Where The Harvest and Hillsdale Meet -- Sundays 10am - 2pm» Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter August 1 2010

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:31:33 +0000

We will return to the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market this Sunday, the first of August. The market hours are 10:00 – 2:00.

High summer is a frenetic blend of tending, harvesting and planting for the winter. In the tending department, staff spent four days thinning fruit in the vineyard. Last year, we neglected this task in the frenzy, and the table grapes with a muscat in their background were garbage. Too many clusters on the plant, and what should have been a sublime treat is instead flavorless and mildew ridden. We remove about three quarters of the clusters, and make sure they are positioned where the air will circulate around them. The vineyard floor looks as though a storm passed through it. Last year’s loss made us more aggressive thinners, and we hope the time is rewarded.

The winter crops are looking good. The most important planting went in about two weeks ago on the new moon. The chicories take about ten days to emerge, and we hold our breath hoping they will emerge in good order. Neat files of chicory and rutabagas are now marking the rows. This week we turned our attention planting out the cabbage and cauliflower seedlings. In the past, we seeded them directly into the field, and the result was amateurish to say the least. This year, Charlie Harris of Flamingo Ridge loaned us his vacuum seeder allowing us to grow a good number of starts. If all goes well, we might have a good supply of cabbage for the market, and sauerkraut for our table.

Field corn and beans are looking good. Our decision to plant them may be rewarded. The winter squash is a complete failure. Although we have always seeded them directly, the cabbage experience has us thinking we may grow some squash starts next year. For long season crops such as squash, roots and chicories, the schedule is unforgiving. A second planting is possible, but never as satisfactory.

Want to drive a grower crazy, and watch their eyes twitch and the teeth grind. Wait until they a have a table full of beautiful boysenberries or purslane, ask them if they will have more next week because the kitchen is so hot you don’t feel like putting up preserves or pickling the purslane. Yes, we know it’s hot, we were out in the field harvesting them all day Saturday. And we also know how hard it is to get market on time; we were up 5:00 loading the van. We also know the season is short, and a hailstorm or spike in the temperature can wipe out what remains. In days, the leaf miners with render the purslane unusable. For us that’s an old refrain. Every grower knows the heartbreak and frustration of returning with with an excess of some beautiful fruit or vegetable. Two weeks ago, we returned from the market, put away the tent and baskets, changed over the irrigation, and then made a big bunch of purslane pickles. Nothing better than a hot kitchen at the end of market day . . .

Here is what we will bring this week:

Prunes: Imperial Epineuse is the earliest of our prunes. This prune is from Clairac, the center of prune culture in France. It was introduced to the United States in the late 19th century by Felix Gillette, a nurseryman from Nevada City, California. Gillette called it the ‘Clairac Mammouth’ but that name lacked the cache needed to sell a prune. The older texts on the subject note that French prunes have good bit of damson plum in their background. The result is a prune with a very fine texture and a distinct flavor, exemplified in this old French variety.

Morellos: Just a few of the Balatons. A cold, wet pollination week dampened the yield.

Berries: Some odds and ends, including the end of the currants. The blackberries will begin in earnest next week.

New Potatoes: Carolla

Greens: Purslane, a bit of fenugreek and a mixed bag.

Purslane has a slightly tart quality and is very high in Omega 3 fatty acids. Our staff keeps a nice outside of their front doors. For them, verdolagas are an essential green. We are harvesting the second planting.

They are delicious boiled, sautéed, pickled or as a salad. The Lebanese serve them with yoghurt. The French salting purslane overnight before adding to to a salad. Also delicious boiled, and dressed with a bit olive oil and ground pepper. Mixed the wilted leaves into a potato salad.

Many books suggest pickling just the stem. We prefer to pickle the whole shoot — leaves and stem together. For us, purslane is an essential pickle. This recipe works for two or three bags of purslane. We heat and add a tablespoon of salt to 1-1/2 cups of water, then mix in an equal amount of white wine vinegar. Add a few cloves of garlic, quartered, a tablespoon of peppercorns and a dried pepper. Drop the purslane into the heated vinegar mixture and let it wilt for a bit. Pack the purslane and vinegar mix in a mason jar. If you need to, top off with vinegar and water in equal proportions. Store in the refrigerator. We start using them about an hour later, but they will keep for several months. Some recipes call for full strength vinegar, but we much prefer it diluted.

Garlics and Shallots/a>

Miscellany of Dry Goods: frikeh, Amish Butter popcorn, preserves

We will see you all Sunday.

