Happy Days

Good News: We're back in the egg business! Our White Leghorns laid their first eggs yesterday.

This picture is a bit deceiving unless you realize that the eggs are in one of the small, plastic containers used for fresh berries. Yes, the eggs are small, but that is typical of a hen's first eggs. Small doesn't diminish the excitement we felt when finding two eggs in nest boxes and one on the ground yesterday. Just think back to the days you hunted Easter eggs...it's a bit like that.

These are our first fresh eggs since last Fall when a bobcat got into the chicken house one night and killed all 35+ chickens! It was a sad day! I have loved chickens for almost 20 years now. If at some point Verne and I have a smaller home and less acreage, we will still have a chicken house and chickens. Should we live in a condo with a postage-stamp back yard, we will still have a few chickens in a back-yard hutch. Should we some day end up in an assisted-living environment, I will find a way to have a chicken!

After the tragedy, I pledged to replace my hens with baby chicks the first of February when they became available from Murray-McMurray. I did just that and received 32 chicks at the post office on February 2nd. I would normally wait until early Spring when the weather begins to warm. However, we were expecting a visit from Lara and family in March and her boys love the chickens. I figured they'd be ready at that time to move from the brooder to a larger (but still heated) home in the watering troughs (without the water, of course). Actually, by March they needed a larger area and we ended up putting them in one of the chicken rooms with both heat lamps and a heater running 24-hours a day. By the first of May we were able to turn off the heater and give them a second room as they'd outgrown the 100 square foot room they were in.

Sounding a bit pricey? You have no idea! First, there's the cost of the chickens. I like an assortment, including rare (and pricey) breeds as well as the good layers. I didn't mention above, but we had a mishap and lost about 75% of the first shipment. The final cost of the chicks and replacements was close to $200. Next, there is the special feed they require for their first six months. Being "special" means it also is pricey. Then there is the fact I bought them in February...the coldest time of year in our part of the country...and ran the heater for about three months non-stop. I don't even want to consider the additional utility charges. Oh, I almost forgot...there is the depreciation on the 600 foot wing we added to the side of the barn (Verne calls it the Taj Mahal) in order to house the hens and the fencing (both chain-link and electrical) that provides ample room for the birds to free-range. The good news is, we'll soon be able to change their feed from Chick Start to Lay Pellets, slightly less expensive, but at about two bags per month another $40 (month after month after month). But then, we'll also be buying Scratch as their daily treat and bags of Cedar Chips to fill the nest boxes. Bottom Line...raising chickens to have fresh eggs = Big Bucks! We've already invested about $20 per chicken and as you can see, that's just the beginning.

The White Leghorns are the earliest layers. It will be another 4-6 weeks before the brown layers (Black Austraulorps, Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, to name a few) and blue-green layers (Auaucanas) come on line. By August we'll have an abundance of fresh white, brown, and blue-green eggs...far more than we can use. I'll be contacting my former chicken customers and hope to receive a commitment for weekly deliveries at $3/dozen. What we can't sell, we'll give to the local food bank. I'm sure as you read this, you're thinking, "Is it possible these two people were once CPA's...just do the math! This is crazy!" I agree. That's why I'm pointing it out before you do. It is crazy! What can I say...I'm crazy in love with chickens! Here's a few of them...

Jam Blooper and More

I know what you're thinking..."NOT more jam stories!" Well, how do you think I feel? I'm the one slaving in a hot kitchen trying to perfect my jam recipes. And, not all of my attempts yield perfect results. There are many more attempts than what I've recorded in this blog! Think about that for a moment and you'll understand how I'm spending my summer and appreciate the limited number of jam-related postings.

I've learned that jam making is a little bit like quilt making...every step is critical to the success of the finished product. Quilt making requires (1) the understanding of color theory and selection of the perfect fabrics, (2) precise cutting and sewing, and (3) masterful quilting. Jam making requires (1) the understanding of various varieties of fruit and selection and use at the precise time when the sugar content is high, (2) tried and true recipes, and (3) artful presentation.  

As you well know, I'm working on #2 by spending my summer finding/developing recipes for each fruit. My reference material includes Put 'Em Up, Blue Chair Jam Cookbook (thanks to Jana as she gave it to me for Christmas), countless Internet recipes and other resources, and the information included in each box of pectin. It seems obvious as I write this, although it's just recently become crystal clear to me, the fruit is the key to excellent jam. Recipes are important, but definitely back seat to #1...the fruit. Flavorless fruit, flavorless jam! 

