The Pig and the Butcher

Here is a great short on Vimeo showing a butcher taking apart a pig with very little waste. Click the text link for more info on the film and the butcher.

It reminds me of a sentiment I got from Gary Snyder, from one of his books of essays -- simplistically paraphrased: If you want to learn about mastering something, hang out with masters of any sort. You can learn to be a master meditator by hanging out with a master mechanic.

Watch a master butcher.

The Pig & The Butcher from Quarter Productions on Vimeo.

Enjoy getting closer to your food sources,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative, "Yuri"]

Backwards Beekeeper shows how he harvests honey

I just stumbled across this video on Boing Boing, and am now intrigued. The video is a nice watch about how the "Backwards Beekeepers" harvest their honey. One gets the sense that they do much of their beekeeping in an unconventional, bee-friendly fashion.

Here is a link to the Backwards Beekeepers blog -- I've only just started researching their methods and philosophy and I do like it, and their attitude. Biologically, their philosophy of maximizing and propagating already-naturalized populations of bees makes perfect sense. I strongly suspect I'll have more to report after I've spent some more time with their information.



Enjoy folks using their heads, and making awesome local honey in the process,

Bp

Master Pickler Alex Hozven

Occasionally, my past rises up and startles me.

I knew Alex back in The Day, when I was a free-range bohemian living in a VW bus in Bezerkeley.

Now, she's a master pickler, her shop is called the Cultured Pickle Shop. I wish she had her shop in Portland because I love real cultured veggies. I'll let the video speak for itself, great stuff.



Enjoy your blasts from the past,

Bp

[via the Good Reverend John Nathan B.]

Saturday Morning Awesome: Wingnut Confections

What is more awesome than candy? Well locally made, organic, fair-trade, vegan bike-delivered candy of course!

Wingnut Confections is the brain-child my friend Dave Beer. With a history as a pastry chef, and an adoration of dark chocolate, he decided to create candies of an entirely different caliber. Since Dave has plenty of friends with an intolerance to dairy, he worked to create luscious chocolate without it. He figured it out.

I can vouch for the truffles, they're amazing. They're fantastic. He has some trippy flavors as well, including Thai Chili, and Habanero Mole.



I don't know that I could say what my favorite truffle is, but some days its Thai Chili, and others (many others) its Earl Grey. Of course there is much research yet to do, as he has candied Oregon nuts, candied citrus, and Goji berry/Brazil nut clusters that I haven't even tried yet.

It's a rough assignment, but I'll do it -- for you, the reader.

Where do you get em? First off -- you can get them on line. Better yet, you can find Dave at the People's Farmer's Market year round (Wednesdays) and Saturdays at the Hollywood Farmer's Market (which just opened May 2nd). They are also carried in many local stores, including Whole Foods, the Alberta Co-op Grocery, and Proper Eats (among many others, check the link).

Now if I can only convince Dave to start mass-producing his fruit meade so I can have it more often...

Enjoy your friends pulling off epic business feats,

Bp

[all photo credits at the Wingnut Confections website]

Urban Homesteading -- not just in the Portland Bubble

I was very pleased to see this New York Times article talking about the steadily gaining popularity of backyard livestock in urban and suburban areas of the East Coast and Midwest. Goat and bees were mentioned as well as the ubiquitous backyard chickens.

It seems that laws are being changed around the country to accommodate this lifestyle. As a natural extension of a home garden, a couple animals or backyard livestock only makes sense. Portlanders are all over this, with our coop tours and whatnot. I love it.

I'm often shocked when I start making assumptions about the rest of the country based on what I see in my home town. I'll see a push (albeit hard-fought) for public transportation, or bicycle access, for instance, and then travel elsewhere in the country and find these things utterly non-existent. Not that I think Portland is some paragon of how to do it right -- not by any means. But it is a progressive city as far as the U.S. goes, so it's nice to see one of our little citizen-led green movements actually getting a foothold in the rest of the country as well.

Thanks Nana Povi for sending me the article.

Enjoy knowing where your food came from,

Bp

[photo credit in linked article]

Possible cure for Colony Collapse Disorder?

