K Kat

I was out of wd40 and used it in a pinch to lube a lock!

The margarine effect describes the divide perfectly. While visiting family this summer I stayed in one house that used butter and one that used margarine. And while I would have preferred to not eat margarine, I followed the rule and I'll admit it's conveniently soft right from the fridge.

But the war between margarine and butter excludes the idea that there could be a third or more options, after moving abroad and switching cuisines I find my two most used fats are pork lard and sesame oil, butter is too expensive here.

Margarine is cheap but using animal fats, especially lard from rendered pork belly is even more thrifty.  I think of how hard my mum worked to drain the fat from everything she cooked, because she was told how bad it was, and now I save it.

Another trick done to us was to sell us boneless skinless meat and cartons of meat flavored salt water as "broth". But broth boxes and margarine are so easy, it's easier to go with the trends and what's available. I wonder how many people would change from margarine if it became more difficult and expensive to use than butter.

Butter is not the same anymore. Cows are being fed diets high in palm oil and it's changed the consistency of butter masking it more solid than grass fed cows. Even cream is different, I can make clotted cream from the European cream I buy in Korea, but grocery store cream in Canada wouldn't clot.

I'm probably damned by whatever fat I choose, factory farmed pork lard rendered at high temps, canola oil, imported butter full of who knows what. I prefer butter over margarine, but eating my sister's vegan margarine for two weeks didn't kill me either.

There's always so much to do this time of year, it's nice to have things that can be done at slower times.

I hope you get a chance to try them this winter, and think I'll try making them myself too : )

Sunchoke Soy Sauce Pickles &
The Basic Soy Sauce Pickle Method

Translated from many Korean recipes for "pig potato" pickles (doeji gamja jangajji)

Note: Because harvest amounts vary, pickle making, unlike baking, is better suited to ratios rather than exact measurements. The following recipe is given in ratios than can and should be changed slightly to suit the tastes of the family.

Vegetables:
Sunchoke roots

Optional suggested flavoring vegetables:
Peeled garlic
Fresh hot peppers
Peeled and sliced ginger
Onion petals or quarters

Any other vegetable that can be eaten raw and will stand well in brine and you have on hand can be added

Brine- measured in roughly equal parts according to volume of raw vegetables

Plain water or anchovy seaweed broth
Soy Sauce (not low sodium)
Vinegar ( recommended fruit or rice vinegars)
Sugar or sweetener (start with half the measure and add more to taste)(brown or sugar like syrups could be substituted eg honey, maple syrup, fruit syrups)
Seasonings such as black or chili peppers, bay leaves, dried mushrooms etc can be added.

Note: do not attempt to reduce the soy sauce by too much, salt is important for preservation and salt reduced by too much will result in a pickle that spoils quickly. However; reduced salt pickles may be made for quick consumption and pickles meant for aging should have a higher ratio of soy sauce.

Method:

Thoroughly scrub and clean the sunchoke roots, trim unpleasant bits, and slice into bite sized pieces or thin rounds.

Prepare the other accompanying vegetables, wash clean trim slice, etc.

Place all prepared vegetables raw into clean or sterilized container/s and set aside. Containers may be sterilized by boiling water or steam.

Prepare the brine enough to cover the vegetables in their containers/s.

If making anchovy broth, boil dried anchovy and seaweed first, if not, begin with fresh water. If using dried seasonings simmer in water or broth first to release flavor. Add the remaining brine ingredients to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from boil and taste the brine, add sweetener/water/soy sauce/vinegar until desired taste is reached. Brine should be salty and slightly sour and sweet and just a little bit strong. Pour hot brine over the prepared vegetables. Cap loosely and let cool to room temperature. Cap tight and place in fridge once cooled/next day. Wait 3 days for flavors to develop, the pickles will keep for several months stored in the fridge under the brine. Remove portions with clean utensils only and pickles will not spoil, but may lose texture if kept for too long. Never return uneaten portions to the main container.

Serve pickles in small portions alongside main dishes or dice and add into recipes. Do not discard the brine, it's delicious as a dipping sauce or marinade.

