Links Links Links …

A roundup of interesting stuff:

And in Alice Waters/Ameya Preserve news:

For the record, as I said over at Ethicurean, I admire Alice Waters to no end — she’s done great things for American food, and the Edible Schoolyards is a terrific project. However, there is a problematic disconnect going on when somehow sustainability is considered a luxury, and is being shilled as an amenity in a second-home development (not a “community” — community is town, is public. Behind the gate, it’s a development). I don’t care how many solar panels you put on it, a 5000 square foot home that no one lives in most of the time is not sustainable.

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Indian Summer …

Indian Summer has arrived — it was 17 degrees on Saturday morning and 75 by afternoon.

Our first hard frost which, surprisingly, everything left in the garden survived quite well. There’s chard out there still, and a lot of endives and chicories, and even a few random lettuces that sprouted from seed I dropped. Oh, and arugula. I cut the arugula way back in August, after it bolted during the record-setting heat we had in July, and it’s grown back quite nicely.

I spent the weekend planting the last of the bulbs. My friend Nina called while I was in the middle of it all. “Next time I decide to buy 400 bulbs on sale,” I asked her. “Remind me how much I hate fall planting.” I do — by fall I’m done with the garden. I’m over it. I don’t want to deal anymore. And even though we’ve had a little bit of rain, the ground is still really dry and hard and I can never remember where I planted anything before and well, fall planting always seems to me like more hassle than it’s worth. “Do it my way,” Nina said. “Just dig a hole and throw a whole bunch of them in …” Which is exactly what I did. Whoever plants the fields of bulbs on the covers of those catalogs might lay out plans, the rest of us are fed up, busy, and over it. I got out the spade, dug a series of holes and into each one I threw a couple of King Alfred daffodils, some mixed tulips, some teeny red tulip bulbs I dug up from the weird place where they grow through the lawn, some scilla, some crocus, and some grape hyacinths. Oh, and there were some narcissus in there too. Like I said, I got a little carried away at Lowes. It’s either going to be gorgeous or I’m going to have weird clumps of flowers scattered all over in the spring.

But it is lovely having late fall greens. The other night I made some pasta with ham, a small red peperoncini that I managed to get out of the garden before the big frost, some arugula, and creme fraiche I made with the gorgeous cream that comes every week on the top of my gallon jar of good, fresh, local milk. It was one of those dinners that sort of evolve as you’re making it — I originally thought I’d do pasta with ham and peas, but the peas had been in the freezer for so long that they were awful and I threw them out. But I had arugula out there in the garden — so arugula it was — a lovely little dinner in a bowl on the couch, watching a movie with the dogs.

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Cutting and Wrapping …

 Cutting and Wrapping ... The MH called yesterday afternoon to see if I wanted to come over and hang out while he butchered for me, my job was to wrap meat. It was fun, we hung out in the garage as he dismembered my antelope and separated it into steaks, loin, stew meat and then everything else went into the burger pile. The cuts don’t really resemble steaks you’d buy in the store — essentially the MH dissembled the antelope muscle by muscle, and carefully removed the silverskin for me. The other nice thing about being there while it was butchered was that he did small hunks for me — so I now have a lot of one- or two-person portions in my freezer.

I’ve also got a big bag of burger scrap in the fridge. All the odd bits. Our local butcher is closed on Mondays — I’ll head over there tomorrow and have him grind it — I’d do it with my trusty KitchenAid but Matt adds some beef fat to the burger — otherwise it’s too lean to be useful for much.

 Cutting and Wrapping ... Jacques likes butchering. I wrapped some burger for the MH that he’d had ground from his son’s antelope, and well, who could resist that face? Of course he got a little taste. Eventually he settled down in the corner with a leg bone and mellowed out.

We hung out and drank a beer and chatted. He cut meat, I wrapped — it took a couple of hours. It’s too bad we didn’t work out as a couple, but I’m really thrilled that we’ve managed to stay good friends. The MH’s son, of whom I am very fond, came in and chatted for a while and told us about his weekend. Jacques and I goofed off. This conviviality isn’t something you get from buying meat in a store — and if there’s one thing I agree with the Slow Food people about, it’s this part of the equation. That hanging out with people you like creating your own food is a good thing.

 Cutting and Wrapping ... And now I have this pile of little packages in my freezer. I wrapped one loin whole — I’m thinking of doing some sort of antelope Wellington for Christmas perhaps — but where a couple of days ago there was an antelope out in Pearsons field, and then there was a carcass hanging in the garage, and now there is a pile of neatly wrapped packages of lean, delicious, organic meat to see me through the winter.

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I Killed an Antelope this Morning …

p7020015.thumbnail I Killed an Antelope this Morning ... So, the MH took me out antelope hunting this morning. I’d sort of hoped he’d kill the antelope for me, but for one thing that’s illegal, and for another thing, he wasn’t letting me off the hook that easily. He told me he’d help me, and that if I wanted to eat antelope, I should learn to kill one. He’s right, of course, but I was really nervous that I wouldn’t be able to do it. We got out there and had a good sight line and he helped me set up the shot, and believe it or not, I actually killed an antelope. My biggest worry had been that I’d wound an animal and cause it terrible pain, but astonishingly, although it took two shots, and it was a little hairy for a couple of minutes, I did manage to kill it without disgracing myself or the animal (and I even managed not to give myself a black eye by getting too close to the scope). I thought it would be kind of freaky, but I don’t know — maybe it’s because I’ve been around people who hunt my whole life, but it didn’t freak me out to kill an antelope. I shot it, it died. (I might also have jumped up and down a little from the adrenalin rush and from relief that I’d actually done it.)

The other part I was worried about, the gutting part — turned out to be a surprise — that part was actually really really interesting.

