Lily loves the big upstairs windows — especially when she’s all snug on the bed at sunrise and sunset.
The hippies were right
I often wonder why the current economic downturn, though it certainly has caused certain useless and paranoid sorts of cultural uproar, has not led to more positive attempts at adaptation like we had in the 1970s. Though the 1970s experimentation with back-to-the-earth movements were mostly eventually abandoned as failures, still those movements changed many people permanently.
The script for these movements, you’ll remember, came from publications that are now classics — the Foxfire books, for example, and the Whole Earth Catalog.
In those days, there was one cookbook that you’d be sure to find in any health food store — the Ten Talents cookbook by Frank and Rosalie Hurd. This cookbook is still in print in a revised edition.
While unboxing books yesterday, I came across my copy of the Ten Talents cookbook. I have the original 1968 edition. It remains the best vegan cookbook I have ever seen.
Another book that was very important in the hippy era was Jethro Kloss’ Back to Eden, which also became a hippy handbook.
These two books — Ten Talents (1968) and Back to Eden (written in the 1930s) — are decades ahead of their time. It is remarkable how they are in accord with all the research that has been done on health, disease, and diet since the books were written.
Pumpkin seeds
Dry toasting
How lucky for us that, as a rule, the cheapest foods are also the healthiest. Think: beans, onions, cabbage, squash, most grains, and so on. A cheap and healthy food that is very much neglected is the humble pumpkin seed. Google for “pumpkin seeds” to read up on what they have to offer.
A good rule of grocery shopping is that any food that can be bought in bulk should be bought in bulk. Ironically, Whole Foods, an expensive grocery store, is one of the few stores (in this area, at least) that sells certain staples in bulk. They have pumpkin seeds, along with a nice assortment of nuts and grains. Even nuts, when bought in bulk, are relatively cheap.
But what does one do with pumpkin seeds? They are sometimes sold pre-processed as a snack, roasted and salted. But that’s neither cheap nor healthy. Lately I’ve been dry-toasting them in a pan, grinding them in a small grinder, and using them generously as a topping for things like vegetable and pasta dishes. Add some food yeast and a little salt and you’ve got a nice, toasty topping that can be used like grated parmesan — but the pumpkin seeds are much cheaper and much healthier.
Grinding them saves a lot of chewing!
Ida
The Dan River three miles downstream from Danbury in Stokes County
Moisture brought up from the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Ida left four inches or more of rain this week. This was one of the nicest rains in years in these parts. The rain is also bringing up the groundwater, which has never really recovered from a long drought earlier this decade.
George Bernard Shaw's "St. Joan"
Winston-Salem Journal
I was surprised to read in this morning’s Winston-Salem Journal that the UNC School of the Arts is doing George Bernard Shaw’s play St. Joan. Those of you who are in this area might want to consider going.
As the director says, quoted by the Journal, “Nothing has changed since Joan’s time.” I have read this play a couple of times, but I have never seen it produced. I plan to post in the future on the story of Joan of Arc and why her story matters so much to us moderns.
And by the way, it seems the casting is going to be great. We don’t really know what Joan looked like, but based on references in the historical record and the genetics of the peasants in her part of France, it is safe to assume that she was short and dark-haired. She may not have been very pretty, because the many soldiers she was around seemed to have trouble leaving her alone. But obviously she radiated charisma.
Refrigerator poem
A company named Fridge Fun in Santa Rosa, California, makes magnetic poetry kits for refrigerator doors. One such kit includes 240 words taken from Shakespeare. One arranges the magnetic words to make one’s own poems. I had one of these kits on my refrigerator door in San Francisco, and a friend had written a 15-line poem on the door. When I moved, I couldn’t bring myself to disassemble the poem, so I transferred the magnetic words one by one to a cookie sheet to preserve the poem. I finally got around to typing the poem into the computer.
Refrigerator poem
All errors lost in this world
Hath always love as a stage.
Thus such human sorrow protests
Wicked men who dream
About created women
What torture shall plague it self unto
Brave riddance whence I am damned
For playing love’s rotten pomp
Discretion will own me nothing:
Trouble never toileth too much mercy
Pray thine rose dost kill bad art
‘Tis mad the night’s flesh became
Alas ambition breaks when a new light is made
Fit and true in me
My most strained heart is good for thee.
— James Michael Gregg, San Francisco, 2005
Just for fun, here are the very few words left over from the kit that were not used in this poem: Part, Circumstance, It, Was, The, At, Neither, Philosopher, Nor, Borrower, Lend, Comedy, An, Home.
Pumpkin
Pumpkin curry
I am shocked how many people tell me that they buy only canned pumpkin and never cook pumpkin fresh. It’s easy to cook pumpkin in the oven. Just cut the pumpkin in half, scrape the center clean of seeds and strings, and bake the pumpkin on a cookie sheet until it’s tender. A big pumpkin will need up to an hour and a half in the oven at 325 to 350 degrees. When the pumpkin is done, let it cool. Then scrape the pumpkin out with spoon, leaving the empty pumpkin shell (and the seeds and strings) for the chickens.
Pumpkin is just too cheap and too nutritious not to use when it’s in season. It’s good for many things other than pies. Search the web, and you’ll get lots of ideas for recipes.
The pumpkin just came out of the oven.
Sunday drive
Today’s Sunday drive went past RagApple Lassie Vineyards near Rockford in Yadkin County. The vines were looking really good…
Biscuit quest, continued…
Over many months, I have continued to experiment with biscuits. The objective is to make a great biscuit, reasonably true to the Southern standard for good biscuits, but as low-carb as possible, with the lowest possible glycemic index. Flax seed, with which I started experimenting well over a year ago, is only part of the answer, I think. Flax seed, for all its health benefits, tends to make bread gummy if you use too much of it. So how might one counteract the gumminess of flax seed meal?
The best way I’ve found so far is to add soy flour. The caky characteristic of soy flour seems to counteract the gumminess of flax seed meal, giving the biscuit a very satisfactory texture, not only when served hot, but also when served cold.
Here are the proportions I’ve settled on for now, and the proportions I used for the biscuits in the photo above: 1 and 1/3 cup King Arthur whole wheat flour; 1/3 cup flax seed meal; and 1/2 cup soy flour. The biscuits are shortened with coconut oil. I used soy milk, clabbered with a teaspoon of vinegar.
Barley burgers
The barley experiments continue. Barley has a chewiness and heartiness that works nicely in fried patties. The barley burgers above are simple: cooked pearl barley, bound with an egg and whole-wheat bread crumbs and seasoned with chopped onions. I think they’d make a nice breakfast patty if they were seasoned like sausage. That will be the next experiment.
The barley itself was cooked several days ago and stored in the refrigerator. Barley takes a long time to cook, so I like to use a pressure cooker. One part barley to three parts vegetable stock is about right. I leave it in the pressure cooker for about an hour. You want it to soak up as much liquid as possible, with no liquid remaining in the bottom of the pot when the barley is done.
Again, why barley? Because, of all the grains, barley takes the longest to digest and so has a low glycemic index. It sticks to the ribs.