At Grandmother's Table

"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." 

  - Michael Pollan 

There are lots of things in the Dunn Creek Farm CSA box this week that your great grandmother would recognize. And she'd be pleased to have fresh produce picked and ready for her family. Chances are you
have a food memory about a grandmother, aunt, neighbor or someone else close to you who knew how to 

put love into every bite. It's amazing how durable those memories are and how they become part of us.

They are the opposite of the empty and forgettable calories that never fill us up.    

My Grandmother was a fine cook who came by her skills the hard way. Her mother died when she was 12 

and as the oldest girl she took over the kitchen and fed her family.  That was in 1892 on a farm in Kansas.  

As a boy, I remember her being very old in a gingham apron making boiled frosting for a birthday cake in our suburban kitchen. She talked about the food she used to love. She would become rhapsodic about shelling peas and string beans, tomatoes and corn. Every July she asked to have home made vanilla ice cream from a hand cranked freezer.

As a child of progress in the city I was raised on the convenience food served by my working mother.  

Frozen peas.  

Canned green beans.  

Frozen corn. 

Ice cream (without cream) came in a box.  

My farmer was the Jolly Green Giant. 

I could not understand why my Grandmother looked so satisfied by the memory of...vegetables. 

    

This morning I was picking the last of our shelling peas.  I popped open a shell and tasted that tender burst of

sweet green flavor.  We've been picking snow peas and digging potatoes, harvesting amazing zucchini and

fashioning these veggies into our meals with friends and neighbors this week. Simple meals made special with 

a fresh potato salad. Or greens so good guests compliment us the next day.  Simple. Clean. Satisfying. 

Memorable!

Grandmother would have put on her gingham apron and shelled the peas in the time it took me to write this.

And in just a few minutes you can create a feeling of lasting satisfaction no processed food can deliver.

It's a richer way to eat and live.  

   

Cheers!   

Occupy Soil - A Micro Revolution

I've just returned from the ACORN conference in Halilfax, Nova Scotia.  ACORN is the Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network and it represents and embodies organic agriculture in the Maritime Provinces.

First of all I have to thank ACORN for the fine job they did to bring such a diverse group of people together to represent the organic community in our region.  I spent three days totally absorbed in seminars collecting valuable information, not only about how I'll work my  farm, but to see that more small farmers are putting local agricultural products and farming careers within reach of more families, individuals, partners and local communities.

And I do have to comment on the diversity of participants.  We're all aware of Occupiers and Tea Partiers and the social and political differences rabidly promoted by our spectator media.  But this gathering included those who defied those definitions and divisions.  I met an evangelical Christian, a home schooling mom, a Libertarian, a small business owner, a wealth manager looking for a change in life, a dogged small farmer in pursuit of agricultural profits, a young person interested in shaping their own alternatives, an artist who was engineering his own technology solutions, a "hippie" looking for independence from corporations.  These people of diverse ideology were not in opposition to one another, nor were they actively protesting anything.  They were embracing the means to take peaceful action with their own hands. It was civil. It was orderly and it was radical. We weren't there to protest the status quo. We're already changing it literally from the ground up.

And speaking of ground.  The seminars on soil biology, plant health and permaculture left my eyes wide open. I had previously read Gary F. Zimmer's book, "The Biological Farmer". And this summer I was browsing in Michael Phillips book, The Apple Grower, both of which provide detailed information relating the science of soil biology to plant health.  But Av Singh's presentations at ACORN really bridged the gap for me between science and field experience.  His description of a holistic approach based on science plus farmer observation and experience made my day.  He gave me the scientific keys to unlock what I see in my own fields.

Now.  There's more than one way to do just about everything.  And I was very interested in the seminars on organic standards and allowable inputs.  But the magic happened when a theory I hadn't really understood was explained.  Everything your plants need to be healthy can be found in a biologically healthy soil system.
The key - is making everything available to your crop - at the right time.  This is master level stuff.

But think of it like this.  If you drink too much on Saturday night and your system is out of balance, you won't be at your best on Sunday morning. Which, by the way, is why airline pilots aren't allowed to fly with a hangover.  Now, you can treat the symptom by taking a few Tylenol, or you can work on putting your whole system back into balance and decide not to put too much alcohol into your system again. You can imagine what's going on in our soil body when we don't keep it in balance.  We're trying to grow plants in soil that has a hangover.  

Going for optimal soil biology is probably the hardest way to go about optimal plant health.  It's so much easier to dump in some organically allowed inputs imported from who knows where and call it good.  But then we're just practicing the same bad medicine that got us in trouble in the first place.

