Island Harvest

Rebel homemaker, Shelley, preparing a mulched bed at the Ars Terra permaculture design course we took with her and Anne in Acton, California, summer 2008.

It’s nice to know that just when you feel your enthusiasm fizzling out, your friends can come along to inspire and reignite your fire.

This month our Southern Cal friend, Shelley kicked off her new blog The Rebel Homemaker: Adventures in all things homemade and homegrown. Shelley is multitalented – from her acrobatic hoola hooping antics to all manner of quilted creations – but it is her food growing projects in the middle of L.A. that impress me most. Her goal: “To be growing *all* our vegetables and herbs over the next year (as a vegetarian household, that’s a lot!) and to start saving seeds from heirloom plants.”

Another blog not to be missed is The Foreclosure Garden also started this year by another L.A. friend: Master Gardener, motorcycle chick, architect, artist, Anne. Or as I call her, Anne of Green Gardens. Anne is transforming her rough and tumble block into a place of friendship, food and renewal. This girl has guts! Rival gangs and bullets whizzing by – I’d be gone in a wink.

I commend you both!

I wanted to change the world by doing something drastic and ended up falling off the wagon. These gals did it from their own backyards. There’s a lesson in there somewhere just as soon as a dig my head out of my ass.

Autumn Meal 10/20/2010

If I ever doubted the possibility of an entirely (sporadic) local meal, tonight has spurred me on to try many more.

The Farmer’s Market has been moved indoors and will continue till the end of November. Last weekend, among other goodies, we picked up acorn squash, red bell peppers and pears that all went into tonight’s soup. This morning I prepared stock using Chelsea’s garlic, island grown onions and two bowls of our veggie scraps. I pureed half the soup then topped each bowl with our one, alas, non-island ingredient, sautéed shitake mushrooms.

Chelsea meanwhile roasted the squash seeds after tossing them in salt, oregano paprika and cumin and sprinkled them on top of arugula, mustard greens and sungold tomato salads – items she got for volunteering with Ronda at La Campesina Project this afternoon.

I proclaimed it “fancy restaurant food” and Seb asked what this meant. My reasoning is that the usual soups you see are minestrone, chicken noodle, cream of broccoli, chili, lentil, etc. NOT squash, pear, red bell pepper soup topped with shitakes. While the usual salads are iceberg or romaine, not arugula. He seemed to concede.

We had us some fine dining tonight.

Soup recipe at WeHeartFood.

A Foraging We Go 10/17/2010

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Last week our new British friend invited Seb out mushroom hunting. The boys returned after the lunch hour with a sack full of chanterelles and oyster mushrooms and a couple of prized porcinis.

Seb carefully brushed the dirt of his share of shrooms with a pastry brush and researched recipes online. Our favorite was a creamy marinara with chopped bits of sautéed porcini served over pasta. We made a wine simmered stir-fry out of the oysters and ate it atop a bed of rice. The chanterelles ended up in my favorite gravy recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Vegan with a Vengeance, still one of the best cookbooks ever.

Roses, a local bakery and café, was serving thin slivers of chanterelles over cracker thin pizza this week. Seb was floating atop a mushroom cloud of bliss. I ordered the potato leek pizza sans le fromage – also a delight.

My favorite creation so far comes from Doe Bay Café, which hosts an open mic and pizza night every Thursday. I recreated their pizza at home to satisfactory result: pumpkin seed cilantro pesto, thinly sliced slivers of zucchini, corn and grape tomatoes. Fantastic! I sprinkled some pine nuts on top of all this, which added an extra creamy bite to the pie.

Seb and I strayed from our usual lakeside walk up to Mt. Picket on Friday where there wasn’t another soul save for ourselves. Periodically he halted our movements to say “listen!” The complete silence was impressionable.

I filled a small bag with oyster mushrooms growing on a log. Seb pointed out chanterelles nestled within the moss, but alas the elusive porcini was not to be found.

I have never been a big fungi fan, but it is easy to get sucked into the enthusiasm of the hunt. Seb’s gotten me into the spirit further by finding new recipes and prepping alongside me in the kitchen. What’s not to love about fresh free food?

