Joel Salatin and Raw Milk

I have gushed about Joel Salatin before. He is certainly someone I greatly admire...keep reading and maybe you will see why...

I drink raw milk (sold illegally on the underground market)

From Joel Salatin’s foreword to The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights by David Gumpert.

I drink raw milk, sold illegally on the underground black market. I grew up on raw milk from our own Guernsey cows that our family hand-milked twice a day. We made yogurt, ice cream, butter, and cottage cheese. All through high school in the early 1970s, I sold our homemade yogurt, butter, buttermilk, and cottage cheese at the Curb Market on Saturday mornings. This was a precursor to today’s farmer’s markets.

In those days, the Virginia Department of Agriculture had a memorandum of agreement with the Curb Market that as long as vendors belonged to an Agricultural Extension organization such as Extension Homemaker’s Clubs or 4-H, producers could bring value-added products to market without inspection and visits from the food police. The government agents assumed that anyone participating in the extension programs would be getting the latest, greatest food science and therefore conform to the most modern procedural protocols, which created its own protection.

As the Virginia Slims commercial says, “We’ve come a long way, baby.” These conciliatory overtures to maintain healthy and vibrant local food economies exist no more. Today I can’t sell any of those things at a farmer’s market, and even if I take eggs some bureaucrat will come along with a pocket thermometer and, without warrant or warning, reach over and poke it through my display eggs to see if they are at the proper temperature. If they aren’t, no amount of pleading that those are for display only can dissuade the petulant public servant from demanding that I dump those display eggs in a trash can on the spot. I don’t sell at farmer’s markets anymore.

In 1975, when I graduated from high school and began plotting my farming career, I figured out that I could hand-milk ten cows, sell the milk to neighbors at regular retail prices, and be a full-time farmer. This was before most people had ever heard the word organic. But selling milk was illegal. In those days, we didn’t know about herd shares or Community Supported Agriculture or even limited liability corporations.

As a result, I went to work for a local newspaper and became the proverbial part-time farmer—working in town to support the farming passion. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over the fact that the government arbitrarily determined to make it very difficult for me to become a farmer. That seems un-American, doesn’t it?

Isn’t it curious that at this juncture in our culture’s evolution, we collectively believe Twinkies, Lucky Charms, and Coca-Cola are safe foods, but compost-grown tomatoes and raw milk are not? With legislation moving through Congress demanding that all agricultural practices be “science-based,” I believe our food system is at Wounded Knee. I do not believe that is an overstatement.

Make no mistake, as the local, heritage, humane, ecological, sustainable—call it what you will (anything but organic since the government now owns that word)—food system takes flight, the industrial food system is fighting back. With a vengeance. By demonizing, criminalizing, and marginalizing the integrity food movement, the entrenched powers that be hope to derail this revolution.

This industrial food experiment, historically speaking, is completely abnormal. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t spell or pronounce. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t make in your kitchen. Indeed, if everything in today’s science-based supermarket that was unavailable before 1900 were removed, hardly anything would be left. And as more people realize that this grand experiment in ingesting material totally foreign to our three-trillion-member internal community of intestinal microflora and -fauna is really biologically aberrant behavior, they are opting out of industrial fare. Indeed, to call it a food revolution is accurate.

But revolutions are always met with prejudice and entrenched paradigms from the about-to-be-unseated lords of the status quo. The realignment of power, trust, money, and commerce that the local heritage-based food movement represents inherently gives birth to a backlash. By the time of Wounded Knee, Native Americans no longer jeopardized the American reality.

But to many Americans, these Natives had to be crushed, extinguished, put on reservations. Would America have been stronger if European leaders had listened to wisdom about herbal remedies and consensus building? The answer is yes. But to Americans, the red man was just a barbarian because he didn’t govern by parliamentary procedure or ride in horse-drawn stagecoaches along cobblestone streets. In fact, he was considered a threat to America. Just like giving slaves their freedom in 1850. Just like imbibing alcohol in 1925. Just like homeschooling in 1980.

The ultimate test of a tyrannical society or a free society is how it responds to its lunatic fringe. A strong, self-confident, free society tolerates and enjoys the fringe people who come up with zany notions. Indeed, most people later labeled geniuses were dubbed whacko by their contemporary mainstream society. So what does a culture do with weirdos who actually believe they have a right to choose what to feed their internal three-trillion-member community?

The only reason the right to food choice was not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights is because the Founders of America could not have envisioned a day when selling a glass of raw milk or homemade pickles to a neighbor would be outlawed. At the time, such a thought was as strange as levitation.

Indeed, what good is the freedom to own guns, worship, or assemble if we don’t have the freedom to eat the proper fuel to energize us to shoot, pray, and preach? Is not freedom to choose our food at least as fundamental a right as the freedom to worship?

