Moutain Goats Make Good Cheese

Imagine a long dusty road winding up and up a French-country mountainside scattered with cows and alternating steep and rolling pastures. The red-tiled roofs of the quaint country houses dot the valley below; resembling the roses and geraniums grown so profusely throughout the area. The farmhouse is nestled on a ledge overlooking the green undulating hills and valleys below. There is a warm, soft breeze that occasionally belies the presence of farm animals but in a pleasant, unobtrusive way. Above the farm the hills rise on three sides decorated with tall grass, wildflowers and large tumbled rocks. This is goat heaven here and we can't help but think of Heidi and her friends. We are fortunate enough to have stumbled upon a biodynamic farm up here in the French Vosges Mountains. They have about 100 goats, a dozen or so pigs, about 10 beehives, a crowd of chickens, a duck, a few roosters and a pony. There are lots of rocky paths leading up the surrounding hills, that provide even more spectacular views of the valleys below. These are the regular stomping grounds of the lovely brown and black goats.

The farmers settled this corner of the mountain about 30 years ago and have been tending their goats and creating their delicious chevre ever since. They have lodging quarters in the old barn, which is attached to the farmhouse. Dinner was simple. Alsatian Tarte Flambe topped with bacon and cheese with a fresh salad, roasted potatoes and, of course, 5 local raw cheeses. Our host, the daughter--in-law of the family is from the French side of the Swiss Alps but her mother is Irish so she speaks perfect English with a slight French accent. She cooked and served us dinner with her baby on her hip (I tried to hold the baby but she was a little shy). It was delicious! There were two of their goat cheeses, one fresh and one aged, one aged blue cheese and two other local cows-milk cheeses.

Our children loved this place. They ran from the rocky hills to the smelly pig barn to see the goats and to pet the donkey, and back again. Before we left we watched a little chevre-making and bought as much as we could fit into our cooler. The fresh Chevre is so sweet and soft and fluffy we can't help but stick our fingers in it and eat a small block on the ride down the mountain.

When in Germany, eat.

It has been awhile. I have been spending most of my free time working on my website. But now that I am on vacation in Germany I have taken a bit of a temporary break from that work. What I have seen yesterday and today in Germany has inspired me to write a bit here. The green and golden rolling hills bathed by the warm sunshine against the backdrop of a sparkling blue lake and snow-capped jagged mountains is enough to set one aday-dreaming.

I am staying on a farm. The building we are in was once a chicken coop but it was converted to a rental house. There are two farmhouses, one other building that was a mill (also converted to a rental house) and a horse stable on the property. The owners come from a long line of land-owners and their property goes on for acres, earning the master the title of "The Baron" in these parts. Don`t let the image of a "chicken coop converted to a rental house" fool you. It is a charming building with all the modern conveniences of a typical German home, large windows, solid doors, spacious bathrooms, high-speed internet, and the best light-blocking blinds I have ever seen. Coming from the city it is so calming to sit on the balcony and watch the endless gentle commotion of the lush countryside. Twice a day we see a stampede of horses running across the plateau on the hill we look out over and on clear moments we can see the Alps sparkling in the distance. In the nearby town colorful houses serve as the palette for the annual neighborly fight over who can produce the most prolific and healthy roses. Our landlords here may just win. They are both in their eighties and they are outdoors working on their land from early morning to late evening. They grow or raise almost all of the food they eat. Needless to say, they are extemely healthy.

I am not sure if it is the scenery or if it really is so, but the food here is just spectacular. Today we shopped at the local biodynamic store. No, that was not a typo, there is actually a store that sells only biodynamic food here. Until I really started focusing on eating local foods I was eating lots of swiss cheese, in particular I am a huge fan of emmenthaler. I bought some today, since it certainly can be considered local here (we are about 30 minutes from the Swiss border). And now I can say with confidence that there is something to be said for buying food near its source. I have never had Emmenthaler this good, despite my buying the fancy stuff at Whole Foods. The salami, the olives, the cheese, the raw milk and yogurt have been beyond words. And the cloudberries, currants, strawberries and cherries we have picked in the back yard have all been delightfully luscious and tasty.

For dinner last night we ate roasted peppers and sausage, potato salad, a lettuce that we cannot figure out the name of with ripe red tomatoes, sourdough bread with gobs of raw butter, raw sauerkraut, feta cheese with basil and olive oil and lots of cold raw milk. All of this stuff comes from our neighbors (except the olive oil but even that is not that far away) and all of it was delicious. Who needs desert when dinner knocks you off your feet (not to say I turned down the rich dark Swiss chocolate).

Another strange and wonderful thing we saw today was a German biodynamic dairy. It is part of the Waldorf school here in the nearby town. Of course we went there to get our supply of raw milk but our children were mesmerized by the brown cows munching on huge piles of fresh grass. I had never seen anything like it. The cows were fed fresh grass in the barn (I would have put an exclamation point at the end of this sentence but I can´t find it on this German keyboard). As far as I know cows are fed hay in the barn, not fresh grass. It made the barn so beautiful to see the floor covered in mounds of freshly cut green grass. The milk has a complex sweet and rich taste. It is out of this world and we are drinking a bit more than a gallon a day between the four of us.