I think the reason I didn't realize this sooner is because of my limited exposure to the myriad species/varieties (groups and subgroups) of different fruit. For example, there are as many as 40 species of plum trees with numerous varieties within each species. Colors (inside and out) ranging from green, yellow, orange, red-orange, to shades of purple. Crisp flesh, soft flesh. Cling and free-stone. Tart to sweet. Grocery shopping at Safeway or any other large chain offers only a couple of varieties of plums and only those that are commercially grown, which are definitely not the most flavorful. Higher-end markets, like Whole Foods or New Seasons (Portland), offer a wider range of varieties that are often "local grown" (although, that term can be misleading). The best places to find a wide range of locally grown fruit worthy of jamming are either farmers' markets or roadside stands. Both of which are plentiful in our area. 

Years ago when Verne and I took a series of culinary classes at Home Chef, we were taught, "cook with the same wine you'd drink." That is to say, use only the highest quality ingredients if you want high quality results. Same goes for jam making. This past week we had the pleasure of picking plums from a friend's trees. What fun! The larger of the two plum varieties was a beautiful color...

but, they'd gotten badly sunburnt when the temperatures in our area had risen above 100 degrees that week. Also, I believe they were actually cooked by the extreme heat as their texture was soft and mushy. I was taken my the amazing colors (pretty enough to paint) and the wonderful experience of picking the fruit, but jam made from these plums would be mediocre at best. Not worth the effort! I invested very little time before I realized it was a lost cause and gave the plums to the chickens. I was disappointed as I wanted to surprise my friend with jam made from her plums. The second of the two plums we'd picked were tasty, but small with a large pit and a cling variety. There was no practical way to remove the pit without losing most of the plum. Guess I'll just have to wait for Wendy's plums to ripen in August and try again. They're everything I've come to expect from a plum...sweet, juicy, colorful, and freestone. Well worth the wait! 

Farmers Market

Life is full of rituals. One of our favorites is the Pine Grove Farmers Market. It's held every Wednesday afternoon from mid-June through mid-October, when we often get our first frost. It starts off slowly as the growing season upcountry is very short. On the best day mid-summer there are only about a dozen vendors: half selling produce, one old lady who has an olive orchard and sells her olive oil, a local baker selling breads and other baked goods, a couple of crafters (they vary from week to week...one sells hand-made soaps, another hand-made cards, and another hand-sewn items, and occasionally a vendor selling plants. Almost always there is entertainment...typically, a local, country-western singer (of the old school - Hank Williams or George Jones type music) singing and playing his guitar (if no guitar, then singing to a CD).

Yesterday was the first market of the season. Although we had a commitment in town and were in a hurry, we stopped and walked the market. Thankfully, we made time for this ritual that has become so important to us. We saw familiar faces, bought something from each of the produce vendors, and left with the same warm-fuzzy, satisfying feeling we have every week from mid-June through mid-October when we attend the Pine Grove Farmers Market. It's small and I'm sure laughable to people who've been to the Saturday market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco or the markets held in other large cities or even the Thursday evening Lodi Street Fair. But, it's ours and it's a ritual we've grown to love.

Here's a picture of one of our favorite vendors, Wendy Hunter...

She sells honey and the best plums I've ever eaten! Last year she tried to sell my market totes (pictured in the foreground), but they were too pricey for upcountry folk. Oh well, we tried. This fall I'm going to take them to a craft fair in Santa Barbara, mark them up by 25%, and they'll probably sell like hot cakes!

A New Jam Partner

I know I've been writing a lot about jam. But, you see, it's one of those seasonal things. The fruit ripens. It's harvested and sold. Jam makers, like me, buy it and have about 48 hours to capture the essence of summer in a jar. I'll be journaling about jam until fall, when the last of the fruit has been picked and canned; we hunker down for winter and, occasionally, enjoy a reminder of summer when we eat our jam.

We made our usual Tuesday trip to Sacramento this week, stopped at our favorite strawberry stand and bought blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries just picked that morning. For $3 I also bought a "bucket" of over-ripe berries for jam. Wednesday morning when my jam partner was a "no show" I recruited Verne to help. As I've been finding out through my jam making experiences, cherries and strawberries, to a lesser degree, are labor intensive with preparation of the fruit. Here's my new helper hulling strawberries...

