Thankful Thursday–wool installation, wool, silk long johns, new cat, and advent calender photo update

Above is a photo of some of the sheep at my daughter’s school. You can’t really tell, but behind them (and all around their enclosure) is wool embedded into the chicken wire fence. It is an installation by a local artist, Nancy Milliken, called Walling In. All the while it was going up onto the fence I thought, “hmmm…..now isn’t that interesting and not altogether attractive?” But I will tell you: I drive from the south side of Bay Rd (the road that used to take folks from points west to the Bay, in Boston) and as the road bends, the fence is fully visible as it spills down the hill. It’s beautiful. I love it.

You’ll find a better photo of the whole fence on Nancy Milliken’s website. You’ll also find a photo of a rooster from the school. This rooster. Isn’t he pretty?

Look at the chicken wire up close:

You know I don’t love wool. I used to not be able to wear it at all–the itching and coarseness. When we moved to the Pioneer Valley, it was almost sacrilege not to wear wool, let alone to not like it. Try taking that a step further from the bubble of the Pioneer Valley into the even smaller community that is our local Waldorf school. Wool in our Waldorf school is to clothing like manna is to food. It’s practically heaven-sent and good for anything that ails you. In fact, it is probably edible in some form or another, just ask the Handwork-slash-Ag Arts teacher. I used to hate wool. I sort of still do. Slowly, over the last 11 years, my body seems to have adjusted to it a little: I can wear some wool-blend socks, as long as the percent of wool isn’t too high. I can wear my wool coat because it has a thick polar-fleece lining. I cannot wear a wool scarf directly next to my skin, even the Smartwool kind. I do have a lovely pink and black polka-dot hat that is merino wool and I can wear that.

Maybe it doesn’t matter so much, all of this wool. It’s the Solstice, December 22, and it’s raining in New England. I am sure up in the hill towns and in the mountains there is some snow. Rain in December. What happened to our climate? You probably don’t need wool in New England until January nowadays.

Silk is the other natural fiber one must acquaint oneself with in New England. My initial reaction when told I must wear silks in the winters here was to turn my nose up. The nerve! Me, who was somewhat “tactile defensive” as a child (they just told you to behave or slapped you when I was a kid, no such thing as tactile defensive). I remember a particular episode when I had to wear tights and how I screamed my head off in protest. I did eventually learn to wear silk long underwear and I fell in love with the warmth and softness and the not-overwhelming level of heat that they keep in (unlike a lot of synthetics which can make me too warm unless I’m outside and not moving).

I love new kitty SO MUCH:

Here is the latest photo of the advent calender:

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Twinkly cooks! My favorite fall soup; butternut squash in the Connecticut River Valley; and a song to suit the weather

Butternut squash is an old staple crop here in the Valley, but in attempting to research it on the web, I couldn’t get a clear history (time to ply Farmer Dan for answers). Squash was part of a traditional Three Sisters garden. When my kids were each in 3rd Grade at their school, they planted a Three Sisters garden. Awesome.

You see field after field of butternut all along the Connecticut River. I know the pumpkin crop in New England was heavily damaged due to Hurricane Irene; I’m not as sure about the butternut squash. You see truckloads piled high traveling hither, thither, and yon on the roads around here. I haven’t really noticed this year.

It’s been damp and cloudy for days. I feel like I’m in Ohio except for those wild animals that were running around over there last week. Hubby and I discussed our memories, from about 20 years ago, of living in Kent and reading for weeks about someone in Rootstown who had a wild-animal farm where some little kid got attacked by a tiger. Claims of safety ensued, lawsuits and debates followed. At least I think it was Rootstown. Anybody else remember this?

In this week’s Thankful Thursday, I wrote about homemade veggie stock. I’m simply too lazy to write up a veggie stock prescription right now, but it would make logical sense to have your veggie stock ready before you cook this. Also, in keeping with being NON-CANDY-ASS, you’ll want to have soaked about a cup (or slightly less) of white beans the night before so they’re ready to go for adding to this soup.

