"For people who love greens, this is the best time of the year."
- Josh Alsberg, Rubinette Produce

I've said that the only thing that keeps me from weeping crocodile tears at the end of chicory season every year is the appearance of those bundles of flower sprouts called, variously, raab, rabe or rapini at my farmers' market.

Quoting Ginger Rapport of the Beaverton Farmers Market from the post linked above:

"Cruciferous vegetables are vegetables of the family Brassicacae, known as Brassicas or Crucifers. They include: cauliflower, broccoli, mustard greens, arugula, bok choy, kales and cabbages to name a few. Rapini and broccoli rabe are close cousins and are often used interchangeably. They are in the same subspecies as the turnip, hence they have the characteristically slightly bitter taste of this group. They do not form the large heads that we see in broccoli.

"The flower buds of brassicas from the turnip family are often referred to as rabe, or raab, derived from rapa, which means turnip in Italian. This time of the year, you will find the rabes of many types of brassicas in the market—kale, mustard greens, Brussels sprouts, turnips, bok choy and Chinese cabbage."

As is my habit at the beginning of every season, I called on Josh Alsberg of Rubinette Produce to get the 411 on what to look for at local farmers' markets in the next month or so.

While it feels a bit early, Josh said we are seeing local asparagus appearing, albeit in limited quantities until Easter weekend, so those who simply must have some, get thee out of bed at the crack—or "butt-crack" as my friend Clare Carver refers to it—of dawn to wait in line at your preferred farm's booth, because it will sell out quickly. Alsberg got 250 pounds of early asparagus into the shop from Middleton Six Sons Farms in Pasco, Washington, and it sold out almost immediately.

And those early spears? He said they had marvelous flavor, "nice'n'snappy," and admitted that early season asparagus, as with many crops, is usually the best in terms of having more robust flavor. And if you see spears that have a slight kink or bend in them? Alsberg said it's most likely caused by windy conditions in the field—spears will bend into the wind rather than swaying with it, causing them to have a bent appearance. Who knew?

In addition to green asparagus, the purple version will also be available, along with purple sprouting broccoli—aka PSB—an overwintered crop that is planted in the fall. Like many purple-tinged vegetables, the color will disappear if it's boiled or steamed so, next to serving it raw, either roasting or sautéing is your best bet for retaining that gorgeous color.

Other greens to look for include arugula, sorrel, fava tops, pea shoots, and mizuna and other mustards. Gorgeous, vibrant heads of green, red and speckled lettuce will be showing up by the end of the month for your spring salads, and herbs like cilantro, parsley and chervil have already started popping up.

Alsberg notes that spring alliums are appearing on local farms' lists, so start pulling out your recipes for green garlic, spring onions and their Spanish cousins, calçots (left). (Get a recipe for grilled calçots with salbitxada sauce from a calçotada we attended.)

Foragers are already finding nettles, miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata), fiddleheads, wild flowering onions and oxalis in their favorite hunting grounds, so those wild delights will be showing up by the baskets-full at local markets soon, too.

And because it comes up every year, I dutifully asked Alsberg when we might be seeing the first decently flavored local strawberries of the season. "Possibly by Mother's Day [May 8]," he said, noting that he's heard rumors the season may be delayed because of "weird" spring weather patterns. "But definitely by Memorial Day."

I had another one of those slap-my-forehead moments when I was reading Ginger Rapport's weekly newsletter from the Beaverton Farmers Market. As Market Master—I love that title—it's part of her job to not only recruit, interview and decide on vendors, but to test their products as well. This week she sampled a fermented product from Sarah Pesout of The Fermentista, putting it in a grilled cheese sandwich which she—like me—had never even thought of.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are a go-to favorite for most meals because they are easy, delicious and highly customizable. Over the years we have seen dozens—maybe hundreds—of combinations of bread, condiments, cheese and add-ins, all resulting in a gooey tasty sandwich. However, we have to confess that it never occurred to us to use sauerkraut as a solo add-in until we saw a recipe for a grilled cheese with sauerkraut and Dijon sandwich from Umami Girl. 

When we think of sauerkraut on a sandwich, most of us think of the classic Reuben which is made with corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese on rye bread slathered with Russian dressing. The sauerkraut acts as a counterbalance to the richness of the cheese, meat and dressing, much the way pickles do on other types of sandwiches.

The sharp fresh taste of the kraut helps cut through the rich fat of the cheese, making for a more balanced bite. This is especially true if you are using aged or sharp cheeses with a lot of flavor and fat. Once the idea of adding sauerkraut to a grilled cheese made sense to us, the next question was, what kind of sauerkraut do we use? So we turned to the market’s expert on the subject, Sarah Pesout, owner and chef of The Fermentista.

