Don't Judge a Book by its' Fantastical Creature Content.

     I definitely enjoy getting into a good book.  It seems the past several years though, I've mainly been reading dietetics oriented books with a thick bibliography section or more how-to type things like How to Keep an Organized Home when you have a Disorganized Head (it was something like that.)  But an amazing thing has happened in the past seven months and that thing is me becoming a housewife.  And housewives that don't have kids yet get to do woman of leisure type things like read books all morning with really good coffee and dark chocolate biscotti while their husbands are at work.  If they play it right and have a nice dinner on the table when husband comes home, husband usually doesn't ask too much what you did all day.  So the book before last I read A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken, which is by far the greatest romance novel ever written.  It is not actually a romance novel but a non-fictional memoir.  I promise it rivals "The Notebook" anyday.   By a long shot.   It is tear your heart out, sobbing on the pages, make you want to tell your husband he is the most wonderful person in the world and you are so grateful he goes to work all day while you read in your pajamas kind of good.  Well that was several months ago... 

     Either wisely or unwisely, I gave myself a job as owner/employee/dishwasher/cook/marketing director/driver/financial advisor and errand girl of my own little business and now my days of not having to be anywhere are getting fewer and fewer.  Which is great and exciting and good.  But also kind of terrifying and rushed.  So Monday, in a great moment of "seeing the silver lining of every situation," I realized that having my laptop down meant that on our trip this weekend I couldn't do any "work."  We have a lot coming up with the holidays (we'll have exciting news to share in a few weeks here!!) and our trip can really be a great time to rest up before keeping the oven going full speed the next month or so. 

     Our friend is getting married at Chataqua in Boulder, Colorado so we booked a little cottage there for a long weekend.  We've got an early morning flight and then of course I'm sure typical delays, etc. so I started looking for a good book to read.  Reid and I briefly contemplated buying "dueling" books such as "Trickle Up Poverty" and "Dreams of My Father."  (Or my new food processing book and "In Defense of Food.") I figured if I wanted to make my head spin though I'd at least read something useful like "Small Business for Dummies."  I finally decided I just needed to find something for pure enjoyment.  Not deep. Not useful.  Just a good page-turner I could curl up with on the flight or surrounded by snow (thanking the good Lord I live in Georgia). 

     Luckily for me, a Washington, GA local just released her second novel and it is the perfect vacation book.

     I feel I need to preface how I came around to reading her first book "The Unicorn Girl".  In January of this year I was up in Washington visiting my future husband and town.  We had coffee at The Fitzpatrick Hotel and I noticed there were novels on sale in the lobby titled "The Unicorn Girl."  I (correctly) assumed they were written by a local author.  I passed over them because a) I was busy planning a wedding and b) I'm not really into unicorns.

     Months later, post wedding and early market, I noticed "The Unicorn Girl" on sale at one of the Washington Farmer's Market's vendors table.  I assumed the vendor either knew the unicorn author or was the unicorn author, but I didn't ask to find out.  Honestly I didn't really want to inquire when I really had no intention to buy a book about unicorns.  I thought it may be weird and I didn't want to be put into a situation of not liking it and then avoiding whoever the author or author's friend was for the rest of my life so they wouldn't ask me if I liked it. 

    Months after that, I got to know Sandy, "the unicorn book vendor", and found out it was her daughter Melissa who was "the unicorn author."  Even though Sandy was completely normal I still tried to avoid asking any questions about the unicorn book.  I honestly did not think any book about a mythical creature would be anything I would be the least bit interested in.  But finally last month, on a spur of the moment whim probably caused by lack of sleep, I bought the unicorn book.  I felt kind of brave for doing it especially with the whole possible social awkward interactions it could cause.

    But instead of not liking it I was absolutely captivated.  I started the book Sunday afternoon and read it late until the night along with a package of our leftover "Better Than's" (cheese straws) from the market and a glass of wine.  Then I stayed in my pajamas all morning and into the afternoon Monday reading it with coffee.  I kept thinking "I'll stop at this chapter and get some laundry done" until I finally just decided I had to finish it before I could do anything else.  It had been such a long time since I was that sucked into a novel that I literally couldn't put it down. 

