From Fin to Farmers Market: the Case for Community Kitchens

(Originally published in the Juneau Empire, July 2010)

One of the best times I’ve had in a kitchen was when my husband and I got together with another couple for a ‘But Puppy Party. Too risqué for the pages of L’Attitude you think? Off color for the Juneau green scene? Oh, but you’re wrong. ‘But Puppies are possibly the finest form in which to eat that favored bottom feeder: Halibut. If the name makes you blush, just call it halibut sausage.

Most people have never heard of this culinary delight. My in-laws used to capitalize on this fact, extorting half the sausage we made in trade for access to their carefully guarded recipe. We’d supply the halibut, sausage casings, and elbow grease. They’d supply the secret ingredients in covertly pre-measured amounts.

It’s a gauge of how much I love halibut sausage that I allowed my in-laws to hold us hostage for so long. To be fair, though, they kept the recipe secret because they hoped to market it some day, to sell it to a world awaiting this taste treat. The first step towards their goal, though, was a big one: a DEC approved kitchen.

It takes a fair bit of work (and money) to create a kitchen that can be approved by the DEC – I know from experience as an architect for the CBJ. Commercial food handling needs sanitary conditions that it’s almost impossible to get in a residential kitchen, without multiple sinks and specialized surfaces.

At first it seems a mundane vision, until you realize the many things a person could do with access to a commercial kitchen, especially a nice big one with enough equipment for large batches, and space to spread out or arrange an assembly line. And the special surfaces and multiple sinks are not only more sanitary, but a boon when it’s time to clean up.

This needn’t be just a vision, it turns out, but can become a reality for almost anyone. There are quite a few commercial, DEC approved kitchens in Juneau that mostly sit unused. Every kitchen in a Juneau school is DEC approved, for example, with little action all summer. I’ve also heard rumors of church kitchens that are available, and maybe one at the university.

What would I do with a good commercial kitchen? Several times a year (for May forest harvests and seaweed, June rhubarb, July fish, August berries, September zucchini, November deer, and December holiday treats) I’d get several friends together for a day or weekend in the kitchen, everyone showing up with raw materials and going home with food for the pantry, freezer, and gifts.

And if the kitchen were DEC approved, I could even sell some at the summer Farmer’s Market at the JACC. Items like jams, jellies, vinegars, dried herbs, teas and baked goods can be sold directly to consumers without an additional food service permit (and made at your home kitchen if you’re only selling at the Farmer’s Market). Halibut sausage and other specialty processed foods would likely require a temporary food service permit from the DEC, and can’t be sold unless prepared in a DEC approved kitchen.

The Food Security Committee of the Juneau Commission on Sustainability has been talking with the Cooperative Extension about starting Community Kitchen days at a local kitchens, possibly at a high school. Classes on a theme – sausage-making anyone? – might be offered, but mainly the kitchen would be available for working individually or in groups to put food by, for good fun and local eating.

My in-laws have yet to take their sausage to the next level, and I eventually found a good halibut sausage recipe at the UAF Cooperative Extension. Maybe I’ll help them fulfill their entrepreneurial dream by renting one of the school kitchens the next time we get a few halibut, and take the Puppies to the Farmers Market.

Resources for starting your own community kitchen:

• Juneau Commission on Sustainability, Food Security Committee. Call Beth McKibben at 586-0465.
• UAF Cooperative Extension. Call Darren Snyder at 796-6281.
• Juneau School District, Community Schools Program. Call 780-2075.
• Department of Environmental Conservation. Call Jason Waird at 465-5163.

Halibut Sausage – Sea to Skillet

Halibut sausage is best made with 50 or more pounds of cleaned fish, and a group of folks who know each other well enough to make the jokes that are inevitable when sausage is in the making:

1. Go fishing: from the ADF&G Fishing report on June 21, it averaged 5-rod hours to harvest a halibut around Juneau (our most recent averaged 5 rod-minutes)… much better than the 60 rod-hours for a king salmon! Hot spots reported were Pt. Sophia, Lynn Sisters, North Shelter, and Benjamin Island.
2. Halibut of 30-50 pounds are the best… bigger ones have long flakes that can jamb the grinders.
3. Buy 1” sausage casings from the butcher, preferably bleached. White fish, white/clear casings… just looks nice.
4. Skin and bone the fish, cut into medium size chunks, refrigerate for making sausage within 24 hours.
5. Grind in a manual or Cuisinart-type grinder, using a medium plate (do not use a KitchenAide grinder; salt water and tough grinding can destroy it). Weigh the ground fish and divide into 10 lb batches.
6. For every 2 lbs of ground fish, add the following and mix until distributed evenly (tweak spices to your taste, if desired):

