change promise fudge

That's my version of Eat Pray Love.

I haven't even reported back about my liquor infusions, and here I am quitting alcohol! These are basil vodka, plum vodka, cherry vodka, cucumber sake, and elderberry vanilla vodka. Later I made peach and watermelon vodka for a garden party: summer in a jar.

Before the New Year rolled around, we'd already been talking about making big changes in our lives:

• moving someplace warm
• finding satisfying work
• taking classes
• making TIME

My past lives have included long, glorious evenings that elude me now, evenings that had space for hanging out with friends, long and lazy meals, reading, team sports, walks, wandering in the garden; evenings that were five or so hours long and felt five hours long. I'm determined to get those back.

We'd already made these commitments to change, and then we hit a deer with our car. This experience kicked off another round of thinking about control: what to take control of and direct, and what to let go of because I can't control. Thinking may actually be the wrong word since it became the focus in less than a second during our car accident. Resolutions? Clarity?

I think of my veganism as an example of moving anthills into a line that points to my desired outcome. I can't close down feedlots or slaughterhouses, but I can be completely sure they never see a penny of mine by eschewing animal products repeatedly, throughout every day.

And now the deer. We'd killed someone and could have been seriously hurt ourselves.

I immediately re-commited to our quest for warmth, for ocean, for open time and space. I felt motivated to work on our house so that we'll be able to rent it and move. Seeing the body of the deer we killed torn apart and scattered made me think (among other things) about my body and its fragility. I immediately quit caffeine and alcohol to try and get my migraines under control. I started eating a lot more raw food wanting to shed anything unnecessary, weight and waste, but also streamlining preparation. I feel like I'm seeing a bit more clearly, and I want that to continue.

These are the plums after they've been fished out of the finished vodka. Plum vodka was a clear winner in flavors, but the plums themselves are STRONG. They kind of taste like a seriously alcoholic fruitcake.

A lot of the food I've been eating is so simple that the preps can't really be called recipes. But one raw fudge recipe that a friend shared for Christmas is really a recipe, a magical sweet that makes candy seem ridiculous. This fudge knows important facts:

• Great things are often simple things.
• The most important ingredient in sweets is salt.

The recipe is Sarma's of Pure Food and Wine. It came to me via fancy pants designer Matthew Robbins. It takes a couple of minutes to prepare, and one batch goes a long way. I'm told that the paddle on a Kitchen Aid makes mixing a breeze, but a big old spoon did the job just fine.

Raw Freezer Fudge

• 2 c raw almond butter
• 1/4 c cocoa powder sifted
• 1/2 c + 2 T maple syrup
• 1 heaping T coconut butter
• 2 t vanilla
• 1 t coarse sea salt

It's important to use the best and creamiest almond butter you can get your hands on. If you get one that doesn't have enough oil to be pliant, add extra coconut butter.

Mix thoroughly. Sarma flattens it all into a pan then cuts it into 1 inch cubes. Matthew flattens it into paper candy cups, for single servings. I don't have candy cups, just cupcake size papers, so I roll little balls in my hands, flatten them, and put each one its own cupcake paper. Go pack fudge!

by Wendy MacNaughton

Simple Dimple

I like being up early in the mornings, before anyone else is stirring. I like to be in the garden while all the neighbors are still quiet, wandering and looking, in slow-mo, while things are still simple, and before my brains get going.

A great thing about late summer is getting to eat food that tastes much like those first morning moments: cucumber and tomato slices with a little bit of olive oil, pepper and salt; boiled whole potatoes and carrots with a spot of pesto; a crispy red pepper rolled into a tortilla; piles of peaches or pears or plums; raw ears of corn. They are exactly what they are, full, large flavors, even, but not complicated. No work for this food, no thought at all, and it's perfect anyway.

Are those paws not the loveliest?

Sure, I get excited to make new, funny recipes like jello with rosé wine (with non-animal gelatin, of course). I get excited by learning there are more flowers I can use in food preps, like forsythia. And I really enjoy prepping for winter eating by putting up some of the great farm foods we're enjoying right now.

It's also nice when things come easy, take no thought, and are better than you could have ever dreamed. Like a cherry tomato in August.

Drinking and Smoking

I get obsessed with things that I can't explain.

One current obsession is smoked flavor, as in, smoked sea salt, smoked paprika, liquid smoke, smoked chipotles. Besides the chilies, I don't yet know how to use these flavors well, but am experimenting a lot.

