Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

Loba enjoying her kitchen

¡Bienvenidos a La Cocina del Cañón!
(Welcome to the Canyon Kitchen!)

My apologies to any readers who have been missing me lately– I’ve just been having way too much fun to write!  As Kiva and Wolf prepare for our Herbal Resurgence conference this weekend, I’m giddily reclaiming my new outdoor kitchen from last nights rainstorm and erosion.  I’d always loved cooking outside on a campfire, but couldn’t possibly have imagined how much daily joy I would get by having a covered Cocina with a view of the cliffs and open to the wind, equipped with antique stoves and draped with fairy lights.  Since my early articles in SageWoman magazine, I’ve been telling folks about the importance of nourishing and treating ourselves, and how that benefits from having our own personal “sacred” space — whether a special room dedicated to that, or a special spot in the garden.  My new Cocina has become much more than a lovely place to cook, it’s also my “sanctus sanctorum”, my parlor in which to meet and cook with friends, and verily the center of my physical and magical world!

Watching it being planned and built has been totally amazing!  In the beginning, Dan’l, Wolf and I talked about the outdoor kitchen being a simple little 8 x 8 lean-to, with room for a little propane camp stove and a counter, just enough to get me out of the heat of the kitchen on those really hot summer days. Well, then our dear Trail Boss got all excited to tell me about this wonderful antique wood stove (a gift from Dan, by the way) that had been just hanging out on his ex’s porch, that he would love to see “finally get some use” ! I just about fell over at his description of it! Then, one thing led to another as things tend to do around here, thanks to Wolf and Danny’s enthusiasm and vision, and a whole lot of help and funds (thank you Kiva!) and now, several months later, the outdoor kitchen, or “La Cocina” as I like to call it, has blossomed into a 16’ x 16’ living area complete with not one but two antique stoves (propane and wood), counters, giant sink area equipped with an impressive antique white enamel cast iron double sink! and a gravity fed spout!!! a table area and chairs, and even a spot for our beloved Singer that was Wolf’s grandma’s! There are several solar lights, including some lovely little strings of blue lights that magically come on at dark and remind me of morning glory flowers. And Wolf ordered me some lovely orangey paper lanterns that make the solar lights all extra pretty and glowy!

How I so love to be out in the fresh air and canyon light, watching the birds butterflies and lizards, feeling the wind on my skin as I cook! It’s so wonderful when it rains, feeling the warmth of the woodstove and the chill of the rain at the same time! It’s such a thrill to me to transfer bowls of hot water into pots, feeling the rising steam as rain drops dance a few feet away, or to knead the next day’s dough in the glowy light of evening, and to watch the shadows grow amongst the mountain tree tops across the river. How I love to make coffee for my beloved ones in the early morning while wrens hop amongst the amaranth and tiny lizards scuttle across the kitchen floor! My lovely hand fashioned floor is made all of canyon stones gathered by Dan and Don and helpers, and I have to tell you, one of my greatest thrills about the new kitchen is being able to THWACK sticks that are a little too long against the floor! (no doing that indoors!) Spilling water on the floor is much less of annoyance outdoors, too, but we must be much more careful not to spill any food or sweet liquids, or the ants will throw a party! What a joy it is for me to get to watch so many of the changes and events in the day– the moving clouds, the shift of the sun through the sky, the flocks of swallows that sometimes come at dusk to fill the sky with their careening dance.  To celebrate visits from wandering caterpillars, moths and praying mantis with the simple joy of stopping what I’m doing for a moment to give them due admiration. I love imagining growing old in this kitchen, and imagining the accumulation of so many sunsets and monsoon rains, so many big pots of soup, loaves of bread and pies, so many piles of wild plants gathered, processed and consumed! I celebrate the joy of so many years ahead of me (hopefully, that is!) I will spend embracing the beautiful processes of life, and the cycles of hunger and fulfillment, in this place of so much life and beauty.

Helpers Gina, Evangeline, and Mattie eating in kitchen

It’s been so much fun stripping the plants we’ve been harvesting with our helpers at the big table, teaching them about preservation methods, making sauerkraut together and brining grape leaves for the winter. Everyone’s been working hard on all the projects and hauling wood and doing lots of cleaning and organizing around here and I like to reward them with “tiempo en la cocina”  -“kitchen time”- whenever we can fit it in! We made wild mint pesto and ginger-mint curry paste yesterday, and a few days before, we pickled devil’s claw fruits and canned them. I love seeing everyone take pride and joy in learning new things and putting their new skills to use. It’s great to be able to ask someone to tend the wood stove fire, or check the bread in the oven, or to saute a panful of onions, and for them to feel like they know what they’re doing. Most of the folks I’ve been teaching have been taking notes, some have been making their own cookbooks. Evangeline told me yesterday how she plans to teach her kids someday from the book she’s making now. How that warms me little heart! And she plans to make her own outdoor kitchen someday, too!

Inspiring a cookbook journal

I hope that everyone who reads this might gain a little spark of inspiration to create a space for themselves that nourishes their soul, whether it is a place to dance or stretch or make art or music or to take inspired naps, or share massage, or to cook! Whether it is outside or inside, or some combination of the two. Make use of your inspirations, and of whatever resources you can muster together. Make use of any potential help, and give something back in return! This is just one more way that we as a culture can nurture wholeness in ourselves, and in each other, and to learn and practice the best of what it can be, to be a human in this magical world. Making special spaces for ourselves, and for each other, is truly a worthy use and gift of our time, that ends up benefiting everyone around us. As of course, the more nurtured all of us feel, the more we can be present and response-able in our everyday lives, and that is truly a gift to us all. I give my most profound thanks to every person who has helped make my dream kitchen come true, and for the love and support of all who celebrate the efforts and results!! May this inspiration I feel each day, help “jump start” you with the will and power to make your own dreams, and dream spaces come true!

Blessings and love to you all! –Loba

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Autumn Celebrations and Ruminations
by Loba

Anima School & Retreat Center

Hello Friends!

I hope you all have been enjoying the joys of Autumn as much as we have! I so love this time of year! Oh the gloriousness! The welcome chill in the air, the happy building of morning fires once again, the miraculous palette of gold and orange and red, fading greens and brilliant evergreens, against the impossibly blue New Mexico sky! It is truly way too beautiful here in the canyon to put into words, so just look:

The sacred cliffs at Anima Center, NM

Watching the late summer turn into fall has kept me in a constant state of amazement. Each day the giant grape leaves that were too pretty for me to bear to harvest turn more golden, catching the afternoon light and reminding me to slow down to admire them. Every day at the river there have been yellow butterflies fluttering around with the falling cottonwood leaves! I love watching the leaves  get caught up with the wind in a butterfly-like dance before they flutter to float on the river. They are little boats of beauty, reminding me of the preciousness of life and time.  And then I float down the river myself! It’s certainly getting more chilly, what a thrill!

Rhiannon and I made a fun list a few weeks ago of many things we wanted to do to celebrate Autumn. The list has a bunch of different categories– things to harvest, things to bake, things to can, things to make (like velvet leaves we made and attached to ribbons to hang in our hair, and a leather purse for Rhiannon we’re working on), specific celebrations (A Teddy Bear Picnic, Autumn Equinox, my birthday, Day of the Dead), and things to clean and/or give attention to.

It may seem funny to think of cleaning things as a way of celebrating, but it helps make it seem fun and special! Besides, we never got entirely through with our Spring Cleaning list, so this gives us another chance! What I’ve been doing is trying to do at least one of the fun creative things on the list each day, and at least one of the Fall cleaning items, even if it means that some of the daily chores aren’t done as thoroughly as usual. It feels so good to finally make time to do the hand wash laundry pile, and wash the windows, and scrub the walls behind the woodstove, and clean out the pantry again!

