New Pet?

Whew. I took some time off blogging while I did several weeks of movie work, which is now winding down. And a good thing, because clearly my little farm needs more attention...



Roommate Anne went to collect eggs today and instead she found a bizarre little hatchling. This poor guy showed up yesterday, apparently motherless and alone. Keith and the hens chased him away together.

Last night I took extra care to make sure I didn't lock him in with the hens - an opossum will kill a chicken, though I think the opossum needs to be a bit bigger to do that. He wasn't in the henhouse then and he wasn't there when Keith let the hens out this morning. But I guess our henhouse was an irresistible spot to hide out for the day... at least, until our hens beat him up and chased him away.

Poor little orphaned opossum. He just wants a safe place to sleep. And maybe a fresh egg to eat.



I hope he doesn't come back. I might have to adopt him. Wonder what the cats would think?

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You know it's fresh and organic when...

Farmers' markets are mostly closed this time of year, so we get our produce from a nonprofit cooperative grocery, People's Co-Op. Besides free yoga, excellent prices on bulk goods, and other benefits, we love this place because everything in the store is all-natural and organic.

One of the quirks to eating the way we do is that sometimes a funny thing happens. You go to the store and get your groceries - in January, that includes a lot of kale, an incredibly nutritious green that is sweetest and most delicious during the coldest weather - and stick it in the fridge when you get home. A couple days later, you're starting to cook and you pull out some kale, only to discover that somebody else got a head start on your dinner.



The Very Hungry Caterpillar went right on eating kale in the bowl we keep for vegetable scraps, and then once the bowl was full, he went out with those veggie scraps to the chickens. Snack and be snacked!

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Wild Foraging: Chanterelles

Yay, today I'm writing for TWO blogs! This is also a guest-post on my friend's urban foraging blog, First Ways. I follow her blog avidly even though I'm not much of a forager yet - I eat the dandelions out of my yard, but I still have no idea where to find burdock or watercress in Portland, even though I know they're growing wild around here. One day I will take her class and learn. In the meantime, I'm here to crow about my very first wild foraging expedition!



That's me there, yesterday morning just after dawn, soaked with heavy rain out in the woods, bagging up chanterelle mushrooms. They're going for a relatively cheap $10 a pound at the farmers' market nowadays - I've seen them for two or three times that - so it's worth a good hike to go pick them yourself if you know where to find them. I didn't, but we have a friend who does.

If you know any mushroom hunters, or if you've read Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, then you know that mushroom hunters will go to any length to avoid telling anyone where their spots are. It can be incredibly frustrating for the novice mushroomer, to beg and plead for a lesson only to have someone politely change the subject. This time I got a promise back in the summer, when I first floated the idea of killing and eating our seven excess chicks; friends offered to take us mushroom hunting in exchange for chicken processing experience and two of the chickens.

So chanterelle season rolled around, time for us to collect on their promise. Everyone was busy with one thing or another, so it was only yesterday and quite late in the season when we all drove out to an undisclosed location in the woods (hey, I swore I wouldn't tell). We left well before dawn, and there was only just enough light to see through the hard drizzle when we parked the car. We set off with bags and buckets for a relatively easy hike, a few miles down a smooth trail, and then there was the first chanterelle - just sitting there, growing right next to the road.

As we went deeper into the woods, we found them everywhere! They seem to favor the places close to tree stumps and live trees, without too much undergrowth (other spots were carpeted in ferns, and there were no chanterelles there). We found most of them in the wetter spots - yes, even in the same forest, one spot can be considerably wetter than a spot just a few feet away - and they didn't hide underneath logs and such the way that some other mushrooms do. There'd be dark brown leaf litter and the yellow-orange mushroom standing bold against it.

I understood pretty soon why mushroomers guard their spots so jealously; the mushrooms make so little attempt to hide themselves that there would be none left for anyone if the word got out where they were.

