As you browse the bulk goods section at the store, collecting nuts and seeds from the bins or even grabbing bags off the shelves, you would do well to think about the farmer who grew them. As contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm outlines below, those products we so blithely consume by the handful didn't just come from a packet of seeds scattered on the soil—indeed, they may have taken years to get to the point where the farmer considers them a viable product.

A pumpkin fruit with hull-less seeds originated as a chance mutation in the Austrian state of Styria during the 1890s. The pumpkins were grown as an oilseed since the 1740s and a sharp-eyed Styrian farmer noticed one had very different seeds. Without a hull, it was much easier to mill and press for oil so the mutation gained acceptance.

Styrian pumpkin seed oil, kürbiskernöl, is a Protected Geographic Indication (DOC, AOC equivalent) reserved for oil pressed from seeds grown in Styria. There are especially adapted machines for harvesting the fruits and extracting their seeds. For extraction of the oil, the washed and dried seeds are milled, turned into a paste with addition of water and salt, roasted and then pressed for their oil. As with other finely-crafted foods, other places have scrambled to find ways to cut corners and manufacture something cheaper, lacking the spirit of the original.

The idea of growing the hull-less seed type pumpkins for their seed came to us ten years ago. We did not have any interest in producing oil, just the seeds. Commercial pumpkin seeds in the grocery store had failed to impress; the seeds were chipped and broken, often stale and you could see they were grown and harvested without thinking of them as a fine food. Just a bunch of widgets. We thought it would be wonderful to have some good quality pumpkin seeds in the pantry.

Those original purchased seeds were a messy lot as well, producing seeds with qualities that made them less than desirable for simply eating whole. More widget thinking. Most problematic were seeds that split or germinated in the fruit; some even had roots. These seeds contained the bitter compound cucurbitacin and spoiled one’s gustatory moment. These very bitter, toxic compounds are water-soluble, so they may not affect quality of the oil, but when chewing the seed their awfulness lingers. The seeds also varied in size and some retained a hard rim detracting from their pleasure for consumption as whole seeds. Undeterred, we decided to embark on improving the plant's genetics and our management of the fruits.

Fruits in the Cucumber family typically have three placentas forming six paired rows of seeds, easy to see in the lefthand fruit. (That fruit is not very interesting, aside from being a perfect fruit for setting aside as a seed source. For our purposes, an uninteresting pumpkin is the gold standard.) Each placental pair is usually pollinated by a cluster of pollen grains from a single plant. You see this by looking closely at the interesting fruit on the right. The seeds in the lower lefthand placental pair have not split, while the seeds of the other two pairs have opened up showing their white cotyledons. This shows that the splitting of the seeds in the fruit has a genetic component. The observation means we can reduce seed splitting by selecting against the trait.

If the seed splitting had been a cultural trait, rather than a genetic trait, we would have needed to analyze how we grow the plants and harvest the fruits. Before we settled on the genetic cause, staff argued that we were taking too long to harvest the seed and that led to split seeds. A few years ago, confident that we were on the right track, we increased our planting substantially. To save labor, in early September staff harvested the seeds in the field. We did not need to haul the fruits out of the field and dispose of the deseeded pumpkins, saving a lot of staff time.

Alas, as those seeds dried they smelled exactly like vomit, an awful odor that lingered even when they were dry. We ended up giving nearly 150 pounds of dried pumpkin seeds to our friend’s pigs. A very expensive loss for us. Just the harvest, extraction, cleaning and drying of a pound of seeds required a half hour of labor. That did not include the growing of the plants, an additional expense. The last two years entailed taking baby steps to figure out where we went wrong.

In 2018, we planted just a few pumpkin plants. In September, we piled the pumpkins next to the harvest shed while we finished other tasks. With their hard shells, they were fine through all sorts of weather. In November, we started opening the fruits and happily there was no problem with splitting and, most importantly, the seeds were delectable from the start. Our breeding efforts were again validated, and the more patient approach to harvesting was also rewarded. Last year, we followed the same protocol with good results again.

Emboldened, we decided to double the planting this year. One rainy day in mid-September something seemed odd; there was music coming from the barn. Staff had decided to start removing the seeds from the fruits. Obviously, we had not adequately communicated the reason we left the pumpkins piled up in front of the shed. We dried the seeds hoping they would be good, but we had 28 pounds of pig food. I filled a jar of those seeds along with one containing the remnant of last years seed, and gave both jars to staff. One sniff and they understood the problem, and why it is important to wait.

