food

A quick word on springtime delicacies! Nettles are my favorite plant to forage for as spring shuffles greenly across Idaho. After nettles, I love to hunt for wild asparagus but we can talk more about that another time.

Nettles can be found along waterways, swamps, sloughs, ditches and ponds — they like sunshine and damp soil. You can also find nettles for sale in local food co-operatives (though rarely in big box grocery stores) if you are living deep in an urban jungle and can’t get out of the city to forage. Nettles can also be added to your garden space but they can really take off and be rather unruly so choose a location for your nettle patch with some foresight. I do like to tell folks that if they are aiming to forage for food to try to stay away from roads or any place people might be spraying herbicides for weeds or invasive plants. Since our farm is located on the bank of the Snake River next to an enormous swath of public land, I simply walk out the front door here with the dogs and down to the water where the nettle patches are abundant and I take what I need from day to day. Every time I take the dogs out for a morning stroll I grab some fresh nettles, especially this time of year when the leaves are young and tender. Once the weather begins to heat up I pick bigger batches of leaves and freeze them to use at a later date.

I love to add nettle to everything in the springtime — soup, salads, stirfrys, smoothies — because it’s a powerful plant, rich in vitamins A,C,K and some B vitamins, loaded with minerals, fats and ALL the essential amino acids and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Do not eat nettles raw. Always give them at least a light sautee before you eat them or add them to meals or smoothies.

Nettles can also be brewed as a tea that reminds me a bit of raspberry leaf tea which is one of my favorite afternoon sips.

Are there any nettle experts out there? Tell us what you know!

I’ve reached a crystal clear opinion on the topic of food. It’s holy work. The growing of it, the raising of it, the hunting of it, the harvest of it — holy, illuminating work that can lead us forward into gratitude, fullness of heart, clarity of soul and even worship. I see people spending more and more money on supplements, food in capsule form, fake milk, fake meat, fake bread, processed health junkfood labeled as something that will save the planet. We buy, buy, buy, eat, eat, eat, and never feel full, never know satisfaction. We grow sick. I see people everywhere squandering the money they worked hard for on food that is nutritionally empty, oozing with harmful chemicals, void of value…fashionable food…because someone told them to, because they heard about it on NPR. I see people failing to support their local fisherman, farmers and ranchers and then loudly join in the hysteria of the food crisis. It disturbs me. Eating is supposed to be a pleasure, it’s one of the deadly sins for goodness sake! And now, this glorious thing that is meant to awe us, fill us with wonder and throttle our tastebuds up and over the moon, this thing that is intended to keep our bodies and minds healthy and strong is being reduced to tiny concoctions we pop in our mouths as we run out the door in the morning to take up our positions as more cogs in the machine that is slowly running this world into the ground and stripping away our individuality, our health, our freedom to choose what is best for our bodies, our families and our communities.

I don’t want to be one more person who tells you how to live, what to think, how to eat. I will never treat you like you have the exact same nutritional needs as me. You are unique. Your body is unique! It’s what makes you beautiful. There is one thing we have in common though, when we do food the right way, with compassion and care, with a sharp knife and a warm stovetop, with fresh garlic and parsley, with rendered fat and marrow, we are filled (literally and figuratively) with joy. Praise to God! Praise to the cook! We lift a fork to our mouths, close our eyes, chew and swallow, and sigh. What glory. What rapture! What holy, holy work.

I am sharing my opinions on food today because I care for you, I care for my little farm, I care for my little ranching community and I care for our world.

I know that not everyone can have a little farm or a ranching operation. Not everyone can hunt. I know that not everyone dreams of having a patch of dirt to grow their food in, but by God, people! You need to join this rebellion! You need to eat food that grew in the dirt! Whole, simple food, that was tended to carefully by a farmer. Beef that ranged on grass and had a good life and a good death. Lamb that grew strong walking between the high desert steppe and the Sawtooth Mountains. Venison and elk that died well when struck with a well placed and merciful bullet or arrow. Turnips, celery, blood-red beets, rainbow chard, spinach, winter squash from the organic farmer who never cleans under his fingernails. Butter, eggs and milk from the quirky little farm girl down the road who keeps livestock because she loves animals and they keep her from being lonely. It has never been more important to support the people who are raising and growing food in your little community or on the outskirts of your metropolis and it’s never been more important to eat as locally as you possibly can. Every nickel and dime you surrender for your food matters. This is not a fad. This is the way things used to be before mega-monocropping and round-up and feedlots, back when there were still bees to fly about and apples had worm bites and grew to be a normal size.

Every day now I am dreaming about what I want this little farm of ours to be. I dream about how best to use our piece of earth to feed ourselves, how best to feed the dirt that grows our food. I dream about the ways we might serve our little community with our wee farm. I don’t need to feed the masses but I do think every little farm has the opportunity and the duty to serve friends and neighbors and generate community spirit. Every little farm can share. Every little farm should care. And it would be so nice if everyone else cared, too.

Nettles

Join The Rebellion, Eat Things That Grew In The Dirt