Rob (over at One Straw: Be The Change) had a great post last week about New Year’s Revolutions, and I am totally jumping on that bandwagon. His categories are re-localization, re-skilling, and re-building community. I might also add “reliance” to that – learning to trust your own skills to get you through.

What revolutionary acts am I committing myself to this year?

• Teaching through Preserving Traditions. This will include classes on food preservation and cooking. This year, we’ll do more intro canning classes, work days for preserving large batches of salsa and such, and also do some more work with animal products: chicken stock, butter, and probably cheese, too. This will address re-skilling and community in a big way.
• Make connections among the right people around a couple projects. Specifically, a local slaughterhouse and a gasifier project. I don’t think my place is in the middle of either project, but I may be able to connect a few dots.
• Start learning about large-scale cool storage of vegetables. To that end: build a root cellar and learn how to use it. I don’t know where this will go – helping others build home-scale cold storage or something on a larger commercial scale – but I need to start with getting a feel for the process. This will also give me a chance to finally learn some basic carpentry skills!
• Reduce fuel use and favor local fuels. To that end: use wood heat as much as possible and reduce propane use from 700 gallons of propane in 2008-09 to 400 gallons in 2009-10. (So far, we’ve saved about 150 gallons, I think. We usually have a fill-up around New Year’s Day of 330 gallons, and we’ve got 50% of our tank left.) I’d love to save more electricity, but I’m honestly not sure how to do that at this point. We’ve harvested all that low-hanging fruit!
• And on the gardening front, I will
  • build more compost. I’ve been slacking in this area, using compost mainly as a disposal system and resting on the fertile laurelsof newly-made garden beds. Time to step up my actual building of soil. First concrete step is to compost my existing garden beds with the compost I made last year. Second step is to build actual thoughtful, layered compost so I’ll have something to spread in the fall.
  • work on succession planting for peas, beans, broccoli, and kale to extend the fresh seasons of those crops
  • grow all my own kale, peas, onions, and potatoes for next year. More on that in an upcoming post…

Yesterday, in my post on local food, MK and Patty pointed out that if local eating is really going to take off, people need to know how to cook, and realize cooking isn’t necessarily more time-consuming than cooking from a box.

This got me thinking…what are foods that people could easily make at home, but think they can’t? The idea would be to have a series of cooking classes with the theme “Yes, you can cook it at home.”These things would ideally take no special equipment or hours of prep, and would replicate things that people think they “have to” buy because it’s way too hard to make them at home.

Here are some of my initial ideas:

• Chinese restaurant-style sauces (white, brown, sweet-and-sour, and spicy orange glaze)
• Crackers
• Pizza
• Fajitas
• Fish sticks & chicken nuggets
• French fries (oven fries)
• Lasagne

What else can you think of?

I was trying to figure out how to explain my local food preferences to someone whose only concerns about food are “cheap” and “easy.” I thought of this way of explaining it:

Everybody has certain things they are willing to pay for in food. You might be willing to pay more for convenience (pre-washed salad greens), for a particular flavor (those perfect ginger snaps from World Market), or tradition (must have Saunders Hot Fudge at Christmas). I am willing to pay more for food for two main reasons: preserving the environment and grocery insurance.

When I say I buy organic foods to “save the earth,” most people understand that well enough to be getting along with. I don’t like to pollute, I want to be nice to the plants and animals, I’m a tree-hugging liberal hippie freak and that’s just what they do, etc. I think it’s a little more nuanced than that – or perhaps not nuanced at all; I don’t think anyone should have to drink poisoned well water as a result of agriculture – but it’s close enough that I don’t feel a need to explain any further.

My preference for local food is a bit more complex. Yes, I want to keep my money in my community. Yes, it’s often fresher, and also organic (whether certified or not). But the real reason I do it is so my community will have something to eat thirty years from now.

Look, gas prices are going to continue to rise. At some point – and maybe that will be in ten years or thirty or fifty, but I’m sure I’ll see it in my lifetime – gas will hit such a price that we won’t be able to afford to truck products across the country. Not to mention the price of producing the beef in the first place, fed on irrigated, petrochemical-soaked corn. At some point, it will cost more to produce and ship a pound of hamburger from the Plains states than anyone is willing or able to pay for that hamburger – so Plains states farmers will produce less of it.

No problem. That’s when it will make financial sense to buy beef from the local farmer who raises her cattle on grass, right?

Wrong. Because if, up until that date, I refuse to pay a little more per pound for local grass-fed beef, my local cattle farmers will go out of business and probably sell their farms to developers because they can’t make a living farming. So not only will the farmer not be in business, the farm itself might be gone, too.

I am currently financially able to buy the majority of my groceries from local sources. I see it as my responsibility to do so, not just to support my local farmers, but to create conditions that will keep my local foodshed thriving so it is available to feed as many people as possible when the day comes when we really need it.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here. Think this argument will sway any WalMart devotees?