Here comes a recipe for one of my favorite soups of all time. FAVORITE OF ALL TIME! That’s a bold statement:

Kale, Butternut Squash, and White Bean Soup                                                                                                                                     from Simple Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin

1/3 C olive oil
2 large onions, diced
10 C vegetable stock
1 C finely diced canned tomatoes, with liquid
2 tsp fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp dried)
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced, appx 2 C
2 C cooked or canned white beans, well rinsed
1/2 lb. kale, shredded
grated parmagiano-reggiano

1. Heat oil in stockpot. Add onions and cook until tender.
2. Stir in stock, tomatoes, rosemary, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil. Add squash and simmer. Cook 30 minutes until squash is tender.
3. Add beans and kale, cook 15 minutes and serve with cheese.

NOTES: I make this soup in all manner of batches and sizes, usually doubling it or more. The quantities of ingredients are very forgiving. Sometimes I use fresh tomatoes to no detriment, or of course (NOT CANDY-ASS ALERT) the ones I’ve roasted and frozen from the summer crop. I also sometimes use spinach over kale. Just a softer texture, not so much for the flavor. It freezes well and is a great fall soup when the crops are all in. If I use fresh rosemary, I add it toward the end of cooking. I always use my own veggie stock which I highly recommend over store-bought or bouillon.

The recipe was given to me by an old Kent friend, Abby Greer. She made it at a Play Group Christmas Party in 1998. Warm memories and post-partum depression.

For musical accompaniment, you could play “Beautiful Soup” from some manifestation of Alice in Wonderland, the best one being Gene Wilder singing it from a somewhat charming 1990’s TV movie. Or you could listen to this which seems to fit my mood today and the weather we’ve had of late, even though the video was shot in the spring.

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Thankful Thursday–local carrots, squeeze that toothpaste tube, and WE GOT THE POWER!

Brookfield Farm carrots–the best carrots I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but as a child, carrots were the only vegetable I’d eat (okay, potatoes, too). It’s also the only vegetable one of my daughters eats on a regular basis, so knowing that the carrots we get in our CSA are out-of-this-world good-tasting and organic to boot is a deep satisfaction. Farmer Dan said the carrots got too much water in late summer so they would be small, but this week, I assure you, they were completely normal-sized, if not even larger, than a couple of weeks ago. The flavor is earthy and robust when they are at their best. I want you to know I just held back from making any length-in-inches carrot jokes, too. Like seven of them.

Corkscrew Carrot

Toothpaste tubes, lotion: I can squeeze toothpaste from a toothpaste tube for up to 3 weeks after all of the other members of my family are ready to discard it. I LOVE this. It makes for more counter-top clutter in our shared bathroom because the rest of my family has moved on to their shiny new toothpaste tubes, but the knowledge that I am using the very last bits of a product makes me very happy.

I also cut near-empty lotion tubes in half and use those for a couple of extra days. Good stuff! This model of using up the very last drop can be applied to all manner of consumer products in your household. Unless you go rogue and make your own toothpaste, hand cream, laundry detergent, dish soap….

All righty, then….It’s time for a rare mention of something political on twinklysparkles:

OCCUPY WALL STREET people!!!

Is this the jammin’est thing going in our country today?

This morning, the first headline that caught my eye was an urging of the OWS movement to get THE PEOPLE, as in WE, to move our money to small, local banks and/or credit unions. While this can be complicated and may not work for some businesses with international banking needs, it also can be quite simple and if the free market works, open up more options for all of us, including businesses with international banking needs.

You think the oligarchs are scared? You bet your sweet bippies! Read on, my friends.

Concrete change, change in which an individual can make a choice with what matters most to the political world, may be simpler than we’ve all thought. What matters most? I think this says it rather well:

In a related vein–if I haven’t been completely clear about it before, you should also know that I love Sharon Jones. When I found this this morning, I loved her even more.

