Simplicity Can Work

I agree with Mary's comment  that we should be concerned about what we put on our skin, as well as what we put in our mouths. I ran my lotions and beauty potions through the Cosmetic Database (of doom). I discovered that it is highly likely that under one of those purple crime-scene lights I will glow a brilliant green.

Why are these products loaded with toxins we don't need? Do we really need all these ingredients to help us look and feel good? For years, people worldwide have used natural oils, such as olive, coconut, marula, and argan, as moisturizers and hair elixirs with great success. I'm not sure why we've moved so far away from simple. I'm just as guilty as the next person, until I travel, and then I use next to nothing. For instance, this past year, my family and I were on the move for five months. I took along a product we made using beeswax (from our beehives) and olive oil. It's a thick, rich balm.

It was exciting to use something made from only two ingredients (the fact that we made it was also key). Not to turn this into some sort of infomercial for our balm, but the Cosmetic Database has brought this all to mind so I feel like sharing. Our balm (so far I haven't read anything that says it wouldn't pass government regulators) works and, according to friends and family, its basic ingredients are working wonders. One friend used it to rid her baby of a small patch of eczema. Another shared it with a family member who is going through chemo; the simple ingredients are the only thing her ultra-sensitive, very dry skin can handle. Seasonal drying and cracking of skin around fingernails, heels, elbows, and lips have all been relieved by the balm. I'm tickled by the feedback. Simplicity works.


Which brings me back to my question: Why is it necessary to include so many ingredients (and if the Cosmetic Database is to be believed, so many toxic ingredients) in these beauty products? Shelf life? Antibacterial properties? I don't know. I just know that our little tins, containing two nontoxic ingredients, are showing results. Is all the extra stuff gimmick? And do we really need cleansers, toners, exfoliators, scrubs, and specific lotions for every body part before capping it all off with a collection of makeup products? When we think about what is good for our bodies (inside and out), the environment, and our wallets, it may be a good idea to step back and think about what we really need. Maybe if we did use fewer of these products we would be suffering from fewer allergies, skin problems, and the like, not to mention that our wallets would be fatter. I'm certainly guilty of falling for the claims—it happens every time I walk down a store's beauty aisle or flip through a magazine. I want my hair to be less frizzy and my skin to look like it did when I was 20. Fat chance. Yet, I know that, when I step away from it all and travel, my skin and hair tend to look pretty good. Of course, there was that one bus ride in Ecuador when I looked positively green, but that's another story.

Meat the Frankenbirds (part 2): A Photo Essay

Text by Graham
Photos by Katharine

Dad seizes a chicken!
The first to meet his handcrafted cone of silence.

Dad puts the chicken in the cone head first.
Then he pulls the head out through the bottom of the cone.

The chicken's legs (and his head at the other end)
are the only parts that stick out of the cone.

Next, we boiled a pot of water to dip the
dead chickens in to loosen their feathers.

After the chickens' feathers were loosened,
we brought them over to a makeshift table to pluck them.

We made sure every feather was off the bird.

Now the chickens were ready to be gutted.

Some of the "delicious" innards. Yum!!!! (he's kidding)

He tried to escape but we put a lid on him.
Chicken foot soup (okay, we just used them to make stock).

After hours of work, Mom prepared the chicken for the grill.
We can't wait for a taste.

A silly image of Katharine enjoying her favorite treat:
Grilled chicken feet.

Beautiful me. Beautiful bird.

Chicken liver pate.
This was so good!

Am I going to be next?


Please note: My mother didn't help with any of this (except for preparing the bird for the grill).
I think she's too chicken to face her chickens.

How We Compost

I used to be just like Therese and Peter, never wasting a bit of food. That is until we started keeping laying hens. Now, we toss them the potato and carrot peels, sandwich crusts not eaten by our children's friends, eggshells, and even coffee grounds. In the old days, I would have felt guilty for not turning that last slice of bread into breadcrumbs. Now I just think about how that slice will turn into an egg.

Before: Scraps from cooking and meals.
Giving our chickens coffee grounds with the hopes of creating the first Egg McZoomZoom.

After: It took our girls 10 minutes to peck the ground clean.
We use this "composted" soil in our garden.

Nothing is wasted.

Give Her a Foot

It has been documented that (while traveling) our children are adventurous eaters. Give Katharine a plastic baggie filled with fried pig bits and hominy and she'll be silent for 20 minutes. Fluorescent-colored foam in a cone? Graham is there. Their eating of the unusual extends to animals and insects that the rest of us might cuddle with or step on. Their been there, ate that list includes such creatures as, guinea pigs, ants, and termites, as well as whole lambs, cow innards, and various pig parts. When we returned home from our travels in South and Central America I had to set some boundaries, so to speak, that included no eating of residential ants and termites (who knows what poisons they're filled with) and the refusal to start raising guinea pigs for home consumption. Needless to say, I was a little taken aback during dinner the other night when Katharine put down her fork and said, "That's it. I'm not eating anymore. There is a caterpillar in my broccoli." Drat. I thought I had found them all.