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter July 18 2010 Market

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:16:09 +0000

This will be a good weekend to visit the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market. It takes place Sunday, the 11th of July, opening at 10:00 and closing at 2:00.

This will be our last market for the month of July. An unexpected event draws us eastward for the weekend of the 25th. We will be back at the market on the first of August.

Here is what we will have this week:

Purslane, fenugreek, quelites

Frikeh

Black and red currants, gooseberries

Raspberries, Loganberries, Boysenberries — This week is the last hurrah for the early season berries. We will have a good number of boysenberries. The ripening conditions over the last week are truly Oregonian. Warm days, cool nights produce the best flavored fruit. Ideal is a high of 80 during the day and a low of 50 at night.

This year was bad for the purple raspberries and blackcaps. A combination of poor weather during pollination and a spike of heat when they were ripening assured a poor crop. We did pull some off for preserves, a nonprofit venture, but necessary for some.

Cherries – mostly Montmorency

The rose family provides us with a wide diversity of fruits. The members of the rose family bearing a drupe are assigned to the genus Prunus and include almonds, plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines and cherries. A drupe is a fruit fleshy out part, and a hard inner part enclosing a single seed; farmers refer to them as stone fruit. The berries in the genus Rubus also produce little drupes, but they part of a compound fruit. Each little lump of a blackberry fruit is called a drupelet. Plants in other families bear drupes. The fruits of the pistachio, date and mango are familiar drupes. The pistachio and mango are in the cashew family, Anacardiaceae, which includes poison oak. Most of the plants in the cashew family cause some form of dermatitis.

There are numerous species that are described as cherries, including Prunus avium,the bird or sweet cherry. Prunus cerasus, what we call the pie or tart cherry, has the greatest claim to the title of cherry. Originally from the area bordering the south-eastern coast of the Black Sea,the tart cherry came from the town of Cerasus in what was then called the region of Pontus, now part of modern Turkey. The word cherry is an English corruption of Cerasus. The Romans brought the cherry to Italy, and it spread quickly through the empire, up to the Danube, and through France and England.

Often, people assume sweet and sour flavors are opposites. That is incorrect. What people perceive as a “sweet” fruit is merely one of low acidity. At their perfect state of ripeness, tart cherries have a very high sugar content. Earlier this week, their Brix, as measured with a refractometer, was hovering around 19 degrees. In contrast, our berries are between 10 and 13 degrees Brix. Acids and sugars can both be high in a fruit, and the tart cherry is a good example of a fruit with this quality. When ripe, tart cherries are naturally sticky on the outside, even as they hang on the tree. Unlike sweet cherries, the true cherries never leave you with a bilious feeling after a cherry binge.

The tart cherries are further divided into two classes. The Morello types have a dark red juice, and the Montmorency types have a clear juice. Both have a gentle astringency that makes them exceptional fruit for fresh eating. This week we will have Montmorency cherries. The Hungarian Morellos are not quite ready. In a couple of weeks, we will bring in what the starlings and robins have left on the trees. We thank our friend Trillium for suggesting them.

Dry Goods

If you cannot make it to the market Sunday, have a good couple of weeks, and we will see you all in August.

Anthony and Carol Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter July 11 2010

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:04:53 +0000

We will be selling fruits, vegetables and sundry dry goods at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market this Sunday, the 11th of July. The market opens at 10:00 and closes at 2:00.

Farming is more than a pastoral activity; it also requires careful planning. As with any town or city, we rely on infrastructure such as water delivery, drainage, housing and transportation. Among our annual activities are what we call public works projects. Over the last three years, we have working on renewing two blocks that were planted to blackberries. One is going into vegetable production, and the other may be planted to raspberries. Berries are very expensive and risky to plant, and sane farmers shy away from the crop.

The change is equivalent to urban renewal. The trellises and irrigation pipes are removed, old canes are mown and turned under, and restorative cover crops such as chicories, clovers and mustards, are planted. We needed to improve the drainage in the field and change the irrigation. The plums needed better drainage. We have lost some trees where the soil was water-logged. The orchard has an odd mosaic of drainage patterns.

We drove our Volvo down to Needy Tile and loaded up 6,000 feet of drainage tile. It is not your mum’s old 240. Our Volvo has a 26-foot flat bed, a 310 HP Cummins engine, two 100-gallon fuel tanks and a Hendrickson tandem rear end. — It took a while to get used to people complimenting our rear-end. — The Volvo is registered at 38,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (GVW), and is a beast to drive. The definition of embarrassment is failing to shift to lower range at a traffic light; truck stalls. The tile is not that heavy, but it is bulky and fills the bed.