If you are PETA or a particularly sensitive vegetarian, you may want to forward through the first 38 seconds or so of the video. But people, you must listen after that. Woody Guthrie turned R and B and interpreted so there’s no doubt about its message. Can I get a witness?

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Twinkly Cooks! The Kale Post

Kale, how do I love thee?

One, you start with the letter K. Not many vegetables can make that claim (kohlrabi?).

When I was anemic (severely), you called to me, for you are full of iron. Fe on the periodic table, from the Latin, ferrum, meaning, well, iron.

The most common nutritional deficiency in the world? Lack of iron.

The most abundant element on earth? Iron.

Why do you need iron in your body? So your red blood cells can carry oxygen (O). You need 4 Fe molecules per erythrocyte in order to carry one molecule of O2. This is why anemic folks get out of breath (at least I did).

Wait a minute, twinkly, is this the same iron that we see rusting on playground fences and garden tools?

HELL YES! Would I lie to you?

What do you need to absorb iron so your red blood cells can carry oxygen? Something acidic (lemon or orange juice work well). What can interfere with Fe absorption? Among other things, calcium (Ca). The particulars of this get pretty tricky so if you are interested, you should do some of your own research.

What form of iron do humans most successfully absorb? Heme iron, found in red meat, especially liver, also oysters. You can eat a lot of kale and it will help, but it won’t get you out of a severe anemia.

Kale is in the brassica family. It is a cabbage or cruciferous vegetable, named for the shape of the leaves at its base. You can therefore feel virtuous for eating cabbages, getting to the crux of the matter, as it were.

Here’s my basic kale recipe and how I cook my kale almost always, though I do put it in soups and frittatas and egg-and-cheese strata. Me and the mister just love it this way and I think you will, too:

Get yourself a bunch of lacinito kale (aka dinosaur, Tuscan, or black kale)

But twinkly, can’t I use another kind of kale?

NO. This is my blog and you will do as I say and cook as I do.

Here’s why–

the lacinito kale is beautiful and dark, dark green. Its leaves are firmer than the other varieties of kale. It is darker green, so, even though I’m making this up, it stands to reason that it’s higher in vitamin A and all of the B-complex vitamins. It cooks up crunchier than other kale because it’s leaves are so dang firm. No soggy crap!

That tough stem that all kale recipes tell you to remove? You can leave it. You can leave it in all varieties of kale, but especially with the lacinito kale. Yes, you can trim it at the bottom if it is a 1/4 inch or more wide, but leave the rest.

Okay, back to the recipe:

Ingredients:

appx 1 lb fresh lacinito kale, trimmed at the bottom

appx 1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil (you already know your fats should be organic)

garlic, at least 3 cloves (I like the hard-necked garlic when it’s available) ready for a garlic press

half a lemon

some toasted sesame oil and don’t use the Trader Joe’s stuff because it doesn’t have a shaker-top and it’s not too flavorful to boot

sea salt

freshly ground pepper

good set of metal cooking-tongs (you won’t be using a non-stick pan, right me maties?)

Method:

Grab your big bunch o’ kale

Rinse the leaves. Usually kale is pretty clean of dirt, but sometimes does have some little bugs

After rinsing, leave the leaves full of those beautiful, silvery dew drops of water

Cut your kale into a chiffonade. Use a really good, sharp knife–not serrated,’kay?

(chiffonade is French, but your knife should probably be German)

You don’t have to cut it super-fancy thin, but about 1/8″ is good. You’ll need to cut narrow across, not length-wise

Heat about a TBSP of evoo in a large pan on medium heat, or if your stove gets really hot (I have electric, sorry purists), turn that down a notch. Don’t use a non-stick pan because a. Teflon will kill you (the fumes can kill a bird) and leach icky endocrine-disruptors and hormone mimicers into everything and into everyone’s gonads, even fish and especially amphibians and b. your kale will not sear properly and have a tiny crunch to it.

