Miso

I just had to add - I got a newsletter from South River Miso that I read this morning, and what the owner writes about farming, our relationship to plants and to food is so beautiful, and illuminates why the processes people like Farmer Tim use matter SO MUCH, and why Lotfotl soup feels so very nourishing in the True sense.

Read it here

Living off the Fat of the Land Soup

Tenzin sitting on a tractor with Farmer Tim standing by

Megan and I are working on a little cookbook. A celebration of food and friendship and community. I shouldn't really be working on this cookbook at this moment, I should be packing boxes for the oh-so-soon move, but you know how it is, when you should be packing, writing cookbooks is more interesting.

My biggest problem is I get really hungry when I wax poetic about food. I have to bring snacks to the computer.

Here's a rough draft of a piece I worked on tonight, the soup I made for dinner (and yes, I went and ate a 2nd bowl after typing it up). And HERE is a post Megan put up about the art for the cookbook. What do you think? Want to reserve a copy of it?

My friend Tim became a full time Organic farmer a few years ago, and named his farm and CSA Lotfotl (Living off the Fat of the Land). We have been eager and appreciative consumers of the veggies he tends with love. On a trip to the farm, Tim let Tenzin mark one of the broccoli seedlings with a stick so that he could put "Tenzin's" broccoli in our share some future day. That single stick somehow yielded an entire season of broccoli that was extra eagerly eaten. That Farmer Tim, he know how to get a person excited about produce.

Baby Dorje wanted me to eat loads of greens while he was in the belly (Served with South River Miso, of course!) , and we can thank Farmer Tim for providing the vegetables that grew a ten pound 3 ounce baby boy.

A late season share of Lotfotl's harvest is probably pretty similar to the selection you'd find in other CSAs or at the Farmer's Market. My favorite thing to do is make soup with whatever happens to be included. Here's one version:

Saute:
2-3 leeks, chopped (or sub onions or shallots)
3 large cloves garlic, minced
4-5 salsify, chopped

Peel and cube the following veggies (or what you have!)
2 turnips
1 rutabega
1 celery root (celeriac)
3 potatoes
1 small butternut squash

Add to sauted leeks and cover with water. Add chicken stock or bullion if desired, salt & pepper and herbs you favor. I like to use a Penzey's blend called Tuscan Sunset with root veggie soups.

Simmer until the veggies are tender, and then whizz away with your hand held soup blender, or use a blender or food processor to puree soup.

While the soup is simmering, cut up one bunch of carrots and one turnip, coat in olive oil and roast at 450 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Garnish soup with goat cheese, chopped chives or other herbs and the roasted carrots and turnips.

www.lotfotl.com

Six

Six years ago today, my Tenzin Dawa came into the world - he decided it was time after a day of Pala Dhondup and I picking apples. It's no wonder that we go through many, many pounds of apples due to his amazing apple eating capabilities.


You amaze me as you grow into yourself more and more, sharpening 20 pencils before breakfast and learning to be a big brother. You challenge me to be worthy of imitation, because you don't miss anything.

Enjoy a bowl full of edamame in the pod, some salmon and avacado sushi and think of a sweet boy who is SIX today.

almost six...

the milkweed "seed babies" are flying... another sure sign that a certain boy's birthday is oh so near..



* go on over and enter a sweet handmade giveaway at one of my most favorite Waldorf inspired mama hangouts

September

Went by too fast...
I became a juggler with too many balls, and some of them fell.
But Pala Dhondup has held steadfast to the new house, and is installing the most beautiful floors for our family in literally every free moment, while Tenzarelli makes the dirt pile in back his castle.

There was one ball I kept held high, a project near and dear to my heart and one that Tenzarelli looks forward to every year and this year. Mr. Tenzarelli eagerly worked to share it this year with his kindergarden class - helping sew each silk a seam to slip their finger knitting through - and we came tromping over the meadow with Jamaploo in the Ergo backpack, his hand on one side of the basket, mine on the other. All of the children brought their marigolds and the goldenrod we'd collected on our morning walk and we gently added them to the big pot while teacher built the fire with the wood the children struggled to carry and pull in the wagon.

We sang "The light of heaven comes to earth, so that the colors may come to birth" as each child reverantly took a turn stirring the flowers in the pot with a stick.

It bubbled and the flowers gave their color to our dye all day, and when the bell rang to announce the beginning of the Michaelmas celebration for the school, the children all came back to dip their silks into the pot we'd nurtured.

As evening fell, the silks hung vibrantly over the meadow drying and a rainbow emerged over us just as it was time for the play to commence. The knight Micheal came forth in the circle of villagers and slayed the evil dragon. The golden capes we made will help all of Tenzarelli's friends remember this day and overcome the dragons they might encounter in the future...

Mama Manifesto #1 .:in progress:.

When I started this blog, I thought long about the motivation behind it, and overall, had a hard time defining what I wanted it to offer - both to myself and to the community of people who may encounter it. My lack of clear direction held me back from beginning it at all for some time. I decided finally that maybe that could be the direction - a space to help me sort out the process and the work.

The subtitle of this blog is : a rambling path through art, food and motherhood. Lately in my life I feel the truth of that statement as a description of my habits... the truth is, I am interested in just about, well, everything. I'm addicted to learning, to joy, to books and community. I feel that it is necessary to attend the meetings at Tenzarelli's Waldorf School, to be the driving force behind the children's group at Deer Park, to knit, to sew, to hoard food like a squirrel for winter, to read A Wrinkle in Time again, to take on the project of installing our wood and tile floors in the house that love is building, and to get the boys enough outside time. No, my house is not clean today and the contents of the refrigerator are, um, suspicious...

But I'll defer to Louise Erdrich on that one... that amazing writer whose fantastic Birchbark Bookstore I recently made pilgrimage to... Her advice sounds pretty true to the two boys whose photos in their moments of joy make me sure there is nothing more you could want than all of this.

Advice to Myself

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

Louise Erdrich from her 2003 poetry collection, Original Fire

One

(Here is Dorje, just a few days old)

My Jampaloo is ONE today. From that tiny babe (OK, not SO tiny, at 10 pounds, 3 ounces) to this amazing boy, who hammers at his pounding bench and has a grin that melts hearts all over town. The "stinker face" cracks us up without fail...


You're a boy who loves to eat... who loves his big brother....who loves to see the neighbor's ducks each day (and can even WALK after them now!)

Dorje Edmund Pema Tsagong, Happy Birthday!
Your joyful heart and tender spirit are gifts to the world.