April 2010

With all this nice weather, I am beginning to wonder if we are skipping right over spring and into summer. I'm somewhat fearful about what less-than-usual snow and rain mean for the larger climate picture and what it will mean for farmers in the coming months, but it's hard not to be excited about enjoying the warmth earlier this year. I find myself running to shop for items to make summer nights better than ever. For instance, we bought a little table for outside in our yard and decided to invest in a propane grill.

Linda Halley and I stand in the middle of a seemingly empty, sunny field under an impossibly clear sky. She bends over and touches her fingertips to the soil, raking them gently over the top, exposing slightly blacker, wetter soil underneath the grayish first layer. "I don't see any – Oh! There's one. Do you see that?" she asks. "That's the beginning of a weed," Halley explains. Now I see it. She's turned up a tiny matchstick of white, barely noticeable, and easily dismissed as a piece of dried grass. It's the sliver of the root or maybe a stem. Weeds: competition for nutrients, water, and sunlight. Weeds: enemy of the crop and therefore enemy of the farmer. As the manager of the Minnesotan organic farm, Gardens of Eagan, Halley can't use herbicides to rid herself of these pesky plants.

"Fat liver" is the literal translation of the French foie gras, the highly prized (by some) and much maligned (by others) food that is produced by force-feeding confined geese until their livers are 6 to 10 times their normal size. Highly prized because these fattened livers are considered a delicacy in French cuisine; and much maligned because of the animal cruelty associated with it.

But can there be such as thing as humane foie gras? Can a goose consume enough food in natural conditions to yield the "fatty, sweet, silky" taste that is so revered by foie gras aficionados?

We're big fans and supporters of Daniel Klein's The Perennial Plate, a weekly video series focused on connecting people with good food and its producers. Daniel's quest to experience a full year of good, local food in Minnesota has already had him killing and carving up his own Thanksgving turkey and visiting a Minnesota greenhouse in the heart of winter. This week's video features Daniel's new tree-tapping friend Chris Ransom, working his maple syrup magic: