Fleur-de-Rhapsody

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You know I love writing about food, farming, feasting, family, and friendship.  Today I want to expand this a little bit to encompass what I consider the center of all good communities – the public library.

Kutztown has a gem: The Louisa Gonser Community Library. When we first moved to town, the kids and I would visit the library’s cramped quarters in the cellar of the borough building. In 1998, when the library was built at 70 Bieber Alley, the kids and I would often stop in on the way home from school. In 2003, our family opened our doors for the library’s Holiday House Tour. In the last several years I’ve snuck away from the farm on many a Saturday morning for a quick trip to the library’s “back room,” where used and donated books are sold for a song.

As with all libraries, it’s not just the books, it’s the people. Janet and Jane are always so helpful and pleasant, but in Sarah Edmonds, I have found not just a librarian, I have found a kindred soul. The other day I returned a book and was telling Sarah how much I enjoyed it. Well, she said, there is another by the same publisher that you must read. She couldn’t remember the title, but she went to her computer, typed a bit, searched a bit, and after a minute or so told me she had placed a request for me.

A week or so later I got a call that “Gourmet Rhapsody” by Muriel Barbery, had arrived.

First things first. Sarah Edmonds works at the library, but she and Anton Shannon also have started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) business called Good Work Farm. It is located near Vera Cruz on three of the 480 acres owned by Lehigh County as part of The Seed Farm. Last year Sarah and Anton were among the first apprentices with the agricultural incubator program, farmers-in-training in both the classroom and the fields. This year, the first for Good Work Farm, Sarah and Anton are starting with a 70-member CSA and a few smaller markets. They will have veggie drops in Kutztown, Bethlehem, and in Vera Cruz. Check out details at goodworkfarm.com.

But before the CSA and the library, I came upon Sarah at another lovely Kutztown event, an art studio tour. I can’t remember who sponsored the tour or why, but I do remember visiting the home and art studios of Sarah Edmonds and her husband Daniel Leathersich, a painter, writer, musician, and graphic artist. (He designed Good Work Farm’s business cards). No offense to Daniel’s many talents, but what I remember most from the tour was Sarah’s beautiful Brussels sprouts stalks on the porch! And inside in the kitchen (Sarah’s studio) was a display of Sarah’s art, which is all about canning and preserving. Talk about culinary masterpieces — edible still lifes!

So, back to the book.  “Gourmet Rhapsody” is true soul food, but rather than rushing into its pages as I did, I would suggest reading Barbery’s first novel, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”. The characters you meet will only enhance “Gourmet Rhapsody”. But, until then, let me tempt you with a short excerpt, a tribute to our garden favorite, the tomato:

 “ … Sprawled on the bench beneath the linden tree, lulled by the low murmuring of the leaves, I woke from a voluptuous nap, and beneath this canopy of sugary honey I bit into the fruit, I bit into the tomato.

“In salads, baked, in ratatouille, in preserves, grilled, stuffed, cherry, candied, big and soft, green and acidic, honored with olive oil or coarse salt or wine or sugar or hot pepper, crushed, peeled, in a sauce, in a stew, in a foam, even in a sorbet: I thought I had thoroughly covered the matter and on more than one occasion I wrote pieces inspired by the greatest chefs’ menus claiming that I had penetrated its secret. What an idiot, what a pity … I invented mystery where there was none, in order to justify my perfectly pathetic métier. What is writing, no matter how lavish the pieces, if it says nothing of the truth, cares little for the heart, and is merely subservient to the pleasure of showing one’s brilliance? And yet I had always been acquainted with the tomato, since the time of Aunt Mathe’s garden, since the summer when an ever more ardent sun kissed the timid little growths, since the moment my teeth tore into the flesh to splatter my tongue with the rich, warm and bountiful juice, whose essential generosity is masked by the chill of a refrigerator, or the affront of vinegar, or the false nobility of oil. Sugar, water, fruit, pulp, liquid or solid? The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one’s mouth that brings with it every pleasure. The resistance of the skin – slightly taut, just enough; the luscious yield of the tissues, their seed-filled liqueur oozing to the corners of one’s lips, and that one wipes away without any fear of staining one’s fingers; this plump little globe unleashing a flood of nature inside us: a tomato, an adventure.”

