On figs...

Today's little harvest of okra, beans, and burstingly ripe figs

If you've been keeping up with my personal blog, you're probably sick to death of pictures of figs.  If so...I'm sorry.  But it's fig season and I think they're one of the most perfect foods on this planet.  Figs have long been a symbol of fertility and fecundity and the leaves were apparently used to cover Adam and Eve's naughty bits.  What more could you ask for?  I've seen recipes using the fig leaves much the same way you would use grape leaves in dolmas, but fig leaves have a bit of a funky smell to them.  I love foraging in the fig tree for the ripe fruits/flowers, but the leaves always smell a wee bit like cat urine.  Even the cats look affronted when I'm rustling through the leaves.  Unless you live in a damn cold place, you should plant a fig tree in your  yard.  They're exceptionally hardy and will reward you year after year.  We have three small trees and our snap frost last Easter killed one of them to the ground.  It's main trunk may be dead, but it's shooting a fresh spray of new branches from its tenacious roots.  My sister and I gave my parents a fig tree for their 30th anniversary.  It was killed by a rogue frost about 6 years later, but came back the following year with fresh vigor.  It now stands about 40 feet tall and is littered with near-ripe figs.  It lives in a somewhat shady spot so it ripens a little slower than most, but that just means we can extend the fig season by about a month.  

We visited a fig orchard last week near Stockbridge, GA called Taylor Organics.  There were around 75 mature fig trees on the property and each one was studded with dark brown, red, or lime green figs.  I had a bit of fig envy.  I'm preparing the menu for the Fig episode that we're shooting this week but it's a bit hard to do when I keep eating the ingredients.  

I'm working hard on my cookbook and can't help but be inspired by pictures like this one.  The arugula in the garden is too bitter to eat now, but it's put its energy into the next generation.  These miniature ivory flowers will spend the rest of these warm days dancing about on the wind, providing rich nectar for the neighborhood bees, and then magically give way to little black seeds that will burst out next spring and do it all over again.  Pretty cool...

Another reason to love Arugula...it's beautiful!

Much to do...time for a fig.  Gesundheit!

Hans

Gaia and Oakhurst

Ladybugs are always welcome at Gaia

My hunt for tomatoes in the Atlanta area led me to the fine folks at Oakhurst gardens.  Oakhurst is a really groovy community garden in Decatur and its heart is larger than its actual square footage.  Locals can lease garden plots, but it's really about much more than that.  There's a sense of community here that you don't find in many places, and it's the garden that glues it all together.  One of the garden's community projects is the All Girls Green Team and you've never met a more enthusiastic group of young gardeners.  Many of them came to the garden with no previous farming experience and a couple of them had never eaten a cherry tomato before that morning.  But that didn't take away from their excitement, each of them scurrying from plant to plant like they were looking for diamonds or opals.  

The Green Team showing off the day's harvest

The girls take their harvest to local markets twice a week and they get to keep a portion of the proceeds.  But I get the feeling that the money isn't the motivation here.  These girls have discovered the thrill of the garden and it's something that will stay with them through old age.  And hopefully it's something they can pass on to their children and their children to come.  

It's all about the bees...

Eat well, be well...gesundheit!

Hans

Vegetable or Fruit?

A basket full of history...

Scientifically it's a fruit, but as a commodity it's a vegetable.  The very fact there is such a debate illustrates the versatility of this amazing garden gem.  Today's field trip took us to the garden of heirloom tomato aficionado/fanatic Bill Yoder, a man whose knowledge of tomatoes borders on the encyclopedic.  Bill and his family grow about 250 varieties of historic heirloom varieties and are part of an international seed exchange program that ensures the future of these seldom seen tomato breeds.  While many of these varieties were once hugely popular and readily available in seed catalogs, they didn't quite make the cut when it comes to either ship-ability or long-term storage and are therefore rarely seen in mass markets. 

Intense, bite-sized tomatoes

There is really no comparison between these vibrant, sweet, acidic heirlooms and their over-bred, often gassed, industrial counterparts.  And nothing rivals a thick-sliced tomato sandwich lathered with thick mayonnaise and a slice of Vidalia onion.  'tis the season for tomatoes, so hit your local farmer's market and see if you can find someone growing some heirloom varieties.