Needy Tile is located in the Clackamas County settlement of Needy. The Needy post office opened in February 1855. Drain tiles were originally two-foot long pieces of terra-cotta pipe. They were placed in a deep ditch down end-to-end, and then covered with soil. The water seeps between the seams and flows down to an open ditch or pond. Tile manufacturers were located in the bottom land near clay deposits and the river bottom hardwoods needed for firing the kilns. Some beautiful old kilns still stand near the Groner School in Scholls.

Today, drain tile is a long plastic tube with slits along its length. Water trickles through the slits and down the tube to its outlet. The location of the factory on a narrow road next to a river reflects the history tile-making, not good industrial planning. The immaculate factory with its hissing and clunking machinery, and the serpentine tile hoses moving along the floor, is straight of Tati’s Mon Oncle. The only thing missing is Alain Romans’ music — the truck lacks a CD. It took us three days to lay the tile pipe.

Next, we loaded the Volvo with about 600 feet of water pipe. While we had the trencher on site, we dug out the ditches to bury the pipe. We buy our irrigation supplies from Ernst Irrigation in St. Paul. The area around St. Paul is called French Prairie. Once it was covered with Blue Lake pole beans, and the Marion County Soil Survey published in 1972 still evaluated soils for pole bean production. Today, it is all bush beans picked by Pixall Super Jacks. They also grow a lot seed garlic and hops on the prairie.

All of our irrigation supplies are purchased from Ernst. Until a decade ago, it was part of an independent John Deere dealership and irrigation supplier. The Fisher Group acquired Ernst in 1999. In 2009, Fisher decided to combine stores and relocate in nearby Donald. The families that founded Ernst got together and repurchased the irrigation company from Fisher. Ernst is an important employer for St. Paul and it was a community effort to save the business. Patrick, Jill and Mike, the children of Bill Dolan, one of the founders, are responsible for day-to-day operation of the store. It is a friendly, small-town business. Matt Corcoran is their micro-irrigation specialist. He designed and redesigned our system at various times over the last 12 years. We are a tiny customer relative to other farm operations, but the staff are always attentive.

Our public works projects are done for the season, and we are back attending to plants and harvesting crops. Here is what we will have this week.

New potatoes
Frikeh
Black and red currants

Raspberries, Loganberries, Boysenberries — The Boysenberry is another magnificent fruit. Introduced by the Knott Berry Farm, it is a hybrid between the native dewberry and a blackberry. Some sources suggest there is raspberry in the lineage, but we doubt it. It has strong tannic note, almost like black tea. The original plant came from the breeding efforts of Rudolph Boysen, hence the name.

Dry Goods, and some tasty odds & ends for early risers, as time permits.

We hope you all can make it to the market Sunday. If not, have a good week.

Anthony and Carol Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter July 4 2010

admin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 20:56:51 +0000

We are cleaning up our market trappings, charging the scales, and practicing our times tables for our return to the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market the Sunday, the 4th of July.

This spring has certainly tested the farmer’s mettle and humor. The Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii), an Asian vinegar fly, has prompted a lot hand-wringing among fruit growers. Using its amazing serrated ovipositor, this vinegar fly lays its eggs in firm, sound fruit. Last autumn, it made a big dent in peaches and blueberries. University entomologists and extension agents are predicting losses in every sort of fruit. The experts were solemnly telling the press that organic growers would be hit hardest because they did not have chemical tools to deal with the insect. Apparently, those agents never met any of our Zebra spiders, or other jumping spiders, eye-to-eye. Salticus scenicus have a total of eight eyes, so it would take four extension agents to stare down a single Zebra spider. Long ago, we threw our lot in with the spiders and other predaceous invertebrates. They are more entertaining companions than malathion, diazinon or carbaryl. It will be interesting to see how we fare with this new challenge.

Far more disquieting than the new vinegar fly is having the Food Drug Administration (FDA) skulking around the state. In May, a FDA “listening session” took place in Portland. Produce industry representatives lined up to argue that all farms, even small local farms, should come under the jurisdiction of the FDA, in addition to being locally regulated as they are today. The proposal before congress is that we would have to send them a $500 check and an endless stream of paper work, and they will make sure the food we produce will be safe. A bit of a stretch in our opinion given their current track record. Having resisted regulation for decades, the titans of the produce industry are crying that no farm should be “exempt” from federal regulation. Facing justifiable regulation, the industry is using its muscle to stifle the sale of local fruits and vegetables in the name of “fairness.” They have flipped from saying we have safest food system in the world, to arguing that no farm is safe. They have welcome ear in FDA’s Michael Taylor, formerly Monsanto’s Vice President for Public Policy. The proposal is the 2010 version of Earl Butz’s legendary “Get big or get out.”

