Where Do We Go From Here?

Next Time

Next time what I'd do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I'd stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I'd watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I'd know more -- the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.

William Stafford

About ten years ago, the ground shifted under my feet and I lost sight of myself — #transformation might look good on Instagram but in real life, for me at least, it wasn't such a pretty picture. I was stuck in the mud, knowing full-well that the best way out was through (to paraphrase Robert Frost) and if I had any chance of traveling through this space in a good way, I needed perspective and stamina. It’s pretty damn hard to find either one if you don’t know which end is up but what I did know was this — I desperately wanted a chance to do better, next time.

I’d walk on Bayview Beach nearly every day, wrapped around my own proverbial axle while playing Chuck-it with George, trying to make sense of an internal landscape that had become strange to me. Over the course of many mornings, a simple prayer began to take shape — wings for perspective and breath without impediment. A humble prayer, for sure, but its simplicity cut through the grey noise and illuminated a path with feathers as way-markers and enough space to catch my breath. Throughout this journey back to myself, there were so many feathers — metaphorical signal fires from the Divine that reminded me that by doing the work, I was creating my own wings…..one feather at a time.

Ten years on, breath and wings are still touchstones for me. Reminders that creation and transformation are a strange brew of familiarity, inquisitiveness, and the unknown — and breath is the thread woven through all of it. Joy Harjo, in her book Crazy Brave, said, “Though we have instructions and a map buried in our hearts when we enter this world, nothing quite prepares us for the abrupt shift to the breathing realm.” Our initial gulp of oxygen is the catalyst for our transition from womb to world — our first unconscious act of creation. It sweeps us across the threshold into this “breathing realm”, where we join millions of other souls on this side of the Divine divide and begin the journey to find that map buried in our hearts.

Collectively, we’ve lost sight of ourselves. COVID took away our breath and laid bare what many of us already knew — the threads that held our community together have worn thin and they struggle to support the weight of our grief and our dreams. We are at a crossroads, no doubt about it, and it’s time to answer a simple question — what’s next? How can we, as a community, pray for a bird’s eye view and unimpeded breath in a world that’s been turned upside down by an air-borne virus that’s caused us to distance ourselves for safety? What’s the calculus for determining what we take with us, into this new world, and what we leave behind?

A few years ago, I discovered that the word conspire comes from the Latin conspirare, which literally means “to breathe together”. And that got me thinking — what would be possible if we conspired to simply breathe together as a way forward, if we decided that recognizing our unique perspectives does not diminish our shared experiences, or if we unwrapped ourselves from our own ideological axles and invited our co-conspirators to breathe life into a creative endeavor? And this is where Gayle Chatfield’s stunning birchbark wings come in — as a backdrop for the answers.

My photography project, Words for Water, showed me the power of a collective narrative and it changed that way I look at community organizing. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts and there is an alchemical process that happens when we conspire to create change, together. While COVID was a universal threat, its impact was not universal — some people suffered unimaginable losses while others escaped relatively unscathed. COVID brought the world to a standstill and now that it’s starting to loosen its grip, we’re given an opportunity to craft a shared story about the landscape we traveled through and what we learned along the way.

Carol Bebelle, co-founder of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans, had this to say about her city after Katrina, “People needed something magical to help them feel better enough to face the next day. Every day was a reminder of irreversible loss . . . So we had art as a healing force: music, the opportunity for people to be together and to find creative ways in which to interact. This became the work that we did. There are so many things that anchor our existence. To lose them all leaves us on a sea without an anchor. So people were dealing with identity issues. They were dealing with disenfranchisement issues, they were dealing with homesickness. They were dealing with loss in a huge fashion. What we really came to appreciate was the necessity to get some air in the room first before you try and do something else, to get them some oxygen so that they can start breathing. So art became the oxygen.”

Bebelle’s phrase, art became the oxygen, was the inspiration for this new storytelling project and question — How Will You Conspire to Create Community? The synergy between conspire (to breathe together) and the creative process as oxygen (fuel for life/growth/change) felt like a good place to start the work of unpacking our experiences during COVID and how we intend to move beyond it. Our individual capacity for creativity and imagination creates a wellspring of answers to this foundational question and it’s this diversity of interpretation that’s the heart of artistic expression. We’ve got some difficult conversations ahead, as we begin to put things back together, and using art as a tool to navigate this uncharted territory can reduce some of the anxiety and fear of the unknown.

This new project is very similar to Words for Water but instead of holding a chalkboard, you’ll stand in front of the wings at Bates Art Bar in Bayfield, I’ll take your photo, and share your answer to the question — How Will You Conspire to Create Community? Your answer can be as elaborate as writing a play for a community theater group or as simple as planting flowers in your neighbor’s yard. It’s not about the end result, it’s about the process and your desire to create/breathe life into something that softens some of the rough edges caused by COVID and all its dismantling.

My answer is a long one (of course, I never met a run-on sentence I didn’t like!) — the manifesto from the Dark Mountain Project. Numbers 3 and 6 are where I intend to spend my time conspiring with you all. Get in touch if you’d like to share your answer and conspire to do it better, next time. I can’t wait to see where this story takes us.

“We must unhumanise our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.


1. We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.

2. We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of ‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.

3. We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.

4. We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.

5. Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

6. We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.

7. We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.

8. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.”

— The Eight Principles of Uncivilisation, The Dark Mountain Project

To Be of Use in Times of Change and Uncertainty

It’s been a bit since I’ve written anything on this blog but a few thoughts and images have come knocking lately; so I’ve opened the door and assembled them here in as orderly a fashion as I can. It’s been such strange couple of weeks — so much has happened that seems both foreign and familiar because, while Hollywood has been pumping out disaster and zombie apocalypse movies for some time, it’s coming to life in real time, right here.

For awhile now, I’ve sensed a deeper shift coming — a crack along the fault lines of human disconnection, fragility, and hubris. And, for me, this Coronavirus pandemic appears to be the seismic wave I’ve been sensing. Joseph Campbell said, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” Easier said than done, though. It’s a helluva lot easier to consider shedding what no longer suits, as opposed to peeling, bit by calcified bit, the skin of our individual and collective bodies. We must identify ways to shelter and care for what remains; to protect the tender and courageous new perspectives that are emerging amidst the tumult.

