Coffee Roasting Steps

This is a 2 - 3 year old coffee tree. Almost all coffee farmers harvest their coffee cherries by hand. It needs to be done in a fairly short period of time, as they may dry out in the tree or fall on the ground, yielding inferior quality. In most of Brazil, ripe cherries are first dried in the sun. This process produces coffees with less acidity and more body compared to the wet process.

Processed coffee beans are the result of ripe coffee cherries which are harvested and processed to remove the skin, pulp, and parchment, but still not roasted.

I learned to heat up the roasting pot first and then to load it with half of its capacity so to speed up the first batch.

Then we turn, turn, and turn the round roasting pot from 20 to 45 minutes until it starts smoking. At this point, neighbors go crazy for the enveloping aroma of roasting coffee...

As soon as start smoking, there is a split second in which we need to take the pot out of the flame to spread the coffee beans over a large sieve. At this moment, the coffee beans should be covered with shiny oil, and then they are perfectly roasted. One needs to shuffle or fan the beans so as not to over roast with their own accumulated heat. To achieve perfection, I am learning to roast imperfectly batch after batch.

This is a modern version of a coffee grinding machine, an electric one. The older one is done by a hand-cranking device. We like our coffee finely ground, with medium acidity and a great body. We usually drink it strong and sweetened with cane sugar.

Home roasted coffee is done only in rural areas where a great amount of smoke can be produced. It is becoming rare as time passes. Giving home-roasted coffee is a good gift and such a great one that everyone wants some. Just like any other things made by farmers´hands.

Bamboo Shoots

End of Spring in Brazil, the sun, the rain, the heat, the humidity bring new shoots of bamboo for our delight. It used to be my father´s job to harvest, to clean, to prepare, and even to cook the dish. I remember the last time he did it: he had kittens crawling on his shoulders as he worked. I tried to remember his steps, but failed on the important part, which was the preparation of the raw shoot into an edible one - to wash many times, boil with baking soda, to soak, and wash some more times. I rushed into cooking with basic Japanese seasoning, so have it all very bitter to the point of burning my tongue. I read that cianidric acid can make us sick, but even some boiling would remove most of the acid. So later, I boiled in clean water, turned off the heat, and added a little bit of baking soda. Immediately the water became dark browning yellow. I understood that it must the reaction between acid and alkaline. I changed the water a few more times, tried a piece and it tasted while slightly bitter, but it definitely had some sweetness to it. It is almost like artichoke. Actually, the bottom of the artichoke heart has the same texture as of bamboo shoot. The dish: I cut into thin strips the shoots, pork loin, ginger, green onions, and garlic. I stirred fry pork first with seasonings, removed it from the pan, and added a bit more peanut and sesame oil to fry the shoots. I seasoned them with a bit of sugar, soy sauce, and fish powder (Japanese seasoning). I returned the pork to the pan and let it combine for another minute. Voila. A quick Chinese dish eaten over rice. I will try some other recipes this week, as there are many shoots to be harvested and guests coming over to stay with us.

Soapmaking on Thursday

It´s like Sunday. The sun and the rain gave us a little break, making our Thursday be quiet, hazy, quiet day. I actually started to make soap yesterday. I found a great recipe for household use, not totally from scratch, but it still feels like homemade. It takes 1 liter of liquid lye (lye solution at 50 Baume), 1 liter of coconut liquid soap, and 6 liters of reclaimed kitchen oil, properly filtered. I avoid using too smelly, dirty, stained, rancid, or watery used oil. The biggest thing about this recipe is that it doesn´t require stirring (!)no, no, no!!!! That is the best news after Kitchen Aid mixer. All I have to do is to transfer the mixture from one bucket to another, only until it turns opaque, creamy, and homogenous, with no trace of oil. The recipe recommended 4 times of transferring, with the risk of the mixture hardening in the bucket. But, it may be for the type of lye solution, or the oil, or the temperature, or the humidity, or else, it took me about 12 pourings before the final pouring in the plastic rectangular container I usually use for molding soaps. I cut the soap today, not totally hardened, but enough to slide a knife with care. I ran a test and it showed a great foamy soap. Let me wait until it is cured for a final review of the product. The second soap I made (today) was my regular tallow-reclaimed kitchen oil-alcool trio I have published as a slide show on the blog and also on youtube. The stirring took a bit longer, about 5 to 10 minutes, opposed to 2 minutes on other times. I can´t say it is for the different brands of lye, the ingredients temperature, or the weather. It is warm and humid. I think days like these are not good for making soaps. Sunny, lightly breezy, and dry days must be better. Especially because the soap doesn´t sweat by drawing air moisture. The third soap is a toilette one. I had babassu kernel oil leftover from a previous experiment, as well as pomace olive oil. Flaxseed edible oil, rather unedible for its bitter taste, went to the mix as well. In order to lower the percentage of babassu oil, I added soybean oil, so it won´t get too brittle or harsh on the skin. I used a lye calculator provided on the internet (www.brambleberry.com), which is very useful. I started stirring with a whisker but soon used a hand mixer. The saponification took place in less than 5 minutes, turning the mixture opaque, very creamy, and dense. It was almost difficult to pour properly into a cardboard shoebox. So I left the soaps resting, and let´s see tomorrow...

