Pork, Pumpkin, Turnips, Together

Posted on October 26, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

Today I went out in the first snowfall of the season and cut kale for tonight’s dinner. It’s the second time I’m making this fine stew, which I found when I was looking for savory dishes with pumpkin.

I couldn’t believe my luck at finding a stew that included all the ingredients I had just harvested and some I had stored: kale, pumpkin, turnips, canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, and that’s all. That’s all!  Well, and pork, which I got from the Farmer’s Market from a woman who raises British White cows and pigs in Albany, three towns over.

I most love the recipes that can be made entirely from home-grown ingredients. It is a measure of how much life has changed in my kitchen that I’ve been feeling melancholy that I don’t have a daily harvest anymore. Where did all the veggies go?? I didn’t put up nearly enough of anything, even the herbs are almost gone, and we’re back where we started in May, with one or two ingredients to use instead of seven or eight. Soon enough I’ll be forced (gulp) back to the produce aisle…

But tonight Steve’s daughter Catherine and her boyfriend Homer are arriving from NYC for a long weekend and we will eat of the garden’s bounty. I can smell the stew right now and it smells delicious.

(I cut the oven time to a total of 90 minutes. I added the turnips after 40 minutes and the pumpkin after 15 more. The pumpkin was completely cooked but still firm; if you want it to start breaking up, cook it longer. I learned the first time that pumpkin cooks faster than butternut squash!)

Pork and Pumpkin Stew

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
2 onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
a 14- to 16-ounce can tomatoes, including the juice
1 1/2 cups water
1 pound turnips, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 cups chopped washed turnip greens or kale
a 2-pound pumpkin (preferably a sugar pumpkin), seeded, reserving the seeds for toasting if desired, peeled, and cut into 1-inch pieces
steamed rice as an accompaniment

In a heavy kettle heat the oil over moderately high heat until it is hot but not smoking and in it brown the pork, patted dry, in batches, transferring it with a slotted spoon to a bowl as it is browned. Add the onions to the kettle, cook them, stirring occasionally, until they are golden, and stir in the garlic. Add the tomatoes with their juice, breaking them up, the water, and the pork with any juices that have accumulated in the bowl, bring the mixture to a boil, and braise the stew, covered, in the middle of a preheated 350° F. oven for 1 hour. Stir in the turnips and braise the stew, covered, for 20 minutes. Stir in the greens and the pumpkin and braise the stew, covered, for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender. Season the stew with salt and pepper and serve it with the rice.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pork-and-Pumpkin-Stew-10668#ixzz2APYCo0sT

Posted in garden, recipe, the Farm | Comments Off on Pork, Pumpkin, Turnips, Together

Felt Banners

Posted on October 20, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I love burlap and felt banners. This one was made by my mother-in-law circa 1966-67 of her six (of eight) children playing with their toys after Christmas. My husband is the oldest on the stool with his new astronaut helmet.

When my family left the Catholic Church in 1977 for an Assembly of God Church it was definitely the felt banners I missed most. Our new church was “iconoclastic,” a term I learned later, which meant we had no religious objects or imagery. The songs lyrics were on an overhead projector and we sat in rows of stackable office chairs. The pastor spoke from a podium and wore a suit like a businessman. Still, we had a string trio– two violins and a cello, and an organist.

In the Catholic Church of the 1960s and ’70s, however, there was an ever-changing display of large felt banners hanging in the sanctuary. Wheat and grapes, a dove diving down into wavy water, a giant chalice with a wafer floating over it. I loved them more than the stained glass and statues of Mary and Joseph.

One day my sister asked our new pastor if she could make a banner for church. To his credit, he said yes, that would be wonderful. I was shocked– I knew we didn’t do that anymore. But my sister went home and laid out the large squares of felt on the living room floor and cut out the iconic shapes I remembered. After that, the podium was adorned with liturgical banners each week and each season. The small community loved us– we were their children– and there were no complaints, only praise. That is where I learned what it means to be church.