The other thing that's come out of the blue is wanting to infuse vodka.

Now, I'm not a big drinker. When I do have a drink, vodka isn't usually my choice. I prefer old tequilas, rich ouzos, varieties of cachaça, and drinks that are like meals, such as rich dark beers with chili powder, salt and lime, or thick spicy bloody marias with tons of celery. But lately I want to see veggies, herbs, spices, and fruits floating in jars of vodka so that I can experiment with the outcomes.

I guess it's not entirely out of the blue: I've always liked a pretty cocktail, with frozen currants in place of ice, or with the lip of the glass spiced, or with a couple of raspberries muddled in for color. And, I've always loved seeing preserved things floating in liquid, which explains why I enjoy both fermentation and the Mütter Museum.

My first infused vodka experiment with be with these tiny local plums. They're sweet and tart and colorful, and so far haven't made it any further than getting popped in my mouth whole, making me smack like a horse in Brazil eating mangos.

Do you have any experience making infused liquor with homegrown ingredients?

Pelé & Pickles

I've been a bit distracted from the food business, what with all the soccer and kittens and the dyke marches and hot days that require dipping in lakes, streams, baby pools, and oceans.

Yes, we've trapped some kittens at the Beacon train station that need homes, so if you know anybody interested and responsible, please have them email wintergreenscsa@gmail.com. The three we've caught so far are all boys, all super playful and sweet.

One of the rescued kittens we're trying to find a home for got named Pelé. I was obsessed with Pelé as a kid, since my #1 soccer team was green and I was #10. Alas, I wasn't great at the sport. (I was obsessed with Muhammad Ali, too, but never inspired to take up boxing.) I'm not much of a sports follower, since I think they're much nicer to participate in than to watch on tv, but the World Cup is an exception. I was proud to be sitting under a magazine cover of Pelé while watching Ghana knock out the U.S. Thank goodness we had vuvuzelas, because we would have otherwise been unheard in that sweaty little bar of people chanting "U.S.A.". Rooting for other countries elicits funny responses from people: the Brazil flag hung outside our house got our neighbor to immediately put our her U.S. flag. She's not interested in soccer, only patriotism.
wintergreens is struggling to figure out its future (it's cool to be transparent about this, right?), since running a food biz or org these days is challenging. Other handmade food biz people talk about how amazingly time-consuming and expensive it is to do, and it's true, it is. It's outrageous! I shouldn't have, but I bought a huge watermelon this weekend that, of course, was shipped from far south, since our watermelons won't be ripe for a long time. All that shipping and handling, and all the effort to grow that melon, and it only cost $2.99. And it's one of those creepy seedless kind, so you can't even save the seeds to plant next year. How are small food producers to deal with this? It's hard for me to resist my frugal impulses, even, with all the information about food systems I have, and while in the middle of a struggle to promote food-done-right. Exhibit A: cheapo seedless watermelon from far away.

I looked at the wares of Brooklyn pickle makers Brooklyn Brine and McClure's in Whole Foods in the city. I support what they're doing, but would I have to can or vaccuum pack my pickles (kill off half of their good qualities) and sell them for $11 a jar to make it? To many, that price tag would be laughable.
Thinking about all this is a bummer. And I read this dumpster diver's blog and think that if I were truly brave I'd cut out some of my (personal, not business) costs this way. Back in college, when Dunkin Donuts instructed their employees to dump bleach on the donuts they threw away so that the homeless people wouldn't eat them, my friend invited all the neighborhood homeless people to the shop an hour before closing, gave them all the donuts, and served free coffee. She was fired, so her good deed and hard work doing outreach went unrewarded. How do you make good work rewarding enough that you get to continue it?

So let's just say I've been happy to be in kitten land and soccer land, and plot how and when I'll get to the beach. I have to get back to work though, so help me find these kitties homes, and send your hot tips for how to survive in the handmade food business.

I promise, new recipes, tales of prison food, and much more coming soon.

Fresh Peas & a Home Haircut

A shrink I had many years ago told me I self-medicated by eating enormous amounts of peas.

I don't know if she was referring to all the sugar or if peas have some other magical happiness-boosting component. I can say that squatting and picking peas for hours this morning under the big sky felt great, and that I did consume at least a pound between the time spent picking and the trip home.

