Family & Home

This is part 7 of a summer long series about our CSA boxes and what we do with them. Recipes for Citrus Beet Salad, Stuffed Peppers, German Sausage Chowder, and Apple, Cheddar, and Walnut Quick Bread follow. 

It’s finally starting to feel like fall in Fargo.

It’s amazing to me how loud a single leaf falling through the canopy of a forest can be. As I sit quietly in the woods on this September morning, I again notice how loud sounds can be in the forest. It is early in the morning on Saturday, September 15th – the day of the small game opener in Minnesota – and I am sitting in the woods about fifteen minutes south of Burnsville with my newest hunting partner.

Two years ago on a sunny Saturday morning in October, my husband and I pulled up to a church in North Minneapolis with a flyer, some produce from our garden, and a carload of anticipation. Earlier that week, a friend had forwarded directions to a canning bee for anyone brand new to canning. There was one typed line in the email: “This sooo sounds like the crazy stuff you’re always trying!”

My friends know me well; I called right away to register for the last two spots in the canning bee. From 9:30 am to 5:30 pm that day, our group of 10 quietly listened and scribbled down the canning expert’s notes, poked our heads over steaming pots of pickles and salsas, and had silly full-teeth grins every time we pulled a jar from the hot water bath.

At a gathering that celebrates deep fried SPAM curds and advertises 40 “new foods” in 2012, the Minnesota State Fair is culinary overload at its most base level. Ever since I was a boy it’s the fair food that draws me back just as much as climbing on the tractors, visiting the animal barns, or seeing the crop art in the Ag/Hort building. Going off to college I stayed in Minneapolis and attended the UofM, which was a short bike ride from the fairgrounds, and I came to the realization that now on my own I was free to eat as much food at the fair as I wanted without the supervision of a mindful parent. Awesome!

If you know me, you know that I love to cook and don't mind a challenge. I certainly don't accept the status quo and have issues in following a recipe. It is for these exact reasons that I took on the challenge to prepare food for my kids, with gusto. To this day, I refuse to believe in the idea of "kids" menus, purchasing baby food, or the whole idea of picky eaters.

I, like the other 10,000 Korean adoptees in Minnesota, have suffered from mild identity confusion. As Kim Jackson, author of HERE: A Visual History of Adopted Koreans in Minnesota states, there is at least one of us for every lake.

My natural inclination was to rest on Fridays and order pizza. As mentioned in my latest piece, Too Clean? Dealing With Our New Dietary Diseases, due to a chronic disease that has occupied my body, I usually fall ill every time I consume pizza brought to my door. The Friday night menu has been re-worked and become homemade pizza night. Despite a tiring long week, it’s become a family tradition that each of us now looks forward to. Making homemade pizza takes time, but we have discovered that this “slow food” meal beholds a lot of virtuous gems for myself and the whole family alike. 

When it's cold outside, I like to find retreat in my kitchen. The warmth of the oven, from spices and from just simply moving in the cuisine-creating space can really feel like a loving hug when I need one. Just this past November, I went on a yoga workshop week in Belize, it was fantastic (shocker I'm sure). Finding myself in mid-month January in Minnesota, although we have had a mild winter thus far, I think to myself that perhaps I jumped the gun on my tropical getaway. As I reminisce of the fresh catch-of-the-day crisp and warm off the grill and the warm sun on my skin as I lay in a hammock on the beach, I realize that a tropical fix may not be as far away as it may seem.

As a grade-schooler, emerging as a type-A adult, I carefully crafted New Years resolutions of all types and crossed them out when attained. I thought I had all but given up on New Years resolutions--until I moved to Fargo. For the first time in 15 years, I compiled a list of 2012 New Years resolutions, all of which revolve around food.

In 2012, I will learn how to create the following in my humble apartment kitchen:

A working list

Last January I was ogling my co-worker’s lunchboxes as they enjoyed citrus, bananas, and vegetables from places I could only dream about living. Gone were the red ripe watermelons and fresh salads that made local eating easy in June, July and August. Just after the New Year, we had to start rationing our 10 remaining bags of frozen broccoli, what we thought was enough to last us through a Minnesota winter. Last January I was completely unprepared for the wintertime locavore life.