If you love bees...

 If you love bees... or eating food in general (without bees there would be almost nothing to eat, except maybe Soylent Green), then here's something you need to know about.

The bees are disappearing.  Even The Doctor knew it was important.  As weird as they are, bees aren't actually aliens (probably), but rather are a vital part of our ecosystem.  Not an ecosystem, but our as in the Human ecosystem that we depend on for survival.  Bees make the plants go happy (reproduce) which in turn participates to our breathing and eating abilities.  There are places in the world without bees, and they suffer.  It is unlikely that the amount of physical labour involved in living without bees could produce enough calories to sustain the population needed to produce that labour.

So basically, no bees quickly leads to no humans, or very few of us surviving, probably not you or me.  Even if we were only to loose the plants requiring direct bee intervention to stimulate their sexlife, then the other plants, the ones that don't need bees for all or any of their pollination would suffer.  Out of those plants we eat (or can eat) as humans, many of the ones that do not rely on bees, rely on human labour.  So reduction in food, leads to reduction in population, leads to a reduction of human labour... which will mean less food...  On top of that, the plants that don't require bees, do require plants that require bees for long term survival.  For example, bigger plants protect smaller ones from extreme weather and capture (and slow the release of) water, which limits the extremes the smaller plants need to endure.  Smaller plants die off quicker, creating better soil conditions, but they also have lovely root systems that are good for reducing erosion, protecting the soil from extreme temperature fluctuations... and so on ad infinitum.  No bees means a good chunk of that sustainable system is lost, which puts more stress on the rest of the system, which soon leads to less food for humans... It's more complex than many of these 'what if there weren't any bees' theories take into account.  We can extend the time humans survive through chemicals, however, it appears that this technique only works as a short term solution, and actually reduces the capacity of the land to support food growth over the long term... and, in theory, long term survival of our species should be important to us.

We need to do something about this.

Here's something:

This is a beehive.  What's really neat about it, and why it captured my interest is that it combines really old and really new technology together to create something more accessible and functional than the modern or ancient technology can do on it's own.

It's called an Open Source Beehive and it's plan is to provide a make your own, printable top bar beehive.  You use this mighty router table printing thing and special, bee friendly plywood to make a flat-pack hive that fits together like a piece of Ikea furniture.

Now I've been wanting a beehive like this for years.  I've even started building (not one, but) two.  Only things came up and the wood I had ready got used for other things.  It takes many tens of hours to make one of these things if you don't have the skills or tools (or in my case, neither).  So being able to 'print' a beehive in about half an hour or so, is fantastic.  I just need to find a router printer thing big enough.

The other half of this project is to monitor the health of the hive using a sensor.  This part doesn't interest me as much, I don't have wifi and cell coverage is poor here.  But for those of you who are interested in this, it attaches to the beehive and tells your smart phone (something else I don't have) if there are any changes in air quality or hive temperature.  It's really useful if you aren't talking to your bees daily.


This open source beehive project is currently in the crowd funding stage.  Basically they ask people to donate money if you believe in this project and want to support it.  You can donate one dollar or one million... they probably accept euros and yen as well.  If you go to the link and look at the right, at different donation marks, you get a reward.  The theory behind crowd funding is a lot like knitting.  Every stitch counts towards a sweater, every dollar donated adds up and make the project happen.



My motive for sharing this isn't just to rant about the importance of bees.  There is a method to my madness:

First, the crowdfunding only has a few days left and they aren't quite at their goal yet.  Even if you don't donate, maybe you could mention it to your bee loving friends.

Second, I'm searching for people in the local area interested in working together to make some of these hives, with the theory that if we buy in bulk, it gets the price down and when the bees arrive, we can support each other with advice and stuff.

Tea Brick - what is it and how to use it

It looks like a back tile or tablet, beautifully carved with exotic designs.  But really it's just tea.

Alright, true, there is no such thing as 'just tea.'  Tea is a vital part of many people's lives be it the English Cuppa or a plant deeply steeped in Asian history.  This tea brick is no exception.

Created for easy transportation of an essential resource, and a trade currency, these tea bricks have a very important history.  One store I know calls this the 'tea of the nomads'.  These bricks are as beautiful as they are romantic.


I've been in love with the idea of these since I first saw them many years ago.  But whenever I came across one for sale I was too cowardly to take the plunge.  Lately I've had more food related courage, so when I this opportunity arrised, and there was this beautiful block of tea for sale a very reasonable price, I snatched it up.

For the first experiment with the tea block I got out one of my more exhotic tea pots (I'm a bit of a teapot hoarder, I should really do something about that, maybe later).  This one is shaped like a flower which I've never seen in real life, but I imagine it is the lotus so often described in poetry.  A special tea deserves a special tea pot.

I took a sharp knife and shaved some tea dust off one end of the tea block, put it in the tea pot and poured just off the boil water over the tea dust.  Just off the boil is basically bringing the water to a full boil, then taking it off the heat and leaving it several seconds until the water stops bubbling, before pouring it into the teapot.  I didn't want to risk scorching the tea incase it was green tea which loses some of it's deliciousness when the water is too hot.