Sarah specializes in fermented vegetables from sauerkraut to salsa. Fermenting gives food a sour flavor without any added acid, which differs from pickling, which involves putting food into an acidic brine. Fermenting is a healthier and, in our opinion, tastier way to preserve vegetables such as cabbage. Sarah makes several delicious krauts so we asked for her recommendation. Market Master Ginger Rapport was leaning toward her Caraway Sauerkraut because she loves the hint of onion that Sarah adds to the mix. However she changed her mind at Sarah’s urging and instead picked up a jar of Fermented Leeks with Black Pepper.

Sarah explained that the leeks, like pickled onions, are a perfect accompaniment to grilled cheese and wanted us to know that she and her assistant hand-cut every leek she uses. Despite the resulting tears shed by the duo, they are committed to finely shredding the leeks by hand to avoid bruising and mangling of the otherwise sturdy allium. The final result is a product that is crunchy but not tough, full of flavor but not overpowering, and is a perfect match for a sharp cheddar and fontina grilled cheese on Jewish rye bread with Dijon mustard.

Note: In Ginger’s first sandwich she was very conservative with the leeks, not knowing what to expect. They were surprisingly gentle so she was much more generous with them in subsequent sandwiches and they were a big hit with her family.

The Beaverton Farmers Market one of the generous sponsors of Good Stuff NW. Top photo and middle photo by Beaverton Farmers Market. Bottom left photo of the sandwich I made with my husband's fabulous sourdough, organic sharp cheddar and my homemade sauerkraut!

Lisa Belt loves people, but she loves baked goods even more.

"I love everything in this store," she said, sweeping her arm above the counter packed with baskets of freshly baked loaves of sourdough, baguettes, challah and caraway rye at her newly opened Flour Market on Northeast 30th and Killingsworth. Those golden loaves are in addition to the croissants, cookies, crackers, granola, biscotti, blondies and…well…you get the picture.

I myself am particularly fond of the pastelitos, squared layers of shatteringly crisp, flaked croissant dough that Matt, the croissant savant at the market's production bakery, whose family has roots in Puerto Rico, made and filled with cream cheese and a guava paste that an aunt sent in a care package. Belt describes the market's signature panforte as a "grown-up treat that goes perfectly with tea, coffee, wine, or eggnog and whiskey. (Ask me how I know.)" I'm thinking it would be the perfect dessert at the end of an evening with a dram of my homemade nocino—I'll keep you posted on that one.

The Flour Market retail store was born, oddly enough, out of the shutdown from the COVID pandemic. A few months before, Belt had been talking about buying the production bakery from the owners of Lovejoy Bakers, Marc and Tracy Frankel, which they'd created to supply breads for paninis for their Pizzicato Pizza locations. Lisa had been managing the bakery and Lovejoy cafés for nearly 10 years, and when the Frankels decided to retire and sell the business, she figured buying it was better than being out of a job herself, not to mention all the bakers and production staff who would be out on the street.

By the time COVID hit Belt had acquired several wholesale accounts and was able to keep most of the staff on at the production facility filling orders, and there was enough street traffic at its location near OMSI and the Eastbank Esplanade to do a brisk takeout business in pastries on Saturdays. Customers started asking if she could also sell them flour, yeast and sourdough starter for bread, ingredients that were in short supply due to the baking frenzy generated by the pandemic lockdown. The successful no-contact takeout business made Belt start thinking a retail location might be a good idea.

So with COVID restrictions easing and people being more comfortable meeting with friends indoors, the idea of opening a retail location made even more sense. It so happened that Biga, another project of the Frankel's, closed down its location on Killingsworth, right around the corner from Extracto Coffee, providing the perfect opportunity for Belt to act on her idea.

Plans for the future include a menu of items Belt refers to as "bread adjacent" like toasts with simple, seasonal toppings and a granola, yogurt and fresh fruit bowl, plus a menu of sandwiches geared to the market's plethora of savory loaves. She's also got ideas for a specialty "bread of the month," perhaps a honey whole wheat that's currently in development with her team at the bakery or, in a nod to her Northern European ancestry, a traditional Danish rye bread called rugbrød or Swedish limpa, a lighter rye with a hint of orange that her mother used to make for the family when Belt was a child.

With a long history in managing restaurants and food establishments in Portland—overseeing the reboot of Genoa and its sister bistro, Accanto, running World Cup Coffee's stores, and her work at Lovejoy—she knows how critical it is to have a business that not only works for her but also for the employees. So if you ask, as one customer did recently, if Belt had made the mountains of baked goods herself, she'd respond by laughing and shaking her head, then proceed to point at each item on the counter and name the person who'd made it.