I gave myself a haircut this morning, too, which also makes me happy. When people cut their own hair in movies they're usually experiencing a break. Think Jodie Foster in The Accused or Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias. Actually, didn't that gorgeous actress playing crazy in Betty Blue chop her hair, too? Since I cut my own hair often, I'd like to think that my chops are not the result of trauma, instead, just plain cathartic. To me, it feels much like tidying up the kitchen. Clean, fresh, ready for anything.

"Responsible" Meat Eating

I went to a kitchen store in Brooklyn over Memorial Day weekend. They started up in the last couple of years, gave interesting classes in their tight space, and sold vintage cookware alongside the new. I loved this store. Not only did they have nice tools, they had good aesthetics, and were a small player who gave helpful individual advice. They seemingly had good politics: people rode their bikes there, they taught customers about preservation and reuse, and talked about locally produced food. They sold old school tools like pickling crocks. It seemed like they were a part of the movement to take things back into our own hands, and do them better than big business would.

They still exist, yet I write about them like it's over. That's because they've moved into a big space with a proper kitchen classroom and joined up with another business, a butcher. There's a full deli counter, barbeques big enough to roast whole pigs, and a room that I never fully looked at, because I was convinced it is where they butcher animals, and teach other people to kill animals themselves. I had no evidence, just a vibe. A strong, awful feeling, that came from more than just the smell of the place.
If I think about Brooklyn Kitchen's move from a purely business perspective, I get why they did it. The new space is huge, they can now sell all kinds of foods and conduct proper classes, and the meat will be a draw for a lot of hipsters, who think local bacon is the new black.

Seeing this, acknowledging this, really set me off in a spin.

I meet ex-vegetarians every day who now eat meat because they can get it from a local farmer at the farmer's market or specialized shop. Coffees are being made with bacon, my popsicle guy put bacon in one of his new flavors, Beacon's most popular buying club (traditionally for bulk grains and beans) is centered around local meat. I went into a shop for a vegan cookie the other day, and boar soup was on the menu.

Twenty years ago I went to brunch at a Seattle vegetarian restaurant on April Fool's Day. Their menu for the day included "easter" rabbit, spotted owl, sea turtle soup, all in fancy preparations. Gullible, I got upset before getting the joke. It didn't seem farfetched enough to me, I guess, and seems even less so now. These days, it seems practically everyone thinks it's okay to eat animals.

Except that we know better. We've read the China Study and the new U.N. report. We know how animals raised for food affect the environment, hunger, and our drinking water. We know that free range doesn't equal being outside, that humane is used all over the place for all kind of practices.
Because I live in a small town and know the farmers who sell meat and the people who buy meat, I know that most often people buy a small fraction of the meat they eat from local farmers. The grossest cheap meat on a styrofoam tray has risen to new heights in hearts and minds: people want to believe it's right and good to eat animals, and that their palettes are king. They get the expensive farmer's market stuff for the cred.

Food is important to me, too, very important. When I took St. John's wort for a stint and lost my appetite, I thought I'd be glad to have lost so much weight. Instead, I missed food, missed eating and tasting and all the pleasure and socializing that came with it.

I'm the worst person to talk about meat-eating because as a long-time vegan and animal rights activist, I won't be seen as level-headed, or looking at all sides. But I swear, if I had an intern, I'd have them research this:
- How much food is produced in the Mid-Hudson Valley that is consumed locally?
- How does that food break down in categories? What percentage are vegetables, fruit, grains, animals?
- How do the resources to produce those foods break down?

It seems to me that there are a lot of farmers who grow tons of veggies, a little bit of fruit, and have enough animals for a few eggs, some goat's milk, and send the occasional animals to slaughter. (Right, send them to a slaughterhouse. It's illegal for them to do it themselves.) My guess is that it would be something like a 90%, 5%, 3%, 2% breakdown. Shouldn't this mean, then, that people concerned about eating local foods eat an (at least) 90% vegetable diet?

Tropical Fruit

I'm sorry to be a wimp, but, it's cold here in the mornings. I know it's all springy and pretty and the cherry trees are blossoming early and you can get away with leaving a window cracked over night. But when you've just come from a praia next to a turquoise ocean in América do Sul, forty five degrees is downright frosty. Um, and where's my fruit? With Brazil's delicious heat comes delicious food, and now I am very spoiled. Blog readers will know there's a slight fruit obsession round these parts.