In between bites, Graham says, "You know, I ate a worm once. It really isn't such a big deal"; and then resumed eating his dinner. Huh? OK, now I remember us eating all that other stuff, but for the life of me I couldn't remember ever eating a worm.

"Really? A worm? Where?" I asked.

"Oh, when Jack and I went fishing at the pond. We had one left over, it was little and pretty clean so I ate it. I think Katharine should eat that caterpillar. It's from our garden and it's cooked."

"No, I don't feel like it."

"I think you're chicken."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not! I just don't feel like eating a caterpillar now. Leave me alone!" And so went our quiet dinner.

Since returning home we've noticed that Katharine has turned into a picky eater, refusing to even try some foods based on nothing we can figure out. And I'm not talking about anything weird either. Roasted or mashed butternut squash receives a big 'no way, no thank you' yet she loves sweet potatoes. Green peppers cooked with tomatoes (both her absolute favorites as individual items) gets a fork poke and a squint-eyed once over. We're not sure if this is a phase she's going through or not. Although we don't pressure her, we can't help but ask how she could lick up lemon ants and devour guinea pig ears yet refuse to eat cooked zucchini.

Was it travel and our pronouncement before we left that everyone had to try the different foods we would encounter—no wrinkled noses or "eeww" noises—that caused her to taste and eat everything? Was it her shear competitive nature and desire to beat her brother in everything? Maybe this return to picky eating is her way of taking back control? Maybe I shouldn't be so hung up about this. Maybe this is a control thing and I'm the one with the problem? If that's the case, tough cookies. I will continue being in control and cooking the foods she refuses (we harvested over 100 pounds of squash this year, what choice do I have?) and will continue giving her a few bites of each (minus the caterpillars, of course). I'm sure one day her taste buds will turn.

Which brings me back to dinner last night. Katharine came into the kitchen to help cook. I let her poke around the broccoli looking for caterpillars while I prepared the chicken that Andrew and Graham had butchered earlier. Katharine stopped searching the broccoli for a moment and looked around the kitchen, "Hey, where are all the feet? There should be 12, right? Is Dad grilling them?" she peeked outside to check. "Oh good, I'm so in the mood for some grilled chicken feet." Okay, I surrender.


For more on our family and food, visit our South American travel blog.

Getting Here From There

So our friends (the ones with the now dead chickens) were traveling in California for 10 days in October. The first four days they spent in and around the Mohave Desert driving motorbikes and camping. I received a crackBerry message from one of them that sounded like she was close to having a come to Geezus moment but the lack of private showers (she was the only woman) kept her on this side of sanity. From the desert, they flew north to San Francisco, where they rented motorbikes and tootled around northern Cal. I was jealous. Not of the motorbike part, but of the traveling in and around San Francisco part. Their trip got me thinking about how we arrived here—thousands of miles from the city I love the most—on this little farm, on a tiny spit of land between two waters.

It was a joint choice to leave SF, but mostly mine to head east. We were renting a house in the fog belt and were totally ready to buy, only there was one tiny problem: We didn't have enough cash to get us a place in the neighborhoods we liked. We're talking Riviera tastes on a Six Flags budget.

I had given birth to Katharine months earlier and was not in the best frame of mind. While Andrew trotted off to work on the other side of town basking in sunlight, the kids and I spent the summer in dreary fog, bundled up in turtlenecks and fleece. So one September morning, when I woke to see the sun shining brightly, I bounded out of bed and told Andrew I was going for a quick walk to the bakery and would bring back a fresh baguette. It was a glorious morning. Brilliantly clear, crisp and unusually quiet. I returned home by 6:30 am to the sweet sounds of Andrew and Graham chatting in the kitchen and the phone ringing. I was so high from my walk that the early morning call didn't phase me. I picked up and found my sister on the line. "Turn on the TV," she said, "a plane flew into the World Trade Center. The buildings collapsed." What? The sun was shining. It was a perfect morning. This didn't make sense.

As the week progressed and we learned that our cousin, who we were heading east to see in three days, never made it out of the building, I suddenly started feeling very far from home. I wanted to be back east where our families were. It was a decision totally based on emotion. A month later Andrew made another decision: He was quitting his job and would join me working from home. Scary thought, but the extreme politics and greed in his dot com office had finally gotten to him. Plus, he really wanted to spend more time with the kids. After some careful thought, we decided we could make the necessary sacrifices, learn to live with less, and be our own bosses.