In the course of two months, between mid-September and mid-November, the seeds continue developing within the fruits. Bear in mind, the fruits started growing in mid-July; so by leaving the seeds in the fruit until November we are doubling the growing time for the seeds. The pumpkin fruit is a living remnant of the plant and those seeds are drawing nutrients from the pulp. During this idyll they assemble the oils critical for their flavor. By mid-November, the seeds are measurably denser than those extracted in September, and have a fine, nutty flavor. Most importantly, no more recoiling from the odor.

We will continue to refine the genetic and cultural dimensions of our pumpkin seed production. In the meantime, we are enjoying this year’s harvest. They are delicious raw, but we like to pop them in a hot, dry skillet. The heat toasts the lovely oil and offers a pleasant crunch. Children will enjoy seeing them pop in the pan. All the popped seeds need is a pinch of salt and, just maybe, a squeeze of lime as they cool. Additional oils, fats and spices cover up their fine flavor. If they had a dull flavor or smelled like, well, you know, then it would make sense to try and add a different flavor or fragrance, but our seeds are perfect as they are.

In my ongoing quest to a) keep our teeth from chattering in our 66-degree house, b) get something for dinner on the table at a reasonable hour and c) use up whatever leftover bits and bobs are left in the fridge before they spoil, I'll often resort to a casserole or stir-fry that will be quick to prepare and (hopefully) delicious.

And when you're in the middle of a pandemic and can't pop out to the store to pick up some ingredients on the fly to make a special dish, it's especially necessary to be creative with what you've got on hand. Which is where casseroles or stir-fries come in handy, since they cover all the food groups—starch, veg, protein—and are warm, belly-filling and can be zhooshed with spices, herbs and condiments to tickle any palate.

Which brings us back to me standing in front of the fridge with the door open (forgive me, Mom) and rummaging through shelves and bins. A hunk of cheese, half an onion, some poblano peppers that didn't get used for tacos the other night, a half pound of hamburger that was getting to the use-it-or-lose-it stage, plus a half package of cream cheese, some frozen corn, and leftover roasted tomatoes from a soup—another favorite absorber of leftover ingredients.

From scanning the heap on the counter, I could have made my mom's "goulash," basically a hamburger noodle casserole with corn and tomatoes for the base and chile powder for some zing. It would have taken care of most of the pile, but I was in the mood to try a variation on an old fave—which, to be honest, has more than once gotten me in trouble, as in "well, this is interesting but please never make it again" comments from my family.

But, glass of wine in hand, I forged ahead nonetheless and commenced chopping and frying and stirring and finally put it all in the oven. Promising aromas began wafting out, heads (including that of the dog) popped out from around corners with quizzical expressions, and finally the pot was placed front and center on the table, all crispy and golden and smelling amazing.

Moments later, it seemed, it was all gone, down to the last kernel of corn. 

Tex Mex Mac'n'Cheese

For the meat mixture:
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 lb. hamburger, or Tolucan chorizo
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 large or 2 medium poblano peppers, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. frozen or fresh corn kernels
1 tsp. oregano

For the sauce:
4 Tbsp. butter
4 Tbsp. flour
2 c. milk
4 c. sharp cheddar cheese, grated*
4 oz. cream cheese
1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce
1 tsp. salt plus more to taste

For the casserole:
1 lb. dried pasta
1 c. whole roasted tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped
1/2-1 tsp. chile powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Bring large pot of salted water to a boil.

Place large frying pan over medium-high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the hamburger and brown, breaking it up into small bits. When it is completely browned, add onions and sauté until tender. Add chopped peppers, corn and garlic and sauté until tender. Stir in oregano and keep warm over low heat.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook until al dente.

While pasta cooks, melt butter in medium-sized saucepan. Remove pan from burner and add flour, stirring until the mixture is smooth with no lumps. Place saucepan back on burner and cook on medium heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add milk gradually, stirring/whisking until thickened, then add cheese in handfuls, stirring until melted. Add cream cheese and stir until sauce is thick and creamy, then add hot sauce with salt and pepper to taste. (The sauce should be slightly saltier than you'd normally make it, since when combined with the pasta it will tend to make it taste less salty.)

When pasta is done, drain and put back in pasta pot, add cheese sauce and stir gently to combine. Add meat mixture, drained tomatoes and chile powder and stir. Transfer to baking dish. Bake 30 minutes.

* I like a couple of sharp cheddars made locally, and recommend Face Rock Aged Cheddar and TMK Creamery Cheddar. Also Organic Valley Raw Sharp Cheddar and Organic Valley Grassmilk Cheddar are excellent.

Like all of us, my friend, illustrator Trista Cornelius is figuring out how to navigate her way through the pandemic between shutdowns, homeschooling her child, and freelance work. One coping device has been reading how others who've faced similar difficulties developed mechanisms to get through it.

