A Jar of Red and Heart of Gratitude

I hold the pot and wait to stir. 

My heart is stirring before the flow starts. She is laying on the dirt. We are holding her legs, holding her head. Feathery strokes of fingers on neck, she stops struggling. Nature whispers to her muscles to be still, to breathe deeply, to trust the end. Her eye is turned towards the tree, a rope newly hanging from a limb. Her eye is turned towards the weeping sky. Her eye is still and softly yellow, the pupil a slit into another world, the future. 

I wait to stir. I find myself whispering Thank you Thank you Thank you.

The knife is sharp and quick against her throat. The skin is thin under coarse fur the color of desert earth. Her neck opens up crimson blood and white cartilage. I stir as the red collects in the pot I hold, shaking I stir, still mumbling thank you thank you thank you I stir as her lifeforce is pumped into my pot. I catch the blood to be made into food. I admit it sounds grotesque but blood is edible and nutritious and now I see it as another way to honor the life of this goat that is presently somewhere between goat and food. GOAT/FOOD When is that line drawn? When she was born into the care of humans, as she lay dying at the hand of a kind man, as it is butchered into small pieces that will fit into a pan? Maybe there is not a line, was never a line or an order. FOODGOAT

I stir. The blood separates and coagulates and I scoop out the solid bits as her muscles twitch their last. I set the deep red aside to help with the hauling of the body into the air, the skinning, the evisceration, the blessing of making this muscled gift an edible feast.

(Do these words affect you? Is your stomach turning, your mouth watering, your mind squirming to picture something else than this image of a goat bleeding out into a pot, into the earth? This is where we are. This is why I’m here. This is uncomfortable. This is the reality of eating meat. This is what I believe in and I want you to believe in it, too. Its not that easy, I know. We do not want to know the details, do not want to think about pulling a knife against a living being’s throat and being with them as their heart beats them to death, as they take their last breath, as their legs stop kicking underneath our palms. I am choosing to feel the conflict between gratitude and horror. I want to see/know/feel how easily life can cease. I want to appreciate who my food has been as a living breathing being to appreciate it even more on my fork.)

We continue, blood on our hands, warm body against ours as we lift her off the ground. The skin slides along the torso over a stratum of fat and fascia. It comes off surprisingly easily with knife against fur skin almost muscle and bone. Tug out and down, slide hands in and separate the layers. So many layers. We tug and cut and pull until the body is naked and cooling.

After the udder is cut away, a slow slice down the middle from pelvis to sternum is all that is needed for the jewels of innards to fall into my hands. I hold the blue-tinged intestines and slatey gray stomach and purple green gallbladder. As the body is emptied out of stomach and spleen, heart and lung, kidney and liver the warmth and beauty astounds me. The architecture and soft simple curves of complex systems supporting life rests in my hands. We are all soft inside and I see the emptiness of the now carcass (goat/carcass/food) and am struck with the sudden knowing that this is me upside down in a tree. My body is a sharp blade away from a shell of meat and bone and fat. Hollow and mysterious and always seconds from no longer existing in the way that I live/write/eat/slaughter/survive presently.

Blood and fat and fur on my hands, I pour the pot of bright red liquid into a jar for the ride home where it will be made into sausage with apples and onions from the land. I thank the goat for all she has given, all I have learned, how she will nourish our community at the harvest celebration that weekend. I thank her for reminding me how fragile and dependent and connected we are as farmers and animals and humans and community. I thank her for the opportunity to be witness to all that sustains us as people, for the opportunity to take responsibility for how I nourish my body. 

Thank you for making me stir with discomfort and awe.

This is life and death, this is gratitude.

Breathe and float

I cannot catch my breath and so I sail forward into the day,

my exhalation fueling momentum, 

my inhalation creating the calm before the storm.

I cannot finish my list, so I up-end the table with a simple lift and push. Over it goes, a listing ship of to-dos and not-dones; a n’er-do-well am I. 
I feel better when the wooden legs are broken, the chairs upset, the cutlery and pencils scattered across the tile, papers fluttering as my breath grows ragged and then (spokes of the hurricane) quiet.

