A lucky garden: Get started now to have your own garden and market this summer
We asked our favorite farmers for the best tips on prepping the spring garden in February. From the state’s Extension Agent Karen Neill to our own resident farmer Mark Schicker, all were happy to share their best tips with you. And judging by the weather report, things may stay pretty soaked for a little while; plenty of time to sit inside and plan this year’s garden.
Your local county extension office can help you with soil tests, and provides free classes and information – including a monthly planting calendar – to start your own garden. Visit the North Carolina State University Web site, www.ces.ncsu.edu. Offices are listed by county.
Find your local county center
Wake County Extension Office (919) 250-1100
Guilford County, (336) 375-5876
Karen Neill Extension Agent, Agriculture – Urban Horticulture at North Carolina State University
Gardeners spend their lives trying to improve their soil — because we know that good soil is the foundation to a productive, prosperous garden. Here in the Piedmont, we tend to have a very high clay content that makes our soil extremely sticky when it rains.
Consider the following soil prep tips:
Make sure not to work your soil when it is too wet. The soil should crumble in your hand versus rolling in a ball.
Adding organic matter is key. Compost, well-rotted sawdust, and leaf mold are just a few examples. Add a four to six-inch layer of organic matter to the existing soil and till in thoroughly. Organic matter loosens the tight clay particles allowing air, water and roots to move through the soil.
A soil test is also extremely important in finding out your pH as well as nutrient levels. Contact your county Extension office for information and assistance on soil testing.
If the soil is too soggy, consider raised beds. I am a big fan of raised beds for just this very fact. Using raised beds, you can get a jump on the garden season versus your friends trying to garden in the heavy clay of the Piedmont. These beds dry out quickly and are easily accessible.
Mulching garden beds also preserves soil moisture and keeps down weeds. Vegetable gardens may be mulched with herbicide-free grass clippings, compost, straw, or other easily degradable materials. Use caution with grass clippings or straw, they may harbor weed seed. In fact, it might be best to compost grass clippings first so they don’t mat down preventing water and air from entering as freely.
It’s not too early to get your vegetable gardens planted. English peas, carrots, leaf lettuce, mustard and radishes should be seeded now.
Garden centers will also be bringing in transplants for other cool season vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli, and don’t forget those onion sets or certified seed potatoes.
Warm season vegetables can start to go in after the last frost which is typically around April 15 in the Piedmont. Season extenders can be used if you wanted to try and cheat mother nature.
Go green. Enroll in the North Carolina 10% campaign. Through this program you pledge to spend 10% of your food budget to eating local foods. You can do this by growing your own but also shopping where locally grown or raised food is sold and/or eating at restaurants that also serve local foods. This program not only keeps dollars here in North Carolina supporting our local food economy but it also cuts down on carbon emissions when food has to be trucked in from hundreds of miles away.
Make plans. This is the time for making plans. Well-considered plans can often be the difference between a profitable farm and one treading water. Aggregating (or compiling) notes from the last two years into an Excel spreadsheet will help determine when and where to plant what in the coming months, especially if doubling one’s acreage under cultivation (from one acre to two).
Succession Planting. New plants are put in every two weeks, in an attempt to lengthen the growing season and hopefully outwit pests in the fields.
Clean up the greenhouse to prepare for starting summer crops from seed by the end of the month.
Decide on supplements. Soil reports are coming back, so deciding what supplements to till into the fields when discing under winter cover crops in a few weeks (this winter’s wheat, was easier to manage than last winter’s rye) is done now.
Charlie Headington Bio-diversity expert and gardener profiled in Carolina Gardener, BackHome Magazine and Our State as well as appearing on local TV. Most recently Charlie co-designed, built and directed the first Edible Schoolyard in North Carolina.
Landscape with edible plants and herbs. Groow dwarf fruit trees and bushes, herbs, and flowers that attract beneficial insects. See Permaculture books and go to www.ediblelandscaping.com.
Design your own landscape to reflect your values. Be willing to be different whether in the front or backyard.
Build and plant a culinary herb spiral near your back door. Keep herbs handy and plentiful. See “Gaia’s Garden” for ideas.
Start small, close to the house. Plant leafy greens and a few favorites. Plum and fig trees are reliable.
Practice “no-till” gardening. Feed the worms and let them do the work of turning and fertilizing the soil.
Plant or keep a “wild” or “sacred” space for all the other creatures.The Wildlife Federation has a program or design your own. Get a hive of bees!
Eat from your garden during all four seasons. Grow the best food in the world all year long. Read “Four Season Harvest.“
Supplement your home garden with food from the farmer’s market. Local or “slow” food tastes best and supports your local economy..
