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Cooking, Gardening, Angst and More. Including Job Search Tales and lifestyle tips about island living.

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Outspoken Podcasting Chef, Sustainability Advocate and Farmer.

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Home » February 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
How Green is My Alley

I drink a lot of coffee. In fact, I think at times there is more caffine in my system than any of the organic, biological components which should make up healthy blood. When there isn't caffine coursing through my veins, then its alcohol--sometimes both. Now it has occurred to me that if there were ever a disruption in the flow of beans to my local Costco I would be crushed. And we know the world would be much more grim a place if I were not in a good mood. To this end I have been stockpiling coffee in my freezer for months--well, actually every two weeks when  I go shopping I buy more coffee which just about covers when we have guests or I can't make it in for a month. The cupboards are bare and the children chew wood to stave off hunger, but we can drink coffee.

Now, it has occured to me that the Shit will hit the fan sooner or later. Arab controlled ports, terr0rist attacks, avian flu--at some point in the not to distant future coffee will be come a commodity of wealth for the common man because when the Yuban runs out and Folger's can't rebuild and your local Safeway's bean bins drizzle their last beans on to the floor as you walk by there will be chaos.

Forget your Y2K stocks of freeze dried food, your lifetime supply of canned potatoes, chickens and peaches. People will want coffee, soap and toilet paper. So to prevent sinking into total primitivism we are now rationing toilet paper and soap in our house so as to have a larger, blackmarket supply in the future. To completely capitalize on people caffine addiciton we are investing in some low-tech coffee roasting equipment and green coffee beans. Ever since I read Cold Mountain, where they survived the depravations of civil war madness with a sack of green coffee beans and a frying pan, I have been harboring this feeling that we could do worse than take the example to heart.

After much reflection, I have finally taken the necessary steps to educate myself as to green coffee roasting "technology" and how to enjoy a hot caffinated beverage amidst the smouldering ruins of our post-9/11, technology addicted, survival skills starved society. After I find the right blend of organic and fair trade beans to maximize on taste and profit I will begin the systematic accumulation of burlap sacked java. My living room will look like the shopfront of the Royal Coffee Roasters to the Queen in London and my daughters will learn their foreign language skills reading bills of lading from the coffee centers of the world. And if you have enough corn oil, hydrogen peroxide, or rubbing alcohol to pour in the tank of your carjacked Dodge Dart to make it to my place, we can have a cup of joe together and lament what used to be.

posted by: ChefNeal at February 24, 2006 09:40 | link | comments (4) |
coffee, fair trade, green coffee

Wednesday, February 22, 2006
In town

I've come to town for some mainland saturation. I am sure by the end of the day I will be craving Island Life once again.
Meanwhile, my day is not getting off to a great start. The IACP conference I have been wanting to attend in Seattle has run into some difficulties. I have never encountered an organization which appears so dis-organised, all at high prices.
I delayed regestering for the conference while I worked out whether it is worth the cost.

Finally a bone was thrown to me by way of an offer--if I volunteered for a whole day of the conference I could reduce the cost of the admission by the price of that day--a savings of $225. However, as I went to register today there was no way to do this math on the form, and in fact the day I was scheduled for volunteering  was not even part of the actual conference, but the day before! So, no reduction in cost. I made a call to headquarters and made some inquiries. Apparently there is no reduction in cost for volunteering for a day--it was all a myth. A myth which means it will still cost me a packet to attend this thing and now I am signed up to do something which will make me miss some of the programs I want to attend the whole thing for anyway. God it pisses me off!
The woman I spoke with is inquiring into the matter for me--as to why I was mis-led, and how many other people have the wrong end of the stick. I vented on her, for which I am a bit sorry, but come on. Hundreds of dollars a year to belong to an professional organization I have yet to see a return on and which every turn of the way I am treated like I don't exist. Membership hardly has it's rewards.

Now I don't know what to do. Do I attend or am I so peeved that I don't go and miss any opportunities for networking and the educational seminars I want to attend? Do I continue to belong to this organization? I know I'm just a guy on the fringe, out in the sticks, but I think that being a member of a PROFESSIONAL organization should mean you are treated professionally whether you can participate in all local events or not. Actually two of the last local events I attended of the local chapter were less than satisfactory--at this point I already know my-long-suffering-wife's view. It is so wonderful to try your best to reach out and meet new people and pass out business cards only to be ignored during the event, and forgotten before the end. I'm not sure turning up as my alter ego--the super action hero Podchef--will even help me in such situations. Frustrations I really don't need in my already frustrating life. Here's what I've written about it in the past.