The tea in this block is very much like what we call black tea in the west.  Only it has a lighter taste and texture to it.  Like a more delicate version of a cuppa.

The tea dust expanded in the water and sunk to the bottom, making it easy to keep most of the tea leaves in the pot, with just a bit leftover at the bottom of the cup for telling your fortune if so desired.  I saw an indistinct blob, not sure what that means for my future, perhaps new glasses?


So that's one way to use the tea block.  Here's a list of things I've thought up, some I've tried, some have yet to be experimented with.

• Make some tea, mmmm, tea.
• Use it as decoration or photography prop.
• Make roasted tea - save off some dust with a sharp knife, toast it lightly in a dry fry pan, then make tea - haven't tried this yet, but hope to this morning.
• Make butter tea or other yummy food with it.
• Keep it in your emergency kit for when the zombies come.  This tea is a preppers dream.  So long as it stays dry enough, it will keep forever.  It's lightweight for the amount of tea, and great for replenishing people's electrolytes.  

I debated whether or not to write the last point, for fear that the demand for tea bricks would skyrocket.  Then I remembered only 4 people read this blog, so I think we're safe for now.

•  Another way to make this tea is to shave it off, roast it, then grind it into an extremely fine powder to make a drink like match, only darker.  You take the powder and a little bamboo whisk.  You whisk the tea into the hot water until it's almost emulsified.  Difficult skill to master, to be sure.  But a delicious one nonetheless.  

In Celebration

I had a certain something last week, so some friends of mine treated me to a very special cake to celebrate.

It's from Fol Epi, one of the few places in town I trust not to include wrong foods.  They make the most amazing things, like this devilishly divine raspberry chocolate cake.  They even mill their own flower there and  often donate the excess bran to local farmers.

What a treat to be able to eat yummy cake!

Lunch for Spinning

Last weekend I went to an event called a Spin In.  It's a group of people, who gather in one room and spin yarn.  Most of us have wheels, some with spindles, everyone using circular devices to make lovely yarn.  In case you are thinking this is a unusual event, there were over 100 people there, just from our corner of The Island.

I wanted to give my lunch a round theme to go with the spinning wheels, so I used my tiffin and tried for things that were round, or that reminded us of round things.

The rice with the pickled plum (ume boshi) in the middle is like the wheel and hub.  The round cheese balls (lebneh I think it's called) and round tomatoes speak for themselves, the carrots and cucumbers, through round in their original form, are like spindle shafts for today.  Then the apple and cheese are there to represent... um, ... because they are yummy.

There were a lot of different wheels, all varieties and sizes, new and old.

I don't know how well this photo shows up, but there was snow, falling heavily outside in the park.  It didn't stick (that day) but it looked beautiful coming down.  Gave the day a magical feeling to be cozy inside, surrounded by wool and yarn, while winter displays its colours.

Homemade pepperoni - my first dried sausage adventure

For the holidays I received this wonderful book called In the Charcuterie by Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller.  It's full of beautiful photos and well worth a gander.  Most of the book is about working with fresh meat, how to create beautiful finished dishes like roasts and instruction on how to debone and create different cuts of meat from a carcass.

The section on curing sausages is short but empowering.  The authors give a general recipe on how it's done, including different casing sizes, drying environments and all the necessary and sufficient conditions to be a success.  For example, lamb casings or thin hog casings are more forgiving and don't need as specific an environment to ferment and dry in than great big fat bung casings.  Which means, that if I turn the heat off in my room for two weeks, in the middle of winter, I can cure and dry my own sausages.

I followed the recipe for pepperoni except that I used smaller hog casings and changed the drying time/conditions accordingly.  But this book is friendly towards that kind of change.  Basically they take the attitude that people have been curing sausage like this for a few thousand years, without refrigeration or fancy electrical curing chambers. What's more, they didn't have shops to buy specific fermenting cultures from, instead they used things like a splash of wine in the mix.  This stance is quite different from the usual 'you must do this specifically and buy all this fancy stuff, or everyone dies' approach to curing meat.

Feeling empowered by the book, I gathered together my spices, curing salt, and garlic.  I used 7 lb of old goat, 1 lb of pork and 2 pounds of pork fat.

Mixed it in with the cubes of meat and stuck in the fridge overnight.  

Laundry rack transformed
into sausage hanger

I have this antique meat grinder that I found at a yard sale, so I thought I would give it a try.  It works marvelously well, just like the books say they should.  When I tried my modern grinder that I bought from BigBoxMart (I'm not proud of that), I could see that all the problem's I've had making sausages in the past were not me, it was the tool being completely useless.  This made me giddy with joy to have a meat grinder that works effortlessly, although, it was a bit small and can only process 1 tablespoon at a time - I am going to keep an eye out this year for a much larger one.