How would we feel if we had to get a license from bureaucrats to start a church? After all, beliefs can be pretty damaging things. And charlatans certainly do exist. Better protect people from those charlatans—bad preachers and raw milk advocates.

But what does a society do when the charlatans are in charge? In charge of the regulating government agencies. In charge of the research institutions. In charge of the food system.

That is a real conundrum, because if health depends on opting out of what the charlatans think is safe, we are forced into civil disobedience. When the public no longer trusts its public servants, people begin taking charge of their own health and welfare. And that is exactly what is driving the local heritage food movement.

Lots of folks realize they don’t want industrialists fooling around with something as basic as food. People like me don’t trust Monsanto. We don’t trust the Food and Drug Administration. We don’t trust the Department of Agriculture. We don’t trust Tyson. And we don’t think it’s safe to be dependent on food that sits for a month in the belly of a Chinese merchant marine vessel.

This clash of choice versus prohibition brings us to today’s Wounded Knee of food. The local heritage-based food movement represents everything that is good and noble about farming and food culture. It is about decentralized farms. Pastoral livestock systems. Symbiotic multi-speciation. Companion planting. Earthworms. It is about community-appropriate techniques and scale. Aesthetically and aromatically sensual romantic farming. Re-embedding the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker in the village. And ultimately about health-giving food grown more productively on less land than industrial models.

Certainly some of this clash represents the difference between nurturing and dominating. The local heritage food movement—the raw milk movement—is all about respecting and honoring indigenous wisdom. The industrial mind-set worships techno-glitzy gadgetry and views heritage food advocates as simpletons and Luddites. Or dangerous criminals.

In this wonderful exposé The Raw Milk Revolution, David Gumpert employs the best journalistic investigative techniques to examine this clash from the raw milk battlefront. Be assured that the same mentality exists toward homemade pickles, home-cured meats, and cottage industry in general. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the food system, but it is harassed out of existence by capricious, malicious, and prejudiced government agents who really do believe they are doing society a favor by denying food choice to Americans.

The same curative properties espoused by raw milk advocates exist in a host of other food products, from homemade pound cake and potpies to pepperoni and pastured chicken. Real food is what developed our internal intestinal community. And it sure didn’t develop on food from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and genetically modified potatoes that are partly human and partly tomato. Long after human cleverness has run its course, compost piles will still grow the best tomatoes and grazing cows will still yield one of nature’s perfect foods: raw milk.

One of our former apprentices has just started a ten-cow herd-share arrangement with our customers. Here is a young, entrepreneurial, go-get-‘em farmer embarking on his dream, serving people who are enjoying their dream of acquiring unadulterated milk. Can any arrangement, any relationship-between farmer and cow, cow and pasture, customer and producer be more honorable, respectable, open, and trusting? Everything about this is righteous, including respecting the individual enough to let her decide what to eat and what to feed her children.

Let the revolution continue

There is a reason it is called "Froot" Loops

Don't Let Kellogg's Buy Scientists: Froot Loops Aren't a Healthy Breakfast

The nation's largest food manufacturers, including Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, ConAgra and PepsiCo, want you to believe that Froot Loops and other unhealthy foods are "Smart Choices." And they have somehow convinced representatives from the Baylor College of Medicine to back them up.

The new "Smart Choices" program--an industry-backed marketing ploy--puts a green check mark on products that are determined to be "smarter food and beverage choices." But the choices selected are anything but healthy.

Dr. Eileen T. Kennedy, president of the Smart Choices board and the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said in a New York Times article that she supported giving Froot Loops the green check mark because compared to feeding your children doughnuts for breakfast "Froot Loops is a better choice."

Kellogg's Froot Loops Cereal is 41% sugar. There is nothing "smart" about Froot Loops or other foods packed with sugar.

The reality is that the food industry is using the Smart Choices program to deceive parents and other shoppers into buying the very food that has led to a costly epidemic of diabetes and obesity -- and researchers like Dr. Kennedy are abetting this deception by associating themselves and their respective institutions with the program.

This is outrageous.

Click here to send a letter today and tell all four doctors supporting the Smart Choices program to stop shilling for Kellogg's. They, and the leaders of their respective institutions, need to hear that you think it is wrong for them to support any program that gives sugary cereals and other unhealthy foods a stamp of approval as healthy choices.

Garlic...it's a beautiful thing

The other day a friend stopped by and gave me this little bundle of homegrown goodness...
just look at the size of these cloves...
Wow...the taste is just extraordinary. So much better than the imported stuff we've been getting lately from the grocery store. My hands actually still smelled like garlic hours later, even after having them in a sink full of soapy dish water!

Herd share

Photo courtesy of Sally Anne Thompson/Animal Photography

Exciting news today...we found out about someone starting a herd share program with weekly deliveries to Williams Lake!!

