had her Percocet. I didn't even have a working reading light.

Despite such an auspicious start, we had a fabulous time in Seattle. Really and truly. It's been some time since I felt that relaxed. There were whole days in which I didn't even think about my dissertation. It was freakin' awesome.

On the second day, we took the Seattle Underground tour, a tour that was well worth our time and money. We learned about the original city -- 10-30 feet below and destroyed by fire -- a city that was founded by gambling, logging, and sex industries, a city whose prominent Madam left a quarter million dollars to the Seattle public school system. No schools, of course, feature her name on a plaque.

An original "crapper"

Underground skylights of manganese glass

Above ground, we split Alaskan sushi, spicy Hawaiian poke salad, and crispy french fries with ginger sauce. We had drinks. We had some more drinks. Then, we split a bottle of sake. You get the idea.

On our final day, we lingered in Pike's Market -- savoring samples of smoked salmon, selecting meats, cheeses, and fresh baguettes for our lunch, browsing bookstores. Then, Steph organized a trip to Bainbridge Island. While on the ferry, the grey of Seattle lifted to reveal this...

...freakin' mountains.

Mt. Rainier

On Bainbridge Island, I discovered a yarn & tea store, which was as fantastic as it sounds. We browsed some more book and art stores. When we returned to the city, we enjoyed chocolate-peanut butter-banana gelati for our final dinner.

Cuteness abounds

Can't wait to go back...but I won't be waiting three more years!

The Farmer Visits Seattle

2012-01-07T01:38:00.000-05:00

Today included a trip to the Seattle Aquarium...

and lunch at Pho Bac in Chinatown for steaming bowls of pho with fresh Thai basil, bean sprouts, limes, and thick slices of jalapeno.

From there, we wandered into a community garden where I found unripe figs on the ground and happy chickens in a coop...

and Steph captured some details of the city.

She's got a great eye, no?

Challenging Ourselves to Work for Food Justice

2012-01-05T11:02:00.000-05:00

Because many are invested in equitable food access, I'm working with others to create Community Challenge. It's part of a larger effort to confront food inequality and the complex systems that perpetuate this inequality -- an issue that I've mentioned here and here.

To commence the "Community Challenge," I envision folks initiating discussions about food equity online (on Facebook, Twitter, Blogger) and in person. One ought to be prepared, though, for difficult conversations about race, gender, class, immigration status, nationality, geography, ability and more!

But, by remaining self-aware of varying levels of privilege, we'll enjoy more productive and respectful conversations. Please remember that systems of inequality shape one's privilege (or lack thereof), and sometimes we're blind to those privileges. So, let's be kind, gentle, and patient with each other.

Building on these conversations, I'd like us to put our good intentions into practice. Below, I've offered three categories -- knowledge, advocacy, and direct action. Please note, however, that this is only a suggested framework and it is certainly not a hierarchy! Moreover, I offer the following activities as starting points; I envision ongoing discussions/feedback in the comments section as this challenge takes shape.

One quick caveat: We should be mindful of going into communities that are not our own. Rather than imposing one's personal idea of the "good" on others, let's work supportively and collaboratively with existing organizations/structures. In other words, let's check the messianic streak ;)

Community Challenge participants should select activities that feel comfortable to them and later challenge themselves to something beyond their "comfort zones." Participants then write about their experiences and share research with others. I'd be happy to serve as a coordinator for this network (e.g., writing summary posts, linking back to your blogs/discussion/work, co-facilitating discussions).

So, if you're interested in the opportunity, please email me at finickyfarmer@gmail.com.

Knowledge

Research where your trash goes and who is affected by it. Where is the nearest landfill? Which communities are nearby? Is there controversy regarding or advocacy groups against these disposal sites? Why?

Find out what's on the menu at a nearby school cafeteria or prison. Take note if it's difficult to even access this information!

Interview your local farmer(s). Ask for their thoughts on government regulations, for instance, or the process of organic certification or systems of privilege. Who eats their food, in other words? If comfortable and appropriate, ask them to share more about the financial hardships associated with their career/lifestyle.

Determine your state's regulations of raw dairy products.

Identify one awesome group that enables equitable food access.

Advocacy

Write a handwritten letter (or five) to your representatives about a particular policy change. Request a meeting, arm yourself with some data, and take a friend along.

Purchase a "Food Democracy Now" t-shirt and wear it to your next family gathering or to your local coffee shop. Smile lots, and wait for conversations to begin organically.

At your next visit to your farmer's market or stand, ask if they accept EBT (i.e., food stamps) and WIC coupons. If the answer is "yes," thank them for making food more accessible to all. If the answer is "no," ask more questions -- gently and curiously. Ask what they would need in order to accept EBT and WIC.

Follow a food advocacy campaign (i.e., Food Democracy Now, Support Michael Schmidt).

If you're a member of a CSA, ask if your farm has work shares or subsidized shares. If not, work with farmers and board members to make this a reality. If so, ask about work shares for individuals of differing abilities. Are there options for folks in wheelchairs? For instance, could folks sow seed trays and assist with a CSA newsletter as part of a work share rather than work in the fields?

Direct Action

Work as an ally (i.e., supporting member) with that awesome group you identified (see Knowledge section).

If you're a fan of the Occupy Movement, consider following a nearby "Occupy the Farm" group.

Volunteer at a local food kitchen, bank, or meal delivery program to ensure nutritious food to those in need.

Ask your local farmers if they're interested in donating extra produce to food banks. Many times, they are, but they lack the time and free hands to do so. Glean for good, and connect with local groups to ensure safe, fresh delivery.

Gather together and work on a community garden. If gardens already exist, ask if you can offer support in terms of upkeep, seed/plant donations, and expansion.

Don't forget that local issues have international parallels! For instance, consider water access in Gaza (MECA does great work on this issue) or in other parts of the world.

Sound good? Once again, interested parties should email me at finickyfarmer@gmail.com by Friday, January 13th to be included in the first round. Please use "Community Challenge" as your subject heading, and please note that "round-up posts" will not be due until Friday, January 20th.

And please don't be shy. I welcome criticism, ideas, alternatives, and additions below.

Many thanks in advance for your partnership and input!

Update: Read about Round One of Community Challenge

Dark Days Challenge: Potato-Leek Soup

2012-01-04T09:56:00.001-05:00

Last night, the temperature dropped to 4ºF. On such wintry nights, I can barely pry myself away from the wood-stove to make dinner.

But when hunger gets the best of me -- or, more precisely, when the chocolate runs out -- soup is the only fare that'll do. So, using many of our storage vegetables, I made a nourishing pot of potato-leek soup to stave off the cold.

To do the same for your household, you'll need the following ingredients:

1-2 medium onions
4 cloves of garlic
6-8 smallish potatoes
4-5 leeks
3-4 T of butter
2 T of olive oil
1 c of raw milk
grated cheddar cheese for garnish
salt, pepper, thyme, and other desired seasonings

1) Nearly carmelize the chopped onions in 1T olive oil and 2 T butter. Saute garlic midway through the process.

2) Simultaneously wash/chop potatoes and leeks. After the onions are a delicious brown mess, add the potatoes, add more butter and salt, and cover. Stir frequently.

3) Before the potatoes are completely soft, add leeks and more butter. Remember: leeks love butter. Potatoes love salt. Adhering to this rule will ensure extra-delicious veggies!

4) Add 2-3 c water, season to taste, and simmer for a wee bit more (15 minutes or so). Keep tasting and seasoning accordingly.

5) Turn off your burner. Blend half of the contents until they're smooth (in a rustic kinda way). Mix with the rest.

6) When ladling the soup into bowls, it (the soup, not the bowl) ought to be fairly thick. You can "water it down," though, by adding raw milk directly into your bowl. Grate cheese on top. Sprinkle some thyme for color. Fresh chives would be a dream as well.

7) Take bowl of soup back to the wood-stove and resume original posture.

Please note that salt, pepper, and olive oil were the only ingredients not obtained/grown within 100 miles.

Leftovers taste even better.

Poem for January 1st: Marge Piercy

2012-01-01T17:49:00.001-05:00

Fr. Louie Vitale, OFM, at Gaza Freedom March in Cairo, 2009

A poem with which to meet the new year.

Marge Piercy, "The Low Road"

What can they do 
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can 
bust you, they can break 
your fingers, they can 
burn your brain with electricity, 
blur you with drugs till you 
can't walk, can’t remember, they can 
take your child, wall up 
your lover. They can do anything 
you can’t blame them
from doing. How can you stop 
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can 
take what revenge you can 
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting 
back to back can cut through 
a mob, a snake-dancing file 
can break a cordon, an army 
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other 
sane, can give support, conviction, 
love, massage, hope, sex. 
Three people are a delegation, 
a committee, a wedge. With four 
you can play bridge and start 
an organization. With six 
you can rent a whole house, 
eat pie for dinner with no 
seconds, and hold a fund raising party. 
A dozen make a demonstration. 
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter; 
ten thousand, power and your own paper; 
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time, 
it starts when you care 
to act, it starts when you do 
it again after they said no, 
it starts when you say We 
and know who you mean, and each 
day you mean one more.

Adventures for the New Year

2011-12-31T18:55:00.001-05:00

I have mixed feelings about New Year's resolutions -- not with regards to their construction but rather in public proclamations of them. As you might have gathered, I adore setting goals and breaking them down into manageable steps. With each post-it in my planner, I succumb helplessly to the fantasy that I am the grand author of my destiny.

Yet in moving from the privacy of my planner to the public space of a blog, questions of motives naturally arise. So, I want to be completely transparent here: I am not sharing these goals so that my readers might hold me accountable. That's my responsibility. I am not doing this so that I can impress (or annoy) others with the loftiness of my aspirations. This post, in other words, does not stem from the machinations of a back-door braggart.

(Besides I'm perfectly comfortable with the front door, thankyouverymuch!)

Rather, I share these plans in a spirit of authenticity, intentionality, and mutual encouragement. Recently, I read a blog post in which the author shared a personal goal -- a really big awesome one. For a moment, I cringed with a spasm of mean-girl jealousy. And then, as I do whenever I feel jealous, I shook it off and said: "Well, shit. I could do that too. Why the hell not?"

Reading her post and staying aware of my reaction enabled me to identify what I really, really wanted to do in my secretest of hearts. It gave me the proverbial kick in the pants to court potential failure with exuberance and glee!

So, my dears, here are my adventures for 2012. If you feel comfortable, please share your resolutions below. I'd love to read them and send encouragement your way.

Body

master a headstand
hike Mt. Washington (and enter its road race lottery again)
drink more water
eat less sugar
bike 150 miles in the MS Relay from Boston to P-town
complete a half-ironman in August
set a half-marathon PR (sub 1:40)

Life

finish PhD sans institutionalization
travel somewhere fabulous
pay off my credit card
be more mindful of my time on the internet
read for pleasure. and often. also, finally, finally read Anna Karenina.

Stuff I Do With My Hands

make sourdough bread
make cheese
sew a quilt
sew a dress
plant an indoor herb garden
design and publish 3 knitting patterns
secure a few clients for my reiki practice

Soul Food

stop yelling so much
meditate-meditate-meditate
use positive affirmations more frequently
go on a retreat by myself
attend another herbalism conference this summer
visit an acupuncturist
learn and practice qi gong
volunteer on a regular basis with Community Servings and Black & Pink

Happy 2012. I'll catch you on the flip side.

One Ugly Mother: Kombucha Update

2011-12-28T18:29:00.000-05:00

You remember Merv, right?

This evening, Steph and I decided to sample our kombucha tea that had been fermenting all week. But our conversation dwindled to silence when we saw how Merv had transformed. Holy mother!

That thick pancake is Merv, and he's doing his best to imitate the eerie opening credits from HBO's True Blood.

Catfish in a Louisiana swamp, I believe

When we opened up the jar, hot steam hit our faces. I felt the glass jar, which was perfectly cool. Curiouser and curiouser.

Despite its fermented swamp water facade, it smelled, well, like regular kombucha. Steph poured off some liquid into a glass and gamely took the first sip. "It's great," she sputtered. "Really, really great!" Thanks to this information, I took my kombucha shot with confidence, and it exceeded my wildest expectations.

Using peach-mango black tea and fresh ginger, Steph made a kombucha batch that bested any store-bought variety. And on her first try!

So long as neither of us encounter intestinal distress later tonight, I think that this one's a win.

Update: We survived the night without issue. I'm calling it a victory.

Dark Days Challenge: The Lightning Round (Three Bean Soup)

2011-12-26T20:26:00.000-05:00

In keeping with the Dark Days Challenge, Steph and I have feasted on pork-beef meatloaf, carrot-ginger soup, pureed butternut squash, delicious applesauce, homemade sauerkraut (recipe forthcoming) and arugula salads.

Tonight, we're enjoying a three bean soup made with our own turkey stock.

(But dudes, don't let this healthy eating fool you. For the past 72 hours, I've eaten little more than chocolate chip cookies, candy, chocolate, and Chex party mix. I'm pretty sure that I'm either going to throw up or pass out from the sugar.)

From a bean farm in NH, Steph purchased a few bags of kidney and black beans, and divvied them up amongst colleagues. These dried beans cost approximately $1.15 per cup. I added cannellini beans to our soup as well, but they aren't local.

Measuring a cup of each variety, I soaked them for 8 hours. Once the beans were finished soaking, I chopped two yellow onions and sauteed them in 2 T of olive oil on medium heat.

I added 4 minced cloves of garlic and 3 generous handfuls of diced carrots to my stockpot.

Stirred. Stirred. Stirred.

Then, I peeled and diced this ugly mother.

It's celeriac, a root vegetable that tastes just like celery and stores beautifully. I added 1/4 c of celeriac to my stockpot as well. Then, I dumped in the soaked beans and added 8 c of turkey stock, which was made from the carcass of a local turkey.

I seasoned the soup with salt, pepper, and cumin. I also added some roasted tomatoes that we'd frozen this summer. I brought the mixture to a boil, reduced the heat, and put a lid on it.

A half an hour later, Steph found that our local beans (kidney and black) were done well before the cannellini beans -- even though the kidney beans are much larger than the cannellini and ought to require a lengthier cooking time. The freshness of these local beans translated into a superior taste as well.

When I sampled the soup, I couldn't believe the difference -- local beans are meaty, flavorful, hearty, and fabulous. Cheap but delish. That's my kind of Dark Days meal!

