For some reason, one of the first jobs I got outside the home was in a small restaurant. Not really even sure why now, but it probably impacted the rest of my life in some ways. My first job was at a little cafe in our little town of Greenwood called “The Lettuce Bowl”. Simple little place, mostly salads, sandwiches, pastries, baked goods and soups. I washed dishes in the back, mostly for the baking and sometimes at lunch I would help make sandwiches. So that particularly job wasn’t anything special, but I did like the environment.
When I was in 11th grade right after Christmas, a new Bonanza restaurant opened in Milford, the closest town to us with real grocery stores, shopping centers and that sort of thing. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Bonanza, it’s one of those places with the gigantic food bars where you can get not only salad, but also everything from pasta to chicken livers to soup to soft serve ice cream. They also served a lot of hot food. One thing that was particularly popular was the steak plus all the shrimp you could eat specials on the weekends. The steak was really pretty crappy, but you could get either fried or steamed shrimp with it, as much as you wanted. We went through bags and bags of the stuff on a Friday or Saturday night.
They were starting from scratch and needed lots of employees and so I started at the fine wage of $3.65/hr., just slightly above the then minimum wage of $3.35 if I recall correctly. I still remember one of the first orientation nights where the manager had us all give the kitchen a good clean. I can still remember his battle cry – “I don’t want to see anything but elbows and a$$holes”. I was like, yeah, I’m not in my little sheltered community any more. I don’t think I had even heard the f word before.
I started off working the fryers, which was a busy, but easy job. Lots of french fries, along with the aforementioned shrimp plus the occasional fried fish or clam strips. The oil got into everything, you could never get the clothes clean. Exactly what the adolescent pores needed. I also learned the flat grill, which consistently mainly of the rather popular sirloin tips with peppers and onions and “prime rib” that was soaked in a big pan of au jus long enough to get warm.
From there I moved to the gas grill where all the steaks were made, as well as chicken, burgers, that sort of thing. It was at this point where I first took on a role I typically had at other restaurants thereafter, one of the few people who could hang with the rush on a busy night. I think it was a combination of growing up not fearing hard work, plus I have a very logical mind and could keep more stuff straight than some of the other cooks. I didn’t get flustered that easily until it got really bad.
I was kind of the odd man there because I had been so sheltered and most of the other employees were kids from the local high school. So sometimes I didn’t fit in, but I still made a lot of friends (including my first real girlfriend) and really liked the camaraderie of the kitchen.
Like I said, in retrospect most of the food was pretty terrible by my standards now, but it did teach me how to hang with the rush, start to learn how to cook meat and that sort of thing. I stayed there through high school and part of the year after, but then I needed to make a bit more money for college and decided to go down and work in Rehoboth Beach. I had a friend of mine from Bonanza who was working at a bed and breakfast down there called The Corner Cupboard Inn. He said they needed cooks and it paid a bit better, so I decided to give it a shot. I got hired and this became what I consider my first introduction to more serious food. It was super gourmet, but everything was cooked from scratch, with fresh seafood and vegetables every day. So it was a great place to learn.
The place was run by Mrs. Hooper, a cranky and rather stern lady who was a very particular, but fair employer. She ran the place with a bit of an iron fist, but was also very complimentary when you did a good job. The funny thing is that every year it seemed she would try to bring in some young chef either in or just out of culinary school and they never seemed to make it more than a month. So we would go back to our normal routine, which was her ragtag band of cooks who had been around for several years and knew how to make the kitchen run. It usually worked out just fine and we put out some tasty food.
It was a cool gig because we worked a split shift. I would get up early (still living with my mom) and go down for breakfast from about 8-12 or so, depending on the guests and how full the place was. Then I would have the afternoon free to lay on the beach, eat pizza, play pinball or see friends until about 5:30PM, when we would start prep for the evening dinner. We would get done around 9:30 or 10, clean up and go home to start again the next day. Or at least I went home, most of the wait staff would go out drinking and come in for the breakfast shift hungover. A great restaurant tradition. It’s a good thing I didn’t start drinking until later.
