Cultivating Passion

Sometimes during the course of the daily grind I start thinking things like, "Am I wasting my time seeking out local and organic food and dreaming of being a farmer/rancher? Wouldn't my energy be better focused on something that might, say, enhance my current career skills? Am I even making any kind of a difference? Is there any real point? Why can't you just be content with all the blessings you already have and enjoy the fruits of modern society?"

And then I pick up a book like Deep Economy by Bill McKibben and reality beats me over the head with a genetically modified, toxin filled, chemical-tasting frozen "dinner" that consumed 12 times as many oil calories as it offers and left staggering environmental, economic and social destruction in its wake. I read half of it this evening. I was only able to put it down because I had the overwhelming urge to tell someone (Gerard and my blog) a little about it. On the rare occasion when the flames of passion start to cool and I start to question my own philosophy (ie. I get lazy and doubt myself), a book like this is just what I need to remind me of the moral reasons why I care so much and why these things are so important that I've restructured my life around them.

People just don't understand what they're doing to the world and to themselves when they buy food at Wal-Mart or Safeway. It's huge. As much as I've learned about it over the years, it still boggles my mind. And the more I learn the stronger my convictions. I don't even like Whole Foods all that much anymore (gasp!) nor many of their suppliers. The very nature of a corporation and what it must do to survive (let alone thrive) goes against nearly everything I stand for. The single most profound effect you can have on this world is buying local and organic food because it touches EVERYTHING. I'll stop there before I end up rewriting the book, but I have to put Deep Economy on my "highy recommended reading" list.

Practice Makes Perfect

Today I made the most perfect crust ever.

It was a crust for one of the last pumpkin pies of the season. I didn't change any proportions or use any different ingredients or leave anything out, so my technique must be improving. In fact, the pie itself appears to have come out perfect as well. This one didn't crack or get too dark around the edges or overflow, and looks like it could be on the cover of Fine Cooking. But that's not the most exciting part.

The best part was what I did with the extra crust. I normally make cinnamon rolls with it, and they normally come out good. I again made cinnamon rolls, but only with half the dough. With the other half I experimented, starting with the dough and my homemade peach butter which I canned last summer. When finished, I sat Gerard down and served the results with tall glasses of raw milk. By his reaction I knew I had really scored with this one. The crust, I kid you not, was as buttery and flaky as any good croissant, and it was filled with hot peaches. "You have to teach me how to make this crust," he said. Unfortunately it disappeared before I thought to get any pictures, but I did give it a name: Everything's Peachy.

The cinnamon rolls, pictured above, will be breakfast tomorrow. With this crust I'm expecting them to reach new heights of tastiness.

A Fine Weekend

It's one of those Saturday nights where I'm so grateful it's just that. I don't have to do a darn thing tomorrow and I can completely relax tonight in the peace and quiet of my home and sleep in as late as I want tomorrow. Of course "sleep in" usually means 7:30 at the latest. Still, it's a luxury knowing I don't have to get up.

Actually I am going to do some things tomorrow. I'm planning to make pancakes for brunch, which will go well with the butter I churned today, and at some point in the day I plan to bake a pumpkin pie and two loaves of bread. But since I consider those to be incredibly joyful activities I don't really consider them "to do" items. Baking will also make the place nice and cozy. We're supposed to get some sloppy wet snow tomorrow and I have no reason to venture outside.

Today was a really fantastic day in terms of weather. With the exception a few arctic blasts that put us in the deep freeze for a few days, it has been a really warm winter, with most days being sunny and in the 60's. We've even had a few days in the 70's. This morning Gerard and I got up early and hiked into the mountains just outside our door. It was a crisp, sunny morning. Gerard even wore shorts. We both noticed right away the first sign of spring: the birds are back! Seems a bit early to me, but maybe they're getting a jump on spring with all the warm weather. Robins, flickers and all kinds of song birds were flitting about the mountains and singing in the trees. We even saw the first Steller's Jay (one of my favorites) since last year. We also came across something else fairly exciting today. Near a nameless peak west of Mount Sanitas we found what appeared to be the remnants of a mountain lion's kill. It was the hoof and lower leg of a very young mule deer. The bone near the detachment point had been snapped off and knawed. It was pretty cool, though slightly unnerving since lions tend to stay in the area and guard their kills. We looked around but couldn't find the rest of the carcass and thought it likely that a fox or some other critter had scavenged a kill and left this tidbit near the trail.