According to this article in Science Daily, scientists in Spain have isolated a specific parasite, Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia), in two separate apiaries inflicted with CCD. They treated the remaining bees in the apiaries and the bees recovered from the affliction.

This is only the first study, but you can be sure that this success will be tested many times over.

A cure for CCD affects us all. Even though other news items have grabbed the spotlight, if we lose our bees a massive hit in agricultural production is guaranteed.

Even though the cure used wasn't organic, if it works then we have avoided a serious, real catastrophe (unlike hysterical over-reaction to the "catastrophe-that-isn't-yet" like the swine flu).

Enjoy a chance that worldwide agriculture was saved by a couple microbio geeks in Spain,

Bp

[Photo credit in linked article, "Pig plague and Twitter" article via Uncle Ted]

Nettle Time -- Part 4, cooking

Now for the fourth and final installment about my first spring picking of Nettles -- recipes.

Here is the easy answer as to how to use fresh/parboiled nettles -- treat them like spinach.

Some recipes I tried were Nettle Quiche (top), and Sauteed Nettles.

The Nettle Quiche is very straightforward, I just used a basic quiche recipe and put some chopped, sauteed nettles into the mix with the cheese.




The Sauteed Nettles are simply onions cut thin, sauteed down until carmelized, then the parboiled, chopped nettles introduced into the pan with some salt and pepper and tossed until warm and coated with tasty onion oil goodness. The non-veg version is to cook bacon in the pan first, pour off most of the fat, keeping about 2 Tbs., then cook the onions and Nettles as above, but adding bacon bits into the mix. Mega tasty.

Although I used freshly-parboiled Nettles for the dishes pictured here, frozen ones work just dandy. The flavor is preserved, and if you were sparce with parboiling as I mentioned in Part 3, then the texture will be good as well.

The taste of the nettles was most apparent in the saute recipes, so if you are wanting to show off their unique flavor I'd go that route.

I found out that folks have been able to buy nettles at farmers markets lately, so you might want to check that option out if you don't have time to hit the woods but want to experiment with these greens.

Enjoy exploring wild foods this spring,

Bp

Nettle Time -- Part 3, freezing

Freezing is now my favorite way to store Nettles. The end product is versatile and super tasty.

Farmer Theo said that his frozen Nettles ended up weird, slimy and black. I was hoping that was due to over cooking, so my main goal was to parboil the nettles just long enough to make them edible, but not long enough to make the leaves break down. I succeeded.

This first picture is of my parboiling setup. I use a stainless steel stock pot with a pasta insert. I get the water (with a little salt added) to a roiling boil, full power, and dump the full pasta insert in with the nettles. I stir the nettles to make sure they're all exposed to the boiling water -- 30 seconds to 1 minute maximum. The closer to 30 seconds the better in my book.



Here is the finished parboiled product. Note the bright green stems and still-green leaves -- this is what you see when they are correctly boiled. None of the leaves are more than slightly wilted, and definitely none of them are a dark, blackish-green color. That is a sign of over-cooking.

At this point they are ready to eat, and we did eat plenty of them right out of the pot -- no salt, no butter no nothing. I really love the taste of these guys, it is like a flowery, mellow spinach flavor. Oh and here's something I learned the hard way -- don't store the newly-cooked greens in a big pile (say in a huge steel bowl) for very long, because they keep cooking and can over-cook. Spread them out to cool and get em bagged up as soon as you can.



For bagging up, I use a Food Saver Vacuum Machine. For the price it works dandy. You can see from the pictures that I leave a lot of empty space in the bags. That is because I re-use them if I've only stored vegtables in them. They are easy to clean (I throw them in the dishwasher -- mine doesn't have a heating unit in it to melt them) and the extra space keeps them a good useable size.

Anyway, there they are, labeled and dated and ready for the freezer. If vacuum sealed they should stay for 2+ years in the freezer. Having "only" picked 5 full grocery bags full of nettles (and drying 2 of them), we're almost out already. In my house at least, don't expect them to stay around too long.

In the 4th and final installment, I'll talk briefly about how I've used the fresh Nettles in cooking.