**As usual, all vegetables were either grown on Steph's farm (1.5 miles away) or purchased from a neighboring farm (no more than 6 miles away).

Dear Steph

2011-12-23T13:40:00.004-05:00

Dear Steph,

I love our Christmas tradition in which we exchange only handmade gifts with each other. Though these gifts are never a surprise -- our home too tiny and our lives too intertwined -- I enjoy the anticipation of wrapping you up in my coziest knits.

So, when I discovered Spilly Jane's "Carrot and Beet" mittens, I knew that I'd found the most perfect mitten design for the finickiest of farmers. Beets bursting in color. Carrots lined up in neat rows. How freakin' fabulous is that?! With great glee, I showed you the pattern and secured your approval in early November.

But when I promised you a pair for Christmas, you laughed ~~not unlike a malevolent hyena~~ for an unnecessarily long time. "Oh sweeetheart," you told me in a voice dripping with condescension, "I won't expect them before my birthday. Or maybe even Valentine's Day." The hilarity of my goal proved too much, and your laughter resumed as you walked away. "At least before the next farm season begins," you suggested from the kitchen. More laughter.

Well, babycakes, how d'ya like them ~~apples~~ beets?

That's right, m'dear. I finished them yesterday, actually, and completed the entire project within 10 days. Boo-yah.

What's that smell? Not freshly baked cookies but victory tinged with sheep!

I'm sorry, babe. I don't mean to brag. And, given that you've only finished one handwarmer and I have two hands, I bet you're feeling pretty vulnerable at the moment.

With that in mind, please know that if you aren't able to finish my handwarmers before Christmas morning, it's really okay. Besides, it's not as if this handmade gift exchange is a competition or something. ~~But if it were, I would have, like, so totally won this year~~.

What you've given me -- a chance to prove you wrong before God and everyone else -- is the most magical Christmas gift of all. Thank you, truly.

All my love,
Emily

Volunteer Opportunity: Community Servings

2011-12-22T10:02:00.001-05:00

Community Servings is Greater Boston’s free, nutritious, home-delivered meals program. Community Servings delivers meals throughout eastern Massachusetts to over 700 people homebound with cancer, HIV/AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and other acute life-threatening illnesses, who are unable to shop or cook for themselves.

Community Servings does excellent work, providing 3,340 lunches and dinners each week, and boasts a broad volunteer base to accomplish these feats.

Tomorrow, Steph and I will be driving around Boston to deliver holiday meals to homebound folks, their caregivers, and families. If you're interested in this opportunity and you have access to a car, contact Ashley Boyd (Volunteer Coordinator) at 617-522-7777, x 228 or aboyd@servings.org. No special training is required -- just a clean car interior (many of the clients are immuno-compromised), an awesome sense of direction (er, GPS?), a warm smile, and a kind heart.

For my MBTA peeps, you can provide much needed service by preparing/packaging meals in the kitchen on the "Slice and Dice" Crew. Community Servings is a brief walk from the Orange Line Stony Brook Station in JP. As we continue to think about equitable access to nourishing foods, here's a way in which we can put our sentiments into practice.

Mommie Dearest

2011-12-19T21:49:00.004-05:00

Steph and I have been keeping a secret.

But now, bursting with excitement, we would like to announce the arrival of our bundle of joy!

Meet Merv.

Merv and his papa Rhett

He's our kombucha baby, and he's the closest we'll ever come to motherhood.

Kombucha -- a tonic made from sugar, yeast, and black tea -- tastes sweetly sour and has more bubbles than a bottle of champagne. Though one can readily purchase kombucha teas at the grocery store, they tend to be expensive. Also, please note that a small amount of alcohol may be produced by the fermentation process. At one nearby grocery, for instance, I'm always carded when I purchase this tea.

And, yes, that was a backdoor brag.

Technically speaking, Merv is a symbiotic colony of yeast and bacteria, and he's what makes the fermentation magic happen. For each batch of kombucha tea, Merv thickens and produces a baby (which may be adopted out or unceremoniously composted).

Merv metabolizes the sugar and tea to produce not only acetic and lactic acid, but also small amounts of glucuronic acid -- a detoxifying substance. When one's liver function becomes overloaded and when the body must deal with a superabundance of toxins, this additional glucuronic acid acts as a "powerful aid to the body's natural cleansing process, a boost to the immune system and a proven prophylactic against cancer and other degenerative diseases" (Nourishing Traditions 596).

Physiologically speaking, glucuronic acid acts by binding poisons/toxins and rushing them to the excretory system. Once bound by glucuronic acid, toxins cannot be reabsorbed by the system.

Pretty freaking neat, eh?

In Search for Health, Tom Valentine details how Soviet cancer researchers found themselves in the midst of a cancer epidemic immediately following WWII. However, there were a few districts in which scarcely any cancer cases were reported. This was puzzling, given that environmental conditions there were just as miserable -- trees and fish were dying thanks, in part, to the pollution from a variety of production and mining facilities. Probing into the private lives of those in the region, cancer researchers discovered that their test subjects consumed as much vodka as other Russians but didn't demonstrate any of the typical adverse effects. Bizarre-o. Finally, researchers stumbled upon fermenting crocks of kvass or kombucha in each household and did further testing to confirm their suspicions.

Go, go glucuronic acid!

To make your own, see the following recipe below.

Kombucha Tea (taken from Sandor Ellix Katz's Wild Fermentation)

1) Mix 1 quart of water and 1/4 c of sugar together, and bring to a boil in a small cooking pot.
2) Turn off the heat; add tea, cover, and steep for about 15 minutes (For instance, Steph brew a batch of mango tea and added fresh ginger to the mix)
3) Strain the tea into a glass container. It's best to use something wide; kombucha needs adequate surface area and works best if the diameter of the container is greater than the depth of the liquid. Allow the tea to cool to body temperature (or cooler).

4) Add the mature acidic kombucha. When you obtain a culture, it will be stored in this liquid. Save a portion of subsequent batches for this purpose.
5) Place the kombucha mother (your own Merv) in the liquid with the firm, opaque side up.
6) Cover with a cloth and store in a warm spot (75-80 degrees F). Don't disturb the culture or move it around.

7) After a few days to one week, you will notice a skin forming on the surface of the kombucha. Taste the liquid. Do it! It will probably still be sweet. The longer it sits, the more acidic it will become.
8) Once the tea reaches an acidity that please your palette, start a new batch and store your mature kombucha in the fridge. Use either the new baby or old mother to start another batch.

Finally, if you're interested in securing your own culture, please let me know in the comments below. I'm happy to share with folks close to Boston.

Continuing Conversations: Eating Locally

2011-12-17T21:55:00.002-05:00

Not surprisingly, folks had much to say regarding the privileges of eating locally. Many thanks to those with whom I enjoyed conversations on Facebook, via Blogger, and in person.

Because you articulated it best, I'm including a few points that arose from these conversations.

On Facebook, Seth offered a friendly amendment: "To the matrix of "space, healthy soil, and water" that prohibit many from growing their own food, I'd add "time." The underprivileged and working poor increasingly find their time as stretched as their money, which only compounds the difficulty of accessing healthful food."

Cheryl reminded us of how"what's happening here nationally has a strong international picture too." Spot on, as usual.

Via blogger, Steph explained the hidden costs behind our so-called "free" produce: "Incidentally, as a farmer, I couldn't afford to buy local food at the rate at which we eat it....Nothing is free! I can't afford a vacation, car repairs, dog vet bills, my own medical bills, etc., but we do eat like kings because I sell my soul to the land every year."

Mel (another farmer) corroborated this financial portrait: "i could never afford to eat the way i do if i was getting paid the same and not farming. and i wish that this conversation was happening more. as odd as it sounds, people hardly ever mention the issues of food access and white/moneyed privilege in the same breath."

There's something, to put it indelicately, profoundly fucked about farmers who wouldn't be able to afford their own produce if they had to purchase it. And I don't know what the solutions are to this multifacted problem of equitable food access.

However, I do believe that food justice cannot simply occur at the level of the individual. For instance, if I share my "free" produce with friends who can't afford groceries, this act does nothing to mitigate, say, soil contamination in South Boston. Even if all of us redistribute healthful food to all hungry folks, soil contamination in urban areas will persist. Many of the issues around food access -- farm subsidies (or lack thereof), institutionalized racism, agricultural laws, international trade -- are big. Really big. Such behemoths require education, advocacy, community-building, and revolution.

We gotta be more creative. Willing to band together. Unafraid to cause a ruckus.

And I have faith that we're up to the task.

In the meantime, let's consider this conversation ongoing. Also, if you're able to do so, donate in support of the Dorchester Winter Market's Kickstarter; they're only $1000 away from reaching their goal.

Interrogating the Privileges of Eating Locally

2011-12-13T09:20:00.002-05:00

As we continue the Dark Days Challenge, I'd like us to consider what enables participants to eat locally. There is a system of privileges, in other words, that allows us access to nourishing local foods. And I want us to think carefully about the system in order to make local foods more accessible to all. Many thanks to Christine for gesturing towards this issue in an earlier comment and to Lindsay for moving that discussion forward.

So what enables me to eat locally? Well, I sleep with a farmer. She brings home produce. It's a pretty good deal.

Flippant answer aside, the bulk of our vegetables come straight off the farm. And for other veggies, such as corn and sweet potatoes which aren't planted there, Steph's connections allow us to have these items for free or at radical discounts from other farms. If I lived in the city, I could certainly purchase a share from Boston Organics (or another CSA that has a city drop-off) or shop at urban farmers' markets. But these are all expenses that I don't have to pay due to my relationship with Steph. This is a financial consequence of eating local, in other words, that I don't have to shoulder. And, to be really frank, I couldn't shoulder this financial expense at the moment even though I know this investment pays off in the long run.

Winter compounds these problems as there are no more farmers' markets in the city. One needs a car (or a ride) to reach the winter's markets in Wayland (@ 40-50 minutes from the city). There, one may purchase hydroponic greens, happy meat, fresh butter, and more. But it is expensive. One also needs a car to reach the very few raw milk dairies in Massachusetts, which are far away from the city (due to awesomely restrictive dairy laws, raw milk may only be sold on site; therefore, even raw milk co-ops are technically illegal). This, too, is really expensive. A gallon of raw milk, for instance, costs $9. I emphasize the financial cost to argue that there is a privilege inherent in eating local, and we must consider the roles of race and class in the eating local movement. According to a Pew Research Center's analysis of recently available government data from 2009, the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households in the US. Please see the following link that visually demonstrates this overwhelming white privilege.

To mitigate this cost, I could, of course, grow my own food, and I highly encourage folks to do so. But this, too, requires space, healthy soil, and water. Where I currently live, I could grow my vegetables without constraint. But in urban areas, there often isn't available space (e.g., planting close to buildings allows one to eat veggies with toxins, which leak from the foundation or have been sprayed directly on the ground). Or, if you're living in a community of color, you can enjoy those veggies with the waste from a nearby landfill. Yummers! For instance, the overwhelming majority of Treatment, Disposal, and Storage Facilities (TDSFs) are found in areas with a dense population of minorities. One's proximity to toxicity, in other words, depends on the color of one's skin.*

While I love the Dark Days Challenge, it's simply not enough to disseminate information about eating local with the hope that it'll educate "others." It's not enough to speak in insular online communities and pat ourselves on the back for our oh-so-good lifestyle decisions, decisions that are, in fact, related to our levels of privilege. Instead, what I'd like to see are conversations occurring in communities about environmental and food justice, which include considerations of race/ethnicity, gender, class, education, geography. I'd like us to complicate, in other words, the eating local movement.

How can we work with others to enable more equitable access to local, healthy foods?

Below, I've posted a few links to programming examples in urban communities, programs that are led by community members themselves:

The Food Project (Boston and Dorchester)
City Growers (Boston)

The People's Grocery (West Oakland)

*For further reading on environmental justice and race, see Manuel Paster Jr's "Racial/Ethnic Inequality in Environmental-Hazard Exposure in Metropolitan Los Angeles;" Shrader-Frechette. 2002. Environmental Justice Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy. Oxford University Press: New York, NY, Chavis; Benjamin F., Goldman, Benjamin A. and Charles Lee. (1987) Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socio-economic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites. Commission for Racial Justice, United Church of Christ; Roberts, Diane (September 9, 2007). "The world's a dirty place when you are poor". St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, FL).

Updated: Please see more of our ongoing conversation here.

This is What Happens When You Feed Your Dog Human Food!

2011-12-11T08:49:00.001-05:00

It is true, readers, that Emily and I (but mostly I) give the dog human-food scraps. We are "those" dog owners. Then I yell at him for begging for food, so I like to think I balance him out.

Anyway, Livingstone is not a picky eater; just about the only thing at which I have seen him turn up his nose was an orange peel that Emily tried to feed him yesterday. Oh, and bananas. He devours eggshells (if it is his lucky day, the shells still have eggs in them, but that only happened once when he ate an entire dozen!), has been seen dragging away a used coffee filter from a compost pile upon which to gnaw, and loves squash butts.

He also thinks that deer and coyote poop are delicacies.

So perhaps in light of what this dog considers to be good eating, it is not really that much of a marvel that he loves kale. But Emily and I LOVE kale, so I take pride in the fact that my dog thinks a kale stem is a treat. I trained him to think that! Whilst chopping and bagging tens of pounds of kale for freezing this fall, I often would hand off the kale stems to the eager dog, and he would trot happily off to gnaw on them before returning for another (yes I am a total sucker for a dog begging for vegetables).

The Demon Dog of Fleet Street

Apparently, he does have a limit to the number of kale stems he will ingest, however, because one day after I left for work, Emily descended from the loft to find the living room strewn with the greenery, which the dog had collected from me and disposed of in the other room. He can't seem to help the begging even when he doesn't want to eat anymore of it! And did I mention that I am a sucker for a kale-begging dog?

Anyway, yesterday, I returned to the kale field to harvest what remained for our donations program and brought the dog along to run around in the fenced-in field. The fence is there to keep deer out of our crops, but at this time of year, deer will not even think twice about crossing the electrified line to batter down a netted fence-wall, if it means they can graze off the tops of our kale plants.

Jerks. Oh, for some organic, farm-fattened venison steaks, but I digress.

So I am making my way down the beds of kale, lopping the tops off of the non-grazed plants, with the dog begging at my heels, hoping for me to pass him off reject leaves. Very soon, he gets tired of waiting on me to supply him with kale leaves and realizes that there is a whole field of kale plants to which he can help himself.

So he starts grazing.