The rest of the day was mostly spent loafing. I did manage to get out to the farm to pick up a couple dozen eggs and a few winter squash, and I prepared smoked pork chops and mashed potatoes for dinner which was followed up with an evening walk downtown. But otherwise I had a perfectly, wonderfully unproductive day. As for the rest of the evening, I think I'll try to decide on my next book selection and see if I can't get a couple of chapters in. I'm going to try to resist reading Animal Vegetable Miracle again.

Waking Dreams

It's one of those nights. I can't sleep. I'm lying in bed staring at the ceiling and dreaming of owning my own Colorado ranch.

There was a time not too many years ago where I wanted to live in a fancy loft in the heart of downtown. I never got the fancy loft, but I did live in a nice place right on the very cusp of downtown Austin. It was pretty fantastic and I have no regrets. It satisfied my craving. But I get claustrophobic in the big city, and I found that I bored quickly of all the shops, and since bars and nightlife don't do anything for me anymore I found myself feeling unfulfilled. I never got bored with Town Lake or Barton Springs, but I wanted something more. I guess I felt a little like I lived in a magazine spread. It was cool, but what was I actually doing? I found myself longing for a quiet place in the country, much like what I had growing up. But I wasn't into long commutes, especially in Austin traffic. I had also spent a good decade fantasizing about living in the mountains of Colorado and fully intended to do so when the time was right. I was starting to feel like the time was right.

So I made a brilliant and extremely fortunate career move that landed me in Colorado, specifically in Boulder, right where I always wanted to be. By that time I was so ready to get out of the crowded city that I was of a mind to live alone in the mountains. Indeed I entertained my friends with crazy ideas like living in a teepee. (People actually do this very successfully here.) I no longer want to try living in a teepee, partly because I know I would be bored out of my mind, but mostly because I now realize that that was just me trying desperately to get away from it all to recharge. My alone time is extremely important to me and if I don't get enough, well, I get a little nutty. Along those same lines, I also now realize I don't want to be a solitary mountain man. The mountains can be extremely lonely. And cold. While I highly value "me" time, I don't actually want to be a hermit. I love community.

I have found myself very much at home in Boulder. It's not too big. Rush hour lasts from roughly 5PM to 5:30PM and it only slows me down for a few blocks trying to get around the University, though it's rare for me to come home during that time anyway. It's quiet, clean, beautiful, convenient, extremely progressive, has all the comforts of a big city with few of the big city problems, AND it's an outdoor lover's paradise all at the same time. I can walk to everything from gourmet restaurants and designer fashions to mountain trails that feel like they're a thousand miles from nowhere. There's a year-round creek complete with waterfalls, wild birds and trout right outside my window and central park is on the opposite bank. The largest and by far the best farmer's market in the whole state is 3 blocks from my home. I haven't explored too much of Colorado yet, but Boulder would be a tough place to beat.

And yet I still find myself longing for something more. A more perfect city? Bigger mountains? What could I possibly want? I want a farm. I love Boulder. I love Colorado. I don't want to leave and have no intention to do so, but sometimes I have those same old feelings of being crowded and a bit bored of city life even here in Boulder. Let me explain.