One of my first days there I was taught how to flip a fried egg without the use of any utensils. We would have contests to see how many eggs we could do. I could generally do 3-4 without a problem. We put out so many eggs you had to do it that way, in a little skillet greased up with rendered bacon fat. We also did scrambled, poached (just in a pan of boiling water with vinegar), boiled and even broached in hot oil. Kidney stew was a standard menu item, as well as sweet breads. I never learned to like either. Also kippers on Sundays, along with waffles which we would make by the Hobart (floor-stand mixer) full as a Sunday tradition. Pancakes the rest of the week. Plus a full range of breakfast meats. Yummy.
Dinners had a selection of standard items, plus different daily specials which might be London Broil, Duck a l’Orange, broiled lobster, various other seafood, scallops and so on. Veggies would be sauteed beans almondine or carrots, corn on the cob (cooked with milk and sugar), usually new red potatoes, stuff like that. All prepped and made from scratch. I learned a ton, including basics like how to cut meat, how to use a knife properly, how to prep all kinds of seafood. I still use a lot of those skills today.
Well, this is already getting long and I’m only partway through my restaurant experiences, so I’ll continue this later.
Introduction
If you've known me for any length of time, you probably know I'm really into food and cooking. Heck, at least half my blog posts mention food in some fashion. I thought it might be interesting to chronicle my relationship with food throughout my life. There are a lot of different experiences I've had that have shaped the way I view food. So I'm going to start a series of blog posts about this whole topic. It will be a bit free-form and I'm not sure when I'll be finished, but hopefully it will be at least somewhat interesting.
Childhood memories
As many of you know, I was raised in a conservative rural Mennonite community. Mennonites weren't the only members of the community, but there were a bunch of us. Mennonites have had a love affair with food (both eating it and producing it) for a long time. The primary focus of most family gatherings was around food, almost all of it homemade and often with ingredients that were personally raised and/or slaughtered. My grandfather was a farmer and many in the family before him. When I was a young child, my dad drove a refrigerator/freezer truck for Burris Foods, but by the time I was in early elementary school he had gone into business as a chicken farmer, hatching eggs to be precise. My uncle was a hog farmer. These were both what I would know call "factory farm" operations, part of the vast supply chain where America gets most of their food. My grandfather, uncle and father also raised typical row crops, like corn and soybeans. My grandfather sold Growers fertilizer to various farmers, not sure if they are still around or not.
As far as food in our house, we always had a big garden every year and grew just about everything. I grew up both loving and hating it, spending many hours weeding, hoeing, picking and processing food. In retrospect I wish I would've paid more attention. My mom was a food canner and freezer, like most Mennonite women. Even during the winter, we would have a decent amount of food that we had grown ourselves. We would also go blueberry picking for a day every summer, bringing home enough blueberries to put in the freezer for much of the rest of the year. We would also pick peaches to be canned in light syrup for the winter. Most summers my grandparents would go pick up a trailer full of bushels of apples and the whole extended family would spend the day making applesauce, apple butter, cider and whatever else they could think of.
We knew where a good portion of our food came from. We would go pull milk out of a stainless steel cooling tank from a local farm. It was fairly normal for us to occasionally get a side of beef from my grandfather and later my uncle. Venison was plentiful, I was the weird boy who didn't like hunting. I did like venison though. We would even have squirrel on occasion.
Once my dad got the chicken house, gathering eggs was a daily chore. Thousands of them. A few times over 5000 eggs in a single day. These were hatching eggs, so there were roosters jumping on hens all the time when they weren't trying to pick a fight with us. If you went out to the chicken house at night most of the birds would be up on the slats roosting and sooner or later some big old rooster would come tearing down the floor of the chicken house attempting to spur your legs. Double yolk eggs were nothing special, we would get triple yolks fairly often as well. Some eggs wouldn't have a shell develop and would come out feeling almost like a rubber ball. Occasionally I would have an egg laid right in my hand as I reached into a nest. The big problem with that many chickens though is that the ammonia was terrible; it was dusty and hard to breathe.
