Frisking The Dalai Lama

According to BadTux the TSA actually had the temerity to pat down the Dalai Lama when he was recently entering the country. He is actually here in Atlanta at Emory U.

I know I feel safer now that one of the most peaceful men on the planet has been shaken down for concealed weapons by the brown suits. They probably scored them a few 75 year old grandmothers the same day.

Still Punk

Still fighting this damn cold. It's a struggle to work up enough spit to do anything and there is mountains of stuff to do. That not withstanding I just went out and bought two flats of pansies for the beds at the end of the driveway. I was feeling poor last year so I didn't plant anything in the fall out there not anything in the spring and they have looked miserable for a year as a result. So I have the two beds to prepare, pansies to plant, lettuce and spinach to transplant in the greenhouse, chard to move to the garden, garden to finish cleaning up, the meager crop of sweet potatoes to dig and much, much more. That and sniffling, blowing my nose and coughing from post nasal drip. However, the weather is brilliant even though they have now declared that we are in minor drought conditions and no rain is forecast anywhere in the near term. The nights are cool and lots of sunshine during the day. It could be a lot worse.

Madam's Birthday

Today is Madam's birthday. A friend took her out to lunch and shopping and I am cooking one of her favorite meals tonight. Grilled lamb chops, grilled asparagus, potatoes Anna and for dessert an apple tart from just picked Georgia apples. She has had a thing for lamb chops since she was a kid and living with her parents for a few years in Greece so it is always her choice when asked what she wants as a special meal. She had a choice of creme caramel for dessert or the apple tart and she opted for the apples since a friend brought us a bag from their mountain trip this weekend.

I also cooked her a German dinner last night of bratwurst, sauerkraut(homemade) and steamed potatoes and the michbrot I made yesterday which turned out very nice. She might be from Texas but her German family from the hill country never lost their love of German food though they did add BBQ and TexMex into the mix and her good German dad could cook up some mean enchiladas and was no slouch around the BBQ either.

Seasonal Cold

I woke up this morning with a cold. Not serious yet but a bit of scratchy throat and stuffy head. Let's hope it gets no worse. I had plans for garden work but I am going to chill instead and do a little baking. I gave away one my daily loaves this week...well actually I traded it for a dozen eggs from my friends Kelly and Carmen down the road who have some chickens in the backyard. Good trade. So anyway, I need to bake the daily bread twice this week. I am also going to try to make 'michbrot' again. That's 'mixed bread' in German. Traditionally, Germans have used rye for their breads as rye grows better in the central European climate than wheat so the traditional German bread tends to be mostly rye...sometimes the heavy dark 100% rye or the lighter 'michbrot' which has wheat flour as well. I'm going for a 60% rye/40% wheat sourdough version and in order to make it traditionally, I am starting with a levain. Typically, a levain is a small piece of dough made from another small piece of dough left from the previous bake(a chef). The chef is mixed with a small amount of water and flour and left to ferment for 12 hours or so producing the levain which is then used to leaven the full bread recipe instead of or in addition to baker's yeast. Using a levain increases the flavor of bread immensely as the lactobacillus and various yeasts in it have a chance to produce many more flavor compounds than just baker's yeast alone. The secret to good bread is a long slow ferment. I've got my levain started using my sourdough starter instead of a piece of left over bread dough but the principle is the same.

So I am sniffing and baking today and not gardening which is a shame as it is a brilliant day.

World Food Day

Today marks World Food Day.  World Food Day, October 16th, is a worldwide event designed to increase awareness, understanding and informed,  year-around action to alleviate hunger.  Think about what you can do today or in the future to support the increase of local food economies and food sustainability. Just planting a small garden is a positive action as is support local farmers and farmer's markets.

