When I was very young my family lived in Northern Indiana. We would go for walks through fields and woods near my house and would pick up acorns and leaves and milkweed pods along the way. I loved playing with the silky threads inside those pods, which I would use to make hair to go under the hats of the acorn people I created. Today I saw milkweed for the first time since those days- at the New Amsterdam Market of all places! The foragers at Wild Gourmet Food were there from Vermont, nestled in among the cheese mongers and bread bakeries and wineries under the FDR expressway near the South Street Seaport- right in front of the now defunct Fulton Fish Market. They were selling wild mushrooms, wild ginger and -yes!- milkweed. I had no idea it was even edible, and when I asked the purveyor about it she told me that it could be steamed, sautéed or roasted just like asparagus. Or, she suggested, a more adventurous cook could split the pods along their spine, remove the silky strands, and boil them to make a cheese-like sauce for vegetables or pasta. Then the empty husks could be steamed or blanched and then filled with cream cheese for a unique party food. I couldn't resist. We bought a baker's dozen for $3.50 and were off on a culinary adventure.

Among foragers who write on the internet there is some debate as to whether milkweed needs to be boiled in multiple pots of water in order to remove its bitterness. Since the woman who sold the pods to me didn't mention anything about such onerous undertakings, I just sautéed the things for a couple of minutes in olive oil, added a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper, took a deep breath, and sampled. So how does it taste? The pods have a very mild taste and salt, pepper and olive oil were lovely on them. They do have a slight bitterness, but nothing that made them outright yucky. It is not dissimilar to okra, but instead of the mucosal slime those pods produce, the inner fibers take on a cheesy texture (only slightly slimy) when cooked- so in a way it's like eating a cheese-stuffed okra pod. They were an interesting adventure, but something about the texture is definitely an acquired taste. The Brain Trust declared that if he were "stranded in the wilderness and needed sustenance, these would be ok." I pretty much agree.

This was a fabulous year for strawberries! Early June farmers markets were stocked to the gills with green quart cartons of small, sweet-tart darlings. We bought six quarts for $20 and I set about preserving a taste of early summer. In Kazakhstan I learned to make a traditional style jam from my Turkish host family: 1 part fresh fruit to 1 part sugar. It makes a jam that is thin--more like fruit preserved in thick, sweet, flavorful syrup. We would eat it spooned onto fresh bread or stirred into a strong cup of black tea.

My book on preserved foods, Putting Food By, seconds this method. I added rhubarb to cut the sweetness and lemon and ginger to capture that summer-fresh taste. The Brain Trust had an inspired suggestion for a few jars- jalapenos! I boiled the mixture on the stove until it seemed to be thickening. Meanwhile I prepared my jars, washing them in scalding hot soapy water and boiling the lids. I also prepared a water bath for the filled cans.

I ladled the cooked jam into the pint jars and processed them in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. The result--delicious! The non-jalapeno version is an excellent jam--perfect on a slice of bread with some cultured butter or cream cheese! And the jalapeno version... well it's just out of this world. About 5 years ago in Austin Raspberry-Chipotle sauce was all the rage poured over cream cheese and served with crackers. This Strawberry-jalapeno jam is perfect for that purpose but instead of the dark richness of chipotle it has a bright fresh zing of fresh jalapenos. Definitely a summer recipe we'll keep for years to come!

The aerogarden is temporarily out of commission with a busted motor and our windowsill space is pretty well full but I'm not too worried about our lack of home-grown produce because the CSA season starts next week!! We've switched CSAs this year to one that has pickup right around the corner from our house. Sooo nice. Now instead of stressing out the entire dayabout whether I'll get out of work in time to make it out to the wilds of central Brooklyn by 8PM, the Brain Trust can meander over any time in the afternoon and grab our box of treats for the week. We're clearing out the veggie drawers and getting our kale recipes ready!

