Kitchen Garden Journal

For the past couple of weeks I have been trying to think of an appropriate response to the back to back hurricanes that brought relentless rains and flooding to the valley. As the waters recede, we have been taking stock of the damage and grappling with what it means for us as farmers, for our community, and for local agriculture in general.

For many farmers we know, the storms wrought devastating flood damage that resulted in nearly total losses. For those of us who farm further from the raging rivers, the damage was serious, if less dramatic: standing water that suffocated crops, drenching rains that leeched out fields and interrupted plant growth, rampant spreading of disease.

Everyone who farms lost something in those storms. Crops? Yes. Income? Definitely. Faith? Perhaps.

What Irene and Lee clarified in everyone’s consciousness was the riskiness of faith we place in seed, soil, sun and rain to produce food for you all and income for our families. Ultimately, farmers don’t control whether they succeed or fail. We place our trust in nature. We wager the value of our labors against that faith and trust, and sometimes we lose and lose big.

Of course this is not really news, and it doesn’t really change much. Next spring, farmers are going to plow their fields, plant their seeds, and hope for a good crop. But the risk of disaster, while ever-present before, seems much more real now.

Going forward, it’s clear that we all need to be thinking about what we can do to mitigate this risk. Farmers are going to have to start hedging their bets in a more serious way, since hoping for the best has started to seem reckless. 

The question on my mind, and I suspect a lot of other people’s minds, too, is whether farming can really be a sustainable life for the new generation of farmers who have chosen it despite the odds. Agriculture is no meritocracy; hard work and dedication don’t necessarily lead to success, and one bad storm can blow a sizeable hole in what is already a very slim margin.

At best, farming can provide an honest living, a positive impact on soil and community, a great deal of personal satisfaction, and some damn good eating. At worst, it can be akin to spreading a bunch of dollar bills on the ground and watching them blow away.

I am tempted to try to end this with some kind of positive spin, some glimmer of optimism or at least stubborn determination. And I could easily do that. But I think that would only mask the really hard challenges and big open questions that we face.

Yes, it could have been a lot worse. No, we didn’t lose everything. But the impact of these storms has serious consequences for everyone.  

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I need to be frank with you. This time of year it is simply insane to be a farmer. 

The tomatoes are heavy on the vine. The beans are begging to be picked. Orders are pouring in. The markets are incredibly busy and exhausting. Out in the field, the ragweed is as tall as a man. The crew is tired. The tractor is on strike.

There are 25 things on our weekly to-do list and 15 of them will still be there next week. 

No, I’m lying. We stopped even writing a to-do list because it’s too depressing.

But I can’t worry about that. I have to put the blinders on, start prepping land and planting all the fall crops. For me, it’s basically springtime all over again. Plant the spinach, plant the beets, plant the turnips. Never mind that it’s 100 degrees and they probably won’t even germinate.

I wake up in a panic at 3 a.m. with visions of our neighbors’ gorgeous, weed-free fields of corn and squash and wonder why I even bother.

But let’s be real here. This feeling only lasts about 6 weeks all year. And this is probably the least stressful summer I’ve had as a farmer. But this time of year on the farm is kind of like the opposite of sex and pizza. 

Even when it’s good, it’s still pretty bad.

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I am an amateur wild mushroom hunter. These days I have little if any spare time for wandering around in the woods in the summertime looking for mushrooms. So my mushroom hunting is mostly confined to the driver’s seat of my car, scanning the landscape for any protruding irregularities.

Last Friday—remember that warm, drizzly, mushroomy day?—I spotted a big score of oyster mushrooms growing out of a tree by the side of the road in the center of Hadley. This is just the kind of windfall that automotive mushroom hunting relies on, and I just about had an accident as I made my abrupt, rubbernecking U-turn.

That tree yielded about 5 pounds of perfectly fresh, pristine mushrooms. When I got them home I immediately tore up a few into some hot oil and had mushrooms on toast, which is, in my opinion, the best way to savor fresh mushrooms. (Recipe below.)

Emboldened by my good luck with the oysters, I got the whole family in the car on Saturday and drove out to my chanterelle spot. It seemed the perfect day to go out looking for chanterelles: month of July, after a rain, warm day. Check, check, check.

