Summertime dinner

It's getting to the end of summer. School in these parts is in full swing. Columbus North defeated our neighbor, Columbus East, in the 41st installment of a cross-town football rivalry last night on ESPN. It seems like leaves could start falling any day. And our tomatoes still haven't ripened. We must have 10 little cherry tomatoes on the plants in the pots I started in Greenwood, but frequent (daily) watering and TLC hasn't given us a single taste. I did harvest one very small green pepper today in hopes that either the plant would put out some more flowers or give it up and let the tomatoes have more nutrients.

It's been a tough transition. You forget until about two weeks after a move just how much it costs to start living somewhere. We taxed our finances selling the house in Fort Wayne, maybe spending 15% of what we got for it just getting it to market. Then you have to take into account all the new deposits, waiting for the refunds and figuring out what (read: where) to eat when you haven't had time to go to a grocery. Add to that that when we moved into the apartment, we moved a whole lot of frozen food. We really saw how it disappears when it's easy to get to and now we're down to the last scraps from our big freezer and any canned goods that made the journey. Buying meat for the first time in five years is a big shock.

Anyway, we're at one of those junctures where we're stretching food dollars until we get some breathing room. But it helps inspire creativity. And so, tonight, we have a riff on a BLT.

Nothing special, except where it comes from.

Let's ignore the bread, cheese, processed cheese product, and mustard.

The highlights are the other bits. Under a pile of cheese sticks are slices from our solitary green pepper. It was small but strong. It is surrounded by "stolen tomatoes". Last weekend, when we were in Marysville, Duncan asked if we could pick tomatoes. They were behind my parents' garage and very fruitful. What could be wrong. He picked a couple and we took them in to Grandma. She says it's okay and gets us a container. This is when I find out that the tomatoes behind their garage belong to the neighbors. My parents lend them space in their yard that was once a failed garden. The neighbors tend it carefully and use my parents' water to produce some great tomatoes. But Duncan and I stole them. So we brought our exploits home with us. He'd like them even more if he knew they were stolen (AVM reference).

The bacon is from our 2010 share at Hawkins Family Farm. It is excellent Tamworth bacon, processed at W&W near Andrews, IN. The pickles I made last summer from our share of cucumbers at the farm. They're the instant dill sort. Not as authentic as a brined, kosher dill, but less moldy!

And there you have it. Something from several places we are connected to. I'm starting to think that "all local is relative."

Corn, ears of despair?

Deborah stopped by a market on 46, in the first retail strip most people see in Columbus, last week and got some corn. She took some photos of the boys eating it and I think I did too.

Looks like I only captured Duncan.

The thing about this market is that it carries local products (meat, vegetables, soap, honey etc.) and seems to have a low margin. Our 8 ears were $4. Plus they take credit cards, which makes it especially easy for we of our of town bank.

Its been a bad year for corn. Where it was planted early enough to avoid sticking equipment in mud, the rain prevented deep root growth, so it's been a year off flood and drought for corn. Corn grown here is small, a bit less sweet and in short supply. But that's okay, that's agriculture.

One thing turns that around for us. No matter the size or availability, our boys love corn and that earases despair.

posted from Bloggeroid

Catching up

Needless to say, I've neglected my self-imposed duties here for a couple weeks. My defense, if I needed one, rests on exhaustion from heat and fret, busy-ness of a summer over scheduled in light of having little boys, and the whole house thing.

Well, we'll begin moving into the house this weekend. That should help things a bit. I'll share my new design for raised beds, brew some beer, explore a whole new local food network and probably talk about how I miss the Hawkins' farm. I'll also share some thoughts on composting and beekeeping.

Its going to be a busy summer!

posted from Bloggeroid

Ham and Beans

Eating local and stretching the bounty seems to go hand in hand. When you the farm workers are part of your family and the land that feeds your hog feels like home, there's a natural call for head to tail eating as well as turning "leftovers" into something special. Really, there's little choice when a family of two adults and two young boys are faced with an enormous ham.

The story of this ham is the story of our past year. It was one of two in our basement chest freezer before the move. The 2009 ham went to church for the Parry Lecture Luncheon. The 2010 addition didn't fit into our new apartment freezer. It went into the refrigerator to thaw while the matching turkey brined in the bathtub. Don't worry, it was in a cooler with ice.