    I think "officially" the book is targeted toward adolescents but I'm 26 and kind of really loved it.  It is about this young girl growing up in a huge castle that becomes friends with a (nice) witch woman who had been best friends with the girls' deceased mother.  A rival cousin is involved as well as a king, a prince, a (mean) witch stripped of her powers, a mysterious illness, and of course some unicorns.  After the mysterious illness she runs away from her home and embarks on an epic journey to fulfill whatever her calling is that is associated with her illness.  It is a book that has unicorns in it but I swear to you it is good, not weird. 

    What I really enjoyed is that I never felt like I should be "getting" the real meaning behind the characters and plot.  It was just fun to read.  On one hand Melissa's writing style is really straightforward.  She doesn't make you do mazes in your head trying to figure out what she's saying or get you lost in a five page description of a tree which I loved.  But on the other hand she has a fantastic ability to not reveal too much so that the plot really isn't predictable.

    I think maybe she accomplishes this by really keeping the reader "in the moment." Reading it is like enjoying a really great dinner with friends where you are so happy just to be where you are but the conversation is still moving forward with building interest. (I feel like I'm reviewing a book for AP English writing this..."the reader.") 

    Instead of using fifty adjectives to describe an everyday object, she creates a new object.  For instance she came up with this bag called a "Replenisher."  The replenisher is an old tattered burlap sack that belongs to the good witch.  It works by the person just thinking of what they want (like to eat, drink, etc.) and pulling it out of the bag to replenish themselves (get it?).  The young girl takes it with her on her journey so throughout the novel you get to see what she eats.  After the "repelenisher" was first introduced I thought, "If this is a fantasy novel it hit the nail on the head for a ton of people.  I would totally fantasize about a bag that contained 10 year sharp cheddar and grapes and probably chocolate cake whenever you wanted it." (I told Melissa I could definitely tell a "foodie" wrote the book because the girl pulls out some pretty delicious meals for being stuck in a forest.)

     But back to the book I'm taking on our trip out west.  (I just checked and it is going to be 23 degrees tomorrow night.  Oh how I love Georgia.)  I saw on Facebook where Melissa had just gotten her shipment of her newest book in and thought, "Yes!  This is perfect-no political downers, no business books about the hundreds of things I should probably be doing and nothing that is going to make me go into deep reflection on my life."  And oh so luckily for me I was planning on being at the LeGette household (one of the most fabulous places on earth) early Tuesday morning to go with Sandy to that pickling/hypochloride class.  Early Tuesday morning I was excited to get one of the first copies-signed by the author with "To Kathryn: May you make almond toffee. -M.L.LeGette"  (I'll be interested to see if toffee is in the book or if is a Southern Scratch order in which case I'll have to find out how much she wants). 

     By the time I get back from Colorado I'll have finished "For the Kingdom"  and then jump right back in to baking!  I think Melissa is doing a booksigning at the Mary Willis Library (oldest public library in the state of Georgia I believe right here in Washington, GA!) December 9th from 3:30-5:30.  Sandy will also have copies of it at her booth at the market (along with the now "not so weird" unicorn book).  Don't be afraid of asking about it because Sandy is not weird and the book is really good I promise.  I've already peeked at a few pages of this new one and I think it is going to be really good too. 

    Melissa said she is working on a third book so maybe we'll plan our next vacation around it's release date...

    Hope everyone has a great weekend!!  We (obviously) won't be at the market Saturday but will be back the morning of the 20th!  There should be produce year round (possibly even tomatoes in December thanks to a wood heated green house) so you haven't missed it for the season.  Next Thursday's meal (the 18th) is our last one for 2010 and then we will be doing 2 meals/week starting in January (a family friendly night on Tuesdays and the Weekday Gourmet on Thursdays). 

A Class on Pickling That Didn't Even Mention a Single Cucumber.