Like a deer.

Taking one bite from one plant and moving onto the next for that ever-elusive, better bite.

I apologize for the poor quality of this video, but my not-smart phone, well, it is pathetic when it comes to photos and videos. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

And remember our household mantra: EAT MORE KALE!

Holiday Wreath Making

2011-12-10T09:59:00.001-05:00

Meet Hilary and her wreath making supplies.

Steph enjoys the good fortune of not only Hilary's friendship but also her collegiality on the farm. And, for several years, Hilary's been a dear friend to me as well.

I admire Hil for a host of reasons -- her generosity, her subtle sense of humor, her intellectual curiosity, her diligence, her ability to listen carefully, her adorable laughter. Lately, I especially admire the ways in which Hilary makes use of her talents to support herself throughout the winter. As a seasonal farm worker, she needs a paycheck to sustain herself through the "off" months. For instance, Hil taught herself to weave, and she's recently opened up her own store on Etsy to sell her beauties. For the farm's annual Christmas tree sale, she fashions holiday wreaths and other decorations for sale as well. She's a girl, in other words, who can generate her own capital.

But with the self-destructing economy and the proliferation of "occupy" movements, many have leveled critiques at capitalism. Some of these criticisms are quite valid. This system, uninhibited and unregulated, isn't working. Or, rather, it only works at the expense of others on behalf of too few. In the US, the devastation that we've wracked in other countries -- e.g., compensating unsafe/dangerous work with unlivable wages, perpetuating systems of exploitation -- is now also "in house," so to speak. Here, people are hungry. There are too few jobs. An ever-increasing debt seems insurmountable and defeating. For so many, this system sucks hard.

But, like it or not, this is the system in which we find ourselves at the moment. And most of us still have to pay rent and purchase groceries. For me, though, Hilary models a possibility of how one might negotiate this system with grace. These wreathes, for instance, are made out of local materials that she's harvested respectfully from nearby forests. She makes use of her hands and talents to generate beauty. She lives gently with the earth and with others.

She gives me great hope, in other words, that one can live fully on limited means and that one's work can be nourishing and joyful.

Merry Merry

Dark Days Challenge: Kale-Potato Frittata (Week 1)

2011-12-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

Finicky Farmer is a proud participant in the Dark Days Challenge -- a challenge that encourages folks to cook at least one local meal per week throughout the winter. "Local food" is defined as food grown within a 100 mile radius. Typical exceptions include oils, coffee, chocolate, and spices.

For the first week of this challenge, I made a delicious kale-potato frittata. So simple and hearty. The leftovers are even better.

Ingredients and Provenance

8 eggs -- Collected from the hens at the farmhouse (2.5 mi)
a generous bunch of kale -- Harvested from the main farm (1.5 mi)
4-5 smallish potatoes -- Harvested from a neighboring farm (11 mi)
2-4 cloves of garlic -- Harvested from the main farm (1.5 mi)
1 medium onion -- Harvested from a neighboring farm (11 mi)
1/2 c of raw milk -- Purchased at dairy (12 mi)
1/2 c of grated cheese -- Purchased at dairy (12 mi)
2-4 T of butter -- Purchased from local creamery (15 mi)
3-4 sprigs of minced rosemary -- Picked from neighbor's container garden (15 steps)

Salt and pepper to taste (no local sources for these seasonings)

Directions
In a large cast-iron Dutch oven, melt 2T of butter on medium heat. Saute chopped onion. Once translucent, add minced garlic, and keep stirring. Chop up the potatoes into thin slices, and toss them into the mix. Add more butter. Salt liberally.

Beat the eggs together with the milk. Add the rosemary to the eggs-milk mixture. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Once the potatoes are delicious, add the chopped kale.

Allow kale to steam until softened. Don't rush this step as kale requires a longer cooking time than many other greens. Pour the eggs-milk mixture over the veggies, which are in the cast-iron. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top of the frittata.

Using oven mitts, take the Dutch oven off the stove-top and pop into the oven (uncovered) for @15 minutes. Turn off the oven and allow the pan to cool off a bit inside. Cut into slices and devour immediately!

Merry Merry

2011-12-05T11:40:00.001-05:00

Despite our lack of funds, Steph and I decided to really celebrate the Christmas/Solstice season this year, and that means decorating in earnest! This weekend, we took to the woods to collect natural materials with which to decorate our farmy cottage, aiming to create inexpensive (or free!), yet compostable, decorations. Cheap and green, in other words.

After gathering pinecones from the forest floor, I secured ribbons to them with my beloved hot glue gun.

I placed a pillar candle in a glass vase and surrounded it with fresh cranberries. Then, I placed the vase atop a bed of greenery and pinecones.

Last night, we strung garlands of popcorn and cranberries while singing along to Christmas carols.

Inserting whole cloves into oranges, I arranged them in a bowl of greenery.

This morning, we created our first terrarium with velvety mosses, baby conifers, and ferns...

and continued hanging pinecones around the house.

Merry Merry, m'dears.

Fungal Forays

2011-12-02T16:12:00.001-05:00

Clean Food Challenge -- Update

2011-12-01T17:29:00.001-05:00

The wee Emily and her handsome parents

During grade school, I adored slumber parties. Winding myself up on fistfuls of M&Ms and bowls of ice cream, I stayed up all night with the best of them for countless rounds of "Light as a Feather."

When I returned home -- my body shaking with sugar and sleep-deprivation -- I crashed like a drama queen on a coke binge. "Upstairs," my mother commanded, "To bed now." Unable to form coherent sentences, I started keening, punctuating my misery with shrieks of outrage.

While the cocker spaniel found my performance painful, my parents, of course, thought it hilarious. One parent would nudge the other, whispering conspiratorially, "Damien, a total Damien." The other would laugh discreetly. The instigating parent would tell me more firmly, "Go to bed, Damien. I mean Emily." More laughter followed me as I trudged up the stairs.

Years later, I finally watched The Omen and got the joke, so to speak (Incidentally, this was also the year that I watched Mommie Dearest and used the titular phrase against my mother. To my delight, I too could join in this game).

This is all to say, as you might have guessed, that I feel not unlike Damien on this cleanse.

But let me start with the positive. Day 2 went swimmingly. Relying on the generosity of D, I ate an amazing meal -- black beans with colorful peppers, brown rice, broiled salmon, heaping spoonfuls of fresh guacamole. I supplemented all that with more arugula salad, dates encrusted in almonds, clementines, and bananas with peanut butter. D waxed eloquent about how "fabulous" he felt and that he wanted to "continue this cleanse for a little bit longer" -- that it was all "so easy." I agreed because, for a brief shining moment, it seemed as much. When Steph (who's also on the cleanse) admitted that she'd enjoyed pizza and a beer with a friend that evening, I encouraged her to stop worrying about it.

But, secretly, I felt really smug.

Day 3 rolled around. More oatmeal with cinnamon. Bananas slathered in peanut butter. Bowls of the excellent tomatillo-cumin-lime-black bean soup made by Steph. A Lara bar. Fresh avocado. More salad with balsamic vinegar and fresh pepper.

Yet, while driving to campus for an evening of tutoring, I became enraged with the self-imposed restrictions of this cleanse. I wanted to snort a mountain of refined flour and sugar. Once I parked the car, I stomped off to the library cafe in search of chocolate chip cookies.

I was going down in a blaze of glory, bitches. I made those cookies feel my defiance.

But, not surprisingly, they didn't even taste that good. I think I would have rather eaten a cup of guacamole.

Crappers. Back on the horse tomorrow.

Clean Food Challenge

2011-11-30T08:54:00.001-05:00

Out of solidarity with a friend, I've embarked on a clean food challenge. Spearheaded by One Mom in Maine, this week-long challenge eschews meat, dairy, sugar, processed foods, alcohol, and gluten in an attempt to reprogram one's digestive system and support one's general well-being.

Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy ~~night~~ week!

Yesterday was the first day, and my eating included lots of fresh fruit, delicious arugula salads, oatmeal with cinnamon, almond smoothie with strawberries and blueberries, dried dates rolled in almonds, fresh avocados, a Lara bar, and a steaming bowl of spicy tomatillo-cilantro-black bean soup.

Despite my temporary bouts of rage and crankiness, I'm choosing to participate in this cleanse as a way to cut down on my sugar consumption, which is too high and reaches epic amounts during the holidays. And while I'm an advocate of a happy meat/raw milk/veggies/fruit diet (see, for instance, Nourishing Traditions), I also realize that all meat/milk-consuming peoples went through periods of fasting, usually when supplies were low in the late winter/early spring. Admittedly, there are benefits to a temporarily meatless diet (relief from arthritis, gout, kidney disease, and even some cancers). But I don't believe that this cleanse, if extended for long periods of time, is useful or healthy. I'd miss Vitamin B12, the Wultzen anti-stiffness factor, and fat.

Also, I don't care to live in a world without cheese.

But, for a week, I can endure anything. Without boring readers too much, I'll post a few updates throughout the week. And, if you feel so inclined, please feel free to join me as well. Just leave a comment to that regard below.

Five Things

2011-11-28T16:42:00.001-05:00

1) Remember this post -- the one in which I mock the fates and proclaim invincibility over all things culinary? I made the Cuban black bean soup. I baked the pies and even the pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Unfortunately, that baking experience also included but was not limited to the following:

Butter leaked all over the oven and smoked filled our tiny house
A certain someone (ahem) placed cinnamon rolls outside to cool. Despite warnings against this move, the rolls stayed put until the neighbor dog found himself a snack.
While putting the oven on "clean," bright flames filled that wretched, butter-filled kitchen appliance. Evidently, one's stove shouldn't flame during the cleaning process.
Our landlord generously offered her oven, so I intruded upon their quiet family dinner to bake my stupid pies. Fortunately, flames weren't escaping from their oven.
I burnt the freaking pie crusts.

2) I finished the sweater. Just barely. I'm not keen on the neck. I wear it in public but only with a scowl.

Sweater and scowl

3) I learned how to use a wood chipper (think Fargo) this weekend while assisting Steph's family with yard clean-up. No one fell into the chipper, accidentally or otherwise. Considering the days that preceded this event, that's pretty much a miracle.

Brooke on chipper duty

4) Steph started running. Also, a miracle. I'm immensely proud of her as she finds a burgeoning and begrudging joy in trail running. Yesterday, she took off running for thirty minutes with the dog. Later, she became disoriented on the trails (which are mind-boggling) and topped off her run with a two hour hike.

5) I scheduled a "clean-food cleanse" for this week (no animal products, sugar, wheat, alcohol). I'm shoveling macaroni and cheese into my mouth as I type that sentence.

Even in this household, hope springs eternal.

National Day of Mourning

2011-11-26T10:07:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving -- a US holiday filled with just as many fictions as most holidays. Only with Thanksgiving, it's not just gullible children, but also grown adults, who believe wholeheartedly in the mythology.

Don't get me wrong. I still love the idea of Thanksgiving as a time when families and loved ones gather together in gratitude for life's blessings and to eat home-cooked food. Indeed, as I haven't really seen much of my family since June when the farm season picked up to its frenetic crecscendo, I cannot give up on that part of Thanksgiving. Unlike many people's experiences, holidays in my family are fun and hilarious, and I treasure them.

But as I (over)eat an abundance of food in a warm, sound house with electricity and running water, under the loving gazes of my employed parents and sisters -- none of whom suffer from diseases caused by poor diets of processed food or from psychological distress caused by our cultural mores being systematically destroyed -- I know that all of these privileges are stolen and institutionally hoarded from those who originally lived here. Not many of us Americans are direct participants in maintaining the racist system that keeps the American Indians marginalized and suffering. But we are all indirect participants who live in happy ignorance of the truth of our actions.

We perpetuate a myth that highlights one instance of American Indian cooperation with the Pilgrims, one winter in which the Pilgrims would not have survived without the help of the neighboring Indian tribe, the Wampanoag. In doing so, we choose to ignore the centuries that follow in which we, the colonizers and occupiers (yes we are still colonizing these lands), kidnap, steal from, murder, trick, back-stab, renege on contracts, starve, assimilate, repress, marginalize, and all but annihilate our allies from that "first" winter. And yes, this still continues even today. (Also, as an aside, Thanksgiving does not actually celebrate the harvest that enabled our European anscestors to survive the first winter, as the true first winter, which was earlier, in the colony of Jamestown, saw the inept colonists starving to death and cannibalizing each other to survive. Not a pretty picture for a national holiday.)

It's time that each American thinks about what Thanksgiving really means, especially to the American Indians. It is time that people did a little research about how the holiday of Thanksgiving actually began in 1637 -- as a celebration of the murder of over 700 unarmed Pequot men and women as they were gathered to give thanks for their harvest that year. How the men were ordered out of bed and murdered. How the women in children inside were burned alive in the pre-dawn hours. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony thought that "victory" was a legitimate reason to declare this first Day of Thanksgiving.

And this didn't just happen once. It happened over and over again. So many times that our first (slave-holding) president George Washington decided that the Days of Thanksgiving for the slaughters of the American Indians were becoming excessive and that only one day should be set aside to give thanks for these massacres. Then we come to our slave-freeing president, Abraham Lincoln, who declared Thanksgiving to be a legal national holiday on the same day that he sent his troops out to battle the starving Sioux. Every year since, we have celebrated Thanksgiving as a nation while continuing to do battle on the American Indian -- only now our methods are much more insidious. It's easier to pretend that racist policies and institutions are not just as bloody and repressive as all out war. But they're not.

Last year, Emily and I decided to stop honoring the myth that is Thanksgiving. We decided to stand in solidarity with the Native Peoples of this continent in protesting this celebration of the genocide and cultural annihilation of millions of the original inhabitants of the Americas at the National Day of Mourning in Plymouth. Unfortunately, Emily had a bad case of bronchitis, so I left her at home and gleefully rushed off to enjoy the full day with my family for Thanksgiving instead. I was not terribly proud of that moment, but the guilt that I felt from indulging in my American Thanksgiving traditions, whilst knowing the truth about what it really means, worked to kick me into action this year.

Although I still desperately wanted to take the easy way out and go spend the day with my family again, Emily and I bundled up, packed the dog into the car, and headed down to Plymouth to meet up with activist friends, who, like us, are allies to both the Native Peoples fight for ancestral land and rights and the Palestinian fight for their homeland in what is currently known as "Israel" and its Occupied Territories. Yes there are many, many similarities between the Palestinian cause and the American Indian cause, and you will find a lot of cross-cultural support in those communities.

