Into the Woods – Page 196 – Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere

Some arithmetic with broccoli

Carnivorous protein lust!

The broccoli in my local grocery store today was beautiful, and cheap. I had it for supper, steamed, with a buttermilk dipping sauce. It was delicious and just seemed so substantial. It made me wonder if broccoli doesn’t have a significant amount of protein.

After supper, I checked. Indeed it does, about 15 grams per pound, close to a quarter of what you get with hamburger, per pound. So let’s do the math. If you need 60 grams of protein and 2,000 calories to get through your day (a good ration for those not doing heavy lifting), then four pounds of broccoli a day would supply you with all the protein you need. However, that would give you less than 600 calories. An astonishing 45 percent of the calories in broccoli is in protein, a very high protein-to-calorie ratio. You’d need almost two dozen oranges to make up the calories. The protein in the oranges would bring you to well over 75 grams. So, on twenty-two oranges and four pounds of broccoli a day, you could live for a very, very long time, with nice muscles.

About five hundred years, would be my guess. Substitute two glasses of red wine for three of the oranges, and you’d be looking at 800 high-quality years.

Too much broccoli for you? Then try about a pound of hamburger, a pound of broccoli, 18 oranges, and two glasses of red wine.

I’m sure that everyone realizes that this is just a tongue-in-cheek thought experiment in nutrition and not a diet recommendation.

I'm glad that's done

It’s a fairly large turnaround area, and it’s shaped like an amoeba, but one does have to have a place for visitors to park. I believe that was about 16 tons of gravel, maybe more. The next steps for this area: planting a meandering line of border shrubs along the boundary between the driveway and the grassy area, and laying rock for walkways into the house.

I need to take that wreath down, don’t I.

Canned salmon?

Salmon cake bound with egg and brewer’s yeast and fried in coconut oil, mashed sweet potatoes, cauliflower, onion. It’s all anti-inflammatory.

I used to feel guilty about liking, and buying, canned salmon, for fear that the canning process degraded it. But now, I think, not anymore. Canned salmon actually is on the “Eco-best” list of the Environmental Defense Fund. Canned salmon is relatively cheap, stores extremely well, ships without refrigeration, etc.

Plus, salmon is good for your lipid profile, and therefore helps you diminish inflammation. I have mentioned anti-inflammation theory before in this blog. New research is bearing out the connection between inflammation and all sorts of chronic diseases, not to mention the problems that tend to go with aging. The inflammation angle may be the factor that makes the Mediterranean diet so beneficial.

This New York Times article is a good place to start your research on anti-inflammation theory.

Three piles of gravel spread, one to go

The gravel is moist inside the pile and is a darker color. It becomes light gray when exposed to the air.

Cold winter days (it was 38 degrees outside today) are perfect for hard labor outdoors. I got three of the four piles of gravel spread out for the parking and turn-around area at the end of the driveway. I used only a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and a rake. I paid off the biscuits and gravy I had for breakfast, I guess.

I’m inspired by the hard work of the first European settlers who came to this area over the old wagon road from Philadelphia. I’m reading a book on this, “The Great Wagon Road,” by Parke Rouse Jr., published in 1973. According to Rouse, the German settlers, particularly the Moravians, were more industrious than, say, the Scotch-Irish. It was Oct. 8, 1753, when the Pennsylvania Moravians sent 15 men down the wagon road to Bethabara to start the settlement there. Bethabara, by the way, is about 15 miles from me. Upon arriving in mid-November at the site chosen for Bethabara, Rouse says:

“In ten days they cleared three acres of densely forested land and cultivated it with a plow built by Brother Henrich Feldhausen. Within five months they were growing wheat, corn, potatoes, flax, cotton, tobacco, barley, rye, oats, millet, buckwheat, turnips, and pumpkins. In a fenced garden, to keep out rabbits and squirrels, they cultivated “salat” greens.

“Winter was confining, but in spring the Brothers visited neighbors to buy apple and peach trees, livestock, and poultry…. Except for a few items — glass, nails, salt, and coffee among them — they supplied all their own wants.”

Before long, Rouse says, settlers were traveling sixty miles to trade with the Moravians at Bethabara.

Hand tools aren’t as inefficient as we modern folk sometimes think they are. Consider the Blue Ridge Parkway. The fact that so much of the work was done with manual human labor prevented over-engineering and preserved an organic effect, with everything on a human scale.

I had imagined that I could build here without resorting to bulldozers, but I was wrong. A bulldozer removed the pine stumps, graded for the driveway, and did the final grading around the house. The man who did this work, though, was very sympathetic to my requests that he not disturb the ground any more than necessary. He’s an artist with a bulldozer.

So far I have two engines — the Jeep, and a weed eater than I haven’t used since I cleared a path through the woods in 2006. I probably will have to get a tiller, and a mower, but other than that I’m hoping hand tools will do.