Enjoy storing up wild foods,

Bp

Nettle Time -- Part 2, Drying

In Nettle Time -- Part 1, I mentioned that these wild edibles are coming up right now all over the Pacific Northwest (and elsewhere), and gave a few tips about gathering. Now I'll talk about storage and use.

The most common way for people to store nettles is to dry them.

The equipment needed to dry nettles is minimal -- you could do it by hanging them over a line in a shady but well-circulated area, for instance. But this time of year the ambient humidity is so high that I would be concerned about mildew if you did it outside. If you dry them inside, make sure to hang them in an area that folks won't brush up against them as their stinging quality is still up and kicking throughout most of the process.

I chose the quickie route -- The Dessicator [hear as Monster Truck Rally announcer for full effect]. The reason I call my cheapo grocery store dehydrator The Dessicator is because driers like these seem best at absolutely desiccating something, as opposed to drying to a particular moisture level as is required of most dried fruits, fruit leathers, and jerky. But for drying the living hell out of things, it works great. I use it for seaweed, mushrooms, and nettles. No moisture subtlety needed, just dry the dickens out of it, and store.

One note on storage of dried nettles. Even when fully dried, the stingers (especially on the stems) can still be moderately active. Consider wearing gloves when packing up your dried nettles. The second your dried stuff hits hot water or cooking food, those needles will be safely de-activated, so no worries. If you are worried despite this assurance, clean the nettles of all stems, and then powder them with a few pulses in a food processor.


What to do with dried nettles? Well the most common answer is tea. For use in tea, folks tend to leave the nettles in dried form and not powdered. Folks use nettle tea not only as a general health tonic (lots of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C and Iron), but to help with allergies. I even have a friend who is serving it to her dog for allergies, and it's working quite well. There are plenty of sources of information on the intartubes regarding nettles as medicine and I'll leave that conversation to those folks.

Another use is as a flavor and nutritional supplement in food. In this case, the powdered form is preferred. You can add the powder directly to food, or create a condiment out of it. I know of folks who use it in soups and stews, but also in smoothies, and sprinkled on top of just about anything that could use a fresh, "green" flavor.

You can make a Gomashio-type condiment by mixing the powder with salt, or even better add freshly-roasted sesame seeds to the salt and nettles and grind the mix up a bit in a mortar and pestle. Best done when the seeds are still warm, it blends the flavor nicely. In this manner the nettles are replacing the seaweed normally used.

Next episode will cover freezing, methods and uses.

Enjoy free wild spring produce,

Bp

A couple attacks on small family farms -- H.R. 875 and S. 425

Again we are faced with good sounding legislation that just grows government in ways that allow them to be the strong arm of big money. For a quickie video on both H.R. 875 and S. 425 -- click here.

H.R. 875, the Food Safety and Modernization Act stinks to high heaven.

Let's just start out with who introduced it -- Rep. DeLauro D, Conn. Her husband works for Monsanto. If there ever was an evil corporate giant, Monsanto is it.

Another big stinker is Senate Bill 425, the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act. This one is sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D, Ohio. And again, there is noise of Monsanto connections with this politician (according to the World Net Daily article).

The bills call for the creation of government agencies which will be up in the business of even the smallest food producers -- legislating and prosecuting over details like what pesticides are or aren't used, what animals are fed, and how to medicate animals. This is all jumping off of the scare from the peanuts in Texas, mark my words. Some of the fines proposed are draconian -- up to 1$ million dollars per offence. Small farmers are concerned about both these bills.

I'd love to see the Conservative "anti big government" folks jump on these bills, but I'm not expecting any action from them. I'm not expecting much of any push back from Washington at all unless folks make a huge stink -- big money is behind this so it's business as usual. We have two weeks to voice our concerns.

Notice that it's two Demublicrats that are introducing these bills -- "the-one party-as-two-party" system is in full force here. Whomever happens to be in power is beholden to the same interests, which is why I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat. On the grand majority of issues, especially ones I'm most concerned about, there is no difference.

If you want to read more, check out this write up on World Net Daily.

