Catching up

I wrote this a few weeks ago… May is in full swing now!

After several warm days and some good rain, the green grass has returned. It’s such a change from last weekend when we were at the house. This weekend, the sticky lilac leaves have appeared, with the dollhouse-sized dark purple bouquets deep within. They will grow bigger every day; I love to watch it. The daffodils are blooming now at the house, about a week behind those at our campus home. It is always interesting to see the seasonal delay, when we travel back and forth on weekends. Just a thirty mile difference, but closer to the river on campus.

At our April dinner recently, and I (Dillon) was struck while serving some longtime patrons that although they had been here last summer, it felt like longer since I had seen them. I think the feeling came because we’ve now had a winter restaurant season as well. This is our first year doing dinners each month, rather than taking a break from February to June. There’s been a coziness about the early dark, with our candles that line the front windowsills visible when people arrive and the glow from the farmhouse windows. Of course, we can adjust menus to feature lots of root vegetables and heartier dishes that we might not serve in the summer. The best thing, though, about this winter has been our new greenhouse and the greens that it provided us: the fresh baby lettuce, sweet spinach, and long, thin carrots. We’re very excited about this new addition to our business, funded in part by our Kickstarter campaign. Our boys love it, too.

It’s a challenge to keep up with blogging when we’re not living at the house full time, and when our life is full enough that finding time to reflect on it is scanty. But it’s important to keep connected, and to keep a record here for friends far and wide.

We’re doing a lot of work these days, growing seedlings, planting them, and preparing fields for our CSA. I say “we” to be generous to myself, but Justin is doing the most. Having the kids this young is a real challenge, even though we have the support of family close by. I look forward to the time when we can all work together. We’ll write more soon.

-Dillon

Cheesemaking

Tags

cheesemaking, Italy

Photo by Sam Frank, whose excellent blog about making cheese in Italy inspired me to write this post about our own experience.

In June 2005 we flew to Italy for the first time to deepen our knowledge of Italian food and culture on its native shores. We spent most of our time living and working on farms in the countryside. One of these was Lago Scuro, near Cremona in the region of Lombardia. In addition to being one of the inspirations for our farm-based restaurant, Lago Scuro was our first experience of cheesemaking. We watched as the milk warm from the cows was piped into vats, and a starter culture from the previous days cheesemaking was mixed in. After proper fermentation, rennet was added for coagulation, curds were cut and drained in forms, and later the cheeses were salted and began their aging process. For us, who knew nothing about the production of cheese, the whole process was mystifying.

Lago Scuro, photographed by Sam Frank, whose excellent blog about making cheese in Italy inspired me to write this post.

One day, Fabio made mozzarella. We saw how the blocks of curds were broken up by hand into little pieces and added back into scalding water where they would begin to melt, be formed into masses, and stretched by Fabio’s firm hand and wooden paddle. Finally and most magically, Fabio’s intern would hold up a scalding mass and Fabio would simultaneously cut off and seal a ball of mozzarella from the large mass, dropping it in a vat of cold water to cool. “Mozzare” in Italian means to “cut or lop off”, and it is this word which gives the cheese its name.

Photo by Sam Frank, whose excellent blog about making cheese in Italy inspired me to write this post.

Most of Fabio’s cheeses, however, were not an attempt to recreate some Italian cheese with a famous name. Rather, his goal was to make cheeses which reflected the terroir of the surrounding countryside. We tend to think of cheeses having specific names (Cheddar, Brie, Parmigiano-Reggiano) instead of being types. This is sort of like calling all tissues “Kleenex”, which is really just a brand name.

I used to think that certain cheeses — mozzarella, for example — had to be made with some kind of special “mozzarella starter” which made that milk turn into “mozzarella”. What we learned from Fabio, and later cheese maker Jonathan White of Bobolink Dairy in NJ, was that it is subtle changes in temperature, type and amount of starter, fermentation time, aging process, etc., which produce different types of cheese. For example, in mozzarella, the curd is allowed to rest until its pH drops to around 5.0, which allows it to be stretched. In the case of a cheese like Brie, white mold growing on the rind helps develop the soft, buttery texture on the inside of the cheese.

