Tuesday, November 27, 2007

housekeeping note

I am posting a lot less on my own garden than I would like.  This is because, in part, we have a new baby on the way, which means that I have lots of projects to complete, such as painting a three-colored striped nursery, before said offspring arrives.  The consequence is that I have not finished building the second set of beds and "dug into" planting everything yet.  Anyway, that's all coming soon, I hope.  I think that over Christmas break while waiting for the youngin' to arrive, I may have some time to move these projects forward.

Organic at all Scales

 

One of the challenges that I think will ultimately face the organic movement as it continues to grow is what to do with large-scale commodity crops.  Many would challenge the fundamental notion that there even should be such a thing, but given that cheap commodity crops are an integral part of our food system, organic does need an effective approach.  I am not implying that it doesn't.  It's just that most of the organic efforts that I am familiar with, focus on higher value vegetable crops, and to a lesser degree, milk & meat.

This article raises this question in many ways, taking it even further with the issue of Genetic Engineering to make sugar beets.  Sugar beets is a clever crop, because unlike most GE crops to date, there is no residual DNA in the final product, sugar, that can be pointed to as the immediate threat, as was the case with GE corn and wheat.  Additionally, using GE beets will result in a 40-50% decrease in use of pesticides, at least in the short term.

I would love input.  Are there organic sugar beet farmers out there?  How do they deal with weeds?  Can they intercrop, or cover crop to deal with it?

Organic at all Scales

 

One of the challenges that I think will ultimately face the organic movement as it continues to grow is what to do with large-scale commodity crops.  Many would challenge the fundamental notion that there even should be such a thing, but given that cheap commodity crops are an integral part of our food system, organic does need an effective approach.  I am not implying that it doesn't.  It's just that most of the organic efforts that I am familiar with, focus on higher value vegetable crops, and to a lesser degree, milk & meat.

This article raises this question in many ways, taking it even further with the issue of Genetic Engineering to make sugar beets.  Sugar beets is a clever crop, because unlike most GE crops to date, there is no residual DNA in the final product, sugar, that can be pointed to as the immediate threat, as was the case with GE corn and wheat.  Additionally, using GE beets will result in a 40-50% decrease in use of pesticides, at least in the short term.

I would love input.  Are there organic sugar beet farmers out there?  How do they deal with weeds?  Can they intercrop, or cover crop to deal with it?

uncomfortable

nothing to do with gardening, but I am a non-confrontational kind of guy and this picture just makes me go nuts internally.  Political leanings aside, this wasn't fun for anyone!

ouch!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

Peppers Drying

This is a string of drying peppers that I picked out of the garden last week as I was cleaning up. I didn't have an immediate need for them, so I hung them on a string.

A few days later, I remembered that I am bringing ceviche to my family's Thanksgiving party. This is the appetizer that I am forever required to bring to family holidays. Success breeds not just success but demand for repeat performances! I cut three peppers off the string and used them. I will also be putting sungold cherry tomatoes that just ripened into the mix. I have some baby cilantro that did not quite make the cut.

As for drying the peppers, this is a pretty cool way to go. We have it hanging in our kitchen and it looks nice. As soon as I got them strung up, they began changing colors to red. I took a turkey "pin", straightened out the loop for stringing, used it as an oversized needle and strung up the chilies.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Toaster Oven No-Knead Bread!

If you read any food blogs, and if you are reading this blog, then you almost certainly do, then you have heard endlessly about the famous "No-Knead" bread. Heck, you have probably made a few batches yourself. I have made this bread quite a lot as well. One type of comment that seems to come up a lot, particularly on bread-focused blogs/websites is, "Why do people like this recipe so much, I've been making wet dough types of bread for years..." I have thought about this because prior to this recipe, and I can't say that I made a lot of bread.

I think that the answer is that this recipe is in the tradition of "pure" bread recipes (i.e. those consisting of water, flour, yeast & salt), yet is nearly effortless and is VERY FORGIVING. When I realized this, I thought, "Well, how forgiving is it?" So, I thought, let's try it in the Toaster oven. Because, frankly if you can make a credible rustic loaf of bread with a crackly crust and moist interior in the toaster oven, well, you have something there!