A few months ago, the Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship contacted me about speaking at their service in February (see the remarks below) and as luck would have it, I had been thinking about my ‘theme song’ for 2020 — earning my name and caring for the world within my arm’s reach — so, at least I had a place to start (a very good thing for a master procrastinator). It was harder than I expected to sit down and write it all down though; trying to find the strand that connected all the poems, essays, conversations, and relationships that have been kind enough to show up when I needed them proved elusive. Until I found the strand in the last sentence in Shaw’s essay below — ‘we lose touch with our wingspan when we hunch.’

For better or worse, when faced with a threat to what I hold dear I will rise to the challenge, no matter what. I’ve never considered myself particularly courageous (I wear a life jacket when I swim, I hate heights, and I take my cross country skies off to walk down hills) but I’ve known the width and breadth of my wingspan for years now and when push comes to shove, I’ve called upon the people, poems, and stories that are the bedrock of my experience in this lifetime and I find the courage to act. Reading my words to the CUUF members now, from a world that’s in the grips of a pandemic, they have a different weight — they’ve moved from the conceptual and into the now. They are a call for open and brave-hearted action in a world that’s been waiting and listening for courage, honesty, and compassion from its human companions for quite some time.

“Earn Your Name
February 23rd
Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

First of all, I want to start with expressing my heartfelt gratitude for the opportunity to share a bit of my story with you today. It’s really something to be given this sacred space, with you as witnesses, and it means the world to me. Thank you to Julie for reading Martin Shaw’s essay and introducing me and thanks to Kristi, Stacey, Joni, Angela, and Cynthia for putting together this beautiful gathering. I was thrilled to see that Marge Piercy’s poem, To Be of Use, was on docket this morning. It’s one of my touchstone poems and her line, ‘the work of the world is as common as mud’ is the perfect jumping off point for my talk today.

For the past five or so years, in January, I’ve given myself a ‘theme song’, which is the Mary Dougherty version of a resolution. Resolutions have a punitive seriousness about them that I find to be a little much. As a committed hedonist, a theme song is much more reasonable. It leaves space for triple creme cheeses, good bread and butter, and Pinot Noir that makes you weak in the knees — and maybe some enthusiastically awkward dancing. Much better than a resolution to give up bread and pasta.

My theme songs have run the gamut — from Leonard Cohen’s song, Anthem (where I learned that the thing itself is imperfect and the cracks have always been where the lights gets in), to Jeff Foster’s essay, You Will Lose Everything (where I learned to be deeply grateful because loss has already transfigured my life into an alter) to Frederick Buechner’s essay, Telling Secrets, (where I learned that we all want to be known in our full humanness) to this year’s Martin Shaw essay, that Julie read a few minutes ago, where I’m exploring what it means to earn my name and to remember, always, that I lose touch with my wingspan when I hunch.

Earning my name — there’s something about that concept that resonated deeply with me when I first read Shaw’s essay last fall. It implies a commitment to examine my life, my work, and my relationships through three filters: honesty, compassion, and bravery. It means that I have to be willing to stand alone at times, it means I will most definitely find myself on my knees with either a heavy or grateful heart at some point, but it also means I will find solace and acceptance in the company of people who know and see me for who I truly am. It really has nothing to do with me as an individual and has everything to do with my contribution to the greater collective. For me, earning my name is a strange brew of standing in the breach with an open and vulnerable heart. And let me tell you, it scares the hell out of me, until I remember it’s not all about me. It’s about us.

Have you ever seen a murmuration? Hundreds or thousands of birds dipping and diving in what looks like a choreographed ballet. The definition of a murmuration is a phenomenon that results when hundreds, sometimes thousands, of birds fly in swooping, intricately coordinated patterns through the sky. These flocks exhibit a remarkable ability to maintain cohesion as a group in highly uncertain environments and with limited, noisy information.

It’s tricky — living in community, with all its benefits and challenges, and murmurations can provide insight into the complex balance between individual contribution and group cohesion. Given that the individual bird is one of hundreds of birds, how does that one bird react to the dynamic nature of the larger flock’s movement? Turns out it’s simple — each individual bird looks to its closest seven neighbors, basing it’s movement on those fellow birds behavior. Building and maintaining strong social connections operates on a similar premise — the strength and movement of the greater whole is tied to the connections built on the local level.
I’d like to show you the first chapter of our Words for Water story, one of the ways I’m caring for the world within my arms reach — kind of like a murmuration imagined through words and photographs.

“Use your words” was one of my favorite parenting mantras when our kids were little and it still rings in my ears as an adult. The Words for Water photography project is a simple way to encourage people who live in the Lake Superior basin (or who love Lake Superior) to think and act collectively when it comes to any legislation, industry or regulations that affect water quality.

The idea for Words for Water (like most good things) happened around our kitchen table. Ted and I came up with this idea of getting lots of people to speak for the water in their own words, and then allowing me to collectively stitch them into a story. I pose the question, “if you could speak for water, what would you say?” and the participant writes their word or phrase on a chalkboard. I take their photo, add it the collection of words I’ve gathered and stitch it into our collective love story to Lake Superior and our homes.

The words I’ve gathered so far: pristine, fragile, help me, job security, love, and freshwater stronghold, have weight and if there ever was a time to wield that power, it’s now. What I love about the Words for Water project is that there is comfort in knowing that you don’t have to say it all, that someone’s got your back, that they’ll fill in the blanks for you, and that you’ll collectively figure it out.

About 6 years ago, I dreamt that Pope Francis and I were having a conversation right before I was preparing to address a large crowd of people. He asked me what I intended to share with them and I said, ‘I’m going to tell them to do what I did, wake up one day and decide to fight for you love’ and he said, ‘don’t tell them that because your path is not theirs.’ Instead he told me that my only job in this lifetime is to build and maintain my signal fire and the Divine is the wind that takes my embers to start new fires or adds them to fires already burning. When I watch a Words for Water, chapter, I see hundreds of individual words, or embers, coming together to start a fire bright enough to illuminate a path where no one person is charged with ‘saving’ or speaking for the water; we’re in this together and we’ll move forward together, towards what’s next.

I believe with every bone in my body that storytelling is a keystone for fostering change and bringing people together. Frederick Buechner said, ‘You’ll find your vocation at the intersection of the world’s greatest need and your own greatest passion’ and thankfully, my love of food, organizing, storytelling and photography has found a good use in our shared home. I believe when we ask,’tell me more’ as opposed to saying ‘let me tell you something’ — we are not only gathering stories, we are doing the hard but necessary work of creating community.

