A good friend of mine once called my kitchen "dysfunctional." 
I thought that was a little harsh, but I get what she meant. This 125-year old farmhouse wasn't designed for the 50-person farm-to-table dinners we occasionally put on, let alone for the daily puzzle of hosting and feeding 2 to 21 bed and breakfast guests. With one small bank of cabinets and a single 10-foot countertop, a "work triangle" can't really happen in this space and the flow leaves something to be desired, to say the least. We have creative chaos rather than productive feng-shui, to be sure. But now that we are on the verge of creating our dream kitchen, I find it's hard to let go of the one I know.  

Constraints are like haiku - they force you to make something magical with what you have. Having it all is never all it's cracked up to be, and making due is just plain satisfying on so many levels. For one thing, you don't expect perfection from an old kitchen. The cracks and chips and out-of-level angles are charming, endearing. Once you start introducing new elements, the old elements can seem shamefully shabby. How much imperfection can I remove without taking all the character away? I am not sure. 

We don't have unlimited resources, so the opportunity to make everything slick and new isn't truly an option. The trick is to fix the dysfunction and leave the charm. Hope we'll succeed. In the meantime, you can see what we're saving on our Kitchen Remod pinterest board. 

Even though I’m one of those first-generation “niche” farmers, I always vowed I’d never do a farmers’ market. I got into farming because I like playing in the dirt and listening to frogs and crickets while I work.  My dream revolved around shepherding animals, growing plants, shaping the landscape and healing a piece of land – all projects with no end point, no closure, no down time.  So leaving my farm to sit behind a table for hours a week during the cool of the day seemed like the worst sort of time-wasting torture. And don’t get me started on the horrifying prospect of watching produce wilt on a table or be mauled by a clueless public.
 
So I built a CSA operation on my 20 acres in Driftless Wisconsin and grew the membership over eight years to 150 families, the majority of whom lived in the closest city, 45 minutes away. I enjoyed exposing my urban customers to amazing food, healthy recipes, pastured livestock and a taste of farm life. I loved connecting people to earth and nature and open spaces. But over the years, my heart began to shift. I got better at farming, I got great at marketing and I spent less time in a panic with my head down and my hands occupied from dawn ‘til dusk. I looked up and around. I occasionally visited the library, the café, the post office, the bars. I got to know my neighbors, and not just the farmers (who I needed to teach me about tractors and castration and government programs).  Before I realized what was happening, I fell in love all over again – not just with my farm, but with my whole community, and my tiny town.
 
By the time I’d lived in the village of Blanchardville, population 825, for ten years, I was smitten. And that’s why I started a farmers market last year in the middle of our three-block downtown – next to Lady Dawn’s Sports Bar, across from the Viking Café and under a thirty-by-twenty-foot wooden pavilion built in honor of the Ryan Hotel Fire that took a building and some of our loved ones a few years back. The shelter is just big enough to shade the four of us regular vendors and the two or three extras who sometimes join us. We ain’t much, but we’re mighty.
 
See, farmers markets do all sorts of good in an urban environment – for health outcomes, for nutrition education, for small farm economic opportunities, for connecting consumers to the source of their food, for building relationships. But in rural communities, farmers markets are doing something magical, even miraculous. Markets are bringing people back into their hollowed-out and shuttered downtowns. And I believe – because I feel it in my heart, but also because there is a growing body of evidence – that open-air markets have the ability to lead a renaissance in such communities that can result, if indirectly, in filling empty brick-and-mortar shops, investing in trails and other public infrastructure, and ultimately in keeping and attracting young families that are the future our tiny towns.
 
This year I decided to discontinue my urban membership and only sell local CSA shares. I also changed to a Market Share program and had members pick up at my farmers market stand instead of the farm. Of course, in a market as small as ours, its awkward to come to one stand and not visit the others. So now all of my CSA customers are buying from multiple local farmers. And not only that, they are buying from the grocery store while they are in town, and the hardware store, and probably getting gas and possibly getting hot and hungry and stopping in at the bar. Here’s a quote from one of my long-time CSA members on the switch to picking up at the market:
 
“I thought the setting was terrific and the additional vendors complimentary!! Also, even though I have lived in the area almost 50 years and have visited Blanchardville mega times, the early Saturday morning outing was extremely enjoyable and showcased the wonderful area. Even stopped in the True Value for great looking plants (I need these like a hole in the head!).”
 
We do live in a wonderful area, as so many rural people do. But consolidation in agriculture has cost us all many farm families and the businesses that served them. We here have lost our cheese factory, our implement and car dealers, our clothing and furniture stores, the feed mill, a movie theatre and roller rink, a junk shop, an archery range and an A&W. Two of our existing businesses are for sale, and half of the downtown is empty. Locals tell me that when they were young, Main Street was so crowded on a Wednesday night that you couldn’t park. Those people came to shop, but they also came to see what all those other people were doing – and that’s the beauty of a farmers market in a tiny town. Activity attracts activity. In the tiny town next door, the village’s economic development committee has been supporting a farmers market with advertising and signage for five years. This year, that market has eleven vendors, and three new businesses opened on their Main Street in 2016: a grocer, a deli and an ice cream shop.
 