Compost your kitchen waste and even your newspaper. Turn waste into “black gold.” You can even do it indoors with worms.
Sit back and enjoy the beauty and abundance of nature. Ecological and organic gardening can take less time than you think.
Charlie is hosting an introduction to permaculture class at his home April 27. For more information email Charlie at charlie.headington@gmail.com
Mark Schicker Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen server and farmer, Shicker’s Acre
Start Indoors. Garden Peas can be started as early as Valentine’s Day; and by the end of the month, start summer plants indoors, that will be transplanted outdoors.
Sharpen tools. Now’s the time to get your shovels and shears in good working order.
Till. Lime and other fertilizers or soil additives need to worked into the soil now.
Direct seed. Start radishes and kale directly in your garden, in the coming weeks, they can tolerate the temperature swings of winter’s transition into spring.
Transplant. Weather permitting, transplant winter vegetables that have been started indoors, like cabbage, broccoli, and kohlrabi.
Have a plan. Look up a planting calendar for our region. There’s a good one here at Southern Exposure.
Be mindful. As the season progresses some of your plants might start going to seed/flowering–let them go. This is food and habitat for beneficial insects.
Involve the whole family in planning, planting, tending, and harvesting.
Invest in drip irrigation
Stagger planting dates for extended harvest.
Enjoy! Have a party in the garden!
Experiment. Plant something new to you. Try an heirloom variety–the growers at the local farmer’s market often have older varieties.
Mulch around plants to retain soil moisture and keep weeds down.
Stew on this: Until you can wing it on your own, try this Black Bean Soup Recipe
Dennis Quaintance (L32 founder and all-around guru) likes to say that everybody’s got a different recipe for stew, but they all have one thing in common: time.
Then someone said, “I love thyme, dude! That’s very French.”
And he said, “Not that thyme. Time!”
What’s really going on is that we have a tremendous affinity for one-pot wonders, we love the idea of cooking as alchemy. We’re intrigued by the idea of taking a bunch of things, which may be humble, or mean, whatever synonym you like to use, and putting them in a pot and cooking them all together and something magical happens after a period of time.
At the restaurant, it’s a different story. People expect consistency. But at home, we may not follow a stew or chili recipe (or any recipe at all, unless it involves baking). We may decide to wing it. Cook it long enough — with enough time or thyme — and it’s going to taste right.
The difference between a stew, soup, and chili
Stew
Think of stew as a verb, not a noun. It’s a cooking process where the meat is braised and falling apart.
Generally, it’s a main dish.
Meat plays the starring role.
Broth is usually thickened with flour, but sometimes with disintegrated vegetables (like Brunswick stew).
Longer cook time to tenderize the meat.
Soup
When you make a soup, you can have multiple starring roles for the ingredients.
Generally served as an appetizer.
The focal point is about achieving a balance between the components; multiple starring roles.
Thinner broth.
Shorter cook time.
Chili
Traditional chili is meat that is braised, slow cooked, or stewed in a chile-spiked sauce.
The core ingredients: chiles, meat, and broth, cooked down. Traditional chili doesn’t have beans.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Piedmont
Somehow, by the time Texas chili made its way to the Piedmont, it crossed with the butter beans and lima beans in Brunswick Stew.
In the Piedmont, we don’t have a tradition of spicy things. Texas Pete is more of a modern innovation. So our chili and black bean soups are kind of sisters in that we add beans to our chili to bring it into the southern realm of one-pot-wonders. We use kidney beans, ground beef, filet mignon tips, tomatoes, and chiles.
A tradition of Black Bean Soup
Black beans don’t have much of a tradition in the Piedmont. Pinto beans are the generic beans of the Carolinas. October beans, (AKA Cranberry beans) are the primary staple at higher elevations, where pintos aren’t as prolific.
We at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen have developed a tradition of Black Bean Cakes and Black Bean Soup. We started serving the Black Bean Cakes here when the restaurant opened 23 years ago, and that’s a main reason we make a Black Bean Soup instead of a kidney bean soup, or a vegetarian chili; it’s another way to showcase the black bean.
Once upon a time, we made black bean soup every day. People still call and want to know when we’re going to do black bean soup again. What menu is it on? They buy quarts to take home.
We like to offer it on the winter menu at the same time as chili because to me it touches the same senses. You can make it at home, too. All you need is some time.
Drain excess liquid from beans and rinse. Let drain while cooking onions. Sauté onions in oil in soup pot till transparent but not brown. Add remaining ingredients and beans to pot. Heat to boil then reduce and simmer for 1 hour.