Cornelius writes in her blog about reading MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf, describing Fisher's experience in England in World War Two:

"MFK describes using every scrap of leftover food as an 'absorbing and profitable pastime' and offers plucky solutions to big problems: Not enough fuel to heat your stove? Put the ingredients in a pot with water, heat to a hard boil, immediately shut off the precious heat source. Place the pot in a box lined with hay and cover it with an oil cloth. Let it sit twice as long as you would have simmered it on a stove in abundant times, and voilà: dinner."

Another way of coping for Cornelius is making vegetable broth. Taking the scraps and peels and turning them into broth "eased my pandemic anxiety. It gave me a feeling of alchemical power. I could turn scraps into nourishment!"

Read her full post, and get a printable version of the poster!

Thanksgiving is gonna be different this year, as every article in the country is noting. Duh.

You are staying home and not gathering with friends or relatives, right? Right? Because getting together for one meal this one time wouldn't be worth living with the guilt of killing your parents, grandparents, kids, relatives, friends or members of the broader community, right? Right.

Check the graph on the left if you don't believe me. (Full size version.)

So, anyway, just because there's a pandemic and you might not be getting together with the people you care most in the world about (see above) doesn't mean you can't eat well. Right?

For instance, Thanksgiving, to me, aside from spending time with those I love (but not this year, right?) is not so much about the turkey. Though Dave, who is hidebound in his compulsion to grill the bird regardless of snow, sleet, rain, freezing temperatures or any other calamities the gods may place in his path, and who must have his turkey enchiladas made from the smoky (and really quite fabulous) leftovers, will do it regardless.

Myself, I'm all about the sides. From dressing to potatoes and gravy, to (this year) a chicory salad à la Nostrana and various seasonal vegetables roasted to perfection, they are what make the dinner for me. (Sorry, honey.)

Below are a couple of easy roast vegetable recipes that I think are pretty spectacular that you could make for the holidays or anytime, and that could even serve as vegetarian-friendly main dishes alongside a roasted squash.

Wishing you a safe and healthy holiday AT HOME. (Right?)

Roasted Cauliflower à la Sahni

This recipe is my adaptation of Julie Sahni's version in Classic Indian Cooking. Sahni, who, along with Madhur Jaffrey, brought Indian cuisine to the masses here in the US, steams her cauliflower then crisps it by frying. I found it's easier and faster to roast it.

1 medium head cauliflower
4 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. coriander seeds
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
1 1/2 Tbs. fresh grated ginger
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped fine (optional)

Preheat oven to 400°.

Separate the cauliflower into small bite-sized flowerets and chop any stems or leaves into 1/2" pieces (seriously, they're great). Place in large bowl.

Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a small skillet until very hot. (Flick a drop of water into the oil. If it spatters, it's hot enough.) Add coriander seeds and cumin seeds and fry until the seeds turn dark brown, about 10 seconds. Reduce heat to medium-high and add ginger, stir briefly, then add turmeric and salt and stir. Pour over cauliflower and stir to coat. Place in 9" by 12" roasting dish (or roasting pan) and place in oven for 40-50 minutes until browned and very tender.

Taste and adjust salt. Garnish with chopped cilantro, if using, and serve.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Olives and Preserved Lemon

1 lb. Brussels sprouts, halved
10 castelvetrano olives, pitted and roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
3-6 anchovies, minced
3-4 Tbsp. olive oil
4 Tbsp. preserved lemons, chopped, or juice of 1 lemon
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place halved Brussels sprouts in a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Transfer to 9" by 12" roasting dish (or roasting pan) and place in oven for 35 minutes until browned and very tender. (I like the sprouts very browned on the edges.) Taste for salt and serve.

Coronavirus transmission graph from Licking County Health Department.

Jared Gardner (top photo) and Hilary Foote own Nehalem River Ranch, located on 100 acres of rich coastal land in Western Oregon. They raise cattle and pigs in a pasture-based, rotational grazing system that not only produces healthier animals and, therefore, more nutritious meat, but the system also builds better soil with more nutrient-dense forage as well as sequestering carbon. They are also active in building the North Coast Food Web, home to a diverse and thriving group of farmers, fishermen, and foragers. This essay is from a bulletin about a conference they attended of the National Young Farmers Coalition.

Hilary and I, along with two coastal vegetable farmer friends, attended the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) virtual leadership conference this past week as part of our commitment to improving ourselves and supporting the next generation of food producers in our region. NYFC has to be one the best, most thoughtful and inclusive organizations when it comes to resources for those on the ground. Plus it works to improve federal and state policies to support food systems and to make sure we all have fewer hurdles to enter and succeed at farming, ranching and fishing. 