Here is the USA.gov website where you can get information to contact your representatives in Government, from the President down. Each hand written letter has the impact of thousands of emails and phone calls. But emails and phone calls are still better than nothing.

Enjoy the intartubes' ability to rally awareness and resistance against yet another attempt by big money to control their competition -- US,

Bp

Straus Family Creamery making its own electricity, from Poo

Poo has been a bit of a subject lately on the blog. It's useful stuff, I may have to create a whole new label for the blog.

Straus Family Creamery (organic, btw) down in California's central coast, has gone green for their electricity production. They use methane digesters to generate both electricity and compost for their pastures.

I've been hollaring about this for years -- why not use the poo created in feedlots and animal facilities of all kinds to produce methane? It cleans up the waste, when it comes out of the digester it is even better fertilizer than before, and reduces greenhouse gas emission enormously.

Granted, cow poo works better than some, so is a good place to start.

I did run into folks talking about problems with pig poo because there are sulfur compounds in the gas, making it a problem to burn. It is the sulfur in coal that creates acid rain, and burning pig offal methane could release the same compounds. However, it appears there is a viable method of scrubbing the gas before it is used, so maybe pig poo is viable after all.

Anyway, I just wanted to put up some props for Straus for having pulled off the electrical facility on their farm. I think it's absolutely fantastic that folks are getting this much-needed and very reasonable technology off the ground.

PS: No I'm not advertising for Straus -- I just like their butter, yogurt and their stewardship, what can I say.

Enjoy watching real-life, sane answers to some of our problems come about,

Bp

[picture credit on Straus Creamery website]

Victory gardens, the white house lawn, and eattheview.org

A young friend of mine turned me on to the video below. It is a quick overview of a man who supports converting some of the white house lawn into a vegetable garden putting his money where his mouth is. He puts a victory garden on his own front lawn. The video has some good quotes and information, for instance at one point in time (WWII) over 20 million Americans had victory gardens and produced 40% of America's fresh food.

The video, in turn, led me to the Eat The View homepage. This is the web base of operations for folks who are encouraging the incoming administration to do something productive with a section of the White House Lawn. There are some great links, including a history of the lawn and past presidents' relationship to gardens, vegetables, and food. This isn't the first time a scheme like this has been hatched. There is also, of course, a petition to sign as well.



If you are enthused with the Victory Garden idea, here are a few more links:

Maybe Victory Gardens can save the U.S. again

San Francisco's Victory Garden

The Victory Garden wiki entry

Enjoy being that much more self sufficient, and cutting down waste, and producing tasty food that only a home garden can provide,

Bp

[via the lovely Fionna]

Michael Pollan live at the Schnitz

The Wife and I saw Michael Pollan speak at The Schnitz last night, and really enjoyed it.

As I was trying to describe the talk to T. when we got home, it was almost Pollan's attitude more than the information that I appreciated the most. He's of course very well read about his subject matter (for those of you who haven't heard of him, the subject matter is food, and all the myriad implications around our decisions about food), but he doesn't present at all as someone defeated by the enormity of some of the problems he's exposing. He very much conveyed the sense that any of the problems lined out during the talk were not too large to deal with, they were conceptually graspable, and very much available for positive change.

His positivism wasn't pie-in-the-sky, either. He was realistic in his assessment about, for instance, the strength of the agri business lobby in Washington and its effect on the policy decisions of the Obama administration. But then turned around and gave examples of public movements and outcry creating the political will to get large tasks done.

Here is a video in which Pollan covers some of the same subject matter as he did last night at the Authors@Google series of lectures. Maybe you have the time to sit down with him for a bit, I think it's worth it.



Enjoy learning and being inspired about the important things,

Bp

Election Map Cake -- inspired by The Wife

The Wife has convinced her boss's daughter (a PhD in poli sci who lives in D.C.) to make an Election Map Cake. It will be frosted as the election results come in (except for the stalwarts that she already decided to call, as you can see), and then eaten when the results are final.

The Wife is very proud she convinced someone to make this, and demanded I post a picture. Here ya go hun.



Enjoy wifely demands,

Bp

Ever heard of Seckel Pears?

