DRY COUNTY WINE REVIEW: SPICY TOMATO WINE.
Tomatoes are technically a fruit, but more-often used like a vegetable: tomato cake, tomato pie... these words do not frequent our dessert menus. So despite their status as a fruit, tomatoes are typically used like a vegetable, and typically taste like a vegetable. That is, however, with a few exceptions: most notably the labor-intensive yet sweet and refreshing Sun Gold cherry tomato. And, if it tastes like a fruit I say use it like a fruit. Since I am no baker, when we had a glut of these tasty gems this summer I didn't turn them into dessert––they went straight into the fermentation vat like so many fruits before them.The first time I marinated a lamb roast in kimchi brine (to great, flavorful success I might add), I started working on the idea of savory wines for cooking. I pondered the idea of cucumber wines for fish, herbal wines for sauces, and the most versatile of all, tomato wine for everything. Anything. With an opportunity to make tomato wine for the first time this summer, I was taking a chance by making a cooking wine, knowingly forfeiting any chance I had for a truly interesting drinking wine. Since I had prepared the wine with cooking in mind, in with the tomatoes went habanero peppers and garlic––exactly why I feared it would not be a great drinking wine. In a sense, I was trying to make a spicy salsa wine––all I was missing was cilantro. Immediately after active fermentation but before I put it into the carboy, what I had tasted was like a fresh, sparkling bloody mary. It was surprisingly tasty, and why wouldn't it be?––tomatoes are a fruit and fruits make wines. No bother, I didn't let it become a distraction––my goal was to make cooking wine, so I shoved a few more habaneros in the carboy. If you could drink it after that, I would consider it a bonus. Yesterday, four months after bottling, was my first chance to test the results. With a few pork chops we'd acquired from Bugtussle Farm (and from the pigs we'd raised this summer), I set them to marinade for six hours before searing them (though I would have preferred twelve hours). After searing, I deglazed the pan with the wine for a sauce and mashed some sweet potatoes, topping it all off with sautéed swiss chard. I was beyond pleased with the outcome, the pork was juicy and spicy from the inside out, but now feel compelled to go further. The wine was drinkable but not exactly pleasurable (akin to the pawpaw wine). Beyond turning the rest of the bottle into spicy tomato wine vinegar, I see a lot of other savory wines in my future. And not just for cooking. With a little honey for chapitlzation this could have been a perfectly drinkable wine. The thing about wine is that it simply needs a certain sugar level (or brix) to become palatable, and with a mixture of honey and fruit, vegetable or tomato it can be made out of anything. Cucumber mint, hot pepper basil, sweet pepper curry––winemaking is the new cooking.- Jesse.
A DAY IN PHOTOS - PREPARING THE GARDEN.
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| Getting ready for a messy day. |
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| So. Much. Cardboard. |
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| One of our many helpers. |
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| Peeling plastic off the cardboard in the barn. |
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| The garden expands! |
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| The view from the garden spot. |
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| Our brand new, clean wheelbarrow gets broken in. |
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| Straw mulch. |
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| Baby Vivien! |
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| Spent several hours just trying to un-wedge the cardboard. Yep. |
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| Audrey on the loose! |
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| Keeping warm. |
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| Explosion of cardboard! |
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| Jesse and his nemesis - the bailing wire. |
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| (The wire won.) |
CARDBOARD PARTY!
Got plans for tomorrow? Because we have 1,000 pounds of cardboard and twice as much manure! Sounds like fun, right? We sure think so.
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| That's a lot of cardboard, ya'll. |
Thanks to our wonderful family's access to giant chunks of cardboard and massive heavy-duty trucks, we are headed back tomorrow for Round Two of our no-till garden preparation on the farm. We are so excited to get back to working! But seriously, if you want to help...we literally have a half ton of cardboard. Seriously.- Hannah.
ROUGH TIMES.
Today, I find myself incredibly inspired by these words from Kate on her blog Longest Acres:
it is no secret that nick and i want land of our own. we want a modest amount of land. maybe 50 acres. we would take more if you were offering. we want to have four milking cows on this land. a sow or two and a big but gentle boar to accompany them. we want a flock of sheep. maybe 20. to keep for lamb. we want goats....for clearing the woods. and of course have chickens. a small population of ducks for pascal to boss around. we want a healthy...but not creepy...population of barn cats. and we wants lots and lots of dogs. dogs for guarding. dogs for herding. and dogs for snuggling indoors on couches. we want a small home. that can fit us. and bottle-animals. and someday human babies. we want a barn that won't blow over in a storm. that won't bust at the roof from too much snow. we want our families to be at the farm. to visit the farm with great frequency. to live at the farm. to party at the farm. to work at the farm. we want friends to come live with us and farm vegetables on this land (which we seemingly cannot do). we want our farm to be its own micro universe. producing all the food and all of the joy so that we don't need to leave our farm with great frequency. that probably sounds like a lot of wanting. that is a lot of wanting. especially because right now we have the skeleton of that Want. we have borrowed land. we're raising 200 chickens that aren't ours. we have 2 pigs. we have 1 cow. we have 1 duck. we have 16 chickens (a dwindling number, thanks to madame fox). we have 1 snuggling indoor dog and 0 useful farm dogs. we have no kitties. we have a subterranean apt with no light and no real sense of welcoming.
i know we have to be patient. our land, our farm, will not be handed to us by any silver vehicle. she will find us someday but we will have to work for her. we will have to struggle through various farm jobs. we will have to hire the services of Scrimp and Save and make sacrifices in our personal and social worlds in the name of the Future Farm. we will have to grow our little farm family slowly and surely and methodically.but it is always fun to day dream.
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Obviously, Jesse and I are not yet living on our farm. We have our dream piece of land, we just haven't a place to actually live! It is a frustrating situation, and one complicated by many factors, but it is what it is. We understand the wanting. We understand wanting a way of life...something so real and present, but also intangible. We understand how hard it is to transition from simple farm living to suburbia. We ache to be on our farm, and in my days of sadness, words like these are helpful to me. They remind me of virtues like patience, like work, like struggle. They give us hope that some day, even if it is slowly and surely, we will have what we dream of. And house or no house, we WILL be farming this year! We WILL be growing and eating lovely vegetables! Be it in a barn, in a toolshed, or in a tent, we will find a shelter for ourselves somehow.
So...I apologize for the lack of a consistent "farm" on this farmstead blog...but we are trying. We are hoping and praying every day, and we greatly appreciate those of you along for the journey. We continue to be amazed by all the blessings in our life, and know that the setbacks are surely happening for a reason.
- Hannah.
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