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Month: January 2008

My Grandmother’s Voting for Hillary

My Grandmother’s Voting for Hillary

My 97-year-old grandmother asked for an absentee ballot for the Democratic primary so she can vote for Hillary.

My grandmother has never voted for a Democrat before in her life, but she wanted to “vote for that woman.”

My grandmother was a crack polo player in the 1930s, when polo was a hugely popular public sport (30,000 people took the train up out from Chicago to see the 1938 East-West game, when Will Roger’s team beat the best players from the East coast). Because she was a “girl” my grandmother wasn’t allowed to play — she could play practice matches when someone got hurt, but she never got the chance to compete.

She was also offered a full scholarship to the Northwestern Medical school, which her father convinced her to turn down because she’d be “taking a place from some man who would need to support a family.” Instead, she married my grandfather, and then when he was debhilitated by alcoholism, she supported her family without the aid of anything useful like a medical degree. She was an impatient mother, a woman who would have been much happier running something — a company, a hospital, something other than the Pony and Pet Show she put on with her best friend every summer.

When I was growing up she told me over and over again to stay in school, to get a degree, to go out and make my own money because if you have your own money “no one can tell you what to do.” She told me at about sixteen, long before I even had a boyfriend, that if I ever “got in trouble” to come to her and she’d take care of it. (This from a woman who wanted to abort her fourth child, but couldn’t find anyone back on those days of illegal abortions. My Aunt Molly doesn’t really take it personally, and in fact, she’s the one taking care of my grandmother in her very old age.) And of course, she’s the one who gave me Mrs. Baggot’s ring while whispering fiercely “now you have a really big diamond, and you didn’t have to marry anyone to get it.”

However, there’s always been this weirdly reactionary side to her — I remember her praising Nancy Reagan for walking several steps behind her husband (we mocked her openly for that one). And the only way my mother and two aunts could get out of the house as young women was to get married. But there’s that pissed-off part of my grandmother, the girl who was told she couldn’t play, the woman who had at least two more children than she wanted to, the woman who was convinced not to go to medical school. And that’s the woman who even at 97, is determined to vote for the first woman with a real shot at being the President of the United States. Even if she is a Democrat.

Who knows how many pissed off old ladies there are out there? There’s a group the pollsters haven’t been talking to …

Joan Dye Grussow, Michael Pollan, Dan Barber …

Joan Dye Grussow, Michael Pollan, Dan Barber …

My love of Joan Dye Grussow‘s work, particularly This Organic Life, is well documented on this blog. Her experiences over the years growing and storing most of her own food was absolutely inspirational to me when I built my garden, and it’s still a book I go back to again and again.

This video has been kicking around the blogosphere for a while now — it’s Joan Dye Grussow, Michael Pollan and Dan Barber of Blue Hill discussing ethicurean issues and trying to figure out how to eat in ways that are good not only for their health but for the health of their communities.
What I found hilarious was Joan Grussow’s grilling of Pollan about what to eat in the winter. One of the points Pollan makes in In Defense of Food is that the western diet has turned almost exclusively to eating the seeds and fruits of plants at the expense of leaves. So, Joan Dye Grussow had taken this to heart and was saying how she’d been really trying to eat more leafy greens, but it was winter, and her garden was now frozen and what is she to do? (I was particularly amused by her wonder at how good chard was for breakfast, since my favorite Breakfast of Champions relies heavily on chard.) I’ve also written before about the prejudice against greens — they’re the food of poverty, they’re food that black people and immigrants eat, they’re slimy and weird — these are the charges. Myself, I learned to love greens in Asia — I spent a few months in Taiwan in my 20s and because they use night soil for fertilizer, you can’t really eat raw greens like salad. But I don’t recall a meal that didn’t have some sort of delicious cooked greens on the table, and I came to love all of them — spinach, tatsoi, gai lan, and a million others I didn’t actually recognize.