Oh, and did I mention that it's a little over a half hour's walk from my front door? Talk about an opportunity!

Farming involves developing systems that work for both the land and the people who labor on it. Contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm reviews one such sytem.

Between 1999 and 2007, the staff at Ayers Creek Farm harvested about 200,000 pounds of Chester blackberries annually and we sold them to Small Planet Foods. The company packed the blackberries under their Cascadian Farms label. At the time, our 10-acre planting accounted for about 15 percent of the nation’s organic blackberry production—reflecting the weak state of organic fruit production and demand at the time, rather than an indicator of our prowess as growers. Nonetheless, my mother enjoyed being able to buy our berries from her local store in upstate New York. 

A few years into the venture, mother left an indignant message on our answering machine complaining about a drop in our quality—she found the berries seedy and not so sweet. I returned the call and asked her to read to me the “country of origin.” Demand for organic blackberries had by then outstripped our production and supply gaps were filled in with organic ‘Brazos' blackberries from Chile. After that, she checked the label before buying. As New Seasons Markets expanded and immigration restrictions threatened to sap our access to labor, we shifted to fresh market production and bid an amicable farewell to Cascadian.

The currency of the field during the Cascadian Farms years was the punch card, a 3.5-inch by 4.5-inch piece of colored card stock. Common to every farm that picked fruit by hand, it was used to tally the day's wages and establish the price paid to harvest the berries. A few weeks before our first harvest, we visited the offices of the now-defunct Hillsboro Argus, the local newspaper which printed these cards for farmers. The standard card had three rows of numbers on top and four on the bottom, and a space in the middle for the farm’s name and address, the person’s name, and the date. Following the advice of the printer, our cards had a row each of 25, 20, and 10 at the top, and a row of five, two rows of two and one row of one. He also recommended three different colors of stock—yellow, red and green to allow a change in the price per pound paid without engendering confusion.

Punch cards need punches. The printer opened a drawer of neatly arrayed green boxes, each containing a uniquely designed punch. Commercial punches are precision tools made from heavy, polished stainless steel, fitting comfortably in the hand with no rough edges to raise a blister at the end of the day. Nor did they leave hanging chads; a term that would slip into the vernacular a couple of years later. They were $100 each. 

The printer recommended that we look for shapes that would be hard to duplicate. He regaled us with tales of industrious people who used a file to shape a counterfeit a punch from a nail, or painstakingly cut out punch marks with a knife. He recommended a pattern with a combination of curved and straight lines. We selected three which became known as the bat, sweepy lady and the fireplug.  I had the bat and weighed fruit at the center of the field, Carol had sweepy lady and tallied fruit at the north or south edges. Zenón and the fireplug would fill in where an additional tallier was needed. A punch and a card created money, so the punch was always secured to our belt with a bright pink cord.

Each day we harvested, a new card was started with the date written on it. Regardless of the price per pound paid, all staff had to earn minimum wage. People picked at different rates and level of quality, much as typists vary in the number of words per minute and accuracy. On a given day, the tallies might vary between 150 and 350 pounds. There was no correlation between age or gender, it was just a matter of how the eyes and fingers worked in union. Leticia, a 20-year-old woman and Gregorio, an 80-year-old man, were the fastest workers, both pulling in 350 pounds or so in the course of six hours. 

On Saturdays, we set out a box of envelopes and staff placed the cards inside an envelope. We spent the better part of Sunday sitting at the kitchen table tallying the cards and preparing payroll. On occasion, someone would lose a card. We would ask them how many pounds were punched on the card. We would write that number on a card, indicating that it was a replacement, and it would go into the envelope. We also had a policy of paying on cards even if they were handed to us a year later. As currency, the cards were occasionally reassigned. For example, a cousin had to return to California and would not be there to cash the check.

We kept a calendar with the starting and ending times for the day’s harvest, and calculated the number of pounds harvested that would meet minimum wage at the posted price. The rule of thumb was that if more than 20 percent of the people were picking at a rate below the minimum wage, it was time to increase the posted price. When the posted price changed, the color of the card changed. By the time we made the second change, the end of the season was nigh. Typically, the first half of the crop was easiest to harvest, the next quarter was slower and we would raise the price by five cents, and the final quarter was much slower, and the price would increase by another 10 to 15 cents.