I do have to love mushrooms for the additional benefit that Seb prefers them over meat. He says they fill the void of a certain chewy texture he misses from time-to-time. So I have made friends with mushrooms and welcome them into my home and on my plate.

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Winter Preview 09/01/2010

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… and summer scenes.

Yesterday morning the rain was pounding hard, the wind blowing fierce. The storm was coming at our bedroom window sideways sending little splashes across my face. I went downstairs and looked below at the ocean with its whitecaps roiling across the Pacific.

Chelsea said this is how most winter days were last season. Everyone is saying this winter is going to be much harsher than last.

We ate dinner indoors for the first time in months and turned on the heat last night. The day before, I was working on a farm in a T-shirt and today I see sun coming through, but Tuesday was a reminder that summer is reaching its end.

What Garden?

Our efforts to mini-farm have been pitiful this season. The deer left us our zucchini plants. Plant starts were neglected and died or got too late a start. I have a dozen lame excuses. We have an end of September project planned, but I won’t mention it for fear of my usual talking things up and failing to follow through. If it happens I’ll post with pictures. Yeah.

For Seb and I, our main focus has been to find an income that allows us to stay on the island. I have two temporary jobs. One is seasonal and ending soon. The other has been a fantastic opportunity to utilize my journalism background and work on a fascinating book project with a local author on a national story. To get an idea, check out his January piece in Outside magazine. This is a small sampling of the book to come: Due out next spring. Bob is a phenomenal writer and this is one heck of a tale. I can’t wait to see it out in stores.

I am headed to the Emerald City Writer’s Conference at the beginning of next month in pursuit of my own writing career. I have a few more weeks of an online writing class to complete. The course, taught by romance writer and instructor Leigh Michaels through Gotham Writer's Workshop, has been helpful in so many ways. The feedback I’m receiving from classmates and Leigh has opened my eyes to issues of craft and successful character and scene construction.

Meanwhile, I want to take everything in bite-sized chunks. The problem with dreaming big is it’s easy to set unrealistic goals and find oneself completely overwhelmed.

Here’s to thinking small and wishing everyone inspiration in the months to come.

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Island Fever 08/03/2010

I got my first case of island fever yesterday and jumped at Chelsea’s last minute idea to hop on a ferry to San Juan. I know, it’s still an island, but it was good to get off Orcas even for a few hours. We sat outside and ate our favorite zucchini nut burgers then went into Serendipity used book store with a list we compiled on the ride over.

Our primary purpose for going over was to walk through the Pelindaba Lavender fields, which were in full bloom and humming with hundreds of happy bees. Before heading out to the Lime Kiln Lighthouse, we drank lavender lemonades while perusing the gift ship. I picked up a couple organic home cleaning items and shampoo for Cosmo. A century-old European practice involves sprinkling linen water (such as lavender) on newly laundered clothes and bed linens. Lavender promotes relaxation and sleep. I love the calm, soothing scent.

Seb has started a lavender corner in the front lawn right next to the rock garden we put together for fun one afternoon.

Tomorrow Seb, Cosmo and I are checking out Lopez island.

To Write a Book. To Have a Dream. To Love a Man. 07/21/2010

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I’ve been attempting to procure an agent for my third historical romance novel all this year. Everything kicked off to a promising start in January when my very first query letter was met with an instant request for sample chapters. (To no avail.) I was further encouraged days before we moved to Orcas when another agent used the word “love” to describe her feelings for the beginning of my book and requested the full manuscript. (Never heard back.) This Sunday I once more entertained thoughts of breaking in when I got my second request for a full manuscript.

Rejections have never bothered me until Tuesday evening when I opened my e-mail and saw this latest chance slip through my fingers with the comment that while she loved the concept of my novel, my writing was too raw. A dam broke within me. The tears were instant shortly followed by full body shakes and sobs. It was as though someone very close to me had died, but in this case it was my dream that was dead because I knew it was more than this agent not quite taking to my style. Just last week I read a romance and couldn’t hush the nagging voice in my mind that knew enough to acknowledge that I wasn’t quite there professionally.

Seb, who was doing our dinner dishes, rushed to my side. He held me in his arms then sat on the couch with me offering comfort during the next hour then brainstorming with me once I was calmer. He suggested I stop researching, put the manuscript aside, and start reading more romances – paying attention to craft.