The ham was cooked, glazed and served. We ate about a quarter of it. About a quarter was bone. The rest went in the freezer or was sliced for sandwiches. Deborah ate more for a couple weeks. My fondness for ham expires at one meal, usually, but the CSA hams might make a meal for me twice in a month.

So, today I took the ham bones, some soaked beans, chicken stock, and spices, roasted/braised it all in an oven for 8 hours, turning the bones every 2 hours and added an unsmoked ham hock about 4 hours in.


Early in cooking


Done


After removing bones


The bones


Tristan's plate

I didn't intend to write about this. But Ray Larkin, a MI brewing buddy, asked about it on FB when I said it was in the oven. Not having crock pots or an arsenal of covered bakeware that is in storage, I did what I could with what I had. And it turned out great. The bones added something they don't in a steamy environment. The broth reduced to a geletanous binding, even bordering on "crusty" out of the oven.

A nice reuse of a pig, even for someone who doesn't care for ham.

posted from Bloggeroid

It's All About the Skin!

Being part of an "Old MacDonald" CSA means getting chickens as go rarely find them in a market. Taken out of their packaging (ours sent them out for packing) reveals a bird, not a characature of one. First to notice is the neck, intact with the slit that drained the literal lifeblood from this animal. There's also a thick flap of neck skin reminiscent of a Thanksgiving Turkey. And weighing in at 6.5 pounds, dressed, it's got a lot in common with a turkey.



So I get this bird out of its wrapping, having thawed it in the fridge for a couple days. This time I removed the neck and tossed it into my frozen stock bag. I took the innards, heart, gizzard, lungs, and placed them in the pan with the bird. Now the bird gets seasoned. A liberal application of salt, pepper and garlic (powder, in this case) will sit.



After an hour, it enters a 275F oven for five hours. Here it sweats a beautifully thick gravy of chicken-ness. The skin turns magical. And the bird is glorified by anyone with a nose.



I'll often rest the bird breast side down on a bed of evenly thick, sliced potatoes. The chicken spa turns each potato into a tiny boneless chicken bite. Turning the breast down seems to keep the fragile white meat moist while letting the dark, moist meat drain a bit.

Dismantling this artpiece from the farm is an accident. Stub your toe while carrying it to the table and you'll spend no effort in shredding. Just make sure to be greedy of that skin. It doesn't get any favors in the chill chest.

Jeff has told audiences that the greatest compliment paid to his efforts came from an elderly person. "That is what chicken used to taste like."

And my kids know no difference.

posted from Bloggeroid

Low and Slow

It's been months now since my Mother-in-Law asked what I meant by "low & slow" when roasting a whole chicken. In that case, I usually use a 275F oven for 4 or 5 hours after an hour or two with a salt and pepper rub. More on that later this week, I hope.

I often forget what happens when I am not prepared to use our meat. Above you see some short ribs and mashed potatoes. I was all set to cook them and forgot until 3:30 when we try to eat between 5 and 6. So, while it looks great with the bbq reduction "gravy" and tasted equally stellar, the resulting shoe leather became eligible for a save in the oven until 9 or 10. We ended up picking up a pizza.

Lesson learned. Don't press your luck when a clock and pastured meat are on the line.

What's funny is that Deborah demanded that I take that picture. I already knew how it was going to be but it did look pretty.

posted from Bloggeroid

Planting

We did this on Thursday. Its been a busy few days.

I started by scrubbing out a couple clay pots I kept from the house. As water evaporates through the clay, salts and micro organisms can contaminate them. So a good scrubbing helps out. I did this while the boys were sleeping. While I had opportunity, I planted both pots up to the top level. Then when the boys eke up, I could help them plant the top, easy level of these multipots.



When it came time, though, neither Duncan or Tristan was willing to touch the plants.

In the strawberry (taller) jar, I alternated strawberries, green peppers and cherry tomatoes. Strawberries are on the top. At the end of tomato season, I'll remove the annuals and root some strawberry runners in their place. The herb (smaller) pot has peppers, cherry tomatoes and some chives that survives the move.