This is a basic pickle that most Korean families have at all times in their fridge as it is quick and simple to make. Often huge batches are made with a harvest of seasonal vegetables and shared among friends and family. They make great gifts, I still have a large container in my fridge from a neighbor who has since moved away. If the brine is plentiful and still good, fresh vegetables can be added into the brine (if someone has cherry picked a certain veg out of it more can be added) and the pickle can be fed this way for a while.  The flavor deepens with age and the spiciness of the hot peppers and garlic mellow out. The sunchokes are not essential, try making the pickle with garlic scapes, garlic, onions, peppers, spring onions, cucumbers etc.

Sweet Dried Sunchokes

Translation of a Korean recipe for dried "pig potatoes"

For about 4kg of sunchokes, trim the nobs/bumps off and scrub well. Slice lengthwise into thin slices and rinse slices in cold water.

Place sunchoke slices in a cloth lined steamer and steam for 15-20m.

Place in thin layers on a dehydrating rack and dry at 70C 160F for a couple hours or until they are slightly damp. Wet sunchokes will dissolve the sugar so it's important to part dry them.

Coat the slices in white sugar (raw granulated sugar should also be fine) and arrange them neatly on the dehydrating trays. Dry them for 9 hours at 70C flipping them 3 hours in.

Store them in a cool dry place, they make a great snack.

I'm sorry to hear about your figs, I have one and was thinking of training it to grow real low, step over style, to cover it well for the winter. But it's in a pot still now because we have to move yet. How big were your figs?

I planted amaranth for the first time this year, haven't decided what I should do with it. Do you make a hot cereal from it?

Why write short posts when you could be thorough and describe in detail!

I'll follow your suggestion and store my sunchokes in the ground, I prefer lazy methods anyways.

I'll work on translating some recipes for you to try. I found a giant sack of mung beans in the back of my mum's cupboard and I might try making Chinese bean desserts with some. I like the sweet bean desserts, they are less sweet usually and have healthy fiber and nutrients.

When I started farming I imagined I'd be succession planting lettuce to eat all summer in pretty rows. But I'm far too lazy and 9/12 months there's something green to forage to eat, and that seems to be my style. It turns out that called seasonal eating and it's also really good for you, haha. Now I look forward to having Shepard's purse greens in the early spring, and hot weather spinach alternatives, and radish leaves in the fall. If you grow pepper plants, the leaves you're supposed to thin out are very tender and better than spinach. Mulberry leaves are also supposed to be edible and on my list to try. Still waiting to try hostas shoots, couldn't find a big enough patch this spring. If you have foraging suggestions share them, I'd love to try!

Cider sounds delicious, we don't have apples but we make our own beer here.

Solar panels are covering more and more rooftops here. People are starting to install them over parking lots, and everyone loves that for shade in the summer. So it would make sense to install them over areas that are already paved or would benefit from shade. The largest paved area I can think of are all the highways and roadways, there's already power lines running alongside roads, what if panels be added into existing infrastructure? You can use current designs better if you can use them in ways that stack functions.

But I agree with you, solar power is not going anywhere yet, so we should be improving the design, and I think nature has a lot to teach us design wise. Like you said, why does it have to be either/or?

You're right about well intentioned policies backfiring. Think critically is less specific and therefore avoids the problem of overgeneralization.

I don't want to just be a complainer, we are hoping to get our own land nearby next year, and I plan to research and do what I can to make the forests around us less flammable. But you have to be careful, because it's easy to get in trouble for doing such things yourself.

But the 72 bricks are such a great place to start there's a lot of little steps in the right direction and many of them are things that anyone can do and plenty more that I want to try!

We are forgetting the value of trees. A short walk from where I'm living in South Korea, the whole south side of a small mountain has been cleared of trees and covered instead with solar panels to power the factory at the base. The greatest irony being that trees are the original solar power and do so much more. It's an incredible eyesore and a sign of very poor policy decisions by previous government.

"Plant more trees" sounds overly simple but the importance of trees is being forgotten，maybe it should be "protect the trees"?

On a side note, South Korea is ravaged by forest fires every spring, yet I see no signs of forest management. Trees were planted en mass after the war to reforest the hills, but without upkeep the dead trees, branches, and kudzu vines are dry kindling every spring. There's fire bans every year with dollars spent enforcing the bans, and seemingly none going to forest management. But workers will drive around cutting trees back from power lines and leave the branches in permanent dry brush piles at the edge of the road.  I don't get it.