We wandered around the Plymouth waterfront for a bit as we looked for Cole's Hill. I hadn't been there since middle school, and it was fascinating to be emerged in that fictitious history. Everything there is, at worst, a lie or, at best, hilarious misrepresentation (e.g., the supposed rock on which the Pilgrims landed -- which was really a rock that was much farther inland and was later brought out to the shore to be the symbol upon which America was founded). With us were hoardes of tourists, who chose to visit Plymouth on Thanksgiving in what can only be that most delusional honoring of the Thanksgiving mythos. We found what we were looking for at the top of Cole's Hill, where the majestic statue of Massasoit stands.

The Day of Mourning began with a half an hour of prayer to the Four Directions, Mother Earth, and the Sun to give thanks for the year. Any who wished to be blessed could step into the inner circle, and people of all faiths received the blessing. Over the next hour and a half, the Native speakers emphasized that the struggle of the Native Peoples of the Americas are all connected to the struggles of other displaced and war-torn peoples in the world, including those in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, the poor in this country, LGBT people, and the 99%, who are currently protesting corporate and capitalism's greed.

Many pointed out that the use of the word "occupy" by the Occupy movement is both an accurate description of what the 1% are doing to the US but also a distressing reminder that all of the US is an occupation. That word has deep and painful reverberations in the American Indian communities, and "de-colonization" is a word that is being used by some to recognize the issues with the word "occupy." Others brought up the problems with the anti-immigrant sentiments and policies in this country, asking how the Native Peoples, who were here on these continents for millenia before the Europeans arrived to draw boundaries, could be deemed "illegal." How can people from Mexico, Central America, South America be considered "illegal immigrants" when they were here first and moved freely before there were borders and fences and guns? Most of all, speakers focused on the continuing struggle of the American Indians in the US as they are faced with the highest unemployment rates, school drop-out rates, drug-addiction rates, youth suicide rates, higher incidences of disease, shortened life expectancy, and poverty due to marginalization and repression in the US. It was powerful stuff -- powerful to hear Native speakers give voice to their causes and powerful to remain a silent ally before these voices.

Our participation in the National Day of Mourning ended with a short march around Plymouth center, shouting "Free Leonard Peltier", "Free Mumia" (both long-held, political prisoners of the US government), "No Justice, No Peace", and "Whose streets? OUR STREETS". Interestingly, the one chant that I was uncomfortable responding to was the "Whose land? OUR LAND" question and response. As a citizen of the US and thus an occupier of Native lands, that was rather uncomfortable to shout, even as an ally. I just don't think I should be shouting that this land is MY LAND. It isn't.

Emily and I left before the community potluck to catch my family gathering before it dispersed. Yes, I still couldn't stay away entirely. After all, it is a precious thing to gather together as a family, especially in these busy times. But everyone there knew what Emily and I had chosen to do with our day, and some were even vocally proud of us for standing in solidarity with the Day of Mourning.


The usual suspects

An Optimistic Woman

2011-11-22T15:40:00.001-05:00

Here's what I've got.

An Aran sweater in four parts. Two sleeves, one back, and an unfinished front.

Here's what I need: four more inches on the front, a neck, and some fancy needlework to sew everything together.

My goal is to finish this sucker before Thursday morning, and, so help me God, I'm sticking to it. Some might call this denial. Others might suggest delusion, pointing to my belief that I can magically warp the time/space continuum.

I call it optimism -- fierce, fierce optimism.

Here's what needs to happen between now and Thursday morning:

finish the freaking sweater
bake a few pumpkin pies
bake another batch of pumpkin cinnamon rolls
finish the first half of my dissertation introduction
make Cuban black bean soup so that I don't spaz out on sugar
clean the house so that our neighbors still love us when they use our stove on Thursday

Here's what I've got:

a whole lotta pumpkin
The Walking Dead on Netflix instant
a bestie who doubles as a baking helper
a really simple recipe for Cuban black bean soup
dissertation research notes and outline
a genetic predisposition to worry about what the neighbors think of my kitchen and bathroom

As for our plans on Thursday, Steph and I are heading to the National Day of Mourning, which begins at noon in Plymouth. If you're in the Boston area, I encourage you to come along. From there, we're driving to her parents' home (hence the pies).

But as I review this list, I'm not entirely sure why I agreed to bake pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Also, Steph just informed me that it's supposed to be relatively warm on Thursday morning, thereby undermining my need to complete this sweater out of winterly necessity.

I shall not be swayed. I'm the kind of girl who enjoys a challenge.

A (Shameful?) Confession...

2011-11-21T14:22:00.001-05:00

Since I was a wee child in pigtails, I have always loved some good fiddling, banjo-twanging, thumping bluegrass, and even as some of my friends have relentlessly teased me about this fondness, I have stood proud of my tastes. I occassionally attend a bluegrass night in Cambridge, listen to Sunday Morning Country with Cousin Kate on the Boston College radio station, and like Contra Dances for the music. All of which I was proud, and I felt I could carry this feeling of pride because I drew the line at popular Country-Western. I will admit, I looked down upon Country-Western fans as backwards, conservative, cheap beer-swilling, redneck, bigots with no taste in quality music.

Well folks, my confession to you today is that I am now one of them.

Sometime over the past year an insidious change has crept through me. It started off as an innocent oversight in the work trucks, where my co-workers had the Country station preset on the radio, and it seemed easier to just listen to that station than try to find other, better stations not on the presets. Then I rationalized my increased listening to the fact that the Country station plays less ads than the other commercial radio stations, and oh do I despise ads more than I did Country. Then I started to know some of the songs and could sing along to some of the choruses, and if you know me at all, you know that I never can learn the lyrics to songs, but Country songs are so clear and simple in their storytelling that even I could catch on. Then came the day that I realized I was belting out a current Country hit in the truck as it played on the radio, and I liked it. Then I found myself belting out the current Country hit on my own without the song playing in the background. THEN I started belting out the current Country hit without the song playing in the background around other people!

And then it hit me...I like Country music. Gasp.

I am no bigot and try to examine my privilege as a white woman in the world, I don't drink cheap beer (although as a farmer, I am, for all intents and purposes, a literal redneck), I am much more radically liberal than almost anyone else I know, and yet I like, nay, I daresay, I love Country music. And man is it super queer! I mean, here are all these conservative, gender-conforming men and women who listen to Country music because it's about God and patriotism or whatever, and male Country stars are also singing about love and emotions like that's what men in this society do! Obviously, I still need to work on examining my stereotypes and assumptions about so many aspects of humanity. And also, some Country music is just damn good (true some is terrible, but that is true of any genre of music). In any case, I hope you all can accept me for who I am still now that you know my secret.

Oh and here are two of my favorite songs at the moment!

Lady Antebellum (and please don't call them "Lady A")
"We Owned the Night"

Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter
"You and Tequila"

Canned Heat in My Heels

2011-11-19T11:02:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, I entered an amateur dance contest in Boston on a whim. I choreographed a routine, designed a costume, workshopped my act for anyone who would sit through it, and danced my ass off for a month.

For the performance itself, the dearest of friends and family came out -- applying make-up, offering encouragement and hugs, distracting me from my nerves, and cheering loudly.

Incidentally, I won. Or, more accurately, we won, which was so totally awesome.

Unfortunately, we're missing a few folks from this picture. Additionally, I'm missing the bottom half of my costume.

I wondered whether or not this blog was the appropriate forum in which share this news; my make-up, for instance, is hardly simple or sustainable.

And my nails have nothing to do with social justice. I feel guilty, I suppose, for taking such pleasure in frivolity and glitter -- that superficiality, in other words, could be a source of fun.

Even the act of having fun -- while so many are without food, shelter, education, freedom, and safety -- seems, well, audacious and self-indulgent. Not unlike a Kardashian wedding.

At the same time, I believe that deeply unhappy people are troublemakers, sowing dissension and misery for all who cross their paths. And in a world with lots of unhappy people, cultivating a capacity for genuine joy emerges as downright revolutionary.

Taking a cue from Emma Goldman, maybe the best revolution is one that insists on joy and beauty and community and laughter and, of course, dancing.

In any event, I'll have to -- keep dancing, that is. I'm scheduled to perform with the troupe in early January. Though I haven't yet worked out my routine, it will involve drag (a la Dietrich), swing, and scandal.

Hell yes, it'll be fun.

Beachin' It

2011-11-16T11:04:00.001-05:00

On Sunday morning, I awoke with a groan when I remembered my schedule. Steph cheerily suggested that I ditch my plans, my work, and my to-do lists in favor of heading to the beach.

So we did.

It was a little like going to dog heaven. Livingstone played with other friendly pups and chewed on shells. He also peed on a small child which, despite my stern reprimand, was pretty awesome.

This was the first time that Steph and I managed to go to the beach together this year. Unconscionably lame, I know. Beach days in November are beautiful but frequently chilly.

So, I dressed like a Druid in a wool military blanket and read in the sunshine.

Can we play hookey again next week?

Food Justice: The People's Grocery

2011-11-12T09:12:00.001-05:00

In West Oakland, California, where liquor stores have replaced markets, People's Grocery is creating a healthy alternative, offering access to organic produce. Through urban gardens and local farms, People's Grocery supports a culture based on connection to the land, sustainable agricultural practices, and community regeneration.

Many thanks to Susan for forwarding this video to me!

Oh, Your Wormy Little Heart

2011-11-11T09:19:00.001-05:00

Livingstone has heartworms.

When Steph and I adopted him a year ago, he tested negative. Once in our care, we put him on a monthly preventative and thought nothing more of it. This week, Steph took him for his annual check-up, and the heartworm test came back positive. We ran the same test again, sending the samples to two different labs, and the results were the same. It seems that he contracted the parasite right before we adopted him; the initial negative occurred during the incubation period.

Such a diagnosis is frightening for two major reasons.

1) Worms, which could grow to 12 inches long and live for years, are infesting a major organ and putting strain on his body. Worms!

2) Um, holy shit, vet bills. $1300+ (radiograph, lab work, rounds of antibiotics and antiparasite meds)

On top of that, the only heartworm medicine -- Immiticide -- is not particularly accessible. In the past two years, the only pharmaceutical plant that makes Immiticide has been shut down twice for a period of several months. Currently, the plant is down for an "unknown duration." To share these limited resources in an equitable fashion, the neediest patients receive the meds only after vets have contacted the pharmaceutical company and "proven" the need.

Livie is asymptomatic -- plenty of pep and vigor. No coughing. Healthy heartbeat.

Even if we could access this medicine, it's pretty scary stuff. Collies, for instance, often have fatal reactions. But even in a hardier breed (which is to say a dog without the MDRI gene mutation), Immiticide takes a serious toll. With dogs who are infected with heartworms, Immiticide can cause a shock-like reaction due to the rapidly dying microfilaria, a reaction that includes vomiting and low body temperature with this fast-kill method. Because Immiticide is an arsenic-like compound, it often causes breathing problems after the injection, which only abate after the medicine has been metabolized. Oh, right. And then there's the potential for organ failure.

For the purposes of argument, though, let's say that the patient survives the initial treatment. Unfortunately, the animal must be kept calm for the next 1-2 months because of the very real threat of stroke, heart attack, and seizure. Good times for all!

When the vet called with the final results, Steph conveyed our concerns and reiterated the problem of limited funds. Rather than dismissing our anxieties, the vet agreed with our plan of action -- most likely because there is no medicine to be had:

1) Immediately start Livie on doxycycline to weaken the Wolbachia parasite (which parasitizes the heartworms and contributes to the incidence of embolism, allergic reaction, and inflammation in the animal host).

2) Give Heartgard in therapeutic, rather than preventative, doses. The combination of doxycycline and ivermectin (Heartgard) is proven to sterilize the worms and speed up their deaths while diminishing inflammation and heart damage.

3) Put him on an herbal support regimen for his heart, liver, and kidneys. Yep, that's how this household rolls.

4) Return for a check-up in six months.

Though I'm concerned, I'm trying to remember that he's a healthy dog, and truly healthy beings can fight off parasites and pathogens. I'm trying, in other words, to choose the path of fearlessness and optimism (and not allow fear to parasitize me and paralyze my decision-making).

In the meantime, I'd appreciate good thoughts, prayers, and vibes sent his way, please. Thanks, dudes.

Wednesday's Eargasm: The Civil Wars

2011-11-09T08:34:00.000-05:00

I can offer no appropriate introduction to this duo. Just listen...and shiver.

Their cover of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" is so erotic that I almost avert my eyes -- almost, but not quite.

I love how their collective sense of humor (performative or otherwise) comes through in this live performance.

Queers Start Revolutions

2011-11-07T17:49:00.002-05:00

...we shouldn't uphold occupations!

Unfortunately, both Boston LGBT Film Festival organizers and GLAD missed that memo. Here's one of the letters sent to GLAD regarding the current "Out in Israel" month in Boston:

In the last year, a call has gone out from Palestinian artists andtheir allies, including some Israelis, for a cultural boycott of the Israeligovernment due to its appalling disregard for international law and humanrights. Your latest partnershipwith “Out in Israel,” then, is a source of outrage for queers of conscience.Through this partnership with “Out in Israel,” GLAD makes audacious use of itsauthority – in the name of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenderindividuals – to lend positive publicity to a government whose human rightsviolations have attracted worldwide censure.

Moreover, Israel’s invocation of LGBT rights – its“pinkwashing” propaganda – is disingenuous insofar as it diverts attention fromthe realities of Palestinians living under ongoing Israeli colonization,apartheid, and occupation. Consider, for instance, what Israel looks like togay Palestinians. For these individuals, Israel is anything but a haven of freedom and inclusivity. Subject to theomnipresence of Israel’s gay-inclusive military, Palestinians’ movements arecontrolled and monitored by hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and obstacles throughoutthe West Bank. In Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, Palestinians facethe threat of home demolition and increasing violence at the hands of Israeli settlers.Even Palestinians who legally live in Israel contend with institutionalizedinequity in the form of at least 70 discriminatory Israeli laws. Indeed,Israel’s wall – dividing Palestinian families, communities, and land – emergesas the symbol writ large of Israeli apartheid.