Today was my sixth Saturday working on the farm at the High School for Public Service in Brooklyn. I've mentioned the farm here before- it's a project of a small Brooklyn company called BK Farmyards which started up a little over a year ago to farm the backyards of brownstones and create a totally Brooklyn-based CSA. The Stacy Murphy and Bee Ayers, the two women who founded BK Farmyards, are cool cats and you can learn more about them and the company here. Every time I go to the farm I get a taste of what an apprenticeship will be like in the future- strenuous, dirty and a bit monotonous but instantly rewarding as I see a lawn transformed into a local food source--not just before my eyes but by my hands!

Today our project was digging out the last four beds, breaking up the clods of dirt, raking in compost, covering with landscaping fabric to ensure the demise of the sod and keep down weeds, and, finally, planting! We planted Swallow Eggplant today. Going down the rows on my knees, reaching my hands into the soil to make room for the seedlings, and easing the loose soil in around the young plants makes for an incredibly satisfying couple of hours! I will admit that I prefer the planting to the digging, and Bee and Stacey are kind enough to offer my many opportunities to indulge that preference. So far I've planted turnips, dill, collards and callaloo in addition to today's eggplant.

The community is increasingly engaged in and curious about the farm. The number of students coming to work with us has steadily increased since work days started in March. That's students coming to school on SATURDAY to dig in the dirt!! And every time we work some pedestrians will stop and ask about the project. It feels good to be contributing to such a dynamic community improvement project.

One final note- the biggest lesson I've learned over the last weeks is that grass sod is inedible, resource intensive, and incredibly difficult to get rid of. Why bother?! I'm not lucky enough to have a yard just yet, but I will take this opportunity to encourage you to kill your lawn- or at least a bit of it. For just a couple of hours a week you can grow food or herbs or flowers or put in some bioregion-appropriate plants that will require basically zero maintenance. The bees, birds, bugs and maybe even your neighbors will thank you! (and I will admire you even more than I already do!)

Do not be alarmed. We are still here, holding down the fort here with the yuppies of park slope. Life has been busy since our trip to Austin! The sun is out, the tomato plants are fruiting, I'm dancing and gardening my booty off every weekend, the Brain Trust and I are busily plotting the Dacha of the Future, and everything is generally swimming along.

This past weekend my dear friend J. and I drove up the Hudson Valley to the Culinary Institute of America to attend a class on Artisan Bread Baking. It was a fabulous way to spend a Saturday. We watched and helped to mix the doughs for 6 different breads. We manipulated the doughs as they rose, shaped 6 different types of loaves, put them in the huge industrial ovens and removed them with wooden peels. Then we took our loaves home to feed our friends!

We made Sourdough, Ciabata, Baguettes, Cinnamon Raisin, Pizza dough, Onion-Cheddar Rolls. A couple of universal lessons about all these breads: use INSTANT yeast rather than active dry yeast; make a starter or sponge the day before you mix up your bread dough to improve flavor; the time available to make your bread is inversely proportional to the amount of muscle you need to prepare it; resist the urge to add more flour--if the dough is sticky you need to work with it more. I'm going to try out my new skills over the next couple of months using the shiny new recipe book that I also got as a part of the class.

Saturday night J. and I invited our friends over for a Breads and Spreads extravaganza. We asked everyone to bring a favorite bread topper and we provided the bread we'd baked that day. The spreads and cheeses were AMAZING. The stars of the evening were an artichoke-lemon spread that my neighbors made and a horseradish ale cheese spread that my dear friends Jason and Jacy brought. MMMMMMMM horseradish!! My favorite bread was probably the Ciabata because it was delicious, had amazing texture, and I know how easy it was to make. The Cinnamon-Raisin bread was a close second with a smooth soft texture and a really lovely cinnamon flavor.

This adventure has inspired me to think about bread as a potential part of my future cottage industry. Has anybody out there used or built a mud or brick outdoor bread oven? How did it go?

Greetings from the Austin, Texas outpost of the Urban Dacha! It's been a whirlwind couple of days reconnecting with friends and family, eating piles of delicious tex-mex and remembering the great things about this city. Speaking of great things about Austin, yesterday we went on the 2nd annual Funky Chicken Coop Tour http://fccooptour.blogspot.com/ with our friends Len and Trenn (these pseudonyms may or may not rhyme with the actual names of said friends).

