My Favorite Meal of the Year: Morels and Ramps

Yesterday, I ate my all time favorite meal of the year. It is only possible to eat this meal once or twice a year. Three times if you are really lucky -- which I may be this year.



The meal I am referring to is fresh morel mushrooms and ramps (wild leeks) sauteed in butter with red pepper, salt and fresh garden sage served with rice. It is one of the simplest meals I ever make and also one of the most delicious and uniquely satisfying.

Morels are one of the most famous of the wild mushrooms. Rare, elusive and only found growing for a few weeks a year, often deep in the woods. They can appear overnight with just the right combination of warm, humid weather, sunshine and the correct soil makeup.

A morel hunter must develop a keen eye for finding these mushrooms as they poke their multi-toned brown heads above and through the leaf litter that surrounds them. Often you can look at an area of moresl for a long time before you actually see the mushrooms right in front of you. Once you learn to see them, you can spot them easily, from a distance and often out of the corner of your eye despite their camoflaged appearance.

Since I just moved from the deep woods of southeastern Ohio to the city of Dayton, I thought for sure my annual spring meal of ramps and morels would be impossible to come by. But my parents live on a beautiful 3 acres with nice big trees and the biggest patch of morels I have ever seen in my life. They are prolific and growing right next to the driveway under a giant old ash tree. My mom told me they were poking their heads out of the soil, and I quickly went to investigate. I found 20-30 morels, some as large as the mouse for my computer.

With a little rain tomorrow, they could balloon up even bigger. One year, the morels here grew as large as a coffee mug.

The ramps or wild leeks show their leaves early in the spring in the underbrush of the still leafless forest, looking much like a lily or any other non-descript leafy green. But when you pick them, they give off a pungent onion-y smell and their flavor is unique. I always leave the bulb and eat the leaf though some people I know dig up the whole plant. The leaves are so good by themselves, I see no reason to take the whole plant for myself.

If you are lucky enough to have some morels and ramps, you can prepare them as follows for a uniquely and deeply nourishing spring dinner. Please note that my mother is very allergic to morels. I have never met anyone else with this allergy, but be aware that it can happen.


The Best Meal of the Year

Soak morels in salt water to remove bugs (at least 1 hour)
Slice morels into 1/4" thick slices
Heat butter to very hot.
Add morels, crushed red pepper, celtic sea salt and sliced fresh sage to hot butter.
Cook for no more than 1 minute on high heat.
Turn off heat and stir in sliced ramp leaves, stirring until residual heat has wilted them.

Serve over brown rice.

The Bones: A Poem

I don't usually plan to write a poem. Usually it just comes to me out of the blue. Sometimes I don't even know I have written one until I look back over my journal and there it is. It's almost like I am channeling something greater than me. I am not an actor, only a vessel through which action (the writing of the poem) takes place. It's a little unnerving really since it is almost as if I am not present. I discovered this poem (or half of it) in my journal about a week ago. I loved the raw rough feel of it, the connection to food, the juicy body parts -- and wrote the other half a little more consciously over the past week. It feels true and right -- the distillation of the experience of trying to understand the story of my life, which feels alternately meaningfully huge and silently hidden. Thanks for reading.

The Bones

I’m looking for the meat
For the dark, sour substance of the thing
The juicy bits and morsels that slip
Between the cracks
Get covered in dust
Or rot in the corner

I’m looking for the story
Underneath the story
Looking for the secrets you never whisper
(even in the softest voice)
for the moments you wish you could take back
and the words that echo and slap
my face the moment you utter them

i don’t want to hear the pretty lies
i don’t care about politeness
or the carefully stacked house of cards
i only want truth
a declaration of reality
a single shot at redemption maybe
but always truth

i’m looking for the center of the thing
i want to suck this marrow from the bones
swish the essence in my mouth
swallow and digest
i want to dip the tips in a salty brine
that stops sugar in its tracks
and instantly puckers the lips of your sweetest smile

i want to pry apart your insides
inspect all the parts
dissect your spirit while i hold my breath
i need to see it all
i need to touch every piece
every sorrow, every joy, every pain,
every fear and insecurity
i want them all
laid out and perfectly arranged
on the table while i eat my breakfast

i have to see farther and deeper
peeling away the layers and layers of soft rubbery fat
fatty spirit, fatty soul, fatty body
we must shed this all and stand naked
here in the spotlight
facing each other in a house of mirrors
we have to see everything

i want to cut you down the middle
inspect the heart that beats there
in your chest
touch it, measure it, poke my finger around the insides
i need to understand the way it thumps
the way it swells and shrinks
creating pockets and shadows in between
the folds of skin

i want to touch the stomach and spleen
squeeze the liver to see what you’re made of
taste the ovaries
and gather the testes into my water glass
i want to see you all
pulled apart, like chicken bones
wings sucked dry, emptied of all meaning
in a pile of downy feathers

[maybe then i can begin to move]

i want to sift through the layers
peel back all the skin
hear and see and devour my story
until there’s nothing left but a heap of
meaningless words
a series of images and sounds
that do not even slightly resemble me

in the end i will shit all this
into a freshly dug hole
cover it with leaves
and plant a tree

in the end i will bury the bodies
in the soft brown earth
and plant spring bulbs

i will swallow the sorrow
pour it into the earth,
muster a river that will
smooth the edges of all these bones
carry the feathers to the sea
and rip these anchors from the flesh of my body

i will model this fear after my deepest hurt
shape it into loaves of pain
then look away quickly
as i heave them into the ocean
to dissolve in their salty, rocking tomb

i can’t carry this story any longer
it wants to be compost
to simmer in the sun until it is nothing
but soil, plain old dirt
that will gently cover someone else’s bones
and stories and feathers someday
the meat of the daffodil bulbs and oak tree
will then work relentlessly to break apart those bones
uncover those stories and i will be free

A New Home :)

I haven't posted in a while because I've been in the process of moving . . . again. I've moved everything I own into my parents' house in Dayton, O. It feels good to be here, even though I feel a little funny moving back into my parents house and wouldn't have believed it if you had told me 6 months ago that I would be moving back to southwest Ohio. Funny how life takes you down many paths you never thought it would.

