I’ve been a little burnt out on blogging this week, but here’s a campaign that I can support wholeheartedly…

Buy Local Month!
Yes, as much as I would like to do Buy Nothing Christmas, there are going to be occasions that I’ll need to buy ingredients or supplies to make gifts or holiday dishes. I plan to buy them from places such as farmers’ markets, Deep Roots Natural Foods Co-op, Yarns Etc. and Davis Design. There are many fine local artists and craftsmen selling their wares if you are not the creative type.

Small local businesses need our support more than ever. I am not promoting the crazy consumerism that has taken over the Christmas season, but when you buy from local businesses, your dollars stay in the community.

I’m surprised that I’ve held back so long to cook Cauliflower Cheese Soup. This Mollie Katzen recipe from the classic Moosewood Cookbook has long been one of my absolute favorites.

Mollie revised the original 1977 Moosewood Cookbook in 1992, making a few recipes a little easier to follow, lowering the fat content, and adding a recipe here and there. I was quite happy with the old one, as you could tell by the falling apart cover and the wrinkled, food-covered pages, but when I saw a hardback copy of the new Moosewood at my local used book store, I decided to give it a look over.

I found, to my complete and utter amazement, the letters BEK written in black marker on the edges of the pages, as young men tend to do for reasons I’ve never understood. Luckily, there was a stool close at hand, because I immediately got dizzy and had to sit down. Flipping excitedly through the book, I could not find a name, but I did find a recipe that had handwritten notes beside it. I then looked through every other vegetarian cookbook and other cookbook that I thought might have possibly belonged to my friend Ryan Bek, an huge-hearted gifted loving vegetarian cook who died suddenly with three other wonderful young adults in February, 2002, leaving many deeply wounded mourners behind them.

As you might guess, this cookbook is very precious to me. I searched my office frantically after Ryan died for the notes we had made together on a project and found that I had thrown them out after I typed them up. This is so much better because it reflects his real life. Now I feel like I’m cooking with Ryan, something I never was able to do.

Mollie omitted the dry mustard and the buttermilk in her new version. She added more vegetables, which I did also. This is much closer to the original recipe than the new recipe.

Cauliflower Cheese Soup

1 1/2 c onion, chopped
3 c Yukon Gold potatoes
2 c cauliflower, chopped
1 c carrots, chopped
3 med. cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1 1/2 t salt
4 c stock
2 more cups cauliflowerets

1 1/2 c grated cheddar
3/4 c milk
1/2 t dill weed
1/4 t dry mustard
black pepper
3/4 c buttermilk
extra cheese for garnish

Cook the first seven ingredients in a soup pot for 15 minutes. After ten minutes, put the cauliflowerets in a steamer basket with a lid above them and steam them. (Or steam or saute cauliflowerets in butter separately.) Reserve the cauliflowerets. Let the rest of the veggies cool for 10 minutes and puree them with a blender. Return the puree to the pot, if necessary.

Over low heat, add the cheddar a little at a time, melting it as you stir. Add the milk, dill, mustard, and pepper, stirring, stirring…Add the cauliflowerets and the buttermilk. Garnish with extra cheese on top of each bowl.

Notes
I just bought an immersion blender and it was SO nice to blend the soup in the pot instead of transferring it to my food processor and back. I had to do it in two batches the old way and it made a much bigger mess to clean up. At first, I thought that there was something wrong, then the suction kicked in and it was SWEET. The result was much creamier that it had been before. This purchase was well worth the money.

This is the first time I have used chicken stock. By all means, go vegetarian with this one. It is delicious either way. Mollie calls for water instead of stock in her new version.

The sharper the Cheddar the better, in my opinion.

I have substituted a little sour cream for the buttermilk before.

Good French bread is a must with this soup. I bought mine from Simple Kneads Bakery.

UPDATE: Based on feedback, I reduced the stock to four cups (from five).

Sources
Organic onion, Yukon Gold potatoes, cauliflower, garlic, and dill weed: Deep Roots Market
Organic carrots: Dark Hollow Farm
Stock: my Thanksgiving hen from Back Woods Farm and vegetable trimmings from my freezer
Cheddar: the Molners at Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market
Milk, buttermilk: Homeland Creamery

It’s a celebration of the harvest season at the Tar Heel Tavern, as regulars and occasional revelers pull their stools up to the bar to share their Thanksgiving tales. Better settle down in a comfortable chair, because there’s a lot of us and we might all be talkin’ past closing time!

