Since I moved to Seattle a year and a half ago, there’s no farm whose name has come up more than Quillisascut, located in the foothills of the Huckleberry Mountains in Rice, WA. And since I visit farms as Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation’s West Coast Fellow, I have lots of conversations about food and farming. Quillisascut is a cheese company, selling what they call “traditional farmstead cheese from the pampered pets of Pleasant Valley,” but it’s also a school for the domestic arts.

After completing a five-day “Introduction to Farming” workshop at Quillisascut recently, nicely documented by Farmgirl Gourmet, I understand why this farm school is so beloved by food service professionals, healthcare students, farmers and aspiring farmers, vacationers, and other “co-producers” (as Slow Food and the farm’s cookbook, Chefs on the Farm refer to us “eaters”). Attendees from around the US and the world come to milk goats and share the dinner table with farmers Lora Lea and Rick Misterley. Celebrity chefs, such as Tom Douglas, and media, like Sunset Magazine, have lauded Quillisascut. I hope that you, dear reader, can one day visit it, too.Read More

Take a good look at the photo, and you will get an idea of where I am going with this chicken and egg story. Yes, that is a beautiful Muscovy duck sitting on her nest and yes that is a little chick peeking out from under mother ducks wing.

About a month ago when the weather was still cold and colder, this duck started to sit on a clutch of eggs. In the past we have noticed that when a duck sits on these late winter eggs that have been exposed to the cold, very few of the eggs hatch. So last month Rick decided to take the eggs away, but the duck didn’t want to give up.

Now there is also a hen that comes and goes from this pen, I suppose she thought this was the perfect place to lay her eggs. We were not witness to any of this until a few days ago when Rick came in from the chores and said the duck has a dozen or so chicken eggs under her! And yesterday here was the first of what we hope will be a slow day-by-day hatch out of chicks. And not just any chick, these are special, a breed of naked necked chicken, called Turkens hatched by a duck. Will they need counseling?

Serviceberries are one of the tastier wild fruits at Quillisascut and the easiest for us to savor fresh from the bush (think about elderberries, rosehips, Oregon grape, and chokecherries which all need additional sweetener and you will understand the context of tasty) Serviceberries are slightly sweet with a hint of bitter almond. Last year I was eager to make bitters so I tried macerating the ripe berries in vodka and it did give a slight almond flavor to the infusion. Today while the trees are still flowering I steeped some of the flowers in vodka and others were infused in simple syrup. The flavor is wonderfully bitter almond!

Serviceberry Flower Infused Vodka

2 cups of Serviceberry flowers
1 cup vodka

I was advised by my friend, Ann Harmon from Morning Myst Botanics, to do a double extraction and not leave the flowers in the vodka for more then one hour or it may start pulling out funky vegetal flavors. This means we will use half of the flowers (1-cup) in the first extraction and after one-hour drain the vodka from the flowers and pour it over the second cup of flowers. (I use glass or ceramic vessels as I am uncertain how metal would react with the alcohol extraction, if anyone knows the answer, share in the comments)

Place 1 cup of the Serviceberry flowers in a glass jar and cover with 1 cup vodka. Muddle the flowers in the vodka and push them down so they are covered with the liquid. Stir a few times over the next hour. Next separate the vodka from the immersed flowers. (I poured mine through a cheese cloth and twisted out as much of the liquid as I could) save the wrung out flowers and set aside.
Now for the second extraction pour the vodka from the first extraction over the second cup of flowers. Push flowers down under the liquid stirring a few times over the next hour. The flowers will turn reddish brown. Strain flowers from vodka and set aside the wrung out flowers.

Leaving the flowers in the vodka for more then one hour can start pulling out some unpleasant funky vegetal flavors and we are looking for that floral bitter almond scent and flavor in this infusion.

Serviceberry Flower Simple Syrup

2 cups water
1-cup sugar
1-cup fresh Serviceberry flowers
Wrung out flowers left over from the vodka extraction

Place water and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil, add all the flowers and simmer for five minutes (taste for flavor) if it starts to taste vegetal strain out the flowers. Remove from heat and strain. Place in sterile jar and refrigerate (will keep for two weeks)

More photos of Serviceberry flowers!
Yes, I do love ingredients, but now I need your help. What shall we make with the Serviceberry infusions? Please share your ideas!

These flowers, Arrowleaf Balsam Root, Serviceberries, and Wooly Britches, all grow along the driveway here at Quillisascut. It is a favored time of year for a walk through natures beautiful garden. With every shade of green you can imagine, soft textures and the toughness to endure. I think it is the perfect garden all it requires is to open your eyes, see the transformation and enjoy. Take a walk with me down the driveway. That is easy work!