Both the Oregonian and the Capital Press had ingratiating editorials about how small farms are just a likely to cause food borne illnesses as large ones. We have included our response to the Capital Press editorial at the end of this note. The Capital Press is the region’s agricultural weekly, and an important as well as infuriating source farming news and opinion. As we point out, two trends are occurring: increasing consolidation and mechanization in the produce industry and the growth of small farms selling fruits and vegetables directly to the public. The consolidating produce industry is the source of the problems, not the expanding farmers’ market sector.

The wet spring has also generated a fair amount of nail biting. On balance, the wet and gloomy spring very good for the farm, even if it made a lot of extra work for us. This winter, we decided we would shift our planting a week or two later, or even three weeks in the case of peppers and tomatoes. We didn’t expect to have our resolution so emphatically enforced. Whether it was the pent-up energy, or a desire to hedge against a short crop, we ended up doubling our plantings this year. We have also shifted the crop balance in response to the cooler spring. Most crops look better this year compared to the last three years, especially 2009. Crops will be late, though, so we are hoping for a gentle autumn.

Here is what we will have this week.

New potatoes, black currants

Raspberries — Cascade Dawn, the famous berry named after, not one, but two brand name detergents. In spite of that handicap, it is a wonderful raspberry, and we have grown it since it was the mere numbered selection WSU 1068.

Loganberries — The loganberry is a great fruit. It is sprightly with a deep flavor only equalled, in our opinion, by the boysenberry. It is substantial, the fruit for inspiring a novel, not a twitter post.

The loganberry is generally regarded as a natural hybrid between the native dewberry, Rubus ursinus, and a raspberry. Judge Logan wrote a letter to L.H. Bailey at Cornell describing the development of the Loganberry. It is excerpted in the U.P. Hedrick’s Small Fruits of New York (1925). In his words:

“In the summer of 1883 these plants fruited and there appeared one plant which was undoubtedly a cross between the raspberry and the Rubus ursinus. The fruit was larger and earlier than the raspberry or any blackberry, except the R. ursinus, ripening about the middle of May . . . The leaves of the vine are almost identical with the wild Rubus, being somewhat larger. The canes are also like the wild Rubus only larger and more vigorous.”

Dry Goods — Preserves, frumento (soft red wheat), Purgatorio beans, Amish Butter popcorn and meal.

We will see you all Sunday,

Anthony and Carol Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

________________________________

Op-Ed

Over the last three decades, consolidation in the food industry has been accompanied by a steady increase in food borne illnesses. Foods considered inherently safe just a decade ago, are now subject multi-state recalls on a regular basis. The editorial “Safety regs should apply to everyone” assumes scale is not a factor in food safety. That assumption is not supported by data, or theory for that matter.

In food safety, size does matter. Over the past two decades the consolidation within the produce and meat industries has led to longer chains of custody, greater intermingling of food, and a loss of farm identity. As this trend has progressed, the industry has found it hard to control and trace outbreaks of food borne illnesses. Tracing the source of contamination through the complex system has proved difficult, often impossible.

During this same period, a separate experiment in food safety has taken place. In a counter-industrial shift, thousands of small market farms have developed a variety of ways to sell directly to consumers. CSA’s, farm stands and farmer’s markets have proliferated. If scale were an unimportant factor in food safety, there would be an increase in food borne illnesses at the local level paralleling what is happening in the larger food industry. The opposite is true. In Oregon, for example, to my knowledge not a single instance food borne illness associated with produce purchased at a farmers’ markets has been reported.

