Equilibrium and tomatoes

The summer bursts while the days are already getting shorter.
Kids are going back to school. The geese are moving.

Going, Gone, Goodbye. Past the half way point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox

Things change while they also stay the same.  Things depend on change so that they can remain the same. What a beautiful thing to ponder.

Equilibrium is achieved when "competing influences on a system become balanced." Equilibrium is never achieved, or achieved only for a flash of a moment, but everything is always trying to reach a state of equilibrium while its influences are always in flux and change.

Balance is so hard to achieve but worth striving for.

Tastebuds, the same but require change!
Tomatoes, the same and yet miracously varied!
The song, it remains the same...and yet changes so much....

Salsa is perfect right now, easy and extremely healthy: peppers (both hot ones and sweet ones), tomatoes and cucumber (or cantelope instead), onions, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, salt (and sugar and garlic for tomato salsa). But it gets boring. Gazpacho, too, quite disgusting to look at, but just forget about it, close your eyes and eat it! Once a year, why not? It won't be the same next year anyway.

Taboulleh made with quinoa
Put a half a cup of quinoa in the microwave in a nice handmade bowl with about a half cup of water, zap it for 5 minutes and then let it stand (about 15 min) to get puffy and big.  Meanwhile chop onion, tomato, seeded cucumber, mint, parsley and mix 1/4 c lemon juice, 1/4 c olive oil and some salt. Put it all in the quinoa bowl and voila!

Green, yellow, orange, red and burgandy tomatoes.
With the blue glaze, this would truly be a rainbow if we still had our purple peruvian peppers 

Fungus Abundance this July

it rains. abundance
bursts forth from decay and death
like golden sunlight.

"chanterelles are like the golden sunlight dappling in the woods"

Fricassee of Chanterelles

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, divided
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 pound chanterelles, brushed clean (halved if large). (or more! and leaving them whole is fun)
1/2 cup heavy cream
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon fresh oregano plus more for garnish
Fresh lemon juice
1/4 pound pappardelle, cooked al dente, or 1 pound boiled new potatoes
Preparation
Melt 3 tablespoons butter with 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly golden, 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in wine and cook until liquid is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add remaining 3 tablespoons butter, remaining 1 tablespoon oil, and mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are lightly golden, about 5 minutes. Add cream and nutmeg and cook until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir in 1 teaspoon oregano. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Toss in a skillet with cooked pasta, or serve over smashed boiled potatoes. Garnish with more oregano.
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/09/fricassee-of-chanterelles#ixzz2ZjJoMxP9

I learned from chef Mike Bowers, you can also fry it in hot oil, quickly, add some onion or shallot. It will store well this way and you get the essence of the chanterelle taste, 'preserving its integrity.'

Bowl by Willi Singleton

Chicken of the Woods.  In the forest "it is magic essence popping up in real time"

Laetiporus cinnanntus - white underbelly, less common, this is what is pictured

Laetiporus sulphureus - yellow underbelly

Don't eat too many at once as it may cause stomach upset for some folks

Recipes abound on the internet

"Chicken Soup" for the Soul!  (don't recommend as leftovers)

lots of butter, fry in chopped onions

1/4 c or so of white whine, cook for several minutes to condense (we have been finding that wine really helps these two types of mushrooms, don't leave it out)

for the chicken of the woods mushroom: cut out the thicker stalk and discard.  chop the more tender parts into thin slices, saute for 10 minutes or so

add garlic and saute for a minute or two 

add about 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

add kale, parsley

cook for about 15 minutes

serve over rice noodles or some kind of noodle

Finally, watch out for 'gluttony and greed' in particular when you find masses of mushrooms. I totally believe that if you find too much you are obliged to spread the mushroom love and the universe will continue to provide, if not, the forest will find other friends. Here's a humorous post from a guy describing his battle with the "Seven deadly sins of mushroom hunting"
hungerandthirstforlife.blogspot.com/2011/08/stalking-boletus-edulis-or-how.html

Cabbage, Cucumbers, Beets, Fermentation....Magic

Pray to the gods
Hope it works out
Magic sometimes happens

Best garage sale find, $2 old manual food processor.