This is a logo my sister drew for the church preschool my mother opened in 1991. You’ll recognize the style.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Felt Banners

Vatican II 50th Anniversary

Posted on October 11, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

On October 11, 1962, the first session of the Second Vatican Council began. Today I finished up some work on The Saint John’s Bible project at 11:35, with time to drive over to Saint John’s Abbey for noon prayer. I wasn’t really going for the prayer but to hear the ringing of the bells of the Abbey Church at noon. I slid into the church just as the first bell started moving, and then all four were ringing out for what seemed like five minutes.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been there when all four bells were operational, and I’m sure I’ve never heard them ring so long, although maybe I have at the Easter vigil. I sat up in the choir with the monks and a large tour bus of people who were visiting. As the bells rang, i felt really happy. I thought about the words Pope John 23 used about the Council: That it was throwing open the windows of the church to let in fresh air.

Before long I was saying to myself the words I love by Walt Whitman: “Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!”

Liberation and chaos marked the Second Vatican Council. Now there are too many arguments about whether it went to far or didn’t go far enough. I found myself internally intoning, with the ringing rhythm of the bells, “Come in, Come in, Come in…” I actually felt teary and ecstatic. It wasn’t a demand or a protest, it was welcoming– the words almost didn’t have meaning. It was about opening and about a future that is coming whether people like it or not. The church windows are open, and we are in. The future of the church is in our hands. We are here. I can’t wait to see what we will do and what happens in the next fifty years.

 
photos of the Abbey Church in Collegeville, Minnesota with permission from Rosemary Washington. Photos can be found at: http://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/contemplative-spaces/
Posted in art, Benedictine monastery, religion | Comments Off on Vatican II 50th Anniversary

At the Somali Grocery

Posted on October 10, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

Yesterday, on the way back from having my car checked (bad news), I stopped at the Somali grocery to buy a big sack of basmati rice and some tandoori masala spice. There is a large Somali population in St. Cloud. I always have good conversations when I go to this particular grocery. Last time a Nigerian woman walked around the small store with me talking about her life and cooking and asking me how I used various ingredients.

This day the man behind the counter was new to me. He was wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers baseball cap and a grubby jacket. He had very few teeth and a disturbing red spot in the corner of his eye. When I brought my things to the counter he said, “This is the best rice. It cooks so fast.” I agreed, and we started up a conversation.

He took out his cell phone and started talking to someone in Somali. I didn’t know what was up, but soon figured out he was calling the owner to learn the prices. We checked the size of the rice bag and he read off the label of the spice mix. When he hung up I said, “You’re just helping out, huh.”

“Yes,” he said. “I just got off work.” He told me he worked at the Hormel plant.

“First shift?”

“Yes, I’m in human resources,” he said. “That’s what my degree is in.”

“That’s a really hard job,” I said. “Do you handle people’s complaints?”

“Yes, all day long. ‘My boss didn’t give me my break,’ and so on. I speak Spanish, Somali, Arabic, French and English. It’s not a hard job physically—it’s all mental.”

“And lots of cultural misunderstandings, I’d imagine.”

“Oh yes, always cultural misunderstanding. Talking to one guy in Espanol, then the next in Somali, and the bosses in English. Always figuring out which language I’m in.”

“They are lucky to have you—you have very valuable skills. Do you like it?”

“I wish I had studied something else. I worked so hard in college. Now I work so hard and I’m still stressed. I’m ready to go back to Somalia. What I’d really like is just give me 20 camels and I’ll follow them around. I’ll sit under a tree. I won’t own anything.”

“It sounds like you’ve lived here a long time.”

“Yes, 20 years. But I’m really done with all this. You know what I’m thinking about? The hobo life. Do you know what that is, the hobo life? To not have stress.”

“You just want to live simply,” I said. “It’s hard to do in the United States.”

“Yes,” he said. He took out his cell phone. “I wish I could get rid of this. I have my cell phone bill. My cable bill. My insurance, my car expenses, all these things I stress about. My rent every month. I can’t get away from it. My doctor told me to stop reading, especially politics. I’m on three medications for high blood pressure.