As for Grussow’s query about what to do in the winter — either put them up in the summer like I do, or find someone in your area growing leafy greens in the winter — Eliot Coleman has pretty definitively proven that with hoophouses and cold frames, you can grow greens even in the depth of winter in Maine. Personally, I’m all for putting up your own in the summer — it’s not hard. It does require that you spend a hot summer afternoon in a steamy kitchen blanching veggies, which can be kind of a drag. But like anything, the more you do it, the easier it gets — a quick boil in the largest stockpot, a dunk in an ice bath, a spin in the salad spinner, then put them in absorbent clean dishtowels which you roll up and twist to get the last of the water out before packaging them using the indispensable vaccuum sealer. Yeah, it means you spend a Saturday or two putting up food, but it also means that for the rest of the year you get to eat your own clean organic veggies.

I’m a little bewildered by the folks who think that seasonality trumps locavorism. Although yes, I’m eating broccoli rabe and endive and chard “out of season” in that it grew last summer, it was put up at the height of the season and there are no food miles. It couldn’t get more local. Eating my own cherries and plums all winter that I put up, instead of eating fruit flown in from Australia or Chile is, as far as I’m concerned — that’s absolutely seasonal — I’m not insisting on fresh food out of season, but rather, I’m participating in an age-old process of self-sufficiency.

It’s why it was so much fun to see Joan Dye Grussow on that video. Her book was such an inspiration to me, and seeing her in action, watching how Michael Pollan seems to defer to her a little bit as his elder, and hearing her voice which is as straightforward and slightly cranky as I’d always imagined — well, it is one of the few times I was sorry I’d left New York all those years ago — what a fun evening that must have been.

My take on South Carolina …

My take on South Carolina …

Because Politics is in the tag line — all I can say is Wow — Obama not only won it, he won it in a rout. I know there are naysayers. I’ve heard all the “experience” talk. And you know what? I don’t care …

He inspires people across the spectrum — I’m hearing apocryphal stories about independents and Republicans who will vote for him. He inspires me. Imagine if we could have an inspirational candidate on the Democratic side — not a candidate that we know is the smartest person in the room, not the candidate that we know is right about the issues even if he or she does have a personality that turns people off, but a candidate who can fire up a room, fire up a nation.

I said after New Hampshire that I wasn’t ready to send Hillary home, and frankly, I’m still not. The Clintons are starting to play dirty politics, and if Obama can’t win against them, then I’m not sure he can win against the even dirtier politics that are sure to come in the general election. But I have also felt since the beginning of this race that I don’t want a return to the Clinton years. I am not someone who believes in living in the past — it was one of the rules that Patrick and I lived by “no going backwards.” There’s no going back, there’s only forward — and even if Hillary could win over a nation in which she’s enormously and irrationally hated, I think her presidency would be hobbled by the urge to redeem her husband’s tenure. Plus, I don’t like the dynastic implications of 20-plus years of Clintons and Bushes in the White House. And while I didn’t realize this until recently, I’m a little pissed at the Clintons — they had their chance and they screwed it up. And by screwing it up, they paved the way for GW Bush and all the havoc and disaster he has wrought. I’m not so sure I’m ready to give them another chance.

I want a change. I want new blood. I want someone my age in the White House — someone who is not defined by the battles of the 1960s.

Imagine if as Democarats we dared to believe. Dared to hope.

Here’s the entire clip from Obama’s South Carolina victory speech.

Now we’ll just have to see what happens on Super Tuesday.

Endorphins are Good …

Endorphins are Good …

We’ve finally got some snow, and unlike last weekend when it was below zero the whole time, the temps aren’t too bad (although the 40 mph winds are kind of a drag) — but although I’m ashamed to say that it’s the end of January and the first time I’ve made it out on skis, I did make it out for a quick ski this morning —

I’m woefully out of shape, but we had fun — took Raymond-the-dog (Owen needs knee surgery, no deep snow romping for him) and off we went. It’s sunny, there was sweating and breathing hard and a happy dog bounding through the snow and finally some exciting downhill gliding — the snow is all sparkly, and after too long a week hunched over my keyboard editing tech docs for the Big Corporation, it was great to get outside for a change. Yay snow!