Talkin’ Turkey

Except for Mandie, who expresses herself visually. She captivated some turkeys, and then, she captivated the same turkeys, different pose. I noticed that Mandie has a link to Buy Nothing Christmas on her page too.

Zha K tells a touching tale of a heroic turkey in Cuz’n John and the One Legged Turkey. You country people…(shaking head)

Over at Pratie Place, Melinama has devised a stress-free Thanksgiving, but wonders, “Were we too relaxed? Is it really Thanksgiving if nobody is shouting or crying?” Learn more about how to make your next Thanksgiving low-stress (or deceptively high) in Our Thanksgiving. Plus, a Thanksgiving tradition everyone remembers - welding!

Mel shares her mama’s secret recipe with us from her kitchen - the (ahem) correct way to cook cornbread dressing. What do you call it at your house - stuffing or dressing? In or out? (Erin, please be aware that you do have to REMOVE the giblets from the plastic bag to prepare this.)

Black Friday, or Buy Nothing Day Activities

Erin freezes her feet to photograph her Christmas decorations, a fitting activity for Buy Nothing Day. Hey, she’s done more than I have for Christmas and she’s eight and a half weeks months pregnant, so who cares if the photos suck? Please send Erin your love and energy - she is due on December 7.

Ogre spent Black Friday putting up his outdoor Christmas Decorations (and shopper watching) too. He promises indoor (blog) decorations as well, so wish him a Merry Christmas at his place!

Swappin’ Stories

Anton Zuiker has a new project and it sounds fascinating. Details are posted at My Next Project: NC Storyblogging. Bringing together blogging and oral history - what a great idea!

“From spontaneous road trips to the beach to stuffed-trunk drive-in shenanigans to outright mailbox abuse, me and my backseat full of derelicts lived just as fast at that old sedan would take us.” Lenslinger relives his short-lived foray into teenage automobile ownership in Rebel in the Wind. I have more in common with this story that I’d like to admit.

Self-described as “sickeningly cute photos and story of two new kittens,” this post by Alex Wilson will warm the heart of anyone who has ever adopted a stray kitten: Thor and Loki: Two New Additions to the Family. Hey, I’m a sucker for a rescued cat story. Just ask Jazz, Guido, Squirt, Lucy, Mama Kitty, Miss Peanut, and Sloopy.

and now, un petit pome

by anonyMoses Hyperlincoln III

Talkin’ Politics

“The ACLU’s legal reasoning is a mite flawed, but the basic thing they’re seeking – recognition of the right of non-Christians to take oaths on their respective holy books – is a legitimate demand…Before discussing that, though, I’d like to look at some dubious assertions which people have made about this dispute.” Lilburne at Words Fitly Spoken comments on the Koran oath flap in North Carolina and the lawsuit by the ACLU.

There’s a dark cloud behind every silver lining if you look for it. George points out that reports of Forests Being Mowed Down for Biofuels miss the opportunity of educating the public on how biofuels can be and are being produced sustainably.

Lance McCord of Blue NC introduces us to a down home NC candidate for the US House in Larry Kissell fo’ Shizzle.

“Iran can and should be isolated until it commits to democracy, human rights, and a defensive foreign policy stance. The United States would be safer and better respected if we would do the same.” Screwy Hoolie comments on the reaction to the news that A.Q. Khan sold Iran nuclear warhead blueprints in Ruled By Fear and Love of War.

Memory and Awareness

Ron reminds that World AIDS Day is 1 December 2005 and gives us some useful information about HIV infection. “Current estimates indicate that as many as 44.3 million people are living with HIV worldwide and that only 1 in 6 people living with AIDS in the developed world are receiving therapies to fight the virus.”

A new Taverner joins us whose blog promotes health and disease prevention primarily by means of lifestyle. In a post entitled Motion is Lotion, Marcus of Fixin’ Healthcare advises us to work off that Thanksgiving feast this way: “Walk with friends, walk the baby in a stroller, walk the dog, walk to the bank. When the weather is bad, use a treadmill or walk in the mall. THINK WALKING.”

I remembered my daddy on the anniversary of his death and thought about our family’s relationship to farming and what the future might hold.