My mom was really into nutrition, so I learned about stuff like wheat germ, carob and sprouts. She would make yogurt and granola, which is probably why it is somewhat comforting that my wife now does the same thing. We also had to eat practically every vegetable known to man (it's only recently I've been able to eat brussel sprouts again), except spinach because my mom hated it. I love it and it was one of those foods that I started eating after leaving home. We started helping out in the kitchen at a fairly young age and probably started baking cookies by ourselves around 10 or 12 years old.
Not that it mattered much as a kid, but there was never any alcohol in the house and almost none of the adults I knew drank. Most of our social engagements were with other Mennonites and we rarely went out to eat. Alcohol was considered a sin of course, so it took me awhile to even get to the point where I could go into a liquor store and not feel guilty. More on that later. My mother's Scotch-Irish background was eventually going to overrule my Mennonite/German father's ways.
In Part 2, I'm going to talk a bit about how I got started working in restaurants and some of my experiences there.
Hard to believe after the harsh winter, but it's planting time again. We are pretty excited because last year by the time we got the garden plot created and planted, it was already fairly late in the season. We are back again at our friends place (Keith & Joni) trying to get some stuff to grow in the city for the second year. Partway through the growing season last year, Kristin brought home the Square Foot Gardening (Mel Bartholomew) book from the library. At first it seemed a bit gimmicky, but when I got into it the concept started making a lot of sense. And it seems perfect for the small plot we have to work with, where growing things in the standard row formation ends up only using about 40% of the useable space.
So this year we bought the latest edition of the book and we are trying the basic concept, although we aren't exactly using his soil mix. We are down in the "3 weeks before last frost" period in Chicago (at least I sure hope so), which means we can actually start planting some early vegetables. So this past Sunday I put my terrible carpentry skills to work and built a grid to lay out on the soil, a trellis for vertical growing using electrical conduit and nylon netting (an idea from the book) and a row cover made with chicken wire to cover 8 of the 1' square plots. Last year we had a lot of trouble with bunnies and/or squirrels (or a vegetarian cat) eating our lettuce, chard and other salad greens. So we are going to try to cover them this year and see if it helps. We are also going to try to grow up (vertical) more than last year to try to take advantage of the limited space AND sunlight in a better way.
We got a variety of greens into the ground and also some seed onions and potatoes. Curious to see how things do. One nice thing about the square foot method is you can start cooler season crops like lettuce early and then when it gets too hot later in the season you plant something else in that 1' square plot and move the lettuce further down in the shade. Kinda cool. We have limited space where we get really good sun and most veggies love sun, so we are trying to make the most of it.
So this morning I had a dentist appointment and I had to walk across the loop. It had snowed and was still snowy, so there was various snow removal going on. I walked by the Daley Center and they were clearing snow from what is admittedly a bit more sidewalk/terrace than some buildings. They were clearing it with what looked like an almost brand-new John Deere small utility tractor with a cab, blade, etc. Conservative estimate on a price for one of those is $15-20K range. I actually know because I've researched them a bit and then I doublechecked my guess online.
What the crap do they need something like that for just to clear snow? Then when walking back I noticed they actually have TWO of them. Now maybe they were donated and maybe they are leasing them, but at any rate, this is what my taxes go to? Can't they use a snow blower like everyone else? Meanwhile, we can barely get streets plowed in our neighborhood and the streets and sanitation department never enforces the sidewalk shoveling ordinance, so you are always walking/driving around at your own risk.
So by about the Saturday after Christmas, we were getting a bit stir crazy at my wife's parents and decided to mosey over to Harrisburg to check out a couple of local craft breweries. We usually go over to Yuengling for their tour, but we've been there the last couple years and wanted to check some new stuff out.
Fighting through some bad fog and traffic on what should have been only about an hour drive, we (Kristin, Kristin's sister Becky and I) finally got to the Troegs after missing the turn the first time and seeing more of scenic downtown Harrisburg than we wanted to. Harrisburg is not a pretty town by any means. Maybe even a little scary. But they are making some good brew there.