     A month or so ago, Sandy LeGette asked if I wanted to go to a "pickling" class with her at UGA. They had such an abundance of okra this year and she thought it would be a good idea to get certified in processing acidified foods.   Since I had only made pickles twice in my life and they were the kind you kept in the fridge rather than in the pantry for ten years, I thought it sounded like a great opportunity for some continuing education.   This "Better Processing" class is required before you can then go through the steps (about fifty bajillion of them it seems with a dozen different agencies) of actually putting a product on grocery store shelves along with a cute little label.  Other than homegrown tomato sauce for meals, I didn't have any product in mind to actually sell but I thought "why not?"

     Although Sandy had warned me the class covered not only small canning operations (like anyone who grew up on a farm did with the season's bounty for the winter) but also the huge massive canning operations (like Hunt's) I still thought it would be more of a "how-to" class.  When I got the "textbook" in the mail and it was filled with words like hydrostatic retort and diagrams of the seventeen parts of the anatomy of a glass jar, I briefly considered ditching it.  Luckily I had already paid and was looking forward to a trip with Sandy who always has these great "food system" insights. 

     So at 6:30 yesterday morning we were on the road to class at the Food Sciences Department.  And for two days we covered everything from breakthrough points for chloride treatment of cooling water to the lug v. continuous thread designs of jar lids.  We both learned a lot and I think went away with knowledge of safety & record keeping procedures that we will definitely use.  We also learned a ton about things we will probably never use such as names of valves for 300 head filling systems and juice box factories that run through a thousand cartons of juice aseptically within less than a minute. 

     In our last session yesterday we learned all about keeping a high concentration of chloride in the cooling water so that the surface area of the can won't have any bacteria on it.  When processing such a huge quantity of cans or jars in a plant, there are so many additional steps and checkpoints to make sure there haven't been any product defects, everything is sanitized, etc.  And pretty much this just meant lots more chemicals and/or higher temperatures.

    As soon as we left the classroom we just stared at each other with our eyes wide.  I mean, how can that much hypochloride be good for you?  What is really left of the food once it's been completely "sterilized?"

    I am by no means a microbiologist or a chemist.  I'm not even going to pretend like I know which chemicals are bad, worse or ugly because I am not an expert.  The goal of the class (with food science & technology staff from UGA and FDA guys there) was to help people SAFELY process these jarred/canned acidified foods.  This means how to keep it free from microorganisms while it sits on a grocery store shelf to be sold to the public and then at room temp in your pantry.  It was to make sure that nobody starting a small acidified foods business was risking the public's health by not having jars sealed properly, etc.  It was to inform us of proper recording procedures so that if the FDA visited your kitchen you had documentation of temperatures, pH levels of your products, etc. for every batch you made.  We knew that this was the goal and I think the course did an excellent job of meeting that goal. 

    But it made us think:  "Can food really be responsibly processed on such a mass scale?"  What, if any, sacrifices to our health have been made so we can have the convenience of canned vegetables year round?  How far have we gone into the direction of processed foods that now we eat them nearly every single day?  Sure, families have "put away" food for generations but weren't pickles and dried meats usually reserved for the winter when you didn't have the abundance of summer produce or more fresh milk? 

    We really did enjoy the class and are glad to have passed our exam and be able to get processes certified, etc.  I think it made me see a good "big picture" of food processing on both a large and small scale.  I've always found that the "inspection" agencies are really not bad to work with. (For some reason I always got kind of sentimental about the hospital's Joint Commission visits, thinking about how great it was we could all work together to help our patients get even better care).  The USDA, the FDA, the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the Health Department, independent or land grant university process authorities and even the Bioterrorism Agency are all involved in some way or another in the process. 

     It will be a while before I put my Better Practices certification to use (not planning on overseeing a canning plant anytime soon) but I am definitely glad to know I am now qualitifed to proceed to the next fifty steps of paperwork required to produce a jar of pickles.  I just wish that they would have at least given me a  recipe.

