spiced pumpkin custard. homemade sweets.

We had our first frost here on Monday morning, followed by another the next day. For most, frost is a very normal part of Autumn, a sign of Winter coming. But for me, a beach girl raised in balmy Southern California and then the Bay Area, I had never seen frost. Sure, I've been knee deep in the Winter's snow pack in Lake Tahoe and Steam Boat, CO, but I've never been around more temperate parts in the subtle transitional phase of Fall. 

So Monday morning I woke up an hour before the alarm set at 8:00am. I felt utterly awake. Rion and I would be doing morning animal chores in a couple hours, but I felt impelled to get up and out into the world. The bright crisp sky outside the window lured me outside onto the farm. And how quiet it was out there. No other humans up and about. Just me, with my morning eyes and already frigid nose. And the first thing I saw was the blue green grass. It looked like a fairyland, with the icy coolness encrusting every surface like delicate lace. 

fruit of our labor. home grown.

Sometimes fresh carrots pulled straight from their underground hollows are all you need to feel just right. Remnants of the dirt you tried to wipe off on already encrusted jeans add the perfect gritty crunch to the carrot's brisk sweetness. No need to roast these fresh moments. No need to dress up these moments into a moroccan carrot salad. The carrot is just perfect the way it is. Sometimes, this is how I feel.


Its something I've learned after the season working at White Oak Farm, tending to thousands of plants that sustain me and my community. Sometimes the food itself, when its grown well (with love!), is the best it can be. The carrots are so sweet. The raspberries a tangy burst. And the spinach is so rich and deep and crisp. I was often seen stuffing lettuce in my mouth like one of the goats while trimming the leaves off for the farmer's market. It just felt right and tasted even more right.

My cooking style has simplified this season, as the vibrant food I've eaten stood on its own. Why make a watermelon feta salad when a plump watermelon, waiting on a juice-splattered cutting board for slicing, is all I crave in the heart of summer? When the lettuce is just bitter enough for a bite and crunching with flavor, a salad has never shined so bright. 

savory walnut thyme scones. homemade bread

I could probably change the title of this blog to something like "adventure through thyme" or "thyme to party" because, well, I love thyme. It's been my go-to herb for savory and sweet, and i keep on lovin its bright earthy taste. Out of all the huge rosemary and oregano bushes here on the farm, i am pulled towards the single wiry thyme shrub hiding amongst overwhelming comfrey. I visit it often and have so much affection for its small, yet generous offering. And here it comes, thyme and thyme again, into a savory sweet recipe. 

rainbow tomato basil feta salad. homemade healthy.

Its tomato season. Ripe, small Sungolds pop in your mouth with the sweet tangy juices spurting all over. The less juicy paste tomatoes glisten in the sun, amidst the curling tangle of vines and leaves, waiting to turn into winters tomato sauce or the freshest ketchup in town. The heirlooms sit high and mighty with their zebra stripes, massive and barely holding on the their mother vine. The slicer tomatoes, those sandwich kings, rest humbly next to their kin tomatoes, ready for a nice summer salad opportunity.

Working with tomatoes is a love/hate sort of thing. If you've ever dug deep within the seeping tomato vines to get to that vibrant red globe, you know that feeling of itchy roughness that rubs all over your arms and hands. The tomatoes, a nightshade (Solanaceae family), are related to a number of toxic plants, and you can feel that noxious materials exuding from the leaves. After trellising a greenhouse full of tomatoes, my hands were covered in green, yellow, and black sticky resin. It looked like the skin of a lizard. But once those delicious red fruits started ripening, my aversion to the fierce plants turned into sunny delight.

balsamic thyme strawberry galette. homemade sweets.

Balsamic Thyme Strawberry Galette 

I'm savory by nature. I always add a little extra salt to my granola recipes, and would choose good crusty bread over cake on most days. So when I make sweets, I like that extra balance of savory. That salty punch or lemony acid that cuts the sugary sweetness. 

This recipe is my type of dessert. Low maintenance whole wheat crust encircles a pile of balsamic marinated strawberries, topped with fresh thyme sprigs. My enthusiasm for this recipe comes after a week of summer camp cooking for young kids. I was ready for something complex and earthy, and definitely not pasta. 

The berries in this recipe came from our second everbearing strawberry crop this summer, and they are even more sweet and shiny red. Strawberries are such a summer pinnacle, and they marry incredibly well with savory additions like balsamic vinegar and fresh thyme. The crust for the galette (fancy word for a low-key pie), is made with mostly whole wheat flour, which turns out just as flaky and buttery than most white flour recipes and oh so hearty. I would experiment with a dough made with 100% whole wheat flour, or a combination with other flours, like emmer, rye, or spelt flours.

Enough talk, let's eat:

epic spring salad. homemade healthy.

I like to make salads epic. Ever since I was young I would try to scoop up all the "jimmys" at the bottom of the salad bowl. That's where all the salty brined goodies are, all the nutty bits and herbaceous bites. The right balance of salty, sweet, creamy, crunchy, and acidic can raise an everyday salad up to epic proportions. 


This week at the farm, raspberries were the star. There we were, just our sun-kissed faces popping up from behind the line of raspberry crop. I found that looking up from below for the berries was choice. Seeing that flash of juicy red flicker within the greenery sparked miniature bursts of excitement within. We picked and picked. Dark, deep purple berries, young bright berries, and sunny golden berries speckled the half-pints. Each little berry hand picked for our community to savor. After hours of picking, we each just hand a handful of pints to contribute. Our bellies were already fermenting the cosmetically-deficient berries as we readied the beautiful berries for selling. 

Rion's friends came to visit during the week of raspberries, so naturally, we had to make a huge farm dinner. Rion's friend is an spiring chef in Austin, TX, so I brought out the big salad guns to get them excited about our farm super fresh eating. We piled raspberries on the fresh tender salad greens and sprinkled chives on top. Sarah's homemade raw goat chevre added a salty bite, and roasted beets from a neighbor farm added deep rooty sweetness. The only non-farm salad topper were almonds, which I candied with butter and sugar before adding to the salad. 

We all noshed on the goodness. So many jimmys to search for! So enjoy this salad, and make sure to give thanks to all those who pick raspberries! 

mustard. homemade pantry.

mustard.

I plan on starting a mustard revolution. A huge upheval in our culture, where mustard, with its nostril burning pungency and tangy burst of flavor, will rise to the top of the condiment hierarchy and rule the table-side arena. 

So I really appreciate mustard. 

And there's a mustard for everyone. No one is left mustardless in the mustard kingdom. Honey mustard for the sweeter crowd, super spicy horseradish mustard for those strong at heart, or champagne mustard for impressing those at a mustard gala. Yellow mustard is for those new or shy to the mustard world and those folks need your help in the good cause of real good mustard. 

sourdough cornmeal pancakes. fermented eats.

Sourdough Cornmeal Pancakes (with orange!)

So every Friday, after four days of weeding thousands of onions under the sweet hot Oregon Sun (I'm talking very southern Oregon), we celebrate with some pancakes. My partner Rion and I have gotten our method down, where I whip up the ingredients in a big bowl and he starts a'flippin them, one at a time on two cast irons (that's his style). We always seem to have some folks coming by for a bite, planned or not, and it is always such a wonderful morning feast. The dew is still rising from the leaf while we munch down our mini pancake stacks.

chevre red cabbage slaw. homemade healthy.

chevre red cabbage slaw

Red cabbage is a beautiful thing. Especially when its all chopped up in a white bowl, with the deep purple burgundy shreds cut with the whites of its insides. Its a crunchy confetti of purple delight, and it can become a magical bowl of veggie addiction when gussied up in a bright slaw. I threw this recipe together in less than 10 minutes, grabbing jars of nuts and mustard and running out into the garden for some chives. 

It was for a housewarming party...I mean, a tent warming party, up a short trail in the woods 

to where I currently live. We had our friends living here on the farm come from their respective homes on the property through the woods to our tent cabin, fit with a new pallet deck and a fire pit. So I made this, along with homemade cornmeal buckwheat muffins, graham crackers, and cinnamon marshmallows. 

greeting cards.homemade crafts

homemade greetings

Is someone special's birthday impending? Do you need a canvas for a juicy love letter? Sending cards to friends and loved ones is an incredibly warmhearted expression that in the digital age, continues to dwindle. You know the feeling of when you open the mailbox, and amid monotonous bills and junk mail, you find a sparkling letter with scrawled handwriting with your name on it. 

Its about the human connection of writing from the hand that loves the other, and taking the time to do so. The whole process of writing letters also provides an introspective, contemplative experience for the writer, who is forced to collect their thoughts and consider the person receiving the card. In essence, sending a card is an emotional experience on both ends.

Instead of buying pre-made greeting cards, there's a more meaningful and uniquely artistic way to do so. That's right, Do It Yourself. Making the card itself adds a deep layer of meaning to a letter, and can be an easy, fun project to experiment with. But in addition to just folding a piece of paper and adding some sweet thoughts, there are endless ways to rethink the format of the humble greeting card. And we all love when we can use recycled items to create beautiful things, right? So welcome in old newspapers, recycled paper, and small scraps of fabric to make these upcycled greeting cards.

It can be as simple as pasting an old photograph found at a thrift store on a thick brown folded piece of paper, and can become a unique work of art while corresponding to a loved one. And most likely, they will be much less expensive than the tacky ones sold at the store. So many benefits to making DIY cards! I've outlined some of the basic supplies for some of the types of cards I make, as well as a list of additions that can be fun to experiment with.