We have been thinking about getting some sort of milk animal (goat or cow?) for some time but everyone we know who has had a cow, is really discouraging us. Mainly, because it is a lot of work and you must, must, must milk a cow at least once a day, if you keep the calf with her during the day, and it must, must, must be at the same time each day. So that would really tie a person down! We also need to spend some time and money on fencing and clearing more of our property and at this point we don't have much of either. So for now...the herd share is a wonderful compromise. Here is how it works...

Because it is illegal to sell raw (unpasteurized) milk to the public, but perfectly legal to use as much raw milk as you wish from your own herd/cow, small scale dairy farmers and willing consumers have come up with the herd share concept. Consumers pay a farmer a fee for boarding, caring for and milking the herd. The herd share owner then obtains (but does not purchase) his/her share of milk from the herd. This arrangement is similar to arrangements of owning a share in a crop, racehorse or a bull. During the past two years or so, several cowshare/herdshare programs have been implemented in this province, and have been functioning well with no problems.

In Prince George, the Hunny-Do Ranch has been operating a herd share program for a few years now, but as it is a three-hour drive to PG, it is not feasible for us to be part of it. Check out their site if you want to know more, they have some good info on herd shares and how it all works.

And why go to all of this trouble you may be asking?? There are many, many health benefits to raw milk. Check out this link for a really complete listing of the benefits of raw milk. But in a nutshell, milk in it's unpasteurized form has nourished people for thousands of years and switching to a raw milk has been documented over and over again as helping relatively modern conditions such as lactose intolerance, Crohn's disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and arthritis. I first learned about raw milk when my neighbour Gigi lent me the book Nourishing Traditions put out by the Sally Fallon and the Weston A. Price Foundation. You can check out this youtube video for an overview of where they are coming from. It is interesting and thought provoking stuff.




This video is Sally Fallon discussing raw milk...

From pasture to plate

**Warning vegan-inappropriate content follows...

This week-end we butchered our 142 meat birds. They were 9 1/2 weeks old. It is just bizarre that they can go from this...
in such a short time to this...

**Photo courtesy of Herman Saksono

We didn't take any pictures, which many of you will likely be grateful for :) But if you want to see some more detail, you can check out this blog.

It was an amazing experience for a number of reasons.

First, we really, really know where our food is coming from...no nasty anti-biotics or growth hormones for these guys...just grass and clean, organic feed, clean bedding and some room to roam.

Second, as meat eaters, I think it's our responsibility, even for the kids, to understand that meat doesn't mysteriously arrive at the store in plastic sealed packages, we are taking a life and we do that mindfully and with the least amount of cruelty to the animal as possible.

Third, because we had so many, there was no way we could process them alone...not to mention that since we had never done it before, I wasn't sure how it would go...we enlisted the help of some friends, neighbours and family. We had 6 adults helping with killing, plucking, eviscerating and packing, as well as a few kids here and there catching chickens for us and my wonderful cousin-in-law kept us fed and hydrated all day. We feel so grateful to have had so many willing and helping hands.

Fourth, wow...what a lesson in anatomy! I remember as a child, being fascinated by the giblets of a turkey my mom had in the sink. In the process of eviscerating these guys, it was amazing to me to see the undigested grain in the crop, the rocks in the gizzard for breaking down that food and the surprise finds like a small bullet we found...(chickens will eat anything and most ranches around here need to control the gophers as cattle fall into their holes and break their legs)

Fifth, we have about 65 chickens in the freezer ranging from 3 1/2 pounds to over 8 pounds, to feed our family over the next year. We bartered some for a pig, some for the use of pasture/chicken tractors and the rest for all of those who were willing to help us out in this endeavour.

We will definitely do it again next year, but maybe not quite so many!

The Chicken Tractor

Not having a camera at the moment is really torturing me...especially since there is so much happening around here at the moment...so I have be creative and find other sources for visual imagery...

like this one of our wonderful 'chicken tractors' courtesy of Big Bear Ranch

This week-end we moved the chickens from their brooder house (our former shed) out to the chicken tractors, on pasture over at Big Bear Ranch, just around the corner from us. The chicken tractors are an amazing innovation, constructed by Rainer and Florian, they are 12 feet x 12 feet and can house up to 100 chickens. They have removable wheels and are moved daily using a dolly.

A great description of chicken tractors from Wikipedia...

Chicken tractors can be moved frequently, providing the advantages of free ranging with the protection of the enclosure. In a chicken tractor poultry have access to fresh forage, including grass, weeds, and bugs, though these resources will quickly be depleted if the tractor is not moved. This supplements their diet, reducing the amount of feed they consume. Because the enclosures do not have floors there is no need for periodic cleaning out, unlike stationary chicken houses. The frequent moves to fresh grass can also avoid a buildup of manure. Chicken tractors imitate a natural, symbiotic cycle of foraging in which the animals eat down the vegetation, deposit fertilizing manure, and then move on to a new area.