A Short But Long Lasting Post Mainly Intended for Women Who Shave Their Armpits

I am not by any stretch of the imagination an "Earth Mother."  Long flowy skirts do not look good on me.  To be honest, short skirts don't either and I'm sure we can all be grateful for cooler weather and me in pants. I have long hair because long hair is a lot easier to pull back in a ponytail than short hair.  I am all about getting rid of unneccesary chemicals & pesticides but I have no problems pulling out the hairspray for special occasions that will involve my mother or grandmother (then I bask in their approval of my big hair all day and wonder why I don't take their advice more often and consistently wear make up and fix my hair).  And while I really love, love my Muck boots, I've had my pearls a lot longer.

 That said, I wanted to quickly write a post about my great new deodorant.  My earth-mama-loving-aluminum free-deodorant.   Of all the recommendations for cancer prevention in the book Anticancer: A New Way of Life, by far the easiest one to follow I think is for women who shave their armpits (like me) to switch to an aluminum-free deodorant.

I found my stick of Tom's Natural of Maine (in lemongrass) at Bi-Lo here in Washington and I'm sure Ingles has it too. (The stores in our neck of the woods).  I tested it out and it passes a baking all day in the kitchen test and an entire morning market test.  It costs about the same as other brands so it really is one of the easiest things to do to take away another little factor that may contribute to breast cancer (shaving your arms leaving tiny little cuts and immediately putting aluminum on it so it can get into your body).  So check your brand for aluminum and make a simple switch. (Unless of course you look good in long flowy skirts and don't shave your pits in which case deodorant may not be something you bother with anyway.)

Technical Difficulties

      When Reid and I were in pre-marital counseling, we were given a "homework assignment" where we each listed twenty expectations we had for our marriage.  During the next session we exchanged sheets and "graded" each other's list with a "Definitely," "Maybe," or "Never Gonna Happen."  In my top twenty I listed "Reid will deal with any and all car issues and major home maintenence."  Luckily, Reid graded that as a "Definitely."  Also luckily, neither of us are "car people" which basically translates to "we don't really care what we drive as long as it gets to point A to point B."  I'm definitely a house person but can be satisfied with a nice dining table and good china while we work on our humble abode.

     So when I hit a deer coming home from the market in the beginning of the summer and totaled the car I had paid cash for, I didn't worry because that was Reid's domain and we were covered.  And when his car died about a month ago I didn't worry. When our AC shut off all summer and I exchanged HVAC repair for pound cakes, I didn't worry.   I didn't worry about the time the hot water heater was on the fritz and just knew it was an opportunity for Reid to impress me with his man skills by fixing it.   I don't worry about the broken tractor or the down on it's luck 4 wheeler.  In the past seven months I've gotten really good about not worrying because nearly EVERYTHING in our house seems to have broken at some point lately.  But we're newlyweds, all those things are part of life and there's really no good reason to get upset over them and ruin our fun.

      When my laptop died last week, however, I definitely had a little come-apart. (Which may or may not have included me shouting at the piece of wired plastic in between bouts of prayer that went something like this: "Lord, I know that you created the man who created this computer.  And I know you have the power to miraculously fix it even though I did not use the brain you blessed me with by backing up all my files like I should have.")

       Wednesday morning my laptop was taking a really long time to start up and then wouldn't connect to the internet.  Our service isn't that reliable to begin with so I just assumed it was the rain.  By Wednesday night it wouldn't start up at all.  When Reid got home he hooked his desktop back up.  (I had unplugged it a few months ago when we were converting the basement into the kitchen.) That is when we found out it would not turn on either and then figured it had probably been hit by lightning the same time our wireless router had been hit. 

     By mid-Thursday morning I had gotten so frustrated with it I just resolved to pull a Scarlett and just think about it another day.  Thursday night Reid brought his laptop home from work and we optimistically plugged our internet cord into it.  Of course, then we realized we had to have the wireless hooked up and since our router was shot, we would have to get a new router first.  Luckily, RadioShack in Washington had them so by Friday afternoon we were back in business.  Since it was his work computer, I had none of my files with recipes, labels, or menus but at least it was something. 