Homegrown 'maters

We're growing a handful of plants in our backyard, most of which are  pithy thanks to this year's shy supply of rain.  We do have one "self-watering" container that has produced an amazing crop of these odd little, yellow-shouldered roma tomatoes.  They're extremely firm, but full of flavor.  We had about 12 of them turn ripe today and we'll need to eat them before the fruit flies in the neighborhood find out about them.  Our fruit flies have good taste in tomatoes.

Be well...gesundheit!

Hans

Sunrise on on the Sundown

Sunrise at sea

Back in Darien, GA to get some footage of an actual shrimp boat catching shrimp.  We came to Darien the first time for the blessing of the fleet, but the shrimp weren't cooperating so we decided to make a return trip.  You really don't need an excuse to visit Darien, but we did have some work to do to wrap up the show on Georgia seafood.

Captain Fred Todd agreed to take us “hill people” to experience a day on a commercial shrimp boat.  We boarded the Sundown at about 4 a.m. and headed out beyond Sapelo Island.  The night (morning?) was inky black save for brilliant flashes of heat lightning on the horizon.  The sun finally made an appearance around 6 a.m. and it was a sunrise worth waking up for.  The sun rises (or, to be a bit more accurate, the world turns towards the sun) every single day without fail, but it’s still breathtaking to see those colors emerge and wash out the night sky. 

 One of the effects of my cancer surgeries is that I can no longer physically vomit.  I can still gag and be queasy and such, but those muscles that allow you to upchuck are no longer a part of my anatomy.  I mention this because this was my first experience getting seasick since my innards have been remodeled.  I leaned over the edge of the bow out of habit, but of course nothing came up.  I just gagged for about 3 minutes and then the sensation was gone. 

 I didn’t really feel solid until breakfast was served shortly after sunrise.  The ship’s striker (a term for the person in charge of the nets on board) was a man named Reed and he knew his way around the kitchen on the Sundown.  Shrimp with bacon and gravy over grits is not what you’d usually think of for breakfast, but this was no ordinary day.  The meal was simple, but incredibly flavorful and seemed to inspire a restorative effect on my heretofore shaky constitution.  It was still delicious two hours later when the gravy was cold and the grits were solid. 

After several passes with the nets, Captain Todd decided to cut his loses and head in with about 80 pounds of shrimp in the keep.  The ever-increasing price of diesel fuel has made this already fragile industry even more unstable.  I left the Sundown with sea legs and a strong appreciation for the work those shrimpers do.  It’s tough work with an increasingly slim profit margin and a sometimes fickle catch.  I don’t think I’ll look at shrimp the same way again.

 Still eating peaches, at least one a day.  I’ll be sad when the season is over, but it’ll give me something to look forward to next year.

Be well…gesundheit!

Hans

Flat Creek Cheese

Amazing Blue from Flat Creek

The search for Georgia’s unique foods has taken me to some really unique places that I don’t think I would’ve found otherwise.  The hunt for Georgia cheeses lead me to the town of Swainsboro and a hunting/fishing/farming property called Flat Creek Lodge.  Sprawling over 2000 acres (200 of which in ponds and lakes), Flat Creek jumped into the cheesemaking business head first, importing cheesemakers from the Cheese Head state of Wisconson.  The farm is producing some amazing varieties from farmhouse to cheddars, blues to proprietary cheeses like Thai Basil and Aztec with cocoa and peppers.  My favorite was an as yet unnamed semi-soft variety that I suppose you would classify as a “stinky” cheese.  Delicious.  Flat Creek's cheeses are starting to find their way into some of the State's better gourmet shops and eateries and if they're not in your area yet, ask for them.  They're truly worth seeking out. 

One day old Jersey cow - a "New Jersey"!

If you’re in to fishing or hunting at all, this would be a really unique getaway for you and a handful of friends.  I did a little fishing while we were there and managed to catch four small-mouth bass and a couple of catfish.  One of the catfish was about 3 or 4 pounds and was quite vocal during our time together.  As I awkwardly jimmied the hook out of his mouth, he protested with a strange grunting noise that I interpreted to mean “Hurry Up!”  I’m sure he went straight back to tell his buddies about his encounter with the skinny guy in the green Shins t-shirt.