So, how does one go about earning their name? Believe me, it’s a question I’m still grappling with but I have figured out where I’m going to start — right here, on this piece of Earth that has claimed me, with the family I have had the privilege to create with Ted, and with the community that has been kind enough to welcome us into its fold. As Shaw pointed out in his essay, the astonishing business of beauty-making is yoked to bearing the unbearable and for me, that’s the space I’m exploring in 2020.

America (arguably one of the wealthiest countries on this planet) has become a country with a trillion dollar deficit; it holds brown children in cages and separates families at the border; it’s a place where the United Nations sent Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur, to investigate extreme poverty and human rights: we have leadership at state and federal levels who deny and ignore climate change; our country’s income inequality is extremely alarming; we have the highest infant mortality rates of all 36 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (basically the western world); and it’s where our elementary school students regularly go through active-shooter drills because our schools are not safe from armed men with guns. On its face, things are pretty grim.

But it’s also an America where a group of young women at Northland College contacted me about organizing the 2020 Women’s March, it’s where Phoebe Kebec saw a need for a harm reduction/needle exchange program in our community and started a nonprofit that’s saved over a thousand lives, it’s where a group of Bayfield community members started a caregiving/support group to help another community member while she went through chemo and radiation, it’s where Chequamegon Bay Renewables organized Wisconsin’s largest and record-setting solar group buy in 2018, it’s where Joy and Loretta started the Bad River Food Sovereignty program that’s using food to empower and heal, it’s where citizens and local elected representatives worked together to draft and pass legislation that kept 26,000 Iowan hogs out of the region (which inspired other communities around WI to do the same), and it’s where community members on the daily decide to tackle all sorts of wicked problems with open and fierce hearts. Every. Single. Day.

So, I intend to take Shaw’s advice and fight like a lion for what I can affect and surrender the rest. I intend to be a prayer-maker, a truth-teller, and to always remember that I lose touch with my wingspan when I hunch. And I invite you to join me. Find time to explore your intersection of the world’s deep hunger and your deep gladness and let that be the place where you start — nothing is set in stone and the very best roads are the ones where we start where we stand and make the road by walking, together.

It’s not easy but I believe we are in, what my good friend Mary O’Brien calls the ‘magical in-between’. That space where we sense movement, where we suspect things may change but can’t wrap our arms around it because it hasn’t taken a form we can see. I met a man from Canada named Ric Young, and he said something that profoundly changed how I look at social movements and what’s possible. He said, “My point is that to give up hope is not just to deny the possibilities of the future. It is also to deny the lessons of the past. The world can change. And does change. And what seemed almost impossible looking forward can seem almost inevitable looking back.”

This space, between impossible and inevitable, is not my favorite place to be. I’m an impatient person at heart and I like to get things done, but I also know that when it seems most unsure, most uncertain, that when I’m called to earn my name and act with bravery, compassion, and honesty. I’m not talking about mindlessly hoping for something better, I’m talking about mindful action focused on building power, fueled at the confluence of great need and great joy. That intersection is different for everyone, as it should be, and that’s where our strength is. What I’ve found to be true is this — when you are operating from that intersection, the whole universe will conspire to help you and over time, you’ll find yourself in spaces that you never would have dreamt possible. It’s really a remarkable thing.

I’m going to finish with another one of my favorite poems by Muriel Rukeyser called I Will Make. There’s no denying we have our work cut out for us but I have faith in what’s possible when we use our simple, holy words….and then sit, listen, and let in.

Wherever
we walk
we will make

Wherever
we protest
we will go planting

Make poems
seed grass
feed a child growing
build a house
Whatever we stand against
We will stand feeding and seeding

Wherever
I walk
I will make.”

Martin Shaw is not only a brilliant storyteller (and the inspiration for my talk at CUUF), he’s also a teller of deep and ancient truths about how to move through uncertainty and change with some semblance of grace. I offer his essay to you here as a reminder that while things may seem sideways and cock-eyed — love is ever-present, pain is universal, and earning our names and standing for what we hold dear is the point of the story. Always. 

“Call out to the whole divine night for what you love. What you stand for. Earn your name. Be kind, and wild, and disciplined, and absolutely generous. It’s the astonishing business of beauty-making, as well as the possibility of victory. Most have glimpsed hells chambers, and the fact is that much real initiatory work is to bear it. To bear the unbearable. To walk though hell. I mean really, that’s what much of it’s about. That’s where most of these elaborate, taxing rituals and three day stories come from. We’re in it. Right now.

....We do not live myths out as some kind of horrible karma. We don’t brush by them and become infected. But they do have a habit of riding alongside when life turns up the volume. They synch up. But that’s as an aid for deeper understanding, not as a kind of prophetic set of ever tightening knots on your liberty. Just thought I’d mention that.

Ok, and while we’re in deep I’m going to say something else. Become a prayer-maker. Why? Because what you face in your life is bigger than you can handle. It is. Go to a place with shadows and privacy, and just start talking. There is some ancient Friend that wants to hear from you. No more dogma than that. Use your simple, holy, words. Then sit. Listen. Go for a walk. Let in.

Then you fight like a lion for what you can affect, and you surrender the rest. Self-help at its worse will pump you into a kind of Herculean mania of self reliance, and will most likely leave you grievously burnt out.

Be around truth. Here’s why. Mystics claim (especially Sufi), that when we are surrounded by lies it creates so much activity and nervousness in our head in some subtle way we can’t properly enter our own bodies. Hence the need for friends where truth is a given, anything can be said, nothing need ever be concealed. We lose touch with our wingspan when we hunch.”

— Martin Shaw, A Counsel of Resistance and Delight in the Face of Fear

The Alchemy of the Table

We did it again — made dinner at the Wild Rice Retreat for over one hundred people with a pile of donated, local food (okay, Maldon sea salt isn’t local but it’s my favorite salt and the pomegranates, obviously not local, were a gift from friends of mine from LA who harvested them from the tree in their front yard…so, LA local) that we collected the day before the dinner. Definitely not a dinner party for the faint of heart but our kitchen crew was solid — creative, good with knives and sauté pans, and rolled with the punches (and on-the-fly menu changes).

It was amazing and I cannot wait to do it again next year. Not because I like a good meal (although Lord knows I do) but because, in a world that delights in ‘divide and conquer’, this gathering celebrates the alchemy of the table — that concept of using food as the conduit to gathering and connection, where our individual perspectives and stories contribute to a collective creation of community, memories, and connection because we’re sharing space, food, and stories.

