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Archive for the 'Meanderings' Category
Bone Broth
Posted in Meanderings, Recipes | Sunday, October 25th, 2015
I love fall. It's my favorite season. Aside from the crisp fresh air, the colorful tree displays and, of course, football, it's the time of year that sends me into nesting mode. I guess that doesn't sound too exciting, but trust me, it's the best. For me, it means waking up on a brisk Saturday morning, starting a fire in the wood stove, and getting out the big stainless steel stock pot. What happens next is nothing less than magical. With some fairly inexpensive cuts of meat, leftover veggies, salt, wine and water, I'm able to make bone broth – the delicious, nutritious base to so many great fall recipes.
A lot has been said about bone broth lately. I've read about bone broth in magazines, books, on blogs and in newspapers. Here in Portland, we even have a Broth Bar that serves a wide variety of bone broths with your choice of add-ins. Genius.
I love that traditional foods are getting so much attention these days. If my mom were still with us, she would probably get a wrinkle on her forehead, squinch her eyebrows together and ask (in her really thick German accent) "What's the big deal with bone broth, it sounds like just soup to me." Yes mom, it is just soup. It's the kind of soup you used to make, not the kind of soup that most of us eat out of a can or box. It's the kind of soup that values frugality, that uses leftovers and meaty bones, that takes all day over a slow fire, that ends up being so delicious it is sometimes attributed with healing powers. But that's kind of silly, because all good food – real food – has the power to heal. Enough reminiscing. On to the broth.
What makes bone broth so amazing is the minerals and collagen that come from the bones and connective tissues in meat which pass along to us in the broth. And while a perfectly wonderful broth can be made with just the bones, a little meat adds flavor and texture to the broth. I use a mix of knuckle and femur bones with a couple of meaty, boney (and inexpensive) shanks. Throw the bones in a 400 degree or so oven to let them brown, then brown the meat in the stock pot with a smidge of olive oil to keep them from sticking. Browning adds color and flavor to the broth.
Here's the best part of a great broth. You don't have to buy a mix of fresh veggies from the store or farmer's market. You can use the ends, stems, and funny looking veggie parts that you don't use during the week. In this batch I used carrot peels, a sad-looking carrot, a left over celery heart and the cut-off ends of the stalks, broccoli stems, kale stems, the top and bottom ends of a couple of beets, parsley stems, and onion ends and peels. I cut one additional onion in half and browned it with the bones for good measure. In all, the veggies were about the same volume as the bones and meat.
To round out the flavor, I add a few whole peppercorns and a couple of whole cloves. Salt is optional. If you're planning on using the broth in recipes or reducing it, don't add salt; but occasionally, I like to add just a pinch of sea salt to bring out the flavors. Acid helps break down the collagen and draw out the minerals, so if I have a little wine left over from the previous evening I'll add a generous splash to the pot. Leftover wine is fine, but don't use plonk. If you don't have any decent wine (i.e. wine you would drink), add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar. Finally, I add some herbs – a bay leaf, maybe some thyme and a few extra stems of parsley.
When everything has found its way into your pot, fill the pot with water, cover and set on the stove. I set the heat to medium until just before it boils, then turn the heat to low and let it sit all day. You don't want the broth to boil, just a light simmer will do. After 8 to 12 hours of slow cooking, I skim all the veggies and other bits from the top and set the broth pot out to cool. Usually I'll start the stock in the morning, let it cook all day and then just before going to bed, I'll skim it and set it out on the back porch to cool overnight. In the morning a lovely layer of yellow fat will cover your broth. Skim this off if you want, but don't throw the fat away. The fat can be used for cooking – I like to sauté veggies with it.
Once the fat is skimmed from the top, I reheat the gelatinous remains just enough to liquefy. Remove the bones, meat and remaining veggies and pour the broth through a strainer into containers. Voilà, a week's worth of healthy goodness! Aside from soups, I use the broth to braise veggies and meat, create thick, silky sauces, make gravies and reheat leftovers. If, like me, you're trying to break a decades long coffee addiction, a warm mug of broth in the morning is (almost) as comforting, and much healthier, than that cup of joe.
That's it, except for some final words of encouragement. Like all homesteading projects, making bone broth takes time and planning. While it's much quicker to pick up that hermetically sealed box of broth from the store, the health benefits of homemade bone broth far outweigh the convenience of store bought – not to mention the amazing smells that fill the house as the broth slowly simmers. It doesn't sound like much, but how we feed our families is a fundamental statement of our values. Every part of this process that we can take out of the hands of corporations brings us closer to better health, better sustainability and a greater sense of "home". We all work, we all have busy lives, but sometimes it's worth the extra time spent. Nuff said.
Filling My Pantry
Posted in Meanderings, Seasonal, Urban Farmwife | Wednesday, November 5th, 2014
My oh my, what a busy season it has been. We all knew it was coming but who really remembers in early Spring as we rush to find the earliest of strawberries for making jam? No, this is our lot in life and, for me, there is no turning back.
Living and eating by the seasons and from your pantry is not only what we do but what we are and I dare say the farmers are glad for it. At least I would assume so given their smiles at the last Fill Your Pantry Event I attended.
The event held on November 3rd in Corvallis, Oregon and sponsored by the Ten River's Food Web was promoted as "a one-day farmers' market offering bulk quantities of beans, grains, storage crops, and preserves. We believe this event is a great way to facilitate local eating throughout the fall and winter months. It also allows our local food farmers, ranchers, orchardists, beekeepers, and cheesemakers to move large quantities of produce before the winter season while demonstrating the ability to raise edible staples across the Willamette Valley."
For the past four years I have made the pilgrimage to what is arguably one of my favorite events of the year. Of course I'm a bit strange but the mind and heart can burst with the energy of the local food movement. That I get to be a part of it gives me pride, farmwife pride, a cook-in-the-winter-kitchen pride.
The winter kitchen is a lovely place to be. Besides all those delicious long-simmering soups, stews, casseroles and my-oh-my pies, it is the reason for the season of our madness. It is where we put all the good work filling our pantry to the good work of feeding our friends and family. This is the logic of the system – from seed to pantry and back around. This is the logic of the farmwife but somewhere along the line folks got too busy to cook so industry took over. Slowly folks are returning to the task but not without others spitting bullets about the notion that good old fashioned home cooking is anything other than tyranny.
There are a lot of valid reasons why folks feel over burdened in this world. Hell's bells if there aren't and I would be the first to say our modern world has turned the home place into little more than a way station between obligations. Cooking? Home cooking? Are you kidding me? I get it but I will say that a nation of home cooks can do more to change the culture of farming or economics in America then almost anything else I can think of.
My rationale for that statement is longer than I can post here but home cooking is a powerful tool particularly when done in support of the local farming movement. It gives them an outlet for what may otherwise not suit markets and chefs because we home cooks know that a blemish here and there does not matter. Moreover, we are invested with the skills and desire to avoid packaging and understand how the main becomes the many.
Wheat berries, for example, bought whole and either cooked as a side dish or cracked for porridge or ground for flour or bulgur or, or, or, allows for a myriad of transformations and a whole wheat berry, properly stored, will last well into the next season. Ground into flour, on the other hand, the germ of the wheat berry is exposed to air and can become rancid over time which is why flour should be stored in the refrigerator. This principle applies to so many other ingredients that, with a little bit of knowledge, a fully stocked winter pantry can become an invitation for endless innovation without taking up room in the fridge.
This is the way your grandparents or great grandparents or someone's grandparents used to live and it is inspiring to see how many folks are catching on. Heck, when I first started on this journey I had to access information on winter storage from the archives of my local extension office. Now they are displayed proudly and what a lovely thing that is.
