WANDERLUST: MONTEPULCIANO

WANDERLUST: AUSTRALIA

WANDERLUST: EGYPT

RECIPE BOX: ROASTED LEEKS

Leeks are one of my favorite vegetables. They hold a unique space in the vegetable kingdom, straddling the role of allium and as a stand-alone veggie, performing well in both categories.

We generally plant a few hardy varieties and start them indoors in open flats. They start out as grass-like blades, that get a haircut before being individually transplanted out in the field. We dibble individual holes and drop in one plant per hole. The up-front tedium yields long, straight white shafts without the need to hill.

To roast:

Leeks cook down considerably in volume, concentrating their sweet, wild flavor as they soften. Use more volume than you think you need, especially for feeding a crowd.

The ingredients:

• Good quality, sizeable leeks with long shafts. You want a leek that has been kissed by frost once or twice for heightened sweetness

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Sea Salt

Preparation:

• Heat the oven to 375 degrees

• Clean the leeks: trim the roots & trim the tops so that just the white and light green part remain. Remove the exterior layer and rise from the leek any remaining soil

• Slice into 3-4” lengths

• Quarter each piece lengthwise

• Lay flat on a baking sheet, generously drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt

• After 20 minutes, toss the leeks and return to the oven for 5-10 minutes

While other veggies mingle well in the roasting pan, I prefer to let leeks stand apart. The flavor of a roasted leek is a simple yet unexpected comfort that deserves its own moment on the palette. It is a great dinner party side dish as it goes well with a variety of mains.

| No. 2 | MONTH IN REVIEW

January is one of my favorite farming months. During the rest of the year I am so acutely aware of time passing - noticing every detail of changes in day length, temperature, the pace of growing weeds. Everything feels like a sprint, and I am always, always lagging behind. In January time is suspended. Life is quiet outside and the plant growth indoors is hardly measurable. The days are soft, time passing like a stroll through the woods.  And we do, in the month of January, gently stroll through the snowy woods. It is the time of year I recreate outdoors more than any other, (that is, if you don’t count farming activities). While we do start crop planning, its like we are squinting at the impending season from a distance, the details abstract, the outlines fuzzy. It feels far enough away that I can forget about the long harvests and longer market days, the inevitable failures and mistakes, and instead just dream of the colors, flavors and textures we will soon crave as we re-enter the accelerating passing of time.

Highlights:

-Deep-cleaning the kitchen, including rubbing mineral oil onto all of our wooden kitchen items (cutting boards, wooden spoons, and countertops). I’m ashamed to say I have never done this before. It felt revelatory.

-Getting together in San Francisco with my sisterhood. There are six of us living in various parts of the country, and we have made it a priority to all be together at a very minimum of once a year. It’s amazing what just 48 hours with my girlfriends does for my soul! It’s the ultimate reboot.

-Attending the first annual Flowering in the North Conference. Since focusing on flower production, I haven’t found farming conferences to be as relevant until this conferences. It was so well planned with excellent topics, all tailored to flower farming. The bonus was that it was held  in Maine, so we got to spend an extended weekend in my hometown.

At the end of January we reach ten hours of daylight, which feels like a seismic shift. Everything starts to wake up. The snow comes and goes, however in the greenhouses growth rates are increasing, and it feels like mud season is right around the corner.