“I’m 27 years old. I just want to go back to Somalia and sit under a tree and not own anything. Take life as it comes.”

Another Somali man had entered the store and stood patiently beside the counter. We finished our conversation and I wished him well and left. This is a common story. I recognize it from the wonderful documentary film God Grew Tired of Us. What does it say that you’d rather live in a failed state than in St. Cloud, Minnesota? And winter coming on…

Posted in politics, reviews, St. Joseph | Comments Off on At the Somali Grocery

Publishing (and not)

Posted on October 6, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

At the workshop I attended in June with Lauren Winner, I had a breakthrough of sorts about publishing. I’ve been wrestling with it ever since, not wanting to commit to a position, not wanting to publicly say what it is I think about the topic. You could say I’ve “lived” with the insight even before the conference, but it was articulated in a different way there by Lauren.

I self-published my book of poems, The Way of All the Earth, but not until 10 years had passed in which I’d submitted it faithfully to dozens of book contests a year. It had been a finalist and received notice from the top poetry contests in the country, including the National Poetry Series. But it had never been the winner, never the one, and so there I was, with a second book of poems half-written, feeling stymied and also the necessity to sit down each year and rearrange the poems in the manuscript, take out some that might be weak and replace them with new poems that might be stronger… I was becoming increasingly sad and anxious as I sat and wrote the checks for the entry fees, paid for the photocopies and postage, and sent off my little book of poems.

In 2001 I tried a different approach, sending out queries to about 40 small publishers in addition to the contest route. I saw it as the last chance for that book. Then in 2003, I gave a reading of my poems at the community college where I taught. The reading was attended by about 400 people and from that reading I also received an invitation to read at a local fundraising event. Not having a book to offer for sale after the reading really broke my heart.

What was I waiting for? Before the fundraising event, I made sure I got the book of poems published. At that time, I paid for the print-on-demand service and bought the books and marketing package that included listing on Amazon and postcards and bookmarks. The whole thing was paid off by the time I’d sold 100 books, which happened to friends and family pretty quickly. Since then I’ve ordered small quantities and had them available when I read or where I work. It is available here on my website. And I’m glad it has a life out there.

When I wrote my memoir, I got lucky. An agent took the project on right away. She was wonderfully commited to it, working with me through three drafts and then representing it well, getting it into many publishers’ hands. However, the chief strike against it with publishers was that I have no platform. Who is Susan Sink? Why would people want to read her book? It takes more than having a good story and a well-written book. You have to have a ready-made audience or be writing on a topic that is unusual and yet also strikes a chord.

I sent my second poetry manuscript around for two years, and then I lost interest. I hate writing those checks when I don’t have faith. And it isn’t that I don’t have faith in my poems, just that the person judging the contest will see the value of this book of poems above other books of poems and choose it. I don’t have faith in the publishing process for poetry.

But also, I have less and less interest even in the idea of publishing on a grand scale. When it comes to poetry, I don’t really see the point of going through that to be “legitimate.” To win a prize is nice, but I am not sure even that will get you a readership, and I know from friends who have been very successful that it won’t get you your second book contract. Not in poetry and not really in other fields as well.

Then Lauren Winner said something that put this in a new light. What she said to our group of writers was, “Hey, all the questions you asked were about publishing. All of you are concerned about how to get published. But what I want to ask you is, do you read? And do you not just read, but do you buy books?” In other words, do we participate in the world in which we hope to be a player? If we don’t buy books, why should anyone buy ours?

The truth is, I do actually buy books, but not many. I buy books that are in the subject area where I’m writing, and I buy books by poets I know, and these days I buy books about gardening and cooking and sometimes religion. I buy them new, sometimes from Amazon, sometimes from the local Barnes & Noble, and sometimes from the website where the author/poet has directed me. Lauren asked us to assess what we spend on books compared to video, phone, computer access, movie tickets, etc. In that assessment, I come out pretty good.

But really, I am not a huge fan of printed books. I want them to be in libraries, and that’s where I get most of my books. I don’t feel the need to own books, and have in fact at times in my life felt oppressed by owning a lot of books. I have given and give a lot of books away.