So while home cooking is not everyone's path it is a yummy way to support your local farmer. Perhaps next year we will be able to have such and event in Portland. Certainly we have enough talent and heart to pull it off. For now, however, I will keep my 2015 calendar marked for this event since it is one of the highlights of my year. Oh, and if you want to get in on the action this year there is still time. The Willamette Farm and Food Coalition is hosting a Fill Your Pantry event on November 16th between 1-5. To get more information follow this link. Until then, happy winter cooking.
Hand Work
Posted in Meanderings, Urban Farmwife | Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014
A series brought to you by Harriet Fasenfest, author of A Householder's Guide to the Universe and a Portland area local. Harriet will be writing regularly about the farmwife movement and responding to readers' own experiences and questions. If you'd like a question answered on a future blog post, send your letter to the email address at the bottom of this essay.
So here it is, the season of our madness. Stone fruits, green beans, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes and the earliest of apples and grapes. I assume you have you been dashing madly between the garden and kitchen and like me thinking This Is NO JOKE, no joke at all. Sometimes I wonder about the logic of it all but that moment passes in a flash because I am a lifer. I have opened Pandora's box on a world less than equitable and this matter of householding or farmwifery eases my heart while, at the same time, offers a meditation on the nature of hand work.
Somewhere between my endless tasks I realize there is only so much work my hands can do in a day. In that way hand work is limiting and likely matched, in scale and rhythm, to the limits of the natural world. It occurs to me that there is a certain right relationship with nature to this and I wondered, as I picked, washed, stemmed and dried my grapes for raisins, whether every step away from hand work brought consequence not only to the planet but to the spirit of our lives.
There is a story we tell ourselves about progress, that we are better for our inventions. But from hand to tool, from wheel to horse, from steam to coal to oil to, now, and most egregiously, tar sands, the "hand" that turns the crank has gotten meaner over time. The consequences are in the air, water, seas and soil just as they are in our homes and families. Whether hand work will repair any of it is unclear but I has occurred to me as vital to the conversation about home economies.
I have long mused on the notion of a home economy and this matter of hand work has offered a new perspective. Consider it an ethic but hand work suggests a life of moderation. Once the screed response to those annoying kids ( as in "I have only two hands!!!!!") it has taken on a new spin. The limits of hand work puts efficiency into the sacred context of limits, offers gratitude in place of greed, thrift in place of excess and moderation in its right relationship with nature and thereby ourselves.
Of course I'm being extremely idealist to suggest we can return to a world of hand work alone but it is yet true that nature functions without machines. Yes, humans are distinguished among animals by their capacity to make tools and I am not one to live without them during this busy season. I mean there is romance and then there is logic and even I do not make raisins by drying grapes out in the sun (Oregon summers are not sunny or hot enough during grape harvest). Still, taking the time to harvest my grapes by hand, to pull them from their stems, to set them in the dehydrator and hand select those which are dry from those still moist offers a meditation not only on the sacred but the profane.
You see, I am not really brave enough to calculate the cost of my raisins when compared to those at the grocery store. To do so would compare apples to oranges or the life I lead to the one industry has tried to take from me, from us, from farming and farmwifery. In my wonkier moments I will speak of pattern languages and how nature's economy runs on a separate track, a wholly distinguishable track that holds no common language with the world of bottom lines. But that is only when I am pushed into it, when someone challenges this life as being impractical. More often I need not defend my life or the value it holds for my heart because I have opened Pandora's box to a world less than equitable and this matter of hand work has put me (and my raisins) in right relationship with the world. At least its a decent working meditation.
And so my lovelies, rejoice in all your hand work even though it is NO JOKE, no darn joke at all!
Harriet Fasenfest
Urban Farmwife
Please send your letters, comments, and questions for Harriet to email@example.com, including farmwife in the subject line. We look forward to hearing from you!
And So I Cook
Posted in Farm, Meanderings, Recipes, Urban Farmwife | Friday, August 8th, 2014
A series brought to you by Harriet Fasenfest, author of A Householder's Guide to the Universe and a Portland area local. Harriet will be writing regularly about the farmwife movement and responding to readers' own experiences and questions. If you'd like a question answered on a future blog post, send your letter to the email address at the bottom of this essay.
Okay August, it's on. I'm on, you're on, we're all on — the bounty, the harvest and full court preserving. With July behind us we are well underway. Jam pots have been filled and freezers packed with berries. Yes, July gave us pause but nothing like what stands before us. August, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road as stone fruits, beans, squash, cucumbers, pepper and tomatoes fall in mad succession. This is our proving ground, the time farmwives earn their cred, the time the reasons for the season make themselves known.
I've already mentioned some of the reasons, let us call it the farmwife initiative. But other reasons exist – tasty ones, frugal ones, smart, farm-wife cooking ones. This matter of cooking is, at the end of the day, what food preservation is all about, but I do not hear enough of it. Not in the manner that befits the cause and that concerns me a bit. Because without cooking food preservation floats perilously in the modern world of trending and trends do pass. Before long jars of pickles and jam will saddle up between knitted hats and macrame plant holders (if you're that old) to gather dust and mock our fleeting fascinations. I do not want to scold, but form without full-bodied function is our culture's folly and the death knell of many a movement. Which is why I am up in arms touting cooking – day in and day out cooking, solid simple everyday cooking, cooking from our (own) stores, cooking from the food we have put up in volume and farmer direct, cooking as the motive and logic behind this movement because without that important piece our movement is open to what may come.
I've thought long and hard about what may come and I don't think I'm far off. You see, without our deep and continued support small-scale farmers will need to look evermore to the market place for their survival. To a certain degree they already do but in the long term the marketplace (with its long established operational systems) will demand an ever greater participation in a system that belies the heart of this movement. The culprit (if I'm to call it that) is something called economies of scale and without going into it's operational raison d'être, (if only because other posts will cover it) I will simply tell you that small farmers ain't got it and likely don't want it. What they have in it's stead, however, is the proverbial swimming-up-stream scale because being small in an economy pegged to big is way more than an ideological stance — it is a challenge of unparalleled proportions. Hourly wage??? Don't ask. So why do they do it? Well, because they've looked at the land and the soil and the environment and figured out that of all the many things they could do in this life farming, honest small scale farming, might be the most ethical. At least that's how I figure it and I sorta agree. Which is why I love them and love imagining I am a part of that life but not without understand my responsibility in the matter.
You see, to allow them to shoulder the weight of some pastoral mystique without standing shoulder to shoulder in the effort is blatantly unfair, and so I cook. To leave them alone to deal with the cost of land today, the cost of start up, the learning curve, the merciless hours, the back breaking work is unfair, and so I cook. To imagine they can sustain all the hand work and trips loading and unloading at farmer's markets or management of weeds or watching produce gone to seed or chores left undone or a house left to disrepair is unfair, and so I cook. To assume that it is fair that they cannot pay for help or take a weekend off is unfair, and so I cook. I cook because I'm afraid what will happen if I don't. Because if I don't then I cannot blame them for looking elsewhere. Soon they will be open to whatever port in a storm is available to them. Soon specialization will creep back into the lexicon. Soon (and this is beginning to happen) they will be approached by big business (the brokers and big chain supermarkets) telling them to quit all that silly small farm diversity stuff and grow an exclusive main crop at guaranteed prices before season's end which will mean, as it has meant before, pennies on the dollar.
Soon competition will increase and payments decrease. Soon get big or get out will repeat its rationalizing mantra. Soon farmers will see their crop shipped or trucked hither and thon or mixed with the produce of other farms to end up as private-label, value-added stuffs marketed as "organic on a budget" which will, at first glance, appear fair but on closer consideration will reveal the principles of economies of scale and efficiency systems and vertical integration come full circle. Soon it will be production, distribution and consumption as usual if only with a brand new organic and local party hat and frankly, who could blame them? I mean you try being a broke ass hard working small scale farmer for a couple of years and then talk. So I get it, see it, and fear it. We is why I yammer on so much about farm direct purchasing and farmwifery, food preservation and now cooking. It is why, if you haven't figured it out, I say we farmwives are important, no, VITAL, bookends to this movement and that we have to show up, put up, be counted and cook. If not do not be surprised when the revolution is packaged and sold on your grocer's shelf.