I actually feel really really really relieved to have all my stuff moved into my parents place. Things have been so topsy turvy for me in the past couple (many?) years that having my things here actually makes me feel more grounded than I have in a long time. Like now that my things are all safe in the basement, I can feel more free to roam or settle in or boomerang back and forth between my many different interests. In moving this most recent time, I began to notice a pattern (finally) emerging in my collections -- kitchen stuff, fabric/yarn/sewing supplies, BOOKS and rocks. These are the things I collect. Most of these things are heavy things, which I attribute to my airy Libra self needing to be brought back down to earth from all the flying about I do in my mind, and across the planet. Did I mention how relieved I feel to have all my stuff at my parents house? I love my little dungeon (basement) bedroom/living room/bathroom and the beautiful yard, trees, flowers (blue carpets of squill are the most recent bloomers) and soon the morels will come up under the giant ash trees that dot the property.

I will be starting my annual spring raw food fast soon. I will be posting recipes to go along with it. Simple guides to using raw foods to cleanse the system at the start of a new year. Last year I did this raw food fast and I felt amazing, energetic, clear -- all my muscles felt clean, revived, energized, my mind felt the same. I have treated my body poorly this winter -- getting out of shape, over-indulging my sweet tooth and generally just eating my way through feeling bored, broke and somewhat ill. Blech!!

I will also be starting work on the farms next week -- I will be working primarily on two CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) called Smaller Footprint and Wild Soil and sometimes at a third CSA called Heart Beet Farms. I can't wait to get my hands dirty and be outside on a regular basis. This winter has lasted far too long and the spring is inching along so slowly, it's about to drive me crazy.

Check back soon for updates on the farms, raw food recipes/spring cleanse and a little story about buzzards.

NO NEW COAL IN OHIO!!

HockHocking Earth First! decided to kick off our newly revived group with a No New Coal in Ohio! campaign. Ohio is now in the cross-hairs of a major energy project that would bring 3 new coal plants to Meigs County, Ohio and 2 new plants to Mason, W.Va. in the next several years as well as a resumption of underground coal mining that could begin as early as this year. The completion of these plants would create the highest concentration of coal-fired plants in the country.

Racine, Ohio is a town of less than 1000 inhabitants sitting on the banks of the Ohio River. Gatling, Ohio LLC, based out of Beckley, W.Va. has been busy buying and leasing mining rights and conducting pre-blast surveys on privately owned lands in Meigs County. They are preparing to begin blasting on a 90-acre coal prep site, slated for development in the floodplain along Yellowbush Creek, near Racine.

Citizens have requested a public meeting with ODNR to answer questions regarding changes Gatling made to the original mining permit application since the 30-day public comment period ended almost a year ago. They have yet to confirm a meeting to answer community questions. The local newspaper, however, is reporting that blasting could begin as early as April 14^th, 2008. This in spite of the fact that, as of March 23^rd, ODNR has not issued a mining permit or a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit to Gatling, and in spite of the fact that ODNR is alleged to have stated it would be almost impossible for them to provide the permits within that timeframe.

Additionally, Ohio EPA, ODNR and Army Corps of Engineers have repeatedly denied citizens’ requests for a 401 permit, which would evaluate the impacts of the proposed mining site on groundwater. Amazingly, each of these agencies determined there would be no significant impacts to the water despite the presence of 3 high quality streams running through the proposed site which would sit on two overlapping flood plains and empty almost immediately into the Ohio River.

In Gatling’s communication to local residents, the company states that blasting activity aimed at removing overburden, building up the minesite in the floodplains and potentially building sludge impoundments could begin April 1^st and last through September.

Completion of the prep site would pave the way for Gatling to process the coal it proposes to gather from its 2000 acres of new underground mines (this is the initial proposed mine site which would be expanded in 5 year increments to encompass a much larger area in coming years). The prep site and the underground mines would cement Racine as the heart and soul of mining activity in the area.

Gatling plans to mine the area for the next 40 years and Tim Myers, Gatling’s former Chief Engineer, told community members that the company intends to begin doing sludge injection into underground abandoned mines when they re-apply for their permits in 5 years.

If plans continue unabated, citizens of Racine and surrounding areas could hear blasting nearly every day for the rest of the year, will face potential damage to drinking water supplies, will be at risk for increased flooding, subsidence and dust from the processing plants. In addition, roads could be impacted and the county will be strapped to deal with potential damages. Finally, many landowners get free gas and royalties from natural gas wells on their properties, which are also at risk due to underground mining.

The context for increased mining activity is the recent approval granted by the Ohio Power Siting Board for two of the five proposed coal plants in the Meigs County area. The AMP-Ohio plant is slated to begin construction in 2009 and, if completed, would burn 12,000 tons of coal per day. AEP received approval to build an IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) plant, also in Meigs. Many environmental organizations approved this plant, staunchly defending IGCC “clean-coal” technology as the best available. Almost certainly, none of these organizations’ leaders are residents of Meigs or surrounding counties.