We have been reveling in the abundances of produce we’ve been able to harvest, trade for, and buy! I’ve been very busy processing over 100 pounds of root veggies that a wonderful student of Kiva’s brought to the TWHC in trade for her registration. Thank you Kristen for all the lovingly tended fruits of your labors! Been making oil preserved parsnips and carrots, candied parsnips and apples, carrot salsa, eggplant salsas of many persuasions, home-dried turnips, carrots and parsnips, fermented turnips, green chile relish, and more! Kiva and Rhiannon and I went up to the mountains to harvest fir where Kiva spotted some rare, out-of season morel mushrooms! I nearly fell over with excitement!!!!  So of course we’ve been making all kinds of tree-flavored treats– Fir Oil, Fir Honey Paste, Fir Vinegar and Fir Almond Paste, which I’ve been putting in so many things! I’ve been busy working on a new Plant Healer piece on breads and other foods I make with soaked buckwheat groats, which has resulted in lots of fun experiments involving buckwheat banana bread, buckwheat gingerbread cookies, and buckwheat tamales! Yum!

Fresh Morrel Mushrooms, we're in luck!

Some of you may be wondering by now if that fabled cookbook of mine will EVER get finished! I do apologize for the endlessly long wait! And no, it’s not done yet! But you’ll be happy to know I have been on a roll lately, now that I’ve gotten myself back in the habit of getting up before dawn to write. I seem to have a really hard time fitting any writing into the daytime hours. So far I’ve been keeping up with my goal of completing a page of the cookbook each day. At this rate, in eight or nine months the text should be completed, then I’ll need another 3 months or so to work on the artwork I’m planning to do. Then it will be up to Wolf to deal with all my edits and layout. I could really use some recipe testers– any volunteers? I need folks who are already capable cooks who are able test oven temperatures and timing on many of the baked items, and spot any missing instructions or such things in recipes. Please let me know if you think you can help!

And now, just a couple Loba recipes for your sensory enjoyment!

Fir Oil Preserved Parsnips (or Carrots, Turnips, or Rutabagas)

What a blessing it is, to use what has been grown with love and care! Parsnips are my favorite for this lovely way to preserve root veggies that have a bit of woodiness to them. I’ll eat these with just about everything!

1 lb. parsnips
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar or any wild herbal vinegar
1/2 cup water
sea salt
Fir Oil (about 1 cup)

Peel parsnips and chop into bite-size chunks. In a large pot, bring vinegar and water to a boil, add chopped parsnips and bring to a boil again. Simmer until just tender, then strain the parsnips and save the vinegar water for another use, or another batch! In pint jars, layer the cooked parsnips with sprinklings of sea salt, and pour enough Fir Oil over to cover. Place a canning lid soaked in hot water ten minutes over the jar rim, screw on caps and store in a cool place for at least two weeks before eating. (If you can stand to wait that long!) I often process these jars in a hot water bath for ten minutes before storing, but they usually seal anyhow, within 24 hours, without the extra precaution. Inverting the jars after putting the lids on while the parsnips are still very warm (strange as it may seem!) will help facilitate this, if you prefer not to water-process them.

To Make Fir Oil, strip enough fir needles to nearly fill a pint or quart jar, cover with extra virgin olive oil, and put in a warm place for several weeks. OR, place the jar of oil in a very barely simmering water bath for at least four hours. When the oil tastes very strongly of Fir, strain and jar.

Not sure if these really qualify as candied parsnips, as they’re not really THAT sweet, but for lack of a better term….

Lemons in the sun! Photo by Loba

Candied Parsnips with Apple and Lemon

This is such a treat I like to can it and use it as a topping for shortbread or gingerbread tarts, an accompaniment for apple strudel or buckwheat pancakes,  or a filling for crepes (with sour cream). It’s also lovely stirred into a bowl of fresh yogurt, maybe with a little extra honey or maple syrup. It can also be made without the apples. I like to use the apples to make the parsnips go further, and I love how their married flavors remind me of the magic of quinces.

2 cups cooked parsnips (peeled, chopped and braised in butter)
2 cups chopped apples
1/2 cup finely minced fresh lemon, rind and flesh (de-seeded)
1/2-2/3 cup honey (to taste)
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepot and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the apples are cooked. Can in half-pint jars or enjoy right away!

Makes about 4 half-pint jars

Until we talk again, treat yourself well, and remember to savor!  It’s the Anima way!

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Rain clouds, not smoke from wildfires!

Canyon Updates and Wild Rabbit Stew

Text, Recipe and Photos by Loba

It’s a perfect and peaceful day in the canyon. Our bellies are full of skillet bread and rabbit stew, there are elk splashing down at the river and Wolf is out tending and watering the lovely little garden-oasis he has built for us.  We had dealt with so much drought, so little new growth, and so much brush was removed around the buildings in anticipation of this Summer’s imposing wildfire, that we all craved the green.  Don and Dan constructed a twelve feet wide overhang on juniper poles that keeps the midday sun and most of any rain off of a lovely river-sanded sitting area, around which Wolf has built lichen covered retaining walls holding raised beds full of native and introduced plants that we all love.  Russian sage, mint, lemon balm, lamb’s quarters, Mexican poppies and so much more.  And set to climb up each of the posts are the honeysuckle, ivy and wysteria that he planted.  It’s neat to see him sneak out there for some sitting time, in the shorter of the breaks he gets from the laptop screen.  He and Kiva have been working 16 hour days again, in order to deal with the conference coming up and the next issue of Plant Healer Magazine and 3 (!) books that ALL have to ready for the printers in less than 2 weeks!  So it seems like our little oasis just outside the cabin door has become a refuge too, for recharging as well as delighting.  I watched Wolf go there when something had him sad yesterday, and whenever things stress him out, and then he comes back calmed if not always consoled.   I see him from the kitchen window gently handle each plant, acknowledging them and helping their climbs towards light, and in a short while he is rearin’ to roar again on the most pressing priority of the day.

Not long ago, I went downriver to search for a datura flower for Kiva’s birthday, as I have done every July 11th for the past seven years. I had to go pretty far to find one in bloom, and just after I finally did I saw some large creature lumbering along the opposite side of the river bank. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was a big black bear, its fur shining golden-black in the just-risen morning sun. I was on my way for a dunk in the river and continued on my way. As I was approaching the swimming hole, the bear started slowly across the river bank, and by the time I was in and out of the water, she was running towards the other side of the tree that I was very near!  She wasn’t running directly at me but it did make my heart race a bit, how exciting to get a dose of bear energy like that!

Rhiannon does a rain dance in the first showers, the ground around her is all green now!

Yesterday was Rhiannon’s 11th birthday, with her dancing to gypsy music with her newly pierced and decorated ears (I’ll post birthday pics later).  She’s getting big way too fast!  It’s been great to full focus on important events and doin’s like her birthday, as well as to be able to focus on the projects and inspirations that had been put on hold during all the stress and extra busy-ness of the fire preparations.  With the scare over for this year at least, we are getting back to harvesting the miraculous grape leaves busting out all over the river bottom, taking photographs with my newly inherited camera, planning frivolous sewing projects, organizing family archives, working on my next article for Plant Healer and getting back into the final stages of my Wild foods cookbook.  And more time to cook and feast!

Milk boxes galore, on their way to becoming yoghurt!

