For the Love of Pesto

My husband, Bapa, and basil on the dock

The key to my man's heart, pesto.

In 2002, I was racing mountain bikes for Highroller Cyclery. Several of the team members and I had been planning to ride the Womble Trail from end to end: 37 miles through the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas.


On Mother's Day morning, we were all gathering our bikes, making sure there was air in the tires and extra tubes in our camelbacks, when this stranger showed up. He stepped out of his father's car, gave him a hug, and said, "Dad, I love you; I'll see you in a few days." I immediately noticed his piercing blue eyes, and sensitive demeanor. He was greeted with hugs by all his old teammates and introduced to me as, Ammen Jordan, a Spanish and photography teacher that has spent the last several years with a globe trotting high school. "He'll be joining us for the ride today."

"Hi, my name is Stephanie, I think I have room in my car if you would like to ride with me to the trail." As the trip went on, I was more and more enamored by this blue eyed man. It was a full day of hard riding on bench-cut trails beside limestone bluffs, up and down the technical rocky-hills, through the hard wood trees, and between wild blooming orchids and azaleas. We rode hard and fast. I think the only reason I was able to ride 37 miles of single-track was to impress. After the ride, we dropped Ammen off at his mother's house. He stepped out of the car with his left hand full of bike gear, and his hand right holding a bouquet of wild azaleas for his mother. As we were all parting ways, he called out to my dear friend Ira, "I’ll be back on May 31, I'll see you then."

"Well, that's an easy date to remember, that's my brother and sister's birthday!" I thought. I had a lot of work to do in the next 3 weeks, including become available and magnetic.

As I was cleaning my car from the muddy bike ride, I noticed a pair of shorts left in my car. "YEESSS! I have a reason to be in touch with him again. He left his shorts in my car!” Well, I did my duties, and in three weeks I was as available and magnetic as a girl can get. On June 2 (I wanted to give him a couple of days, not to look too desperate), I knew it was the day to re-introduce myself to Ammen Jordan. I was so nervous that I took off on a road bike ride just to calm my nerves. In my daydreaming state, I took several wrong turns and was completely lost. I rode for hours and came home completely exhausted.

"Perfect,” I thought to myself as I put away my bike, “I'll come across as totally calm when I knock on his door." So I cleaned myself off and drove over to his mother's house, knocked on the door, and found myself standing right in front of the blue eyes that had been calling me back.

"Hi." Said Ammen, his eyes shifting around as he tried to place me.



"Hi. I noticed you were in town and I wanted to return your bike shorts that you left in my car."



"Oh, thanks. Gosh, I've been in the house all day working on the computer. Want to go for a run?"



"Umm, yes, that sounds great! I need some exercise." (Oh crap, I'm exhausted, I just rode further than I've ever ridden in my life, and now he wants to run 10 miles.)



We stopped by my house to change clothes and so I could get some food. I was panicking on the inside, how will I ever keep up with him? My legs are totally shot!



We were eating leftover pizza my roommate and I had made the night before when Ammen said, "Do you know how to make pesto?"



"No."



"Well, you should learn."



And so I did. Now Ammen and I have a whole row of basil in our garden so, there is always pesto available.



This is a simple recipe that everyone should learn. It works, see!

Basil Pesto
Put it on pasta, crackers, toast, pizza or make a pesto, mozzarella & sliced tomato sandwich.

4-5 cloves garlic, peeled

¼ tsp sea salt

3 cups packed fresh basil leaves

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup pine nuts (or almonds, or walnuts)

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

Place the pine nuts, garlic, and salt in a food processor. Pulse a few times until mixture is coarsely ground. Add fresh basil leaves and while the food processor is running, slowly add the olive oil. Continue to process until the pesto is your desired consistency.

While pesto is delicious and a food for lovers, it's also packed with nutrients. The green leafy herb, basil is an excellent source of vitamin A. Vitamin A is a natural anti-oxidant that helps our body to fight infection and cell free-radical damage. Pesto is also a great way to experiment with eating raw foods. Nuts and garlic are two examples of foods are more nutritious for us when we eat them raw.