Shaking down persimmon recipes: pie, glaze, and Southern Comfort hard sauce
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series #25. Follow us as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
There’s a story about persimmons in the new Louvin brothers book. A young Ira couldn’t shake a persimmon off a tree, so he convinced his brother Charlie to get an ax, chop it down, and snag the fruit. Together they ate all the persimmons and tried to prop up the tree again, like nothing happened. Their father’s punishment for chopping that tree down was notoriously severe, but so was the persimmon revenge: the boys got sick.
Around mid October, it’s not uncommon to see tarps and straw beds under persimmon trees, and folks (musicians or not) trying to shake them down. Chef says you don’t pick persimmons, you pick them up off the straw. And local musician Scott Manring says “anything bigger than your thumb with fur on it” will eat a persimmon. He once watched a deer stand on its hind legs to eat persimmons off his tree. Scott himself will climb to the tree tops, shake down a bag’s worth, and bring them to Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen.
The Native American persimmon
The indigenous Native American persimmon is a kind of muted, autumn peach. The fruit is tear-dropped shaped and grows in wonderful, beautiful trees. It’s also so intolerably astringent if it’s under ripe that it will ruin anything you make.
Cooking: The Native American persimmon needs to fully ripen on the tree. The fruit will be soft and mushy and most persimmon recipes require cooking, such as persimmon pudding.
Fuyu persimmon
The fuyu persimmon can be eaten unripe, just like a tomato. Its flavor is sort of a peachy-tomato cross. At the grocery store, look for the persimmon with a flat bottom, that’s a fuyu. The redder it gets, the sweeter it is. There are some wonderful salads with poached shrimp and under ripe fuyu persimmons that are sublime.
Cooking: Slice it thin, or wedge it, and add it to a salad. Or, add to your purée.
Hachiya persimmon
Needs to fully ripen on the tree before being eaten, should be treated just like and indigenous persimmon, yet has a much higher flesh to seed ratio.
In the kitchen: Persimmon BBQ sauce and Persimmon Pudding
The traditional dish for persimmons is persimmon pudding — a very humble mixture of persimmon puree, flour, eggs, and sugar. Most persimmons come our way because people bring them to us. When the fall menu is over, we freeze them and use them for sauces and pudding on New Year’s Eve.
We’ve decided to make teriyaki sauce and fold persimmon purée into it and use it for a quail glaze. It’s a sweet purée and we use it like we would a peach BBQ sauce.
It’s also an integral component of the hard sauce that is served with our bread pudding (with the peach flavor of Southern Comfort to amplify the subtle taste of persimmons).
I don’t know of anyone farming persimmons, but many farms have a persimmon tree, and bring their persimmons to us.
Scott Manring, one of the featured musician’s at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s “Songs in a Southern Kitchen” series
We recently visited Scott’s persimmon trees in Pleasant Garden to get a few persimmon “pick-up” tips.
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Persimmon tree wood is among the strongest and used to make the highest quality heads of golf clubs known as the “wood.”
Hard, unripe persimmons will fall to the ground, and taste terrible, “like putting a piece of cotton in your mouth.”
Scott puts tarps on the ground, instead of straw. It’s easier to roll persimmons up in a tarp and bag them.
The tree is getting too thick to shake, so Scott either climbs the tree to shake persimmons down, or uses a rope to pull on it.
After a hard frost the color of the persimmon gets grapey-looking.
A ripe persimmon is ooey-gooey, and usually splits a little when it hits the ground.
Bob Reeves, a local musician and piedmont renaissance man, puts a sweet potato and a little orange zest in his persimmon pie. He uses an old pulp mill to separate the persimmons from dirt and twigs.
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Recipes
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Persimmon Glaze
1 tbsp canola oil
1 ½ tbspginger puree
2 cups unsweetened pineapple juice
1 pound light brown sugar
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup Tamari
¼ cup chopped green onions
2 ½ cups chopped fresh persimmons, hulls removed
Heat oil in a pot over medium heat and sweat ginger. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until thickened, about 35 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender and strain through a fine strainer.
*Quality Identifiers: sauce should be free of skins and seeds and should coat the back of a spoon.
