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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] FEAST OF THE FIRST ASPARAGUS
  • Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:10:06 -0700

FEAST OF THE FIRST ASPARAGUS
(from the Community Food Security Coalition list)
and an update on our political/regulatory
troubles/opportunities

Besides being Easter, yesterday was also the Feast
of the First Asparagus at our house. Holy Week is
a bit busy for me (11 religious services in 7
days, each with a different music program,
including choruses by Handel and Mozart), so our
Easter feast wasn't as elaborate as say
Thanksgiving. Because this week is so tightly
scheduled for me, I did a lot of cooking ahead. I
kept a "dough bowl" in the fridge and thus we were
able to have home made bread rolls all week, for
just the time of rolling them out and letting them
rise and bake while I did other things. Yesterday
we had buffalo chicken fried steaks (they were so
very good), with mashed potatoes, gravy and
cabbage, and I made extra cabbage and potatoes to
have them for dinner today (Easter).

Earlier this month we got a whole pig from Bud
Phelan of 5 F Farms, and it has truly been a
treat. The butcher processed it exactly the way I
wanted it. I asked for extra hot sausage and that'
s what we got. He's got a great cure for the pork
chops and hams (we had one ham sliced as has
steaks). And the pork steaks in the crock pot with
a bit of stock and some seasonings and herbs?
Falling apart tender. I am kicking myself though
because I forgot to specify on my cutting order
that I wanted the bones too, cut in 3 inch
sections. When you process a whole animal, you pay
for the processing by the hanging weight, which
includes the bones. Since I didn't tell him that I
wanted the bones (for soup and stock making of
course), I just wasted all of that value. I
confess this publicly to remind everybody not to
throw value away when they process an animal,
either for themselves, or for sale through the
cooperative. Once you've made stock from fresh
basic ingredients, you'll never be satisfied with
boullion again (he says as he eyes the dwindling
quarts of stock in his freezer while wondering if
any of the producers will have bones for sale in
April). Remember what my grandmother Dovie used to
say: "We used all of that pig except for the
squeal." That attitude is critical to our success.
Waste not, want not.

Our main dish for Easter was grilled pork chops.
Cabbage on the side, and then I made another side
dish with the mashed potatoes by sauteing some
garlic, onion, and Italian herbs, and mixing that
with the mashed potatoes. I topped the spuds with
some shredded Christian cheese and popped them in
the oven. They were great. We also had whole wheat
rolls (from the fridge dough bowl), and earlier in
the afternoon snacked on some deviled eggs and
home made cheese spread.

And of course, the first asparagus of the year.
Just a few bites for each of us, but my goodness
what a delicious treat. I think asparagus may be
like corn, it's best to kind of just bend it over
into a boiling pot and then snap it off so it
falls directly into the pot and starts cooking
immediately.

My garden is springing to life! Peach, plum,
nanking cherries, clove currants, apricot, sand
plums and sand cherries are all in bloom right
now. Mulberry and apple and chokecherry are on the
verge of opening up. The garlic, shallots, and
multiplying onions I planted last fall are
standing tall and are a bright green. The spinach,
mustard, chard, and turnips I planted last month
are coming right on up through the mulch. Alas, I
must have gotten a bad batch of carrot seed as I
haven't had even one sprout!

Regarding our political and regulatory troubles
and opportunities. . . I think it is fair to say
we have done a tremendous amount of consciousness
raising at the state Department of Agriculture.
Even though Secretary Peach's form letter response
was a bit disappointing, we have opened some new
communication links with various people at the
department, and we have also done quite a bit of
good over at the legislature.

