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With gratitude I stand on the shoulders of all those who illuminated the path before me as I walked. Special thanks to you Ed Brown, for the Tassajara Cooking book. Your light still shines within me as I help to illuminate the path for others. And I still recommend your book. 
These past few weeks have been a flurry of activity in our little house. As we shake off the shreds of winter to welcome in spring, the birdsong outside our window is echoed by an entirely new sound inside – the nearly constant chirping coming from a box in the corner of our living room. 
It’s the end of March, thank goodness! We won’t have winter much longer, though right now summer seems like years away… Even in the middle – or late winter – gardeners dream about their gardens as they pore over the dozens of plant and seed catalogs that have arrived in the mail. How else do we get through these last weeks of cold, slush, rain, and grey days? 
About two years ago I started experimenting with making my own sandwich bread. I knew it wasn’t too difficult to put out a nice fluffy loaf of white bread (and I think I might’ve once or twice) but if Wonder Bread is what I really wanted then I wouldn’t be making my own bread in the first place. From the start I knew that this mission was all about incorporating whole grains. I want to bring bread back to the basics: handmade, unrefined (or less so), and healthy. Oh, and I want it to taste good too. 
However, right now I’m feeling fed-up with food talk and food problems. So what really kills me on a day like today is that I feel impotent again, unable to figure out how to break through the barriers that keep others from knowing what I know is possible in the midst of all the complex food news hitting us in the face. 
What I mean to talk about is seafood, even though we hardly ever eat it at our house. In landlocked Montana the fresh stuff is impossible to get, and it’s so hard to know whether your fish is coming from a sustainable source. (Unless you catch it yourself, which we sometimes do and, if you can, I recommend it!) 
Native certainly in parts of SE China, and cultivated much if not native in Japan and S Korea, Japanese Ginger is a woodland perennial that turns yellow and dies down in fall, rests during the cold winter, then shoots up again next spring, growing about 3 to 4 feet in height. Most Zingiber species are cold-sensitive; this one is hardy. 
Do we need industrial agriculture to feed the world? A while ago I came across a video online that answered this question. The answer, I was happy to find, was a resounding “No!” So often the argument against organic food is “you can’t feed the world that way,” and here the truth was being spoken so plainly, I felt that if everyone could see it we wouldn’t be arguing anymore. 
Here it is at last, well-documented investigation that shows how we have all been manipulated into bad health by the food industry; people who have literally made a killing off us by getting us hooked on synthetic food. It’s a problem that just can’t be fixed with a bag of Bunny Luv baby carrots. 
This recipe is a little overdue considering we’re long past pumpkin season, but I figured it’s OK because I still have canned pumpkin in my cupboard (I bought a bunch while it was cheap). I can get a batch of granola and a small batch of cookies out of one can. Fresh pureed pumpkin is even better, and if you have some of that on hand I envy you. If however you have some canned on hand, you should try making this! It’s almost like eating pumpkin pie for breakfast. |
 Video: Gene Yale grows 170+ apple trees in a city lot. By growing tiny little trees – grafted and managed like Bonsai – Gene has 3-foot apple treas that bear full size fruit.
Pig Mania
Crown S Ranch, Winthrop WA
(Click the image for a larger version.) |
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