True Savor

[Risotto with Roasted Butternut Squach - recipe here, on Patent and the Pantry]

Searching for seasonal recipes to fill our local quota is almost half the fun for this encounter with CSA. I have 99 feeds in my bloglines (excessive, maybe) - crafty, creative people I admire and glean inspiration from. At least a third of these relate to some form of cookery. I LOVE to cook - I love to admire other's cooking and stow away recipes for an adventerous rainy day. I even considered culinary school for about a day, before I saw what kind of student loans I'd be racking up. At the time I also saw my gluten intollerance (celiac?) as a limiting factor - how would I get through culinary school if I couldn't taste and eat most of the things I'd be whipping up? My oh my, how wrong I was. These days I see it as a challenge, a beautiful adventure, with ups and downs (both in the form of my breads lately - some rise, some fall flat into a doughy mess reminicent of playdough). But I digress...

Our most recent recipe success came in the form of a creamy, autumnal, Risotto. As we had a lovely butternut squash sitting on the table, from Erehwon, practically begging to be a part of this creative process - the above recipe seemed fitting. Talk about comfort food. Taking the risotto off the heat to stir in butter and parmesan - and suddenly, smelling Italy. I'd eaten my share of Risotto for three weeks in the summer of 2008, and it was lovely to know I'd done something right - it had the right aroma, if nothing else. Delightful - will certainly be a family favorite - I beg you to try it.

Here is our final Wellhausen delivery of the season - the farm was able to squeeze one more week out of the crops and gave us the biggest spaghetti squash to date, a huge bag of potatoes, several yummy apples, some radishes, a bag of arugula salad, and some farmer's cheese we ordered from a local dairy and sent via Wellhausen.



Remember the apples we had such big plans for? They've now been a tart, applesauce, an afternoon snack, and spiced apple jam! Home made gluten free bread, hot out of the oven, spread of apple jam - heavenly desert.


I am so thankful for these days. Taking the earthy's bounty, worked with the hands of our neighbor, entrusted to our care, and in turn forming it into the very nourishment to our bodies and our spirits. How satisfying to simply make good food, and to enjoy it together in our home. This is not the typical American perspective - taking the time to make and savor our food. Annie Dillard describes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek a blind patient's description of lemonaid as square, because it pricked their tounge, the way a cube had pricked their finger. When is the last time we really felt lemonaide prick our tounge? It seems many of us have taken to eating and drinking too quickly to even taste our foods. Upon the idea of making pickles last week, I sat amongst several who were shocked and almost bothered - all of the sudden we're taught to think this use of time would be a waste? Backwards, these days. This terrible construct of time has ruined us - time is now an asset, and we are to make the most of it. Perhaps we should take the advisement of good uncle Henry - "He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise." Henry David Thoreau

-E

Trees Like Lungs

[First Pickup from Erehwon Farms - stew greens, green onions, stew veggies, spaghetti squash,

winter squash, radish, fennel, collard greens(?), fingerling potatoes, apples, garlic, baby pumpkins]

A restful weekend - full of this and that. We are taught to be industrious, to make the most of our time, never slow down, sleep is for the weak. Our imperfect, human bodies are not made to go that fast for that long... it's dishonoring to treat our bodies as machines. This season of my life and of the year has me in thought of how to reconnect my (our) life to the truly natural internal clock that was in mind at our very creation. Sabbath. What does that even mean anymore? When I was young it meant we HAD to take a nap on Sunday afternoons, but that didn't translate into anything. It didn't resonate with young little mind.

[first go at making applesauce - apples from both Wellhausen & Erehwon]

Now what can it and what does it mean in my specific life? I still try and fit entirely too much in, easily distracted by the next project on my wish list. Though, now, I'm coming to understand that Sabbath doesn't mean inactivity - it means taking part in creation, in a way that is restful and restoring to our own bodies. Intentional time that I have set to embrace the things that draw me closer to the heart of God.

[home made mashed potatoes - Wellhausen & Erehwon]

This weekend was restful & restoring. An extra hour yes - but it felt like twelve. Saturday morning gifted a gentle drive, my best friend at my side; explosions in the sky and trees, leafless, reaching into that very firmament like the lungs that they are. Bronchi and bronchioles stretching, bidding adieu to their luster and seeking restful days and nights, regrouping and regaining the strength for another year. Perhaps the time was not so intentional, but it was restoring.

[red meat radish for stew - Erehwon - how beautiful - does anyone
know if this is different than a watermelon radish? Sunday]

And what to be said for my list of activities? Purchase foodmill, pickup CSA delivery, make applesauce, crochet plant hangers, separate pumpkin seeds... I had quite the list by 3:30pm. But it was reposing. To take part in embracing this earth, in the creative process, is completely fufilling, and fills me up.

[Erehwon Farms - Grandma Beth's stew recipe - beets, radish, turnip, potatoes,
carrots, Jerusalem artichoke with stew meat, stew greens were added later - Sunday]

Saturday:
Apple Sauce - Erehwon & Wellhausen
Mashed Potatoes - Erehwon & Wellhausen

xo,
Evie

PS... Earlier in the week I needed an immediate satisfaction sewing project and made this lovely new pillow for our couch using a fat quarter of some incredibly silky, cotton, quilting weight fabric I picked up on Bainbridge island while shopping with my sister-in-law this August on vacation... The lighting doesn't do it justice, but the silly thing makes me grin.

the old college try

I'm a bad blogger. There, I said it. I spend free time pouring over other people's crafty blogs imagining that I have the patience to write about my own endeavors. I even started this particular blog last year with those intentions.

I get distracted. I used to write in response to all sort of activities... it made them feel more whole, having the chance to sit and reflect, to tell the story of how they affected me. Perhaps making the time to think and write on these things will become a sort of centering, to keep me mindful of what it is I'm doing, of all the implications that come along with participating in the nature of creation.

I've just moved across the country (vertically). My immediate and extended family who I've been near and close to since the day I was born are all (nearly) in Atlanta, GA. I've just moved to be with my fiance and in-laws-to-be. How in the world do I keep up on the sharing of my life, my crafts, my loves of nature and beauty? I call them of course (and beg them to visit)... but I also urge myself to give time to this. A place where they can come to see what I am working on or dreaming up.

I've finally a solid reason to keep myself at this. Years ago, blogging felt selfish or at the very least, arrogant (who am I that the whole world would want to read what I have to say). More recently blogging became an amazing collaboration of admirable, crafty, thrifty, creative people who I can admire and gain inspiration from. And now, now blogging is even more, it is a chance to root myself, reflect on myself, and connect with those who helped to mould myself.

Bonus: I always forget how much I love to write... this will come in handy as I begin my career as an accountant crunching numbers five days of the week.

Once I uncover the cord to my camera... a peek at a christmas present and projects of all sorts. For now, I leave you with a picture of my very first, made from scratch, gluten free, chocolate banana bread!