Back in Austin I rediscovered food the day I set foot in my first Whole Foods. That was close to 8 or 9 years ago now. I couldn't believe a grocery store could be so beautiful, that food could be so amazing and that people could care so much about it. I discovered organic and I was hooked. Over the years my fascination with food grew and grew, and by the time I left Austin I was dividing my food time equally between Whole Foods and the farmer's market (which is really very good in Austin.) By the time of this writing, I've almost entirely outgrown even Whole Foods (which we have plenty of in Boulder) and I now get over 90% of my calories from local organic farms and ranches. As anyone who has read my blog or knows me knows, I also do my own canning and baking and freezing and butter making and have complete control over my food from the time it's picked until the time I eat it. I'm obsessed with it like I've never been obsessed with anything else. It's like I've finally found something in life that makes me feel fulfilled. I've done a lot of fun things in life and I still have many things I enjoy, but food is one of the few things that has real purpose for me. I mean, it's food. Someone once summed it up nicely: "Money is illusion. Food is real." What could be more rewarding than coaxing the most delicious, nutritious edibles from nature year after year? The very essence that keeps me alive and healthy isn't something that comes from a store. It isn't something that I have to trade for green paper with a corporation in order to get. It's something that earth gives us for free, if only we know how to ask.

So here I am in Boulder and everything is wonderful, except I still can't grow most of what I eat because I have no space. Sometimes I feel trapped in the city. I don't have one of those idyllic 30 acre organic farms just outside the city. You've seen them, at least in pictures: rolling green meadows with a few horses grazing near a big red barn under an azure sky with rugged, snow-capped mountains forming a back drop. Yep, that's eastern Boulder county. So far as I'm concerned, it's the best of all worlds. It's just five miles from the heart of Boulder, just fifteen minutes drive to the mountains. There's rich prairie soil for growing crops and grazing livestock, and plenty of mountain streams to water it all. It's quiet out there. It's country, but it's not isolated. Your neighbor's house is far enough away that you might not even be able to see it, and odds are they're Obama-loving, gay-rights supporting, organic-farming liberals with Ph.D's that you'll see down at the farmer's market every weekend where, by the way, there's a huge demand for local organic produce and more than enough well-to-do people who are more than happy to pay a premium for it. And they aren't just mindless consumers. No, these people know what they want and they love it. I too could be one of those farmers if only I had $3 million to buy a farm.

My dream farm, by the way, exists here. It's called Abbondanza (Italian for "bountiful") and they are Boulder's premier organic farm. Seriously, you should see their farm stand. Whole Foods can't even do a spread like they can. And they're seed savers too. They grow hundreds of varities of vegetables on the farm, many are heirloom varities, and they save all their own seeds which they sell or replant the following season. They're completely self sufficient! And no one at the market offers the variety they do.

So for the time being I do my canning and churn my butter from the raw ingredients I buy from my local farmers, and I tend my little city organic garden plot and dream of the day I have my own little orchard, rows of organic greens and livestock grazing in the pasture.

My one real outlet for getting my farmer/rancher fix at this time is the horse farm I volunteer with. Bini, the owner, has seen too many moons to garden and so it now lies covered in weeds. However she has offered the space for me to bring it back to life if I'm so inclined. As spring approaches the dream of what that garden could become weighs on my mind. My only hesitation is investing work and, inevitably, money into a farm that isn't mine. I won't be the first person in history to work a farm I don't own, but since this is (for now at least) a hobby rather than my livelihood I think it'll be worth it.

Coming Alive

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
--Harold Whitman

Thoughts on Food

A few weeks ago when friends from Texas visited, I introduced them to the concept of eating local. Being total urbanites from Houston, they were skeptical but willing to hear me out. We visited a couple of farms, talked about the virtues of grass-fed, local organic foods, and all of the other foodie things I'm into. We ate very well and I received many compliments on the quality and taste of my cooking. But the coolest thing, for me at least, was testing something I had read about many times but never had the opportunity to see for myself. One of my guests was lactose intolerant. According to the literature, lactose intolerant folks are usually able to digest raw milk without issue. This seems to be due to the fact that scorching the hell out of milk and then subjecting it to thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch tends to turn it into a milk-like product that is only a shadow of its formers self, lacking most of the nutrients and enzymes it once contained and instead containing some strange new properties that tend to clog arteries and cause other issues, which raw whole milk does not do.