Generally, the Chesters were considered a good day’s work. But if another farm had a field of pickling cucumbers ready, we would lose the strongest and fastest young men who could make more money in that field. We lost the same group when the vineyards started harvesting grapes. Where brawn was rewarded over dexterity, we lost the strongest staff members. By that time, the Chesters were pretty much finished, though. 

The most fraught moment in the field is during the tally. The mood could devolve quickly, leading to confusion and unnecessary upset. We had a rule that no one could talk to the tallier or to the person whose fruit we were weighing. If there was any distraction or commotion, we would stop, step back, and wait until things settled down, in much the same way as a pitcher steps off the mound to gather control of the moment. As the fruit was weighed, the number of pounds was called out and the person handed the tallier the card. The face of the card had to be clearly visible to all while it was punched, and then returned so the person could confirm the amount punched. Comity in the field was precious. It was protected by a predictable choreography and organization.

Computers have supplanted the punch card. We cling to the beautiful steel punches as a beautifully-crafted artifact of our history as berry growers. The punch card was a simple, intuitive and tactile form of communicating the day’s wages.

Annie Mah was 14 years old when a man named Chong Chin Joe—known as C.C. Joe—of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, chose her picture from among those of young Korean women from peasant families that were presented by a network of family friends. In 1925, she left her family in Hawaii to make the arduous journey across an ocean and most of a continent to marry a man she'd never met.

She brought with her only the basics she needed for the journey, but Annie also carried with her the recipes her mother had taught her, recipes that her own mother had brought with her from Korea when she was imported to work in the pineapple fields of Kauai in the early 1900s. The recipes were for staples of the Korean diet like kimchi, a traditional dish of vegetables fermented with salt and chiles, and another for a sweet-spicy miso paste called gochujang (or kojujung, as the family refers to it).

I first tasted Annie's gochujang at a dinner at my friend Denise della Santina's home. I was entranced by the sweet, spicy tang of umami and the thick, jam-like texture of the miso, chiles, garlic and honey as it spread across my tongue. I'd used a store-bought brand in my Pandemic Pantry Mapo Tofu, but like so many mass-produced versions of traditional condiments it didn't have anywhere near the depth of flavor that this homemade sauce had.

Of course I immediately begged Denise to share the recipe, one that her sister Cyndi had demanded from their aunt Elsie, Annie's second-oldest child (photo, above). (I confess that I myself am guilty of "forcing" my mother to share family recipes.) After observing Elsie’s techniques, Cyndi had tried it, tweaked it, and finally written it down so it could be consistently reproduced. Denise offered to coach me through the process via text, since it takes several hours to cook the paste down to the proper consistency. Even so I could have reduced it even more, according to the family members who've tried it. Except for that, Denise pronounced it almost identical to her family's and in fact, because it dries out as it ages, she liked that mine was softer and more spreadable.

As for Annie herself, after arriving in Milwaukee she joined Mr. Joe in his Oriental Food Company, bearing six children over the next decade. Elsie said she remembers her mother standing at the end of a long counter, chopping vegetables for the business's signature chop suey, which C.C. produced for the lunch counters at Woolworth's and Newberry's.

Because she was so young when she arrived, Annie had almost no experience raising children, and certainly no experience with Midwestern winters, but Elsie recalled that there was a group of "German ladies" from their church who basically adopted the family and helped teach Annie how to keep house and take care of the children. Elsie remembers "five spinster sisters," the Lindenlaubs, who taught Annie to make corned beef with cabbage, as well as a warm German potato salad.

Denise said that her mother, Betty, put a Korean twist on the traditional German corned beef recipe—she referred to it as "yangnyeom," Korean for "seasoning," which my own mother would have called "doctoring"—since all that was available was canned corned beef, chopping in garlic, onions and ginger with the cabbage, along with splashes of sesame oil and soy sauce.

The Milwaukee chapter of their lives was upended around 1940 when C.C.'s business partner absconded with the business's money and he was forced to close it. The family then made their way to Los Angeles, where they had relatives. Annie and the children eventually continued on to Hawaii, while C.C. moved to Santa Barbara to test his fortunes. Having entered the U.S. illegally, he didn't have papers to travel outside the country—at that point Hawaii, not yet a state, was a territory of the United States and required official identification from travelers.

Family lore also suggests that having selected what he thought was a dutiful Korean wife, instead C.C. had married a strong-willed, independent thinker who wasn’t interested in being managed—and it meant their future as husband and wife wasn’t to be. But the gochujang lives on among the family members in Minnesota, Portland, Berkeley and beyond, wherever the family (and their friends, like me) still make it.

Annie Mah's Kojujung (Gochujang)

Adapted from Elsie Rie via Cynthia Forsberg.