I cannot quiet the looping in my head and so I run the opposite direction from where I sit on the field of floor, my dreams distracting me from the anger and fear sprinting throughout. 

Yet I return, out of breath, to my thoughts in this memoried track meet, a meeting of mind and heart and all the places my feet have been. We choose our loops or they choose us.

And the clouds gather.

I cannot gather my thoughts enough to choose between tasks and so I curl up in bed and read and read and read. I pull my laptop close to me and words spill out in barbed clickity-clacks and dripping pauses, a river of sentences full of jumping commas and gnashing dashes waiting to be caught, gutted, filleted, and devoured.

I am the hand on the pole and the hook and the jaws clamping down. 

It starts to rain.

I turn to look at myself and the words play dead in upturned palms.

My to-do list flops around, breathless, on the floor.

I am moved to stay still in this flood of not-enough, obligation circling at my ankles, pant cuffs wet with guilt and perceived failure. The current pulls me, it is too strong to resist and I am soaked in old tales. They rush into my lungs as I go under, commas and dashes thrashing about my head, sharp-toothed numbers sizing up my longevity and worth, jumbled letters clinging to my thighs. 

It is the words that untangle and push me up to the surface. Buoy me with susurrations of truth. I take a breath and feel the sky clearing and see the shore and taste the wind. I am floating. I can feel the turbulence underneath the surface but these words keep me afloat, above the flood, below the storm, in the soft dampness of the in-between.

I cannot catch my breath and so I sail forward into the day,

my exhalation fueling momentum, 

my inhalation creating the calm before the storm (that washes the sky clean).

Beets on the Asphalt

The beet hit the asphalt and rolled just a little. It was still (barely!) attached to the bleeding red stems and wilted leaves that had left marks on my shirt. The beet was fine. I was not. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream Fuck This Shit into the hollows between metal and glass and dirty ground otherwise known as Jersey City. When the bag that was carrying my groceries broke in the middle of the street, it seemed like too much. My arms were getting bruised from attempting to carry five overflowing shopping bags from the downtown Manhattan Whole Foods to a marina in Jersey City. 

Technically it was only 1.8 miles. 

Technically I could have walked this is 30 minutes. 

But technically I was across a major river, in a different state really, and about 30 pounds heavier with beets and organic milk and bottles of champagne vinegar (the latter of which bounced and cracked on the street). 

I plodded along for 15 minutes to the ferry from the store where the cashier had asked if I was getting a car and I had mumbled Or Something.  Blocks of concrete and avenues with cars and sidewalks with people looking at me like I was crazy. I felt crazy. One guy commented, “You got a strong back lady, a Strong back!” I took it as a compliment and huffed on. Crazy and determined and strong, that’s me. 

On the ferry, across the river, off the ferry, into the streets of JC, back aching. Crazy and not so determined and tired, that’s me. Fuck this, I’m getting a cab, I thought. But there was no cab in sight. I started stumbling towards the light rail hoping there would be more traffic. 

That’s when the bag broke in the middle of the street, beets rolling, glass cracking, me swallowing back tears. I just let the bag drop as I walked to the corner to put the other bags down. A man on a cell phone stopped and shuffled the beets and bottles back into the torn bag as he chatted about his weekend in the Hamptons to whomever it was who was on the line. He didn’t get off the phone or really look up but he did in fact ask if I needed any more help. Which I appreciated. And at the same time in my frustration I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself for not getting off the goddamn phone. Was that wrong? Misdirected anger? Projecting on him as a product of the city where people generally ignore one another and food comes in little plastic packages in brightly lit aisles and there is no way of knowing where it came from or who the farmers are or how much they are paid or whether the drought is affecting them this year or if the Begradas have finally moved north or do they use worm castings in their fields? This was not the man’s fault. He was connecting with Someone on the phone. He might have visited a farm stand himself out on Long Island that weekend. How was I to know? Even if he had been off of his cell phone I might not have asked him anything because I was so angry. 

Feeding the disconnection.