• 1 teaspoon salt, pepper, ground ginger, ground coriander, garlic powder, dried thyme, and rubbed sage.
• 1/2 cup powdered milk
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne and ground allspice
• 1/4 cup olive oil

7. Stuff the sausage into the casings using a manual or KitchenAide-type sausage stuffer. Make links by twisting the full casings every 6 inches. Make kielbasa by twisting every 12-18 inches.
8. Put the sausages in zip-lock bags, seal with as little air as possible, then double bag or wrap in freezer paper. Date for eating within the year and freeze.
9. If you aren’t in a commercial kitchen, spend the next 1-2 hours scouring your kitchen. If you don’t, you’ll spend a week hunting down the source of that awful smell (the year we left unwashed dish cloths overnight was a memorable one!).
10. Cook on a lightly oiled skillet at a medium setting until brown, or grill. Eat for any meal, with condiments of your choice.

Sarah Lewis is not a great cook, but has recently read Michael Pollan’s book, Food Rules, and feels smug that her halibut sausage follows 25 of his 62 rules.

The Seaweed Days of Summer

(originally published in the Juneau Empire, June 2010)

The transformation from spring to summer is beautiful in Southeast Alaska. Our springs may be heavy on showers and light on flowers, but April and May in Juneau are the kind of fresh and clean that detergent marketers ache for. And we can get outside and experience nature with fewer layers between us and the cool air as we put in gardens, anticipating July and August harvests.

Then June arrives. Ho hum. Nothing to harvest, not much watering to do, just tedious weeding to keep dandelions, knot weed, and horsetails at bay. What’s a locavore to do? Well, it turns out that between sowing seeds and harvesting veggies is the best time to get out of the garden and collect Mother Nature’s free food! Imagine that. She teaches us, yet again, to stop moping around and go outside and play.

So I’ve heard recent talk of fiddleheads, nettles, twisted stalk, and Devil’s Club shoots. Recipes are circulating. It fits the verdant image of summer, doesn’t it, to frolic through the lush green fronds with a woven basket. Maybe a flowing skirt and a choice pair of shoes from Shoefly to finish the picture.

But are the members of my little homestead preparing to enter the woodland realm? Of course not. My family has chosen slogging instead of frolicking, an A&P bag instead of a basket, and Xtra-Tufs instead of those really cute Naot shoes I covet. This year the greens we’re harvesting are seaweed. My small, info-packed library of wild harvest references has been hanging around the house for weeks, awaiting their time in the sun… or, well, you know what I mean.

Though Alaskan, born and raised, it took the Becoming an Outdoor Woman program to finally introduce me to wonderful seaweeds – or I never would have combined these three words: seaweed tastes good! It has become un-American not to like seaweed-wrapped sushi; you can practically get the stuff in vending machines (with a side of antibiotics, please). But I don’t like food that tastes like the briny, microscopic-life-filled ocean. And it seemed a safe assumption that seaweed would taste like sea water. But then, lettuce doesn’t taste like dirt! So I feel kind of silly now.

This year, my 10-year-old daughter beat me to the first harvest on a recent sunny day at the beach. She brought back several types and it took less than an hour for it all to dry and be crumbled into jars for adding to soups and her favorite meal, Top Ramen. Later this month we’ll head to the beach again with the goal of harvesting pop weed for bullion, dulse for chips, sea lettuce for seasoning, and wakame for stir-frying.