Meigs-CAN (Citizens Action Now) is the only community-based group currently working to stop all new mining activity in the area. Since their inception, they have educated residents about their rights in relation to the siting of mining related activities, including pre-blast surveys, regulatory processes and public participation. They conducted listening projects to identify community concerns and created opportunities to address those concerns. They are currently receiving no major funding and are almost exclusively citizens of Racine and the surrounding countryside.

With Mountain Justice Spring Break in Meigs County, the Heartwood Annual Gathering in Shawnee State Forest (Ohio) and the EF! Round River Rendezvous in southeast Ohio, there is the potential to gain significant strength to use in support of local organizing efforts. As many have said, it is impossible to shut down a plant once it is in operation, but very possible to stop a plant from being built before it’s even broken ground.

NOTE: This information is based on a phone interview with Elisa Young, a founding member of Meigs-CAN. To join the resistance or for updates contact Elisa at – 740-949-2175 or elisayoung1@hotmail.com

Living on the Dole

I applied for food stamps this winer. I wasn't sure I would ever do this, having a proud working-class background that instilled in me the feeling that I should always, no matter what, be able to provide for myself. But after being unemployed for almost 6 months and being really sick this winter, something had to give. I applied and realized that my income -- even working full time for the past 2-3 years - made me eligible for other government subsidies. And definitely eligible for food stamps.

In order to receive my monthly food stamp allowance, the State of Ohio requires that you "work" at a pre-approved site, usually a non-profit or some other community service facility. This is a requirement only for food stamp recipients who are also unemployed. I have to work 23 hours per month in order to maintain my eligibility. Being a lover of all things food related, I chose to work at a local food pantry and soup kitchen. It has been an enlightening, eye-opening experience.

I grew up in poverty in southeast Ohio, but my family always valued gardening, fresh healthy food, homesteading to some extent -- milking a cow, raising a calf for slaughter, collecting fruit from the fruit trees, etc. We always ate really well, even though we qualified for free lunch at school and didn't always have enough money for the coolest clothes or the best shoes.

My experience at the food pantry has shown me an entirely different face of rural poverty. People are unhealthy, desperate, proud. There is a hot meal served every week and in the few weeks I have been there over 50 people have showed up in this little backwater town in rural southeast Ohio, most of them hungry. Many of them come every week, they chat with their neighbors, hug their friends, laugh and sing, say the Our Father together before eating and always come back for dessert and sometimes for seconds.

The food served is terrible. It is canned, processed and passed off as food, but it's really just sugar, trans-fats and salt disguised as food. I've eaten there both weeks and have felt my digestion go to shit after eating only these two meals of processed, packaged food-like substances. It is a wonder to me that people can eat this way and not die of malnutrition or simultaneously of an overdose of chemicals, sugars and salts. When they go through the pantry, they get much of the same -- sugary cereals, canned vegetables, canned fruits, processed cheeze spread, beef stew in a can, frozen pizzas pasta, sugar coated snacks. There are cases and cases of candy and chocolate.

I began to ponder last night a large grant funded project in which I could pay 50 people in rural Appalachian Ohio in varying states of health or disease, to eat a diet made up entirely of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and meals made from scratch with organic locally grown produce. I would want to handle the food prep and serving and partner with a doctor who could monitor health conditions of the participants. My guess is that many of the participants' health problems would decrease (after an initial detoxing period that would undoubtedly be somewhat uncomfortable), they would have more energy, maybe even begin to feel clearer in their minds, more empowered. In general, they would just feel healthier and better able to deal with stress, relationships, etc.

I believe it would create a radical change in most of the participants' lives. It is amazing to me that people eat the crap that they do and still function. I truly believe that food is the first medicine we put into our bodies. It can buffer us from illness, stress, emotional instability and can also poison us slowly, rotting our insides and clogging all the systems that are supposed to keep our complex bodies functioning properly. I think it is no wonder that people in this country are so disempowered and disenchanted. We are poisoning ourselves from the inside out with food that creates ever more powerful cravings but never fully satisfies.

Sara's (Raw) Beet Salad

". . . the recipe is officially known as "Sara's Beet Salad." Yeah, everyone who has tried it raves about it. What a way to gain fame and immortality!"

This was an excerpt from an email I got from a friend about the fresh beet salad recipe I gave him last summer. I made this salad up after I got back from traveling in South America. It was in Peru and Ecuador that I was first introduced to beets. Until then, I had only seen beets in a can and what a travesty that was -- the beets in the can and my ignorance. In the Andes Mountains, they put fresh steamed beets and raw avocados on beds of lettuce, sprinkled with lime juice and call it a salad. I was inspired by the South American beets -- even though I just realized that I never even learned the word for beets. ( I just looked it up and it is remolacha -- pronounced with the emphasis on the -lach-)

The food in South American markets is so fresh and full of flavor and color that it was really difficult to return to the dull, drabness of the flavors and colors of the typical North American supermarket. The food down south of the border made me feel alive in a way that most conventionally grown food in the US could not live up to. I suppose in retrospect, it was my travels in Latin America that brought me round full circle to my current food preferences and philosophy which includes at its heart: local, seasonal, organically grown, sustainably and justly produced and made from scratch. I hope to make my life work providing food that fits this criteria to as many people as possible.