The spot was “given” to me by our friend Tony, who used to be the chef at Green Street Café, when he moved away from the valley. Tony, a fellow-amateur mushroom collector, came across the patch of chanterelles when he, in turn, was driving past them in his car and spotted blotches of bright fluorescent carmine dotting a mossy swath of roadside in the forested outer reaches of Northampton.

It’s a bit of a drive to get out to the spot, but we were just in time. They seem to have emerged that day and were in perfect condition. No slugs, not oversaturated by heavy rain, just perfect, tiny, tight little buttons of fungus emanating their heady chanterelle perfume.

Now that I’m stocked up, I can cook all of those amazing simple preparations that highlight the essential flavors and textures of these mushrooms. There are a few rules for cooking mushrooms: 1.) keep it simple, 2.) use plenty of fat, and 3.) like Julia Child always said, “don’t crowd the pan.”

Mushrooms on toast. Mushrooms with garlic and parsley on pasta. Mushrooms in cream on pasta (sometimes with fresh peas also). Mushroom and onion omelet with Gruyere. Those are really the only ways I ever cook wild mushrooms. All of these recipes are based on the simple technique of sautéing.

If you are not a mushroom hunter, your best bet for local wild mushrooms is to find Paul Lagreze of New England Wild Edibles at the Tuesday Market in Northampton or the Greenfield Farmers Market on Saturdays. Get there early, of course, for the choicest specimens.

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The start of marketing season is always a rush. Besides just being in a rush, it is an exhilarating feeling to step away from the fields and behold the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor for the first time. It feels good to put on a fresh face and reconnect with everyone.

Going back to the markets always feels like a return to a familiar routine, but this time around it also is the start of something new. It’s kind of like that “back-to-school” feeling. Familiar places and faces, but the new clothes feel a little strange. It’s an opportunity to start fresh with the way you present yourself to the world. We’re growing into a lot of changes we’ve made over the past year: a new market, a new van, a new display, new people, new opportunities. (This is Ben Winter, a longtime friend and Pedal Person who we've roped in to helping us at the market.)

This Saturday we set up our stand at the Northampton Farmers Market for the first time and it was a great success. People were extremely receptive to our products and very personally welcoming. We saw lots of friends there, new and old alike. (Like Dan Martinez of Bistro Les Gras who stopped by on his very sexy custom-painted bike. VIVE LE COCHON!)

We are thrilled to imagine what we can do at that market, and we are happy for the opportunity to be a part of some very positive changes taking place there. If you’ve not been there in a while, it’s worth checking out.

And if taking on a second Saturday market weren't enough of a rush we're excited to join the new Kendrick Park Farmers' Market in Amherst on Wednesdays from 2-7pm starting June 15...

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The days are growing shorter. Frosts linger into the morning, covering the crops with an icy sheen that says: “don’t touch me.” We must delay our harvests until the sun frees them from the frozen dew.

One by one the beds are picked over for the last time, plowed under and sown with a cover of rye. Irrigation pipes and sprinklers, useless of late, are shedded until next season. The year’s tasks tick themselves off.

We are putting in far fewer hours at the farm than we did a few months ago.  I’ve been looking forward to this.

But we are racing forward to the time of year that is for thinking. Decisions need to be made. Will we build the greenhouses this fall? How many? One? Two? Three? Will they be heated? Will they be movable? Can we get the grant funding before the ground freezes?

Of course, to get the grant funding, we need to revise our business plan, write a budget and formulate projections of added crop yields and revenues.

There still seems to be a deficit of hours in the day even just to have the conversations we need to have to make these decisions. And it’s not just this one project, either.

It seems that every year as we transition into winter, everything about our business is on the table. Should we add a new market? Should we buy a new tractor? What should we give up trying to grow? Analysis, soul-searching, decisions.

And, after this season especially, what do we have to do to make July and August more sane? Anybody got any ideas?

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There was an article in the New York Times this week entitled “Told to Eat its Vegetables, America Orders Fries.” I just had to laugh when I read it. Here's an excerpt:

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The nation has long had a complicated relationship with vegetables. People know that vegetables can improve health. But they’re a lot of work. In refrigerators all over the country, produce often dies a slow, limp death because life becomes too busy.