Naturally, food industry officials want us to treat the exemplary safety record of direct produce sales as a statistical fluke. After all, our small farms don’t have bar codes, safety officials and disinfected packing facilities, so people must be at risk of dying from farmers’ market produce. Some industry members darkly suggest that food borne illnesses from local sources are going unreported, as if local health officials would overlook numerous members of a CSA hospitalized or dying from E. Coli O157:H7. The fact is, localized outbreaks would be the easiest to identify and remedy, if they should ever happen. Outbreaks scattered over several states are far more difficult to address than a localized one. The safety record of direct sales is strong testament to the integrity of America’s small family farms, and it is not a statistical oddity.
The editorial makes a serious mistake in parroting the industry’s conceit that all food poses a threat, even from farmers’ markets and CSA’s. In a myriad of ways, small market farms are structurally different from industrial farms. The fact that market farmers and their families eat what they grow is the gold standard for food safety, and far more effective than a food safety officer filling out forms in an air-conditioned office. The people who buy our fruits and vegetables see us weekly and often know us on a first name basis. My staff and I are out in the fields daily, and the same crew that helps grow the fruits and vegetables, also harvests them. The structure of the small family farm has served this nation safe and nourishing food since its founding.

The editorial also errs in assuming that small growers are in any way exempt from food safety laws. We are not exempt, and nothing in the Tester amendment exempts us from state food laws. In Oregon, if anyone is selling food that state health officials deem is unwholesome, these officials have the power to close down the operation immediately and seize the food. The authority is so complete, officials dub this authority the “God Clause.” Across the country, local regulation of local food has been proven effective.

Having small market farms such as ours fill out complex forms and send $500 to the federal government will not enhance food safety one iota. Besides being unnecessary, federalizing local food sales will divert resources from the real problem. The complex and powerful food industry is failing this country, not the tradition of purchasing from local family farms. Sound food safety policies should be informed by facts and data, not speculation and fear mongering.

Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter March 21 2010 Market

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:28:27 +0000

We will be at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market this Sunday, 21st of March. The market opens at 10:00 AM. This will be our last market of the season, and we will return in July when the cane berries start to ripen.

The new moon gets rather shabby treatment. For example, nobody gets excited when there are two new moons in a month. For farmers at this time of the year, the new moon guides our activities. Catching the new moon earlier this week, we planted an acre or so of fava beans. Old wisdom tell us the best time to plant legume seeds is upon a waxing moon. Root crops are typically planted on the waning moon.

The practice of planting in concert with the moon is common to most agrarian cultures, and is based on careful observation. It is no more a superstition than the observation that the lunar phases affect the tides. The soil matrix where we plant our seeds has certain characteristics that are similar to a liquid, as the recent earthquakes have reminded us. The interaction between the growing plant, soil particles and water is very complex, and we hesitate at many of the simpler explanations. Planting with lunar cycles is similar to planting when the soil is sufficiently warm. The seeds may germinate in cold soil, but they are more prone to insect and fungal damage. From our perspective, we would rather work with the gravitational pull of the moon, just as we work with the warming effects of the sun.

Our appreciation of fuzzy phenomena was strengthened by the discovery that both us can “witch” or “dowse.” If we need to find a buried pipe or power line, we grab a pair of divining rods, pieces of soft copper pipe or freshly cut willow branches work. It is a remarkable feeling the first time the wires move on their own, and it takes a few hours to get it out of your system and put down the rods. Oddly enough, the first time we watched someone dowse was in Portland. A Northwest Natural worker located a gas line using a couple pieces of copper wire. He told us an older worker had doused with the wires, so he figured it was worth a try and it worked. He was a bit sheepish about it, lest someone would think he was looped. We figured he had some hillbilly in him, and left it at that. Many years later someone showed us how to dowse and, son of a gun, the wires moved. It is simple enough, just support the divining rods so they can move.

We are mediocre dowsers. Some people have a heightened sensitivity and can read more in the movement of the divining rods. Our dowsing ability saves us some time when we need to locate a buried pipe, but interpreting what it is that draws the divining rods together is beyond our ken. Not enough hillbilly in our pedigree, perhaps.

Here is what we will bring to the market:

Freshly Dug and Harvested

Mixed greens

We will have bags of greens, mostly collards and rapa, along with some other odds and ends. They are lovely and tender.

Gobo

Tarragon

Storage vegetables

Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squash

Dry Goods

Dried peppers

Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans

Mostly Purgatorio, appropriate for the calendar.

Corn

Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal

Popcorn

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter February 7 2010 Market

admin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:09:22 +0000

We will be at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market this Sunday, 7th of February. The market opens at 10:00 AM.

This has been the year of the rutabaga. The white rutabaga is delicious raw as well as cooked. Our friend Kathrine Deumling provided us with the following recipe.

Winter Slaw

This “slaw” was a true “cook with what you have” invention the day of class upon discovering that there was no chard or collard greens at the farmers’ market (for the above-mentioned recipes). There were beautiful cabbages, rutabagas and carrots. Quantities are definitely approximations and please feel free to substitute other veggies or omit certain ones. Turnips instead of rutabagas, etc.

