Sustainable OKC and Individual Artists of Oklahoma are hosting EVOLVE, a juried art exhibition focusing on representations of sustainability, resiliency, and community.

Saturday night is the opening reception, and as part of the festivities, there will be a local food challenge between six big shots in OKC’s food-loving community:

105degrees
Chef Kurt Fleischfresser
Chef Kamala Gamble
Prairie Gypsies
Chef Ryan Parrott
The Wedge Pizzeria

Each contestant is making a finger food with as many locally sourced ingredients as possible. And you’ll judge their efforts! For the People’s Choice award, $1 = 1 vote for your favorite dish.

In addition, they will be competing for a $500 prize, which will be awarded by the three jurors:

Chef Jonathon Stranger
Chef Linda Trippe
Restaurateur Gail Vines

As if all that wasn’t enough, there will also be some awesome raffle prizes:

Membership to the Oklahoma Food Cooperative
Overnight stay at the Colcord Hotel
COOP Ale Works brewery tour
Oklahoma State Park gift certificate, valid for one night stay at
any state park
Local food picnic for four provided by Fresh Eats, a locavore
project
Enersolve diagnostic home energy audit
Summerside Vineyards, tour for four
$125 Ludivine gift certificate
Local goodies basket including items from Native Roots, DNA
Galleries and more

This is all happening 7 p.m. Saturday at the IAO Gallery in downtown OKC.

Tickets are $25 at the door, or can be purchased in advance at sustainableokc.org.

I’m especially excited The Spy will be DJing, which means dancing is very likely!

This was our first time to the new Living Kitchen location in Depew; when we visited in summer 2009 they were still in Bristow. Linda and Lisa are such relaxed hosts; both places had a great vibe. Check out Living on this Farm, where Lisa blogs about her experiences as an “accidental farmer.”

More photos from our Living Kitchen visits are here and here.

Tell me more about your dressing: do you include boiled eggs, giblets, seafood, nuts? In your mind, what are the regional variations in stuffing ingredients?

Even though I know the distinction between stuffing and dressing, I still find myself using the terms interchangeably. Is that a southern thing? Or perhaps it’s a product of the cultural goulash that was my upbringing. As a Texan raised by a Minnesotan mother and a Coloradoan father, my word choice is often schizophrenic: coke/pop, supper/dinner, aunt/aunt (pronounced ant), y’all/you guys, envelope/envelope (pronounced onvelope), etc. Speaking of such things, have you seen this awesome map that illustrates the regional terms for soda (or is it pop? or coke?)?

The okra is looking promising. Though, I’ve never grown okra before so I’m not really sure what’s supposed to be happening right now.

One tomato plant looks very healthy and might start producing. I planted it late, so maybe it will hold off and I can get some fall tomatoes. The others are looking pretty ragged and barren since the cucumbers decided to use the tomato plants as a trellis. (I didn’t think the cucumbers needed a trellis since I planted “Bushy Cucumbers.” “Compact,” my ass.)

The oregano, thyme, and basil are all doing well.

I harvested and cured onions a few weeks ago.

So, that’s a garden update. When I return I’ll tell you the story of how I killed my mother—my vinegar mother. In the meantime, check out these videos:

Local-food pioneer, April Harrington, is going through major hell, also known as eminent domain. The local news summarized her plight. Call your elected officials! This situation not only concerns April, but her employees, farmers, and entrepreneurs that use her commercial kitchen. April buys bumper crops and “ugly produce” from farmers and preserves it by canning, freezing, and making ready-made meals. She also makes delicious crackers, granola, and pancake and cookie mixes from freshly milled Oklahoma wheat.

And now for some silliness: this gives a whole new meaning to “playing with your food.”

Photo by dhamzza

Randy Marks and Ron Ferrell led the hopeful gardeners attending the Sustainable OKC workshop, which happened to be in our yard. They started us off with an exercise: we were to wander around the yard looking for on-site resources that could be used in growing projects, such as: pecan hulls, compost, “urbanite” (concrete scraps), shade and sun, water sources, wind blocks, soil, people. We learned about thermal mass, permaculture, food systems, and much more. Randy and Ron told us about their background and shared some of their favorite books.

We identified the placement of the garden and spread cardboard on the ground with lots of overlap in order to effectively smother out weeds and grass. You can actually install this garden right on top of existing lawn. That’s why this method is sometimes referred to as a “no-dig garden.” Of course we all know how tenacious bermuda grass can be, so there will be some creepers that invade—just not nearly as many as you would have otherwise. Then we placed the bluestem straw bales (bluestem holds up better than wheat straw) around the border. The bales should last about three years, after which they will need to be replaced or framed with something else. The bales help insulate the soil and retain moisture.

Next we filled the bed with loose straw and stomped it down. The straw acts as a sponge to retain moisture. Eventually the straw and cardboard will decompose and feed the soil.

Then it was time to add our growing medium: well-rotted horse poo. Expecting some slight settling, we made a heaping mound of it. The straw bales, straw fill, and compost all are moisture retainers, so watering requirements should be greatly reduced.
With nearly 30 people helping out, the construction of the bed took all of 26 minutes!