I started with the pectin recipe, but reduced the pectin from an entire box to 2-1/2 tablespoons or half a box. I was out of vanilla beans so substituted with a vanilla powder. I would say the resulting jam was practically perfect in every way (that's a line from Mary Poppins that we Moser's use a lot around here). Actually, the consistency was near perfect, but the flavor missed the mark a bit as the vanilla powder did not impart the same intense vanilla flavor I achieved in earlier attempts. That brings me to my vanilla experience.

The first strawberry vanilla reduction I made had a wonderful vanilla flavor. I used my last vanilla bean purchased a few years ago from Penzey's. Have I told you about Penzey's? I'll try to leave that for another post...it's hard, because I am passionate about Penzey's spices. Anyway, the bean was past its prime, but still provided an unmistakeable vanilla flavor to the jam. A few days later I was going to make jam again and was desperate because I'd used my last vanilla bean. Verne was going to be in Jackson, so I asked him to pick up vanilla beans at Safeway. He came home with a jar with one bean in it (and I later discovered it was $10 for that single bean). It was waxy, lacked the fragrance of the Penzey's beans; and, not surprisingly, provided nothing to the jam. My experiment with vanilla powder wasn't much better. Yes, it was a bit beyond it's prime, way past it's expiration date, OLD! (Spices don't "go bad" as they age, they get tasteless!) What did I expect? So, my latest strawberry vanilla jam will be labeled as "strawberry" and, as such, it is very good...practically perfect.

I won't be making any more strawberry jam until I receive my order of Penzey's Madagascar vanilla beans -15 for about $36...quite the deal as compared to that plastic, tasteless vanilla bean from Morton & Bassett of San Francisco sold at Whole Foods and other quality markets. If you haven't already signed up for the Penzey's catalog, do so and begin receiving your gift with purchase each month! Or, visit your local Penzey's store if you're so lucky as to have one!

Jammin' Jam

Ok, so the title is a little corny...it was Vera's idea. I'll give her all the credit this time! Since my post in April, I've enjoyed two more jam-making experiences. A few weeks ago, Vera and her boyfriend, Sean, spent the day with me making strawberry jam. We used the same recipe as I'd used in April when I made it for the first time, preparing the berries and then using the reduction method, cooking the fruit and sugar at a strong simmer for about 40 minutes. The resulting jam is thicker than a syrup, but not nearly as solid as a commercial jam. The flavor is fruity and intense and the color is a very deep red. We loved it! If there is any downside to making jam using the reduction method, it is the fact that you lose about half of the volume you begin with. For example, we started with 8 cups of berries and ended with about 4-5 cups of jam.

On the way home from our So Cal trip this past weekend, Verne and I stopped at a stand on Highway 88 in the heart of the cherry/peach/nut orchards between Clements and Stockton and I bought a lug of cherries (about 20 pounds). This past weekend, Vera and I spent a full day making cherry jam. As beginners to jam making, we decided to try several recipes and either settle on one or develop our own. All cherry jam recipes begin with the same step...pit the cherries. Until you've pitted a lug of cherries, you have no idea the work, amount of time, and the stained hands resulting from this step. It's been two days and my hands and fingernails are still stained! Lucky for us, I have a tool that is essential to making cherry jam...a cherry pitter. I can't say it makes quick business of cherry pitting, but I can't imagine removing the pit any other way. So, if you intend to make cherry jam, go to a well-stocked kitchen store and buy a pitter. Here's a pic of Vera pitting cherries...

and all of the pitted cherries ready to be preserved...

