Inspirational Kitchen June 29, 2008

The other day I went to visit my friend Mazzi while he was out bailing a field. We got to talking about my kitchen and he suggested we go up and take a look at his outdoor kitchen, “it’s a little rough and primitive looking,” he said. So we weren’t expecting this when we came up the hill! This was no little shack, this was a artisan handcrafted beautiful piece of work. Goodness. I’m jealous.

His garden was also very inspiring, rows and rows and rows of potatoes and tomatoes. The barn gave the chickens access to the outdoors and roosting room indoors. Then there was the view. Incredible.

The First Baling June 29, 2008

This year because we’re not really living on the farm yet, or have any equipment to bale hay, we decided to hire someone to come and do it for us. Actually my father just decided that he didn’t really want as much as hay as we would get so he gave most of it to the guy. He later found out he could’ve made about $6,000 on the hay if we’d have kept it to sell. Oops. Now we know.

They were baling our hay into these huge 1200 pound bales, very impressive!

First From The Garden! June 29, 2008

First items to come out. Well, we planted the radishes and onions a bit too close together, I guess we didn’t have an confidence in any of this actually working this year. The onions seemed like they weren’t going sprout and we weren’t counting on the radishes having about a 100% germination rate!

Thinning out the radishes and onions I took them home and enjoyed a garden fresh, first of our season salad! Go to Cooking School At Home to see what I did with them.

Yurt Living – The Decision June 6, 2008

For years I’ve wanted to just step back and live as close to the land as possible. People always just laughed it off as, “must be that hippy in you, being raised in Oregon.” Well, yes I guess to those who I told on the east coast it may have sounded like a crazy idea. But, really isn’t living in a congested, noisy, dirty, expensive city just as crazy? Ever read the book Your Money Or Your Life by Joe Dominguez? Well, my Dad had me read that book just out of high school and I think it changed my whole outlook on what’s important in life.

Born and raised in Eugene, OR (the epicenter for liberalism and relaxed living) I moved out to the east coast to attend the Culinary Institute of America. After graduating I ended up getting married, buying a house and settling in the area for a bit. Until that is, I realized I was just stepping on the treadmill towards that typical American lifestyle. All my dreams of someday stepping off and living off-grid (or close to it) in a yurt had never been understood by my then-husband. I was told even by him that it was ‘crazy nonsense’ to even think about living in a yurt.

So, I quickly moved back to the West Coast once the realization set in that I was signing up for a life of credit cards, gas guzzling vehicles, pottery barn furniture and 2.3 children. Whew. Feeling like I really dodged a bullet I moved on with my quiet, slower paced life in Oregon.

I am now able to build my yurt and have decided to build it on my family’s farm (more about that in another post). So, what’s crazier – Living in a yurt? Or, stepping on the treadmill to live like everyone else?

First of all, living in a yurt here in Oregon is a fairly accepted thought, yet they are technically illegal to live in. Explain to me why people can build the most massive house like those being built all around the country now. Some are well over 5,000 square feet! Give me a break. The electricity used in one of those houses could easily power an entire town in a third world country.

So, I’m trying to live – legally – in a structure that is plenty big enough for TWO people (30′ yurt is a little over 700 sq. ft.) and it’s not aloud. I will be treading much, much lighter on the earth and living with less (not much extra, frivolous crap can fit in this thing). I have asked the yurt manufacturers and they claim that most people just build these illegally. So, why hasn’t anyone gone to the trouble to try and make these things legal?

The messed up part about this? They have them at about 30 state parks in Oregon for people to rent for the night instead of taking a tent! Explain that one! Not even the county can, they are completely contradicting themselves.

When visiting Pacific Yurts in Cottage Grove they have their demo yurts set up to look like houses. They have all the amenities that are needed; toilet, shower, kitchen sink, dishwasher, fireplace, etc. They have their 30′ demo set up to look like some kind of Vail ski house, really even those people building the giant, Martha Stewart houses would be impressed! Yet when you pay a visit to the county to try and get a permit to build one of these things they start off by saying they aren’t really legal to put up at all, let alone live in one. The one way they let you build it is as a “storage shed”, not one person may spend even one night in the yurt. Then even on top of that you have to have the plans for the base of the yurt engineered!

So, I can’t live in this structure. I can’t really do much except store my shovel and rake in there yet I have to go to the trouble and pay an engineer top dollar to be aloud to build this thing!

So these series of blog posts is about just that. My journey of going through the loop holes and all the county permit crap to just get this thing built. Then, of course I’ll have pictures and videos of putting the yurt up, and later living in the yurt – seeing just how far I can reduce my carbon footprint and still live a fairly normal life.