Love at first sight; young basil love

A Taste of Place

"Naturally then, the mountains, the creatures, the entire non-human world is struggling to make contact with us. The plants we eat or smoke are trying to ask us what we are up to; the animals are signaling to us in our dreams or in forests; the whole Earth is rumbling and straining to let us know that we are of it, this planet, this macrocosm is of our flesh, that the grasses are our hair, the trees our hands, the rivers our blood, that the Earth is our real body and it is alive.” David Abram"

Indian Tea aka Labrador Tea (Ledum palustre)

The world is not as big as it used to be, in 2 weeks time we can buy a flight to anywhere. At the touch of our fingertips, we can be in contact companions across the globe, skype with friends in Australia without delay. We are citizens of the world, a global nation. Yet, with all this ability to travel and connect with one another, there is something lost, our sense of place. A sense of where we are, what the season is, what birds or insects are migrating here, the time of sunrise, and how much fruit the cherry blossoms promise?

Eating local food is one way to regain a sense of place, to be in touch with the season. It allows our cells to be built on the world we surround ourselves with. It supports the local economy, and helps preserve and protect the land we choose to call home. When we harvest our food, be it wild harvesting or eating from the seeds we sow, we are strengthening that connection by becoming part of the process. We broaden our taste and honor the season with heightened gratitude. Mostly, we connect with the earth on a molecular level. We literally become of the earth.

On a recent trip through the Inside Passage, I got to experience the forest and the sea – alive. A place where there is no Scotch Broom, English Ivy or Himalayan blackberries. Where the food and the medicine are One, and each have been remembered and passed on. The Douglas firs tower above, the sundews pull you to your knees, the Indian tea leaves brush against your fingers, and the huckleberries are plump at mouth level. The native plants remain in harmony. Even if you don’t recognize skunk cabbage or bunchberry, you can’t help but notice the complimentary shapes and textures that naturally landscape the forests.

As the days went by, our bodies began to move with the rhythms of the tides. High tides for traveling, slack tides for fishing and low tides for feasting. Sea algae, seaweed, and sea vegetables are synonyms for the abundant microalgae along the shores of the Northwest. Because all but one are edible, I chose to call them, sea vegetables. These green bits that annoyingly get stuck in your bathing suit are likely edible, delectable, and highly nutritious. They clean the sea of toxins and heavy metals and they do the same to our bodies, while providing rich amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Sea Lettuce (Ulva lactuca) and Bull kelp drying (Nereocystis luetkeana)

Sea vegetables have been harvested on coasts across the globe since the first days. Most can be eaten raw, cooked, or dried, and are a wise addition to any diet. Sea vegetables are well known for the disease prevention properties and are therefore becoming increasingly popular, and expensive. They are easy to gather and prepare, but please learn the proper etiquette to help prevent over-harvesting. In Washington State you must possess a license for gathering seaweeds.

Bladderwrack (focus gardneri) in front of the Kurt's cabin.

In Alaska, I used a book to build my gathering confidence, to inspire a recipe, and to show to the other table attendants, “yes, it’s edible, see.” Self-sufficiently, we spent two weeks in escaping reality. Yet maybe we had it backwards, maybe THAT was reality.

Here is one of the harvested favorites.

1 T oil

½ onion, diced

1 T raw ginger, grated

2 carrots, cut in strips lengthwise

¼ cup raw almonds, chopped & toasted

1 ½ cup sea beans (salicornia virginica)

1 ½ cup bladderwrack (focus gardneri)

1 cup sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca)

1 T tamari

4 cups cooked brown rice

Heat oil in skillet. Sauté onion on medium heat until soft. Add carrots and ginger, sauté 3 minutes more. Add bladderwrack and stir until bright green. Add sea beans sauté a few minutes more. Mix together with rice, chives & almonds. Serve warm or at room temperature. Wash it down with a warm cup of Indian tea (Ledum palustre).

Sea Vegetable Rice Salad with Baked Flounder & Roasted Potatoes

It's not all about success

Do you remember in grade school when your teacher passed out the quiz and said, "Be sure to read the directions before you start." Of course you didn't read the directions, and neither did I. You went about circling the correct answers and sometimes just choosing your best guess until you got to the final question, which said, "go back and read the directions." Only then did you notice that the directions said, "Do not write on this quiz and raise your hand when you are finished reading." Doh, you wrote all over it in purple ink, and everyone else in the room had their hand held high.

Today, history repeated itself...

Ten years ago my sister introduced me to the book Feeding the Whole Family, by Cynthia Lair. Cynthia's philosophy, and now ours, is based on eating local, seasonal, and organic (when possible) WHOLE foods. What does that mean? Ask yourself, "Can I imagine it growing?" If the answer is "yes," it's a whole food. It's easy to picture a pear tree or a chicken coop, but tough to imagine what a xanthan gum flower looks like.