So, I found a casserole dish that could hold a recipe based on 2 cups of flour. I made a 4 cup recipe (I work approximately from this variation, which I think has even more of a nutty, bready flavor), split it in half and ran the other half as a control in the oven.  I should note that my toaster oven is the $49.99 special at Target.  No fancy convections or ceramics here!

So, here is my toaster oven running at ~400º with tin foil as a top:



and here after 30 minutes covered & 10 minutes uncovered is the loaf:

Bread!

I will report this so far as a partial success. Unfortunately, I did not have instant yeast and I hadn't noticed that until my control loaf was also a little dense and "not quite right", so I will try again. But given that, this is a very auspicious sign. Smeared with butter and hot, this was bread that 90% of most people would find "fantastic".

A TOASTER OVEN!

Originally uploaded by chris brandow

Monday, November 12, 2007

Fall Tomatoes



I love veggie gardening in So. Cal!  It is Nov. 13 and I have a Sungold cherry tomato plant covered in full-sized green tomatoes that will be ripe very soon.  I also have another Carmelo plant that will be ripe soon as well.  I have never left my tomato plants out this late.  Mostly, I just hadn't gotten to it yet.  Yeah for me!  We'll see how they turn out.

PS. The recently planted Saffron Crocuses have mostly sprouted and will hopefully be flowering soon.  Updates to follow!

Les Echalotte



Now it might be hard to get the scale, but these are big ole' shallots. That is my large kitchen knife nestled among them for scale. To my eyes looking at the picture, it looks like my paring knife!

These are shallots that I harvested in the summer and had not gotten around to planting yet. I finally planted some of them last night and these are the leftovers. I have offered some as seed to friends, and I think that I might cook up some of the others for dinner tonight. I am going to try to caramelize the. I've never done that and it might be fun!

The best part about shallots is that for such a seemingly "fancy" vegetable, they are probably one of the easiest of all to grow. Stick a single clove ~3 inches below ground, water and wait until June-July and pull out a large mass of huge cloves. No pests, no problems. They also send up cool allium "blossoms" that are fun to look at, though I tend to cut them out so that they don't retard the growth of the cloves.

I bought my first sets from www.kitchengardenseeds.com

Originally uploaded by chris brandow

Thursday, November 8, 2007

From Scratch



One of my favorite cooking activities is making very basic foods from scratch. In this case, a friend sent an article by the head chef at Coi about making butter from scratch, something that I have done before, but not well. The article was great because it gave insight into this highly regarded chef at a "super-fabulous" restaurant who didn't even know how to make butter at first.

The butter was indeed easy to make & yummy, but again, for me there is something so fundamental about making simple things. This is in line with making vinegar from leftover wine: super-yummy, super-easy; roasting coffee beans: nothing fresher; making bread; and of course, growing one's own food, especially the unusual fruits and vegetables that you could never find in a grocery store or even many farmes markets.

Often, it is decidedly cheaper to make things from scratch. Not in this case, but it is still way tastier and a lot more fun!

Originally uploaded by chris brandow

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The Magic of Eco-Capitalism

Behold the Cow-Patty-Peat-Pot!!!



for further information: Click Here

Monday, November 5, 2007

Lactuca Sativa

One of the greatest things to grow in the home garden is lettuce.  There is simply no way to match the amazing variety and texture that you get from home grown lettuce.  Simply great.

You may not realize that lettuce is descendant of dandelions or at least run very close in the same family.  Well, I just ran across a couple of "volunteer" lettuce plants (seemingly of the delicious "Blushed Butter Oak" variety that sprang up in the sideyard next to a dandelion just to make the comparison clear.“Wild” lettuce

I will let them grow up a bit, and them clip them for the salad bowl

Friday, November 2, 2007

Agriculture policy part I of many to come

I have been ruminating on agricultural policy lately, and before I can get to my full-blown thoughts, I will need to lay the groundwork.  This single graphic does so in stunningly simple fashion:



We give away a ton of money to make certain foods cheap: corn, soybeans, meat & milk.  The question that I really want to grapple with is whether this is good.  Certainly many people are cataloging the problems, but what about the upsides?