By using chicken tractors, flock owners are able to raise poultry in an extensive environment, where the birds have access to fresh air, sunlight, forage, and exercise, which caged birds in commercial houses do not have. By using one small section of a field at a time, allowing all the other sections to recover, the field can sustain more birds than if they were turned out on the whole field all of the time. Because of this chicken tractors enable people to maximize the use of their land. The enclosures also offer some protection from predators and weather, and in the case of egg producers, the birds lay eggs in designated nest boxes rather than hiding them in foliage.

So twice a day, the girls and I head over to beautiful Big Bear Ranch with water and food for the growing chickens. G. is a great help, filling up the water buckets while the little girls run through the pasture picking dandelions...

Photo courtesy of Big Bear Ranch

...yes, this is the 'good life'!

Water Footprints?

Here's an interesting chart that caught my eye today.

It points out some well-known and lesser-well-known choices one could make to lessen one's water use.

GOOD Transparency - Walk This Way [GOOD Magazine via Serious Eats via Lifehacker]

I'm going to assume they mean industrial beef, rather than grass-fed beef. I'm not saying grass-feeding uses no water, but I suspect it uses less.

Why we love our grass-fed beef

Where does your beef come from?? Here...

Photo courtesy of treehugger.com

or here?

Photo courtesy of Big Bear Ranch

Some interesting links for more info...
The River Cottage Meat Book: For Carnivores with a Conscience
A review of the popular River Cottage Meat Book.

5 Reasons to Add Grass-fed Beef to your Grocery List

What's so special about grass-fed beef?

Eatwild

Sugar and Spice

I took today off so Joanne could join the older girls on a skiing trip to Mt. Timothy.

It was a daycare day, a day of laundry and baking spiced with Brady Bunch episodes and Green Mist radio.

A few days ago Joanne, after unloading most of the groceries, asked me to feed the sheep and get the apples and vinegar from the truck. I fed the sheep.

Yesterday we had a bag full of frozen apples.

I wasn't about to waste those beautiful BC Royal Galas, but they were not very palatable in their post-glacial form. I figured (and confirmed on the 'net) that they could be baked.

I found this recipe. I cored the apples.
M helped stuff them with the raisins.
After over an hour in the oven (I thought they'd be quicker due to the freeze, but my tests indicated they needed as much as a fresh apple) we had a nice bunch of yummy, caramelly apples we can reheat through the rest of the week.

Some chicken math

Photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/binkley27/1487476672/

Yes, yet another post about chickens...am I the only one so obsessed? This time I'm talking about broilers/fryers and not our beloved laying hens. I received the hatchery catalogue in the mail last week and I have been browsing through trying to decide what I want to order. I think I have decided on a Cornish Cross for my meat birds and a few more of the Sex-sal Link or ISA Brown to supplement my laying hens. The Cornish Cross seems like a winner for a meat bird...from the Rochester Hatchery catalogue...

"This dual purpose bird is a pleasure to grow. Our unique cross gives you the best of both worlds. A bird that makes a good roaster without having the leg problems, heart attacks, or "water-belly" commonly seen with the modern meat birds, since it is slower growing. The Cornish X is capable of finishing at weights close to those of the broiler but will take 2-4 weeks longer."

The Cornish Rock Giant is the bird typically grown for meat use. It is grown to about 8 lbs live weight in 8-10 weeks. Sadly as it has been bred to grow fast and with exceptionally large breasts it has no end of leg problems and heart attacks...so I think the Cornish X is a better alternative. I am going to order 100, which should leave me with about 50-60 birds for the freezer...when you factor in losses and chickens to trade for help when slaughter day comes.

I'm quite excited about having our own chickens. It means I can completely skip the meat aisle of the grocery store because we get our pork from Big Bear Ranch (check out their Family Pack - and make sure to get some bacon..delicious) our beef from the Zirnhelt Ranch and in the Fall we will have Zirnhelt-Meyrick lamb and chicken.

In anticipation, I have stopped buying trays of breasts which I have always bought (which is the meat from 4 chickens!) and started buying a few roasters, per week. So now we come to the math part...two organic chickens (from Bradner Farms in Abbotsford) at 1.4 kilos each cost me about $30 (about $10/kg). I prepared both chickens using this recipe....they came out juicy and very tender. We ate the meat from one chicken one night, saved the meat from the second one for Chicken Fettucine Alfredo later in the week and made a delicious stock from the bones and leftover chicken which gave me 4 litres of rich, golden stock...


three of which I used for Chicken Noodle Soup (one dinner and two lunches).


So... $30 worth of chicken = 3 dinners + 2 lunches for a family of 5 + 1 litre of stock for my favourite vegetable soup. Not bad!