Christmas Bread Panetone

Another quiet Christmas on the farm with my daughter being away. But the days that preceded Christmas, I baked panettone, an Italian round tall bread filled with candied fruits and raisins or with chocolate chips. My first attempt was a disaster. I followed a recipe that required a long rise, two days of work, just to have all the top burned by tucking it into a too hot an oven. I used a wood-fired oven, and I still don´t know what´s the right temperature for each dish. The second panettone was filled with chocolate chip and topped with ganache. They turned out very velvety, moist, and delicious. This time I used a regular gas oven. The third recipe I chose to fill it with dulce de leche (some kind of hard caramel). I made a mistake with the amount of butter and again, it was a failure. The bread didn´t rise properly while baking. But I still could give to my neighbors. But I was decided to make one great panettone, so again, I was mixing the ingredients when my mother had a seizure so I had to put the dough into the fridge to run to the hospital. When I got back home at 1:30 a.m., I didn´t feel like cooking. So I proceeded the next day, turning out a good panettone. The panettones and the two loaves on the photo are from this batch. I gave it to my friends as Christmas gifts. I felt as I had done a great accomplishment. But I was still not happy with sweetbreads and wanted to bake one more panettone, a savory one, filled with some kind of beef jerky, properly de-salted, cooked, shredded, and cooked with onions. This time, it was a success. The recipe asked for dark beer, milk powder, and even kummel, which I didn´t find in the market. So it went without it. Again, I gave one to each of my three farmer friends. Panetone dough is different from all other bread I have made before, as the dough is quite sticky, with high hydration. It is thicker than cake mix and wetter than bread dough. It also takes a lot of butter and egg yolks, a typical holiday bread. Panetone with its orange-butter-vanilla aroma, fruits, chocolate, caramel, the rich dough is a feast in itself. It is a kind of bread we can´t go without. It is a symbol of Christmas which for me exhale beauty, abundance, generosity, and love.

Mochi Making

Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice traditionally eaten on New Year´s Day. The mochi making process can be a ceremonial event or not. In my case, I made the way I thought it would work. I soaked the rice overnight, drained it the next day, and then ground it in an electric coffee grinder and put it to cook in a microwave oven with a little bit of water. After about 6 minutes of cooking, I pounded it with either a wooden spoon or with my new Kitchen Aid. After a few minutes, I shaped it into 2-inch rounds. The rice cake itself is very bland, and I love it for the texture. I can fry in a little oil, and then season with soy sauce and sugar or boil in a soy sauce seasoned broth. This time I wanted to make daifuku, which is mochi filled with sweetened azuki bean paste I made from scratch. Not hard at all. I just soaked the beans overnight, cooked it, drained it a bit, and cooked with sugar. As I stir with a wooden spoon, the beans break turning into a paste. Yummy! My interest in Japanese cooking became revived by watching animes, where the presentation of traditional food is quite common. Then, I search online for recipes and ideas. I have enjoyed on youtube "cooking with dog", "runnyrunny999", and "delicious nippon". I am still to make some dango, which ingredient I can´t find where I live, and I believe, some found in Brazil is imported. I may try to make the rice flour myself and make the dumplings later. Let´s see...

Tofu Making Experience

I am still on eating little, so I have to make the most of what is on my dish. Unhappy with the sweetened store-bought soymilk, I started to make homemade soy milk and then, tofu. My main guide to tofu making is a book by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, The Book of Tofu, while an inspiring book, I find it difficult to follow the recipes, with instructions to wash dishes while waiting for the milk to curdle (!). I have also surfed on the internet for recipes, but I couldn't find a forum to discuss the basics. After making a few times, and now following the instructions so closely, I finally found out that I didn't really need a recipe for soy milk or for tofu. The quality of the soybeans may determine the type of milk, and therefore, it is hard even to give out quantities in the recipe. So, my own recipe for soymilk and tofu are as follow: Soymilk: for 1 cup of dry soybeans, it yields for 1 liter or more, depending on how much water you want to add, or how rich milk you like. Soak beans overnight. Wash beans thoroughly the next day to eliminate impurities and some of the skin. Put 1 liter or more water to boil in a kettle. Puree beans with some hot water using a blender for 1 or 2 minutes. You can either dump puree into a pot and cook it or you can strain it first in a cotton sack and then cook the milk. In either case, you let it boil and then simmer for 10 minutes, stirring the whole time so as not to burn on the bottom. If you cook the puree, obviously, strain it later. Some recipes tell you to wash the okara (solids) with more water and press it firmly until the last drop. I find it difficult, so I skip this step. Tofu: In a 4-quart stockpot with almost 4-quart fresh soymilk just cooked, I stir a solution 2 teaspoons of magnesium sulfate (that's what I can find in my town)in a cup of water. The biggest secret is not to dump the whole solution at once, as I read somewhere that excess coagulant will make the tofu bitter. I do it in three steps. I pour some while swishing the hot milk (off the hot burner), and then put the top on. After a minute, I pour some more, if needed. I go pouring until the milk is all curdled. Attention: it curdles rapidly, but it is best to wait 2-6 minutes to allow the coagulant to work. I had times that I threw away the coagulant, some other times, I had to make some more. As soon as the milk is curdled, I take out most of the whey, so I can ladle the curds with minimum water possible into a forming container lined with cheesecloth. I wrap the cloth into the container, place some weight on top and wait about 5 to 10 minutes until most of the water had been drained. I quickly put the whole thing into a basin with cold water in an attempt to eliminate the taste of coagulant. If firm enough, I take the tofu out of the cheesecloth and deposit into another container with fresh water and place it in the refrigerator for later consumption. Of course, it can be eaten warm, but it is best cold, topped with green onions, grated ginger, and soy sauce. To your health! Obs: If you want soy milk ricotta, just add half of the coagulant at once to rich hot soymilk and let it sit uncovered for 20 minutes. It may turn out ricotta (make sure you drain it and wash it in freshwater) or just pudding. In this case, you have made silken tofu.