Makes 5 cups
Lucky 32 Southern Comfort Persimmon Hard Sauce
¾ cup fresh persimmon pulp
2/3 lb butter – room temperature
3 ¾ cup confectioners sugar 10X (add more for thicker sauce)
5 each egg yolks
7 fl ounces Southern Comfort (or your favorite)
Heat persimmons over medium-high heat. Add butter and begin to melt. Add sugar. Cream butter and sugar, and stir until all of the butter is absorbed and a smooth consistency is achieved. Remove from heat. Stir in one egg yolk at a time until all yolks have been incorporated. Gradually pour in Southern Comfort while stirring constantly. Sauce will thicken as it cools.
Makes – 3 ½ cups
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen Persimmon Pudding
2 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
3 fresh eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
2 cups pureed fresh persimmon with hull removed
1 ½ cups Scuppernong wine
¼ cup buttermilk
2 ½ tbsp melted unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix eggs and sugar until well combined. Add pureed persimmon, wine and buttermilk and mix to combine. Stir in butter and vanilla. Grease a baking pan with pan spray. Add liquid mixture to flour mixture and combine well by hand. Transfer mixture to greased pan. Bake at 300 degrees for 30-45 minutes or until center is set and sides begin to pull away from pan. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Family Gatherings: Dan Valley Community Center Brunswick Stew
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 23. Follow us as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
Most cultures have a tradition of a humble, community-driven one-pot meal. In the South of France it could be Bouillabaisse. In Spain it’s Paella. In South Louisiana it’s Gumbo or Jambalaya. In Kentucky and Appalachia it’s known as Burgoo, and in the lowcountry, down near Charleston, South Carolina, they make Hopping John or Purloo. In the Piedmont of North Carolina, and similar areas in Georgia, Virginia, and South Carolina, that dish takes the form of Brunswick Stew.
This one-pot community-cooked dish was traditionally tended over an open fire through the night by a gathering of menfolk who regaled each other and the next generation with stories of how their ancestors past did the same thing.
The coming of cooler nights and the changing color of the leaves signals the onset of Brunswick Stew season here in the Piedmont. Soon we’ll start to see signs popping up on roadsides advertising fundraisers at firehouses, churches and schools that have a Brunswick Stew event. They’ll make a big pot of the stew and sell quarts and pints to raise money.
Enjoy this Brunswick Stew recipe at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen on the new “Fall for Something New!” menu that runs through November 13, 2012.
Opinions vary
People in Brunswick, Va, and Brunswick, Ga, argue about the stew’s origin. Opinions also vary as to whether Brunswick Stew should be cooked long enough so that it’s constituent parts are indiscernible, or if everything should be cooked until you can still tell the difference between a lima bean and a hunk of pork.
Here at the restaurant, we prepare the recipe from the Dan Valley Community Center. It has a bit of a pedigree and came here by way of Joan King, a noted local cook, and mother to Nancy Quaintance, who has been instrumental in creating a food profile for this restaurant.
Our preference is to cook the stew until everything is tender and turn it off and let it sit. It’s even better as leftovers. If you put it away in the refrigerator, it has time overnight to sit and the ingredients meld their flavors, and then you’ll understand the adage, “greater than the sum of its parts.”
Brunswick stew is the Piedmont version of chili
And the Piedmontese will say that chili is the East Texas version of Brunswick Stew. Use it like you would chili:
use it on nachos
top a hamburger
sprinkle with it with cheese
pour over elbow macaroni
The sum of its parts
Chicken, pork and beef (it’s not uncommon to find squirrel or venison)
corn, tomatoes, potatoes, onions and beans, usually lima beans
generous amount of black pepper
Family Memories
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen uses the recipe from the Dan Community Center. Below, Nancy King Quaintance’s mother and sister share their memories of the annual community gatherings.
Joan King, Nancy King Quaintance’s mother
“Traditionally we used all canned veggies and I guess you still have to use canned tomatoes, but the corn and limas are much better frozen. The taste is brighter. The men did indeed discuss the meats to go in the stew, but it was as a joke. The only two meats are always beef and chicken.”
Virginia Phelps, Nancy King Quaintance’s sister
“Old Frank Lauten always appeared to put his two-cents into the recipe, to make sure it was going right and then leave as abruptly as he appeared (he didn’t like children and always mumbled the like under his breath). But it was the women who prepared the vegetables and meats for what seemed like days prior to ‘official’ cook day in the Community Center kitchen that really made the stew special.
“There were always large coffee pots steaming, sweet tea, shared canned veggies and pickles and the famous ‘Martha Lauten’ pies that appeared on the many folding tables to give energy to those helping.
“The kitchen was fashioned with many grey folding metal chairs around a large center table where the women would sit well into the night preparing potatoes and crying from cutting onions, and talking about the crops from summer; what had been canned and if there was enough rain that season; the daily report of the textile industry and the like. The faces and voices of rural south, there all the same.'”
