Pickin' the Purslane

Kris Young recently blogged about growing and eating cactus. I have a lovely cactus plant in a pot that he gave me 2 years ago. It is doing well.

When I took the plant, I thought I would eventually eat the fruit, but I was unprepared for how beautiful the plant is all by itself.

Last weekend, I enjoyed freshly-prepared nopales in Monticito, where the prickly pear cactus grows in large and sprawling groves near the older homes. The nopales dinner reminded me that it is always a good thing to work towards getting and using plants that don't need so much water.

Enter purslane. I didn't know that it was edible until a few years ago. It has become my favorite spring salad plant, hitting the plate after the lettuce, and before the cucumbers. It's a succulent, and, like the prickly pear cactus plant, it is considered not too pretty. I disagree, and I like to think of it as a trailing jade plant.

I pick and nibble on a bit of purslane when I go out to the garden in the morning. I let it go to seed. It is everywhere, and that will be so for years.

Enjoy!

Here's Kris' blog post: http://turning60consciously.blogspot.com/2011/05/day-233-smart-food-for-humans-on.html

Urban Homesteading Sorrows and Joys

Many urban homesteaders will probably recognize this scenario, that of a promising project turning not-as-planned, and then becoming comical.

A couple of years ago, while doing the Eat Local for One Year project, it occurred to me that instead of spending so much energy trying to grow a European-style diet for myself, I should just learn to eat like people already here had done for centuries. Several of us locavores decided that we would try gathering, processing and eating acorns, the traditional local staple.

I gathered quite a few acorns from my own yard and all around town. I stored them in a number of boxes and baskets all over the kitchen and living room. These places were already filling up fast with winter squashes, bushel baskets of corn, dried herbs, basket fiber and seeds. Soon, various rooms were looking alot like a country store, minus the mini-spotlights and a cheese-sampling table covered with gingham.

I finally did try to make some acorn flour this summer, but I was not too successful. The flour eventually flowed out of my home-made leaching bag so much that yield was tiny. It managed to permanently stain everything in the process, including pyrex. Then it looked like it was moldy (this was hard to tell because of all the staining). After three days of leaching, it didn't taste that good, so I threw it away.

The rest of the acorns continued to sit in their baskets until I mustered up enough courage to try again, or find a friend who would take them all.

This fall, disaster struck again. I smelled something funny in the kitchen and discovered that my last Cinderella pumpkin had rotted, and the pumpkin liquid poured next door, over to a huge basket of acorns.

So, I put about 20 pounds of acorns outside, resolving to sort them out and hose off the basket before everything rotted.

Then it rained!

I just left the basket outside for a few days, and every day took a handful of nuts and threw them on the patio for the squirrels. It wasn't long before they found the basket. Now for the last three days, the fiber animals have been quite entertained watching the squirrels climb into the basket, fiddling with the nuts, and scurrying off to the various hiding places.

Most of the hiding places are in the 40-odd planters I have out on the patio. Every spring I have to pull out 2-3 baby oak trees before refreshing the soil and replanting. This year, despite not being so smart about saving the acorns, I was smart about adding compost. I just put it on top of the pots and I am letting the squirrels do my digging for me.

Arbor day. Done. Isn't that a joy?

I AM an Urban Homesteader

I don't usually count and weigh my produce. I eat it.
But, now that we are keeping score, here's some of what I am up to:

1 blackberry vine
2 grape vines
3 berry bushes
4 fruit trees
5 plots golden sunchokes
6 varieties of winter squash (red kuri, butternut, buttercup, baby pam pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin, acorn)
7 varieties of summer squash (zucchini, yellow, pattypan, caserta, cocozelle, tatumi, round)
8 fava bean plants
9 colors of chard (white, cream, pink, green, lemon yellow, gold, orange, red, magenta)
10 sources of rescued spinning fiber (2 Ragamuffins, 2 Siberian Huskies, 1 German Shepard mix, 3 Spaniel mixes, 1 samoyed, 1 angora rabbit)
11 kinds of hot pepper (Bhut jolokia, serrano, jalapeno, giant cayenne, cayenne, poblano, NewMex Joe E. Parker, Espanola, Anaheim, bird, black pearl)
12 months of veggies!
No partridge. No pear tree. (yet)