After stuffing the sausages, making sure all the air is removed (both of which I need more practice with as I'll show you later), then it's time to hang them to dry.  Ideally the temperature will be between 65 and 70F, and be constant for the two weeks.  I choose 68 degrees because, well it's cold enough thank you.  Each room has a thermostat so it was easy to keep my room a steady temp.  As the humidity was dry that week, I lightly misted the sausages with fresh water a few times a day for the first three days.

I was a bit disappointed because none of the friendly white mould formed on the outside of the sausages.  This mould is suppose to help keep things safe and prevent bad microbes from settling in.  Next time I think I'll pick up a piece of sausage from the local Salumeria and put it in the same room as my hanging sausage, the mould should migrate just fine.

After a week, we started testing them, yummy, but still a bit raw texture in the middle.  Left them another week, and much better.

Look how beautiful and red that meat is.  This tastes amazing!

But wait, not all of them look like that.  Some of them look like this:

Sort of yellow/brown inside.  Not appetizing at all.  Though they smell okay, I'm not happy with them, so they get tossed out.  I don't know why they look like this, but I have suspicions.  Maybe, I didn't get all the air out of the casings - I admit, I did have problems with this - or stuff them full enough.  Or possibly the outside casings dried too quickly leaving the moisture inside to rot the meat instead of fermenting and drying it.  I don't think this second one is what happened because I would expect a bad meat smell, where there is no real change in smell from lovely red insides and ugly brown ones.  Only about a quarter of them turned ugly, so three quarters good, that's great for a first attempt.

What I've learned from ugly brown insides is that I need more practice making cured sausage.  How exciting.  I wonder what flavour to make next.

Cooking with Allergies:  There is a lot of room to adjust for allergies when making your own sausage.  If you have problems with meat and mould, this is probably not the recipe for you.  However, spices, wine and other allergies issues can easily be accommodated.  In the book there is a recipe for your basic cured sausage with specifies the ratios of meat, salt, curing salt and fat.  Page 232 gives you everything you need to know about this, and you can play with your spices and herbs from there.

The recipes in this book do not include commercial starter or filler which can be a source of allergies.  HOWEVER, it does include nitrates (curing salt #2).  Some people are sensitive to this.  There isn't any mention on not using curing salts (nitrates/nitrites).  From the research I've done, omitting nitrates/nitrites from whole muscle cured meats like bacon is possible, just increases the risk of spoilage. However, omitting it from dried sausages is not a good idea for a person with a Western immune system.  If you want to omit the curing salt #2 from your dried and cured sausages, do your research first!  And know that in the West our bodies are no longer trained to handle a strong bacterial load (both good and bad).

Affordable?  Pork cost about $3 a pound, pork fat $1, the goat roughly $4 a pound.  The goat was old and angry, so the meat isn't much good for roasting or much else.  This used all the little scraps of meat that would often go to waste in butchery.  That's about 7 percent of hanging weight that would usually be lost.  So do we count the cost of the goat since it's salvaged material?  I think I will because it makes a fair comparison for later on when I run out of angry goat.

Meat was $33, but it was (mostly) grown on the farm and raised organically.  Spices, garlic, wine, casings, let's round it up to $2.  Take into account that although I started with 10 lbs of sausages, they lose about 30% of their weight so I ended with 7lbs.

$35 for 7 lbs of artisan cured sausage that I know exactly what went into it, is $5 a pound.  I don't think that's bad at all, though I can't remember off the top of my head what the going rate is in the shops, but I wouldn't be surprised to pay between 2 to 4 dollars an oz for artisan sausage.

Then again, I do need to knock off a quarter of the finished amount for my learning mistakes.  So really, this batch was almost $7 a pound.  But I expect to get better at this and have less waste in future.

Healthy?  Yes.  In small amounts.  There are some medical studies kicking about these days that say you should have less than 1 oz of cured meats a day.  I suppose if you are on a fully Western diet full of wonderfully creative preservatives and manufactured salts like MSG, adding cured meats to your diet would increase the stress that salt puts on your body.

However, that said, people have been eating this sort of sausage for several thousand years, and up until the last 120 years or so, the amount of salt used, and nitrate/nitrites used were considerably higher.  This kind of food was a staple in the diet, and the diseases attributed to cured meats only started appearing in the last hundred years.   My interpretation of this is that perhaps cured meats is simply a scape goat for a greater problem in the Western diet.

But even still, the flavour of this is so intense, it makes a better condiment than main dish.  I know everything that went into my sausage, so compared to big factory made peperoni, I feel this is healthier.

Safety?  Since I have no artificial colours or aesthetic ingredients added to the meat, I can tell right away if there is something wrong with the appearance or smell.  Because they are made in small batches, it is easy to do quality control.  Though large scale, factory production of cured meats don't fulfill these conditions, they are usually safe.  But when they go wrong, they go wrong on a big scale.  There has been a few issues with cured meat production in Canada over the last few years, with deaths.  I feel safer doing things at home, however, I arm myself with the knowledge needed to create safe food.