The same day I received the letter from Mr. Peach,
I had a visit from Ron Hitt of the Meat Inspection
Department. We spoke for nearly an hour, and among
other things, we may have found a rather
innovative way for our poultry people to comply
with the state regulations. They aren't yielding
an inch regarding on-farm processing of
uninspected poultry, but they have offered to help
our producers become state inspected poultry
processing sites. The idea is that the producers
would schedule their monthly processing days with
one or more roving poultry inspectors, who would
come to the farm on that day and inspect their
processing. The birds would then have the state
inspected label, the farmers would be free of the
1000 bird limit, and the birds could be sold
anywhere - through the cooperative, in stores, to
restaurants, schools, etc. And there is no charge
for the inspection service. The inspectors would
come to the farms for free! The one aspect of this
that we have to clarify is the amount of capital
investment involved with remodeling/building a
facility to their specs, but Mr. Hitt assured me
this would not be an impossible thing as he says
that some of the state licensed processing sites
are very small and did not require huge amounts of
money to get going. It remains to be seen how the
state follows through on this, but he says they
will actually send somebody to the farm to help
our producers understand what they need to do.
There is also a possibility of getting some grant
money to help the producers comply.

This of course would be a better deal than what we
were originally asking for.

So our strategy is evolving in this direction:
Strictly comply with the existing law, BUT find
innovative/unexpected ways to comply, while at the
same time laying the groundwork for making changes
in the laws and regulations to accommodate our
needs. This isn't an overnight strategy, I can't
wave my magic wand and make everything all better
overnight, but we knew this wasn't 3 day wonder in
the very beginning.

Many thanks to all who have been writing letters
(and sending us copies!). The copies we've been
reading have been very encouraging.

I hope everybody is looking forward to the April
order, I sure am. Also in April we will be doing a
food outreach, cooking a banquet for the Oklahoma
Coalition Against the Death Penalty annual
meeting. (Please note that the cooperative by
preparing this banquet the cooperative is not
making a statement on this issue, we were invited
to prepare the meal, the organization is buying
the food from our producers, and we think we can
pick up new members there, so it is strictly a
matter of "advertising".) This will be April 23rd,
if you would like to help cook, please send an
email to volunteers@oklahomafood.coop . We will
need help from about 12:30 through the evening,
although volunteers would not necessarily have to
be there the whole time. We will be serving
buffalo pot roast, bulgur pilaf, hopefully we will
be able to get some spring greens for both salad
and cooked mixed greens, and cakes and breads from
the cooperative.

Kim Barker, Shauna Struby, and I are headed out
this afternoon to Wichita, Kansas, to speak to a
group interested in starting a cooperative like
ours, and then we're going to Lindborg, Kansas to
do a presentation at the Kansas Farmers Union
meeting. I did a 2 hour conference call with some
guys from the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union who are
interested in starting a local foods cooperative,
and they will be there too. Oklahoma - Colorado -
Kansas - Nebraska, sounds like a rising on the
plains to me. I am looking forward to getting away
for a couple of days, the conference publicity
says "LOCAL FOODS AT ALL MEALS", to which I say
WOO HOO!!! The conference publicity is at
http://www.kansasruralcenter.org/calendar.html#RFSC
and the sponsors read like a Who's Who of
sustainable ag in this part of the planet, and
include our own Oklahoma based Kerr Center for
Sustainable Agriculture. Mary Hendrickson of the U
of Missouri Dept of Rural Sociology, who as I have
said before is one of the "grandma's" of this
cooperative, will be there and she is bringing a
copy of the federal poultry regs for me so we can
do some fact checking of the statements of the
Oklahoma Department of Agriculture. Hopefully a
good time will be had by all. I have also just
booked a presentation in the fall in Ohio!

Meanwhile, I am going to go fix myself a late
breakfast of certified organic eggs, potato cakes
(made from yesterday's leftover potato casserole
of course) and some great sausage, with some hot
rolls on the side. We're bon apetitin' at our
house, and I hope that is true for YOU TOO!

Robert Waldrop, Oklahoma Food Cooperative

http://www.oklahomafood.coop/bobsblog/





  • [Livingontheland] FEAST OF THE FIRST ASPARAGUS, Tradingpost, 03/28/2005

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