So yes, the first stop was Troegs, a relative young brewery started by two brothers Chris and John in 1996. They don't have a brew pub or restaurant, but they have a very nice tasting room. We wanted to go on the tour, but it was already full and probably would've have seen anything much different than we've seen before. The place was absolutely packed, which was nice to see. They had about 20 tables and they were all full. We got a sampler of 7 of their beers and asked to share the corner of a table with some other folks. Being beer lovers and therefore cool, they had no problem with that. I was very impressed with pretty much everything they were making, it was all really good. Much better than I was hoping. I think the favorite for all of us was their Mad Elf, which was a very drinkable 11% stunner. Seemed to be most similar to a Barley Wine, but quite distinctive with some cherries, honey and chocolate malt adding up to a very cohesive, yet layered palette of flavors. We ended up buying a growler of it to bring back and shared it with friends for New Year's Eve.
We then headed over to Appalachian Brewing Company for some food and more beer. They had some really good beers as well, but not as consistently good across the board as Troegs. Still, some very nice darker beers including a very good porter, a Weizenbock style which I haven't seen many people do and Pennsylvania's first certified organic beer, a brown ale. Their homemade pretzels were excellent as well and they also made a really delicious root beer with honey.
So in spite of PA's crazy beer and liquor laws, you can find some good beer there for sure. We're hoping to keep visiting some other craft brewers on other trips, there are a few over near State College we have our eye on as well.
I've tried to shy away from political commentary on this blog, but enough is enough. I spent much of last night's VP debate alternately rolling my eyes and being angry. And this morning I feel much the same way. Apparently if you can at least talk and not say anything that a 6th grader would find stupid, you can be a successful VP candidate. Apparently the bar is now so low for Palin that anything counts as a success. The biggest thing I heard last night and this morning is "She did better than I expected". She did better than I expected too, but then again my expectations were terribly low. Is this all we're looking for at this point? It reminds me of that SNL fake commercial for "Lowered Expectations", the dating service for people who aren't quite as good looking or smart or in shape or whatever.
If you could get past the rambling on and on, it became quickly apparently that most of the time Palin was either 1) speaking in gross generalities or 2) contradicting herself or 3) showing herself to be completely in over her head on understanding the nuances of government or 4) just plain saying things that were incorrect. This is the part that made me laugh and roll my eyes.
The part that made me angry is all the stupid Americans who will eat up that hockey mom and Joe Sixpack bullshit hook line and sinker. That's because for a lot of people, it's apparently more important to identify with a candidate than elect someone who will actually help you. Those are the same people who voted for Bush a second time. Can we temporarily suspend their right to vote this election?
Just for grins, here are some of the more crazy things I got from Palin:
- we can't allow Iran to have nuclear energy ... uh make that weapons
- The surge worked so well in Iraq all we have to do is do the same thing in Afghanistan, something the commander on the ground there doesn't even believe.
- Providing a $5000 credit towards health insurance is a zero budget item. Apparently the government doesn't have to pay for that, except with Monopoly money. Luckily Biden called her on this one.
- She kept saying to vote for the party that will give Americans tax cuts. Great idea, that means you are voting for Obama/Biden. The McCain plan mostly gives tax breaks to rich people and corporations.
- She kept saying to vote for the party that wants energy independence, but to her that means drilling for oil that we might have in 10 years rather than focusing on alternative energies and putting money into that. I'm not sure what she means by McCain is using an "all of the above" approach, but she said it a lot of times so I'm sure it will work.
I can go on, but it's just too easy. I hope some people are seeing how ludicrous it is to even have this person in the running besides me.
The Very Good Taste blog has a very interesting idea, put up a list of 100 diverse foods that they think every omnivore should try and have people indicate what they have actually tried. If you want to try this, go to the blog and they have a link to the Wikipedia entry for each food as well if you need a definition or further explanation.