Frugal Living

Wednesday, 1:30 pm: I stopped by Dona Rosa’s fence and delivered pieces of Brazilian style fruitcake (made with prunes, raisins, guava paste, condensed milk, muscatel wine, ground almond ) and puba cake. The last one is made of mandioc roots left 7 days in water to be fermented, then ground, and dripped to dry. I was a little bit suspicious of the puba, as I don’t know I can trust home fermented food. If any weird bacteria gets in? The other package of the same goodies went to my other neighbor who was at home, snoozing. Even though I woke him up, he thanked me for the cake and for an hour conversation we had under a big flamboyant tree. Sunny, slightly windy, and dry day. I felt fortunate to cheer a friend who had his wife away taking care of her hospitalized sister. Only where time doesn’t cost much is that I can have the privilege of spending so much of it, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. Having times like these, disallow us to take vacations. Our holidays are ingrained in our day-to-day activities. Not that we don’t need rest – but we don’t have the need to go away, to take a trip, to see new places and new people. What we like are these old places with old friends. They are not old friends of mine, as I’ve met them not too long ago. However, for knowing each other’s struggles and victories that have the feeling of closeness. We all agree that the best thing in life is friendship. If our time doesn’t cost much, I can afford to spend more of it. We don’t think of the time in terms of investments and returns, but in letting, life goes by beside people that we love. The big secret of having a frugal living is not valuing life like a commodity, of wanting more out of it, to have the maximum profit. It’s the opposite. It is expecting nothing out of life, but to have it pass by. If I don’t feel I am entitled to possess things, to experience emotions, to collect memories; if I don’t feel I am entitled to have a life that is when we start getting a life. As part of my pursue of simple living, I also have chosen to eat less, but correctly. I was tired of feeling sick after gorging and gaining weight as a consequence. I am not overweight in any sense, but be a glutton seems immoral, in face of the world’s hunger. My biggest challenge is to cut down on my expenses on meat, trading for cheaper fruits and vegetables. That’s where frugal living comes in. As part of my plan to pay less and get the same, I attend to exercise classes for free done at community centers, five times a week. At 8:00 p.m. I turn off the TV, go to the bedroom for devotionals. I still do other things, such as writing, getting information on the internet, but I don’t surf, as I think it is a waste of time. I end up sleeping early and wake up before the sun. I love it: to beat the sun. My next project is to use less cleaning products, especially laundry soaps. I plan to use my homemade soap instead, and wash the clothes less often, as my habit is to do several loads a day. I keep my trips to the town to a minimum, so I can save not only on fuel but on any risk related to a car accident. Keeping risks to a bare minimum is a great way to save money. Frugal living also allows me to enjoy times of silence – for being alone is one of the greatest gifts we get – and it is still free.

