Wandered far afield

That's a term one of my old bosses used in management meetings when he and the two under-managers he supervised (one of whom was me) would find some topic related to work, but not actually pertaining to work directly, and happily chat about it for a half-hour or so before finding our way back to business.

"Well, we've wandered far afield..." he would say, and that was our cue that we needed to get back to the real business at hand.

And it's a term I've rediscovered in these first days of 2016, as it applies to myself and the life I've been living.

One of the ways hit home yesterday, when there was a power outage at about 8 a.m. The house was cold and dark, and because we chose an electrically-driven pellet stove instead of a wood stove the house hadn't warmed up yet, and now would have no chance of doing so. We have a central heating system we use for back-up, but of course it doesn't work without electricity either. 

So as the temperature dropped inside and I bundled up, I reviewed that choice. Did I ever.

So I sat in the cold and read my Kindle, played music on my iPod and checked Facebook and email on my phone until those devices all died. At that point I decided to head into town to run some errands (thank God I had gas), where at least I'd be in some warm buildings and I could use the car to charge all my devices and run the heater while driving around, which felt SO delicious after being in a cold house for several hours, let me tell you.

Where I feel like I am.

One ironic thing is that the book I was reading before my Kindle died was one called "Patient Heal Thyself" about a young man who discovers healing of his Crone's disease through eating a diet identical to what our biblical ancestors would have eaten 2,000 years or more ago. Yes, I was reading a book about the diet of the 20 BC man on a 21st century Kindle. Boggles the mind, no? If it had been on papyrus I could have at least kept reading without fear of a battery dying.

Anyway, the book reminded me of a time when I adhered to a similar diet just through making healthy food choices and refusing to buy into the industrial food system of feedlot beef, trans-fats, refined sugar, and over-processed bleached white flour. While I haven't backslid all the way (you will not find me in line at McDonald's when McRib returns, for instance) I have cut corners as life got more busy and complex and food still needed to be served. 

So to review, I cut corners by getting a pellet stove instead of a wood stove and I cut corners by just accepting what the regular supermarket thought I should be eating. It's an uncomfortable truth that sometimes we know what the right thing is to do and still do something else anyway. And when we do that, we wander far afield from the selves we want to be.

The solution for the pellet stove is a simple one -- we can buy a small generator for the house or a back-up battery for the stove itself. And the solution to the food issue is there as well. We're already growing a lot of what we eat, but the fact is, even if we had 10 times as many acres we would probably still not grow everything we consume. And so the choice then becomes to purchase those things at the health food store, expensively, or drive an hour's south to the local Whole Foods Market and get it there.

And since I've committed to getting back to those things that matter most to me in 2016, perhaps you'll notice something of a course correction as we get farther into the year. It will be a homecoming of sorts. I've wandered far afield, and it's time to get back on the road I most want to be on -- gardening, planting, conscious food-buying, and healthy living.  It doesn't so much mean giving up on any good things as much as taking the time for different good things that aren't necessarily as easy to come by. 

One thing is for sure: When you wander far afield, eventually the road that leads home will call you back to it, if you're willing to listen. I'm listening, road. I'm listening.

Where I want to be.

Homegrown

Nothing like shopping in the garden for dinner....which was a generous slice of frittata, made with freshly laid eggs, plus harvested-today spinach and onions.  Over the last decade or so, eating food that was collected or harvested 10 minutes before dinner has gotten a bit more routine for me, and I will admit I don't feel the same beginner's thrill I did when first doing it. 

But I'll tell you what: it's no less delicious than it was the first time.

A little slice of heaven (photo heavy)

Creston, California -- a little slice of heaven just down the road.

I got to spend yesterday with a good friend/coworker, traveling the back roads of our county for a special Industry Afternoon, hosted by several wineries of the "Creston Wine Trail."  The Creston Wine Trail is a relatively little-known area around the funky, cute town of Creston, a locavore's heaven if ever there was one. It's probably what Paso Robles was like 25 years ago -- small, intimate, with uncrowded tasting rooms and fantastic wines and locally grown and raised food.  

If I was recommending this area to someone who wanted to "get away from it all," I would recommend the Creston area. It really does feel like a little slice of heaven as you are driving through the gently rolling hillsides and green fields.

August Ridge Vineyards

One of the greatest parts of my job is that doing things like this is such an important part of it.  In a tasting room your main job is as wine educator; informing people not only about the wines you are pouring, but about wines and the region in general. It's always nice to spend a day like this in the company of knowledgable and competent peers, because I always learn so much about our region and wines it is capable of producing.  There's also always a lot of shop talk about number of punch-downs and pump-overs, specific yeasts and their benefits, as well as talk about where the industry is headed.

