ThunderSoy

Another storm passed through tonight. Clapping, earth-rattling thunder accentuated by blinding lightning and heavy downpours. At the same time this monster is rolling through I decided to cook up two soy burgers. Unfortunately for me all the tasty toppings I wanted were out in my garden.

I briefly read online earlier that if you feel the “hair standing up on the back of your neck” that means you’ve won the lottery, so throw yourself to the ground, tuck yourself up and hope that after the lightning courses through your body you escape with some new cool superpower.

Did that deter me from going outside? A little. But I really, really wanted my romaine and hot pepper for my burger. I grabbed a pair of scissors (yes, the metal ones) and dashed outside amongst booming thunder and atomic-flashes in the sky, clipped the pepper and ripped three leaves of romaine off before running back in.

I had then realized I wanted more romaine but I figured I pushed my luck already. My concoction was simple but tasty and just hot enough. The pepper supposed to mature to a bright red but I wanted to see how hot it was in its current state. This pepper also held some significance as the only veggie that had survived the hail storm.

I have to admit there is something uniquely satisfying knowing that the food you want is right outside your house growing out of the dirt. Just make sure to plan your harvest times a little better than I did.

Farm Update

It’s been almost a month since the hail storm blasted my crops seemingly into oblivion. The alternative to rooting everything up and replanting it all was to let it sit and see if anything would grow back. Thankfully, and surprisingly, almost every single plant regrew itself. Now it remains to be seen how much fruit and vegetables they’ll produce. I have new peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, basil and romaine all growing again.

I have a new, sinister pest I’m trying to deal with too. A little brown beetle thing that sleeps during the day and snacks on my basil and pepper plant leaves at night. We had another freak storm today while I was at work. High winds and blasting rain. When I came home, a bunch of my plants were wind-whipped to the ground. When I pulled one of the basil bushes straight again, a crack at the base of the soil revealed a bunch of these sleeping beetles. I had no idea where they were hiding during the day and now I’ve terminated some of them, thanks to the storm.

My first real harvest of the year has been romaine. It grows like crazy and I can usually fill an entire colander with leaves after letting them grow back after 4 days. The taste is a little bitter but it’s been a great complement on BLT’s and burgers lately.

The photos included here show what the tomato plant looks like a month after the hail storm, a full-grown pepper, growing cucumbers, and a full bowl of romaine. Pictures are a little more interesting when you actually have veggies to show!

Zesty wholegrain garden fritters

These hearty pancakes are packed with vegetable goodness, varied textures, and the flavorful kick of feta and sundried tomato. They're so good, they can be enjoyed sans condiments, though a a bit of vinegar or ginger dipping sauce never hurts.

These were actually the result of a derring-do kitchen venture - my chard was starting to look droopy, and a lot of it was waiting to be eaten. Since I had been spending a lot of time away from home, I needed something I could pack for the road that wouldn't spoil.

• 1 yellow squash, chopped


• swiss chard*, chopped


• sundried tomatoes, softened (soak overnight), chopped


• whole wheat flour


• 1 egg


• water


• milk


• oil


• feta cheese chunks


• sprinkle** of organic flax seeds


• sprinkle of salt

Put on some Satchmo or Count Basie to bring out the flavor. Add ingredients, roughly in the order listed above, to a large mixing bowl. Stir, adding flour or water as necessary to achieve a sticky texture. Mixture should be about 1/2 dough and 1/2 vegetable chunks - don't go stingy on the veggies! Fry in a bit of oil. Once pancakes are golden brown on one side, flip, then squash with spatula to cook the insides well. Once crispy on both sides, serve with good company and a nice Malbec. Save some for work the next day.

*Fun veggie facts:

Swiss chard, beta vulgaris, is of the same species as the common beet. Vulgaris sounds vulgar (crass), doesn't it? But vulgaris just means "ordinary," from the Latin vulgus, meaning "a crowd."