     Now we have to figure out how to get files off my computer so I can use the little reboot disk it comes with and hopefully have a functional machine again.  It is going to take a little work and I'm going to have to deal with it as soon as we get back from our trip.  We're not able to update as often or do play by plays on Thursday about how dinner is going.   But at least I have resolved not to worry about it and instead be really grateful that this happened early on in our little business rather than later. 

    Thanks to everyone for being patient with us as we get it all figured out! 

And from now on I am going to use the brain God gave me and back up everything!!!

How Can a Registered Dietitian Sell Pound Cake and Still be Able to Sleep at Night?

     The very first time I set up a booth at the market (exactly six months ago yesterday!), I had no real intentions of being a market regular.  Like I said here, it was simply something to do to get out of the house and use any earnings from what I sold to contribute to the "DCRF" (Drop Ceiling Replacement Fund).  Since the photo below was taken today you can tell we've had less progress on the ceiling and more progress on the market.

Our ceiling and the place where curtains used to be.  (I'm bad about doing the demolition work without a plan for what is going to go in it's place.)

When I baked for that first Saturday, I stuck to things I had made often. I used a good quality butter, King Arthur flour and plenty of white, brown and powdered sugar in all it's refined goodness.  I didn't feel the least bit guilty because it was Saturday.  Saturdays are on the weekend and in my very strong, educated opinion, Saturday mornings are the day for a homemade cinnamon roll or a family trip to a really good bakery.  I was also still several steps ahead of most things you would buy in a store.  I never have and never will use any man made trans fat (partially hydrogenated oil), high fructose corn syrup or add any kind of preservatives to make a cinnamon roll last for three months on a shelf.  I also started with organic milk and cream (that's what we bought and I didn't see why you would ever give your customers something that you wouldn't eat yourself).  So not too bad of start...

I love decorative packaging.

      Since then, our stand has undergone a lot of changes.  I may have a bona-fied dietetics degree, but I can't say enough about what I've learned about food from the vendors and customers down at the market.  My view of adequate nutrition has certainly shifted from a sharp focus of calculated  "protein, calorie and fluid needs" estimates to a much bigger picture of how the land, animals and people can interact in a way that sustains all three.  From this perspective I've changed a lot of recipes as well as tried to improve packaging methods (using 100% biodegradable to-go boxes for meals, cups and the cellophane cake wrapping and kraft recycled boxes).

A blurry photo of the label on the box that says: "Compost this container!"

     In changing my recipes I've tried to focus on: 

         a.) What can we do to make it taste even better?

         b.) What can we do to make it better for us (land, animals and people)?  

     Following these guidelines, some of the improvements we've made include using all grass fed milk, buttermilk, butter and cream cheese. We also use all organic cream, half and half, yogurt, sour cream and cheese made using sustainable methods.  (Except for the Better Than cheese...so if anyone knows of a really, really, really extra sharp grass fed or organic cheddar let us know).  I've replaced all the "white sugar" with evaporated cane juice, agave nectar or molasses in the majority of the baked goods.  (Even used fresh beets in a chocolate cake that turned out pretty scrumptious!).  In meals and in baked goods, we of course try to use as much local, organic and sustainable grown produce as we can find.

100% organic chocolate birthday cake sweetened with agave nectar and grated beets-yum!!

     This has resulted in a continually improving quality of what we make.  (And we don't say it tastes better until we get "market confirmation" from ya'll even if Reid and I love it).  Below are things that have passed our taste-health improvement test which I'm pretty happy about:

Whole wheat scones-so much better than plain white flour.

Ginger molasses cookies with dark chocolate chips ("Snaps")-delicious.

Whole wheat crust for tomato tartlets-tender, flaky, savory.

Whole wheat vanilla wafers-why not make banana pudding with no refined flour or sugars?

Whole wheat puff pastry-success. Melt in your mouth good success.

Even chocolate croissants turned out to rave reviews using a whole wheat flour.

