Merlot Harvest 2012

A week ago today, we were busy harvesting 22 tons of Merlot grapes! Phew.

The vineyard management crew began at 4am - in the dark with little lights on their heads to find the grapes!  I don't have a light, so that was my excuse to wait until the sun was up!

Harvest day is always one of the best days of the year. It's such a grounding, connect to nature experience to be in the vines all day, reaping the fruit, surrounded by the noises and chatter....and there were ducks on the pond, a great blue heron and deer all watching on.

As well as the vineyard crew - 12 pickers plus two others driving the tractors and loading the fruit etc, we had four friends join us to help with pulling the leaves out of the bins. The 2 ton capacity bins are pulled through the vineyard as the guys throw the grapes in, and we stand on little planks of wood at the side, diving in to get out the leaves.  As a result of having 4 friends with us, I think our fruit is probably the cleanest in terms of no leaves of any harvested in California! We did such a great job.

The "4" also picked some of the left over Godello from the previous week, to sharpen their picking skills.

The harvest was nearly 3 weeks early for us this year.  And the fruit looked and tasted perfect. The right sugar levels, the right acidity - it just all came together.

And we had some lively conversations over the grape bins - and some interesting times, for example when Mike leaned in to the bottom of the bin to get some leaves, but his feet came off and he teeter-tottered on the edge, not being able to get back up! Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera at this stage!

At 10.30am we stopped for a brief break and then were all finished at 1pm, when it was time for a harvest lunch outside, followed by some grape stomping.  Only Jeremy and I were up for stomping - the others had pathetic excuses, I can tell you!!!!  But J and I had fun and I'm sure they were then all envious that they didn't have sticky legs!!!!

First time stomper nerves from Jeremy..."do I really want to do this????"

It has been suggested that we need to use a larger bucket!

Hopefully from the photos you can see what a fun time it was.  Are you ready to sign up to join in next year????

Healing Trees

As I mentioned last week, I am participating in the Ceres Cancer Journey event this Sunday in Santa Rosa.

I will be in the resource room, and for some of the time, I will be doing a short cooking demo.

I will be making these little "healing trees", a recipe that I developed myself.

They are made with green tea, almonds, dates, ginger, and lemon. I'll post the recipe here next week after the demo.

The healing qualities of these bite-size morsels include:  the green tea has excellent anti-cancer  properties and is high in anti-oxidants;  the ginger and dates both help to settle the stomach and calm digestive issues;  the lemon is a great source of anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals; and the almonds are a good source of easily digestible fiber, vitamins and minerals.

AND the cute shape of the trees lifts your spirits!

I hope if you are in the area that you will call by for the event and hear some wonderful speakers and experience nurturing, love and good food.

If you attend, do come and find me in the resource room.

Ceres Cancer Journey Event

I love the fall

Along with our grape harvest, we are harvesting other fruits and vegetables every day too.  Here is what we've picked this week:

Cherry tomatoes by the ton!

Godello grapes, rescued before stomping began!

John's prize home grown watermelon!

My favorite fruit - fresh green figs with jammy red centers!

I just love this time of year!

We still have apples and pears in the fridge, lots of quince on the tree and veggies on their way.....

What are you harvesting or enjoying in season right now?

Stand like you are happy!

The trouble with dairy

In US - average calcium intake 1,143mg.   Primary source dairy. Incidence of osteoporosis - Epidemic

In China - average calcium intake  544mg. Primary source veg.   Incidence of osteoporosis - Rare
* data from Study on Diet, Nutrition and Disease in the People's Republic of China.

More reasons to go dairy free:

 

 As you can see, for many people, dairy is not easy to digest. So especially if you are ill, giving up dairy can reduce  a big stress on your body. There are so many good alternatives. Give them a try.

Hazlenut truffles

I've been making truffles, as I mentioned in my triple bean truffle post.   By the way, the answer to what three beans were used in the triple bean truffle is coffee bean, cocao bean and black beans!......(but I don't tell anyone about the black beans as it puts them off)!  This time, I was thinking about Ferrero Rocher chocolates and decided to make a hazelnut truffle without dairy, refined sugar or gluten/wheat.

The truffles were (yes, they are no longer!) basically a whole hazelnut surrounded by a creamy delight (ground hazelnuts, coconut milk, raw cocao powder) and the rolled in more ground hazelnuts.

I found them to be very satisfying  - which is why they weren't around for long. I omitted the crispy crunchy outer layer that a Ferrero Rocher has but otherwise, they were pretty similar.

A good occasional treat that hit the spot!

(Mini) Grape Harvest

Linda and Stephen

Last week we harvested our Godello grapes.  We grafted this varietal on 300 vines a couple of years ago and so this is really our first harvest of any quantity of them.

Meta and Jane

Godello is a Spanish varietal of green grapes and not typically grown in the US - except here at Birdland!  We were asked to try growing it by a couple of local wine makers and it was pleasing to see a good crop for them to make our first US Birdland Godello wine.

Don - who later had a bad back!

Instead of using our usual vineyard management group to harvest these, we invited some friends to experience the fun as we were expecting only a ton or so.  However, the Godello were a little more difficult to harvest than we had imagined.

John

As bunches of grapes, they grow as a mass and are quite solid as a bunch - not individual grapes.  Most of the time you can't see where the top stalk is, where you want to cut the bunch off, and they get wound up in the wires and leaves....It therefore took us much longer than we expected to harvest the 1.5 tons.

Ken

We wore out our friends - and ourselves!  Even the harvest breakfast I made (which was all gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free) didn't quite leave us kicking up our heels! I think what would have been better would be to have had a massage therapist waiting for us all!