Two years into our farmers market, Blanchardville is already different on a Saturday morning. I’m banking my business and my energy on the proposition that the town I love can be full, thriving and busy again. Of course, none of us founding vendors are making much money yet, though the first thing I do after each market is eagerly count up my couple hundred dollars in ones and fives. What we are making is relationships: with each other and with like-minded people who come to hang out with us for a few hours each week. While we’re standing behind our stands at the market, we are talking more than before about the community, about what we need, about what might work here, about what we’d like to see and about what we’d be willing to do. We are meeting potential partners and investors and we’re connecting others to potential collaborators, as well. To me, that looks and sounds like rural re-development, and I believe that we are indeed rebuilding this tiny town – one tomato at a time. 

Those of you who know me are likely aware of my involvement with Green County Defending Our Farmland. We are a coalition of farmers (Wisconsin Farmers Union), environmentalists (Green Rock Audobon) and concerned citizens (Move To Amend), among others, who have banded together to slow down the flood of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) into Green County and elsewhere in Wisconsin. We formed a few months ago in response to a Nebraska developer asking to site a 5, 600 cow dairy in Brodhead - an operation that would be 20 times bigger than the average dairy farm in Green County. The operation plans to spray liquid manure on 7,000 surrounding acres of farmland, drastically changing the atmosphere and way of life for those in the neighborhood.

We've since learned there is another permit coming through the pipeline in that county, but obviously this is a growing trend throughout Wisconsin, as water-hogging industrial ag developers such as these come from California and other states out west where the water has been used, the land depleted, and the laws finally making it very restrictive to farm in such an unsustainable way. We have no such restrictions here in Wisconsin, where our "business friendly" state administration has instructed the DNR to streamline the permitting process for CAFOs and frac sand mines and other large business interests. This represents a significant risk for family farmers, who need safe land and clean water; for tourists, who appreciate Wisconsin for our picturesque small dairies and unspoiled landscapes; and for small towns, who rely on both farmers and tourists to make their communities thrive.

So, our group is busy attending township board meetings, writing op-eds and educating the public to do the same. Tomorrow, we are throwing a big party, in Monroe's historic Turner Hall, with a free concert by the Jimmys, a popular Green County band with farming roots in New Glarus. 6:15 pm. There will be speakers and time for questions, as well as beer and cheese. You are invited! Please come and bring others who might be interested in joining this fight. See the invitation attached below.

Then on Saturday, you are invited to protest the ease with which we've been allowing these factory farms to affect our environment here in Wisconsin. Some communities have already seen 30 percent of their private wells made un-drinkable by bacterial run-off. Our Green County group is joining in with similar groups fighting similar industrial ag development all over Wisconsin for a Stink-In on the Capitol Steps from 1 to 2:30pm. Immediately afterward, Family Farm Defenders will host a "Sustainable Agriculture Meet and Greet" from 2:30 - 4:30 pm at the Madison College downtown campus (Rm. 240) - 211 N. Carroll St. (about a block away from the rally site across from the Concourse Hotel)

Hope to see you somewhere this week! If you can't make it - you can still get involved. Go to Green County Defending Our Farmland's website to sign a petition in favor of stricter water ordinances and donate to the cause for more parties and information sessions in the community. Talk to your neighbors, show up at your county and town and township board meetings, call your state and national representatives. Join the Wisconsin Farmers Union and help speak up for family scaled farms.

Our final dinner of the year! And like all of them, it came together with a lot of elbow grease and not a little magic. This was our biggest meal of the year (we set places for 50, but some of those places were for children that never really sat down all night), and it happened to fall on our tiny town's Homecoming night, so our typical crew of local teenagers was mostly unavailable. Luckily we had a crack team that came together with volunteer adults, a college student and a teen from another school district., or I would NEVER have pulled the meal off. As usual, we had a ball in the kitchen and the picture above is proof! Our motto here at Circle M is "Play with your food!" and we did. I rarely run a recipe ahead of time, so the kitchen magicians had to basically translate on the fly the concepts I had in my head and somehow get them to the plates. A lot of chaos went into those seven courses, and a lot of love, too. The reward was great food, great company and an unbelievably gorgeous full moon over the prairie. Can't wait to do this again next year! Here's what we had:

Booze and Cruise (We cruised the farm behind a vintage tractor this time!)
Aronia Fizz
Bloody Marys
Duck Fat Popcorn
Chips and Salsa
Tomato Bar
 