Make no mistake: the “Out in Israel” events are not “apolitical.”These events are not in the service of offering “both sides” – as if, indeed,there could be another side to the racist, eliminationist rhetoric (andactions) of the Israeli government against Palestinians. In fact, two of theother groups with whom you collaborate – “Stand with Us” and “The DavidProject” – are notorious peddlers of fear, racism, and hatred. “The DavidProject,” for example, spearheaded opposition to an Islamic Center in Roxburyand vilified Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino for their support of theproject. Charles Jacob, president and founder of “The David Project,” continuesto maintain that the Roxbury center is linked to global terror plots. In 2010,the US Social Forum canceled “Stand with US” events for being in violation ofthe anti-racist principles central to the forum. Surely GLAD does not actually support racism, so why would itpartner with these groups?

We ask, then, that youcancel the events associated with “Out in Israel." We would welcome theopportunity to meet with you to discuss this matter further. Please be advisedthat we will contact you shortly to follow up with your decision. But until GLAD stops colluding with oppressors, GLAD doesn't speak for us!

Yesterday, a group of local activists met outside the Brattle Theater to demonstrate against the pinkwashing of Israeli human rights violations. We held signs, chanted loudly, answered questions, and educated a largely receptive (and interested) public in Harvard Square.

Got your ticket?

If so, be sure to read the backside.

And just remember...

Even if your army's gay, ethnic cleansing's not okay! Boycott, divest from, and sanction the Israeli government.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

2011-11-05T16:27:00.000-04:00

Many years ago, I took a Danish friend with me to pick pumpkins at a nearby patch. Spying my mound of enormous pumpkins, she asked: "So, what do you do with them after Halloween?"

"Oh," I gushed, "they make gorgeous autumnal decorations if you mix them with hay bales and decorative corn stalks."

Confused, she repeated her question with extra emphasis: "But what do you do with them after that?"

"Well," I explained, "you could use them to make a lovely Thanksgiving centerpiece. But I don't imagine that they'll keep much longer than that."

"But you don't do anything with them?"

"I'm confused," I admitted, "I'm decorating. That's something."

"So you purchase all these pumpkins -- which are food -- for decoration only? And then you dispose of these perfectly good vegetables? Am I understanding that correctly?"

"Eh yeah, pretty much."
---------
These days, I make use of farm pumpkins for all sorts of dishes -- pumpkin risotto, pumpkin soup, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin pudding, and so forth. I love me some pumpkins!

Heather at "A Handmade Life," inspired me to try the following recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls. And sweet Jesus, these are good. Really, really, really good.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Dough
1 package of yeast
1/2 c of warm water
1 t vanilla
1 c pumpkin puree
1/4 c sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 nutmeg
3 c flour

Mix the ingredients together and knead for 5-7 minutes. Cover, and allow the dough to double (@ 45 min) in a warm spot. In the meantime, combine and blend the cinnamon roll filling in another bowl.

Filling
1/2 c butter, softened
1/2 c sugar
1 t honey
2 t cinnamon
1 t vanilla

After the first rise, roll out the dough in a rectangle (1/4 inch thickness). Spread the filling evenly on the dough. Roll the dough into a log, and slice it gently. Place the rolls in a buttered pan.

Cover, and let the rolls rise once more (@ 45 min).

Frosting
1/4 c butter
4 oz cream cheese
1 t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
1 c powdered sugar

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 17-20 minutes. Spread frosting on warm rolls. Devour rapidly, and fall swiftly into a diabetic coma.

Challah!

2011-11-03T19:13:00.000-04:00

Soon after I met Steph, she offered to teach me how to bake bread on one of our first "kinda" dates. Because I am a woman governed by my stomach, I accepted her invitation with enthusiasm. As we worked together in her kitchen on a frosty morning in January to make oatmeal-sunflower seed bread, she referred to Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, a vegetarian cookbook which includes a detailed section on bread-making.

In the years that followed that "bread-date," Katzen's hand-drawn illustrations and accompanying directions have proven indispensable. Her recipe for challah is one of my favorites, and I've shared the link here. Recently, I channeled my inner Jewish mother and churned out some loaves for our household and neighbors.

I picked up some farmy-fresh eggs from a nearby coop. Note the flecks of straw and chicken poop.

Eggs give challah its distinct texture -- the manner in which one can just pull apart pieces of challah rather than cut the loaf.

Referring to Katzen's recipe, mix the ingredients together. Cover, and let rise in a warm place.

After the first rise, knead the dough vigorously. Personally, I find it useful to coordinate bread-making with my episodes of sneaky-hate spirals. Punch, pummel, knead, twist, turn. Add more flour, and do it again.

Before the second rise, you divide the dough into two sections, which are each divided into three. Braid the dough. Cover, and allow it to rise again.

Brush the loaf with an eggwash. Bake. Cool on a wire rack. Then, enjoy with honey and warm butter.

Storm Update

2011-10-31T13:07:00.003-04:00

Please hold.

Chez Finicky Farmer is currently without power or hot water. The Farmer still looks cute, but the other one's a hot mess. In the meantime, amuse yourselves with pictures of snow and farms and trucks.

Boston Palestine Film Festival: October 21-30

2011-10-27T07:34:00.001-04:00

The Boston Palestine Film Festival (BPFF) was established to showcase the extraordinary narrative of Palestinians through the medium of cinema to audiences in the New England area. BPFF, now in its fifth year, showcases the diverse and creative work of all filmmakers (any nationality) exploring both historic and contemporary themes related to Palestinian culture, experience, and narrative.

This festival features a range of compelling and thought-provoking documentaries, dramatic features, rare early works, and new films by emerging artists. These films from international directors bring an honest, self-described, and independent view of Palestine and its diasporic society, culture, and political travails. In this way, the festival seeks to engage local audiences and sustain Palestinian arts and culture in the city throughout the year, in addition to collaborating with other such festivals in the US and worldwide.

To access the full program schedule, please click the following link.

Lantern Festival

2011-10-24T20:32:00.002-04:00

Last night, Steph and I went to JP's annual Lantern Festival.

Spontaneous Celebrations hosts lantern-making parties for the community, and these lanterns are later sold to raise funds for future community events.

"Hey there, bony lady" -- Name that early modern dramatic reference!

Visitors purchase lanterns, which are usually made from recycled soda bottles, and walk around the perimeter of the pond at night.

Folks bring dogs and costumes and children. Their lantern lights wave and weave around the pond.

Despite my reservations (unruly dog + big tail + small children + open flame = Burn unit), we brought Livingstone along. He charmed children and adults alike while marking every. single. tree.

There was a live band and plenty of neighbors with whom to make easy conversation. And as we passed a sitar-playing-skeleton, Steph recognized the instrument and embraced an old farming pal.

Here, even the skeletons are simply friends-in-disguise.

An Unlikely Beauty

2011-10-23T10:41:00.002-04:00

While Steph tends towards modesty in all things, she is particularly so in relation to her talent as a photographer. Behind a camera, her greatest gift is the manner in which she renders the mundane, even the abject, worthy of sustained attention. As she photographs a dead bird, for instance, with its pink organs staining its once-white feathers, she shows how the bird's stillness in death contrasts with the movement towards which these same feathers gesture. From this juxtaposition, an unlikely beauty emerges.

How to Move from the Shit List to the Knit List: The Holiday Edition

2011-10-19T11:52:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Interweave Knits

I like lists. A lot. Lists assuage my anxiety and keep the chaos at bay. Lists serve as both immovable taskmasters and guarantors of my productivity. List help me get from "here" (which, at the moment, is dirty and in sweatpants streaked with flour) to "there" (which is some approximation of a real, live grown-up).

Constructing my annual holiday knitting list, however, is my absolute favorite. These are the ones over which I labor for months. In the heady days of July's humidity, my enthusiasm for fiber art proselytism knows no bounds. Nearly everyone is included on this list -- neighbors, acquaintances, potential babies, even my dissertation committee. I imagine the delicious nip of winter months and envision the future happiness of those swathed in yarn.

In October, I return to this list, at which point, I'm agog at its length and optimism. Chalking my poor decision-making up to a heat and dehydration induced delirium, I edit. Ruthlessly. To revise my list, I make use of the following criteria. Though I won't speak for all knitters, I would venture a guess that many of my rules apply for the knitters in your life as well.

How to Move from the Shit List to the Knit List Just in Time for the Holidays

1) Don't Pull a Grandma: You may not pout, sulk, coerce, or demand knits from me unless, of course, you are Grandma. In which case, have at it!

2) Do Offer Yarn: Show your interest in fiber arts by taking me to a yarn shop or sending me a gift certificate. I have a dear friend with whom I regularly exchange yarn goodies whenever one of us travels. After returning from the Common Ground Fair, she gave me beautiful skein of teal wool that was spun and dyed in Maine. You can bet your ass she's on my knit list.

Photo and Pattern by Eunny Jang

3) Do Select Judiciously: Allow me to offer an example. Several years ago, there was a national obsession with "fun fur." This synthetic yarn looked not unlike something your cat might vomit on your living room rug. But with sparkles and confetti. In the Midwest, this unfortunate trend persisted, and my mother succumbed to the disease. Though I could make intricate scarves from delicious silk or craft fine socks from merino wool, she wanted another freakin' fun fur scarf. (Mom, I'm sorry to out you like this, but I think that your experiences could help other people. Also, I don't think you even read my blog, so you're pretty much fair game.)

She'd send me her yarn selections, and like a dutiful daughter, I would crank out that fun fur scarf. My roommates would knock on my bedroom door, and I'd explain, showing them the scarf with reluctance, that I couldn't go out in public just yet. With horror in their eyes, they would nod knowingly and shut the door.

Years later, I worked up the courage to have an intervention. I told my mom that she had awful taste in yarn and that I refused to knit another damn thing until she cleaned up her act. "I am too good for this," I proclaimed into the phone, gesturing with my wine glass in the other hand. To her credit, she did not resist my criticism and later sent me a package of luscious Noro Silk for her next scarf. The good woman had come to her senses, and as a token of my appreciation, she's back on the knit list.

4) Don't Assume that Knits Just Fall Off Me: I knit quickly, but I am not a machine. A pair of unadorned handknit socks takes approximately 16 hours of my life. A sweater, shawl, or afghan -- well, you do the math. Um, I hear my dissertation is calling.

5) Don't Grow Big Feet: I am more apt to knit cozy socks for friends with smaller feet. Ditto for mittens and little hands. Which brings me to the next rule...

Vogue Knitting -- Photo courtesy of Rose Callahan

6) Get Knocked Up. Or Knock Someone Else Up: I will knit little knits for your little baby. Only the best of natural fibers and vintage patterns for the wee ones.

7) Make Me Love You a Whole Lot: Sometimes, when I spend time with my dearest friends, my love for them is just much too much. Apropos of nothing, I exclaim: "I need to show you how much I love you with yarn. What can I knit for you?" If you respond with commensurate enthusiasm, I'll even rethink my self-imposed ban on baby blankets, if that's what your tender heart desires. In other words, the world of wool is yours.

8) But One Can't always Equate Love with Knitting: I have other friends for whom I've made knits and, aside from the initial "thanks," they never mention the gift again. It's as if the fiber exchange was one night of passion that metamorphoses into the thing of which we cannot speak in order to preserve this relationship. And that's okay. But, unlike the friends and family who bring up past gifts with alarming regularity, you're off the knit list. No hard feelings, though.

9) Tell me that Learning to Knit is on your Bucket List: While knitting recently, a new colleague told me that knitting was on his bucket list. I kid you not. His bucket list! I resisted the impulse to jump across the table and kiss him hard on the mouth. Instead, I offered, perhaps a little too emphatically, that I would be happy to teach him. Like right this very second in the middle of the library. He, too, is on my knit list.

Photo courtesy of SpillyJane Knits

10) Don't Worry About Getting Your Knits Dirty: Knitwear is not permanent, and you should put your gifts to everyday use. I'd much rather find my gift of handknit socks in your clothes hamper than untouched in your bureau. Not that I'm looking, obviously.

11) Engaging in any of the following will result in a permanent loss of knit privileges: Have you ever made fun of me (like, really made fun of me) for knitting in a bar? Have you mocked this "little hobby" of mine and does your voice drip with condescension when you do? Have you marveled at "all the time I must have" because (dudes, wait for it) you're just "too busy" for something like that?

To those folks, I hope that you're really, really cold this winter. Happy freakin' holidays -- No knits for you!

A Study in Purple and Green

2011-10-18T08:13:00.000-04:00

The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Elizabeth Warren

2011-10-17T08:57:00.002-04:00

While browsing Facebook, I came across a depiction of Elizabeth Warren's early life from a recent article in Vanity Fair. In it, the author describes Warren as "performing all the good-girl Stations of the Cross" insofar as she marries early, bears children, and wins a "Betty Crocker" title. Warren was also a conservative and her subsequent political transformation into an advocate for the working class intrigued me.

I made a mental note to read the article in its entirety and moved on with my day. But I didn't realize who the author was...

None other than Steph's cousin, Suzanna Andrews. Yeah, she pretty much rocks it out of the galaxy. Here's a link to her excellent article.

How did we discover that Suzanna wrote it? Surely not by reading the article. Steph was listening to NPR's "Here and Now" as she worked on the farm. Suddenly, she recognized her cousin's voice speaking with such authority and eloquence on Warren. You can listen to that interview here.

With great excitement, Steph texted her family the news, telling them that they should turn on NPR immediately.

Here are their responses:

Dad: Thanks!
Brooke: Cool. But who the hell is Elizabeth Warren?
Bec: What's NPR?

God, I love her family. Especially Bec.

Autumnal Fruits

2011-10-14T10:56:00.001-04:00

Stuff I Made with My Hands: Grandma's Shawl

2011-10-13T09:08:00.001-04:00

From her, I inherited my curls. My sense of humor. A passion for flowers, seed-saving, and travel. My absent upper lip. A desire to make things with my hands and a compulsion to stay busy.

To me, she has offered countless back-rubs and the very best hugs. Unsolicited advice while driving and delicate curses at the person who cuts me off. Hearty cheering at cross-country meets and more unsolicited advice. Too many aloe plants. An unholy yearning for chocolate Slimfast shakes, waffles, and honey. Unconditional love for me and my partner. And some of the most intimate conversations that I've enjoyed as an adult.

Though my grandma did not teach me to knit, it wasn't from a lack of effort. She was, perhaps, a bit impatient (funny, I inherited that one too), and I was hopelessly uncoordinated. Once I taught myself as an adult, she criticized my knitting style on the grounds that I wasted too much movement, that the way in which I was knitting, in other words, wasn't the way.