Mornings in the Northeast of Brazil went something like this:

• Wake to sounds of saguim whistling and carambola hitting the ground.
  
• Open shutters and gaze at mamão tree to see if any are ripe yet.
  
• Pull on shorts and put coffee on to brew. Wander out in bare feet to say good morning to monkeys.
  
• Putter through the neighborhood chatting with said monkeys, picking and eating azeitona, pitanga, and acerola.
  
• Marvel at the size of the jaca fruit. Some are as big as toddlers, I swear!
  
• Imagine I might actually see a sloth someday (preguiça).
  
• Pick and take home huge abacate that needs time off the tree to ripen, and pick up small, fallen manga for a snack later.
  
• Collect carambola that have dropped overnight, and eat them whole on the porch with a cup of coffee.
  
• Decide to go to the beach.
  
• Curse at yet another truck that says "100% Jesus." Declare yourself 100% pansy, 100% monkey-lover, 100% bummed that evangelicalism has colonized the Brazilian mind.
  
• Smell roasting castanha along the road, slam on brakes and buy a bag.
  
• Swim and lounge. Buy abacaxi and boiled amendoim from vendors when hungry. Drink coco, which is a fresh coconut with a straw in it. No container necessary.
  
• Visit farmers market on the way home.

You can see why waking up without access to bananas, to graviolas, to maracujá, would feel like a morning lived, well, not quite as well. Yes, there are down sides: my gringa skin is peeling off in great sheets and....that's all I can come up with for downsides. I'm making an effort to get back into the rhythm here. I'll do what we do in the Northeast of the U.S. in spring: wear flip flops with sweaters, enjoy flowers and seedlings and the appearance of leaves, eat the first edible weeds of the year (dandelions, garlic mustard, spring onions, fiddleheads), and watch for the emergence of all the pawpaw trees planted last summer. Soon we'll be ankle deep in juneberries and mulberries, and I'll wander around the yard barefooted talking with the cats and eating off the trees. I can't wait!

You know it's spring when...

your cat comes home and barfs up chunks of garter snake in the kitchen. Happy spring!

Winning the Lottery

One reason wintergreens exists is because of the food freak out I've had every winter until recently: missing fresh vegetables, and resenting the expensive, wilted, imported stuff at groceries and health food stores while having to rely on it. As much as fermenting, canning, dehydrating, freezing, sprouting, and finding four season farmers has helped, winter still doesn't have the lush feel of summer, when you can walk through the garden in your bare feet putting delicious food in your mouth directly from the plants. when every craving is satisfied and there's no need to go without. I'm looking forward to spring's first plants: rhubarb and wild onions, and digging up sunchokes. That, along with tending seedlings for my garden, will entertain for a while.

And then, there's that beautiful day in June when we'll go to our first C.S.A. distribution, and find a huge table loaded down with a bunch of different kinds of greens. Hallelujah!

Since moving to the Hudson Valley more than six years ago, we've belonged to the same C.S.A.: Huguenot Street Farm, in New Paltz. It a bit far to drive every week, and slightly less local than, say, Common Ground. But we've been committed to Huguenot Street, since it's served us very, very well.

Our first spring in Beacon, when shopping around for a C.S.A., we contacted Common Ground first, since it is closest to home. The combination of an inexperienced farmer, tales of groundhog killing sprees, and the use of manure from the area prisons made us decide against membership (and a job there). I dunno, I think there's some really bad karma coming down the line from animal prisoners being "farmed" by human prisoners. Things have gotten waaaaaaay better at Common Ground over the years (Love ya, Tim! Kudos, Creek!).

The next farm we called was Phillies Bridge. The farm was biodynamic at the time, and seemed appealing, except that BD always includes animals. There had recently been an uproar about changes on the farm, as it got further and further from vegetarian. The farmer and I had a long, philosophical discussion over the phone about animals on small farms and biodynamic practices, and couldn't agree, in the end, on what food is better for the body and soul: food that includes animals in its cycles, or food grown without any reliance on animal slaughter. (No, the animals don't hang around until old age on BD farms. It's a better setting for them while they're alive, certainly, but it's still about productivity.) At the end of the conversation, he sighed and gave me the number for his friends, Kate and Ron, who grow veganically at Huguenot Street Farm. That is, without the use of any animal products as fertilizer, the most common of which are manure and bonemeal.