I’m Going to Miss the Cows …

I’m Going to Miss the Cows …

My milk delivery came yesterday. The thing with buying milk from a real cow is that it’s not always the same. This week I pulled nearly a quart of cream off the top of my gallon, and the cream is thicker than it’s been before. Almost like English cream — slightly lumpy. This might be alarming except that I know my cows (well, I know my cow-lady). I took the leftover cream from last week and mixed it in with the creme fraiche I already had going (I bought a tub at the local gourmet store to use for starter). So I’ve got nearly a quart of cream and a pint of creme fraiche … yum.

Since we’re going into a milk-drought for a couple of months, I think I need to make another batch of yogurt. I’ve been making it in pint canning jars, and the seal on the lids means the yogurt keeps really well in the fridge. I’m also starting my annual obsession with green sauce — happens every year about this time — suddenly I want green sauce on everything. And if I can get through the milk-drought on my own yummy yogurt, that might help me get over having to drink commercial milk.

Coincidentally, there’s a piece in the SF Chronicle’s food section about some women who have started a yogurt business in San Francisco. The article emphasizes what Michael Pollan critically names “nutritionism” a little more than I find interesting — eat real yogurt made by a person because it’s delicious, and yeah, it’s good for you, but don’t go getting all hung up on that. I think the obsession with probiotics is as dumb as any other food obsession. And quotes about how eating these ladies’ nice yogurt as a snack makes people feel “virtuous” sort of make me groan — own your eating people. Eat good food, enjoy it, and don’t try to turn it into medicine or make it all about health. Okay. Rant over.

There was also a cool piece in the NY Times food section about eating local in the winter on Martha’s Vineyard. Like all tourist destinations, there’s two cultures — the cash economy and the barter or local’s economy — and this article is a great portrait of how a bunch of people manage to live in the most sustainable way possible by growing and catching their own food and trading with one another. Plus, I want that greenhouse.

We do some of that around here — I tend to pay for things with money, because I don’t hunt enough, raise enough of anything to trade — but the Mighty Hunter does a lot of trading — especially with the Famous Chef — the MH sends him game, the FC sends back wine, or olive oil, or cheese. It works great … it’s not as local perhaps as the Martha’s Vineyard system, but it engenders community nonetheless.

Knitting as Antidote for Frantic Busy-ness

Knitting as Antidote for Frantic Busy-ness

I’m about to go log in to my job at the Big Corporation, the job that I’m hoping will see me through whatever impending financial doom is rising on the horizon, the job that isn’t my dream job, but which I like nonetheless. As much as I’d love to be able to write full time, it’s good to have a real job, especially for a writer — it keeps me engaged with the world outside my little circle of writers and artists and handymen and hunters and ranchers trying to make a go of it selling milk and eggs and wool. There was a piece in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago about telecommuters fighting off loneliness that I found interesting because it’s not really a problem I run into — for one thing, I’m weirdly happy to spend enormous amounts of time alone, and for another, I work with a group of people spread out between San Jose, Miami, Galway Ireland, Seattle and here in Montana. We’re all so electronically connected to one another at my job, that I don’t really feel like I’m alone all day. Between our group instant messaging program, email, and web-based meetings it’s hard to feel disconnected. In fact, when it gets as busy as it’s been the past few weeks, it’s amazing how fried and frazzled and pecked-at a girl can wind up feeling after another 10 hour day in her own front room.

And so, I’ve taken up my long-neglected knitting project again. Knitting and Netflix — a couple of hours working on the sweater that I’ve knit, pulled out, and knit again so many times now (it’s taken me a long time to figure out how to count stitches and rows, what I really like is knitting the big swatches of body parts, not the v-neck or sleeves where you have to pay attention). After a long day of emails and fires that need to be put out and very long technical documents that need to be edited in too little time there’s something essentially calming about putting in a movie, something that’s going to run continuously for an hour and a half or two hours without the interruption of commercials, and knitting. It gives you something to do with your hands. It keeps a girl from surfing the internet aimlessly. It makes you concentrate a little — not as much as working, but just enough to smooth out those jangly places that are left from the day’s work.