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Flea Street Café

I don't have a lot of time today, but I wanted to put up a quick post memoralizing a great meal at a wonderful restaurant, Flea Street Café, which embodies just about everything that seems important as a goal in food:



The best part of the meal, no kidding, was a tiny plate that was a bonus, "taste of the season": lightly cooked green beans with lemon, salt and chives.  The flavor was way too good to have just been beans!

Good Stuff indeed.

This also explains absence of posts as I was away on work-related travel to Palo Alto.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Gardener's friends

Everyone knows that praying mantises are good news in the garden eating all manner of bad bugs.  I happened to catch this guy hanging out just outside of our back door.



Less commonly known is the ladybug larva, shown below as a black and orange smudge, due to focusing issues. ( :-) )

There were a whole bunch of them munching on the aphids that were covering and dessicating the dying leaves.  It's striking to me that both the aphids and larva seemed to show up out of nowhere to find some random dying melon leaves.  I was happy to let the leaves stay awhile in order to fatten up and become healthy ladybugs.



Originally uploaded by chris brandow

Apples -> applesauce



This is the first big batch of "compostables" that I had (I mean besides my children!).  It was worth a picture because they were the detritus from preparing a batch of homemade applesauce based on her grandma's recipe (secret ingredients: apples, water & sugar).  Of couse, my children still vastly prefer the jarred stuff, despite the incredible taste of the fresh stuff.  Also interesting is the economics of applesauce.  I haven't worked out the precise prices & volumes, but it seems clear that despite getting most of the apples at 50 cents/pound, jarred applesauce is still cheaper.  That sucks!

Originally uploaded by chris brandow

Friday, October 19, 2007

oohhhh... It's On!



I just found out about this and time is short, but this is the spark perhaps to get the veggie beds done pronto and get some love for the front yard garden.

It's time to rumble

send me your suggestions, the rules are here

The Basics - Composting

You might think that since I blog about front-yard kitchen gardening and because, you know, I actually have a kitchen garden in my front yard, that I am an accomplished composter and that it would be second nature to me. Well, the fact of the matter is that this is not the case. I have fooled around with composting a good bit, but I have never consistently dumped all my scraps and made lots of compost-y goodness. I'll explain the reasons later, but basically, I have always made it too much work.

Well, things are about to change!

We just got this composter from the City of Pasadena for $40:

girlsincomposter.jpg

I just don't understand why anyone would think that we are overboard about composting!

meincomposter.jpg

and just to be clear, we are not planning on composting in the living room.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Gore. Again.

Lest I appear too earnest, this made me laugh:

gore.jpg

h/t: terrapass blog

Bravo



To the folks that have been working for TWO YEARS to get the New York City schools to take the seemingly obvious and simple step of getting carrots served in the school from New York, instead of California.  Sometimes local eating and sourcing doesn't make sense, but this is not one of those cases.  It is amazing how difficult it is to get institutions to move.

Bravo!

hmmm... maybe next year

I am not sure if this fits in with the "philosophy" of front yard gardening, but a pumpkin 5 times the weight of my entire family.  Cool:

big pumpkins

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

garlic



Originally uploaded by chris brandow

This is a shot of my seed garlic being prepared for planting.  I just broke the cloves out from the heads.  It's hard to tell from the picture but there are three types in this pile: the pink, "rose du lautrec"; purple creole; and a porcelain type.  I am hoping to get the garlic planted this week.

I like to build things.

My friend adam says that I needed to add a post about the bike rack that I built. After some thought, since I want to keep my blog focused on front-yard kitchen gardening, I finally agreed that this would make a fine post. I think that it goes hand-in-hand with my interest in building things, a common impulse, I would imagine, among those that garden in general and especially among those gardening in the front yard.  Hmmm... it appears bigger problem with the post might be my wordiness...

So without further ado, the $20 4-bike rack:

My bike rack

Friday, October 12, 2007

Nice.