Unofficial mascot at Shadow Run Vineyards and Winery

We stopped at several wineries as part of the tour, as well as an olive-oil producing tasting room which also featured locally grown-and-harvested lamb for sale. I am not a lamb person, but my friend David was, and so he talked meat with the operations manager while I sampled some of the incredible flavored olive oils, vinegars, and other products.

Another huge perk to working in the wine business is that we generally receive anywhere from a 30 to a 50 percent discount on any bottles purchased at other wineries when we visit.  And tasting is always free. This allows us to sample other wineries' fare and then make good recommendations to our customers, depending on what they are looking for. I know that just from my afternoon spent on the Creston Wine Trail that it is something I can now wholeheartedly recommend not only to customers, but also to friends and family who visit and want to get off the beaten path of the most popular 20 or so wineries that everyone seems to visit when they come to Paso.

My two favorite wines from Chateau Margene -- Pistolero Chardonnay and Mooney 2012 Pinot Noir.

Not only were these wines great, but you also got the chance, at each venue, to sit and chat with the owner (who is usually also the winemaker) and get to know the character of both the wine and its maker at the same time.  It means that by the time you leave, you feel more like a neighbor or friend than just a customer, which I think is an important (and unfortunately, rapidly disappearing) part of any wine country experience.

Mmm. Delicious salad and marinating possibilities!

I came home full of great food and with a bag of new wine purchases, as well as olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which means not only will I be making some great food, but now have even more options on what I can serve it with. Yes, for us it was just another day at work, but sometimes here in wine country a day at work can also be a little slice of heaven.

Vegetarian update

So a friend asked me the other day how my commitment to eat less meat has been going.  If you remember, several months ago the price of meat (especially beef) rose dramatically out here, due to the drought, and I decided to put the family on a pretty restrictive non-meat diet, eating more vegetarian and pescatarian foods most nights each week for dinner. 

(And for me, this also translated to eating no meat at other meals as well. I eat almost all my breakfasts and lunches at home, since I work less than five minutes away from my job and can therefore "dine-in" almost all the time.)

The answer to how our new diet is going is this:  It's been a pretty fabulous success.  It's been far easier than I thought, and certainly has lifted a huge weight off the ol' checkbook to not be purchasing meat.  As we all know, grass-fed, local-raised meat can be quite a bit more expensive than what you'd get at the local supermarket, but what you get at the local supermarket is a huge mystery as far as how the animals are treated, what they are fed, and what kind of conditions the meat is processed in. In my opinion, if you can afford to pass on supermarket meat, do so. 

And of course our new diet is certainly rich in eggs, provided by our beautiful hens.  Hard to pass those up, although I do toy sometimes with going completely vegetarian, as I was one for several years.  But in addition to eggs, I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up salmon and other locally-caught seafood.  So we're sticking with this present diet, at least for awhile.

I will say that I thought giving up eating my fellow mammals would be more difficult, but especially now that it's summer, there is such a wide variety of other foods available, it's easy -- provided you're just willing to look outside the meat/starch/vegetable triad so many of us grew up with on our dinner plates each night.

And I'd like to think we're living a little lighter on the land by not contributing to the cycle of uisng gallons and gallons of water in order to grow the tons of grain needed to feed the animals we're going to eat.  But I don't live in a glass house on this, and I should be honest here:  my own pets still eat commercial pet food, the chickens get layer feed in addition to kitchen scraps, and we do still drink milk and eat butter, so it's a small victory at best. 

But a small change is still better than none at all, I figure. Small steps.

Pick and Eat

So it's been two years since I was really able to plan menus around what we were growing.  Last year we'd barely moved in here and had no time to put in a garden, so we ate out of the grocery store and farmer's market most of the summer.  

But this year....ahh, this year is the culmination of a year's worth of planning, building, digging and seeding.  And it feels so good to me, this routine of heading out into the garden with a big basket to pick ripe zukes, eggplant, onions, scallions, cukes and squash, then heading inside to make something fabulous out of it all. It feels healthy and it feels self-sufficient.  Add to that the 15 or so eggs we're getting a week and we're in the food business, at least for ourselves.