Dan Valley Community Center Brunswick Stew
1 tbsp olive oil
1 ¼ pounds chicken breasts – diced
1 ¼ pounds stew beef – diced
¼ pound pork loin – diced
½ pound yellow onions – diced
3 cups frozen yellow corn – thawed
1 ½ cups frozen white corn – thawed
2 cups frozen lima beans – thawed
2 ¼ cups V-8 juice
1 quart water
2 ¼ tsp Tabasco sauce
1 1/8 tsp white pepper
1 ½ tsp salt
1 each chicken bouillon cube
1 each beef bouillon cube
2 cups potatoes – peeled and diced
1 ½ tsp cracked black pepper
4 ¾ cups canned diced tomatoes
In a large stock pot or kettle heat oil. Sauté chicken, beef and pork in hot oil until browned. Add onions and continue to sauté until onions are translucent. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until mixture becomes a thick mush. Stir mixture constantly from the bottom of the pot to prevent scorching. Stew may be frozen.
Relish the last of summer vegetables: Granny’s good manners, chowchow, and pickling recipes
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 22. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
In days gone by, when unexpected company popped in or supper was not quite at hand, assorted preserved foods could be pulled out to nourish, sustain, appetize or entertain. The idea was to sample a few preparations, share with friends, and whet the appetite for the meal that lay ahead.
Here at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, we’ve embraced the resurgence of this culture of pickling. We make our own pepper vinegar for collard greens; preserve a rare bounty of wild ramps from an earlier spring foraging adventure, and make our own pickled cucumbers that are then fried for an appetizer.
Not only does pickling go well with the food we serve, it delivers the message that we’re rediscovering something our ancestors have already figured out: ways to extend seasonal foods, to balance rich and creamy southern foods with a zesty counterpoint, and to transform the taste of seasonal vegetables.
Sample Granny’s Relish Tray on our Endless Summer Menu (now through Oct 2.) The appetizer features tomato aspic — an heirloom tomato puree, flavored with celery seed, cayenne and green onion, that is set with gelatin and served cold (a Southern tradition you just don’t see anymore); Goat Lady Dairy Crottin; butterbean pate; zucchini pickles; and Nabisco Premium Saltines.
Extend the season
Before kitchen freezers, Interstate transportation and commercial agriculture, the only way you could enjoy okra in the winter was if it were preserved with one of three traditional preservation methods: salting, drying, and pickling.
The advantage pickling brings is that it adds depth of flavor. Pickling discourages bacteria while the natural juices of the vegetable undergo lactic fermentation and become sour.
A zesty counterpoint to rich and creamy foods
Our European ancestors pickled foods to balance the palate. In cooler climates like Northern and Eastern Europe, you find more vegetable pickling. In warmer climates, people cut rich foods with acidic wines or citrus fruit.
In addition to being a beneficial part of a macrobiotic diet, which introduces enzymes to improve digestion, pickled foods cleanse the palate and balance the rich, creamy dishes of the south.
Try it at home: Transform your favorites
The great thing about chowchow is that you throw in everything from the garden at the end of summer: unripened tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, cabbage – chop finely, season well and cook away. Scroll down for the recipe below.
Chowchow is a wonderful addition to anything that needs a little zing. Use it with anything bound with mayonnaise such as egg salad, chicken salad, or tuna salad.
Put chowchow in the food processor for your deviled eggs.
Spicy chow chow or pickles are good chopped finely and folded into pimento cheese. Or bread and butter pickles can be served atop pimento cheese.
Simple salads
One of our favorite suppers at home — if we don’t feel like cooking — is lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, hard boiled eggs, some sort of grated cheese, and whatever we have pickled in the refrigerator: pickled cucumbers, sunchokes, turnips, or chow chow.
Make your own Relish Tray
Don’t contaminate the reagent jar. Don’t use your hands to pull pickles out of the jar, bacteria on your hands will spoil the pickles.
The key to building a relish tray is contrast. Use a variety of pickles, not just sweet pickles: use sweet pickles, sour, and spicy (tell your guests which are which).
Pick a homemade potted meat. Choose devilled ham or pate’.
Pick a creamy side. Deviled eggs, pimento cheese, hummus, or butterbean pate’.
A thick, creamy cheese. A slice of Brie, or Goat Lady Dairy Crottin, a surface-ripened chevre that has begun to mellow.
Barbecue is always a good addition.
Serve with crackers. Nabisco Premium Saltines are my favorite.
