And the Winner of Keeping the Feast!
Fortunately a Little Snow Doesn't Affect the Flavor
The best part of doing a book giveaway is reading all of your entry comments. I always ask you to answer a question that somehow relates to the book (and often involves food), and you never disappoint. Memories and stories, dreams and recipes, laughter and tears—you share it all. Thank you. In case you'd like to go back and read back through these wonderful collections, I've included links below to previous book review/giveaway posts.
For this giveaway, I asked you to tell us something about how food or cooking has in some way, big or small, helped you or someone else heal or survive a tough time. Your responses were so moving you even inspired Keeping the Feast author, Paula Butturini (whose recipe for Italian White Soup is here), to leave a comment:
After sitting quietly in my dining room banging away on my computer for the last couple of years, it's amazing to 'hear' people talking through the Internet about both the book and what food means to them. I'm cheered by the review and comments. Read through till the end; it may not be a Hollywood happy ending, but it's a real one.
And the winner of the advance copy is: Julie!
Eating has always been one of my favorite things. Cooking has become one. To me, it's just another creative outlet. We have suffered financially over the past few years. As a result, we have not been able to go out to eat hardly at all. This has forced me to up my cooking skills to a new level to satisfy my palette. I have had a great time doing it. However, nothing beats the joy of cooking for a grateful, friendly crowd. I love that food brings people together.
Thanks to everybody for entering. I already have some more fun book giveaways lined up. In the meantime, Keeping the Feast will be released in hardcover on February 18th. The cover price is $25.95, and you can pre-order it from amazon.com for $17.13.
Other book reviews on Farmgirl Fare:
The Laws of Harmony (and readers share favorite food novels)
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (and what readers eat when alone)
Local Breads (and my favorite Four Hour Parisian Daily Baguette Recipe)
Cooking with Shelburne Farms (& Lamb Burgers w/ Red Pepper Olive Relish)
Comfort Food (readers share favorite comfort food stories & recipes)
The Cornbread Gospels (readers share cornbread memories & recipes)
The Artist's Palate (a beautiful cookbook for food and art lovers)
Falling Cloudberries (Greek Leg of Lamb & readers talk food/travel)
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (my favorite gardening book)
Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting & Harvesting by the Stars
© 2010 FarmgirlFare.com, the always feeding somebody around here foodie farm blog where reading and eating go together like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and glasses of ice cold milk.
Summer Work is Winter Food
I was thrilled to learn that Saveur.com has included both Farmgirl Fare and In My Kitchen Garden on its list of Sites We Love. I've been reading Saveur magazine, which focuses on exploring the world of authentic food, since the very first issue came out, so this is an especially nice honor for me. And of course I love that the cover of the current issue says 'Why Lamb Rules' in big bold letters! (Through September, both new and renewal Saveur subscriptions are only $14.95 at amazon.com.)
Readers often ask me if we eat the any of the grass-fed lambs we raise, and the answer is yes. Not only is the all natural meat incredibly delicious, but I also love knowing that the animals who become my food lived happy, healthy, stress-free (and dare I say spoiled?) lives. You'll find several of my favorite lamb recipes here.
One of these days I really will get around to writing up that Frequently Asked Farmgirl Questions page, but in the meantime, Amy Thompson asked me all sorts of questions during this interview for her wonderful MamaViews series on Progressive Pioneer. (Technically I'm not a mother, but I suppose that raising dozens of animals grants me honorary mama status. And of course there's my baby Cary.) The interview even includes a couple of photos you've never seen before: Amy, one of my favorite ewes, with her newborn triplets in 2007, and me with the donkeys out in the front field.
Reading Amy's What is a Progressive Pioneer? essay brought tears to my eyes, and I'm very proud to be one. I think many of you will really enjoy her lovely site, where she writes about everything from urban chicken farming and unschooling to bee keeping and natural family living.
Are you a progressive pioneer? In what way?
© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the windows have been closed for the first time in months foodie farm blog where you know I love autumn, but after all these years in Missouri, the first 40 degree night (that would be tonight) still comes as a surprise. Thanks to the miracle of online weather forecasts, though, all the tomato, tomatillo, and basil plants in the garden have been safely (I hope!) swaddled up in old bedsheets and are ready to face the oncoming chill. Bring on the quilts and polarfleece!
Filling Bellies and Warming Bodies
A year of Farm Photos ago:
1/21/08: New Furry Faces on the Farm
Two years ago:
1/17/07: My Heart is Embedded in this Place
1/19/07: Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Life is but a Dream
1/21/07: Nothing Slows Farm Boss Patchy Cat Down
Three years ago:
1/16/06: Do You See Beauty in the Everyday?
1/19/06: Ten Foodie Things About Me
1/20/06: Doll Face Will Be Ten Years Old This Spring (2009 & doing fine!)
1/21/06: Another Heart Rock for my Collection
1/21/06: Weekend Cat Blogging: One Cat. . . or Two?
1/22/06: Not Stuck, Just Resting
And out of the kitchen came:
1/17/08: FoodieView and My First Foray into Focaccia
© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the foodie farm blog where due to unknown circumstances, our wonderful wood block supply fell through after only two deliveries, so we're back to cutting, splitting, loading, unloading, and stacking lots and lots of firewood—though fortunately not in the snow (at least not yet). And while I say 'we,' the division of labor is far from equal in this area, since all I usually do is help toss wood into the truck (while thinking about food the entire time). This girl draws the line at running a chainsaw—I leave that to my hunky farmguy.