Several weeks ago I received an email from Lora Lea of Quillisascut Farm asking me if I’d be interested in coming to her Intro to Farming workshop and being a guest blogger. I had been to Lora Lea & Rick’s farm back in February during their Chef Retreat, an annual gathering of local Chefs that happens the weekend after Valentine’s Day, and did not hesitate to send back my response that I’d love to attend. read more

How often do you know the exact moment your life changes? There’s obvious milestones like getting a driver’s license or getting married, but often the less noticeable pivot points aren’t seen until you look back at them.

On my first night at Quillasascut, I fed the chickens. The next morning I went with Rick to pick out the three slowest and most trusting. We ate them for dinner.

Quillasascut isn’t a monument that my life circles around, it is instead a sort of rumble strip that reminds me to pay attention to the road ahead. It’s where I learned a lot of hippie talk. GMO, food chain, local, seasonal, sustainable.

I learned the real trick of a great chef- recipes really aren’t necessary, technique and ingredients trump all. Thanks Kären! (I’ve given up trying to get the umlauts to appear, but she deserves them). Wood burning ovens kick ass. When people talk about owning a goat I remember Rick telling me, Goats were put here for one reason- to destroy the world. I think Rick was still upset about what those goats did to his peach trees. Farming is hard, dirty work. Especially when it’s 105 degrees outside. And the well isn’t recharging and showers are being rationed.

It was also a week of the most fun with mostly complete strangers that I’ve ever had. We laughed so hard, told each other such naked truths, it was as though we’d known each other for years and it was only Tuesday. (Maybe that was the wine. There were TWO wine runs into town that week.)

I felt kissed by luck to be in that place at that time with those people, and grateful that Rick and Lora Lea were putting together a space to facilitate it so others to have the same ground shifting experience. The Misterlys have created a Salon in the old sense- a place of disparate people coming together and shuffling ideas to build something more useful and universal.They’re salonniers. With goats.

-lisa simpson

Okay, it still seems more winter like then spring, especially in the garden. That is why we preserve our parsnips right in the ground where they were growing last summer. Then in March or April, when we are craving something other then cabbage and winter squash there are these sweet yet musky treats. I like them cut like french fries, lightly oiled and salted and roasted in the oven letting some of the juicy sugars caramelize. My web guru told me about trying sublime vanilla parsnips, they sound delicious, pan fried with plenty of butter and finished with vanilla infused rum.

Does anyone have a favorite way to prepare parsnips?

And a recipe from our cookbook Chefs on the Farm, for Parsnips in Lasagna, it calls for braised ox-tails but any braised meat or no meat are equally delicious!

Oxtail and Parsnip Lasagna

This rich and warming lasagne is a great way to utilize uncommon cuts of meat- the whole beast eating philosophy. It also shows off the under-appreciated parsnip, which, when paired with nutmeg becomes glorious. This dish can be made ahead and baked off when ready to serve.

9×13 pan, approximately 12 servings

Oxtails and sauce:
4 ½ pounds meaty oxtails
4 cloves whole garlic
1 yellow onion, sliced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 cup red wine
28 ounces diced canned tomatoes
1 cup stock or water
3 Arbol chilies
2 bay leaves
1 dozen black peppercorns
¼ cup Cognac

Béchamel:
½ cup butter
½ cup flour
1 pint milk, scalded
1 teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon black pepper
5 ounces gruyere style cheese, grated
salt to taste

Parsnips:
2 ½ pounds peeled and sliced parsnips
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt to taste

Lasagna:
1-pound fresh pasta sheets see recipe page….

Season the oxtails with olive oil, salt, and pepper and then brown. Combine with the remaining sauce ingredients and braise at 325 F for 4 hours, covered. Pull meat from the bones, discard bones, tear meat into small pieces. Reduce sauce with meat and remaining vegetables until thick but still saucy. Set aside

For the parsnips: toss parsnips in olive oil and salt. Roast at 400 degrees until golden. Set aside.

For béchamel: in a small saucepan, over medium heat, melt butter. Mix in flour until smooth. Whisk in scalded milk, season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and cook over low heat until flour taste is gone, approximately 40 minutes. Stir in grated cheese. Set aside.

Assembly: layer parsnips, pasta sheets, oxtail sauce, alternating until all of the ingredients are used. Top with béchamel. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until golden and set. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting for service.