Iddybud remembers Mark Twain and notes the upcoming anniversary of his birth.

Coturnix, founder and co-proprietor of the Tar Heel Tavern, wore himself slap out blogging about blogging Saturday. He was too tired to pick a post, so I picked this one: Self-Loving Post About Blog Carnivals. Check out some of the other carnivals out there, and please thank Bora for all his hard work. He deserves it, and he caught a lot of undeserved crap this week.

Kenneth Corn can’t divulge the name of his house guest in Dinner Time with the Bishop, because it would put his guest’s life in mortal danger. This is a fascinating post, and I urge you to read his previous post about this religious leader from Pakistan as well. Kenneth reminds us of the wealth and freedom that we take for granted in this country:

“I have been told by some of my colleagues at work that they wouldn’t live in a house with only one bathroom. Some of my younger family members poke fun at us by saying we live in the hood. To the Bishop, we live like royalty. His house has only one bedroom. All four of his children sleep in the same room with him and his wife.”

Perhaps we should give thanks for our abundance as we bring our American Thanksgiving weekend to a close.

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We had - count ‘em - twenty contributors to the Tavern this week! Yee ha! What fun! Now we need a host for next week. Please go to the Tar Heel Tavern site to sign up for our newsletter to get announcements concerning the Tavern, and email Coturnix if you’d like to host.

I’ve been really busy tonight (you’ll see why in the morning) but I wanted to post a photo of my holiday hen. It was the first time I have made anything other than a side dish for one of our family holiday meals. Thank goodness it came out okay!

It is a free-range, sustainably raised 6.35 lb. chicken from Back Woods Farm. I poured a bottle of Woodchuck Draft Cider over it the night before. I made fresh herb butter with garlic, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (sing with me, now) from my garden and tucked it under slits in the skin. That’s what the dark spots are. It was stuffed with chopped onion, celery, garlic, and parsley, and baked in a baking bag on top of red potatoes, carrots, onion, celery, and parsley at 350 degrees for 2 hours and 20 minutes. Even my nephew liked it!

The carcass is now in a stock pot simmering on my woodstove with vegetable trimmings that I have saved in the freezer for the last couple of weeks.

Just a few ideas for the season…

Spiral at Blue Tape has more ideas for a low-consumption Christmas.

Over in Burlington, Brian Baute is celebrating Buy Nothing Day at Relentless Grace.

Is the Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir bringing the Buy Nothing Revival to your town?

Monkey Migraine has a Buy Nothing Day carol!

The Wikipedia article.

Some of the many other bloggers promoting Buy Nothing Day:
The Green Life Blog
Unplugged Living
Detroit Greens
Treehugger
ConNiPtioNs
Novopress
Guerilla Science
Greenthinkers

I just picked up my free Thanksgiving newspaper (I reduced my subscription to Sundays only about a year ago, but I get one delivered daily) and it weighed four and a half pounds. The ad inserts alone weighed three and a half pounds. It’s too bad I can’t use them for mulch.

Alas, I’m out of time. I hope that you enjoy your day tomorrow!

Remember Miss Piggy’s diet advice - “Never eat more than you can lift!”

We’re heading down to my mother’s in a hour or so and I’m providing the centerpiece of dinner this year: a big free-range roasting hen from Back Woods Farm. I was planning to do a fancy marinade and stuffing, but then I discovered that my mother was really excited about having a chicken that will taste the way chickens used to taste. So I’m doing a traditional baked chicken, except for the bottle of Woodchuck apple cider I poured over it last night. We’ll see how that works out.

I thought that maybe she agreed simply to appease her hippy-dippy daughter, but it turns out that she has been bragging to her friends that we’re having an organic hen this year. She says that the chickens in the grocery store have no taste. She grew up on a farm during the depression where they grew ALL their own food, including chickens in the yard.

Of course, she will make the cornbread dressing, and we will have butterbeans. She’ll make some luscious pies, but I’ll probably have a second or third helping of butterbeans for dessert.

Daddy and me, 1965.

Lately I’ve been sitting around fantasizing about a little farm, with a wee house, and a kitchen with a door so that I could produce baked and canned goods for sale. The door is necessary to keep our four cats out so that I could pass a health inspection. See, I’m even practical in my daydreams.