Like last year, we created the menu on the morning of the dinner. Between Danny’s stack of cookbooks and good old Google, he had the entire menu designed, mapped out, and transferred onto what’s become the signature of the Harvest Dinner — lots of pieces of paper, taped to the fridge — by noon when the majority of the kitchen crew came on duty.

Dozens of eggs from Sarah, oyster mushrooms from Matt, potatoes from John, celery from Peggy and Catherine, raspberry jam from Steve, chickens from Renee, cheese from Fred and Kelly, foraged black trumpet mushrooms from Ellie, and so much more — we knew the provenance of all the ingredients and that’s no small thing. It made the act of prepping and cooking the food into an almost sacred act. Sacred because the ritual of bringing in the harvest, preparing it, and bringing it to the table connect us to what’s real and what matters — love manifested through friends, connection to people and place, laughter, and stories…..lots and lots of stories.

We had an impressive amount of squash to contend with, it was late October after all, and Danny and I looked at each other, shouted ‘hasselback’ and that was that. We had trays of squash, bathed in harissa, maple syrup, and butter ready to roll. Never underestimate the power of keen eyesight, a sharp knife, and a steady hand to take a squash from roasted cubes to elegant slices — it really was quite fancy.

The whole event feels like an experiment in community organizing — a common goal with the understanding that people contribute what and when they can, that there are different roles for people to play, and while the end result may not be what we expected, the shared work created something far better than anyone one of us could have done alone. It takes faith in the process, in the work, and in the people to pull off a dinner like this and it’s really no different than deciding to fight a factory farm or working to keep Lake Superior clean. It’s about showing up, doing what needs to be done, and finding joy amidst the eggshells, squash skins, and dishes….lots and lot of dishes.

Janel set the tables with the tablecloths people brought for the dinner and arranged the centerpieces with succulents from Joanne Scandinavian’s window boxes, oak leaves, cedar boughs, and pears from her orchard. It was stunning….and another example of what individual looks like when it’s knit into the collective.

I intended to share the following words from Martin Shaw at the dinner as a blessing before the meal but a glass of wine and a few doughnuts addled my brain and I totally forgot. So instead, I offer them to you here as a reminder that while things may seem sideways and cock-eyed — remember that love is ever-present, pain is universal, and earning our names and standing for what we hold dear is the point of the story. Always.

“Call out to the whole divine night for what you love. What you stand for. Earn your name. Be kind, and wild, and disciplined, and absolutely generous. It’s the astonishing business of beauty-making, as well as the possibility of victory. Most have glimpsed hells chambers, and the fact is that much real initiatory work is to bear it. To bear the unbearable. To walk though hell. I mean really, that’s what much of it’s about. That’s where most of these elaborate, taxing rituals and three day stories come from. We’re in it. Right now.

....We do not live myths out as some kind of horrible karma. We don’t brush by them and become infected. But they do have a habit of riding alongside when life turns up the volume. They synch up. But that’s as an aid for deeper understanding, not as a kind of prophetic set of ever tightening knots on your liberty. Just thought I’d mention that.

Ok, and while we’re in deep I’m going to say something else. Become a prayer-maker. Why? Because what you face in your life is bigger than you can handle. It is. Go to a place with shadows and privacy, and just start talking. There is some ancient Friend that wants to hear from you. No more dogma than that. Use your simple, holy, words. Then sit. Listen. Go for a walk. Let in.

Then you fight like a lion for what you can affect, and you surrender the rest. Self-help at its worse will pump you into a kind of Herculean mania of self reliance, and will most likely leave you grievously burnt out.

Be around truth. Here’s why. Mystics claim (especially Sufi), that when we are surrounded by lies it creates so much activity and nervousness in our head in some subtle way we can’t properly enter our own bodies. Hence the need for friends where truth is a given, anything can be said, nothing need ever be concealed. We lose touch with our wingspan when we hunch.”

— Martin Shaw, A Counsel of Resistance and Delight in the Face of Fear

My 2018 Hit Parade

Moroccan Beef Stew

Sub-zero temperatures are in forecast, the ferry is going to stop running tomorrow, and we have a fresh blanket of lake effect snow — it’s time for stew. There’s nothing that I love more than walking into the warm kitchen and smelling a fire in the wood stove and a fragrant stew in the oven….when the wind chill is 30 degrees below zero.

The first dinner I made at our house in Bayfield was an Indian curry; there's something about the combination of coriander, cinnamon, allspice, ginger and cumin that smells like home to me. It wasn't always this way. We didn't eat anything curried or spicy when I was growing up, we were more of a meat and potato hot dish kind of family. My first experience with curry was in the Rocky Mountains when I was 16 and my Dad, Bridget and I went to Colorado for a little vacation. I had horrible altitude sickness for the first couple days and we were staying in a Holiday Inn owned by an Indian couple who clearly ate all their curried meals in the hotel. Curry + altitude sickness + 16-year-old girl equals a less than stellar father/daughters trip. I eventually gathered myself and we had a great time exploring Pike's Peak, Cripple Creek and the mountain roads around Denver. Needless to say, I didn't eat anything curry related for years.

I don't recall when or how I got over my curry aversion, I think it may have been a dinner at Rich's house (he is brilliant at Thai and Indian cooking) eight or ten years ago. Thanks to Rich, we now have Indian curries and Moroccan tagines for dinner at least a couple of times a month in the fall and winter. Since the weather has taken a definitive turn towards winter, it was time for Moroccan beef stew. The smell of those fragrant, warm spices remind of our first dinner on Rittenhouse. Answering the question, 'what's for dinner?' can set up a lifetime of connections between where we were and what we ate. Food is powerful stuff— it provides a conduit for memories, a backdrop for our family stories and nourishment for body and spirit.

Moroccan Beef Stew(adapted from Mike's Table)

3 pound beef, chuck roast, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
3 — 4 tablespoons of oil
3 carrots, sliced
2 onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons ginger, chopped
2 jalapeno, minced with seeds and ribs
2 sweet potatoes, cubed into 1 inch chunks
4 tablespoons Ras el Hanout (recipe here)
28 ounce can of chopped tomatoes and juices
2 cups beef broth
1 cup red wine
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
8 cardamom pods
2 star anise
2 preserved lemons, finely chopped
14-ounce can of chickpeas
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup parsley
1/2 cup cilantro
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup currants
Pinch of saffron strands
Salt and pepper

Preparation
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Season the beef with salt and pepper and brown in a heavy bottomed skillet. Set aside. Pour off all but 2 tbsp of the fat in the pan. Add the Ras el Hanout, onion, carrots, sweet potatoes, jalapeno, ginger and garlic and cook, stirring often, until the onion begins to brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the wine, stirring to scrape up the browned bits from the pan bottom. Add the tomatoes, beef stock, fennel seeds, cardamom pods, bay leaves and star anise and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the beef and vegetable/broth mixture to a covered dutch oven and place in oven.