The best analogy I can think of is cooking eggs. To begin with, the quality of the raw ingredient makes a big difference. An anemic store-bought egg is a pale shadow of a vigorous pasture-raised egg. In the same way, fresh raw milk is going to produce richer, more interesting cheese than store bought milk. With the same humble ingredient – an egg – one can produce boiled eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelletes, frittatas, etc. The textures and flavors are enormously diverse based upon heat, method, and other variables. Even within the category of scrambled eggs, a huge variety of styles exist based upon the temperature, type of pan, frequency of stirring, whether they’re stirred with a fork, spoon, or spatula, whether they’re salted before or after cooking, whether one adds milk, cream, water, or nothing. With cooking eggs as with making cheese, little differences in process can produce very different results.

In the seven years since working at Lago Scuro, we’ve often been inspired to make cheese. We’ve made some attempts, mostly unsuccessful, but we continue to be inspired. Honestly, it’s not easy to do at home. Aging cheeses is a special challenge, since the 85% humidity required is hard to achieve on a home scale. To make matters worse, until recently there hasn’t been a first-rate book to guide would-be cheesemakers through the craft. With all due respect to Ricki Carroll’s landmark book first published 30 years ago, it simply doesn’t give the detail needed to understand the process and do troubleshooting. For example, it recommends holding the milk at a certain temperature by keeping it in a sink full of warm water. But what if I need to do dishes?

Fortunately, the perfect book now exists. Published this past fall, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking by Gianaclis Caldwell is accessible enough for beginners but comprehensive enough for those deepening their knowledge of the craft. Although circumstances haven’t allowed us to make any aged cheeses this winter, we’re gearing up for a major effort this summer. We think we’ve finally figured out the aging space and hope to have good results by the fall!

- Justin

Giananclis Caldwell, signing her book for me at the recent PASA conference. In addition to having written a great book, she is truly as kind and sweet as she seems in this photo.

Old Tioga Farm Featured in the Times Leader

The restaurant was featured several weeks ago in the Times Leader of Wilkes Barre. Thanks to Joe Sylvester for a fun interview and good article!

http://www.timesleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?avis=TL&date=20130319&category=news&lopenr=303199742&Ref=AR

Photo by Pete Wilcox of the Times Leader

Chicken Thighs Braised with Celery & Bay Leaves

On the menu at the restaurant recently has been one of my favorite dishes: braised chicken with celery & bay leaves. I originally learned the recipe from Marcella Cucina, one of the splendid cookbooks of Marcella Hazan, who has been such a central influence in my own cooking. Marcella, in turn, learned the recipe from her friend Mara Martin of Ristorante Da Fiore in Venice. Many recipes in Italy are like this, passed down from friend to friend. Originality is far less important than cooking with love and attention. Here is how I make the dish for the restaurant.

1)   Season six chicken thighs generously with salt, especially on the skinless side, where the salt will be absorbed more easily.

2)   Ideally the chicken should rest and absorb the seasoning for an hour or two while coming to room temperature. If really pressed for time, just proceed to the browning.

3)   Pat the chicken dry, and brown with olive oil in 1 large or 2 medium pans.

4)   Remove the chicken from the pan(s) and drain off most of the rendered fat. Add more olive oil, and soften about ½ cup chopped onion over medium heat. Allow it to gain a little color, then add 1/4 cup of chopped celery and 2 medium garlic cloves, smashed.

5)   A minute or two later, add several bay leaves, a small handful of parlsey leaves (chopped or whole), and a ½ cup or so white wine or broth to deglaze the pan.

6)   Return the chicken to the pan and cook for an additional 45 minutes or so, either simmering gently on the stove top with a lid askew on the pan, or in the oven at 325 degrees with no lid. Regulate the amount of liquid so that nothing begins to stick or burn.

7)   Garnish with a small pinch of chopped parsley or chopped celery leaves and serve.

The Delaware Chicken

This summer we plan on embarking on a new agricultural adventure — not commercially, but just as a hobby for ourselves: raising chickens. Although we have friends and family with experience raising chickens, for us it is a completely new and somewhat scary prospect. Having living creatures depending on us for sustenance is a responsibility of great weight.