This is a frequent fantasy for me. I say fantasy because I know full well how nearly impossible it is to earn a living doing such a thing. When I read blogs such as Let it Grow, Moonmeadow Farm, and Farmgirl Fare, I am smitten with terrible jealousy at the same time that I realize that these people are working their asses off. I don’t think that I have the physical stamina to do the work or the emotional stability to take the risks that they do.

I could farm a few acres of my family farm. Currently my brother rents most of it out to a large tobacco farmer. He raises a few cattle, but he has pretty much given up farming. He works a full-time job at an agriculture chemical company. Talk about irony - one of the reasons he has to lease his land so cheaply is because it is worn slam out from years of “better farming through chemistry.”

Converting it to organic would take an enormous amount of work. And a lot of debt and no income for a few years. And risking severe depression since I have long said that I’d rather slit my wrists than move back to rural eastern North Carolina. And leaving my husband, since he is a sane city boy and there’s no way in hell he would do this. There’s also the matter of rampant fire ants, nasty cottonmouths, huge rattlesnakes, and cat-eating dogs. And a serious lack of knowledge about farming and business.

I’m thinking about our farm today partly because it is the anniversary of my father’s death from colon cancer nineteen years ago. I am an entirely different person than the wild rebellious young artist that he knew. How would he, a former agriculture teacher in the age of the Green Revolution, the descendant of generations of farmers, react to the ideas that I write about? The die was already cast for small farmers by the time my father passed away, and he knew it. Would he cheer these “new” ideas or dismiss them as so much liberal fantasy? I don’t know. He was a complicated man.

I do know this - my father would be very pleased that I am growing my own food, studying agriculture and exploring the idea of farming. If he was here, he and I would discuss these topics for hours, even if he thought the whole thing was nuts. He would give me very good advice, and help me build things. And I can guarantee you one thing - he would think that George Dubya Bush is a moron. He had no patience for stupidity or spin or impracticality. The last election he voted in, he cast his vote for Walter Mondale…and Jesse Helms. Like I said, he was a complicated man.

I vividly remember Daddy shaking his finger at me yelling that I’d better vote for Jesse no matter what kind of a jerk he was because tobacco was what supported our family and I’d better remember that. After Jesse was re-elected that time, he shifted from the agriculture committee to the foreign relations committee, and Daddy’s vote was wasted.

Tobacco farmers are learning to grow grapes now. What would he think of that? My brother says that some farmers in the area are trying no-till agriculture. I wish that he and I could talk to Daddy about these things. I wish that I could argue with Daddy about politics, or whether Brandywines taste better than German Johnsons. I want to know the names of the varieties of blueberries he planted.

So, today I’m thinking about farming, and I’m thinking about Daddy. The two subjects are really inseparable for me. He so much wanted one of us to go on farming on this land.

Daddy and me, 1986.

From “Small-Town Shops Bulk Up on the Web”
By KEITH SCHNEIDER
Published: November 16, 2005, New York Times

“In the newest era of this city’s history, the Internet is propping up bricks and mortar downtown, acting as a mainstay for the stores that have helped Manitowoc establish what development specialists call a “recreational” shopping experience. Indeed, besides generating sales for giants like Amazon, the Internet is allowing small stores, here and around the country, to develop the niche products that shield them against big-box retailers.

Beyond the revenue from online sales, Manitowoc’s merchants say the biggest benefit of e-commerce is that it enables them to turn over their inventory much more quickly, so owners can add more products and variety to their sales floors. That, in turn, encourages more interest and customer traffic, diversifies the revenue stream and contributes to downtown street life here and in other small cities.”

E-commerce is allowing the small retail stores to compete with the big boys and boost sales at their physical locations. Who woulda thunk it.

Or, maybe not. Here’s an excerpt from another interesting shopping article from the NYT:
“Ready, Aim, Shop”
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: November 19, 2005

“Because the world needs another Officially Named shopping day, the people who dreamed up Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers hope to turn a profit) have created a nickname for the following Monday.

Hence the catchy Cyber Monday, so called because millions of productive Americans, fresh off a weekend at the mall, are expected to return to work and their high-speed Internet connections on Nov. 28 and spend the day buying what they liked in all those stores.”

Well, that’s one way to beat standing in those lines. Here’s another:

Friday is Buy Nothing Day in North America. In Europe, Buy Nothing Day is on Saturday. Read more about International Buy Nothing Day.