I went to my laptop to finish checking e-mail and suddenly an amazon gift card for $200 appeared in my inbox from Seb. I started crying anew: right before rushing into his office, throwing my arms around him and showering him in kisses.

It's so appropriate, yet totally unplanned, that the hero of the first book I bought with his gift card, 10 Things I Love About You, is named Sebastian and goes by Seb. Apparently Seb is my hero both on and off the page and has captured my heart all over again.

When you have people who support and believe in you, a dream can never die.

Special thanks to Seb, Chelsea, Mom, Carmen, Gary, John, Liz, Cinthia and Tracy.

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Playing Tourist 07/20/2010

We had a full house all last week, the end of which I spent playing tourist. On Friday Gary’s sister, Leslie, and I visited Orcas Island Pottery: the oldest pottery studio in the Northwest (it opened in 1945). The sight atop a bluff overlooking President Channel was worth the trip alone. Pottery was laid out on picnic tables and benches outside and within several rooms around the property.

Leslie and I also made a stop I’ve been longing to take every time I pass the fantastic metal sculptures hanging from the trees on my scooter ride to work. Up the hill from those trees is the Howe Art Gallery—a field covered with welded-metal mobiles and other kinetic art pieces that at once capture the imagination.

On Saturday our dear friends Richard, Shannan, and baby Kaitlyn arrived. Having their company made me realize how much I’ve missed not only my family from back home, but the friends who, like us, have ventured from the Far North and settled in other parts of the country and world. We only got them for 24 hours, so we made the best of it by visiting the Farmer’s Market, swimming in Cascade Lake (Richard, Cosmo and I), drinking champagne and eating chips during happy hour on the porch, climbing the look-out tower at the top of Mount Constitution, dining at Doe Bay Café, and visiting Crow Valley Pottery.

Peasants & Lords 06/27/2010

A week spent working in the garden and a weekend touring gardens during the Orcas in Bloom Garden Tour.

At the same time I was ending my employment at the gym and spa last Saturday the 19th, Chelsea was starting work as a prep cook for the new Eastsound restaurant, Allium. Being a prep cook, she says, is more physically demanding than gardening. It also leaves behind battle wounds for many a worker wielding a knife – Chelsea sliced part of her pointer off this weekend.

We did more (paid) weeding together Monday and Tuesday, bonding with our manager and another teammate. We were a merry little party: two guys to handle the power tools and two gals to tend the garden. The guys are happy to work with girls for a change.

On Thursday Chelsea and I were asked to clean and paint the floor of what we dubbed: The Meat Locker; the creepy closed-in room where our employer makes salami and stores it in a cavernous walk-in fridge.

Flies rose from the pile of dirty knives and equipment I moved towards the industrial-sized sink to wash as we tidied the room before the paint job. Chelsea nearly chucked up her lunch. I donned thick rubber orange gloves and breathed through my mouth. As I scrubbed fat and gristle out of metal cylinders and fished out pieces of fat clogging the drain, I began to think about the millions of minions out there doing jobs far worse than this and became very jaded with the human class system.

In the San Juans especially, there is a gap between the wealthy and struggling that is as expansive as Puget Sound separating us from the mainland. I’ve noticed the same faces behind counters at multiple establishments. It’s common for people to work three or more jobs. Chelsea is up to five and I will have three if a local writer/photographer takes me on as his research assistant.

We’re on the low range of weed pulling income – making between $10-$13 an hour while others bring in anywhere from $15-$25. Some of our jobs will most likely include produce perks – saving us in the grocery department. Maybe after this season we’ll have a better feel on things and enough connections to bring in more next time around (which, for me, equates to less working hours and more time to spend on our own garden).

On Monday, Cheb and I are starting a new job – one where we’ll get to plant and learn in an organic garden from a 90-something-year-old. I love that we get to do these jobs together. It makes everything better, especially when you have someone to cuss with when everyone else has gone home and you’re left bent over and lying on the floor to paint under counters in a meat locker. Or when you’ve met your employer for the first time (Friday) and you can share the insults he lobs out like clumps of dry earth.

