It must be something wired into me that the sight of canisters of duck legs covered in duck fat and entire jars of rendered duck fat bring a feeling of ease and excitement. Is this some sort of animal response to having stores of fat and salt in my dwelling? I made crust the other day with half butter and half duck fat. It came out really really good. I have always wanted to do that since I read about it in the New York Times piece about the perfect pie crust (an article under Arts, not Food. I’ll say.) I made pot pies with remaining bits and the yummy crust. One friend I gifted some pies to asked me to sign the bag they were in. Cheap flattery…I love it.

I also have curing the duck prosciutto. An idea I encountered in Spain and learned about it here. They are now curing in my office and amazingly, they do not have a rotty odor. In fact, every now and again I get a bready salty thymy aroma wafting my way. Coincidently, they will be ready to eat on my birthday.

I have a small break from school as I await feedback on my thesis, so I did what folks like me do. I jumped into a frenzy of urban farming activity that I had been meaning to do but haven’t had the time for, the results of which became something like summer camp!

The week started with dispatching the ducks. Then I took them to the woodsy “summer camp” location at Chef Lauren’s where she showed me and another eager student, Jacinta, how to render duck fat, make confit, duck prosciutto, and roast duck. This is no small deal. Lauren is a duck master from Bay Wolf. She co-authored the Bay Wolf Restaurant cookbook. She also, unknowingly, happens to be responsible for one of my pivotal Bay Area food experiences. An amazing dinner at Bay Wolf in 1996. (This same dinner inspired, my then boyfriend, to create a fake menu for his creative writing class in college. A big hit.)

I learned confit is a lengthy process that takes a few days to implement and then another several months before the legs are ready to eat. The time inbetween salting, washing, slow stewing, and rendering was spent sitting around a camp fire, eating, drinking, preserving, and fruit picking. At one point, focused on the end of a fruit picker I noticed the orange flesh of a loquat cluster against the bright blue sky and felt like I was on vacation at a cool chef ranch. Apparently, this is not the only “summer camp” going on these days. Across town, Stefani and Denise have been busy holding jam preserving workshops!

Wow! Fellow Oakland urban farmer Novella Carpenter, a UCB School of Journalism graduate, has written a delightfully funny and educational book, Farm City. It is precious if you keep livestock or an edible landscape in a urban area (or even if you don’t). It is nice to know there are others that can relate to the odd glee of chasing a farm animal down a busy urban street or stealth slaughtering so as not to freak the neighbors out (too much more). She has also included helpful information. Some I used today as I harvested ducks for an upcoming cooking lesson with a super cool chef I met. Novella has the timing of harvesting chickens, turkeys, and ducks on the mark. It did indeed take one hour per duck.

About the ducks: I noticed something interesting. Two were from an urban farm where the animals competed for food with loads of other ducks and chickens. They ran around and swam in a pond. These animals appear lean with scrappy legs and yellow skin. “My” duck (a duck on loan that has waddled onto my plate, as ducks do. Sorry Lori and Conan.) in comparison is plump with bulging meaty legs, even though it is a laying breed, and its skin is white. I have no idea why this is the case. I do know that I have fed a higher protein mix to my birds the last two weeks to bulk them up for harvesting. I also know they have not had as big an area to run around in. It will be interesting to compare flavor differences.

I eat the earth with my eyes.

Fat green babies swell from flowers. I think I heard them laughing. They will soon be warty pumpkins free of self-doubt. Knowing their own beauty, they will offer their sweetness and tenderness with pride.

Honeybees capture a dancer’s grace between hard work and moving as if they are slowly gliding on long waves of heat.

Onions impatiently push themselves out of the ground. Might they grow legs and march to my dinner table?

A hummingbird’s wing brushed a curl in my hair today perhaps mistaking it for a wild branch to rest on.

This, and more, I stuff myself with as if it were my last meal for a long time.

My first cooked cherry was in a cherry clafouti made by my friend’s grandmother, Odile. She showed me how to make this super simple custard with whole unpitted cherries. I loved it. Each year when the beautiful and brief cherry season is upon us, I think of Odile. She was from a tradition of French farmers. She was totally at ease outside plucking greens from the ground for quick lunch salad. At the time I had no idea where she was getting the greens from. There were no formal garden beds, just weedy green stuff serving as a lawn. When I asked she gave be a blank look assuming we were miscomunicating, as neither of us spoke each others language. It turned out that what seemed to obvious to her, was a mystery to me. The “lawn” was the salad.

This lady could whip up a dinner from an empty fridge. A completely new way of cooking for me at that time.

All this is to say, that Odile has been an inspiration for me in learning food traditions and cooking from fresh whole ingredients. Which brings me to the cherries, sour cherries. Three years ago I made a cherry pie with Bing cherries and was disappointed with the color, texture, and bland flavor of the cooked Bings. After doing a little research to figure out where I went wrong, I learned sour cherries are far superior to cook with but are not as desirable because they are not as popular raw, they don’t handle the long transport common to big production crops, and they go bad really fast. Even then, I heard that you could get them here but the season of availability is less than a month so you have to be ON IT. I vowed not to attempt another cherry pie until I had my hands of fresh sour cherries. It only two two years but it was sooo worth it.

