Black Tomatoes Come To The Peninsula

Black tomatoes ripening.

I was going to write how the Ukrainian Black Tomatoes got to the Peninsula, but not even the person who found them in Seattle with me remembers how that went. 

We were walking around Seattle in Summer or Autumn, 2013. We found a pocket park with a little dead garden at one end. Two or three inky-black tomatoes still clung to dried-out plants. 

Roberta Gregory emailed:

"Hi! I will have to find it again. It was a block or two east of Broadway, around Republican or Mercer or thereabouts.

"I think we had gone out for Pho and were killing a bit of time. 

"Or, was it the time we were going to meet someone at that gay bar off of John street and had stopped in that little Halloween shop on Broadway for a while. That would have made it around this time of year. Funny, I recall the Halloween shop much more than the folks we met up with at the gay bar.

"Think the Pho and the bar were two separate occasions, but now I am not sure. Too much in the (mental) Rolodex."

I think it was the Hallowe'en Shop trip. She's right about time of year. I took the remaining tomatoes, and managed to get two viable seeds, which produced excellently.

Anyway, I'm going to share out the seed tomatoes today at a party. The tomatoes bred true, bear prolifically on a vigorous plant, and are beautiful and utterly delicious. 

Let's hope they take like Ozette potatoes.

There are Trees in Your Salad Dressing

OMG. Oh My fucking God.

Rayonier is admitting they're using trees to make salad dressing.

Watch the site video - they're grinding up trees for chemicals. It's over. Our forests are GONE.  No wonder the logging people say, "But But trees are just a crop, like CORN!"

No, CORN is a crop - and this is what the remainders of a corn harvest should be doing.

This is a Florida company. They're helping to knock down the Scenic Route on the Olympic Peninsula - in an Audubon area. Right next to towns.

And the people up here just meekly talk football or church or going to Seattle for the weekend, and say nothing as their futures are uprooted.

I've been trying to warn them for ten years now, and they just don't get it. Their KIDS do. I'm expecting them to take out the big Douglas Fir the kids have used for a tree-house. Why would this Florida Company fucking care? It's just more money to develop land for houses or cash hunting areas. Oh, yeah; they treat all the wildlife like a cash crop, the same as the fishing industry.

Meanwhile, the State Parks are de-funded. Huh. I wonder if Tim Eyman helped fund the big, expensive anti-park sign campaign along the scenic route?

Man, this is so looking like monkey business, more and more, I almost wonder why they don't have signs, "Bananas ahead; slippery."

All I know, I'm never touching commercially-mixed sauces or anything that MIGHT have a thickener or stabilizer in it, ever again. JESUS. Me go frow up now.

(I might as well have a tshirt that says, "I told you so.")

Jim Craig, over on Facebook, posted this:

Short sighted, lack of planning, Donna. Then, when all the resources are nearly gone and the logging jobs, fishing and related industries are suffering, they're going to blame the environmentalists who are fighting to keep the last few stands of trees alive.

I was in college when the whole spotted owl thing was first coming on the scene. I saw a truck with a bumper sticker that read, "I like spotted owls... fried!" When I snorted derisively, the driver asked, "You one of them environmentalists? You love birds more than people?"

We got in a big discussion about the recent mill closure, jobs, clear cutting and lumber mills when a barge with a Korean flag chugged down the Columbia with a huge raft of unprocessed logs in tow. I pointed and told the guy, "That's where your jobs are going. As long as Weyerhauser and Boise Cascade will sell their lumber to foreign countries rather than sending them processed goods, your job will be in jeopardy. And when there are no trees, it's going to suck for you AND the owls. If you're not an environmentalist, you're just sowing the seeds for your own demise."

He had a puzzled look on his face then said, "I never thought about it that way."

I replied, "No, you just never thought about it. If you had, this discussion wouldn't have happened and you wouldn't have that silly sticker on your truck."

Donna again: And tell me about it. One of the local women got on Facebook and used "environmentalist" as a sneering insult, and then started to chortle with her friends about how the real smell of the woods is burning wood and oil and diesel and the sound is chainsaws. These are what gave me PTSD as a kid. It's what their kids are going to call them to account for. No wonder the kids are on pills and meth up here, and committing suicide. Now watch the same people that hate us whining and screaming and complaining as they're shunted off to cities where they have to live on welfare or take three jobs in a place they hate.

Smoke Dem Turkeys

Turkey hindquarters smoking.

Dan's not crazy about turkey, or at least the blah commercial kind. But we have one. So I decided to smoke it. 

Rubbed it with home-dried sea salt from the bay, let it set, rinsed it and smoked it.

Smoker, with lid.

Came out pretty tough - I need to let it set in brine, rather than dry salt. But that's okay. Today there's smoked turkey simmering in the beans. So we've decided to dry-smoke any turkeys we get and use 'em like smoked pork. They smell just as good!

And yeah, that's not a very fancy smoker, but according to the Fire Chief it's legal, and we're using it to cook.

And I'd prefer to use the $80 to buy a commercial smoker for DVDs and stuff.

Kelp Pickles

Down at the bar, for some reason the subject of old-time food came up.  Somebody mentioned kelp pickles.  A guy's eyes lit up: "My mom used to make the best kelp pickles!"

Caught a big bullwhip kelp (= caught on the hook, dragged in, grumbling).  Decided, "Screw it, I'm making kelp pickles."