We were most blown away by a keynote presentation by Chris Newman of Sylvanaqua Farms near Washington, D.C. Previously a software engineer, Chris came to farming a year before we did. We must have exclaimed “yes!” a couple dozen times, since we could relate to many parts of his story: how hard it can be to find the right balance as a couple and family; taking on too many things by ourselves (remembering our days of eggs, chicken, turkeys and geese on top of adding pork to the beef operation we had just taken over as newbies to farming); and how it can be unrealistic that any one farm, or small farmers in general, can take on the whole value chain that is necessary beyond actual food production: legal/compliance, tax/accounting, risk management, marketing, sales, storage, distribution, and customer service.

To be clear, we can’t say we relate to all of Chris’ experience, especially Farming While Black, a good read if you’re comfortable with being uncomfortable, or okay with all political parties being called out and, if you’re white, having the opportunity to imagine why a Black farmer in typical farm clothes (i.e. dirt-stained) is looked at differently when doing home deliveries in a farm truck in upper middle class white neighborhoods.

I have been casually following Chris’ writings for a year and a half after reading Small Family Farms Aren’t the Answer which, among other topics, included an economic critique of an institution so many of us love—farmers markets—and all the money, time and resources individual farmers put into them which, in aggregate, could utterly transform our local food systems if we built more cooperative structures. I thought of this article again recently when Food Roots published in their 2020 Food Producer Assessment that some Tillamook County producers are spending the same amount of time delivering food as 3.8 full-time employees, often passing each other on the road or, very literally, bumping into each other while delivering to restaurants, grocers and food hubs.

More and more of us are working to create models that promote
economies of scale that keep more food dollars in the hands of the local producers
and making it easier for the next generation to gain stability as producers.

We've centered our ranch's growth and resilience on cooperation, learning to exercise our mutual aid muscles, learning to ask for help, and finding ways to serve others—and we acknowledge we are riding the waves created by so many others before us. Chris inspires on similar topics from different angles, bringing his biracial experience, being raised by a Black father and an Indigenous mother from the Choptico Band of Piscataway Conoy, to create a vision for a better food system. Like our North Coast Food System Collaboration, he, too, was part of the Rockefeller Food System Vision. You can read our North Coast collaborative vision (with videos!) and a pretty short publication version.

It seems that more and more of us are working to create models that promote economies of scale that keep more food dollars in the hands of the local producers, all the while making it easier for the next generation to gain stability as producers.

The Rockefeller Vision spurred a deeper collaboration of nonprofits, economic development organizations and inspired farmer, fisher and rancher colleagues on the North Coast. Because of that work our region has received this year just shy of $650,000 in federal, state, and local grants to accelerate work over the next few years to improve coordination in our food system; increase local procurement through food hubs and from institutional, grocer, and restaurant buyers; improve access to healthy foods for all income levels; and, above all, slow economic leakage that happens when food dollars go to processed, flavorless and nutrient-poor foods trucked in by national food companies that squeeze producers all over the world.

Soap boxes aside, the point of all this is we are blessed and thankful to be part of a food system supported by our community, and also to be working in collaboration to actively improve the economic viability of all of our local farmers, fishers and ranchers, which in turn directly increases food access for all residents as well as building real wealth in our rural communities.

Photos from Nehalem River Ranch, Sylvanaqua Farms and the North Coast Food Web.

This week it was Steve Jones's Cheese Bar. Before that it was Andy Ricker's Pok Pok empire. The Portland restaurant industry website Portland Food and Drink shows more than 80 restaurants, pubs and related establishments have closed since the pandemic struck in March of this year.

Due to spiking positive cases of COVID-19, on Friday Governor Kate Brown declared a two-week statewide "freeze" on top of the "pause" she announced just the week before. She warned that Multnomah County was one of five that might have to brace themselves for at least a four-week shutdown, possibly stretching into mid-December, if not longer.

The news of this latest shutdown hit Oregon's restaurant and hospitality industry hard. On Sunday, the Independent Restaurant Alliance of Oregon (IRAO), formed in response to the pandemic to assist restaurants in responding to the crisis, issued a letter to Governor Brown and policy makers requesting that they convene a special session of the legislature to address the issues faced by Oregon's small businesses.

Noting that nearly nine percent of Oregon's workforce is employed by the industry, the letter, signed by more than 300 members, said that restaurants and bars aren't like hardware stores. "We can’t just flip a switch and walk away," the letter states.