Calling Tyranny By Its Name

There is an excellent piece over at Truthdig by Chris Hedges "How Democracy Dies: Lessons From a Master" where he uses the examples of the Greek playwright Aristophanes from plays such as The Wasps and Lysistrata to illustrate what is happening in today's America. It's a disturbing but worthwhile read. Here is a sample:

“The truth is, they want you, you see, to be poor,” Aristophanes wrote in his play “The Wasps.” “If you don’t know the reason, I’ll tell you. It’s to train you to know who your tamer is. Then, whenever he gives you a whistle and sets you against an opponent of his, you jump out and tear them to pieces.”
Our democracy, through years of war, theft and corruption, is also being diminished. But the example Aristophanes offers is not a hopeful one. He held up the same corruption to his fellow Greeks. He repeatedly chided them for not rising up and fighting back. He warned, ominously, that by the time most citizens awoke it would be too late. And he was right. The appearance of normality lulls us into a false hope and submission. Those who shout most loudly in defense of the ideals of the founding fathers, the sacredness of Constitution and the values of the Christian religion are those who most actively seek to subvert the principles they claim to champion. They hold up the icons and language of traditional patriotism, the rule of law and Christian charity to demolish the belief systems that give them cultural and political legitimacy. And those who should defend these beliefs are cowed and silent.

h/t Susie

The Lowdown On Organic Cage Free Eggs

The Cornucopia Institute has just come out with the results of a research project on organic free range eggs that, if you eat eggs and buy organic cage free eggs, you should study carefully. Included in the report is a scorecard by producer on how well they meet the standards. Of  course, the right answer is to get your eggs from a local producer that treats its chickens properly. You may be able to find one using one of these two links:

• www.eatwild.com
• www.localharvest.org

Eggs are a really good food and can be a part of everyone's healthy diet but it is important know the quality of the eggs you buy and eat. An egg-testing project performed by Mother Earth News in 2007 found there were significant differences in nutrition between factory-farmed and organically raised eggs.
Compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene 

If you have ever been to Europe and eaten the eggs there, which are typically from small local producers you have seen the brilliant orange of the yolks compared to the pale yellow we see here in the states from the factory produced ones. Enough said.

P.S. As a bonus there is a report and scorecard on organic dairies at the Cornucopia website. You can also subscribe to their email newsletter if you are so inclined.

Lotsa Peppers

As I have mentioned it's garden cleanup time. The first possible frost date for this area is set at October 20th by the NWS and I like to have all the tender stuff out by no later than the end of October. Today I started on cleaning up some of the peppers. I hate to waste anything so the first step is to pick any late fruit. I started picking just the Carmen, Poblano and Jalapenos. I kept picking and I kept picking. I limited myself to only the red Carmens but I picked all but the smallest Poblano and Jalapeno. I filled up  both my garden baskets and had to stop. You can see the result in the picture as I have a kitchen table full of the little monkeys. There is nothing to do but spend the afternoon doing something with them and I have decided to make a pepper sauce. The combination of sweet red Carmen, mildly hot Poblano and the quite hot Jalapeno should make a sauce that won't blow your head off but have plenty of pepper flavor. I'm thinking it will need some garlic and for sweetness I'll use raisins. I've had a very nice pepper sauce that used raisins and it was delicious. I'll process it pretty fine and leave the pulp so it won't be a Tabasco like liquid but more of a thin paste. I refuse to let it all go to waste and I have plenty of canned roasted red peppers and pickled Jalapenos so there is really nothing left to do with them all. Since I didn't pick nearly all the peppers out there it looks like I'm going to have peppers at least until the first frost.  Truth be told I could just haul them all down to the food bank and be done with them but I feel the need to preserve them myself. There is my afternoon all planned out. Madam is going to freak when she sees the pile of peppers on the table but maybe I will have put a dent in them before she gets home. It is always hard to estimate but I would guess I'm going to wind up with about a gallon and a half, maybe two of pepper sauce and I've still got some of last year's on the shelf.

Update: Five and a half hours and it is done. I'll jar it up tomorrow. What am I going to do with 2 gallons of pepper sauce? Turned out nice and hot but not overly so.