The beet salad is prepared as follows:

Sara's (Raw) Beet Salad

2 large organic purple beets, shredded
olive oil
fresh lime juice
3-5 fresh cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. fresh ginger, shredded
2-3 Tbsp. red onion, shredded
black or cayenne pepper to taste
1 tsp ground cumin
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp Bragg's liquid aminos or 1/2 tsp. tamari

Add olive oil to grated beets until beets are just coated, but not swimming in oil.
Add juice of fresh lime, to taste.
Add minced garlic, ginger and onion.
Add pepper to taste.
Add ground cumin, parsley and Bragg's.
Mix well together and serve.
If you serve this salad with avocados, the avocados will really bring this light, airy salad back down to earth. They are a great compliment to each other. However, if you are feeling heavy, slow or sluggish, just eat the beet salad by itself or maybe with some rice or salad greens (even better). It is an excellent cleansing salad.

Building a Thatched Hut

A friend recently asked me to tell her more about my experiences building thatched huts. Since I realize this is not an experience many people have had I will describe it a little here and include a picture. This picture shows the Winter Solstice house with about half of its thatched roof finished (ca. 2002).

For 3 summers I worked at a reconstructed 12th century native american village site/archaeological park called SunWatch (www.sunwatch.org). There are way better photos of the buildings at the official SunWatch website. My job for 2 of those years was to supervise a team of international interns in doing archaeological reconstruction, which essentially means we were building daub and thatch houses using 800 year old post holes as our blueprint. We tried to match wood types, post sizes, roofing material (native Big Blue Stem prairie grass) daubing materials (clay, prairie grass and water) as closely as possible to what appeared in the archaeological record.

For instance, early excavators found intact chunks of burned mud dauber nests when they excavated the site, buried under about 1.5 feet of flood deposited topsoil. These nests were often imprinted with the Big Blue Stem seed heads, this grass being a native and very tough prairie grass. They then looked around to see where mud daubers build their nests currently and they were almost always found at the tops of walls, under the eaves of the roof. This led archaeologists to believe that the ancient mud daubers did much the same thing and since big blue stem seed heads were clearly visible in the nests, that the roofing material largely consisted of big blue prairie grass. This is a simplified and shortened version of all the thought that went into this particular question, but gives you an idea of how these kinds of interpretations are made by archaeologists.

SunWatch is a unique place in that it is an in situ reconstruction meaning it is "on site", in its original pre-historic context. There are not many reconstructed village sites like this one, where you can walk inside the cool shade of a thatched hut, sit on a bench made of rough cut branches and kindle a fire in a hearth that was used some 800 years ago for cooking meals of corn, deer, beans and squash. It truly is a unique experience.

My work at SunWatch was very creative and at times maddening. I loved collecting materials -- looking around the forest for straight black locust trees that were just the right width and height, cutting endless bunches of Big Blue, looking for just the right curve of the piece of wood needed to fortify the corner of the roof and shaping hearth after hearth after hearth, hoping that this time it wouldn't crack as badly when it was fired. This was also my first introduction to medicinal herbs since I put together an exhibit in one of the cabins detailing what types of herbs were found in the archaeological record, how they could be used medicinally and hanging actual bunches of the herbs gathered from our very own prairie for visitors to see, smell and touch.

It was maddening because I question everything and always felt that there wasn't enough critical thought and current research going into the process. That even though SunWatch was a version of a living museum, it was still too heavy on the museum and too light on the living. I felt we needed to be constantly questioning past interpretations, re-interpreting new and old findings and researching old documents and artifacts to see if anything was missed.

I wrote my Master's Thesis on my work at SunWatch -- see the link below. In it I talked about how archaeological data can be used to inform restoration ecology. In using archaeological data, especially botanical data, restoration ecologists can make choices about what set of criteria they are restoring an ecosystem to, rather than arbitrarily picking a generic and 'pristine' ecosystem that existed when Europeans arrived, as if the environment was a static thing and totally unaffected by the native people who were living here.

http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/search.cgi?q=DeAloia&field=&pagesize=30


Anyway, building thatched huts was quite an experience. It is nothing like the thatching that is famous in places like England or Scotland. The kind of thatching I did requires much more maintenance and would never keep a modern house dry. But it was a lot of fun and is a really great conversation starter or pick up line. Hey baby, can I thatch your roof??

Veggie Currry

My sister sent me this request . . . "do you have any recipes for spicy indian food using cauliflower & potatoes".

And I do in fact have such a recipe. Here it is. This recipe was scaled down from one used to serve 40 people so definitely play around with the amounts of veggies needed as this will likely make enough curry to feed a family of 10 -- I made this for a permaculture class with Peter Bane that I helped cater last summer. It was a big hit. Also go light on the cayenne and hot chile until you know what you like. You can always add more hot stuff but it's really hard to water down hot stuff once it's already cooked.

Not much time for writing today. I am starting to build this site and adding features when I can. It's a lot of fun but kind of a long and tedious process since I have no clue what I am doing. Hope you like it!!

