Pond disaster + hybris

My feet are inflamed so I can do nothing but sit inside and have intimate moments with laptop. I ran a half assed marathon, only 5K, a christmas present from my brother. Stupidly I put on shoes that were way too big and ran like a maniac, flaying my own skin in the hunt for a good time. Good time as in a good running time. These events are so weird. I can’t seem to escape thinking in system-theory lines of thought. Almost all of the women, it was a women only race, had their Ipods tucked into some sort of Ipodholders on their arms, even though this was a “party” and a collective event. Everyone still wanted it on their terms, with their music so that they could stay in their own worlds. Meanwhile a disgusting guy (Peter Siepen) in a cowboy hat who kept showing of his aged six pack of a stomach talked about the importance of physical exercise and how there now are apps that can help you with that. How can there be apps helping you to get out more? Are you really outside if your actual being outside is dependent on some small machine that cost a few peoples lives in the making of it? Then as I ran passed everyone, or a whole bunch anyway, everyone were wearing t-shirts of companies who conduct services. Meaning no physical work what so ever, just services and that is just what the neo-liberal notion of a great mechanized society should be like. Machines do the real work (meaning poor asians) while we live strictly on a platonic level. And so the body crumbles under the weight of apps.

So the pond, yes I was very happily sealing it another time and then very happily filling it only to come back the next day to find it completely empty, dry and cracked again. But eventually it will heal itself, as my feet are at the moment, creating a new skin for itself. Some water has appearantly been staying my sources tell me.  On my very own plot a design is emmerging quite spontaneously while I dig like crazy. It will be beautiful. Well this was a meaningless post, mostly I just wanted to post these pictures of myself sealing the pond. Look at my giddy face in its naive presumption that this will actually work….

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Another plot for independence + pond update!

Yes, finally I have my own small parcel of laaaaand! I was sent the letter with the plots available about two weeks ago, there were only five! The demand for allotments is really high right now and I take full credit! Haha no but really, it is amazing seeing all these people working really hard to produce their food, every single allotment is occupied on the sunny weekends, everyone hard at work planting, sowing, even mulching! And a whole bunch of young people are invading to the veterans of the place great amusement. My plot is beautiful! One we were thinking about chosing over the one we did chose before when we could choose the first time, but this one is 130 square meters and not 150 as the other one. Therefor this one will be more of a leisure garden as the other one is under intensive cultivation, there’s not even room to sit. My plot alreaady has a full grown and producing apple tree, strawberries, rhubarb, morrocan mint, lots of raspberries, chives, wormwood and what I think is lovage (libbsticka). So there’s not a whole lot I need to do to make it a perennial garden. I will plant more herbs, the benifical flowers that I presented in this post and sneak in some vegetables in between. A greenhouse has to be built as well, we have a ton of tomato and chili seedlings, some pepper and eggplant that need the warmth. And of course I will dig a pond!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So what happened to the other pond on the other plot? Well I soaked it with water and used its own soil as plaster so that when it dried it would be like the wall of a mud house. This worked very well except for the fact that I didn’t return the next day to fill it up so it got all cracked. But cracks aside I will fix this today and make another layer and fill it in and I’m sure it will work great! Other news on the other plot is that the garlic is growing like crazy, looking really good and healthy. The husband planted comfrey, and he and Nick have been sowing lots of leafy plants and some peas and carrots while I was at home writing an essay about Detroit and about reclaiming the power over food. The husband was in a bit of a hurry in the beginning of the season and planted peas that died instantly and sowed leafy plants and carrots that never came up, this was a month ago. Now the weather is fantabulous and there seems to be no risk for frost so hopefully they will all emmerge through the mulch. Meanwhile at home, we are drowning in seedlings, and they just keep coming!

And here’s a dish the husband made out of nettles, pine nuts and raisins that was amazlingly yummy and almost free!

Today is a great day for digging! I will keep you posted on pond activities and new design for new plot! Meanwhile, grow with god!

Yes, the rumors are true, I dug a pond!

Hey everybody!