OK, I suppose I have induced a little mouthwatering. I will stop here and maybe write more another day.

On To Other Things

Lately I haven't been writing in my blog because I've chosen to dedicate as much of my time as possible to creating a website. The website is called "The Village Life". My vision is to create an online community for families to connect with other families and generate opportunities to create a modern urban "village" life.
Right now I am focusing on the "Feed The Farm" section, which has a local-eating guide, a farm visit guide, and has specific information about local organic, sustainable and biodynamic farmers. In the course of researching all of this I have been surprised to find some very interesting locally grown foods and I have spoken to many articulate and intelligent farmers dedicated to nourishing their land and their neighbors.
I am also planning on including a clothing/gear exchange, community networking forums, and school and care-provider review forums, among other things.
Needless to say, this is taking all of my time so I'm not sure if I'll be writing much here in this blog. I am thoroughly enjoying this work for the website. I don't know where it will lead but I have such a passion for what I'm doing that I'm not too worried about that right now.

Local and Delicious

Since the weather has improved and now I'm eating more food I've really been focusing on buying local as much as possible. I'm giving myself another personal challenge; to eat local foods as much as I can. I have to admit right here that there are some things I don't want to give up, like fresh fruit in the winter (apples) and specialty foods like capers and curry powder made from freshly ground Indian spices. So I'm not going to even attempt to go there. But I do feel like it will be an exciting journey to eat veggies when they're in season, not just when I'm in the mood. I am embarrassed to say that I don't really know what is in season and when (which comes from a long history of supermarket shopping). I'm excited to see what sort of bounty there is to be had in this region.

So I joined a local organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). That right there will show me exactly what is in season. And it will force me to get more variety, as most farmers growing on a local and smaller scale will put more diversity in their crops. And many are reviving certain foods that were not able to keep up with the supermarket demand for durability above all else.

I am located in the mid-west, Chicago to be more specific, so I will be writing about only what is going on here of course. In New Jersey, where I used to live, the season seems to be about 2 weeks ahead of this area. I can't speak specifically for other areas but most of the food I'm getting here should be available in many regions of the U.S. at some point.

So I went to the large and lovely Green City Market yesterday and I saw a ton of asparagus, some mushrooms, some lettuce and spinach (grown in a hoophouse), some maple syrup, and lots of cheese, meat and eggs. Cheese, meat and eggs are easy to do local all year-round so that is already a large amount of food that we have no excuse for not buying local. As for the fruit and vegetables, I plan to eat a large portion of them fresh and, by hook or by crook, to preserve the rest of them to be eaten in the colder months.

The asparagus we have eaten lightly steamed with hollandaise sauce and roasted with mushrooms, olive oil, butter, garlic, salt and pepper. And I'm going to make soup next week. After next week I will buy a tidy amount and freeze it to be made into soup in the winter. Apparently asparagus is not the best (taste-wise) after being frozen and is then better suited to be eaten in soups.

Mushrooms can be eaten in an infinite number of ways so I don't think I have to go into that. As to how long they will be available locally, we shall have to see. I roasted some with my asparagus today and I will saute them with the spinach tomorrow. As the mushroom season draws to a close I will pickle them. My great-grandmother from southern Italy used to pickle them and that was probably one of the most divine condiments I ate as a child. I'll have to get the recipe.

I also bought some beef bratwurst at our local farm (biodynamic). The wife is from Germany so I figured she should know what she was doing. And she does! It was absolutely delicious! I cooked them in some filtered water in a covered frying pan for a bit and then took the top off and browned them. I also cooked some finely chopped shallots in white wine (2 tbsp) and beer (1/2 cup) until it was a syrupy consistency, I let it cool and then added it to some creamed butter (1 stick) with mustard powder (2 tsp), freshly crushed brown mustard seeds (1 tsp), prepared mustard (2 tbsp), and sea salt. We ate this mustard-butter with the bratwurst and it was wonderful.

I had to take a moment to remind myself and my family how fortunate we are to be able to eat such fantastic food. And we don't have to feel guilty about eating butter and beef because we know it is some of the healthiest food you can eat. It's funny how the food we really want to eat can actually be healthy if done right (ie: meat and dairy from pastured animals).

For the Love of Enzymes

Today was one of those days when I just really wanted to make a soup out of what was in the house. So I sauted onions, garlic, and ramps in a huge dollop of home-made butter and some olive oil, then added carrots and celery and cooked a bit more. I then added the various bits of stock I had in my fridge (beef and chicken) and some fresh thyme and oregano and salt and cooked till the veggies were softened. Then I pureed it up in the pot and added some arrowroot powder dissolved in warm stock and a large cup of fresh raw cream. I heated it a little more and served. It was very tasty and nourishing.