**How much is a sprinkle? More than a pinch, less than a pound.

Ye olde Tomato wheat oat hemp bread

Guided by the lordly wisdom of Tim and his King Arthur's Glorious Roundtable Wheat Bread recipe, I forged in my oven a loaf of wondrous flavor and texture the likes of which Camelot itself has never known. The tale of its noble origins:

• 1 dozen(ish) sundried tomatoes
• 1 1/3 cups water (the very same water that softens the tomatoes!)
• 2 packets active dry yeast (not instant)
• 5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup whole oats
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup soymilk
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar (substitute with honey, molasses, or syrup)
• 1/2 cup hemp protein powder (optional)

There's an element of sorcery in the measurement of these ingredients; there's no need to be precise. The devil is in the details, they say, and I have no taste for devilish breads.

Tomato prep: Soften sun dried tomatoes overnight in water. Save that water, friend. It becomes the color of an afanc's* blood; adding it to the dough gives the bread its scarlet tint and earthen flavor.

The following 'morn, slice the tomatoes into small bits, then combine all ingredients into a deep bowl. The following steps share those of Tim's kingly bread, so follows are his words, minced with those found on a King Arthur's Whole Wheat Flour bag:

Mixing: Stir the dough until it starts to leave the side of the bowl. (I put the water and the sugar/honey in the bowl, mix it up until it's blended, then dump the yeast on it and let sit for 5 minutes and let the yeast "work". After that, I dump the rest of the ingredients in, saving the flour for last). Transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface, oil your hands and knead it for 6 to 8 minutes (I do 10-15, the longer you knead, the less crumbly the bread will be) or until it becomes smooth and supple. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise till puffy though not necessarily double in bulk, about 60 minutes, depending on the warmth of the kitchen (You'll be able to tell, push the dough down a bit and if it springs back, you're good).

Shaping: Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled surface and shape it into a [hearty] log. Place the log in a lightly greased loaf pan, cover the pan loosely with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the bread to rise for about 30 to 60 minutes, or until it's crowned about 1 inch above the edge of the pan (Whatever size the bread is when you put it in the oven, is how big it will be, so I let it get nice and puffy).

Brent adds: I lack a bread pan. I let the dough rise in a deep bowl, then baked it in a large, flat, broiling pan. The bread, freed from its constraints, grew to mammoth proportions!

Baking: Bake the bread in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes. Test it for doneness by removing it from the pan and thumping it on the bottom (I leave it in the pan and tap the top with a long butter knife a few times, it should sound hollow), or measuring its interior temp, it should be 190 degrees at the center. Remove the bread from the oven, turn it out of the pan and cool on a rack before slicing (I'd say at least 20 minutes or more...you don't want to cut it too early).

Brent adds: I removed the bread from the hearth a bit early, while it was still a bit moist. This made for a most glorious cuisinary experience that ripened with each day of passing. Enjoy with soft cheese, or dipped in cabbage-beet-soup.

*Afanc: Demonic lake monster from Welsh mythology - part crocodile, part beaver, part dwarf. Some say the creature was slain by King Arthur himself. Arthur's steed dragged the beast from the deep, allowing it to be killed. -BBC: Wales History

Heirlooms, hybrids, and the anachronistic tomato man

I felt like a sandaled wanderer from another time, traversing the city with odd hardwares and bits of lumber (for my new apartment, a few carpentry projects here and there); a backpack, only recently released of its contents - twelve pounds of dense compost: Chewy spinach stems, some chicken bones, beet peelings, and a bit of discarded stir fry (I'm ashamed to admit, it's disposal was less of a result of it spoiling before I could eat it all, and more because I grew weary of daily servings of tofu - unless I can come up with innovative methods of preparing it, I'm on a soy hiatus for a least a week). I save and deliver my food scraps (compost-to-be) to Whole Foods; local farmers pick it up and use it to fertilize their crops. Unfortunately my compost deliveries don't grant me a discount; however, this time around I did walk away with my first (and free!) tomato plant: An heirloom variety called Brandywine. Whole Foods was overstocked, and I was in need of my first crop, so the friendly vendor crossed off the UPC symbol and handed me the gracious gift along with some sage guidance on its proper care. And so, it was this tomato plant - strapped to my backpack with bungee cords, leaves bobbing along with my every step through urban Baltimore - that completed this odd visage of an anachronistic journeyman.