Cabbage fermenting in the crock (with text decals from "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz).
The cucumbers in the bottom were started four days ago, the greener ones on top were added today.
I don't think cucumbers that are fermented should be called pickles! That implies vinegar and canning.
Update: My Polish uncle informed me that Kiszone Ogorki means Sour Cucumbers. SO MUCH BETTER. I will not ever call fermented things pickled! Instead, sour! He also said to get them out of the ferment after just a few days (half-sours) - he was right. The sour bite and cucumber crunch.....I hope you're salivating.

This was the easiest way we've ever grated raw beets.
Front bowl by Willi Singleton, back bowl by Mel Griffin

Add non-iodized salt and squeeze!

No water was added, this is pure beet juice!
Let's hope and pray some magic happens!
Update: Magic HAPPENED! This took about a month, but seriously, sour beets are heaven.
Ah, I'm salivating.

Peas, Glazes, Elements, Transformation

This June, picking hull peas in our garden at their point of peak, plump perfection has felt like paradise.  And going to the garden at 5pm and deciding what to make for dinner is so much fun. However, a few years ago I wouldn't have been able to do that. I'm still not as creative in the kitchen as I'm sure I could be, but without the years of getting CSA veggies, and consequently needing to learn to cook, we wouldn't be able to enjoy the bounty of that garden.

Time changes us, life transforms us.

Happy Cat Farm's blue potted capucijner peas reveal a magical transformative process.  (These heirloom peas originate from Duch Capuchin monks of the 17th C and Tim's strain comes from American Dutch Mennonites).  With water, warmth, nutrients and sunlight (the four elements), the purply/magenta flower becomes blue and then a gorgeous dark purple pea starts to emerge and then it becomes entirely green....

And the pea's color variegations and specks reminded me so much of what happens to glazes in a kiln. In a copper green glaze, at high heat, taking oxygen out of the atmosphere chemically changes the glaze in places, turning it red. Soda bicarbonate that has been soaked in water and introduced at 2300 degrees creates a vapor and streaks the glaze blue.

Cultures around the world have described a simple set of four "elements," or the simplest essential parts necessary for life: earth, air, water and fire. Many also include a fifth element, called "the void," the "Aether" or  the "Quintessence, the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestial sphere."  

Native American Medicine Wheels

Sometimes undesirable things happen, a glaze goes bad, a seed doesn't grow well, we make a mistake or something bad happens to us. But if we try to be vigilant, and learn from others and from our mistakes, we can help nurture the effects that we want to see, creating a bit of paradise.

Shino woodfired plate by Janet Martin-Aylam, notice the specks of color on the peas and plate,
including the gold specks near the edge

Baby Turnips and Inspiration

Springtime inspiration was galvanized for me today by Two Gander Farm's baby turnips.  They are transitioning their farm to a Brandywine Conservancy property in Downingtown that preserves 250 acres very close to town. But from that old Miller farm, the vista is nothing but hills of fields and trees and the old homestead - the energy and love that lived there so long ago is still vibrating. People have a lot of love in their hearts to work so hard to preserve something so important.

Inspiration and the inspired are all around us, we just have to notice. For several months now, MC Richards has been speaking into my ear, in whispers and in shouts, from the past and from the future. In one of her last writings, in Studio Potter, 1997, "Form out of Nothingness," she writes:

What are human beings for? ...Always divine, she [the earth], through human hands connected with blood warmth and soul care, bears another quality into the cosmos..When we touch life, we shape it....In the art of pottery, our clay "body" is entered by the fire, and changed. This "body" will never return to clay, but it may be useful now as implement (means) and as a ceremony and celebration (end). [The transformation of clay is a means to an end] reminding us continually of our role in creating life, creating environment, creating love, creating freedom, creating justice.  We can change from consumers to celebrants, passing out the bread and wine to all who come to the table.  We can begin to weaken the habits of compulsive consuming and to strengthen the habits of creating and recreating, of imagining, of doing..The power to heal and be healed is built into the body, into our clay body. 

Interiority is coming down to earth,
weightlessness is penetrating gravity,
warmth is overtaking indifference.

Have you ever seen baby turnips? Deirdre said to slice them up and fry them in butter, then add the tops. We also included some ramps of theirs. And noodles, parmigiane and pine nuts - so sweet, so quick and easy to prepare.

Baby turnips and ramps from Two Gander Farm, Bowl by Shawn Spangler

Sustainably harvested  ramps from Meredith at Happy Cat Farm, Plate by Ron Myers