Natural Disaster

While my own little shire of Middlebury remained just slightly affected by Tropical Storm Irene, much of the state of Vermont was devastated. This set of video clips is but the tip of the iceberg, and I encourage everyone to look at the updated aerial videos on www.wcax.com and the WCAX facebook page.

Flash flooding caused intensive, almost unimaginable damage to the state's infrastructure. We watched in horror as historic buildings and old and new bridges were ripped off their footings. Graveyards gutted with coffins floating downstream. Cars tumbling end to end in the waters as everyone tried frantically to see if there was anyone inside. Thirteen Vermont communities were wholly cut off from the rest of the world for several days. Most of those are now connected only by rough ATV paths. Crews are working around the clock to improve the access to at least temporary 4 wheel drive accessible roads.

Fortunately while the flash flooding was horrible, the wind and fury of the storm had dissipated by the time it got here, so areas not directly impacted by rising water remained intact. This is giving our state the resources to scurry through immediate clean up and disaster relief, and then longer term rebuilding. Had high winds impacted the rest of the state we would be looking at a much more sinister situation.

Vermont is very resilient when it comes to food security. Many people have gardens, and pantries full of home-canned goods. Those resources were put to the test here as many communities that had been cut off ran low on food. Through generosity and practicality people shared the contents of their melting freezers and the jars and cans from their water-soaked basements. But had it been slightly worse, or in a slightly different configuration, food and potable water could have become serious issues. As it is, they are strained commodities.

Rain barrels and home gardens will not resolve all ills of all natural disasters, but they help.  Obviously if it all gets washed down the river, it won't help. But a few rain barrels full of water in a landlocked community can sustain many people for many days. Dried beans and corn, as well as home-canned pickles, dilly beans, applesauce and relishes, last for years all with no additional electricity. A well-stocked freezer will last quite a while after the electric goes out, and feed you for a long time afterwards. My freezer is bigger than my needs, so I've lined the bottom with milk jugs full of water. It'll buy me an extra day or two without power, and give me over 20 gallons of water if the electric is out for longer than that.

Redundancy is one of the primary keys of disaster planning. Have a woodstove, and a camp stove, and a firepit. Have a main garden, and a few cherry tomato plants on the patio and a few cucumber plants in hanging baskets. Or put in some storage crops like onions or pumpkins at a different location -- in a community garden plot or in an unused corner of a neighbors field, or in a vacant city lot.

I keep thinking about the community gardens in Harlem that I talked about a few weeks back. Had Manhattan born the brunt of this storm, they would not have been enough to feed many people for very long -- especially if they were under water. They would have helped though. Emergency rations rarely include fresh produce so the greens and fresh tomatoes would have been welcomed by most folks. But I compare this to the cities I've seen in Italy and Spain, where every apartment has a balcony, and every balcony is a garden. If the Tiber flooded Rome 6 feet deep, like our Vermont cities are flooded, everyone in their apartments would have still had enough to eat for several days from the lettuce and tomatoes and miniature fruit trees on their balconies. I'm not saying it wouldn't be boring -- but they would be in a better position to survive and patiently await assistance.

I'm not an outright survivalist. I don't think we need to bury tanks of water and dehydrated rations in sealed pits in the back yard (that we then can't shovel out when the ground freezes). But having food and water resources at hand makes sense.

Pesto Heaven

"Tis the season, and I am drowning in basil. All those little tiny seedlings I set out -- twice as many as I need, since in past years sometimes the basil has had weather problems and not grown -- are now three feet tall and broad as a barman with a bushy handled moustache. And so I'm in pesto-processing-purgatory until it's all gone.

I'm going about it one row at a time. I had 6 rows, 6 to 8 plants each. Tonight I'm officially through half -- but only kind of cheating. The first two rows were lemon basil and lime basil, which grow to only half the size of the Aroma, Genovese, Large Leaf, and Sweet Basil that fill the other four rows. I used a light-flavored parmesan cheese for the lemon and lime, and included cilantro in some of the lime, parsley in some of the lemon, and used walnuts in some of the lemon just for grins and jollies.