When you’ve grown up living a sheltered life, it’s interesting to find yourself one day crouched in the dirt feeling like an idiot as your employer tells you you’ve lived in the dark for too long (a reference to Alaska made after I spent a minute looking for the rake right in front of me). For a brief moment I told myself I could always throw down my tool and walk away. But I didn’t want to. Everything our employer, 87, says is meant in jest. I felt better when his son showed up and he talked to him the same way. By the time we had to go, I actually laughed when he told Chelsea and I to get our mukluks and get out of there.

This is all good character building, but at the same time its left me jaded and frustrated as we neglect our own garden projects caught up in the game of earning enough income to get by.

I’m a firm believer that everyone, at some point, has to put in their time before things work out and opportunities come to fruition.

For now I’m doing my time and holding out for greener pastures.

Aren’t we all?

“The Island Will Test You” 06/18/2010

A massage therapist said this to me on Thursday. And no, it wasn’t me getting the massage but booking it for a client at the job I’ve had for the past two weeks at the local gym and spa.

I’ve had the good fortune in my life of working for great people and this is no exception. I love the owners of the gym. But I have to say: Retail sucks! I told myself I’d never take a sales position again as long as I lived. Somehow, when I heard front desk, I was thinking more in the lines of receptionist. The duties were explained to me in the interview, but in my dazed idyllic world I was already picturing myself as the perky blonde who’d go on to teach group power classes: upbeat music pulsing in the background.

Instead, I found myself doing all my least favorite things: answering the phone, scheduling spa appointments, doing laundry, and ringing up customers for gym passes, classes, tans, lotion and water.

Seb was both a source of comfort and tough love—showing up to take me out to lunch and giving me hugs, telling me he could push it and cover my share of expenses one more month (though he, himself, is now jobless) then turning around and saying I needed to toughen up.

Wednesday morning started with a spa booking for Cruella De Vil, followed by a client threatening never to do business with us again if she had to pay the 24 hour rescheduling fee. I was quickly envisioning a summer of spa divas from hell.

That afternoon Seb took me out for overpriced pizzas at a café that asked us to vacate our table before he’d even finished his iced tea to make room for more people. We understood why, but it was just so rude. Talk about not catching a break: I had customers treating me rude and then, even when I was the customer I was being treated rude.

Yesterday I had all wonderful people, but still felt miserable. I clung to Seb as we walked to the car after lunch and performed a dramatic display in which I begged him not to take me back to work. That afternoon I told myself ‘OK, I can do this.’ I really enjoy chatting with the gym members, workout instructors and massage therapists. I also had fun in the group power class using my free employee membership.

The 10 hour shift passed quicker than the day before, but I felt exhausted by the continual flow of spa check-outs and ring-ups and having to call up to my boss with questions every few minutes. At close-out my mind shut down completely. The steps I’d performed without question the day before became foreign concepts. My brain was a blank canvas.

I had to call up to my boss’s office to admit this. She laughed at first and then slowly the patience we’d been holding onto by the tips of our fingernails began to chip and flake. I counted money out of the till as though I didn’t know math or recognize numbers. She wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

Then she had to go up for a meeting while I finished up. The till came up short. I found an error I’d made which made the till 50 cents short rather than the sixty-something-and-some-odd-cents previously. I checked everything over and over and over again then put my head in my hands on the counter and waited till the meeting was adjourned to call up. At that point she said to just throw in 50 cents from the change jar and she’d have to look over it the next day.

Next day: Friday (my day off) today! Talk about night and day. Chelsea got us work today. She saw a handwritten flyer on the bulletin board at the post office looking for garden, farm and yard work. They took both of us immediately—we left an hour after the call. I found myself in the sun weeding with my sis for $3 more an hour than what I make at the gym. Our manager is so sweet and laid back. He left us in the garden alone and let us set our hours. We’re working on a 46-acre property owned by a self-made millionaire who fought in WWII, lives on a different site, but wants to keep this one tidy.

We took a lunch break on a swing bench under a trellis intertwined with grape vines. As a gentle breeze caressed loose strands of my sun-bleached hair, I reflected once more on the difference between a day filled with birdsong and one with ringing phones.

Tomorrow it’s back to the spa and gym. Saturday, happily, the front desk closes at noon. Hopefully my brain won’t quit on me in such a short period so I can hurry out and catch the celebrated Orcas Solstice Parade.

Happy summer!