Daily bread

(Posted by Himanee)
The days are getting shorter and crisper. With the deepening darkness, our stockpiles of vegetables for winter are becoming richer. Winter squash fill an entire table in our cellar, and cans and cans of jam, tomato sauce, and salsa are resting in a basement room that we hope in the next few weeks to turn a root cellar for storing vegetables like carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips, radishes, and celery. Much of this produce still rests in the soil where it grew along with deep green sheaves of collards, kale, Swiss chard, and bok choy. We're now harvesting dried beans by the boxful, and I anticipate that my down time in November and December will go toward shelling.

This has been an exciting year for our backyard farm, and while I don't want to jinx our success, I do feel as if I'm going into the winter season of rest, restoration, and recovery with a sense of peace and of pride. My husband and I have invested an enormous amount of energy into trying to see if we could live more sustainably off our land by growing food and rebuilding soil, and in our third year of work on this project, the little engine seems to be chanting inside us, "You can, you can."

Still, there is much to learn, and as the 2013 growing season draws to a close I am plotting new projects for 2014 and beyond. Among them are:

1. Raising mushrooms;
2. Adding blueberries and raspberries to a clutch of strawberry plants that were gifted to us by one of the Saratoga Farmers Market vendors last June;
3. Creating a perennial herbal tea garden; and
4. Growing grains.

The last of these four projects is the most ambitious, and might be unfeasible for the amount of land we own. Yet, it is appealing. For the past year, we have been baking our own bread, and I have roughly calculated that we go through about 120 pounds of flour a year. Flour is not expensive -- the brands we get are about $4 to $5 for a five-pound bag. But I don't know where that flour comes from or whether the grain from which it's milled has been genetically modified or doused with pesticides. Having a local source -- and better yet my own -- would be much healthier in my view.

One of the Loca-vore challenges that I agreed to take on was to do a community assessment of the availability of local foods. I wish I had had the time to do a formal assessment because the results would have been interesting to know. Informally, I can say that nearly everything we consume -- food-wise, at least -- can be obtained from local sources at prices that are affordable to most. The main exceptions are: butter, nuts, flours, and items like cat food, sodas, chocolate bars, and teas. Butter can be made at home fairly quickly if one has a food processor such as a Cuisinart, and teas can be produced if you grow the right herbs. While I haven't found a satisfactory solution to sodas, chocolate bars, and cat food, I did do some research on local flours. I found that there are grain growers and some companies that mill grains from these growers to produce flour for a consumer market. But as I feared these locally produced flours are seen more as specialty items and are priced as such. Those prices are a little too much for an already taut paycheck.

The good news, however, seems to be that local farmers who are committed to sustainable agriculture are aware of this dilemma, and are beginning to investigate options for producing what are called "heritage grains" themselves. The heritage grains lack the genetically modified compounds that comprise so much of the commodity flour that goes into making wheat. Some farmers considering the possibilities of growing heritage grains have been wondering if it was the loss of seeds of those grains in the wave of mass produced store-bought bread that has contributed to growing outbreaks of wheat allergies and other ailments. I wouldn't necessarily support this claim without looking into it more myself, but the idea of knowing the source is decidedly appealing.

Festivals as sustenance

(Posted by Himanee)

Today marks the eighth anniversary of my marriage to my husband Jim. We married later in life -- I, at age 42, and he, at 32. For that reason perhaps, the ritual of our anniversary is marked less with flowers, chocolate, and expensive gifts and more with jokes and mock sighs of relief that we've managed to hold it all together for this long. This year's joke was about how all the blisters of the past eight years had finally healed, a point that Jim and I discussed animatedly as we devoured our anniversary dinner.

Dinner was homemade risotto, though I splurged a little and bought pine nuts, dried porcini mushrooms, and a finely grated pecorino cheese to go along with the butternut squash, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bok choy from our garden that I tossed in.

Our anniversary also marks the official beginning in our household of seven months of non-stop holidays. One of the advantages of being an interracial and religiously pluralistic couple is that the plethora of festivals that accompany the multitude of cultural and religious traditions that comprise our partnership give us a lot of excuses to celebrate. Following our wedding anniversary is Diwali and a slew of related festival days around it. After that (or sometimes before, depending on the vagaries of the Lunar calendar) come Hallowe'en, El Dia de Los Muertos, my birthday, the Muslim festival Idh-al-Fitr, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, all the Advent Sundays, all the days of Hanukkah, the Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas, the days of Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jim's birthday, Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent, all the days of Lent, Valentine's Day, President's Day, St. Patrick's Day, the Spring Equinox, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. I am thinking of adding Passover to our list of observances as well as Ramadan. For now, however, October through April has evolved into a series of celebrations.

It strikes me that the festivals begin as the fall harvest season is nearing its final stages and that they end just as spring planting season starts to really rev up. It also strikes me that festivals offer another way to build sustainability into one's daily life, not so much because of an urge to rush to party after party but more because they offer an excuse to slow down. Celebrations need not be elaborate or fancy. A memorable meal, a goofy handmade gift, or simply a small ritual such as leaving a lamp burning all night in one's home on the night of Diwali to guide the Hindu epic hero-god Ram out of the forest and back to his kingdom can re-create a festive spirit by themselves. More to the point, the festivals are like markers on a calendar, reminding you that e-mail can be closed, work can be curtailed, and one can go home on time (or even early) because an important event is waiting.

My mother and my sisters all observe a Hindu festival that occurs four days after the full moon that precedes Diwali known as Kaurva Chaat. During this festival, married women fast for the health and longevity of their husbands. Chauvinism aside, I joined them in observing the fast on the first Kaurva Chaat that followed my marriage. I haven't done so since, partly because my husband doesn't want me to fast at a time of year when teaching and other work demands tend to come thick and fast. What I remembered most about the festival, however, was not the fast but the gaiety that fills the day. You're supposed to wear bright, happy colors; paint, draw, or create something pretty; and prepare a meal that breaks the fast of several flavorful and wholesome dishes. You're also supposed to be on watch for the moon. Its appearance signals the moment that one breaks the fast. The happiness of the event breaks up the day, giving one a reason to get up from the computer for a creative break. While I probably will not fast, I look forward to doing something special on that day, for no other reason.

Festivals also follow different rhythms of time, and getting on their cycle can help put the grind of the work week and endless mountain of work into a different perspective. It seems appropriate in this sense that they occur in the interim period between harvesting and planting when lands rest and recover. They offer a reason to slow down, to celebrate successes, and reflect on the strengths of one's prior progress, and to consider how one might work better, more smartly before planting the seeds for the next harvest cycle.