But where would we live? I had proven that one could work from home successfully as long as there was an Internet connection. For several years I had worked with a company based in New York while I was surrounded by San Francisco fog. Moving back to New York City didn't interest either of us—we wanted our kids to grow up with some space. Neither did moving to Cape Cod where Andrew's parents were (winters and tourist season would be hell) or upstate New York where my parents were (winter, again). So Andrew starting googling and found a house that seemed to fit all our basic desires on Virginia's Eastern Shore. It didn't seem to matter that neither of us (in spite of living a year in DC) had ever heard of the Eastern Shore. The house called to us. So we checked it out. We spoke to the previous owners. We poked around the area. Next thing we know we were moving to the country. So here we are, seven years later. Our kids have space. They are learning about where their food comes from...like at this very moment. And now I suppose I'll come clean. I'm writing this as a way to remove myself from what's going on outside. That would be the Frankenbirds meeting the machete. I'm clearly not as brave or right-minded as Therese (see Killing Chickens At Home: Would You Do It? (PHOTOS). I couldn't end a bird's life, but I will cook her later. I'm just happy that the kids are out there helping. That should count for something. Right?

Meat the Frankenbirds

This summer I finally read The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Ethics of What We Eat. I was temporarily put off my feed. Yes, I know I read these books long after everyone else. I kept shelving them because, I guess, I knew how they would end — the girl is put off the corn chips and is totally denied the cow. There could be no happy ending unless a state of pure vegetarianism was achieved. Talk about off-putting.

Seriously, I get it. The way our food is produced is atrocious and I understand that most Americans don't have a clue. It's sad. When our children's friends come over and they look at a fresh egg as if it were poison I begin to wonder about where they are coming from. Anyway, both Andrew and I read these books and then spent a weekend on a farm that is part of an international agritourism business (we were invited—read free—guests of the company owner). This particular farm was located in upstate NY. It's a cool place and we were totally into what the couple were doing—farming and raising kids sustainably. It was a lovely organic picture that I am most certain did not include Tyson chicken fingers in the freezer or Ho-Hos in the cupboard. Don't get me wrong, our kitchen contains neither as well. Hey, do Snickers count?

Anyway, aside from their grass-fed, free-range cattle, sheep, and pigs, they also had an assortment of fowl. After reading the two books mentioned earlier, raising our own meat birds was high on our list. So we (Andrew) asked about the butchering of the chickens and was then taken step-by-step through the process. Fascinating. Yeah. I'm a total hypocrite when it gets right down to it. I will raise the animals, cook them, and talk up a storm about the importance of eating locally and if possible, organically, but really have no desire to ever butcher an animal. This is up to Andrew, who proclaimed seven years ago that if he couldn't kill it, he didn't deserve to eat it. This is why I love the man.

When we got back to our own small farm I started to investigate meat birds and called my favorite chicken place: Murray McMurray Hatchery. Turns out I was looking for the Jumbo Cornish X Rocks. So I placed an order for 10 (combining it with some Rhode Island Reds to help boost the kids' egg business). Before hanging up, I asked the operator if there was anything special I needed to know about the Jumbos. Her instructions were straightforward: separate them from the other chicks after two weeks because they are mean. Start them on a finishing feed, and then, very nonchalantly, she slips in that I should place their water at one end of the pen and their food at the other, so, you know, they would be forced to get up and move. She wrapped it up with: They'll be ready to butcher in about eight or nine weeks. WTF?

Over the last six years we've raised a number of egg layers, none of whom would have been finger lickin' good at eight weeks. Even after a year our egg layers were not something you'd plan a meal around. It suddenly dawned on me: I had ordered Frankenbirds! My summer reading horror list mentioned these birds, and now here I was, buying them. What had I done? I wanted to call Murray back and cancel my order, but a little voice in me clucked, "Oh c'mon, don't be chicken. It's not like you're going to pump them up with hormones and antibiotics. Let 'em ride..."

The day the chicks arrived we compared them with the reds. Aside from their color, they looked just like any other day-old bird. The first sign we had that they were different was about four days into the project when they started feathering—it was as if they hit puberty at age 6. By a week, the Frankenbirds were remarkably bigger. By two weeks they were easily double the size of the reds. Six weeks later, they are plump and round making the reds look undernourished. We tried separating them with straw bales but they hopped over powered by their big legs. When it's cold, the reds nestle under the Frankenbirds' wings. It's kind of creepy but they all seem quite happy. It's nearly time for the reds to move outside and be with their sisters. When we do this I'll start the Frankenbirds on the finishing feed (a high-protein, all vegetarian pellet). Yes, I know I haven't followed Murray's instructions but they're looking good. Stay tuned, butchering day is in two weeks (Andrew bought a knife from the local bait shop): Will the Frankenbirds be tender to the bone or just another rubber chicken?