That particular farmer has moved on to Hawthorne Valley, the big BD farm in Ghent, where all those live products you're seeing in health food stores come from. Phillies Bridge is no longer biodynamic, but is trying to grow organically, a challenge only because of the [pesticide spraying] apple orchards that abut their fields. They now have educational programs for kids and adults there—it's where I learned about fermentation and built my first earth oven and rocket stove. Still, they have animals that they send to slaughter. As much as I enjoyed hearing curious chickens circle my tent while I was falling asleep there, I knew those chickens would only be alive as long as they had a good laying rate.
Local Harvest just wrote about how to best choose a C.S.A. They cover topics like flexibility in payment plans, whether the C.S.A. washes their produce or not and whether or not they pack boxes for members, or if the members have some choices of what to take or not take. They don't have on their checklists whether there are animals at the farm or not, or whether manure is used on the vegetables. My belief in the rights of animals, as well as health concerns about veggies like spinach being infected with e coli through the use of manure, make a veganic approach to farming my preferred choice.

We were thrilled to have found Huguenot Street Farm, and that first season provided the best food we'd ever eaten. Each year we've continued to believe this is the best option for us. That's why it knocked me over to learn that we wouldn't get to be members this season.

Here's what happened: Ron has always been involved in national and international farming policy. He started the peer-run Certified Naturally Grown program as an alternative to [expensive] organic certification, and traveled regularly hosted by the U.N. Both Ron and Kate are kind of crazy geniuses, obsessed with keeping alive heirloom species, improving weeding methods and storage methods—improving every aspect of small scale vegetable farming.A few years ago they invented the CoolBot, a gizmo that enables you to build your own walk-in refrigerator with a regular window air conditioner. (The wintergreens household spent a whole month wiring Coolbots in exchange for a portion of our yearly share.) I don't know of any small farms in the Hudson Valley that don't use this technology, since it literally saves thousands of dollars. Our C.S.A. newsletters are filled with facts about cooling your vegetables, things like, "If your napa cabbage spends an hour in a warm car before being cooled again, its longevity has been cut in half." The kind of obsession that brought the CoolBot into being, as well as the solar tractor design Ron's been talking about for a couple of years, has gotten noticed.

"My" farmers are heading a Gates Foundation project strategizing more efficient post-harvest care in India, Honduras, Thailand, and weirdly, California. Ron [who is Indian] says:

The idea is to help places like India where there is still malnutrition while 40% of fresh produce rots and is discarded before it can get to market.

Clearly "my" farmers are going to be busy this year. As a result, they are cutting down C.S.A. membership to a third the size of last year. To cut some of us out fairly, they used a lottery system. For a minute it seemed like we hadn't made it, and there were 24 hours of panic and internet research (Did you know there are only seven veganic farms in the country?) and then we found out that we HAD made it.

If I thought I appreciated that table piled with greens in June for the past six years, I'm going to REALLY appreciate it this year.

The cuties pictured at the top of this post are Potsie and Radar, some kids we rescued while living in Brooklyn.

No animals harmed in the making of this relief effort.

Attention wintergreens members, Hudson Valley Compassion groupies, arm wrestlers, roller derbyists, farmers, activists, quilters, queers, country singers, chefs, hairstylists, veterinarians, cyclists, bloggers, and craft queens:

We're putting together a fundraiser for 2 groups doing good disaster relief work* in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. We need your help:
1 - getting the word out
2 - baking, cooking, or making small artworks for the sale
3 - working the event
4 - coming and buying stuff

In solidarity with other Vegan Bake Sales for Haiti, ours, too, is a Vegan Bake Sale. But my pickles are better than my cookies, so we'll be deviating a bit and also catering to customers who yen for salt, salsa, or spring rolls. And there's one more way our bake sale is a little unusual. Since it'll be taking place during Beacon's Second Saturday artwalk, it made sense to ask all our artist and crafty friends to donate small works, which will be made available at the sale. (Nothing priced over $20, please, and please, no animal products. The point is to help some without hurting others.)

Yes, a quilted bowl makes sense.
Yes, a CD of your music is great.
Yes, your homemade granola is superb.

Do whatever you do best! To make donations, leave a comment here about what you're bringing, and drop it off between 5 and 6 on the day of the sale. Or, contact wintergreenscsa@gmail.com.