Through those words, I can taste summer. Laurie Lynch

Speaking of Tomatoes and Books: The library has a copy of the new cookbook “Harvest to Heat” by Darryl Estrine and Kelly Kochendorfer. Another Kutztown community connection: Tim Stark and his heirloom tomatoes are featured with NYC Chef Daniel Boulud (photos and recipes too) throughout the book.

Speaking of Words: Cousin Rebecca has a new kitten, product of an all-in-the-cat-family relationship. I hear it’s as cute as can be, with a brilliant name, given the circumstances: Oedipuss.

No Peeps: We will not be renting peeps this Easter. Scratch that. I will not be renting peeps this Easter because I need to disperse my egg-laying flock, not replenish it.  And how to do this while still offering customers Fleur-de-Lys eggs for as long as possible is the quandary in which I find myself wallowing. So, at this point, what I’m thinking is that I will offer all of you (as well as any of your friends) our 1-, 2-, or more-year-old hens for $5 each if you would like to raise your own hen fruit at home. Please reserve the number of hens you would like now (or in the coming weeks) for pickup in early June.

A Different Kind of Peep Show: I’ve been trying to illustrate these blogs with scenes of Fleur-de-Lys Farm … and then the family hand-me-down camera died. So, I invested in a new point-and-shoot to record these last few months. For this blog entry, Maxatawny’s Eyes of March (my apologies to William Shakespeare): snowdrops in the “hobbit garden,”  a view of winter aconites from the family room window, daffodils poking up near by front steps, and a photo taken several years ago by my daughter Marina of Hottenstein Road’s yearly visitors – migrating snow geese.

Written on Slate:  “I had a dog. Or rather, a snout on paws.” Muriel Barbery (She likes dogs too!)

Fleur-de-Luffa

I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful to see a little green. No, I’m not talking about green beer and St. Patty’s Day. I’m talking about little shoots of garlic breaking through the field in rows and little green nubs of daffodils pushing up where the March sun touches the soil. And then, there are the photographs of seasons past at Fleur-de-Lys Farm.

Over the years, the plants that have harvested the most questions from visitors are our lovely luffas. Luffa aegyptiaca is what it is known as in botanical circles. In the bathtub or the kitchen you might hear it called simply, luffa. In vintage seed catalogs or encyclopedias, it might go by the name of dishcloth gourd, Chinese running okra, vegetable sponge, or strainer vine. 

The 1888 Burpee’s catalog described luffa as “A natural dishcloth, and a most admirable one. Many ladies prefer this dishcloth. The fruit grow about 2 feet, and the vine is very ornamental, producing clusters of yellow blossoms, in pleasing contrast with the silvery-shaded, dark-green foliage. In the North this variety requires starting in a hotbed. The dried interiors of these gourds have already become an article of commerce; grown in Florida, they are sold by Philadelphia and NY druggists.”

Luffas have been a solid fill-in crop at Fleur-de-Lys. Like eggs, our luffa sponges are available year-round. Luffa seeds need to be started indoors in March, but after you plant the baby luffa vines in the ground around June 1 (in Pennsylvania), you basically stand back and let ‘em rip. The vines curl and twist and travel across the planting bed and clamber up any fence or trellis that gets in their way. They keep growing and going, over wires and pickets, scrambling until frost stops them in their tracks. Meanwhile, they push out these yellow searchlight blossoms that call to pollinators and photographers. Turn your back, and a fruit starts growing, peeking out behind a fan of leaves like a shy kitten. Next time you look, it’s putting your biggest baseball bat zucchini to shame.

As summer eases into fall, the mature luffas change from green to yellow to brown. After the first hard frost, I cut off the luffas from the vines and place them in our plastic hoop house to dry. When the solar heat begins to wane, I bring them inside where they continue to cure with the heat of our pellet stove. As they dry out, you can gently squeeze and pop the skin, breaking the blossom end cap and almost unzip the skin along its lengthwise ribs (like peeling a banana), exposing the plant’s fibrous vascular system … aka, the luffa sponge. Next, the fun part: shaking out the seeds. Once the seeds are removed (save them for next year’s crop) you can soak your luffa in hydrogen peroxide or bleach to lightened any dark spots.

