a commercial...

julie sent me this today. a chipotle commercial she saw last night during the grammys. i've never eaten at chipotle but i have to say it seems like a pretty progressive chain for fast food.  a bunch of their managers came to visit our farm in north carolina so that they could see how pigs and cows ought to be raised (as in on Pasture and with Love). and we had a couple of chipolte managers swing by our farm store in boston last week to inquire about ordering wholesale veggies from us for them. i don't think this restaurant chain is stalking us. but i do think they are making some legitimate moves towards sourcing better quality foods. as in food that was raised properly.

and as julie predicted, this commercial made me tear up. though i'm such a horridly predictable target. nothing like pigs to push all my buttons.

i'm not trying to be a mouthpiece for chipotle. i don't particularly care if you ever patronize their restaurants. i certainly haven't.

i just ask, as always, that you support and love your local farmers. please.

playing hookie

i needed a day off from the farm store this morning. and so my darling boy obliged and went in my stead. i needed a day to romp with the animals. and flop around at home. there was washing to do. writing to tackle. dishes to be ignored. waters to fill. bedding to be fluffed up. eggs to be collected. and fresh air to breath.

so i am home/farm. and nick is store/town today. it is a nice switch up for this thursday. i get to be on the farm/home friday through monday. i don't know why today was so important to me. but it was. because there IS nothing quite as satisfying as Every-Now-&-Then staying away from the place where you are expected to be. is there not? certainly. definitely. on days when spring is singing from every corner such as today.

in photos: 
1. while the gardens are empty we supplement the chickens' diet with food scraps from the nearby organic co-op. i drop it down. they loooooooove it. chaos ensues. 
2. chicken feet.
3. oddly, my favorite corner of the house. and i cannot eat, or read, or sleep, or write there.  and a drawing of dad's.
4. outside lunch of rooster stew, cheese & mustard crackers from mom, apple cider, and finalizing my seed order with a final check with root cellaring.
5. picnic-ing never goes the calm & pleasant way i envision when rudy brings his ball.
6. mung bean sprouts a brewin'.
7. for a couple that makes their current business raising laying hens we have a shocking lack of egg cartons. as in, none. eggs tend to teeter on every surface.

a mom, her mom, and their cake

 

i got to take a night a day and a night on the island with my parents last week. which is always Exactly What i Need. my mother and i made a cake. naturally. and we chose a cake that my mom hadn't eaten since her mother, jane, used to bake it when she was a little girl. pineapple upside down cake. which we both agreed sounded pretty gross. especially since the original recipe calls for maraschino cherries to fill in the middle of the pineapples. WHICH on second thought would have added a nice spot of color. BUT on the first thought we decided to do without. 

and...it was shockingly delicious. perhaps not so shockingly when you pour the butter and brown sugar into the pan and then plop the batter on top. no, it should be obvious then that such confectionery combinations will be, in fact, delicious. the pineapple was actually a pleasant tangy cut through all the sugar. 

and so without further ado 

the golden sponge pineapple upside down cake  

from the antoinette pope school cookbook 

adopted by my grandmother jane lee jones

italicized comments by me

the batter:
6 egg yolks {save those whites!!}

3/4 cups sugar

1/2 t vanilla

1/3 cup boiling water

1 1/2 cups sifted flour

1/4 t salt

1 1/4 t baking powder 

beat yolks till thick and lemon-color. add sugar a little at a time and continue beating till very light (about a minute). add vanilla. then slowly add boiling water. last, pour in flour, baking powder & salt all at once. stir till smooth

the topping:
1/4 c butter

1/2 c brown sugar

5 slices pineapple rings {preferably canned if you want to go true 1950s on the cake}

melt butter and combine with brown sugar. pour into bottom of round cake pan. place pineapple rings over the sugar-butter mixture. make this into as pleasant of a design as you are able. pour cake batter over it all.

bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

when done, allow cake to cool for 5 minutes then invert onto a cake plate. allow to cool. 

serve with a whipped cream topping

**save those egg whites!! to make meringue. whip the meringue for thirty minutes (or as long as you can stand) with a healthy amount of confectioners sugar until you form Stiff Peaks. once this has occurred drop TINY dollops of the white fluff onto a greased cookie sheet and bake until golden brown. be sure they are tiny so that they cook all the way through. 

i cannot bare the thought of throwing out Half the Egg when my hens have worked so hard to get them to us. so do find some use for the whites if you don't want to make meringues. 

putting off the week...

just this sort of day. getting in on the veritable pig pile in the back pen. well pig and cow and farmer pile. i do think bella is the only cow that knows how to snuggle. monday is for putting off real farm work. and cake baking. and writing anything substantial. it is just for snuggling animals.

see you on the flip side.

isn't it odd...?

it is too strange. the combination throws be back several years. but more than a lifetime ago. spring time and city working. it peaked to 60 yesterday....february 1st....in boston. joggers were out in full force. the city dwellers were coatless. we got several more people signed up for the summer's CSA....confused or optimistic about the current season.

i had to document the date with candied hearts. just so future-me wouldn't think i was bluffing about the warmness of february.

i shouldn't be grateful for this weather. i should be sad and scared of our changing climate. i should be mid-tirade on our crazily indulgent and dirty lifestyles that are changing the world like this. i should be telling you stories of trees and plants that are being tricked into budding with the mild temps. how they will inevitably be set back by another frost. how this effects certain farming practices like falling dominoes.

but i am grateful for this weather. i am so grateful for a mild winter. this winter we came into prepared enough but not completely comfortable with the housing and pens we had set up for the animals. neither of us were totally sure how things would work out. and now because of the lack of snow our chickens are still able to go outside. bella has been able to spend all but a handful of nights sleeping at the mouth of the pigs' hut. we haven't had any problems with frostbite on the roosters' combs. we haven't had to visit the farm in the middle of the night to stoke the woodstove.

perhaps it doesn't have to be so uncommonly warm. perhaps it could snow a bit more before we are thoroughly into spring. i remind myself that winter isn't over. the last frost date isn't until mid-may after all. but this has been a particularly calm re-entry to farming in a new england winter. giving nick and i much needed reprieve as we settle into the northern climate.

what is your winter shaping out like?