Farm Notes – Week 10, August 26, 2013
CONTACT IONFORMATION: Coordinator: Mike Rabinowitz: Before 5:30. 895-2884.
Farm Cell: 6 – 6:30 p.m. 749-2884. (Please note number change for farm cell.)
TAIL GATE SALES. Most members know that Tail Gate Sales is set up so people can swap for veggies they don’t want or buy more of something they do like.
SPECIAL ORDERS. Or you can order something special, by e-mailing Mike in advance. He will put your name on it and save it for you. Sometimes it feels like we are like rum runners in the old days. I sit in the car with the motor running while a helper knocks on a grey door on Pilots Hill, passing in two micro-mix with one hand and taking the money with the other. Or meeting discreetly for under the table sales at the Farmers Market. On Sunday, I arranged for a veggie order to be picked up from the cooler for a woman who works in Placentia and only comes to St. John’s on Sundays. She will leave her check in an envelope on the board in the shed. You would be surprised at the Special Orders Mike organized for Veggie Coop. Last week, a woman bought all of the extra rutabaga. When she came back this week we had none. From now on, she will get a rutabaga if we have any at all; also extra greens for Brad for juicing. We didn’t have any last week, but we have something this week.
This issue of Farm notes includes another warning about hot peppers, bean pate recipes, a new piece about gooseberry syrup and other hints for veggies. And some gossip on Who’s Coming and Going at the farm.
WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE FARM AND IN THE KITCHEN?
Hot Peppers. Been there. Done That! Again!. The first week of Farm Notes, I cautioned about handling hot peppers; how the oil rubs off on your hands, knife and cutting board and is hard to wash off, much like other heavy oils. This was based on making some mistakes years ago. Well, I did it again. A few days ago, I took at long, light green, horn shaped pepper from the pottery bowl in the dining room, where people leave peppers and squash for the house. When I made the salad for supper, I cut it in in circles, crosswise and sprinkled them over the top of the salad along with other goodies such as chives and cucumber rings. We don’t cut tomatoes in the salad;; the greenhouse cherry tomatoes are too small. We put a few in a side bowl, because people prefer to eat the small ones whole. .
Everyone likes salad and usually, take a heaping plate full for their first serving, which is exactly what Soraya, the Agriculture Intern from France, did. She took one bite, looked at us in surprise, exclaiming in broken English, “ It’s Hot! Hot!” I had used a similar colour and shaped pepper earlier in the day to make bean salad and answered in disbelief, “ Isn’t that a sweet pepper? .” She insisted. Mike was sitting at the other end of the table; he looked at the rings of pepper tossed over the salad, and said, it’s a whatever kind, which is supposed to be sweet and mild. Then, he tasted the pepper. It was raging hot. I started picking out the pieces and laid them quietly on a saucer, trying to decide how to take care of them, without discarding them completely It was similar to the one I used earlier and I was confused as to how this might have happened. Even Mike found it hard to tell the difference, without seeing the whole pepper. We still don’t know who it got into the house from the processing shed.
Thanks Goodness, Saroya found some different salad mix for herself and Jessica. Mike ate the hot salad. Later in the evening, Fumiko came in for a late supper, as she often does. She likes spicy dishes and uses some hot pepper in her stir fries – but, immediately noticed that the salad tasted “too hot.” ran to the sink for water (a mistake) and then made herself a different salad as well. I think our son, Oz and Mike eventually consumed the peppered salad which had the pepper pieces totally removed two hours earlier. Then, it dawned on me, why the cheese sliced on the same board as the pepper, had a strong ting of HOT; also, the area around my mouth and face was beginning to sting. At this point, I started a real scrub down of everything, including my hands and mouth.
You say HOT. I say, mild. Not really. They are hot and sweet banana peppers that are similar in colour and shape, but they are not difficult to tell apart once you learn. Meanwhile, Mike went out to processing shed to find the sweet and not so sweet peppers, name them and described their differences, so they could be labeled correctly as they are picked and packed.
Gooseberry Syrup, Bean Pate and Okra Gumbo
Gooseberry Syrup. A lot of people are returning gooseberries; some because they don’t like the taste but most because of the time it takes to head and tail. That’s O.K. They won’t go to waste but this is the end of the season and you may want to make gooseberry syrup the way we did on Saturday. Toby plans to use some to make Gooseberry Fool (see Farm Recipes) for friends when they visit on the week-end. We might also make a non-alcoholic drink by adding to ginger ale or water with ice. I have used the syrup to add flavour to an apple crisp or apple pie. I am sure there is a recipe on line for making syrup. It would start the same way as making fruit jelly. We put the berries in a large pot, adding enough water to cover the bottom, then put in a small amount of sugar, simmering for a few minutes in a covered pot, then squeezing (in either a colander or cheese cloth) them to rob them of their juice, adding more sugar to taste, simmering again while looking for freezer containers.