Good food and nourishment is so central to my world and happiness it seems!  Last week our friend Sarah in town gave us a huge amount of food that was leftover from the firefighters being in town. Countless little boxes of milk and juice and bags of oranges and more. Kept us busy for the better part of a few days. We boiled down the milk for a while and made 24 pints of yogurt for the freezer in town, and then we boiled down the juice and canned 20 half pints of juice concentrate, and chopped up many oranges to make at least a dozen pint jars of orange marmalade. Rhiannon and I made it extra fun by twirling around to exotic tunes as we opened all the little cartons, and cooking the juice and canning outside by the fire.  And taking many trips to the river to cool off!

Rhiannon's young friend Cassandra is amazingly brilliant as well as sweet, and provides a level of companionship well above her years. Here she's seen stripping wild grape leaves for our dinner.

Anyway, here’s the stew I made for supper tonite, hope you will enjoy! Perhaps you will have a rabbit-procuring adventure soon! Let me know what it inspires– I always love to hear!

Wild Rabbit stew, Loba style!

Wild Rabbit Stew
with New Potatoes, Mushrooms, Mustard Greens, Goat Milk and Guinness

Wolf always knows he’ll be greeted with extra big smiles whenever he comes home from one of his evening hunts with rabbit in hand. There’s a whole lot of nourishment potential in one little rabbit, and I think they must be the easiest game to skin and clean there is. I might be able to do it half-asleep. And considering how late he stays out hunting sometimes, that’s a fortunate thing (the ancient act of seeking meat becomes a way for him to get out of his head and into this inspirited place, and he’s sometimes loathe to return!).

This is a simple stew that celebrates the gift of rabbit to the utmost. I love how the flavors of mustard and dark beer complement the (usually) mild meat without overpowering it. If the rabbit happens to be a little on the gamey side, increase the amounts of beer and mustard a bit, and add some extra garlic and alleppo pepper. If the rabbit seems a bit tough, (as with an older one) you may need to simmer it longer. I like to steam the new potatoes separately so I don’t overcook them, to preserve their special texture, and to strain the broth whenever I have an extra minute or two.

Serves 3-5

1 3-4 pound rabbit, wild or humanely raised, cleaned and cut into pieces
3-4 tablespoons butter
2 medium-large onions, sliced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound new potatoes
10 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 cup Guinness or other dark beer
2 cups goat milk (preferably raw)
1 heaping teaspoon dijon mustard
6-8 leaves fresh sage, or 1-2 teaspoons crumbled dried sage
1/2-1 teaspoon salt (to taste) and lots of freshly ground pepper
Extra butter, for serving
Goat cheese or Jarlsberg cheese, for serving, optional

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter and brown the rabbit pieces on all sides. Remove the meat from the pan and place in a stew pot. Cover the meat with fresh water, bring to a low boil, and keep at a bare simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the meat can be pulled from the bone fairly easily, but with a little resistance. In the meantime, saute the onion slices in a tablespoon of butter and with salt, till lightly browned, using the same pan used for the meat, so that the meat juices will attach themselves to the onions and garlic in a perfect union. Put the onions aside, add more butter to the same pan, and saute the mushrooms till lightly browned. In a separate, smaller pot, steam the new potatoes until just cooked. When the rabbit is done cooking, remove the meat pieces from the pot, strain the broth into a bowl and pour it back into the pot. Strip the meat from the bones carefully, adding it back to the strained broth.  Add the potatoes, onions, mushrooms, dijon mustard and beer to the pot, stir well, and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat, add the goat milk or cheese and sage, blending in the cheese, if using. Check to see if it needs more salt and add freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve with chopped fresh mustard or turnip greens, Aleppo pepper, and some butter or some additional cheese on top, if you like. Apple-peach chile chutney is sensational with this, too!

Me playing with Cassandra's rose, enjoying another yummy canyon day!

Variation with Turnips: Instead of the new potatoes, braise a large panful of chopped turnips in 2 tablespoons butter and 1/2 cup water.  For the first ten minutes keep the pan covered and stir occasionally, then uncover the pan, add 2 more tablespoons butter and stir slightly more often, till the water has cooked back into the turnips and they are lightly browned and tender. Add to the stew just before serving. Boiled turnips would work fine, too, but they will have a sweeter taste and better texture cooked this way.

If you’re a meat eater, you should try it, with rabbits both plentiful and nourishing.  Besides being hunted, you can purchase good ones already dressed from small holistic farms.  Be sure to give them thanks, as we thank every living plant or animal that sustains us.  And as Wolf likes to say, “Remember to savor!”

Loba looking out at the canyon in gratitude, in the sun after the first rains.

(Post and Forward Freely– www.AnimaCenter.org)

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Boletes from the Mountain

by Loba
Anima Lifeways & Herbal School
www.AnimaCenter.org

The Anima courses, TWH Conference and upcoming Plant Healer magazine have been keeping Kiva and Wolf on the laptop a lot of the time, as they work to find new ways to teach and otherwise give to you all.  One of the ways they get a break is when we opt to go on plant trips, trips designed to get us into new parts of the Gila bioregion that we haven’t seen, and to bring home medicines and food.  Shortly before the event, Wolf drove us all out to the mountains near Luna, NM, and found a back road that went right up a mountain where Kiva and I had found some great mushrooms and plants the week before. We traveled slowly up the hill, Kiva finding wild orchids and beautiful red amanita mascara mushrooms for Wolf to take pictures of, and all of us harvesting gooseberries, raspberries and bolete mushrooms we found in the wettest places near the road. When we got up to a meadow near the top of the mountain, there were suddenly sooo many boletes!

We harvested quite a lot of them there, then had a little picnic, drove along the road a little ways, and found another mushroom spot, this one even more amazing than the last! Between all four of us, we gathered at least 30 pounds of mushrooms! What joy! Kiva and I stayed up late into the night sorting, cleaning, and chopping up the boletes.

The next morning we were grateful that it was sunny, and put some of the chopped mushrooms on the porch on a large screen and some into the smoker to dry them out more quickly.

Meanwhile there were still bags and bags of mushrooms to continue to wash, while I rotated the mushrooms in the smoker, sauteed giant pan fulls in rosemary oil on the stove, and simmered a big potful of red wine and vinegar to pickle another batch. It was quite the day!

Rhiannon had been helping me a good part of the day, as well, and by late afternoon was practically begging me to give her some other chores to do that didn’t have to do with cleaning mushrooms. I’ve never seen her so thrilled to take out the compost! I’d eaten so many of the delicious ones I’d been sauteing all day, I couldn’t eat any with my supper– but not to worry, I was soon to recover from mushroom overload– the next morning I was quite happy to have them with my eggs for breakfast, and to make the last batch of pickled mushrooms!

The last batch of boletes that I washed and pickled was made a million times easier with a tip from an online friend of Kiva’s. Kiva had been talking about how long it was taking me to clean them, and asked folks if they had any hints for making it easier. Sarah and Wes in Michigan gave us the wonderful tip that it really helps to soak them in salt water first. Just put about 1 tablespoon salt per quart of water, and soak your mushrooms for at least an hour, and up to 24 hours. The dirt, pine needles, etc, come off soooo much more easily! It does make the mushrooms take longer to dry, but the salt also gets rid of any mushroom-eating worms that might be present.

As a treat for you, below you’ll find my version of a German pickled mushroom recipe that Kiva found for me to try, one that I adapted a bit. It is such a winner, and very flexible. We’re fond of calling mushrooms “mushrumps” after the story in one of our favorite Neil Gaiman books, Stardust, in which a dear little magical man fixes up the main character a delightful pan full of mushrooms in the middle of the forest of Faery.