Prep time approx. 3 hours. Yield approx. 2 quarts.

2.2 lbs. (1,000kg or 1 kilo) red miso) [I used Jorinji Red Miso. - KB]
1 c. toasted sesame oil
8 cloves chopped garlic
1/3 c. chopped ginger (peel & grate, do NOT lose the juice)
1 c. toasted, crushed sesame seeds [best in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder; my processor didn't grind them fine enough. - KB]
1 1/2-2 1/2 c. dark soy sauce
1 1/2 c. honey
1 c. Korean red pepper flakes plus 2 Tbsp. cayenne for heat as needed
6-8 Tbsp. shrimp powder [If not available, 4 Tbsp. fish sauce is an acceptable substitute. - KB]

Slowly brown the miso in a large, heavy frying pan (13" cast iron works well) over a very low flame.

Toast sesame seeds [I used a non-stick frying pan over medium heat, shaking or stirring constantly until golden. Cool. Crush sesame seeds in mortar and pestle with salt or grind in spice grinder until fine. - KB]

Add each ingredient while stirring and browning constantly over very low heat.  

Add the soy and sesame oil in half-cup increments, stirring until dissolved. Continue browning until it achieves a dark chocolate brown color, but retains a thick, paste-like consistency, about two hours or even more. Turns the color of very dark molasses, but it takes constant stirring on a very low flame. Should be a thick paste.

Get Denise's family recipe for her grandmother's kimchi as well as their favorite Greek dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves).

All photos courtesy Denise della Santina.

Call them stews or braises or, as New York Times food editor Sam Sifton termed this class of long-simmered, pot-cooked bellywarmers, "balms against winter’s bite," there's nothing in a cook's repertoire more satisfying on a cold night. Whether cooked on a stovetop or in the oven, the house starts to feel warmer almost immediately, and as the meat is browned and the vegetables are sautéed, the aromas begin to make stomachs growl in anticipation.

My first introduction to this particular stew was waaaaaaay back in high school when I became friends with a young woman who lived in our suburban neighborhood with its cookie-cutter ranch houses and striving white-collar families. Exotic in my stolidly middle-class experience, their house was littered with Balinese art and South Asian throws. Shelves of books rather than American colonial furniture were the focus of their decor, and when I was lucky enough to be invited for dinner they made curries and ethnic stews rather than noodle casseroles.

In other words, I was enthralled.

This all came back to me when friends—who've traveled extensively in Greece and are exotic in their own way—served us a Greek stew called stifatho that uses vinegar instead of wine or tomatoes to braise the meat, and calls for an equivalent weight of onions and beef. When I got home I dug through my trusty tin recipe box and found the original recipe from that family's home in high school—yes, I collected them even back then—and tinkered with it until it tasted just as I remembered.

Stifatho (Greek Beef Stew)

3 Tbsp. olive oil
3 lbs. beef chuck, cut in 1 1/2" cubes
1/2-1 c. flour
3 lbs. pearl onions (approx. 3 14-oz. packages frozen) or 3 large yellow onions, cut in 1/2" dice
2 c. canned or roasted tomatoes
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. oregano
3 bay leaves
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
1 stick cinnamon (optional)
2 Tbsp. brown sugar or to taste
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350°.

Heat oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.

Put flour in a 1 gallon zip-lock bag with a generous amount of salt and pepper and shake to combine. Add 8-10 cubes meat to the bag and shake to cover them with flour, working in batches to do all of the meat. You only want a dusting on each piece, so shake them off to make sure they're not clumped with flour.

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven. When oil is hot, add floured cubes to the pan, making sure not to crowd them. Brown them well on at least two sides. This will require several batches, so as they brown remove them to a plate or bowl. When all the cubes are browned, put them back in the Dutch oven and add onions, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, oregano and bay leaves. Place in oven for 90 minutes.

Remove from oven. At this point you can either serve it later or finish seasoning the stew. If you're making it ahead you can cool it and either keep it in the refrigerator or transfer it to containers and freeze it. When you're ready to heat it for serving, thaw it or pull it out of the refrigerator and remove the fat that has solidified and proceed as below.

To finish the stew, stir in the fish sauce and cinnamon stick and heat on the stovetop. Taste, adding salt as needed, and when you can just detect the cinnamon flavor, remove the stick or it will dominate the stew. If it's overly vinegary for you, start adding brown sugar a tablespoon at a time, stirring it in and letting the stew sit for a few minutes before tasting again, since the vinegar flavor will get milder as it rests. The thing you want to avoid is a baked-bean sweetness, so add a splash of additional vinegar if that happens.