Harvesting Seaweed in Southeast Alaska

There are some real upsides to harvesting seaweed:

• Though some are unappetizing, none in northern waters are poisonous and there are no “look alikes” to fear.
• Most seaweeds are rich in iron, protein, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and vitamins.
• They can be found on almost every beach in Southeast Alaska. No secret spots.
• My favorite: on an open beach you’re less likely to surprise a bear.
• Supplies are few and simple: rubber boots, typical Southeast clothes (i.e. layers and rain gear), small scissors or knife, and several food-grade plastic bags or containers, or mesh bags.
• Most are good raw or cooked and can be refrigerated for a short time or dried for long term storage. Best if dried quickly in the sun, to keep flavor, and stored in air tight containers in a cool place.

But there are precautions and considerations:

• Make sure you’re not near a sewage outfall or below housing.
• As with any wilderness activity, bring survival gear should you get stranded on a rock or become wet and chilled: drinking water, a snack, a large plastic garbage bag (or sturdy emergency blanket) and multiple signals (a flare, a phone, a VHF radio, a mirror).
• Never harvest a whole area of one seaweed type. Harvest selectively and always cut above the holdfast (the part attached to the rock), or leave the reproductive blades, so the seaweed can re-grow.
• Almost all seaweeds are best when harvested in spring and early summer, and dried in the sun, eaten, or otherwise processed quickly.
• Rinsing seaweed in fresh water will speed deterioration. Only do this right before eating, if desired, and not if planning to dry.

In June, head to a beach an hour before low tide and look for these common seaweeds on rocks in the intertidal zone:

Pop weed (Fucus species) –Harvest when young and olive green. Inflated tips and tender frond ends can be eaten raw, stir-fried, in soups and sauces, or used as a cooking bed for fish over campfire coals. Dry it for broth and soups.

Dulse (Palmaria mollis) –Several reddish-brown, thick blades on single holdfast. Cut fronds an inch above holdfast. Very nutritious. Eaten raw or stir-fried. Dried dulse is good with cheeses, as a bacon substitute in sandwiches, shredded and tossed with buttered popcorn, added to soups and casseroles, and fried in oil like potato chips.

Wakame (Alaria species) – Single, long, olive brown frond with thick midrib and several small reproductive blades at base near holdfast. Harvest only the main frond, leave small blades. Center rib is crisp and good raw or stir-fried. Frond good with bacon, cabbage, rice, and miso soups. Very nutritious and nearly 25% protein. When dried, powder can be added to breads to increase nutritional content.

Sea Lettuce (Ulva species) – Long, vivid green, leaf-like blade is so thin it is almost see-through. Gather before they turn whitish and tough by mid summer. Add fresh to salads and soups or blanch leaves in boiling water for two minutes and serve with butter or vinegar. Dried leaves can be powdered for a salt substitute.

Books to Read

Common Edible Seaweeds in the Gulf of Alaska, by Dolly Garza

Discovering Wild Plants: Alaska, Western Canada, The Northwest, by Janice Schofield

Edible? Incredible, by Marjorie Furlong and Virginia Pill

My Main Street Homestead

(Originally written for the Juneau Empire on 4/21/10)

I want to be a farmer. An up with the sun, collect the eggs, milk the cows, harvest the crops, mend the fences farmer. As a Juneau girl, raised and now living on a downtown lot that’s way more house than land – in a climate where fungi and Douglas Fir are more natural crop choices – I don’t know how it happened. But here I am, pitchfork in hand with no hay to pitch.

But they say you’ve got to bloom where you’re planted, and I suppose there’s some truth in that, despite the two-leg, opposable thumb thing humans have going. And I do love where I’ve planted myself in downtown Juneau, it’s just really hard for a budding farmer to bloom on

Main Street

. It takes a lot more brain than leg work, and I’m forever thumbing through books to find solutions to my conundrum. Slowly, but surely, I’m finding them.

For example, I’ve found a peck of other wanna-be-farmers. Google “urban homesteading” and there are blogs, books, and “institutes” dedicated to folks planted in cities, but tilling the soil around them. And, as through history, there are many reasons people want to homestead: independence, simplicity, environmentalism, conservatism, religion. “Opting out” and “taking part” are both typical. My mom says that everyone builds castles in the sky, but only the crazy move in… maybe it’s different if it’s a farmhouse?

My own motivation is a need to become home-focused and deliberate with my days. My great grandmother Mabel Pierce Reed was a Goldrush pioneer. Today she’d be the first to exclaim the virtues of a modern dishwasher, but appalled that I can’t bake my own bread and cover it with homemade blueberry jam. That, instead, I buy bread that’s so pumped up it won’t mold, and I’m unsure where to pick berries.

