Penny de los Santos- Food Photographer

If you've been following me here for more than a post or two, you'll know that food and photography are definitely in my top five list of favorites. Toss in a little travel and a language or two, and we've nearly hit all five.

Imagine my excitement when I read about an opportunity to take a class with Penny de los Santos, a food photographer, in Seattle. She shoots for Saveur (love it!) and National Geographic, has a picture of Frida in her kitchen, spent time in the kitchen with Rick Bayless and her first official food shoot was in Chile. She said she's calling all "food geeks." I mean, really. It feels like we've been leading parallel lives, or well, parallel interests!

But part of the deal to win a spot in the class was creating a video explaining why I'd be perfect for the job, along with five other lucky contestants. Enter husband, iphone user and budding videographer. It took a huge learning curve, and we're still not that impressed with the quality, but it was more than fun. A po'boy and beer out at Sea Salt while the kids were in school... mmm.

So here's the video, nervous me and all. If you're interested, you can stream the class live via Creative Live. Wish me luck... my first video and my first tweet!

p.s. Penny, if you do choose me, I'll bake you the most kick-ass brownie you've ever eaten. Promise.

The Food Revolution

These past few nights as I've been staying up late sewing Louise's birthday dress, I've been multi-tasking. I've been watching and listening (while I stitch) to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. If you haven't heard about this show, clear off your schedule and get watching. You'll be glad you did.

Dinner Al Fresco

We had friends over recently and I shared a few prizes from my beet stash. The weather was warm, mostly bug-free and the kids were happy to allow us a bit more than usual of adult-only time on the back patio. Mmmm, savoring one of the last nights of summer in Minnesota with friends.

The menu:

• Spinach salad with beets, pecans, goat cheese, red onions and Cafe Brenda's maple mustard vinagarette.
• A fresh baked boule from Artisan Bread in Five
• Herb-Rubbed Flank Steak with Peperonata from Bon Appetit (Aug. 2007) (Try it! Here's what they say-- Why you'll make it: Because it's special enough for company but easy enough to pull off any night of the week.)
• Mashed Yukon gold and sweet potatoes
• Flan
  
  

The Pig Roast:: Part Two

This entry should be subtitled FOOD! You'll see the journey from the hog box on the trailer to the end of the delicious afternoon and everything in between. A huge thank you to my brother and all those who stood around the pig, pretending to know what they were doing.



Corn, fresh from the Minneapolis Farmer's Market that morning. Shucked by family and friends gathered around, a multi-generational task.
Doesn't every pig need some sort of garnish? Ours had two. And no, my brother did not share his with the pig.

Covered up with the burlap corn bag, the pig takes a breather.

Here is the end of the day, dividing up the many, many leftovers. Our friend Matt who teaches anatomy was very helpful in knowing where and what to cut. He taught the bystanders a bit about pig anatomy. As a result, we have two lovely racks of ribs in the freezer, waiting to be slathered with BBQ sauce.

The Pig Roast:: Part One

Last week we hosted our first BIG event out at the farm. I need to stop calling it "The Farm" because we have a name for it now. Martha's farm has a name, right? We needed a name. We call it GoodTree Farm, a rough translation of our last name in German as a friend once told us. We've since learned that the translation of Welbaum is indeed not Good Tree, though Baum is tree, just not good tree. Oh well, as a language teacher and language lover, I can really appreciate mixups in translations. The translation was not lost, it was saved and made our name. So there. From here on out, I'll refer to our farm as GoodTree. Now, if any of you talented artists out there would like to help us make our logo for GoodTree, perhaps a woodcut print of a large, branchy, funky tree? I'd love it!
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Our event at GoodTree was a pig roast. The idea stemmed from my brother suggesting that someday we should roast a pig out at GoodTree. A plan for "some day" turned into, "when are you available to tend the pig in the roaster?" From there I did a bit more research and discovered that renting a roaster is most definitely expensive and perhaps cost prohibitive. It takes 10-12 hours to cook the hog (my new word, previously my city self used PIG.) If we had done it ourselves, in order for it to be ready to serve at noon, we would have had to pull an all nighter by the roaster. As someone who doesn't get enough sleep to begin with, my answer was no. Instead, we contacted the local meat market in Dennison, MN and inquired about their roasting costs. Spendy, yes. Worth it? Definitely. Dori from Dennison Meat Locker informed me that they can cook the HOG at 180 degrees in their smoke house and it takes 20 hours, ready to be picked up in a hog box. Sold.
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I sent out an evite for the party and fell in love with this simple, fun logo that was available on their choice list. Shhh... we used the logo throughout the event as a central theme. If you don't own any of these kind of used-car lot banners, you really owe it to yourself and your neighbors to buy some. They make any entry way welcoming. I bought them last year for our block party and have found many reasons to use them. If you're local and promise to take good care of them, you can borrow them.