Appetizers
Scallion Pancakes w/ Plum Sauce
Make-Your-Own Spring Rolls w/Thai Peanut Sauce
 
Breads
Pumpkin Bread, Caramel Apple Bread, Gluten Free Rolls
 
Salad
Arugula and Endive Salad with Duck and Cherry Balsamic
 
Soup
Pumpkin Coconut Curry
 
Main Dish
Deconstructed Mousaka (Roasted Eggplant, Pulled Smoked Lamb, Bechamel Potatoes)
Stuffed Tomatoes w/ Israeli Couscous and Roasted Peppers
 
Dessert
Yeasted Apple Cake with Aronia-Raspberry Coulis and Whipped Cream
Gluten Free Meringues with Coulis and Cream

I had a great time filming on the farm this week with Inga Witscher, the host of Wisconsin Public Television's wonderful Around the Farm Table. Believe it or not, we both just showed up in these clothes - no planning required. It's as though our linens communicated with each other and dressed us up for the show!

Being a part of this show is a great privilege for me. The first time I saw an episode, sometime last spring, I thought - "This girl is the new Julia Child! And has some cute boots, too!" - and I promptly sent a weblink to all of my friends and family.  Not only is Inga charming and the show entertaining, the mission lines up almost exactly with my own - to connect people with the land and the farms and the farmers who provide their food.  On the episode with me, Inga is exploring the trend of farm stay bed and breakfast enterprises like mine, and the opportunities such farms present to bring even more people out to interact intimately with rural places. I am so thankful to her and to her crew (which includes her dad, Rick) for the exposure they bring to small family-scaled entrepreneurial farm operations. "Come on out to the country and see all we have to offer here!" is the show's theme, and it is very much my theme as well. Of course, my farm's actual motto is "Play with your food!" and we certainly did plenty of that for the episode, too. 

Inga, who has a little dairy farm of her own called St. Isisdore's Mead, produces her own artisan cheese and I make goat cheese here. She had fun milking one of my dairy goats, Mochi, but found it to be a bit different from milking her cows! We picked veggies from the garden and she made my bed and breakfast guests a frittatta, while I made zucchini chocolate bundt cakes decorated  with raspberries and edible confetti.

Inga loved the flower confetti we used - and even picked some cornflowers to garnish a meal she served between our two days of taping! We went into the field to show viewers some of the petals we use to make it - multicolored golden calendula blossoms. These aren't just edible - they're medicinal, and gorgeous!

We spent a little time in the dirt , too, to give viewers a real sense of what the work is like on a diversified farm.  We planted some tarragon and Johnny Jump Up violas (more edible flowers!)  in my new perennial herb field.  Inga drove my little old Farmall A tractor, which was a fun learning experience since she doesn't have a tractor of her own. She has a skid steer, though, and I want to visit St. Isidore's so I can drive her rig and eat some of her cheese! She looks like fun on the show, and she is in person, too!

When we went upstairs to film in the bed and breakfast rooms, we found this note on the chalkboard wall from one of last night's young guests! Inga is thinking of opening a farm stay bed and breakfast at her farm, and we talked about the pro's and con's of such a venture. We've only been a certified bed and breakfast since April, and we've been booked every weekend and most of the weeks since we put the word out. There is a growing desire to connect with the countryside among Americans - and among travelers from across the world. This month,  we had two families visit from France, one from England and one group from Japan. This weekend we'll be welcoming a family from Ireland. The trend is growing AND it's important. People who visit rural places value rural places. They will be more likely to support rural places - not just financially with their purchasing power, but also legislatively with their votes and their voices. Rural populations that recognize visitors as an important source of money and support will be more likely to support policy and politicians that protect beautiful and pastoral rural places from careless development and destructive agriculture like CAFOs and other resource-stripping ventures. 

So come on out and stay and play - either here or in another lovely country place. And I'll let you know when you can see us on the television or internet!

Wonderful night - great guests, terrific time in the kitchen, incredible main dish.  Larb-style meatballs: beef and fennel seasoned with soy sauce and shredded ginger, served on Napa cabbage leaves with flower confetti and and amazing sweet and sour sauce made with tart cherries.

