Farm Trips: Late Season Edition

On Saturday Rashmi and I took another trip around central Alabama to gather food in these waning days of harvest. Our primary mission was to get more wheat milled at the Oakview Farms Granary. The first 25 pounds we had milled was getting low, so I blew chaff for 3 hours on Friday night while Rashmi made a delectable roasted red pepper soup from Farmer John's Cookbook. On Saturday we loaded up the wagon with coolers and headed out.















1. D&D Farm Market - Montevallo
We decided to take some back roads to Wetumpka this time, and wound our way through Montevallo. Good thing we did. Rashmi hollered as we drove past a farm store crammed with pumpkins. Indeed, she's quite the pumpkin artist. Last year, we both did our best - hers a painted black cat modeled after our own precious Zooey kitty, and mine a menacing Dick Cheney pumpkin, complete with snarling grin. I've posted pictures of last year's below, and I'll post pictures of this year's when we get to them. We picked up a few choice pumpkins here - grown in Cullman was the word from the proprietress.

As we walked in to pay for the pumpkins we noticed a freezer chest offering frozen peas, beans, and corn. We left D&D with about ten bags of frozen speckled limas, crowder peas, purple hull peas, and creamed corn. It pays sometimes to dig around a little. Our new chest freezer was happy with the additions.



2. Oakview Farms Granary - Wetumpka
We've written about Joe and Patty Lambrecht before, but this trip we were delighted to hear about the Granary's new purchase: two tons of Elmore County wheat. The wheat we pirated from our friends the Walkers here in Tuscaloosa county has been good to us, but we only got about a hundred pounds, which we're blowing through quickly with each loaf of bread and every round of pizza. When I first took our Alabama soft wheat to Joe, he mentioned that he'd like to get his hands on some local wheat. We're glad to hear that he finally did. What's more is that instead of grinding a tiny batch like he does for us, which requires another few rounds of sifting out the bran in the kitchen before baking, he's planning to run the Elmore county wheat through his main grinder which has mechanical separators which will leave the flour exceptionally clean and ready to use off the shelf. Adding another 30 minutes of sifting every time you want to bake bread has been a chore for us, so I'm thrilled with the idea of buying five pound bags of clean Alabama flour. If you'd like to get some Alabama wheat, drop them a line. Just make sure they save some for us...










3. Petals from the Past - Jemison
We were first introduced to Petals from the Past at a Slow Food event back in August, but we'd not yet had the chance to pick any fruit there. If you're unfamiliar with the place, it's one of the most unique and incredible garden stores in Alabama. They specialize in antique roses and heirloom shrubs, but we know them best as purveyors and growers of an amazing variety of fruit trees, many of which are U-pick. Sara and Joe picked blueberries and blackberries there in the summer, but with those seasons long gone Rashmi and I were there to pick muscadines. They grow a variety of muscadines around the property and we've gotten used to the grape's unique flavor from drinking bottles and bottles of Alabama wine in the last six months. But it's not just muscadines growing on their property. The place is also awash with other fruit - figs, five varieties of apples, luscious oriental persimmons, satsumas, Meyer lemons, and kiwi! Yes, kiwi. I had no idea that kiwi could grow in Alabama, but apparently it grows well here as evidenced by the overflowing box we got for a few bucks. The figs are done for the season, but the satsumas and lemons will be available shortly at which point we plan a return trip to get our citrus fix.

The last week we've been consumed with canning and freezing 25 pounds of late season tomatoes and 20 pounds of rattlesnake beans I bought at the Tuscaloosa Farmer's Market Tuesday morning. We washed muscadines to freeze last night and Rashmi made apple bread while we watched college football. I'm getting a "Little House on the Prarie" vibe from much of our food prep in the last few weeks (remember, I blew the chaff off wheat for 3 hours on a Friday night while Rashmi blanched green beans...) but the exercise in preservation has been good for us. We spend at least four hours in the kitchen every night, our dishwasher gets a daily workout, and our social life has pretty much grinded to a halt. But we've got a freezer full of food and when Armageddon comes, we'll be ready with green beans and muscadines...