Firewood Blocks: A Busy Farmgirl's New Best Friend
Both The Shack and the new building (which we're actually getting sort of close to moving into—finally!) are heated with wood. There's an inefficient potbellied stove in the living room of The Shack that looks cute and feels wonderful if you're cozied up to it, but it barely heats the other rooms in our poorly built and uninsulated old home.
The new building, on the other hand, has the opposite problem—we bought a massive wood furnace and probably went a little overboard. It's made in Minnesota, and it turns out their idea of 'mild fall weather' is at least 30 degrees colder than ours. But so far it works beautifully, and I'm sure we'll quickly get spoiled by the joys of having central heat. I do love to pile on the quilts and blankets and snuggle up in polarfleece come winter, but I'm pretty sure I won't miss waking up to find a thin layer of ice on the water glass next to my bed.
Since we're used to drafts and both get claustrophobic quickly, we figure that once we're moved into our new double-insulated, draft-free living quarters we'll simply keep a couple of windows cracked open all winter long. This sounds like a perfect plan to me—stay warm and yet still have plenty of fresh air. Kind of like when I used to drive around in a convertible in California with the top down and the heater on.
Because the new plumbing has been hooked up in the new building (yes!), we now have both the little woodstove and the big wood furnace going, which means we're burning a lot of firewood. (The little woodstove is so inefficient it actually uses almost as much wood as the furnace.) We usually cut our own firewood, but lately we've been supplementing with these wood blocks that are scraps from a local mill. We have a dumptruck load delivered at a time, and we're discovering that they're really convenient.
When we gather our own firewood, we either cut down dead trees in the woods on our property, or we cut up trees that have fallen over on their own. Once in a while we'll cut down a live tree if it will make more space for the others around it. It's hard but rewarding work. With these blocks, it's nice knowing that we're making good use of something that's essentially waste. And it's even nicer knowing that we can be a little lazy when it comes to keeping our woodpile stocked—especially when it's 28 degrees outside and snowing.
Want to see more firewood photos?
9/6/05: The Hay Is In, So Now It's Firewood Season
10/25/05: Nothing Feels Quite Like Wood Heat
10/26/05: Where We Cut Firewood
10/26/05: Why We Cut Firewood
12/11/05: Firewood Getting Low. Ever Cut in the Snow?
2/21/06: Note to Self Re Snowstorm Preparation
12/4/07: Just Another Day At the Office
© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where there's no 'we' in the 'we cut firewood'—it's just my hunky farmguy. I'm a crackerjack wood loader and unloader, and I can clomp around in the woods with the best of them, but I leave the chainsawing and splitting to him. A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere—and besides, it's a lot more fun to watch.
When all that's left to do is admire the view and wait for winter.
Want to see more?
Haybarn Photos
Haying Season Photos
Hay Feeding Photos
Handmade Fence Photos
Farm Landscape Photos
It's always a little discombobulating coming back to the grid after being without power—especially if it's been off for 53 hours. When we lose electricity we pull out the oil lamp and candles and pretend we're camping—which isn't a whole lot different than everyday life in The Shack.
Things outdoors pretty much continue on as usual when there's no electricity, but not much happens inside (and it sure does get dark early in here). A power outage also means there is absolutely no excuse not to head out to the weed-filled garden and get to work cleaning out raised beds (which you've been putting off for far too long).
Our stovetop burners use propane so we can still cook lots of things, but because we're on a well, no electricity also means no running water, and that can get a little tiring after a while (and boy do the dirty dishes pile up quickly). We're very lucky to have the spring so we always have access to water (which we boiled when we ran out of drinking water), and fortunately bales of hay will stay fresh whether there's power or not, unlike the contents of our several chest freezers.
These long outages usually occur during winter ice storms, so worrying about anything defrosting isn't a concern. This time was a little iffy. But thanks to a little cool snap, the numerous large plastic bottles of ice we keep on hand that went into the fridge, the generator we finally borrowed from the donkey peddling cowboy around hour 36 (because ours wouldn't start), and the fact that the freezers were crammed to capacity, pretty much everything except a couple of cartons of ice cream stayed frozen solid.
© FarmgirlFare.com, the neatly stacked foodie farm blog where losing power for an extended period always reminds us of just how much we heart electricity—and makes me wonder if perhaps I should rethink my current thoughts on canning. Except pretty jars of preserved garden tomatoes are one thing, but canned lamb just doesn't sound very appealing.
Topaz takes her job seriously
© FarmgirlFare.com, the scrutinized foodie farm blog where Topaz, who spent 15 months at the animal shelter before we adopted her last December (along with Sarah Kate and Mr. Midnight), decided to move outdoors and is loving her new life as a farm cat. She even rode around the farmyard on the hay trailer before I snapped this picture.
Oh yeah, and I lied — a brief explanation of the whole haying process will accompany the next photo, not this one. Plus I still need to get you caught up with the rapidly growing livestock guardian puppies (yes, they finally both have names!), the new bread bakery building, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. There are more recipes to share and lots of wonderful new cookbooks to give away, too.
Sheesh. How did I get so far behind? It's been almost a week since the last Daily Dose of Cute. And you haven't even met Sylvester the cat — or the cows! At least we had cake and cookies. That makes everything better, right?
Each Bale Is Handled Four Or Five Times Between Field & Barn
Last Of The Hay Bales: We Start Cutting Today
