Out With the Fruit, In With the Fungi (and the Focaccio)

Mariposa made up for the hot summer months with a balmy fall that seemed almost as long.  September, October and November here felt like a typical August in the Willamette Valley.  It was so delicious to finally be comfortable in the sunshine, and our outdoor adventures included many new animal friends: 

The Lone Mallard of Yosemite hustles Bob for his sandwich at Emerald Pool.

A happy petsitting client joins us on a trip to town.

Bob picks up a hitchhiker on the highway.

We harvested our cold-sensitive summer produce at the end of October, but we could have left it longer.  Always a gamble, this gardening business.  Almost all of our ripe tomatoes were devoured as they came and the rest were dehydrated for storage.  Our single "Sweetie" cherry tomato plant was astonishingly prolific, and the sweetness of the fruit was even more astonishing, especially when dried.  Those of you who were children in the '90s may imagine a Gushers fruit snack with a delicate tomato flavor.  DELICIOUS.

The big haul.   

Of the many, many pounds of green tomatoes and peppers that were left, I canned several batches of this delicious relish/sauce/soup base recipe.  Surprisingly sweet, it can even be used as pasta sauce.  I added some dried smoked chilis to one of the batches for extra tastiness with beans. 

Mid-sized green tomatoes were mostly consumed fried and dipped in tzaziki, with a side of arugula, pickled beet, and feta salad.

A late October thunderstorm brought us our first meal of found fungus since moving here.  It was also our first time eating shaggy manes, one of the easiest edible mushrooms to identify.  Thrilled as I was to find these guys, I'm even more excited about the large area of burned and bulldozed land that we explored on the same hike, aftermath of a September vegetation fire right above the high school.  Come spring, I'll be snooping around up there obsessively in search of morels.  We'll also be starting mushroom garden patches and logs using spawn from Fungi For the People's brand-new mushroom spawn CSA.  We took a workshop from this delightful nonprofit while we were living in Eugene, and we can't wait to apply what we learned.

Our shags, which were consumed breaded and fried.  They were fairly bland, but enthusiasm is the best seasoning.  Garlic aoli doesn't hurt either.

Yet another local food source that we've been drawing from is our friend Christie's blossoming sourdough bakery.  Not only are her loaves mouthwateringly addictive, but something about the high quality of her (mostly organic) ingredients and the long slow fermentation of the dough results in breads that don't aggravate Bob's gluten sensitivity.  After two years of frustration and failure trying to make successful gluten-free bread at home, this is possibly the most exciting discovery we've made here so far.

Bob ogles the fresh focaccios with bakery dog Willie (who demonstrates much better self-control around the breads than we do).  From left to right: Rosemary, Olive, and Jalapeno-Cheddar.

This month finally brought our first real winter weather, an exciting 8" of snow overnight.  A good excuse to snuggle up in the motorhome with books and stacks of unanswered letters...and to finally write a blog post!

Finally some extra freezer space, conveniently located outside the kitchen window.

Warm winter wishes to all of you, our dears near and far.  We hope that you are keeping well and letting your little lights shine.

Little Motorhome in the Big Woods

Squashed

Let’s talk about squash.

A little over a month ago, Theresa and I made the foolhardy decision to keep all four cocozelle zucchini starts.  We knew we were courting danger, but we also both really like summer squash and we feared that the gophers might grab one or two of the plants.  They didn’t, of course, and now we are reaping the stripey green consequences.  Daily.  Sometimes twice.  You know how it is.  But the cocozelle are so sweet and creamy, I have no regrets (yet).  I will eat summer squash any way imaginable, including raw; Bob is a little less excited about consuming them three times a day.  Luckily, I have a few recipes up my sleeve that are perfect for dealing with the Plague of Zucchini.  Print them out and tuck them into the sacks of your own summer squash that you’re probably already leaving on neighbors’ doorsteps and in your friends’ cars. 

Cocozelle on parade!

Zucchini Crust Pizza

from Jane Brody’s Good Food Book

This pizza crust is essentially a thin frittata, and its mellow tastiness complements every combination of sauce and toppings that I’ve thrown at on it.  Forks are required, but the tradeoff is that you don’t need a side salad to ensure that everyone’s getting enough veggies.