But what's that you say????? You're too busy to cook. I know that rationale and I will not jump into that briar patch except to say busyness is not particular to our generation but rather, as a generation, particularly based on the presupposition of leisure. And leisure, as it has been handed down to the people (particularly during the growing season) is the rationale of efficiency systems, cum industry, cum economies of scale, cum marketing, cum chicken Mc nuggets or, at the other end of the spectrum, fancy hand-crafted foods that speak the language of a movement many times removed from the economies of small scale farming. Leisure, as it turns out, is based on a certain lie and either costs too much or too little and, dependent on class, is feeding a people either filler or hype.
Yes, yes, we are busy or perhaps only seduced by the easy flow of food stuffs brimming from street carts to grocery stores (in fact Heat-and-Eat family meals is one of the quickest growing segments in grocery sales) or because we imagine cooking a mystery. My sense is we've made too much of cooking or maybe just fancy cooking. But farmwife cooking ain't fancy, it's real!
Perhaps one day I'll get around to writing a cookbook that shows just how simple it can be. Then again, there are plenty of books out there that can give you the basics and as I've written before, all you really need is one "how to cook everything" cookbook and you're set. The Joy of Cooking is still my go-to favorite, but the point is you don't need to complicate things. Really, all you need is a willingness and commitment to cook your meals.
I guess I'm lucky. I hail from a generation whose parents still cooked. Utility was the point, frugality was the reality. There were no recipes, in fact I don't think I've ever seen my mother look at a cookbook. What she had was a repertoire. Most nights there were baked potatoes set on the dinner table, and no one ever decried the repetition. They were easy to make, affordable and tasty; a virtual farmwife trifecta. Vegetables were simply steamed with a little meat roasted or broiled to the side. Dessert was simple. Applesauce or fruit compote – that mystery of stewed dried fruits reconstituted with a bit of lemon peel and cinnamon. A miracle of thrifty innovation.
Beside my mother I have sat at the table of older farmwives. Women I have met since moving to Oregon and from whom I've learned both the simplest and most profound style of cooking. Biscuits or cornbread cooked in the flash of an eye and repeated infinitum. A jar of pickles brought out at every meal or that here-to-fore odd but soon to be revived (if I have anything to do with it) mixture of frozen mixed vegetables cooked in a flash. Sausage, steaks, ground beef or chicken defrosted and simply cooked (if you go that way) keeps it easy along with a bit of mashed potatoes. Canned fruit sauces (apple, pear, plum, whatever), served to the side of many a pork chop or for dessert or in baking – miles and miles of baking in muffins and cake – is simply utility unbound.
Yes, this is August, the season of our madness. As you continue with your bad selves let me encourage you to think seriously about how you cook, what you cook, how much you cook and, most importantly, why you cook. Choose items to preserve or store that will go the distance. Put on your farmwife hat and think utility more than fancies. And on that note I offer you mom's recipe for stewed fruit. Couldn't be any easier.
Sonja's Ever So Delicious Stewed Fruit
In a pan put an assortment of dried fruit (the fruit you dried over the season)
Suggestions: – Prunes, apples, apricots and pears
Add a stick of cinnamon and a few slices of lemon peel
Add water to cover
Bring to the boil
Turn off heat, cool
Put in a jar and let the fruit sit overnight to make it's own syrup
Eat as is or served with yogurt or cottage cheese or on pancakes or, or, or.
Will stay good in fridge till a very long time!
Harriet Fasenfest
Urban Farmwife
Please send your letters, comments, and questions for Harriet to email@example.com, including farmwife in the subject line. We look forward to hearing from you!
Greetings from the Urban Farmwife
Posted in Farm, Meanderings, Urban Farmwife | Saturday, July 5th, 2014
A new series brought to you by Harriet Fasenfest, author of A Householder's Guide to the Universe and a Portland area local. Harriet will be writing regularly about the farmwife movement and responding to readers' own experiences and questions. If you'd like a question answered on a future blog post, send your letter to the email address at the bottom of this essay.
Howdy all and welcome to what I hope becomes a healthy conversation between friends. I'm so excited to be a part of this movement which, since the publication of A Householder's Guide to the Universe, has not only grown by leaps and bounds but taken on many names. For some the term urban homesteading fits, for others it is radical homemaking. My own term "householding" has expanded to include urban farmwifery; a phrase as apt to my life as it might be controversial.
I'm not sure exactly when the term came to mind but at some point in my evolution I considered the phrase "farmwife" as distinct to the larger notion of farming itself. You see, for a number of reasons I had stopped "farming" much of my own food. I credit age (and a weakening back) as part of the reason but I also felt ever more inclined to support a young farming movement. With so many of the next generation looking to farming in response to socio-economic and environmental concerns and, too, as a way to make a living, I felt obliged to support them. Which does not mean I have given up growing food all together (I'm definitely a lifer) but just those things I need in quantities my backyard space could not supply.
As some of you might know, I'm a serious preserver. Yep, if it grows I want to can, dry, freeze or store it for winter use. Which is why the householding or preserving CSA model worked so well for me. Instead of the normal weekly or bi-monthly CSA shares, I receive large one-time installments in quantities that work for my preserving needs. You know — ten pounds of green beans or cucumbers for pickling, 100 pounds of tomatoes for canning. The model works well for me and likely would for others with limited space (preserving shares are getting more popular so speak to your farmer) but while I was not quite as busy in the garden growing food I was just as busy in the canning kitchen, even busier.
You see, the closer I worked with farmers the more I realized how little time they had to put up their own stores or, for that matter, cook meals during the busy growing season. I realized what was missing in their lives was the farmwife; that here-to-fore unheralded partner in a farm system. Now don't get upset at me. I'm not speaking gender here but skill sets. We cannot really speak of farm "husbandry" without recognizing the role and value of farm "wifery" at least I doubt any farmer would deny it. In fact over the years I have had more than one farmer "propose" marriage to me and not because of love. Of course I'm being cheeky here but men and women (together and separately) have begged me to marry them if only in recognition of what my role in their lives meant.
To come home after a full day in the field to a hot meal or, in the morning, to a breakfast of eggs and biscuits is no small thing. To be able to reach for (after spending countless hours growing food for others), your own canned tomatoes or pickles in winter is a joy but this is not always what farmers can do. No, more likely they are so busy out in the field that they miss the opportunity to do this. Which is why, how and when I realized that I was a freak'n farmwife. Sure I lived in the city and was divorced (another story) but I was wifering myself all over the place and loving it.
I was the one in the farmhouse cooking up meals and calling farmhands to lunch (and darn if I did not ring that triangle thingy). I was the one cleaning out the fridge (you know the one that looks like a poltergeist came to call?) from the endless "we'll get to this later" food stuff in waiting. I was the one making meals and freezing them for later or canning up whatever else those poor besotted lovers of the soil wanted me to do. I was, in essence, an angel, a farmwife angel.
If I have taken on this role it is not simply because I like to cook or preserve or, maybe, just like being a friend, but because they, the farmers, need us. Not just to cook meals or can up stores but to support them in the type of direct purchasing they need. Which is another part of this farmwifery thing. We are the bookends to an economic system. Just as they grow the food we must use it, cook with it, put it up in quantities that get us through the year. We must give them an ever greater share of our incomes because they need us to. We cannot compare the food they grow to the stuff we can buy at the store. Economies of scale (small scale) will mean big prices and we need to be at peace with this. But we can mitigate the costs by staying outside the box. That's another fine and fabulous thing farmwives can do.