By the end of the day, our experienced guide had scored just over ten pounds, and Keith and I had bagged about half that. Had it been earlier in the season, we would've gotten plenty more, but I'm thrilled with what we got! We had a wonderful time tromping around in the woods, and so far we're enjoying ourselves just as much eating these delicacies in our warm dry house. A couple of them even found their way into our scrambled eggs this morning.

But I spent the afternoon turning the bulk of them into duxelles. This is a lovely way to preserve mushrooms of any kind; the French use it to stuff meats and vegetables or to spread on omelettes, and the British use it for Beef Wellington. I now have a pint and a half of luxurious chanterelle duxelles, which I intend to stir into risottos and which will probably find its way into the cornbread stuffing and the gravy this Thanksgiving. (And now I'm all on fire to make a Beef Wellington too.)

Go get your own delicious mushrooms - chanterelles are the best but use whatever edible ones you have available - and make up a batch of duxelles. It'll give a rich boost of earthy flavor to almost anything. Here's my recipe, adapted from Well Preserved by Eugenia Bone.

MUSHROOM DUXELLES

3 Tablespoons good olive oil
3/4 cup minced onion
2 lbs mushrooms, best available, washed & finely minced
1 sprig fresh thyme (optional)
1/4 cup chardonnay
1/4 cup dry vermouth
1 heaping tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh-ground black pepper

Get down your biggest, heaviest skillet and heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in it. Add 1/3 the mushrooms and onions and saute; the mushrooms will let out a good deal of liquid, so keep cooking until the liquid evaporates. Transfer to a clean bowl, add another 1 Tbsp olive oil and half the remaining onion and mushrooms. Saute until the liquid evaporates, transfer to the bowl, then repeat with the remaining olive oil, onion, and mushrooms. When the last batch is cooked through, put the first two batches back in the skillet.

Add the whole sprig of thyme and all the other ingredients. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have absorbed all the liquid; they should be a thick chunky paste by now. Fish out the thyme sprig and discard.

Spoon the duxelles into clean jars and refrigerate or freeze. You can also spoon it into ice cube trays and freeze into small servings, which can be added to gravy, pasta, eggs, etc. or just heated to thaw and spread on toast. If you want to save the duxelles in the fridge for more than a day or two, pack it densely into the jar with as few air pockets as possible, then cover it with olive oil and seal. The oil on top will keep it fresher for longer.

Incredible Autumn Risotto

When I'm feeling contemplative or morose, or when I just need some "me-time," I make risotto. There's something about that peaceful stirring and watching, ladling and absorbing, that makes the kitchen experience very zen for me. Risotto has an undeserved reputation for being difficult and time-consuming. It isn't! It does require your rapt attention, but only for 30-40 minutes, and that time can be a peaceful respite from whatever's going on.

And at the end, you have the ultimate comfort food.

This one I made last night was particularly incredible, loaded with apples, chanterelle mushrooms, turkey bacon, and gorgonzola cheese. The different flavors played off each other so well, and gave the dish a variety of textures to offset the lovely creaminess we all love in a risotto.

I failed to get a picture because Keith and I devoured it as soon as it was ready. Oh well, risotto isn't all that photogenic anyway. But it sure is delicious! I offer this recipe now in case anyone else needs a few minutes of kitchen P&Q and a warm autumn comfort dish.

INCREDIBLE AUTUMN RISOTTO
(serves 2-4, depending on your side dishes)

2 strips turkey bacon (or pork, if that's your thing)
4 cups good-quality chicken or vegetable broth
3 Tbsp butter, divided
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup finely-sliced mushrooms* (about 1.5-2 oz, see note)
1 cup apple, peeled and finely diced
1 cup arborio rice
1/3 cup white wine
Scant 1/4 cup gorgonzola or bleu cheese
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Salt to taste

*Note: Use the best mushrooms you can get. I got a good deal on chanterelles, which are normally pretty expensive but you only need a couple ounces so you can splurge. If you can't get a few chanterelles, then go for shiitakes or baby bellas, just don't use the cheap white ones - and for the love of G-d, don't use canned! Good mushrooms will really make a difference here.