Nothing is All on Sundays

June is over. Many thoughts, no writings whatsoever. End of Fall, but thankfully we haven't had cold and dark days. It's been a year since my father passed away. Like the days that precede Easter, I can't express my feelings into words, remaining in a contemplation mode. Today is a beautiful Sunday. Perfect sunny day, the most pleasant temperature, no wind, no dust, no flies. And also silence on the farm. I had built a "nethouse" for my vegetable garden, but the veggies seem not wanting to grow. We had a long drought, a few days of very heavy rain, and no cooler days. The great advantage of placing a net all over is the absence of white butterflies and other flying critters. I was just not prepared for what came under the earth - ants. The hardest one to kill using natural methods. I remember the year I arrived at the farm how bountiful we had. Vegetation was lush, wild cucumbers and other goodies grew abundantly, trees were carried with juicy fruits, and best of all, I had a great vegetable garden cultivated with a minimum of knowledge. This year, the poncan orange tree shriveled, the lychee tree got some kind of new bacteria, no cashews, no mangoes, and almost no avocado. The new fruit trees that I planted yielded sour or tasteless oranges. Except for the lime tree, everything else seems to have gone wrong. Can you believe that my smooth skin chayotes grew some tough spikes? I only collect the young ones, as the older ones can really hurt. I watched a TV rural program this morning. It said that the swine raising is having many losses and some towns have gone to emergency state. It is really hard to bear with all the heartbreaking that farming brings. It doesn't depend solely on hard work, but on the weather, the international market, the world economy, and everything else. I still don't know what I should do in case my chicken coop tenant decides to leave, or if my mother's pension stops. I greatly depend on these two for a steady income and family survival. As I have told you before, my farm is almost all rented out, and I have kept a part of it for my orchard and garden. I don't even have animals such as pigs, cows, goats, sheep, or chickens. In truth, I can't have some of them because of my dogs, some other because of a lack of know-how, range-free chickens for the prohibition for having commercial egg farm on here. The only thing that I could have were pigs, but my daughter said that she loves spare ribs, bacon, sausage, loin so much that can't have them. So we continue having dogs only. The two cats that I had adopted got killed by our Border Collie mix. Sometimes I feel that I am not living a real farm life - of course not. I can't have the basic things such as farm animals. But I still love living on the farm. I wake up early and can breathe fresh air while sipping a cup of coffee, which was roasted and grounded by me. While the farm is not producing as much as I expected, the town is fun. On Sundays, there is a nice farmer's market on the main street, close to butcher shops, which we have many alongside with pharmacies. While the restaurants are poor in town, the butcher shops roast beef, pork, and chickens for our Sunday lunch. The cheapest and most popular item is the roasted chicken with potatoes. The meat falls apart, while the bones come out clean. Some chickens get seasoned mandioc flour or cornflour stuffing. That's a plus too. But to me, the real advantage of living on a farm has to do with Sundays which used to be very boring - the "nothing to do" day. Now I expect Sunday especially for being a "nothing to be done"day. I want all the silence it can offer. Like orthodox jews observe their Sabbath, I want my Sunday even motionless. No driving, no going out, no visitors, no phones, no decision to make. I just want to rest my head on a cushion and stare at nothing. Nothing is all on Sundays.

Life Never Left Us

I was going to write “life is slowly coming back to the farm”, but, in truth, life never left us. A series of new happenings made me aware that life continues on, in its eternal cycle. It rained after a long drought. The very hot days are over now. It´s the Fall season. I am planning to start a new vegetable garden, in a smaller scale, closer to my house, in its original place. The “professional” spot where we cultivated two years ago was yield to the cattle. I rented out the spot. I have called the carpenters to build a structure that will hold a net that blocks 30% of the sun. And hopefully, it will stop white butterflies from sitting on the leaves. It looks like a greenhouse, except that it is not temperature or rainproof. Vegetables don´t grow too well under the hot sun, and that´s why it´s mandatory to have all this netting. The old patch didn´t have it – I had great veggies, but, they were tougher than the ones that we find at the market. I am excited about this new project. More than having a passion for growing veggies, I love freshly picked leaves for salads and the freedom from visiting the farmers´market. A few days ago I was looking for watercress for a special dish (oxtail stew). No grocery stores would have it, so I needed to wait for the market´s day in order to prepare this food. Sometimes I want cilantro, and almost no one has it. Fresh basil? I think I am the only person who loves it. In less than a month, I should have arugula, which is one of my favorite leafy green. In four months, my garden will have all that I used to have before, and probably nobody else in town. Who can grow (or know) celery? Peas? Edible flowers? Just me who had the privilege of living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

God´s Blessings in Our Lives Slideshow

You can also see at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwHWQTJIaE0

So finally I got to take some pictures of my small town on a January Monday morning. The main avenue is usually very crowded with cars and pedestrians, specially on Saturdays were walking is a hassle, trying to swerve from slower people or even avoid bumping onto others that are standing up, chatting. Not very uncommon too is to find people that walk in groups, stopping all at once to see the shop windows. This particular morning was very calm, but even so, many people cross streets away from crosswalks. It is just part of their habits. I wanted to include scenes that I usually see - men drinking coffee in the morning while chatting to each other, retired men sitting on a park bench, dozens of bicycles speeding down the street, and other particularities that make this town alive. Nature pictures mostly taken on a farm, but some were taken elsewhere, but they all makes part of my life. For instance, I can't raise free range chickens as I lease our chicken coops for a large scale egg business. Foreign birds could bring diseases to thousand of chickens, reason why I gave away my tamed Guinea hens. The little chicks playing with the girls were also given away after a few days. The House - is freshly painted but no longer looks that tidy. Specially the farm kitchen where there is always something going on, such as sinkfull of dishes to be washed or a trail of flour all the way to the wood fired oven. The Food - I made them all - from scratch - except for the farmer's cheese that I buy from a neighbor. I got no cows. What really misses in pictures is the vibrant energy of all the processes. The bread was not made dark like that, but it started from addition of flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar. It had different body, texture, temperature - it was something else, to become what it did. This dynamic process where aroma and taste are released is a priviledge of those who can live near them. I often tell my daughter how lucky (or blessed) she is for having a mom who cooks, for living on a farm, for owning eight dogs, and for all we should be grateful.