Then, rub-a-dub-dub, you’re ready for the tub! According to a University of Georgia Extension publication, the luffa sponge induces blood circulation for the skin, providing relief for those suffering from rheumatism and arthritis. And potato and carrot skins love them too! By using a luffa as a vegetable scrubber, you don’t remove the valuable nutrients often lost by peeling. Luffas are machine washable, environmentally safe, biodegradable, and a renewable resource.

Yes, you can even eat them; when they’re young, about six inches long. My nephew/chef Wille sautéed a few for me last summer. With a little olive oil and garlic, they taste like any other young, tender squash … but they grow up to be so much more. Luffas are used as soles for slippers, insulation for army helmets, stuffing for mattresses and saddles, filters for steam engines and diesel motors, and can they can soundproof wall boarding. At Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market, we sell luffa chunks for $2 each.

Search for the green, Laurie Lynch.

March Madness, Windowsill Greenery: We have a limited supply of Fleur-de-Lys Farm luffa seeds if you’d like to give them a try.

Listen for the Green: Doug Tallamy, professor and chair of entomology and wildlife ecology, U of Delaware, and author of “Bringing Nature Home” will give a free lecture at Kutztown University’s Boehm Science Center, Room 145, March 21 at 7 p.m. Books for sale and book signing after talk.

Green with Envy:  What are friends for?  Bob Leiby, Lehigh County Cooperative Extension director and potato man, emailed asking if I had any “sprouted, spindly old potatoes” in my potato storage area that he could use for a class he was teaching. “The ones you had last year were excellent to make a point about the physiological age of potato seed.” And what about the physiological age of potato farmers, I’m feeling a little sprouted and spindly and old myself! 

Taste the Green: Remember the sauerkraut I mentioned tasting at the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center? Well, I got in touch with Becky, the woman who made the dish for Christmas at the Farm. Here is her story:

“Sauerkraut’s been made for probably thousands of years just by using two ingredients, cabbage and salt. And that’s all I use.”

Sauerkraut

5 pounds cabbage, outer leaves removed, cores removed, thinly shredded

3 Tablespoons kosher salt or sea salt (don’t use salt with iodide)

Mix shredded cabbage and salt thoroughly. Let stand for 10 minutes to wilt. Transfer to crock. Using a potato masher, crush cabbage until juice forms and comes to the surface. The traditional way to weight down the kraut is to spread a clean, washable cloth directly on it. Tuck edges in all around. Place a plate that just fits inside crock so the cabbage is not exposed to air. Place a weight – stone, brick or a glass jar filled with water – on top. Check the kraut every few days. Fermentation causes gases and bubbles. Remove scum as it appears on the top, wash cloth and plate, and put back on top.

At a temperature of 68-72°, the kraut could be ready to eat in 3-4 weeks. Eat, can or freeze after this time period.

“This kraut is so much milder than the stuff in the bag or can. It’s got a slight crunch, not mushy. I usually rinse mine before cooking with it to remove extra salt,” Becky suggests. “Modern adaptation: Place plastic food storage bags filled with water to weigh down the cabbage. The object is to keep the cabbage under the brine and to seal it from the air to prevent mold.

“For the recipe I used at Christmas, I really just eyeball the ingredients and taste. It’s based on old recipes I’ve seen. I used my homemade sauerkraut on the bottom of the pot. I added a tablespoon or two of brown sugar, chopped apples, some apple cider, and a handful of onions. I placed the turkey on top and simmered that night over the fire. I had precooked the turkey that night for demonstration purposes. Turkey or goose and sauerkraut were a very traditional 19^th-century way to eat Christmas dinner.”

Green (as in inexperienced) with Blogs: I’ve gotten several emails from people who have tried to become “followers” but can’t, as well as those who have left comments that disappear. I’m trying to root out the problem. In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know.