What is more surprising to me is that I don’t feel the desire or need for a large audience. I don’t need a 20,000 copy press run to make me feel like my book is out there. I really would be fine with selling 200-500 copies over the life of the book. I just want to be able to keep writing them.

So now I’m going a different route. I will still try, with longer books, to offer them to the larger world of publishers and readers. But if there’s no interest, I can still make the work available. These are great times for “indie writers.” And there are some projects where I can just go directly to self-publishing. This week I published the first: Habits, a collection of 100-word stories. You can go like it on its very own facebook page: http://facebook.com/100wordhabits. You can buy it from lulu or from me directly on the Books page of this website. Or you can just read the excerpts available on the Poetry page of this website or at cowbird.com. Enjoy. And thank you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Publishing (and not)

The Lord Will Provide

Posted on October 4, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

Last night we had our first “winter storm.” The temperature dropped from the 70s to the 30s and the wind howled all night. What I waited for, however, was the sound of precipitation. In the north of the state, there was up to 3 inches of snow by this morning. Where we are, however, it is dry. The low layers of clouds just keep blowing and blowing by.

Robins are out pecking the newly planted grass seed, the pond is almost dry, and even one of the lakes I drive by every day displays the dramatic drop in the water line on the cat tails that surround its banks.

In this context, I’m working on a revision of The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, combining the three volumes into one, revisiting in much shorter order the books of the Old Testament. And there I see it again, the food insecurity that marks our current age.

First there are the Israelites in the desert, living on manna and quail that God delivers them daily. This morning I read again about Ruth and Naomi. Here is what I’ve written:

Two widows are not better than one when it comes to providing for themselves. But it is clear that without Ruth, Naomi’s prospects would have been quite dim. Ruth takes on the dangerous task of gleaning, walking behind the harvesters to pick up the meager grain left behind. It seems she might be able to provide the two of them with food this way during the harvest, but it’s unclear how she will continue to provide after the harvest is over. Also, mention is made of the dangers of gleaning and the strong possibility of being “bothered” or mistreated by the men in the fields.

“Ruth and Naomi” from The Saint John’s Bible

I’m aware of the later stories, too, particularly of Elijah’s travails in the desert as he meets the woman and son preparing to die after they make their morning cakes with the last of the oil. God provides the oil that keeps them alive, but just barely.

In this political season, we’re hearing a lot about people on the edge, people just barely providing. I remember a poem by Joan Larkin, one of my first teachers, that said something like this: “the difference between working and paying for childcare and not working is food on the table.”

The first winter storm, rain/snow or not, signals a time of moving inward, of quiet and leanness. In my cold frame I’ve planted two true winter crops: claytonia and mache. And yet, I think they might be, like purslane, something I’m not going to want to actually eat! Lucky for me, I have choices, and money, and access to all sorts of good food. Yesterday I made Squash Stew with Cornbread Dumplings, this time every ingredient but the dumplings coming from my garden stores.

The wind is still gusting outside my window. I’ve put on a black turtleneck and black pants. And hunkering down with my work on the manuscript, the ancient stories feel very close and very true.

Posted in politics, recipe, religion, The Saint John's Bible | Comments Off on The Lord Will Provide

The Good Wife and Privilege

Posted on October 3, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I’ve written before about The Good Wife and the way it depicts corruption. There’s a current trend of “bad” main characters in dramas. After one season, I couldn’t bring myself to watch Weeds, mostly because the brother character was so repulsive, but also because I couldn’t bear to watch one of my favorite, most likeable actresses in the role of a woman who made claims on my sympathies while at the same time making so many bad choices– and the children!

Breaking Bad is another much-celebrated show in which we’re meant to identify or perhaps just be mesmerized, by an ordinary science teacher, dad, and father, as he descends into worse and worse criminal behavior. I’ve never been able to watch that show, either. (To see Stephen Colbert joking with Vince Gilligan about the corrosive effects of living with that character, click here.)

