Or Rooster for Dinner
It’s a cool blustery fall day, one of those days that makes you hunger for a nice dinner of comfort food, so I decided chicken and noodles were in order. Sherry Darl’n has a womanizing, red rooster in the flock that she thought would make a fine companion to the silky, light as cloud homemade noodles that I like to make from scratch using two farm fresh eggs from her young hens. Mind you, these farm fresh eggs have yolks that rise tall above the whites and are the color of the sun that has just risen above the horizon, not the anemic-looking, yellow, flat puddles that pass as yolks in mass-produced, store-bought eggs.
I sat about the business of gathering fresh baby beets small and sweet, fresh from the garden soil. These scrumptious veggies are to be boiled, skinned, and put into a quick pickle liquid so as to be ready for dinner. Many people I know don’t think they like beets, but if given the chance to try a fresh young beet that has been roasted or is still warm from being boiled might change their opinion. I would encourage them to give it one more try without bias. I think they would find a friendlier mouthful than those hideous beets they were forced to eat as a child, straight from a can.
Lots of foods fall into this scenario, actually. One that comes to mind for me is asparagus. I thought I hated the stuff, and it turns out that I do if it is served to me from a can. But I love it fresh and cooked on the grill with olive oil and garlic. I even like it steamed, if it’s fresh. Fresh is the key. It’s the same with the beets and spinach.
Next for the dinner menu--green beans. I got so bored after I picked about four beans that I decided we didn’t need green beans on the menu after all. That’s all I have to say about that.
Next task—potatoes. Tuff and I dug up some very nice Yukon Gold potatoes to mash with cream and butter. Turns out Tuff, our 15-year-old, loves to dig potatoes; he likens it to an Easter egg hunt and I have to say, I agree.
In conclusion, dinner was a success and we are down to one less rooster in the barnyard. You can’t imagine how satifying it is to harvest everything for our dinner from our own yard, from the chicken to the vegetables. It’s an amazing feeling to be connected to your land the way I did with this dinner. There’s something to be said about the benefits the entire process brings to a person’s soul and stomach.
Farmers Market News
The Farmers Market was different this past Saturday. Sherry Darl’n wasn’t feeling well and it was threatening rain so she stayed home and got some much needed rest.
Tuff, my son, was my helper for the day and he did a great job of making change and keeping me entertained. It was a real joy and his first time at the Farmers Market as a vendor. He was paid handsomely for his help and spent it all on pork sandwiches, fancy coffee, and a nice bag of Empire apples. He also argued incessantly--typical teenage modus operandi.
Can someone tell me how teenagers get so smart in the few short years that they have danced on this earth? They can argue about everything! I showed up fifty years ago and am still struggling to understand the complexities of life, but they have it figured out already. Bless their hearts, they do make us think though…. think about how little they really know!
It seemed like the attendance was down at the market and we didn’t sell too much. We didn’t take much of a variety of items and this could have been the reason for the slow sales. I think that we have entered fall festival season so people have other things to do on Saturdays.
Falling into Fall
As for the garden itself, it grows smaller by the day, with the exception of the new Bok Choy and Carrots and Daikon Radish. Other than that, there is not much new growth. First frost will be here soon, like an assassin it will arrive in the night and take the life of all but the hardiest of the plants.
The sounds, and the smells of the farm are changing now, the long shadows cast from a lowering sun all tell of the impending struggle against the weather for man, beast, and plant alike. We will hang on and get through with the thought of distant spring always on our minds. And when it does arrive we will start this roller coaster ride we call farming all over again.
Well I’m done talk’n, --Matt