I guess I'm also my own farmer, huh?

Next Steps

So far, I've been trying to document our consumption. Today, I'm turning an important corner in two ways. First, and most important in the long term, is that we are now houseless. The relocation company "bought" our house yesterday and will settle up by Saturday. This means that we get to move forward with buying a house. So, soon, I'll be able to turn my focus on finding some farmers in Bartholomew County to fill our provisions.

The other is less world-changing and more immediate. Waiting for my attention at our storage shed were two clay multipots. The smaller is embossed as herbs. The larger is a traditional strawberry jar. This morning, I took the boys grocery shopping and we picked up some potting mix and plants, strawberries, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Tomorrow, we'll plant our containers out on the patio. With any luck, we'll have some fruits before they are relocated to sunny Columbus.

The next stage after our container folly is establishing new pwrrenial beds at a new house. To that end, I share a photo of one spear of asparagus I got from our Fort Wayne Community Garden plot the week before we moved.

Sometimes the "better choices" are the easier ones.

Had we not prepaid for our hotel stay over the weekend, I'd have cancelled our trip. We had a nice savings for a down payment just three weeks ago. But paint, carpet, HVAC repair and an obnoxious lender (in the family) made it tight. We had $7 to use toward gas and food until Wednesday when we returned to the apartment.

So when contemplating dinner in the last five miles, I had to keep it in the kitchen. No calling out for Chinese or pizza. Couldn't swing through the uber-convenient McD's or White Castle. Don't even think about finding a full service dining experience. Mac & cheese from the blue box. That was my thought as I pulled into the parking spot we left Thursday night.

But that didn't last up the stairs. Once the boys were corralled in the apartment I started cooking up sausage patties and pancakes. With the standard BH&G plaid binder packed, I found a recipe online. AND it used butter, not oil which we depleted in last week's fried chicken adventure. I substituted brown sugar for white since all the white stuff we have here is in packets. I forgot to add an egg. But I added cinnamon to the batter and sprinkles while they cooked and again at serving. Maybe thats why Deborah said they were the best ever.

I thought I'd say that a benefit of knowing my farmer is flexibility. We stopped getting sausage from our CSA share a few years ago, in favor of bacon, chops and whole pieces (shoulder, belly). So when I forgot to pick up half of my chickens last year, I managed to trade some of them for other meat, including this particular package of sausage. I guess I managed to talk about that. Imagine making a special order with your grocer and then trading it for stuff in stock months later.

I AM My Brewer

It was a beer weekend in Fort Wayne. That is a generally true statement for most weeks of GermanFest. For me, Headwaters Park was only a blip on the GPS.
On Friday I taught about 20 people how to make beer at the Indiana State Master Gardener Conference. Some topic, huh? Saturday, I judged beer at Fort Wayne's Botanical Conservatory. Sunday involved a beer club meeting and was supposed to finish with a beer festival at the Conservatory. Aside from the festival, it all happened.
So going back to all this knowing where our food comes from, I do, in fact brew most of the beer I drink (which isn't a lot). And probably 20% of other beers I drink are made by people I know. I take malted barley, which tastes as sweet as Honey Nut Cheerios, and make sweet sort for yeast to turn into delicious beer. I haven't had much luck growing my own malt, but I have grown hops. Boy, have I grown hops.
Sometimes I even get people together to make beer and we enjoy it together. Its a good thing. The last effort, Plymouth's Lenten Brew has beer a great beer. It even came in fourth in that competition on Saturday.
I like making my own beer.

Pizza!!!

Have I mentioned Hawkins Family Farm? Of course, we were regulars before it was "cool" but also before it became the "Pizza Farm."

This weekend is about beer for me. My plan was that I'd come back to do a presentation on brewing beer and beer appreciation for the Indiana State Master Gardener Conference, judge some beer on Saturday and hopefully win a prize on Sunday. All that's still happening, except where I envisioned camping at Johnny Appleseed Park by myself has turned into a weekend at The Hilton in downtown Fort Wayne. So the whole family is on the road right now and its getting to us all.

