of Blackberries and Slugs

...control end...

My 2007 journal was entitled CONTROL END. At least that’s the first thing I read when I pulled it up on my screen – all caps, font size 26, bold – to remind me to skip to the end of the document so I didn’t have to read my January 1 entry every time I opened it.

It was a grisly one, that entry, that had Saddam Hussein hung by the neck until dead. It was a potent portent for the year – three hundred and sixty some odd days later that journal ended with Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and all the pages in between could’ve been scribbled to black with the most depressing examples of dishonesty, meanness, greed, war, molestation, torture, death, short-sightedness, idiocy, knee-jerk vetoes of any good legislation that DID come along, the wrack and ruin of our country, our world, our planet... in no particular order.

But they weren’t! Instead they were crammed to overflowing with examples of courage, generosity, idealism, friendship, teamwork, energy, creativity, intelligence, problem-solving, and real accomplishment.

“How can this be,” you ask. “Did this insane world just make you stick your head in the sand?” I asked myself the same question and, for some reason, went back to a little story I’d told awhile ago about blackberries and slugs.

...blackberries and slugs...

You can’t find blackberries if you don’t go out and look for blackberries, if the idea of blackberries – their existence – has not been posited at the edge of some cow pasture early in your afternoon as a child, along some marshy, deeply hoof-pocked swamp; you can’t find them if you can’t imagine the hunt, if your blood doesn’t race the slightest bit at least and your saliva does not start flowing when you see them hanging heavy and black upon the thorny branch, if you can’t patiently back the evil, back-turned thorns that impale you out of your flesh; if, after noticing the swales of branches that have been trampled by something large and tough-skinned and hearing the neighborhood’s dogs baying, you don’t bend down and pick those downed branches with neoned peripheral sight, with eyes in the back of your head, with persistence in spite of the possibility of bears.

But most of all you can’t find blackberries if you don’t stop at the first blackberry you see, those first hard green and red pods, stop and find the few that are ripe, and the few beyond those and beyond and beyond into the morton-saltbox of canes and nature and ripening berries.

Likewise, you cannot find slugs if you do not bend over and look in likely places, and then the one you see will lead to whole other snail universes. Hell for that matter I imagine it is the same way with money, but I wouldn’t know, as I don’t have money in my blood like I do blackberries and slugs.

The best way to kill slugs is to take the kitchen shears out with you and snip them in half as you see them. They ooze a big bubble of black innard-goo, but the killing is clean and quick and I have no trouble picking a tomato in the drizzle to eat as I continue with my grizzly task. Slugs are at once sticky and slimy. You always know when you’ve grabbed one hidden under leaves when you’re weeding or stepped on one barefoot in the dark, from the sticky residue that makes your fingers stick together, your foot kiss the floor, and shreds of grass and old leaves and dirt build up on the shears to make you remember to wash them before snipping herbs into a pot au feu.

I spent a lot of satisfying, bee-humming, bear-fearing hours picking blackberries that year. I piled the blackberries on a platter with some goat cheese and chocolate and took them to a party. I served them up with a silver spoon into everyone’s palms, telling them I’d braved bears for them.

As for slugs, they had been posited in my mind by that first hunt, but I tried not to notice them afterward, for there was no earthly good in seeing them. I could never decimate their numbers. I could only try to find out what it was in my garden that attracted them, and then try to change that climate so that they would make their living elsewhere. It reminded me of R. Buckminster Fuller’s admonition: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." I wanted those slugs obsolete but as yet I hadn’t found the new ethos to make them so, so I ignored them. I concentrated on the blackberries.

...the right climate...

Of course you can’t find blackberries, or slugs, in January; the prerequisites are in their nature as well as ours: They must be in season; the climate must be right; the cycles of vegetation and climate and use correct.

My journal is not a pure moan of despair because last year I was lucky enough to fall in with some good people, hard-working, forward-thinking and energetic volunteers, whose collective eye was on the prize of a stronger local food supply for the community, who laughed instead of cried when things got tough; who, when faced with an insurmountable brick wall, did not collapse back to the starting point but simply fell back a few paces and patiently took another route. For progress became like climbing a tree – just because your current route doesn’t get you to the tippy-top doesn’t mean you drop back to the ground – only to the next effective branch down.

Some of these people work full time jobs and volunteer in the crevices of them; some are free-lancers and work their volunteer time in between their own deadlines; some are retired or have a partner who makes the living; and some just believe so whole-heartedly in what they’re doing that they design lives that will encompass it.

These are persistent people, who stay on track by consistently referring back to their starting goal, their “mission statement,” people who know that seven times out of ten they’ll learn something if they listen hard enough, and that most good ideas will only get better with a little more input. They know that there are times to be a leader and times to follow; and that true teamwork is not the usual corporate demand for a flock of sheep to follow each other over the lip of a crevasse, though they might agree with these words from a woman named Kathy Sierra: “Most truly remarkable ideas did not come from teamwork. Most truly brave decisions were not made through teamwork. The team's role should be to act as a supportive environment for a collection of individuals. People with their own unique voice, ideas, thoughts, perspectives. A team should be there to encourage one another to pursue the wild ass ideas, not get in lock step to keep everything cheery and pleasant.”