Fry the bacon in a deep, heavy dry skillet until mostly cooked on both sides. While it's frying, add broth to a medium-sized saucepan and bring it to a low boil. Once it's boiling, cover it and lower the heat so it stays at a nice low simmer.

When the bacon is done, drain it and wipe out the skillet if necessary (it won't be necessary with turkey, it will be with pork). Chop the bacon into little pieces and set aside.

Turn the heat under the skillet to medium-low and melt 2 Tbsp butter in it; add the onion and saute until the onion begins to soften. Add the bacon and mushrooms, and continue to saute for another minute or two, until the mushrooms soften a little; add the apple and the rice, and saute another minute or two. Pour in the wine and stir until the wine is mostly absorbed.

Now we get into that peaceful risotto action. Ladle in about a half-cup of the simmering broth (I use a soup ladle), then stir slowly until the rice absorbs it. Ladle in another half-cup of broth, and stir until it's absorbed. Continue in this fashion until you're out of broth; this will take about half an hour. Pour yourself a glass of the white wine you just used and sip it while you stand and stir. Play a little music. Think about life. Enjoy your peace.

When you're out of broth, the rice should be cooked through and your risotto should look nice and creamy. If you still need to cook a little more, use water or more white wine (a half-cup at a time, just like the broth) until the rice is done.

When it's ready, add the remaining tablespoon of butter, the grated or crumbled cheese, a little salt, and the nutmeg. Stir until it's all melted and blended together, then serve immediately. You'll probably want a light salad or a little something green to go on the side, so hopefully you already made it, or had someone else make it.

Enjoy your bliss, preferably with some fuzzy socks and a crackling fire.

Terrifying.

Well, I'm back. I've got some pleasant settling-in things to talk about, but first I need to mention the ever-increasing threat of the passage of the Senate's ironically-titled Food Safety Enhancement Act (what a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak).

Click this link to get the info.

Then call your Senators, your local newspaper, and all your friends and family. We need to raise holy hell over this. If EVER there was a time to step up and scream "NO!" - this is it.

Midnight Meeting

I keep thinking of things to blog about, and then I get busy. I have a lot of irons in the fire these days, but I need to get better about blogging more than once a week. Because I have a lot to share here and I hate when I forget and miss it. Like last night, for instance.

Last night I had occasion to be walking home from the bus stop just after midnight. Our neighborhood is well-lit and very quiet, and I was strolling along under the streetlights, bouncing my backpack, enjoying the soft silence around my steps crunching in the gravel. And then a dark shape streaked across the street, from one driveway into another.

"That wasn't a cat," I thought. I watched the place where the shape had gone, and guessed I knew what it was.

As I got closer, I saw that I was right. The opossum had climbed to the top of a low chain-link fence, and he was watching me approach. It felt like no one else around was awake, just him and me, and I felt drawn to him for a better look. I've never seen a live opossum up close. The driveway sloped down slightly, so that when I got to him, he was just above my eye level, his head turned back the way I had come.

I could've touched him - I didn't, of course, but I could have. I could see the fingerprint pattern in his thick rat-tail, the coarseness of his wiry fur, white and mussed. Then, slowly, he turned his head and looked at me. A drop fell from his nose as he fixed his eyes on mine. His face denied fear; he was not afraid of me. He just watched and waited to see what I would do.

For another long moment, I stood there in a stranger's driveway, one of my neighbors and yet a person I don't know, while this opossum and I shared a mutual acknowledgement. He looked old, but tough; he was a survivor. Before this moment, I'd only known opossums as dirty roadkill, but this guy was alive in a way that most of the animals I've encountered are not. He was wild, and he knew where he was going and what he'd do when he got there, and he was simply waiting for me to leave him to it.

So I did. With a respectful nod, I went on toward home. He watched me go, but when I was a few houses away, I looked back and he was gone.