The "Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti: Sweets, Savories, and Still-lifes" will take place Saturday, Feb. 13th at 6 pm, Zora Dora's Paleta Shop, 201 Main Street, Beacon, NY.

All proceeds go to relief workers, Food for Life, and animal rescue group, Sodopreca, both on the ground in Haiti.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

*After witnessing a rich and large "relief organization" giving out New Testaments to Katrina survivors before drinking water was available, we're serious about researching the right groups to support.

Food for All

I like Great Barrington, MA. I go there occasionally for meetings, and always find things that impress me: such a nice food co-op with bulk kombucha, local money called BerkShares that have improved the local economy, beautiful ruins of an old fairground (the ruins, not animal racing!), the Orion Magazine office.

During previous visits I've noted signs of well cared for feral cats, and this last time learned about the T.N.R. organization responsible. I'm impressed with Berkshire Animal D.R.E.A.M.S. because trap-neuter-release programs are a challenge to implement, and even harder to get funded.

Beacon has its own [significant] homeless cat population. There are many volunteers working to spay and neuter these cats, build shelters, track colonies, and keep everyone fed and healthy. But Beacon does not have a funded organization like the Berkshires does, so that population is ever-growing.

wintergreens is actively involved in the TNR efforts in Beacon (part of what we're talking about when we blather on about ALL of Beacon's citizens deserving to be well fed). When this issue comes up again as part of the city's budget, I hope you'll support your neighbor cats, too.

Desert Food

Someone at the market said they thought I'd be bummed living in the desert, because there wouldn't be any local food. Hogwash! Or, more appropriately, javelinawash! The food literally grows on trees...










A taste of the Sonoran desert includes (in order of appearance) pomegranates, mesquite, saguaro fruit, prickly pear tunas, pecans, kumquats, grapefruits, dates, and olives. Swap Meet vendors had the beds of pickup trucks overflowing with oranges and lemons.

Thanks to The Firefly Forest for the saguaro fruit picture. Check out that blog to see beautiful bats eating from a hummingbird feeder.

Homeward Bound

One week from today I'll be sniffing desert air. Yep, I'm going to be a tourist in my own hometown, because I've been away too long. I'll be checking out the sites (bat caves!), eating Mexican food that tastes like Mexican food, taking long walks in the desert (secretly looking for jackrabbits and javelinas), and seeking out all of Tucson's local food. I've been reading Tucson bloggers and bloggers headed for Tucson in preparation. Tucson farmer's markets, here I come!

What's in season foodwise in the Sonoran Desert right now? Olives. Citrus. (Oranges and grapefruits and lemons and tangelos and kumquats, oh my!) Pecan, oh, pecans.

I've missed some things, too, like chiles, nopales, prickly pear tuna, and pomegranates, but maybe just maybe I'll find preserves. I've also missed the season of organized mesquite millings, but know I can still get my hands on some mesquite flour to give it a try. It's a little silly to think I have to taste my way through my visit, but fresh orange juice and green chile tamales won't make terrible guides.

Last time in Tucson I attended an animal rights demo, and ended up at Earth First! HQ having dinner and stuffing envelopes with my eighties activist hero, Rod Coronado. Who knows what this visit will hold? Except, of course, plenty of gorgeous food, gorgeous scenery, and gorgeous weather. And that smell...

Bluebird Crocks

If you ferment veggies, or make miso, or keep a nuka bed, you know the value of good stoneware crocks. There are usually two sources: antique or junk stores, and hand-me-downs. I've scored one big one at a junk store, but most I've found have been out of my price range. My mom has several that she got from her mother, who lived in a farming community in North Dakota. I've made it clear to my mom that I've got my eye on her crocks, but for the time being they're being used as planters. With all old crocks, you need to be sure they hold liquid, that they don't contain lead, and that they aren't cracked or otherwise damaged. I ferment plenty of things in glass jars and plastic buckets (food grade, of course), but we all know that aesthetics are important in food prep and presentation. Working with beautiful, solid tools of the trade make work more pleasurable. Plus, the less plastic touching the food, the better!