So then, in raising our own chickens...the cost breaks down as follows:

100 chicks = $192 + $20 to vaccinate chicks against coccidiosis and Marek's disease + $15 shipping= $227
*Approx. 450 kg of organic chick grower = 22 x 20 kg bags @ $19.50 per bag = $429
Miscellaneous equipment costs = approx. $100
Total cost = $756

*While we are hoping to use some chicken tractors to let the chicks forage for food after a few weeks...we wanted to calculate our costs as if they were eating feed alone as we're not sure about the quality of our forage.

So then if you factor in some losses...so say 10%...leaving us with 90 chickens...if we barter 30 of those to get help with slaughtering etc...that leaves us with 60 chickens for our freezer at approx. $12.50 per chicken. So going back to our Bradner Farm organic chicken purchase...we are hoping our birds will finish at a live weight of between 3 - 4 kg which would provide us with a roaster at approx. 2kg. So...based on all of these estimates, raising our own organic meat birds should cost us about $6-7 per kilo.

So in the end...we should be saving about $3-4 per kg...or based on my 3 kg worth of chicken meals I mentioned above $12 per week (if I've done the math correctly ;) Not to mention contributing to our overall goal of eating locally and 'knowing where our food is coming from'.

Would you look at the size of that??

Whoa...the one on the left is our typical "large" size egg..the one on the right is "extra" extra large! I haven't cracked it yet but I bet it is a double yolker too!

Thanks to the warm weather and a tip on lighting from Gigi (set your lights on a timer to come on at 4 am and go off at 10 pm) our hens are back to laying an egg per day. That's pretty amazing when you think of it...that their bodies can sustain themselves and produce one of these nutrient dense little beauties...every day!!

Some interesting nutritional facts about eggs...

One Canada Grade A large egg (50g) contains:: Energy	70 Calories
Protein	6 g
Fat	5 g
Polyunsaturates	0.8 g
Monosaturates	2 g
Saturates	1.5 g
Trans fat	0 g
Cholesterol	190 mg
Carbohydrates	0 g

Percentage of RDI provided by one Canada Grade A large egg (50 g)*:

Vitamin A	8%
Vitamin D	2%
Vitamin E	6%
Thiamin	3%
Riboflavin	15%
Niacin	6%
Vitamin B6	2%
Folate	15%
Vitamin B12	30%
Pantothenic Acid	15%
Calcium	2%
Phosphorus	6%
Magnesium	2%
Iron	2%
Zinc	5%

* Based on Recommended Daily Intake for Canadians estblished by Health Canada

Eat Eggs for Your Eyesight

Egg yolks contain lutein and zeaxanthin, two antioxidants from the carotenoid family that contribute to improving eye health and protecting eyes from ultraviolet rays. These two carotenoids help to reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the main cause of blindness in Canadians over 65 years of age.

Eggs and Memory

Eggs are an excellent source of choline. Choline is known as the memory vitamin because it is an important part of a neurotransmitter that helps preserve the integrity of the electrical transmission across the gaps between nerves. It aids brain function and enhances thinking capacity and memory. Recent studies show that providing extra choline during pregnancy plays an essential role in brain development and higher memory capabilities throughout life. Choline also seems helpful in treating memory deficiencies in adults.

From the Alberta Egg Producers http://www.eggs.ab.ca/about/eggnutrition.htm

UPDATE: even better are the stats attributed to free-range eggs:

• 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

From Mother Earth News' "The Chicken and Egg Page" http://www.motherearthnews.com/eggs.aspx

Yummy Brussel Sprouts...really!

Happy Holidays to everyone! Guess who got new pajamas for Christmas!!

We have had a great holiday so far. Nana flew in for a quick visit the week-end before Christmas...Grandmaman arrived a few days later and will be with us for a few more weeks :)

We celebrated Winter Solstice, with a few of our new Horsefly friends. We had a big bonfire and heard about celebrating the solstice in Germany and some folklore from Iceland, while the kids ran around building snow houses, etc...it was a lovely evening.

But getting to those brussel sprouts...I don't normally enjoy brussel sprouts...in fact I have always given them a pass. But this past Thanksgiving, we spent with Erich's Uncle Norm and Auntie Candace and she made the most delicious brussel sprout dish! Auntie Candace is a long-time vegetarian and an exceptional cook. The first meal she made for us was when we came out to BC on our honeymoon, we were vegan at the time and she made a great tempeh (or maybe tofu?) pasta dish. Another memorable meal was done completely over an open-fire without the benefit of running water or electricity...a scrumptious salmon, with beautiful roasted potatoes and a huge fresh salad (which she grew herself, of course). Anyways...I digress...but based on my history of positive culinary experiences with Candace, you can see why I was willing to take a risk with her brussel sprouts! In a word...delicious...and here is the recipe...my little gift to you...enjoy!

Ingredients
6 cups of brussel sprouts (cut in half)
2 tbspn of olive oil
onion (cut into eighths)
red pepper (optional)
1/2 cup hazelnuts
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp of cider vinegar

Directions
Roast hazelnuts at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes. Toss brussel sprouts, onions and peppers in olive oil. Roast in oven at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. Mix maple syrup and cider vinegar, pour over vegetables, add hazelnuts, roast for about 5 more minutes.