And who knows? This time, I might actually get this sweater finished. Considering it’s been ten below for days now, a nice, warm, raspberry-colored sweater would be a good thing.

The Cows are Tired …

The Cows are Tired …

So, I’ve been buying raw milk from a local rancher since last fall — she shows up every Tuesday with a glass gallon pickle jar full of milk, with a nice layer of cream on the top. The cream has been getting thicker the past couple of weeks — I used to skim about a pint of cream and now I’m well up to nearly a quart.

My milk lady left me a note this week stating that she’s going to have to suspend delivery after the 28th until sometime in April after the cows calve. It’s been a hard winter, her note said. They need a nice long rest.

Not to sound too fey about it all, but I found it charming to learn that the cows need some time off. Talk about seasonality. Late winter and early spring is, in traditional cultures, a time of fasting — largely because food gets scarce. While I’m not taking on a draconian Lenten fast, there’s something interesting about knowing that the cows need a break.

The New York Times had an odd article in the food section yesterday, Chefs’ New Goal: Looking Dinner in the Eye. While the article ostensibly covered the movement among chefs to know not only the source of their meat, but to re-examine and in some cases, participate in the slaughter of the animals — there was a snarkiness to the tone that implied that all the interest is merely a stunt.

Now, granted, there is a shock factor to Jamie Oliver gassing male chicks on television, but is that shock greater than learning that this is how chicken farmers cope with excess male chicks? Seems to me the movement, as such, stems from the effort by industrial agriculture and the corporate grocery industry to distance ordinary people from any knowledge that their food comes from actual plants and animals. The boneless skinless chicken breast (symbol of all that is evil with modern meat) did not, no matter how they try to convince you otherwise, spring fully formed into existence in that styrofoam tray. It did actually grow on a chicken, probably a chicken raised in very unpleasant conditions, by farmers who are being squeezed by corporate interests, and then slaughtered and packaged by illegal immigrants working under inhumane conditions against which they cannot complain for fear of deportation. Yum.

So if chefs, and ordinary eaters like me, would rather buy raw milk from an actual person, or buy a whole animal to put up for winter, can you blame us? If we want to actually see what’s happening with our food, perhaps it’s not a stunt, perhaps its a protest against an industrial system that devalues all life — human and animal alike.

Coolest Book Ever …

Coolest Book Ever …

I saw this in a garden catalog and had to have it: Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation By The Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante

The Centre Terre Vivante is an “ecological research and education center” locate in Southeastern France. They publish a magazine, Les Quatre Saisons du jardin bio and apparently, this book resulted when they asked their readership to send in recipes and techniques for traditional food preservation. There are intros by Deborah Madison and Eliot Coleman, and I can’t wait to try some of these methods. I see a big stoneware pickling crock in my future and I’m particularly interested in some of the lactobacilic preserving techniques for various root vegetables. The section on root cellaring is fabulous and has given me a bunch of ideas for what to do next year. Carrots for example, growing your own carrots will ruin you for store carrots, and I’ve had trouble preserving them in the past. There’s a method that involves packing them in damp sand that I might try next year … There are instructions for drying various fruits and vegetables, as well as a fascinating method of preserving apples in dried elderberry flowers! Apparently it makes them taste like pineapple? It sounds so romantic that I might just have to try it …

Tomatoes in my Basement

Tomatoes in my Basement

The big news around here is that I’ve been invited on board at Ethicurean as a regular contributor — and amongst ourselves, we’ve been having a lively discussion about how sustainability, seasonality, and locality (how food miles play into the whole SOLE food equation).