Every year we haul out the old jars (or buy new ones to start our supply) to do what we have been doing for generations before, that is, rural wisdoms got turned into big supply chains. Every year we step outside the packaging and distribution chains most foods must rely on. Every year we learn more about the seasons and what it really takes to grow good food — the victories and the gains and we share that with our farmers. They need us and we, by golly, need them. Which is why I say we farmwives are bedfellows and bookends to the farming movement. Both of us are trying to create a new model, a new economy, the home economy (which I mention only as a tease for future letters.) We are the new dynamic duos – farmer (urban or rural) to farmwife (urban or rural). Oh heck yes. Yep, I am a radical urban farmwife and darn proud of it.
So that's how it happened. That's how this householder became a farmwife and why I encourage you to try the name on yourself. Remember, this is not specific to gender. And just like farming itself, farmwifery has been dumbed down and co-opted by industry. Frankly to be so excited about the young farming movement and say nothing of farmwifery is it's own sort of gender bias and I'll not have it. Nope, let's just say I'm old enough, ornry enough and, well, smart enough to know better.
So tell me your name, send me your letters — what you do, what you think about and how you are moving this movement forward. I promise to read them all and respond as time and space permits on our blog. Let's start coming together to teach each other, support each other and keep this movement going and growing. Rural and urban, farmer and farmwives and everyone and anyone in-between and by any other name. Oh yeah!
Harriet Fasenfest
Urban Farmwife
Please send your letters, comments, and questions for Harriet to firstname.lastname@example.com, including farmwife in the subject line. We look forward to hearing from you!
It Takes A Village To Make An Omelet
Posted in Meanderings | Monday, October 24th, 2011
I know it's fall in Portland because when I woke up yesterday, it was so dark and the clouds were hanging so low I had to look at the clock to be sure it was morning. It was morning, Sunday morning, the one day a week that I make an effort to cook a nice breakfast for the two of us. I made it to the kitchen with eyes partially shut and that stiff, Frankenstein-like walk that seems to get worse with each year I make it past 45. I had nothing planned, so it meant standing in the middle of the kitchen and looking around to see what I could come up with.
The first thing that caught my eye was the carton of duck eggs from Chris Chulos' farm near Oregon City. He delivers chicken and duck eggs every Friday to the shop and I'd never tried duck eggs before. I snagged a box before going home Saturday night. There they were, the beige and green eggs staggered in a checkerboard pattern in the carton. Perfect. An omelet it would be. Now, what else…
Last Friday Doug had a day off from school and Martha, our manager, agreed to work the whole day so that Doug and I could go to Newberg and Dundee to do some wine tasting. It was a fabulous day, but the best part of our trip to wine country was the last stop of the day when we drove out to the Beroldingen Farm for fresh goat cheese. It's a small family farm off NE Bell road in Newberg – not easy to find, but well worth the hunt. As you drive up the driveway, you see a little red and white shed next to the big house. There are chickens wandering everywhere and little pens of goats scattered all over the property. Inside the shed is a small refrigerator and a money box. It's the honor system, so we make sure to bring enough cash for our goat-cheese habit. Now, I've been making goat cheese for a few years from the milk of our little Nigerian Dwarf goats, and we both love our homemade cheese, but the cheeses from Beroldingen are possibly the most delicious goat cheeses I've ever tasted. The Chehalem is a mild soft-rind cheese that I tend to favor, but we always get a container of the fresh chevre for cooking – you know, like omelets.
This was a good start – eggs and cheese, but I needed more. Anyone who's been to the shop and met Doug probably knows that he's the conversationalist in the family. 'Nuf said. So it's probably no surprise that when Doug noticed a couple of guys walking past the store carrying a basket of mushrooms, he had to go chat with them and find out what the deal was with all those mushrooms. Twenty minutes later, we had some new friends and a bunch of chantrelle and bolete mushrooms. Yum – mushroom omelets!
Now we just needed a little extra flavor to help carry but not overpower the mushrooms. Voila – sitting in the onion basket, three beautiful grey shallots that Connor from Diggin' Roots Farm brought the other night when he came for dinner. Of course, the blueberry wine and Asian pear juice Connor brought were long gone (and much appreciated), but I still had those lovely shallots with their shiny red skins and mild garlicy-onion flavor. Since Connor and his wife Sarah had just finished giving a class at the shop on growing garlic, I knew they were expert Allium growers and that these shallots would be delicious. Yes, the perfect accompaniment for the mushroom and chevre omelet.
Finally, a little of the fresh cow's milk that we pick up each week from Colleen's farm in Molalla and some fresh parsley from the neighbor's garden and there it was, a perfect omelet – with the help of some friends.
The point is that we sometimes tend to equate homesteading with self-sufficiency – the idea that we have to do it all ourselves. But you know, I don't raise duck eggs, or make amazing goat cheese, or know where to find beautiful chantrelles, or even grow shallots. But I don't have to do all those things because I'm part of a community that shares such abundance. We each have different abilities and resources to bring to the table. The most important part of homesteading is to actually come to the table, be a part of the community and share what we have to offer. In the long run, it's the help of friends and neighbors that gets us through the tough times. So get out there and start forging those relationships. And a huge thank you to all the friends that helped make our Sunday omelet. It was delicious!
Answering the Question
Posted in Meanderings | Friday, July 1st, 2011
On Tuesday morning, June 14, we opened the doors of Portland Homestead Supply Co. quietly, with no fanfare, to see how our shop would be received. We were, as one customer put it, pretty stealthy about it. On that very first morning, a woman walked in, took a quick look around at the canning jars, cheese molds and grain mills and said, "Who on earth would ever want to do all this stuff. I'm a city girl and we pay people to do this stuff."
As I frantically tried to fire up a few synapses and come up with a witty answer to her question, she wished me good luck (not a real good luck, but the kind that means 'good luck you poor fool'), took a sip of her triple caramel macchiato and was gone. So, two and a half weeks later, I thought I would take this, my first blog, as an opportunity to answer the question posed on our first day. I've given up on any attempt to be witty, and decided to turn to the most practical and eloquent gentleman on earth and borrow a much overused quote from Wendell Berry and his essay "The Total Economy":
"What has happened is that most people in our country, and apparently most people in the 'developed' world, have given proxies to the corporations to produce and provide all of their food, clothing, and shelter. Moreover, they are rapidly increasing their proxies to corporations or governments to provide entertainment, education, child care, care of the sick and the elderly, and many other kinds of 'services' that once were carried on informally and inexpensively by individuals or households or communities. Our major economic practice, in short, is to delegate the practice to others…The trouble with this is that a proper concern for nature and our use of nature must be practiced, not by our proxy-holders, but by ourselves. A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life."
So that is it then. That is why people might want to do all this stuff – as a way to navigate out of our 'passively consumptive way of life'. That, I guess, is what modern homesteading is all about, and that is why we're here.
The self-doubt of that first morning evaporated quickly as more people stopped by and shared their enthusiasm for the store and for learning the practical skills of keeping a home. In fact, I'm not sure we could have landed in a more accepting and supportive community. We're so glad to be here and look forward to meeting all those who are ready to start on this homesteading journey. Happy Homesteading!


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I scored some beautiful small Italian eggplant at Union Street Produce so I just had to make caponata. I love this flavor-packed sweet-sour eggplant side dish (condimento) from Sicilia.
Usually I make caponata during the summer when the eggplant and tomatoes are at their prime. I was surprised to see the early crop of Italian eggplant in late January but it's been a really mild winter in the Bay Area. The tomatoes were hot house vine-ripened on the stem.
Caponata is easy to make. Most of the work is cutting the eggplant and vegetables. Caponata is cooked in stages and married at the end with agrodolce, a sweet and sour syrup. Eggplant is the star so choose well at the market. The eggplant should be shiny black and firm to the touch. The small Italian eggplant are my favorite for caponata but if you can't find them any eggplant will do.