Serve with rice—I made my turmeric rice with tangerine peels and it was fantastic—polenta or roasted potatoes.

"Slow Hand Farm exists to fundamentally address very large problems
[with our food system] in a very small way, with the understanding that
it's not just one big change that will fix things, but lots and lots
of small changes all working together."

Josh Volk is a farmer who doesn't own farmland, a consultant without a suit, an expert on farm machinery who prefers to build tools himself. He's also a bike racing enthusiast, a teacher, a writer and the author of books on farming and farm tools.

Volk is tall and lean, with a shock of reddish-brown hair that's usually covered with a variety of colorful knit or biking caps in winter or a broad-brimmed straw hat in summer. As is the case with many farmers, when he talks with you he tends not to look at you but out over the landscape, speaking in a cadenced, thoughtful manner that's echoed in his writing.

He was raised in a Quaker family in the Midwest where his father worked on Peace Education with the American Friends Service Committee. He attended a Quaker high school, earning spending money as a bike mechanic, which continued into college where he majored in mechanical engineering.

"I went to engineering school and got a degree in mechanical engineering because I wanted to know how things worked, and I wanted to build bicycles," he writes in his blog. While working in a high tech factory designing tools, he began reading the work of John Jeavons, cofounder of the group Ecology Action and the father of the modern biointensive gardening movement.

Volk started applying his interest in learning how things work, which had served him well in his engineering pursuits, to the problems of producing food. He volunteered at the East Palo Alto Historical and Agricultural Society, a mostly Black and Hispanic organization that was a driving force in lifting up a very poor community through community gardens, reconnecting it with a utopian agricultural past.

Josh is a connector in the farmer community. It’s rare to meet a farmer who doesn’t know Josh or hasn’t heard of him.

Though there are only remnants left today, the Society had a visionary plan for maintaining the integrity of the existing community by expanding open space for small urban agriculture, bringing jobs, job training and economic benefits for its residents.

Volk transferred the skills he was developing in his volunteer work with rural farmers, applying their techniques to smaller-scale urban projects. From Palo Alto, Volk moved back east to work on projects in Washington, DC, eventually working his way back to Sauvie Island Organics here in Oregon, helping to start Skyline Farm, a five-acre project to supply the produce for Meriwether's Restaurant in Northwest Portland.

He founded Slow Hand Farm in 2008, as he said, "to fundamentally address these very large problems [with our food system] in a very small way, with the understanding that it's not just one big change that will fix things, but lots and lots of small changes all working together." It was located on leased land on Sauvie Island and allowed Volk both to be a farmer and to continue his consulting work on projects from small gardens to farms with hundreds of acres of production, focusing on small, diversified vegetable growing for direct markets.

"Josh is a connector in the farmer community. It’s rare for me to meet a farmer who doesn’t know Josh or hasn’t heard of him," said Shawn Linehan, a Portland photographer who's known Volk for two decades. "He’s invaluable to our community and totally deserves acknowledgement for the role he's played in helping farms get started and connecting farmers to each other."

In 2013 Volk folded Slow Hand Farm into Our Table Cooperative in Sherwood. Founded by Narendra Varma, a former Microsoft executive who subsequently developed an interest in permaculture and biodynamic agriculture, Our Table describes itself as "a multi-stakeholder cooperative composed of three different interests along the food production chain: workers on our farm, regional producers, and consumers."

After three seasons with Our Table, Volk began working with Matt Gordon at Cully Neighborhood Farm in Northeast Portland. A unique partnership founded in 2010 between Trinity Lutheran Church and Gordon, it was driven by the values of delicious, healthy food, a healthy soil ecosystem, neighborhood-level sustainability and community self-reliance. Volk took over the management of the nearly one-acre property in 2018 when Gordon left to run the education programs for Rogue Farm Corps.

He’s proving that a farm doesn’t need to be big to be profitable.
As we try to change the food system, more people need to understand that
scaling-up operations is not the only game out there.

Cully Neighborhood Farm offers subscriptions to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), with shares available in the spring, summer and fall seasons, and Volk plans to offer a winter share in 2023. He's expanded the traditional CSA model by offering free pick-your-own herbs, cut flowers and vegetables in season, as well as access to a large collection of seasonal recipes from Katherine Deumling of Cook With What You Have and an onsite farm stand to supplement subscriber's shares.

Volk's first book, Compact Farms, written in 2015, showcases 15 successful farms that are examples of how farms of five acres or less can be sustainable, manageable, and productive.