I have dug a pond! I have shuffled soil from out of the ground and I have put it around the pond as a sort of small wall like thing where cucumbers will grow and flourish and give me a shit load of cucumbers to pickle! Why have I dug a pond you ask? Well why not?! Mostly because we do have a huge slug problem and instead of doing all the work of pointlessly trying to get rid of them, nature can do it instead! It is much better at it than I am. I’m happy to admit my suckiness at getting rid of slugs, swallow my pride and let nature have a go. But wont a pond attract slugs because of its general moistness? Well, maybe it will but then they would immediately get eaten by the frogs I’m gonna plant in it! Or if I’m lucky, a toad will wander by and see how fit that pond is for good living. Although I am absolutely terrified of toads, and now I understand why, they are completely filled with slug slime! Eeeeeeeew. This might be the best way to cure my toadophobia, if it will help me harvest much more food. Picture me and big fat toad skipping towards the sunset with baskets full of fresh PRODUCE! (I don’t know how I feel about that word…p r o d u c e…it’s macho and pretentious at the same time. Can’t be good…)

Also the pond will reflect sunlight, make the air moist which is nice for the artichokes to the side of it and attract living creatures. Hopefully it will dampen the soil around it making watering close to obsolete in the area. But thing is, I haven’t actually filled the pond yet. The water isn’t turned on yet but it has rained a bit and I’ve heard from somewhat reliable sources that the rain water stayed in it without making a muddy mess like some skeptics anticipated….well in your face! So now all I have to do is wait for a monsoon and get some frog fetuses (when are they in season?) and plant some watercress and maybe water chestnut? Now that I’m a pond owner, I’m gonna have to get my wisdom on aqua-culture! I dug a pond! Picture to be published within the year…

Who wants to give me a house with a yard?

Today is a Malmö day, meaning nothing but grey sky. No wind, no rain, not a gust of life outside. Days like these you wish your garden wasn’t situated several kilometers away from your home. To go to the garden on a day like today means extreme will-power. You must be determined. You must eat a large breakfast or lunch, go to the bathroom five times before you leave and dress in many layers. When you get there you must fight the urge to lay down and die under the power of the greyness. You must fight it with visions of future greenery. You must fight it with the muscle that is your mind and create another state of it, a state not so easily affected by the grey. You must focus your mind on the soil. The soil is never grey.

Ok so now I have no excuse, now I must muster up the energy and the will-power to go to the garden and sow salad and spinach, because I do want to consume these leafs in two months time. I shall prevail! Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the plot before everything happens. News are we have rhubarb! Must also kill all the grass that now wants to take over. Very important to kill grass. We are covering the paths with wood chips from the surroundings where they’ve cut down trees. Works well in keeping grass down. Today we’ve sown cabbage and brussel sprouts inside, cabbage takes such a long time to grow so better get started soon! Anywho, I will not keep you in my Malmö mood, if anyone has a house with a yard laying around, toss it over here!

Check out the fence, the rhubarb and the garlic growing happily in the otherwise dead garden. And behold the glory of my dripping iris!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Spring is here! And so are edible and benificial flowers

Oh ma gad oh ma gad oh ma gad!! Spring is here!!! With the promise of new life, love and general fulfillment (unless it rains all summer, then you have general suicidalness, but let’s hope not…) And a new growing season promising an abundance of life, love and food (unless it rains all summer…)! So I hope you have all planted your chilis and your artichokes and are ready for the intense planting that is about to take place these coming months when we pre-cultivate like maniacs to get a good start at the growing season! In our sunnyside window we have artichokes, chilis, celeriac (the root kind, appearantly wont grow unless you pre-cultivate it), sugar peas, comfrey, spinach and salad. And we tested radish seeds that we saved from our own crop last year and they all came up!  At the alotment the husband has bravely sown some different types and colored carrots, onions and radishes. Problem is the water is not yet turned on by the city and wont be for another month or so and it hasn’t rained for days…All the more reason to pre-cultivate inside where the water-supply is never ending.

I’m so excited about this season since it will be my first real one where I’m actually present, observing, harvesting and planting planting planting! We have decided to precultivate almost everything and keep on doing so throughout the season so that when one plant is harvested it is immediatly replaced by another. This way the garden will always be full of edible plants! But not all edible plants are vegetables and berries, we also have our edible and benificial flowers. Some of which an organic gardener can’t live without. Check it out! (And if you don’t want to read about these fascinating plants, please skip ahead to the motivational speech below.)

 

Borage is actually classified as an herb but has lots of blue edible flowers. Borage is great for your garden as a companion plant to tomatoes and brassicas among other things. It’s also edible and have many medicinal uses, it is said to help with PMS!

Calendula is very well known for its medicinal properties. It is a great flower to put in your salad, it dyes your food yellow and can be dried and used for tea. Very versitile plant and very pretty. Technically it’s a perennial but usually cold winters kills it. Good companion plant that brings out the neighbouring plants own repellents.

Marigold/Tagetes very well known plant that you can’t live without if your planting organically. It is very benificial since it repells bugs and nematodes which is a parasite worm, and supress weeds. Some varities are edible, like the one in the picture.