Our first decision has been choosing a breed. The issue of breed is actually quite an interesting and important story. The almost universal choice for broilers (chickens raised for meat) among both confinement and free range farmers is the Cornish Cross, a breed developed in the 1950s for confinement houses. This breed was designed to grow very fast and to have a high proportion of breast meat. Unfortunately, when one selects for certain traits (such as quick growth), other traits get neglected. And so the Cornish Cross is a very frail animal. Its growth rate outstrips its internal organ development. It can’t walk well and easily becomes ill, which is why confinement operations feed a steady supply of antibiotics.

Not our idea of how chickens should be raised.

Sustainable farmers raising birds outside have corrected most of the unsustainable and downright sickening aspects of confinement poultry. But they continue to use the same breed, the Cornish Cross, which is designed for a confinement operation and although it certainly enjoys more humane conditions outside, it is not necessarily healthier. It is not a breed intended to range on grass, and it typically doesn’t. Cornish Cross birds raised outside certainly taste better than confinement birds because they tend to be fresher and cleaner, but their flavor is not that of older, heirloom breeds.

So it would seem obvious that sustainable farmers should use an older breed more suited to life outside. But they don’t. The reasons are largely economic. Because the Cornish Cross grows so quickly, it is efficient and profitable to grow. Many consumers already balk at the price of pastured poultry. If the cost increased significantly due to the slower growth rate of an heirloom breed, the market would likely just shrivel up in most places. To make matters worse, people have become accustomed to the large portion of breast meat of the Cornish Cross, and wouldn’t be satisfied with the heirloom alternative. Pastured poultry guru Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm has admitted that his use of the Cornish Cross is the least sustainable aspect of his operation. Still, as he says, there is no market for heirloom meat birds.

I don’t fault farmers at all for using the Cornish Cross for commercial production, because it really does seem to be the only economically viable option within our current culture and view toward food. Perhaps the real answer lies in a new breed which grows quickly but has better genetics for health and ranging. Unfortunately, there is little profit to be made in such work, though some are trying.

Fortunately, for those raising chickens as a hobby or for the pleasure of it, there are alternatives. After much research, we’ve settled on the Delaware breed, a dual purpose breed developed in the 1940s and intended for commercial production of both meat and eggs. In fact, it was the universal choice for commercial production until the introduction of the Cornish Cross in the 1950s. The Delaware is a relatively quick-growing bird, though it requires about 12 weeks (double that of the Cornish Cross). Another option is the Freedom Ranger breed, which was developed in the 1960s in France. But we’ll probably choose the Delaware for nostalgic reasons (it’s my home state). Either breed will have much less breast meat than a Cornish Cross, though I agree with Mario Batali that the breast meat is the least interesting part of the bird. I would happily trade more flavorful dark meat for a reduction in white. Just as important, the Delaware is a friendly, docile bird, but happy to range on grass (though all chickens derives most of their diet from grain). A big part of our interest in raising chickens is to give our young children an experience of livestock on the farm. Our three year old asks all the time about when we’ll be raising the chickens.

I’m not sure the enterprise will be profitable or the best use of our time from an economic point of view, but that’s not the point. Our hope is to get our feet wet with livestock while giving our boys an important experience and providing our family with a truly humanely-raised chicken.

- Justin

Old Tioga Farm Featured in the Press Enterprise

We were delighted that Joe Fisher of the Press Enterprise recently paid a visit to the farm to profile the restaurant for our local paper. Read the full article here.

Torta di cioccolata

For the restaurant on February 16, we had put a flourless chocolate cake on the menu which we first learned from our friend Anna Brevini of agritourismo Bosco del Fracasso, near Reggio-Emilia. I had made it many times and at one point had it memorized. But enough time passed that I had forgotten the exact proportions, and when I realized on the morning of the 16^th that the recipe had been lost with a crashed computer some months earlier, I momentarily panicked. But a quick internet search turned up a lovely recipe by the great cookery writer Elizabeth David, an authority one can always count on. Her cake called for almonds (Anna’s had not), and I decided to follow David’s recipe, substituting hazelnuts. I was so pleased with this version that I think it will become the standard one I serve. How often a mistake actually leads to an improvement! This version of the cake is my own, but the ratio of ingredients is based upon Emiko Davies’s version, which is in turn based on Elizabeth David’s.