I'm a little sad that in another three weeks or so, we'll be demolishing the kitchen, at which point my kitchen meals will become camping meals, as I try and suffice with no counters, no sink, and no stove or microwave.  But I'm taking it as a challenge, because obviously, the ripe produce in the garden cannot wait until the cabinet and counter installers are done here.  Things will still need to be picked and eaten.

But for now, I'm loving the routine of pick and eat, pick and eat.  It feels so simple and so natural, deep down inside.  It's this kind of food that's good for your soul (not to mention your pocketbook).

The goodness of summer

The best days of summer are when we can enjoy a meal like this, grown from our garden.  Beans, potatoes, and a big salad.  And a glass of port wine, chilled with sparkling water added to it to make a kind of fruit soda with a kick.

Bon Appetite!

Crisis or Opportunity?

Interesting story off the Associated Press this morning, about the "crisis" of large feedlots closing due to a lack of cattle:

Too Few Cattle Left To Feed

This crisis has been brewing for some time, as the price of corn skyrocketed (due to its use as a fuel component), followed by a midwest drought, which depleted much of the corn produced for all purposes.  Because of this, many ranchers sold their herds for pennies on the dollar and stopped breeding the cattle they had left, because it had simply become too expensive and difficult to feed them. The article reminds everyone that less cattle in the surviving feedlots will mean higher prices for beef at the grocery store and in restaurants.

And they make it sound like it's a bad thing.

It's just my opinion, but I firmly believe if most Americans ate less industrially-produced beef, it would not harm their health at all.  In fact, it might even improve it.

Humans do not need beef, especially not fattened up, corn-fed beef.  Corn-fed beef tastes better in the way a Twinkie tastes better than a chewy piece of homemade bread with butter and jam.  It's more bland, easier to digest, and filled with a lot more chemicals and unnecessary ingredients that make it easy on the palate.  Maybe we like that better because it's easier to forget that a living creature died in order for us to have it on our plate.  We are uncomfortable thinking about things like that.

Grass-fed beef can taste "gamey" (or perhaps "beefy" would be a better word).  You can't mass-produce grass-fed beef like you can corn-fed, feedlot beef, because grazing requirements are high.  Because 100% grass-fed beef is more difficult to produce, it's more expensive, meaning you will probably eat less of it than other things, like pork or chicken.

We had steak last night, the first we've had in several months.  It was really good -- grass-fed, locally raised and processed beef -- but it is expensive and, because of that, is an occasional treat for us.  Ditto for hamburger meat.  
Perhaps one unforeseen up-side to climate change ruining our vast fields of mono-crops is that we'll all be healthier, eating more home-grown and home-raised vegetables, or even small livestock that could be raised and butchered in a backyard.  Maybe more people would even choose to become vegetarian, once they were faced with the prospect of butchering their own backyard farm animals and meeting their meat on an up close and personal basis.

Perhaps there's a bright side to these harrowing times...if we choose to change how we do things.  We're two generations (at least) out from where most Americans did some farming, which means it's not too late yet to get back to a more agrarian lifestyle, even in urban backyards and vacant lots.  

Our grandparents and great-grandparents can light the way for us, if we'll let them.  And we'd better let them, before those micro-farming skills die with them and are gone forever.

A Well-Buttered, Slippery Slope

Last weekend I made my weekly trip to the local natural foods store to pick up a few items.  I have a few favorites that are on my list whenever I visit them; their oranges are wonderful, they stock a brand of vanilla extract I particularly like, they have some awesome home-grown veggies, and I will usually stroll around and see if anything else catches my eye.

This week, I remembered I needed some organic butter while I was there, so I popped some into my basket before heading to the counter.  The gal rang up $6.99 for the butter, but then paused and said, "Wait.  That can't be right."  She went into the back room and sure enough, had found there was a mistake.  The butter I'd picked, it turns out, was $9.98...almost $10 -- for four sticks of butter.  Nothing special, nothing fancy, just four sticks of organic unsalted butter, made by a national manufacturer.

I told her I was sorry, but I wasn't going to buy it at that price, and put it back in the freezer case.  She gave me a look that was either pitying or withering; I'm not sure which.

The next week, at Von's, I also found organic, unsalted butter....four sticks for $5.49.  And I won't lie, I snatched it up and took it home.  And I'm a little bit perplexed and disturbed that my local natural foods store would place such an outrageous price tag on a product considered a staple, when its actual price is so much lower.

When I looked on the internet, for example, I could have had a case of this same health-food store butter delivered to my house for what would work out to about $5.80 a box (we have a chest freezer, so this would actually be pretty do-able).  So I assume the little natural foods store could do the same and maybe a $6.99 price tag would allow them a decent profit.  But I think the $10 price tag comes based on the fact that most of their patrons are well-heeled enough to pay that much for it, and snooty enough to not want to be seen as questioning the price (as if they couldn't pay for it).