Veggie Curry a la Sara

¼ cup canola oil
1 tsp. Black mustard seeds
1 Tbsp grated ginger root
½ head garlic, cut into thin slices
1 cup finely chopped onions
3 Tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp. Turmeric
3 Tbsp curry powder (hot curry if you want it spicy)

2-4 green peppers, seeded and sliced into bite size pieces
2-4 pounds carrots, cut into ¼ inch thick slices
1 head broccoli
1 head cauliflower
4 medium sized potatoes, cubed

2 ½ cans coconut milk
1 bunches scallions/green wild onions
½ hot green chili pepper, seeded and minced
1 Tbsp salt
1/8 cup cilantro, minced

¾ cups peanuts (optional)
1 tsp. Cayenne pepper (or to taste) – depends on how hot the chili pepper is or you can omit the chili pepper and just use cayenne

Heat oil, adding the first 7 ingredients and cooking thoroughly in a large, deep stock pot
Have all veggies cut into bite sized pieces ahead of time.
Add the veggies to the oil mixture
Mix scallions, chili pepper, salt and half the cilantro into the coconut milk
Add coconut milk to the veggies and simmer until veggies are soft over high Heat

Add peanuts and cayenne pepper during the last 10 minutes of cooking and allow to cook until veggies have reached the right amount of hotness. The longer you heat it, the hotter it will get.

Garnish with additional cilantro and serve over rice.

A Recipe for Childhood: Blueberries

This is a mid-winter picture from the east side of Blue Hill Bay -- less than 5 miles from where I was born. If you could pan around to the left you would see the small town of Blue Hill which is a lovely little town in mid-coast Maine. It was listed (along with Athens, Ohio -- the place I currently call home) as one of the 12 Best Places to Live You Never Heard Of by Mother Earth News. Somehow I am deeply connected to both places.

The hill in the distance is one of the three mountains making up Mount Desert Island, where I spent much of of my early childhood. When I was young -- 8 or 9 years old -- my best friend Elihue and I used to row our little dingy out into the middle of Bass Harbor amidst huge cargo ships, sailboats and lobster boats. We also spent hours and days exploring the rocky coast line near Bass Harbor Lighthouse which was about 2 miles from my last Maine home. I remember running fearlessly and quickly over the rocky coast letting my feet guide the way -- never hesitating and never falling. We found some huge caves that led way back into the shoreline. It was a pretty magical childhood really.

When I returned a few summers ago with my friends, I once again decided to run fearlessly and quickly over the rocks way down the coast, leaving my friends far behind. The smell of the ocean and the pounding surf, the rough, sharp rocks, the spray of the ocean as it moved endlessly, the sound of seagulls above and the endless coastline (Maine has the longest coastline of any state in the US -- longer even than California's, though the state is much smaller) kept my feet moving and my footing solid. The motion of my body over these rocks a memory that required no thought process.

I associate that feeling with freedom from way back in my childhood and was happy to know that even as an adult, I could move over that landscape almost like a bird -- no fear of falling, only the quick pushing off of one foot, the jump to the next rock, pushing off again, and again.

Behind the photographer in the above photo is a hill with a bumpy unpaved road that becomes a mess of mud and ice throughout at least half of the year. That road leads to the Circle Farm, the old name of the hippie commune where I was born. It is covered in low-bush blueberry fields and some 5-6 houses spread out through the 80 or so acres of the Farm. It is my second home.

My recipe for remembering what it feels like to be a kid goes like this:

In mid August find a large, open blueberry field
Sit down in the middle of it
Eat as many blueberries as you can from that spot
Move on to the next spot
Keep eating blueberries
and move on again, until you can't possibly eat another blueberry and at some point later you will probably, as I did when young, make some pretty awesome blue poop.

Three Sisters Stew

I have lots of black beans in my life right now. 3 gallon jugs full of dried black beans (the same amount of garbanzos too) -- more than enough to last me for several years since, of course, beans double in size when cooked. 12 gallons of beans. Well, I have some work ahead of me to find creative uses for these little guys.

I also have a very large (I mean like 3 times the size of my head) hubbard squash and a container of these weird dry corn kernels that are also quite large compared to the normally tooth sized corn kernels we are used to seeing in the US. they are closer to the size of a dime or even a nickel, than the size of a 10 year old's tooth. This dried corn was procured at a nameless international food market some years ago with no label, so I'm not even sure what to call them, though in my mind I have begun calling this particular ingredient parching corn -- but keep in mind that this is only my own made up name and not based on any kind of research or fact.

So with these three things in mind I decided to make something that I am calling the Three Sisters Stew. Some people may not be familiar with the term three sisters. It was used to describe the trio of corn, beans and squash that native americans began cultivating a few thousand years ago and which sustained them fairly abundantly through the colonial invasion of the 1700's and 1800's, when most native groups were uprooted and forced to take on new agricultural practices in new habitats out of necessity rather than choice.

The three sisters grew well together with corn creating a stalk for beans to grab onto and climb up and with the broad leaves of squash creating a blanket over the surrounding ground that kept moisture in and weeds down. The three complimented each other nutritionally as well, providing many more necessary nutrients than either crop could provide alone. The beans and corn together provided a complete protein and the combination of these with the squash kept the corn from leaching important minerals and nutrients from those whose diet was based on this important early native-to-america grain.

In addition, corn alone can greatly drain nutrients and especially nitrogen from the soil, being a heavy feeder while it grows. The beans fix nitrogen in the soil and so, in addition to providing good nutrition for people, these three sisters also protected the delicate balance of the soil for much longer than a monocrop of any of these three would alone.

In Ohio, there is archaeological evidence of these three sisters being dominant in native gardens dating back to at least 1000 years ago. Currently, Ohio has quite bastardized this tradition by planting huge tracts of genetically modified corn and soy beans primarily used for animal feed -- not together but strictly separated along farm boundaries. Pumpkin farmers plant huge fields of pumpkins for the annual pumpkin mania that happens each fall around Halloween. Most of our other squashes and almost all our edible corn and beans are trucked in from the southwest, California and other countries.