Skeleton shot with flash

I ignored her, griping about her habitual criticism to my dad, and continued to churn out more projects. After a few years, she began to admire my work in earnest. When asked why she let up on the haranguing, she smiled and explained: "Your knitting style is weird and wasteful. But you're still really fast and your projects are lovely. I guess the weird works for you."

A compliment, G-ma style.

Another skeleton shot with flash

When visiting with her this summer, I showed her the picture albums on my laptop. Immediately, she spied my knitting projects and flipped through the photos. Stopping at one photo of a lace shawl, she pointed: "This."

"Gorgeous, right? I made it for a dear friend. I even worked in seed beads."
"No," she pouted, "you told me that you'd make me a shawl." She sighed dramatically and looked down at her folded hands: "But you never have." She stared out the window as she let her sentence trail off.

One had to make a shawl, if only to reward such a performance. That night, we pored over yarn catalogs and argued about colors. "This one," she'd exclaim over another nauseating pastel. "Too old lady," I sniffed. "You're old, but you're not that old." Eventually, we settled on the perfect shade of blue -- dignified but soft.

Given that it's now October, I suspect she believes that I've forgotten about her shawl. Our conversations. About her entirely.

But I haven't. I haven't forgotten any of it.

Finicky Farmer Supports Occupy Boston...

2011-10-12T14:52:00.002-04:00

and you can too!

In light of the 141 arrests on Monday night/Tuesday morning and blatant police aggression in Boston, which included beating a 74 year-old Veteran for Peace, Steph and I have decided to amp up our efforts. Though we recently participated in "Take Back our City" to combat corporate greed, there's still more to do to keep this movement moving.

This morning, Diego and I packed up the backseat with peppers, carrots, kale, eggplant, collards, pumpkins, and more.

Fortunately, Occupy Boston has set up a kitchen area to process food and make meals for participants. They also have a compost center, which makes my heart happy.

Like so many others, we believe that access to nourishing, organic food is a right -- not simply for the ones who can afford the expense, but for all people. It seems only natural, then, to give a surplus of veggies to sustain those who work towards a more sustainable future.

I heart these ones hard.

After loading up farm veggies, Diego and I took our shopping lists to purchase medical supplies: aspirin, eye drops, benadryl, gauze wraps, heat packs, and the like. Then, we headed into the city. Following the directions on the Occupy Boston website, I located the drop-off donation spot with ease. In seconds, kind folks held out their arms to help me unpack the car. Gasping with excitement at the enormous bags of carrots and kale, one guy asked: "Holy crap! Where the hell did you get this stuff?"

It was awesome.

If you're interested in donating materials, please check the donations list, which is updated daily. Please consider helping out with legal funds too.

For further information about Occupy Boston, please see the following article, another one that explores the issues with hosting an "occupation" on already occupied lands, and an NPR interview.

Finally, if you're close to the Boston area, please join protesters this Saturday (October 15th). Details are forthcoming. And if you're spiritually inclined, there will be "joyous, song-filled, and accessible" Shabbat services at 10AM this Saturday with the inimitably fabulous Rabbi Joseph Berman. Services will be followed by a vegetarian potluck (@12PM), and folks are also welcome to come for lunch only.

Acoustic Guitar is Not the Sound of the Revolution

2011-10-10T22:32:00.001-04:00

I thought you might need a laugh. I certainly do.

Jokes.com

Hari Kondabolu - List of People Who Will Die in the Revolution

comedians.comedycentral.com

Hari Kondabolu

Comedians

Stand-Up

Take Back Our City!

2011-10-03T11:16:00.002-04:00

Last Friday, Steph, Brittany, and I went into the city to participate in Boston's "Take Back the City." Organized by dozens of community and union leaders, "Take Back" protests corporate greed and agitates in favor of just, democratic, and sustainable communities. Between 2000-3000 people marched throughout Boston's financial district, and this rally was led by those most affected by corporate greed and "personhood."

When we arrived, I spotted my dear friend Susan, who was chatting with a group of fellow activists. Soon after, I realized that former Col. Ann Wright was in the group as well. A former United States Army colonel and retired official of the State Department, Wright resigned in 2003 in protest of the US invasion of Iraq, and has subsequently dedicated her life to social justice and activism. A woman of international peace and epic awesomeness, Wright has been a passenger on the Challenger 1 and the Audacity of Hope (Gaza Freedom Flotilla). Steph and I had the good fortune of meeting her at the 2009 Gaza Freedom March in Cairo.

A fit of shyness overcame me, so an acquaintance insisted that she reintroduce me. Wright immediately embraced me, but I couldn't think of a damn thing to say to such a rare combination of warmth and humility. Fortunately, Steph (who could speak) insisted on a photo.

Former Col. Wright is on my right in the "Do No Harm" shirt

Before the march itself, we tried to capture the energy of Boston Commons.

We exchanged hugs with friends and helped each other get ready for the march.

And then we were off, chanting and winding our way through the streets of Boston!

We made our way to the Bank of America and surrounded the building. Activists who'd prepared themselves for civil disobedience sat together at each entrance.

Protest leader helps to prepare the group for arrest and possible confrontation.

The arrests begin...

...and end with 21 activists in custody. Lawyers were on hand, and protest leaders calmly gave directions to the crowd to keep our work safe and nonviolent for all involved.

You might be wondering, though, why Bank of America was the primary target of this protest. BoA is the largest financial institution, and since 2008, it received $230 billion in taxpayer bailout and other assistance. Some of this money, by the way, was used to make campaign contributions to politicians. Neat-o! Also, BoA paid no taxes from 2009-2010. Instead, it received $4.2 billion refund.

But the gravy train doesn't stop there! Between 2007-2010, BoA reduced its small business lending by 56%. Other large banks reduced this lending by only 30%.

Not surprisingly, BoA is a bad neighbor, particularly in economically disadvantaged communities. For instance, 38% of BoA mortgages were in so-called "majority minority" neighborhoods in Boston. But 61% of its subprime mortgages were concentrated in those neighborhoods. 2/3 of BoA Boston foreclosures were in these same communities as of March 2011. Currently, BoA has more homes in foreclosure than any other bank in Boston.

(FYI: According to a Pew Research Center analysis of recently available government data from 2009, the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households. If numbers confuse but visuals do the trick, check the following link that demonstrates white privilege.)

Bank of America loves its money like it loves its human rights violations. For instance, its general shittiness extends to investment in cluster bombs and corporations that contract prison labor.

Inside BoA -- you know what they say about people in glass houses....

Despite the arrests, the rally continued outside.

From there, we made our way to South Station, where we were joined by HONK! bands.

And so ended "Take Back Our City" -- not with a whimper or a bang but a polka. Big hugs and thanks to the organizers and volunteers who made this extraordinary event possible.

But, quite obviously, the work does not end there. Education and ongoing activism are crucial. In the meantime, here are some clever examples of Boston street theater, which fulfill those two objectives.

And how do you resist greed and corporate personhood in your own life? How else might we work together as a community?

Bus stops around Boston were made to look like actual foreclosed homes

The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival! Wait...there was art?!

2011-10-01T22:38:00.000-04:00

Emily emerging from the cornstalks like a freaky sprite!

Yes, it is true, Emily and I did eat our way through the Garlic and Arts Festival, only pausing occasionally at a craft tent, if it were on the way to the next food booth and included wool or herbs. It didn't help that we landed ravenous in the middle of corn field, where we had to park the car and catch the shuttle to the festival. Now just to digress for a moment from food, this corn field had been mowed and cover cropped with a lush blanket of rye prior to the decision to move the festival parking lot to this "drier" location. I'd hate to see that other, wetter field, and I feel very badly for the farmer who has to try to reclaim this field that will have very little cover crop still alive after this weekend and an extremely compacted soil profile that will need some sub-soiler action to become aerated again!

Oh those poor baby rye seedlings never stood a chance!

Back to the story though...both of us being in a bit of a bitchy, low-blood sugar state, we weren't quite communicating on the same plane. Emily asked if it was okay if we wandered a bit before getting food, which I took to mean that we would walk the place to gauge all of our food options and immediately begin eating once we decided on food priorities. Emily meant that she wanted to look at the craft tents for a bit first. I won when I became so confused and fussy as to where the food was that Emily got bitchy too! Yay, I love winning!

I beelined to the Chesnut Hill Farms booth where they were selling their amazing sausages grilled with onions and peppers, just like I used to get outside Fenway as a young Red Sox fan, except better! Even Emily liked it, and she doesn't like anything with the name "sausage" in it unless it also includes the word "breakfast". Emily found a salmon cake with some kind of garlic sauce, and both of us shut up for a bit. Unfortunately, we were so intent on eating, we forgot to take pictures!

Next we hit the cupcake booth, where Emily scarfed down two mini-cupcakes, chocolate curry and dark chocolate salted caramel, to my one, triple ginger. BUT, she was great at sharing, so I got to try them all, and damn...those were good cupcakes. We also forgot to photograph those beauts before they were long gone!

At this point, we decided maybe we needed a break from eating, so we wandered through the crafts area a little more intently, but nothing failed to capture our interest enough other than a half a garlic pickle from Real Pickles and a jar of an herbalist's version of icy-hot with capiscuum, which it turns out does not have the same effect of burning cold that my beloved Tiger's Balm does. Oh well.

We managed to resist the fudge booth unintentionally by never going back to get what we wanted, and the garlic ice cream because Emily's hands were too cold to eat it. We did get within range of the cider donut booth, where Emily inhaled her donut so fast that it was gone when I turned around with my cup of cider. Fortunately, she got a dozen.

She even eats cider donuts so properly.

Then, somehow we inadvertently ended up back in the food alley after hitting the port-a-potties, and while Emily was entranced with a belly dancing show, I snuck off to the Diemand Farm booth for a grilled, garlic-brined turkey leg slathered with an amazing garlic BBQ sauce. I wasn't really hungry, so after some poses and a couple of bites, I wrapped it up in its tinfoil to bring home for later. I just couldn't resist!

This was the small leg.

It seemed an appropriate time to finally succomb to the gigantic bags of maple cotton candy, and holy crap, it was so good that we ate it until our insulin levels spiked! Then I danced with a lovely gentleman who was on what he called his "off-road stilts", really painter's stilts, which were much safer in the muddy field and slick, leaf-covered hill paths.

Hey, I'm used to being the tallest one in the couple, so cut me some slack!

We looped back down the hill to grab a cup of chai from Chai Wallah to aid in our digestion and danced some to the band. Emily finally couldn't resist the hula hoops, and I watched in envy, as probably the only human to never figure out how to work those things! There were a couple of boys around age ten who were hula hoop dueling to see who could keep his hula hoop from falling down while bumping into the other. Pretty entertaining! But, we had had enough. Our stomachs and heads hurt, and we didn't feel like learning how to build a hoophouse, so we hopped onto the shuttle back to the car.

Now, the dog had been chilling in the car this whole time, and although I was slightly nervous he would misbehave, I tend not to worry until we are approaching the time when we find out what he might have done! When Emily gasped "Uh oh", while peering into her car windows, my stomach plummeted. Fearing that another part of the car seat had been defoamed and shredded, I was rather relieved when Emily asked "Where did you put the eggs?". Oh yes, that dozen that I bought this morning when we went to pick up our meat share had been on the driver's side floor where the dog wouldn't accidentally step on them. Well, that did not stop him from eating the eggs. Every last one of them. Or almost. I found one egg that had fallen down the side of the door out of reach and cheered that at least I had one left! And then I saw it was cracked, so I gave it to Livingston to finish off. Why not?! He had already eaten eleven eggs plus half the carton! Damn dog! But, I think he is paying for his decision now, as he has been laying like a lump in his bed all night and not even caring when I go in and out of the house.

Ah, the sheer joy.

Well, we cleaned up the remaining bits of egg carton, managed to get out of the mud pit of a parking lot, neatly avoided an accident waiting to happen on the highway, and made it home to pitch ourselves headlong into bed and moan. It was a good day of local food over-indulgence, and it tasted so much better for it.

How to Sauce Up Your Apples

2011-09-30T11:57:00.001-04:00

Today is an apple-ly kind of day.

When I came downstairs for breakfast, Steph offered me some apple cake. Last night, she attended a dinner to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with a dear friend and his family. Because I couldn't attend, Joseph and his lovely mamma sent Steph home with homemade challah and thick slices of apple cake for me. She had made these goodies in Kansas City (which is where I'm from as well) and took them along on the plane to Boston.

Evidently, her recipe is rawther famous and was featured in a Kansas City newspaper. And for good reason -- this was sublime. Thank you, thank you, Joseph and family!! xoxo

Steph also made applesauce this morning. For the longest time, I labored under the misapprehension that making applesauce was an arduous, all-day affair. Not so. You, too, can make a batch in an hour or less.

Here's how to sauce up your own apples:

Ingredients: apples, sugar, cinnamon, water
You will also need a small food mill ($30-40 if new; check out Goodwill and/or garage sales for used ones) and a sturdy pot.

1) Wash apples and cut them in halves. Please note that you can and should make use of soft or bruised apples for the sauce; it won't affect the flavor.

2) Plop the halves into your pot and add no more than an inch of water. Cook the apples on medium until they're mushy.

3) Stir frequently. To avoid burning the mixture, don't cuddle with the cat, dog, or your partner.

Despite what Steph might say, this was not my fault. If the bottom begins to burn, don't scrape the burned bits into the rest of the sauce, obviously.

4) Move the apple mush into the food mill, and place a large bowl underneath to catch the processed applesauce. Spin it right round baby right round like a record baby right round round round.

The food mill takes out the seeds, stems, and other unappetizing bits, leaving one with smooth, smooth applesauce.

5) Add cinnamon and sugar to taste. Store in the refrigerator or freezer for future use.

Why I Support Black & Pink

2011-09-29T10:56:00.004-04:00

Though I've intended to write this post for months, the task has filled me with dread because I face the difficulty of writing for two (or possibly three) wildly divergent audiences. This, in other words, means two (or possibly three) different essays that put forth the same thesis but vary in tone and terminology. But after the murder of Troy Davis, I can't justify my laziness when so many are interested in interrogating the death penalty and overcoming a collective sense of impotence. It's my hope, though, that we move beyond discussions of the death penalty to an interrogation of the US prison system, which makes all this violence and death possible.

An essay for my first audience, of which I am a part, would go something like this: The prison-industrial complex is a violent consequence of the institutionalized racism, sexism, class structure, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia of US society. This system does little to address the real reasons of crime -- addiction, mental illness and disability, society inequity, institutionalized -isms and phobias -- and does nothing to facilitate reconciliation and healing between parties. Demolish it, yo!