The Good Wife is not in the same category as Weeds and Breaking Bad (and let’s not forget Dexter). It is much more subtle, so I feel like we’re lured into our identification with the characters until we say, “Wait a minute, that’s not right…” The more I watch it, the more I realize how brilliantly the show embodies the deep corruption and moral laziness that is woven into American culture.

The first show of the fourth season, which aired on Monday, is a perfect example. From the traffic stop at the beginning of the show, I just felt uneasy. Something isn’t right here. Yes, of course, the cop is totally over the top in fabricating the drug stop and search. Yes, he shouldn’t be able to get away with that.

However, from beginning to end, as the plot unfolded, what made me uneasy was the privilege on display and the way the show illustrated how privilege works in our society. Right there on the side of the road, the kids say, “Can’t you use dad’s name to get us out of this?” Alicia Florrick doesn’t say, “That’s not right,” but rather “this isn’t Cook County.” She makes a quick phone call to an associate who might have a connection in Madison County, where the stop occured. Over the course of the show we see that tableau on the side of the road several more times.

Back at home, the son gets busy on his computer and turns up first the dashboard camera footage, then the names of other targets of this cop’s behavior, and finally makes a video out of what he’s found that goes viral. It’s the viral video that gets the charges dropped and gets Zach a personal apology from the cop.

Also in the meantime, father Peter Florrick makes a call, but when Alicia gets to the real corruption (i.e., police illegally confiscating drug profits leaving St. Louis rather than actually busting drug dealers heading into St. Louis), she is thwarted by a threat from one county’s attorney to another that, hey, if you step on my drug corridor income, I’m gonna step on yours.

So in the end what we have is that the cop is a jerk. And he must be punished by the “good” Florricks. Thanks to Zach growing up in a world of privilege, he has the means and ability to expose the cop online. For which his mother is very proud of him.

But every time they showed the “dashboard cam” footage from the police officer’s car, I was struck by how uneasy it made me feel. There they were, making their phone calls, working their angle, your average upper-middle-class family with no fear, just annoyance, at the law and its interruptions and harrassment. There was no question who was going to win this battle. The cop’s behavior could not be allowed to stand because, well, what about Zach’s college applications?! In fact, Peter threatens the Madison County attorney that he could similarly disenfranchise that man’s son from the Universtiy of Chicago.

We are used to having our cops and lawyers on television break some rules to achieve justice. It’s a classic American plot we brought with us from Westerns. But the lawyers at Lockhart/Gardner play fast and loose not for the sake of justice so much as, well, money. They’re $60 million in debt and taking on unsavory clients. When Carey protests, Alicia Florrick reminds him he’s not at the state’s attorney’s office anymore. They need money! “Oh yeah, I forgot.” Of course, the state’s attorney’s office, as we see continually, is not necessarily concerned with justice or following the rules either.

I love the show for what it exposes and how subtly it does its exposing. Because of that, I could really do without Kalinda turning into la femme Nikita, using her “Kalinda boots” to demonstrate her martial arts skills and not just for their subtle dominatrix appeal. It was more entertaining when she was mysterious and her only problem was manipulating her former lesbian lovers into doing favors for her. Still, her mix of vulnerability and complete bad-ass-ness makes her one of the most compelling secondary characters on a television drama.

Posted in politics, reviews | Comments Off on The Good Wife and Privilege

Raw Milk Cheese

Posted on September 30, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

It’s been a regular cheese factory around here this weekend. It’s also baking season, and I’ve been loving cooking with the pie pumpkins. I finally plugged in the freezer to hold the last of the tomatoes, the green beans and the many loaves of zucchini and pumpkin bread I’ve been making. It’s the perfect thing to do while watching the Vikings!

About a month ago, I was buying eggs at a local dairy farm and asked the young farmer if he ever sells raw milk. He does, and you just have to call ahead. You also have to bring your own containers. I took a 2-gallon thermos and a couple half-gallon pitchers I’d bought for the purpose and run through the sanitizer at work.