Slow Food Nation June 6, 2008

Tickets are now on sale for Slow Food Nation taking place in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend from August 29-September 1. Information and tickets are available by going to their website: http://slowfoodnation.org/

There are different excursions and panels that can be purchased extra. One interesting excursion is Joel Salatin talking about grass fed beef after a day exploring different grass fed operations in the SF Bay area. Tickets and information available by clicking on the following link: http://slowfoodnation.org/events/special-programming/slow-journeys/madera-grass-based-dairies-with-joel-salatin/

Planting the Garden June 4, 2008

My Dad and I got a bit of a late start this year on the garden but it was still fun getting it in the ground. Back in April we started a few seeds indoors we did broccoli, peppers and some tomato seeds. I think we must have been a bit naive starting those indoors. I didn’t do a lot of research into it and probably should’ve sterilized the soil…?

Imagine this … 2,000 square foot greenhouse and all the way at the end we had 24 little, tiny peat pots with seeds.

A couple weeks ago we decided to finally put some stuff into the ground.

We planted from seed:
Spinach, Beets, Carrots, Cabbage, Green Lettuce, Lavender, Corn, Green Beans, Peas, Radishes, Zucchini, and Pumpkins.

From starts we planted:
Our tiny Broccoli starts, a few varieties of Tomatoes (more detail on which varieties in a more detailed post), one Pepper plant (my Dad said he’s never successfully grown a pepper plant in Oregon), Leeks, Red Leaf Lettuce, Red and Yellow Potatoes, and Red and Yellow Onions.

Even though some of it may not grow and animals will most likely get the rest of it, it was still a fun couple of days of bonding with my Dad. Learning from him his past experiences with growing organic gardens. I learned that I should not be so nervous about messing something up. And I just have to remember what Dad kept saying, “Basically things just like to grow.” So, just put them in the earth and give them enough water and everything should work out.

Next year we’ll work on making it prettier. This year I learned a lot just putting things into the ground.

Omnivore’s Dilemma June 3, 2008

This should be on the required reading list for all Americans! Michael Pollan is a great writer and really digs into subjects that really need to be talked about and changed in our food system.

Also, check out his website with all of his writings and blog posts.

This is great article he wrote for the New York Times, “Why Bother?”:
http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=92

Farmer’s Market Pricing June 3, 2008

Now, don’t get me wrong I am a very big supporter of the local food movement. And, believe in lowering our carbon foot print so much so that I’m moving into a yurt. (That in another post, did you know they are illegal to live in in the state of Oregon!)

The local food movement is very important to get away from our reliance on foreign oil and overseas products. But, I really almost feel like they are defeating themselves before it even begins to make a change at all. The local food movement seems to me to be pricing themselves out of the market.

One big hurdle for local food is getting people that normally shop at the Walmart’s and Winco’s of the world to start shopping at the farmers markets and sign up for CSA’s. Now to begin with these aren’t the type of people that going to a farmers market even crosses their mind. The idea is lost on them, if it’s not in their routine and isn’t a one-stop shop they aren’t likely to go out of their way to get local food.

It is about the bottom line in this country. You’ll see in articles and discussions now days that American’s spend less of their income on food then any other country that they just want to get the most calories for their buck.

Recently I have noticed at the farmers markets the prices seem to be getting higher just like everything else. Yes, you go into the Walmart’s of the world and prices are going up there as well. But, it seems to me that the prices at the farmers markets were already high to begin with. So, now they seem to be seeing this movement toward local food as an opportunity to make money. When really, it should be the other way around.

It shouldn’t cost more for eggs, meat and produce grown in your own backyard (meaning: state, town, county) then it costs for items to be shipped, driven, mass produced and brought to your supermarket shelves. There needs to be incentive for people to start shopping locally for their food items and it’s not good incentive when you walk through the market and feel your pockets emptying before you even buy anything.

What am I talking about here? Well, take this example. At our farmers market last weekend I walked in with every intention to make a wonderfully, local, in-season meal. I walked out empty handed. Why? The prices to me felt like they were so out of touch with reality that I couldn’t do it. $3 for 7 eggs! $3 for one *tiny* bunch of basil (three measly little stems of basil)! $5 for one head of lettuce!

Now like I said before, don’t get me wrong I support this movement completely. But, if they are going to price items like that I don’t see how they can expect new people to start shopping there. I understand that the farmers have to make a living too but, where does the line get to be drawn? When does it go from making a living to turning into little “artisan producers” of “organically produced” this and “hand-crafted” that.

All the sudden local food seems to be the “it” word, people are getting into this industry to help spur a revolution. Now that’s great but, if they really cared about making a revolution possible they would be selling local eggs for $2.50/dozen and basil for $1.50/bunch. Come on. Let’s make this whole local food movement possible. Local food needs to be just as affordable as commercially produced, “bar coded” (as Joel Salatin puts it) food. To start a revolution you have to reach more than just a few people that can afford the $6/dozen eggs and $5/head of lettuce. Who you really need to reach are those customers shopping at Walmart for their Argentinian asparagus in December and tasteless, jumbo California strawberries in February. Make these people choose the local food over the 1500 mile food and then this revolution will really be in full swing.

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