Well done Al Gore!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

I will get to gardening sometime...

but in the meantime, I am planning.  I look forward to preparing this with home-grown carrots, perhaps tangerine juice from our tree, and some wintery herb, since dill will not be growing at that time.  This recipe reminds me that I really. really. must get a proper crop of carrots this year for Pete's sake. Carrots have not gone terribly well for me. I'll explain more later, but for now, let's just enjoy thisbraised carrots
UPDATE: I went home for lumch and used some leftover carrots, lemon juice & basil. Tasty!

More Caltech Olives

Caltech Olive Festival Poster

Way to go Caltech! They are really running with this olive harvest festival thing. The graphics look great and they have really organized it well, it seems. This is a great blow for localism as well as eating what is grown. It is a little silly to think about these olive trees producing hundreds of pounds of olives that were simply disposed. I understand that they were actually sprayed to reduce fruiting. Regardless, it is cool of Caltech to go to the trouble, when from a facilities standpoint, I am sure that it was just easier to spray and ignore.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wild Asparagus?



I saw this spear shooting through a bush in Pasadena.  It seem to taste like asparagus, but it is from the same frondy material that is also growing through the bush, which does not strike me as aspargus-y.  So I don't know.

Saffron Crocus



Just in case you wondered where saffron comes from.  It is the pistil of the saffron crocus, pictured below.  I just got the above corms in the mail, though I am afraid that they are a little late, but I think that early October might qualify as late September.  This is a classic purchase for me.  Much of my learning about cooking has come from growing things that I thought were cool.  And then I grow things I want to eat.  It is a virtuous, tasty circle.

saffron croces

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Apples!


apples





While these weren't grown in my front yard, these apples were growing in the mountains of Yosemite, where I spent the weekend with three very good friends. It snowed & we hiked, biked, and otherwise thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

And I ate a mess of fresh apples crisp and cold from the tree!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Front-Yarders Around the World

This is great: Front-Yard Up Front

Sardines!!! - the eco-foodie-sustaina-locavore delight

I have been slightly obsessed with trying to get my hands on some fresh sardines for the last ~5 months or so.

"WHY?!?" you might ask as do most people who hear of my quest.  Well, it has to do with my interest in simple foods, low-environmental impact, and local foods.   Mostly, I got hooked by reading this blog and being inspired a bit by his approach to food which mostly matched my growing sense of food preparation that was so compatible with growing my own tasty food.

Well, I finally came across some at Whole Foods yesterday.  They only get them once every couple of months and there is no set schedule.  Here they are awaiting their fate:

img_0025.jpg

Here they are awaiting their final fate:

cookedSardines.jpg

So, after all this waiting, how were they?  Well, they tasted a lot like trout.  They had a slightly stronger flavor.  As for preparation, I simply dredged them in thyme & flour and sauteed in hot oil with scattered sea salt.  I need to bone them next time as well.  I actually need to work a bit on their preparation beforehand.  However, it was a great first attempt, and of course they "paired" quite nicely with a cold Fat Tire.

My approach needs some work before I will convince Maggie to give them a go.  :)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

i think i have moved

to http://frontyardveggies.wordpress.com

set your links, rss feeds, and bookmarks accordingly.

:)

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

local olive oil

 olives

That is a picture of some olives ripening on the tree at Caltech.

I will post more about this when the day gets closer, but Caltech has decided to put all of the olive trees on its famed "olive walk" to good use.  This year we will be harvesting all of the olives & sending them to a processor in Santa Barbara to be turned into olive oil.  It will be sold and proceeds going to charity.  Very local, very cool.

Lunch today...

Straight from the garden, and man(!) it was good.

I took this rosa bianca eggplant (yes it is October, and I am still harvesting a couple eggplants!)

rosa bianca eggplant

and I dipped in some flour and fried it in some oil, drizzled some lemon juice (from back yard) and sprinkled a little salt:

cooked eggplant

so good!!! crusty shell with creamy, eggplanty goodness inside.