I want to feed the opposite. I know that cities can be amazing places to connect with people, with art, with food. But all these connections feel to me as manufactured and out of reach as a high-couture gown, me in my stained shorts and salty Converse. There are processes and barriers and some invisible scale on which we (I) compare one another and All This Stuff. This art, this conversation, this packaged and plated food. This yacht life feeds right into this weighted world that feels so foreign and plastic-wrapped. I want to step off the scale and just enjoy what I have. I can appreciate the effort and ambition and I also know that right now in my life I crave the simple. I want to shed all the pretense and drop down into the basic. Ground myself in place and community and converse about how we survive. I mean really soulfully survive. I want to make art in a falling down barn with the swallows flittering overhead. I want to go into the garden and pull out onions and carrots that I planted and watered and weeded, brush the dirt off their living backs and chop and cook and devour with gratitude, no plastic wrappers in sight. At home I have a chest freezer full of a cow I passed on the road everyday on my way into town. At home I eat eggs from chickens down the street. At home I have a closet full of dresses that have mud on the hems and I have shelves of dog-eared books on farming and soul. 

(And I am calling it Home! That is new. That is real. That is a connection I want to feed and nurture.)  

I also want to appreciate the now and all that this now is teaching me about what I actually want in this lifetime. All that this yachtie life and the city and its people can teach me. Absorb all the art and music and passion that I know is here. And then be grateful for the opportunity to choose my environment, to choose what and where I call home.

I rip off the bleeding stems of the beets and leave them as an offering to the lamppost on the corner. The concrete is simply sand and dirt and water. The city is a living thing, too, worthy of nourishment and gratitude for all it has been, all that lies beneath, all that will become of it as grass grows in the cracks of the sidewalk. 
Life doesn’t end, it is just the energy that changes form. 
The beet goes on.

Eat the Truth

It makes me anxious. Terrified really. I don’t want this to happen. I want to shield them from this reality. I want to pluck out the evidence at its source. They may be the last to know even when WE ALL KNOW. We are OK with it. Sort of. We just skirt around the issue as we chew and smile.

But They may not be OK with it. They may not want to skirt anything of the sort.

They will be excited for the day the box arrives. They will come to town with high expectations, a rumbling belly, a head full of dreams of creation and nourishment.

Fwap. Fwap. Plastic arms open into theirs. They gently expose the contents of the mysterious black box they've been waiting for all week. They pull at curly leafed lettuce and poke at the smoothly wrapped gift of cabbage. They lift up the kale to find adorable peppers and a rainbow of chard. They pop a leaf of basil into their mouth unable to resist the memories of warm summer pesto evenings. They pick out their striped tomatoes and peach-colored watermelons. They pile everything into a bag or box and say hello to all of us harvesters sitting at a table eating lunch as they make their way back to their car.

My anxiety grows. I want to warn them. But I also know that this is an important life lesson. That they need to know the facts and I can’t be the one to halt that process. I can’t be the one to pretend like it didn’t happen.

They will get home and plan out dinner. Corn will be on the menu. They will wash the lettuce for salad, chop up the eggplant to fry in olive oil, slice the tomatoes for garnish. Then comes the moment when they peel back the husks and silk and find it gorging on their dinner. Their dinner! Excrement and sloppy chewing filling the space around emptied kernels with a wriggling monstrous worm sloshing away in his own doings.

They will drop the corn and scream. They will throw the corn out the window straight into the compost pile. They will root through the rest of their box looking for wrigglers. They will never buy organic corn (or anything else from the ground) again. EVER. The farm will go out of business.

Pause. Rewind.

These are sensible, CSA, farm loving folks. They know that worms are a sign that the corn is not sprayed with pesticides, not GMO, not dripping with toxins. They know that sharing with the bugs happens, that this sweet corn is delicious to a variety of creatures.

And perhaps they want to know the truth:

Corn comes from outside!

Corn grows up from the dirt!

Corn and all the other organic vegetables inevitably have creatures crawling on them at one point or another whether you see them or not. And sometimes that one point is when they go into the boxes and go home with you.

So why the anxiety? Because I have seen those who won’t touch dirty tomatoes and shrink away from twisted carrots. I have washed my fair share of produce going into CSA boxes to ease folks into the ‘veggies come from dirt’ discovery. But I know the time is now for the link to be solidified between soil and nourishment, that there are so many who are ready for the mental hurdle that bugs on food can present. And we are helping them on that journey.