• 2 lbs. of unpeeled, shredded summer squash
• 1 egg white and 2 whole eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
•  ⅓ cup flour (any type that will absorb moisture)
• ½ cup grated mozzarella
• ½ cup grated Parmesan
• ½ tsp dried basil or more if fresh.  Other pizza-type herbs are good too: rosemary, oregano, etc.
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F. 
2.  Grate the squash.  Toss it with ~½ tsp of salt and let it rest.
3. Beat, chop and grate the rest of the ingredients.  Combine them into a large bowl. 
4.  Scoop the grated squash into one of those reusable mesh produce bags, or several thicknesses of cheesecloth.  (If you really get desperate you can use a colander, but it’s kind of a pain.)  Squeeze the bejeezus out of that zucchini until no more liquid comes out or your hands get tired, whichever comes first. 
5. Combine the squeezed zucchini with the rest of your crust ingredients.  Press the mixture into a greased pizza pan or half-sheet baking pan, something with a bit of rim around it. 
6. Bake 25-30 minutes until the crust is firm and getting lightly browned in places.  Meanwhile, prepare your toppings of choice. 
7. Remove the crust from the oven and turn the oven up to 400 °F.  Arrange sauce and toppings on the crust, and return the pizza to the oven until whatever you put on there is melted/browned to your satisfaction. 

With some help from pizza-loving friends, you can double the recipe and kill 2-3 days’ harvest of summer squash this way without feeling like it’s zucchini for dinner again.

Zucchini “Pasta” Salad

This version includes fresh tomatoes, sprouted mung beans, blue cheese-stuffed olives, and slivered almonds.

I invented this last summer as a last-minute lunch for some friends who dropped by, and it was a hit.  Who wants to boil pasta when it’s hot and the summer squash are beating down the door?  Freshly-picked zucchini are fantastic raw; especially if you catch ‘em while they’re still small.

Grate your unpeeled zucchini.  In a large bowl, combine the shredded squash with some combination of things like:

• olives
• tomatoes (sundried or fresh)
• feta cheese
• fresh basil, dill, parsley, or whatever is growing out there
• pickled green beans or other veggies
• sweet peppers
• green or red onion
• grated carrot
• corn freshly cut off the cob
• kidney beans
• avocado chunks

Dress the salad with a vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt to taste, and a little crushed garlic.  Toss and serve!  It gets tastier with age, but also juicier.

And now for some gratuitous baby photos from the garden:

Squashrocket to the moon!  What could be cuter than a baby butternut?

This acorn squash was a volunteer.  The giant green mass that you see in the background is the rest of the plant, quietly consuming the meeting-house.

I've been curious to try eating squash blossoms for awhile, but couldn't find the time last summer to experiment.  But zucchini are not the only cucurbitae growing around here, and there are just too many squash blossoms in the garden to ignore.  So I finally picked a basketful and tried out some variations:

Stuffed Squash Blossoms

A mixture of summer squash, acorn squash, and butternut squash blossoms.

I'm not gonna lie to you; filling these suckers is, frankly, time-consuming.  But they come out beautifully crispy and taste delicious.  Make them only when you're in the mood for a leisurely meal preparation, comfortably seated next to the fan with music and a glass of beer.  We've eaten these for dinner alongside jalapeno poppers that used essentially the same filling and baked in the same oven, with a lemon-garlic aioli for dipping.  It was like pub food from heaven.  Fresh cucumber spears and perfectly grilled butternut squash make a nice accompaniment also (thank you Bob). 

Depending on whether you want to use a pastry bag or just your fingers, prepare one of the two fillings below:

1. Pastry Bag Method

   Mini Log Method

   Combine: ·  1 cup ricotta (or cottage cheese) ·  1 egg ·  ⅓ cup fresh parsley or basil, chopped fine ·  Salt to taste Fill a sturdy quart Ziploc bag with the filling, and cut the tip of one bottom corner off.  If you have a pastry bag, so much the better.  Gently open each squash blossom, squeeze filling into it, and twist loosely at the end to close.  Don’t worry about making a mess; it doesn’t affect the final product.