Update 2: Turns out I have 22 pints of pepper sauce after all is said and done.

Lots of Lying Goin' On

The crazy right learned something important during the Kerry campaign for president. There is no downside for lying in television and radio ads and regardless of how full of lies and misinformation they will make an impact in an election. The swift boaters took an American war hero and turned him into a lying traitor and all with lies and they did so with impunity.

Well it is happening once again. So far right wing groups have run some 60,052 ads  since the beginning of August. While many have been objectively proven to be just a bunch of distortion and lies they are making an impact. Greg Sargent has a partial list, just of the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads ads, and just on the Senate side.

Here's something important that's getting lost in the firefight over the money funding the ads by the U.S. Chamber and Karl Rove's groups: Many of the ads themselves have been debunked by independent fact checkers as false, grossly misleading, or marred with distortions....
Not only are the ads themselves getting widely debunked, but the justifications the groups are offering for the ad onslaught attacking Democrats (that liberals and labor do this too) are also demonstrably false or misleading. We're witnessing a massive disinformation campaign flooding airwaves across the country that could change the outcome of major races and shift the balance of power in Congress, funded by money from undisclosed sources, justified with still more falsehoods and disinformation.
Here's a partial list of debunked ads hitting Dems from the Chamber, and Rove's groups, Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads:
* A Chamber ad was yanked from two Pennsylvania TV stations after they determined its claim about Pennsylvania Senate Dem candidate Joe Sestak and Nancy Pelosi was false.
* A Crossroads GPS ad slamming Sestak over health care reform and Medicare was skewered by FactCheck.org for its "wild exaggeration" and dismissed as "badly misleading."
* A Crossroads GPS ad attacking California Senator Barbara Boxer for voting to cut Medicare spending by $500 billion was rated by Politifact as "barely true" and "seriously misleading."
* Two Chamber ads attacking Boxer for favoring freshwater fish over jobs were dismissed by Factcheck.org, though with some caveats, as follows: "Strictly speaking, both ads are untrue."
* Also in the above link, FactCheck.org slammed Crossroads GPS for making similiarly misleading claims about health reform in an ad targeting Kentucky Dem Senate candidate Jack Conway. FactCheck.org's conclusion: "Don't let Crossroads GPS steer you down the wrong road."
* An American Crossroads ad blasting Harry Reid with various claims about unemployment and the stimulus was dismissed by the Las Vegas Sun for "egregious" stretching of the facts and "gross distortions."
* That same ad was also ripped by FactCheck.org for distorting the truth and by Politifact as "false."
* An American Crossroads ad hammering Ohio Dem Senate candidate Lee Fisher over job creation and tax hikes was skewered by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "incomplete" and "mucked up with distortions."
* An ABC affiliate in Colorado found that a Crossroads GPS ad attacking Senator Michael Bennet made a misleading claim about Bennet on government spending and conflated opinion for fact on the stimulus.
And so on. Those are just Senate races; I may follow up with House races.

Once the poison, factual or not, is out there some damage has been done. People hear the ad but not the discrediting part. Once the lie is out there the damage is done. As I said above the right learned that lesson with the swift boat attacks on John Kerry. The sorry bit is that there is no downside for this kind of stuff. The right knows these ads do damage and they can run them with impunity. These folks are being funded by some very deep corporate and foreign pockets that are keenly interested in seeing any semblance of progressive politics stifled completely. It's a tragedy for America but they are going to win the day.

Owl Chatter

For the last couple of nights the owls have been especially talkative. There must be quite a gaggle of them out there judging by the conversation. Whowhohawho- who-who. Is it a question? Is it a comment? All of them are asking or saying pretty much the same thing but the tone is comforting and supportive and not threatening. If you go outside and stand in the trees you can sometimes feel them soar by on their silent wings and on rare occasions you can catch a glimpse of one sitting quietly and waiting for some small creature to make the mistake of becoming visible. Somehow it is very comforting to lay down to sleep with the owls chatting outside your window.

