I was grocery shopping the other day and I discovered a simple truth. I was about to get milk, regular conventional milk, which was 2 dollars and something per half a gallon container. When reaching it, I got distracted by that nice cardboard container of organic milk. It was 5 dollars per half a gallon, so I thought I couldn’t afford it, and I was about to go and get some bagels but than this thought came to my mind: I have some bread home, we are actually making bread at home, so I didn’t need bagels at that time. I decided to get organic milk and not to buy bagels. I spent the same amount of money that I planned in the first place.

That move made me think that there is a way to afford organic to some point, which would be a good start at least. It isn’t that hard to skip coffee and a donut at the gas station one time to save a buck, and then use that dollar to pay the difference for some organic yogurt. It is mostly just about switching from one pleasure to another.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It has been a year since I came to America.

A long and hard year, there was something new to experience everyday, so many new people met, most of whom friendly, not a lot of Polish jokes heard, maybe 2, I have learned how to drive, I forgot how to spell some Polish words, I think in English most of the time now, it is a strange feeling,

I still read Polish newspapers, though I lost interest in the politics, except spicy political dramas which are always interesting, I started Facebook and a blog, I got to try Indian food, Mexican food, German food, German-Russian food, French food, basically American food, I have seen corn and soybeans everyday for 6 months, I have seen tractors of size of ships, I have seen the Grand Canyon, and Elvis, I was in a tornado warning, heat advisory, frost advisory and wind advisory,  

I have seen new life growing, 

I was farming on a few acres,

wow, and I have never been out from home for so long. I should think: this is your new home.

Isn’t it nice to know how to cook things?

I was never interested too much in cooking, but now, when growing food, I feel somehow connected to it’s life cycle, from the field to the table, through the kitchen of course. It’s not only nice to plant the seed, smell fresh tilled soil, then pull a beet, a carrot or cut some lettuce, or pinch a bean pod, but also to peal it, cut it in cubes, to let it boil or roast, look at it in an oven incubator, through a thick glass, and be proud.

“Dare to know” great philosopher used to say. I dare to know how to cook, dare to wear an apron and make something good, to this world.

I have just seen the movie “Food, INC”. It is a documentary about how most of our food is being made now and what are the global and individual consequences of this process. 

I am glad I have seen it, it gave me a boost to start some research on the importance of eating healthy products. 

One of the main people interviewed in “Food, INC” was Michael Pollan, the author of  “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” a book which I have at home thanks to Kelly’s brother, thanks Ez! This might be a good start for me.

Happy eating.

We were carving some pumpkins to make jack-o’-lanterns tonight. Something very new to me, since I had never done it in Poland. We don’t celebrate Halloween, at least not officially, but there are more and more costume parties, trick-or-treat walks and skeletons, witches and artificial pumpkins on the shelves of supermarkets.

There is a different tradition in Poland, on the 1st of November people go to cemeteries to visit their relatives. At the cemetery where my grandparents were buried it’s getting crowded in the early afternoon. Usually it’s pretty muddy, but still people are dressed up, and all black leather boots and shoes are colored with brown chunks of mud. It is cold, but there are thousands of candles, each grave would have at least 15, some probably over 50 candles, so it’s actually warm. All you can smell is melting wax, the air is full of candle smoke to the point that it’s getting foggy.

There is a service you can hear through the cemetery speakers. And after that the priest is going for a walk with an organist behind him, and they are walking to all sections of the cemetery to do some prayers and holy water sprinkling.

After that people slowly are moving towards the gates, some smoke and talk outside on the street, some go home right away.

There is this big cemetery in Krakow, I think it is many square miles, where a lot of famous and ordinary people are resting together in peace. After dark it is the most tremendous place to visit, and walk through, surrounded by millions of small candle lights. For some it is a fun experience to have on a walk with friends, for others a time for deeper thoughts on what this life and death is all about, for those who believe it might be a time to connect with the dead, for all it is something to remember.

I wish I had been to that cemetery during that time at least once. I must go some day, hopefully.

What do people expect a farmer’s blog to be like? Today we covered garlic with leaves, or: yesterday we dug some potatoes for winter, or: tomorrow we will take some squash to a farmers’ market. How about: we discussed not to use PVC piping for our hoop house because of its danger for our health and the environment, or: we revised our future goals to make sure we are on the right track, or: where is the most sunlight in the spring, and which way does the wind blow?