Sometimes I think the worst thing that's ever happened to the "shop local" movement is when it became a status symbol of the well-to-do -- the people who never need to ask "how much is this?" before buying something.

I always think of the local foods movement as being run by a group of people who have each others' best interests at heart, and for the most part, it is.  But there are still some who will charge whatever the traffic will bear, and will prey on a population that's too lazy to do their homework regarding the actual cost of something, factoring in a reasonable mark-up in order to stay in business.  

I have no objection to somebody making a profit.  But a 50% markup on something is going above and beyond the need to make a profit on the items you stock.  It's price gouging, and it's no less offensive in the natural foods marketplace than at the supermarket.  Maybe it's more, because the local foods movement is all about having a sense of community and a "we're all in this together" mentality.

It's not just here on the Central Coast where things like this happen.  I have friends back east who regularly find the produce at their local farmer's market has been bought at the local supermarket and re-sold as organic, with the price suitably marked-up.  Some farmer's markets police their vendors better than others.

But I have to say, it's disappointing to find those wolves among the sheep.  And my only hope is that, when it comes to asking for reasonable prices, we don't throw common sense out the window just because someone is local and looks like The Little Guy to us.

Little Guys are sometimes crooks, too, just like their big counterparts.

Working Weekend

I can't remember what we used to do on weekends, back when we lived in the suburbs of the San Joaquin Valley and were dreaming about moving to the country.  I guess we spent a lot of time driving over here and exploring, once we'd decided to start looking for houses over here, but before then it's a blur.  I suppose I read farm blogs and magazines and imagined what life would be like if we had some acreage and weren't surrounded by houses everywhere.

Either way, our weekends now are filled with hard work and well-deserved pleasures after that work is done for the day (even if it's only soaking in a hot bath and getting clean).  This weekend was a mix of work outside -- laying bark, watering orchards and berry patches, building fence, and occasionally stopping to bask in the fresh air and blue skies.  

Last night we treated ourselves to a special Valentine's dinner at the local winery.  There was a six course meal with wine parings for each one.  On the menu were things like oysters, wild local mushroom soup, and pork osso bucco which was absolutely amazing.  After a day spent outside working, it felt wonderful to get dressed up and meet up with a great group of people for some amazing local food and wine.   This morning we got up, refreshed from the break, and hit it hard again out in the pasture and yard.

While I've been out there this weekend, I can't help but notice that spring has sprung, or is in the process of doing so:

Raspberries have leafed out

Bing Cherries are budding 

Blueberries are almost ready to blossom

People talk about the holiday season as being a "blessed" season, but I think spring's blessings are just as sweet, as the soil and all that grows in it wake from winter's slumber and start sending shoots towards hopeful, happy blue skies.

New Food Warnings

Some interesting statistics from the CDC this morning, from USA Today:  

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/28/cdc-leafy-greens-poultry-dairy-foodborne-illness/1872557/

The entire article is interesting, but I think there's a definite take-home message from it all:  For maximum food safety, grow your greens, don't buy them; drink  unpasteurized milk from your own animals, or if you are going to buy, buy pasteurized (sigh); and be careful where you buy your meat birds.  

In the age of industrial food production, you can't be too careful.  This is especially true when it comes to unpasteurized milk, sadly.  When we lived in the San Joaquin Valley we saw a bunch of people, including children, become ill from a local raw-milk dairy in the area. They had a great reputation, and I'm sad it happened for everyone involved, including them. I know there are supposed to be nutritional benefits of consuming raw milk, and a lot of people are fans. But if you can get your own dairy products from your own goat, sheep or cow, you would probably be the safest product you could provide to yourself and your family, if you're a milk drinker.  We are actually thinking of buying a milking goat this spring for that exact reason. 

As for chicken, that's a tough one. The worst case of food poisoning I've ever seen from a chicken came from a woman who processed her own birds.  She gave herself campylobactor.  But again, a small grower using a decent butcher would probably be fine, or an individual, if they were extremely well-schooled in how to do it safely.  I know Joel Salatin was giving workshops in how to do it yourself, which is wonderful.

All in all, just another heads up to the fact that, when it comes to your food, the more you know about who grew it and where it came from, the better.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/28/cdc-leafy-greens-poultry-dairy-foodborne-illness/1872557/