New Favorite Dinner Party: Fireside Fondue & Word Games

Friends came over for a mid winter break dinner tonight. We enjoyed roasted marrow bones (we talked a lot about Mark Bittman tonight) and fireside cheese fondue (Bittman's + a tbsp of good grainy brown mustard) with bread cubes, boiled potatoes, steamed green beans, sliced apples, and slices of Christmas dinner's left over roast beef. Our friends brought the most delicious shrimp-stuffed mushrooms. All that and a rousing game of "Synonyms!" It was the coziest.

winter walk

Echo and I took a winter hike this afternoon in a new-to-me and not far from home spot. It was gorgeous. So excited to explore there more in all seasons. We left a little earlier than planned today because we were shot at, or close enough it felt like it. I actually ducked. "Hello!" I called into the trees. No response. So, we turned and hiked out. Fun all the same.

S4311 on the Radio

Coming soon to your FM dial (or more likely, for most of you, your internet streaming device of choice)... Fortnight! We'll be live at 91.9 WDRT every other Saturday (hence the name) from 6pm to 8pm with music and snippets. Our first show will be sometime in January- we'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, send programming ideas and song requests to fortnight91.9@gmail.com.

Stay tuned...!

Friendsgiving and a Postscript

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we celebrated Friendsgiving with friends old and new. It was simply lovely, and the first of what I hope will become an annual tradition.

(That's me and Jake with the 30 pound turducken! Whether the deliciousness was worth the work is up in the air- thanks to A & B for their late-night poultry-boning skills.)

Thanks to A for the photos!

One last thing I'm thankful for... my awesome dad. He has been working hard on the Recall Walker campaign in Madison these past two weeks, collecting and reviewing signatures for United Wisconsin. My birthday present from him was an all-inclusive set of Recall propaganda- this yard sign, some bumper stickers, some buttons, and a t-shirt!
Wisconsonites- let's do this!

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

Garrison Keillor signs off with that phrase each Saturday night at the close of his Prairie Home Companion radio show. I grew up listening to that gravelly-smooth voice, and was excited to receive tickets to PHC as my 32nd birthday present on Saturday morning from Jake.

This Thanksgiving weekend was marked by wellness and good work. Our house was full of family- my sister, her husband, and our two neices, my mom and dad, my grandpa, and my aunt and uncle. Not ones to while away the daylight hours, they helped us fell trees and split logs and stack firewood and button up this wee farm for winter. The long dark evenings were spent playing cards and board games, and eating, of course.

The weekend leaves me feeling immensely thankful for my family, my kind and earnest husband, our warm and comforting home, and a life that challenges and amazes me at every turn.

Goosed

Twice in the last two weeks I've been SHOCKED! and APPALLED! to discover that someone had been attempting to peel off my giant "Recall Walker" sticker while my car has been parked in the school parking lot.

Then I discovered little torn off pieces in my own driveway, and one stuck to the bill of one of the geese. I can't tell if they're male or female, but I guess they're republicans.

The first November weekend

Not everyone would have accepted an invitation to a weekend of butchery, but my old friend Gavin and his lovely lady Erin did. With each go at this- and this was our third - we've perfected our method, but this time, with the addition of loppers like these added to our tool set, we efficiently slaughtered and processed 24 chickens and 1 duck. We worked until dark, and then we went out for margaritas.

Today, we toured the gorgeous acreage they're looking at in the area. We're thrilled at the prospect of new neighbors!

And... the DUCK. We ended up with three more drakes than we wanted, and although ducks are the cutest and most loveable of all poultry, reading Novella Carpenter of Ghost Town Farm's book this summer, along with some recent enthusastic discussions about duck confit inspired me to attempt a duck slaughter. I should have researched a bit more beforehand- the plucking took a very long time. Probably 3 hours to do an imperfect job... something I read online suggested dipping the carcass in hot water with melted paraffin- next time. That said, my man Mark Bittman
helped me figure out how to roast it with some potatoes and make a honey/cider/pear glaze for finishing, and its all currently in the oven and smelling divine.

Happy Halloween!

Despite the welcome squashes at the doorstep, these were our only trick or treaters tonight:

I got home with some daylight to spare today, with an itch for something warm and cozy to eat on a dark and chilly evening.

