The bluest skies

The Sun is just now coming up and it looks like blue skies. This totally blows my Seattle bashing about the cloudy rainy 360 days a year shtick. Oh well. Yesterday was amazing not a cloud in the sky the mountains were visible all around us, the Olympic Mountains, the Cascades, Mt Baker, Mt Rainier, it was breath taking. My brother in law and I took the new light rail to the “I district” (aka/ china town, international district). Our first stop was PHO HOA an awesome Vietnamese noodle house. For those not familiar, Pho, it is a soup made up of an extremely hot and rich broth that is poured over thin rice noodles, it’s often served with very thin slices of tendon, or flank, or tripe that cooks in the extremely hot broth. You’re served a plate on the side that contains a huge handful of mung bean sprouts, Thai basil, jalapeño slices and lime. It’s a huge bowl. It’s delicious, nutritious and will fill you up and it’s very cheap to boot. Pho places open early and by 10 am they are generally packed with Vietnamese, Samoans, Latinos and a few slices of white bread like us.

The thing I love most about Seattle is the diversity of cultures that live mostly harmoniously under one grey sky. The assortments of small independently owned ethnic restaurants range from Ethiopian, Thai, Mung, Pilipino, South African, North African, South American, Norwegian, Swedish, Sicilian, Italian, Brazilian, Japanese, Korean, Irish, Scottish, English, and Russian. When I lived here before, I ate out a good part of my week, when I wasn’t cooking at the restaurant I ate out. To choose what restaurant to go to I would just decide what country I wanted to eat in. It was amazing. It’s easy to be adventurous without trying very hard.

One of my very favorite restaurants in Seattle is Sea Garden its Chinese and specializes obviously in sea food, it’s been around for ages and just keeps getting better. One specialty of the house is the crab with black bean sauce or crab in garlic ginger sauce both phenomenal! When you enter Sea Garden the first thing you see are the large tanks with the fish of the day. There might be clams, mussels, oysters, goeduck, tilapia, and always crab. After you order your crab it is brought to the table for your inspection. The waiter takes it out of the plastic bin with a pair of tongs and gives you a good look at it, front and back. The main thing you are looking for is to make sure it’s alive and well. A dead crab will bring on the worst digestive issues you can imagine. And possibly a long hospital stay not to mention you will never eat crab again as long as you live.

From there the crab gets cleaned and thrown into a red hot wok to cook with the incredible sauce. It comes to your table cleaned but whole so you also get a large glass bowl of warm lemon water for your hands. It’s messy, make no mistake about it. If one feels self conscious all they have to do is look around at this packed restaurant and the crab on every table. It’s a visceral experience and one of the best ways to really get into your food. Very sadly this trip home no Sea Garden for me, it just didn’t work out and not having a foodie family it wasn’t on the top or bottom of their list to eat so the one time we did eat out it was at a chain Mexican restaurant that served basic food everyone could enjoy. Luckily I have a lasting memory of Sea Garden !

Today I’m held up in the house, everyone is gone so I guess I’ll pack and get ready for my flight in the morning. I cannot wait to get home. It was a rough week for the farm. The snow storm had some bad effects and we lost two bucks, they became hypothermic and through all efforts, blankets, hot water bottles etc. were not able to recuperate, very sad. Linda held the fort down and I’m sure will need a break when I get home. The snow made daily life very difficult for one person. On the bright side we have a new beautiful lamb born yesterday, healthy and strong and so goes the circle of life.

So long Seattle,

The farm is calling me home to her arms.

To her goats, sheep, lambs, chickens, and her love.

Fences to mend,

Eggs to gather,

Goats to milk,

Cheese to make,

Soil to turn.

Through death and through life

The farm is calling me,

to her land I must go.

A foodie christmas

The forecast today calls for sunny skies in Seattle and snow predicted for my corner of Oklahoma. The best in both worlds! I’m not going to be whiney about missing home and tell you how I dreamt of Teeny Tiny. Really. I am ON right now! On, to cook dinner tonight for 14 family members. Yea I’m fired up!