I don't have a recipe. I lightly fill the glass container of my two-speed, genuine reproduction original metal-based Waring blender with basil leaves that I have washed and lightly spun in the salad spinner, so they still have a little water clinging to them. Yes,  I have a food processor, and no, I don't like to use it for this. It macerates the basil so badly that it practically loses its flavor, and becomes quite a different product. I suppose the folks who make their pesto in a mortar and pestle feel the same way about my blender. I do have a mortar and pestle, and use it for lots of things -- but I have a lot of basil to get through and then a crop of amaranth seed waiting to be winnowed after that so I just can't make all this pesto in my mortar and pestle.

Then I pour in enough olive oil in a light steady stream until it reaches about a half-inch up the side of the glass container. Good olive oil is key -- and the brand or label does not necessarily tell you if it's good olive oil. I've purchased expensive organic olive oil at the food co-op and had it taste horrible and rancid. Try different kinds until you find a brand you like -- then watch for it on sale and buy enough for a whole pesto season.

Then I blend that to a bright green liquid. Then I pour in about that many nuts -- if I had to guess, I'd say a quarter cup or less. I do like pine nuts, but can rarely afford them, so I usually use almonds. I watch for these on sale at my co-op, too. Walnuts have a stronger flavor; pecans have a nice creamy texture. A friend with a nut allergy uses breadcrumbs, which yields a fabulous light flavorful pesto with a smooth texture. Another friend uses sunflower seeds, which are also healthy and inexpensive.

Then I throw in garlic. One big clove or two or three smaller ones, then I taste it. I like a lot of garlic, so I may throw in another. Lastly, the cheese. I grate an Italian sheeps milk pecorino-romano and put in about a handful. At this point the pesto is getting clay-like in the blender, and I'm stopping the blender, pushing the pesto down with a wooden spoon, starting it again briefly, and repeating the process. Sometimes I add just a few drops of water, or a little more olive oil. If the garlic flavor seems overwhelming, I'll stuff in some more basil leaves.

From there it goes into quart-sized zipper-type freezer bags, marked with what kind of pesto it is. I flatten these down on their sides, squeezing all the air out before sealing it. Thus far I have a dozen such bags in the freezer; I expect I'll have about 40 when I'm done. I'll probably take some of those to the food shelf and keep 26--enough pesto for every other week of the year, which sounds about right.

 Uses? Pasta, of course. But don't stop there. Spread it on pizza crust or in bread dough; spread it on sandwiches. Throw some into minestrone. Spread it all over some halibut and quartered potatoes and bake it in the oven. Dab it into an omelet.

Pesto heaven!

Gardens in Harlem

Last week my band O'hAnleigh was honored to play in the Fertile Ground Music Series at the National Black Theater in Harlem, New York City. Growing up on Long Island, I visited Manhattan many times for shows, to the Hard Rock Cafe, museums and so on downtown but never made it north of Central Park. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but what I found was a complete surprise: Gardens. Everywhere.

Little did I know that New York City's Green Thumb program is the largest community gardening program in the world. Just get enough people to sign up to take shifts and the city parks department makes available city-owned vacant lots for planting, along with resources like compost and workshops. The program's website provides a forum for local groups to exchange information, posts photos, and announces programs like farmers markets and the upcoming NYC Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners conference.

I did not see any of these gardens in the sterile streets of Central Park West or the area around Columbus Circle but the vibrant community of Harlem was rich with lush green gardens--and full of gardeners excited to talk about them. The video above is just a quick bit of conversation at one such garden on 126th Street near St. Nicholas Avenue, but there were many more. As in the original Garden, the food is just free for the taking. People sign up for short shifts to work in the garden through the week, then the gate is open through daylight hours for anyone to come pick some produce. Further up the block was a larger garden running alongside a building for about half a block that included cherry trees and a large patch of sweet corn.

I guess I should not have been surprised that a town with so much faith, heart and soul would also be full of gardeners!