Thanks for letting me rant. Now to turn my mind back to the usual things which have been bugging me: the NAIS, the USDA, Beef in the USA, and how my little chicks are getting along. I'm off to the feed store and Costco to try to make morally sound choices.
ttfn.

posted by: ChefNeal at February 22, 2006 10:31 | link | comments |
rant, iacp, mainland, conference

Monday, February 20, 2006
Busy Bees

While the temperature might be in the single digits, life is all go here inside and outside.
Spring planting has been taking place, the Polytunnel is almost finished, and the Gastrocast is expanding by leaps and bounds.
The chicks were alright as of last night, so I can only hope and pray they are still alright--the overnight temperatures were around 25 degrees F. We took away thier small brooding shields, which helped keep them hemmed in around the warmth of the brooder lights, because they kept flying out--one even spent some time away from the rest on the outside during the cold night. I'm hoping she'll be okay, but it might set her back. Now all 64 chicks have half of the brooder house to romp around in. They love streching their wings and flapping about.  But they can't get on the other side of the lights, and so will keep warmer while the rest of their feathers come in.  This is months earlier than we ever get chicks, and weeks earlier than we usually remove the brooder shield, but for some reason this batch of chicks is different than usual--perhaps because we have twice as many as normal.
More updates soon.

posted by: ChefNeal at February 20, 2006 08:17 | link | comments |
life, gardening, stuff, chickens, polytunnel

Monday, February 06, 2006
Birth & Death

When I went out to collect hen fruit this morning I found one of the Buffys was dead. She died on the floor of the coop, either laying her own egg or nesting on another's. All the rest of the flock looks well enough. Sometimes Hens just die. It never feels good though. I always think there was something I could have done to make her life better, her end less cold and lonely. But it's not like a mink or racoon got her and tore her to bits. That is the worst, because I can prevent that by running to see what's up when the flock is aggitated, or remembering to lock the girls in at night. Sudden Chicken Death Syndrome always leads me wondering when the next hen will drop. Is it isolated or will the men in the HazMat suits be invading the place spraying bleach over everything?

All this on the morning when 66 new, day-old chicks arrived in the mail. We collected them at 8 am and got them established in their own coop in a brooder pen. Luckily I was done checking them into their new accomodations before I found the expired hen. New chicks are always a joy and a trial. Is the heat right?  Are the eating their food or the bedding? Is that one asleep or breathing its last? It is often years between getting chicks for us so we never quite have it down. Never quite have the right mix of memory and experience. Each time is like starting over. Oh, you can read manuals and internet articles galore, but when they suggest minimum spacings and nutrition it is all too scientific, technical and robotic. This is not some huge egg producing factory or chicken growing station. These birds will be providing us with food, fulfilling their life's destiny, not producing quantifiable units of ingestion at a fixed cost per second. I stopped reading when all the articles I found mentioned de-beaking or light-time ratios/  I've never had problems with my chickens pecking or laying well, or growing into fine roasters because I take a natural approach and do what seems right for the season and the purpose of the bird. Life's a gamble and raising chickens is no different.

So right now all 66 chicks are romping in their new home. They came separated by group all isolated, but are now a homogenous bunch. 25 Buff Orpington layers--although some may be roosters and end up in the pot.  25 Cornish Roasters for eating. 2 Dorking Roosters for breeding and show. 2 Indian Game Cocks for breading and show. 4 Black Giants just because. 4 Partridge Rocks, just because. 4 Indian Games--don't know if they'll be cocks for eating or hens for breeding. And a free, extra, mystery chick the hatchery always throws in for fun. We usually name this one Bonus. It's never the same and almost always hard to identify. In the past we've had a lovely Araucana laying hen which produced beautiful light green eggs, and a creepy, weird, strange rooster whose horniness and brutality towards the hens led us to feed him to the dog after he attacked several of his human caretakers. He was just too infamous to even thing of getting revenge by eating ourselves. This time, with so many roosters, were going to take a different tack and molly-coddle the little studs so they are child and adult friendly.

Pictures soon.

posted by: ChefNeal at February 06, 2006 12:00 | link | comments (1) |
chickens, death, farm life

Wednesday, February 01, 2006
You looking at Meme?

It seems my time is up. I mean there is only so long you can dodge these things. So, here it is on Brigid's Day--4 things, for Lloyd and Jimbo

Four Jobs I've Had:
Industrial Office Cleaner
Dominoes Pizza Delivery Driver
Sawmill Greenchain Worker
President of Small Corporation

Four Movies I'd watch over and over and over:
The Quiet Man
Waking Ned Devine
Withnal & I
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning--with the classic line, "The dream is gone, but the baby is real"

Four Places I've Lived:
Glastonbury, Connecticut
Chislehurst, Kent, UK
Sandycove, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland
Shaw Island, Washington

Four TV Shows I Love:
Chef
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Black Adder
House
Four Places I've Vacationed. . .Vacationed, who has money or time for that??:
Venice, Italy
New Orleans, Louisiana
St. Moritz
Berwick Upon Tweed, Northumbria, UK

Four Favorite DIshes:
Guinness Stew
Corned Beef & Cabbage
Grilled Squid with Chilli
Rabbit braised in Cider

Four Sites I Visit Daily:
Gmail
Flickr
BBC News
Delicious

Four Place I'd Rather Be Right Now:
London
Cork
Asleep
Fishing for Squid

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging:
Hugh
Rustymadgal
Howard
Artichoke72


posted by: ChefNeal at February 01, 2006 08:45 | link | comments (5) |
meme