½ a small to medium green cabbage (red would be fine too)
2 medium carrots
½ very large rutabaga or several small ones
2-3 greens onions (scallions), thinly sliced
handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

Dressing:
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
1-2 tsps. Dijon mustard
1-2 Tbs mayonnaise
1 – 2 tsps. Ground cumin
pinch of chili flakes
salt
pepper
3 Tbs olive oil

Thinly slice the cabbage, grate the carrots and rutabaga and put in large salad bowl. Add scallions, cilantro. Mix all dressing ingredients well and pour over vegetables. Mix well. Let rest for 20 min — 1 hour to soften the vegetables and let flavors meld. Adjust seasoning.

Katherine Deumling
www.cookwithwhatyouhave.com

Here is what we we will have this week:

Freshly Dug and Harvested:

Mixed heading type chicories:

We will have bags of loose leaves and whole heads.

Rutabagas, Gobo, Parsnips & Hamburg Parsley

Storage vegetables:

Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squash

Dry Goods:

Dried peppers:

Aci Sivri and Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans:

Corn:

Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal

Popcorn

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter January 24 2010 Market

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:10:12 +0000

We will be at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market this Sunday, 24th of January. The market opens at 10:00 AM.

What did big old Musquée weigh? That fine specimen was 47.5 pounds or 21.5 kilograms. Hope you all enjoyed sharing it with one another. Now for the winners. No one indicated the units, so we have two winners. Carmella guessed 50, closest to the weight in pounds. Kathleen guessed 23, and that is the closest in kilograms. Both of you will have a Ayers Creek Farm bag with your name on it at the market.

In the last newsletter, we made a passing reference to hominy, and it generated several inquiries. Hominy is corn that is steeped in an alkaline solution overnight, and then washed and cooked gently until the kernels “bloom.” The midwestern tribes made hominy from the lye of wood ash. That practice was adopted by the early settlers. “Spanish hominy” was made by using hydrated lime instead of lye. Hydrated lime, or cal in Spanish, is used to make nixtamal, which is ground to made tortillas and tamales. Food grade hydrated lime is readily available in stores selling to the Latino community. As we noted, the Amish Butter popcorn makes a very good white hominy. Roy’s Calais Flint makes a fine yellow hominy.

Here is how to make Spanish hominy. Be very careful with the hydrated lime, it is very caustic and should be kept well away from children and careless adults.

In an enamel pot, add two tablespoons of hydrated lime per pound of corn, add water to cover the kernels by an inch or so. Heat the pan to a bare simmer, don’t boil, and let cook for 40 minutes to an hour. The solution will turn a lurid yellow and the fragrance of corn will fill the kitchen. Take the pan off the heat and let the mixture steep overnight at room temperature or on the back stoop. The next day, strain off the lime and liquid into the compost bucket. Rinse the kernels vigorously several times until they are clean. The outer skin of the kernel, the pericarp will wash away. The orange and white kernels look just like candy corn.

If you have a slow cooker, you can use it to cook the hominy. Refill the pot with the corn and fresh water. Cover the kernels well as they will absorb a good deal of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the kernels split open as little flowers. The hominy now ready to use in a pozole or soup.

Making hominy is messy and, though the preparation is simple and not a lot of work, it is hardly fast food. From Philadelphia to Portland, and south to New Orleans, hominy vendors plied the streets of cities, along with pepper pot (tripe stew) and other prepared food vendors. In the early 19th century, urban living quarters were rudimentary, and many people lived in boarding houses without their own kitchen. Tripe is a dish best prepared far from where it will be consumed, as the intestinal fragrance lingers in the house. Prepared hominy and tripe were cheap and nourishing food for working people. The same combination, hominy and tripe, is found in the Mexican menudos. We are a house divided on the matter of tripe, but find satisfying harmony in hominy.

Here is what we we will have this week:

Freshly Dug and Harvested

Mixed heading type chicories

We will have bags of loose leaves and whole heads.

Rutabagas, Gobo, Parsnips & Hamburg Parsley, Potatoes

Storage vegetables

Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squash

Dry Goods

Dried peppers

Aci Sivri and Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans

Corn

Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal

Popcorn

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter January 10 2010 Market

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:44:53 +0000

We will be at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market this Sunday, 10th of January. The market opens at 10:00 AM, regardless of rain, snow or even overly bright sunshine. We were thinking it would be fun to celebrate our 100th market at Hillsdale. Trouble is, this will be the 120th time we have set up our tent at the market.