Pickled Mushrumps

1-2 pounds mushrooms, preferably wild, carefully washed and chopped (make sure they’re properly identified!!!!)
1 tablespoon salt
1 medium onion, minced
3 cloves garlic
1/4- 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (if you have it)
2-4 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, or 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary, or both
2 cups red wine (I used Merlot for the first batch, and some homemade elderberry wine for the second batch. You can use any homemade wine you have around, red or white, or any mead)
2 cups cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of half a lemon

Mix all ingredients in an enameled pan, bring to a boil. Add the mushrooms, bring to a boil again, and simmer for about five minutes. Since I made a triple batch, I ladled the pickled mushrooms into pint jars and put into a hot water bath for ten minutes to seal them. You can also simply store them in the fridge where they will keep at least a few weeks.

(Loba is busy compiling her cookbook, which we may release in sections as PDFs… beginning with Wild Foods, and she will also be contributing to the upcoming Anima food and cooking blog)

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Intro: Besides our personal trials and tasks, we’ve been working such long hours on the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference that I’ve been tardy in getting Loba’s following story – and resulting recipes – to you like I promised.  With all due respect to the sensibilities of our earth-loving vegetarian readers, this is a tale of fang and claw, hunter and gatherer, flesh and feast.  It is inevitable that we intimately and corporeally share with the rest of life, share in its body and force, then one day share in turn the nutrients that are us.  In death we are without exception a precious gift to the all, even if we never give ourselves enough credit for the gift that we are when alive. -Wolf

The Lion’s Elk
by Loba

Anima Wilderness School: www.AnimaCenter.org

Rhiannon and I were out near the third river crossing picking grape leaves early in the morning for a special morning adventure. We were picking from vines that wrapped all the way around a big oak tree. She had gone around one side of the tree to pick and wandered off a little ways, and came back to me all excited. “Mama Loba, there’s an elk that’s been half eaten, pretty recently!” Of course I had to investigate. We went through the forest a little bit, and there right under a juniper tree in plain sight were the remains of a young elk. The skull had been picked clean, the guts eaten, and the hindquarters were perfectly intact. Barely cool, it had been, I guessed, only a very few hours since the elk had been killed. Claw marks showed where she had brought the unfortunate animal down… marks that remind us how in the long run the lions bring a gift of strength and awareness to the elk tribe!

We picked some more grape leaves, then walked back to tell Wolf and Kiva about Rhiannon’s discovery. Kiva drove out in the jeep with me to gather up the hindquarters. When we came back to the site I went looking for tracks, and was able to find some very close to the elk that were, indisputably, lion tracks!  Later Wolf pointed out the clean, knife like, nearly surgical cuts, typical of a cat and not a coyote or wolf.  He told us that the lion had most certainly been interrupted by us in the act of eating, as they tend to cover and hide any remaining meat for later.  No doubt she was very close by, watching us the whole time!

Once discovered, I knew she wouldn’t go back to eating, so there was nothing to do but bring the undamaged portions home!  We far prefer to eat wild meat to any other, for flavor as well as to be getting chemical free, wild hearted protein, so this was a real boon!

I was so excited, I wasn’t even finished skinning the hindquarters when I had to heat up a pan and fry up a bit of the meat. It was as juicy and tender and mild flavored as any I’ve ever tasted.  This Wolf tells me is not only because the elk was so young, but probably because the quiet stalk, sudden rush and incapacitating bite to the neck happened too quick for hardly any adrenalin and fear vibe to kick in!

Needless to say I had to give Kiva a taste right away, too, and she was just as excited about it as I was. Altogether there was at least 15, maybe 20 pounds of meat to freeze at a friend’s house and can for storage at home. We were all so proud of Rhiannon for finding us so many wonderful suppers-to-come!  She’s learned so much about nature as well as herself, and Wolf’s awareness training has really paid off!

For those of you omnivores who might hunt, discover a truck killed animal still warm on the side of the road, or be given the gift of wild meat, below is my favorite way to serve it up fresh.  Note that this works equally well with deer and other red meats. Very easy!  And by preparing it so well, and appreciating it so much, we help honor its mortal blessing and gift!

Elk with Fennel and Garlic

1 pound elk meat
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, ground in a mortar and pestle OR 1 tablespoon fresh sage, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
2 tablespoons mixed dried veggies (optional)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Butter or bacon or lamb fat

Slice the elk meat across the grain in pieces about 1/2 inch thick. In a medium bowl, rub in the fennel seed, garlic, dried veggies, salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet to medium-high, add the fat and then the meat as soon as it’s hot. Fry the meat until lightly browned on one side, then flip and quickly fry the second side. The meat should be done cooking in about 5 minutes. Serve with sauteed wild greens or with other green veggies.

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(photo of lion in the act of pouncing courtesy of Scientific American Magazine.  All other photos by Kiva Rose)

(For more homesteading and rewilding tales, stay tuned for our upcoming new online magazine site this Fall)

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Grape Leaf Suppers

by Loba

To walk the canyon in early Summer is to saunter through waves of the most beguiling scent I’ve ever known– the grape vines are flowering! It comes at me from a distance, just a hint of sweetness, then it grows and grows until it I am completely drunk on grapeflower. I lean against the rocks under their vines, surrendering moment upon moment… forgetting all the things I have to do, and deciding that picking grape leaves for supper is at least as important as any of them. Now the grape flowers have become fruits– the little grapes are swelling with the wonderfully welcome monsoon rains! And the grape leaves are still perfect for picking.

There’s not many foods that don’t take kindly to being wrapped about in a grape leaf. It’s refreshing to realize that we don’t need bread products to have the fun experience of piling complementary foods together and eating them with our hands, as in a sandwich, or a burrito. The extra fun of stuffing your own grape leaves is that every single leaf can be filled differently! Their tartness perfectly complements rich meat dishes or simply grilled steak or chicken, baked yams, hummus and other bean dishes, creamy nettle dip, even simply steamed or sauteed vegetables, especially mixed with any of the above. They’re also wonderful wrapped around certain fresh vegetables, especially fresh red peppers, with a bit of cheese and/or an olive and a bit of pesto. One of my favorite ways to serve supper this time of year is to arrange a beautiful, large platter of different foods, sometimes all of them cold, if it is a very hot day. I go through the pantry and coolers and find whatever scrumptious little treats and leftovers might be hiding in there, and slice up some fresh things, and decorate the whole creation with little piles of fresh grape leaves. Their bright green is so beautiful with all the other colors, it’s enough to make me hungry even when it’s almost too hot to think about eating! It’s beyond fun to take each leaf and fill it with any assortment of mouth-watering yummies! Don’t forget to admire each one before you eat them! We also have a lot of fun informing each other of particularly good bites. Suppertime conversation often goes like this, “Oh, I just had the best thing! It was a bit of yam, with some goat cheese, preserved lemon and some olive paste, and a bit of that elk!” “Oh, I have to try it!” “Did you try the roasted garlic with the chard and some eggplant yet?” “Yeah, it’s even better if you put a little hummus in there.”

If you don’t have lots of lovely little treats hiding in your pantry this time of year, you can go to the natural foods deli and get some olives and smoked meats, and marinated things, and delicious cheeses. But here are also some very easy dishes or condiments for you to consider having around for a inspiring summertime grape leaf feast! Some of them do require using an oven, which I suggest either doing in the morning if you have cool mornings where you are, or using a solar oven, which I am most likely to do whenever it’s not cloudy. I also tend to cook any sauteed dishes in the morning, whenever I can make the time.

