Sauerkraut

Yesterday was sauerkraut making day.

There is a local institution called Morse’s which is famous for its kraut, but I will put Himself’s homemade up against it any time.  He is of Bohemian stock and making sauerkraut is hard-wired into his genes. 

He and the Heir disappeared down cellar with seven heads of cabbage.  (I think their real motivation for going to the basement was the fact that yesterday’s opera broadcast was Lohengrin, which I insisted on listening to because I know I should like Wagner.)

They sliced the cabbage and layered it with canning salt in the fermenting crock, pressing it down as they went. 

 

The cutter was my mother-in-law's.

 

My children clearly need to get out more.  In go the weights...

...and one final push... 

(The cabbage has already released a lot of water.)

...then water goes in the trough around the rim to form an airlock seal.

(This is a fancy new specially designed fermenting crock.  In previous years we have used an antique crock and a dinnerplate with a big rock on top as the weight.  Primative but effective.)

On goes the lid.

The crock will sit in the warm kitchen for a couple of days to jump-start the fermentation process, then  percolate in the cellar for a few weeks. 

Wonder if anyone's ever done a krautcam...

Shameless Plug: Fish tale

Port Clyde Fresh Catch has one of those stories that makes me proud to be a Mainer. 

The “traditional” fishing model has been to go catch as much as you possibly can.  It follows that we now have certain species in steep decline, decimated groundfish habitat, and direct (sometimes ugly) competition between individual fishermen. 

The government, meanwhile, in an attempt to rein in the overfishing, has been piling on restrictions and limitations. 

Oh – also prices are down, and costs are higher than ever. 

(Depressed profits, tighter regulations, and fish populations in varying degrees of collapse:  hat trick!)

Faced with the seemingly inevitable demise of their livelihood, a few families down the peninsula – some of which have been fishing for a couple hundred years – formed a co-op.  All for one and one for all.  This is pretty radical; Mainers as a rule tend toward going it alone. 

The co-op sells directly to the consumer (local restaurants, at farmers’ markets and through CSF shares – like a CSA, except for fisheries).  The catch goes from the boat to the customer, often the very same day, via a co-op-owned processing facility. 

These days the Port Clyde fishermen are catching fewer fish but actually making more money, because they’re matching their take to customer demand and they’ve cut out the distribution middlemen.

The members are also doing some pretty innovative work with marine scientists and conservation organizations to develop gear and methods that go easier on the habitat and the fish themselves – for example, if you want to catch haddock but not cod, you design a very specific sort of net and you use it in a very specific way.  They also give certain species a periodic break. 

We’ve just finished up our second season as Port Clyde Fresh Catch CSF subscribers.  A full share gets us two or three or five pounds of fillets – hake, pollock, monkfish, flounder, cod, haddock, sole; whatever they’ve landed – every week for the duration of the season.

                

Is it the cheapest fish available?  No.  But it’s hands down the best.  And that eating-local-preserving-traditions-supporting-sustainability warm fuzzy feeling is, as they say, priceless.

Freaks.

Herman

This is Herman. 

He came into our lives in 1998, I think it was.  I’d gone to the local feed store, and there in the warehouse was this scruffy, starved, half-grown tiger kitten hiding among the bags of grain.  He looked like he’d been through the wars – I’d never seen bones sticking out of an animal like that, and his tail was just a little stub.

He was skittish, but not feral, and there was something about him that I fell for, hard.

The people at the store said he’d just shown up, and they’d started feeding him, but they were hoping to find a good place for him.  So Herman came home with me.

The vet said the thing with his tail was how he was born, not the result of an accident or abuse.  We had him fixed and got rid of the load of worms in his belly.  He filled out and grew up into a good-sized cat.  And he’s been with us ever since, always underfoot, always asking for food (I suspect once an animal has starved they never quite get over it), always in the middle of whatever’s going on, and living this whole time with an almost palpable air of gratitude for the grub and chin-scratches and warm place to sleep that we’ve given him. 

When we lived in rural Pennsylvania he was an indoor/outdoor cat.  Our rabbit infestation disappeared almost overnight.  Rodents did not stand a chance; once he even caught a bat in the house. 

Since we moved to Maine, we keep the cats indoors and Herman doesn’t seem to mind.   He’s as affectionate and playful as ever, although he’s starting to act a little older; not as graceful as he used to be, a little wobbly sometimes. 

Herman had to go to the vet today for a touch of sinus infection.  Even when he’s sick, though, homeslice here still does his thing:  when I got home from work yesterday I was greeted by pieces-parts of mouse scattered around the kitchen floor.  A good mouser is a mixed blessing….

Who's YamDankee?

I’m a facilities manager, chauffer, housekeeper, financial planner, homework coach, social secretary, event coordinator, chef and laundress.  One of those things is actually my day job.

I have one husband (Himself) and two kids – a 13-year-old boy (Thing One, or the Heir – he is smart and funny and has an obsession with World War II that borders on bizarre) and a 10-year-old girl (Thing Two, the Spare – she is smart and funny and has an obsession with nail polish which she did not get from me).  The household also includes two mutant dogs (combined weight is a bit north of 200 lbs), two neurotic cats and an indestructible parakeet. 

We live in midcoast Maine.  The house is eight or nine miles inland, but if the wind is in the right direction or it’s one of those heavy, foggy days, we can smell the salt water and hear the foghorns.  It’s close enough to the coast that we are able to rationalize sailboat ownership.

Walk out my backyard and you can pick up the Georges Highland Trail, or head just down the hill through the woods (follow the old stone wall) to the shore of the lake, and that’s where we keep our canoes for when we hanker for a paddle. 

Within three miles we have Thing Two’s dance studio and a rec center with a seasonal ice arena.  Five miles gets us to a ski slope.  Ten miles and we can take our pick of concerts, lectures, art exhibits and some really top-notch events – the Lobster Festival, the North Atlantic Blues Festival, the Boats Homes & Harbors Show, Christmas by the Sea, farmers’ markets, and fairs.

The schools are good. 

I really do like my job.  I also like reading, cooking, sailing, music, and fiber arts. 

I have everything except enough time for it all.