It was an absolutely lovely night this past Saturday - great guests and musicians, lots of kids and kittens, and seven wonderful courses of fresh-from-the-gardens food! J.D. Ball came and gave samples from Madison's Bos Meadery. Yum! Here's the menu:

Duck Fat Popcorn with Toasted Summer Savory
Chips w/ fresh Tomato Peach Salsa and Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Heirloom Tomatoes with Basil and Feta Cheese
Cucumbers with Chives Goat Cheese and Nasturtiums

Corn Buttermilk Soup with Scallions and Swiss Chard

Collards and Ham Hocks with Balsamic Vinegar

Blue Cheese Potato Cakes with Pulled Lamb in Peach BBQ Sauce
Lime Cilantro Slaw
Roasted Cippollinis, Summer Squash and Mushrooms w/ Tarragon

Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cakes with Peach Raspberry Sauce and Goat Yogurt Ice Cream

This morning we had one of those incredible, serendipitous experiences on the farm that remind us of just how dependent we are on things absolutely beyond our control, and how negatives can so quickly turn to positives in the farming game. Here's how it went down. When I took my morning walk around the fields, I headed first for the potatoes. This plot is at an important stage, since it's the time when Colorado Potato Beetles start doing serious damage on the plants. For weeks, we've been smooshing adult beetles as they show up, but now we are seeing little red grubs here and there. These are the babies from the beetles we missed, and this second generation is the one that can really wipe out the foliage and limit your tuber yield. So I went out with my grub-drowning bucket of soapy water and saw this:

 Clearly something was amiss in my potatoes! With our recent pounding from storms, I assumed we'd had a bloom of blight, fungi which love water and wind and moisture and cool nights. I snapped a flurry of pictures and sent them off to Ruth Genger, potato expert at UW Madison. I had the great fortune to have just had Ruth out on my farm last week, since I am participating in some research she is conducting, and she knew what my potatoes had looked like before the storms.  Ruth regretfully agreed that the situation appeared to be late blight, a devastating and fast-spreading disease. She said I should probably pull up all the affected foliage, double-bag it and get rid of the bag as soon as possible before the blight spread to the rest of my potatoes and nearby tomatoes. But Ruth said she'd confer shortly with Amanda Gevens,  plant pathology expert at the UW Madison, and confirm.

While I waited for her call, I got my thoughts together and decided to dig the affected plants up to see if there were some tiny tubers I could salvage from the rows. I don't typically dig potatoes this early, even for new potatoes, so I had little hope. I rushed back out to the field, digging fork and thick garbage bags in hand. That's when I found this:

Gorgeous, un-scabbed and HUGE potatoes. I have bigger potatoes and higher yields RIGHT NOW than I typically see when I dig for mature tubers in late August! I made it through test-digs in all of my varieties right before I got Ruth's phone call telling me that Amanda thought the pictures looked like water damage rather than blight.  The news was a relief, since controlling blight is next to impossible even when you pull the plants, since you release millions of spores in the pulling.  Relief is really an understatement, though, because the whole experience was a set up for an incredible blessing. Farmer confession time: those potatoes really needed to be weeded. And mulched.  I had been quite behind in these tasks.  Now,  I had carte blanche to dig most of my potatoes in the next week, and save all of the extra labor I would have put into them.  And so my CSA members have beautiful potatoes in the same box with fennel this week.  This is one of my favorite combos and one I rarely accomplish in the same box, since the fennel is generally bolting by the time the potatoes are ready to dig.  Ah, food!

I did double-bag the foliage from the yellowed plants I dug up, though. Just in case! I will be delivering CSA boxes to Madison tomorrow, and on my way in I'll drop some leaf samples at the UW research station for Amanda to examine. We are so very lucky in this area to have access to the top researchers in many agricultural disciplines. Got a garden or plant question? Give them a call yourself! The members of the vegetable team can all be reached via this website: http://vegetables.wisc.edu/.

Circle M Field-to-Table Dinner Menu: Saturday, June 27, 2015

Cocktails with Nibbles
Our contribution to the Farmhouse Potluck Bar was a Rhubarb Sangria.
We had lots of other wonderful concoctions from guests.
Chicken Liver Pate with Honey Wheat Croutons
Popcorn: Kid's Friendly, Duck Fat w/ Sage, Cajun
Snap Peas w/ Peanut Miso Dipping Sauce
Lemon Zest Goat Cheese w/ Pita Chips
Chocolate Chevre Spread w/ Pretzels

Appetizers
Our plan was to gather people at the grill for these unusual quesadilla appetizers, but the grill was on the fritz and I had to make them inside on the griddle. Still yummy, tho'!
Spinach Pepper Jelly Farmer Cheese Quesadillas w/ Mango Rhubarb Salsa
Asiago Pepperoni Quesadillas w/ Basil Garlic Scape Pesto

Soup
Chilled Sorrel Soup w/ Goat Buttermilk

Salad
Endive w/ Nasturtium Leaves, Shaved Purple Asparagus, Pine Nuts and Violas
Tarragon White Wine Vinaigrette

Main Course
Rhubarb Crusted Ham
Chard and Kale w/ Pepperoni and Garlic
Beet/Carrot Horseradish Slaw w/ Cilantro and Scallions
Sage Polenta Muffins

Dessert
Molten Chocolate Rhubarb Cake
Rhubarb Rose Goat Custard Ice Cream
Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce

S'mores!