I know that I have readers who think they might agree with the above statement but aren't completely sure. The rest of you are, like, "What the hell?"

(Hang tight. The bulk of this post is for you)

There is, however, another (potential) readership that I must address briefly as well -- the folks who think prison is lovely and that prisoners are treated entirely too well.

Clearly, my dears, you have yet to visit a prison or have friends and family incarcerated.

So, then, let's begin with some facts, shall we?

The US constitutes five percent of the world's population, but American prisoners make up twenty-five percent of the world's prisoner population. More than 1 in 100 US adults is in prison, according to the Pew Public Safety Performance Project. The US prison-industrial complex incarcerates at a rate three times that of Iran and six times that of China.

What's that about freedom?

These statistics, however, mask far higher incarceration rates in terms of race, age, and gender. For example:

Black men (18+): 1 in 15; (24-36): 1 in 9
Hispanic men (18+): 1 in 36
White men (18+): 1 in 106

And while the majority of drug users and sellers in New York are white, 90% of the people incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug Laws are African American and Latino/a. This disparity holds true when we look at the entire country. While two-thirds of regular crack cocaine users in the US or either white or Latino/a, 82% of those sentenced in federal court for a crack cocaine offense are African American (see United States Sentencing Commission, Report to Congress 2007, 15).

Gender and sexual orientation "deviations" also contribute to incarceration rates, particularly when a person of color is the "deviant." While there isn't a nation-wide Pew study of incarcerated LGBT people, a 1997 San Francisco Department of Public Health Study found that 67% of transgender women and 30% of transgender men had a history of incarceration (see Emily Alpert, "Gender Outlaws," In the Fray). Moreover, the impeccably researched Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT in the United States finds that the LGBT population is particularly vulnerable to incarceration for inane "offenses" (e.g., loitering inside a building) as well as violence at the hands of police and in prison.

------
Whereas the gay civil rights movement has focused on"mainstreaming" as evidenced by its preoccupation with access to marriage and military, such progress is predicated on exclusion of those who don't fit into that bourgeois agenda. As an abolitionist nonprofit that remembers its radical queer roots, Black and Pink is based out of Boston and supports LGBTQ family in prison. One of its founders, Rev. Jason Lydon, writes eloquently about the violence he experienced as a political prisoner here, a violence that is symptomatic of the normative violence in prison.

(Nearly 100% of queer folks in men's prisons are raped. 25% of people in women's prisons are raped during their sentence.)

For family on the inside, Black and Pink offers a monthly newsletter that is written by both inside and outside members, access to legal advice and advocates, an opportunity to make critical decisions via the leadership circle, and a pen-pal program.

Family members on the outside (or, as Jason once put it, the "temporarily unincarcerated") can support Black and Pink by:

doing data entry
participating in the Pen Pal program
joining the group to stuff envelopes for the monthly newsletter
making a financial contribution
coming together for lectures, protests, and other solidarity events
educating yourself and others -- Queer (In)Justice is a great place to start!

-----
I found my pen pal while entering data for Black and Pink this summer. She had slipped a "before" photo of herself and child during happier times into her letter. Once I entered the data, I took the photo home and put it on my refrigerator. I stared at it for a month before I worked up the courage to write my first letter.

In subsequent months, our friendship developed with great ease, humor, and understanding. In her most recent letter, she mentioned how she told her inside friends about me and how they, too, felt buoyed by our relationship, knowing that not everyone on the outside would judge them -- that, in other words, some could still see them as people rather than criminals. I don't offer this as a self-congratulatory anecdote. Rather, my point is that writing a letter doesn't just affect the person with whom you correspond; it extends to the prison community as well.

Moreover, the pen-pal relationship is mutually nourishing. She has a preternatural sense of timing, sending along her letters and turning crappy days into awesome ones. Steph now recognizes her handwriting and delivers the mail with excitement. By her example, she's taught me much about expressing warmth without reserve through writing. I know that each day we pray and wish the best for the other. This connection fills me with hope and happiness.

Yet surveillance permeates even this relationship. Out of each envelope, the following note flutters to my floor.

General Inmate Correspondence Texas Department of Criminal Justice -- Institutional Division

Every piece of correspondence is read, checked, evaluated, judged. This, too, is violence.

But she's going to keep writing and remembering her experiences. And I'm going to keep writing and refusing to forget. And that anonymous official, whoever ze is, will know that people on the outside know and care and insist on the inherent worth and dignity of those on the inside.

This, too, is something.

Things you can find in your body one year later...

2011-09-26T13:25:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd share with you all a very strange incident that occured last week while I was eating my lunch on an overturned harvest crate. Glancing down, I noticed that this strange, blood blister-like spot that I have had on my lower leg for the past year looked a little dry, so I scratched it absent-mindedly. When I looked down again a minute later, I noticed it was bleeding a little, and I thought, "this is my chance to see if I can get something out of that spot!" Wouldn't you?

So, I squeezed it.

Lo and behold, out shot a piece of straw, only a few millimeters in length. But there nonetheless. I shit you not.

Sadly, no pictures of this event could be located to satisfy your voyeuristic pleasures.

There has been a piece of straw stuck into my leg for the past year. For some reason that we will never know, my body decided that 324 days of living in harmony with said piece of straw was just about enough and ejected it thoroughly and with finality.

Bizarre. Very, very bizarre.

Restaurant Review: The Neighborhood

2011-09-23T15:48:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I run 18 miles. To prep for these little excursions, I visit the chiropractor, stretch compulsively, and eat like a terrifying beast.

Thus, we begin with today's breakfast and my eatin' pants.

For brunch, our favorite place is the Neighborhood in Union Square, a restaurant and bakery that's been operated by the Borges family for almost thirty years.

As I walked onto the patio, I sniffed the air only to exclaim: "Holy shit! Something smells awesome!" And it wasn't the food.

Concord grapes! Rows and rows of vines laden with perfectly ripe fruit.

Shiny happy people eating brunch

This morning, we began with bowls of cream of wheat. Before you roll your eyes and dismiss that decision as "geriatric," hold up.

This is cream of wheat on steroids -- if by steroids, one means a titillating triumvirate of sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Honestly, this is the dish for breakfast.

Smiles like this cannot be faked. I'm even peeing a little with the excitement.

Look, Ma! Both hands!

We split an order of coconut french toast. Thick slices of bread were soaked in coconut milk and topped with shredded coconut.

This tasted as good as it looks.

But there was still more to eat. Sausage, eggs, homefries, and toast accompanied our order.

I ate the sausage; Steph ate the eggs; we shared the spicy homefries.

In addition to its fabulous breakfast, the Neighborhood is reasonably priced. In other words, if our poor asses can afford it, yours probably can as well.

The restaurant, which is located at 25 Bow Street in Somerville, is accessible by bus, bike, or foot; there's also metered street parking. It's open 7 days a week from 7AM-4PM.

Just bring your eatin' pants!

Lighting a Candle for Troy

2011-09-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

Picture of a young Troy Anthony Davis

In 1991, Troy Davis was convicted of shooting a Georgia police officer, and he has been on death row for two decades. Despite the lack of material evidence connecting Davis to the scene of the crime, he was found guilty via witness testimony. The testimony, however, is deeply flawed. All but two of the non-police witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony, and many of these individuals have stated in sworn affidavits that they were coerced by police officers into testifying against Davis. One of the two remaining witnesses is the principle alternative suspect.

Despite this clusterfuck of a case, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Davis clemency today. A potentially innocent man (or -- just a human being in general) will be executed on Wednesday at 7PM.

If you haven't already the signed the petition circulated by Amnesty International, you may do so here. Please consider calling (912.652.7308) and/or faxing (912.652.7328) the Chatham County's District Attorney's office on Troy's behalf. The Georgia Parole board is currently taking phone calls (404.656.5651) and counting the number of individuals calling on his behalf. To reach the proper department, dial 5 in the first touch tone menu. Also, please circulate this information throughout your social networks because there's been a national media blackout regarding Troy's situation.

Like so many others, I feel great rage and disbelief that this is still happening. I want so desperately to fucking smash the prison industrial complex and the institutionalized racism that enables its culture of inhumanity and death. Lynching continues, my friends, but now it's sanctioned officially by law. And oh how I want to smash the pricks who brag about their own roles in this culture of death and the peanut-crunching crowds who cheer them on.

Like so many, I don't know what more to do. I've signed the letters; I've talked to friends; I've made the phone calls. I'm enraged, too, by my own impotence. So I went upstairs this evening and sat on the floor in the dark.

For a while, I continued to rehearse angry speeches in my head. I fidgeted. I thought more angry thoughts. I sighed aloud to no one at all. Finally, I lit a candle because both the darkness and my anger were beginning to creep me out.

Trying to focus on something other than muckiness of my own rage, I sat the candle on the floor next to me and tried to imagine what Troy might be feeling in his cell: anxiety, sorrow, fear, anger, perhaps even hope against hope against hope. To imagine what the man must be feeling, what he must have felt for two decades--I can't even. So, I backed away from the sorrowful spot of empathy and ran right back to my rage.

And then I remembered what a wise friend once told me: underneath great anger is the place at which sadness is deepest. I sat with that sad spot and tried to imagine Troy once again. I practiced tonglen, which if you don't know, is an excellent exercise in meditation or prayer or loving-kindness or what have you. Basically, you breathe in the emotion and breathe out your wish for others. For instance, I breathed in the painful emotions Troy might be experiencing, and I breathed out my wish of peace and comfort for him. After a few breaths, I expanded the scope of my intention to include the individuals on death row in the US, the many (too, too many) incarcerated in the prison-industrial complex, and for the peoples around the world who live with the realities or in fear of torture, imprisonment, and death.

Please understand that I am not laboring under any grand delusion. Hyperventilating on my floor in the dark -- focused intention or otherwise -- will not manifest material consequences for those individuals. At best, it was an act of prayer-in-disguise.

But that simple act enabled me to feel more compassionate and better renewed to keep up the good fight. That, too, is something. A mere teaspoon, perhaps, but something all the same.

Signs of Autumn's Arrival

2011-09-20T07:43:00.001-04:00

Race Report: TDD Triathlon

2011-09-18T09:17:00.001-04:00

This is how I feel about my first sprint triathlon:

Yesterday, I completed the TDD Triathlon in Douglas State Park. As I told Steph before I headed towards the lake, "this whole thing seemed like a really excellent idea, but I think it's totally f*#*ing stupid now." I completed the course with transitions in 1:19:22 for a quarter-mile swim, 11 mile bike ride, and 3.2 mile run. I finished 7th in my AG, and I was the 29th woman overall. Because my goal was 1:15, I'm a little bummed with my performance and agog at my super-slow cycling portion!

Still, I trained hard for this sucker all summer -- practicing murky open water swims and compulsive lap swimming as well as clipping into the bike without killing myself. So, when yesterday arrived, I did not fall and I did not drown. I also managed to warm up properly without getting lost! This, too, is success.

Women's wave waiting on the shore


Go!

Swim: Despite the cool temperatures (lower 40s), the lake felt like a warm bath. I started on the side of the buoy and towards the beginning. I knew the risks involved, but I made that decision nevertheless.

The first few minutes of the swim felt like this: yes! warmth. bubbles. lots and lots of bubbles. pretty bubbles. i'm like nemo. this is fun. this isn't bad. look, i'm getting sucked into the draft. i'm swimming so quickly. i'm not freaking out. hooray! oh, hello person. you're kind of trying to swim over me. i'll shift the other way. hey foot. hey arm. ok, staying calm. keep swimming. dude, what's with your leg? crap, you're really on top of me. gasp keep it together. stroke, stroke, breathe. gasp something just hit my head hard. gulp water freak out. i'm gonna die. don't freak out. really freak out and flail.

Fortunately for me, TDD organizers had the loveliest of "swim angels" to comfort, calm, and watch over participants. They were *so* kind and helped me slow my breathing rate down. I continued with my swim and (amazingly) PRed in the quarter-mile! I glanced at my watch and saw 7 minutes, even with the freak-out and recovery.

Bike: In lieu of fighting with my wetsuit, I fought with a compression heat shirt, but I still made it out of transition in decent time (2 minutes).

The bike course was designed by a psychopathic five-year old: lots of hills including an impressive climb at mile 8.5, sharp turns (which included sand) and cars (on both sides of the road). Also, the wind + cold + wet clothes = general unhappiness in the forms of blue lips and hands.

My bike warm-up, however, helped me to feel more in control of my climbing. Even with a borrowed road bike (thanks, Steph), I felt strong on the hills, but I couldn't maintain my goal mph. I think that I just zoned out too much during the bike portion; I need to practice being more aggressive on the bike.

Run: Because I'm a runner and in training, I wasn't overly concerned about the run. I train on hills, and I train on rocky trails -- both of which were featured in the race. Though my legs felt wobbly, they weren't really tired, but I could not breathe. I sounded as if I was three steps away from an asthma attack (which was probably the beginning of the awesome cold thing I have today). Still, I enjoyed passing people -- running up behind them and breathing like a train only to run ahead. I even finished with a sprint.


Sucking wind

For future races, I plan to modify my training in the following ways:

1) I shall continue to swim like a fish in the pool, in the pond, in the lake, and the ocean. I will also ask for volunteers to pounce on, push, dunk, and kick me (gently!) during open water swims. I want to gain control of my anxiety when I'm roughed up in the water, and the best way to do that is to simply accustom myself to this crap. Any takers?

2) I need to be fierce on the bike. I will log more miles while continuing hill training and speed sessions -- especially throughout the winter. Until the weather changes, I will also try to bike outside with buddies who push my endurance and speed.

Even though I won't participate in triathlons until next spring, I plan to continue my training. I feel really strong and, honestly, happy as I swim and bike. They're workouts to which I look forward, and I don't always feel the same about running.

I'd also like to thank my supporters -- friends and family who've encouraged me with kind words, good vibes, and excellent company throughout my training and during my race. I feel very loved and supported. Thank you, truly.

Thanks, too, to Steph for her invaluable night-before and race-day support.

Thank you for your grounding presence and for your big hugs after I cross the finish line. I love you dearly.

Also, you make the best freakin' cheering signs in the whole wide world.

Thanks, babe.

The Narcicyst

2011-09-14T09:10:00.001-04:00

This evening, I'm joining some of my dearest friends B, D, and S (get it? BDS) for the Narcicyst in Cambridge at the Middle East. The Narcicyst (Yassin Alsalman) is an Iraqi journalist and hip hop MC.

