Starting Over

For a whole day, yesterday, I had warm and fuzzy feelings. We were incubating eggs and we would be hearing the heart melting "cheep cheep" that only chicks can speak. 


Last night we arrived home to discover our incubator heater had spiked and now the internal temp was 110 degrees. It is supposed to be 100 degrees and a variation more than .5 in either direction is as far from 100 as it can get. These eggs were toast. 


I am sad and almost didn't want to share this "bad news" but y'all are here for the reality of farm life. These things happen. 


ZinFarmerChefJeff and I came to the same conclusion as to the "why". It took over 9 hours for the eggs to come up to the temperature of 100, but the heater apparatus was "set" to heat, so once the eggs reached that 100 degrees, the very un-user-friendly, non fuzzy-logic low tech heating unit just kept cranking out the heat. 


Today's plan: load up the incubator with the eggs at the same time (around 11pm) and then tomorrow during the day, leave the office several times to come home and check on them. I am also going to see if I can find a better heating source as this one is so wonky that it is a miracle the damn thing even works!


I will continue to say I am sorry, thank you and farewell to the little eggs that were on their way to becoming chicks, but didn't.  

Playing God in the Kitchen

We are so excited to be getting our equipment set up to start a batch of eggs in the incubator. We took a long break after our last incubation in 2010. That batch of eggs failed to develop and I have finally discovered why. The temperature gauge I had was incorrect and the eggs never had a chance.

Here are all of the eggs I can choose from. I am going for the ones in the bowl with the towel.  They are the cleanest and have the truest colors. I skipped the olive/khaki eggs in favor of the nice browns, whites and green/blues.

I have cleaned up the incubator and now it is all shiny again. The little eggs have a better chance of being healthy chickens. More details to come!

The Visitation of the Starlings

The last blog I posted was October 28th...two days before I broke my ankle in New Orleans. HOWEVER, I am going to skip over that story to share the video I shot today.


FarmerChefBuilder Jeff and I started noticing the annual gathering of the starlings over the last few days.Today they came into the backyard, creating a deafening wall of sound. I ran out with the camera and caught some in flight. Enjoy!


A side note about the birds:  European Starlings were Introduced as part of a plan to introduce to the U.S. all birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. They crowd out native birds (bluebirds, titmice, nuthatches, swallows, wrens; sometimes even American kestrels, flickers, acorn woodpeckers) and can destroy crops.  *See National Invasive Species Information Center of the USDA. 

Southern Trip 2011 - Clarksdale, MS & Delta Divertissement

To pick up where we left off...we left NOLA on Tuesday morning after a spectacular breakfast at Mother's. We drove across Lake Pontchartrain and then north up to Mississippi. On our way we stopped at various antique stores (didn't find anything there) and then just high-tailed it to our serene place in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  I can't put my finger on what makes it so special. Maybe it is the quiet, the stillness, only to be broken by the flock of birds that live in the big bush. I wish I could tell you where it is, but they are getting all the business they can handle. 

A Mississippi Delta Bottle Tree in Clarksdale, MS

 We went out to dinner at our favorite little place in Clarksdale for Delta Tamales and barbecue pork ribs, Abe's. We had discovered this place and eaten here several times before we heard the story of the owners. They are descendants of Lebanese "peddlers", so named because they sold their wares off of their bicycles.

More Delta Tamales from Abe's with no extra chile or cheese

Delta Tamales from Delta Fast Food in Cleveland, MS

Once in Greenwood  I was on a mission to try the famous pie at Crystal Grill. Okay, this seemed like a good idea at the time. Apparently Jeff was still on his tamale quest. The pie was a chocolate meringue and the meringue tasted like toasted marshmallows!

 Lunch at the Viking demonstration kitchen was amazing. Made with free range quail by Chef Nick of Giardina's in Greenwood, MS

True Southern Hospitality - A stunning cocktail buffet set up on a blueberry farm. 

Pinwheel Pickled Okra and Cream Cheese Sandwiches. Delicious!

 We were fed wonderful vegetables grown by and in the garden of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Greenwood.

Progressive Dinner of Chicken and sides

My Dinner plate - Okra, Chicken, Greens

Delta Shrimp and Grits at Delta Bistro, Greenwood

The Southern Foodways Symposium Lunch - Korean/Southern Bento Boxes - Incredible!

My new favorite cheese from Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Southern Trip 2011 - New Orleans & Chef's Collaborative

 

We are on our annual trek to The South. We love it here. Phase One: our free days until the Chefs Collaborative Summit '11 begins. Our first full day in New Orleans, LA (NOLA) started with lunch at Napoleon House. The place is dripping with ambiance. Take a look at the walls. I really don't think it has been painted for 75 years! It is a little touristy, but there are locals to give the place an authentic feel. We had a quarter of a muffaletta, the classic New Orleans sandwich with provolone cheese, salami and a great olive mix. 

 We got out of the "Quarter" as soon as we could (not a big fan of crowds) and went straight to our favorite "rusty/dusty" antique yard right off of Magazine Street in upper Garden District/lower Uptown. We bought the kettle in the picture along with some other cool props and metal crates that we will have to ship home. I don't think we can carry that home in luggage!

 Phase Two: We took advantage of the Chef's Collaborative Summit while in NOLA. Little did we know it would include a 3 hour bus ride. (The theme of Gilligan's Island kept floating through my head..."a 3 hour tour".) First stop: a rice farmer who, along with his wife, also raises crawfish in the same rice fields, Frey Crawfish . They are very "green" and sustainable. Above is the photo of the mudbug (crawfish) sorting machine he created.

 These are the push boats he had made. The workers push the boat and walk through the rice fields scooping crawfish. The way this used to be done was with a motorized boat which not only was burning fossil fuel, it also destroyed the crawfish due to fuel and oil in the water.

 Here is a bag of their crawfish. They explained that the yellow tint is from crawfish fat, which as we all know, fat equals flavor. It just kills me that this is so readily available in stores in Louisiana...but not near us!

 Here is one of the Mama Mudbugs just loaded with eggs. She will drop a couple hundred eggs.

 We then hopped on the bus and went out to look at the 2nd rice crop. As you can see, they treated us to true Southern Hospitality and supplied ice cold beer.

 Our stop at Prejean's in Lafayette was incredible. What you see on my plate: a crawfish pie and crawfish etouffee (smothered crawfish). At the top of the photo you can see Boudin Balls, tasty sausage rice fritters with a creole remoulade sauce.

We stopped at a little grocery/butcher along side the freeway, Don's Specialty Meats, that is most famous for cracklin's, which are not to be confused with fried pork skin. Cracklin's still have a little bit of meat...Most folks I have talked to said that they couldn't help but eat a full pound bag of them on their way home. Fear not...we at a couple of them, and no more. We did, however, buy some local andouille sausage and tasso ham. As you can see from the photo above, I was surprised to find stuffed catfish available, too. Dang...they have some of the most amazing food so readily available.

The collaborative wanted to make sure we were paying attention. What better way to do that? Give us amazing sandwiches (muffaletta & banh mi) from Cochon Butcher . I don't think I have ever had a better banh mi!

I think my favorite part of the conference was the Italian-style hog butchering class at Domenica. We watched the very talented Chef Alon. He lived in Parma, Italy and studied  the Italian method of butchery and sausage making/meat curing. It was fascinating to see him cut the pig up in a new way, well, new to us. We also learned about the heritage pig that he raises for the cured meats. I couldn't find my notes but know that it is on
the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's list. I can't heap enough praise on the class and the meats. They were both incredible!



Phase 3 & 4 - next post!