1)   Begin by roasting 85 grams hazelnuts at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Let cool slightly and then rub off the skins with a wet towel or your hands. Grind the hazelnuts into a powder with a food processor or other grinder (I use an old whizzer coffee grinder).

2)   Meanwhile, melt 115 grams bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler and then melt 85 grams of butter with the chocolate. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

3)   Beat three egg whites until stiff, and beat three egg yolks with 85 grams sugar until thick.

4)   Add a teaspoon of vanilla and two shots espresso or very strong coffee to the chocolate. If you prefer, substitute of shot of liquor (rum or amaretto) in place of one of the coffee shots.

5)   Slowly mix the chocolate into the egg yolk/sugar mixture, then fold in egg whites.

6)   Pour into a cast iron or cake pan which has been buttered/floured. To be safe, you could use parchment paper or just plan on serving the cake from the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for around 30 minutes or so, until a toothpick comes out clean.

7)   It’s best warm, but it’s also good at room temperature.

- Justin  

Five Reasons to Start Making Ricotta Today

As a follow up to my last post, you should begin making your own ricotta for the same reasons that you’re now making your own yogurt. It’s easy, saves plastic, gives you control, is satisfying, and is cheaper. I’ll give the recipe in a moment, but first an explanation about ricotta. Ricotta means “re-cooked” in Italian. Traditional Italian ricotta is made by reheating or “recooking” whey, once the cheese curds have been removed. This recooking coagulates the remaining proteins and forms ricotta cheese, which is really less of a “cheese” and more of a byproduct of cheese making. Traditional ricotta is much drier than its American counterpart. Unless you make cheese, you won’t be making traditional ricotta. But you can make a product very much like it using milk instead of whey. Here’s how:

1)   Heat two quarts milk to around 170 degrees, stirring to keep it from burning. As it reaches 170, lower the temperature significantly so that it continues to increase in temperature rather gently.

2)   Add about 1/4 cup lemon juice and stir. The ricotta will start to coagulate. Stir gently and then ladle out the curds into a container. As the temperature increases, more curds will form, especially if you add more lemon juice. You’ll know when you’ve gotten all the curds formed when the whey turns from opaque (like milk) to a translucent color. Both temperature and amount of lemon juice affect this process. You might use up to 1/3+ cup lemon juice depending on temperature. But don’t go crazy, because you don’t want the flavor affected too much by the lemon juice.

3)   Once all the curds are ladled out, drain off any excess whey and let cool, stirring in salt to taste (about ¼ teaspoon or so).

4)   This ricotta will be drier than store bought. To make it resemble store bought ricotta, add milk as needed to loosen it up.

- Justin

Five Reasons to Start Making Yogurt Today

Making yogurt is easy. Really. Really easy. But I’m guilty too. Despite the ease with which yogurt is made, I’ve wasted as much money and plastic by buying store bought yogurt as anyone.  After some brief attempts over ten years ago, I stopped trying to make yogurt for ten years, continually putting it off by means of one lame excuse after another. But really, it’s easy. And I’ve finally gotten over my inertia and committed to never buying yogurt again. Buying yogurt is a little like buying a pancake mix. There’s just no good reason. Here are 4 great reasons to make your own.

1)   It’s easy. We’re talking 10 minutes of effort per week, max. Heat the milk to 180 degrees, cool it to 110, mix in culture, keep it warm for six hours or overnight. See recipe below for more details.

2)   It saves plastic. Count the number of #5 yogurt containers you’ve sent to the landfill in the past year. They can be recycled, but with much hassle (mailing them off to a special recycler). Some waste is unavoidable, of course. But here’s an easy place to draw the line.

3)   It gives you control. The best yogurt I’ve ever had is Seven Stars Organic Yogurt from Kimberton, PA. It used to be thin enough to drink out of a cup — which I did for a whole year for breakfast when I first started working on farms. Making your own yogurt lets you control thickness, texture, and sweetness. You can choose your own sweetener (honey, maple syrup, etc), or none.