My guest, fond of milk but unable to enjoy it in any but the smallest of quantities, listened to my spiel and then downed a tall glass of whole, raw, delicious milk just hours out of the cow. (She also tended to drink only skim, not realizing that the nutrition is in the cream, that whole real milk can actually help keep you lean, and that the slimy film left in one's mouth after drinking typical grocery store whole milk is actually a result of the homogenization process and does not occur with raw milk.)

Her immediate reaction was, "Wow, my mouth isn't slimy. This has a much creamier but not a 'fat' taste like the whole milk I'm used to." Her next reaction, later in the day, was something like, "You know I haven't had any issues at all from that milk this morning. I'm really surprised." And so she had several more glasses over the course of her visit and never had any issues as a result. I now hear she's trying to find a raw milk supplier in the Houston area.

Don't Nobody Know

Ever read something, a story, that moves you so much it consumes your thoughts for days? Yesterday I finished reading the journals of Lewis & Clark and read up on their lives. I don't really know what to say about it. I know I can't put into words what I'm feeling. About all I can say is I can't get them off my mind. So I sit here in the dark, watching the snow come down and listening to some really old cowboy folk songs.

And thinking.

Howdy from Colorado

Me and my old high school friend Michelle up visiting from Texas. There's fresh snow on the Flatirons.

It's Friday

We had a good 6 inches of snow early Monday. It was a surprise since just the night before the forecast was for little or none. My guests from Texas were particularly delighted. Monday's snow was followed by a succession of warm, sunny days that are supposed to continue right through the weekend. There may be more photos coming as I sift through them this weekend.

Tonight we had a few friends over for coffee and dessert. (Thanks Beth for your 2007 posting of the recipe for Pennsylvania Dutch apple pie. Through me it has brought deliciousness into many people's lives.) I made it with our now dwindling stock of frozen apple slices from last autumn's farmer's market. What a nice way to start the weekend.

Time

Memaw died a few months back. I still haven't removed her from my address book. I see her name in there from time to time and I always pause for just a moment and remember that she's really gone.

This week I took a few days off work and my best friend from high school came to visit. Until a few months ago, I hadn't seen or spoken with her in about twelve years. It was a little strange reconnecting, but I have to say I found it extremely comfortable and easy, as if no time had passed at all. Sometimes after a good laugh an easy lull would settle between us. I'd look at her, smile, and think back on moments long passed. I dug out an old photo album and found some good ones of us being silly on the beach one day when we were about 18 years old. We looked like kids, and the whole world still lay before us.

I had some great conversations with my old friend. Among much else, we talked about the other people we knew in high school, where they are now and how so many people never really leave home. All her family, for example, still live and work within a few miles of where they've always lived and worked. Except for me living 1,000 miles away in Colorado, my family is no different.

Tonight I found Memaw's house back in Texas listed for sale online. There are pictures both inside and out. I took a virtual tour of a house I know intimately. Most of the furniture was gone but some pictures and other objects remained. There were no people in the photos. No laughter. No birthday or holiday celebrations, no grandchildren running around, no pies in the oven. Pawpaw's garden is just a memory now paved over with a carpet of grass. It's just an ordinary country house waiting to be sold to the highest bidder, all the living memories now only ghosts in my mind. I never thought about it before, but it seems that a home can die too.

Just as I was about to sign off, I noticed the realtor selling the house was a childhood friend of my brother. I think he was about 7 years old the last time I saw him. Now he's wearing a big grin and trying to pawn off Memaw & Pawpaw's house.

I'm glad I got out of there and built my own life far away. My life is good and I'm getting everything I've sought. But I often think of friends and family long gone, plucked from my life by neglect, erosion or death. More often than you might suppose, I dream of youthful parents, the home I grew up in, and the arms that held me and encouraged me to find my road in the world. I sometimes long to be there, among familiar faces and comfortable places. I guess some people never really leave.