Baking Season

Two beautiful Fall days in the middle of Summer. Who can explain that? It’s darker in the morning around 7, but the evening is still long with daylight savings. The sun rays have the orange hue, different from Spring were the sparkling silver rays invade all rooms. The lack of natural beauty of our landscape on the farm makes me enjoy the sensation brought by other senses. I am lucky for that matter. I am not a visual person.
February is here. My 10-year-old daughter is back in school. I still have to drive her five days a week on a rather short drive (about 6 miles) on a flat and straight road, but dangerous due to drivers’ carelessness.
December and January were cooking, baking, eating months. Even though the doctor suspects I have gluten intolerance (no exams done), I baked several times a week using my newly assembled wood-fired oven. But the highlight was the church gathering day at my house. I tested several pizza dough recipes, watched the oven, learned to open the skin by hand until I found the best dough and the best way of serving piping hot pizza straight from the oven for several people. I didn’t know how many would come, so I planned for 30. I soon found out that I couldn’t open the skin and bake a raw crust to serve 30 hurried peopled at once. Too many issues involving the making of the perfect pizza, Neapolitan style. I had to compromise. I parbaked the crust a day before, topped 3 pizzas just 2 hours prior to serving, and hired a neighbor dona Rosa to take care of the baking. I took care of topping the pizza as the first ones got done. On my list, nine different combinations which included the all-American pepperoni or sausage, mushrooms, and bell peppers; also sliced smoked pork sausage with onions; ham, peas, onions, cooked eggs. All pizzas take tomato sauce (made with fresh and canned tomatoes) and mozzarella cheese. The event was a success, so much that I totally forgot to take a picture of the crowd around the pizza, all praising me with a full mouth, not knowing if they should speak or chew. I was as busy as a pizza maker on a ball day, topping on disk after the other. Later, I had to ask other people who ate what, who took the first piece, who had anchovy with olives. I sent home a few people with pizza for their family. “We had plenty. My husband ate, and even my mother-in-law” – someone told me.
I can't help myself but continue cooking, baking, soap making, and all. I also baked old fashioned English bread called scone to be dipped in lemon curd (it's a lemon season), Brazilian finger good called "empada" - little chicken pies, sweet rolls, broa (a country bread made in cooked corn and wheat flour, and later baked), Brazilian cheese bread, chocolate chip cookie, anise biscotti dipped in chocolate, whole wheat bread, and even "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" bread. And more pizzas, of course.
I can't post pictures of all my bakings, neither remember all that I cooked - there were so many goodies.

January 2nd, 2012 – Last Few Months

In Brazil, Summer break starts sometime in December and it usually goes until after the Carnival – a religious holiday that transformed into a big national event. Being so, I don’t go to town twice a day as I used to, but I still need to run my errands a few times a week. With extra time on my hands, I started to walk on a road I used to run, a little less, as my dogs bark at motorcycles and even to cows belonging to somebody else. To avoid any situation, I interrupt my walk. They are so many (6) that I won’t have enough time to strain all of them before I leave. One Sunday before Christmas another puppy joined our pack. It was said to be a Pinscher Border Collie mix. To me, it is another mutt. Every morning and every afternoon, I sit on my veranda chair to relax. The cool fresh morning air, contrasting with hot bitter coffee, I sit there enjoying myself. The dogs come to greet me, the puppy wants extra attention, and I raise my legs to a leg rest and rest. In the evening, after the sun has set, I also sit there remembering how much my back porch has improved. It used to be the portrait of a decadence. My father’s lack of financial resources to give it a little lift. After his death, I sold many farm equipment, as I decided to lease out the land instead of working on it (I tell the reasons later). With the money dripping in, I started to fix up the house, and after three months, I have the whole house fixed up and re-painted. Some areas such as the kitchen got a total makeover. I had the tile floor and wall changed, bought new appliances, and above all, took all the old stuff out of the house. My mother and sister used to oil paint canvas. We had several of them stored for decades. I hang them up on walls, making the house looking cheery. The biggest effect of the fixed up was the impression that it is not a dying place anymore. Yes, it had a solution for something that I thought could never happen. Sadly, it took my father’s death to make his inheritance take value. I live now in a newer, clean house. I didn’t have to make any major purchase, except for the kitchen, but lots of little ones made a difference. For instance, the drawer chests had a piece of fabric replacing the original knob since my childhood. I spent a few reais to buy new knobs on the furniture to take on a new look. Besides new painting giving an impression of clean walls, which were not only dirty but crumbling, the tiles cracked or simply missing on several spots in the house, the removal of old curtain tracks (yes, it was not a modern rod) for newer rods and curtains. I had two men coming to do the job. They are dona Rosa’s brothers. During sugar cane harvest, they have work, but between September to March, they go unemployed. Even though they are not professional carpenters, they bravely took the job. Of course, many things were far from perfect, but I enjoyed the company. My biggest concern was to have a stranger working inside the house while I was out, but it turned out that they didn’t touch anything that shouldn’t be. They must come back to fix up the fence around the house – strangely, the fence was my first concern, but became the last one on the list. Inside and outside of the house finished, including the set up of my wood-fired oven coated with red mud and cow’s fresh manure, I am working on my new interest: flower garden! I have already spent some to buy two palm trees and other plants. My main interest lays in forming a tropical garden with heliconias, bromeliads, ixoras. The plants that survived my mother’s illness (she used to have a very diverse plant material all over the garden, including a collection of orchids) were a few. Indeed they were sturdy, surviving lack of water or fertilizers over ten years. I felt sorrowful in eliminating what was there to give place to a whole new garden. I couldn’t cut down all the hibiscus, gardenia, dracaenas, rhododendron, zedoary, grass, hydrangea, ixora, bougainvillea, pata-de-vaca - a Brazilian native beautiful tree with perfumed white flower -, and many more, including a native berry tree. How could I make a beautiful landscape preserving all of those? After some research, I decided not to eliminate them, but crowding the spot with more plants, especially tropical ones, without any rigidity of a French garden, but rather more organic and natural – letting nature do it. Lastly, my next upcoming project is to revive my organic vegetable garden. The old spot is full of weeds, dry, and rock hard. But it was once a lush garden, so it can be it again. This time, though, I am going to build a shade, as the sun is the inclement most part of the year and no leafy greens can survive. The deep sadness that I feel with the loss of my father brought up new hope for living on the farm that I had once given up upon.

