We opened: 2 jars of salsa, one jar of pickled onions, and 2 jars of sauce We took out of the freezer: 4 pounds ground beef, one small duck, one carton chicken broth, two cartons mirepoix, one carton baba ganouj, one baggie red pepper paste, two baggies pesto. We put in the freezer: an extraContinue reading “Week #1 down, 51 weeks to go.”
Author Archives: Gowan
preciousness and scarcity
One of the things I learned from this project last time is not to let preciousness trap us into scarcity. Open some special jars, right at the beginning. Make some favorite meals even though they’re more work. Do as much in advance as possible. Have food ready before you get too hungry. So far, sinceContinue reading “preciousness and scarcity”
Here we go again
On this day ten years ago, I packed dry beans, thawed frozen tomato sauce, chopped onion, beef, barley and cubed roots into a crock pot, so that in the morning, local food would already be there. As luck would have it, my thrift store crock pot scorched everything into a malodorous mass. I woke up,Continue reading “Here we go again”
Thanksgiving 2022
It’s Thanksgiving morning, and the table is full of thick slices of winter squash sitting on trays like fat golden half moons. They smell like cantaloupe. We are taking the squashes with dings and bruises that will not cure down for winter and roasting them into puree for the freezer, and juicing them for pumpkinContinue reading “Thanksgiving 2022”
Making Pickles
It’s the dark of 5am and there’s a reaching streak of condensation at the bottom of each window. One partner is sleeping, the other is moving drying corn around on the rack erected above the four poster guest bed checking for mold, and stirring drying salt in flat pans in the dehydrator, and simmering molassesContinue reading “Making Pickles”
What is Eat Mendocino?
This is a question I’ve been asked multiple times in the last couple of weeks of posting prepping process photos and that question alone shows me how much time has passed. A significant number of people I know and love now in the County weren’t around back then! Eat Mendocino is the name for aContinue reading “What is Eat Mendocino?”
seven weeks to go
The canner on the deck has been bubbling for days. In the rain the steam billows, and the hot jars sit on the wet wood, cooling and pinging. The top of the wood stove is clustered with warming jars. I like using the wood stove to warm clean jars, because the thickest part of theContinue reading “seven weeks to go”
A tale of two breakfasts
One of the things that has shocked me the most about my week of being technically no longer bound to local food is how much everything costs. Comparatively small amounts of raw calories and products becomes so expensive when they are prepared and packaged by someone else. The price tag for a fairly normal non-localContinue reading “A tale of two breakfasts”
Stranger in a strange land
So, we’re now at 5 days since the official completion of this project. I’ve spent the last week moving onto the most amazing farm I can imagine, the embodiment of all our hopes and dreams, the acres that will sustain us. Moving is crap for local food. I know this well, since I went throughContinue reading “Stranger in a strange land”
Day 365
The biggest feeling I have today is one of normality. Its not anti-climatic, this has been a big year with lots of small triumphs and major struggles. Its just that this year hasn’t been a process of working towards a goal or running out a clock. This isn’t the peak of a mountain, or ifContinue reading “Day 365”
Eat Mendocino 