First of all the family is getting the basics; Prime rib roast
Scalloped potatoes
Iceberg with ranch
Rolls w/margarine
This they will be happy with, I’m adding to the menu some:

Crab cakes with rosemary aoli
Local green beans slathered in real butter and toasted garlic
Seared and braised fresh Alaskan halibut steaks with
red peppercorns, lime and cilantro
Tiny Red fin fingerlings roasted with garlic
A salad of all the different greens I could find at the market
Dressing served on the side of course.
a beautiful loaf of rustic bread
And a seriously kick but yes…. Jell-O salad, red white and green baby!

My youngest niece who has the baking gene is bringing desserts.

Wish me luck and have a very merry Yule to you all!

City Day

A day at the Pike Place Market does a spirit good. Traveling with my middle niece Jennifer via the new light rail system was a true big city day. The train was packed with Seattlelights of all creeds, cultures and colors, it was clear I wasn’t in Depew Oklahoma any more Dorothy! I was trying hard not to stare. Living in Oklahoma I forget that there is a world outside of my own, one bursting from its seams, one flowing over with unabashed freedom and force. This City, like most big cities is full of life, some of it profoundly joyful and beautiful and some tragic and painfully sad.

We listened to great old guy Jamin’ at the market. He was a light! Crooning old Dillon and Guthrie toons he attracted a huge half circle of on lookers in an absolute daze. Tourists and homies , This guy was a great entertainer! Tried to upload a video for you but it must have been too long.
Down the way a bit we listened to a fellow playing a saw. I have to admit it sounded like he was torturing that poor saw, best to put that thing to a timber than a bow son! Just sayin’.

I met several artisan cheese venders. They were very busy so I really didn’t get a chance to talk in depth but the samples of cheese I tasted were no less than inspirational. I picked up some cards and brochures and thought possibly after Yule I’ll see if I can come to their farm for a visit. My heart races when I taste a beautiful handmade cheese. My palms get sweaty and I babble. I can’t focus and can’t really form sentences. All I really want to do is pull out my milk and my cultures and get to work. It drives me crazy that I don’t have an on farm processing permit yet. I know it will happen eventually. The only thing stopping me is money.

Today, I’m headed out to shop for Christmas Eve dinner. This is when I start to really feel the angst of being home. I am a trained chef. My family would like it if I make the dinner. Here is the problem most of them eat like four year olds, they have the taste buds only suited for cheesy mac and Top Ramen. They don’t like vegetables they don’t like anything “gourmet”. So my challenge as a chef is to make them happy by cooking the blandest fakest meal I can. (Instant mashers win over fresh, iceberg over green leaf)

How does “A real food” foodie cope with this????

One option is to cook two dinners. One for myself, my brother in law and my older sister and niece that’s 4 and the other 10 get fake potatoes, feed lot beef, minute rice and iceberg w/ ranch. Or should I just suck it up and just go along with what will make the majority happy. I need your help here people! Or maybe I make the fake food and just have a couple of items that will be a real treat like fresh dungenous crab cakes with rosemary aioli, How ‘bout a bottle of Andrew Will Cab to put my mind at ease. How about a small filet of Alaskan salmon barely cooked. And I’ll go back to the cheese venders and make myself a little local cheese sampler.

What’s a good compromise? Any ideas? Am I just a food snob? Yes! I’m a complete food snob, can they love me anyway?

The closest exit may be behind you

A great feeling of dread came over me as the grey thick clouds hugged the plane upon our decent into Seattle. Just moments before a voice came on the crackly muffled loud speakers to tell us winds were high and to expect some turbulence. “The Seattle weather today is rainy, 48 degrees” he croaked. Oh, really I sarcastically thought to myself. I missed home already. I missed the Oklahoma sunshine I left countless hours earlier. I missed the farm. Painfully, I missed the farm.

The plane made its way through in spite of the thick grey clouds. Soon my city was visible. Wet and grey at high noon. Black and green dots became visible as great pine trees and houses crammed together so closely it seemed like a row of fallen dominoes. Alki beach, Elliot bay, Lake Washington, bridges over water backed up already in traffic. The area I grew up in looked like Mister Roger’s neighborhood clearly fake but believable if you only use your imagination.