Fixing Up the House - December 4th, 2011

Life has taken precedence over writing the last few weeks. I have been very busy fixing up my house. It was a huge project, since my father could never keep up with the maintenance. He liked to do things by himself and not hire anyone, but the house was the last thing on his to do list.
We had a problem with rain water infiltration, which ended up creating mold on the ceiling and the walls. The walls were cracked, for the house had a problem with a foundation which got fixed, but the cracks remained for years. The tile floor had many missing pieces, and one of the worst problems were old appliances lined up in the kitchen. It was not only an unpleasant view of the house, but the cat was doing a bad job of keeping the mice away.
After my father’s death, with the fear of living just three women on the farm, I decided to change the kitchen doors that lead to the outside, as they were totally rusted, and one of them was being locked with an old belt. Slowly I asked them to do extra jobs, and ended up fixing up the whole house. They finished inside painting last week, and are still working on exterior.
It was a tremendous step for me, as fixing up the house (and spending all the money) means that I am to remain on the house and possibly, with the farm. The house now is the center of my life. I never took good care of any place I lived, as I always thought not to be permanent. When I was single and living in America, I spent the least money on decorating the home, always buying mismatched things at garage sales. Only when I got married and moved to a house, my husband allowed me to buy new furniture. I shopped many things at Ikea, to soon sell them all as we moved to Brazil. Here, we bought our first home, paying it off cash. Everything was new, but the marriage started to fall apart. Once again, we moved back to America, to Florida, this time. We had all used furniture again. Later, we financed a home, but the sparse furniture were the same. The only thing I did was to paint inside the house, using a technique I learned on TV. My bedroom resembled an old Tuscan home, with rusted golden color and unfinished wooden furniture. I loved the dark red with golden embroidery on a bed cover and on the curtains. I decorated the walls with black iron candle holder on the walls. Again, with the end of marriage, I sold them all. I returned to Brazil bringing only newly bought home appliances and some bed and bath items. Once settled in a small resort town I chose to live before I moved back with my parents, I furnished the house, spending again all the money I had brought.
The idea of settling myself here is starting to spring up in my mind. I feel happy and at peace. I have everything I need in this little town.
While I took away all the old kitchen appliances (3 refrigerators, 3 cabinets – actually one book shelf that worked as one, and a stove), three of six tables, and many more items, specially things that were cluttering the house, I hanged old canvas my mom and sister oil painted several decades ago. With a clean home, decorating it is an indescribable pleasure.
While before I was embarrassed to have people over, I now invite friends to visit me.
But my plans don’t end at finishing the house, but they extend to transform my yard into a nice garden. My plan is to transform part of the farm into “green savings” (plantation of trees for future wood harvest) and other part for reforestation. I will love to plant native trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers to be my own private forest. The reviving of the garden is in my mother’s honor, as she used to have a large collection of plants around of the house. Part of it died when she travel as seasonal worker to Japan and others died when she was unable to care for them. A very few plants have survived, and I am now wanting to run around to form a lush garden all over again.
Living on a farm is to live with living things. They always make me want to live another day, as if they depended on me.

Portuguese Bread Folar

Folar is an Easter bread that can be sweet or savory, depending upon the region of Portugal. What is different about this recipe is the incredible amount of eggs in the dough. The best thing is that it turns out light, fluffy, yet full of flavor, with a delicate crust that melts in the mouth. The first time I heard about folar was at a hair salon. The lady taught me how to make this bread, and also paella with rabbit meat. I never got to make the paella her way, but I sure made folar a few times. Over twenty years had passed, and here am I again making folar on an improved recipe I found on the internet at www.gastronomias.com. For those ones who cannot read Portuguese, I shall translate it for you with my own personal twist (and experience). This is a great recipe. 1 kg all-purpose flour 12 eggs (yes, 12!) with shells warmed in warm water before breaking 250g melted butter 50g olive oil 30g compressed fresh yeast melted in ¼ cup warm water Warm milk and salt Smoked sausage sliced, salt pork or bacon cut into small cubes, ham, roasted chicken In a large bowl, make a well in the center of the flour. Pour melted yeast and eggs, mixing in a circle, adding the flour little by little. Add butter and oil. If the dough is stiff, add a little bit of warm milk with salt to taste. It´s a soft dough, so you do more beating kind of movement than kneading until it forms a ball. Let it rise. The recipe instructs to divide the dough into 3 and make layers (like lasagna) with meat. Let it rise again, and then, brush with egg wash, and bake in a hot oven for 45 minutes. I have done it differently. I was so tired and sleepy that night that I stashed into the fridge until the next morning. I took it out of the fridge, kneaded a bit, and stretched with a hand roller. I cut the dough into 2, opened it like a pizza crust, and spread the meat over. I rolled it (like would sushi), tucked the sides underneath, and let it rise. Over two hours later, and with the dough risen greatly, I popped them in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. I lowed the temperature a bit, so as not to burn. They came out huge, light, fluffy, and tasty. The next day I used the same recipe and process, but filled with provolone cheese and the other piece with green olives. I can’t say which one is the best.