These are people who know that courage is more invigorating than fear, and perhaps it was that climate of fear and frustration on the political front that mobilized volunteers last year. It’s as though a giant military/industrial maelstrom has hit the earth and grows ever more destructive, and in the face of it we toil together to create our own small existence under the radar, recognizing as we do it how much we have missed the sense of community that is created in times of great and absorbing struggle.

...yammer and response...

Leo brought home a carton of Black Box cabernet sauvignon this weekend, and I broke out a little pat of sharp and creamy camembert-type cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm in Pawlet to add to the jollity, and we spent a very pleasant time nibbling and sipping while I put together a Sunday night supper.

I had: cod, that was frozen, brought back from Maine when I visited my sister; marjoram from Gail Edwards at the Common Ground Fair; three leeks, the last ones grown at Foggy Meadow Farm by Paul Horton, who is missed at the Winter Farmers’ Market these last couple of weeks; a head of garlic grown by a friend; some inexpensive white wine from the Castleton General Store; Amish Country butter that I got at the Co-op; eggs from Kilpatrick Farm at the Winter Market; and the end of a loaf of Bear Mountain Honey/Oatmeal bread. Oh yes, and fenugreek that I picked up in Brooklyn at Sahadis’ a few weeks ago. And some rice noodles. Cilantro, from the Co-op. I had a documentary called The Cheese Nun on my computer, a fire snapped and crackled in the fireplace, and I was feeling pretty mellow. I decided I would make a brothy fish soup.

I slivered the leeks and swished them in cold water and then put them to melt with the chopped garlic in a mass of butter over very low heat. Since I’d taken the cod out of the freezer in the afternoon, I’d been thinking of a new year’s resolution commentary I’d heard on NPR, a strident young woman bemoaning the need to use the word “local” in front of every food item, and the practice of naming farms and farmers on menus. She didn’t like “sustainable” either. “Couldn’t we just Eat,” she despaired, “Food?”

I looked downright affectionately at my leeks and my garlic, all my edible goods. Monsanto – some call it Monsatan – had not TOUCHED it. And I knew it! And I LIKED that, thank you very much!

I added a little white wine to the leeks, sprinkled on some marjoram and some fenugreek (didn’t know what that would do) stirred, covered, and let them get really quite soft. Then I added some more wine, a little water, the rice noodles I’d boiled for 5 minutes, layered the cod over, and let it cook, covered, until it lost its translucency.

Ladled out into deep bowls, a slightly beaten egg stirred into each bowl, chopped cilantro over the top, hot and crisp croutons on the side, Man it was good!

...peering closely...

Once you start paying very close attention to your food, once you get right down to eye-level and peer back into its shadowy apparatus, you will see more and more instances of the government and agribusinesses with their thumbs in your bowl. You will see how lightly drug, food processing, insurance, and medical companies’ CEOs and other employees flit back and forth between industry, lobbying, and chairing or advising government food and drug agencies. You will see that what began as a footpath leading to public safety has become a highway with no exits – because they would just complicate things – that leads to our complete subjugation. Control the food, control the people.

Our government needs to go back and check out its mission statement, and then sustain the vision, not ram it down our collective throat. And if that mission was to protect the public health, then they’ve got a few branches to back down.

...about those slugs...

I was listening to two farmers at the Market this summer comparing the pH of their soils. They talked about harmful insects and how neither one had any. I asked about slugs. Oh no, they didn’t have Those. They were kindly, but I could tell they were aghast! I slunk away and called Rob Barker to come and dance in my treetops, trim them up, and let some sun in, which he did. I cleaned up my gardens spic and span when the growing season ended, and although I didn’t test my soil, I did dust limestone all over it. But I think letting a little sun in is a good thing. We’ll see, come spring and summer, and then we’ll go from there.

first published in the Rutland (VT) Herald on 8 january, 2008

Simply Summer

...Salad Days...

Driving through Virginia that burgeoning summer was like driving through a market basket – the countryside absurdly aburst with fat tomatoes in ruby and amber tones, tall, tessellated corn in chartreuse shades, royal eggplants and pale green okra and peppers of all vibrancy, sweet onions of gold and ivory, and that’s not even speaking of the bushels of scented peaches – what is that indescribable color of pink and gold? – piled to toppling in roadside stands. All the usual high-season stuff: We couldn’t wait to stop at a restaurant and gobble up the countryside.

But the kind of restaurant that is easily accessible to travelers does not, as a rule, serve what I wanted to eat that day, which would have been a nice combination of the very foods I’d seen in the fields – a salad in other words. Mixed lettuces topped with green beans that had, perhaps, been fussed over a bit – steamed and then laid crosswise on a grill to pick up some char stipples and smoke and then cooled; half a tomato that had been sprinkled with garlicky olive oil and salt and grilled until softened, and slices of grilled zucchini. Thinly sliced sausage or chicken, or even tuna could complement the greens and vegetables. All mounded up, a simple vinaigrette over all, with thin-sliced bread, topped with an herby chevre, grilled briefly, just until slightly crisp on the bottom and oozy on the top, leaned up against the sides.