Sorry the picture is kind of blurry...I wanted to snap one before they were all gone!

Chocolate Bannock

A few weeks ago our neighbours Wendy and Wally were in town, and they had us over for an excellent meal. One of the highlights the bannock they made by putting the dough into a frying pan and settling it into some coals for a while. I've not had bannock before (theirs was delicious), and some Googling found me several recipes, but theirs was the easiest - 2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of baking soda, 2 cups of water, in coals for 19 minutes. (I remember a Sesame Street segment about bannock, where they cooked the dough draped over a stick over the fire - I can't find it on YouTube though.)

It's burning in season in the Cariboo - when it's wet and cold enough to minimize the risk of the fire going out of control. This is why Wendy and Wally had a pile of embers in their yard, and also why we've had two opportunities to make the bannock since.

Our last version mutated into a dessert because the embers weren't ready by dinner time. Here's our recipe for Chocolate Bannock:

• 2 cups of flour
• 2 tablespoons of baking soda
• 1/4 cup of cocoa
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of water
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
  

1. Mix the dry ingredients, except the chocolate chips



2. add the water slowly, mixing it until you can knead it without it sticking (a flour-dusted countertop helps for this)
   
3. flatten the dough out - it should be quite a bit larger than your smaller pan
4. sprinkle the chips out over the centre
5. fold the edges back toward the middle, hiding the chips - we worked it at this stae so no seams appeared - don't worry if a chip pops it's head through the dough, itll be okay
6. dust and/or grease the smaller cast iron pan (we dusted) and lay the dough in it



7. carry the two pans out to the fire, which at should now be a big pile of embers into which you've raked a flat bowl to fit the pan



8. place the small pan in the embers, then lay the larger pan upside down over top to keep the embers out (note: the camera flash strips the photo of the redness of the embers)



9. rake the embers over the pans, and start the clock - 19 minutes exactly (now how many recipes have you read that include a step using a rake?)
10. when the time is up, use a rake to pull the pans out gently (to avoid getting embers in the pan), then carefully get the bannock out onto a dish



11. cut up the bannock and serve (optionally, with ice cream)!
    

About Coffee - the organic, fair-trade kind

We love strong, dark coffee. Our coffee makes most coffee-drinkers cringe. We ran out of our stock on the weekend, and had to buy some Starbucks French Roast - it was way too weak for us.
Sure, this may seem like a blatant product-plug, but really, we were so relieved to see that the holiday on Tuesday hadn't delayed the delivery (I ordered Monday, we got it Wednesday), and just relieved to have good coffee again, that I want to tell the world!

Sidenote 1 - As much as we'd love to be self-sufficient, our coffee-growing aspirations are unrealistic in the Cariboo.
Sidenote 2 - yes, we are addicted. In a heart-aching and heart-warming kind of way.

Last spring we discovered an excellently dark-roasted coffee at (what was then) our local organic food market. The roaster is called Max Voets, out of Vernon (that's almost local, right?), and the brand is Tribal Java. Specifically, the roast we get is Ancient Ritual.

We order about 10-12 pounds every two months or so, and with shipping this comes out to about $12/lb, which is quite reasonable, we feel, for organic and fairly-traded coffee. And it shows up at our post office down the street!

Michael Pollan interview - Mother Earth News

I just came across this great interview with Michael Pollan and thought I would post a link to it:

The Michael Pollan Prescription: How to Eat Better and Avoid the Industrial Diet

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons

Celebrated food writer Michael Pollan talked with Mother Earth News about easy ways to eat well and opt out of the broken food system.

YAVIP*: About Lard

*Yet another vegan-inappropriate post

It has been another typical weekend at Wise Acres - we had a visit from Nanna, cut down trees, piled logs, burned brush, pounded fence posts and rendered lard... whoa there - rendered lard?

A theme that's making its rounds lately (at least for us), is that the healthiest food was what our grandparents ate, including only unprocessed fats: butter, olive oil and lard.

We've being slowly moving back to butter (and getting organic as much as possible - its so pricey!) but hadn't moved away from shortening for baking, etc. However, our research indicated that the store-bought lard wasn't any better than shortening (see Wikipedia references below).

Last weekend one half of our favourite hog farmers was spending a day rendering, so inevitably we asked about buying some fat for ourselves. (I saw "we", but I think Joanne considered this project exclusively mine!) Gigi, when I picked up the 10+ pounds of "kidney fat" (what I see in Wikipedia is also called "leaf lard"), gave me some straightforward instructions:

1. cut or grind the fat to smaller chunks



2. place them into in 1/4 inch of water, in a heavy steel or iron pot
3. start heat high, but lower it way down once it's warm
4. as clear liquid appears, filter it through a sieve and cheesecloth into glass containers



5. refrigerate and freeze as necessary

This picture shows the lard at different stages of solidification, from oil-like to it's snow-white lard-as-we-know-it-ness.