For more information, read “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz. Several of our pickle processes are adapted from his book. The zucchini pickles on the tray are from Judy Rodgers’ book, “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.”
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s Green Tomato Chowchow
1½ cups green tomatoes, seeded and rough chopped
½ cup green bell pepper, rough chopped
¼ cup red bell pepper, rough chopped
½ cup yellow onion, rough chopped
¾ tsp mustard seed
½ tsp celery seed
½ tsp chopped garlic
½ tsp turmeric
⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
⅓ cup sugar
1 tsp crushed red pepper
In a food processor, pulse tomatoes until finely chopped, but not pureed. Pulse peppers and onion until finely chopped. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer on medium heat for 20-30 minutes. Cool and store in a properly labeled container with lid.
Remove rind from watermelon and reserve the red part to enjoy at your leisure. Using a vegetable peeler, remove green skin from the rind; discard skin. Cut rind into ½ inch x ½ inch pieces; the yield should be about 8 cups.
In a large bowl combine 2 tablespoons salt and 4 cups of water and allow rind to soak in brine for one hour, then drain.
In a large pot, combine lemon juice, 1 cup water, sugar, ginger puree, lemon peel and spices. Add rind, cover and bring to at boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer covered over medium low for 40 minutes or until rind is translucent.
Transfer rind with slotted spoon to a plastic container. Strain liquid and pour over rind.
Happy as a Hog: The harmony farming and libertarian philosophy of Mike Jones, MAE Farm Meats
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 18. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
by MOLLY McGINN
CARY, NC — Most Fridays around 3 or 4 pm, the former champion sword fighter grabs a late lunch at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Cary.
Join him. He’d love to bend your ear.
Ask Mike Jones about farming in harmony. Ask him about that “Knight in Shining Armor” thing. Ask him which came first: his intolerance for confinement pig farming, or his libertarian approach to farming.
“I’m not a pacifist. And I’m not a war monger,” Jones says. “If people misbehave, or things are harming you, then you need to deal with it. But for the most part, life is too short to put too much stress on others.”
Mike has been Lucky’s main pork supplier in Cary since 2010 when Lucky 32 met him at the Farm to Fork picnic. Neither had a partner for the farmer/chef event and the two paired up. This summer the restaurant started serving Mike’s vegetables off the farmer’s cart and in the restaurant.
Named after his children, MAE Farm Meats is also known as the center for “ethical and humane livestock production.” Mike’s sustainable, humane approach to hog farming and the quality of his food makes Mike a great match for the restaurant.
Learn more about sustainable farming at MAE Farms on the CFSA Farm Tour September 17 & 18 from 1 until 5pm, presented by the Carolina Farm Stewards. MAE is open and available at any time for a tour, call 252-430-1988.
Farming in Harmony
“The bulk of my experience is pork-production, and the other things that I do work in in harmony with the pork production: raise cattle, sheep, and vegetables. I’ll take the pigs out of the pen, and this time of year, in about a month, grasses and … weeds grow behind it. The cows graze the pig pastures from the nutrient-rich soil that the pigs put in the pen. Then I use the cattle to eat that grass up, and I sell the beef so I can recycle the nutrients. The chickens go along and clean up behind the pigs and cows. And I also produce vegetables on the pig pastures – there again, a lot of nutrients left on that soil. Pigs are still the main purpose, the other things just utilize the excess nutrients in the soil.”
Which came first: Your humane approach to farming from a personal philosophy, or your experience in hog farming and how a more organic approach produces a better product?
“I never wanted to farm the confinement way. I always wanted to farm — since I was 4-years-old — to bring the animals outdoors and to give them a nice life. When I was a child my dad raised pigs. Grandparents raised pigs, so I knew about that. I studied agriculture in high school and I took a job working for a confinement operation when I was in high school. Then, when I went to college, studied agriculture.”
Confinement Farms
“When I graduated from college I worked for a confinement operation (Confined, or Concentrated Animal Feed Operation) because that was presented as the wave of the future. But as any young person does, you always go with the trend. Everybody’s got a cell phone now, or a smart phone, or something, all the young people have them. So when I was a young person, just did what was supposed to be the cutting edge thing. But I never liked it. And eventually, I just quit.”
From concrete to the classroom
“North Carolina A&T University hired me to work on a grant-funded project that they had, helping small scale and limited resource tobacco farmers transition into outdoor niche market pork production. And that position lasted for 7 years. And during that time … I bought my own farm. When my position ended at NC A&T, I became a full-time farmer and I’ve been farming full-time for 3 years now.”
