completely out of the blue, and with no signs of being pregnant, one of our lady hogs due for slaughter next week just gave birth to four piglets! they are healthy looking, although i’m concerned that the mother’s teats aren’t as swollen as the last few mothers i’ve witnessed. the piglets, however, look nothing like oprah’s milk-less and dying piglets i saw this past summer, so i will assume for now that all is well.
like a magnetic beacon at the end of an impossibly long tunnel, terra madre is actually approaching. thoughts, which have remained in the stratosphere for the last four months—as animals died, as the summer never stopped, and the piglets were born—thoughts which seemed surreal are now here. we leave for italy in five days.
let me back up.
slow food international: a most excellent global presence supporting local sustainable solutions, fairly and cleanly produced food, and healthful food access in all the most important places. it’s a global organization made up of increasingly more specific chapters by which to describe its members. individuals form communities, communities form regions, regions form countries, and so on.
example the me: jared, a (young) farmer living in athens, georgia (not far from atlanta), raises pasture livestock in the georgia piedmont, in the southeast united states, has many different ways of identifying with the international slow food community.
terra madre: every two years this community comes together in torino, italy, to debate, educate, share, and teach one another about the world’s many invaluable food cultures. almost half a year ago people from all around the world applied to become terra madre delegates and represent their homelands at this epic gathering.
it fills me with overwhelming joy to tell you that i will be attending terra madre as a usa delegate. besides myself, farm255’s head chef/four courseman matty, managing partner olivia, and my partner in tomfarmery sous farmer/chef francois, were also selected to represent. delegates gather from around the world, from hundreds of countries, each offering their own local perspective. the focus for ‘oh ten will be “cultural and linguistic diversities - in recognition of the need to defend minority ethnic groups and indigenous languages, and with an appreciation of the value of oral traditions and memory.” to learn more details about the conference please refer to the official description.
i leave wednesday night. and to turn this dream into an even larger fantasy, she’s meeting me on the tail end for a two week tour of italy. we’re hitting rome, florence, and venice* on our way through a handful of (magical sounding) tuscan farms and inns.
i can feel the momentum of terra madre building and sucking me in. it’s tentacles are billowing out of torino—expanding far and wide—and pulling it’s children in with its’ warm embrace. i see the salumi, and the pasta, and the vino della casa. i can taste it. i can see the fish mongers, the bakers, the scavengers, the musicians, the farmers, the pastry chefs, the students, and the butchers all around the world—i see them cracking that same smile i am, as they too are plucked away to italy…
to find your local slow food chapter in the usa: press there
to learn about terra madre press here
and to learn about the salone del gusto (the tasting room) which is the edible half of terra madre, read here.
and for athens folk who don’t know: the four coursemen are delicious
________________________________________________________
*comment below for any restaurant recommendations in the three cities
woah, boys. easy now.
while attempting to introduce our two new bulls to the herd (located several fence lines, over the hill, and halfway to grandma’s away), a lapse in one section of our temporary alley allowed the transferees to undermine the plans. one second they were in the alley, and the next second they were in full trot, in tandem, towards the farthest possible location they could find—the tree line, three hundred yards away.
son of a.
i can’t quite describe what these moments are like. not panicky, as you might guess. and compared to other moments, not really much urgency either. there’s just nothing you can do, besides wait and see what they do. no amount of sprinting, screaming, or freaking will solve your problems now.
after quickly eliminating our options, we landed on the idea of grabbing our trucks, and slowly herding them down the pasture and towards either a) the alley we had them in, or b) the same overnight holding pen they were in last night. either one will do at this point.
and it almost worked, too. after two three quarter way successful efforts, and a whole lot of sprinting, jogging, zigging, and cornering on my end, john ivy politely pointed out that i-between me and the bulls—was the only one getting tired. at that moment, i wished i could have traded all the power under my hood, for one real horse.
so we gave up. the two bulls, at last sighting, were napping in the woodline on the far end of their pasture. we closed off every exit except the one that leads to their holding pen from last night.
like a middle aged man luring school kids into his van with candy and balloons, we laced the holding paddock with a mound of sea kelp, a pile of alfalfa snacks, and the only access to water this side of seven thousand volts. the hope is they will enter, spend the night, and we can try this again in a day or two.
this is where we stand. to be continued.
____________________________
p.s. to me, the live action commentary to start the clip is hilarious in retrospect. at that moment i knew nothing. an hour and a half later i was red in the face, and defeated for the day.
this is as close as we come to some real deal, yee-haw, cowboy antics. a three hundred yard cow move, bringing the herd home to welcome the new arrivals. we are taking advantage of this moment of integration—new steers—to accomplish a couple other things on the list. one, we are sending them from one side of the farm, all the way to the opposite end of the pasture—grass they haven’t grazed in many months. secondly, we are providing the herd with an exercise on running everyone to home base. never a bad thing to master.
several hours of set up, fence checks, watering hose maneuvers, and alleyway modifications resulted in an icy smooth move. despite all human efforts, however, managing a mini-stampede still requires well mannered animals to prevent potential chaos.
watch the video, our guys are just having a blast.
i'm high on cooking ™ 2010