We took a break for a delicious potluck lunch: quiche, meatballs, granola, roasted veggie orzo, sweet potato soup, chicken, tabouli, cookies, cake, breads, and more. By the end of the day, we had decided on a name for our mission: Oklahoma GardenShare. Sharon Astrin created a facebook group for us. Please join and spread the word: Oklahoma GardenShare. The idea is to nurture a garden community, where we can reach out to this group and say—”Hey! I want to build a raised bed this weekend. Who can help me out?”—much like people come together to raise a barn or build straw-bale homes.

Much thanks to Chelsey Simpson for photographing the event.

People met in a parking lot this afternoon to pick up their birds.

A volunteer-led effort has helped a new Oklahoma chicken processor get a good start by selling 1,300 processed chickens in four days.  The processing plant’s success is key to regional, small-scale food security since it 1) is in Oklahoma and 2) is a small processor looking to help small, sustainable farmers and 3) is filling a food-supply gap.

From the Oklahoma Gazette:

For years, many struggled to figure out how to build a profitable facility that would cater to independent chicken farmers, so they were surprised in July to learn about Raymond Jones, a Tahlequah man in the final stages of completing a facility.

Jones is the founder and CEO of the DARP Foundation, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for offenders who are sent to him through the courts, in lieu of going to prison.

To combat the recession, Jones decided to build a chicken processing plant for independent farmers, staffed entirely by his DARP participants. After USDA inspections, the facility was set to open Sept. 21 and can process 5,000 birds per day. All of the profits support the foundation.

“I wanted to do something that there’s a need for,” Jones said. “We’re not trying to become a Tyson or a Simmons, but we can produce something that is good for the community at much less price than other people can.”

There will be another round of chicken deliveries next week. If you are interested in placing an order, refer to the contact information in my previous post.

This information comes from an email I received earlier today:

A new small-scale chicken processor just got their USDA certification and are busy processing birds.

This processor also raises birds a few miles from the processing location north of Tahlequah. These birds are housed at a much lower density than current industrialized standards. They are free to range during the daylight hours and are fed a completely vegetarian ration with no hormones or antibiotics added. I’ve seen these birds, and they seem healthy, calm, and stress-free. The resulting dressed product weighs about 7-9 lbs and *tastes wonderful*. This processor is committed to providing processing services to sustainable Oklahoma farmers and to providing affordable products to rural residents of our state. However, they face a short-term cash flow crunch and are very much in need of our help. How? By buying chicken! These birds are being offered at $5 for a 7-9 lb roaster. We are in the process of setting up one-time deliveries to Oklahoma City and Tulsa for next week. The Tulsa delivery will be Wednesday, OKC is still TBD. If you want to support local food, farming and processing, check your freezer space and come buy some birds. Buy some for your family and neighbors. Buy some and donate them to your local food bank!

Please send an e-mail to osborn.nancy@gmail.com with your name, phone number, location, and number of birds you’d like to buy. If we can buy about 4,000 birds in the next week, they can get through this crunch. If you have restaurant or institutional contacts who might like a large lot of roasters, please talk to them and send them our way. You have an opportunity to make a real, long-term difference in the face of local food next week–just by buying some chicken!

I just placed my order. Let’s help this entrepreneur get a good start!

Conventional wisdom taught Lisa Becklund, a chef and native Washingtonian, that when it came to food, the more exotic and well-traveled—the better. But since taste is paramount, Lisa found her clients receptive and excited about the fresh, local ingredients she sought out, which led to her toying with the idea of a farm-restaurant enterprise. She fell in love with Oklahoma while accompanying a friend on a family visit. Shortly after returning to Washington she decided to leave her Seattle restaurant and start farming here. She raises vegetables, chickens, goats (for milk), and sheep (for meat) on a 7-acre farm.

We went to one of Lisa’s Farm Table Dinners last weekend. It happened to be my birthday. We were greeted with refreshing mojitos and were given a farm tour where I learned that llamas deter coyotes and they poop in the same spot. Fascinating! So, their poo can be efficiently gathered for compost. I thought I took a picture of the wheelbarrow o’ poo, but alas, I did not. Just use your imagination. And speaking of poo, the Living Kitchen facilities offer a “hippie bathroom,” which features a groovy composting toilet.

Lisa and Casey on the farm tour. Casey is the “much-more-than-an-intern” and lives in the yurt.


The probable origin of “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

I loved the peaceful, friendly vibe of the Living Kitchen and the food was absolutely a-mazing. Every. Single. Bit. I can’t wait to go back. Maybe it will become a birthday tradition.

the menu:

second
everything-in-the-garden salad with homemade goat milk feta tossed in a lavender balsamic vinaigrette, studded with fresh lavender leaves

entree
pork shoulder crusted with lavender salt and slow smoked over lavender wood
served with tender Italian flat beans and Yukon gold potatoes in pan juices

dessert
lavender-lemon pound cake with peach ice cream
Tidal School Oklahoma Gold served in lavender-smoked glass

soul food
chocolate lavender truffle