After about 1 1/2 hours, add the preserved lemon, fresh herbs, chickpeas, raisins, currants and honey to the dutch oven, stir to combine and put back into the oven for another 30 -- 45 minutes (leave the cover of the dutch oven slightly open). The stew is ready to serve when the beef is fork tender.

DSC_9856

A New Year's Benediction

You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will diminish. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is in truth impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality with open eyes.

But right now, in this very moment, you stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realising this simple thing is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. Everything is present. 

The universal law of impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heart-breaking gratitude. 

Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.

Jeff Foster, You Will Lose Everything

Homemade Marshmallows -- Definitely Worth the Trouble

When I was a kid, I loved, and I mean loved, Kraft marshmallow creme (Marshmallow Fluff on the East Coast). I’d eat it by the spoonful and put it in my Swiss Miss hot chocolate — it was a very important part of my diet between the ages of 10 and 14. Somewhere along the way, I stopped drinking hot chocolate and my marshmallow consumption was relegated to an occasional s’more each summer and Rice Krispie treats when my kids were little.

Until a few months ago, when I decided to make marshmallows with the grass-fed beef gelatin that had been sitting on the shelf for about a year. I did a little marshmallow recognizance on the internet and the recipes seemed to fall into two camps — healthy marshmallows made with grass-fed gelatin and honey or maple syrup and not-so-healthy marshmallows made with Knox gelatin and sugar. I compromised — grass-fed gelation, Morena sugar, and corn syrup. And they didn't disappoint and frankly, blew the Kraft marshmallow creme out of the water. I’ve even resorted to ‘roasting’ them over the burner on my stove — the confectioners’ sugar caramelizes like the sugar on a crème brûlée and they make the best s’mores I’ve ever had. Seriously.

They are kind of a pain to make — incredibly sticky, you need a candy thermometer, pouring a 200-degree sugar syrup into your mixer isn’t exactly for the faint of heart, and cutting them with an oil-soaked knife requires relatively vigilant attention so your knife doesn’t slip and you’re suddenly down a digit. But it’s worth it. So very, very worth it. I always double the recipe and they keep very nicely in a covered container for about a month (so they say, the marshmallows don’t last long around here).

Homemade Marshmallows

Vegetable oil for brushing pan
About 1 cup confectioners' sugar for coating pan and marshmallows, plus extra to dust the marshmallows after cutting
About 1/2 cup cornstarch for coating pan and marshmallows
3 tablespoons beef gelatin
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preparation
Brush the bottom and sides of a 9-inch square baking pan with vegetable oil. Mix the cornstarch and confectioners sugar together in a bowlUsing a small, fine-mesh sieve, dust the pan generously with confectioners' sugar, knocking out any excess.

Put 1/2 cup water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Sprinkle the gelatin into the bowl and stir briefly to make sure all the gelatin is in contact with water. Let soften while you make the sugar syrup.

In a heavy 3- to 4-quart saucepan, combine the granulated sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 1/2 cup water. Place over moderate heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Put a candy thermometer into the boiling sugar syrup and continue boiling (the mixture may foam up, so turn the heat down slightly if necessary), without stirring, until the thermometer registers 240°F (soft-ball stage). Remove the saucepan from the heat and let stand briefly until the bubbles dissipate slightly.

With the mixer on low speed, pour the hot sugar syrup into the softened gelatin in a thin stream down the side of the bowl. Gradually increase the mixer speed to high and beat until the marshmallow is very thick and forms a thick ribbon when the whisk is lifted, about 5 minutes. Beat in the vanilla.

Scrape the marshmallow into the prepared pan (it will be very sticky) and use wet fingertips to spread it evenly and smooth the top. Let stand, uncovered at room temperature, until the surface is no longer sticky and you can gently pull the marshmallow away from the sides of the pan with your fingertips, 8 hours or overnight.

Dust a cutting board with remaining confectioners' sugar/cornstarch mixture. Use a rubber spatula to pull the sides of the marshmallow from the edge of the pan (use the spatula to loosen the marshmallow from the bottom of the pan if necessary) and invert onto the cutting board. Dust the top with confectioners' sugar. Generously brush a chef's knife with vegetable oil and dust with confectioners' sugar to prevent sticking; continue dusting the knife as necessary.

Cut lengthwise into strips (make them as wide or narrow as you want), then crosswise (again, cut them into the size you want). Place the marshmallows in a bowl and dust with confectioners’ sugar. Marshmallows keep in a covered container for about a month.

Indian Spiced Carrot Pickles

I've had a thing for pickles ever since I can remember; the salty tang of the brine and the crunch of the vegetables gets me every time. Our CSA boxes have had carrots in them for the past couple of weeks and I had a bunch of them, sitting in the fridge, waiting for something to do. Since I am not a fan of floppy cucumber pickles (and I haven’t found the perfect pickling recipe that delivers a cuke pickle with some crunch), I decided to pickles carrots instead — they would stand up to the heat of canning without turning to mush.

Indian Pickled Carrots (Adapted from Amy Pennington's Urban Pantry)

2 cups apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup raw sugar
3 peels of lemon rind
1 cinnamon stick, broken in 3 or 6 pieces (one for each container)
1/4 cup grapeseed or vegetable oil
1/2 tsp fenugreek seed
1/2 tsp black mustard seed (I used brown mustard seed)
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp coriander seed (I used fresh 1/4 cup cilantro)
1/4 tsp cumin seed
1 inch long piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely minced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
2 poblano or jalapeño peppers, thinly sliced
1 pound of carrots, washed and cut into uniform match sticks

Preparation
Prepare jars for canning. In a medium-sized sauce pot, bring the vinegar, sugar, lemon peel and cinnamon stick to a gentle boil and hold over low heat.

In another sauté pan, heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat until hot. Stir in the fenugreek, mustard seeds, fennel seed, chile flakes and cumin seeds. When the spices begin to pop (about 4 minutes), add the ginger, garlic, salt, poblanos and onion, stirring until soft and slightly caramelized, about 6 to 8 minutes. Set aside.