I start to have faith that these folks will still eat that corn. That they will embrace the worm (or feed him to the chickens) and devour the sweet juicy niblets. That they will appreciate the reminder that all life needs nourishment and who (or what) can resist fresh September corn on the cob? 

I look down onto my plate full of salad from the farm. 

There is a tiny green worm inching towards the edge. 

I smile and let him crawl, the worry dripping away like butter off a cob. I am no longer anxious about the effect the worm in the corn will have. I realize I am actually part of the effect, a source of positive change in this society, thanks to this farmer’s honesty. 

I welcome another creature to our table and keep on eating.

Back on the farm

Dirty fingernails, open heart.

I milked a goat for the first time today. Or I think it was the first time. She munched on molasses covered oats as I took a hand to her udder. Pinch. Rhythmic squeeze. The sound of milk hitting the inside of the metal pail. I was slightly disgusted at first. I mean, what else comes out of a body? Pee, shit, semen, snot, tears, saliva, sometimes blood. None of those are edible (those of you snickering- you know what I mean). So to see something come out of a warm body with the intention to put it in my chicory latte later was slightly disturbing.

And that is why I am here on a farm- to encounter those realities that we have pushed aside for convenience, blissful in our unknowing. We ignore the fact that steak comes from an eviscerated cow or those mushrooms were grown on manure or that the kale leaf has holes because bugs were munching away on the organic goodness. Some of us have a higher tolerance than others. But finding out where and how your food is grown, milked, processed is important. The disconnect does not serve you, the farmer, the earth.

After coming to terms with the reality of milk (and slurping down the rest of my latte- yes, the farm has a quirky tiki-like coffee bar), I harvested broccoli florets and leaves for the weekly CSA. The tiny green buds were sweet and crunchy when I popped a stem into my mouth. I could be happy all day grazing through the fields, a leaf of arugula here, a bitter dose of dandelion there. I brush the occasional bug away (I have a higher tolerance on that front) and chew the sunshine with giddiness.

I dug up baby Mizuna in a hoophouse to give the other adolescent greens some room to stretch towards the spiders in the cloth above, nestle roots unencumbered into the loose soil below. I carried trays of the travelers and transplanted the spindly spiky shoots into an open field. Dig a hole, sprinkle with fish meal and beet pulp, worm castings and ground shells. Carefully break apart seedlings and place them in smaller clumps into their new homes. Tuck soil around them, douse them with a welcomed bath of water. Wish them luck through the cold nights filled with rabbits and gophers. Repeat.

My fingernails are dirty, my belly full of milk and cheese and greens, my nose is pink with sun.  

My eyes are bright with the nourishment of the earth and community.

Eating on the Road in America

I am writhing in anger and pain. My eyes are swollen and itchy, my stomach bloated and confusingly unsatiated. I don’t want to think about moving, but the fake arbor of grapes, the sticky vinyl booth, the sepia photographs of chianti bottles and Tuscan villas are nauseating me more than the scent of fried squid and sour white wine. I know I must get out of this place even if it hurts to stand.

I didn’t think I would be angry. But two bites into my Mixed Grill dinner, I lost my shit. Cutting into a piece of meat (Why did I think meat would be a safer choice than pasta? Why?) drenched in a congealing dark brown liquid, I wrinkled my nose and looked up at Joe, “Does this look OK?” The pink center of the fuzzy textured “steak” looked slimy and dyed. “What did you expect?” he said as he steered his tortellini into a puddle of khaki cream sauce on the faux Italian plate in front of him, a newly refreshed basket of pale sticks of dough off to the side. Wilted iceberg lettuce, faded red tomatoes, yellowing croutons drenched in an opaque oily dressing clung to the sides of a plastic salad bowl between us.

“How is everything?” our server appeared with another basket of bread (unlimited, unneeded). She swooped in and placed a full Coke next to Joe’s half finished glass (why stop with shitty food when you can have shitty drinks too?). We both look astonished and confused at the one and a half glasses of soda on the table. Neither of us usually drink soda at all and to have free refills seems preposterous. I stare at my plate and nod while Joe manages to smile up at her and say politely, “Everything’s great. Thanks.” She walks off and I mumble, “Except for the food!” I pretend to throw my plate across the restaurant. Joe is amused but I feel sort of bad for everyone working and eating here. This is when I start to get angrier.