Ever heard of Seckel pears? Me either. It turns out, they're really freaking tasty.

I was at Whole Foods the other day, and saw these tiny little pears for sale. They were like play pears or something, really small. I have this thing that I sometimes do when I'm shopping -- I try to buy one item that's out of the ordinary for me. One thing that I've never heard of and want to try. This urge normally overcomes me in the cheese section, especially if the words "raw" and "cave aged" are used in the description.

Back to the toy pears. The Wife loves pears (especially with almond butter), so I got them for her. She took them to work and around 11:00 I get a couple texts: "What is the name of these tiny pears?" "Apparently they are the best pears Cyndi has ever had."

Wow.

I'm eating one right now, and I have to say, it's a dandy. Best in my life? It's been a long day and my senses are not totally reliable, but very possibly so.

The texture is nice and smooth (not that weird graininess you can get with pears), and it tastes not only sweet as all get out, but also -- fresh. Green, I guess you could say. And the skin lends a bit of tartness and astringency to the experience that I really appreciate.

Something else that I appreciate is that they ripen after being picked. So you can get rock hard ones at the store and know that in a few days they'll be dandy.

I have this theory that the more wild a food is, the better it is for you -- like, on a genetic level (I'll have to post an elaboration of this point sometime). So, when I see an unusual looking fruit or vegetable, I check it out to see if it's heirloom or not because I want to eat heirlooms whenever I can.

It turns out, the Seckel pear is old-timey. This page on the USA Pear website states that the Seckel pear is the only truly American pear, and originated probably from wild seedling near Philadelphia.

Bitchin.

Enjoy adventuresome eating producing a stellar new find,

Bp

[photo credit at the USA pear website]

The Jurassic Park of Beer -- Fossil Fuels Brewing Company

This Discovery News story is awesome -- a supreme geek extracted all sorts of microbes from the guts of a bug ensconced in 45 million year old Burmese amber. He then propagated the yeasts and began brewing beer with them.

Apparently, the beer tastes quite unique. The yeasts of yore didn't have as extensive metabolic machinery as those today, and leave behind lots of complex molecules in the beer that modern yeasts don't. This creates flavors distinct from all other modern beers. How awesome is that!

Fossil Fuels Brewing Company had it's opening on July 26th in Northern California. Oh please, supply it to a bar in Ptown, please please I want to taste this stuff.

Here is a Washington Post article about the beer. And one from Beer Advocate too.

Enjoy the products of nerd inspiration,

Bp

[via Yuri, photo credit in linked article]

Inside Organic Winemaking

I figured, what the hell, the picture is pretty and there are some green freaks that read the blog. Check out this article on treehugger.com about organic wine making. They also talk a bit about Biodynamic viniculture. Pretty cool.

Enjoy learning a bit about how the stuff you imbibe comes about,

Bp

[via Yuri, my faithful Canukistani operative, photo credit in linked article]

Good chance to taste Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants' teas!

In their own words:

Join us!
The Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants
for an Open House at our new Tea Tasting Room!
We will be sampling teas and unique tea snacks for your enjoyment.

Thursday Sept. 4th (First Thursday!)
5:00pm - 9:00pm
and
Saturday Sept. 6th
11:00am - 2:00pm
location:
1722 NW Raleigh St., #108
(Activ Space Raleigh)
Portland, OR 97209

Kookoolan Farms, the place to go for healthy local meat

Mornin folks. Many of my friends have begun to search for the best local food producers they can find. Especially meat and dairy. Kookoolan Farms is one of the names that keeps coming up.

I've been hearing about them from multiple sources, and all of them sources I trust. I've eaten the chicken and its amazing. It was what we were served when I was in Lotus Land. Click the link to find out why these folks are the real deal.

Got to run,

Bp

Laphroaig Whiskey

During a recent family reunion, one of my many uncles kept talking about Laphroaig as the only scotch worth drinking. He continued to push his point by sending me this video after I came home -- just won't let it go I tell you. It's actually quite interesting if you are into brewing and distilling at all.



Enjoy uncles who refuse to back down,

Bp