Well, anyway, I'm sure I could go on and on about how I wish the current food system was different -- more localized, less dependent on trucks and pesticides and not threatened by the booming "green" energy of biomass, ethanol and corporate biodiesel, but that's for another time.
Three Sisters Stew

soak 2 cups black beans
and 1 cup dried corn kernels
in 6 cups clean water
soak these overnight

Dump soaking water. Beans and corn should take up 1/3 of your pot. Fill pot to 2/3 full with water and bring to a boil. Boil lightly for up to 6 hours, adding more water if needed. (I tend to boil my beans for a long time or else I have a hard time digesting them appropriately -- in other words they make me fart a lot and make me constipated -- if you don't have this problem then follow whatever guidelines you usually use for cooking dried beans. I think most sources say that soaked beans only have to boil for a couple hours).

While beans and corn are cooking, bake an orange squash in an oven at about 375*. Can Use Hubbard, acorn, butternut or whatever kind of winter squash you have. Cut squash in half and put face down in about 1 inch water and bake til soft. Pull from oven when soft and let cool.

Saute
3 Tbsp. cumin seed
and 1 head of minced garlic in
1/4 cup butter or oil (I like butter better because it has a richer flavor)


At the end of the boiling,

add 4 sheets crumbled nori wrapper or a handful of dulse (a type of seaweed)
add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of brown sugar
add salt to taste
add cayenne pepper to taste


Add
up to 4 cups of the cooked squash
the sauteed garlic, butter and cumin
to the beans and corn.

If you like meat, add some chunks of cooked sausage, pork roast or maybe even chicken.

Let all this cook together for about 1/2 hour and then serve garnished with

chopped parsley
ramps
chives
cilantro

Herbs for Bronchitis

It's been snowing, sleeting, raining, blowing and otherwise messy here all day. I love this weather for the time being. I have felt like doing nothing more than hibernating this winter. I've been reading a lot (A Sorrow in Our Heart, Eat Pray Love, A Language Older Than Words, Gods Bits of Wood, Rumi, The Path of Transformation, Dark Alliance, various magazines, etc.), writing a lot (here, an overview of Ohio for an upcoming event, journaling, poetry, etc.), making myself delicious and nurturing food, working as little as possible and generally relaxing into a slower state of affairs that feels really appropriate for the most winter-y winter we've had in Ohio for a long time.

I've almost kicked my bronchitis which knocked me flat on my ass before I could ignore all the warning signs that I needed a very bear-like winter -- one where I would come out of my den every once in a while to stretch, fart, look around blearily and assess the situation and head right back inside my cave. I'm even living in a basement -- my bearish winter couldn't have been more appropriately manifested. The intense cough of the bronchitis is daily getting better on a heavy dose of the following herbs:

1/4 cup marshmallow root
1/4 cup mullein
1/4 cup horsetail/shavegrass

Add a few Tbsp of mint or a few bags of ginger to this tea to make it taste better.

I brew these into a quart of hot tea at bedtime and then in the morning use the same herbs from the night before to brew one more quart which I drink throughout the day. The cough is greatly improving though sometimes I still sound like a hiccuping, wheezing high pitched engine as my bronchial tubes pull tightly shut during some of my coughing fits. Though this is really much much better -- each day it happens a little less. (1 quart of this tea a day is probably sufficient for most people -- mine just got so bad, I was drinking two).

I should warn you that if you really need a quick fix for your bronchial problems, herbs are probably not the way to go, as they take time, patience, attention, consistency and commitment. (Nor is waiting until you are drooling with the effort every time you cough before going to the doctor, which is precisely what I did). I do recommend continuing to be active -- even in my bear like, bronchial weakened state, I have managed to go walking with the dog every day this winter -- always with a heavy scarf protecting my mouth and neck from the cold air.

If you had told me 5 months ago that I would spend 2 months of this winter sick, coughing and weak I probably would have laughed at you and gone about my insanely busy schedule, glad I hadn't let your naysaying ruin my perfectly constructed house of cards. I was actually thinking I would start my own business this winter and sat down several times to write out a business plan and compose key emails. But, instead of starting a business, I just got really, really sick. It's funny -- and really fortunate -- how our bodies take over sometimes when our minds stubbornly refuse to accept our limits. I am sure I got sick so that I would not embark on a premature business venture that I am in now way ready to begin.

I am grateful and feel, tentatively, that maybe I just might have learned my lesson this time, maybe, finally. I am cautiously hopeful that this is true. And more confidently hopeful that this winter of hibernation will end gracefully and gratefully with the coming of spring.

Spaylaywitheepi -- A Fierce and Final Act of Forgiveness

I've been reading Alan Eckhart's "A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh". It's a historical narrative that reads like a novel but is based entirely on well-researched documentation of conversations, newspapers articles, oral history and many other sources.

The thing I love about this story is learning what a key role the Ohio Territory (as defined by the great big Ohio River in the east and south) played in the history for the battle to control this country, this land currently known as the United States. Even as white colonizers pushed hard to the west on all fronts, they were stopped again and again by the native people in Ohio -- primarily the Shawnee tribe of which Tecumseh was a member -- but also the Delaware, Potowatamies, and many others. Kentucky and Pennsylvania were well settled before whites were able to get a foothold in Ohio. The River, as a natural barrier, of course was a huge part of that. But also the Shawnee were fierce warriors who first fought for their land, then negotiated a treaty with the whites to keep their land and then fought hard for their land again when that treaty was broken again and again by white settlers.