"When restaurants close, the entire supply chain is disrupted, from root to roofline," the letter continues. "Sixty five percent of the revenue from independently owned restaurants and bars recirculates in the local economy. In addition to the nearly 200,000 Oregonians who are employed by restaurants and bars, our closure directly impacts bakers, fishers, butchers and Oregon’s 34,000 small farms."

While acknowledging the seriousness of the pandemic and the need to take swift action to keep communities safe, the IRAO letter reminds policy makers that government needs to take responsibility for the economic damage these mandates have inflicted on the state's small businesses.

"We've made $2,000 this entire year," said Emily Anderson of tiny P's and Q's Market in Portland's Woodlawn neighborhood. "A government mandate should come with government support. Something's got to give."

Take Action

The IRAO is asking patrons of Oregon's restaurants and bars to call and e-mail their representatives in Salem, as well as Governor Brown, by copying and pasting the following letter into an e-mail:

Dear (your legislator),

My name is (your name). I am a resident in your district. Due to coronavirus, many restaurants in my neighborhood won’t survive the winter. As you may know, most restaurants don’t actually make money on food, but on alcoholic drinks. If these businesses do not survive, the heart of my neighborhood will be ripped out.

I’m writing to ask that you take immediate action to help restaurants and bars survive, such as an extension of the commercial eviction moratorium and the ability to sell cocktails to go. With emergency requirements that both reduce occupancy and hours of operation during the pandemic, having another method of generating revenue would provide businesses a lifeline for survival. As they face the long-term structural challenges that COVID-19 has imposed on business, which was designed to be a gathering space, they are desperate for sustainable tools to help navigate the new normal.

Restaurants and bars account for nine percent of all employment in Oregon. And nearly 65 percent of the revenue from these businesses recirculates into the local economy keeping vendors, landlords and employees afloat. This small change to Oregon statute will help us keep businesses open and bring people back to work.

This is an URGENT REQUEST. Without your help now there’s a very good chance places of business in my neighborhood will be permanently closed by the next time the legislature convenes.

Thank you for your consideration,

(your name and address)

Top photo: Lovely's Fifty-Fifty; middle photo: Lucca; bottom photo: P's & Q's Market.

What are your comfort food favorites?

Mine tend to run to the hearty warmth and belly-filling attributes of the foods my mom made for us growing up. Tuna casserole, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, and a classic pot roast top that list, and I've added a few more of my own—a pandemic pantry version of mapo tofu is a new favorite—along the way.

Falling leaves and dropping mercury always mean getting out the braising pot and turning on the oven. It's an easy if not terribly efficient way to boost the chilly temperatures in a drafty old house like ours, for one thing, and the delicious smell of a joint of beef or simmering sauce wafting through the house for hours will have your neighbors hollering from the sidewalk, asking what you've got on tap for dinner.

The pandemic has everyone craving stability—three cheers for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris—and comfort even more than usual, and with most of us working from home or needing to save money on groceries, homey dishes like the ones mentioned above are both easy on the budget and can handily feed a family. (No doubt the reason my mom was partial to them, with three kids and a husband to feed every night, even when she also had a full-time job.)

The other night I was rummaging in the fridge and came across a pound of ground lamb and leftover hamburger buns that Dave had made, plus there were two half-heads of cabbage left over from making tacos. I'd been craving sloppy joes for awhile, so figured now was as good a time as any to give them a whirl.

Since cooking in a global pandemic means a quick dash to the store was out of the question, I decided to deviate from the standard tomato-based sauce and take advantage of the lamb to give them a Middle East-meets-Asia twist. Plus, instead of making a slaw to serve alongside, I took a page from pulled pork sandwiches and plopped the slaw on top of the meat-slathered, open-faced buns.

(Note: It helps to have a wide-ranging condiment selection for this kind of cooking. Fortunately our condiment shelf is literally overflowing…insert hysterically laughing emoticon here.)

Feel free to use the recipe below as a guide and make your own pandemic pantry adaptations depending on what you've got on hand. It may just become a go-to comfort food staple on your family's list of favorites!

Ground Lamb Sloppy Joes

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. ground lamb
2 Japanese curry bricks or 2 Tbsp. curry powder
1 yellow onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 sweet yellow pepper, diced
1 sweet red pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
1 tsp. coriander seeds, ground
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
2 Tbsp. gochujang
2 Tbsp. white miso
1/4 c. barbecue sauce
1/4 c. sesame vinaigrette or 2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
4 hamburger buns, toasted
Cabbage slaw with miso vinaigrette (optional)
Fresh cilantro, chopped fine (optional)

Heat olive oil in deep sauté pan until it shimmers, then add ground lamb and brown. Add butter bricks or curry powder and heat, stirring until fragrant. Add yellow onion and sauté until tender. Add carrot, peppers and garlic and sauté until tender. Add cinnamon, cumin, coriander, ginger, gochujang, miso, barbecue sauce and vinaigrette and stir to combine. Simmer for 20 minutes until flavors meld and meat is cooked through. Adjust flavors to taste, add salt if necessary.