If you've never had caponata try some from a shop like North Beach's new salumeria (Italian deli) Geppetto to get a taste of how this dish is supposed to be and then make your own. Caponata will keep in the refrigerator for about a week so I usually have some on hand to add to an antipasti platter, as a side dish for grilled or roasted meat or fish, as pasta sauce or as a topping for bruschetta or crostini.
- 5 small firm eggplant, Italian eggplant preferred
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 celery ribs
- 1 pound or 500 grams fresh tomatoes, San Marzano or plum preferred
- 1/2 cup Cerignola olives or your favorite
- 2 tablespoons capers, drained
- 5 fresh basil leaves
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 cup half EVOO half vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons EVOO
- sea salt
Cooking Directions
- Trim the eggplant and cut into 1-inch cubes.
- Sprinkle the eggplant with sea salt and mix to coat well. Place in a colander to drain for 30 minutes.
- Rinse the eggplant well and dry on paper towel.
- Cut the onion into one-inch pieces. Set aside.
- Cut the celery into half-inch slices. Set aside.
- Remove the seeds from the tomatoes. Cut into one-inch cubes. Set aside.
- Roughly chop the olives. Set aside.
- Pour the vinegar, water and sugar into a small pot.
- Over medium-high heat boil until reduced by half and the vinegar mixture is syrupy.
- In a heavy-bottomed pan heat the oil mixture and when hot add the eggplant.
- Fry the eggplant until it is golden-brown all over, about 10 minutes.
- Drain the eggplant on paper towels. Set aside.
- Pour out the oil and wipe the pan with a paper towel.
- Put the pan back on the flame and add 2 tablespoons of EVOO.
- When the oil is hot add the onion and celery and saute until they are softened and have some golden color, about 5 minutes.
- Add the olives and capers and mix well.
- When the pan is at a sizzle add the tomatoes and mix well.
- Cook until the tomatoes are soft, about 5 minutes.
- Add salt to taste and mix well.
- Mix in the fried eggplant and mix well.
- When everything is sizzling pour in the vinegar mixture and mix well.
- Cook everything together for 5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and roughly rip the basil leaves into the pan and mix well.
- Serve at room temperature.


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Register with us or sign in
in The potting shed
Mmm, warm freshly cooked pasties. My locker is unlocked.
Ready for snacking
Hi everyone
So sorry I am late for my mark - well extra late.
We have been to Swindon and back and it rained all way there and back. Very pleasant lunch though with sons partners parents. Its the first time we've been allowed to meet without supervision!! Such fun, spent some of the time commenting about young couple and their child rearing skills. Everything by the book !!!! They are a bit overwhelmed by parenting. What they don't realise is that i don't think you ever quite get the hang of it
Loved the secret message, and I can just imagine trying to pick up one of cats to give it a 'bath'
It was a bit like having a drive through a large never-ending lake occasionally overspilling onto road. Winds haven't started yet just relieved we are home before them.
Now have a glorious fire, 3 sleepy animals, and Strictly to come
Geoff, I just found your Christmas present whilst browsing on ebay!
Click here Geoff
lad you're back home safe bjay!
I have bisodol on stand-by for anyone with wind trouble
Geoff have uyou seen Ola she's on pointless
Ok check your cyber lockers for hot pasties
Inka I am teaching in the land of TOWIE and Rylan and ignoring the puplis is extremly hard
Bjay you were brave to leave the house today.
I'm getting hungry. Those pasties done yet kate?
Oops, posted the same time! Thankies!
Will save the pasty-I have quite a build up in there-
-lamb stew is now being served
Boo Hoo- my pasty is cold. Must be the time difference.
Kate, not sure who Towie and Ryan are, but if it has to do with politics, let's just say I'm glad I retired when I did!
Someone must be feeling unwell as they have left SCD on! Oh 'spoke' too soon- OH has told daughter about some 'proper' chefy thing on i-player so she's turned off the tv sound.
Bit tipsy though.... & need to sort out in kitchen.
Brave Bjay & OH. Glad you're home & safe. It's chucking it down out there now. Do wish had shifted myself this morning then would've had some time outside. J.
Jo -send daughter to the kitchen for the sort-out-OH to the other room-watch TV
I bought some Celebrations In Tesco-but they are pressies
Evening All!
Tree felling dutie's done! Got soaked in the process! But my ex-collegue is over the moon with the results! n I bagged myself a Christmas tree in the bargain! So a good old productive day as been had!
Bathed n eventually warmed through! Oh! n it's Curry night! "Bring it on"
Oop's! Now gunna go catch up!
Well that's us fed and watered. Spongebob on TV, madam is playing ABC's on her Leap-pad, and kettle is on. Will now try and browse ebay in secret.
Geoff- cant shift them! OH & daughter sat on sofa watching this darn cooking prog on daughter's laptop. TV now completely turned off. Just accepted only ever get to see the SCD results prog.
Not interested in the cooking prog actually, but dont tell OH. Much easier for me to go & load up dishwasher. J.
Kate!.....Glad you have returned! Although a little bedraggled! I am sure you will pull through! Oh! n cheers for the pastie!
B'j!.....You have braved the day n have come unscathed! "Good on you girl"
Caz!.....Early bird today!
n to all else I have missed! Soz! But I am trying!
Jo -I give up-it would be easier for them to leave the room-sorry but that is how it looks to me-I thought you liked SCD
They need telling!!!


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The Iowa State womens basketball team needed only a few points down the stretch today, and Alison Lacey made sure the Cyclones got them.
The sophomore point guard scored 11 consecutive Iowa State points during a 9-minute span of the second half as the Cyclones held off Kansas 51-42.
The Cyclones (18-10, 7-8 Big 12 Conference) started the second half with a 15-3 spurt, going up 35-21 after a Lacey 14-footer with 11:04 to play.
Kansas began inching closer as its overplaying defense forced Iowa State into some turnovers and difficult shots. But when Iowa State needed a spark, Lacey provided it, first with a 3-pointer after the lead was whittled to 35-28, then with another when the lead was eight points.
Then, with the Cyclones clinging to a 41-36 lead, Lacey scored on a driving three-point play as the shot clock was about to expire to nudge the lead back to eight with 4:14 to play before an announced crowd of 11,824 at Hilton Coliseum.
The three-point play she made with the shot clock winding down was probably the biggest play of this game, Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said. We were on the ropes and wobbling pretty bad, and that was a great individual effort. Shes a skilled kid and knows how to win games.
Lacey, whose 3-pointer put Iowa State ahead for good in Wednesdays 58-54 victory at Missouri, led all scorers with 19 points, making 5-of-8 shots and 7-of-9 free throws.
We felt them coming back, Lacey said. They had some good defense. It was hard to get a shot off. Everyone took a breath and relaxed a little bit. We knew we had to hold them.
Center Jocelyn Anderson, who was scoreless in the first half, posted up for four baskets to start the second half and finished with eight points. Kelsey Bolte had 11 points, nine in the second half.
It was a game where Iowa State pieced together enough scoring to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes alive going into Wednesdays regular-season finale at Nebraska.
To even get on the NCAA bubble has been a battle since losing center Nicky Wieben and forward Toccara Ross to knee injuries.
Weve been sitting on the bubble since we were at Texas (on Jan. 16) and Nicky Wieben got hurt, Fennelly said. The discussion on March 1 that this team is possibly going to contend for the NCAA Tournament is one of the greatest stories weve ever had here. It has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the young people on this team.
Follow LINK for rest of article.