Libertarian philosophy
“It’s just the way I am. I have a Libertarian philosophy in that I would like for everyone to be able to express their natural behaviors within the limits of not hurting other people, and that’s how I regard my animals. They belong to me, but we have more a partnership. I try to give them a good place to live, and in return, they provide with me with what I need: food to eat and food to sell. A lot of times, for my farming practice — for me — it’s not over managing or micromanaging. Sometimes I see things that aren’t going the way that I want them to go, and the instinct is to do something about it. But I’ve learned a lot of times, you just stay out of the situation and back off, and lower the stress levels, things will right themselves. Sort of like if you’re in a boat: the way to get the boat to stop rocking is just to sit still.”
Mike Jones makes his Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen deliveries on Friday afternoons. Maybe you can catch him then. He usually orders “something made of pork,” he says. “Sometimes, fried chicken.”
Taste the difference yourself in the Parmesean-Crusted Pork Cutlet in Cary on the special NC Locavore’s Delight Menu.This special menu ends August 21.
5th generation, 4-season farmer, organic by a fluke: Faucette Farms
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 15. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
by MOLLY McGINN
You can’t round out a good locavore’s veggie plate without Mike Faucette and Faucette Farms.
The Lucky’s plate pictured above is like a mini-United Nations of community-owned farms: Guilford College squash, Schicker’s Acre kale, and Faucette Farms cucumbers.
If somebody can’t make it to the plate — if Schicker’s kale is between seasons — Mike is there to represent.
The 5th generation and 4-season farmer grows food year round, stocking his farmers market booth with certified organic green apples, eggplant, blackberries, blueberries, garlic, tomatoes, and these little cutie pies: pattypan squash.
About half of Faucette’s 500-acre farm is certified to grow organic foods that Mike supplies to restaurants, like Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, and to niche grocery stores and foodie centers such as Green’s Grocery in Gainesville, Ga, Whole Foods, and The Fresh Market.
He has a growing Community Supported Agriculture program that supplies 250 to 300 people with a bag or box of fresh organic veggies each week.
“They go year round, so I definitely like that, and it’s organic,” says Laura McDuffee, who stopped by the farmers market on Yanceyville St. in Greensboro this week to fill her bag with fresh veggies. She’s been in Mike’s CSA program for about 9 months.
“I try everything,” Laura says about the variety of vegetables. “My son comes with me and he picks out a few things, too.
“We’ve been out to their farm to pick them up, and I picked some up Thursday at the Jewish Federation Center–there are lots of different places to pick them up. I’ve been very pleased.”
The farm started in the 1900s as a tobacco farm with a little produce “to squeeze out just enough” to support the Faucette family. As the farm grew — and families were added to work it — they needed to keep growing the business to keep those added families going year round, Mike says.
As for the organic part of the farm operation …
“It was a fluke that I got into the organic business,” Mike says.
Around 2006 Mike sat in on seminars and meetings with groups like the North Carolina Vegetable Growers Association. At the time, farmers were encouraged to grow organic herbs for over-the-counter medicines to compete with growers in China.
Mike set aside a little land to certify organic and tested a crop he knew well: tobacco. The funding for the medicinal herb program eventually dried up, and the pesticide that Mike used that year on the other tobacco crop – the non-organic yield – contained a fungus that killed the crop.
“The organic survived,” Mike says.
The farm still supports Mike’s family, and a few more. Three families work the farm; plus Polly and Larry, who look after the CSA program. His dad, now in his 70s, supervises the farm’s grain and soybean business. Mike’s own family, and his son Tyler’s family depend on the farm, too.
“We have to keep them going year round,” Mike says.
“My next step is tomato juice,” says Mike when asked. “Any time you have a product that you grow excessively, you try to make it value-added.”
He’s always loved tomato juice. And it’s his mom’s recipe.
Let Mike know you love him. Find Faucette Farms on facebook or check out the farm’s Web site at www.faucettefarms.com
Create your own Locavore’s vegetable plate, pictured above. Choose a vegetable side from a list of choices across the bottom in the center panel of the menu. Here are the freshest suggestions:
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 14. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
Earlier this spring we met someone from the Guilford College Sustainability Office at Steve Troxler’s Commissioner Speaker Series at UNCG. They said, “You need to meet this kid, Korey Erb. He’s a rock star farmer, passionate, young, and interested.”
Guilford hired Korey from The College of William and Mary as an Agricultural Consultant a little over a year ago. They brought him in, gave him some land, dug him a well, and he built a climate-controlled greenhouse.
