So I hummed and assembled this soup, which turned out quite good.

Something Good Soup
:: flavorful pork broth (reserved from the ham hock experiment)
:: acini di pepe (a fun pasta I like to keep on hand)
:: dehydrated gray oyster mushrooms (from Om Gardens, which, sadly, no longer exists)
:: chard from the garden
:: cilantro from the garden
:: green onion

And, in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s Maria and the Captain singing “Something Good.” (Hang on until at least 1:05.)

And an adaptation by the Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata. (I recently acquired their wonderfully bizarre debut album, The Hills are Alive.)

Burned-out hobby farmer in Georgia | Household: 1, while husband was deployed | Item of note: The top shelf holds a 2-liter bottle of oil for frying fish.

Stay-at-home mom in Del Valle, Texas | Household: 4 |”The veggie drawer is full of spinach that I promise to eat. My fridge looks healthier than from the first time.” | Item of note: Since there’s no nearby grocery store, they freeze milk in 2-liter bottles. A full freezer is more efficient, and there’s always milk on hand.

Outdoors enthusiast in Oklahoma City | Household: 1 human, 3 dogs, 2 cats, 1 rat | Item of note: More roasted pumpkin?!

New York City locavores | Poet/professor and communications associate | Household: 2 | Before Christmas vacation

Same as above, after Christmas vacation | Item of note: “The bowl [in the freezer] is a sad story. I made stock on Thanksgiving and poured it into a mason jar. … I put it in the freezer thinking it wouldn’t break without a lid, but I was wrong. I never got around to dealing with it, so when we went to Oklahoma for Christmas I sat the whole frozen/broken thing in the bowl in case the freezer quit. The good news: I saved the stock in the end since the glass broke in big pieces!”

Copy editor in Oklahoma City | 1-person household | Item of note: That’s a basket of fava beans from Peak Oil Hausfrau.

If this has merely whetted your appetite, check out this Fridge Fetish group on Flickr.
And here’s an artistic alternative to refrigerators, based on the designer’s oral history research in traditional food storage.

Some thoughts I had while compiling this post:

Why do I care about refrigerator contents? Do I care about refrigerator contents? Still pondering this.

A potentially interesting photographic commentary could be created by juxtaposing contents of refrigerators and medicine cabinets. It might illustrate what Michael Pollan stated in his 2008 letter to the presidential candidates: “Spending on health care has risen from 5 percent of national income in 1960 to 16 percent today … Spending on food has fallen by a comparable amount — from 18 percent of household income to less than 10 percent.”

Oh! What about a refrigerator component in online dating? You pick the most appealing refrigerator contents and see who is behind the refrigerator door. That sounds very fun. I think a clean refrigerator with diverse foodstuffs would definitely garner points. I’ve never given this much thought until just now, but I might be on to something.

The fungus requires a near-perfect combination of temperature and moisture at just the right season if it is to produce abundantly.

—Billy Joe Tatum’s Wild Food Field Guide on morels

Ideal conditions produced a bountiful morel season in central Oklahoma. My Facebook feed has been peppered with friends excitedly documenting their finds, just as I did Saturday after returning from a foraging trip.

My friend Matt led me through brambles of greenbrier and poison ivy as we crouched, crawled and peered along the forest floor in pursuit of morels. Everything covered — save face, neck and hands — to protect from the ticks that still managed to get me. Despite all that, I still found myself thankful the morels provided a challenge: I loved the effort put forth for this fleeting, funky-looking fungus. I also enjoyed being in the forest, appreciating it at a large and small scale.

Other than vegetable gardening, I rarely obtain my food from its source — from its origination, without middlemen. I relished this chance to forage morels and turn them into a meal a mere hours later. I imagine hunting or fishing, and to some extent ranching and farming, must elicit the same feelings of self-satisfaction and thankfulness for nature’s provisions.

But back to the hunt: Foraging requires a trained eye, and it seems even more challenging when you’re looking for that one specific thing. It was like I was very aware of the space between actual seeing and the realization of what I was seeing. My brain wanted so badly to see the honeycomb-like fungus emerging from the leaf-covered humus, and my eyes were straining to make it so. This awareness was intensified when Matt, aka Eagle Eyes, would excitedly announce his finds. What?! Where? Meanwhile, he’s loading his bag. As he said, his is a trained eye, and I’m thankful he shared his spot and knowledge with me. It rained this week, so hopefully I can get more practice and take advantage of these perfect conditions.


The greenbrier thorns got me through my jeans. And check out that red dirt!


Morels simply sautéed in butter are amazing.

Left untouched were the amaranth, anise hyssop and basil seed heads I cut in the fall and hung from the ceiling of the laundry/mud room.

Last week I collected the seed in anticipation of planting time and an upcoming annual seed exchange. (If you’re in the Oklahoma City area on Easter Sunday, you should come out to Ron Ferrell’s Friendship Seed & Plant Exchange. Here‘s how it all got started.)

The amaranth and basil were both grown from seed. The sage leaves were from Guilford Gardens. And the hyssop was grown from a transplant from Gabe.