A local farmer was just acquitted last week of charges related to selling raw milk. It’s a tricky thing around here and the law says basically that farmers can directly sell raw milk in small quantities from their farm. No bottling and selling in stores. Thursday I called to make sure it was a milk pick-up day and went out to meet Matthew on the farm.

The milk is beautiful and he dipped it with a half-gallon pitcher into my containers. As soon as I got home, I made the 30-minute mozzarella.

I’ve made a lot of mozzarella and it usually works great. The thing I have the hardest time with on all my cheeses is forming the first curds, the ones you cut with a knife before you start the hard-core heating and stretching to make cheese.

After letting the 86-degree milk sit five minutes with the rennet and citric acid, however, this mozz was taking off! It was actually forming beautiful curds as I stirred it, and the whey seemed to fully and clearly separate. That’s the stuff!!

However, once it got going, it just wouldn’t stop. I heated it in the microwave and started folding and stretching it. Basically, it was the right consistency and gorgeous cheese, but then it kept shedding milk. As you can see from this photo, it was leaking (it made me think of poor breast-feeding mothers leaking, actually). I put it in cold water, but it didn’t abate the process. By the end I had something more rubbery, more like string cheese, than the fresh mozz I’m looking for. I still carried through and made a pizza, with whey crust and topped with garden veggies, but something was off there, too. I declared the pizza and mozz an “epic fail,” although really it was quite edible.

Next was creme fraiche. The milk had separated a bit so I could ladle off from the top, the creamier part, and I heated it, added the culture, and left it overnight. In the morning it was a beautiful, silky substance. But the same thing kind of happened. Once the whey was strained off, the “cheese/sour cream” sort of collapsed and kept shedding milky substance. I put it in a container and will just mix it up before using.

Last came my lactic cheese. This is my favorite cheese, similar to the Rondele and Allouette brands in the grocery store. It’s delicious on crackers or bread and you can add herbs or radishes to make it even more tasty.

Again, I experienced the most beautiful curds I’ve ever seen. After time sitting with the rennet and culture, it was a silky,  gelatinous substance. Now I will admit I only let it sit from 3 p.m. until 11 p.m., instead of overnight. But it looked exactly as it should. Then I put it in the butter muslin and left it to drain until morning. So I did in effect switch the time of these two stages (it should drain about 6 hours). But what I found in the morning was more cottage-y cheese, dry curds, and the whey was not clear but milky.

I put the salt and herbs in it and it is fine, but it is not the cheese I’m used to. I need to do a little trouble-shooting to see if the issue is too much rennet or maybe I should “pasteurize” the milk first by heating it on low for a while so it won’t separate so dramatically. Or maybe I should just go back to buying pasteurized milk from the grocery store!

People recommend raw milk because it builds your immunity. I think it’s mostly about nostalgia for when we could eat right off the farm and people’s basic paranoia about what hormones are shot into cows (though this is not an organic dairy farm). The eggs I bought from Matthew were still warm from the chickens sitting on them that morning. There is something to that. Getting one’s milk dipped directly out of a cold, deep metal container in the milking room was a delightful experience. I’m just not sure it’s going to get me the cheese I want!

Posted in recipe, St. Joseph | Comments Off on Raw Milk Cheese

End of Summer

Posted on September 23, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

It was the fall equinox yesterday, and I spent most of it cooking pumpkin bread and pulling things out of the garden. For the first time, I had to wear a wool cap and sweater out there, and I was only tempted to take them off for about 15 minutes before I got chilly again.

Looking at last year’s posts, I see we got an extra week on this end of summer before the first frost. That means the frost/freeze is still two weeks early, and last night Duluth had it’s earliest snow on record. Of course, spring started about three weeks early, too, so we’re still just off somehow. I keep waiting for one season to be long to even things out, but maybe it’s just a giant cosmic shift. The best thing is that all the squash ripened and I was able to harvest enough for winter before the freeze.

