Strawberry Fields Forever

It's been nearly a year since I started this blog and I can hardly believe it. You'll notice there is a gap in the archives from July to November during which I was working a lot at the bakery, including traveling on weekends to attend market a couple of hours from town.  The blog was originally going to be a way for me to continue honing my pastry skills and provide a kind of creative break for myself from the everyday grind.  It quickly became something else.  It became something much more meaningful than my previous intention.  Now when I write a post, I often have thoughts of the future in mind: my future on the farm. 

Pastry technique seems frivolous in comparison to that.

Since middle school, I've had this very naive, very rose-colored notion of someday tipping my hat to society and tromping away to a cabin in the woods.  In high school this fantasy intensified, particularly after I devoured a book titled Woodswoman by Anne Labastille.  The first of a four-part series of memoirs, Woodswoman chronicles the beginning of Labastille's life in the Adirondack Mountains after she divorced and made a decision to build a cabin and live alone in the wilderness in 1965.  There are stories in that book that are still so vivid in my mind, even though I have not laid eyes on the text for nearly a decade.  To this day I stop and pause when I recall how she described the impossibly clear, clean water of the lake near her cabin, the smell of the evergreens, the stillness and peace of her new home in the wild. 

It was absolutely apparent that I was obsessed with the idea of living like a lumberjack in high school because I certainly dressed like one.  Flannel, cumbersome boots, a green army pack, unkempt hair (actually dreadlocks at the time, believe it or not).  One of my teachers was fond of calling me Mountain Woman - a name I bore proudly, despite the fact that I was not in anyway shape or form.  I grew up in a fairly urban area.  Even when we moved to rural Ohio when I was a teenager, my only real experience with the "wilderness" was trails and lakes.  I've never had a primitive camping experience.  But I could see myself clearly chopping wood to feed the stove, frying everything in cast iron, eating from the garden, drinking from the spring.

Down the road, that dream evolved.  I nurtured fantasies of living on more of a farmette instead of wooded wilderness.  I pictured some goats, a few chickens, maybe a cow and a hog.  Bees.  Vegetables.  Rain barrels.  Mushroom foraging in the woods nearby.  Shelves of glass jars filled with the colorful contents of my small garden.  I imagined stumbling upon wild raspberries along the tree line, huddling against the frozen face of winter before a wood-burning stove and knowing the name of every green thing whose path I crossed.  I pictured myself in Thoreau or Labastille-like fashion, writing at an old wooden table in the dim light during a rainstorm in a tattered old cottage, just far enough from civilization to feel free. 

Now that I am approaching thirty and a few months away from embarking on married life, I feel my edges rounding and I see certain things falling into place.  For the most part, my twenties have felt like paddling down a river with endless tributaries - in other words, a horizon of possibilities but no clear long-term direction.  All I had was a sort of vague notion of the kind of life I wanted to live, little more.  And somehow a version of that dream manifested; a version much more rich, complex and promising than I could have ever imagined is now my reality.  But with it comes change, much of which I won't know the full effect of until after "I do."  You see, I'm not just marrying a man.  I'm also marrying a farm and a family business.  A city girl who secretly fantasized of being a country girl, only now just beginning to understand the work and effort it takes to sustain a farm operation of any size.  I still have naive notions of it.  When I finally make the transition to the farm permanently in December, that will be the true awakening.

I think the majority of us have untaught ideas of farm life.  Not only is it much harder than most people imagine, it's also different from farm to farm.  But one of the biggest underlying threads that I never understood until now is how big of a risk every farmer takes each year.  Every new cycle is a gamble.  Farmers make a decision to enter a game in which their assets are frozen from the start and some of the biggest variables are completely out of their control.  The weather, market fluctuation, time - some of the factors that can have the greatest impact on how well a farm performs that year are out of a farmer's hands.  From very early on in our relationship that was apparent to me and that constant presence of risk has shaped the lives of my farmer's family.  They don't live outside their means, they are grateful for a good year, but they save for a bad year.  Everything is calculated, but only to a degree.  Experience and intuition are just as, if not more, important than the physical tools of the trade.

The family farm through my eyes is a daunting and complex operation.  I went through the motions of many, graduating high school, then college and then entering the work force, thinking like so many graduates that a college degree guarantees a higher paycheck and that a university experience prepares you thoroughly for the professional realm.  When I entered high school, Mark already had over a decade of work experience.  By age four, he was helping his father and grandfather with various tasks on the farm.  And by the time he graduated high school, he knew his role in the world and had more knowledge about his line of work than probably most of his classmates did about theirs.  His breed is becoming increasingly rare these days.  I often wonder if our children will be more like Mark or more like me; I wonder if they will embrace farm life from the start, or if they will turn away from it in search of travel and adventure.  And if they do leave, will they come back? 

Will the farm continue on the backs of a fifth generation?

It’s incredible to think about a continuation, about a life beyond your own.  And how suddenly the unimportant parts of your dreams or goals fall away, or at least rearrange, and precious parts become tangible, become real.  Having a grasp on that reality is important, but I think there is a place for dreams and naivete.  Without them, we have nothing but what’s in front of us.  Thoughts of something beyond, something more is what drives us.  I suppose I will be naïve about farm life for a while longer, and perhaps for some time to come.  But I do know that life with my farmer will be so much more beautiful than any life I could imagine alone in the woods.

Pickled Strawberry Jam
Makes about 3 cups (1 1/2 pints)
Adapted from Christina Tosi

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups (5 1/4 oz) sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups (1 1/2 lb) strawberries, washed and hulled
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
10-12 black peppercorns
1 small vanilla bean
1 small cinnamon stick or half a large one
1 tbsp butter (optional)

1 1/2 tbsp powdered pectin

Method

In a bowl, whisk together the sugar and salt. 
Set aside. 

  In a separate bowl, mash about half of the strawberries and slice the rest in half or quarters.  If you’d like less texture to your jam, feel free to mash all of them.  If you prefer a seedless jam, process all of the strawberries in a blender and then push the mixture through a fine mesh strainer.

  Add the sugar mixture to the strawberries, toss to combine and let it macerate while you bloom the spices.

  In a saucepan that is about twice the size of the sugar-strawberry mixture, combine the red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, black peppercorns and cinnamon stick.  Slice open the vanilla bean pod and scrape the seeds into the pot.  Add the pod into the pot as well.  Bring this mixture to a boil and then remove from the heat.  Let it steep and cool slightly for about 10 minutes and then discard the whole peppercorns, vanilla bean pod and cinnamon stick.

  Return the saucepan to the heat and bring it back to a boil.  Pour the macerated strawberry mixture into the pot and bring it to a strong simmer.  Dot the butter over the surface of the jam (if using) to keep the foam from bubbling up too high.  When the jam begins to simmer, sprinkle the pectin over the surface and stir it in.  Let the mixture cook over medium high heat for about 20 minutes, or until until thickened.  If you are using a thermometer, it should reach between 210 and 220 F.

  Let the jam cool completely and then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.