Roasted Garlic
Gingered Eggplant Relish
Wild herb (or basil) Pesto (see recipe in a previous blog)
Baked Tofu
Delphi Chicken
Elk with Grape leaves
Simple Sauteed Kale with Lemony Leeks
Fresh Corn and Nettle Saute

Roasted Garlic

What a delight it is, to squeeze tender roasted garlic cloves from their papery shells and add this magic substance to just about any meat or vegetable or bread-like treat. If you use a homemade chicken broth with plenty of fat to roast it in, you won’t need to add any olive oil to the pan. But it will come out delicious either way you choose to make it, as long as it has just enough time in the oven.

To Roast Garlic in an Oven:

Several heads of Garlic (4-6, depending on size)
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons chicken broth or water
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or rosemary oil
salt and freshly ground pepper
pinch or two of thyme

Place the whole garlic heads in an 8 inch pan. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan, and swish the pan around a bit to mix things around. Place in about a 350 degree oven for about 60-90 minutes, or until the garlic cloves have darkened and shrunk a bit, and are quite soft when you squeeze or poke at them.

coming soon– how to roast garlic in an open fire!

Baked Tamari Tofu

You can buy good packaged baked tofu at any whole foods store, but it’s much more fun to make your own.  This home baked tofu is so irresistible that I have a hard time not devouring the entire batch as it first comes out of the oven.  If I hope to share any with Kiva and Rhiannon, I make sure to double the quantities.

(serves 2)

8 oz. package raw tofu, firm or extra firm
1/3 cup tamari
2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger, minced
4 or more cloves garlic, minced

Slice the tofu into 1/2” pieces.  Put the tamari, ginger and garlic in a wide shallow bowl, or a loaf pan, letting it soak for at least a half an hour, turning once.  Preheat the oven to 375˚.  Remove the tofu from the marinade and arrange the slices on a greased pan.  Bake for about 20 minutes, watching carefully and rotating the pan if needed.  The slices will shrink and firm up considerably, but should still be moist inside.  Enjoy straight from the oven, as a garnish on soup, pasta, or rice, or as party to my Udon Noodles With Tofu and Peanut Sauce (see p. ?).

Gingered Eggplant Relish

This one’s great so many ways, with chicken or fish, in burritos, on polenta, in sandwiches, mixed into scrambled eggs and on and on!  I’ve made many variations on this theme, but the onion, ginger and garlic are always a constant.  I suggest that you try it without the dill and coriander before you try it with…. it’s so good both ways!  I love eggplant so much, it’s always on my list when someone offers to bring me treats from the city.

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or butter)
1 medium eggplant
1 large onion
6 medium-large cloves garlic
2-4 tablespoons minced grated fresh ginger (to taste)
1 teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
1 tsp dried dill (optional)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Chop the onion into small pieces and cook with the grated minced ginger, in a skillet until halfway tender in the olive oil.  Chop the eggplant while the onion is cooking, in chunks a little bigger than the onion pieces.  Add the eggplant, and stir as often as you can while you are mincing the garlic.  Add the garlic, and the dill and coriander if you like, and stir frequently until everything is tender but not mushy.  Do you have any homemade sesame crackers around?  I hope so!  If not, you’d better try it immediately on some good bread!

Delphi Grilled Chicken

What evokes summertime more than lemony grilled chicken, redolent with fresh herbs?  With fresh corn-on-the-cob and a big Greek salad, this is the perfect meal for clan get-togethers on those sultry Summer evenings.  I like to put on some extra sticks of juniper on the campfire where we grilled, to delight the kids and light up the faces of our friends.
We prefer dark meat, as it’s more flavorful and juicy, so we often buy packages of nothing but thighs.  If not, we purchase a whole chicken that I cut up into quarters. The chicken soaks in the marinade overnight, which is also used to baste the bird during cooking.  Served as is and hot, or mixed with some plain yogurt or sour cream, it makes a scrumptious sauce!

1 whole chicken, or 6 thighs, rinsed in cold water

Lemon Rosemary-Thyme Marinade:

Juice of 2 lemons
1/4 cup canola or olive oil
2 tablespoons honey, warmed (optional)
2 teaspoons fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary, (or 1 tsp. dried, ground in a mortar)
6-10 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Mix up the marinade in a nonmetal bowl large enough for the chicken to fit comfortably. Combine all ingredients with a whisk or a fork, put the washed chicken in the bowl and bathe it with your hands in the marinade. Cover the bowl with a plate and put in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours, turning at least once.  Remove chicken from marinade and grill 4-6 inches above medium coals, turning as needed, for 30-40 minutes or until the juices run clear when a knife is poked in close to the bone.  Careful not to overcook it!
Marinade Variations:

•Spicy Caribbean Marinade
Omit rosemary, increase honey to 4 tablespoons, add 2 jalepenos, seeded and minced finely, plus 1/4 teaspoon each of ground allspice and nutmeg.

•Mexican Marinade
Substitute the juice of half an orange and one lime for the lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro for the herbs.  Add 2 teaspoons ground chile powder and 1 teaspoon cumin.

•Sesame Ginger Marinade

Instead of the herbs, substitute 3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger and add 2 teaspoons of toasted sesame oil.  Add up to a teaspoon of cayenne if you happen to like it spicy.

Elk and Grape Leaf Stew

Mediterranean flavors complement stewed elk meat in this earthy, hearty dish. I like to serve this with a salad or a simple dish of sauteed greens or green beans. It’s also lovely on corn tortillas or any flatbread, with scrambled eggs, or even as a simple snack, served cold with some fresh grape leaves or other greens suitable for stuffing. Try it with some Red Chile or Paprika Sauce and homemade piima cream for an extra special treat! And do be sure to try it with the fresh mint or pickled mint garnish– it’s sooo good! If you can’t get elk meat, both buffalo and lamb would be worthy substitutes.

1 lb. elk stew meat (or 2 pint jars Home Canned Elk)
1 onion, diced, sauteed in 1-2 tablespoons butter till golden
3 cloves garlic, minced, sauteed with the onion
1 1/2 cups chopped grape leaves, fresh or preserved
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons sweet paprika or Aleppo pepper
1/3 cup sesame seeds, toasted in a skillet
1/3 cup Homemade Olive Paste, or chopped kalamata olives
1/3 cup chopped fresh mint leaves, or 1/4 cup chopped pickled mint leaves

Pickled Mint:

Simply pour apple cider vinegar over whatever amount of fresh mint you can get into a jar. Be sure to cover the mint completely. Ready to serve after 1-2 days.

If starting out with fresh elk meat, cut into small pieces, heat a skillet to medium-high and brown in a tablespoon or two of butter. Place in a medium sized pot, barely cover with water, bring to a boil and simmer until tender, usually about two hours.
If starting out with Home Canned Elk, simply empty the contents of 2 pint jars elk meat and broth into a medium sized pot. Add the rest of the ingredients except the mint, and simmer until the grape leaves are tender. Time will vary depending on the thickness of the grape leaves, usually somewhere between 20-45 minutes. Garnish with the chopped mint leaves before serving.

-Love, Loba

(Excerpted from Loba’s upcoming cookbook — Share freely so long as credited)

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Intro: One’s kitchen need not be simply a utilitarian space where dutiful chefs meet familial responsibilities.  Decorated to reflect our spirits as well as passions and tastes – featuring comfortable chairs as well as working space – it becomes a special environ that nourishes us just sitting and visiting there… as well as an enchanted workshop for co-creating, affecting, healing and nourishing our world.

THE KITCHEN:

Place of Empowerment and Healing

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Anima Lifeways and Herbal School

Loba, Kiva, little Rhiannon and myself all love food, whether it be gathering it, eating or preparing, but no one focuses on cooking more or gets more satisfaction from it than Loba.  For many years now she has nourished and delighted guests from all around the world, many of whom are amazed that the finest meal they may have ever had would be found far from an urban center, in an out of the way canyon seven river crossings from a road.