March Potluck

We don't have regular locavore potlucks every month anymore by design, but we still seem to get together at least once a month. I look forward to the gatherings, where the guests are almost as colorful as the food.
I was going to make a salad plate of cooked sliced beet, so I created a simple red salad. Here's the recipe:

Red Salad
1 red carrot,grated
1 large red beet, lightly steamed
1/8 t whole coriander seed
juice from one blood orange

Grate the carrots and beets, and mix in with the orange juice. Toast the whole coriander seeds until fragrant, cool and grind. Add the coriander to the grated mixture, stir and let marinate for a couple of hours. Serve with red radish and beet stem garnishes on a bed of fresh salad greens. (You get extra points for using red lettuces, such as Outredgous.)

The Tea Gardens

During the past few days, the temperatures have risen, the sun has brightened, and I find that if I don't put a thick layer of sunblock on, I'll get a sunburn. Of course, it is my usual intent to go outside "just for a minute" to see if everything is OK. Recently, these dashes into the garden have resulted in more and more time spent in the sun. There is always "just one little thing" that can be done before I dash inside for sunglasses and a hat.
This weekend I have spent quite a bit of time in the backyard, transplanting seedlings, getting new containers filled with new soils, trimming dead winter leaves and dividing the mint plants and dealing with compost. I started a dozen varieties of basil, plus summer savory and hyssop. Almost every planting pot I emptied contained a sprouting coast live oak acorn. The squirrels sure have been busy.
I have started a "tea garden" in an old recycled plastic tote. Since the container is fairly shallow, it will only work for plants that don't need to grow too deeply, like all the mints. When the new plants are established, I will drag the container to a shady spot for the summer. My vision is to have a few of these containers perched along some old steps in a remote and shady part of the garden. I have four kinds of mint and some lemon balm.
I have another "tea garden" tucked under an old olive tree. I just added a new layer into a new worm bin, and harvested the "tea" underneath. I just hope I didn't kill my worms. The bin was full of water after last week's rain, and I didn't see much evidence of worms. I added several new worms just in case.

Day 28 - End of February Dollar a Day Challenge

I did it! I finished the project out with a very tasty vegetarian potluck, and a mug of mint and ginger tea from partner Otto.
A whole month for under a dollar a day. My total food expenses were $18.96, which works out to almost 68 cents a day. When the costs of the garden are included, it works out to 85 cents a day. I could have gone lower if I had opted for less variety. I really enjoyed the cheese and the Italian sausage, but I did have enough home-grown beans and other protein foods to replace them.
I have purchased food left over: a couple of pounds of potatoes, a cup or more of raisins, a cup of rolled oats, over 2 pounds of salt, a few very small oranges, over two sticks of butter, and two eggs.
I have also put up a small container of celery leaves, 2 quarts of dehydrated leeks, and about 2 ounces of dried parsley.
Tomorrow I won't think about what I eat, or where my food comes from, or keep track of any of it.
I will still continue to keep track of the productivity and costs of the garden. I estimate that the value of the produce harvested for February to be $170. It was higher than I expected, mostly because I found more takers for all the collards.
What's next? I am going to eat down the freezer, so that there is new room for the spring and summer produce. There is a bundle of bean soups I threw in there right before the February challenge, some mixed foods like applesauce with cinnamon, a turkey I bought on sale right after Thanksgiving, and a ham I bought right after Christmas. I'll pull out my expensive local olive oil and start making collard chips in the dehydrator.

Day 21 - Eating Other People's Food

After today, I have only one week left. I am not bored with the food, or have too little of it, but I am worn out by trying to write it all down. Today's potlucks made things a bit easier. Not much cooking, just bringing fresh veggies from the garden, which were a huge hit at both events and kept me from having to lug home leftovers.
For breakfast, I had coffee from partner Irene, and a potato topped with an egg, cheese and greens cooked in butter, with salt and pepper.
For lunch, I went to a mini-potluck, and enjoyed fruit salad, hummus, lemonade, dried cranberries and vegetable chips.
After lunch, I stopped by Trader Joe's and had some coffee and a piece of muffin. (I shopped only for family food items this time.) I stopped by Fresh and Easy, but they didn't make it easy for me. They are always out of the sale meats when I am there, and won't give explanations or rainchecks. I did enjoy another cup of coffee there while I bought some other vegetables for my family.
For dinner, I went to another vegetarian potluck, featuring cheddar cheese, deviled eggs, bread, cabbage salad, eggplant casserole, chai tea, chocolate cake, apple streudel, cinnamon balls and water with lemon.
For an evening snack, I sampled some really great fried sweet potatoes in chipotle ranch dressing from partner Lisa.

