2010
06.30
Ooh la la.
It’s black cap season in Michigan. These thumbelina wild black berries grow wild on dirt roadsides and thickets take over unkempt farms and lucky. The thorns try to scare away berry pickers by snagging clothing and scratching tender skin. Patience and thick gloves have their rewards.
Black Cap Salad with Feta
Serves 2
3 large handfuls of baby lettuce, washed, dried
1 cup Black Caps or Blackberries, washed and dried
1 avocado, thinly sliced, rinsed under tepid water to prevent browning
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
Paper thin slice red onion
2 Tablespoons salted pistachios
- Cover plates with lettuce. Arrange berries, avocado, feta, onion and pistachios. Sprinkle with dressing.
Dressing
Whisk together:
3 Tablespoons rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons Black Cap berries, crushed
1 Tablespoon pistachio oil
Tags: local, Michigan, small farms Category Farm2Table, Kitchen String Recipes, Sleight Farm |
2010
06.29
FDA is taking a no drug stance for livestock farmers who use antibiotics too freely in their day to day operations. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner, said antibiotics should only be used to treat disease and not to plump up bird breasts or help the animal digest feed more easily. “This is an urgent public health issue,” Sharfstein said during a press conference call, “To preserve the effectiveness [of antibiotics], we simply must use them as judiciously as possible.”
Brad Spellberg, an infectious-diseases specialist and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about antibiotic resistance told the New York Times, “The writing is on the wall. …We’re in an era where antibiotic resistance is out of control, and we’re running out of drugs and new drugs are not being developed. We can’t continue along the path we’re on.”
For years, the animal feed industry has refused to accept responsibility for this serious problem, citing physicians as the primary cause. In fact in my book, a spokesperson for the National Chicken Council said, “the medical community sees a speck in the industry’s eyes, yet they can’t see the beam in their own.”
Now FDA says the beam belongs to the feed and farming industry and that if they don’t voluntarily change their ways, FDA will do it for them. The National Pork Producers Council said the FDA guidance was overly burdensome. “There is no scientific study linking antibiotic food use in food animal production with antibiotic resistance,” the council said in a statement.
Despite the Pork Council’s rhetoric, scientists have long known that antibiotics in livestock are contributing to antibiotic resistance in humans, but until now FDA wasn’t willing to take a stand. The problem of antibiotics in our food supply is insidious. Not only are antibiotics present in pork, poultry and beef in alarming levels, antibiotics from farming operations seep into ground water and even in end up in vegetables because of antibiotic tainted manure fertilizer. Louis Slaughter a Democrat from New York agrees, she proposed a bill to curb antibiotic use in farming.
Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists told the LA Times that it is doubtful the industry will voluntarily change its addictive ways. Mellon wants to see an action plan not just talk. Until then, if you want to change your buying habits, look for the following labels:
Tags: antibiotic resistance, antibiotics, chicken, disease, pork Category Farm2Table, Health & Wellness |
2010
06.22
So remember the Woodchuck naming contest? The Sleight Farm woodchucks have been very busy this spring. There are now four baby Woodchucks, or is it Woodchicks? Anyway, this changes things considerably for both the naming contest and whether we can live in harmony with so many wood-eating critters. They are living in a rural penthouse of sorts,
an 125-year old barn with a newly added Amish built roof. The floor is in a bad state because of their underground tunnels that crisscross the barn. This old farm can only take so much chewing and upheaval.
We may have to relocate the parents and kids to more simpatico spot at a lovely respite, Sleepy Hollow State Park down the road. I have a hunch moving the chucks and chicks sounds easier than it is. Should I move them or let them be? Until we decide how and if we should send them packing, send in your suggestions to name the Sleight Farm woodchuck family.
Category Sleight Farm |
2010
06.22
“If I were a wood fairy, my buttons would be pink strawberries and my coat a fine weave of sweet summer grass.” 
For now, my mere mortal hands must decide what to do with a flat of summer’s first Michigan strawberries. Of course, first off, dollops of fresh cold cream to cap off handfuls of just plucked warm berries. But then what? Summer’s first berries and Spring’s last stalks of rhubarb with a sugar and sandy shortbread crust? Deep green spinach from the garden with bright red berries and splash of rice vinegar? Or will a buttermilk biscuit grace these berries for shortcake? What would you do with 8 quarts of summer’s first buttons of sweetness?
Tags: local, local farms, Michigan, small farms, strawberries Category Farm2Table, Kitchen String Recipes, Sleight Farm |
2010
06.14
It’s Monday, dairy day. Once a week, I drive to Emerald Acres Dairy Farms to pick up my share of milk and eggs. The milk is whole and fresh and the eggs are extra large and nutty brown.