It would have been refreshing and nutritious, a satisfying feast for the eye and the tummy. And it need not have been expensive for the cook to make, could all have been prepared beforehand and assembled in seconds when ordered. A win-win solution.

At home we would sit down to a platter of buttered corn, with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of chili powder; or a platter of just-off-the-vine tomatoes, sliced and scattered with torn leaves of basil, with maybe a few thin slices of fresh mozzarella tucked between. Or Okra, or even squash blossoms, dipped in egg and cornmeal and swiftly fried.

Any of those dishes would have been sumptuous at the end of a hot day on the road – the essence of summer food, just simple and cool.

That was in 1994, thirteen years ago, back in the ice age of local food consciousness, but not a whole lot has changed, or if it has changed it hasn’t changed for the better. On a recent trip through Virginia all the same names loomed at each rest stop, not beckoning but threatening – If you’ve got to eat you’ve got to eat here, and it will surely be tired, old, over-processed stuff that will slide down your gullet just above your hunger and just below your ire. We could have been in Detroit or the middle of Idaho – there would be the same names and the same industrial food. Oases of desert in the middle of a garden. How strange we have grown.

There was one bright spot on the recent trip. In Staunton, Virginia there were two unfamiliar names on the tall signs shooting up at the US 81 exit and we chose that of Mrs. Rowe’s, where we had the perfect breakfast. Beautiful, calm surroundings, excellent service, local food from eggs to bacon to homemade apple butter, bread and biscuits. Grits. Scrapple. Reasonable price. We left rejuvenated. If you’re driving south try to pace it so you’re in Staunton, VA at mealtime – breakfast, lunch, or supper, when you could order real fried chicken.

Mrs. Rowe’s is not an example of a change for the better – it is an example of a restaurant that did not, in the first place, change for the worse. They’ve been in business since 1953. The world changed, not they.

... a little summer soup...

Elizabeth David began writing about food after the second world war. I have all of her books, most in the Penguin edition, and all of them are beginning to fall apart. They have recently been reissued in new editions by the New York Review of Books. I may have to invest.

This is her Sorrel and Lentil Soup. She details it in her elegant and simple way in Summer Cooking.

“Make a puree with about ¼ lb. of brown lentils cooked for 1 ½-2 hours in about 3 pints of water, adding the salt towards the end of the cooking. Put the lentils through the sieve, add enough of the water in which they were cooked to make a thin puree.

“Chop a handful of sorrel leaves (about ¼ lb.) fairly finely, cook them in the lentil soup for 10 minutes. Immediately before serving stir in 2 or 3 tablespoons of cream. Enough for four helpings. This is one of the best of the sorrel soups.”

(Sorrel is a lemony-tasting green. If you don’t grow it I don’t know where you’ll find it, and I don’t know what you would substitute – there’s nothing like it. The leaves seem to melt like a Cheshire cat into an omelet or a soup, leaving only the taste but not a grin. My aged sorrel plant had been a part of the family for many years, when it suddenly bit the dust last year. This year I planted two different varieties and they’re going great guns. You can have a couple of handfuls for the asking. I’ll even give you a few seeds so you can grow your own.)

Summer Cooking was originally published in 1955. Somewhere between then and now some of us lost our respect for food. I believe it may have stemmed from those who believed the scientific speculation several decades ago that future nutrition could be gotten from capsules and forget those pesky family dinners and all the work and nasty angst they entailed. Everything would be minced and freeze dried and shrunk, vitamins added (and where would they come from), and stuffed into a gelatin capsule, which would leave a lot more time to do other things, such as... well, as... Well, I can think of a million things!

But did we ever think who would grow and mince and freeze and shrink and stuff? And who would make the gelatin capsule? Large chemical companies? Ah, there lies the rub. Healthy and flavorful food does not come from Monsanto.

Why in the world would we ever want to take the pleasure, the hard work, the camaraderie, the creativity, the art, the craft, the earned expertise, the localness, the terroir, the supper-time harvesting and snip, the sheer voluptuous textures and colors and scents and, yes, conversation – even the bickering – out of eating.

...making the most of it...

Take a white platter and strew over it a few handfuls of micro-greens that you most likely have got from Farmers’ Market on Saturday. Snip a little sorrel on them if you like. On top of those, at one end of the platter, place a round of Blue Ledge Farm’s Camembrie. You have let it come to room temperature for an hour or so, and it will be nice and oozy and creamy when cut into. Mound a pint or so of fresh-caught blueberries (or blackberries in the near future) near the cheese, but don’t be too neat about it – strew them around. Break up a bar of really good dark chocolate and place it on the platter. Serve with crusty bread or crackers to good friends or those you would like to be friends, as appetizer, dessert, or entire meal. Drink a hearty red wine, too.

We eat, therefore we exist. We might as well make the most of it.

First Published in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald on July 31, 07