The plane hit the tarmac hard and I bit my tongue, I was home. Home where I grew up, Home where my kin have stayed put since 1925, except for me and my oldest niece Jen who left our Seattle to live and create new Homes far, far away. Others of my tribe made attempts at living away but came back briskly with wounds to be healed. But it was the opposite for Jen and I, her in Arizona me in Oklahoma gave us an opportunity to come into ourselves. To be created without judgment or ridicule. To become. I can’t speak for Jen but It did me a world of good to leave home and I even feel like I’m a better more productive member of my clan then I was before. I have a better appreciation for them. I have more to offer them. More stories, more conversation, more laughs and I’m settled in good with myself now.

I picked up my big bulky bag off of the carousel in baggage claim. I waited a little while before I called to have my brother in law pick me up. I thought about seeing my family and the permanent shadows my sister left behind like the victims of Hiroshima, my sister’s shadow engraved forever in the kitchen after the devastating cancer bomb. At the kitchen table she sat, with her coffee and paper, un-moved un-altered. God how will I deal? Then I thought about the Christmas tree and all the decorations my brother in law continues to put up with such spirit. I thought of rest, I thought of seeing my great niece and nephew. I thought of eating and where I would go first. I thought of all the good wine I would be drinking and the crab and salmon I would eat. I thought of what fun it will be to cook dinner on Christmas Eve side by side with my sister’s shadow. And finally, I called. “I’m home” I said, “come and get me”.

Today I’ll go to the Pike Place Market, I’ll go to the coffee shop, visit the butcher, go to the spice shop, the wine shop and of course the coffee shop again for the train ride back home. (The new light rail is in operation now!) Glad to be home.

For me, the tough part of December is over and now comes the warm fuzzy part where I get together with friends for raclette and pack for my trip to Seattle to visit my family. The Catering was fast and furious but I couldn’t be more grateful for Kam who employs my services and thus pays the farm bill for the next month. After that who knows.

My last day working with Kam was Friday and I must say it took a while for my legs to stop twitching so I could sleep. Kam and Chef Bill are still going strong, I’m only free because I’m skipping town.

On the home front, I did one of the cheesiest things imaginable, for solstice I gave my partner a puppy. I know! I had to give him to her early because I leave tomorrow morning but it turns out I did ok. She really likes her new buddy. He’s a miniature dachshund, 6 weeks. He is adorable of course. And what farm doesn’t need a mini dachshund! He’ll herd the cats and the dust! Max hopefully will warm up to him but right now all the dogs are scared out of their gourd of him. The way he goes straight at them with his sharp as needles little teeth (are u my mommy?)

Life is beautiful here; the pond is partially frozen except for the middle that is high in waves from the 10 or so ducks that are swimming around playfully. The tall grass in the pasture is frozen and crystallized reflecting the morning sun, edging me into a profound spiritual experience. The smell of puppy breath does it every time!

Ahh…..Sunday breakfast!
Blue corn flapjacks
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cup blue cornmeal
Pinch salt
2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups goat milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Directions :
Preheat a cast iron skillet. (if your using the top of your wood burning stove wait, it won’t take long at all just till a lump of butter melts).
Mix together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Beat the eggs the milk in a medium bowl until combined, stir in the melted butter. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. If the batter seems too thick, add a little bit more goat milk.
Put a little butter or oil into the skillet to melt. Ladle about 1/4 cup of the batter into the skillet for each pancake. Cook until the bottom is light golden brown, flip, and continue cooking for about 60 seconds. Remove to an ovenproof dish and keep warm in the oven until ready to serve. This recipe makes about 16 pancakes. We heated up some frozen peaches from this summer with about a tablespoon of butter, If you have some cream from the top of yesterdays milking poor about ¼ cup into the peaches, You don’t even need maple syrup. Yummers!

Fond of food

It’s a dark cold morning and it was one of those off and on sleepless nights, which only happens when you need rest the most. I helped feed over 300 people yesterday. I’ve lost count for the week. When I did sleep I dreamt of food; cutting, dicing, and pulling apart one turkey after another, also, mashing. I knew I was dreaming because my mom was there and she is looking forward to eating what I was about to serve. My mom was one of my biggest fans. Some times when we would share a nice lazy Sunday with each other she would pull out the shoe box that contained all the little articles and reviews I had received throughout my years of chefing of Seattle. We would look at them, it was weird but I went along, glad that I made her proud.