But... it means we were free for pizza tonight. We made the familiar trek out to the farm and enjoyed the sporadic weather, watching chickens and truly artisan pizza.

This is Indiana pizza. Indiana flour, Indiana sauce, Indiana cheese and Indiana everything. Any meat portion was raised within a 2 minute walk of where we were eating it. It was made by volunteers or family members (draftees). It's a beautiful thing. It really is.

I'm posting this from my phone, so I hope the photos come through fine. Let me know.

Today's Nuggets; Tomorrow's Bouillon?

I apologize for the rant I'm about to go into. At this point, I can't decide which rant is about to begin. I'm just sort of free versing this.


Today I made Chicken Nuggets for the boys' lunch. I won't continue the healthy, happy, Hawkins chicken bit. You know...

So that's what I made. Here's why I made it.


I learned how to make fried chicken from Alton Brown's Good Eats show on the topic. It comes out great, every time. It's splendid. But over the last three years, I've become disenchanted with that show. When The Mad Fermentationist eulogized the show a couple weeks ago, I had my words.  I had depended on legitimate science and research-based fact from the show.  When the instructions for making beer were so overtly unresearched and wrong, it made me question the other "science" in the show.  It was no longer reliable.  It's not that I blame him for dumbing down beer making or making it accessible.  I'm ok with that.  But when things are so obviously wrong, it brings the whole enterprise into question.


So I have made fried chicken a couple times in the last month and those thoughts have come to mind.  Good Eats is/has come to a close and I'm not morning a loss.  I find that odd, especially since I keep my kosher salt in a cheese dish and have a cordless water kettle my wife got me because "He" had one.


But then there's this other part.  Unless you live in a cave or a mansion in Pakistan, you have seen the chicken sludge Jamie Oliver has made popular.  It's the stuff that chicken nuggets are made of.  It's pink, it's gooey, and it's reality.  Kids will eat it even after they see it in the primal form.  Not really a surprise.  Sure, soylent green isn't far behind.  Are we actually worried? I don't think so. Instead, we're sucking this stuff down with reincarnations of American Idol, The Apprentice, and Top Chef, equivalent forms of entertainment. Which is worse?  Your call.  We let our kids eat some of the junk. It's easy and satisfies some basic nutritional needs. At least we choose to think they do. But more importantly, they eat it.  (As I stare at plates with chicken and green beans remaining on the table after lunch.


So, we're bad, but we're trying to do better.  But to tie this back in, I'm hoping that what I talk about here in my journal (I wouldn't glorify it by calling it a blog) is real, undisguised truth as far as I am capable of revealing it.  


So Chicken Nuggets for lunch was a result of all that AND a taste test conducted by DadLabs.  So these are my chicken nuggets.  Made from Pastured, Happy Chickens.  They were very good.

Slice a Chicken Breast (which I removed from a whole chicken)

Turn that into Nuggets.

Add some herbs and spices.

Mix with some buttermilk and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

(and then I forgot to take some pictures...)

Strain out the chicken a couple hours before you want to cook it.  Dredge it in flour and set aside to let the crust develop. I've been using whole wheat flour because our AP is in storage.  I'd use a wire rack over a baking sheet, except that's packed too. 

Heat some oil in  a pan that will rise about halfway up your chicken bits when frying.  Get the temp up to about 350F, when sprinkling in some flour will cause bubbling.  Then add chicken so that they don't touch.  I did mine in two batches.

When it's browned sufficiently, turn the pieces.  With nuggets, this isn't long.  With whole pieces, this could be a good, long time.  Strain out the finished pieces and drain on paper towels, newsprint, butcher paper, paper sack, shards of glass...  (still with me?)

And then it looks like this (when you bake up some french fries to go with them... (But you've already seen this)

And that's my rant.

Novum Ovum

We have settled on our Egg Mistress for our time here in Greenwood. Deborah Hider sells eggs at the Greenwood Farmers Market on Saturdays. This is what Duncan left of three and a half boiled eggs. If these were grocery eggs, he would have eaten the white of one and turned his head at the rest. Deborah wants me to cook extras next time. I don't think there is definition of "extra" when it comes to Duncan and his "white eggs".