Potatoes from the root cellar:

...and kale from the garden:

Colcannon! With a side of kraut.

Colcannon, my cookbook says, is a traditional Irish dish especially associated with Hallowe'en, when it is likely to be made with curly kale and would have a ring hidden in it- predicting marriage during the coming year to the person who found it. Also served throughout the winter, using green cabbage.

We make it a lot around here... easy hearty big-batch food, good for leftovers. No jack-o-lanterns here tonight, but a boston marrow squash pie is in the oven. O, Fall!

Colcannon

Serves 3-4 as a main dish; 6-8 as an accompaniment
1 # potatoes, boiled
1 # kale or cabbage, cooked
milk, if necessary
2 tbsp butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
salt and ground black pepper

Mash the potatoes. Chop the kale or cabbage, add it to the potatoes and mix. Stir in a little milk if the mash is too stiff.
Melt a little butter in a frying pan over a medium heat and add the onion. Cook until softened. Remove and mix well with the potato and kale or cabbage.
Add the remainder of the butter to the hot pan. When very hot, turn the potato mixture on to the pan and spread it out. Fry until brown, then cut it roughly into pieces and continue frying until they are crisp and brown.
From The Irish Heritage Cookbook by Biddy White Lennon and Georgina Campbell

Gifts from my Mil

My special name for Jake's mom is Mil, an initialism of Mother-in-law. Jake's dad is Fil, and they call me Dil. Jake's sister and I are Sils. My sister calls Jake Bil. Its fun: code names for the marrieds.

I've received a few gifts from my Mil lately. Among them, this fedora:

which will help me look awesome at an undetermined future time and place,
and this smusher thing, which she said belonged to her mother, my Gil, Inez.

This contraption made easy work of mashing the two bushels or so of apples I smuggled off of lonely roadside apple trees over the past few weeks.

And now, my pantry looks like this!

It will defeat the purpose of all that canning to not eat the stuff, but I also really like just looking at them!

A Perfect Autumn Weekend

My parents came to visit over the weekend, and helped us clear out the garden and make applesauce, a second batch of sauerkraut, and piccalilli- a green tomato relish. We hiked up the ridge, enjoyed a roasted chicken supper outside last night, and watched the big moon rise.
This morning, they dropped Jake and Echo and I off with their We-no-nah canoe at bridge 14, and we spent a lovely few hours enjoying the river, and watching flutter down from trees and into the current on this gorgeous fall day. We had the river to ourselves... almost.

Thanks, mom and dad!

Predator and Prey

We live with a domesticated wolf and fowl... traditionally, it has been a cooperative arrangement (except for that one time with the chickens).
While at a family wedding over the weekend, I got a call from our old friend and first time petsitter that Echo had attacked one of the geese, and that he (the friend) was on his way to the UW Vet Hospital in Madison with the goose, bleeding, in the back. I thanked him heartily but convinced him to turn around - Jake and I have a no vet policy with S4311's birds.
I'm embarassed to say that I was surprised about and disappointed in our dog's behavior, as if I were a parent scolding a child "old enough to know better." But he doesn't, because he's a dog, and there are some things you can't, and wouldn't want to, I suppose, train a dog out of. It was a good reminder for me about the pitfalls of anthropomorphism.
We arrived home on Sunday afternoon to a slightly limping goose and a mopey dog. I think both are going to be okay.

mushrooms and mold

A co-worker gave me a box of giant puffball mushrooms this week. Here's one of the small ones, about the size of a volleyball.

Here's the inside- sort of like firm tofu in texture.

We sliced it up and made egg in the hole with some of our new chickens' eggs. Roasted tomato, pesto, and sunflower bread toast on the side. Super rainy Sunday breakfast!

Puffball risotto with what's left for dinner. Some of the others were yellowing on the inside, so I had to throw them out. Hopefully their spores will make some puffballs grow near the compost pile next year.