For those of us who don’t live in California, or even, I’d argue the whole west coast (my stepmother gets some pretty gorgeous local produce in Seattle even in the dead of winter), the question of eating local in the winter is a vexed one. I manage to source most of my food pretty locally — I put up a lot of greens and veggies in my freezer this summer. I’ve got all those jars of cherries and plums from my garden. I’ve got a refrigerator drawer full of apples, from my neighbors’ yard actually, that have kept remarkably well. The spuds are organic and local, and when I want something fresh, there are some folks growing greens locally.

But I do buy some fresh produce that’s not local — oranges, for example. I really really want an orange with my breakfast in the winter. And so I try to buy as carefully as I can — I draw the line on food miles at North America — I’m not buying an orange that came from Australia. It just seems wrong to me on any number of levels. My other fresh produce item I can’t live without are green onions. I try to find ones from California, but often, the only ones available are from Mexico.

I also have an advantage which is that I don’t really like salad. Especially in the winter. Too cold. Too crunchy. Ick. Cooked greens, I’m all over those, but I dont’ want a salad in the winter, and keeping a garden has kind of ruined me for lettuce that’s been on a truck anyhow. Where did it come from? How many people have touched it? And don’t even get me started on those bags of organic salad leaves — if those bags are so great why does the salad always smell, in the words of my dear brother, like silage? So, for me, the no-fresh-produce-in-the-winter thing isn’t such a big deal. I don’t like salad, and I have plenty of broccoli rabe, endive, chickory, and chard from my own garden that I put up.

Tomatoes are the thing a lot of people seem to get stuck on — again, having a garden has ruined me for store tomatoes. Why bother? They don’t even taste like a tomato. I’d rather use good organic canned tomatoes than one of those bouncy things from the store. And then last weekend I remembered that I’d put up a bunch of tomatoes in October — I wrapped the last of the garden tomatoes in newspaper, and put them in the basement to get ripe. I pulled out a couple of bundles, and although some of them had gone off and had to be thrown out — there was a nice handful of little tiny Principe Borghese tomatoes, just waiting to be cut up into a nice little tomato salad with some of that basil puree I have in the freezer — it was delicious on a tartine for lunch with some leftover lamb and a little cheese (I’ve been all about tartines this winter — open face grilled sandwiches).

I realize that everyone doesn’t have the option of keeping a garden, and a lot of people don’t have room for a freezer, and it is a problem finding local produce in the north in the winter. (And no, I don’t think Alice Water’s blithe exhortation that we all just have “little hoop houses” is going to work either.) But with a little forethought, and by demanding local produce from our food co-ops and Whole Foods and even regular grocery stores, we’ll build a market, and start to have access to better local produce.

“I’d Rather Do It Myself”

“I’d Rather Do It Myself”

The SF Chronicle business section profiled the owner of a small French bakery last week, and I was particularly struck by this quote:

“I don’t depend on anyone else. I don’t depend on bankers. I don’t extend myself financially. I have the good things in life. I don’t need much more.”

As he slides the St. Honore cake into the case, he says, “Let’s face it. I’m a dinosaur. I do most everything from scratch.

“I don’t hire other people to do what I can do. I’d rather do it myself.”

I think in many ways this is the appeal of cooking, and the siren call of the small food business for so many of us (like our dream of a pig business). You do it yourself. There’s a certain clarity to making something edible, and selling it to someone else. Unlike the jobs at which so many of us make our livings, jobs like mine at the Big Corporation, where you’re so often at the mercy of schedules set by other people, and co-workers who may or may not rise to the occasion, and all sorts of other murky circumstances like the economy or the stock price over which we have no control, I think it’s the clarity expressed by this baker that makes small food businesses so appealing to many of us. You make something beautiful. You sell it to someone. And then you make another one.

Now I was in the book business long enough to know that this simplicity is a dream, not a reality, but as a certain presidential candidate keeps telling us, there is nothing false in our dreams of creating a better world for ourselves, our families and our communities. The Jeffersonian ideal of a nation of smallholders, whether farmers or tradesmen, has an ongoing appeal … even to those of us currently shackled by the “golden handcuffs” of 401ks and stock options (and jobs we don’t hate, we just don’t always love).