Since we both loved the strawberry reduction jam, our first recipe to test was a cherry reduction. Cooked for 40 minutes, it had reduced by half and was still a bit thinner than we'd like; but, we stopped at that so we'd be left with some jam for our efforts! Our second recipe called for pectin. Before my recent jam-making experience, I'd always assumed pectin was some kind of chemical additive. Actually, pectin is a natural product found in many fruits. The commercial pectin, either liquid or powder, is derived from apples. It's a thickening agent that's added along with the sugar to the fruit prior to bringing it to a boil. Rather than cooking the jam for 40+ minutes, it's a quick process that all up is no more than 10 minutes. Once the fruit, lemon juice, sugar, and pectin comes to an angry boil (that's a term I've picked up while reading jam recipes...and I love it!), it is only cooked for one minute and then removed from the heat and processed (that means canned). Our first pectin recipe was a failure. We started with 4 cups of fruit and 2 cups of sugar, lemon juice, and an entire box of pectin (the recipe actually called for 1 1/4 boxes of pectin, but I didn't want to break into a second box and it just seemed like a bit much). The resulting jam was solid...no movement at all! And, the overuse of pectin dulled the color and flavor dramatically! We decided to use the balance of the cherries (after Verne set aside enough for a cherry pie) to make one final batch, reducing the pectin by half. The results were close to perfect, that is, the consistency was near perfect. After a taste test of all four jams, we decided that it's sweeter than we'd like and our next test will be to cut the sugar in half.

Our plan is to buy more cherries and strawberries later this week and make a final batch of each using a reduced amount of sugar and 2 tablespoons of pectin to 4 cups of fruit. I believe we're very close to a final recipe! We still have a few months of strawberries, only a few weeks left for cherries, and it will soon to be peach/plum season and on to more testing. Nummy!

Road Trip Attractions

This past week we made a quick trip to So Cal to deliver a bed to Jana. It's about a 7 hour or 400 mile drive. It took us closer to 9 hours. However, as I'm always reading in my art books, "it's all about the journey..." I've come to agree with that thought as it relates to road trips as well as art. We travel Highway 99; it's slower than the 5 freeway, but according to Verne, the 99 is more interesting than the 5. I've only found one thing of interest and it's the reason I don't complain about taking a slower, older highway that is in bad need of repair and, while it passes miles of beautiful farm land it also goes through the heart of a number of small and some large towns that are anything but quaint or charming. In fact, to stop would be risking your life. Literally! Back to the reason I don't object to traveling the 99...it's Bravo Farms.

We discovered Bravo Farms about ten years ago on a return trip from So Cal. There are no less than a dozen signs beginning about five miles from Exit 106 advertising the many attractions of Bravo Farms (it's located in Travers, near Visalia): cheese (handmade on the premises), a wine tasting bar, gifts galore, fresh produce, barbecue, and, recently added, a petting zoo and train ride. Yes, it may sound a bit commercial. It has grown over the past decade to offer something for everyone. When we first stopped, it was about a quarter the size it is today and it's main attraction was the cheese making room, which even today can be viewed from the gift shop. Both days we stopped this past week, cheese was being made and people gathered at the window watching the process.

Our personal favorites are Chipotle and Jalapeno Cheddar. All of their cheese is available to sample. Stop and choose your favorite. Or, just stand at the window and watch the fascinating process of cheese making.

Another interesting stop on the 99 is Sun-Maid Raisin in Selma, self-proclaimed as The Raisin Capital of the World. The city's claim to fame is probably accurate as 90% of U.S. raisins are grown/produced within 8 miles of Selma. Sun-Maid is a cooperative of raisin growers. We visited the processing/distribution center, which is just a mile off the 99 and about 5 miles from Bravo Farms, in December 2012. We were returning from spending a few days over the Christmas holiday with all of our family, except Scott, in So Cal. Jeff, Trish, and the boys were visiting from Connecticut and Lauren had flown in from Portland. A Spaghetti Factory dinner for birthdays and holidays has been a long-standing tradition for us, so we met up with the local girls (Jana, Lara, Raelin and families) and the out-of-towners and spent a memorable evening together. Lauren returned with us to Nor Cal the next day and it was on this return trip that we stopped at Sun-Maid.

I didn't realize until now that the Sun Maiden looks like she has her arm around Verne and Lauren. Cute! Their factory tour amounted to a 15 minute video on a small television set in the gift shop. A bit of a disappointment, but it was informative and worth the short detour (once, that is). The real highlight of the stop was laughing at Lauren as she entertained us with all of the Sun-Maid souvenirs in the gift shop. I've only included a couple of the dozen pictures I took as we walked around the shop, ate sample raisins, and laughed at her antics.

I'd say that's just about it for interesting stops on the 99 between Stockton and L.A. Now, I know people who swear by the 5 and love stopping at Harris Ranch...but, that would mean we'd miss an opportunity to visit Bravo Farms. I think we'll stick with the 99...it's possible that Bravo Farms has become a destination for us!