17 chicken keepers from all around the city volunteered to open their backyards and farmyards to the public for the day so that we could see the incredibly variety of coops and chickens that already exist around town.

Some participants are in suburban neighborhoods and keep a few chickens for home egg use and for the joy of keeping chickens.

Others, like Green Gate Farms, keep chickens as well as pigs and goats as livestock and use their eggs as well as their meat as a source of farm income.

Also on our tour, though not on the official route, was Boggy Creek Farm - an gorgeous urban farm that I had never visited before, despite having grown up in Austin.

It was a beautiful, if hot(!) April day in central Texas and it was a joy to be outside, driving around town, soaking in the sun, and talking about agriculture with dear, like-minded friends. It was motivating to see how much can be grown and raised on just a few acres of land inside the city limits of one of my very favorite cities on the planet!

It's hard to feel the seasons in the city. Sure, the temperature and the light changes. Summer means long evenings on bar back patios at night and brunch outside on the weekends; winter means grey slush and getting home from work hours after dark. But in terms of growing things and seasonal eating, without a yard to guide me I rely on the farmers' markets to teach me what foods are in season. Now that the thaw has come and there will soon be more than root-cellared onions and nitrogen-preserved apples at the markets, I'm going to start a semi-monthly feature highlighting a seasonal fruit or vegetable or product and the farm that grew/made it.

This week is a bit of a cheat--I did not actually take note of the name of the farm where I bought my veggies this week. In fact, my realization that I hadn't noticed was part of the reason that I decided to start this new feature. Also, the featured veggie this week is the parsnip, which is not actually in season right now. (Though in my defense, here in the Hudson Valley NOTHING is really in season right now so for the time being I'll celebrate the miracles of effective cold storage. The Union Square Saturday Market this week was still featuring apples, potatoes, onions, and not much else in the way of produce.)
So we'll call this a preview- The Parsnip!

A parsnip is a root vegetable and looks like an ivory-colored carrot. The ones you find at the grocery store can be quite large and woody and what drew me to these was their diminutive stature. I easily selected about a pound of small spears no more than 6 inches long. They can be eaten raw or cooked, and were once used as sweeteners in Europe before sugar was widely available. In the New York area they are in season in April and May and then again from October through December. With my haul I made a carrot-parsnip gratin with a cotija cheese-breadcrumb topping.

Today we started building the farm's compost system and marked out the first appx. 1200 square foot planting area. We wrapped shipping pallets in chicken wire for the compost and dug out the walkways between the planting beds so that they can be filled in with wood chips. Within the first hour, with the beds marked out, it was already possible to envision what it will look like with plants growing in the black earth. There were about 20 people there altogether. Some were students and teachers at the high school, some work for BK Farmyards, and others, like me, just interested volunteers eager to lend a hand and learn more about growing things in the process. It was a nice community feeling and Bee Ayers, one of the founders of BK Farmyards, lead warm up/icebreaker that helped set the tone of community and collegiality. Happily no one was expected to know how to do anything and we all felt comfortable to ask questions- I think it's going to be a great learning experience and I'm planning to become a regular at their Saturday workdays. You can check out what else is happening with BK Farmyards here including a really yummy looking fundraiser dinner on April 11!

-Farming at a school farm with BK Farmyards (this one's definite- starts next Saturday!)

-Making and selling wooden art on Etsy and at craft fairs (already in the works- visit my fledgling Etsy store here)

-Dancing in a Brooklyn-based super-fabulous parade troupe

-Baking 6 different loaves at an artisan bread class at the Culinary Institute

-Visiting small farms and farmers markets in some of the cities on the Future Farm Short-list

-Attending an evening dinner church that a college friend started

-Coordinating a CSA with a farm in Pennsylvania

-Participating in the proposal process for a nationwide school gardens initiative

-Identifying agriculture and food related 9-5 jobs that I might want in the future

-Farming in Red Hook,Governor's Island or Greenpoint

As I have mentioned before, I like to make things. Some time last winter I got a hankering to relearn a skill my mother had taught me in high school- the gentle art of knitting. So I bought the Learn-to-Knit Afghan Book by Barbara G. Walker and dove in. With the help of the internet and some way-too-hip NYC knitting stores I got needles and yarn and figured out how to cast on, knit, purl, and bind off and I was on my way.

