One Local Summer: week two

Sultry hot air sends us out of doors for our localavore summer meals. Branches saved from the November annual pruning of the mulberry trees are what fuels our fires as we linger under the now lush fan like green leaves carefully dodging the occasional squid ink berry that was missed for tonight’s dessert . If we are doing a big feast for friends we throw on one of those gleaned grape vine logs. Many of the wine growers around here are encouraged to pull up their 30+ year vines and plant olive trees in place of them to alleviate the local wine glut.

Back in March during our Meet Your Meat Month, 30 days where we only ate meat that we could physically see with our own eyes, we found an excellent organic pig farm near my husband’s work (in the middle of the grapevines, of course). A tiny two window case shop connected to the cutting room is where this all women run (four women to be exact) oinker operation supplies us with the fruits of their seven sows. Actually, we started eating less meat after Meet your Meat so now we don’t pig out on 10oz of meat at eat meal. We take it slowly and savor what this animal has sacrificed for our nutrition.

From this batch of pork ribs, grilled with homemade bbq sauce, I was able to make three meals. We eat a lot of courses at our house, typical to a French household. Apetizer, main plate, followed by salad, then cheese, fruit and maybe dessert if you have room. Our appetizer lately that has been a steamed artichoke for each of us with a side of fresh made aioli mayonnaise. Including the baby, she devours artichokes.

The ‘chokes are superabundant against all odds right now and winding down thankfully as there is such thing as too much of a good thing. I have heard that the plants winter over well. More like winter, spring, summer and fall for our five little starter plants from two years ago that we promptly forgot about when grandma passed away. They are taller than humans with 25 heads!

The older lady who must be the matriarch of the “cochon gourmet” wipes her knotted hands on her previously white butchers apron and admires my gusto for all things porcine. She offers me three pig feet for my Menudo and insists that I take the ankle bones as well. She knows that I like to use the whole hog as I bought just that from her at Christmas time. It was here that I finally figured out what to call leaf lard in French “saindoux.” After three or four visits of her giving me regular lard which is not the same thing. I explained it’s the fat that surrounds the kidneys, it comes off in paper like layers. I stood on my tip toes to see through the plate glass window to the dissection room with four or five splayed hogs on the table-sized chopping block. You cook it very slowly and use it to make pies and finally a light bulb went off in her head that shined crystal bright through her eyes and she raised up her gnarled index finger with an ah ha! She told me to come back in two days. She renders it for me and charges 1.75 a kilo which is a steal.

With this meal, we grilled the end of our pointed cabbage and zucchinis from our CSA basket. A bit of local fresh olive oil, fresh cracked sea salt and black pepper was all that is needed. The ribs were smothered in a hot barbecue sauce that I made a few months ago with tomatoes (our last frozen ones from grandma’s deep freeze 2006 they said in her scrawl, onions, garlic, salt, vinegar, sugar and hot peppers cooked forever and a day until it was rich and dark maroon. We ate our gardens last batch of artichokes first. And it was followed by a wonderful mulberry/cherry pie (grandma's tree as well) made with a leaf lard crust. (pictured below is the previous one with foraged strawberries and mulberries from those same trees)

Chinese pork stirfry with carrots and onions, greens from our deck garden, some sour cherries from a neighbors tree and fried fava beans made our second meal. And the final is Ham hock soup with green and coral lentils and leeks from the “left over freezer bag”—a catch all place for odds and ends of vegetables that are too good for the compost yet missing that something to make them into dinner. Fried half a sweet onion in duck fat, added a pork knuckle (the part between the foot and the ankle) and the pork bones from the ribs with some meat still on them, and lentils that had been soaked in whey (to use up all that whey and it makes beans more nutritious). Later, I added some chicken broth that I had defrosted, cumin seeds and random spices from my stash. With a baguette it will make a nice down home meal.