      I am clearly all about making a treat better for you as long as it tastes better too.  A treat is still a treat and even a dark chocolate cake sweetened with freshly grated beets isn't a replacement for the vegetables, fruit, and other good stuff in your meals.  (Which is why I have never found any good reasoning for diet cookies). A Southern Scratch whole wheat apricot cream cheese pastry is still a treat, but just not one that is going to leave you with major eaters remorse.  

     So while I'm thrilled with the above, I wasn't so thrilled about what I did to pound cake last weekend...  

      Basically, there are some things that can be made with whole grains and taste really good and there are other things that just aren't the same without refined white flour.  This later group definitely includes that pound cake.  We put out samples of our whole wheat experiment Saturday morning and everyone pretty much had the same reaction: "It's good, but it's not pound cake."  

     Reid and I couldn't agree more.  The ones that I added blueberries and a fresh lemon glaze to were a hit. It was more like a rustic coffee cake and the whole wheat enhanced the flavor and texture.  But the ones we left plain tasted more like a slightly sweet yet totally uninspired blend of flour and butter in the shape of a cake pan.  And while I love a good pound cake variation which may work with whole wheat flour, often you just want a really good plain pound cake.  (May my North Alabama grandfather please forgive me for this temporary lack of good Southern judgement in messing up pound cake).

      So we've settled it:  

Southern Scratch Rule:  Pound cake should and will remain a white flour, white sugar cake.  No apologies.

Pound cake is not health food.
(It will still have grass fed butter and buttermilk along with organic extracts and cage free eggs-those ingredients always pass our "taste better, better for you in this recipe" test).

     Luckily, good health isn't an all or nothing thing.  Good nutrition is made up of a lifetime of consistently good habits along with a warm cinnamon roll on Saturday morning or a slice of really good pound cake for company.  With this in mind I don't have any problems sleeping at night and I hope you don't either.  

     Looking forward to seeing everyone at the market this Saturday where there will be plenty of whole wheat scones AND pound cake!

Anybody else have a 6 pound slab of bacon in their fridge?

      Could there be anything more delicious than bacon?  Growing up we didn't eat much of it save for holidays.  My mom is also a dietitian and I'm sure figured that all the nitrates and nitrites saturating a piece of meat that really counts as a fat isn't something you promote as a "healthy breakfast option."  Instead, we grew up eating high fiber cereal or oatmeal for breakfast (or gourmet homemade flax seed muffins, fresh squeezed juices, fruit salad and egg white omelets whenever the TV station showed up to film).  In high school I moved on to eating "The Mix" alongside my parents and in college I worked at a donut shop (which is in no one's definition considered a "healthy" breakfast but still didn't sell anything with bacon.)  

       So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that when I met Reid, bacon still wasn't a staple in my fridge.  After a couple months of dating, and many meals he had eaten at my house, he asked/stated:  "So, I guess you don't eat bacon?"  I was shocked at such a preposterous statement and replied adamantly, "Of course I eat bacon.  I love bacon. Who doesn't love bacon?"  "Oh," he said, "I just have never seen you buy any."  

Reid and I after a few weeks of dating.  I still have that totally enamored, trusting look on my face.  "Sure, let's go ride motorcycles.  That's the smartest thing I've ever heard." 

        That was all the green light I needed to go out and buy a big package of bacon.  Not being educated on the finer points of pork (yet), I chose some center cut bacon which claimed to have 30% less fat than normal bacon.  (Also at this time I had no idea what part of the pig bacon came from except that it was probably closest the delicious bone.)   

        Slowly but surely I've moved from buying the cheapest bacon to packaged reduced fat bacon pieces to center cut bacon to only buying nitrite and nitrate free bacon to organic, nitrite and nitrate free bacon. Now I've got my hands on pastured pork bacon.  When I first heard about pastured pork, I thought the meat had gone through some kind of pasteurization process like milk.  Actually it means the pigs get to go out in the pasture (alongside the cows in this case) and graze if they want to.  Yep, they eat grass like their bovine neighbors or are free to root around on the property for acorns and such.  Some breeds can only eat grass with a little whey or slop supplemented. This translates into bacon that ain't that bad, as long as it is processed in an acceptable manner too (as in you don't go add all those nitrates/nitrites ("pink salt") or go soak it in trans fat shortening).

