The first rains to fall have quenched the thirst of the ankle- high cover crops planted last month, and filled the swales and ponds with life-giving water.
Our baskets of tomatoes picked in the greenhouse as the rain tapped its rhythm above our heads, smile back at us as we pick them from the vine to join us in a pasta dinner. Real pasta mind you, not American pasta. The garlic is sliced thin with a razor blade and melted in heated olive oil. Then the onions, tomatoes, basil, oregano, salt and pepper and the most important thing if all…
Cook the pasta in the sauce, never, NEVER, ever serve plain white pasta with sauce poured over it or on the side to add on.
The reason pasta is cooked al dente or slightly undercooked is because after it is drained one returns it to the pot, stirs the sauce in and cooks it some more. Undercooking it slightly before adding the sauce makes the end result cooked just right and that little extra cooking in the sauce allows the pasta to absorb the flavor of the sauce. That’s Italian. The real deal.
Also, one can shower as much parmesan as one wishes on red pasta sauce, but it is faux pas to use parmesan with an olive oil and garlic sauce. The point is to taste the oil and garlic. Nothing says dumb American like a bowl of plain white pasta with parmesan except maybe ketchup.
So here we are with about 70 pounds of tomatoes and a bunch of canning jars, what to do, what to do. When life gives you tomatoes, make tomatoes sauce.
The cool thing about cooking your own food is it warms the house both physically and emotionally. The smells hit you the moment you open the door from outside. The combination of aromas mix the present moment with memories of harvests past with the pleasure of great company and good food, and to think, it all started by grazing the garden surrounding the house.
Each time I plant a seed or transplant a seedling in the garden, which is almost a daily occurrence, I catch myself imagining what feast we’ll share in the future when the time, and the company is right. What meal will this parsely be part of? A soup, a salad? Only time will tell and in the meantime this seedling and I will grow together. We’ll grow soil together, enriching each other in the process. I will feed it and then it will feed me and I’m so greatful for the connection we have.
Yesterday we hungered for lunch and a five minute stroll grazing the garden filled our basket with ten leeks, three kinds of potatoes, carrots, onions, parsely and we put it in a pot and made potato leek soup. We tried to can some but it was so good we ate it all, but thankfully there’s more in the garden.
Gardening is not as hard or time consuming as some make it out to be and the reward is so healthy on so many levels that we all should be doing it, at least those of us that eat anyway. If you’re a night zombie that lives on Red Bull and Pringles please move on, these are not the droids you’re looking for, but for the rest of us there’s no excuse.
If you are what you eat then maybe we should know a few things about food like the rest of everything on Earth. Besides, gathering food right outside your house is so much easier and in many cases healthier than going to the store, not to mention more affordable. Like #Ron Finley says, “Growing your own food is like printing your own money. “
My favorite approach to having a grazable garden it to plant what you enjoy eating constantly, a little at a time continuously. This way you always have something ready to eat at all times. Plant enough for you, your friends, the deer, the bugs and the slugs, that way everyone is happy and you don’t need to use chemicals.
Grazing gardens provide a peace of mind that can’t be beat and it feels good to be able to share a meal on the fly with whoever pays a visit.
Today as I grazed, accompanied by a couple dozen finches no bigger than my thumb that sang their joyous song as they grazed alongside me on seeds from faded sunflowers, it felt as though they could feel my happiness and shared my appreciation for the abundance of healthy food surrounding us.
Glancing to my left I noticed a duck wagging it’tail like a happy dog would as it raked its beak through a rain puddle and I knew how that duck felt, eating and drinking what nature dished up. Surrounded by food from seed I had planted, I felt as happy as a duck in the rain.
When the pasta sauce was ready we ate and in the silence that followed as we devoured the meal wholeheartedly, I could see the same joy on our faces as I saw in the duck splashing in the puddle and in the finches singing as they munched on sunflowers and I knew that tomorrow would be a day of planting for the next feast.
I felt content knowing I was part of the complete circle of life and death in this meal. Even the compost gathered from preparing and cleaning for this meal will be fed to the chickens and returned to the soil better than it was before. And every day we feed the soil and it feeds us back.
Local food could not be any more local than in your yard. Stop mowing and start growing and I promise that you’ll begin growing more than food, you’ll begin growing life, relationships and yourselves.
You really are what you eat, but also and perhaps more importantly you are how you eat and who you eat with, in which case I can’t help but wag my tail.