Here are the instructions they are giving. I'm going to do it slightly differently so Kristin can be involved. Anything we've both eaten will be in bold, anything only I've tried will be in italics and anything only Kristin has tried will be underlined. I don't think we've done too badly.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (Curtis has had alligator)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (do gnats on bike rides count?)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (might have had this as sushi, can't remember)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer (we've even made our own)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (can you believe Kristin has never had one)
56. Spaetzle (Kristin makes a mean rendition)
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (all the good ones are)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (used to make sweetbread stew for the B&B)
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (my dad hit a deer with a tractor trailer and brought it home, does that count?)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
Over the last couple weeks I've run into several folks who are leaving the city for the suburbs and at the same time I'm reading about permaculture, so it's creating some interesting juxtupositions in my head. This morning on NPR they had a story about a lady in the Chicago suburbs who is going around her neighborhood trying to get people to replace lawn with gardens. Their family also recently installed a wind turbine. I applaud her and I'm thankful that some people are making an effort, but ultimately the whole idea of suburbia isn't sustainable long-term, at least given what we know now.
Suburbs are a uniquely American concept, driven by an apparent excess of space, cheap oil and the drive of consumerism to make life as comfortable, private and lavish as possible. Bigger houses, the greenest lawn, strip malls providing all the comforts of the city, albeit in corporate chain stores and cookie-cutter restaurants. But if we really are hitting peak oil, then the current gas prices aren't some short term problem, but merely the beginning of a new reality. Nobody knows for sure, but to borrow an idea from Pascal, I would rather guess we are running out of oil and be wrong than the opposite. Either way, I win.
Some of the power needs of suburbia could potentially be met with alternative energies like wind and solar, but these will take time to ramp up and many suburbanites find the idea of these things in their neighborhoods rather distasteful. That still doesn't answer the question of trucking in all the goods necessary to keep the local economy running, commuting to where the work is and just needing a car to do anything or go anywhere. In Chicago, there is at least light rail to use to get to the city for work, but only major American cities have this option.
In addition, all those huge lawns are a major environmental issue. In addition to using up land that could be used to grow food closer to urban centers, many of them take massive amounts of water and chemicals because lawns are an immature ecosystem in a constant fight against nature. All the plants that are considered weeds in a lawn are simply nature's attempt to take back the soil and turn it into something usable again, to heal the land. If you instead have a diverse variety of trees, shrubs and plants, particularly perennials and native plants, water is conserved, the soil is renewed with all the green matter naturally and you won't need to use pesticides.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what the landscape of America looks like in 50 years. I predict massive moves to either cities or more integrated rural living incorporating alternate energies and food production. Suburbia may end up looking like an incredibly stupid experiment in America's history by the time it's all said and done.
Okay, so today the base sales tax rate for the city of Chicago went up to a whopping 10.25%, the highest in the nation. While I can arguably afford this better than some other folks, anybody who cares about urban poverty knows how regressive sales taxes are. This is courtesy of our idiot a**hole "I got in because my dad was somebody" Cook County Board president Todd Stroger. This guy is a piece of work and this is all going to backfire eventually. You can't just keep taxing people into oblivion and a) expect them to stay and b) expect the economy to flourish. And this obviously comes at a time when so many people are already struggling and gas is over $4 a gallon. Real intelligent.
There has been a ton of stuff going on this summer related to our research into farming and trying to learn new things. I'm getting behind on blogging about it, so here are a few highlights.
Over Memorial Day weekend, we visited our friends James and Esther our in Boulder Colorado. They work as one of the "live on the farm" couples for Haystack Mountain goat dairy. Haystack Mountain is a pretty well established cheese producer, having products in Whole Foods and other national stores. They make all of their fresh cheese at their main cheese factory and they buy much of the goat milk for that from various sources. James and Esther work on the farm where the artisan cheeses are made from goat milk produced right there on the farm. These include raw milk cheeses that are aged anywhere from 2 - 6 months or more. We got to help out with a fairly large cheese make on Memorial Day, Kristin and I were up to our shoulders in the curds and whey for awhile. We helped out with making the Red Cloud and Queso de Mano. You can see all the cheeses here.