The vision of a farmer or gardener is someone wearing overalls, a straw hat, carring a basket of carrots, or petting a calf. But there is a lot more to do in order to produce food. It takes planning and thinking of what is good for the farm and for other people, what is good for the environment; it is quite a responsible job, something big.

“Is there anything better in the world”, asked George Clooney as a captain of a swordboat in the movie: The Perfect Storm. Is there anything better than being a captain of a boat, he meant. I got mine too, it is not a huge ship, but a small boat, depends on nature’s good will and on my own knowledge of where to go to get my catch.

And as a post scriptum Grandma Jo told me that to her, combines harvesting at night look like ships, with their lights, like they’re searching for a catch in their webs.

Garden looks like after a big party. Stepping on confetti of frozen and soft cherry tomatoes, red, yellow, rotten green; wrapping paper of dry corn stalks rustling in the wind, smashed pumpkins played their last song; spicy peppers got wrinkles from not made salsa; and nobody got hurt, beside a few potatoes stabbed with a fork.

It is quiet; and wet, like thousands drinks would had been spilled, mud is everywhere, like brought by thousands of people.

And now everybody is gone. It’s time to clean up.

And we were on a train to Odessa, Ukraine, and we shared our compartment with a cook, who was going to get off in Lviv, and he was telling us a lot of funny stories, but what made him laugh, and especially I thought it was a laugh of the cook in the first place, was that he tried our trial mix: peanuts, pretzels, almonds, sunflower seed, etc., and chocolate. He said: oh, sweet and salty, that must be something American. He found it pretty weird and funny.

I thought about it as something quite original too, people eating cranberries on chicken, polish sausage dipped in a maple syrop and mixed with wafles, or maple syrop pancakes bacon mix.

Sugar is a very uncommon thing to find in a dinner in Poland. So when I came to America, I ate cranberries last, as a dessert, and made sure that on my plate sausage will not touch any waffle with syrop, which automatically became a dessert as well.

But everything changed, my sugar-salt philosophy broke down, my taste buds surrendered, and I am a new man now. Maybe I still don’t follow Twins schedule, maybe still don’t listen to country too much, or never killed a turkey, but something American is in me now: I really like acorn squash baked and served with butter, salt and pepper. And I also enjoy sweet potatoes, with butter, salt and pepper too.

I think now I understand why Americans don’t mind mixing sweet and salty. It’s in their blood, every fall they eat acorns, butternuts, and buttercups, and it just taste very very good with salt, it can’t be ate without it.

Once again America is being a land of freedom, where people can freely eat sugar and salt on one plate in peace – unlikely in old, conservative Europe.

10/1 is a significant date in Poland, it is a time when students are going back to college. I always liked that day to be cold and rainy, wet, and windy, a good occasion to referesh warm sweater, which kept smells of last cold days of a previous spring, unless we washed it.

Libraries, pubs and wet streets of the Old Town of Krakow, with yellow sticky leaf carpeting, were crowded with students in fall fashion, wearing long wool or lather coats, army coats, mountain hiking coats, or 2 grey sweaters instead.

I liked that melancholy of wet and cloudy first of October, that feeling that summer is over and missing mixed with an anxiety of a new school year, new relationships, new lectures, ideas to soak up with, parties and same old friends comming back from vacations.

Minnesota didn’t let me down as for my favourite weather on 10/1, neither did my mood. Summer is definetely over, my parents who visited me here and were a great support to our farm, went back home. And now it’s time to start planning what will be next, what idea to follow in our farming, what new investment to start for the next year. Days like today are perfect to sit and make these decisions.

But still, it is nice to have some pictures of summer vacation handy.
Here are some I would like to share:

West2009

Somehow tomatoes make me think about important things. I just was picking tomatoes on a sunny day, and I just had one, small but very red and with no spots or anything. It was warm and, when biting into it, sweet, but almost at the same time, slightly sour. So enjoying it’s taste, I had this memory of my cousin. She used to put tomatoes in the sun, on the window sill of her small house. She would pick them just before they turned red, and let them get ready on the window. I don’t know why they coudn’t just stay on a plant. She made herself tomato salad every afternoon, with these warm fruit, the same size and, as far as I can remember it from my childhood, the same taste as the one I had when picking.

Food which brings up good memories, and gives you some small rest, a moment to look back or look forward, a moment when you stop thinking of being on time with everything and on schedule, is a good food. I am for a good food then, coz it is a much better reminder that life is good and worth living than for example a longer visit in a hospital or witnessing someone’s death or being close to your own’s. I am for good food.