We set up the potluck buffet on the cement slab that was once going to be the former owner's new garage. It made for a perfect flat surface for the food. You can take a sneak peek of the hog at the end of the table. More photos of that in Part Two. Be patient.

I don't like to use plastic silverware, if I can help it. Instead of buying 100+ forks that would just be thrown away, I sent my Dad out on a hunt for inexpensive forks. He was able to procure forks from a few thrift stores but truly hit the jackpot with a catering supply house offering used (but clean) forks for $1.65 a dozen. He snatched up 13 dozen and called it a day. We'll be set for the rest of our lives for large events and never have to buy another silly plastic fork again. Next to the garbage cans we set up bins for dirty forks and then just did a big fork wash after the party was over. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Rhubarb season

That's rhubarb string, to the uninitiated.

I've been watching the rhubarb growing with a big grin on my face. I am looking forward to the day when I can get out my jars, the cherry jello, cherry pie filling and RUN OUT TO THE YARD. I'm looking forward to another year of making Dianne French's world famous cherry rhubarb jelly. I've harvested a few stalks here and there... some to make a rhubarb crunch for book club, a few to take to my grandma, a little rhubarb sauce for late night vanilla ice cream and of course the requisite rhubarb swords that the boys like to joust with in the yard. But I'm waiting, waiting, waiting until I know that I'll have a little extra time with Carl still in school to get to work on the jelly. Maybe tonight is the night? A midnight harvest while the kids sleep? The rhubarb has to sit in a bowl overnight with sugar to soften it before you prepare the recipe.

Old School Cooking

It has been cold here lately, as I have mentioned in previous posts, and trying to keep ourselves occupied inside tends to take place in the kitchen. Rather than standing back and watching or completely immersing myself in their activities, the kids do their stuff at the kitchen counter and I cook next to them.

This past weekend I decided to do some old school cooking. Yep, a pot roast and some stew. Beef stew. As a former vegetarian, I tend to do a lot of meatless cooking.... lots of beans, veggies, fruit and other carbs in every meal. But, there is a part of me that craves the classics like pot roast, stew, corned beef and more. As I was grocery shopping I noticed some sale packages of beef and decided to indulge my inner carnivore as well as to share the love. I bought enough beef to make stew to fill five casserole containers in my oven. A few friends are near the end of their pregnancies and tired of cooking, another is having her kitchen remodeled and is sick of eating sandwiches, my grandparents love my stew and it freezes well!

My recipe is one that has been passed down to me from my mom, but I believe that it was a classic '60s recipe. Pretty easy to do, not exact at all. Here it is:

Chop up some celery. Peel and chop some onions in big chunks. Chop up potatoes (no need to even peel them, just wash well.) Peel and chop carrots.

Buy the cheapest meat you can find... could be beef, chicken, pork, turkey even... and cut into chunks. Add a package or two of Lipton onion soup mix and stir with the meat, depending on the quantity.

Add the cut up vegetables until it looks like you have a nice ratio of veggies to meat. Stir together. Sprinkle with dried or fresh parsley. Add salt and pepper. Spread a can of cream soup on the top... celery, chicken, mushroom, it doesn't matter. Drizzle some wine (I save wine when we don't finish a bottle and keep it for cooking) along the edges, either red or white, about 1/2 cup. Or, use water. Cover and bake at 300 for 3 hours, or at 275 for 3 1/2 hours, or lower for longer. Or, put it in the crock pot on low for 8 hours. High for 5. That's the beauty of the recipe... it is extremely flexible and freezes well. I actually prefer to eat it on day two. The flavors meld quite nicely and the sauce thickens.

I dropped off the stew at my friends' houses with a fresh baked loaf of artisan 5 minute a day bread. So easy, so delicious. And you? What's your favorite easy meal to make for a friend who needs a meal?

From Start to Finish

I'm done. We're done. With the apple sauce, that is. It has been an almost two-week journey, but I've finally put away the canner tonight and the pile of equipment on the drying rack will be returned to the dark corners of the storage room tomorrow. As a result, we have five gallons of apple sauce put up, canned, put away, stored with a zealous locavore sense of satisfaction.

