The bachelor meals have begun. Their salient traits? Very similar to the meal before. One of the dishes is beans and hotdogs, (or veggie dogs). Beer is the preferred beverage.

I haven’t baked bread in months, and I’m going to be opening the food cart soon. I started the whole wheat bread yesterday, did 3 punchdowns then put it in the fridge. I used instant yeast and so it pretty much pooped out over night. I let it rise all day and it just barely got there. Also: beets, cilantro, radiccio; pinto beans simmer in fennel pepper stock.

With the chickens I have a good time talking with them. I cluck and caw and they all get chatty and cluck and caw with me. The turkeys make a sort of warble which I cannot imitate, but they do have a screech or ‘raaaaaack’. I talk to them like that. Today I squatted down with them and was chatting away. They flocked around me and I became a little intimidated as they are quite large now. The biggest Toms were not talking to me, instead glaring at me sideways and moving their little forehead thing. Then this big guy and a few of his pals puff up their feathers and peck at my boots. I think I was getting involved in some male/female dynamics that I had no right to. I took note and went my way.

Kate moved out yesterday. So sad . I went over to her new place and brought some takeout. I asked her what she wanted. Pizza! she said. I went to Pyro. They make small, chewy, pies with lots of fresh vegetables. I got: Pesto with artichoke hearts and red peppers; basil and sausage and red sauce; grilled eggplant slices with tomato sauce.

Last night I cooked dinner over at Riley’s parents. The salad is a quick version of the one in Spice. There’s fennel, oranges, and olives. The pasta has mussels, red concord grapes, leeks, Riesling, and cream. Riley liked the pasta but Penny was very suspicious of the mussels.

Tonight I ate: Tomatoes, cheddar cheese, little T house loaf, and Cameron 2007 Ghertz.

Inspired perhaps by Robin Cody, I canoed down a river for the first time. With Kate and Riley we were looking for fossilized wood. The food I threw together rather haphazardly. For breakfast on the second day I made cous cous with onions, carrots, chives and cheddar cheese. Dinner was most satisfying though. After paddling all day we ate Deck farms hot dogs on Little T pretzel rolls.

My friend Jen just spend a few weeks in Denmark at a biodynamic farm. It’s run by Per and his son Kristoffer. Here are some of Jen’s descriptions:

‘It was run by this true hippie, Per, who had a fetish for odd hats and talked all about the “ether power” of his grains… I had a small cottage to stay in, and everyday we did various things around the farm. First we ate breakfast of make-your-own muesli. Then things like weeding, which was my favorite thing to do. Also tying up cucumber vines and caring for tomatoes in the greenhouse, and baking rye bread for smorrebrod. These are open-faced sandwiches that we ate for lunch everyday. The bread was made from Per’s rye and also this flour made of ground “Urland grass”… beyond that it was just honey, salt and water. Oh, and it wasn’t yeasted… I also had a few days off to ride a bicycle along the shore in search of ice cream. Danish ice cream cones are so oddly proportioned and delicious, with fresh, humungous waffle cones, small scoops of ice cream, delicate slices of strawberry, a drizzle of strawberry sauce, all topped with this raw, dense meringue, called “guf”… It’s interesting that such a small and heavily taxed country as this makes for a really well-maintained, wind-powered, and ecologically farmed economy.  Everyone is so happy there, too, and healthy seeming, the pace of things isn’t just slower, the attitude with which everything is done feels joyful, almost leisurely.  There’s definitely something strongly socialistic about Denmark, and though I admire it it brings out my understanding of the American in me, who is competitive, private, loud, individualistic.’