My mom did cook while I was growing up but only the very basics; hamburger helper, ice berg wedge with Thousand Island and she had this cake fetish; crab cakes, salmon cakes, cod cakes, trout cakes. (my dad fished) I don’t know that I had ever eaten a filet of salmon before I was 15, but had eaten many many pounds of the stuff in different forms.

I was the ”gourmand” of the family, always chefing things up even as young as 8. My shows were Julia Childs, Jeff Smith “the frugal gourmet” (who I later went to work for but only for a very short time) and “the Galloping gourmet”. This was Public television 3 pm, back in the late 70’s. By dinner I was so hungry I looked crazed I’m sure.

My middle sister was a really good cook. Very home style cooking but seriously melt in your mouth pot roast and sloppy joes to remember. I was a huge fan of my sisters cooking and un-like me she received the baking gene and could make and decorate cakes like it was nobody’s business.

When I opened my restaurant in Seattle my mom loved to come and have dinner, she would bring my Aunt. Two of the cutest old ladies in the world. My aunt was a meat and potatoes kind a girl, so I would have to run next door to the butcher and get her a nice steak which I would then cook the loven crap out of. My mom liked the spaghetti marinara, the most purest simplest item we had on our menu. She tried the Botarga (dried tuna roe) and the pasta con sarde (pasta with sardines) but always floated back to her fav, the spaghetti.

Those times seem so long ago, so much has changed. my Mom, Sister and Aunt have all passed and me, no longer behind the line slinging out pasta on a busy Friday night but instead left with my beautiful memories of them while I wait for a Ewe to lamb and gather the items for the CSA. I’m still cooking, I guess that will never change.

By 6pm tonight I’ll have fed maybe 150 people. Last day of catering then rest and then Seattle to be with the fam.

Dream a little dream

Its 18 degrees and the dogs refuse to go out side. They're crossing their legs pacing the door but every time I open they repel back and look at me like no frikin way lady.

Everything is kind of chaotic right now with the new sheep. Everyone but the woolies are having trouble figuring out where they’re supposed to be or where they’re supposed to go. They do know where the water and mineral block is and they know when its meal time. There just real clumsy about it. Like a new kid the first day of school, where’s my locker? what if I can’t remember the combination? how do I get to this class?. I will say the woolies seem to be doing slightly better, they’re still finding a way out of the south fence but they are coming back. So they are finding the routine and flow of things finally. Just so they don’t find the flow of traffic on route 66 I’m A OK. The hair sheep are so beautiful, they are big and healthy looking and Pascal has taken to watching over them. Pascal Loves lambs and they love him. I’ve watched from a far while several lambs played king of the hill on this back. He acts as if it tickles, I’ve never been able to get a good shot of it though, every time the camera comes out they stop, what’s that about anyway. Hopefully the new lambs who weren’t born here will grow to trust him.

December is almost over, which means I’ll be able to get down to the real business of farm work. Yesterday I got home at 4:30 and worked on fences until I couldn’t see anymore then I went up to the big barn and loaded the truck with hay and alfalfa for the milkers and milked late. The goats hate when I’m late. I gave them extra alfalfa to buy some time as I unloaded.

I dreamt of high stress caterings last night, ones like where I was just about to serve the soup (for 175 people) and could not find it. I found it finally after a lot of screaming and yelling at my staff (I’ve never done that) and it was cold! So I heated it up and then could not find the garnish. I did three caterings in my sleep last night. I worked my butt off in that dream and I won’t even get paid! That sucks! I hope those people are happy they got such a good deal! The whole time I was trying to work (in my dream) this dang baby kept bugging me when I would push the stroller in the other room its dang head would fall off. I put it right back on and he seemed perfectly fine, but somehow he would wander back in the kitchen and the same thing would repeat. That dang head kept falling off. Three more days of catering left. Three more days.

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