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Video Industry News Video Company News Technology Industry News Technology Company News Novelty Industry News Novelty Company News Gay Industry News Gay Company News Legal Industry News All Company News
Profile: Gitta Blond
Profile: Gitta Blonde
Photos: Sugar Baby and Gitta Blond
Photographer: Raul Cristian / Evil Angel
Published: May 25, 2010
Photos: Gitta Blond and Logan
Photographer: Evil Angel
Published: March 31, 2010
Photos: Gitta Blond
Photographer: Evil Angel
Published: March 31, 2010
Photos: Gitta Blond
Photographer: Evil Angel
Published: March 31, 2010
Photos: Logan and Gitta Blond
Photographer: Evil Angel
Published: March 31, 2010
Movies: Angel Perverse 14
In Angel Perverse 14, European sex cinema master Christoph Clark probes the angelic façade of unattainable beauty to expose the perverted lust hidden inside. And the most penetrating view into these gorgeous sluts comes through their widely gaping assholes. When the director pairs European beauty Alysa with American superstar Bobbi Starr, the girls are visibly excited to play together. Bobbi demonstrates her extreme deep-throat talent on black stud Kid Jamaica, consuming his jumbo cock and even his balls as tears and gag spit soak her pretty face. Alysa's ass gets plowed without so much as a pussy-fuck warm-up, but she takes a thunderous double-penetration pounding from Kid and white cocksman Ian Scott. Both girls suck cocks directly from each other's rectum. Bobbi pries eight fingers up Alysa's ass and spreads her for a massive gape, which Bobbi deeply tongues. Logan is a flashy blonde with natural tits and big, expressive eyes. Pretty Gitta Blond is actually a sandy brunette, with blue eyes and cute natural titties. Moments after Choky Ice and David Perry enter, Logan's pussy gapes, then both girls' assholes yawn open like big, dark caves. Gitta blows cock plucked fresh and wet from Logan's butt, then goes straight to the source to lewdly lap her rosebud. Logan takes a double-penetration, then lets both studs ejaculate in her pie hole before spitting/kissing/drooling the viscous semen cocktail into Gitta's mouth. The director calls her "The Russian Queen," and Alysa shows she's game to give three cocks the royal treatment. First she opens herself with a series of toys, culminating in a rude session with a gigantic, freakish looking thing that resembles a toilet plunger. She works her anus around it, making her innards wink and gape anatomically till she licks the "plunger" clean. Alysa sits her ass on fat cocks and takes double-penetrations of both the plastic and cock flesh varieties, then tops herself by taking two pricks simultaneously up her athletic asshole! She swallows the three loads jerked into her mouth. Shapely, longhaired French girl Eloa Lombard looks striking in a form-fitting body suit (with strategic openings). "I'm Eloa. I love dicks," is the matter-of-fact greeting that gets her surrounded by four serious erections; she gamely tries to get them all between her lips at once. She crams her cock-slapped face up Greg Centauro's and Ian Scott's asses. Still in that body suit, Eloa's tits are slapped as she sucks one dick and rides another, in the throes of a full-on gang bang. A double-penetration leaves her with a huge, wet ass gape, and she gets two pricks simultaneously up her pussy. A circle-suck finale drenches her in four loads of jism, which shameless Eloa visibly gargles and swallows.
Movies: Big Cock Cravings
Article: Woodman, Ninn Worx Open the Anal Gate
Published: July 09, 2007
Ninn Worx is gearing up to release the first two volumes of Anal Gate , director David Perry's all-anal line for Woodman Entertainment.
Movies: Ferocious Feet
Movies: Beautiful Sluts
It's time to fuck some Beautiful Sluts! With their voluptuous tits, plump asses, and perfect pussies, you're sure to have the time of your life as these sluts suck and fuck like the dirty little whores that they are. Whether it be in the pussy or ass, these babes will take it any way they can get it because they're beautiful, they're slutty and they're ready to get fucked!
Movies: Anal Football Club
If you are curious about the world of soccer or if you are a big fan, come behind the scenes of a female soccer team. See how the doctor and the coach relieve the pains of the players with strong d.p.s. Take a shower with these beautiful girls. And give a look at their training on the field and how they practice their oral and anal skills to be on the scoresheet. They don't go offiside to the goal, they just want good free kicks in their ass.
Movies: The Other Woman 2
Come experience 15 gorgeous ladies pleasure each other in 7 scenes full of passion and ecstasy. Only the touch, breath, and kiss of another woman can awaken the fiery passion that is hidden within them. This is beautiful lesbian love as it was meant to be.
Movies: Sperm Swap 8
In each of Sperm Swap 8's six sloppy scenes, two Eastern European harlots come together to share their favorite treat, fresh sperm. The girls tease, make out and warm up before turning to cock for the main attractions. After vigorously fucking both girls' mouths and pussies, the studs dump their spunky loads into one horny, shameless girl's open mouth. She'll gargle and play with the slick semen, showing it off in her mouth and on her tongue, before drooling the viscous load into her play partner's oral opening. The second girl enjoys the recycled sperm, then swallows it down, and the girls finish with a mouth kiss, tasting the residual cum tongue-to-tongue. Each scene includes ample tastes of cunt via pussy-to-mouth blow jobs; a couple of the scenes feature pounding anal sex and the accompanying ass-to-mouth flavor. This is nasty, graphic sex, not for the squeamish.


text: 'Your DNA is a mess, but then so is society.' DNA 21 May 09 by Matt Ridley This year, the word "gene" celebrates its 100th birthday. It was coined by a dull Danish botanist with a white goatee beard, Wilhelm Johannsen, in a German book that nobody now reads. Rarely can a word have so flourished in its first century. But what does it mean? While you and I know what we mean by "gene" – a discrete particle of heredity – the technical definition, which once seemed pinned down, has got a lot more elusive recently. And that's interesting, because heredity turns out to be a rambunctious digital blogosphere where messages from the past jostle for influence. When the word "gene" was 50, Francis Crick gave it a precise definition – a stretch of DNA that spells out the recipe for a protein molecule in quaternary digital code. All nice and tidy. But almost immediately, the picture began to blur. Take the example of blue eyes. The mutation that causes blue eyes in nearly all blue-eyed people was found last year by another Dane, eerily named Hans Eiberg. It is a single-letter spelling change, from A to G, in a DNA message at a certain spot on chromosome 15. This affects a gene called OCA2, which makes a protein whose job is transporting tyrosine into cells, and since tyrosine is the raw material from which dark pigment is made, the eyes (and hair and skin) end up paler if OCA2 is not working at full strength. But here's the funny bit: the spelling change is not in the OCA2 gene at all. It is elsewhere – indeed, it is in a gap in the middle of a completely different gene a page or two further along in the genomic book. It is a stretch of text that somehow controls the expression of the OCA2 gene. This is proving to be a common pattern: many of the most interesting mutations are not in genes but in the "control sequences" that help to switch them on and off. And these control sequences can be almost anywhere, even in a different gene or on a different chromosome. Biologists are still scratching their heads trying to identify them. This is why you have essentially the same 20,000 genes as a mouse, but you are not a mouse: you switch those genes on and off in a different pattern. By charming coincidence, the average English-speaking graduate uses about 20,000 words. The graduate uses words in the same way that Mother Nature uses genes. Each recombines them to produce utterly different outcomes (books or bodies) from much the same material. You hardly switch on the genes for growing a tail at all, for example. Nor is that all. Genes themselves come in paragraphs – called exons – which are interrupted by long pages of discarded semi-irrelevance called introns. And quite often those paragraphs get shuffled so as to make a different protein from a different combination of exons. The gene, like the atom before it, has been thoroughly split. It gets worse. Only about 1.2 per cent of what you proudly call your genome consists of recipes for proteins. Almost as much room is taken up with decaying, disused copies of genes, known as pseudogenes. A huge proportion of the rest (perhaps up to 40 per cent of the total) seems to be the rotting remains of recipes for viruses, left behind by rampaging infections in the distant past and often simplified and shortened until all that is left is a mini digital parasite hoping to hitch a ride on a real virus. Are these "genes"? If so, whose? As for the remainder of the genome, nearly all of it is regularly transcribed into DNA's cousin RNA but not then into proteins. These RNA transcripts go tearing about the nucleus doing – well, nobody knows quite what. But they are almost certainly implicated in censoring or marketing "real" genes. Even pseudogenes sometimes get transcribed, earning themselves the nickname of the "undead" in entertainment- starved genetics labs. There is an old joke about three engineers arguing about God. The mechanical engineer says God made the skeleton so he must be a mechanical engineer. The electrical engineer says God made the brain so he must be an electrical engineer. The civil engineer says he knows God is a civil engineer, because who else would build a waste-disposal pipe through a recreational area? The more you look at bodies, and especially their genes, the more you realise they could not possibly have been designed on purpose. They came about by incessant but cumulative incremental change. Your DNA is a mess, but then, so is society. Both achieve extraordinary feats of sophisticated problem-solving without having anybody in charge and without being neat. MicrobiographyMatt Ridley's 23 pairs of chromosomes, plus a doctorate in zoology from Oxford Universityand a career as a journalist, have equipped him to write books – translated into 25languages – about science, economics and the environment, most recently Francis Crick:Discoverer of the Genetic Code; The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture; andGenome. For three years he was was non-executive chairman of Northern Rock. Edited by Michael Parsons Latest on wired.co.uk


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FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - The courts may have gotten a little wet, but that didn't stop hundreds of basketball players from filling the parking lot of Parkview Field for Saturday's Gus Macker tournament.