Before and after that, please support small businesses, artists and craftsmen in your community and BUY LOCAL! Better yet, remove yourself from the Christmas machine entirely and give to charity instead. There’s more need than usual this year.

One of my favorite soup recipe sources is Horn of the Moon Cookbook. Most of my favorite cookbooks are vegetarian, although I’ve only managed to stick with a vegetarian diet for about six months one time twenty years ago. Vegetarian cooking introduced me to a lot of ingredients and combinations that I never heard of or considered. During this time, I learned, for example, that if you have a certain number of soup bases to work from, the variations can be endless.

This soup is just as good with a vegetable stock and substituting other vegetables, such as cauliflower or cabbage, for the chicken. If you substituted coconut milk for the milk, I bet that would be incredibly delicious. But I haven’t tried that. Yet. It is a variation from the recipe Creamy Ginger Harvest Vegetable Soup, with several changes of ingredients. I love the combination of sweet and spicy hot.

And, I cooked most of it on my Fisher wood stove!

Chicken Butternut Ginger Soup

4 c chicken stock
1 c chopped sweet yellow onion
3 c peeled and cubed butternut squash
2-3 c cubed Yukon Gold potatoes
1 c shredded chard
2 c cooked, chopped chicken
2 T butter
1 T minced garlic (2 large cloves)
1 T peeled and minced fresh ginger
2 T flour
3 c milk
1/4 c parsley
Hot stuff to taste (see notes)
Salt and black pepper

In a large pot, cook the onion, squash, and potatoes in the chicken stock until tender (probably about 15-20 minutes). Add the chicken and chard and lower heat.

In another saucepan on low heat, melt the butter. Add flour, garlic, and ginger. Cook five minutes, stirring frequently. Add milk slowly and stir until heated through. Add the milk mixture to the soup, along with parsley and seasonings. Simmer about 15 minutes longer to blend the flavors.

Notes
This is quite possibly my favorite soup.

The chard added a nice contrasting color. Last winter I had collards in my garden, and I often used small amounts of shredded collard greens in my soups.

Hot stuff: I used a finely chopped green “Kung Pao” hot pepper in this soup. It was about the size and shape of a cayenne pepper. UPDATE - As the soup went into its second day, it became hotter than I liked. Next time I’ll leave out the hot stuff or use something milder.

If you aren’t watching your weight and want it creamier, substitute 1 cup cream or half-and-half for the first cup of milk you mix into the roux (flour/butter mixture).

This time I was on the ball and had fresh Parmesan Walnut bread from Simple Kneads Bakery on hand. You must have good bread to dip into this soup. No buts on this one.

Sources
Chicken stock - My freezer
Butternut squash - Dark Hollow Farm
Onion, potatoes, flour, garlic, and ginger - Deep Roots Market
Chicken - Back Woods Farm
Chard and parsley - My back yard
Butter and milk - Homeland Creamery
Kung Pao pepper - My front yard

We had our Fisher wood stove going both nights this weekend. It can really heat up our small house. We bought a little device called an Eco-fan a couple of months ago and this was its first trial. It is supposed to boost the heat output by thirty percent and it runs solely off the heat of the surface of the stove. This little gadget was $130 bucks on sale, so I wasn’t so sure that I hadn’t been a sucker when I unpacked it. It was itty bitty and lightweight. But, the thermostat in the other part of the house, not in the direct line of the fan, registered a four degree increase in temperature after about an hour or so. I’d say that was pretty darn good. And you can’t sit comfortably in front of it. It gets too hot. I had to change into a t-shirt.

My mother has fans built into the wall between the room with her fireplace stove insert and the rest of her house. It seemed like a great idea at the time her house was remodeled. Trouble is, when the power went out and she really needed it, the fans didn’t work. Similarly, we have gas heat, but it is pushed through the system by electric fans, so we don’t have heat when the power goes out.

That’s the beauty of this little Eco-fan - it doesn’t need electricity. It does need a freestanding space though, so it doesn’t work for built-in wood stoves.

I keep a teapot with water, cinnamon and cloves on the stove because wood heat will really dry out your air. When we first fire it up for the year I don’t like the smell so it helps with that as well. So it occurred to me, what is keeping me from cooking on my wood stove?

Nothing. More tomorrow.