Day 20 - Shopping spree

With only a week or so to go on the challenge, I am coming to the end with money to spare. I will have a couple of potlucks and special events, which always add to variety.
For breakfast, I had some decaf coffee from partner Irene, lettuce, dried apples from partner Colin, and granola.
I enjoyed some coffee, yogurt and some fruit jam at Trader Joe's. I stopped by the stores as soon as they opened, and I bought a large chunk of cheese, a bag of raisins, a banana and a package of California butter. I also snacked on some snow peas at the garden.
For lunch, I ate a grilled cheese sandwich, wheat berries with raisins and honey, a taste of sauerkraut, cake from partner Arlene, a huge plate of steamed broccoli and snow peas, and a tangerine from partner Earl.
For dinner I enjoyed the vegetable soup with turkey from partner Cindy, some toast and butter, and some beets fresh from the garden.
For an evening snack, I had granola and raisins.
My extensive food purchases totalled $9.68, leaving me with 11 cents in the food bank.
I am really getting sick of lettuce!

Day 5 - I'm in a Rut, but the Garden Chuggs Away

Today, finally, I could buy myself a bit more variety. I have been getting myself in a rut, with all the grain salads, but there is not much dressing left, and it is mostly just ice-cold and thick olive oil left the jar. All the other ingredients, especially the pungent garlic, have been poured out.
For breakfast, I ate homegrown pumpkin seeds, cooked winter squash with honey, and a glass of lime and grape juice, mixed with water.
I trudged out in the rain to Fresh and Easy, and had the whole place to myself as I enjoyed a cup of coffee, a piece of raspberry danish that didn't taste very fruit-like and bought a carton of eggs for $1.77. That leaves me with 20 cents left over for tomorrow. I'll have a total of $1.03.
For lunch, I enjoyed a large salad, made with romaine and buttercrunch lettuces, mache, purple mustard leaves, radishes, boiled egg, pomegranate seeds, one half of a large beet and the now-famous wheatberry salad, spruced up with extra ground celery and mustard seeds, dehydrated green and red peppers and parsley. I had a cup of the pea soup and a small handful of pumpkin seeds.
For dinner I ate the rest of the wheatberry salad, a bit of potato salad prepared in a similar way, butternut squash soup with a recipe similar to the pumpkin soup I served at the locavore potluck last year. I used almonds from partner Igor instead of the local walnuts. I had a tootsie pop for dessert and dried apples for an evening snack.
I added up the value of my garden produce for January 2010, and the estimate is at $155. February will probably be my lowest month, and not because of the shorter number of days, but because many fall plantings are finishing and the winter-spring plants are slow to produce. It looks like it is pretty much beets, lettuces, celery, greens, peas and onions until the fava beans come on board. I might have a couple of carrots in, we'll see.

Locavore Lite 2010

Please stop by the locavore lite 2010 site to learn more about it.
When I told my friends about the Localvore Lite 2010 challenge, they said they didn't have the time or energy to do it, but I mentioned that many of us are already doing it! At least everybody who knows me personally and will accept zucchini doesn't have to worry, even if they don't have time to shop at the farmer's market.
Join us!