The book teaches you a series of knitting skills and patterns, and you make an appx. 1 foot square with each pattern. In the end you're supposed to have a huge afghan made of 63 squares showcasing your new skills. Today, a year after beginning, I am proud to report that I am on square 13, I have lost one square, and I made a slight error in yarn purchasing so I am actually making two smaller afghans rather than one big one. (apparently worsted weight alpaca yarn is just not the same as worsted weight acrylic yarn). I took a really loooong hiatus between last March and this January, and now I'm really on a roll--I have high hopes that a year from now I may be nearly finished with this massive undertaking.

Though frankly I may need to take another break from the afghan soon to knit something that I can actually wear. I have a pretty high tolerance for delayed gratification but I am longing to have someone compliment my scarf and ask where I got it and be able to say "Oh thanks, I made it!"

We are short-timers in this giant city, but the Brain Trust is dedicated to finding ways to carry those two aspects of life in the big city (energy efficiency and lots of awesome people) with us to our next as-yet-undetermined destination. For all intents and purposes what that means is we are now looking for a dream location (1) close enough to a city center to allow us to walk or easily bike to shops, restaurants, and entertainment; (2) with vibrant creative culture and lots of smart people to enjoy and build community with; and (3) that that will allow me to have a big enough growing space to produce a good portion of our own food with potential develop and grow into an operation that produces food to sell either at the farmers market or as a CSA, and that would allow for some small farm animals- particularly chickens and goats.

At the moment we're really not sure how to fit all of that together, but there are a few good examples of people who are making farming work for them in small urban spaces.

Exhibit A: Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Started just last year by a fellow Sarah Lawrence College Alum (no, we don't know each other), this farm is on the rooftop of a former warehouse turned soundstage in Brooklyn. The owner of the building decided to put in a green roof (link) and farm founder Annie Novak talked her into going one step further, allowing her to start a farm on top of the green roof installation. Last year they grew peppers, greens, corn and radishes, to list just a few of their crops. They sold to the community from an on-site Sunday farmer's market all from a rooftop overlooking the Manhattan skyline. The farm also keeps bees.

Exhibit B: The Dervaes family urban homestead in Pasadena, CA. Since 2001 this family has been annually producing 6,000 lbs of food on 1/10 an acre of land. They have pygmy goats and a flock of chickens as well as ducks, rabbits and bees. They sell some of their produce to local restaurants, eat and preserve the bulk of it, and sell some to neighbors. Because they're located in California, a region with some serious water concerns, they have some exciting bioregion-specific methods of watering, including the use of terracotta pots buried in their gardens that leach water slowly and deeply into the soil.

Exhibit C: Living in the city, farming in the country. Because of the high cost of land many aspiring farmers can't afford to live on- or own- the land they farm. This presents the possiblity of splitting up the operation across two parcels of land. The idea of buying two pieces of land- a home in the city and a plot without a house outside of town has a certain appeal from the perspective of this blog--it is certainly embracing the Dacha model! It might also work out better in terms of city regulations about keeping livestock, or neighborhood covenants on land use. But it has some major drawbacks. I'm not sure how practical this option is if I want to keep animals- my understanding is that they often need after hours attention that just wouldn't be possible if I were commuting from a house in town. Plus I just feel that a commute would really limit (or at least materially affect) the kind and quality of attention that I give the land that I will have- not to mention undermining the carbon footprint reduction of living in a dense urban area. All things considered, I'd prefer to live where I grow.

In the end it may be that the Brain Trust will have to sacrifice some density for the sake of farm and that I will have to sacrifice some farmland for the sake of accessibility. Whatever dudes--we'll make it work. And it's dang exciting to be making a real plan for it!