Bean Pate. We are using the beans to make bean pate which makes a wonderful sandwich spread or in wraps. The recipe is in the Farm Recipe File and a similar one is on the Internet. We are all enjoying it, especially the Vegans as we omit eggs and use only beans, (lots of them) garlic, onions and nuts. Do the taste test. You may want to add a bit of sea salt, lemon juice or Worcestershire. I used cashews because most of the walnuts I can buy here are often stale and rancid. I grew up in West Tennessee near the Mississippi Delta, which we called the river bottom because it usually flooded a few times a year. The flooding didn’t interfere with the natural haven for fifty year old walnut and pecan trees that a ten year old could not reach around. Every since I can remember, this was part of my family’s hunting and gathering tradition. We also had pecan trees in the yards of my aunts and brothers. I know fresh and it is not what we often find packaged in those cellophane packages in our local stores.
The cashews left the pate a little sweet. Fine for children, but not those husky men. I guess I will have to dig into the bottom of the freezer and haul out the last bags of the Tennessee pecans I brought home in May, after my sister organized a nut cracking party so Sis could take some back to Newfoundland. This was a pattern of nurturing my mom, who passed away in 2005, put in place soon after I moved here 40 years ago. Everyone was given a tub of nuts to crack as soon as they sat down at the kitchen table in my mother’s house. Mom packed them in zip lock bags and put them in the freezer, getting ready for their trip to Newfoundland. Everywhere, I stopped between Memphis and St. John’s, such as Nashville or North Carolina, I was instructed to put them in the freezer until I was ready for the plane. And, yes, I did forget them a time or two; another time, I shared them with Mike’s brother, without telling my mother.
What else is on the menu? Veggies and more veggies. Zucchini Pancakes! Spinach Frittas, Omelets with Veggies and green onions. spinach and green onions. Steamed, Grilled veggies and Broiled Veggies, meatless spaghetti sauce made with oven roasted veggies, steamed veggies, polenta with spinach and cheese, stir fries with every kind of veggies, including the fennel and a new dish, OKRA GUMBO. Yes, you got it right. The first “mess” of okra, we have ever grown here was picked recently from the new heated greenhouse where it is growing in pots along the wall. Mike has been watching and talking about his okra for weeks. A couple of days ago, he brought in a large hand full and proudly laid it on the table. He was very pleased. So was I, until, I started preparing the gumbo and found the fiber and seeds of the okra was hard as tree bark. Honestly, I cut not cut across it with a kitchen knife but eventually I was able to split it down the middle, to make quarters of a pod. leaving long hard strips something like a crab leg.
We had to use this okra. We have been talking about growing okra for years and the wonderful okra gumbo we experienced when we lived in New Orleans. Okra was also plentiful in Tennessee and was used to flavour soups and is a basic ingredient for most gumbo recipes. But, what would a man born on Evergreen Avenue in the Bronx, who never planted a tomato seed in a until 1966, know about growing and picking okra? The truth is – very little, but it still fits with the profile of a man, who knows what he likes and enjoys the challenge of finding out what can be grown here in Newfoundland. You may remember that we were one of the first people to grow artichokes twenty or thirty years ago.
Mike checked the okra every day, like everything else in the new greenhouse, waiting patiently for it to get longer and bigger, like the cucumbers and peppers. He didn’t realize that okra should be picked when it is soft, young and tender and only three or four inches long, not six or seven. But never fear! This story has a happy ending. I put the horn shaped pieces in the pot to simmer with other gumbo ingredients, tomatoes, green peppers, patch pan squash, onions, garlic, etc. Also, finding gumbo spices hidden back in the corner of the top shelf of the cabinet, from one trip or another to New Orleans, many years ago. The actual pieces of okra were delicious, something like sucking on a stick of cinnamon bark from a cup of hot punch. The actual gumbo which was cooked down as a low, thick veggie dish to be served over rice was top drawer as they say. LESSONS LEARNED. Today, Mike brought in another bunch of okra which appears to be more tender. I forget to mention that the taxi driver that drove me to the airport from the Victoria General in Halifax came to Canada from Trinidad forty years ago, about the same time we immigrated to Canada. When I learned this, I mentioned okra and okra gumbo I learned to make in New Orleans. He got very excited and talkative, telling me how he makes gumbo, naming all of the ingredients, one by one and explained that he starts with hot pepper simmering in water, then removes it without cutting it, thus getting the flavour, without disturbing the seeds, where the hot resides. He emphasized, letting it cook for an hour or two on the back of the stove and ended by saying, when you get it nice and thick, then, you add the pig tails. Apparently, the actual pig tails are cooked separately, then adding in small pieces for another round of simmering. I am looking forward to brewing up another batch but I seem to be fresh out of pig tails.
Good Bye to Simon.
Simon is a young man who joined our farm team this year. He was raised in Portugal Cove; in fact, we first met him when he came by in May with his dad to collect beer bottles for the local Scouts. He was the successful applicant for the ten week, cost shared Student Work And Services Program. (SWASP) The SWASP program was late getting things in place this year, which meant he had to work six days a week, straight through last Saturday until six o’clock to get his required hours. He stepped into the role of helping in new greenhouse, learning from Justin and Mike and did a great job. The SWASP program is a government program designed to help students. It is a win-win situation for the farm and the student. The SWASP grants subsidies the Employer costs of around $12.00 at $5.00/ for the 350 hrs. Simon worked this season. In addition, Simon is eligible for a stipend toward his school tuition, which is paid directly to the Institution. For Simon, this is the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design in Halifax. We will miss this tall, quiet, easy going young man who always greeted everyone with a smile in the morning.
Melba Rabinowitz
August, 2013
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