A few weeks ago we were at a birthday party for my Mom's cousin Chuck and noted that their apple tree in the back yard was heavily laden with fruit. Of course my Dad, ever the resourceful one (read: scrounger extraordinaire) brought me over a sample. The taste was delightful, crisp, sweet, a high pitched flavor. The mug on the apple? No thanks. I'd like to say I've never met an uglier apple, but then I remembered the worm-filled nasties we picked from the farm's trees just a few weeks ago. (Some one needs to send me a tutorial on taking care of apples organically!) But the promise of free fruit was there and I had visions of Nora's pear and peach extravaganza earlier this fall. We cautiously inquired about the apples and soon we had a date to pick the beauties.

Sunday afternoon arrived and my parents picked me, Carl and Gus up, ladder loaded atop the vehicle and boxes stacked tightly in the back end. Off to the urban apple orchard, or tree, that is... we go. The boys had already been apple picking this fall and remembered proper technique for removing the apples without disturbing the tree too much. Does that still matter when you're removing all the apples from a tree? We filled box upon box of apples, reddish and yellow, dented and bumped, beautiful and mangled, every kind of apple imaginable. Our thoughts of future bowls of warm apple sauce kept us going as the swarms of ladybugs almost made my stomach turn. It was a beautiful fall day, the best kind imaginable. Being outside with my parents and the boys, joining Chuck and Cyndi for a cup of coffee and dessert in their back yard... well, it was perfect. The apples were not. It didn't matter.


See what I mean about beauty? They sat on my porch for longer than I care to admit but their smell was lovely every time we passed through on our way to gather the mail or leave through the front door. Finally, a week ago tonight I began the arduous task of cutting, trimming and seeding the apples while I stared at the dinky tv that normally lives in my closet and had been dragged down to the kitchen. For three. and. a. half. hours. Yes, indeed. Two gallons of applesauce later, I had enough liquid gold for 8 quarts of apple sauce to make my pantry shelves happy. If you've ever canned before, you know what a mess it makes of your kitchen. I understand why some farm families had a separate kitchen in the basement or in the "summer kitchen" outside, to keep the mess out of the regular living space. It is messy and space consuming.

The two pots in this photo are my favorites for the process. The robin-egg's blue Martha Stewart pot is sturdy and heavy, the perfect pot to simmer the apple bits down to a deep golden sauce. The pot on the right is my canner, a black speckleware beauty that once belonged to the previous owner of this house. We bought Mrs. Carroll's canner at the estate sale held here before we closed on our house. I knew that I would become a canner someday and that the history of that pot needed to remain here. I'm glad I did. It holds 7 quarts and is reasonably safe in terms of my eternal worry of burning myself. It is big, sturdy and has begged for my trust. So far this year, I'm doing fine.

My Dad came over this week to help go through the other three boxes of apples from the porch. The boys played and munched on apple pieces while Louise napped and we pared apples. After two and a half hours, we had finished the rest--three more gallons. His specialty was "grinding the apples," as the boys called it.
Ben Ten and Vinny the monkey tried to hijack my canning tool.

So today, after almost a full two weeks, I'm done. The first batch is already on the shelves in the basement and here are the rest of the girls, waiting to join them. I love love love the blue glass jar, though Carl and Ron both asked me why some of the applesauce was green. Blue + yellow= green, of course.

Glinty and beautiful, here they are. These jars connect me to my ancestors and fellow farm-women at heart. They connect me and those who share the apple harvest to the earth and to our community. They keep me present in my daily life and grounded in my desire to slow down the pace of our generation. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish cleaning the kitchen.

Finally, some CHEESE!

Fresh mozzarella from my kitchen, at last.

I had been wanting to make cheese for such a long time that it was becoming painful. While I had taken a few classes, I had yet to tackle the project at home. There were too many other projects on the list to be done first and most days, simply too many dishes and piles of laundry.
Finally I decided to live a little, step out on a limb and forget about the daily duties of my at-home mom persona and do it. I ordered the supplies from The New England Cheesemaking Supply website and waited. The day they arrived I could barely contain myself. The next morning, with three kids in the kitchen, it was cheese time. Thirty Minute Mozzarella, here I come! After that, with the leftover whey, I made ricotta. The following day, same thing. Just like that, I'm a cheesemaker. I walked around for the next few days with a permanent grin affixed to my face.

A week later while my friend Stephanie was staying at our house, I became Cheese Instructor. While I had only three batches under my own cheesebelt, I assisted Stef in making her first batch of 30 minute mozz and photo-documented the process.

Testing the temperature.
Almost there.
Ricki Carroll's Cheese Making book, in action...dog eared pages and all.
The curd, separated from the whey. Getting closer!
It becomes a solid. With a little additional heat and some kneading by Stephanie,

the fresh mozzarella takes on a bit of a life of its own.

Really stretchy stuff.

The final product. When's dinner?