Drawing by Toki Oshima By Roberta Bailey For the first time in almost, 20 years of preserving food, I had a surplus of canned green beans and tomato sauce. I had planned on putting up a little less food as my son, Isak, was leaving for college. I hadn’t planned on my daughter having swim
Georgian Fire garlic. Nason photo. By Roberta Bailey The late psychologist James Hillman once said that our duty is not to rise above life but grow down to it. He believed that each of us has a purpose or calling in life that reveals itself at an early age and reappears until we heed it.
By Roberta Bailey About 15 years ago, I wrote a column entitled “What is Tofu?” Tofu was just hitting the market shelf in individual, one-pound containers. Until then, it was only available at co-op storefronts or health food stores. You brought your own container and ladled out blocks of it from a 5-gallon bucket. If
By Roberta Bailey All that seems predictable with the weather and seasons is that they will be unpredictable and erratic. Winter was a bit of a no-show. We tapped our maple trees in February and pulled the taps by mid-March. Red maple buds swelled in early March, usually a sign that the sugaring season is
Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey “Simplify, simplify,” said Thoreau. I sit at my table and eat steamed kale and a barley pilaf. Outside the winter wind whips snow against my windows. Other than that, silence prevails. No radio, no stereo, no television fill my house with the sensational and negative news of the world.
Processing acorns in a Davebilt nutcracker. Photo courtesy of Chris and Ashirah Knapp. By Chris Knapp In autumn, all over the world, something wonderful happens: The acorns fall. The oak seed, which once sustained the bulk of human civilization, is now largely ignored as a food. Not so at our Koviashuvik Local Living School, where
Summer’s bounty, such as these black walnuts shown in the Waldo Organic Growers’ booth at the Common Ground Fair, and raspberries picked and processed into jam, add local flavor to winter comfort foods. English photos. By Roberta Bailey The winter winds are blowing. The colors on the horizon are deep evergreen and the pale gray
Toki Oshima Drawing By Roberta Bailey My jumbled box of seed has been sorted and organized. My seed orders have been placed and most have arrived. Little packets of promise. The seasons ahead hold such bright potential: ‘Drama Queen’ poppies, ‘Variegated’ blue collards that promise to overwinter, enough Phacelia to plant multiple rows in all
Drawing by Toki Oshima By Roberta Bailey I stopped baking bread this summer. I was taking a writing class in Portland, and after the class I would go to the open market or the health food store. At first, I was drawn by the number, shape and variety of breads on display, everything from olive
Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey Another fall has come, time to give up the quest to keep the garden watered and weeded. Many of the plants have faded to golden hues already. The brown of skin fades. We welcome a sweater and jeans. It is a time of surrender, yet it can be the
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