If you are anemic (menstruating ladies, take heed), you can use a cast-iron pan for extra iron

When your oil has a bit of a sheen on it, throw in the kale. It will sizzle and pop. Take a step back and let the dew do its magic.

While the kale steams a bit in the pan, take your garlic cloves and crush them in a garlic press (I DO sometimes slice my garlic, but I prefer the crushed in this recipe). Throw the garlic onto the kale.

Grab up a tong-full of kale and turn it in the pan a few times. Do this until all of the kale gets a turn: fair is fair. The garlic needs to be distributed evenly.

Grab your half-a-lemon and squeeze some of that baby into your pan. Sizzle, sizzle. Do your guests like a lot of lemon? Use more juice. Keep grabbing up the kale and turning it in the pan.

Take the toasted sesame oil and shake shake shake it onto the kale. Now you can also shake your booty. Put on some James Brown. Now you’re cookin’! Maybe five shakes should do the trick. It’s really a matter of preference.

You can put a pinch or so of sea salt (appx 1/4 tsp) onto the kale and grind some pepper on there, too. Salt seems to go pretty far on kale, not sure why, so don’t overdo it; you can always add more after a taste-test.

That’s about all. I like the kale to have a lot of crunchiness and some signs of searing, but I don’t like it to lose its bright hue. You can cook it so it has no searing or you can cook the living hell out of it like our parents’ generation seemed to do to all green veggies.

HIT IT AND QUIT IT!

Would I lie to you?

photo: ©kgfarthing2011

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Police Blotter

One of my favorite activities is reading my weekly newspaper’s police blotter.

Each week I can count on a few steady pieces of news: a dozen DUIs (this being a college town), about 95% of which occur after midnight (LESSON: STAY OFF THE ROADS FROM MIDNIGHT TO 4 AM!!!); 2 or 3 drunken brawls that have spilled out of a bar and onto the sidewalk; several excessively loud parties; a mentally-ill, possibly drunk, belligerent man or woman (or 2) who has to be removed from the homeless shelter; also, a bit of shoplifting and a few stolen iPods (often from the drunken parties and bars). As unpleasant as these stories are, with potential deadly results for innocents, they tend to be predictably the same, week after week. What really turns me on are the quirks, turns, and certain, shall we say je ne sais quoi human elements that push a police blotter item into the realm of peculiarity.

Here are the week’s twinkly-worthy items (please note that although location details are provided in the original report, I have omitted them in some cases):

Wednesday, March 9

8:02 pm From the “What the Fuck?” Department

A teenage girl was caught shoplifting a $10 item from the supermarket. When confronted by management, the girl’s mother became argumentative. Both the girl and her mother were issued trespass notices to stay out of the store.

7:55 pm From the book So You Think You Can Farm?

More than a dozen cows were located in the middle of North East Street. The farmer was able to get the animals back into their field. The following day at 5:36 pm, the cows were again seen approaching the road.

Thursday, March 10

12:58 am From Adding Insult to Injury: A Book of Child Rearing

Police kept the peace between a man and a woman who were having an argument over getting a baby to sleep, which caused the infant to cry and disturb the neighbors.

Friday, March 11

7:38 pm From the “Who Me? Waste Your Tax Dollars?” Alliance

A Strong Street resident told police a telemarketer called her home offering a free smoke alarm system.

9:09pm From the “I Will Kick Michael Pollan’s Ass the Next Time I See Him” Guild

Four cows loose in the middle of North East Street were returned to their field by their owner.

Saturday, March 12

9:10 am From the President’s Council on “Writers are Special People”

A woman reported receiving a threatening and harassing email related to an article she wrote for an education publication. Police determined the email sender was just disagreeing with the content of her article and that he didn’t appear to be making a threat.

11:34 pm From the “I Thought ‘Clueless’ Was a Fictional Movie” Club

Police issued a verbal warning to residents playing a loud stereo. The residents agreed to turn it down, though they told police they thought it was OK to turn up the volume on the stereo since their neighbors are all on spring break.

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