In my culinary and nutritional fascinations, I've been drawn to gardens like a bee to a flower...
I meagerly started off a little over a year ago to try my hand at growing some useful herbs and edibles in my back yard...which I was barely able to keep a mint plant alive! But after taking a Permaculture design class at Merritt college, and volunteering in many gardens and farms around the area, I've gleaned enough knowledge to venture out on my own.
As a cook I'm drawn to using the freshest ingredients that I can find/forage, but I'm mainly interested in the health properties of these items. What could be more healthy and delicious and purely beautiful than growing and eating my own foods?
It may seem like such hard work and drudgery at times to have to tend a garden and work in other peoples gardens but I find much to thankful for every hard earned minute in any garden. I can now see why the French and Italian (among other cultures) where so inspired to cook wonderful foods from what they where growing...I find alot of inspiration for my cooking there also. There is also some multi-functional purposes for this inspiration also...take for example the snail...its considered a pest, eating all your delicate greens, yet the French found a wonderful way to prepare them and turn this "pest" into a delicacy. This was partially out of necessity, because of the normal flush of snails that come after the spring rains, yet serves to feed our larger needs of nutrition and pest management (truly the best form of "integrated pest management")
Additionally, the labor involved in growing and working in the garden is just what is lacking in the American lifestyle...a meaningful and enlivening activity that builds the health of our bodies, our families and communities all at the same time. And the appetite that is generated from sweat inducing labor in the garden makes the flavor of those vine ripened tomatoes forget all memories of that pint of Ben and Jerry's you normally crave after a stressful day...
There is so many more positive reasons to be involved in gardening in some way, that I can only sum up in such a vague way as to say...its such a blessing...
I've recently been the recipient of one of these garden blessings...While volunteering at the "Urban Community Gardening Class" at Merritt college, I was digging a deep holes for 6 blueberry bushes to be planted in. I was enjoying the cool shade of a nearby idealic oak tree while on this simple task, and I unearthed what appeared to be a potato. Not thinking much of it I set it aside and finished the plantings. I came back to examine it and was perplexed by such an odd looking potato...growing in more of the wild area and without roots. There had to be only one other option...a truffle. Yet with no distinct smell but of the deep must of clay soil, I was unsure. I took it to our resident Mycologist and he confirmed, with even more excitement than I, that it was an "Oregon White Truffle" (Tuber Gibbosum, http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/truffles.html). So I offered to cook a meal with our new found "California Gold Nugget". I was invited out to his farm and there I meet some other friends and enjoyed an evening of touring his garden, harvesting fresh ingredients for the meal. I made a simple dish of Brown rice pasta with my version of a Bachamel sauce (wheat and dairy free!). This was topped with young fava beans and flowering broccoli tops and with a few gratings of our prized tuber. I gave him a part of the booty and he gave me some rare plants for my garden and a smile that lasted for miles on the ride home...
I was able to take the tuber an infuse multiple pounds of butter and over a dozen eggs with the intoxicating aroma of the small portion of truffle I had left. You can put a fresh truffle in a container with some rice in the bottom and add any kind of animal fat product (bacon, eggs, cheese, jerky, butter, etc...) and seal it in the container with the truffle and let it infuse for three days in the fridge. Then you can repeat the process multiple times, until the truffle either looses all aroma or molds, usually about 2-3 weeks. Then you can use them in any dish you like...I would recommend something simple that highlights the aroma and flavor of the truffle (which makes for the most amazing burps!).
So my simple efforts of working in the garden opened up the possibilities of new friendships, learning opportunities and wonderful culinary delights that I was able to share with many other friends. I could have sold that one truffle for about $50 but I choose to share the joy of this find instead. My investment in a garden reaped multiple returns...and in a current state of economy as ours, the dividends I reaped can't be quantified in dollars...it just makes good sense.
I meagerly started off a little over a year ago to try my hand at growing some useful herbs and edibles in my back yard...which I was barely able to keep a mint plant alive! But after taking a Permaculture design class at Merritt college, and volunteering in many gardens and farms around the area, I've gleaned enough knowledge to venture out on my own.
As a cook I'm drawn to using the freshest ingredients that I can find/forage, but I'm mainly interested in the health properties of these items. What could be more healthy and delicious and purely beautiful than growing and eating my own foods?
It may seem like such hard work and drudgery at times to have to tend a garden and work in other peoples gardens but I find much to thankful for every hard earned minute in any garden. I can now see why the French and Italian (among other cultures) where so inspired to cook wonderful foods from what they where growing...I find alot of inspiration for my cooking there also. There is also some multi-functional purposes for this inspiration also...take for example the snail...its considered a pest, eating all your delicate greens, yet the French found a wonderful way to prepare them and turn this "pest" into a delicacy. This was partially out of necessity, because of the normal flush of snails that come after the spring rains, yet serves to feed our larger needs of nutrition and pest management (truly the best form of "integrated pest management")
Additionally, the labor involved in growing and working in the garden is just what is lacking in the American lifestyle...a meaningful and enlivening activity that builds the health of our bodies, our families and communities all at the same time. And the appetite that is generated from sweat inducing labor in the garden makes the flavor of those vine ripened tomatoes forget all memories of that pint of Ben and Jerry's you normally crave after a stressful day...
There is so many more positive reasons to be involved in gardening in some way, that I can only sum up in such a vague way as to say...its such a blessing...
I've recently been the recipient of one of these garden blessings...While volunteering at the "Urban Community Gardening Class" at Merritt college, I was digging a deep holes for 6 blueberry bushes to be planted in. I was enjoying the cool shade of a nearby idealic oak tree while on this simple task, and I unearthed what appeared to be a potato. Not thinking much of it I set it aside and finished the plantings. I came back to examine it and was perplexed by such an odd looking potato...growing in more of the wild area and without roots. There had to be only one other option...a truffle. Yet with no distinct smell but of the deep must of clay soil, I was unsure. I took it to our resident Mycologist and he confirmed, with even more excitement than I, that it was an "Oregon White Truffle" (Tuber Gibbosum, http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/truffles.html). So I offered to cook a meal with our new found "California Gold Nugget". I was invited out to his farm and there I meet some other friends and enjoyed an evening of touring his garden, harvesting fresh ingredients for the meal. I made a simple dish of Brown rice pasta with my version of a Bachamel sauce (wheat and dairy free!). This was topped with young fava beans and flowering broccoli tops and with a few gratings of our prized tuber. I gave him a part of the booty and he gave me some rare plants for my garden and a smile that lasted for miles on the ride home...
I was able to take the tuber an infuse multiple pounds of butter and over a dozen eggs with the intoxicating aroma of the small portion of truffle I had left. You can put a fresh truffle in a container with some rice in the bottom and add any kind of animal fat product (bacon, eggs, cheese, jerky, butter, etc...) and seal it in the container with the truffle and let it infuse for three days in the fridge. Then you can repeat the process multiple times, until the truffle either looses all aroma or molds, usually about 2-3 weeks. Then you can use them in any dish you like...I would recommend something simple that highlights the aroma and flavor of the truffle (which makes for the most amazing burps!).
So my simple efforts of working in the garden opened up the possibilities of new friendships, learning opportunities and wonderful culinary delights that I was able to share with many other friends. I could have sold that one truffle for about $50 but I choose to share the joy of this find instead. My investment in a garden reaped multiple returns...and in a current state of economy as ours, the dividends I reaped can't be quantified in dollars...it just makes good sense.
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