That said, it can be hard to believe that she actually arrived in this remote mountainous county without knowing how to cook, or that I had to teach her everything from frying eggs to baking bread.  Arriving from a famously politically-correct West Coast metropolis, she had been stunted by a fear that cooking was disempowering, reserved for servants and well behaved but humorless housewives who consider themselves tied to the oven.  Not yet, did she see cooking as an empowering practice instead, connecting her to her senses, increasing her confidence, and providing such a beautiful way for her to be able to give to others… but it didn’t take long.

Within the first few weeks, in fact, she had already begun to adopt and to feminize the Anima kitchen, prompting me to repaint it in Spring pastels and add decorative vines, draping every window with torn antique lace.  I even screwed a friendly metal dragon over the glass pane in the kitchen door, furthering its increasingly fairy tale appearance… although not so much as decoration for Loba, as in a valiant if inconclusive effort to discourage the local bears from shuffling in and eating our fresh made bread once again.

These days its outer walls are dressed in the colors of ripe peaches and salad greens, roofed in brown metal, rimmed by a smiling rain gutter.  The door opens with a characteristic creaking sound that Loba prefers I don’t oil away.  Guests’ shoes are left on the threshold, a matter of household intimacy and respect, and one barely sets foot before she being asked if they’re thirsty or hungry.  Her inquiry has nothing to do with cultivated manners, by the way, she genuinely hopes that the answer is “Yes!”

A tour of the kitchen begins with its core element, her hard working wood cookstove from the early 1900’s with its ornate chromed trim and “Loba’s Lovin’ Oven” painted on its white enameled door.  She had gone from not knowing how to start a fire, to being a full-on master of the intricacies of wood-fired cooking, able to discern the best species and size of wood for various projects and desired temperatures, when to rotate the pans and which side of the oven gets hottest.  As a result, I’ve come to measure the piles of split juniper piled by the stove not in inches, but in hot meals and fresh biscuits!  We love to tell folks how wonderfully thick the crust on her breads are, how crisp and juicy the roasts when baked inside of a wood burner instead of an oven heated by electricity or gas.  When it really gets going, one can hear the deep, rhythmic, thrumming sound providing the relaxed bass beat for the burning sticks’ staccato song: the “hearth-beat” of the home.

The rough-cut pine floors and counters are recently covered with beautiful ceramic tiles provided by a most-caring friend, and rows of cookbooks greet the visitor’s eye, arranged in categories like “Wild Foods” and “Decadent Desserts,” “International Flavors” and “Nostalgic Americana.”  Nearby we can see “Spatula Row,” numerous vintage utensils dangling from bent nails, including hand carved wooden spoons with handles in the shape of hearts.

Those of you over 5’ 8” are likely bending over by now in order to clear the unusually low ceiling.  Partly because of this, you may find that it reminds you of a grandmother’s attic, entered only with permission, filled one end to the other with tempting secrets from the past.  Here we find, polished with regular use: my Grandmother Beulah’s flour sifter.  Graters, grinders, and a hand-cranked food mill.  A rack of old Forschner knives that were once my Papa’s, next to a cast iron knife sharpener and a 1920’s frosting knife advertising the “king of cakes.”   To your left, a tortilla press and 1940’s Juice-o-Mat lemon squeezer.  And to your right, a line of hanging cast iron pans all seasoned with oil, just down from our sizable porcelain sink.

For Loba, something as simple and plain as a kitchen sink functions as a playpen for her most special dish ware, and a skating rink for hand-holding soap bubble couples celebrating their silver anniversaries.  She sees in her sink a magic ivory mirror whose stories are read best when it shines.  It was once a favorite nap spot for our cat Pumpkin-Sigh before this property was an official wildlife sanctuary, the furry buddha attracted for whatever strange reasons to the siren smell of bleach.  And it continues to serve as a wintertime bathtub for our daughter Rhiannon while she can still fold herself into it, washing her head and scrubbing her back in front of a window overlooking a magical canyon scene topped by a brilliantly blue Western sky.

Kitchens are where the alchemy of converting base ingredients into priceless glinting meals happens, not a factory but a place of magic and spirit.  They’ve traditionally been held to embody the soul of one’s home, a nutritive environment that feeds us in more ways than just with food, a place where people have long been more comfortable gathering in to talk and commiserate instead of in well appointed but less inviting sitting rooms.  In the Hispanic households of the American Southwest, males are typically dominate in all affairs, yet we find that la cocina is the one place where the power of the womenfolk reigns supreme, and where the males of the family are on their very best behavior in hopes of a taste of what their tantalized noses have been smelling.  And the real top-boss of the Old West ranch was the cook or “cookie” whom nobody wanted to cross, and whose god-like pronouncements and not always reasonable demands few cared to challenge.  For the migrants from every country, the American kitchen has proven to be every bit as special and emblematic as it had been on the continents where they came from.  And for everyone reading this, it can be not a place of chore and necessity but of personalized nutrition and ecstasy, an easily re-sculpted representation of the things that please, feed and inspire us most.  If it does not already speak both of you and for you, your kitchen can be your opportunity to redraw and recolor your relationship to both it and yourself, to reclaim joyful responsibility for your body and what goes into it, to own the role of the empowered cook and devout sensualist, to re-envision a relationship with life filled and life giving food and re-create a place in the house that makes possible, promotes and reflects it.

Over the ensuing years, our kitchen has evolved into not only a creative foodstuffs workshop and imbued presence that we all love, but also into a colorful character in its own right.  First time visitors ask if they’ll get to meet it, as if it were a old woman of whom many stories had been told, who might rise from her rocking chair on the porch if only we are attentive and respectful enough, as if the structure might rouse to shake their hands or give them a kitchen hug.  Perching atop a mesa’s vertical cliff side, it can seem a little like a treehouse that any sadly un-enchanted adults might find hard to climb, like a tree-cradled nest woven of plant fibers and dried flowers, embroidered napkins and hand tatted doilies.  For some of you, it may bring to mind an enchanted toy shop where – late at night and while everyone’s away – the toys come out to play!  When the winds at their stillest and its door left ajar, I sometimes think that I can hear… her hand-painted ceramic figurines, whispering to each other that “All is clear!”.

I picture the pots and pans perhaps moving about cautiously at first, nevertheless alarming any resident house-mouse or burglaring squirrel who might be there to witness.  It’s then that a smile spreads across my face, and my foot taps out a rhythm of its own accord, as the well-worn implements begin to chop and peel under their own power, and Grandma Beulah’s beater twirls faster and faster to the musical strains of our culinary canyon Fantasia.

—————————–

(The essay above will be one of many by Jesse Wolf Hardin appearing in Loba’s upcoming cookbook, possibly to be called The Enchanted Pantry: Recipes for  a More Flavor-Full Life.  If you would like to be put on the new waiting list for this book, send us your name, snail mail address and email addy, and you will be among the first to receive a copy when its released next Winter: mail (at) AnimaCenter dot org)

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ZOMBIE CATTLE HELL:
An Argument for Sentient Food & a More Sentient Life

by Jesse Wolf Hardin
Anima Lifeways & Herbal School

www.animacenter.org

It seems terrible to me, to think of ingesting any creature or plant that wasn’t in its own natural way enlivened: vital, alert and responsive.  And for centuries among many indigenous, land based societies the belief has been that we take on the energy of whatever we consume, gaining some of the strength of the bear by partaking of its flesh, or the litheness of the deer, the courage of the lion, the awakeness of the wide eyed hare.  Such people may likewise insist on avoiding eating much beef, in order to keep from becoming either slowed or borderline oblivious like a majority of domestic cattle.