Key in this story was the long, scrutinizing gaze I gave to each tomato plant on the Whole Foods display, as I read each name tag carefully: Beefsteak, hybrid. Big boy, hybrid. Brandywine, heirloom. Heirloom. Hybrid. Why were these words so important? All of the plants looked nearly identical, after all, and the tomatoes they produced would no doubt be delicious and satisfying regardless of name.

Hybrid breeds are the result of a cross-pollination between two varieties of plants, often to produce bland-yet-durable produce that can survive a long haul in refrigerated truck, or stand up to the groping, poking fingers of choosy supermarket shoppers. Hybrids are bred for size, color, toughness, and sometimes taste, but their offspring are most often unpalatable. Genetically modified (GM) crop breeds take this one step further, by mixing the genes of two different species - say, a sea urchin and a banana (I made that one up, very un-scientific of me... If it wasn't midnight I'd find an actual example). GM crops can do nifty things like combine potatoes with vaccines (it's feasible that kids will be eating french fries to get their Hepatitis vaccine instead of getting a shot - though this is work-in-progress technology), infuse rice with extra vitamin A, or produce crops with resistances to pests or herbicides. Hybrid and GM technologies, when used wisely, can arguably have positive impacts on the food system and human health (please feel free to agree/disagree and post your thoughts).

Unfortunately, the overuse of hybrid and GM crops by industrial agriculture, along with some unhelpful government policies like the U.S. Farm Bill (which, ironically, no longer supports "farmers" as we typically think of them), have resulted in a sea of identical, "inbred" crop species. According to Indian crop ecologist Vandana Shiva, humans used to rely on 80,000 varieties of vegetables; now we grow roughly eight on an industrial scale. One need only look to the Irish potato famine to understand the risk of relying on such a slim variety of crops: Less diversity results in less resistance to disease. If one of our eight primary crops falls ill, every single one of its genetically identical inbred and/or genetically modified twins are equally susceptible.

Furthermore, from a social standpoint, agriculture business giants like Monsanto are "copyrighting" their hybrid and GM crops. It's become illegal for farmers to save seeds from Monsanto breeds, forcing them to purchase new seeds every year. To enforce this, Monsanto has engineered breeds with "terminator technology:" Plants that would normally sprout anew each year are encoded with a gene that causes them to die after a season, forcing the farmer to - you guessed it - buy more seeds. There was even a recent lawsuit where Monsanto sued a Canadian farmer for growing canola with patented Monsanto genes - genes that drifted via pollen. The farmer didn't even purchase Monsanto canola, but because the GM genes drifted into his crops, he was forced to pay damages.

I could go on and on with similar tales of woe. But let's end on a positive note.

Heirloom seeds are unique varieties that have been passed down, from farmer to farmer, across generations. Unlike hybrids, heirlooms produce offspring that are equally tasty, should one wish to save the seeds from, say, and heirloom tomato, and plant them again next season. I've heard the quality and taste of an heirloom vegetable put the cross-bred alternatives to shame, but I'll have to verify that for myself once my tomatoes come to fruition!

Perhaps most importantly, heirloom varieties support greater biodiversity - essential not only for a reliable food system, but also for pollinators such as bees and birds that depend on a variety of plant species for survival (and we depend on them, to pollinate our crops).

So the message to my fellow farmers and farmers-to-be is this: Dear friends, when you buy your seeds and crops, look for "heirloom" on the label. If you find it troubling that six multinational agriculture giants own 98% of the seed market while pushing environmentally damaging crop technologies, forcing farmers to abandon sustainable farming practices, and suing the overalls of small farmers for unintentionally growing "copyrighted" seeds, then take care to avoid those products. Monsanto, for example, markets seeds under the name American Seeds Inc. Sticking to heirlooms is a safe way to avoid supporting agribusiness giants.

Finally, should you happen to encounter a strange wanderer with a garden growing out of his mongoose-nibbled backpack (it's true, a mongoose once ate part of my backpack, but that's another story for another time), stop and ask for an heirloom tomato.

Cheers, and happy tomato-eating, or whatever it is you love!