Barbara Kingsolver, First Farmbox, and Rhubarb Ice Cream

I have been reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, her story of her family's year of eating locally on their Appalachian farm. I picked it up because I thought highly of her Poisonwood Bible. Before I read the latter, I had tried a couple of her earlier novels, and found them okay, but not so interesting. I thought P.B.was far superior what she had done previously, and wanted to see what she had to say about a topic which is simultaneously close to my heart, and, well, annoying.

So far, I' m a little surprised that I'm enjoying it so much. In my younger days, I read "back to the land" books dreamily, and devoured everything I could find on sustainable agriculture, seed saving ,genetic diversity, and eating locally. The romance of the imaginary organic farm has lost a lot of its appeal for me- I am an urban sort of person, and prefer to let my CSA farmer do the actual bulk growing.

I do miss my garden-I long for it every spring- and I need to come up with a way to have one again, but I know that the realities of farm life are truly not my cup of tea. Likewise, I feel that I understand the political food issues. Though I'm not an expert, and don't do enough about those issues on a political level, I don't need convincing of their righteousness. And I'm easily bored, especially when there's preaching.

This book does not pretend to be The Way for everyone. It is unassuming, personal, sensible, and encouraging. It is also loaded with lots of good practical , factual backup for any arguments you might have with, say, people who claim corporate chemical farming some how serves the poor of the planet, and who decry as "elitist" advocates for local, organically raised and free-range food.

Ms. Kingsolver's science background and writer's chops serve her well. She speaks confidently, and simply. The Monsanto stories, though not new, are just chilling. Her family and their home are interesting and appealing, without being too exemplary, or cute. I'm about half way through the book, and I'm a little bit re-motivated. Not that I was demotivated, but I'm sort of jazzed on the issues again. And the woman has me wanting to try my hand at making cheese. Meanwhile, the supermarket fruits and veggies from afar are looking like an even worse choice than usual, and I'm delighted and relieved that it is the beginning of the new year for my CSA farmbox.

The first farmbox of the year always looks beautiful to me, though it is necessarily a bit sparse, since we are in western PA, and it is barely June. There are herbs, spinach, lettuce, pea greens, strangely unformed, yet slightly woody onions, lovely crisp radishes (as mentioned earlier), and a bunch of rhubarb. (And, as every year, with the first box, there is a complementary round loaf of some soft-crusted mushball whole grain bread, which must be toasted to be tolerable. I don't get this- in all other ways, the Kretchmanns exhibit excellent taste. Oh well.)

I'm having a Tilapia filet, baked in parchment with pea greens and herb butter for dinner. I'll let you know how it goes-it's an LA Times recipe, since deleted, but reconstructed via the good memory of an egullet member. There's going to be a supper of farmbox baby spinach with pinenuts and raisins over polenta in the picture too.

The rhubarb, washed and diced, is about 2 cups worth, just about enough for a quart of ice cream. This is how I made it:

Stew the rhubarb, cut into very small dice, for about 15 minutes in 2/3 cup of water with a pinch of salt, 3/4 cup sugar (or a mixture of sugar and golden syrup), a squirt of lemon juice, and a half of a split vanilla bean. Cool thoroughly, chilling if possible.

Combine the chilled rhubarb mixture with 1 cup of cream and one cup of milk. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions. This is a delicious, not too sweet, subtly flavored concoction, IIDSSMS.

Consume, feeling elegant. I'm going to save some for next weekend, in the hope that there will be strawberies in the farmbox. Clearly this ice cream woud be insanely good with some pulverized real strawberries on top.

Comments

[the chocolate lady]

IIDSSMS?

[lindy]

Sorry, Eve,-It's "If I do say so myself". "Myself" being only one word, I know.

[baking soda]

Oh No! Another ice cream maker... and to know that I had one in my hands today...30% off and I didn't buy it! I was very proud of myself that I was wise and sensible...and without ice cream maker...there is a kilo of rhubarb on my kitchen counter.
If you'll excuse me, I'll go and bang my head against the wall.

[mdessy]

I am also reading this book and agree with you. I find it to be very enjoyable without feeling like I have to rush off and start farming (which I used to long for). We seem to be at similar points in the book and I too am intrigued about making cheese, especially since there is a raw milk dairy up the road from me.

Our CSA does such a good job at growing vegetables that I have stopped doing so and converted my veg garden to fruits: rhubarb, peaches, cherries, plums, blueberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries and elderberries. Mmmmmmm, summer is such a delicious time of year.

[Melissa]

I read your review of Kingsolver's new book with great interest as I'm a big fan of the Poisonwood Bible too. I'm particularly glad she didn't fall into the trap of over-preaching her message, which is unfortunately a frequent shortcoming of similar books. I'll keep my eye out for this one.

As for your ice cream, it looks (and sounds) fantastic. If only Scotland would wake up to the idea of CSA... sigh.

[Renee]

Patricia Wells has a recipe for fresh homemade cheese in The Provence Cookbook. It takes about an hour to transform 2 quarts of milks into about two cups of the most amazing ricotta... not counting the hours spent daydreaming of moving to France to learn cheesemaking. Great fun, and absolutely delicious cheese.

[Jasmin]

Just this evening I began reading Animal,Vegetable, when I got this sudden urge to read your blog. You can bet I was blown away when I saw that your latest entry was on just that. Some eerie cosmic connection.

You may also enjoy reading her "Prodigal Summer" which I find myself rereading every summer.

[:: Suzanne ::]

Hi,

I've been enjoying your blog for awhile, though I don't think I have commented. I've got you in my 'food blogs' blog roll.

Anyway, I've been reading and posting about AVM too and researching cheese-making. I already make yogurt cheese and it is pretty easy.

Best,

Suzanne

[Sharona]

Hello,

My Husband loves Barbara Kingsolver and has read many if not all of her books. We just bought this one this weekend. I can't wait to take a look.
The ice cream looks great!

Sharona
http://birdfood-sharona.blogspot.com

[Kimberly]

What with the stack of as-yet-unread books on my bedside table, I've so far resisted buying Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I know that I will eventually give in, and your comments will likely make that date sooner rather than later.

There's a couple pounds of rhubarb in my kitchen; if only I had an ice cream maker...