He grows food for the school’s cafeteria, the local foods underground scene, and for Guilford College students — it’s a subscription type service: students get $20 worth of fresh vegetables per week.
But like everything in agriculture, you never know what your yield will be, so with this year’s mild winter and wonderful spring, Korey had a bumper crop. And we were happy to help him out.
When we first met him, it was the week of finals at Guilford College and the cafeteria was closed. It just so happened that he had a truckload of vegetables that were recently harvested.
Among the farm’s bounty:
Australian Brown heirloom onions
yellow and red onion sets
Swiss chard
four varieties of basil
four varieties of eggplant
hot peppers—including anchos chiles, habaneros, and paper lanterns
cabbage
green and yellow summer squash
okra
mixed greens
heirloom tomatoes
cherry tomatoes and slicing tomatoes
source: Guilford College Sustainability Web site
Now Korey calls us twice a week with beautiful, fresh vegetables for the restaurant. Right now we’re using the heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers (we should have more in 2 weeks) summer squash and zucchini, and beet greens, the daily vegetable on Saturday’s menu.
If you’re not a member of the Guilford College community, you can sample some of Korey’s Rock Star vegetables here, at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen.
Spread the word. Spread the love.
Sample Korey Erb’s fresh squash in the Parmesan-Crusted Pork Cutlet on the Locavore’s Delight Tasting Menu, now through August 21.
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s Roasted Sesame Squash
1 lb summer squash cut into ½ moon slices
1 tbsp canola oil
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp black pepper
2 tsp sesame seeds
Add oil to mixing bowl and stir in seasonings. Add squash and toss well. Roast on baking sheet at 350 for 12 minutes.
Cooler heads prevail: Inverted beer float from Homeland Creamery
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 12. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
by MOLLY McGINN
The best farm finds happen by accident, which is how we found this great recipe for Coffee Ice Cream at Homeland Creamery. The family farm provides all of Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen’s milk, half and half, heavy cream, buttermilk, and ice cream.
We were talking recipes and swapping stories by the ice cream counter at the farm store in Julian, NC when manager Terry Bowman shared this sweet treat. It’s just too good to keep to ourselves.
Homeland Creamery Cake Batter ice cream with a little Red Oak Hummin’ Bird Helles poured on top. Tweet this recipe.
Tastes just like coffee ice cream. Red Oak is available in select places in the growler size. One of these brews works well, too:
LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series # 11. Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.
One of the rarest and most expensive foods can’t be harvested by hand. Truffles grow 3 – 12 inches underground on a tree’s root system, and here, on the Keep Your Fork farm in King, NC, truffles grow under this hazelnut orchard. Farm owner and trufficulteur Jane Morgan Smith herself can’t even find the truffles. She leaves that to her dog.
Historically, pigs were used to dig up truffles growing underground (for their keen sense of smell). But they couldn’t train the pigs to stop eating the prize.
“Once the truffle is found, the farmer scrapes back the earth, being careful not to touch the truffle with his or her hands (which will cause the fungus to rot). If the truffle isn’t ripe, it’s carefully reburied for future harvesting,” pg. 708, Food Lover’s Companion
This precarious delicacy with its tedious harvest makes it a culinary delight. Someone once described the truffle’s earthy flavor as the “taste after it rains.” And these are Perigord Black Truffles, the crème de la crème of fungus.
Jane’s truffle butter (available online) is wonderful spread on some rustic toast or stirred into your own grits, or melted atop some delicate flounder fillets. The aroma is intriguingly earthy and the taste is of intense mushrooms squared.
Try Jane’s truffles this month on the Parmesan-Crusted Pork Cutlet with creamy grits topped with truffle butter and summer squash. The dish is part of our “Suddenly Summer menu,” featuring “Locavore’s Delight.” This special menu is a 2012 Finalist for the Best in North Carolina restaurant competition.
We met Jane Morgan Smith through one of our chefs’ at our sister restaurant’s Green Valley Grill and Print Works Bistro. They purchased some truffles from her and she invited us out to visit her grove. I didn’t see much use for the truffles on our menu at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen. Then, this winter, we were preparing our entry for the Best Dish in NC competition when we ran into Jane again at the Piedmont Grown annual gathering.
She mentioned that the new crop of truffles was being harvested and she’d have plenty of truffle butter in the near future. I decided to finish our wonderfully creamy Guilford Mill grits with some truffle butter for the Best Dish contest.
And that was that.
For more on Jane’s truffles, visit her blog where you’ll find lots of information “about our trials and tribulations along the way,” she says, or fan up the facebook page and find her truffle products from the Web site www.TrufflesNC.com