Filling up the milk bottle is a ritual in cleanliness: wash hands, spray down the spigot and floors, let a cup of milk fall into the bucket, fill the bottle and snap on the cap, respray the spigot, respray the the floors and wash my hands again.
At the store I mindlessly grab and go, but these rituals force me to think. Even before the cream rises to the top of the glass bottle, I think about the owners of Emerald Farm, the Warnke family and their six children (yes six). How early did they get up to milk the cows so that I could fill up this bottle? Will they make it when so many farming families are struggling?
They could have farmed like so many other in the area with thousands of cows, stalled and tethered and with an insurance policy of hundreds bushels of corn stored in the silo for feed. They instead chose to have faith that the grass will grow. They have faith that fewer cows will provide and they trust their family will thrive. Yes, it’s Monday, time for my lesson in cleanliness, humility and faith.
Tags: dairy, farms, local, Michigan, milk, raw milk, RGBH free Category Farm2Table |
2010
06.04
Every morning while my coffee is brewing, I’ve watched a family of robins teach their fledglings how to find worms in the wet grass. The babies jump from one patch of grass to the other mimicking their parents. As I watched, it occurred to me that the generations before us have been doing just that–watching us eat and following in our processed food footsteps.
Did you know more children are being born right now than in the boomer generation? SWELS (Seniors with energetic lifestyles) are grandparents to this new baby boomlet generation. What is good enough for grandparents and parents is good enough for their children. But only if the grandparents are setting a good example. A UK study found that sedentary grandparent caregivers often have overweight grandchildren.
Read an interview with Kim about how boomlets and their grandparents, the original boomers could reverse the obesity epidemic. Natural Foods Merchandiser Q&A with Kimberly Lord Stewart.
Tags: children, health, obesity Category Health & Wellness |
2010
06.04
We measure our days in rainfall, corn height, undone chores, sunsets and spent wine corks. It seems something always needs cleaning, cutting, mowing, weeding or just mulling. This week is the 12th anniversary of my Uncle’s death here on the farm. He died from an accident while clearing trees after a storm. I marvel at the rural preserve he and my Aunt built and their vision to preserve a lifestyle that is vanishing. Whether through toil or text, I hope that my husband and I can do justice to their legacy.
Category Sleight Farm |
2010
05.14
Meet the Sleight Farm Woodchuck. He lives outside our kitchen window and spend his mornings and evenings eating dandelions. He needs a name, so leave your suggestions here or on facebook.
Category Sleight Farm |
2010
05.14
A wise farmer in our family used to say, “Too little rain and you’ll be poor, too much rain and you’ll starve.”
Even technology can’t beat Michigan’s Mother Nature. A week ago, $500K work of steel and modern technology plowed, seeded and fertilized this land. A satellite GPS system planted each kernel six inches apart, three inches deep. Today the field is a shallow river, with gravity pulling the kernels downstream to the deep culvert.
T.S. Elliot said April is the cruelest month….breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. I beg to differ. May is the cruelest month. The road washed out, the cellar sprung a leak and the muddy garden waits yet another day for plants. Trying to stop the water is like holding an umbrella over a duck, so wear your boots.
Tags: local, Michigan, small farms Category Farm2Table, Sleight Farm |
2010
05.06
Michigan Localvores to the table please…this is our first Michigan born meal from the Sleight Farmhouse kitchen. My cousin brought over a few pounds of new spring asparagus, raw milk from a dairy down the road and a fresh loaf of bread with homemade cultured butter. Bliss.
Spring Asparagus Soup
INGREDIENTS
2 bunches asparagus, ends trimmed if they are rough and tough
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon thyme
Salt, peppper
3 Tablespoons flour
32 ounces low sodium chicken broth
1.5 cups milk, or (or almond milk for a vegan version)
DIRECTIONS:
- Break asparagus into pieces, wash and drain. Set aside. Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, saute until onions are opaque and carrots are soft.
- Add garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. Heat until fragrant. Turn down heat to medium low. Add flour and cook for 3-5 minutes until flour is light brown.
- Increase the heat to medium high. Add stock. Bring to a boil, add asparagus. Simmer on medium heat until asparagus is soft, about 10-15 minutes.
- Take off heat and allow to cool a bit. With a hand mixer, puree soup contents until coarsely chopped. Add the milk, return to a simmer, serve.
Makes 4 servings
Category Kitchen String Recipes |