Cheating Pork Chops

I've said a lot about the Hawkins Family Farm in the scant week I've been documenting our food. One part of that puzzle is that even if you know who grows or raises your food and how they do it, there's usually domineering else involved. Jeff's had interns and his own kids chip in in addition to his clergy migrant workers. We've met a good part of this workforce. But there's also the people who process our meat.
Above, you see my proprietary pork chops. I use cheap stuffing and canned gravy under the pork chops to integrate the drippings. And there's a lot of drippings. These are rich, fatty, 1 inch thick chops from a Tamworth hog. Because they're so thick, they're in the oven at 225F for four or more hours. I'll keep them covered until the last 30 minutes or so, when I'll also bump the heat up to color the chops a bit.
Why are the chops so thick? Well, in our first year with the CSA share, we got a smoker for cooking the turkey. Of course we tested it and those tests were done with pork chops. The 1/2" chops were great, but they cooked too fast. So a couple years ago I asked them to cut the 1" thick. This makes for fewer chops and they're not standard bbq fare. But cooked nice and slow, they stay moist, tender and flavorful.
We can get this custom service because our hog is butchered at a custom meat locker. Each year I have talked to W & W Locker about any changes I want from last year. They keep the shoulder whole for me as well as keeping some of they belly out of becoming bacon. Braised pork belly can be quite a treat. But we can meet our butchers everytime we we're out there. Usually, they're working on someone's order right at the window. I was even able to get some fat from them to integrate into some rabbit sausage I made last year.
Its good to know who's touching your meat... you know what I mean.

Rice. Rice. Baby.

I started choosing Riceland Foods Medium Grain Brown Rice when I found out that it was the secret ingredient to getting the tender popping texture that PF Chang's mezmerizes me with. Finding out that it's a rice co-op is nice. I am sure that some of the 9000 members in the central southern US are relatives.  Since we're not in a climate that produces rice, I think choosing to buy from a co-op is better.

Or maybe I'm fooling myself.

Tonight's rice will be a base for stir fry. I made sure to bring "The Flaming Wok of Doom" to the apartment but finally got some rice. The stir fry will start with some Hawkins Family Farms beef. I think I have a round steak ready to serve as the featured meat. If not, there is a sirloin thawed.

Milk

Mamma's Pride was a satirical brand ad in the 1990's computer game You Don't Know Jack. Jellyvision was the company. See if you can find some of their spots. I don't want to ruin the surprise.

We go through milk. Plain and simple, once Deborah's commute goes down to a couple miles we will probably buy as much gas in a month as milk. Well, probably more. But you get the point.

We buy two gallons at a time two times a week, frequently with a fifth to hold the ship together. With milk prices climbing, we certainly hold our food budget in check by buying cheap milk. I'd love to be able to tell you that we can afford the costs (transportation and processing being necessary inclusions) of buying pastured, real, cream top, unpasturized milk. We don't. At the current price and the newness of the dairies I know about, I am not going to put those kinds of stakes on the table. Someday, sure. Just not until we've gotten through childhood or I find a dairy I can trust more than the big brands. Don't get me wrong, those brands don't carry much of my trust.

So let's meet the Kroger Dairy system. Kroger uses their milk as a loss leader. They sell it for way less than the distributed brands and it has our eye. When we can move to paying a dollar more per gallon, we'll likely move to Prairie Farm, a Midwest Co-Op. But for now its Kroger. Kroger operates 15 dairies and 3 ice cream plants across the country. One dairy is in Indianapolis, Crossroad Farms Dairy.

Crossroad Farms is run by InterAmerican and they process milk, orange juice, icecream and all sorts of food products. To me, this means they buy commodity milk. It will take more research to get more information on it.

At least I've come clean about our milk. I do hope to find a dairy we can visit to buy our dairy products soon. Maybe we could even find a place where I could "steal a few gallons" in exchange for accidentally dropping a few dollars in a by let or maybe a case of beer every once in a while...

One can hope...

A day of "not trying"

Tuesday, May 31, 2011. A day for the history books. Deborah and I will be taking a serious look at houses in Columbus (the one in Indiana). I think we'll make an offer on a house on Oxford Drive. It is currently overpriced. Its been on the market for a long time. 11 months ago it was listed for $50k less than now. We like the house but can't/won't pay that much.