Cook’s Note: If making dish ahead, remove pan from refrigerator 2 hours ahead of baking for even cooking.
Variations:
Pork, lamb shoulder or beef shank would work in the braise. For a late summer meal, add in roasted eggplant and chilies in place of the parsnips.

A Letter From Quillisascut
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Recently I attended a Food Writer’s retreat at Quillisascut Farm School in eastern Washington. Gary Paul Nabhan was the facilitator, and the focus was on writing  from the perspective of promoting a healthier food culture.

For four days, we ate together, cooked together, milked goats, made cheese, harvested produce from the garden and berries from the wild. With few exceptions, everything we ate was produced right there on the farm. We talked, we gathered around the table, drank wine and shared stories. Every day we had a writing assignment, and every night, as the sun went down and the stars came out, we we shared what we had written.

On the last day, our assignment was to write a letter addressed to ourselves in the future.

My letter came out in the form a of a poem. It went like this:

Dear Greg,

You must reserve a place
inside yourself to house
the substance of what you gained
spending a time at the Quillisascut Farm School.

Save the air filled
with aromas of barnyard,
fennel pollen, dog hair, goat cheese,
pine needles, sunlight and earth.

Stop sometimes
and stick your head into that room,
where you put the pigs,
the wood-fired oven,
homemade yogurt,
beet salad bright
with nasturtium petal garnish;
where Aggie at age 3 1/2 is pulling his rusty red wagon,
past sunflowers blooming,
past the barn where hay bales you stacked yesterday
scratched your arm.
Weep
for the real possibility – no, dead certainty
that this – will – not – last.

Accept the brevity of life but cling
to the fleeting nature of life itself.
The way it’s here for a moment
then gone.
The way Mom was alive one evening,
and dead before dawn.
The way your sons
have grown almost entirely up.

Go back again and again
to that place, where times like this
are stored, and root around until you find some things
that might help you create
a moment like this for someone else.

Stir up some polenta from some forgotten grain,
enrich it with cultured cream, inoculated with wild
lactobacillus
and tuck a spoonful of that mush
under a few tender shards
pulled from the braised flanks of some
heritage breed of ovine, bovine or porcine flesh.

Garnish it with sautéed greens,
and present the dish in a humble bowl
to some poor soul in need of rest.
Sit down across the table and smile.
If necessary, offer them something more to drink,
another glass of wine.

And when your guest is swooning
with something bordering on satisfaction,
when they get through the flavor and the texture,
and find at last the long, lingering aftertastes of the dish,

Offer them something more.

Present
on a very small,
metaphorical plate,
a tiny dose –
because this stuff is terribly strong –
a truffle sized portion
of hope.

If you do this once in a while,
you will not be overwhelmed
by all that lies before you.

You may grow weary, and cranky, and full of longing,
but you will learn to recognize those same feelings in someone else,
and offering them some relief,
some small part of what you experienced on the farm,
you will be
revitalized.

Be sure to visit Chef Greg at his new Restaurant Marché Or Check out one of his cookbooks, the most recent At the Kitchen Table: The Craft of Cooking at Home

Back in nineteen eighty-one, when Rick and I found this piece of land we call Quillisascut Farm, we had no idea what was in store. With the zealousness of youth we pitched our tent, built a corral for our goats, dug a well and made our dreams a reality.
The cemented clay soil called to us to build fertility, the goats answered this call. You sometimes hear someone say “I had a calling” and this is the way of Quillisascut. It is hard to remember what came first, the dream, the desire, the calling. The total sum has been a joyous journey.

Shortly after we purchased the land Rick and I decided it was time to get married. If we could take the step to sign a contract and be in debt for fifteen years (which at that time seemed like forever) we were ready to commit to a lifetime of togetherness. Here is a photo of us taken on the day we were married. It is my one true romance!

It is easy to see our life as a timeline, the months and years go by, our children grow up, but a chunk of land is solid, constant and secure. The soil that grows the vegetables that feed us, the wild grasses that pasture our goats and the cycle of nutrients back to the Earth. The land is always holding us firm and secure. It is my one true romance.

In starting this blog Rick and I are inviting you to share your Quillisascut love story. Let’s see where this journey has been and whom it has touched. Send us your words of wisdom, funny stories, or memories; it can be short and sweet, or an epic poem, a journal entry or a photo that captures the essence of your Quillisascut experience. Email them to me and I will post them to this blog. Yes, the times we have shared together here on Quillisascut Farm, It is my one true romance!