Flax/Linseed an amazing plant that gives very healthy seeds and makes a great fibre of which you can make almost anything from building materials to clothes. It’s also very beautiful and a good companion plant to potatoes and carrots.

Evening primose/Sun drop this beautiful flower blooms only at night! It is highly edible, the entire plant from root to seed can be eaten. The flowers for salads, the roots must be cooked and are said to have a similiar taste to parsnip and salsify. Very medicinal, oil from the seeds treat PMS, thrombosis, hyperactiveness, rheumatism and acne. Tea can be made from leaves and stalk to cure coughs and creams can be made of the same to treat eczema. Quite a tremendous plant that grows in poor soils.

 Echinacea very famous medicinal plant that is extentivly used in both modern and traditional medicin. Also a pretty flower and a perennial!

Marsh Mallow not to be confused with fluffy candy (althought it could be used to make it…) this is maybe the best example of a plant you should, you must have in your garden! It’s a perennial and that is always good for your garden, it is highly edible and medicinal and can be used for all kinds of stuff. The root can for example be used as a toothbrush! See link for all the gory details of this amazing plant that also has pretty flowers!

Doesn’t this just want to make you jump out of the window and start gardening? The sun is high up in the sky, the birds are singing frenetically and seeds are bursting with longing for that damp soil. So are my fingers, my hands my spirit. The garden is not just a good excuse to get outside and be active, it’s not only a provider of healthy food but it is also a direct connection between you and nature. A connection that has long ago been lost in our modern world but that we need to revive, despite the systems devious ways to keep us seperated. I strongly encourage any type of connection to the soil. If you don’t have a garden, an alotment or a balcony. The windowsill will do and if it gets to crowded, get out and put plants in places where you see a need for some aspiring life. It will make you and a lot of other people happy!

Garden power! Garden lust and love

Garden garden garden

A postponing post and a new challenge!

The word procrastinate fits me eeeeeeeew like a glove (two words: Ace Ventura). I’ve been meaning to post a long list of seeds that we bought and the design for the plot and some wise words about stuff I know absolutely nothing about, but nothing happens and now I see why. I can’t have a garden blog. A garden blog is for gardeners, biologists or retired housewifes niether of which I am even close too. Ok maybe the gardener is quite close since I do have a garden, and I’m about to get another one, but I have no right to actually go around calling myself a gardener as if I knew anything about manipulating nature.

On the other hand the whole point of this blog is to make people see that you don’t have to be a specialist to take care of your own needs like food. You don’t have to know anything or even be inclined towards gardening and still have a succesful outcome and an empowering experience. The thing is I have a lovely well red, natural science kinda husband who very well could qualify under the expert tab. I get no say in nothing because all my inputs about anything else but the aesthetics just proves how much I don’t have a clue about anything that has to do with creating life (in the non-human world that is).

Thats why, ladies and gentlemen, I’m getting my very own garden plot! Me and the beloved husband will have a show-down, allotment style! I am completely confident that he will win because I can’t abandon the original plot that would be like leaving your child during its first year when all the exciting things happen to it and when it needs you the most. But still, I shall prevail and be the proof to you all that with no, or very little knowledge, you can grow your own food! It’s not rocket science, it’s not even science, it’s pure survival baby.

By the end of this growing season you won’t have any excuse, so start growing basil on your windowsills and get some batik clothes cus come 2013, you are all bound to be a tad selfsufficient! WOHOOOOO!

and look, here’s the design! Pretty cool eh.

Back and hungry for revolution!

Yes I know, I must’ve given you all quite a scare disappearing like that. Well I’m back now as a better, more noble me since I nowadays attend the very distinguished Lund University where I spend my time watching movies like this and wishing my professor would spontaneously combust after presenting his 60th slide on his powerpoint presentation that mainly consist of his half assed theories and google searched pictures.

That movie is amazing though, you must all watch it and that’s an order! It brings you back to the romanticizing days of Che in the jungle. This is just like Che in the jungle only much, much, much, much better. It’s called The Coconut Revolution and tells the tale of resistance and the first ever succesful eco-revolution. Very impressing indeed. And the most impressing thing is not how the inhabitants of the island Bougainville overthrow a powerful british mine company and kick them out using nothing but good old sabotage and then fight the Papa New Guinea army with homemade weapons and later win independence, no this is not the most impressing thing. And it’s not the fact that they live on a blocked island and manage to be completely self sufficient in fuel, medicine and all other things using only what the island has, what the mine company and various soldiers left behind and lot’s of creativity and will. This is very impressive, but it’s still not the most impressive thing about this movie.