"Most how-to farming books will discuss the biology, management and/or tool part of growing veggies, but fail to acknowledge the importance of the farm’s overall set-up," writes Jean-Martin Fortier, founder of The Market Gardener Institute. "He’s also proving…that a farm doesn’t need to be big to be profitable. As we try to change the food system, more people need to understand that scaling up operations is not the only game out there."

Volk's most recent book, Build Your Own Farm Tools, is a collection of the tools he's designed and built for use on his small farm projects, beginning with the basics of setting up a workshop, with plans for 15 tools, including designs for drip irrigation and how to set up spreadsheets for collecting important planning, planting, and market data.

"I’ve encouraged him to patent his tool ideas, but he doesn’t seem keen on the idea," said Linehan. "He thinks the designs should be open source, which speaks to his philosophy about helping others."

That sentiment is echoed by Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network, who calls Volk one of the most collaborative people she knows.  "Josh is a giver; he's willing to share everything," Selman said. "He doesn't hoard information but believes in putting it out into the world. He really believes in collaboration rather than competition."

At Cully, Volk has been able to expand on his commitment to environmental and social justice issues by building a small, contained, collaborative system in the community, one that's not built on an economic system that demands continuous growth, with winners and losers.

"When systems get too complicated, there's a lot to tease out," Volk said. "Small businesses, including small farms, are on the whole much more beneficial to the community, the environment and people's lives."

All photos courtesy Shawn Linehan.

As a young married person starting a family, I didn't often cook fish for dinner because I didn't grow up eating or cooking with it—good fresh fish was hard to come by in our small Central Oregon town. Even after my parents moved the family to Portland there wasn't much available in the strip mall supermarkets around our suburban housing development, the streets strangely named after Native American tribes. (Pawnee Path? Shawnee Trail? Sioux Court? Seriously?)

My mother was much more comfortable cooking red meat, what with her upbringing in an Eastern Oregon cattle ranching family. When we did have fish, it was most often from a can—tuna or the dreaded canned salmon, which was unceremoniously dumped in a dish, the indentations of the rings from the can still visible on its surface. Any whole fish tended to be less than absolutely fresh, requiring lots of what was called "doctoring" to cut the fishiness.

Needless to say, there was a lot I had to learn about cooking it.

Fortunately, we now have a myriad of choices for fresh-caught fish available at farmers' markets or one of many retail outlets featuring species caught off our own coast or harvested from regional waters. Recently I bought a portion of a friend's share of sockeye salmon from her Iliamna Fish Company CSF (Community Supported Fishery) subscription, several vacuum-sealed frozen fillets ready to thaw and throw on the grill or in a pan. (Check out this guide to Pacific Northwest CSA and CSF offerings.)

Since the weather was too inclement even for Dave, who's been known to stand over his grill with a beer in hand in an ice storm, I decided to try roasting it in the oven with a lemon piccata sauce that our friend Dana had made for a dinner. She'd come across a chicken piccata recipe that sounded great, but she had rockfish fillets on hand. Ignoring tradition like any creative cook, she decided to try a completely new dish on guests, subbing in the fish for the chicken. Excellent!

It seemed like salmon might be a good match, as well, so I followed her lead. Start to finish, it's ready in about half an hour…and I think you'll agree it's a winner. And it pairs nicely with my recently posted recipe for Turmeric Rice with Dried Tangerine Peels!

Salmon Piccata with Lemon Miso Sauce

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter or margarine
1 Tbsp. garlic, chopped fine
1/2 c. fish or chicken stock
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. capers
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. white miso (optional)
1 Tbsp. parsley, chopped fine, for garnish (optional)
1 1/2 lbs. salmon fillets

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium saucepan, heat oil and butter over medium heat. Add garlic and very briefly sauté until it's just warmed. Add lemon juice and stock and heat until it barely comes to a boil. Reduce heat to low, add capers and miso and stir to combine. Add a small amount of water to the cornstarch to make a thin paste. Add cornstarch to sauce while stirring, and allow to thicken slightly.

Place fish fillets in a 9" by 12" baking dish. Pour sauce over the top and roast in oven for 20-25 minutes until fish is cooked through.

The holidays heralded the beginning of citrus season, when the usual bins of lemons, limes, and oranges at the stores expand exponentially with an avalanche of fruit from sunnier climes. From tangerines and clementines to kaffir limes and buddha's hands, now is the time to play with them in everything from beverages to baking and even in savory dishes.

When I wrote recently about juicing and zesting those odds and ends of citrus left over from baking or cocktail-making, I totally forgot to mention that you can dry the peels from lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, clementines and mandarins, too. The method for doing so is dead simple, and after drying they'll keep for several months in a closed container with your other spices. (See drying method, below.)