Getting the Real Thing

When I first took an interest in country-style bread baked in a wood-fired oven, I asked my neighbor that I barely knew to teach me the secrets of the trade. I was after the type of bread stored in my childhood memories that tasted much different from the bread I eat today, even if baked in wood-fired ovens. Dona Rosa, then, told me that her sister who lives several miles away had “yeast in a bottle”. A few days ago, I put in a bag a package of cookies, flour, and sugar (these were to be given as gifts), picked up Dona Rosa, and headed for her sister´s house. She lives in a very small rural community of dozen homes in a rather scenic route. I used to drive this road while taking “Pro-Milk”, a course to learn how to work with milking cows. We were greeted by four women, an elderly lady, two middle-aged women, and a teenager. The older lady is Dona Rosa´s mother who is already a great-great-grandmother. Dona Rosa herself turned a great-grandmother at the age of 50. Anyway, we all seated on the sofa and they talked about people’s state of health. I tried to be interested but my mind wondered how soon I was going to see the starter. I noticed that the wood walls looked grungy, as my mom used to say the wood houses always look dirty and dark. Sometimes it holds a smell. At a certain point, the lady announced that she would make some coffee and disappeared into the kitchen. About thirty minutes later, she invited us to sit at the table. She served us two plain deep-fried dough. Davina said that the first one was made of flour, water, and baking powder. The second one was made with a sourdough starter, “so I could see the difference”. Anything fried makes just flour and water taste delicious. Some were puffed up, but they had no filling. Over an hour and still no signs of the starter. Only when everybody was finished, included some family members that joined us later that Davina took the prized starter from the fridge, kept in a 1-liter Coke plastic bottle. About one inch of flour on the bottom, and 500 ml of liquid. It was inert, no bubbles or foam. It looked flat and watery. She gave me the recipe to feed the starter: 9 tablespoons of flour, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt. She omits the type of spoon, so on my first experience, I added too much salt. The great day came; I treated my starter, took half for the bread, and kept half in the fridge. The bread recipe was 2 kg flour, 500 or 600 ml starter, less than a cup of oil, some water, sugar, and salt. The dough came out very stiff, but I didn’t know how it was supposed to be. So I added more starter and oil. I left the dough rest for the night, punched it down the next morning, stretched the dough with a hand roller, and free-formed them. Another few hours until they went to Dona Rosa’s wood-fired oven. The bread smelled like sweet yeast (if this thing exists), it tasted slightly sour, but not quite like California sourdough bread. The density and the texture, besides the pale color of the crust, definitely I can tell that I have reproduced the bread of my childhood. The bread became better with further bakings, and I have used the starter to make a deep-fried dough and also pizza crust. I thought to be a mix of tough and chewy crust, but the taste had character. Something to become addicted to. The next day, I heated over a dry pan and the crust became crunch and even more delicious. I am still to try sourdough pancakes and guava paste filled fried dough. Yeah, I dumped the two other starters I had made at home from scratch. They were too sour, almost offensive. To taste, the “yeast in a bottle” is sweet and mild. Interestingly, it rises better in a tall narrow container. When kept tightly closed in a bottle, at the opening, it may burst like champagne. How fun!

Brazilian Soap Recipe & Process

Soapmaking is a simple process, but rather dangerous. I wouldn´t recommend just to anyone. Only people that feel safe in handling boiling elements can take on a project like this. In this video, I wanted just to show you how I make one of my household use soaps; it is not intended to teach you to make one. There is no space for detailed orientation in the video, nor have I enough knowledge to instruct you on a safe soapmaking process. The alcohol based soaps trace very quickly, specially when added to tallow. The most dangerous mixture is the use of too warm lye mixture, too warm tallow, an alcohol. The soap mixture boils over as soon as it traces, leaving a pool of raw soap on the floor. If you noticed, you will see the angry fumes going up after doing the spoon test. It boiled over, you will see next to the tray. I was able to pour it afterwards, but lost quite a bit of useable soap. The foam that hardens also cleans well - so, no need to cut it away. I like using the bar soap on dishes, but I boil grated soap in water to use in laundry machine. I don´t believe to be good to be used on dishwashing machine (I don´t have one). Of course, I start using the soap when it turns white (cured), at least partially. Raw soap that catches on a bucket is used to soak kitchen towels or rags. I love making this soap for several reasons: it traces in a matter of seconds; it never goes wrong; it yields beautiful, uniform, smooth soap; it cleans like no other; no residual smell of animal fat; it dries and hardens fast; it´s a winner.