Driveway improvements

My driveway has been in place since last March, but now that the house and grading are done, and the boundaries of the yard are clear, I’m making a little parking and turn-around area to the left of the house. A big load of gravel was delivered today. There was no way to get the gravel in place with the dump truck. We dumped it in four piles near where it’s needed. I’m spreading the gravel with hand tools — wheelbarrow, shovel and rake. One pile down, three to go.

I did take a break during the holidays, but I’m now jumping back into the building process. I believe I’ve lined up contractors for all the interior work — electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning, insulation, drywall, and cabinets and trim. I’ll have more posts soon as this work gets under way.

Sustainability festival

The local Hare Krishna community has taken a strong leadership role in sustainable and alternative living. Today they had an all-day “Local Sustainability Festival” at their temple near Sandy Ridge, about eight miles from my place. There were speakers on gardening, rainwater harvesting, farming with draft animals, and seed-saving techniques. Stokes County’s Hare Krishna community has been here since, I think, the 1980s. Most of them have settled in a beautiful little valley well away from the main roads.

Livestock

One of the sessions on sustainable farming

The end of an American (and Carolina) tradition

One of my two Carolina Porch Rockers, on my back deck

The North Carolina company that made the famous Kennedy Rockers is going out of business. Last month, the P&P Chair Co. of Asheboro, North Carolina, said that it’s closing after 82 years. Partly it was the recession, and partly it was the death of Bill Page Jr., son of one of the founders of the company.

John F. Kennedy bought some of P&P’s rocking chairs in 1955 after Kennedy’s doctor recommended the chairs for Kennedy’s back. The doctor’s belief, the story goes, was that the rocking chair helped relax the back muscles because it kept the muscles in motion. The chairs became famous when Kennedy became president and took one of the chairs to the Oval Office in the White House. The chair has often been called the most famous chair in America. My grandmother had one of these chairs.

There were two basic models — the indoor chair with a woven seat and back, and the porch rocker. The chairs are identical except for the seat and back.

About 10 years ago, I wanted to buy rocking chairs as a gift to my mother, for her porch. When I told my older sister that I was looking for heirloom-quality rockers and asked her what I should buy, she responded immediately that I should get the Carolina Porch Rocker from P&P. She knew, though I did not, that the Carolina Porch Rocker was the same chair as the Kennedy rocker. Before I started construction on my new house, my mother let me know that she was giving the chairs back to me for the new house.

The chairs really are made to last a lifetime or longer. My chairs have a bit of patina from sitting on a porch, but they’re just as tight and sturdy as when they were new. All these chairs have the P&P label stamped underneath the chair’s arm. The chairs were never cheap, and though they’re not rare, I imagine that their value just went up considerably because of P&P’s closing. I’m even thinking of permanently bringing one of my chairs indoors to sit near the fireplace.

The P&P stamp on one of my chairs

John F. Kennedy in a Kennedy Rocker

William Page Jr., who died in November (AP)

I’m lucky to have two of these chairs. They are symbols of a different era, and trophies from North Carolina’s lost golden age of manufacturing.

What they're eating in the south of France #4

Turnips, onions, parsnips, celery

I had asked my friend in Perpignan if she would be so kind as to take her camera next time she went to an outdoor market. Anivid is an excellent photographer and really knows how to tell a story with a camera, though she was never, like me, a journalist. Here are her photos from a Catalan market. Why, Anivid wondered, is this so interesting to me? Because, I replied, the south of France, with its Mediterranean diet, is one of the places that sets a standard for the rest of the world. Also, because I aspire to be a farmer, I like to see what sort of fresh, local produce is available at any given time of year, anywhere.

Pumpkin

Lettuces

Cauliflower and artichokes

Cakes

Escargot

Shrimp and rice paella and potatoes

Shrimp and rice paella

Stew

Wine

How about some microwave cake?

A week or so ago, a friend forwarded me one of those Internet emails that everyone forwards all over the place. It was a recipe for a chocolate microwave cake, with very appealing photographs. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I had never heard of making cake in a microwave, but the recipe seemed highly reasonable. I improvised my own version. This is a chocolate cranberry cake.

My favorite cake is a chocolate applesauce cake in which applesauce is the only liquid ingredient. It’s a moist, substantial cake, the kind of cake I like, not an airy cake. I just happened to have some fresh cranberries in the fridge, so I thought, why not. As a confident cook, and because improvising is half the fun, I almost never use recipes. I brought the cranberries to a boil in a tiny amount of water, and stirred in some coconut oil, sugar, and cocoa. I tasted the batter at this point to adjust the sugar. I added a beaten egg, then whole wheat flour sifted with a bit of baking powder. I baked it in the microwave in a mixing bowl. The cake rose nicely and didn’t fall. It came out of the bowl clean. It tasted just as I hoped it would taste — tart, moist, and chocolatey. This is probably about as healthy as a cake can get.

Rain

Heavy rain during the last two days has raised the water level in the little stream below my house.