Rather than store the lard in mason jars as many appear to do, I chose to use larger pans, and I plan to cut the blocks into 1-lb blocks (or close) and freeze what we don't immediately need.

Nanna made her world-famous Chicken Plait tonight, and fried the chicken and mushrooms in the fresh lard. Yummy.

Some interesting snippets from Wikipedia about lard:

• Cooking fat obtained from cattle or sheep is known as suet or tallow.
  
• Toward the late 20th century, lard began to be regarded as less healthy than vegetable oilsolive and sunflower oil) because of its high saturated fatty acid and cholesterol content. However, despite its reputation, lard has less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol than an equal amount of butter by weight.^[2] Unlike many margarines and vegetable shortenings, unhydrogenated lard contains no trans fat. Despite its similar chemical constituency and lower saturated fat content than butter, lard typically incites much consternation and disapproval from many people in the English-speaking world.
• Lard can be obtained from any part of the pig as long as there is a high concentration of fatty tissue. The highest grade of lard, known as leaf lard, is obtained from the "flare" fat deposit surrounding the kidneys and inside the loin.
• Lard may be rendered by either of two processes, wet rendering or dry rendering. In wet rendering, pig fat is boiled in water or steamed at a high temperature and the lard, which is insoluble in water, is skimmed off of the surface of the mixture, or it is separated in an industrial centrifuge. In dry rendering, the fat is exposed to high heat in a pan or oven without the presence of water (a process similar to frying bacon). The two processes yield somewhat differing products. Wet-rendered lard has a more neutral flavor, a lighter color, and a high smoke point. Dry-rendered lard is somewhat more browned in color and flavor and has relatively lower smoke point.^[6][7]
• Industrially-produced lard, including much of the lard sold in supermarkets, is rendered from a mixture of high and low quality fat sources from throughout the pig.^[8] It is typically hydrogenated (which produces trans fats as a by-product), and often treated with bleaching and deodorizing agents, emulsifiers, and antioxidants, such as BHT.^[4][9] Such treatment makes lard shelf stable. (Untreated lard must be refrigerated or frozen to prevent rancidity.)^[10][11]

Other interesting related items:

• http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2007/10/18/rendering-lard-a-first-timers-guide/
• http://www.obsessionwithfood.com/2006_01_01_blog-archive.html#113709378997673043
• http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-render-lard.html
  

Mmmmm....chocolate chips!

I have been browsing the website at Rancho Vignola, a wholesale fruit and nut supplier and contemplating putting in an order, mostly because I want to get fair trade/organic chocolate chips. Last year, I learned a little bit about the child slave trade involved with the chocolate industry and decided I prefer to buy certified fair trade chocolate (and coffee, but that's another story). But I wondered...could I really use 10 lbs of chocolate chips....hmmm, probably!

Recently, I have been making two snacks for the girls on a fairly regular basis...chocolate chip cookies for V. and banana chocolate chip muffins for G. (M. is happy with either). I'm quite happy with the recipes for both, as they use mostly clean ingredients and whole wheat flour. I find it to be a fine balance when baking for kids...to keep it healthy but still tasty. I learned my lesson when I tried to pass off whole wheat carob chip cookies to G. and she told someone "my mom really can't cook, you should taste her chocolate chip cookies!".

So this is the recipe for these delicious cookies....

I make it pretty much according to the recipe except I often use organic cane sugar instead of the regular white stuff.

The banana muffins are from a recipe which I have adapted enough to feel like I can call it my own :)

Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 cup organic cane sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 farm fresh organic egg :)
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mashed bananas (2 med. size)
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir these into dry ingredients. 'Fold in*' bananas and chocolate chips. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 22-25 minutes. Cool for a few minutes before taking them out of muffin trays.

* I have often read this instruction in other recipes and wondered exactly what is meant by 'folding in' an ingredient. Recently, I bought this great cookbook The River Cottage Family Cookbook and they describe what is meant by folding in...basically, it's a way of adding a delicate ingredient to a thick mix or a heavy ingredient to a delicate mixture. "Unlike beating, which uses all of your arm, with folding it's the spoon and your wrist that do all the work, turning the mixture over and over like a scooping sort of paddle. For folding you use a metal spoon rather than a wooden one, because it has a thin edge and doesn't work the mixture so much. After each scoop of the spoon, give the bowl a quarter turn with your other hand - this helps to make the blending more even."

M. gives these a big thumbs up!

And the winner is...

Just got back from the Horsefly Fall Fair, we had a lot of fun and came home with some prizes!!
V. was the big winner...


she got this huge basket for Best in Show for her drawing of "The Purple Train Ride".


She also got first prize for her knitted bracelet...which made her the "High Aggregate Winner" for the preschool group :) (an award of $20 from the Horsefly Women's Institute).