To the contrary, a growing number of food industry researchers and managers hope to assuage the guilt feelings of empathetic consumers by developing and promoting meat sources that are increasingly dulled, denatured and deadened.  These “knockout livestock” as they are sometimes called, would potentially be unaffected by the worst that was ever done to them, normal looking in every way yet clearly somehow not quite right.  They’ll be just a little too accepting of indignities, and a little too much like the glib, easily appeased, conformist, unaware, barely feeling and unnaturally obedient human populations, stumbling from their own metaphoric feedlot to slaughter house under the influence of calming drugs and the “helpful” control of Big Brother regimes.

Welcome to the world of Frankenburgers, from Zombie Cattle Hell!

Throughout most of my lifetime the line seemed more clearly drawn, with the bulk of conservationists and ecologists, spiritual types, liberals and those into alternative culture have all tended to be vegetarians, and with meat eaters largely either stereotyped or self-stereotyped as redneck right-wingers with no regard for their own cardiovascular health let alone the health of the planet and the suffering of their fellow creatures.  While there were always exceptions, today the dietary divide is more blurred than ever.  For decades I’ve asserted that strict vegetarianism – while well intentioned – is both unnatural and unhealthy, with our ancestral, low carb omnivore diet actually being the closest to an optimum diet for us even today, but these days I am joined by thousands of adherents of high protein and so called primal diets.  The result is an increasing number of consumers of meat who insist on healthy grass-fed animals, raised under cruelty free conditions, cleanly dispatched, and the rise of small farms devoted to compassionate husbandry.

Meanwhile, the few multi-national corporate conglomerates controlling the entire food production of the United States, were seriously stung by criticism that has followed the public exposure of the horrific conditions of corporate farms and factory slaughterhouses, mostly clandestine video shot and released by animal rights activists.  Most anyone who views this sort footage is turned off at least temporarily to eating anything but free range creatures, after the seeing the disregard with which our sources of pork chops and beef steaks are treated, and after witnessing the degree of sheer terror and sometimes acute agony of livestock as they are automatically but clumsily terminated.  Management’s solution, needless to say, has not been to improve the conditions the animals are raised in or to improve the methods and means of the slaughter, but to assign their industry funded laboratory researchers the goal of genetically lowering the animals’ threshold of pain!  Why go to the expense and trouble of increasing the size of enclosures, they reason – reducing the incidences of illness, or improving the methods of killing – if the livestock has been altered to no longer feeling any discomfort or anguish?
To these industry heads, what matters is not vitality but product viability, including the perception of potential buyers.  They recognize that image and marketability are the main impediments to future consumers purchasing muscle tissue grown in cell cultures, providing them with animal protein that has bizarrely never thirsted for water and gone into heat, never known the feel of sunshine, pranced in the grass or even stood up on four feet.  This would satisfy the desires of the industry to produce quantities of a product with as little effort and cleanup as possible, while simultaneously meeting the animal rights groups’ goal of ending the suffering of other lifeforms… at least those which have been engineered to be something less than alive.

It’s been known for some time that the brain has two different pathways for perceiving pain, a sensory avenue that registers the location, kind and intensity, and another “affective” pathway that translates the same impulses as unpleasant.  The reason why people under the influence of opium poppies and their chemical derivatives don’t suffer this unpleasantness, even when being operated on by a physician while awake, is that the opiates chemically disable this second route, resulting in little or none of the normal arousing of what is called the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex.

Neuroscientists from the universities of Washington and Toronto have more recently discovered how to genetically manipulate animals without the peptide proteins necessary for the operation of this cortex.  Livestock engineered in this way would still be able to sense a cut or heat, but it would no longer be experienced as something to be avoided.  Industry heads remarking on this developing technology, have already gone to some length to assure the public that the steaks and chops from such animals would be plenty safe to eat.

Anyone partaking of even burgers and hot dogs, should rightfully have at one time or another killed their own food with their own hands, and have experienced what it’s like to take another creature’s precious life.  Even if the vast majority of someone’s meat intake continues to come the form of disembodied, furless and largely formless factory cuts sold in styrofoam and cellophane packages, we would still do well to have on at least one occasion held the fried chicken prior to its being dispatched and plucked, dismembered and fried, and to have personally stared into its ancient dinosauric eyes, extending its neck over a block of firewood and chopping its head off with the wings continuing to madly flap as it fitfully dies.  Or else we need to have been at one point or another anointed with the spattered blood of a wild animal, a beautiful beast more noble than many people that we nonetheless dropped with a rifle shot, filled with equal measures of awe and sadness, profound gratitude, alliance, and something closely akin to love.

Only in this way can we possibly know deep in our hunter-gatherer souls what it feels like to give the pain of death, the way that mothers give the gift of life… or to empathize in the moment while taking full responsibility for the act, the result, and our inherent place in the food chain.  Only then can those of us who are practicing omnivores begin to grasp at a gut, bodily level the price that is paid by other beings in order that we might survive.  And I believe it is only through a deep awareness and sense of connection, responsibility and gratitude, that we’re made worthy of the decades of nourishing meat that makes it on to our plates.

When it comes to this taking and remaking of life, it’s certainly incumbent upon us to do all we can to lessen the suffering of those sensitive creatures we eat.  I’ve watched as a coyote showed neither mercy nor concern for a crying young elk calf it had wounded and dogged, one example in nature that I’d rather not follow.  Instead, I’ve always went out of my way whenever I hunted to make quick, one-shot kills, stalking stealthily until in close range, or leaning on a branch to consider and steady my aim.  That aim was always to pierce a skull or bust a backbone, immediately disconnecting the wires connecting wound to brain, saving the meat from the bitter hormones released by fear, but mainly going to such extremes out of an intuitive awareness that animals can hurt every bit as poignantly as people.  And when I partake of vegetables, it is with respect and gratitude grounded in the certainty that they, too, suffered in the process of taking its life into mine.

For all of us non-engineered beings, plant and animal alike, painless simply isn’t an option.  Nor would it necessarily be a benefit to either us or our foods.  After all, the intermittent experience of pain stretches and expands our capacity to feel and to intensely take note of what we are feeling, just as do occasions of extreme ecstasy and moments of inescapable bliss, serving as measures of our sentience and hence as indicators of just how truly alive we each are.  Pain can awaken our ability to empathize.  It informs our compassion, adds weight to our mistakes and importance to our decisions.  And it helps us to identify and then either resist or move away from those things that are harmful to us.  In the case of us humans, without struggle and distress it becomes all too easy for us to take things for granted, whereas we can be sure that whatever we do at the risk of suffering is something that we must feel very strongly about, taking more certain satisfaction from whatever we accomplish in the face of – and regardless of – any pain.

The spirit of the child, at home in its body, not yet suppressing pain or denying the causes of deprivation, mishap or suffering, thoroughly celebrating the pleasures of sensation in every non-traumatic moment between.  This is the spirit of wildlife, acutely aware of their surroundings as if their lives depended on it, because indeed they do.  The spirit of plants that have been proven to flinch from trauma like cuts and burns, but that by their very nature remain committed to fulsome growing, expanding, fruiting and bearing seed in spite of of any painful fires, drought, flood, mowing, fires, grazing and pruning.

It is this spirit that we might better look for in the foods that we draw nourishment from, but also in the fabric and experience of our day to day existence… the evidence of, condition of, and intensity of life wholly and sentiently lived.

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Hello Friends!