This is not a restaurant review. There was no reasonable part of me that thought that the food at Olive Garden would be delicious. Sure, there was that little roadtripping voice in my head when we pulled off the freeway saying that This Would Be Fun! Crappy fast food or chain restaurants are a (fun!) novelty on a trip. Enjoy the (fun!) atmosphere that the “typical” American experiences on a Saturday date night! Use those gift cards you got for Christmas two years ago to order up something you wouldn’t normally get (like anything on an Olive Garden menu). Enjoy the family atmosphere and smiling servers wearing the ubiquitous cheeky buttons (Hospitaliano!).

I am angry because my food is barely edible. The meat is cheap and tasteless. The potatoes are dry and over-seasoned. The flaccid stems of asparagus are bitter and fibrous. The salad was elementary school cafeteria level at best. The half a breadstick I gnawed upon (just because it was there) was slick with garlic flavored oil and cloyingly sweet. I am angry because the restaurant is full of families and couples and friends tucking into this barely-passable-as-food food. I wonder how many nutrients (if any) this plate of protein and carbs contains. I wonder if the people sitting here actually enjoy what is on the table. I am angry because an entrée here costs almost $20 and I know of a dozen locally owned restaurants in San Diego where you can get locally grown veggies, freshly made pasta, and humanely raised (and much better tasting) meat for the same price. Maybe you don’t get unlimited (shitty) salad, but you do get freshly baked bread and butter. I am angry because THIS is why people think that vegetables don’t taste good. Because they don’t: HERE. I am angry because a corporation is duping people into thinking that this is what food should taste like, that this is a treat. They are duping people into thinking this is what food tastes like in ITALY! (Even Berlusconi shouldn’t be served this shite)
I am angry that the corporation is raking in profits serving meat that was raised in a corral of shit, that the animal was pumped full of hormones and antibiotics and lived a horrid life. That the vegetables were most likely sprayed with pesticides and grown in fumigated, dead earth and that this corporation could definitely afford to buy organic produce. I am angry that restaurants like these force smaller restaurants (that may support local farms and artisans) out of business by just being there, being an option, being the one with more marketing dollars and a “name,”  and pretend to be an affordable choice. That in certain parts of this country there are no locally owned restaurants or markets or even farms. That a fancy night out is the choice between the Applebees and Olive Garden at the Mall, while on Main Street (or Commercial or 1^st Street) the storefront vacancies are abundant and devastating.

I am pissed that the vegetables taste like shit and a generation will grow up hating vegetables because they don’t know the difference. They will eat more and have health problems because their bodies are yearning for nutrients that this type of food does not provide. I believe that you can eat 3000 calories but if the food doesn’t have the nutrients and minerals you need, your body will not be satiated. You will leave with an uncomfortably full yet undernourished feeling. You will crave more even if it tastes like that freezerburnt hamburger helper casserole you’re reluctant to chip out of the back corner of the fridge because you know it is at least four years old and probably tastes like dog poop. I know it is a privilege to eat food and even more of a privilege to be able to eat out every once in a while. Perhaps that is why I am even angrier at Olive Garden than at a place like Ruth's Chris: both are overpriced, but OG is pretending to have quality food at a low price and that is a lie.

I didn’t finish my meal. I didn’t accept a doggy bag. I rarely let food go to waste but this was not food. I did grumble an order for tiramisu reasoning that cream and liquor is hard to fuck up. Wrong. It tasted like Cool Whip and Quik powder. There was no Kahlua. But I squeezed nearly every cent out of the gift cards because I know I am not going back.

The lack of brand name coffee liquor in a shitty dessert is hardly the point. My point is… Support your local restaurants. Especially when it costs the same as an oversized but under-nourishing meal at a chain. Eat good, fresh, local food when you can. Go out of your way (away from the freeway most likely) to find a place to eat. Make an effort. If you’re at home and have an hour, you can cook up an organic steak and veggie dinner for much less than $40. It’s worth it. Your health, your kids (or your neighbors’), your planet, your gut, and your freaking taste buds will thank you. And I will too. In fact, let's go out to dinner. Just you and me. We’ll go dutch. You pick the place and as long as there is only one of them, I’ll go. And I promise not to rant about Olive Garden, I swear.