This year I was wise and grew pie pumpkins. They are so much fun! I’ve quartered and roasted two of them so far, and the flesh is lovely. The pumpkin bread is dense and sweet and I’ll be making more for the freezer. I’ll also be making that soup you cook right in the pumpkin and trying my curried soup with pumpkin in addition to butternut squash.

I’m never sad to pull out the tomatoes, and the blighted vines went on the heap with the mildewed squash vines, far from the compost pile. The radio garden gurus at the end of summer were all apocalyptic about killing the various mildewed and blighted plants, wrapping and double-wrapping them so they don’t contaminate anything, burning the soil left in the beds or replacing it (?!!) so as not to have problems next year.

I am counting on a couple of below-freezing weeks to get rid of the bad stuff, and dug in some mushroom compost and added yak compost to each emptied bed. The garlic bed, where the beans were this year, is good to go, and I have purchased a bale of straw to cover them thick and deep.

I also put in my first row-cover hoops today, covering the spinach, lettuce, beets and parsnips that are still growing. I put in the windows on the cold frame to protect the greens and winter carrots. I picked the turnips and lots of lettuce, spinach and basil– the fridge is bursting, still.

One thing I need to share with you, about that yak compost. I have a nice small pile, still, after filling the cold frame and using it to shore up around the leeks and beets. But a few weeks ago I found something in a bed that looked suspicously like a scapula. I mean, I haven’t seen many scapulas, but this had that iconic shape.

Today, I dug up what is obviously another animal bone. I asked Steve, “Is there, by chance, a whole yak in that compost?” He answered that, yes, Mr. Hooper has been known to compost dead yak in his large, hot, compost pile. The only thing I’m worried about now is the compost Steve has been making back by his tree nursery, and what happened to that raccoon and that skunk he shot last week…

Here’s one last summer recipe that I’ve been making with summer produce, specifically our Jimmy Nardello Peppers. It’s easy to make and has been deemed “restaurant-worthy” by my dinner companion.

Chicken in a Red Sweet Pepper Sauce

from Madhur Jaffrey’s “Indian Cooking”

2 lbs chicken pieces (thighs or boneless/skinless thighs)
1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 in cube ginger, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
2 1/2 Tbs blanched, slivered almonds
3/4 lb red sweet peppers, trimmed, seeded, chopped (I’m using Jimmy Nardellos)
1 Tbs ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tst ground turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 tsp salt
7 Tbs vegetable oil
1 cup water
2 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Combine the onion, ginger, garlic, almonds, peppers, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne and salt in food processor or blender and blend to a paste.

Put the oil in a large, wide pot over medium heat. When hot, pour in all the paste and stir fry for 10-12 min or until yous ee the oil forming tiny bubbles around it.

Put in the chicken, water, lemon juice, pepper. Stir to mix and bring to a boil. Cover, turn heat to low and simmer gently for 25 minutes or until chicken is tender. Serve over rice!

Posted in garden, St. Joseph, the Farm | Comments Off on End of Summer

Stickwork, part 3: Lean on Me

Posted on September 22, 2012 by susanmsink@gmail.com

At the end of three weeks, the sculpture is done!

Five leaning buildings that started as images of a small chapel on the lake and became a means and representation of community.

At the celebration, gifts were given to visiting artist Patrick Dougherty and a photo was taken of the volunteer crew.

An old-time string band, “Oh, Daniel,” comprised of four talented students set up in a little circle and started to sing and play.

We talked with a woman who is a costumer at a local community theater. She’s doing “The Hobbit” currently and put out a call for knitters to make squares and rectangles she can turn into costumes. She was hoping for 12 knitters and 80 showed up.

The potter was there. The poet. The cabinetmaker. The quilter. Some monks, including the icon writer and the sculptor. The gardeners weren’t there (the farmer’s market was going on at the same time downtown).

We drank a lot of hot apple cider and watched the children weave in and out of the buildings. Then we went down to the parish where they were serving a porkchop dinner: $9 for a grilled pork chop, with tomatoes and squash from someone’s garden and home-made apple crisp.

Posted in art, Benedictine monastery, St. Joseph | Comments Off on Stickwork, part 3: Lean on Me