Toast buns on both sides under broiler until nicely browned. Place one opened bun on each plate, top with meat sauce and then slaw. Garnish with cilantro if desired.

The fall harvest of goods from Anthony and Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm is truly a gift from the gods. Their grains and beans, grown from varieties they have adapted over decades of painstaking selection, play an iconic role on many Oregon restaurant menus and family tables. The same goes for their stunning selection of preserves made each year from only the best portion of their fruit harvest. See below to find out where to buy their products locally.

Demeter has lapsed into her sad repose. We have taken many of photos of the harvest deity. Demeter (Ceres in Latin) is generally portrayed with poppy capsules and barley heads in her right hand, reflecting her association with medicine and food, and a sickle or pomegranate in her left (top photo). The pomegranate a reminder of the six seeds Persephone ate. This simple bust captures the mother’s sadness and longing, subtly and gently, as she patiently awaits her daughter’s return. As we work in our harvest shed, we are reminded that the exuberance of her summer with her daughter leaves the granaries full.

The chap on the right (photo, left) is the Emperor Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius in long form. Generally regarded as one of the five “Good Emperors,” hence the Pius tagged on to the impressive string of names. Emperor Titus Antoninus Pius was credited as an adept administrator a talent that, to this day, appeals to the Romans. He was the adopted son of the Emperor Hadrian and was designated as his successor. Hence lots of busts and statues are scattered about the bounds of the Ancient Roman Empire, and his visage is stamped into Roman coins of the era.

But it is Demeter who is on our minds. An epic harvest has kept us very busy. Staff has just finished the extraction and cleaning of the pumpkin seeds. We have yet to shell out the popcorn, but there is no urgency because it takes many more weeks for the kernels to dry sufficiently so as to pop well. Nestled on the ears, the kernels will dry more safely. Haste can lead to small fractures in the kernels, robbing them of their oomph. Our trips to Sweet Creek Foods to make the preserves require an extra level of planning. Yesterday, we managed to wrangle the raspberries, Boysenberries and Veepie grapes into glass. Next Friday, we hope to accomplish the same with the currents, jostaberries and Loganberries. The jellies, plums and cherries are on the calendar for December.

The lag in scheduling open days has resulted from the need for careful planning, not plodding. Given the choreography imposed by the virus, we have been unable to organize an open day until now.

We are scheduling open days on Sunday and Monday, the 22nd and 23rd. We will send out a separate, more succinct email early next week for orders (e-mail Anthony to be notified). A December couplet will follow when we finally put the remaining fruit of the year in a jar.

Our beans, grains and preserves are also available in Portland, saving you all a trek out to the farm. You can find them at Providore Fine Foods (Pastaworks has preserves, Rubinette has grains and beans); Real Good Food; and Coquine.

This is a banner board using poplar, another fairly soft wood. The motifs for the sun and rain are influenced by those used by 20th century Japanese woodblock makers. The red ink is used by Japanese artists for their hanko—a signature stamp.

It is simplistic and imprecise shorthand to call something “Local" or "Oregon Grown.” And given the complexity of bioregions within the state, completely meaningless in terms of the influences on flavor, quality and spirit when it comes to what we grow here.

Our harvest is wrought from the soils and climate of Gaston, perched as we are on a bench above Ayers Creek with its heavy but fragile clay soils, and a hard-edged climate forged as it is between the montane anvils of the Coast Range and the Tualatin Ridge. Travel a few miles to the north or south, the climate and soils are a world apart. The challenges posed by the soils and environment of Gaston have pushed us into growing our own seed selections and varieties. All good reasons to use the ink of a hanko on the banner.

Photos by Anthony Boutard.

No matter who you're voting for, please make your voice heard by filling out your ballot.

And remember, it's too late to mail in your ballot in Oregon, but the good news is that there's an official drop box near you. Click here for a list of locations!

The Culinary Breeding Network was founded by Lane Selman, an assistant Professor of Practice in the Horticulture department at Oregon State University, in order to start a conversation between plant breeders, farmers and the public about bringing more flavor to our food. In this essay she recalls the beginnings of those conversations and how they have evolved into a global network of discussions. Scroll down to get the schedule for this year's Winter Vegetable Sagra on Saturday, Oct. 24, and links to the segments as they are posted.