Be food obsessive!

Me: No mom, you don't need to come over, I'm just feeling blah. Crappy but not totally sick. This is like the 3rd time since I started school.
Mom: Maybe you should change your diet. Maybe you should try eating more junk food.
Me: (head cocked in confusion/disbelief) Are you being serious?
Mom: Well, yes Jenny. We think sometimes you eat too healthy...

So I get it. As in, I get what my mom was trying to say. It's typical mom stuff: Eat a well rounded meal with protein, carbs, a veggie or two. Don't worry about dessert every once in a while.

I started listing off what I ate today: tea, broccoli with organic mayo (an age old pairing), forkfuls of almond butter out of the jar, a whole small avocado with salt, more tea, a pear, a few corn chips, a few bites of spinach from thinning my garden, a sip of Kombucha, and finally dinner.
Instead of ordering pizza or stopping by KFC, I ate some of my leftovers from last night: A veggie melange of kale, onions, broccoli stalks, zucchini, spinach sauteed with some soyrizo (soy chorizo). I scooped this into a corn tortilla and topped it with my new favorite sauce: Purslane, spicy peppers, garlic, and blended cashews. I topped this all with a farm fresh egg over easy. I guess you could say the soyrizo brings in a slight junk food aspect but overall it was pretty healthy. And pretty balanced. Considering I felt sick today and didn't have much of an appetite overall, I'd say I did pretty well.

I know why she worries. I'm always talking about veggies. I refrain from eating bread (for gluten reasons). I'm not a huge meat person (but I do eat it on occasion). I urge her to eat fresh veggies instead of canned. To eat sauteed zucchini instead of zucchini bread (which I admit to eating oh about a half loaf of this weekend). To cut out nightshades like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes to reduce inflammation. To try calendula salve to relieve pain.
I talk about food, the farms, herbs, remedies. A lot.

So yes, I can be a bit food obsessed.
And picky.
And bossy.

But I think being picky about food is a good thing. I don't want the chemicals and GMOs and antibiotics found in most conventional foods in my body. I've already had parasites and major bouts of dysentery and have worked un-gloved with boat chemicals far more than I should have and I simply don't need to do anymore damage to this relatively young body of mine.

And I like food that tastes good. And to see (be) the face that grows it.

Be picky and bossy and obsessive about how this food system works in our country! Be picky about where you buy your food and from whom you buy it. Talk to your family (I try not to sound bossy but well, sometimes it comes out, um, bossy) about information usually concealed from the general public (like upwards of 70% of antibiotics sold in this country are used in our conventionally raised livestock) or about beneficial "weeds" you can eat (purslane has more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy veggie) or about detrimental food for certain conditions (nightshades can exacerbate inflammation in those with auto-immune issues).

I can't say I don't crave and eat what I consider junk food: a burrito bursting with carne asada or beans and cheese and guac, Etna pizza, a big juicy hamburger with crispy fries (from a real restaurant- if I have a burger, I want it to be good!), a chocolate peanut butter milkshake from Corvette Diner. There's nothing wrong with a little extra fat and salt and sugar sometimes. Sometimes and as long as it is intentional. Unfortunately, or fortunately for my thighs, I can't eat like that all the time. I get sluggish, I break out in rashes, my body and brain shut down and scream for fresh veggies. So as much as I love french fries, I will skip my mom's suggestion and go for the greens. I have a feeling this sickness of mine is more from lack of sleep than lack of proper nutrients. Oh, and perhaps a bit of stress thrown in there (see "Three Feet" blog entry)?
I think lavender chamomile tea is good for that....

Here's the recipe for the spicy purslane cashew sauce if you want to pig out on deliciousness.

1 cup purslane, leaves and stems
1 cup cashews, soaked in water 30 minutes (reserve water)
1 hot pepper
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste

Blend it all together adding water as needed to desired consistency. Use it right away or let mellow for a day or two. Pour over salmon, veggies, or kale and soyrizo tacos.