Recipe:

Take a big bullwhip kelp -- or a hunk of one.  For me, the beach and water is a refrigerator, so I just pick up what I need when I'm low on pickles (or fish, or scallops).  Note: this piece is too big and old!  Get a piece that is no bigger around than 3/4 of an inch.  The following pickles are too tough to be used for anything but relish -- but they sure taste good!

Chop into bite-size pieces, including the bulb.  Pour boiling water over it (turns bright green!), let set 10 minutes.  This kills the enzymes so the kelp won't go slimey.

Drain.

Mix some pickling spices (black pepper, whole cilantro, dill), some sugar, some apple-cider vinegar.  If you're making garlic dill, leave out all but a dash of sugar, add garlic, tumeric, dill, black pepper, tarragon, instead of the sweet mix.  Oh, you know how.

Heat to simmer, pour over kelp pieces.

When cool, bottle and put in fridge for a couple weeks.  Really nice.  My neighbor gagged at the idea of kelp pickles because she'd had them and they were nasty. Bet the person who made them didn't BLANCH them!  Note:  I haven't tried to heat-seal them yet.  If you do, please let us know!  Suddenly, everybody wants a taste. 

Photo credit: Roberta Gregory (whom I'm teaching layered color in GIMP while I'm writing a pickle blog; I am such a techno-hick).

FISHING AGAIN

Four years ago, we lost our old cat Spuds.  All fish and seafood coming into this house went to him.  When we lost him after a long fight, to nose cancer, fishing just reminded me painfully of him.

Back on the beach, again, this time asking him to share if he wants any.  I only fish if I'm hungry for fish. Admittedly, like all fishers, the carnivore/omnivore instincts kick in, and I enjoy the fish's struggles on the line.  But if I don't don't think I will want fried fish and bone crackers the next day, I don't fish. 

I have a deal on with the fish: when I catch one, I smash up all of my mussel bait, and throw it to out to my breakfast's brethren.  No, I don't think the fish know about this deal; it just makes me feel better.

Turns out I'm good at hunting and gathering.  If I took up hunting deer, it would be for spikes or, if they ever allow it, does. Because hunting for antlers is just hunting grandpa -- and it's traditionally a practice for war, replacing the urge to kill other humans.  And bucks and bulls are in rut: YUCK.  

If I were hunting for antlers, I'd turn it into a REAL sport: tracking the same buck every year until he dropped his horns, starting when he was a spike, until he dropped his final set as an old man, and letting the tough old guy feed something that will enjoy him, like a mountain lion.  Or somebody who needs a really good, thick hide.  But collecting a life-time's horns without killing, counting a kind of coup, would really demonstrate tracking ability and courage. However:

Now for the real reason for hunting or gathering anything: putting it in our faces.

It's not necessary to fillet greenling.  Just head and cut, scraping out the bloodline with a mussel shell.  Split open.  Rinse well, salt inside, wrap in a towel and put in the 'fridge 'till breakfast time.  Rinse well, pat dry, fry skin-side down, preferably in lard of bacon grease, although any oil will do.  The best spice to sprinkle, lightly, on a greenling is Chinese Prickly Ash, also called Sichuan pepper, available at McPhee's Asian Grocery in Port Angeles, and soon to be available at Sunset West Co-op in Clallam Bay.

Dish, slip out the backbone and slip off the skin and fins.  Place them all back in the pan, to slow-crisp.  They will make the most delectable crunchy bone-crackers.

Black Gone Broody Mad, Bitch

Our black hen, Black (yes, it's a food-animal designation) is brooding her brains out.  I even had to go get her some fertile eggs to brood, so she'd get off the nest once in a while.

Now I'm having to lift her up to check she's not brooding Red's eggs, too.  

Bad news; they managed to discover eggs are edible.  I'll go have to look up something on that.

EATING PETS

Well, it might as well be eating pets, these hogs were so pampered.

Photo in our mini-fridge (left to right): Pulled pork, home-made soymilk, bacon, home-made hummus, rough-cut sausage.

Latest co-op goodie;  fresh home-raised pork.  The woman who owned the pigs was going to keep the shoulder for herself, but sold it to me instead, out of the stack of paper-wrapped meat at Sunsets West Co-op.  $4.00 a pound is NOT pricey for home-grown, boneless, clean pork.  Chopped and cut and spiced it into three dishes (about six meals each): 

• pulled pork:  end third slow simmered with red wine, apple juice and sausage mix (see below)

• bacon: center third thin-sliced with an ulu knife while partly frozen, packed in glass jar with kosher salt, brown sugar.  Chunky hard meat cures quickly to tender, flattened bacon.

• sausage:  rough-chopped with the ulu knife, mixed with kosher salt, fresh chopped oregano-rosemary-alpine mint, dried garlic-black pepper-nettles, packed in glass jar.

Meals so far:  yesterday, one home-laid egg each, one half slice of bacon.  Today, sausage red-eye gravy over home-made whole wheat biscuits.

I got the idea for storing food to be used soon in glass jars in the fridge from the letters column of Mother Earth Magazine.  Well, where the hell else?

No, we're not filling up a freezer with food.  We raise a few eggs, will soon add honey and fresh veg, to trade with those who DO have freezers full.  Just swapped a dozen eggs for a huge fillet of silver salmon; three days worth of meals and a big chunk just for the cats.  Yes we share -- no sharing, no sense of abundance.  Both sides of the swap thought we made out better over the other guy.  I don't mind cleaning the hen cage once a month, the guy doesn't mind hanging out in the cold water and gutting fish, but both parties got food that was fully cleaned and neat and ready for the pan.  We're having so much fun swapping stuff, we don't care.