Pack the canning jars with the carrots and cilantro, leaving 1/2 inch of head space. Pour equal spoonfuls of the spice mixture into each jar. Pour the hot vinegar over the carrots, submerging them and leaving about a 1/2 inch of head space. The contents should sit right below the bottom ring of the glass jar.

Process the jars in a water bath for 15 minutes. Make sure the seals are secure and store in a cool, dark cupboard for at least three weeks before eating.

Tomatillo Gazpacho with Avocado Crema

Well, summer is making a last stand this weekend and while I’m ready to roll into root vegetable season, the harvest is still running at full-steam and our CSA boxes are packed to the top with beautiful vegetables. My counter-top is piled high with tomatoes (and a swarm of fruit flies but I refuse to put the tomatoes in the fridge…that’s a story for another blog past) and I was running out of creative ideas for all those tomatoes — until I remembered the ‘volunteer’ tomatillo plants that pop every year in my raised beds. Gazpacho to the rescue!

Fresh tomatillos have an interesting flavor — somewhere between a bright citrus and green tomato — and I prefer fresh to the canned variety. If they have the husks on them, make sure to wash them (they will get a little slimy when wet) prior to chopping them for this recipe. It’s supposed to cool down next week so enjoy these last days of summer; we’ll be onto roasted squash and chicken soon enough!

Tomato and Tomatillo Gazpacho with Avocado Cream

2 pounds fresh tomatillos, peeled and chopped
5 pounds tomatoes, chopped and divided
1 red pepper, chopped
2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 red onion, chopped and divided
3 ears of corn, blanched and kernels removed from cob
2 jalapeños, chopped, including seeds
3 garlic cloves, quartered
1 cup water
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Avocado Crema

1 avocado, peeled and mashed
1 cup creme fraiche, can substitute sour cream
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed
1/2 tablespoon jalapeno, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preparation
Combine all the ingredients for the avocado cream, mix to thoroughly combine, and place in the refrigerator, covered, until the gazpacho is finished.

Place all the tomatillos, half of the tomatoes, half of the onion, garlic, lime juice, salt, and cumin in a blender or food processor until smooth. Force the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, discarding the solids, into a large bowl. Add the water, olive oil, peppers, cucumbers, jalapeños, corn kernels, and cilantro. Stir to combine and place in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, or until it’s cold. Taste for seasoning and top with avocado crema. Serve as is or place a couple of cooked shrimp in the bowl. The soup will keep for a day or two in the fridge.

It's Just Dinner......

It's not often that  a first-time cookbook author has a video done by a real documentary  filmmaker but that's what precisely what happened in my kitchen last October.....although next time I do a video, I think I'll clean the kitchen a little more thoroughly and put a little make-up on!

I met Doug Pray a few years ago when he did a series of videos for Farms Not Factories, the group I co-founded in response to a proposal to open a factory farm with 26,000 hogs in Bayfield County, and given that he a) lives in Los Angeles and b) is a seriously busy guy, I was surprised when he agreed to come for dinner and do a little filming. 

My philosophy about food has remained relatively unchanged since I started cooking -- the table and the folks seated around it are the reason I cook, not some desire to make earth-shattering gnocchi (although that can be an perfectly acceptable, ancillary goal). I love having people in my kitchen (on the 'other' side of the kitchen island) , dogs underfoot, a few glasses of wine, and some good things cooking on the stove.

And that's why we've decided to open a cookery school in June 2019 -- to welcome people into our home, share a meal, and take a beat from a world that seems to be moving at an increasingly rapid speed. Stay tuned in next few months -- I'll share our inspiration, photos of our progress, and what's on the docket for classes. It's going to involve a fair bit of fire -- from saunas to start the class to a wood-fired pizza oven....I can't wait to start planning!

Enjoy this sneak peek into the Dougherty kitchen -- we're looking forward to sharing our kitchen with you next summer!

Peanut Butter & Pumpkin Dog Treats

4 cups whole wheat flour
3 eggs
1 (15-ounce) can of pureed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) 
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup flax or chia seeds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp chopped ginger
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the flour, eggs, pumpkin, peanut butter, flax seeds, ginger, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Add water as needed to make the dough workable, but the dough should be dry and stiff. Roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thickness and cut into 1/2 inch pieces.

Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes, or until hard.

Spring Awakenings

We must be willing to get rid of
the life we’ve planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
When we hang onto any form,
we are in danger of putrefaction.

Hell is life drying up.

The Hoarder,
the one in us that wants to keep,
to hold on, must be killed.

If we are hanging onto the form now,
we’re not going to have the form next.

You can’t make an omelet
without breaking eggs.

Destruction before creation.

"A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.”

A New Year's Benediction

“I have come to believe that, by and large, the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition—that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. 

It is important to tell, at least from time to time, the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are, and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. 

It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives, and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about.” 

Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

2017: Leave-takings, Regeneration, Legacy, and Bearing Witness

Work Song Part II - A Vision (Epilogue)

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it…
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
there, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides…

The river will run
clear, as we will never know it…
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.

The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields…
Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.

~ Wendell Berry

Poetry has the power to take my breath away and Berry's poem did just that when I read it a few months ago. His words captured what I've been feeling -- that struggle and hardship are (and have always been) intricately tied to creation and redemption. 2017 was a strange brew of heart-rending and heart-opening moments and I've been struggling to find a way to wrap my arms around it -- to find peace with a year that delivered leave-takings, new beginnings, and opportunities to bear witness as the world, and our place in it, changed. 

It was a year that left me reeling in a number of ways -- good friends and a beloved family member walked on, Sadie graduated from high school, Jack graduated from college, my cookbook Life in a Northern Town was released, we hatched a plan for a cookery school in our kitchen, I settled into a fulfilling job at the Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, and the political scene at the national and state levels left me, by turns, deeply discouraged and cautiously hopeful. Talk about being shaken, stirred, and rattled -- it was a regular smorgasbord of emotions. 

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to carry with me into 2018. Looking back, it seems almost surreal -- the goodness was nearly always softened by a bittersweet awareness that new beginnings, by their very nature, involve leaving something behind. And that was a tough one for me, the realization that as I grow older there will be more leave-takings than beginnings and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. 

It got me thinking -- can I make peace with grief, regeneration, and change that's out of my control? Where do I fit in a world that's become deeply divided and increasingly unstable? How do I, as Berry suggested, stand in this "ruined place, renewing, enriching it…then a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live there, their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides…" without losing my mind?