Being an archaeologist by training (though not really in my heart) this is especially interesting to me since I had heard somewhere during the time I was working on my thesis that the Ohio territory was largely abandoned by the time white settlers began to move in. This seems to be categorically false. Not only was it not abandoned, it was highly settled and heavily defended long after many other lands around it were stolen, native populations terrorized, cheated and beaten out of their ancestral homes.

This is also interesting because I recently worked at a place -- a beautiful place in southeast Ohio full of forests, rolling hills, much plant medicine and a generally sacred feeling -- that had been named by some unknown psychic as the burial place of Tecumseh. This is a dirty rumor of course, as Tecumseh's burial place is to this day unknown, but an interesting connection nonetheless.

I'd like to think that this spirit of rebellion and fierce attachment is still part of this land. That the blood of the people who were destroyed on this very ground seeped in and somehow, in some fierce and final act of forgiveness will seep back out through soil, streams, roots, leaves and infuse us, its current inhabitants with the ability to withstand the coming invasions that hope to (again) strip the land of its resources, destroy its people and count the profits in some far off city.

I got a phone call last night at about 12;30 from Elisa Young who is a 9th generation Meigs County resident fighting the proposed resumption of coal mining in southeast Ohio and the 5 new coal fired power plants currently being proposed in her town -- which sits on the banks of the same Ohio River or Spaylaywitheepi as it was known to the Shawnee. Elisa works with Meigs-CAN (Community Action Network is what it stands for I believe).

Elisa told me last night that the coal company has a 90 acre surface mine with 2000 acres of initial underground mines slated for immediate development beginning on April 1st (2008). The coal company, once all permits are completed in the next couple weeks will begin blasting the 90 acre site, removing its "overburden" (otherwise known as a perfectly harmless and intact mountaintop) to create sludge impoundment ponds that will be located above and upstream from many local homeowners. This surface mine will be used for processing the coal that will come out of the 2000+ acre mines they will be developing underground.

The coal company has been busy buying out homes and properties from people with little bargaining power, forcing them to move to other areas which have a high potential for coal mine development in the near future.

I had been loosely following the developments in the neighboring county, but it was a surprise to hear that the blasting could start as early as the next 3 weeks. The company has refused to release relevant information to local landowners, like how much money they will carry in a bond to pay for any damages inflicted to private property by the coming blasts and coal mine development.

There is no doubt that the Ohio Territory is once again under attack. It is land coveted by coal companies seeking to make a profit on the low-quality coal they left behind when they abandoned these mines after past intrusions (in the late 1800's and again in the early 90's when higher quality and more easily accessible -- read more profitable -- coal was available elsewhere). Now, with exponentially increasing demand for cheap electricity to run our 4 televisions per household, to dry our clothes, to plug in our fuel efficient feel good electric cars, the Ohio River and surrounding rolling hills are once again hot property. Not only because there is still coal under the ground here, but because coal can be easily and relatively cheaply moved up and down the Ohio River and water from the Ohio River can be used to cool the operations of these power-generating facilities.

I am hoping I can find some of the strength of this land, of its people and its history in myself in order to defend it properly. It is after all the place I know as home. It is a place I feel in my bones.

The idea that we can somehow save ourselves from the effects of this ravenous beast of capitalism, which demands constant and exponential growth, by switching our light bulb choices, buying a more fuel efficient car or eating local food alone is an illusion and a distraction from the realities facing us. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do these things but there must be more.

And yet, I feel confused, powerless and afraid. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should or can do anything more or different than what I'm doing right now. My computer is sucking up that coal powered energy as sure as anything else. Maybe we all have to just watch in horror as this beast crashes in on itself. Maybe we will all be saved by the return of some messiah. Maybe nothing will happen and this agony of empty words and inaction will haunt us to the death. Maybe Ohio will turn into a desert and the bones of Tecumseh will finally emerge and "he will be angry" as Mary Oliver says. I just don't know.

A Spring Cleaning Salad

This week I've been eating the most amazing food. Here is what it mostly consists of -- a rough recipe.

A Spring Cleaning Salad

garlic (chop it up -- as much as you like to eat in one sitting)
ginger (same as above)
1 whole beet chopped into small cubes
1 whole parsnip (peeled and chopped into small cubes)

heat some olive oil in a small skillet (cast iron works best)
break up some dried whole red chiles and drop them in the oil (again as much as you can
stand to eat in one sitting -- I usually use 2 whole chiles, seeds and all but I like really hot
spicy food.)
stir chiles in oil, then add the chopped veggies to the oil
stir and mix all together
pour in some raw apple cider vinegar
and some Bragg's liquid amino acids or maybe some soy sauce (whatever you have
available)

continue heating this til the roots are just getting tender and the vinegar/bragg;s has reduced to about half its original volume -- maybe 4-5 minutes.

meanwhile, put some salad greens (organic are best for cleansing purposes but whatever
lettuce like things you have will probably work) into a bowl
sprinkle some cheese on the greens
put some homemade sauerkraut (see earlier posting on this blog -- storebought sauerkraut
is not recommended since it tends to be soggy and somewhat flavorless and either way is
not nearly as alive or vibrant as homemade) on top of the salad greens
pour the beet, garlic, ginger mixture on top if this pile of stuff in your bowl.
top with a handful (really a handful) of chopped parsley and cilantro
I put some flax oil on top of all of this just cause I have it in the house and I hear it's supposed
to be good for me.