And a Happy Autumn to you all!! I have been enjoying myself so much these past weeks, reveling in the growing crispness of the air, the incredible glowy light, the magic of so many multicolored leaves blowing through the air. Each afternoon after Rhiannon and I take a chilly dip in the river we stand and watch the leaves and the light on the cliffs and exclaim to each other about how amazingly lovely everything is! Yesterday it was mostly cloudy when we went for our dip, and I was so impressed that she was still brave enough to get in the water with me! I had gotten a fire going up at the kitchen and supper was warming up on top of the woodstove, and with warm robes to put on, it made it a much easier to think about getting a little cold! We had a very special supper, using fresh pomegranate (a sweet gift!) a chicken I’d roasted that morning, a very delicious squash (another gift, from our friend Marc’s garden), some wild mustard I’d harvested from a parking lot in town, Chardonnay and pine nuts from Resolute, farmer’s market apples mailed to us from dear Steve and Val, homemade elderberry wine Kiva made from elderberries the same friends harvested themselves, freshly made kefir cream, also made by Kiva,  and some incredible apricots and goat cheese, yet more gifts, from our recent quester Rebecca! What thankful hearts we all had, sitting down after a day of much work, to this feast of so much gathered love and caring, and harvestime abundance!

Harvesttime Celebration Chicken

roasted chicken, free-range organic if possible!
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, sliced
1 butternut (or similar) squash
1/2 cup Chardonnay
5-6 cloves fresh garlic, minced
5-6 leaves fresh sage, minced
a bunch of fresh mustard or other flavorful greens, wild or domestic, rinsed and chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
about 12 unsulphered turkish apricots, chopped coarsely
2-3 golden delicious or similar apples, cored and medium diced (about 1-2” pieces)
some fresh plain kefir, or sheep’s milk feta, to garnish (optional)

Strip the chicken and chop or break into bite size pieces about 2-3 cups of meat. I save the rest for making soup the next day. Peel the squash using a vegetable peeler, and remove the seeds (and save for roasting!) and chop into medium dice. Saute the sliced onions in a large skillet with the olive oil over medium-high heat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until they turn translucent. Add the garlic as you’re stirring, with a tiny bit more olive oil. Push the onions to one side of the pan, add the squash and a little bit of water to the pan, reduce the heat a bit, and cook covered for a few minutes, or until the squash begins to soften. Stir everything together and cook uncovered until everything begins to get golden-brown. Add the chicken pieces and the wine, sage, apricots, salt and pepper. Let everything come to a simmer, then taste, and adjust things as you like.

This is fantastic on its own, especially with the kefir or feta garnish, and even more fun to serve with whatever accompaniments you like! Perhaps some fresh sourdough bread, some special cheese, more fresh greens, special olives or some Preserved Lemons (have I given you the recipe before?), buttered wild rice or quinoa, and if you really want to make it feel like a feast, try making the Green Olive Pomegranate Relish! If you could imagine a Mediterranean cranberry sauce, without the cranberries, this is it!

Green Olive & Almond Pomegranate Relish
This relish is an Enchanted Pantry twist on one of the more unusual Mediterranean recipes.  You can eat it right away, but it gets even better overnight.  It’s great mixed with some goat cheese or feta and eaten with pita or other fresh bread, with maybe a little hummus alongside.  Carnivores will especially enjoy it served with any wood grilled cuts, wild meats, a pork roast or chicken, or even atop a perfectly seasoned meatloaf. Feel free to experiment will the ingredients, and the amounts of things– it’s a very flexible, fun recipe! Just don’t leave out the pomegranate seeds or the olives!

1/2-1 cup good quality green olives, pitted and chopped (kalamata olives will work too)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 cup minced toasted walnuts
1/4 cup chopped parsley or watercress
1/2 -3/4 cup fresh pomegranate seeds
1/2 cup finely chopped crisp-tart apple
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses (available at Mediterranean stores), or 1-2 teaspoons brown sugar, to taste
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/4 tsp. allspice

Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight. Return to room temperature before serving. Enjoy the magic! I highly suggest taking the pomegranate out into the sunshine to sit and enjoy its jewellike beauty as you fill your bowl with seeds. I sat on my kitchen stoop as I filled mine, and was really glad I was wearing an apron (a red one!), getting pomegranate juice all over me! A special autumnal pleasure to celebrate!

Hope you’ll try these, and let me know how they turn out! And don’t worry, those of you who are awaiting the Green Chile recipes I promised, I haven’t forgotten, they’re still coming!!  Feel free to share this recipe as always.

With Lots of love and happy autumn hugs to you all!,

Loba (www.animacenter.org)

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Our beloved apprentice and supporter Resolute has been with us this past week, what a joyful thing! Yesterday we all went on an adventure up to the high country in search of elderberries, rose hips and more. Kiva drove the jeep up the steep mountains for miles, while we searched the mountainsides for Oregon Grape, which she found in a few places, and dug up some of the bigger plants’ roots. It’s always amazing to get up into the higher altitudes, where the spruce trees laden with usnea and the miles of aspen trees feel like a fairytale forest. Once we reached the top, we unloaded our hefty picnic cooler, our gathering baskets and such and began the search for plants. We were able to harvest a bunch of perfectly ripe rose hips, but unfortunately the birds had already beaten us to the elderberries. With the lack of our normal monsoon rains, some things were looking a bit dry. There was lots and lots of yarrow, however, which we were really excited about! Resolute and I had a lot of fun picking the dear little yarrow leaves that were covering the trail to the spring, while Kiva and Rhiannon explored the steep slopes, and Kiva returned with happy hands full of treasures.

Our picnic was incredible! Rhiannon was so excited, she had made lovely invitations with special calligraphy that she learned and practiced especially for the event. And at each guest’s place on the picnic blanket there was a beautiful hand-lettered invite.  We were celebrating not only the joy of being all together, but Resolute’s birthday! She had brought us a bunch of rock cornish hens from the city, which I had stuffed with green chiles and onions, and roasted over a fire the day before, along with some peppers and onions. I’d also made a lovely cheese dip with goat milk and a variety of cheeses, blended with red wine, chiles, garlic, and toasted pecans. We brought preserved grape leaves, fresh green beans, crisp apples, cucumbers, red onion, olives and more! What wondrous combinations we made for ourselves as we mixed and matched ingredients in our grape leaves and in our bowls. But of course we had to leave room for the grand finale, Kiva’s Mint Chocolate Cream Cheese Pie! Covered with real whipping cream, it was totally irresistable! We also enjoyed some wonderful mulberry tarts that Rhiannon had made, and some Prickly Pear/Grape Cordial that Kiva had made. And we sang Happy Birthday to Resolute, who got all teary eyed at one point cause she was so happy to be in such a beautiful spot where she could see all the mountains below.  It made her feel very wonderfully owl-like, so we decided to name the spot Owl Mountain.

Grilled Stuffed Cornish Hens with Green Chiles
Saute 10 medium-large mild green chiles (I used Anaheim )in olive oil until browned and tender, mix with diced raw onion, and stuff inside the cavities of 5 Cornish Hens. Grill about 5 inches away from a bed of wood coals until cooked all the way through, about 30-45 minutes (depending on how hot, and how many coals you have!)

Goat Cheese Dip with toasted Pecans and Red Wine
1/2 cup Merlot
1/2 cup goat milk
2/3 cup soft goat cheese
2/3 cup semisoft cheese, extra sharp cheddar or goat cheddar
1/3 cup toasted pecans
1-3 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 or 2 roasted chiles (optional)
Put all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a glass jar and refrigerate until ready to serve. Enjoy with roasted veggies, meats, etc.

Hope some of you may be inspired to have a picnic of your own, to celebrate the harvest, someone’s birthday, or simply the beauty of the day!
love, Loba

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