I found this nasty mold lurking in some tomato sauce this morning... all the other jars seemed fine, though, and hopefully they'll stay that way. I'm going to keep this one in a drawer to see what happens in there, as a science experiment only. Some of my canning books say you can scoop off certain kinds of mold and eat the food underneath, but I'm not going there.

leek jam rhapsody

I love Laura Ingalls Wilder. I re-read the entire series every few years or so, and a few summers ago convinced a car full of obliging friends to detour markedly off our path to a winery to check out a recreation of Laura's "Little House in the Big Woods" near Pepin, WI.
I recalled with my oldest and most food-lovingest friend Maggie lately the section of the "Big Woods" book illustrated below.

"The attic was a lovely place to play. The large, round, colored pumpkins made beautiful chairs and tables. The red peppers and the onions dangled overhead. The hams and the venison hung in their paper wrappings, and all the bundles of dried herbs, the spicy herbs for cooking and the bitter herbs for medicine, gave the place a dusty-spicy smell.
Often the wind howled outside with a cold and lonesome sound. But in the attic Laura and Mary played house with the squashes and the pumpkins, and everything was snug and cozy."

I look forward to wintry days with a fire in the woodstove when everything will be "snug and cozy."

To that end, a day in the garden (yesterday) begot a day in the kitchen.

Blanching and freezing green beans and kale, baking zucchini quiches and zucchini bread, canning 5 quarts of carrots and 13 pints of roasted tomato sauce.

Most decadently, making leek jam. My friend Annie told me about about a leek jam she'd had in France last fall, and she made some when we cooked together last month. So. Good. I was glad I'd had a tutorial- I could rhapsodize on the wonders of this stuff.

To make: slice up great big bunches of leeks, and saute slowly in butter or olive oil (I used a bit of both), adding more as necessary, until soft and caramelized. Annie made it as a topping for smashed red potatoes and grilled salmon. I froze some to use as a base for soups and risotto in chillier weather, and am looking forward to spreading some on ciabatta toast to go with my quiche for dinner. I'm going to consult my books later to find out if ramps (wild leeks) can be harvested in the fall. Oh, let's hope!

Several Excellent Things About Today

1. This tomato rainbow:

2. This garden haul:

3. Ducklings' first swim: two of these littles have big city dreams- they're going to live out their days in a backyard on Victoria Street in St. Paul, MN!

4. Swinging.

5. Never leaving home today.
6. Knowing everything I ate for dinner as either a seed or a chick.
7. I can do this all again tomorrow.

Blessed be.

Bur Season

Another sign of fall.

I've resorted to roasting (canning later) what's left of my tomatoes. The house smells wonderful.

Autumnal

We spent the weekend at a great wedding in Vermont, swimming in Lake Champlain, celebrating with good friends.

Home again now, and looking forward to spending some long-awaited weekends here, soaking up the flavors of FALL. We never got above 70 degrees here today... and even the light seemed different. Sharper, brighter, autumnal. Sigh.

Pink sauerkraut is fermenting in our pantry. Pink because it is a mix of red and green cabbage. So simple- it processes itself! All we did is chop and sprinkle on some salt. In about a month we'll can it and enjoy its super duper health benefits all year long.

Also... our egg situation is officially diversified: first (quite small) chicken egg discovered yesterday!

New peeps

Our first intentional farming "enterprise" arrived today- we have orders for several free-range organic roasting chickens. 25 day-old cornish roasters arrived at the Viola post office today and will live out the next 12 weeks or so in these cozy digs. Our 6 hens, Cheryl, Cathy, Barb, Nancy, Bonnie, and Carroll (named after aunties) and two roosters Napoleon and Rutherford Domingo were surprised to encounter the new peeps when they came in from the yard to roost.

That little quail-y looking one in the foreground is an extra "rare breed chick" the hatchery included with our order- hopefully another hen to round out our egg situation. It has spraddle leg, and can't get around, although is bright-eyed and eating and drinking just fine.
Our attempt at fowl physical therapy: affixing a splint made out of tiny band-aids. We'll see how that goes.

Tonk!

TONK! *trrrrrrrrrr*
This evening, for the first time since late last summer, I heard an acorn hit the metal roof and roll off.
Fall is coming... there are pumpkins orange-ing up near the compost pile, even!

Other signs of late summer around here:

Oven-drying oodles of garden tomatoes.

Beeswax.

Wild (blurry) plums!

7 new ducklings, hopefully breeders: 1 cayuga, 2 black swedish, 4 welsh harlequin.