   Smoosh together: ·  2/3 cup feta or chevre · ½ cup finely grated Monterey Jack · ½ cup finely chopped sweet or hot pepper · 1 tsp. dried oregano Roll a bit of the filling mixture into a 1"-long log that is narrow enough to fit through the opening of the squash blossom.  Ease it in, close the  blossom and gently squeeze the log down into the bottom of the blossom.  Repeat until the blossom is full, and twist the end closed.

    
   

   

   The mini-log method.  No action shots are included because the process looks unbelievably pornographic.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 °F.
3. Break 2 eggs into a bowl and whisk. 
4. Prepare 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs and place them in another bowl.
5. Dredge each stuffed squash blossom in egg, then breadcrumbs, and transfer to an oiled baking sheet.
6. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned and crispy.
7. Remove from the oven. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

The finished product bears a hilarious resemblance to deep-friend squid.

A Tale of Two Kitties

It amazes me how mere familiarity can create such a powerful illusion of understanding.  Hang around someone for long enough, and eventually the brain relaxes its curiosity and says, "I know what this guy is all about".   As a scientist, I choose to believe in a certain degree of Absolute Truth with regards to the physical world and its properties.  Without this assumption, empiricism as we know it has no foothold.  But where conscious beings are concerned, my data support a much more relativistic view.  I am inclined to believe that each of us contains an entire universe of perceptions and interpretations whose sum is completely unique.  And each being's universe is far too vast, too complex and mysterious for any outside observer to ever fully quantify.

Which brings us to the cat.  I think of Lysander as a pretty simple guy--motivated by food first and play second--but sixteen years into our relationship he continues to surprise and confound my expectations regarding his behavior.  For the first 10 years of his adult life he refused to sit in anyone's lap; then, one day, he decided he was a lap cat.  I give him Bob's leftover oatmeal and he snubs it, but a bag of uncooked oatmeal left on the kitchen counter isn't safe for five minutes. 

Mr. Mystery.

Half the reason that Lysander left my mom's house and came to live with me in Eugene was that he didn't get along with the other cats.  (The other half was that I missed having a cat.  The OTHER other half was that he didn't really get along with my mom, either.)  He bullied our female Siamese mix and fled from our tuxedo tomcat; even the foster kittens who occasionally breached their containment in the spare bathroom filled him with horror.  After moving in with me Ly became much friendlier with new people, but still chased all feline visitors out of the yard with hissing and growling.

Until Princess.

Princess and Mama Cat were here when George and Theresa bought this property (lending new meaning to the real estate term "fully furnished").  After a year and a half of surviving on their own they were very wild and fearful, and the Catlins spent almost that long slowly coaxing them into petting proximity.  Now Princess is about as shy as Liza Minelli, and twice as eager to impress you with her antics. 

Lysander and Mama Cat are long-lost twins, right down to the eyeliner and ear tufts.

Lysander first met the ladies soon after we moved here.  Before we got his cat yard enclosed, I took him on supervised walks around the property to keep him from driving us crazy.  I assumed that he would take his usual aggressive stance against Mama C. and Princess, and I tried to discourage him away from their main territory on the front porch of the Catlins' house.  Naturally, that was the one place he wanted to go.  To my surprise, he and Mama ignored each other utterly.  Princess the Extrovert ran up to him at full gallop and started sniffing his face, and to my greater surprise, Ly just backed up a little and let it happen.  After a few more bafflingly peaceable encounters I realized that the scuffle I had dreaded just wasn't happening, and stopped worrying about monitoring Ly's proximity to the other stripey citizens of the community.

As Bob & I considered the possibility of being evacuated during the Carstens wildfire last month, I suddenly had reason to wonder how the three cats might get along in closer quarters.  More specifically, if confined to the 160 square feet of the motorhome for an indefinite period in an RV park somewhere.  Rather than allowing me to wallow in theoretical uncertainty, Princess grasped empiricism by the horns and decided that she should pay a visit to Lysander's home turf.