More Expensive to Die Sooner

The U.S. continues its slide in mortality and now ranks 49th in terms of life expectancy. A new study just released by Health Affairs shows that compared to countries with similar populations and GDP(Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) we are dying sooner that all these other folks. Right wing crazies, teabaggers and other crazies will blame the fact on all the blacks, Hispanics, gays and other ner-do-wells are included with all the white, christian, hetero folks and pull the numbers down. The study proves otherwise and shows that whites are dying sooner as well and the inclusion of immigrant populations with the populations of whites in the U.S. actually improves the overall numbers. It is an interesting study but not very encouraging.

There is a bonus though and that is we in the U.S. get to pay twice the median for "finest" health care in the world as the other countries. Isn't that good news?

The Hard Part

There is so much stupid going on leading up to the elections and in the world in general I am not even going to comment. What's with the White House coming out against a freeze on foreclosures when it is so obvious that there is serious criminal activity involved in a lot of them? Why is Newt getting serious air time? Why is the Chamber of Commerce being allowed to buy an election? Why is the stock market(rich people) so happy to see unemployment climb? There seem to be a whole lot more questions without good answers than the other way around.
Me? I just going to hunker down and get some good old fashioned work done. The hardest part of a big garden(at least for me) is the fall clean up. All you can do is try to look forward to having it all done and the garden being ready to start in the spring. I've got a quarter of it tilled and planted with the fall stuff and I still have a few more peas and some Swiss Chard to plant but the balance is just dead or dying stuff with plenty of morning glory vines and other weeds all mixed in. The vines make it pretty near impossible to till until they are removed which is nothing but plain hard work. You can till but the constant stopping and clearing of the tiller tines of all the wrapped vines makes it pretty frustrating. A giant dead pine finally fell last week and it is laying across part of the garden and it is going to have to be cut up and hauled away which is going to make for even more work. I only have a small 14 inch chain saw and this tree is going to challenge it severely. Being so large it is going to have to be cut into pretty small chunks so that I can even lift them. Every time I get into this kind of stuff I just try to imagine my ancestors trying to clear the virgin forests in Western Virginia with nothing but axes and a couple of horses. Acres and acres of huge hardwoods that must have taken them days apiece to cut down and then there was the stump to get rid of. Now that's hard work and if they didn't get it done they starved. I should complain.
Anyhow, off to the garden to try and make a dent. I do have some sweet potatoes to get out of the ground but the sampling I've done has shown that the depredation of the deer has really limited the size and number of potatoes. I'll be lucky if I get a bushel out of nearly 100 feet of plants where I should get 3 or 4. When I walked to the garden this morning at first light there were three of the creatures standing there giving me the eye. I guess I should be grateful they don't seem to care too much for broccoli or cabbage as they have just sampled a few leaves. It is probably only because there is still tastier forage and when that goes they'll stoop to the garden. They have eaten all the leaves off the okra and there are now just barren stalks standing which will make for easier clean up.
Like I said at the beginning...it is just getting too strange out there so I'll just focus on the simple stuff for now.
If you happen to be Canadian...Happy Thanksgiving!

It is Still Coming

I thought I had picked the last of the eggplant the other week. I happened to wander over to the eggplant section today while I was weeding the fall garden and lo and behold there were many eggplant. As you can see the peppers are also still going strong despite the dry weather and my inattention. The lack of moisture has made the poblano quite hot as I discovered this afternoon when I thought I was taking a bite out of a sweet red pepper. Hot but tasty. Looks like Madam will get another meal of Aubergine Parmesan this weekend. I have already thawed a chicken(yes it is local and free range) for the grill tonight but I think some peppers stuffed with feta would make a nice addition.

A New Pizza

The last of the Cherokee Purple tomatoes insisted I make a pizza. I only had smoked mozzarella so here is the result. Smoked Mozzarella pizza with Cherokee Purple tomatoes. There is a finely sliced shallot in there as well as some fresh basil and Parmigiano Reggiano. An excellent combination if I do say so myself.

