Was Jeremiah W/Right?

I used this handout to line up our thoughts in talking about Was Jeremiah W/Right? at the Cottage on 11 May 08:

Jeremiah - a prophet of liberation and angry tears

Theme of liberation
Jer.8:18 - 9:1 (NRSV) --

My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”)

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!

***

Theme of revelation/covenant/guidance
Jer. 31:31-34 (NRSV)

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

***
Liberation means this to me: (Ps. 34:18): The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and sves the crushed in spirit.
– Pastor Jon, 11 May 08 - Riverside-Salem UCC/DC

[tnx to June for the title of the program!]

A poem that I wrote

I wrote a poem for the last church mailing and wanted to have it somewhere on the web site, so here it is.

Absurdist Christian

Me and my shadow ... .

Me falling.
Me caught.
Me waiting.

Choosing to sing
praises to God.

Unable to feel the terror
of the time,
and of the place.

Dangling.
Sometimes content.

Corns that don't hurt

There are the corns that make your feet hurt, and there are the corns that make your tummy glad. This about the latter.

We got a tortilla press back awhile but haven't used it yes, but I found a simple recipe on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortilla) and we will be trying it out soon.

I still have some red spy apples waiting to be made into juice, sauce, and apple butter. That will be the last of the canning for this season, unless I put some garlic cloves in white wine and store in the refrigerator.

This is the recipe I use for making apple butter (in a slow cooker):

http://www.pickyourown.org/applebutter.htm

We continue with the 100-mile diet and have almost totally switched from shopping at Wegmans in favor of the Lexington Co-0p, which may cost a bit more but has food we can eat without qualms, and the checkers are actually friendly. Consistently. That's huge, in my book. Handing my money to someone who could care less does not make my day. And I am not talking about Wegmans here as much as most places where I shop.

Heard on the radio this morning that Wegmans will be stopping sales of tobacco. That is wonderful. So we will still buy a few things there.

Thanksgiving for the food

We ate Thanksgiving with friends. They supplied the home and we brought the bird.

I had gotten a 17-pound turkey from Freeman Homestead. It was wonderful -- no mess during the thawing, no fuss in the cooking. We also had local potatoes, squash, and greens from our garden.

Our local challenge of late has been finding the time to prepare our local food. We're looking to refocus.

I put apples and potatoes in the far corner of our basement to see how they will keep. Apples are still available at the farmers markets, too, and winter squash. We went a few weeks ago and there was still a lot of fresh stuff. I have a bunch of garlic to preserve, and I want to make some dried apples and some more apple butter.

Turkey time

I got a 16-pound pasture-fed turkey and half of a much bigger one (cut down the middle) on Tuesday from Freeman Homestead. They deliver twice a month at a location in West Seneca and offer chickens, ducks, pork, and beef, as well as turkeys at Turkey Time.

To see their blurb on the Eat Wild web site, click on the link in this post and scroll down. The entries are alphabetical. Another farm in the list that we have bought from is Honeyhill Farm in the Fingerlakes region. Their chicken is amazing, too. Honeyhill has NOFA organic certification.

The Freeman folk are friendly and helpful, and their meat is excellent. The prices are competitive with other artisan sellers but much higher than supermarkets. The difference is, I want to eat their meat and cannot stand the garbage that the chains sell. As for price, a meal at a fast food place, for two, is the same price as I pay for a pasture-fed whole chicken or a pound of steak or a roast.

Recipes ... tomato paste/waste

I got a half-bushel of paste tomatoes at the Farmers Market in North Tonawanda on Saturday. I put half in the slow cooker on Sunday and finished it off this afternoon.

My recipe is five pounds of tomatoes, seeded and chopped. Heat to simmer and cook until soft. Run the pulp through a food mill to remove the seeds and skins. Cook for an hour or two -- until the paste stays on the stirring spoon. I like to use the slow cooker to reduce the pulp overnight, then finish on the stove burner.

Add 3/4 cup of vinegar of your choice. Freeze in ice cube trays. Put in freezer bags.

A double recipe will make about two ice cube trays of tomato paste.

I'm making a basic tomato sauce with the balance of the tomatoes.

There has been a high percentage of waste in these tomatoes. Mostly black spot problems. And the fruits are over-ripe.

The tomato sauce recipe is the one in Stocking Up, a Rodale Press book. Check Amazon.com for used or new copies. It's the best.

Garlic goes in the ground

I'm giving a program at the Cottage this afternoon on planting garlic.

These are the things to remember:

* Plant in mid-October and harvest in mid-July -- from Columbus Day to Bastille Day.

* Use hardneck garlic purchased at a COOP or natural foods store, the Internet, or a farmers' market. Hardneck garlics have a central stem; upside down, the stem looks like a tiny umbrella after the cloves are removed.

* Avoid Gilroy garlic, or softneck garlic. It has smaller cloves that taste like sulphur and that may have been treated to retard sprouting.

* Prepare the soil by making raised beds or berms. Add compost or other organic soil amendments.

* Break apart the bulbs of garlic into cloves. Plant cloves, pointed end up, two inches deep in rows 8 to 12 inches apart.

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Garlic is hardy in our harsh winter climate. You can mulch or not; the garlic will make an initial growth of roots in the fall and will spring up in the spring. If your soil is adequate there is no need to fertilize. If you decide to do so, early spring is the time. Later fertilizing will promote plant size not bulb size.

Garlic is ready to harvest when the double curve at the top of the plant, the scape, has straightened out and is pointing toward heaven. Check weekly after the Fourth of July for maturity: the thick, fleshy covering of the bulb will thin and the cloves will begin to show their individuality under the covering. Dig the bulbs up carefully to avoic nicks. Trim the roots and cut the stems to 18 inches. Bundle and store in the basement or other cool, dry place.

Use the bulbs with gladness.

After choosing your planting stock, trim the tops of the garlic plants to one inch and store the bulbs by variety in brown lunch bags or cardboard boxes, in the basement or a cool stairwell.

Links:

http://thegarlicstore.com/index.cgi/INDEX.HTML

Note: garlic growers accept orders during the spring and summer, and they ship the garlic after September 1st. Cost is in the range of $10 per half-pound. Order early if you have favorite varieties that tend to sell out.

Local prices begin at $6 per pound or there-abouts. Local stock has a proven ability to grow in our region; however, garlic is just plain tough and probably most varieties will do just fine. I rarely have crop failures of any varieties that I have grown.

I've been growing garlic for more than 10 years and usually try to plant several varieties, local and distant. My available space is 100 to 200 square feet of raised beds; my usual harvest is 10 ro 20 pounds of garlic, which lasts the two of us until January. My average cost for this size harvest is $40 for planting stock.

Recipes (see Garlic is Life by Chester Aaron):

* Cut tops of bulbs and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Wrap in foil and cook at 350 degrees F. until soft. Use on bread or in recipes. Roasted garlic is smooth and sweet, with almost none of the pungent tone of fresh garlic. We especially like to roast garlic this way when using our smoker or grill. This is a good option if the heat and bite of fresh garlic is not to your liking.

* Cut a few cloves of garlic in half. Remove skins. Toast bread, drizzle with olive oil, a little salt. Rub the garlic on the toasted bread until it disappears. This is wonderful with a pot of green tea.

Other books:

A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm by Stanley Crawford.

Growing Great Garlic: The Definitive Guide for Organic Gardeners and Small Farmers by Ron L. Engeland.