October 15, 2011 - Coffee Roasting in Video

October 11, 2011 - My Very First Sourdough Bread

My Very First Sourdough Bread I am diving deep into the rural culture of doing everything from scratch. After the experience of baking pizza in my new wood-fired oven, I took interest in the wild yeast fermentation process, the .sourdough starter. Most of the time, my only door to the outside world is the internet. I researched all I could to learn the process. It is rather a very easy thing, just like soapmaking. I began with two different recipes, one that I followed more closely, and the other one that I ended up doing my way – both turned out OK. In the first days, neither mixture would show anything except slight deterioration. The chef James Beard´s recipe called for flour, sugar, milk, water, and later on, a package of dry commercial yeast. As I had only instant dry yeast, I used compressed fresh yeast. The mixture never really bubbled, looking more like yogurt, even though it smelled like good beer. The other mixture I used just flour and water, and it looked flat, lifeless until I decided to feed more flour. Then, it started to foam. Unlike others I have seen on the internet that make large bubbles, even on the bottom of the container, mine was foamy only on top, but sticky all through. After seven days or so, I prepared Beard´s recipe. For the bread dough itself, he calls for a package of active dry yeast, which I didn´t have (I found only the instant one or the compressed kind in the store), so I was forced to use the instant yeast, as the compressed had green mold on it. It took a rise, a punch down, another rise, and then to shape it into a roll. I think my problem started at this point, as the end result was a flat, dense, slightly raw tasting bread, which ended up tasting deliciously tangy, with a dry thick crust on top and smushy bottom. First, I left the dough rise too long for the type of yeast after I shaped it. The dough opened on the top, showing some bubbles. Then, it suffered from the low-temperature oven, which instead of baking in 30 minutes, took over an hour. I was so dismayed that I would have gone to town to buy a good stove just to bake my other bread tomorrow. But tomorrow is a holiday and all stores are closed. Meanwhile, the other dough is still left to rise. I am soon going to punch down and mold it into a free form and tomorrow, to see how it tastes. I am most curious about this one as it doesn´t have any commercial yeast, and the dough rose wonderfully. I am going to ask my neighbors to help me bake my bread in their wood-fired oven. Or I will lose my hard-worked dough. After all, for this one, it is going to be 10 days of watching, caring, kneading, and expecting.

October 2, 2011 - Pizza Passion Or Oven Anxiety

I had plans of building a brick oven using red earth as a mortar, just like many other cheap and common igloo-shaped ovens around here. But I remembered that the Baptist Church that runs an orphanage in the next town had an abandoned pre-molded oven. They once told me "it burned the bread". At that time, I thought that the oven was made with concrete. Only later I found out that they used a refractory concrete, which makes the oven perfectly usable. The same day I got the metal wood stove, I ran to the orphanage and asked for the oven. The pastor didn´t know the current price so couldn´t sell it right away. I had a price set on my mind, but for some reason, I had forgotten how much it costs in the store. A couple days later, I showed up and told him the price (R$390 for a brand new similar type). He sold me for R$150 and I offered him $20 extra to have it delivered the next day. I had also put a donation on my first visit. The whole adventure cost me R$210. But it doesn´t end there. The anxiety of trying out the oven (to see if it really burns the bread) and eating a homemade pizza, I had the carpenters who are fixing up my house to set my oven just for that occasion. I had rolled a heavy sewage concrete pipe to my yard and made a hole to hasten their job the following day. So they used red earth and cement as a mortar to glue the pieces together. So, I made pizza not only once, but three times on my improvised oven stand. A few accidents happened, such as the wooden piece I had placed under the oven (without isolating it with bricks) caught on fire, the whole Calabrese sausage onion pizza fell upside down on the dirt and serving some uncooked burned pizza with ashes on top for guests who were in a hurry. I got valuable lessons from it: can´t hurry the oven fire, can´t hurry the oven construction, and don´t walk around with a hot pan of Calabrese pizza. My oven is still on an improvised stand, and I guess, it is going to be a few more days (or weeks) to have it in a permanent place, under a firm brick stand, over a concrete pad. I have also bought a big roll of fiberglass used in refrigerators to place it around the igloo to insulate the heat. We don´t use this material/technique in Brazil, but I have seen on youtube, so I decided to include it on my oven construction. While I can´t use my igloo oven, I keep using my regular gas stove for baking.

October 2, 2011 - Wood Stove

The wood-fired oven is my latest passion. As a child, I used to see rustic brick made ovens in the countryside where women would make big free form loaves of bread. My mother never had one, the same way that she never made soaps, sausages, or cheese. All the nice things that were made back then. A few weeks ago, my new tenant and I traded a piece of tractor equipment for this antique stove. He said that he got it from the local Catholic church, but I have no idea how this kind of stove ended up in our region. We have a very hot climate around here, and a metal stove that works as a heater is unwanted. It is of my knowledge that European descent people own this kind of appliance in the South, where it gets cold in the winter. My aunt told me that my grandmother used to have one. In Brazil, the brick made stove is the most common. So I became curious about the metal stove and adopted it. But it came without a part of the chimney, which makes my baking almost impossible. Today, a woman from my church brought me a ceramic piece that may help to assemble the chimney. I am hoping for the best.