Monday, October 1, 2007

plastic bags

 

this isn't an environmental blog, but this article brings to mind the post below about spoons.  It profiles in part a European transplant that was fully accustomed to using reusable grocery bags, but after a little while in America, gave up the practice, b/c ultimately plastic bags were just easier.

too. cool.

maybe when the front yard is finished, I'll open an underground restaurant.

progress!

This isn't a great picture, but I took it in a hurry and had to get going this morning:

New Lawn

but I have some grass now. I must say that this is the first time that I have used sod, and it sure is "easy". My whole body is exhausted and sore, but I have a complete lawn. I am conflicted from an environmental/sustainability standpoint about installing sod, versus seed (transporting hundreds of pounds of grass & dirt vs. 10 lb of seed), but decided that the area is small and so much of our yard will be low impact environmentally, that is it was a small impact overall. Frankly, I have done everything the hard way, we could stand to do something the easy way.

I celebrated the completion with a nice Fat Tire (Thank you Adam & Maggie!)

Friday, September 28, 2007

underlying all the cooking...



must be a community growing great food.



Portland is a lovely place for those of us who think about food, esp. growing food, too much!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Amazon.com Widgets

I have thought the same thing at times...

plastic spoon

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Just When You Thought it Couldn't Look Worse...



just when you thought things couldn't look worse in my front yard...

This was a few weeks ago actually, when a few of my friends got suckered into doing my work for me. In particular digging trenches and laying pvc pipe. Tod and Adam deserve special mention for their masterful construction of the valve assembly. Things are looking much better now and I hope to get grass in this weekend. I will post them soon. Thanks to Derek and Larry as well for the thankless tasks of digging trenches through countless roots.

Melons!



One of my favorite things to grow is melon. In particular, I like to grow cantaloupes. Highlighted in this picture is Prescott Fond Blanc, which is an antique heirloom from france. The cool thing is that you know when it is ripe because you can smell it in the garden. In my case, I probably could have waited an extra day or so for maximum ripeness, but still it was really tasty!

This makes me look forward to next year, when I will have more room for melons. It should be noted that I grow them on a trellis to save space.

The book that inspired me and is a great source of info and drooly good pictures can be found here

Just When You Thought it Couldn't Look Worse...



just when you thought things couldn't look worse in my front yard...

This was a few weeks ago actually, when a few of my friends got suckered into doing my work for me. In particular digging trenches and laying pvc pipe. Tod and Adam deserve special mention for their masterful construction of the valve assembly. Things are looking much better now and I hope to get grass in this weekend. I will post them soon. Thanks to Derek and Larry as well for the thankless tasks of digging trenches through countless roots.

Melons!



One of my favorite things to grow is melon. In particular, I like to grow cantaloupes. Highlighted in this picture is Prescott Fond Blanc, which is an antique heirloom from france. The cool thing is that you know when it is ripe because you can smell it in the garden. In my case, I probably could have waited an extra day or so for maximum ripeness, but still it was really tasty!

This makes me look forward to next year, when I will have more room for melons. It should be noted that I grow them on a trellis to save space.

The book that inspired me and is a great source of info and drooly good pictures can be found here

Monday, September 24, 2007

It Rained

Ok, I won't post EVERY time that it rains, but it is so unusual for us to have rain in September! It felt really good, and I always feel like I hear a sigh of relief from the plants all over the yard.

By the way, this is what it looks like when kids in So. Cal. confront a light drizzle. You might think we were facing a tropical storm.

It Rained

Ok, I won't post EVERY time that it rains, but it is so unusual for us to have rain in September! It felt really good, and I always feel like I hear a sigh of relief from the plants all over the yard.

By the way, this is what it looks like when kids in So. Cal. confront a light drizzle. You might think we were facing a tropical storm.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

posted from the iPod

Friday, September 21, 2007

posted from the iPod

Looking Ahead to November Gardening


I wanted to remind myself about this broccoli that I want to grow this year. Not that I've had any success with broccoli. Maybe better luck this year. I will probably try to put it in the ground in Nov. This one seems worth the trouble as it is both high-heat tolerant, and has a loose head that is sweet and tasty.

cool broccoli