Tomorrow is the Big Grape Harvest, as opposed to the mini grape harvest. It is of our merlot grapes and we are expecting something like 20 tons!  It is earlier in October than usual for us - the grapes have ripened well.  

Fig Clafoutis

This time, our vineyard management crew will come in  - starting at 4am in the dark!  A few friends will help out by pulling out the leaves in the bins, but we won't be picking as we'd slow the crew down!

Kale puffs

Wish us luck for tomorrow!

Making Walnut Milk

I make almond milk every week for my husband and I....but this week has been busy and I keep forgetting to soak my almonds....and so it seemed the right time to try making Walnut Milk instead, because you don't need to soak walnuts first.

It is so simple and quick to make - and a wonderful source of omega 3 fatty acids.

Put 1 cup of organic walnuts and 3 cups of water in a high powered blender.

Blend on high for a couple of minutes.

Strain through a nut milk bag.

Store in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.

It's nice and creamy. Enjoy on cereal and as an alternative in recipes to dairy milks.

I like it as much as the almond one....maybe this will now become my new go-to non-dairy milk.  Have you tried it yet?  I've never seen it for sale.....

Triple bean truffle

I've been working on a recipe for a truffle that is healthy.  This one is gluten free, dairy free, and refined sugar free.

It's called "triple bean truffle" and your job is to guess the three beans that I use in the recipe!

I will be demonstrating a bite size morsel, probably not this one but something else at an event this month at Ceres Community Project in Sebastopol.

The event is the Second Annual Cancer Journey: Nuturing ourselves, Loving ourselves.  The keynote speaker is Michael Lerner, the President and Cofounder of Commonweal, who will present on "Intentional Healing with Cancer".

I heard Michael a couple of weeks ago at the Annie Appleseed conference and cannot recommend him highly enough.  His talk there was wonderful, so whether you have cancer or not, I urge you to come and hear him talk at this event.  There is lots more going on at the event too so check out the info page and sign up.  Hope to see you there.

Harvest and Food as medicine

It's been a busy week this week.  As well as many of my usual things, I started two new "Food as Medicine" groups this week, AND we harvested our Godello grapes in the vineyard! More on the harvest soon.

The two new "Food as Medicine" groups were on Tuesday and Thursday. Each group consists of 9 women, and we will meet once a month.  This month we looked at some of the benefits of eating a whole foods plant-based diet, with a focus on the benefits of avoiding dairy in our diets.

After some time in discussion, we donned our aprons in the kitchen and went about making and tasting the following:

• almond milk
• brown rice milk
• oat milk
• cashew cream
• whipped coconut cream
• soft cashew cheese
• cheese sprinkles
• cheese cake

all without any dairy or animal products in sight!

Sadly we were so involved, I forgot to take any photos!  

The recipes for the milks are already on this blog, as is the recipe for the cashew nut cheese.

The cheese sprinkles were a great hit.  They are a non-dairy alternative to parmesan cheese or other types of cheese that you may sprinkle on caesar salad, vegetables, or pasta or....  The recipe came from the book "Let them eat vegan" and here is a link to the vegan parmesan cheese recipe by Dreena Burton.

The cheesecake went down very well, so I'll have to make that again and take some photos to share with you.

I really enjoyed our time together, and hope they all did too.  Looking forward to next month already.

Food coupons for fruit and veg

How refreshing!  Publix supermarket - (a supermarket in the south of US which we used to go to when we lived in Florida), have been offering money off coupons at their stores for produce!  I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Normally the food coupons you get stuffed in your Sunday newspaper give money off highly processed foods.  But these latest coupons are for any fruits or vegetables, including organic produce.

A great way to encourage people to eat more fruit and vegetables and less processed foods.

I hope some other supermarkets follow their example.  Well done Publix.

Health benefits of flax seeds

Here's a short video from nutritionfacts.org about adding more flax into your life (!) and its benefits: from extending your menstrual cycle, to being a great source of omega 3 fatty acids, to reducing breast cancer risk,  to controlling prostate enlargement......

I often use them as a substitute for eggs - 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed with 3 tablespoons of water is the equivalent to one egg. Leave the mixture for a few minutes until it goes gooey, then use it in place of  eggs in baking.



It's best to eat flaxseeds ground. If you eat them whole, they will likely just pass through your system.  Store them in an air tight container to reduce oxidation of the oils and try adding them to your cereal and baked goods.  Also, see last week's blog post of making flaxseed milk!

What's your favorite way to incorporate flaxseeds into your diet?

The language of flowers - Part II

Following from yesterday's blog post about my book club gathering to discuss "The language of flowers" by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, you may have guessed it, but the other flower themed dessert I made was  a  roulade. Yes, it's been nearly two weeks since I've made a roulade!!! Had to get one in sometime!  This one was a rose and strawberry roulade.

As usual the dessert is refined sugar free, gluten free and dairy free. The rose flavoring comes from rose water added to the cream (whipped coconut cream).  Also in the cream are some strawberries and some chewy freeze dried strawberries from my sister.  They add a lovely texture to it.

Of course, it had to be decorated with edible rose petals.

The meaning of roses in the language of flowers varies depending on the color of the rose.

Burgundy rose - unconscious beauty
Moss rose - confession of love
Orange rose - fascination
Pale peach rose - modesty
Pink rose - grace
Purple rose - enchantment
Red rose - love
White rose - a heart unaquainted with love
Yellow rose - infidelity.

I chose a pink rose - for grace.

We had a great discussion about the book and flowers and foster care and many other things.  I made each of them a tied little bunch of flowers to take home with them.  The flowers I chose from the garden were:
sedum - for tranquility
sage - for good health and long life
marjoram - for blushes - with the hope that they feel young enough to still blush!

Click here for a printer friendly recipe for Rose Roulade