February Dollar a Day Challenge

During the middle of the Eat Local For One Year challenge, Kris addressed the costs of adhering to a local food diet. Most participants found that our costs were down from when we were eating any old kind of food, mostly because we weren't eating the high-cost packaged or take-out selections, and pretty much everything had to be prepared from scratch. Others spent less money on food because they started putting up their garden produce in 2008. We were able to keep our food bill down to under 2 dollars a day per person during 2009, but I wondered if I could go lower.
I have been inspired by others who have participated in budget food challenges, like The One Dollar Diet Project and the Less is Enough challenge. So, for the month of February, I am going to try to eat for under a dollar a day. I think this will be easier than the other challenges for two reason. First, I plan to take advantage of my own produce gardens. Second, I have a group of trading partners. My trading partners may be locavores, far-o-vores, dumpsters, organizations and other trading entities. (OK, maybe the dumpsters aren't really trading partners since I rarely throw anything away.) I will not reveal the identity of any of my trading partners on any new posts. I will say that most of my trading partners have been gracious recipients of my endless stream of zucchini and buttercrunch lettuce, and they pass along to me what they have. Some give me gleanings, some their leftovers, some gifts for favors, but none of the trades are for money. We all help each other.
Please stay tuned for more details.

Are Freegans Local?

Starting in February, I will be trying a new food experiment. I’ll admit, I think I’ll make a better Freegan than a Locavore.
One of the seemingly unavoidable consequences of starting the ELFOY project one year ago was food waste. One reason that I joined the project at all was because of my concern over environmental issues associated with wasteful food industry practices. It just didn’t seem right to toss perfectly good food after January 1 just because it came from far away.
A few weeks into the project, the core group had a meeting to discuss changes to the challenge. One of the changes we agreed to was that it would be OK to eat non-local food if it was going to be thrown away. This was supposed to be an occasional event, but exactly how often was never clarified. Is it a couple of times a month, or a couple of times a day?
If you were walking by a dumpster and heard a baby crying, would you dive in and rescue it? Of course you would! You would rescue the baby and call 911 and get that baby adopted into a loving family that will honor its right to its intended life purpose. Wouldn’t you? What if it wasn’t a real crying baby, but just a bag of European baby greens, or little baby patty pan squash or new potatoes? What if some farmer lovingly planted heirloom seeds, carefully watered, tended, harvested, packaged, padded and shipped it, only to have a grocery store overbuy and throw it away, the rest of its life and purpose interrupted, and all the accompanying energy consumption down the drain?
And what if the food was grown in Peru or Chile or Ecuador, flown here, and then thrown in a dumpster? Wow, for a locavore, that is even worse! OK, what if it was just harvested by a cog in the agribusiness machine? Wouldn’t you still want to rescue it? Well, I would, at least.
To my way of thinking, when the food is from the dumpster, the food-miles get set back to zero. If, by rescuing them, they stay out of the landfill, then the food-miles are even in negative territory, sort of like carbon offsets, without all that pimped out buying and selling at some European exchange.

Chayote Challenge

I received a ton of local overgrown chayote and this month, I am determined to try them in as many recipes as I can. My first experiment was to cook the chayote whole, scoop out the cooked flesh and then "grill" it in butter, garlic and Indian spices. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try much of it because when I checked the fridge, it was all gone. Next I tried a mock mango chutney. It looked a little sad until I added some turmeric for color. It was a hit at a dinner party I attended, and my hosts asked to keep the leftovers. And I have to say, I can't think of a more perfect complement to corn chips. Here's the recipe:
Chayote chutney
1 large chayote squash
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup raisins
1 garlic clove
2-3 fresh hot red chili peppers, chopped and seeded
1/4 t powdered mustard
1/4 t powdered ginger
1 clove, crushed
1/8 t garam masala
dash turmeric for color
Cook the chayote whole by poking it with a fork and microwaving it (about 6 min) until slightly soft. Let the chayote cool slightly and then remove and discard the seed and skin, and chop the squash into large chunks. Mix the squash, onion, pepper, garlic, vinegar and sugar and raisins in a saucepan and cook the mixture until the squash is soft and the other ingredients are cooked through. Mix in the other spices and cook for 1 minute or until the mixture is slightly thickened. Cool and place into a clear glass jelly jar. The chutney will thicken as it cools.
For my next trial, I used an extremely overgrown squash and just sauteed the cooked squash in garlic, olive oil, fennel, salt and fresh parsley, as I would potato. I'll have to say that I prefer the chayote at a less-mature stage, and sure prefer the chutney. But, who needs all that sugar? I am going to tinker with a version with honey, and less sweetness overall and with more red pepper so the color is better.