The first time I encountered the Italian concept of the sagra was the very first time I went to Italy in 2014. It was near the end of an epic day of overstimulation at Slow Food’s international Terra Madre gathering in Torino. At a quiet booth along one side of the Salone del Gusto, I came across a small, accordion-folded pamphlet advertising something called the Fiera Regionale della Zucca, the regional pumpkin fair of Cuneo, Italy.

On the cover was an illustration with an adorable gnome sitting under an archway made of pumpkins in the piazza of a medieval town. The inside listed three days of squash-filled festivities, from pumpkin cooking demonstrations and meals featuring pumpkin in every course, to squash carving expositions and classes for kids about how to make musical instruments out of winter squash. The sensation was one of immediate recognition, like discovering a word for a feeling in another language that your own lacks—the way political junkies must feel the first time they hear the word schadenfreude, or nostalgic lovers learning about saudade.

At that time, I was working as an agricultural researcher at Oregon State University, and moonlighting on the side as the market manager for an organic vegetable farm. But the last few years, something else had been taking up more and more of my time. I’d been hosting events—what I called “parties”—to build some connections between the people who breed plants, and the people who eat them.

If the world of vegetables was the land of Oz, plant breeders would be the wizard behind the curtain. They have a huge amount of power over the foods we eat, but they’re only human. They can’t read minds to know, for instance, that chefs like smooth-shouldered peppers because they’re easier to chop without waste, or that most winter squash is sold in the days before Thanksgiving. And since most of us don’t really know that plant breeders exist, let alone know where to find them, we can’t tell them about the qualities we care about most. I wanted to reconnect academic and commercial plant breeders to their communities by creating opportunities for consumers to give feedback about in-progress breeding projects, but “party” just sounds a lot more appealing than “feedback session.”

If the world of vegetables was the land of Oz,
plant breeders would be the wizard behind the curtain.

My first party was a pepper party. I asked several local plant breeders to share the fruits of their current pepper breeding projects, with the goal of getting some solid feedback from chefs and consumers about which varieties they liked most. We tasted dozens of pepper varieties, raw and roasted, with the goal of helping shape the release of a new open-pollinated variety to replace an old hybrid that was getting hard to find. I went into it hoping pepper breeders would walk away with a better sense of which breeding lines consumers found most appealing. What I didn’t expect was just how fun the event would be—and what a sense of community it seemed to immediately create.

In hindsight, I’m not sure why I was surprised. It’s a truism that food brings people together, but the specific kind of energy I sensed at the pepper party was different than the generic good vibe of a dinner party. It was pleasure with sense of purpose and creativity, a feeling of community reinvestment in a food system that, in the United States, has long felt divorced from everyday life—hidden away behind a curtain.

That chance encounter with the brochure at Terra Madre gave me a new word, a new language, for these gatherings: Sagra. In Italy, a sagra is a festival, usually centered around food. The word comes from the Latin word sacrare, to consecrate, which refers to Italy’s centuries-long history of bringing together—consecrating—a community with feasts that celebrate the harvest.

Ancient sagre usually had a religious aspect, and were celebrated in front of temples or churches during the Medieval era and often linked to specific saints or feast days. In addition to elaborate meals, sagre sometimes incorporated historical traditions, rituals, or sporting events, like horse racing or a cuccagna tree. Modern sagre are distinctly more secular, something like a cross between a state fair and a church picnic, but they haven’t lost steam; some estimate 20,000 to 30,000 sagre are held in Italy every year, usually between the months of June and September (prime outdoor dining season). They’re casual, family-friendly affairs, and many attract a mix of international and domestic tourists. Almost as a rule, they’re unpretentious, sometimes to the point of hokey—think fried foods, cheap souvenirs, and dunk tanks.

“Party” just sounds a lot more appealing than “feedback session.”

Inspired by that humble trifold, when I returned home to Portland, Oregon, I teamed up with fellow researcher Alex Stone to throw our most ambitious event yet: Squash Sagra. We had been working on winter squash breeding trials for several years. One of the most common complaints I heard from growers was that Americans bought most of their squash around Thanksgiving—but many winter squashes don’t taste really good until, well, winter. Could an epic Squash Sagra (despite hosting it in an unheated, albeit very groovy, old warehouse) get more Portlanders to buy and eat winter squash in January, February and beyond?