So yes, I learned some things about why our crop yields aren't what they could be.  And yes, I 've learned how to apply organic corrections to my soil.  But I'm motivated to face this new challenge of growing healthy soil from start to finish because I know that the only "sustainable" agriculture comes from the micro-biological level up.

Tip O'Neil is famously quoted as saying, "All politics is local". I guess the same can be said for soil.  
Our land has been farmed for 200 years and I'm now 52 years old.  Our short term goal is to take a living from our farm.  But our long term goal is to leave good soil for the next farmer.


    

We Recommend The Sandbar and Grill - Panmure Provincial Park - PEI

Angela Ryan is the owner of the Sandbar and Grill at Panmure Island Provincial Park, PEI.  She's not only a local entrepreneur she is a natural hostess.  Anyone invited to sit down at Angela's table knows what I mean. In fact, Angela's island hospitality is one of the reasons I'm here.

Angela hosted the B&B cottage on the shore in PEI where we stayed in spring, 2000.  We were trying to decide whether to buy the farm near Poverty Beach in Murray Harbour North.  As we returned to our cosy cottage to discuss it, we found a note on the door.  Angela invited us to her home for Easter Dinner with her family.  Islanders might not find this unusual. But we urban people, a bit shy by nature about strangers, were surprised.  What do we do?  We accepted of course. And we were treated to a lovely family gathering where we were included as friends and guests.  Needless to say we bought the farm.  Not sure at all that we were doing the right thing.  But trusting everything above that we were indeed welcome in a place where we could make a new start.

Angela has hosted us to many meals and family gatherings since then. Including an informal but lovely 20th anniversary supper for Susan and I where we re-spoke our wedding vows on the shore and Angela had a mini wedding cake, flowers, champagne and dinner for us.  It does sound too good to be true, but that's just how she is. She is a romantic and she loves to see people be happy.  Susan and I erased a terrible row we'd been having and left knowing we were fated to be together for another 20 years - for better and worse!

So now this excellent cook and supreme hostess has her own restaurant with a fine yet unfussy dine-in and take-out menu licensed to serve cold regional beer and fine wines with personal service.  Take it from a man who has lived the good life. I've dined at 5 star California restaurants and eased into beach side haunts from Malibu to Carmel. I've been up and down the West Coast from Mexico to Oregon and across the US from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas on up to Boston . The Sandbar offers the perfect combination of simple, tasty and well prepared fresh local food served down home style.  Just right for a relaxing supper at the beach.                
      
You'll find a seafood chowder that makes New Englanders glad they found out about it.  Lobster pot pie, steamed PEI mussels, famous the world over, but fresh from the harvest in local waters and much more. If your young ones are like mine and only a fine grilled cheese sandwich will do, the kitchen will gladly comply to make your family meal delicious and peaceful. A romantic dinner for two can be served inside or out  and family style is always welcome.  

We're proud to be included on the menu at the Sandbar, and Angela shifts her menu to use our best fresh ingredients.  So if you stop in and order chicken, you'll be getting our organic, pasture raised chicken which we delivered fresh to her.  She serves our organic salad greens, broccoli, baby carrots and more.  Whatever we have, she says "I'll take it" and she works her magic on the daily menu specials.

Angela told me, "I want to do everything fresh and local."  And unlike many chefs, she has the skills to work with whatever we bring her to make exceptional fresh meals.  If she owns a can opener I think it spends a lot of time at the back of the drawer.

And desserts?  She makes her own.  You'll want to try the pie.  Blueberry of course (her husband, Greg, is one of the island's top blueberry farmers)  and butterscotch to name two.  When the apples come in this summer - don't hesitate to order apple pie.  And of course, you can always pop in on a hot summer day and have an ice cream cone made with pure cream from PEI's local dairy farmers.

A note for those who like to travel. I was once given a tip to drive 1500 miles to  the Cozy Corner BBQ restaurant in Memphis, Tenn.  I took that tip and was never sorry I made the drive. That's real Memphis BBQ.  And that's what makes touring great. Finding local gems. So this is my tip for you. If you're traveling and you want some authentic local flavor on your visit to PEI, the Sandbar and Grill  on Panmure  Island is the place to stop.      

From California to Tennessee to Boston, Mass. and PEI.  This is what makes life good.  Fresh local ingredients, grown by people who love the land, served up hot by a friendly woman and her staff who know how to cook. They love to make people happy. So no matter where you're from, you'll be down home.

UPDATE: I've added some helpful links in the text to help you find your way.