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Pickles

ByElizabeth

Soon after this article on making your own pickles was published in the New York Times, a friend and mentor sent it to me.  Though she is a mentor for reiki and energetic practices, and I see her regularly for massages, I’m quite sure she wasn’t trying to encourage me to eat more raw food or get into the fermentation fad (but you can read lots about how some raw foodists fetishize fermented food by using your favorite search engine).  I think she just thought I’d like making pickles, and she was right.

I’m now on my fifth or sixth batch.  The first batch I did exactly according to the directions in the article.  The second, I did exactly according to Mark Bittman’s recipe in How to Cook Everything, which I found used a few years ago at my favorite used bookstore in DC–The Lantern-A Bryn Mawr Bookshop.  After that, I experimented with a little less salt, a change of spices, and different ways of slicing the cucumbers.  The cucumbers for this most recent batch were a little older and seedier so I added carrots and ginger to improve the flavor of the cucumbers.   I also added garlic, a few chili peppers, and some coriander seeds from the garden. A grape leaf or two helps make the vegetables stay crisper; they aren’t needed, but if one has a grape vine in the garden, as I do, why not?

For my birthday, though you don’t really need one, I just bought myself a nice fermentation crock.  First up:  sauerkraut and then when I’ve had an opportunity to go shopping in Chinatown for supplies, a big batch of kimchee.

This latest kitchen venture, is mostly because I’ve always loved the taste of pickled food, and because it is amazingly easy to make them.  Pickles and other fermented foods are now added to my list of  love to make foods that with a little attention and some planning and patience yield big results (like sprouting and slow cooker beans and stews).  That my yogi friends who are crazy into raw food would also be excited about what eating fermented foods might be doing for my health is just a bonus.

pickles

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    Let There Be Vegan Kimchee

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    I was at Eastern Market earlier today.  As kimchee has been on my mind (given the recent and resounding success with homemade sauerkraut), I checked for napa cabbage and daikon radish.  I didn’t see it, but decided to ask anyway (after all, if we don’t ask for what we want, it is far less likely that we will get it–whether it is ingredients for kimchee, or help from a yoga teacher, or needs met in relationship).

    Yes, they had a gorgeous napa cabbage and a big, beautiful daikon radish.  They sell their own fresh made kimchee (it’s delicious), so I thought they might have the other key ingredient I needed:  powdered Korean hot pepper.

    I said that I enjoyed their kimchee and that I guessed they made it the traditional way, with a rice flour slurry and anchovies.

    Yes, indeed, they do it that way.

    I said I was making a simpler version, but did want the right kind of pepper.  Did they have some?

    The woman serving me, said yes, went in the back, cut open an enormous bag of powdered pepper and, along with the vegetables, sold me a few ounces of the pepper.  From this enterprise, I’ve  already made a deeper connection to one of my local small businesses, and in a week or two, I’ll also have a big batch of kimchee.

    ps.  I used Michael Pollan’s recipe as a rough guide.  What I like especially about the recipe is that it expects variation based on quality and age of produce and personal taste.  The cook is invited to pay attention instead of just follow by rote.

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    What’s For Breakfast?

    ByElizabeth

    Snowpeas, tri-color beans. Peppers. Cherry tomatoes, basil (blueberries and strawberries did not make it out of the garden).

    A student asked me the other day why I garden–was it to save money, he asked, was it for better tasting food?

    It does save money to grow food and food eaten straight out of the garden is a foodie’s exquisite pleasure, but those are not my primary motivations.

    I garden for the delight it brings through all of my senses and for the joy of knowing that the garden never questions nurturing. The more I give the garden, the more it gives back, without question or judgment.

    I garden for the sense of relationship with the deeper seasonal patterns. To experience at an intimate level the impact on health and thriving of variations in seasons, light, heat, and rain.

    With the drought and extreme heat in our area, the garden is struggling. Peppers are fruiting before having gotten tall and full. Cucumbers are yellowing and drying, though a couple have grown large enough to eat. There is a surfeit of kale, but the snow peas, which prefer cool weather, barely had time enough to grow enough to flower before it was too hot to thrive.

    Part of the reasons some recipes have many ingredients is because they are premised on there not being enough of any one thing to make a meal. I am getting a few servings of vegetables every day, but the blasting heat is preventing the kind of abundance for some things I might have in another year. The grapes, though, may be outrageous; they like this crazy heat.

    I want to be conscious of these challenges and serendipities. I want to know how I might need to change and adjust to thrive in a world that is ever more out of balance. I garden because it helps me be aware of crisis and challenge, but always and first providing extraordinary pleasure and beauty.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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