I looooooooove Sonoma County!  In the late summer, every morning that I walk the doggies, I come home with a bag of blackberries.  I have a rule with blackberry picking... if they don't FALL off of the vine, they aren't ripe enough.  This generally means that something must be done with them (well, often the bag is empty when I get home) immediately or else they will turn to mush within a few hours.  They are so ripe and plump with juice, that as they sit in a bowl or basket, the weight crushes the bottom layer.  It generally is not a problem to get rid of them that day (smoothies, yogurt topping, fruit salads, handfuls) although I truly think that pies and tarts are my favorite way to eradicate ripe berries.  For most fruit pies, I generally cook them for one hour at 425 degrees F.  This pie cooked a bit less than that (about 50 minutes) as it was a thin, open-face tart.   For the blackberry tart, I put 1 1/4 C flour into a bowl and mix it with a pinch of sea salt and about 2 tablespoons of sugar. I take my one (1/2 C) stick of butter which is very cold (I put it into the freezer for 10 minutes) onto a cutting board, and I cut the stick in fourths lengthwise, then dice it, to get little cubes.  I have made a habit of doing this because then you don't have to use a mixer or a food processor.  With my hands I break the little cubes up into tiny pieces throughout the flour, evenly crumbling it.  Then, I sprinkle in about 3 tablespoons of water from a cup that I have put water and ice into (the colder the water, the better!) and slowly press the dough into itself until it turns into a ball.  When you can gather and press it into a ball, stop mixing and flatten it to approximately a 5 inch disc and it into the freezer (if you want to use it soon) or fridge (if you will be using it tomorrow). I learned that the flakiness comes from the butter and flour not completely mixing, so it's good to see "marbling" of butter and flour! After the dough has firmed up for about 30 minutes, I roll it out to cover the dish I will be using.  If your "innards" of your pie are not too juicy, you can make a free-form tart by simply putting the filling in the middle of this flat crust and folding the sides over so that they form a small lip.  This is usually served in high end cafes and called "rustic fruit galette."  I call it "too lazy to make a nice pie crust," but they taste the same. For the filling, the recipe changes depending on the fruit.  When you have something with a lot of natural pectin, such as apples, you hardly need to add any thickener to the fruit.  For berries, I used about 3 Tablespoons of flour sprinkled over the fruit.  The same rule applies for sugar.  If you have a very ripe and sweet crop, you may use hardly any sugar at all.  I hand picked and hand selected these berries and I knew that each one was very sweet.  I only used about 2 tablespoons of sugar for my 3 cups of berries.  If I were using mixed berries or fruit that had a tartness to it, I would increase the sugar to up to 1/2 cup for 3 cups of fruit. Gently toss the flour and sugar into the fruit and pile it into the center of your pie crust.  If you are not pre-baking your crust, I always poke the bottom of the crust with a fork before adding the fruit, or else you may find that the center actually rises and forms an air pocket under the crust.  The last two touches, recommended by my Grammy, are always to dot the top of the pie with butter and brush the crust with an egg or milk wash.  I like the egg wash best.  Pies are truly a simple pleasure to make, and an extreme pleasure to eat!  crust: 1 1/4 C organic unbleached white flour 1 stick COLD organic pastured butter 1/2 t salt 2 T sugar (less if you like a more savory crust) 3 T ice cold water filling: 3 cups fresh fruit 2-3 T flour 2 T sugar

Inspiration

Inspiration is a word that I hear too often without appreciating its true form.  The word, itself, recollects images of posters from middle school counselor offices (okay, I might like the one that shows the Dalmation litter boasting a rainbow-spotted pup) , but beyond the disposable and marketable "inspiration" that you can find on every Target shelf, there are true moments of inspiration in this world.

I can recall watching a childhood friend of mine holding a piece of chalk to the cement of my driveway while she twirled in circles.  The spiraling designs she created were ones that I had never made before.  She giggled with contentment as she stopped spinning and took a few dizzy steps to regain her balance.  Just as her laughter subsided, a squeal erupted from her lips.  "EEEEK!," she looked at me with bursting excitement, "Come do it next to me with a different color!" she demanded.  I couldn't have hoped for a better invitation.  Here I was, almost silenced with envy at her beautiful circular creation and there she stood, beckoning me to join her.

I was inspired by her carefree approach to art that day on my driveway, and later in life, this brazen redhead would inspire and motivate me in many more ways.  I have thought about this day many times.  However, a new revelation has occurred to me.  She didn't have to ask me to join her.  It wasn't the tango.  She could have easily continued her spinning, twirling, giggling, and shrieking with a party of one.  Perhaps she caught a glimpse of me standing statuesque with jealousy that I had not come up with this idea myself.  I believe others might have turned to me and said, "Look at what I did!"  She did not.  She looked to me and said, "You should, too!"  That is inspiring in a whole new way.

I have been inspired by the lives of a few bloggers, and in the same way that Jane asked me to join her, I discovered a wonderful invitation today from one of them.  Miss Nici Holt, of Dig This Chick MT.com has updated her blog with hilarious diddies and tidbits of her life in a weekly special called "Hump Day Nuggets."  Upon reading some nuggets from her today, I discovered that she created a little icon for this and offered it to others to use.   I can just picture her reaching toward me with an oblong shape of chalk and calling to me, "You should, too!"  Thank you Nici.  I don't know you, and you "did it first," but you have welcomed others to the party.  Here's to Hump Day Nuggets!

Some Photos

Poor Man's Souffle

Can you spot the mushrooms? :)

Wild Fermented Pickles - Not just for cucumbers!

Hiking Partner

Organic Cabot Cheese, anyone?

"Yes, many of your favorite foods are fermented!"