What this means here is that food isn't a focus. We'll probably have something easy for lunch and the boys have a date with Grandma Fogt at Chick-fil-a for dinner. They have an indoor playground and milkshakes.

Come Wednesday I'll try to figure out where something came from. Maybe the milk my boys drink so much of.

Nope, let me tell you about our chickens. I led a discussion on May 21 about how our food choices reflect our values. A big portion of that had to do with chickens. I'd love to have chickens, broilers and hens, at our house. I think it important to remember that food is not a birthright. One house I found had two chicken pens. I mentioned that in the workshop and I got more questions the next day.

Well today, the boys got leftover chicken and noodles for lunch. Tristan dove in head first, literally. He even ate what his brother left behind. I like to think that this means that an appreciation for the gift of food will be easy to teach, a lesson difficult to even know about for most of us.

But I'm sure we won't have chickens at our next home. We may keep bees, but chickens wouldn't be good where we're headed. I just need to find a chicken ranch we can visit so my boys can know their farmer and their chicken.

Memorial Day treats

I wish I could tell you where this watermelon came from.  But since it's May and this is a watermelon, I'd rather not know.

So it's bratwurst, today.  Back to Hawkins Family farm and their wonderful Tamworth hogs.  Some of which go to W&W packers in Andrews, IN to be turned into tasty sausages.  The hogs are used as a machine as well as a table item.  They root through the land they occupy in search of tastey roots and seeds.  This turns up the soil like an organic rototiller, aerating the soil and mixing in the nutrient rich compost they also provided weeks earlier.  Pigs are good... and tasty!

Ah, Grits

Sorry, no pictures.

We made up for Saturday's fast food with real food on Sunday. For dinner, I plopped a chuck roast in a casserole with a bit of oil, herbs and spices and a bag of frozen pearl onions. It went into the oven (225F) before noon for dinner at 5.

I waited until 3 to think about polenta. We have a pound of Indiana corn meal ground at the Metamora Grist Mill. The first recipe I found was easy, 1c corn meal, 4c water, 1c cream cheese stirred in after the corn gelatinizes. Straight forward and I didn't need to buy anything. Plus it used up a package of cream cheese from the house stash. But halfway in, it was just corn, so it got salt, pepper and garlic. In the end it was pretty good, but bland-ish. I picked up some grocery store broth for the next time.

So we don't know much about the corn, but it was ground as part of a demonstration of what takes to make flour and meal. I appreciated it whether or not anyone else did.

A Missed Opportunity.

I thought it would be easy. I really did. If I got a week of easy posts in, I'd have the momentum needed to get through the "tough part" when we'd have two residences and a lot of commutes. Well, we elected to spend Saturday at the railroad.
Connersville, IN is home to the Whitewater Valley Railroad. The old train line runs between Connersville's downtown train depot and an old lock in Metamora, in almost constant view of the river and canal. The ride drops you off for a 2 hour layover in the old canal town, which is advertised something like Roscoe Village in Coshocton, OH or Nashville, IN. The publicity advertises an old canal town with some historic exhibits and boutique shops. I actually thought we'd have a tough time seeing everything or fighting crowds inn the perfect weekend.
I thought we'd find somewhere to get fresh-made ice cream or cookies or something. Instead, there were signs for a brand I'd not seen before where there wasn't a For Sale sign, anyway. So no luck on that front. But the balance was that the 100 or so passengers on the train accounted for close to half of the day's tourist population. So what was open was pretty accessible to our 3 year old and the umbrella stroller bound toddler.
Three highlights of Metamora:
1) Words &amp; Images</p>
This is a little old book store listed in the directory as an antique shop. What beconned us was it's side show as a toy train store. Some of the engines they sell go for more than $200. The proprietor reminded me of Tim West, a pipe maker in Columbus, OH. Very knowlegable and frank. I think that if you weren't expressing interest in one of his few hobbies, conversation would nearly impossible. Lots of fun for us, though.
2) Ice Cream

