I just spent the last week in central Mass at a professional conference. The forsythia was in full raging bloom. This scrub is from Oleaceae, the olive family, and is known for it's flowers which produce lactose, one of the few sources in nature who does so outside of actual milk.
I got the idea from my friend Wendy to make some arugula pesto. I picked some arugula at the community garden from a bed that was letting it go to seed and then picked a bulb of baby garlic to go with it. It came out perfect with some pignoli nuts and parmesan.
Although not a Hopi, this man studied and lived with them for over 20 years. He said something simple to the effect of, "The food doesn't come from the health food store, it comes from the garden." He made us all think about where our food and our water comes from. Here he is telling Josh about Hopi corn traditions.
At the end of the day people brought out their seeds and a massive seed exchange took place. It was an amazing feeling to collect local seeds with the date and site of the collection. One knows that these crops will thrive in the land they where they were originally grown. It is also an overwhelming feeling to have my own "seed bank" which I can draw from for many seasons until I am harvesting my own seeds.
Today I attended a half day seed conference that was organized to coincide with the end of the herbal conference here in T or C over the weekend. There were passionate seed cultivators such as Joshua Craven from the farm I visited yesterday as well as people who talked about growing trees from seed. All in all it was a mind-blowing expansive day.
The gentleman on the right is a seed farmer. He cultivates plants strictly for the most premium plant from which he harvests the seeds. He distributes them with the help of people like the gentleman on the left who is responsible for Seeds of Change.
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
This is a view of the valley which was home to the Anasazi and Mimbres Indians 1000 years ago. The view is looking down on a medicinal herb farm cultivated by a 29 year old young man who was really cool.
I took a tour of 4 of the neighboring farms in nearby Monticello. These are balsamic vinegar barrels that have been aged to 12 years. This is the first year their balsamic has been available and it is being written about all over the place. This farm is exceptional in every way and neat as a pin.
www.organicbalsamic.com
My friend Paula is an accomplished salt cedar artist. Her garden is featured at our Herbal Conference this weekend. Filled with these handmade fences made from salt cedar, her yard is a maze of cactus and native plants.
On Friday morning I usually try to hike with the awesome ladies of T or C who know so many trails. This week it was into Mescal Canyon for a view of some natural desert water. One of my pals went swimming in it even though it was around 50 degrees in the water. I'm learning so much about the local landscape and the plants (and animals).
For those of you who enjoy tempeh, it's furry before you do something else with it like bake it or fry it.
It's not supposed to be a science but Dawn got really obsessed with the temperature and used a borrowed infrared thermometer to measure the heat. The temperature insures the growth of the fungi that covers the tempeh.
My friend Dawn just came from a fermentation workshop in Tennessee with Sandor Ellix Katz (Wild Fermentation, The Revolution WIll Not Be Microwaved). I am a big fan of his thanks to my friend Rebekah. Dawn and I have been making fermented food with her organisms for several days. Here she is measuring the temperature in a make-shift incubator for some tempeh.
My friends down at Rodeo Road Storage found out I was interested in fishing and promptly got me set up with a pole and tackle box. They gave me a bunch of pointers for trout fishing in the Rio Grande.
Now that spring is here all people can talk about is snakes. Apparently there is one called the timber rattler that is deadly no matter what. Antivenom will not help if you get bit.
Our local library has a table out front where people put their used magazines. I dropped off three issues of the Economist and an issue of Automobile today.
This is a double batch of raw onion bread since I have guests coming out and - the results of the dehydrated apples.Now there's some real good snacking!
My sister gave me this amazing mandolin for Christmas and I've been using it to prepare food for the dehydrator. I use it to make paper thin slices of onion for the onion bread and here I'm making some dried apples for hikes.
New Mexico is breathtakingly beautiful. It looks like a full moon but it's not til tomorrow night.
In New Mexico we don't have spring, we have the windy season. Sometimes you just drive through walls of sand in gusts of up to 60 miles an hour. It's really hard weather to garden in.
This chard went straight from the garden into dinner I made tonight for some friends. A simple risotto with a little feta.
My friend Mikey loaned me these cat litter containers about three weeks ago but I'm using them almost everyday for something. A few days ago I gathered some small pieces of wood down by the river to use in my pot-bellied stove. It's probably the last of the evenings that will be chilly enough to have a fire.