“The moment you have something fresh you have to schedule your life around using it,” Mr. Balzer said.

In the wrong hands, vegetables can taste terrible. And compared with a lot of food at the supermarket, they’re a relatively expensive way to fill a belly.

“Before we want health, we want taste, we want convenience and we want low cost,” Mr. Balzer said.

Melissa MacBride, a busy Manhattan resident who works for a pharmaceuticals company, would eat more vegetables if they weren’t, in her words, “a pain.”

“An apple you can just grab,” she said. “But what am I going to do, put a piece of kale in my purse?”

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All of this is so true. So how do we get people to change their eating habits? At The Kitchen Garden, we know how we would do it. We’re working on it:

#1. Make vegetables available.

#2.  Make vegetables exciting by inspiring people to cook delicious recipes. Who cares if it’s healthy? If it doesn’t taste any good, nobody's going to eat it.

#3. Try to show people that the extra work and time involved with cooking fresh food is a net gain, and that it can be fairly simple, too. The payoffs are not just for your health. This is a quality of life issue. This is your happiness. This is time spent with family and friends. This is connection to the community and to the land around you. This is worth making time for.

As for that produce dying a slow death in your fridge, don’t feel bad. I'm afraid there's not much we can do about that. People are busy. Cooking is hard work and you don’t always have time. Vegetables are eminently perishable.

You should see our fridge. We are among the worst offenders.

So when you do get it together to prepare a meal, make it count. Get inspired. Use the best quality ingredients. And, most of all, enjoy it.  

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Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been on an Asian kick all year. Since going to restaurants became impossible to do with two babies, and the takeout options in Sunderland are nonexistent, my only way to get Asian food these days has been to make it myself. And I’ve been extremely happy with the results. As with any cuisine, it just doesn’t get better than homemade once you get the basic concepts and ingredients. And, of course, the internet is the best thing that has happened to home cooking since the invention of the cookbook.

Korean food has always been dear to me. Caroline and I went out on our first date to a restaurant in Koreatown in New York. And since moving to the valley, we’ve had countless reliable meals at Gohyang Korean Restaurant in Hadley. We used to live within walking distance and we would always take out of town visitors there.

Over the years I’ve dabbled in Korean cuisine at home. But my kimchi would always turn out kind of weird and I would be the only one who would eat it. So I pretty much stuck to my Korean scallion pancakes and the sesame spinach.

My relationship to Korean food changed when I discovered Maangchi on You Tube. Maangchi is a no-nonsense, knife wielding Korean chick with an exhaustive repertoire of traditional Korean recipes. These recipes are explained in short 5-10 minute videos and are in written form on her website. She is like the Julia Child of Korean food and just as entertaining to watch (and just as impactful on society, I hope). A true culinary ambassador with a global reach.

I have come to understand that Korean cooking is probably the simplest and most reliably delicious of the Asian cuisines. Like Italian food, my benchmark for simplicity, it rests on high quality fresh ingredients and simple seasonings. These seasonings are fewer in number and less varying from one dish to the next than in Thai or Chinese cuisine. And it has none of the fussiness of Japanese cuisine: think rustic Italian versus French haute cuisine.

Plus, obviously, there’s the banchan, the countless and ever-present side dishes that make Korean food so fun and interesting to eat.

If you keep plenty of garlic and scallions around and have soy sauce and sesame oil in your cabinet, you’re pretty much all set to cook Korean. There are, however, a few indispensible items that you should pick up from a Korean grocery. The first is roasted sesame seeds. These tasty, crunchy seeds are sprinkled on just about everything. They come pre-roasted in large plastic shakers for 2 or 3 bucks.

There are two types of pastes that you want to have around as well. There is gochujang, or hot pepper paste. You may know it as the sauce for bibimbop. And then there’s denjang, or bean paste—essentially Korean miso. These two pastes come in attractive red and brown plastic containers, respectively, and last for years in your fridge. A solid investment, for sure.