Squash Sagra 2017 was a blast. We had squash “butchery” demonstrations. We served samples of squash-y delicacies, from savory dips to pumpkin ice cream. We demoed recipes. We let kids paint squash. We had a “cucurbit cuddles” photo booth. Many squash-themed outfits were spotted. And so, we kept going. The next year our sagra included squash and beans. In 2018, Chicory Week was created with farming and restaurant partners that includes an annual Sagra di Radicchio in Seattle.

Then, in 2019, we went to the next level when we attracted about 1000 attendees to celebrate nine fresh and storage vegetables at the Winter Vegetable Sagra in Portland in that same, but recently beautifully renovated and heated, old warehouse. In addition to turning people on to these often under-appreciated locally grown winter foods, the word sagra was introduced to many Americans vocabularies.

We share the same vision in weaving together education,
advocacy and joy into these celebrations.

In early 2020, right before COVID-19 descended on the globe, I even partnered with my friend and Italian farmer Myrtha Zierock to take a group of American radicchio growers, chefs and advocates to northern Italy on a Radicchio Expedition to learn more about this quintessentially Italian crop. We visited radicchio farmers and breeders throughout the Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige and Fruili-Venezia Giulia regions for five days, culminating in a winter vegetable celebration called Giàz (meaning ‘ice’ in the Trentino dialect) at Foradori winery in the Dolomites. Myrtha claims her vision for Giàz was inspired by the sagre we have organized in the US which is a deeply appreciated compliment coming from an actual Italian. We share the same vision in weaving together education, advocacy and joy into these celebrations.

When my family came to the United States from Sicily in the 1920s, they were eager to leave their homelands behind and assimilate into American culture. I grew up surrounded by my Sicilian-American family, but nobody spoke Italian to me (despite my great-grandmother neighbor that nearly only spoke Sicilian dialect), and the first time I ever visited Sicily was as an adult during that trip in 2014. Like so many second and third-generation immigrants returning to their ancestral homeland for the first time, I experienced that dizzying sensation of feeling simultaneously like a tourist and as if I was surrounded by a vast family for the first time: people who looked just like my grandparents, like my cousins, like me. Re-establishing a personal relationship with Italy and Sicily over the past six years has brought a new layer of meaning to my life. Developing my own version of sagre at home the United States that fuse American and Italian traditions has been a major part of that experience.

I can’t claim that the Culinary Breeding Network’s sagre are “authentic” in any particular way (although few Italians would argue that modern Italian sagre are an authentic expression of Italian culture, either). Like any imported cultural artifact, there’s something altered in the translation. But that chance encounter with a whimsical squash brochure in Piemonte years ago planted the seed for an idea that I hope helps Americans get more excited about eating regional foods by skipping the preachy eat-local lecture in favor of enjoying delicious foods (and wearing hats shaped like a slice of pumpkin pie) in community.

RAD-TV 2020

Undeterred by the pandemic, this year's Sagra del Radicchio is going online on Saturday, Oct. 24, with a full day of rad and bitter programming. Dip in and out as you please, and all content will be posted for later viewing (see links with each segment):

Tune in via YouTube. The schedule (all times are PDT):

9:00 am: Intro and History of Radicchio Cultivation with Andrea Ghedina of Smarties.bio. Watch.

10:00 am:  Travel to Northern Italy with Myrtha Zierock and Lane Selman, organizers of the Radicchio Expedition.

11:00 am: “Cribs,” a tour of farms in the US and Italy.

Noon: Cooking Show Time! Culinary pros will show you their secrets to preparing delicious radicchio dishes:

• Grilled Radicchio: Meredith Molli, La Medusa, Seattle WA. Watch.
• Roasted Chicory Root Coffee: Brian Wells, Tougo Coffee, Seattle WA. Watch.
• Radicchio Sauerkraut Recipe: Andrew Gregory, Post Alley Pizza, Seattle WA. Watch.
• Radicchio Tarte Tatin: Elise Landry, Chicory, Olympia WA. Watch.
• Warm Radicchio, Cauliflower, and Apple Salad: Lauren Feldman, Vif & Petit Soif, Seattle WA. Watch.
• Garbanzo Bean & Chopped Dandelion Salad: Zarah Khan, Botanica, Los Angeles CA. Watch.

1:00 pm:  Farmer Chat and Virtual Raw Bar with Siri and Jason of Local Roots Farm, and Tim and Caroline of Kitchen Garden Farm.

2:00 pm: Seed: Where it all Begins with Brian Campbell of Uprising Organic Seeds and Linda Fenstermaker of Osborne Quality Seeds.

3:00 pm: Station Break: Stand up, go in the kitchen, and make a fabulous radicchio feast!

5:00 pm: Happy Hour! Pour yourself a glass of amaro and join us for a virtual hangout.

Photos by Shawn Linehan.