Rapping in English and occasionally in Iraqi Arabic, Yassin addresses some of the social, political and cultural issues of our time, including the 9/11 attacks, the US-led invasion of Iraq, Islamophobia and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He has performed in live shows across Canada, Europe, the United States and the Middle East, often backed by a live band and vocalists. He has also opened for a number of high profile acts like Public Enemy, Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, Non Phixion, Madlib, A-Trak, Brother Ali, DJ Vadim, Dead Prez and Afu Ra to name a few.*

Check out the following videos to see (and hear) the breadth of his work. Ever since S introduced his work to me, I can't stop listening and watching -- some of the most visually arresting music videos I've ever seen.

Scathing. Satiric. Elegiac.

Tickets ($13) are still available. Doors open at 9PM, and the show begins at 10PM. Hope to see you there!

*Shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia

Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit: Black bean-quinoa-lime salad

2011-09-12T14:00:00.002-04:00

Midnight black turtle | Jacob's cattle | Red kidney | Tiger's eye

Bean harvest from the farm

Aren't they gorgeous?

This summer, I visited the Midwest to see my parents, and on the first night that I arrived, my mom made the most delicious salad for me. This recipe, in contrast to my meatloaf, is vegetarian and vegan friendly, and it's a perfect way to make use of the surplus vegetables in your garden.

Black Bean-Quinoa-Lime Salad

Ingredients:

1 c of dry beans (soaked the night before) or a 16oz can of organic black beans

1 c of cooked quinoa*

diced red onion or scallions

diced tomatoes
diced red pepper

fresh corn kernels from 2-3 ears

one bunch of cilantro

zest of 1-2 organic limes

juice of 2-3 organic limes

2-4 T of organic olive oil

cumin, salt, and pepper to taste

Directions:
Mix it all together in proportions that are pleasing to your eye and palate. Taste the salad and season accordingly. If it seems bland, keep adding more lime juice, zest, cumin, and salt. Refrigerate for 1-4 hours before serving. The leftovers keep well in the fridge.

Enjoy, my friends!

*Quinoa should be soaked overnight to neutralize the antinutrients. Soak 1 part quinoa to 2 parts warm water with 2T of whey, yogurt, kefir, or buttermilk for 12 hours. It's a nuisance, I know. But by taking this extra step, your quinoa will be fluffier, and you'll have better access to its iron, calcium, phosphorous, B vitamins, and vitamin E.

Emmanuel Ortiz's "A Moment of Silence"

2011-09-11T10:58:00.000-04:00

Before I begin this poem, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001.
I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the U.S., and throughout the world.

And if I could just add one more thing…

A full day of silence… for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence… for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result

of a 12-year U.S. embargo against the country.

…And now, the drums of war beat again.

Before I begin this poem, two months of silence… for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, where “homeland security” made them aliens in their own country

Nine months of silence… for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin, and the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence… for the millions of dead in Viet Nam —a people, not a war—for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

Two months of silence… for the decades of dead in Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem,
Seven days of silence… for El Salvador
A day of silence… for Nicaragua
Five days of silence… for the Guatemaltecos
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence… for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas…
1,933 miles of silence… for every desperate body
That burns in the desert sun
Drowned in swollen rivers at the pearly gates to the Empire’s underbelly,
A gaping wound sutured shut by razor wire and corrugated steel.

25 years of silence… for the millions of Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
For those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees
In the south… the north… the east… the west…
There will be no dna testing or dental records to identify their remains.

100 years of silence… for the hundreds of millions of indigenous people
From this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness…

From somewhere within the pillars of power
You open your mouths to invoke a moment of our silence
And we are all left speechless,
Our tongues snatched from our mouths,
Our eyes stapled shut.

A moment of silence,
And the poets are laid to rest,
The drums disintegrate into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence…
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be.
Not like it always has been.

…Because this is not a 9-1-1 poem
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem…
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.

And if this is a 9/11 poem, then
This is a September 11th 1973 poem for Chile.
This is a September 12th 1977 poem for Steven Biko in South Africa.
This is a September 13th 1971 poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York.
This is a September 14th 1992 poem for the people of Somalia.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground amidst the ashes of amnesia.

This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told,
The 110 stories that history uprooted from its textbooks
The 110 stories that that cnn, bbc, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

This is not a peace poem,
Not a poem for forgiveness.
This is a justice poem,
A poem for never forgetting.
This is a poem to remind us
That all that glitters
Might just be broken glass.

And still you want a moment of silence for the dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves,
The lost languages,
The uprooted trees and histories,
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children…

Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
So if you want a moment of silence

Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines, the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights
Delete the e-mails and instant messages
Derail the trains, ground the planes.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses
and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July,
During Dayton’s 13 hour sale,
The next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful brown people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it
Now,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
Take it all.
But don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.

And we,
Tonight,
We will keep right on singing
For our dead.

Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano/Puerto Rican/Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet. He is the author of a chapbook of poems, The Word Is a Machete (self-published, 2003), and coeditor of Under What Bandera?: Anti-War Ofrendas from Minnesota y Califas (Calaca Press, 2004). He is a founding member of Palabristas: Latin@ Word Slingers, a collective of Latin@ poets in Minnesota. Emmanuel has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oakland, California; and the Arizona/Mexico border. He currently lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the “buckle of the Bible Belt,” with his two dogs, Nogi and Cuca. In his spare time, he enjoys guacamole, soccer, and naps.

A Frenzy of Food Preservation

2011-09-10T16:17:00.003-04:00

It is an interesting fact that most farmers do not have the time to eat their own vegetables, ingest proper nutrition, or put away food for the winter during the work season. Those dawn to dusk days of constant physical activity simply do not allow for such silly things as washing, chopping, and cooking. Most of the time I resort to those golden pieces of manna from heaven -- potato chips -- for two out of three meals a day. Fortunately for my overall health this season, Emily has been tirelessly (or tiredly) cooking wholesome meals for us despite her crazy schedule of dissertation work and training. And, although everyone else mourns the daily loss of evening light, farmers rejoice as our days slowly shorten and our weeks become a more "reasonable" 55 to 60 hours of farm work, leaving all those "extra" hours for very neglected household chores and...

WINTER FOOD PRESERVATION!

Yes, it is true! I spent almost all day Friday putting away food, so that Emily and I do not have to buy vegetables this winter. The day that I have to step into the produce section of the supermarket for something other than cilantro or the occasional avocado is a sad day indeed. So. I set out to squirrel away more roasted tomatoes, corn, roasted eggplant, and salsa verde for our winter delights and dishes. I mean, if one is going to heat up the oven to 400 degrees, one might as well make a morning of it (hopefully a cool morning)!

I began with beautiful Striped Roman and Juliet paste tomatoes that I scavenged from the dying tomato patch (yes, the recent weeks of heavy rain finally brought late blight to Massachusetts, but we usually get late blight by September when the plants are on the downward slide anyway). Washed, sliced in half, drizzled with olive oil, and shuttled into the oven for 45 minutes. All in all, I prepared ten trays of roasted tomatoes!

I had a few unfortunate incidences with generic freezer bags that gave out on the sides. But aside from a few messes on the counter and my shorts, most of the tomatoes did make it into the chest freezer. In past years, I have gone through significant effort to boil down the tomatoes with garlic and basil into a sauce consistency. However, I have come to realize that I don't actually care very much for pasta and still have not made it through the bags of sauce that I froze from last year. It only took me five years to realize that tomato sauce is not worth my effort! I'd much rather have bags of roasted tomatoes to add to soups and dishes that call for fresh or canned tomatoes.

Next came the Rosa Bianca heirloom eggplants.

I am not a huge eggplant fan, although I am not opposed to it either, but my past experience with preserving eggplant was to blanch the sliced fruit and freeze it for future use. Yuck. Who wants to eat blanched eggplant?! My fellow farmers certainly have helped to change my views on eggplant in the winter by freezing it as ratatouille or turning it into eggplant preserves. I decided upon the route of roasting it and freezing it for future use in Indian dishes or as baba ganouj. I sliced off their hats and plopped them upside down on the baking sheet. The beautiful white and purple skins turned a hideous shade of brown, but the roasted flesh was soft, easily peeled, and packed up two eggplant per bag for the freezer. We'll see how it goes!

Meanwhile, back at the farm's house kitchen, I blanched two dozen ears of corn, cut off the kernels, and bagged them up for corn chowders and corn bread in the dead white of winter. Unfortunately, I managed to pick the one mediocre corn day to grab my ears, and the kernels were not crisp or very sweet. I have had much success with this method in the past but with tastier corn. Here's hoping today's corn is worth eating this winter.

Finally, I rounded out my day with batches and batches of salsa verde. I slipped the tomatillos in to roast at the end of my four hours of a 400 degree oven.

Realizing that I forgot to get cilantro from the farm and limes from the store, I left the tomatillos to cool and ran around getting the final ingredients. Salsa verde is so easy to make in a blender and freezes for later use much better than red salsas, which get much more watery and strangely textured upon thawing.

It is so satisfying to puree the roasted tomatillos, garlic cloves, scallions, jalapenos, lime juice, salt, cumin, and cilantro, taste it, adjust, taste it again, feel the fiery burn on your lips, taste it some more and more and more. The trick to salsa verde is to make enough to put it away for the winter and also to eat it right then and there!

Future food preservation days will include brandied nectarines, ginger nectarine jam, applesauce, frozen kale, frozen peppers, frozen hot peppers, pickled hot pepper rings, sour beets, garlic dill carrots, kimchi, fermented daikon slices, and grape jelly.

Whew! No rest for the weary yet!

What have you preserved (or plan to preserve) for the winter months?

No Sex. Just Socks, Please.

2011-09-08T21:13:00.002-04:00

During the spring of 2005, I visited Hawaii for the first time. This visit coincided with my burgeoning yarn skillz, and I insisted on a trip to the one (and only) yarn store on the big island: The Yarn Basket in Hilo.

As I wandered around the store -- "holy crap! I'm in Hawaii! holy crap! I'm in a Hawaiian yarn store!" -- I was drawn to a group of older women, who were sitting around a table, chatting, and, of course, knitting. And they weren't bragging about their children or their grandchildren, either; they were enjoying a frank (and, frankly, public) discussion of their sex lives.

One woman, brandishing her pointy sock needle, summed it up: "Sex drive goes down. Sock drive goes up!"

With that, I burst out laughing, and the entire table of women turned to look at the eavesdropper in their midst. The woman ran up to me, grabbed my hands, and implored me to leave the socks alone: "It'll never be the same. Enjoy the sex, not the socks." She even told my boyfriend, "No socks for her. She's too young."

With reluctance, I left these awesome ladies in the Hawaiian yarn store, and I even left the socks alone. For a while. But the temptation grew too much. Socks are portable and useful and beautiful. They make amazing gifts. And do you know how many clever sock patterns are available on Ravelry? Have you seen the sock yarn market? It's too much. I tried (really hard) to abstain, but knitting hand-warmers left me deeply, deeply unsatisfied.

Who could resist the lure of self-patterning sock yarn?

I wanted to go all the way.

So I did. And it was fabulous. With my inimitable capacity for self-control, I stocked up on hand-dyed sock yarn. I stashed it around my bedroom. I taught others how to knit socks. Sock needles fell out of my purse, and I whipped out my knitting in bars. Soon enough, I began knitting socks for romantic partners and then -- and only then -- did I realize the extent of the sock-sex dilemma that I'd first encountered in Hawaii.

Instep of a sock made of Noro sock yarn

When I gave a girlfriend a lovely pair of socks, we would break up. Often in a matter of days. At first, I thought this was just a fluke. Or that my behavior had something to do with it. When it happened again, I shook off the nagging possibility of some exotic Hawaiian curse (I mean, for the love, I've read Said's Orientalism). But, hand to God, socks have ended three romantic relationships.

Possibly four, depending on how one defines "relationship."

Given this intractable curse, I only knit socks for family members, super-close friends who can't ever, ever leave me, and Steph (we've broken up before. socks were exchanged. i think we've weathered this one) --you know, people with whom I won't ever have sex.

Recently, I finished some socks for my uncle. When asked if he liked wool, his face lit up as he described his favorite pair of wool socks. When I offered to knit him his very own pair, his smile broadened.

Mona Schmidt's "Father and Son Socks" in Whiskey Reynolds

Macro shot of "Father and Son Socks"

And so, I did.

Rock Your Ever Lovin' Socks Off Meatloaf!

2011-09-07T20:16:00.000-04:00

Arugula salad, carrot-dill soup, and meatloaf

This is the best. meatloaf. ever.

Even if you think meatloaf is too old-fashioned or bland or gross, this recipe will radically alter your perspective. And by alter, I mean that it'll rock your ever lovin' holy freakin' socks off!

Here's what you need:

Garlic, onion, carrots, cinnamon, bread crumbs, eggs, and apricots

Vegetables: carrots (4-5 medium ones), garlic (3-4 cloves), onion (1 medium), celery or celeriac (1/2 c)
Meat: approximately 1 lb of thawed ground beef or a mixture of ground beef and pork
Dried Fruit: 10 dried apricots or 5-7 dried figs (I prefer figs)
Fats: organic olive oil and butter
Seasonings: salt, pepper, cinnamon, dash of nutmeg and ground ginger
Other: 2/3 c milk (preferably raw), 3/4 c bread crumbs, 1 egg

1) Soak the bread crumbs in the milk and put aside. Preheat the oven to 400 F.

2) Add 2T of olive oil/butter in a pan and saute chopped onion. Dice the carrots, add them to the pan, and stir frequently. Add the minced garlic and celery/celeriac.

3) Keep stirring until the carrots are soft. Add more oil/butter if the veggies stick to the pan's bottom.

4) Cut up the dried fruit with kitchen scissors, and add to the pan. Season liberally with cinnamon (1-2 t) and salt. Add a dash of nutmeg and ginger. Sample the mixture -- it should be intense but not too intense.

The farm from which we receive our "happy meat" CSA share. Love. them. hard.

5) While you allow the pan fixings to cool, put the thawed meat in a large bowl. Add the soaked bread crumbs and the cooled veggies/fruits. Add a bit more salt and pepper.

6) Roll up your sleeves, and git in there with your bare hands.

7) Shape the mixture into a loaf, and bake at 400 F for 45-60 minutes.

Enjoy, m'dears!