Gus Macker is the largest event of its kind in the world. It has been several year's since Fort Wayne played host to one of the 3-on-3 tournaments, but this is the second year it has been back in action in the Summit City.
Participation was a little lower than last year, but 81 teams signed up to compete this year. Each team has four players.
The event was hosted by SAFY, a foster care and adoption agency in the Fort Wayne community. Proceeds from the tournament benefit youth adjusting to independent living through SAFY and the University of Saint Francis' athletic scholarship fund.
The city of Fort Wayne and the Convention and Visitors Bureau provided a $10,000 grant to help make the event possible.
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The airport run – Part 1. Malaga-Granada
November 15th, 2012
So you have to go and pick up friends or loved ones at an airport in Spain, but you want to make a day of it. Stop off for lunch perhaps. Or see one of those tourist attractions you have always meant to visit, but never got around to seeing.
Where to go en route to and from the airport?
Well, if you are en route to Malaga, the options are many and varied.
Clearly it depends from where you are beginning your journey. For example, if you are setting off from the city of Granada, you have two choices. You can go on the inland route to Malaga airport, or you can drive down to the Costa Tropical and take the coastal road. All the time keeping the sea on your left.
But let us go to the airport one way and make the return journey, along with the recently arrived friends, via the other route.
The A92 motorway from Granada takes you inland towards Seville and Malaga. Fairly early into the journey the motorway climbs high and, on your right, is the historic town of Loja. Famous for its large number of fountains, for its historic buildings and a place that offers you elevated views of the countryside. Not far away is the pretty hamlet of Riofrio, known all over Spain and further afield for its trout farm and first class food.
A good place to turn off the motorway and to visit is Antequera. The most centrally located city in all of Andalusia and a place that can boast the most religious buildings of any location in Spain. If you need to pray, perhaps that the flight you are meeting lands on time, then you have come to the right place. There is a church around every corner in Antequera.
And, not far outside of the city, is a spectacular sight that you simply must visit. The El Torcal mountain range is like something out of a movie. There are great walks to be had via a few clearly marked and designated routes. Do take them and try not to wander off those paths. There are some seriously precarious drops when up this high. But the views are mind blowing. You can see to Malaga and beyond to the ever popular Costa del Sol coastline.
But El Torcal is a world away from sand and sea. In summer it is very hot up in the mountains and the sun will tan you quickly. When visiting in deepest winter, I have never felt colder than when trying to take in the views from the mirador located close to the visitors centre. The plant life growing out of the rocks on El Torcal was covered in ice that showed no sign of melting.
Driving long distances can be boring. Take a break at El Torcal. Stretch your legs and breath in some fresh air. After all, pretty soon, you will be breathing in kerosene at Malaga airport.
And, if you do arrive early or the flight is late, be aware that there is a really good museum located under the flightpath. So many people do not know it is there. Located where the original Malaga airport terminal was built, it is a quaint museum that takes you back in time to an era when flying was considered glamorous.
Old aircraft, the original emergency vehicles that raced along the tarmac when there were emergency landings and a wide array of memorabilia from the very early days of aviation in Spain; they all on view for you to see at a small cost.
So you have picked up your visitos from the airport and it is time to take the route back home that allows them to admire the Mediterranean ocean. After all, they are on holiday. Yes, they may be renting property along the Costa del Sol, at Nerja perhaps, or along the Costa Tropical; but they want to see the sea as soon as possible after landing. That is understandable.
So why not stop off for a late lunch or for dinner at one of the most atmospheric of restaurants, El Tintero. Located just outside the vibrant city of Malaga, at El Palo, dining here ensures that you do not have to spend hours studying a menu they don't understand. They just have to like fish and seafood. The waiters will walk between the tables bellowing out the names of the meals that have just been cooked on the open air barbecue.
I cannot think of a finer way for someone beginning their holiday than to have lunch by the Costa del Sol and then to walk along the esplanade between El Palo and Pedregalejo. Delightful.
So now that you have enjoyed a nice lunch it is time to continue your journey along the coastline towards Granada. Some in your party may wish to shop and the El Ingenio shopping centre located alongside the motorway at Velez Malaga is the perfect place to stop.
And the final potential stopover point should be the town of Salobreña on the Costa Tropical. You cannot miss it. The castle of Salobreña stands out from far away. If your visitors are feeling fit, stroll up to the castle and admire not just that historic building, but also the charming housing that adjoins the castle.
There are bars and restaurants up there, some of which offer panoramic views towards the city of Motril and beyond to the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Salobreña has all a holidaymaker needs. Some quality properties to rent, good individual shops and wide, open beaches. Even at the height of summer there is plenty of room on the beach.
Using an airport run to see more of Spain is a great idea. You do not have to divert far from the main motorway route. You can nip off the autovia and enjoy those places you have always meant to go to but, all too often, have driven past. Wondering if you would ever have the time to get to know somewhere new.
Flying can be the most stressful part of a holiday these days. So what better way than to ensure your friends get their long awaited break off to a flying start than to make sure they see some of the sights of Spain within minutes or hours of them landing?
Then they will know they have truly arrived in one of the greatest countries in the world.
The next airport pick up article will be from San Javier airport in Murcia.


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Rose Tops Conley 3-1
Updated: 04/05/2014 - The J.H. Rose High School baseball team is still undefeated following a 3-1 win against rival D.H. Conley Friday night.
Updated: 04/05/2014 - The J.H. Rose High School baseball team is still undefeated following a 3-1 win against rival D.H. Conley Friday night.
Updated: 04/04/2014 - West Craven's Jamie Cherry and Shelby's Gabe DeVoe are the 2013-14 Associated Press prep basketball players of the year for North Carolina.
Updated: 04/02/2014 - Kinston's Brandon Ingram and Brittany Drumgoole, Northside-Pinetown's Edrice Adebayo and West Craven's Jamie Cherry have been named to the Associated Press' All-State team for high school basketball.
Updated: 04/02/2014 - West Craven's Jamie Cherry and Shelby's Gabe DeVoe are unanimous picks to the 2013-14 Associated Press all-state prep basketball teams for North Carolina.
Updated: 04/01/2014 - The Parrott Academy Lacrosse team is off to its best start in school history thanks in part to the play of two Patriots defenders.