4)   It’s satisfying. Making anything from scratch is a thrill, and it frees you from dependence on some manufacturer somewhere. How sad is the invention of the pancake mix when making pancakes from scratch takes exactly 15 more seconds of effort. Break those ties.

5)   It’s cheaper. Good yogurt costs $3 per ½ gallon. ½ Gallon of milk only costs $2. Even worse are the little yogurt containers which convenience often dictates. Those cost about $6 to $8 per ½ gallon. It’s a nice change when the environmental thing is actually cheaper than the alternative!

So here’s how to do it:

1)   Heat milk to 180 degrees, stirring to keep it from burning, and let cool to 110 degrees. I use to think this was just sanitation paranoia, but heating to 180 actually changes the nature of the milk and allows it to thicken when cultured. I don’t understand the science, but when I skipped this step I got very runny (but delicious) yogurt.

2)   For every quart of milk, add 1 tablespoon of live, active yogurt (from the store or your last batch of yogurt) and mix in thoroughly and fill as many containers (I use glass canning jars) as you need to contain all the milk.

3)   Hold at 110 degrees for six hours. This is the tricky part which discourages many people. But there are a few ways to achieve this:

a)    Use a heat mat.

b)   Warm the oven to 170 degrees, then turn it off, place the containers, wrapped in towels, in the oven.

c)    (My favorite) Fill a large pot of water with water and warm to 120 degrees or so, place the jars in the water bath and cover. If the water cools rapidly, you could turn the burner on occasionally to keep the temperature up, or you could start with 130 degree water. Although I haven’t done this, I think it would work to leave it overnight.

4)   When the yogurt is thickened to your liking (less time means less thick), refrigerate and serve once cool!

- Justin

2013 PASA Conference

On February 8 and 9, I (Justin) attended the 22^nd annual PASA conference in State College, PA. This conference is the premier sustainable agricultural conference on the east coast, maybe in the country. One of the reasons is that the organization is intentionally inclusive: although most of its members are organic, it is not an exclusively organic farming association. Its founders were wise to take a “big tent” approach, and the result has been a broader membership and more influence than many other regional organic farming associations. My first conference was in 2000, the 9^th annual conference, at which attendance first reached 1000. This year, and for the past several, attendance has reached over 2000+. In fact, through my extended family, my ties to PASA go back even further. My father-in-law, who had the first CSA in our area, was present for the first conference in 1992, and Dillon (my wife) was the typist for PASA’s newsletter in the mid-90’s.

For all these reasons my connection to PASA run deep. Even though I’ve only been able to attend about half the conferences these past 13 years, my experience at the conference is always transformative. Most of the important ideas that have pushed our businesses forward have come from the conference: the knowledge to start a website, the idea to operate a restaurant on the farm, the possibility of raising money through kick starter, and most recently the skills needed to begin making cheeses and curing meats!

This year’s conference was focused on around two keynote addresses: one from Charles Eisenstein and the second from Ben Hewitt. The two couldn’t have been more different. The former a Harvard grad, the latter a high school drop out. The former a resident of suburbia using his pen as a sword in the arena of ideas. The latter a farmer in rural Vermont, fighting the daily battles with nature which give a farmer his resilience and independence. The two also adopted opposite styles. Charles spoke with no notes, indeed with no prepared remarks at all it seemed. Ben, the high school drop out, read a lecture as eloquent and carefully crafted as any professor of writing. Yet, both spoke to the same hopes and dreams we all seem to have on some level: to live in a more just world, to replace the sickness of a money economy with one based on things of true value, to restore health to both people and the earth. Both men would be labeled Quixotic by the world, impractical dreamers divorced from the hard-nosed real world. And yet, both men understand that it is the very assumptions about the way the world operates which paralyzes many from living their lives with greater integrity and meaning. Both men understand that timidity and fear dominate the lives of many and that trust in fragile things is required to break such fear and insecurity. And both men understand that change doesn’t come only from great acts of those in power, but the quiet, imperceptible actions of individuals. Finally, both men understand that change in the world comes only when we begin by changing ourselves, when we see others not as the enemy but as kindred souls, and when we decide that the only change that ultimately matters is our own decision to live in the way our conscience demands.