So, inspired partly by memories of Grandma Reed, I quit my day job. It was a great job and I liked it, but it left me little time to farm with my kids, bake bread, or pick berries. So this summer I’m on my way to becoming a stay-at-homesteader.

And in my preparations I’ve learned that, no matter what brings a person to start urban homesteading, if you have shelter there are two main things that consume you: money and food; how to get them, how to use them well, and how to preserve them for the future.

For money there are some pretty well agreed upon steps to take, all of which have their own library of how-to books, but to get started:

• Eliminate credit card debt. It’s evil. We’re all suckers for it. Never stop trying to get rid of it.
• Carry cash. It’s harder to hand over than a piece of plastic.
• Make “egg and butter” money. Find activities that bring in a little cash. Possibly real eggs and butter, but more likely making scarves or selling books online. Or maybe start writing for the paper.
• Find a cash cow. A working spouse with a job is the best, especially with health insurance. Alternatively, rent out a room or apartment in your house or offer to manage a friend’s apartment as a vacation rental. Come up with a million dollar idea and sell it online. You’re smart, you’ll find something.
• Conserve. All resources, from diesel and hydropower to cotton and wheat, cost money. Only buy what you need, and do the conservation measures you hear about everywhere. They help.
• Save your money. Investments, savings accounts, the mattress... whatever you’re comfortable with. Emergencies are worse when you’re broke.
• Make an alternative commerce system. Freecycle, JuneauParents.com, Craig’s List, Alaska Dames & Gents, Mommy and Me, garage sales… these should be stores in your mall.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle, really.

Food is a bit more complex. There’s an amount of belief required: that kitchen scraps will turn into soil, that seeds will germinate, that you can keep other species alive. Just take it at a comfortable pace. Once again, there are many resources available, start with the Cooperative Extension Service at the University.

• Compost. Start a pile or repurpose a garbage can. Alternate “green” (vegetable-based scraps from kitchen and garden) and “brown” layers (dried leaves or grass, wood chips, sawdust, newspaper) to keep things from getting stinky. Add water if dry, drainage if soggy. Never add meats or strong smelling foods (onions, for example) that might attract bears. Add worms if you want, and presto!
• Farm. I started with 40 square feet of soil in pots. The next year I added my 50 square feet of land that gets sun. I grow salad greens, chard, kale, peas and zucchini… and even put some by for the winter. And I am not a green thumb by any stretch. Next year: chickens.
• Study home economics. For $10 I can make six loaves of bread. That would be about $24at A&P. That’s worth it for me. Balance time and money.
• Harvest from nature. This is where urban homesteading in Juneau gets really good. Blueberries and salmonberries, nettles and twisted stalk, sockeye and deer. And don’t rule out seaweed. I did, for almost 40 years, and was embarrassed to discover it’s darn good.

And finally, in the dark winter months, read. By the light of your farm house oil lamp, of course.

The Integral Urban House, 1979, The Farallones Institute

The Edible City Resource Manual, 1981, Britz

Square Foot Gardening, 1981, Bartholemew

Permaculture, 1990, Mollison

The Urban Homestead, 2008, Coyne and Knudsen

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, 2008, Kellogg and Pettigrew

Food Security for the Faint of Heart, 2008, Wheeler

Back to Basics, 2008, Gehring

Homesteading, 2009, Gehring

And, of course, Mother Earth News.

Sorry Plastic, Anji’s Not Playing Anymore

(Originally published in the Juneau Empire, L'attitude section, April 2010)

Anji Gallanos pays attention. To her family and friends, to her community, and (importantly) to herself. She’s an idea person, but also a realist, so her friends never roll their eyes at “Anji’s crazy ideas.” In fact, just the opposite – we usually offer help, for fear of being left pitifully behind. So I’ve learned to pay attention to Anji.

Anji and I have been friends for seven years, since she moved to Juneau with her husband and boys. I’ve watched her shift regularly between mother, wife, educator, researcher, activist, entrepreneur, and artist. Sometimes with grace, sometimes not, she readily admits. But real friends let you learn from both their mistakes and their successes – another reason I pay attention to Anji: I always learn something helpful.