On a trip to Madison, I found my answer in the form of a podcast and an Irishwoman named Mary Kate O'Flanagan on the Moth Radio Hour. Mary Kate told the story of her father's death in Carry Him Shoulder High and I was struck by the following two sentences: 

"But thank God, if there's one thing the Irish do right, it's death. ...in English you say, 'I'm sorry for your trouble' but in Irish we say 'Táim imo sheasamh leat' (I'm standing with you) and we mean it literally."

Leave-takings, change, and the inevitable moving on can be bitter pills to swallow....even when I'm headed in the right direction. The phrase 'I'm standing with you', as opposed to 'I'm sorry', implies solidarity and companionship. It's an active phrase, one that says I'm here, I'll bear witness, I'm not going away, we'll start where we stand and make the road by walking, together. It's an anecdote to division, anger, and grief -- something we desperately need right now. 

And that's what I'm carrying into 2018. The promise that I intend to stand with my family, my friends, and my community -- no matter what happens. I've abandoned any expectations for a smooth transition though the challenging days ahead in the political arena but I wholeheartedly believe that by standing together, we have a helluva shot at bringing the last stanza of Berry's poem to life, "Memory, native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove, and memory will grow into legend, legend into song, song into sacrament. The abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its birds, will be health and wisdom and indwelling light. This is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its reality."

So, hello 2018 -- I'm ready to roll with whatever you toss at me because I'm standing with my people...and I'm exactly where I belong. 

It's All About George

This is a first for me -- publishing a blog post because I just found a great photo of George. But really, it is a helluva photo of our handsome boy. I took these photos on a late fall afternoon -- the  viscous, golden light (perfect lighting for a yellow Lab) inspired me to grab my camera and capture a few shots from the Dougherty compound. 

Pheasant and Duck Rillettes with Pistachio and Cranberries

Rillettes is a fancy French name for a meat spread with a lot of fat......and I'm glad I've made its acquaintance. This was my first crack at pheasant rillettes and it turns out, it's super easy to put together. It's a mostly hands-off process with a little shredding, chopping, and mixing at the very end. And strangely enough, I think this will make a good BWCA lunch if I vacuum-seal it in plastic.....eating civilized food is key to my camping enjoyment. 

This is a pretty rich snack and it benefits from the tempering influence of a good Dijon mustard and a cornichon. It's also a little salty when you first put everything together but once it sits and cools off in the refrigerator, its saltiness diminishes and its meaty richness comes shining through. It keeps for about 2 months in the refrigerator (with a decent amount of fat on the top to seal it) but I've heard you can freeze it for up to 6 months with success -- I'll let you know how it holds up. 

Pheasant Rillettes

2 whole pheasants, backbones removed
4 duck breasts, skin-on
1/2 pound pancetta, finely chopped
2 cups sherry
1 cup butter, plus more if needed
1 cup pistachios, shelled and chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped
1/2 red onion, minced
1 medium shallot, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons orange zest
3 tablespoons, plus 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, minced and divided
2 tablespoon kosher salt, divided
2 tablespoon coarse ground black pepper, divided
1 1/2 tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced and divided

Preparation
Combine 3 tablespoons orange zest, 2 tablespoons rosemary, 1/2 tablespoons thyme, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 tablespoon pepper in a small bowl and rub all over the pheasant, inside and out. Place on a sheet tray or bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator for 4 - 6 hours. 

Remove the fat from each duck breast, cut into small pieces, and place in a medium saucepan and add enough water to cover the duck fat pieces. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about another 30 - 45 minutes, or until the water has evaporated and the fat is rendered. If the fat need a little longer, just add a more water and continue to simmer.  Once the water has evaporated, fry the skin over medium heat until it’s crispy. Remove the skin from the rendered fat and discard. Place the fat in a bowl and set aside. 

In a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed stockpot, melt the butter and then add the pancetta, onion, 1 teaspoon of thyme, rosemary, and garlic. Sauté over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until onion has softened and the pancetta is golden brown. Add the sherry, pheasants, and duck breast to the stockpot and add more melted butter if the meat isn’t submerged (you want all the meat to be covered with liquid). 

Simmer over medium-low heat (checking every now and then to make sure the meat is still submerged) for 4 hours. Uncover the pot for the last hour or so, to evaporate the liquid and leave you with primarily fat and meat in the pot. 

Let cool and then shred all the meat and place in a bowl with the fat from the cooking pot (if there is still some non-fat liquid in the pot, you can add it if you want. Otherwise, toss it out) . Add the minced shallot, cranberries, pistachios, and remaining 1 tablespoon of rosemary, salt and pepper. Mix to thoroughly combine. Pack into jars, it'll keep in the refrigerator, covered, for 2 months. 

Roasted Onions

Sometimes simple is best. These onions are incredibly easy to throw together and are the perfect accompaniment to the Porchetta Pork Chops recipe I posted a few days ago. They are surprisingly rich-tasting, given the abbreviated ingredient list, and are good at room temperature as well. 

These onions are going into heavy rotation in my kitchen this holiday season. They are just hedonistic enough to hold their own but confident enough to play second fiddle to porchetta, roasted chicken, or a beef tenderloin. You could substitute shallots, if you want to get fancy! 

Roasted Red Onion with Butter, Honey, and Balsamic Vinegar

4 red onions, halved
6 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (don’t use your expensive vinegar, grocery-store balsamic is just fine)
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
Kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper and set aside.

Combine the butter, vinegar, honey, thyme, salt, and pepper in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook for a couple of minutes, until it’s reduced slightly. 

Place the onions, cut-side up, on the sheet tray and brush half of the butter mixture over them. Roast for about 20 minutes and then brush the remaining butter mixture on and back for another 25 minutes, or until they are soft and caramelized. 

Porchetta Pork Chops

I've just realized this is my third blog post in as many days and I bet you're wondering what on earth is going on?? My bloggery has been spotty, at best, for the last year or so but I've been stockpiling recipes and photos...and I've decided to clear the queue to make way for all the food and essays I have planned for 2018! 

So today, I give you porchetta pork chops. The first meal I made for our Italian exchange student, Joele, who lived with us last year -- I figured it was a good way to welcome an Italian boy into the Dougherty clan. I love the porchetta roast from Fraboni's in Madison -- it's made the proper way with a pork belly rolled up with spices and fresh herbs.  But since I didn't have a spare pork belly in the freezer, I settled on a close second -- thick-cut, bone-in chops from a butcher near Hudson, WI (thanks to our pork connection -- Eric). 