Today we were using this go-to cookbook. Cynthia baked the yellow-millet cake for her daughter's first birthday so, it must be worthy of Paxton's first birthday. Paxton was napping, and we had an hour to make his cake before leaving for the zoo.

Molly was in charge the dry ingredients and I of the wet. I blended millet with orange juice, maple syrup and egg yolk; then folded in the egg white meringue. All along Molly was sifting Bluebird Farms whole wheat flour baking soda and salt. The cake went in the oven, easy as pie.

"Oh no! Fatal error!" Molly yelps. Turns out Molly made quinoa and millet this morning and I had accidentally chosen the quinoa. In my defense, when cooked they look quite similar.
Baking is chemistry so, any changes to the recipe is a change to the formula which will affect the results. Both quinoa and millet are considered grains, but quinoa is actually a seed. Because seeds have more protein than grains, quinoa is the "grain" with the highest amount of protein. Therefore, we assumed by using quinoa we changed the cake's formula.

"Great, let's have a baking experiment, and this can be blog entry 2." We jinksed.

As we read through the recipe for the second time, Molly realized that she too misread the recipe and used 3 cups of flour instead of 2 cups in the quinoa cake. We decide to do 3 cups of flour again in the millet cake, because we only want 1 variable (the grain). After a few more mishaps, including: running out of eggs (and having to steal some from the neighbors chickens), spilling the yolk in the meringue, turning on the blender without the lid on, we finally got the cake in the oven. Before long, Paxton woke and the house filled with the smell of delicious, hot baked something...

Take note of Zach's reaction to the quinoa cake.

And Paxton running from the quinoa cake.

You may notice that there is no recipe posted here. That's because what we made is not worth remaking. If you want to make a millet cake, I would suggest you trying Cynthia Lair's recipe, I've heard it's delicious. It's a good thing Paxton won't remember this.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Oh, homesteading...

We moved into the garden house with the inspiration of growing our food. Though, gardening has been SLOW, and the slugs seem to be getting way more food than we are. Garden's don't seem to want to grow well in June-uary.

We have had plenty of salads and enough strawberries and raspberries to top on our cereals, enough rhubarb to inspire crisps, but not much else. Our basil, zucchini, and tomatoes are stubborn in 55 degrees & raining, and the peas, beans and beets seem to be irresistible to the slugs. Under these desperate measures to have local food on a single income household. I made it to Broers Organic Strawberry farm and picked 20 pounds of strawberries for $20. Since we have rhubarb out our ears, and Broers strawberries to add to the handful of Washington native strawberries grown here, there was only 1 thing to do: STRAWBERRY RHUBARB JAM.

On this cold, rainy Summer Solstice, we decided to put some up. We started our first canning experiment on the mocha paperstone countertops with 6 recipes. You see, everything that goes in our mouths we want to benefit our health so, choosing a recipe isn't always that easy. We have several rules for our food: 1. Was it grown organically/sustainably? 2. Is it in season? 3. Is it real food? 4. Were the farmers/workers given a living wage? 5. How far did it travel to get to our table? If we combined all of these recipes we could have a check mark beside most of these questions and use our overabundance of red produce.

A little more strawberry than rhubarb, a little less sugar than they call for, less pectin (cause what the heck is that anyway), some fresh squeezed lemon juice, and lastly some fresh stolen rose petals from my sister's yard. And this is what we came up with.

10 cups strawberries
2 cups rhubarb
5 cups sugar
juice of 4 lemons
4 cups rose petals

1. Wash fruit. Cut rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces. Cover rhubarb with half the sugar and lemon juice, and let stand 1 to 2 hours.
2. Crush berries and mix with remaining sugar and combine with rhubarb.
3. Place mixture over low heat until sugar is dissolved, then boil rapidly, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
4. Pinch the white tips from the bases of the rose petals and add the petals to the pan, pushing them well down among the fruit. Bring to a boil until thick.
5. Pour into sterilized jars with 1/2 inch empty on top (to allow for expansion). Put on cap, screw band finger tight. Process in boiling water for 10 minutes.
Yields: 7 pints.

Roses were traditionally used in the Northwest to ease the heart and tone the cardiovascular system. Roses, strawberries, and lemons are high in Vitamin C.

Oh, here come Nate and Maggie to test out the goods.