The last item on this short list of Korean pantry items is the hot pepper powder. This is coarsely ground, mildly spicy chili powder used for kimchi and any Korean dish you’ve ever eaten that is red in color. It is sold in intimidatingly large packages of a pound or more. But never fear, it’s cheap and you will end up using it by the cupful.     

Other than that all you need is fresh vegetables, tofu, and cheap cuts of meat. (And don't forget to pick up some short grain rice.)

So go down to your local Korean Market (on Rte 9 in Hadley, next to the Korean Restaurant, open during restaurant hours), stock up, and tune into Maangchi. You will have a lot of fun and eat some wonderfully delicious and simple food.

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This blog is supposed to be about the farm and everything that goes into it and comes out of it. A blog, at its best, should be a chronicle of things that happen in real time, written by the one who sets them in motion. Since there's no lack of activity around here, I thought I would have plenty of content. But the challenge is one of perspective.

At a certain point this season, I realized that this blog was becoming much more exclusively about food and the things we like to do with the products of our labor. That's the fun part for me; that's what inspires me to do all this work. And also, I've found, it's what inspires me to write.

I am a bit surprised at how challenging writing about the farm has been for me this summer. Once the grind gets grinding, you just kind of get sucked in and go with the flow as best you can. It's very hard to have any perspective on the relentlessness of it all, like trying to contemplate the meaning and beauty of a wave as it crashes over you and pulls you down.

That's why I was so glad to read our friend Ben James' article in Saturday's Daily Hampshire Gazette. He poetically put into words what I've been either unable to express, or avoiding admitting for fear that no one wants to hear me bitch. Thanks, Ben.

Here's an excerpt. Follow these links to read the whole article, or to learn more about his farm.

Row upon row, repetition rules farm life

I try to squeeze a nickel out of a minute with each pint of cherry tomatoes I sell, but here's what will ultimately last: not the nickel but the flavor of those tomatoes in my sons' memories, so that even as grown men no other food will ever taste as good.

Time on the farm is not static, it's not a given. It's not like a ladder with all the rungs evenly spaced apart. Rather it's a substance, a material, that we try to manipulate just as much as we do the tilth and the fertility of the soil.

How many tomatoes can we harvest before the lightning storm arrives? How many can we sell before they rot? How can we get everybody out weeding the carrots this afternoon, even though there are all those watermelons to pick? And how can I get November to come more quickly, so that Oona and Wiley and I can take a nap together, and the killing frost will give me some hours alone to read?

Amen, brother.

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Summer has burned itself out early. Whether or not the hot weather returns after this rainy spell, our summer crops are pretty well played out. It was a fantastic run, but its inevitable end is near and we’ll soon be left clinging to our sweet memories like so many green tomatoes on the vine.

Not to worry, though. There is much in the fields that will follow, carrying us into the cold season: the flavors less sweet, perhaps; the vegetables more demanding of our time and ingenuity. No more cucumber tomato salads that we can just throw in a bowl and serve.  But we can go back indoors, fire up the stove and roast, braise, and steam our way into fall’s culinary delights.

And, of course, take a little of the chill and damp out of the house before we break down and crank up the heat.

*On a side note, this week is the Loving Local Blogathon, celebrating the local flavors of Massachusetts. Visit In Our Grandmother's Kitchens to read what more than 70 other Mass-based bloggers are writing about local food to benefit Mass Farmers Markets, a non-profit charitable organization that helps farmers markets throughout the Commonwealth (you can make a donation here).

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At this time of year, people often tire of eating zucchini and summer squash.  It can be a relentless vegetable, and has a reputation for wearing out its welcome due to its unchecked effusiveness.

But I really, really love the squash that we grow, and it’s one of the things that I miss the most in the dead of winter. (Especially when I think of all the excess squash we dump or donate.) So I try to make the most use as I can out of this extremely versatile vegetable when we have it around.

Let me count the ways: sautéed and made into a creamy sauce for pasta; simply brushed with oil, salt and pepper and slapped on a hot grill; cut into sticks and blanched and doused with soy and sesame as a Korean side dish; shredded and made into fritters or pancakes; diced and tossed with egg and flour and roasted.

And possibly my all time favorite: cut into fries, dipped in beer batter, fried in hot oil and served with a spicy marinara. See recipe below.

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