Not wanting to waste an opportunity to have fun, we will be slaying our largest squash of the season. It’s big and perfect for a farm’s 120th anniversary, also know as the ‘Squash Anniversary’ in some market districts. We will have a variation on “how many beans are in the jar?” Jot down your name and how many pounds you all think the squash weighs. Whomsoever guesses correctly, or closest, will be eligible to receive a complimentary oh so fashionable Ayers Creek Farm shopping bag at a future market.

We will bringing a good number of our smaller squashes as well. We will have them priced in advance. Normally, the greens take up a lot of space in the van. This ain’t a green winter, folks, but it was a good squash summer. So we will fill the void with winter squash. Keep the fruits in a warm, dry place until you are ready to use them. They are at their prime for the next three months.

Squash are among the oldest cultivated plants. Remains of cultivated squash found at Guilá Naquitz cave in Oaxaca, Mexico have been dated at a bit shy of 9,000 years old. The impetus to cultivate squash may have been their usefulness as containers. Squash seeds are an important ingredient in Oaxacan cooking. The seeds of all of our squash are delicious, so pause before throwing them in the compost bucket.

If you like making hominy, try using Amish Butter kernels. Makes a good white hominy.

Freshly Dug and Harvested

Mixed heading type chicories

We will have bags of loose leaves and whole heads.

Rutabagas

Wednesday’s NY Times had a charming description of some crazy farmer who spends his time asking his customers to try the rutabagas (link). Linked below, you all will recognize the pitch. Happily, when people taste them, they return for more. We will have some soft red wheat if you want to try the salad. We also sauté diced rutabaga and add it to chicory salads.

Gobo

Parsnips & Hamburg Parsley

Potatoes

Storage vegetables

Sweet Potatoes

Winter Squash

Dry Goods

Dried peppers

Aci Sivri and Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans

Corn
Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal
Popcorn

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter December 20 2009 Market

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:08:58 +0000

Hillsdale Farmers Market starts at 10:00 AM, and is located in the parking lot of Wilson High School.

As we have noted many times, we are field farmers and have no greenhouses. We grow en plein air because we believe the environment in a plastic tunnel is simply inadequate to grow excellent vegetables. There is little enough light in the Pacific northwest winter, so it seems crazy to further attenuate the sun’s rays under a layer of polyethylene. In addition, we like the idea of vegetables grown in a bath of rain and fog. On the other hand, growing in the open entails certain risks, especially if the goal is to provide fresh, field grown vegetables all through the winter. Last week’s cold spell certainly tested our idea, and many of the mustard greens, collards and kales will need a few weeks to recover. Like many farms, we lost a lot of vegetables that in other years survive well through the winter. Nonetheless, we will have the variegated chicories, sometimes called fiori d’inverno, the flowers of winter, at this week’s market. Even temperatures in the single digits did not quell the beauty of these wonderful greens.

Freshly Dug and Harvested

Mixed heading type chicories

These are the beautiful Lusia and Chioggia chicories. We will have bags of loose leaves and whole heads.

Rutabagas

Gobo

Parsnips & Hamburg Parsley

Potatoes

Kerr’s Pink

Storage vegetables:

Sweet Potatoes

Winter Squash

Dry Goods:

Gift Boxes

Once again, we have put together some gift boxes of preserves for the holidays. Each box contains four jars of preserves (loganberry, raspberry, black currant and Italian prune), and costs $20.

Dried peppers

Aci Sivri and Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans

Corn

Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal

Popcorn

To ease the burden upon our answering machine, we tested the popcorn earlier this week and it popped well. We have bagged up some Amish Butter popcorn for this week’s market. The crop yielded well this year, so we will have plenty on hand at future markets.

Complementary Gimcracks:

Calendars: We will have copies of the Ayers Creek Farm 2010 Calendar at the market this weekend. Please take one. It is our way saying thank you for a good year. Our fiend Jefferson Graham provided the inspiration for the 2005 edition when, after visiting the farm with his family, he sent a calendar with photos of Ruth, Sam, us and the farm. We put together our first calendar that year and distributed 30 copies to restaurants and stores who purchased from us. As Thanksgiving rolled around, people started asking about the 2006 calendar, and now it has a life of its own and a couple hundred copies find their way to friends, family and customers. In addition to expressing our gratitude, the calendar give us an opportunity to expose the character of the place where the fruits and vegetables are harvested. The theme of this year’s calendar is the valuable but non-monetized life that live in background of Ayers Creek Farm. We hope you enjoy it.