The MH took care of the gutting for me — I might not have been so interested if I’d had to do it myself. I mean, it is a little startling to see someone start cutting into an animal that was alive mere moments before, and I was a little nervous that I’d embarrass myself by being grossed out (can you tell I had brothers and 6 boy cousins? my horror at acting “like a girl” remains unscathed in adulthood). He’d asked me to help by holding onto one leg to keep the antelope on it’s back and at one point, as there was some tugging involved, the MH looked up and said “You okay?”

That’s when I looked into the cavity and realized that yeah, I was totally okay. In fact, I thought it was much more interesting than it was gross. All the guts are enclosed in a membrane, so they’re like one big sac. “Look!” I said. “There’s the heart …” As if the MH hasn’t done this thousands of times in his life … There was some blood, and it was surprisingly red — like movie blood — but nothing smelled bad – the only smell was of digested grass and that wasn’t much different from being around cow or horse dung. In fact, I thought it was all very interesting in the way that when you’re a little kid you just want to see what things look like. Once the MH had gotten everything detatched, he tipped the carcass up and rolled the guts out onto the grass. Then he pulled out the liver, showed me the bile duct before carefully cutting it out. He tucked the liver and the heart into the carcass, then he dragged the antelope back to the truck (I offered to help but he said he was fine — so I trailed along like the girl).

When we got back to his house, I helped him hang the antelope on the meat hooks in the garage and then he skinned it. Apparently, it’s much easier to skin when the animal is still warm, and since you want to cool it down as quickly as possible, it’s good to get it skinned out right away. Again, not icky. A little startling to think of actually pulling the skin and hide off of something, but again, I was mostly just fascinated to see the musculature revealed, and appreciative that the MH was doing this part for me (along with the gutting — it was cool to watch, but I’m not sure I’d have been as sanguine if I’d had to do it myself). It’ll hang for a while — I’m not sure how long — and then I think he’s going to butcher it for me.

So that was my adventure in hunting. Over on Michael Ruhlman’s blog they‘re talking about how once in your life you should eat an animal you slaughtered yourself, so I guess I can now cross that off the list. I have to say though, I don’t feel any more what, reverential? about this antelope because I shot it than I have about all the other antelope or elk or venison that I’ve eaten that my friends have shot. But then again, the idea of eating an animal that was killed by someone I know isn’t so foreign to me. I grew up eating elk and venison and ducks that my dad and brother and Dad’s guide, Ray Kennedy hunted. I imagine that the experience of eating an animal that you or someone you know killed is probably more powerful if the only meat you’ve ever known came from the supermarket on those icky little sanitary pads. I would never have hunted an antelope on my own, but since the MH got me a tag last summer, and since he took me out and helped me, and since I really like to eat antelope (much more than venison or elk), well, I hunted an antelope.

I am glad that I ordered the River Cottage Meat Book the other day though because I’m now the proud owner of an antelope heart that I have to figure out how to cook. And I have an antelope liver, so I can try the Terrine Jacquy again (or maybe I’ll just do the Pate Campagne out of Charcuterie — I did that last year and it was delicious). And in a couple of weeks I’ll have lots of antelope meat — which is delicious delicious delicious.

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Five Easy Ways to Go Organic

The NY Times health blog ran a little piece the other day that’s getting a lot of press in the foodie blog-o-sphere: Five Easy Ways to Go Organic. As one concerned mama points out over at the Cleaner Plate Club, this post has them talking and talking and talking … there were nearly 300 comments last time I checked, who knows what’s happened since then? Over at Serious Eats, they were only up to 12 comments last I looked, but all in all, the conversations in all these places quickly gets so contentious and complicated that it undermines the point of the original article — how do we help people who may be afraid of organic, or even afraid of unprocessed food, begin to make the transition? How do we make it “easy” and “affordable”?

I happen to live someplace where we have reasonably easy access to locally-raised meat and poultry and eggs and vegetables. I happen to live someplace where a lot of people hunt and eat game. And yet, every time I go to Albertsons, the majority of the carts are filled with “food in boxes” — food that has been in some way pre-cooked or pre-processed and that is supposed to be “easy” and that is always cheap. In the parking lot of the grocery store there’s an Arby’s advertising 5 sandwiches for 5.95. There are a lot of very broke people around here — something like 15% of the folks in town live below the poverty line –  I’ve lived poor, it’s exhausting. I can see why if you’ve spent all day working some shitty job and your kids are ragging on you and you’ve only got a 20 to get you to payday why you might be tempted by that drive-through. Or by a frozen pizza. Or by the fried-chicken dinner deal (for which I have to admit, I have a weakness). We don’t teach home ec in schools anymore and we’re now on families that are two or even three generations into not knowing the basics of how to cook.

So yeah, to foodies, it might seem ridiculous that two of the five items on the list are ketchup and potatoes, but if those are the primary vegetables your kids are getting, maybe starting there makes sense. Maybe taking a second to look at the milk in the cabinet and choosing the (big) organic milk over the regular milk might be a start — it might give you a sense that there is something you can do, after all. We all have to start somewhere, and for my part, I’d be happy if we can just start weaning people off the food in boxes. I think it’s hard for those of us who like cooking to remember that there are people who are afraid to touch raw chicken, or who don’t know what to do with fresh green beans, or who prefer the sameness and reliability of frozen dinners. Maybe while we’re all lobbying to reinstate PE in the schools we should also be thinking about reinstating Home Ec (minus the gender segregation of course). At least that way kids would have been taught by someone how to buy and cook real food.
I don’t know, I just get frustrated when I see the disconnect. The point was 5 easy and affordable places to start — not the best, not the only, not even the best for every area of the country. But when people are already overwhelmed, sometimes it’s good to give them a short, simple list of things they can do.

Maybe the mantra to think of is Michael Pollan’s: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

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