M. got two awards for "Judge's Choice" for her drawing "The Merry-go-round and the Choo Choo Train" and her coloured and sewn, Farm Animal sewing cards...which means a cash prize of $35.

G. also got a few first prize ribbons, one for her drawing and one for her baking and a second prize for her knitted chicken. She also won the prize at the fair, for creating a contraption out of coffee filters, pipe cleaners, elastics and string that would hold marbles and run down a zip line.


The girls were absolutely thrilled and delighted to be able to go up on stage to receive their awards.

I also got two second place ribbons for my skull and crossbones hat and my felted handbag...

...okay, but I do have to tell you that there were only two entries in the category ;) Erich won third place for his "Gwendyberry Jam" a combination of Saskatoons, Blueberries and Huckleberries that G and Wendy picked for us.

There were also a variety of livestock to check out, including some alpacas, llamas, cows, swine, fjord horses, icelandic horses, goats, sheep, herding dogs, turkeys, chickens, rabbits and dogs. There were also many fine looking vegetables and some interesting, massive zucchini. There were also pony rides, wagon rides and a wonderful barbq lunch.

Have I mentioned lately, just how much I love Horsefly?

Saskatoons and lagoons...

This week-end we got the house back in order after our vacation and got back to the tasks involved with homesteading.


We've been waiting for the Saskatoons to get ripe for a few weeks now and this week-end we harvested a pile of them. I'm not too crazy about the taste but Erich and the girls like them...the girls like them a lot. G. loves to pick berries...I do too...it kind of feels like winning the lottery when you move a leaf and find a big cluster of ripe ones. Erich was borrowing a weed whacker from Wally so G. went with him to their place with berry bucket in hand. Wendy took her around their property and showed her that the wild blueberries are also ready. Now that G. knew what to look for we discovered a bounty of them on our property as well!

Last night we turned those lovely berries (or what was left of them anyways)and some huckleberries that we bought at the Farmer's Market, into these...yum!


With the Horsefly Fall Fair coming up on August 23, we have been considering what we could enter. There are loads of categories from livestock to just about anything handmade. The children's categories are so wonderful! For the pre-school set for 10 cents you can enter any of the twenty categories from best decorated mudpie (8" or 9" plate using flowers, leaves, etc) to your favourite collection (of any type) to a children's story (as told to an adult). In the primary (5 to 8 yrs) class there are 25 categories and include baking, potted plants, a variety of arts and crafts, a lego construction (must be your own design) or a short story about "The Vegetable I Refuse to Eat" explaining your reason why.

We were thinking of entering our jam but I will admit we are a little intimidated...too bad they don't have a special class for newbie homesteaders ;)

Now to the lagoon part, I know you have all been waiting for! Wally let us borrow his gas powered weed whacker so we could clear some of the overgrowth around our septic lagoon. So Erich, got in there and mowed down some of the longer items...being very careful not to fall in!

The lagoon needs to be kept clear of debris so the sun can get to it and the natural evaporation can occur. That's all I'll say...just be glad this is my post and not Erich's...he does love to talk septic.

And our final project for the day...was to put a roof on the chicken yard to finally (I hope) foil their escape attempts. They have been completely free ranging for the last few weeks, which is fine except for three things...one they lay their eggs all over the property, so we have been having to buy our eggs from the gas station (they sell local organic eggs) and two, Farlee is no longer interested in chasing them off of our deck so we are getting tired of stepping over piles of chicken poop and three, they have taken a liking to Farlee's food...which is not good for Farlee and likely not great for the chickens either! I will still let them out for a gad about, likely in the afternoon, but it would be nice to know they are contained when I want them to be.

Wow...it was a busy week-end!

My Week: A Collage by Numbers

1 - shed door mounted
2 - dogs fed, watered and entertained
1 - clothesline. empty (note the also-empty hammock, which is why the clothesline is now empty)
10 - brews of stovetop espresso - the BEST way to make coffee
3 - salads spun (bringing to mind a well-maintained washing machine)
10 - inches of circular saw power cord removed in a very unplanned and instantaneous fashion (and over 20 inches of red electrical tape used in repairing it to act as a reminder)
16 - varieties of garden crops watered daily
7 - ice cream bars enjoyed at almost spiritual levels
18 - radishes eaten, with a nice pale ale often nearby (nice, as in good enough to drink and available at the local store, but not my number one choice in a well-stocked pub)
10 - eggs, provided by the 'girls', eaten at dinner time (several dinner times - I'm not a pig, after all, barring ice cream...)
10 - hours of walking the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson, after killing thousands of virii on the WiiWare version of Dr.Mario
3 - hens fed, watered, and shooed away in various tones of voice and with varied implements- they are very sociable, but I tend not to be when working on a shed... I found the drill worked best (don't worry - it was a robertson head)