We also got to visit a restaurant we've seen featured in some cooking magazines called The Kitchen. They are one of the most eco-friendly restaurants in the country, reusing or recycle almost 100% of their various types of garbage and sourcing about 80% of their food locally. They have a community night where you sit around a long table and eat family-style with about 60 strangers for only $35/person. It's pretty amazing and we got to meet some cool folks. We also visited the Boulder farmer's market, which has some pretty amazing people producing some cool food.
At home, we had the opportunity this year to dig up the backyard of our friends and neighbors Keith and Joni and create a small garden. While it could use more sun for best results, we finally have a small plot of ground to grow some veggies and herbs. We prepped the ground, some of which was under an old sidewalk that we had to break up, using a deep bed concept. We put some composted cow manure and mushroom soil, along with some blood meal and organic fertilizer in the soil as we prepared it. It seems to be working pretty well for the most part. We also added a bunch of our worm compost a week or so ago and noticed a big growth spurt in a lot of the plants, particularly the tomatoes and squashes. We also have several varieties of peppers, several types of basil, a lettuce mix, a mesclun mix, beets, chard, oregano, rosemary, thyme, leeks, beans, sunflowers and some other flowers to attract beneficial insects. I'm probably missing a few things. All in all, quite a nice mix for a small urban garden. So far the only thing we've harvested is some salad greens. We got a bit of a late start and also started a lot from seed, so we're still waiting for some things to really get started. This is mainly an experimental year, so we are learning a lot about how much sun things need, starting plants inside, fertilizer needs and so on.
We are also participating in a CSA this year with Scotch Hill Farms. We picked them partly because they also do goats and grow a number of herbs as well. It's been a bit of a rough start to the season with all the rain (they are just south of Madison), but we've been getting some good stuff and eating a lot more vegetables which is always good. They drop off at the Southport Green Market which is just south of us. They are a fairly new market and still a bit sparse to be honest, but it's great they are trying to do something in that community. A few weeks ago I got to meet Bob and Jenny from Harvest Moon Farms, another couple who are professionals from Chicago who just started farming a few years ago. So they are kind of a few years ahead of where we might like to be. They grow a lot of organic vegetables, including 15 kinds of garlic and plan to start doing pastured beef soon. They also represent a number of other farmers in the Madison area, so their stand at Southport has items from other farms like cheese, maple syrup, whole organic chickens and so on. We are planning to go up to visit them and help out on our way to a college reunion weekend with a bunch of Kristin's Wheaton friends in July. That should be a wonderful trip as we'll get to visit a couple farms and see a bunch of our favorite people.
So I've gotten really behind on my blogging, my current project schedule isn't very conducive to blogging. I often blog on my lunch break, but I've only been taking a half hour lunch lately so I can leave work early enough to beat most of the evening traffic rush.
Anyway, the second farm we visited on our Urbana trip was Prairie Fruits. We were super excited to see their operation as they were the first farmstead goat Grade A certified goat dairy in Illinois. They sell their cheese at the Green City Market and also some Chicago cheese shops and restaurants. We got to hear a lot of stories about the travails of getting a small dairy certified, the current USDA system is just not built to really address the smaller sustainable farming operation. This is something that is ultimately going to need to be fixed if this country is ever to move away from the factory farm system.
Here's a prime example. Typically you have your large factory farm dairy operation with hundreds of cows. The milk is supposed to be tested for antibiotic residue, but due to the volume it really doesn't happen. They just do samples. And yet an operation like Prairie Fruits has to test every batch of milk they do and they don't really use antibiotics in the first place. They ended up getting their own license and certification as a lab so they can do their own testing because it's such a hassle for a small producer otherwise. Another bit of weirdness, you have to have a license to transport milk. So normally, a milk tanker truck pulls up to the farm and carries it off to wherever, sometimes a cheese factory. Since they do everything in the same location, they need the same license to move the milk from the milking parlor to the cheese make room and the two rooms can't share a wall. It's just ridiculous. That's Illinois, who has little experience with farmstead cheese making. Not sure if it's quite that bad in other states.