Update: I should add that if you are going to use fresh tomato slices like this on a pizza you should lower the moisture in them a bit. I slice them no more than 1/8 inch thick and lightly sprinkle them with sea salt. I then sandwich them between some paper towels for 15 or 20 minutes. It sucks out a lot of the water and keeps the pizza from getting soggy. It also helps to put them on top of the cheese as they evaporate a little more in the hot oven. Mozzarella on the bottom sprinkled with the herbs and chopped shallots then the slices of tomato and finally a sprinkle of good Parmesan. Hottest oven you can manage(mine gets to 550F) and on a pizza stone or quarry tiles. Let the oven heat for at least 45 minutes or an hour so that the stone is fully heated before cooking. I spread my dough on parchment which doesn't affect the crispiness of the crust but it makes handling a wet dough much, much easier. Enjoy.

Five Guys Burgers

On my way home I stopped in at the new Five Guys. Madam had said it was pretty good so I was hungry and it was lunchtime. The fries, being made from fresh potatoes, were good but way to many in a regular order. Burger was better than average but not a great burger. Biggest downside was the plastic bun that basically turned into white goo when it got wet. Upgrade the bun and it might be worth $10.50 for a burger, fries and a soda but as it is it was a little too steep for any regular visits and I can make a better burger at home(I make the buns.) I might be persuaded to go back for fries though. I have yet to try the upscale burger place in town called "The Counter" but again reports are that it is pricey as well though they use local beef and have about a thousand things to put on a burger. Maybe for a special occasion.

Electrifying

I broke down and ran electricity to the greenhouse yesterday. I didn't do it when I did the initial construction because I was in a hurry to get it up but I knew that I would eventually have to do so for heat and light. As winter approaches and the mornings get darker and cooler it became apparent that I need light and heat now. At 6am in the dark of the moon it's darker than an ape's armpit out there and with the night temps falling into the 40's it is getting too cool as well. I've been collected plastic gallon water jugs and filling them with water to add "thermal mass" to the greenhouse but there aren't enough yet to moderate the temperature.

The problem is I am a believer in following the electrical code which required running conduit since I didn't want to bury the cable a foot deep. Running conduit required drilling a 7/8" hole through the into the basement which I did through the wooden frame around the sliding glass door. All total it took almost 30 feet of 1/2" PVC conduit and three 90 degree turns to get to the greenhouse. More than one turn with 1/2" conduit and 12/2 Romex cable requires you to run the cable through all of the pieces of conduit and 90's before you glue it together or you will never get the cable through. Needless to say I got all the cable pulled through the straight and curved pieces of conduit only to discover that I had left out one union and had to pull out most of the cable, add the union and do it all over again. Silly me! Anyhow, got the one duplex outlet installed and hooked to a GFI 20 amp breaker in the box and so I had power for the heater last night. Today I am off to get a little more cable and a few more pieces of conduit bends so I can run a light and switch.
I am off to Home Depot to resupply and get to work. I also have to weed the garden. It seems like I am busier now than when I had a full time job as there is a constant list of things to do. My friends have also not forgotten that I mentioned building a wood fired oven and have asked me repeatedly when they could come for wood fired pizza so that is hanging over my head as well.

Butternut Squash Soup

In honor of the cooler weather I made a batch of butternut squash soup last night. It is so simple and good that I wonder why I don't make it more often especially since I have a large basket of the things in the basement.