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It's mid-October and the red stuff in the thermometer seems to have stalled at 42. That's not right. We live in what I'd call southern Virginia. Temperatures are usually in the 60s or 70s this time of year. This unusual cold snap, combined with four days of driving rain, has caught us totally off guard. October is usually spent cleaning up the garden, preparing the house and outbuildings for winter, and, with any luck, pulling in a second harvest of honey from our two hives. (I will get into our bees in a later post.) All of this has been put on hold, temporarily, I hope.

We live in a 113-year-old farm house. The place is hardly what you'd call air-tight and heating it is a costly nightmare. To save money we try to hold off as long as possible before turning on the furnace. We're a little chilly right now to say the least. I'm sitting here dressed in several layers, topped off by my fleece bathrobe with our puppy tucked inside (I kid you not, he's wrapped himself around my waist like a belt). I look like a hobo minus those fingerless gloves, which I'm beginning to think would be a good investment. Andrew just brought me some coffee, I took a sip and the steam fogged up my glasses. Last week it was 75.

That's right, 75. Andrew was finally able to start and finish the re-roofing of our chicken coop. He pounded the last nail in moments before the wind changed direction and the rain started. At least the girls are cozy. As for the garden, I have to assume the peas and broccoli are doing a little dance of happiness for the dip in temperature, but the peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini are all whinging. We had an amazing summer harvest and were able to "put up" plenty of vegetables for winter so I'm okay with hot-weather plants calling it quits, but still. There is plenty of clean up to be done. The garlic needs to be planted.

Meanwhile, on my neighbor's farm there is a little trouble. They are away for 10 days and have left our children in charge of their chickens. In their barn they have some month-old blackstar chicks which will be placed in their outdoor coop once they are fully feathered and have a little meat on their bones to keep them warm. Outside in their coop they have an assortment of older hens plus seven Rhode Island red pullets that we started for them two months ago. Before they left on their trip they added the fully feathered pullets to their coop. I would have done the same thing—this time of year the weather is sunny and plenty warm for young birds. Anyway, this surprise cold snap took its toll. The older hens handled it without a feather out of place. Unfortunately, the pullets all perished, wet and cold to the bone. Not sure when we'll tell our neighbors. Not the kind of news you want from home while on vacation.

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What the heck is urbal tea?

A little over a year ago, I started compiling a list called "Why Bother?" which attempted to chronicle all the things--both big and small--my husband, Peter, and I were doing in our Brooklyn home to try to counteract what seemed like the inexorable destruction of the planet.

I called the list "Why Bother?" both to acknowledge the helplessness I felt, and to provide a response to those feelings. As post-middle aged people (Peter retired in 2007; I have a few years left to work, if I could find some!), we made it a priority to redefine how to live in the world, if only for the sake of our grandchildren.

My friend Louise, who at the time was working with me on a magazine start-up (that crashed and burned soon after the October 2008 market collapse), talked about these issues with me all the time. She and her husband, Andrew, come at these questions from a different perspective: they live on a family farm in rural Virginia and raise two school-aged children, Graham and Katharine.

But despite our urban-rural and age differences, we share common interests: serious travel (last year Peter and I took a four-month trip to Australia and New Zealand, while Louise and Andrew took their kids out of school for the year and spent half of it living and traveling in South America); serious gardening (even though we have a postage stamp back yard and they live on a farm); and serious cooking (not fancy but principled). We also share common values: respect for the Earth; a love of culture and cultural differences; a respect for the (well) written word; a belief in the common good.

Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand

Over the years I've pulled Louise into my work projects, which tend to focus on technology in education. And while it's a perfectly respectable topic and she doesn't turn down the work, she keeps asking me: Can't you get on a magazine that covers gardening or travel or cooking? I wish.

Well, why wish? Fact is, the economics of publishing today mean that we're never going to start our own traditional magazine (if Conde Nast had to close Gourmet, there's no hope for any of us). But why let that keep us back from writing on the things that we feel passionately about? Andrew, who is by far the cleverest of the four of us (but don't tell him I said so), came up with the name of the blog. Urb[an] [rur]al Tea [a blend, where city meets country]. (Or, as he says, "If you have to be so literal, you don't deserve the title.")

I promised I'd write the first entry—and I admit that it's a little serious, but it's hard to get something started with the exact right tone. (I predict that Louise and Andrew will be smart-ass funny, Peter will be deadly serious, and I'll try to be funny and only sometimes succeed.)

The intent is to share the ways we're trying to figure out how to live responsibly and take pride of ownership, at least, of the small patch of Earth we're given the privilege to inhabit. It's a conversation we invite you to join.

Peter in our Brookyn garden

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