Transition Times

As soon as the ball dropped on New Year's eve, I reached for one of the last Christmas cookies. These cookies had been staring me in the face ever since I brought them home from a cookie party a week before Christmas. Now they were mine!
At 12:01, I ate the cookie, followed by some turkey with mayo. (I had purchased the mayo a couple of weeks in advance, in anticipation of the new year.) I woke up in the middle of the night, sick. Guess I will have to ease back into mayo, or maybe give it up altogether.
Many reintroduced foods have been a challenge for me in the past couple of weeks. There is something really wrong with lots of the conventional food that many of us buy. I visited a discount store and bought a few condiments and olive/type concoctions. Many of the food items in the store, if they were labeled at all, came from China. I don't really trust this food anymore, and will ease back into as much local food as much as I can muster.
This week, I have been enjoying the re-emergence of local navel oranges, limes and tangerines brought to the table. The Meyer lemons growing in my backyard are almost ripe. I have added beyond-100-mile California almonds, raisins and milk back into my diet, with an occasional banana from somewhere else. We enjoyed a large plate of steamed carrots, turnips and asparagus harvested from the community garden, along with the usual leeks and greens. I have prepared chayote in many new ways.
So this year I resolve to find more friends in warmer locations to grow backyard bananas, to learn how to make some decent pickles and kraut and to move farther away from "denatured" foods of all kinds.

We're Done!

The yearlong food experiment is over, and we celebrated with a wonderful potluck at Jo and Kris's home. Most of the remaining core members brought a dish still made with local foods, but with a few non-local flourishes. Kris kept us filled with fresh coffee, offering dabs of local honey and some coconut milk. It sure is nice to have coffee all the time!
Though I had plenty of difficult days, I am certainly glad, now that it is over, that I participated in the food challenge all year. Things I thought would be really hard turned out to be pretty easy. I really had not too much trouble going without prepared condiments and exotic spices. I was surprised that the social aspect of eating with my friends would be the hardest challenge of the year.
It was pretty fun on the first day of this year, hearing each remaining core member recount their experiences. I wasn't the only participant who found themselves becoming uncharacteristically picky about the quality of their food, their lessening comfort level upon visiting a typical grocery store, their continuing commitment to local eating and the big reduction in their trash.
Will I continue? You bet, with the Locavore Lite 2010 plan. I will continue to try to grow as much of my own food as I can, eat locally-grown foods, trade with my friends and neighbors and eat as close to the ground as I can. But this week has also included Napa Valley wine, Indian spices, coffee, wheat berries and miso soup.

My Syncretic Food Culture - Part 4 - On My Own

“Do you make sandwiches?”
Shortly after I asked, I realized what a stupid question it was.
It was my first week in New York, and I was lured out of my efficiency hotel into a strip mall by a yarn shop. It was situated right next to a deli. I had never been into a real deli before, but at the supermarket, we used to buy fancy rolls and sliced cold-cuts. Then we would take them home and make poor-boys in the oven.
The guys in the deli made a big joke of it, and it was like they were handing out wings, and not the blue cheese and hot sauce variety either.
Once in my own apartment and in charge of my own food choices, I tried many recipes found in my first cookbook, “Recipes for a Small Planet”. My first experiment with soy grits tasted a bit like barfed-up dog food. I made a weekly batch of the granola, and then branched out to various muffin recipes. Upstate New York was dotted with farm stands on the honor system, so in the fall I picked up a bushel of apples and a huge bag of table squash. I joined the local food co-op which offered an additional discount in exchange for extra work hours. My main job was to pick up free-range eggs and fresh milk from local farmers and bring them to the co-op.
One of my favorite jobs was to restock the macrobiotic section. I had never heard of any of these strange foods before, but was intrigued by the large wooden vats of miso and the tofu blocks floating in large plastic buckets. We were the only place in town that carried tofu retail, and we did a pretty high volume on the Saturday mornings I worked there. The macrobiotic way became my new lifestyle, and was really my first formal introduction to eating local foods on purpose. In macrobiotics, it is always better to eat local, both in place (especially latitudinally) and in time. (Of course, it was also OK to eat any kind of food from Japan.) I really warmed up to the idea of eating locally and seasonally, with whole foods. The co-op made it easy for me. All the foods and produce selections were labeled with place of origin, and if they were grown organically or transitionally. I enjoyed making the new signs when we started carrying a new product or vegetable.
When I got to California, macrobiotics didn’t survive the move. Somehow it didn’t seem right to shun certain tropical foods that were growing like weeds in my backyard. What worked in the cold Northeast wasn’t working as well in our Mediterranean climate. I started eating tomatoes, peppers and the citrus fruits that my neighbors gave me. But I never did give up my love of seasonal eating or my favorite comfort food, miso soup.