What threw me the most was the pure and truly genuine feeling of responsibility these islanders had for their environment and coming generations. The guerilla leader worked for the mine company at first but when he saw what it did to the jungle, how it kept ruining it making the mine bigger, polluting the riversystem and moving the people from their homes into shantytowns where they saw none of the million dollar profits the company made of their land, he decided to take matters in his and his peoples hands. It started with sabotage and then continued with an armed conflict and ended up in a whole new society built by the islanders themselves without anything coming in from the outside. They have huge gardens, their own alternative medicine practice (that to me looked similiar to homoepathy) and even their own hydro power system that gives electricity 24hours a day. They are using the most unique gift of the human race; their creativity. And they fuel their own joy of living by putting this creativity into practice and making up life as it goes along. By their own rules and by their own belief, and all the while they are happy that they were blockaded by Papa New Guinea or they would still be kept in the chains of capitalism.

So why can’t we smart and amazing westerners feel the same thing about our environment? True we don’t have that much visible environmental problems that really visualize the extent of the pickle we have put ourselves in (and when I say we I mean our parents, bastards!) but still, we are fully aware and we keep cutting down forest, polluting streams and oceans and think nuclear is the answer. Why don’t we realize, like the Bougainvillers, that we must live in union with nature because we depend on it and our children depend on it? It is so simple and yet we wont lift a muthafuckin finger to do a god damned thing about anything. Well I say ENOUGH!

GO GROW A GARDEN FULL OF NECESSITIES AND GIVE YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR GRANDCHILDREN, YOUR GRANDGRANDCHILDREN AND SO ON A CHANCE AT A BEAUTIFUL, HARDSHIP FREE,  EXISTENCE IN A CLEAN AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD FULL OF LIFE!

Fade out professor-style with a googled image of a forest garden in Bougainville.

Pickled herring!

So christmas is coming along and I am every day more and more like Martha Stewart. It’s quite frightening but a better kind of psycho to be than say Breivik or that guy that threw grenades and started shooting people for no apparant reason. Those are the scariest ones. The ones with no reason. But let’s not get too upset in these times of happy consumerism and overindulgence. Let’s pickle some herring instead. This is indeed a must on the swedish christmas table as we call it. We usually never have it in my family, we’ve always had a half swedish christmas. No ham, no herrings. Maybe just one symbolic jar that my father would struggle to eat just for the sake of it. But now times have changed, the children have grown up to be confused by their eating habits and after having wandered through the paths of veganism and different stages of vegetarianism we have ended up on the adult side of life. Where you just shut up and eat. And being that I’m not only carnivora ultimata I am also swedish food local produce freak. So this “morning” I went down to the fishermen that are always so nice and bought some salted herring and asked a bit about pickeling it. It’s such a great place to be, not only because they sell fish from their own tiny fishing boats but the general atmosphere is great. Everyone exchanging recipes or just stopping by for a chat. There is almost none of that beautiful communtiy feeling left in todays supermarket ruled world so everytime I run into it I get ridiculously sentimental.

Now for the pickeling, it is one of those long ass processes that I love. And it starts with making a solution for the herring to pickle in and then putting your salted herring in water for 1 hour if you keep the water running over it, 4 hours if you change the water once, and 8 hours if you just put it in water. I’m using a recipe from this book, but this is just the chemical part that pickles the herring and gives it a bit of flavour but the real flavouring comes a week later.

PICKELED HERRING

1 ltr of water

7 dl sugar

3 1/2 dl vinegar (12%)

2 red onions

1 small leek

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp allspice

4 bay leaves

Slice the vegetables and boil it all up, let it cool overnight. I will let it cool over day. Then for the good stuff.

6 salted herring filets

1 carrot, finely sliced

1 leek, finely sliced

1 yellow onion, finely sliced

5 cloves

10 allspice seeds

4 bay leaves

Put the herring in stone or glass jar, layer the vegetables in between the herring and put the solution over it all so that is covered good. Let it sit for a week in the fridge. Cut it into fork sized pieces, that is the end of the fork. I will get back to you with the flavourings. I’m thinking a classical mustard one, then a juniper berry and red onion one, and the last one I’m not sure yet. Any ideas? I’m also gonna pickle beet roots with the same solution as the one above but I will get back to that another time. Until then, yeeeeey!

Root loaf!