All photos by Walter Jeffries

Sugar Mountain Farm, owned by Walter Jeffries and his stellar family, is what you want a pig farm to be. Pig range freely in a series of padocks, rotated frequently to avoid over-stressing the land. Walter plants root vegetables, like turnips, in some of the fields for the pigs to forage in the fall. In addition, they get a varied diet of hay, whey (leftovers from a local cheesemaking plant), and high-protein and -calorie treats, such as expired peanut butter from the Ben and Jerry’s factory. Pigs are not castrated and do not have their tails or teel trimmed, as is usual even on family farms. These pigs are smart, lively, and well-respected. They live life like pigs – not boxed into crates on a concrete pad – and the meat is (I hear) fabulous.

Walter and his family are pretty fabulous, too. Walter’s a master-of-all-trades, from raising and breeding hogs to building his family’s barrel-vaulted “tiny cottage” house. His wife and kids (especially the older boys) help out on the farm, learning animal husbandry and construction as part of their home schooling. I have come to admire the whole clan immensely as I’ve followed their blog over the last couple years. It’s tempting to compare Walter to an undiscovered Joel Salatin, but where Salatin build chicken tractors, Jeffries pours concrete.

Design and image by Walter Jeffries

Walter’s next endeavor is to build an on-site, USDA-inspected hog processing facility where he can slaughter, cut, and cure the meat from his own hogs. This facility will be tiny – 1500 square feet – and he estimates the cost will be about 6% of the cost of a typical “small” USDA facility ($150,000 vs. $2.4 million). Currently, 47% of his sales go directly to the butcher shops, which routinely mis-cut, waste, lose, or allow meat to spoil. He also drives 600+ miles per week dropping off and picking up pigs. Building his own on-farm facility would circumvent all these issues. Walter’s also generously offered to share the plans with anyone who wants them – meaning folks around the world could benefit from his expertise and help their own farms keep more dollars in the family.

Currently, the plan and foundation are in place, but there’s a snag. Banks just aren’t lending, even to someone like Walter with stellar credit. The tiny cottage is too small for a second mortgage, and banks are just not taking risks right now.

I am so impressed with the Jeffries family’s operation, and his generosity for sharing knowledge and plans that can help local farmers make a good living. I want to help them out in thanks for all the good work they’ve done, how much they’ve taught me, how they model sustainable farming practices, and the vision Walter and his family have for the future.

So here’s what I suggest.

• If you have a local food lover in your life, give them the gift of a small slice of a great farm by making a donation to the Sugar Mountain Farm Fund Drive in their honor. Walter pledges to “pay it forward” to others!
• If you live in Vermont, order a pig (or half) for yourself. Or, find it at local retailers and restaurants (scroll down to “retail cuts”).
• If you live far from Vermont, order a pig and designate it to be delivered to a food bank close to the farm.
• If you’re independently wealthy, give Walter a loan! He’ll pay you back in five years. Really.
• If you, too, are strapped for cash in this crazy economy, “signal boost” this post by reposting it to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking mechanisms.

Here’s to sustainable farming! Do you know of amazing farms like this in your area? Tell us about them!

Emily

I love, love, love Thanksgiving. For 12 years, we’ve hosted Thanksgiving at our house for our phamily. All of us spend Christmas and other holidays with our families-of-birth, but this holiday is spent with friends we made in and after college. Folks come in from out of town, everyone takes a turn cooking, and most of the food is from within 50 miles or so. There are even several things I grow specifically for Thanksgiving dinner: rosemary, sage, potatoes, squash.

Here’s how we handle the bird.

1. Wednesday: Have dear friend (aka Turkeyfiend) drop off immense free-range, no-drugs, never-frozen hen at your house in cooler of ice.
2. Thursday morning: roll lazily out of bed, greet houseful of guests, laze around in PJs while nibbling on breakfast. Glance at the schedule which has become a permanent fixture on the fridge and remember that turkey-wrestling begins at 2pm. Remind yourself not to eat the pie yet.
3. Thursday, 2pm:
   1. Assemble seasonings: a bale of rosemary and sage from the garden, and a small bowl with 2-3Tbl of salt and 3-4 Tbl of ground poultry seasoning.
   2. Rinse out bird, set neck and giblets aside. Place turkey in clean roasting pan.
   3. Slide hand between breast meat and skin, loosening the membranes. Take handfuls of the dry seasonings and rub on meat. Evenly distribute fresh herbs between the meat and skin.
   4. Flip turkey over, cut slit in the skin of the turkey’s “hips,” and repeat the seasoning treatment on each thigh and leg.
   5. Place any remaining seasoning inside the cavity.
   6. Wrestle bird into turkey cooking bag.
4. Thursday, 2:45pm: place bird in 350 degree oven.
5. 4pm: First check of bird. Baste, if there are any juices yet.
6. 5pm: Second check of bird. Use thermometer. You want the thigh to be about 185 degrees; the breast will probably be closer to 165. Don’t baste it any more – the skin should be brown and crispy now.
7. When the bird it done, set the pan on the counter and start harvesting juices.
8. 5:30 or 6pm: Eat dinner. Bask in glow of happy Turkeyfiend.
9. 8:30 or 9pm: Figure you’ve finally got room for that pie.

