Circle M Farm

Michael Perry kicks off his memoir Truck: A Love Story on a pile of sheep manure the size of a yurt. Then Chapter 2 begins with an absolutely delectable recipe. This method of making tomato sauce and stock is attributed to Tom Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef a few pages later, but here is Perry’s version:

I roasted [the tomatoes] in a deep pan with salt, olive oil, cloves of unshucked garlic, and sprigs of thyme. You ladle off the juice every twenty minutes or so and freeze it for a sweet, delicate stock best consumed during snowstorms. The residual pulp gathers body from the garlic and spirit from the thyme. The spent garlic, when squeezed warmly from its husk directly upon your tongue, will slacken your face and make you shimmy.

My gosh! I know it’s January and I lost a whole season of fresh tomatoes to late blight this past summer, but I’d just about give an entire chest freezer of pork and beef to be able to make that right now.

This being my first official day of winter (the final work of fall feels to us as though it rolls on, building in intensity, until the tremendous release of Christmas Day – meat harvested, meat delivered, presents made, presents finally opened ), I’ve just woken up, made the fire and thrown myself onto a couch nearby to snuggle up for a delicious read. The book I’ve chosen for this special morning is, finally, Michael Perry’s Truck: A Love Story. This book has been so often recommended to me over the past few years, I feel like I’m in the closing scene of a romantic comedy with the boy next door I stubbornly ignored but everyone knew was perfect for me. continued »

As I eagerly anticipate my freezer packed full of pork and beef by next Monday, I’m suddenly looking at the ubiquitous pile of gift catalogues with fresh eyes. I’m drawn to all the slow-cooker gadgets and fancy knives and even just bought a new gravy separator for myself for Christmas. Here’s a really good-looking recipe I tore out of the Williams-Sonoma temptation rag:

Steak and Mushroom Stew (featuring chuck roast AND bacon!) continued »

Those of you who’ve been reading along lately have doubtless ascertained that gathering up animals for hauling is just about my least favorite part of this farm adventure. Nevertheless, that dreaded task is generally accomanied by one of my favorites – working with our little butcher shops to decide what cuts we’ll choose from each animal harvested. Every year at this time, I pull out The Joy of Cooking and Julia Child to review the meat diagrams and re-read the beef, pork and lamb recipe sections. I also dig out the pile of recipes I’ve ripped out of magazines and printed off the web to try when I’ve got all my cuts available to me. In addition, I consult with my regular customers about what preferences they have. Then I call the butcher and make it happen – continued »

Well, the best thing I can say about today’s steer-hauling task is that it’s over. 5 hours later. continued »

O my o my. Just when we think we’re out of the woods on getting our final winter-harvest animals out of their pastures and off to their meat lockers, we run into some other ginormous roadblock. This time it’s a literal one – nearly two feet of snow that fell slick and heavy overnight. Our finished steers, scheduled to be processed tomorrow morning, were beautifully cooperative wading into the trailer through the drifts tonight. But then we had a touch-and-go exit from the field, sticking then skidding, trying to get the truck and heavy load out of the wide-open gate and around the sharp turn onto our skinny dirt road while keeping our curious young steers in the pasture. All this while avoiding the ravine on the opposite side! How could anyone imagine that farming is boring? We go from one adventure to another around here. And we do a lot of yelling. continued »

We experienced a minor, but significant, victory on the hog front this morning. After going 4 days without food, one of the remaining hogs finally braved the ramp up to the trailer and went all the way to the back to reuinte with the stainless steel gravity feeder. As usual, we are unsure to what we can attribute our success. In the end, the brave gilt was probably won over by a combination of extreme hunger and the fact that we sacrificed our Thanksgiving leftovers on the floor of the trailer, just inside the door. I’d do just about anything for Sage Thyme Stuffing, too. Perhaps the key to triumphant hog loading is to let yourself think like a pig. Once she gobbled up the tasty mess, which I’d topped with broken raw eggs, it was just a short trip inside to where Shannon was furiously banging the lid of the feeder. Hallelujah. We feel certain the final three will follow her in shortly.

Our final farm task every autumn is getting the livestock from our various pens and pastures gathered up and delivered to favorite local butchers. Simple as it sounds, this is a puzzle of mighty proportions for us, made freshly complicated each year by the unique quirks and personalities of individual animals. This year is no exception. continued »