WARMTH.
I never valued warmth very much growing up. Warmth was just there, or it wasn't. And I didn't think much about where it came from or that one warmth could be different from another. I just adjusted the thermostat accordingly and went about my business.Now, however, without a thermostat, I have to employ several different heats throughout a day, and I have learned to value their individual nuances. The heat of the sun, for instance, is a completely different monster than the heat of the wood stove. (And of course every individual wood has its own type of heat as well.) Then there's heat created by friction, rubbing your hands together, say, or using a splitting maul. There is body heat, like that of your baby and wife––or that of yourself, trapped in by the right clothes. Then of course the heat created by bacteria in a compost pile––that's a unique heat.With electricity or propane heat it's hard to experience these different heats throughly. And although I was aware of each before moving off-grid, I hadn't learned to value them like I do now. I hadn't learned how much better a sweet potato tastes when it's baked in a wood stove. Or how much better a sun dried tomato is when actually dried in the sun. When you're cold and away from a fire, I hadn't realized how warm hard work will keep you. And when you're chilly but too lazy to get out of bed and stoke the fire, how much relief can be brought by curling up a little closer to your wife and infant son.Warmth is no longer just there or not there to me. It's everywhere and it's wonderful. Or it's missing and I'm paying for it. Either way, it's a tool that we use a lot. And like any tool it can be good or bad, the right tool or the wrong tool. Of course, come summer, it will be about cool not warmth. But the same rules apply––I'll take a dip in the creek over air-conditioning any day.- Jesse.
OLD KENTUCKY HOME.
I am back home in old Versailles (KENTUCKY, that is) for Christmas. Yes, I singular, because Jesse and I have to stagger our Christmas trip so that the farm is only unwatched for a couple of days. I come early, Jesse will stay a few days after Christmas. Oh, farming and traveling. It just isn't a possible thing.So today I am missing my husband and my cabin and my woodstove. But I am enjoying my family and extended internet time (overdosing on pinterest and signing up for healthcare). What are your traveling plans? How do you farmer folk manage the holiday season?- Hannah.
COOKED: A REVIEW.
"We are the only species that depends on fire to maintain our body heat, and the only species that can't get along without cooking its food. By now, the control of fire is folded into our genes, a matter not merely of human culture but of our very biology."-Michael Pollan, Cooked
I enjoy Michael Pollan's work and have read all but one of his books, but when I heard about his new endeavor, "Cooked" (published by The Penguin Press), I was skeptical. I was skeptical because of the name—which sounded to me like the title of a bad chef memoir—and I was skeptical because of the premise. In "Cooked," Pollan apprentices himself to "a succession of culinary masters," in sections themed Fire, Water, Air and Earth. But that wasn't necessarily the source of my skepticism. Where I became dubious, was at the focus of the first section: barbecue.It's not that I didn't care about barbecue—quite the opposite when offered a good plate of the stuff—it's that I didn't know if I really cared to read about it. I thought we simply didn't eat enough meat to necessitate an education on the subject. In my mind, barbecue was a rare and decadent event where, more often than not, we put aside our ethical leanings, dump sauce over some factory-farmed pulled pork and make a mess of our beards, ideals and shirts, respectfully. And to some extent, my definition wasn't far off. But what I hadn't considered before reading "Cooked" was that my relationship to barbecue wasn't just some moral confusion and a few ruined items of clothing, but that I actually cared a lot more about barbecue than I realized.If Hannah and I don't start a fire, we don't eat hot food. And I would say it's this necessity that's rendered me downright obsessed with starting fires. Every day, I watch each fire burn, transfixed by the magic like a child at a puppet show. I observe carefully how different woods burn and smell, how the fire dances, drunk on oxygen, gorging on carbon. I relish the flavor of a squash licked by flames, cooked by the hot coals of oak. I enjoy this act in some sort of primordial fashion that I'd never questioned until "Cooked", until barbecue.And it didn't end at barbecue. Pollan goes on to explain our need and love for wood-cooked food, for food cooked in pots, bread and, my personal favorite, fermentation. "Cooked" turned out to be precisely the kind of book I wanted it to be (title notwithstanding). It was a book that connected me, biologically, to the act of cooking food, which is all I ever ask for in a book. I love to know why. Why do we cook? Why salt? Why cheese? Why beer? I could read books that simply answer "why" indefinitely, and the more of them written by Michael Pollan, the better.You can find "Cooked" online, but all books read better when picked up at your local bookstore (except for mine, which is paradoxically only online).- Jesse.
BANNOCK BREAD.
Jesse and I have been having some serious adventures in cooking lately. We cook entirely with wood, and we cook three meals a day....so we are learning a lot about cooking on a fire! It is mostly quite enjoyable, especially when we are able to use the grill outside instead of the wood stove INSIDE (not so fun in the summertime!)The one thing we have not been able to figure out: bread. One day, we will have a real wood cook stove (as opposed to our box stove), and maybe even an outdoor earth oven. But for now, we have been relying on this recipe for Bannock Bread - an easy, biscuit-like treat that we can cook on the stovetop. It is from this AMAZING AMAZING OHHMAZING book that is so beautiful I can't even believe it- Home Made Winter.So, if you want a lovely treat, rustic farmstead style, try this recipe! We love it with some spicy jalepeno jam we got at the farmers market.BANNOCK BREAD
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tbsp sugar or honey
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp butter
- about a cup of buttermilk or sour milk
I literally just mix all of this together with my hands. It is that easy. Or you can follow the recipe and be all clean and tidy about it (mix dry ingredients, add tiny pieces of the cold butter until pea-sized clumps form, then add the milk). But hands work, too. Get your skillet REALLY hot, add some butter and then the dough, shaped into an oval. Cook for about seven minutes on each side and ENJOY!- Hannah.