What to do with the turkey juices:

1. Siphon them out with a bulb baster, and fill two or three tall, clear glasses. The fat will rise to the top.
2. Make gravy.
   1. Use some of the fat (enough to cover the bottom of the gravy pan) and an equal amount of flour to make a roux.
   2. Use the bulb baster to pull the juices from the bottom of the glass. For gravy, use roughly equal parts juice and water.
   3. Bring to a boil and allow to thicken.
   4. Adjust seasoning – it might need some salt, but the juices were well-seasoned in the turkey, so it won’t need much.
3. Make dressing.
   1. Use some of the fat to sautee the onions and celery.
   2. Mix juices with water in a large jar (1 part juice to 3-4 parts water; about a quart all together).
   3. Start adding chunks of stale bread to the onions and celery in the pan.
   4. Drizzle the thinned turkey juice over the bread until it’s soaked through.
   5. Adjust seasonings as needed; some fresh sage, rosemary, and extra salt is nice.
4. Now siphon off the remaining fat into freezer containers, and use it later to sautee meats or vegetables. (Remember, fat from healthy animals is waaaaaay better for you than fake fats like margarine.)
5. Put the last of the juices in the freezer, too; a pint of concentrated turkey juice plus water will make a quart or more of stock for homemade soup.

On Friday, break up the carcass and boil it in about 2 gallons of water for 3+ hours with some more salt and a couple bay leaves. Pack leftover meat and trimmings into lunch-sized portions and freeze.

On Saturday, pick the carcass clean, dice it up along with all the meat that hasn’t made it into lunches. Can the meat in pint jars and the stock in quart jars.

Eat the last of the pie.

I wonder if my work as a “local food advocate” would ever extend to running business operations for small food producers? Maybe I just teach “how to run a food business” classes, or maybe I run the business, they make the food, we all get paid? Would that be too much like sales and marketing? Would I care, since I believe in the food so much? Would there be enough money in it? Would this happen only when local access to food becomes far more important than cash income? Is it even possible to do this without “selling out” and only selling the best, local food to pricey restaurants while folks of more modest means get Wal-Mart factory-farmed food, or none at all?

Ok, I think I know what my winter project is…starting an indoor citrus orchard!

http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/2009/11/grow-your-own-citrus-meyer-lemons.html

Well, that was odd. Something about the sausage from this pig makes my heart race! It’s only got pork, black pepper, sage, salt, and brown sugar. Huh. The plain pork is great (and the bacon is out-of-this-world), but the sausage isn’t doing it for me.

Luckily, I have friends who like sausage, especially cheap happy sausage, so hopefully I can convert this into a variety of spicy pig that doesn’t send my heart galloping for the door…

Naming our food is a long tradition in my family, starting with Boris the Bull, who I believed would cause my parents’ divorce (do YOU really understand how large a whole steer is? Yeah, us neither…). Last year we bought half a hog and named it Eric. This year’s participant has been dubbed Señor Porcus. No absent referent here!

We picked up our 1/2 hog from Old Pine Farm on Oct. 17th. They have a very nice farm – hogs are pastured with some supplemental feed, not confined to a muddy sty. They are slaughtered on-farm and then sent to the butcher, so there’s no travel stress for the pigs. I feel extremely grateful that we have such a farm near us, and that we can afford to buy our food from them.

Looks like we ended up with about 85 lb of meat (for $300, including cutting and smoking, so somewhere around $3.50/lb). Old Pine Farm is unusual in that they charge a flat price for your hog, no matter what size, and they do not charge extra for cutting and smoking. You get to pick how you’d like your meat cut up. Here’s what we got – showing our strong preference for sausage and pulled pork in this house! My only complaint so far is that the meat is wrapped in Saran Wrap, which I find hard to remove from the meat. Hopefully it will fend off freezer burn – since there’s no air inside the wrapping, it should do that. So long as the wrap is thick enough. We’ll see.

• Loin roast: 10lb in 3 large packages. Wonder if we should have gotten this sliced into chops?
• Shoulder roast: 20+lb in about 10 packages (will become pulled pork)
• Bulk Sausage: 18 one-pound packages
• Smoked kielbasa: 10 – two to four links per pkg
• Ground pork: 6 – 1.5 lb packs
• Bacon: 5 lb in one-pound blocks
• Smoked hocks: 8lb in 2 hocks
• Ribs, pork butt, other misc: 8lb
• Plus about 5 pounds of soup bones and 5 lb of fat for lard
• The tail, the bladder, and possibly the squeal for the Cooking with Laura Project, which I will get to in a few weeks

This filled 2 large coolers and a paper grocery bag; it takes up about 2/3 of our tiny 7cu ft chest freezer and close to half the space above the fridge.

I think this was a steal for $300. I think prices are going up for next year, and they will be worth it.

Dear Universe,

Please find a way to bring this:

and this:

together and create an iPhone app that shows me the happy-food establishments from the Local Harvest database nearest to my location – and give me directions from my current location to the nearest place to get local, free-range, and organic food.

Will help facilitate with love, cookies, and possibly even money.

Thanks,
Emily