Stepford farmers market?

I went to my new local Farmer's Market today. I guess all the real Ventura county farmers were at the Ojai market. Only a few veggie booths had food that looked real. Several fruit booths were staffed with knowledgeable and friendly merchants, but the fruit was mostly from Northern California. There was an egg guy from San Diego.
What I found most unusual is a complete absence of signage. These farmers and their farms have no names, no business cards, no addresses, no organic certificates on display.
Yes, yes, all the strawberries were from Oxnard, they said.
Then again, I stopped at a booth with all sorts of overpriced candied nuts, and artificially-colored dried fruit. When I asked about origin, the lady with the blank stare told me they were from Lancaster. I mentioned that they couldn't all have been grown in Lancaster, and asked which foods were grown there. She said most of them were. When I asked which foods specifically, she admitted that only the cashews had been grown in Lancaster.
I still haven't decided if I am going to join the Locavore Lites in 2010. I will have to agree to visit a farmer's market at least once a month. I sure wish there was a way to be a Locavore Lite while enjoying my own local vegetables instead of patronizing fake markets.

Salad competition - Locavore potluck redo

Kris posted his salad, but now we need a salad-off. Since I don't have a camera, I'll have to describe what I got to eat this week. I started with spinach from R, freshly plucked from his garden, crispy-tender and very curly. I added my own freckles romaine baby lettuce, and plenty of lettuce that B gave to me. (She was in Ojai this Sunday and went a little hog-wild at the farmer's market.) The varieties look like cos romaine, red oak, lolla rossa and buttercrunch. She also gave me some tender new asparagus, so I steamed it along with the haricot vert string beans and baby broccoli from my garden. I chopped a huge orange sweet tequila sunrise pepper and a small but deadly orange habanero and added it to the mix. The radishes came from M's garden. They were large and pink, with pink markings on the inside. I also slivered my own celery stalks, scallions and baby fennel.
I did have a dressing, made with local olive oil, sea salt, lime juice from La Casa, Italian and lemon basil from my patio, and R's dried marjoram. I topped the salad with sweet pomegranate seeds that P gave to me.

Chayote

Rachel gave me some of these interesting squashes last year, but by the time I got to them, they were infested with bugs, and I had to throw them out. This year, I got another set, and they were doing well on the counter. Yesterday I noticed that all of them were sprouting. I planted one squash and cooked another. I still have one left for the Thanksgiving holidays.
I cooked the chayote in the microwave, and threw the cooked insides in the blender with a little water. I was unprepared for how GOOD the squash tastes plain. Creamy, green, buttery. I want to make a cold cucumber soup out of it, or any kind of soup, or a dip, or maybe try to pickle it.
I have grown this plant before. R donated a plant every spring for the garden plot we had for the food bank. I took care of it all summer, waited patiently for it to flower and fruit, took bags and bags of the squash to the food bank and tore the whole plant down after a hard frost, but I had never eaten it. The final year, the weight of the plant broke the metal trellis, and we tried planting another one in the back 40, but unfortunately it died.
This spring I will have to rig up some sort of sturdy trellis and grow it in an area that is protected by frost.

Our last Official Potluck for the year

Now we are into full-scale winter hibernation. There are no more official locavore potlucks for the rest of the year, AND the farmers' market is closing. I stopped by the community garden and almost no one else was there. The majority of gardeners aren't really into winter crops, so they don't come as often.
There is no better way to celebrate a hibernation than to make a big pot of soup. This morning I cooked up a pot of turkey, rice and vegetable broth. To the mix I added my last carrot, a good bit of celery, a leek, more string beans, fennel, broccoli, peppers, chard, kale, Cinderella pumpkin, baby butternut squash, dried and frozen zucchini, dried peas and some dried herbs.