Maybe I'm late to the game, but I was thrilled to learn that traditional stoneware crocks are available new. A company called Burley Clay makes them, and has been since 1933. Most crocks have a symbol stamped on the side, with a number indicating how many gallons they hold. (My oldie has an acorn with a six in it.) The new crocks have a bluebird, because, the story goes, this clay-rich area in Ohio is also cold. All the farmers and potters who settled there couldn't work the land in winter (or dig up clay), but each spring, the appearance of the bluebird let them know the land was unfrozen, and malleable. Thus, all pottery made in this area is known as bluebird pottery.

Not only are bluebird crocks available in a range of sizes, with no worry about lead or leaks, they're also cheap compared to those found in antique stores. If you live in the NYC area, bluebird crocks are available at The Brooklyn Kitchen.

Sniffing Out Fall

It makes sense to associate autumn with harvest, and a ginormous amount of delicious food (squashes! brussels! fennel!). Fall gives us a feast of other sensory enjoyments too: leaves scuttling past while you wrap your scarf over your nose, getting out your favorite scratchy red sweater, talkative flocks of crows, incredible color changes in trees.

The smells are making themselves known to me in past days:

• The smell of pine that sticks to you after you've brushed past a tree.
  
• The incredible earthiness of black walnuts while you're peeling the fruit off the shells.
  
• The inside of pumpkins when you're scraping out the seeds.
  
• Hot apple or pear cider.
  
• Wood fires.
  
• Burying your nose in a glass of whiskey. (I finally tried Tuthilltown from Gardiner, where I learned all their ingredients come from within nine miles of the distillery!)
  
• Fresh baked bread.
  
• Coming home to a warm crock pot of beans.
  
• The soil under a pile of rotting leaves.
  
• Printmaking ink.
  
• Towel-dried dogs.
  
• Thyme.

Go have a snuffle of the season for yourself.

Of Rodents and Roots

Just as some leaves are beginning to turn, and wildflowers are getting leggy and shedding their petals, sunchoke flowers are just opening. They are bright and shiny, face south to get sun on their faces, and cheer me up as the days get short.

They seem extra special this year because of the takeover.

I've never minded groundhogs and deer sharing in my crops. They seem to prefer mostly weeds to eat, with some green bean and squash vines thrown in, and there always been enough for them to get their fill, and me to get mine. This year, a small groundhog took up residence under the garage, and chewed on my elderberries and sunchoke plants with particular focus and rigor. I'd see her in the compost bin sometimes, enjoying scraps of melon and rotten tomatoes, but more often, I'd see her on her hind legs, bending tall plants down to where she could reach them, and ridding them of leaves up to their ten foot high tops. The leafless plants would have been no more concern than usual, except that these are perennials, and I plan to have producing plants for years to come. A wipeout of this crop would mean a wipeout for years.

A lot of farmers and homeowners go to battle with groundhogs, deer, rabbits and other animals. I refuse. They were here first after all, they don't have anyplace better to go, and everybody's got to eat. Instead, I pile tree trimmings in stacks for burrowing and chewing, respect the holes that lead to their burrows, and leave them alone when they're eating out of my garden.

I get flack for this from neighbors and friends, who think I'm a bit nutty. This year, for the first time, I had a moment of wondering if they're right.

But the sunchoke leaves always grew back, and now there's a mess of flowers to prove that sharing is a fine and sane way to garden. The groundhog, now grown up and rotund, will be going into hibernation soon. I realized that even if there had been a complete wipeout, I still wouldn't displace the groundhog—I'd just replant in another spot.

What these sunchokes blooms mean to me is that when it comes to "our" garden (the groundhog and I), it can get eaten, and we can have it, too. There will be chokes for us both again next year.

Nuts, It's Fall

Black walnut trees are one of the first to lose their leaves. I can attest to this because it's only September, and my porch needs serious sweeping. But you really know it's fall when, with regularity, you hear the thud of walnuts falling off the trees.

Few humans seem to be using these flavorful nuts, but it's still a race to collect them, since squirrels know their value: there are already nuts "hidden" in every flower pot and nook.

It's dangerous to collect black walnuts. When they're plentiful on the ground, they're also still falling. These babies dent cars, and don't feel great when they bonk you on the head.

The truly fun part is still to come, when hands and clothes are forever stained black while peeling the fruit away from the nuts so they can dry.

Once dry, the nuts store well in their shell. And then you try to crack them. Put away your nutcracker shaped like a squirrel! You need a vice grip or a specially designed nutcracker to get into these super hard kernels.

A lot of work, to be sure. The exquisite black walnut flavor promises to be worth every minute!