How do you work this thing?  The Magic Mesh™ screen door presented serious logistical challenges.

Once inside, the brazen Goldilocks made herself right at home.  She licked the food bowl.  She jumped up on the couch and sat in my lap.  She tried out all the good cat perches.  The rightful homeowner watched closely, but showed no reaction.  Bob and I watched in amazement.

Ly scopes out Princess scoping out Ly's window seat.

Since then, Princess has become a semi-regular visitor to the motorhome.  She'll follow one of us back here from the yard, or just drift in while we're watching a movie.  She greets Ly by rubbing up against his face, then goes about her own business of snooping, lounging, or battling my flip flops.  Lysander enjoys the occasional bat at her tail as it passes under his perch, but otherwise sticks to his own routine.  It reminds me of the "parallel play" that toddlers engage in when they're still too little for sustained interaction with each other. 

A meeting of the stripes.

We've theorized ourselves silly about this apparent shift in Ly's response to other cats.  Is it Princess' smell?  A sense of solidarity in stripiness?  Did meeting Princess and Mama Cat on their turf first make a difference?  Is Lysander just mellowing in his old age?  The answer to all these questions, of course, is that we'll never know.  Our canon of knowledge on the fuzziest member of the family has been shaken yet again, reminding us to keep the Assumption dial turned low and the Observation dial cranked up.

Where There's Smoke

The Catlins have been visiting New England for the latter half of June, leaving Bob and me with the full responsibilities and rewards of the property: bed and breakfast, garden, barn-in-progress, cats, and pool.  With the overabundance of interesting goings-on in and around Mariposa, I've been looking forward to the opportunity to get really heimisch for a couple of weeks, focusing deeply on the plants, animals and guests at One Light.

As usual, the universe had other ideas.  We bid farewell to a dear friend that first Sunday afternoon after a lovely 5-day visit, and I lay down for a nap while Bob tinkered away in the barn.  When I awoke, the wind was moving the trees and a strange light illuminated their tops.  Half of the blue sky was covered by a gray-orange haze.  The air felt strange, and I assumed a storm was passing over us on its way to the mountains.  I greeted our new B&B arrivals, and began cooking dinner.  Then Bob came into the house with news from friends in our old neighborhood on Triangle Road: an enormous wildfire had everyone on the northeast part of Triangle on pre-evacuation notice. 

Smokey haze over the setting sun bathes the back yard in golden light.

A number of different thoughts flashed through my mind in rapid succession.  What about our friends' pets and livestock?  Their homes?  What would happen if the fire came our way over the ridge?  What things should we try to take out with us?  Where would I sent the B&B guests?  What about the Catlins' home and their treasures?  The garden?

Orangey-grey smoke to the north and blue sky to the south.

Happily, the combined efforts of the weather and 2,200 firemen got the fire contained, and all evacuees were able to return home just a few days later.  1,700 acres burned in the Carstens Fire, but no structures were touched.  Apart from a few days of smoky air and one B&B cancellation, nothing in our lives was disrupted.  But there was a fair amount of self-knowledge to gain from the situation. 

Ash and blackened leaves rained down on us from the fire site.

First, I learned that I am terrified of wildfire (and probably all natural disasters).  This wasn't really a surprise, because I'd always tried to imagine how upsetting it would be to have to gather up your essentials and flee your home.  But secondly, I gained a new gratitude for the wonderful house on wheels that Bob built for us, and the lifestyle that we've chosen.  Over the past few months we've mostly focused on things we need to improve on the motorhome, or things we wish we'd done differently.  But when faced with a worst-case scenario, I realized that in spite of its shortcomings, this house is adaptable to sudden change.  There's no need to have an emergency kit ready by the door; we can fairly easily pull up stakes and drive away with our own (too short) bed, (one-cook) kitchen, (slightly less-than-optimal) bathroom, (too large) music collection, (seasonal) clothing, toothbrushes, and cat. 

I love this land, and would mourn deeply the loss of its trees, garden, outbuildings, etc.  And Bob is still itching to build a permanent structure that would expand our indoor space.  But I have no sense of urgency about growing out of the motorhome.  For now, I'm enjoying the paradoxical feeling of security in transience; of carrying our house on our back; of making the outdoors as much my home as the indoors is.