       Anyway, a couple months or so ago I found out Tink's Grass Fed Beef also had Grass Fed Pork (or pastured pork).  Since my relationship with sausage is similar to that of bacon, I got excited that a "forbidden food" could actually be okay for you and tried out the sausage.  (So incredible, you don't even need to put mustard on it if you don't want).  So a couple weeks ago I asked Carissa, Tink's daughter, if they had any bacon.   (I didn't know when I asked that "bacon" was a finished product, not the cut of meat.)  "No, she posted, "but we have some pork belly to make bacon with.  Just let us know if you're interested in making it."  My stream of consciousness immediately went something like this:

      Was I interested in making homemade bacon?  Had one of my deepest fantasies actually come true?  Of course I wanted to make homemade bacon.  After I got tired of eating it three meals a day and for snacks, I would use it to win friends and influence people by feeding them homemade bacon.  Company would love to come over because the smell of homemade bacon would make our home on par with the Robert Toombs House instead of our current bachelor house love nest.  Then I would open a food joint where all we sold were grits, eggs and homemade bacon.  The tourism industry would skyrocket because we would exclusively sell Washington's finest homemade bacon from Wilkes County's finest pastured pork. People would put in orders years in advance for their Washington bacon like they do for ham.  Deer hunters would swear that the only way to season venison is by adding a few slabs of Washington bacon on it.  It would open the floodgates to commerce. I can't believe I'm getting to make homemade bacon.  Homemade bacon is probably the most fantastic product in the world. I love bacon.

Robert Toombs House-Washington, GA

Our House-Washington, Ga

     So at the market Saturday I asked Carissa about the bacon.  "Here it is.  It takes a couple weeks to cure then you probably need to smoke it. Let us know what works."  I  have never cured meat besides letting some freshly cut vacuum sealed beef sit in the fridge for a week (which I was told meant "curing" it) before cooking it.  And now I have a slab of future bacon weighing in at 5.83 pounds sitting in our fridge.  I'm going to take the Wade's advice they got from an old rancher (as Tink said, "When old men talk, listen closely.") and salt the meat for 7-12 days, keep it in the fridge to cure, then figure out a way to smoke it.

5.83 pounds of pastured pork belly..aka BACON!!

       I'm thinking of cutting the slab in half and doing one side ground pepper and kosher salt then taking the other side and doing a sweet salty cure with some of the Carrol's local honey. (Which I've got to go stock up on for granola anyway).  The possibilities are endless and I've got at least a week to find someone with an outdoor wood smoker for the first batch of Washington bacon...

An Amazing Dish You Can Make from a Farmer's Market Located in a Town of About 4,000 People.

          We eat a lot of wheat in this country.  And a ton of corn.  And a good amount of rice.  These grains are staples worldwide and offer great nutrition when eaten in their whole forms (not totally refined of all bran, germ, etc. which produces "white" flour).   But c'mon...we need a little variety!  Would we know what to do with millet?  Or quinoa (pronounced keen-wah; I totally messed that pronunciation up for a while)?  Or whole barley?  Well, I've got just the thing...


          So one night I was making dinner for some friends and ran out of arborio rice for risotto.  I had a box of a multi-grain pilaf mix and since some of the grains looked about the same size as the rice, I threw it in the pan.  It turned out fantastic.   So the next time I went to Your Dekalb Farmer's Market in Decatur, GA (Atlanta) I stocked up on a ton of different whole grains.  Monday night for dinner I just happened to have some kale from Lazy Willow Farm, a pound of pastured pork sausage from Tink's Grass Fed Beef, and a few extra dried figs.  (Also some organic spring mix that didn't get eaten for salad but next time I would probably just use more kale). Since it turns out Tink's Grass Fed Beef will be a the Washington Farmer's Market and Sandy from Lazy Willow will be back I thought I would share what I did.  (And just to make it even easier on everyone, I'm making up some pilaf & spice mixes you can get at our booth since not everyone has 7 types of grain on hand...)