So I was interested when Anji recently began paying attention to plastics – the harm they do to humans and the planet, therefore to Juneau and her family – because she had stumbled on an issue affecting all of her worlds, from mother to artist.

First, as an artist and entrepreneur she stopped using plastics in her creations and the packaging in which she markets them. That was easy, because she controls her work. But then, as mother and wife, she tried to eliminate her home use of plastic. That’s when she discovered the problem: it’s apparently no longer possible. How had it happened?

Anji the researcher stepped in. She needed to know how much plastic her family used, and for what. How much of that plastic had realistic alternatives? And what were other families doing? So she started No New Plastics Juneau on Facebook and asked several families to join her for a one week plastics fast, and report their findings back to the group.

I signed up for the plastics fast, and was pretty glib about it. How hard could it be? Don’t let any new plastic into my home for a week, and don’t throw any plastic away. With a plan for cloth bags and glass storage containers, and no more plastic toys for my daughter, I became a fan of No New Plastics Juneau.

By 6:00 AM on the first day of the fast, I had failed: the Empire arrived in its plastic sleeve. Then when shopping: the milk carton spout, the bag for mushrooms, the labels on every piece of fruit, and to-go cup lids were all bits of plastic I’d hardly noticed before. And I need these items: I believe informed citizenship is a responsibility, I have no cows on my tiny city lot, and until I launch my urban farm will have no homegrown mushrooms or fruit in the fridge. And the to-go cups? It seems that they are annoyingly (and dangerously) structurally unsound without their plastic lids. So I made my tea at home, missing the pleasure of the local coffee shop.

My experience reflected Anji’s main discovery: Plastics have entered so many areas of our society that it’s now impossible for individuals to opt out. In fact, Anji is deeply frustrated by merchants requiring consumers to take all the conscious steps (like using cloth bags) while they proceed to eliminate plastic-free options (like paper bags and cardboard boxes). Plastic use will not be brought under control without policy-level changes. From the grocery store and product manufacturers to the CBJ and Washington DC, policy-makers must stop putting the burden entirely on consumers. They are dodging reality.

So Anji the educator and activist has started work. She’s spreading the word through her blog and Facebook page. She also works with like-minded folk, such as Turning the Tides (see the Getting Green Done calendar in this section), to make changes.

And here I am, once again paying attention to Anji, and once again learning how much richer life is when I make conscious decisions. If you’d like to follow Anji too, take a look at the Re-List in this section and get started.

Re-List: A Clutter of Plastics

Juneau artist Sarah Asper-Smith (smackofjellyfish.com) has a great line of cards featuring the collective nouns for animals, like a parliament of owls and a knot of frogs. So watch out for a Clutter of Plastics, which will take over your home like a scourge of mosquitoes!

Research.      Do a one-week plastics fast. Bring no new plastic into your home and throw nothing plastic away. You’ll see plastic where you never noticed it before! Go to www.facebook.com/NoNewPlastic to read how other Juneauites have survived the fast.

Reduce.         The most important strategy for all resource use. Know how a plastic item will end its life before you add it to yours. Read Jennifer Nu’s article in this section for inspiration.

Reuse.           Ask your grocery store to place used cardboard boxes at checkout. Collect all your clean, dry Empire bags and take them back to the Empire for reuse. Wash out those peanut butter and pickle jars and reuse them for storing leftovers.

Recycle.        Recycle all #1 and #2 plastic at the Recycle Center. Go to www.juneau.org/pubworks/recycling.php for more information.

Repurpose.    If using plastic bags, use each at least three times. Once for its original purpose, at least one more time when you’d normally grab a new bag, and finally for disposing of something extra messy.

Relearn.         Remember a time when plastic storage options were few. Buy some “old fashioned” items like reusable bowl covers, cloth bags of all types (from grocery to sandwich), stainless steel, ceramic, and glass containers. Buy locally, new or used, before trying these sources: VermontCountryStore.com, Etsy.com (for reusable food bags), and LifeWithoutPlastic.com.

Repair.          Household appliances are mostly plastic nowadays. When the microwave stops working, don’t trash it, repair it. It will typically cost less than a new one. Look in the Yellow Pages for our local, helpful repair shops.