My near daily calls to Berkeley Bowl proved successful. I ran out there and gathered up loads of sour cherries. I wanted to buy them all, probably like 50 lbs of cherries. It was like gold fever. My eyes were riveted on the sparkles reflecting off their taut skins. I was imaging all the riches I would have with them, pies, varieties of preserves, liquors, custards…sigh.

I forced myself to break the spell by scooping up two, no three, no four 2 lb containers of cherries. What will I do with eight pounds of cherries you might ask.

Easy. I canned some, froze some (to test frozen vs. canned) and with remaining fresh berries I made an AMAZING cherry pie (well worth the two year wait) and shared it with friends over a glass of jerez oloroso.

It is my opinion that happiness comes in fleeting moments when we are able to receive it. Its like a butterfly landing on you, rare and lovely and not to be shooed or pursued, just experienced. Life may not be perfect but that pie shared with friends and that last drop of liquid Spain sure was.

The same lovely lady that opened my eyes to Nocino, also showed me the way of Vin de Noix, walnut wine. This concoction is warm, nutty, delicious and insanely easy to create. A spot of vin de noix with a friend, I headed home to see if I could use the remaining few green walnuts I had to start my own batch. During my search for a recipe, I happened upon an extremely well written food blog by Lucy Vanel, Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook. One write up about her style said she has “an eye for the elements that elevate the ordinary.” Her photographs are crazy beautiful (hers is to the right). After taking a funky photo of a sweating jar of steeping wine, I reminded myself Ms. Vanel is a photographer by trade, at the very least she has lights for the staging…but I digress. I am writing about vin de noix. I did the following:

Vin de Noix

Per 1.5 liter jar:

About 8 nuts each jar
500ml vodka
1/2 cup grade B maple syrup
1/3 vanilla bean
2 cloves
1 t. szchuan peppercorns
2 slices of an orange

The recipe said to top off with a full bodied white burgundy (Bourgogne) wine. Frankly, I don’t even know what that is so I grabbed a bottle of the chardonnay I had remaining from my wedding a thousand years ago. I hope it works out. It smells great.

Vin de noix, in order to turn it’s beautiful deep dark color, needs contact with some air. So use a jar that is not air tight. Once two months have gone by, filter and bottle your vin de noix. Seal the bottles tightly then, and allow it to mature for another month or two before enjoying.

Its been one week and the jar is emitting a fruity boozy aroma much like fruitcake. Its funny to me how these projects never fail to stir up memories of my grandparents. The fragrance of the green walnuts brought back vivid visuals of play in their backyard. Each year my grandfather, Francisco, lamented that it is never the right temperature for his walnuts to ripen before they fell to the ground. Ah Gramps, if you only know what could be done with green walnuts. The boozy fruitcake reminds me of my grandmother (oh, how I’d love to stop writing there). She used to hide tiny “adult” fruitcakes that had been soaked in brandy. Much to my delight, I usually found them.

I wanted to do a series of posts for each main location in Spain where I partook in delightful Spanish food. But there is so much going on and I want to keep up. Besides this is an urban farm blog, not a travel blog (and I am supposed to be working on my thesis!). Perhaps as I try to recreate some of the lovely Spanish dishes I’ll post about the experience.

That said, my return from Spain was followed by a few days of continuous sleep which were then followed by the dawning awareness that two things are in season NOW. If I miss them this year, I’ll have to wait the whole year again. These are sour cherries and young green walnuts. I think I missed the cooking cherries while I was gone. I am still obsessively calling Berkeley Bowl until they tell me to stop. One false alarm had me zooming over there to discover they had sour grapes, not cherries. So sad.

However, a lovely friend successfully pointed me in the direction of a walnut tree laden with young fragrant walnuts. From this I concocted my first batch of nocino! An Italian walnut liquor.

Ingredients

• 30 green walnuts, early enough in the season so that they are easily cut with a knife
• 1.5 liters grain alcohol (80+ proof)
• 750 g sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 10 cloves
• 1/2 liter water
• The rind of an organically grown lemon, cut into strips

I rinsed and patted dry the walnuts. Then cut them into quarters with a sharp chef’s knife. I used plastic over my hands to protect them from the walnut juices which stains brown when it oxidizes.

I added the rest of the ingredients to the jar and gently moved it around to disintegrate the sugar.

Once done, I placed the jar in a dark area where it will remain for six weeks. I will gently shake it every up few days.

After those six weeks are up, I will remove the walnuts and solids with a slotted metal spoon. (Again be careful where you do this as the walnuts and the nocino will stain.) i will strain the liquid through several layers of cheesecloth into glass bottles and cork tightly. From the online recipes I read through, the liquor is best to ferment for another six months at this point and even best after a year. Younger varieties may still have a bitter flavor to them. Apparently, nocino will last for years if stored in a cool, dry place. I am very excited to have some nutty spicy nocino come January, our coldest month.