Of course, I have no idea where it came from, but we got the obligatory ice. Cream at a store filled to capacity with antique cookie jars. Deborah got Duncan a chocolate cone. His first as far as we know. He quickly got bored wither the ice cream and started eating his cake cone. "What a mess!" he exclaimed, a cigar store indian for frozen treats.
3) The Grist Mill
Metamora's reason for being is a huge stone grist mill. In the 1830s, the grist mill took grain from canal traffic and made it into useful flour, grits, and meal for sale and consumption. In the 20th century, IDNR bought the mill as a historic living museum and established a canal boat ride. They take corn and grind it into meal throughout the day. They also sell that and we took a bag home. More on that through the next week.
So the missed opportunity was that our trip caused the toast and cereal we had for breakfast to be the easiest to trace to the source. Golden Grahams, while complying with Michael Pollan's rule of not coloring milk, is probably made from Midwestern wheat and corn in a factory somewhere in the Midwest. Our toast might be easier to stalk. Some Aunt Millie's bread is made at Perfection Bakery in Fort Wayne. We'll just take an incomplete and pretend that it was from there.
And yes, our other meals were mass market chain fast food. If its good enough for Amish...

"You've got to begin at the beginning...

... when spinning a story or a prayer ."

I can't remember much more of that song from an elementary school cantata from way back. But it's a good rule, as is the Good Samaritan parable it introduces. I've thought often about how our family has made food choices. That has intensified with our move to a different region of Indiana, a weekend with Norman Wirzba, and trying to eat on a budget in an apartment.

Lets get to the meat of the matter, first. I'm planning to document the source of one food item we eat each day. The goal has two influences. First, I like sharing our sources for most of the food we eat. But, also, by knowing I will need to track down the source of some of our food, I'll cheat and look at sources in advance. The goal isn't to eat local, but to know whose labor and love has gone into making our meals possible.

So, for this first day, I present lunch for myself and the boys.

This is chicken and noodles. The noodles and carrots are bagged and canned. Just raiding the pantry there. The chicken is another story. The last two nights' dinners have featured parts of this chicken from Hawkins Family Farm. Wednesday, I carved away the thighs and wings to bake on a bed of wild rice and condensed chicken noodle soup. Last night, the other meaty bits were pan fried. This morning I took the left over carcass and made a quick stock, removed the bones and meat, added some elbow macaroni and added the meaty bits back in with left over canned carrots. For me, it was too peppery, but the boys loved it. Above, you see Tristan hovering over Duncan's second helping with joy.

But, the chicken... It was a Cornish Cross from the Hawkins Family Farm CSA. We trucked a good portion of last year's share to the apartment and a new, small, chest freezer. This bird was on the small side, weighing around 4 pounds. It was raised by Jeff Hawkins in a pen called a Chicken Tractor. This bottomless cage houses 50 birds without a bottom. Hanging from the partly open roof are a waterer and feeder. Each morning, the tractors are moved one length through pasture, giving the birds access to fresh bugs and grass (yes, they're omnivores).After something like 7 weeks, Jeff takes them to a USDA poultry packer which takes care of the messier bits. Last year our CSA share included 20 of the tastey birds.

So back to why I'm trying to do this. Way up top, I said that this comes from a move, a visit and a budget. We are in transition from Fort Wayne, a place I've lived for 5 years and my wife for 15 plus other years of childhood, to Columbus, Indiana. Columbus is familiar because it is close enough to Bloomington, where Deborah's mom is and Deborah went to High School. But it's not home, yet. We'll need to carve out our niche over time, but also quickly to make a good transition for our boys, 18 months and 3 years old. Getting food similar to the way we did in Fort Wayne could be an important part of that.

But I also spent some valuable time with Norman Wirzba last week. Norman talked briefly about his new book, Food & Faith, A theology of eating, as part of Plymouth UCC's Parry Lecture series. I was key in making it happen and got some extra time with Norman through that. Norman's talk about both Sabbath and Food made something clear to me. When I first connected with the Hawkins Family, I was in search of local food that supported an economy. What I crave most now is a connection, not so much with the food or terroir, but with the people and the ecology of place. Hopefully, I can make that clearer as I go along.

And so I close this edition with a photo of Norman Wirzba at the Hawkins Family Farm and the hen house.