I have referred to this handy guide for my rudimentary seed-saving. Saving seed seems like a fairly simple exercise, but there are those seeds that have a reputation, like tomatoes. They’ve been deemed difficult, but I’m not sure why. I haven’t attempted saving tomato seed, but that largely is because I haven’t had a lot of luck growing the suckers. I don’t store seeds in the fridge, and I don’t do germination tests. And as you can see, I don’t bother with threshing. I am just not that rigorous. Should I be?

I’d like to devote some time to developing a deeper understanding of seed-saving and botany. Seems like this book would be the place to start. Any other suggestions?

A couple of weeks ago, I got together with a group of friends for a day of re-skilling, or learning skills that were ubiquitous a couple of generations ago. I cut down a tree! And then I got addicted to chopping firewood using a splitting wedge and sledgehammer. It felt so good to use all my might. And the cracking wood was deeply satisfying. Of course, as Doug reminded me, these activities are much more fun when they aren’t routine chores. Still, I haven’t had my fill.

After the tree-felling and firewood-gathering at Rose Ranch, we went to Hill Farm to make sausage from Doug’s 575-pound momma pig, Irma.

Doug picked up casings at Kamp’s meat market. They were silky with bits of grit that might have been salt. I triple-rinsed them and then Doug and Marcy loaded a piece on the sausage stuffer funnel.



Jim and Callie seasoned the ground meat. We made bratwurst and Italian sausage.

I’m sure the novelty of making sausage eventually might fade, but by the end of that evening my cheeks ached from giggling at all the sexual innuendos.

More photos here.

Hear celebrated farmer-activist-writer Wendell Berry recite some of his poems, including that one that always soothes me, “The Peace of Wild Things.” And in the same tradition, my friend Stephanie Jordan will read from her poetry collection, Waiting for Rain: Stories of Love, Loss and Agriculture, in Norman on Sunday. And it might even be raining. 

Looks like I’m going to take a road trip sometime this spring or summer to visit Key Ingredients: America by Food, a traveling food history exhibit making its way through rural America. Here’s the Oklahoma schedule. I’m pretty jazzed since I’ve been wanting to see more of Oklahoma, and I’ll get to geek out on our country’s culinary evolution while doing so.

This Valentine’s Day some friends crammed into my house to eat chicken hearts. We got together to share the novel experience, trade seeds, drink lots of wine and catch up on each others’ lives. It was a warm, wonderful evening and I am thankful to have many adventurous (or at least obliging) friends. I can’t wait to do it again next year.

My friend Julie fine-tuning the batter.
She dredged the hearts in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, paprika and chipotle powder. Then she dipped them in egg and again in the flour mixture. We fried them in lard (from Doug Hill’s pigs) that I rendered the day before. Golden, bite-sized and delicious!



The incredible spread! I hoped the ranch dressing might comfort those that were particularly nervous about eating hearts.

More photos here.

Postscript: If you’re curious, there was a heart party in 2011. I failed to document it, but it was quite memorable. My friend Julie (same Julie! Isn’t she awesome?) and I sautéed strips of lamb heart, which we ate in little sandwiches with aioli and arugula. There was also a potluck and the amazing poetry of Lauren Zuniga.

I used this recipe for Chinese braised hocks. The braising liquid calls for dark salted rice wine, which I didn’t have, so I used sherry.

I wanted crispy skin and melty fat, so after it was in the slow cooker for about nine hours, I moved the hock to a 450˚ oven for about 30 minutes. While it was in the oven, I attempted to reduce the braising liquid into a sauce. I didn’t have enough time for it to noticeably reduce, but it still worked fine drizzled on the meat, rice, and greens. (The meal that keeps on giving! Later I made soup by adding  kimchi, bok choy, and rice to the remaining broth.)

Ham hock, sautéed bok choy, and brown rice.
The meat fell off the bone and this former vegetarian wanted to scarf down every bit, along with the skin and fat! However, I had some restraint, but only because I needed leftovers for the next day’s lunch.

The flavor and textures were incredible and comparable to pork belly, except with more meat.
I’ve gone from being unsure about fresh ham hock to actively seeking it so I can cook it again, but in a milder liquid so I can get a better sense of the cut’s flavor.

About this time last year a friend introduced me to Wild Fermentation. I was familiar with the title, but when he described the book as a life-changing read, I decided to finally check out the library’s copy, which had tattered edges and splattered pages. (I love getting a well-loved library book; it’s an instant bond with other nameless, but like-minded OKC residents.)

After scanning through the first third of the book — the part that explains the history and basic science of fermented foods (many of which are my favorite things: beer, sourdough bread, cheese, yogurt) and the author’s interest in them — I knew I needed my very own copy.

The first recipe I tried was for sauerrüben (like sauerkraut, but with turnips instead of cabbage), since turnips were in season and are pretty cheap. I picked up a couple of pounds from W Bar M at the OSU-OKC farmers’ market.

Feb. 20, 2011

Grated turnips and sea salt packed into a crock, covered and weighted.

Evidence of fermentation after three days.

I tasted the sauerrüben every day. I decided the flavor was right on day six, but the fermentation slowly continues in the refrigerator. My palate hasn’t quite adapted to enjoy sauerrüben on its own, but it’s a delicious complement to meats, especially barbecued brisket.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 8,000 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.