(1) I tend to have a glass of wine when I get home from work or a beer when I'm out to dinner. I'm not passing judgment, but it is a pattern. So for this month, I'm having alcohol only socially, only if invited by someone else, only if others are also drinking.

(2) Maybe because it's winter, or maybe because I got married and stopped being vegan 4 months ago, I have been on a real baked goods and sweets kick recently. I manage to make a good bit of that stuff myself, but there's definitely been some extra-curricular goodies sneaking in lately at work and out on the town. So while I'm only taking alcohol in public, I'm only eating baked goods and sweets that I make at home.

In some ways I'm letting myself off easy- I reeeeeally don't want to eliminate anything completely from my diet. But I think this plan will shake up my daily patterns enough to present an interesting challenge. I've already noticed a change- a serious sugar craving! So far I've made the following to fill the void left by cutting out all the treats that I didn't really notice I was eating:

Olive Oil Cake (from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) flavored with rosemary and lemon juice and sweetened with honey.

Polenta

Oatmeal (with sweet and savory toppings)

Roasted Potatoes

Right now I have whole wheat sandwich rolls in the oven along with an acorn squash and I may also make come cookies later this weekend. It's definitely required a bit more pre-planning, but so far I'm feeling great and having fun with the changes. I have made one small adjustment to the rules-- if someone who loves me bakes something and offers me some, it's fair game. There's really only one person I know who has a tendency to do this (you can see some of her great works here) so I don't think that will get too out of hand....

And if you see me batting my eyelashes at you between now and Easter please invite me out for a drink!!

Welcome back! The long silence was due in part to my own disinclination to do any extra writing outside of work and in part to an internet snafu that was masterfully identified and handled by The Princess and her team of minions. (Thanks Guys!!) So I'm back and the first report is that young Ferdinand (alas, we barely knew ye) has crossed over into greener (we hope) pastures. After his demise I tried a seedling hydroponic basil plant from the farmers market in the 5-gallon bucket with not much more success. It held on to life, but it certainly wasn't healthy, and in the end it seemed the better part of wisdom to just make a batch of pesto and let by gones be by gones. I feel that with more diligent internet searching and some experimentation I would be able to get the light/ nutrient / acidity mix down pat, but to be perfectly honest the inherent wastefulness of the hydroponic system makes me loath to spend more time monkeying around with it. So for now it's dismantled again--not repurposed yet, so I may make another run at it if I get to a point where I feel like I know more about plant nutrition.

But don't fret, friends, there's still lot's a'growin' here at Combee Acres.

We have two cherry tomato plants and one jalapeno pepper in the Aero-Garden (yes, they came in a box in the mail from the Aerogarden company--I needed a sure win...). We also bought a trio of herbs at the Union Square Farmers Market a few weeks ago that are holding their own. Rosemary and mint are thriving on our bedroom windowsill, and oregano is sprucing up my office. I also started lettuce and radishes on the windowsill in the home office of the Brain Trust (my loving husband) and they've all sprouted and seem to be thriving.

So there's lots of life here. For my March home growing project I'm currently debating between an expanded living room window growing area and a kitchen worm compost bin.

Update on Ferdinand. I admit, he is looking worse, MUCH worse, but I think he may be on the mend. I bought some litmus strips and discovered that the water was very acid--at 4.5 or lower ph. The recommendations I've seen for tomatoes are at about 6.3 so I dug deep into the far reaches of my memory--back to jr. high science--and added some baking soda to the water until my litmus paper showed a color that looked closer to the 6.2-6.5 range. I also discovered that I wasn't using enough nutrients, at least according to what was recommended on the nutrient bottle. So I re-upped the nutrient levels as well. Then I pruned any branches that didn't have any undamaged new growth on them, hoping that Ferdinand will be able to focus its efforts on growing new leaves and--hopefully--flowers. So we'll see. If he doesn't look better in the a week or so, I'm afraid it's going to be curtains and I'll try again, maybe with a variety of tomato that I know a little more about rather than a random seed.