If we miss you all at the market, please have a good holiday season and we wish you all well in the new year.

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm

Ayers Creek Farm Newsletter December 6 2009 Market

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:00:47 +0000

Hillsdale Farmers Market starts at 10:00 AM, and is located in the parking lot of Wilson High School. Our cheerful selves will be found in the middle of the market, even if it snows. The van has its winter shoes, plus 500 LB of roots, we are ready for the weekend. If there are high winds, the market may be cancelled, so check the Hillsdale website if it is windy.

This is the annual Holiday Market, so Shoehorn’s “no crafts” stricture is relaxed somewhat. Earnest young students will be roving about a’caroling as well. It should be festive with the anticipated snow flurries.

In mid November, the Oregon House Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Communities met and heard presentations from Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and a panel representing the Farmers’ Market Community. The panel included Kelly Streit (Oregon Farmers’ Market Association), Anne Berblinger (Gales Meadow Farm), Sarah Broderick (Hollywood Farmers’ market), and Rebecca Landis (Albany and Corvallis Farmers’ Markets). Chrissie Zaerpoor and Anthony were permitted to offer statements after the presentation. Chrissie pointed out the substantial challenges facing small-scale meat producers in this state. Anthony’s statement follows the list of what we will bring to the market this week.

The committee seemed to understand that legislation is needed to establish state policies regarding direct sales between producer and consumers. Chair Brian Clem put together a working group that included Susan VanOrman from Hood River and Wayne Krieger from Gold Beach. This is a critical first step. Majority Leader Mary Nolan, who represents the district that includes the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market, is on the agriculture committee and was very supportive of the formation of a working group.

Thank you to those who contacted your representatives following the “Farewell Frikeh” essays. It made a difference. It will be a long process, though.

Here is what we will have this week, bearing in mind that we need to wait for the greens to thaw before we can harvest them, so it is guess work at this point.

Freshly Harvested:

Kale, Collards & Swiss Chard

Mustard Greens

Fennel

Last night we decided the weather will be too cold to for fennel, so we hauled in the last of the planting against the glow of the setting sun. There are some small bulbs which are very good cooked slowly in butter until they are tender.

Mixed Salad Greens

A mixture of chicory and endive.

Rutabagas & Turnips

The neeps include the flat Milan variety. It is sweet and delicate, good raw as well as cooked. We will also have the pear shaped Jersey navet. Also sweet and fine flavored.

Beets, Parsnips & Hamburg Parsley

Potatoes

Kerr’s Pink

Sweet Potatoes

Winter Squash

Dry Goods:

Preserves

Boysenberry, Loganberry, Raspberry, Blackcap, Red Currant, Black Currant, Green Gage, Italian Prune and Damson.

Dried peppers

Aci Sivri and Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans

Tarbais, Borlotto, Bianchetto, Zolfino and Purgatorio.

Chickpeas: Last of them.

Corn

Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal

Amish Butter Popcorn is not available until the January markets. If the kernels are not fully dry, they careen about the pan like so many whistling jacks. Great fun for a brief moment, but the movie should be the entertainment, not the popcorn.

Amish butter also makes a good white polenta. Interestingly, popcorn is not ground for meal in the US, and for no good reason. The Italians grow several landraces of popcorn, or everta types to botanists. The popcorn ear is conical and looks like pine cone, and the individual kernels resemble pine nuts, so these varieties are called pignolo or pignoletto. In Italy the kernels are ground for meal to use as a polenta or in cookies, just like other types of corn.

In Italian, the word “polenta” means porridge or mush. Polenta made from ground corn is, formally, polenta di mais, or polenta di gran Turco. — “Gran turco” means Turkish grain, an early term for the strange grain that appeared from the Americas. In the Holland and the Low Lands, it is Turksche tarwe. — Like most everyone else, we truncate the term. However, it is worth remembering there is also polenta di fava, polenta di farro (emmer) and polenta di castagna (chestnut), among others.

White corn meal is generally associated with cultures that eat fish. Along the northern lakes, the Seneca Nation cultivated a white flint. The white-cap flint of Rhode Island is used to make the Johnny cakes. Likewise, white corn meal is used in the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Skip over to Venice, and you will find they have a preference for white corn meal. Amish Butter mush is excellent with lamb as well.

See you all Sunday,

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm