Comfort Food

view of the path to our home-away-from-home with bathroom and outdoor shower against the side of the garage to the right

On the plane ride over to Hawaii, I read Luisa Weis’ book MyBerlin Kitchen, in which she described feeling constantly homesick, half of her life being in Berlin, Germany, while the other half being in Boston and later, New York. To cope with the perpetual distance from half of the people she loved, half of herself, she took to the kitchen, finding solace in the food she could prepare that magically transported her to wherever place she was missing at that moment. In Boston she prepared Plum-Quark cakes and thought of her mother in Berlin. When in Berlin, missing her father, she ate “Depression Beans” like he made for her every week when she was a little girl in Boston. Weis so eloquently described a state of mind in which I have found myself quite a bit this week: feeling torn between so many lives and so many people scattered across the country.

It’s not that I’m necessarily homesick, per say, because I haven’t had a regular home for years, since I left for college really, but I am feeling increasingly nostalgic for the days when the majority of the people I love lived right near by. I miss being surrounded by friends and family and feeling like I belong in that one place and there is nowhere else I would rather be. Though we had friends in Seattle, we never developed a solid community. I had my school community, but it was an hour bus ride away and was more of a professional circle than a social one. Since college, everyone, like they always do, began to move away to different cities in different parts of the country and form new groups of friends. Eventually Dylan and I did the same, starting new lives in Seattle.

I still feel connected to all of those wonderful people from so many different parts of my life because we have worked to maintain our relationships from afar, but of course it is not the same once we all moved. I am not there for their birthdays, they are not there to take me out for a drink after getting a promotion at work, and we cannot get together on a random Wednesday for a potluck knitting night filled with endless conversation and wine. I miss those days desperately and I feel that lose here, in tropical paradise more than ever before. It is just Dylan and I out here, and don’t get me wrong, we are having a ton of fun together and our hosts are incredibly kind and welcoming. We are quickly becoming friends, but after missing it for so long, I am very much looking forward to the end of this year when Dylan and I make it to Portland, Maine and begin to plant roots, together, for the very first time in either of our lives.

I know I have said it before, but we are not exactly cut out for this transient lifestyle, Dylan and I.  Though I am so happy we stepped out of our comfort zones and left New England for a while, experiencing city life in Seattle and now 4 months of farming in the tropics, I have finally made it to the point in my life where I miss my home. This is not a place I ever expected to find myself and it caught me by complete surprise. I miss having a community of people who truly know us and are as excited as we are to visit with one another. I miss having history, of knowing a place inside and out. Our history is in New England. It’s hard to believe in 3 short months we will be back there, ready to plant our roots and stay, to once again have a home. New England, I hope you are ready to welcome us with open arms because we are coming back for good this time.

So while we can’t exactly tear into a fresh Maine lobster or my mom’s homemade mac and cheese, we are finding much solace in our little outdoor kitchen, bonding over the new culinary traditions we are creating here that one day we will replicate in a future kitchen, nostalgic for our time in Hawaii. We have spent an exceptional amount of time in the kitchen this week, so I thought I would share a few of our experiences and experiments with you today. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as we have enjoyed devouring them. I’m sure I will say this many times in future writings, but the food here, and Dylan’s creative uses for it, is nothing short of fabulous.

You can hardly tell we chopped a huge branch from this basil

We started this epic week of food by chopping off a huge branch of our incredibly prolific basil plant destined to become a beautifully green jar of pesto, because what else is there to do with this much basil? Being on financial hibernation means no chance at buying pine nuts so we worked with what we had, macadamia nuts and skipped the cheese altogether. Let me tell you, pesto with garlic, a little arugula for an extra kick, and those delicious mac nuts all blended together with plenty of EVOO and a bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper is pretty incredible. We’ve had it for a week and the jar is half empty already. A big spoonful of the stuff on a slice of fresh sourdough bread from the farmer’s market is my new favorite snack (in fact I’m eating some as we speak). We’re probably going to eat a lot of pesto while we’re here because, well it’s delicious for one, and there is a seemingly endless supply of basil on this farm. 

Pesto is done and the kefir is beginning its fermentation process

In addition to the Mac-nut Pesto project, we also experimented with our first batches of kefir, a yogurt-like fermented milk drink with incredible health benefits. I’ll admit, I was a bit weary of this stuff at first, the idea of leaving milk to sit out on the counter for 24-48hours in a jar in the heat of Hawaii seemed wrong to me, but the stuff is incredible. In keeping with tradition, our hosts passed down a capful of kefir grains to us, which we plopped into a large mason jar and filled most of the way with whole milk and put on the counter to sit for two days. It worked like a charm. Despite our apprehension, and blended with frozen mango chunks, it made a mean smoothie. Since we had bought a full gallon of milk to work with, we ended up with about 5 batches of this stuff to figure out how to use.

Smoothies are a great option, but you can only drink so much kefir, so Dylan flipped through Wild Fermentation, an amazing book Libby and Mike passed on to us when we were in Brooklyn last month, and found a recipe for kefir-buckwheat pancakes. We didn’t have buckwheat, but we did have a few pounds of whole-wheat flour on hand, so we worked with that. These pancakes are the best pancakes I have ever had. Ever. They are so moist and chewy with a delightful sour tang and they taste great both drenched in Vermont Maple syrup and done savory with some spicy chilies, green peppers and onion scrambled eggs with a dollop of sour cream on top. Regardless of what you pair them with, these pancakes are delicious. I’m adding them to my growing list of “new favorite recipes.” Just kefir, whole-wheat flour, and water mixed and cooked on the griddle. Yum.

Dylan prepping the leeks & jar of kefir fermenting on the shelf

For our weekly potluck dinner this Wednesday, Dylan and I chose to share a bit of our Seattle experience with our hosts and new friends, while making use of the 4 big leeks that needed harvesting. Since there was such a small harvest, our hosts wanted the leeks to be featured at the potluck, so I suggested that Dylan and I make a batch of my favorite leek soup and she eagerly agreed, providing us with a big jar full of homemade chicken stock she rendered, unable to locate the duck stock hiding somewhere in her freezer. Dylan and I fell in love with this soup after our first Christmas in Seattle when we roasted a duck as our main course. It was my first whole duck since I gave up being a vegetarian earlier that year and determined not to let any of it go to waste, Dylan rendered stock with the left over bones and bits. We happened to have a bunch of leeks that didn’t make it on the Christmas dinner menu, so I suggested making leek soup with the duck stock. It was the best decision I have ever made.

There is nothing in this soup aside from 4 chopped leeks (the white and light green parts) and rich, homemade duck stock simmered together for about 35-45minutes. It didn’t even require salt. I love this soup and it will always remind me of that first Christmas in Seattle, our first Christmas away from home, and the year I discovered farm-fresh meats for the very first time, ending my 16 years of vegetarianism. Even with the chicken stock replacing duck, everyone loved our simple soup and eating it transported me to a wonderful time and place, providing some of the much-needed connection I’ve been missing lately. It warmed me thoroughly to be able to share a piece of our history with the people here in Hawaii on this farm we are temporarily calling home.

The tomatillos exploded this week after the rain, we could hardly keep up with the 5 plants... salsa verde is next on the list!

those are jars behind the hot sauce hold fennel we are pickling

Dylan was on a roll this week and also made a giant batch of tomatillo gazpacho, putting the mountains of green tomatoes to good use, along with farm fresh cilantro and green peppers, and chopped red onions, cucumbers, and creamy avocados from the farmer’s market in town. For my birthday last year Dylan made me a big batch of chipotle gazpacho lined with shrimp like a giant bowl of shrimp cocktail, so this cold tomato soup holds a special place in my heart. I seasoned this batch with a few drops of the super spicy hot sauce that we brewed this week using the Hawaiian red chilies that dot the farm like beautiful red Christmas lights, a fantastic contrast to the bright green and blue tones of the earth and sky here. Those little chilies pack a serious punch and there are so many of them that Dylan and I plan to make and bottle batch after batch to bring home as souvenirs when we leave.

Hot little Hawaiian Red Chillies, just like the ones used in Thai dishes, growing up on the terrace garden; those are pigeon peas dangling in the background that I mistook for edamame, they are equally delicious and buttery but a lot of work to shell

Oh and before I wrap up, I have to tell you that after two years of subjecting Dylan to kale, my most favorite green vegetable of all time, he has finally come around, willingly cooking and eating kale almost every single day now. I could not be happier with this new development in his culinary repertoire. When Dylan was working at the Confectional, back in Seattle, and had to open the market store on Saturday mornings, I used to make myself a weekly fancy breakfast for one. This comprised of oil and vinegar sautéed kale with cherry tomatoes, onions, and garlic, topped with a poached egg that would run it’s creamy yellow yoke harmoniously over the veggies. Dylan always mocked my obsession with kale, until now with kale being the most numerous plant on the farm. Now that Dylan has played around with it, he too has fallen in love with this versatile leafy green and I could not be happier.

this is just the main patch of lacinto kale, there are 3 other kinds and kale in 3 of the 4 gardens across the farm; also, that's our truck in front of Heather and Paul's house with the garage between it and our cabin on the left behind the mango trees.

Kale grows so easily, in just about any climate, and a single plant produces an incredible amount of food, making it a no-brainer for small farmers of a self-sufficient mind. Needless to say, we will be growing a lot of kale when we eventually get our own personal backyard grocery store planted in Maine. This week we have had kale under a blanket of scrambled eggs, a kale and purple potato frittata, and coconut-curried kale with blackened chilie-cauliflower (twice we’ve had that one now). We’ve had kale sautéed simply in EVOO with salt and pepper, in sesame oil with soy sauce and Hawaiian red chillies, and we’ve had it chopped finely and sautéed with eggplant. All this beloved kale makes the longing to plant our roots firmly in the Maine soil that much easier to manage. Well, that and the thought of so many of my favorite people reading this and sharing in our experience here on the farm. So I leave you today smiling and full of yummy food, and of course, lots of kale. Love to you all from hot, hot Hawaii.