With thicker-skinned citrus like oranges and lemons it'd be best to just use the outer peels, since their pith can be bitter, though with thinner-skinned fruit like Meyer lemons and tangerines (and their small round cousins) you can use the whole peels. And of course I'd recommend only using organically grown citrus, since a wide variety of toxic chemicals and sprays are used on conventionally grown citrus trees and fruit.

All that's left to do is strew the peels with abandon, since they'll add their special zing to just about anything you can think of, from seasoning mixes to teas, in baked goods and scattered on salads, in marinades and salad dressings and on chicken or fish.

Turmeric Rice with Dried Tangerine Peels

2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 c. jasmine rice
1 Tbsp. turmeric
4 c. chicken broth
3 bay leaves
1 tsp. thyme
1 Tbsp. dried tangerine, clementine or mandarin peel (see method, below)
2 tsp. salt
1-2 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)

Remove peels from citrus. Slice into 1" long by 1/8" strips. Place on parchment paper-lined sheet pan (or a smaller-sized pan if you're just doing a couple). Place pan in oven at lowest setting (100-150°) for 45 min. to 1 hour. Check to see if they're dry but not crispy. If they're still moist, keep drying and checking every 10 min. or so.

In a wide, flat-bottomed pan or deep skillet, heat the butter and olive oil over medium-high heat. When it shimmers, add onion and garlic and sauté until onion is translucent. Add rice and turmeric and stir to combine. Add broth, bay leaves, thyme, dried peels, salt and red pepper flakes and stir briefly to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer 20 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed and rice is tender (add more liquid if rice isn't done). Taste for salt and adjust.

Syrups made from seasonal fruit have become a passion, one way of preserving the distilled essences of the year to enjoy during the darker, rain-soaked days of winter in the Pacific Northwest. I've made syrups from rhubarb, persimmons, elderflowers and even fig leaves, which I'll splash into sprightly spritzers, cocktails and mocktails, often pairing them with whatever spirit seems appropriate, like bourbon, gin or tequila.

Recently my friend Lynne Curry posted a ginger-spiced cranberry syrup recipe on her Forage blog, calling it "the perfect mixer" and including a recipe for a Moscow Mule and another called a Cape Codder. Since I love the tang of cranberry almost as much as Lynne does, and locally grown, organic fruit is plentiful at farmers' markets and greengrocers this time of year, I thought I'd take advantage and make some that might, with a little luck and forbearance, last us through the winter.

We've come up with three cocktails to add to Lynne's list. Do some experimenting on your own and let me know what you make!

Ginger-Spiced Cranberry Syrup

1 lemon
1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. unsweetened cranberry juice
2 c. fresh cranberries
2, 1/4-inch thick slices unpeeled fresh gingerroot

Take the lemon and with a vegetable peeler, cut six 1/2" wide vertical zests about 2-3" long.

Combine the sugar with the cranberry juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes to make a simple syrup.

Remove from pan from the heat and add the lemon zests, cranberries and ginger. Cover and steep for at least 15 minutes.

Puree the cranberries and the ginger in the pot with an immersion blender or use a food processor. Pass the mixture through a fine meshed strainer into a storage jar. Discard the solids. You'll have 1 1/2 cups (12 oz.) cranberry simple syrup.

Cranberry Margarita

Makes one cocktail.

2 oz. tequila
3/4 oz. lime juice
3 oz. cranberry syrup (see recipe, above)
1/4 oz Cointreau or triple sec
Salted rim (optional)
Lime wedge (optional)

Put tequila, lime juice, syrup and Cointreau into shaker half-filled with ice. Shake 30 to 40 seconds. Pour into old-fashioned glass containing amount of ice desired.

Cranberry Old-Fashioned

Makes one cocktail.

2 oz. rye
1 oz. cranberry syrup (see recipe, above)
2 dashes angustura bitters
Orange twist for garnish (optional)

Combine ingredients in a shaker filled with ice. Shake 30 to 40 seconds. Strain into an Old-Fashioned glass with fresh ice. Garnish, if desired, with orange twist.

Cranberry Hot Toddy

Makes one hot toddy.

For the syrup:
4 Tbsp. cranberry syrup (see recipe, above)
3, 3" strips orange zest
3 black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
1 star anise

For the cocktail:
2 oz. bourbon
4-5 oz. boiling water
1/2 oz. lemon juice

In a small saucepan bring the syrup, zest and spices to a bare boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 15 min. Strain solids.

In a mug or appropriate toddy cup, add strained syrup to the bourbon, hot water and lemon juice. Stir.