So yes this is indeed turning into a food blog! Dear god noooo! But don’t fret I will soon post something about the almighty plot! Meanwhile I’m going crazy in the kitchen making weird food and other stuff. Lots of glögg of course. I watched an episode of the very annoying guy at River Cottage‘s show and he made a gratin of salsify and some other similiar root. I love salsify and will grow the hell out of that next season! Being that half of the show consisted of him eating various delicious foods I got pretty hungry and since the only thing I had at home was roots I went ahead to make a gratin myself. But I didn’t want to wait for big chunks of stuff to get cooked in the oven and I didn’t want to cheat and boil them first so I grated all of it. A nice arm workout. While mixing it all together, looking at the red colour and feeling the consistency I thought of meat loaf and how I could turn this into a loaf.

When I was vegetarian I used to look longingly at the picture of the nut steak that looked suspiciously much like a meat loaf in the good old Crank’s cook book (AKA the vegetarian bible). I made it one day and was disgusted by that dry log on my plate. This is a much better alternative, it is so much cheaper, much juicier and it’s bright red! Looks like christmas on your plate with some rice and yoghurt. Try it out bitches!

ROOT LOAF WITH BAKED LEEKS

4 beet root

2 carrots

1 piece of root sellery

1 parsnip

3 cloves of garlic

1 dl white wine

1 dl bread crums

1 dl cream (optional)

2 twigs of fresh rosemary, chopped

a pinch or two of cayenne

salt and pepper

sesame seeds (optional)

2 whole leeks

Heat the oven to about 200-250 degrees. Grate all the roots and mix in the other ingridients. Form a loaf in an oiled ovenproof thing spread sesame seeds over it and place the leeks beside them. Bake for about 45 minutes. The leeks will get burnt but just peel of the burnt parts. I have never baked leek before but I will again and again cus that was of the chaaiiin! Of course you can use any old root to make this. Just stay away from potatoes and you’re good to go! Good luck!

Rachid rates this 5 Selmas out of 5! A top score earned by creativity he says.

Meaty stew!

So now that I am carnivora ultimata mega plus I am eating all sorts of meat! The other day my beloved made moroccan meatballs and right this second I am making a stew. Moroccan meatballs are beautiful, cooked in a sweet cinnamon smelling tomatoe sauce. I didn’t like these ones though, they were, as they should, made out of lamb meat. I have a childhood trauma with minced lamb meat, my grandmother would always buy real nice organic lamb mince and make traditional swedish meatballs with it. If you know what traditional swedish entails you might shiver yourself, it means absolutely no flavour. I tried to kill the sharp flavour of lamb with black currant jelly. The other thing about lamb is that it really taste of lamb, the animal. And since I’m a newbie on the meat eating scene I can’t eat it. Another reason is that the lamb tastes like the smell of the meat shop were the man in a bloody apron slams down your change with meatstained fingers. Don’t want store tasting meatballs, no not me. I can eat grilled lamb no prob.

So anyway now I’m making a stew using beef, good old boring beef. I couldn’t decide what kind of stew to make, I have never made a stew out of actual meat before. I have only made copy stews out of fake meat and chickpeas. They are also nice but without the bloooood it’s not the same. First I thought I’d make a french stew with wine, then a traditional swede one but both french and swedish have a no taste profile so I thought I’d make an ethiopian, like one I tried in Uppsala at the ethiopian restaurant. After about five hours of indecisivness I chose Selma style! (I am Selma). Selma style usually means cumin and cayenne (such a nice title for a food blog or my own restaurant!) and this is no exception, or it means copying what you once have eaten and adding cumin and cayenne and most probably lemon or its the ladder but with many different dishes. The stew I made today belongs in the that category, it’s basically fusion. It’s has swedish touches such as whole black pepper, bay leaves and carrots, and then a spicemix that is like the moroccan, the ethiopian and the sudanese cuisine all together! Here’s how that turned out:

SELMA’S STEW

1 kg beef

1/2 dl vegetable oil

2 big red onions

3-4 big tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 big carrots

4 bay leaves

10 black peppar seeds

SPICEMIX

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ginger

1 tbsp paprika

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Slice the onions into thin slices, cut the carrots in three and slice the garlic. Cut the meat into pieces about 3 cm big. Heat the oil, fry the meat until it gets brown around the edges. Add the onions, garlic and carrots. Stir every now and again. Add the bay leaves, the pepper and the spicemix. Chop the tomatoes very finely and add them too. Let it simmer for a while and then add boiling water that just covers the meat. Let the stew simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring and adding more water on occasion. Salt after preference.

I have no camera so I took very, very bad photos with the webcam. They are a disgrace to humankind so if you want to know how the dish looks, make it!

Rachid, the husband, has rated the dish to 4 Selmas out of 5! Right on!