Updated: 03/25/2014 - Casey Sokolovic will be a senior cross country runner at D.H. Conley next fall but she has already put in a lifetime of work off the field of play.
Updated: 03/18/2014 - East Carteret sophomore Trevor Willis is our newest WITN Pepsi Player of the Week.
Updated: 03/15/2014 - A last second shot at the buzzer by Jaque Brown hit the front of the rim as East Carteret falls 72-71 to Winston-Salem Prep in the 1A state championship game.
Updated: 03/15/2014 - The Riverside High School girls basketball team fell just shy of an undefeated season and 1A state championship, losing to Bishop McGuiness on a buzzer beater, 61-58.
Updated: 03/15/2014 - Raleigh -- The Kinston High School boys basketball team won a third consecutive 2A state title on Saturday by beating North Rowan 67-57 at Reynolds Coliseum.
Updated: 03/11/2014 - Kinston senior point guard Andrew Lopez hopes to lead his team to a third straight state title this Saturday in Raleigh.
Updated: 03/10/2014 - Three local teams will play for state championships this Saturday in high school basketball.
Posted: 03/09/2014 - The state championship pairings have been finalized following the conclusion of the Western Regional Sunday.
Updated: 03/08/2014 - Scores from Saturday's boys and girls final games at the Eastern Regional High School Basketball Tournament.
Posted: 03/07/2014 - The Riverside Knights girls basketball team stayed undefeated on the year as they took down Pamlico in the regional semifinals in Fayetteville Friday night.
Updated: 03/06/2014 - East Carteret and Wallace-Rose Hill will play for the 1A Eastern Regional Title on Saturday with the winner advancing to the State Finals.
Updated: 03/05/2014 - Scores from day two of the Eastern Regional High School Basketball Tournament in Fayetteville.
Posted: 03/04/2014 - In the fourth meeting this season between the two schools, Northside of Jacksonville beat rival Southwest Onslow 54-44 to earn a spot in the men's 2A Eastern Regional Final.
Updated: 03/04/2014 - West Craven senior guard Jamie Cherry became only the 7th player in state history to score at least 3,000 career points and her 3,151 point mark is 3rd all-time and only 9 points behind former Williamston star Katie Paschal for 2nd place.
Posted: 03/04/2014 - Two games involving teams in the WITN viewing area in the Eastern Regional basketball tournament in Fayetteville have been postponed.
Posted: 03/01/2014 - The North Carolina High School Athletic Association's regional basketball tournaments, will get underway on Tuesday as the state's prep teams continue the road toward the state championships.
Updated: 02/28/2014 - Boys and girls basketball scores from the third round of the state playoffs. The winners head to the Eastern Regionals starting March 4th in Fayetteville.
Updated: 02/26/2014 - Boys and girls high school basketball scores from the second tound of the state playoffs.
Updated: 02/25/2014 - Boys and girls scores from the first round of the state high school basketball playoffs.
Posted: 02/22/2014 - Several local wrestlers captured state championships in their respective weight classes Saturday in Greensboro.


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How Accurate Is The Newsroom?
A former producer of The O'Reilly Factor on what Aaron Sorkin gets right—and wrong.
What Sorkin Gets Wrong:
The Newsroom can be read as Sorkin's attempt to cure what's ailing the news industry, but he's misdiagnosing the patient. In the universe of the show, the biggest knock against News Night is that Daniels' McAvoy is too safe, too middle-of-the-road, too afraid to offend or rock the boat. (He's repeatedly, disparagingly compared to Jay Leno.) McAvoy's new executive producer MacKenzie (Emily Mortimer) urges the anchor to take more risks, become more opinionated, and stop covering fluffy stories, ratings-be-damned. McAvoy, who has been enjoying the highest ratings at the network with his tame, anodyne broadcasts, worries that if he turns into a tough guy his viewers will flee in droves. But ultimately he goes along with the new plan, rebooting News Night with an on-air apology to his viewers for not covering more substantial topics. He starts to get more confrontational, and feels invigorated by the change, but—as he feared—the numbers start to drop.
Of course in reality, the problem with cable news isn't that anchors are too timid, or loath to offend for fear of losing viewers. It's the exact opposite. Most modern cable news hosts are actually quite eager to stir the pot, believing that opinion and controversy are the things that drive higher ratings. And the data backs up that view: Fox, with combative anchors who are drifting even more to the right as the election approaches, is still No. 1, while the decidedly straight-down-the-middle CNN hit record-low ratings last month.
The Newsroom also fundamentally misstates the centrality of ratings in the cable news industry. When News Night's ratings dip due to McAvoy's new on-air persona, it draws the ire of Reese (Chris Messina), a reptilian corporate stooge with his eye on the bottom line. He tries to convince the anchor to moderate his stance to win back viewers. To keep his colleagues in the dark about his desire for increased popularity, McAvoy insists on meeting with the executive in secret, outside the office, Deep Throat style. In the world of The Newsroom, the quest for ratings is portrayed as shameful, something that only the bean counters should care about, and that any serious journalist should ignore.
But in the real world, every single cable news employee, from the CEO down to the lowliest intern is acutely aware of—or in some cases obsessed with—the numbers. At Fox, every afternoon at 4:30 p.m. an email goes out to a massive distribution list of senior staff and talent; attached is a spreadsheet with 20 pages of ratings data from the previous day's programming, for every show on the network, as well as every show on CNN, MSNBC, and Headline News. The data is broken down into 15-minute increments then sliced and diced into various categories—total viewers, viewers aged 25 to 54, live viewers, DVR viewers, and so on. Producers, executives, and, yes, anchors, pore over these numbers with Talmudic devotion, and adjust the programming accordingly. I'll let other people argue whether this practice is good or bad for journalism. But for Sorkin to ignore this aspect of the industry is baffling.
Not that any of this ruins my enjoyment of the show. I agree with a lot of the early criticism of The Newsroom, but I'm also a lot more sanguine that Sorkin can turn it around by the end of the season. Then again, maybe it's impossible for me to be objective about a show that portrays my old profession as heroic, when I departed that profession in such a less-than-heroic manner.


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May 1, 2016
An area neighborhood is on guard after spotting what appears to be a panther. Those who didn't see it say the growl they heard is frightening enough.
William Dunwoody, a Perry resident, says, "I heard something, like 'graaaw, graaaw.' It was loud and scary. It just shook every hair on my body."
William Dunwoody has been warning his neighbors in southwest Perry of the animal noise he heard outside his home.
Mary Scott says it's a panther because she's seen it several times in her yard.
Mary says, "We have a lot of children playing out here. He was a big, black panther. As a matter of fact, he looked like he was larger than I am, so I wish something could be done about it."
Patricia Brown says she saw two paw prints the size of her hand. She says they were positioned on the hood of her truck as if the animal were trying to jump across.
Patricia Brown, a concerned resident, says, "Late one night around one or two in the morning, I heard a noise hit on top of my vehicle like somebody putting a dent in it or something."
Brown says the big cat is also responsible for damage to the skirt of her trailer home. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says the noise description, vague paw prints in the sand, and even the eyewitness isn't much help.
Nuria Sancho, a wildlife biologist, says, "We don't have any proof. We're just trying to investigate the case and hopefully we'll know what it is."
FWC says the residents should not be afraid. Perry Animal Control did set a trap in Patricia Brown's yard for one day, but to no avail.
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McWatt was a Starfleet officer who served under Captain Leyton aboard the USS Okinawa when Benjamin Sisko was the ship's executive officer. In 2372, Leyton, now an admiral, reassigned McWatt as part of his preparations to launch a military coup. (DS9: "Paradise Lost")
The unauthorized reference book The Nitpicker's Guide for Deep Space Nine Trekkers (p. 339) notes that the crew of the Okinawa (apart from Sisko) were named after characters in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22. McWatt was a pilot in the novel.