Eat this with some fresh baked bread or just as it is and your body will love you. It makes me feel really clear, alive, energized and zing-y (you'll see what I mean).

Play-Dough: A Recipe for a Lazy Saturday Morning with Young Friends

A few weeks ago, I hung out with my friend Autumn, who also happens to be 8 years old. In planning for this time together, I remembered the best book I ever had as a kid, "The Everything Book", which included tons of activities to keep kids occupied, inspired and creative. In it, I remembered vaguely in my kid-rusty 32 year old brain, was a recipe for home-made play-dough.

I quickly called home to my parents, the intrepid guardians of this wonderful, important piece of their children's history. My Dad found the recipe and recited it to me over the phone. With recipe in hand, Autumn and I set out to recreate this exciting childhood experience.

The Recipe:

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup water
food coloring of your choice
peppermint or other essential oil (a few drops only)

Heat oil in saucepan. Add other ingredients (except peppermint oil and food coloring) to heated oil, water first. Cook 3 minutes stirring constantly. Drop ball of dough onto foil or cutting board to cool. Once it is cool enough to work, split into sections and add food coloring a few drops of essential oil. The dough stinks so even though the essential oil is not necessary, it makes the stuff more pleasant to play with). Commence to play. The dough can be baked into any shapes if desired. It will harden when baked so you can make ornaments, figures, anything and make them permanant by baking them. Or just build little houses and furniture and habitats that you can destroy as soon as you're done, like Autumn and I did.

Play nice.

A Plan or a Gorilla In A Pantsuit

I am slowly working my way towards getting everything I want. What an interesting road. This weekend I made a decision. A plan. I'm going to do something. And I feel really good. It is a plan that has been a couple years in the making but it's mine and I'm ready.

The plan is this:

This summer (in 1 month, actually), I will move to Yellow Springs, Ohio. I will start working on 2 different organic farms, both of which I can get to on my bicycle. I will pick up a little work with my father and will start baking goods for the Saturday Farmer's Market. After the growing season, sometime in the fall, maybe October, maybe November, I will put on my walking shoes and head south. This is the part of the plan that has been in the making for some time. I have wanted to travel in Central America and Mexico for a long time but keep putting it off til later. But now (or in the fall really) is the time. I don't know when I will come back northward and at this point it doesn't really matter. It only matters that I head south and keep going til I'm done.

I like this plan. It's simple, easy and feels good in all the right places.

I'm kind of sad to leave Athens behind but it will always be here. And anyway, I was starting to get bored here, mostly cause I've been ignoring that southward pull for too long.

I have also finally resigned myself (happily) to the fact that I am a traveler. It is okay. If I don't keep moving, I begin to wither and die, slowly, imperceptibly, like a locust, I might look alive but if you flick me with your finger, I will shatter into a thousand pieces, the perfectly intact shell giving way to the perfectly hollow insides. That is, if I don't keep moving when I need to, and coming home when I need to. This is my rhythm and I've been doubting it, trying to force myself into forms and molds and patterns that don't suit me, like a gorilla in a pantsuit.

The Best Sauerkraut, Happy new Year

It is so beautiful in southern Ohio today. I woke up (rather late really) and it was about 70 degrees. The birds were singing and it felt like one of those dreamy spring days when everything is possible. It felt like movement, like making a decision, like letting go.

It seems like it always gets warm in January here these days. Last year, the daffodils and crocuses started blooming in January, then the temperature dropped below zero for 2 weeks in February and our whole year was thrown off -- I mean what is spring without daffodils or summer without peaches?

I canceled my trip to California. My sickness was bronchitis and I am only now, a month later, starting to finally kick it. I decided to stop eating on Saturday. I fasted for about 36 hours and the deep, choking, wheezing cough disappeared. Today I started eating my homemade sauerkraut (yum) and brown rice and I feel sooo much better.

Here's the recipe for the sauerkraut I made which turned out amazing.

1 head white cabbage, chopped small
1 head red cabbage, chopped small
4 onions cut into thin slices
2 heads garlic, (cut each clove in half)
5 carrots, shredded
maybe 3 Tbsp. celtic sea salt
some crushed red chile flakes, to taste
caraway seeds, to taste

Create layers of all the veggies, distributing each evenly throughout or not. (You can always mix it later). AFter each few inches of veggies are laid in the container (I used a large 5 gallon food grade plastic container) sprinkle with sea salt, caraway seeds and hot pepper flakes. Once you run out of veggies to layer into the container, lay a few whole cabbage leaves over the entire mess, put a plate on top and weight the plate down with something. Cover with a towel to keep out bugs and dog hair. If within 24 hours there is not enough brine or liquid to cover the veggies, add some salt water to cover them. Keep the weight on the plate and ignore it in the corner of your kitchen for at least a few weeks.

After a few weeks, remove the weight, the plate and the whole cabbage leaves and taste test the kraut. You can do this by sticking a CLEAN spoon down into the mixture and pulling out a spoonful. If it tastes fully fermented and delicious, it's ready. If it tastes off or weak or not to your liking, just let it sit a while longer, covered, checking every few days or so. The fermentation time will vary depending on the temperature where you're fermenting it -- heat speeds it up, cool slows it down. If it's ready, pull off the cabbage leaves and any of the scum on top of the sauerkraut, mix it all together and put in the fridge. This is the best sauerkraut I've ever eaten. This amount made about 2 gallons, which in my house is disappearing quickly.

So, I will leave you with that. I have to get outside to the dark, warm air of this January evening.