Step 1:  Become a crazy person who buys up anything edible.

Some of my spoils used to make this meal.

Step 2:  Prep your veggies first.  Slice and peel a small head of GARLIC.  (Do garlic first so it can rest about 10 minutes to fully mobilize it's anti-cancer properties).  Chop an onion (I used red).  Wash KALE from Lazy Willow Farm. To slice, stack the leaves (an inch or so of the bottom stem cut off) and kind of roll them up a little.  This makes it more like slicing celery then a bunch of loose lettuce.  You can also get thinner slices this way.

Step 3:  Grab the grains (or a pre-measured & pre-spiced one from our booth tomorrow at the market) and "eye it" with some of each into a large skillet drizzled in olive oil.  Turn it on medium heat and stir the grains so they get a little oil on them.

White and black quinoa, bulgur wheat, amaranth, cracked wheat,  oat groats, pearl barley. 

Step 4: Add the onion and garlic and let everything toast around in there a couple minutes.  Add water, starting with about a cup.  Stir then add raisins, dried figs and walnuts.  After each addition of water, stir to mix and leave alone for a few minutes.  The water will be roughly 2x the amount of grains (so 1 cup of grains=2 cups of water).  You will keep slowly doing this until all the water is absorbed and the grains are softened but not mushy.  It is a very forgiving recipe since you can stir and leave it alone a few minutes.  (And those who are multi-tasking know how much you can get done in 3-4 minutes).

Step 5:  While you are adding the liquid to the grain mixture, grab another pan (I used a wok shaped thing I had because it was tall) and brown a pound of Tink's Grass Fed Beef pastured pork sausage.  (FYI:  The sausage is pretty lean so you are only going to render a small amount of fat. If you want, a dab of olive oil in the skillet helps it cook up great)

Adding spices to the simmering grains, nuts, and fruit.

Step 6:  While the sausage is browning, add whole coriander, turmeric, black pepper and marjoram (or dried basil or oregano) to your grain skillet.

Step 7:  Once the sausage is cooked thoroughly, add the meat to the grain skillet.  Then immediately add the kale to the sausage skillet so it can pick up some of the flavor.  Cook it until it wilts and softens slightly (5-10 minutes...we're not completely sucking the life out of them like we do collards).  Then add the kale to the grain skillet.

Left skillet is kale and the right is the browned sausage just added to the grain mix.

Step 8:  So now you have a ton of stuff all in one bowl (grains, nuts, dried fruit, spices, onion, kale, garlic, pastured pork sausage).  Taste it to see if you need to add more turmeric, black pepper or a pinch of salt.

Step 9: Enjoy!  You can also pair this with another market vegetable like we did!  And add mustard...I love mustard.

        What I love about this "recipe" is that the proportions don't really matter all that much.  You can add a TON of vegetables in this (I think celery, carrots, more kale, even spinach or spring mix, etc. would all taste good) and still have a really hearty "non-salad" plant based meal.  Add spices at will.  Add whatever dried fruit or nuts at will.  Think of this as a method and add or take away to make it your own.

        If you want to try out this recipe more exactly like this post, I've made up some bags of the grains, nuts, fruit and spices.  Visit a couple more vendors to get the kale, garlic and sausage at the market and you'll pretty much have everything you need except olive oil and onions.

(Eventually there will be a more comprehensive grain nutrition post, but not tonight and I'll be way too tired to think straight in the morning.  And eventually we'll offer more than just wheat based baked goods but tonight we're settling with whole wheat organic blueberry and raw sugar lemon butter glazed pound cakes.)  

       Okay..back to baking now!  Who all is coming down in the morning?  Or wishes they got to live in a cute small town too that had a cute little market behind the courthouse every Saturday?