Yesterday my partner Chris and I drove to a farm outside Sandy, OR to pick up some raw milk for ourselves and a group of friends. I felt I was being initiated into some kind of secret club; people who drive out to farms to buy milk seem to be in their own category of sustainable foodie extremeness. A club open only to the radical, privileged elite who can and will spend an afternoon trucking out to the country on their quest for real food. I guess I'm not sure how I feel about that. It makes the carbon footprint of a gallon of milk all too tangible, and puts me one step closer to being part of a character sketch on the show "Portlandia."
We took the trip as an excuse for go for a hike on Sandy Ridge, up a winding trail more geared for mountain bikers than for the likes of us. It was spring in the woods. The sun was showing through occasional showers of rain, the new leaves of the Indian plums were a brilliant green, and we were dawdling along our way, nervously peering up the trail so as not to be run over by Mt. Hood's two-wheeled thrill seekers. I gathered some miners' lettuce and oxalis. Picking baby greens is a tedious task any way you cut it -- they're so tiny, it takes ages to pick enough for a salad. But it's all worth it when you sit down to dinner for the first fresh greens of the season. (After excessive photography for bragging purposes, of course.)
The rest of our dinner was a bread and hummus extravaganza inspired by some kefir cheese that I had preserved in salt and olive oil last week. The whole process needs some tweaking; I didn't realize that the kefir cheese would continue to ferment and expand, dripping olive oil all over our cabinets and giving the cheese a bit of carbonation. Next time I'll leave more room at the top of the jar! The cheese came out well though, despite the mess. Kefir is amazing. Life is delicious. Food is heavenly.
Dinner pallet: Homemade sage-sea-salt-sourdough bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, pickled onions, and salted kefir cheese in olive oil. Just don't tell anyone we got the veggies and hummus from Safeway . . .
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