I've been reading a lot about enzymes lately and have been reminded of their importance to our health. Since reading Nourishing Tradtions I've made it a habit to start each meal with an enzyme-rich food. For breakfast it's yogurt, for lunch it's home-made raw sauerkraut or pickles or a mayonnaise, ketchup or mustard condiment. For dinner I always have salad with raw vinegar, beet kvass and olive oil and often I add avocado.

All of those foods/condiments are rich in enzymes when prepared properly (raw yogurt, cold-pressed olive oil and avocado are full of enzymes naturally, the other foods I ferment with whey so they are enzyme super-foods).

Because the Western diet is pretty much all cooked-foods, it is basically devoid of enzymes. Our body produces enzymes but apparently we have a limited potential for the amount that can be produced. But everytime we eat these completely cooked meals we are relying on our body's enzymes to digest the food. This puts an undue burden on our pancreas (where enzymes are assembled). However, if we eat foods rich in enzymes then digestion can be initiated even before we put the food in our mouth. And after the food enters our bellies it sits there for awhile before it is passed to the lower part of our stomach. During this time the food could be getting broken down by food enzymes or it could just be sitting there, putrefying (ew). It has been said that life span is inversely proportionate to the amount of enzymes the body needs to produce. So, use those food enzymes, make them do the work and let your body rest a bit.

By the way, this I think was one of the wonderfully beneficial aspects of the raw milk diet. Raw milk is chock-full of enzymes so it is digested wonderfully efficiently by the body, allowing healing to occur.

Yay for Hollandaise

I went to the farmers market today. Wow, it's wonderful to be back in the world of food! There wasn't much compared to high summer but it was still wonderful to see all the local goods and to see what is in season here in the midwest.

I ended up buying a bunch of asparagus and some raw milk cheese. The asparagus was everywhere so it was hard to choose which farmer to buy from. In the end I bought from a friendly farmer who got into great detail about her planting methods. That's a good way for a farmer to establish differentiation. So I took that fresh asparagus home and I did like my sister did all last month (she lives in southern Germany). I steamed them very lightly and while they were still hot I poured some delicious Hollandaise sauce over them and tossed it together in the bowl. Out of this world fabulous!

To make the Hollandaise: I mixed 1 raw egg yolk (from pastured Illinois chickens) with about 4 tablespoons of melted homemade raw butter, 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt and 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice in my food processor (blender would be fine). Eat warm. It is so quick and really so tasty.

My children ate 3-4 pieces of asparagus each. This is a lot for them, lately they have been so picky about vegetables.

More Than Food

Food is heavy. I've still been consuming mainly milk and yogurt but I feel a difference just by eating relatively small bits of food. And guess what? I now weigh 125 pounds! And I do feel really good. But I also feel a little weighted down by the food. In my case, I suppose this isn't such a bad thing. For the most part I've been eating eggs, vegetables, fish, fruit, nuts and beet kvass. I almost feel like I could live like this.

I do feel my desire to cook and bake has come back though (I'm sure my family is happy about that). This weekend I baked banana bread, rolls and almond cookies, I made sauerkraut, kvass, and crunchy nuts and I spent more time on dinner each night. It feels good to be in the kitchen again. I've also felt more inclined to do yoga again. My body was starting to feel a little tight.

Yoga is so amazing. I do believe food can cure but I think it needs a little outside help too. Exercise is great for our health. I know it sounds cliche, but for me yoga has made a huge difference in how I feel. I do want to add that over-doing it is not healthy and can be counter-productive. As a wise man once said, "I take an Ayurvedic approach to exercise; don't overdo it". I think I could take an Ayurvedic approach to everything in life.

Anyway, back to yoga, I think it is key to good health. I'm not down-talking other forms of exercise. Yoga can complement them but without it I think there will be something missing. Yoga is one of the few exercises that gets your blood going, improves flexibility and strength, massages your inner organs, and relaxes you all at the same time. It is unique in that it actually works out every part of your body (if done right). I feel a rush after my yoga unlike any other endorphin rush I get because it is coupled with such a deep sense of relaxation.

Here is my dream tropical vacation day:
1. Get up and eat a wonderful breakfast of eggs, fresh tropical fruit and yogurt
2. Relax and read a book for awhile
3. Do yoga outside in the beauty of nature
4. Go into a hot spring bath
5. Have sex (I hope this doesn't offend anyone, I think this is as natural as eating)
6. Eat a wonderful gourmet lunch (fresh-caught fish and salad perhaps?)
7. Relax and read a book for awhile
8. Go for a swim in the ocean
9. Get a long wonderful massage with essential oils
10. Have sex (sorry again)
11. Eat a luscious local dinner

Doesn't that sound nice? Sorry to go off on the tangent but I feel so fluffy from my yoga and my milk.

Maybe if I did that once a month or so my immune system would function properly?

Maybe it's more than food?