Lastly, we had more reasons than ever this week to appreciate the community that we've found here.  I called friends on Triangle to offer them a place to stay, and within minutes another friend further east called me to make sure we were all right and offer his help.  The Chois' eldest son emailed from the grazing site down in southern California to see how we were faring.  A group that we volunteer with, Mariposa Open Arms, fed and hosted evacuees.  The Mariposa Bed and Breakfast Association called to see if we had rooms available for evacuated guests.  After the worst was over, big hand-painted signs sprung up along Hwy 49 thanking the firefighters.

It seems that the best gift we could give back to this place would be to teach the most fireproof form of building construction that we know--strawbale walls coated with earth-plaster, covered by a metal roof.  Mariposa County has a lot of building codes related to fire resistance, but no amount of asphalt shingles or chemically-treated lumber can compare with metal, sand, clay and earth.  Neither Bob nor I have much experience doing "informational outreach" (that is to say, marketing).  But history is full of people who were called to perform duties far outside their comfort zones, not to speak of their job descriptions.  And if it takes a team to spread the truth about truly sustainable construction, then I believe that this team will manifest.  But first we need to pull our heads out of our daily tasks and start developing our thesis.

All the Comforts of Home

Lysander demonstrates proper siesta technique.

The month of May brought big changes around here: 

1) we had our first truly hot weather, 

2) we finally got electricity in the motorhome, and 

3) (most exciting of all) we now have a working phone!!  Right next to the couch!  

With any luck, internet access is soon to follow.  No more driving ten miles just to make calls and check our email at the library.  Best of all, we can finally kick our useless cell phones to the curb.  Bob’s phone has already been decommissioned, and mine is soon to follow.  If our new number hasn’t found its way into your inbox yet, shoot us an email! 

Little Motorhome in the Big Woods.

The biggest change of all is that in order to acquire these luxuries, we had to move the motorhome to another property nearby.  We are now enjoying a living/working partnership with George and Theresa Catlin on their enchanting 70 acres off of Hwy 49.  The domesticated animals here are limited to cats so far, but we see and hear our many wild neighbors daily: countless lizards, squirrels, gophers, and field mice; acorn woodpeckers, hummingbirds, and songbirds; snakes, tree frogs, and a pack of coyotes that like to run laughing past the house at around 2 in the morning.  

Acorn woodpeckers are THE bird around here.   They have a crazy laugh to go with their crazy white eyes.

Bob is helping George to complete a replica of George’s father’s barn, which will provide a guest/living space upstairs and the shop space downstairs that Bob has needed for so long.  They painted the exterior this week, transforming the structure into a truly graceful addition to the property, even in its unfinished state. 

There is plenty of work for me in the established garden area here, and plenty of booming brassicas and salad greens for us to help devour.  Now that the hot weather has arrived I try to limit my garden work to mornings and early evenings, but a quick midday salad trip often turns into 45 minutes of weeding or mulching or hummingbird-watching or…

Ahh, arugula nectar.  Does it taste peppery?

I found this little guy camping out in the broccoli rabe.

I’m also getting a little paid work in the bed and breakfast that George and Theresa run out of their house, called One Light (http://one-light.us/).  They have some travelling planned for this summer, so it works out well for everyone for Bob & me to learn the B&B biz—something we’ve been curious about for some time already!  Yosemite draws literally millions of people to this area every year, and the B&Bs tend to fill up fast with visitors who want locals’ insight into enjoying the park and surrounding areas.  Many of the guests at One Light are from overseas, which is extra fun.  I’m brushing up my German with the help of some novels written by a relative of George’s which were picked up by a German publisher and translated.  

By far the best part of living at a working bed and breakfast, however, is that there is a pool.  Oh man, it is so awesome to fall into on a hot day.  Because an outdoor pool surrounded by trees takes a lot of upkeep, Bob and I are also learning Pool Maintenance 101 from George.  It’s the perfect excuse to don a suit and get up there every afternoon to, you know, check the water quality :)

I dare you guys not to visit us now!