Visiting this farm was a pretty big deal for us, with a lot of firsts. First time to milk a goat for both of us. First time Kristin got to bottle feed baby goats. First time to use an automatic milking system. We also learned about small batch pasteurizers and some of the other necessary equipment. It gets pretty expensive. So I think we figured out a couple of things on this trip. One, we do really like dairy goats and a lot of the work involved with raising goats. Two, it's a huge time and money investment to get a real artisan farmstead cheese operation off the ground. So we need to do a lot more thinking about that. I've told a couple of people I feel like we learned more from that one day than from reading a book. There are a lot of practical things you really just have to see, like how goats are fed and housed, how long things take to do for a particular herd size, that sort of thing.
So actually a lot has been going on in our ongoing research of all things farming, organic and gardening. We are learning a lot, but there is still a lot to process and I don't want to do too much thinking in public. But I can at least talk about what we've been up to and what we have learned so far. I'll have to do a bit of catching up.
A few weeks ago we took a trip down to Urbana to visit a couple of farms. We drove down on a Saturday morning and spent the day with the Millers on Rush Creek Farm. We met the Millers at a slow food event on the farm where the heritage turkeys are raised that we have purchased for the last couple of Thanksgiving dinners. They both work pretty much full time, but also raise Kiko meat goats on about 10 acres of pasture. They also have some pastured poultry and a horse.
Some more pictures are here.
I've been talking to Kristin about chickens a bit on and off because I really want to have some fresh eggs even if we just do a small hobby farm. And maybe some fresh pastured chicken to eat as well. I grew up on a commercial chicken farm and I have no desire to do that, but heritage or specialty breeds on pasture does interest me. Kristin has never been around chickens and doesn't particularly like birds as a species, so she was skeptical. When we got to the Millers, we found out they had about 60-80 chicks about 8 weeks old in their garage. They were planning to move them out to a pen to get them ready to go on pasture, so we got to jump in and help them catch and move chickens. Kind of a trial by fire for Kristin, but she gamely stepped up and did it and it wasn't as scary as she thought it might be. It was really cool that she got a chance to hold some chicks and also just watch their behavior, which is fascinating. They are such funny creatures. Within about 5-10 minutes of being out of the garage, they were foraging around the small pen, scratching and pecking around and having a good old time. It's pretty obvious when watching chickens that they are really made to be wandering around plenty of pasture, finding worms and grubs and eating vegetation rather than being stuffed in a pen (or even worse a cage) hardly able to move.
As far as the meat goats, they aren't bottle fed and so they are tolerant of human contact, but don't exactly seek it out. The kids were playing up a storm though and reminded us of some extreme sports show as they played around on an old set of concrete steps. Meat goats are certainly not as loveable in general as dairy goats, but they are also quite a bit less work as we were to find out when we visited Prairie Fruits the following day. So the jury is still out for us whether we would ever go that route, but it was good to see what was involved even from just a practical standpoint, such as fencing, cost and type of feed, how they are pastured and so forth.
We finally made our first trip to a dairy goat operation this past weekend. Hopefully more details later, but in the meantime, enjoy a couple of photos.
So the release date for the new Portishead has finally drawing nigh. April 28th in the UK, April 29th in the states. I've heard about 3 tracks now on BBC Radio 1 and it's pretty great. Very big and gloomy. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years. I also hear Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird may be coming out with new stuff as well. Bristol back in the house? Maybe.
One of my favorite cookbook authors, Suvir Saran, waxes philosophical on the wonder of home grown eggs. They have some of the South American Araucana hens, which produce eggs in wonderful shades of blue and green. The deep brown ones are quite lovely as well. Who needs Easter Egg dye when nature creates such a wonderful spectrum of design and color naturally?
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