1 good sized butternut squash roasted
1 medium yellow onion chopped
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter for sauteing the onion
1 quart low sodium chicken broth
1 clove of garlic chopped
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
1/2 to 1 cup heavy cream to taste
salt and pepper to taste


A good sized butternut will make enough soup for 4 people. You'll want about 3-4 cups of cooked pulp.
Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Put the squash cut side down on a baking sheet and roast it in a 350F oven for an hour. I use parchment paper to reduce clean up time and I hit the cut side of the squash with a bit of canola spray. Remove the squash from the oven and set it aside until cool enough to handle. While it is cooling, saute 1 medium yellow onion(chopped) until it just begins to caramelize...right at the end add a clove of garlic chopped finely. Once you can handle the squash, scoop out the pulp and along with the onions add it to a quart of low sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth. Season with a bit of salt and pepper and I like about a teaspoon of fresh thyme(rosemary works too). Simmer for thirty minutes. I blend mine with an immersion blender to make a puree and then add about a half to a cup of heavy cream.

I served mine with cheddar and thyme buttermilk biscuits.

Nice on a cool fall evening.

Tomato Season's End

The temperature dropped to 46F last night so I guess that means we are for real and truly into fall. If you are like me and have a garden you are seeing the final blush of peppers and a few straggling tomatoes. The tomatoes are small but still taste a world better than grocery store tomatoes and I am going to be sorry to see them go.

I don't know if I have mentioned it before here(and I am too lazy to go and look) but I often make a simple pasta sauce out of nothing but chopped fresh tomatoes cooked for a while in olive oil or butter. Sometimes a little shallot or onion and a dash of garlic but all the fresh tomatoes really need is a little salt and pepper. If you haven't tried this simple sauce for pasta you should give it a whirl. You can have a very nice supper on the table in the time it takes you to boil the pasta. I would suggest finishing the sauce with a little fresh basil to highlight the tomatoes. Try in both ways...cooked in olive oil and cooked in butter. Two different flavors but both nice. You can also through in a couple of anchovy filets for a change and they give the sauce a very interesting dimension and you won't taste the anchovies in the finished sauce as they just disappear.

Once the garden tomatoes are gone then you are going to have to rely on any you may have canned yourself or the canned tomatoes from the grocery. I try and avoid the domestic canned tomatoes in favor of the ones from Italy which are much better. Look for brands that say they are San Marzano tomatoes but be careful, there is also a brand called San Marzano which isn't nice at all. With these canned Italian tomatoes you can get a respectable sauce though it will lack that brilliance that you will get from your own or locally grown.
I should also mention that if you have the time and inclination, homemade pasta is hands above dried pasta from the box and it isn't hard. Be forewarned however, that once you start making your own pasta you will be spoiled and won't be happy with the boxed stuff. It's the same as having real Parmesan cheese or any proper hard cheese from Italy. One taste of Grana Padano or Parmigiana-Reggiano and you will wonder why you ever settled for the stuff in the green cardboard can or even fresh domestic Parmesan cheese.
Of course, the above simple tomato sauce is even better with a little good cheese on top.

Hard Work

Still finishing up tasks from the weekend flea market. I think the Hysterical Society must have borrowed folding tables from everyone in town but everything is returned to its owner. Overall very successful and a good chunk of change for the preservation project. Since all the stuff was donated all the sales were profit and expenses were pretty low. Portopotty rent for a weekend, hot dogs, ice, sodas etc. but not much. It's interesting to see how much money you can accumulate selling stuff for little or nothing. We did have some leftovers which went to the North Fulton Community Charities and we nearly filled their truck with various and sundry things. Thank goodness this comes only once a year as all that tent putting up and taking down, table hauling and all took its toll on the old man. I should be out in the garden weeding and cleaning up but I just don't think I can bend over for any time.

Great Day

Had a really good day at the 'Flea Fling' for Hembree Farm. Lots of people came out and we did pretty well on the money front but as always we need more. Most of the good stuff is gone but there are still some bargains to be had and we'll be back out there this afternoon.
Thanks to Dr. Know from Gone Like The Wind for coming out. He even bought some biscotti. We had a nice chat and now I understand why he hasn't been blogging since last year. Maybe he'll be back.
Off to fix breakfast and get my ducks in a row so we can head back out to the farm this morning.