I used the Festival sign to sort morels when I had found a few

Grilled and Stuffed Morels

Wild Mushrooms - Dehydrated

In the process of re-hydrating!

Some of my favorite things to make friends are balms and salves with healing local herbs.

Bag O' Porcini

My Lil' Lady

My best bud and hiking partner, Eleanor

bubbles ahead...

So!  I want to post quickly this morning before my week gets going too quickly.  We had some fairly stress-filled holiday-related hoo-ha last week, and this week isn't shaping up to be any less busy, so I am going to cross my fingers that it doesn't end up just as stressful. 

I am jazzed about a New Yorker article that was recently published about one of the gurus of the fermented foods movement.  He is the author of one of my favorite books on fermenting recipes and histories.  I believe that he is a huge player in these scary times of nutritional genocide!  That may sound dramatic, but when high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil are part of our country's food triangle... you've got to have a little bit of concern.

There is a fairly good chance of us getting Sandor Katz to come to the Freestone Fermentation Festival this year.  I believe that this year, our tiny little festival may get a bit more press than it has in the past.  If anyone is interested in this exciting movement, be sure to check out this podcast on the topic. 

Abusing Christmas card sites...

So I needed tags for the salve so that everyone knows what is it in and can't call me in three weeks with a rash asking "IF THERE IS ANY EUCALYPTUS LEAF IN THAT STUFF???"

Then my first efforts were not successful (even though I believe I possess fairly legit Windows paint skills) and I resorted to abusing a totally awesome free card site to make these labels.  I was pretty impressed with how simple they have made it was to add photos, alter sizes and colors, and choose fonts.

I emailed it to myself and received the great high quality image immediately.  It comes embedded in an email!  ¡Que fácil!  You can send these things right to a smartphone n' shizz!  I saved them as flat .jpg files, then used a label program in Microsoft to print the right size on my paper.

I am going to use this site all the time for jam/pickle labels, snail-mailed party invitations, and I will probably use the website's online services to send save the date notes and personalized invitations for the fermentation festival that I was recently hired to produce this year in Sonoma County.  Smooth plug, eh?  Ah, I await the day when I have readers to chastise me!

Folks, she loves it.

Salve-ation!

"I'm supposed to be a Christmas Card!!!"

Wrap time

This past weekend was a big one.  I can't comprehend that two days, when we have had nothing planned to do but "catch up, hang out, relax," turned into such a whirlwind circus of crafting and cookery.  Months ago we decided to make salves for friends and family for holiday gifts.  I had purchased all of our herbs, beeswax, oil and containers and this was the last weekend to do it before the supplies would have been schlepped into the closet for next year. 
It really is a simple process.  Except for when you decide to do three separate batches and have a one year old dog that wants to help with everything.  You see, I had not thought about the tiny inconvenience of how WAX manages to get onto everything when you are melting it.  We did our three big batches in many different sized containers and have plenty of gifts for this time of year.  We just didn't have a nice and relaxing weekend to catch up and hang out.

My friends Trevor and Tori recently made salves and they finished them off by carving a tiny heart in the top with a tooth pick.  I obsess over the presentation and delivery of a gift more than the gift itself, so this will be the next step.  I may post again when I have figured out just how to do it...

If ever there were a day to post...

it was yesterday.

Today will have to do, as the second most epic day to post.  Part of the reason that I am so interested in this whole blog hubbub is because I find the time every other day to read a few of my favorite blogs, and when there are triumphs in the lives of these incredible women, I smile at my computer and feel happy.  Lately, I haven't had that many triumphs of my own to share, and quite frankly I have decided not to post a few times when my entry started out negative and whiny.  Still, I sign into the blogger dashboard every few days to check and see what's worth smiling about on the interweb.
I'm going to go ahead and get a teeny-tiny negative and whiny blurb out there so that it can be done and I can talk about all of this bitchen stuff in the future.  I had a job that I loved for two years.  I bragged about the fact that on Sunday night I truly went to sleep thinking, "The sooner that I fall asleep, the sooner it will be Monday morning!"  I kid you not. 
Okay, so I worked at a preschool.  So what if I think that three to five year old humans are way cooler, more original, less inhibited, and all around easier to be with than most adults.  I know adults that feel otherwise, but really, I would enjoy myself with a group of five year olds just as much, if not more, than I would ever enjoy myself with a room full of adults!
With this being said, I felt very valued by the parents of the children in my class.  After months of months of feeling unsupported by my supervisor, I asked for her permission to approach the board of directors (this is a very well established non-profit Montessori school).  Instead of the opportunity to voice my concerns, I was paid out for two weeks of work and asked to leave abruptly.  After such a "wah-wah-waaaaaah" moment in my life, I have been searching for the right position to work which will excite me again like teaching that age group did.
Some of my hobbies include cooking and baking, but another culinary hobby of mine is fermenting.  For anyone whose nose happened to scrunch, you just think about cheese, beer, wine, and bread for a minute!  Sauerkraut and kimchi, wild pickles and kombucha, ginger brew and rejuvelac!  Okay, maybe some of this stuff isn't as popular as I would like it to be in our culture, but to those of you who think Reed's is a good ginger ale should try making your own wild ginger brew! 
I really am getting to a point about yesterday.  Yesterday, I was finally able to meet with the man who started the Fermentation Festival in my area.  This year would be it's third year, however, the incredible man who started this festival was realizing that he did not have the time or energy to shift into over-drive in order to produce it this year.  That, my imaginary bloggy friends, is where I have jumped in.  I am going to work my buns off to make this the best out of the three years.  I have so many grand ideas and concepts brewing in my head... ha!  I couldn't help myself!
Hopefully this will be the start of many more entries, as I have a feeling that I will be on this computer lots more!