Porchetta Pork Chops

8 pork chops, bone-in
2 tablespoons crushed red pepper
3 tablespoons fennel seeds
6 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh sage, minced
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoon lemon zest
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation
In a small sauce pan over medium heat, toast the crushed red pepper and fennel seeds until fragrant (about 2 minutes) and then grind in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the remaining ingredients (except the pork chops and olive oil) and add the ground fennel and red pepper.

Cut a 1 1/2 inch slit into each pork chop about 1 teaspoon of the spice mix into each pork chop. Put the remaining spice mix on the outside of each pork chop and place in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 4 - 6 hours. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a cast iron skillet over medium-high and (in three batches) cook the pork chops about 3 minutes per side, or until browned but not cooked through. Place each completed batch of pork chops on an unlined sheet tray or large roasting pan and when you have all the chops browned, place in the oven for 7 - 10 minutes, or until the reach an internal temperature of 145 degrees. Let rest, uncovered, for about 5 minutes and then serve.

Clementine Olive Oil Cake

I can't believe I spent a good portion of my 48 years on this planet cardamom-free but now that we've become acquainted, it's been absolutely lovely. Between the Swedish meatballs, gingersnaps, and this clementine cake, I'm a convert this pungent and warm spice. While I'll never forget my stalwart spice companions like cinnamon, nutmeg, or ginger -- I suspect cardamom will find its way into all sorts of dishes in my kitchen!

Citrus season is such a welcome part of winter. I love the abbreviated, cold, and snowy days of winter but the grocery store aisles full of oranges, lemons, clementines, and grapefruit are a bright counterpoint to our white-washed landscape. This cake has a good balance of citrusy and warm, herbaceous flavors (from the cardamom, olive oil, and rosemary) that's nice after a hearty meal like stew or an Indian curry. It keeps very well and is the perfect tea-time treat as well. 

Clementine Olive Oil Cake
(inspired by Food 52's Clementine Pound Cake)

12 tablespoons butter, room temperature, plus more for the pan
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (1 teaspoon if you're using freshly ground cardamom)
1 tablespoon clementine zest
1/3 cup fresh clementine juice
1/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoon fresh rosemary, minced

Glaze
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup fresh clementine juice

Preparation
Heat the oven to 350F. Butter and line a 8 inch x 3 inch round cake pan with parchment paper and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, olive oil and sugars together on medium speed until light and smooth, about 3 - 5 minutes. With the mixer on medium, mix in the eggs, one at a time, until completely blended. 

Stir in 1 cup of the flour, followed by the salt, baking powder, vanilla, cardamom, rosemary, clementine zest and juice and combine thoroughly. Add the sour cream and the rest of the flour. Beat until the batter is smooth and consistent, but do not over-beat!

Scrape the cake batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the edges are browned and just pulling away from the sides of the pan, and a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. While the cakes cooling, mix the confectioner's sugar and clementine juice together until smooth. After 10 minutes, poke holes the cake and pour the glaze over the cake and let sit for another 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the cake to release it from the pan, and place on the wire rack to cool completely.

A Really Good Vegan Tomato Soup

I really like to have soup in the freezer. It's kind of like an insurance policy -- it gives me peace of mind when I'm either fresh out of ideas for lunch/dinner or I'm too lazy to get crackin' in the kitchen. And since our family includes vegetarians and dairy-free types, I figured -- why not shake it up a little and go vegan??

In this case, we had a bunch of canned tomatoes from 2016 that needed a purpose and I was hungry for a tomato soup on the lighter side.....which was the perfect starting place for a vegan soup. I've found that Indian and Thai are my go-to starting points when I'm looking for dairy-free and vegetarian meal ideas. I have a fantastic vegetarian cookbook called Heart of the Plate by Mollie Katzen and I figured she'd have a good recipe. And I was right -- seriously good tomato soup, vegan-style!

A Really Good Vegan Tomato Soup

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 medium yellow or red onion, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 28-ounce tomatoes, crushed or diced
2 cans coconut milk
1 cup water
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons samba oelek (red chile paste)
2 tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice

Preparation
Over medium heat, heat the coconut oil in a stock-pot and add the onions and cumin seeds. Cook until the onions are soft, about 8 - 10 minutes. Stir in the spices, ginger, garlic and sauté for a few minutes, until the spices are fragrant, and then add the water. Simmer for 5 minutes. 

Add the tomatoes, coconut milk, sambal oelek, sugar, and salt. Stir to combine, cover the stockpot and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Very carefully add the soup in batches to a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Add the pureed soup to stockpot and add lime juice. Taste for seasoning and serve (I served it with cilantro and crumbled queso frsco but it's equally as good without cheese). 

When Life Gives You Green Tomatoes Part Two

I have to admit that I tend towards Darwinian gardening -- if the plant can survive a fair amount of benign neglect interspersed with sporadic weeding/fertilizing/watering, it'll likely do well in my garden. And if not, I make a mental note to avoid those plants that didn't thrive in the future and we both move on. Except when it comes to tomatoes. For some reason, hope springs eternal and I keep planting them.

Every year, I plant San Marzanos, Big Boys, Mortgage Lifters, Super Sweet 100s, and Sungolds and every year, it's a crap shoot. The cherry tomatoes tend to rise to the challenge but the others languish on the vine, remaining resolutely green. To be fair, we have a number of very large pine trees that block to sun and it's hard to find a spot in our yard that gets 6 hours of unfiltered sunlight....our raised beds aren't exactly in the best tomato-growing spot. Needless to say, I've become familiar with green tomatoes and what to do with them. This year, I decided to look into pickling and chutney -- and I haven't been disappointed. Turns out green tomatoes are a Darwinian gardener's dream. 

Green Tomato and Apple Chutney

2 pounds green tomatoes, rough chopped
2 apples, peeled and rough chopped
1 medium yellow onion, rough chopped
1 - 2 dried chiles, soaked in water and minced (remove the seeds if you want prefer a less spicy chutney)
1/3 cup fresh ginger, rough chopped
1 cup apple cider
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cardamom

Preparation
Combine all ingredients in a stockpot and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes and reduce to a simmer and cook for about an hour, or until the consistency is thick and syrupy. 

Pour the hot mixture directly into sterilized jars and process in a water bath for 10 minutes. Let sit undisturbed for 24 hours, then store in a dark, cool place. Will keep for at least a year.