Preparing an herbed cheese for aging

From Swainsboro it’s off to Darien (one of my favorite stops along the coast) to stowaway on a working shrimp boat.  We have to get up at 4am to join the crew for a 10 hour day of shrimping.  Time to get some Dramamine.  I’ve not been on a boat for any length of time since Norway in ’99, but I’m somewhat notorious for motion sickness.  I can’t tell you how many road-trips left me doubled over on the side of the highway or over the side of a boat losing my lunch.  No fun.  Let's hope the Dramamine works!

Off we go.  Much to do...Gesundheit! 

Hans

Millions of Peaches...

Millons of yummy ripe peaches...

A case of fuzzy, yummy, Georgia peaches sits behind me as I bounce in the passenger seat on I-16 on the way to the coast.  How can a road so damn straight be so relentlessly bumpy? I’ve had this hang up about I-16 since my first trip on this mind-numbing highway back in the early ‘90’s (a trip to visit Amy and her family at Jekyll Island).  I’m usually self-rliant when it comes to occupying my brain, but something about this stretch of pavement that runs from Macon to Savannah turns my thoughts to mush.  The fact that I’m able to string words together in any semi-sensical order is actually quite impressive.  My aversion to I-16 has nothing at all to do with the communities that the lie on either end or to either side.  In fact, any excuse to get off the highway is a welcome one and we’ve had some great trips to Lyons, Vidalia, Swainsboro, Statesboro, Register, Claxton, and the like.  And Savannah is an amazing city worth hacking your way through a jungle to reach.  In fact, maybe we’ll stop there for lunch.

This leg of our journey began near Fort Valley in a little community called Zenith at the Pearson family’s 5^th generation peach and pecan farm.  That kind of operation is somewhat common in Europe (though less and less it’s sad to say), but it’s almost unheard of in this country.  When Al Pearson talks about his farm and tells stories of his grandfather, there’s a sense of pride there that you can almost feel.  They may not be the largest peach orchard in the state, but they’re worth seeking out.  Al and his wife Mary disagree about what variety is their best peach (Mary prefers the white-meat varieties), but they know they have something special going there. 

I’ve eaten about 10 peaches since our stop in Zenith.  I rarely ever eat peaches at home, but I realize now that most of the grocery store variety peaches we have access to are over-hybridized and under-ripe.   These Pearson peaches are the kind that send juice running off your chin and down to your elbows.  Delicious!  I’m looking forward to cooking with them on the show.

The 'Hans Mobile' sits in the shade of a pecan tree at Pearson farm.  

Much to do…peaches to eat!  Gesundheit,

Hans

Another patch of blue...

Welcome to Alma, GA

You can't do a show on blueberries in Georgia without making a stop in Alma.  The blueberry capital of Georgia, Alma produces as much as a million pounds of berries a week during peak harvest season.  Georgia is the country's third largest producer of blueberries behind Michigan and Maine, but that fact seems to surprise most folks.  But when you stand in a field of blueberries that seems to stretch on forever in all directions, it's hard to imagine that anyone could produce more berries.  The fields contain two main varieties with the high bush types bearing first followed by the rabbit-eye bushes (though technically rabbit-eyes are also high bush plants).  The high bush plants have to be picked by hand and each bush gets visited as many as four or five times as the berries ripen in waves.  The rabbit-eye varieties can be machine harvested and the machines used to harvest them look like strange, land-locked houseboats.  

If someone put you in a mine full of loose diamonds and said "help yourself to all you want", would you ever leave?  That was the problem that Huitt and I had in Alma.  We were told to eat as many berries as we liked and I nearly had to pull Huitt away from an endless sea of blue.  And they were absolutely delicious blueberries too.  I found myself picking and eating with one hand while picking and holding berries with the other.  So even as I was walking back to the Explorer, I was still popping blueberries in my head like some addict whose willpower had long ago vanished.  

All you can eat...and t hen some.

So we shot our blueberry show on Thursday night and I'm still not sick of them.  I made a Blue-Blue salad with blueberries and blue cheese, a peach-blueberry chutney served with duck, blueberry cornbread, and a orange-blueberry "flancake" clafouti.  I haven't seen the footage yet, but I know my teeth have to be stained blue.

Much to do!  More soon.

Gesundheit,

Hans