The temperature outside our door is a delightful, seasonal 10 degrees, perfect weather for some romantic Valentines’ day grilling.  Grassfed filet mignon comes to mind as the perfect dinner for two, so here’s a link to an article that will tell you how to properly cook it.

I hope winter continues to treat you well, that you find ample time to sit by a fire and allow your mind to rest, and that you will be ready with renewed energy for the coming growing season.

All best wishes,

Shannon Hayes

In the fifteen years Bob and I have been together, we’ve figured out how to orchestrate the perfect romantic evening.  Flowers and chocolates were long ago dismissed.  Jewelry goes largely unappreciated.  Fancy restaurants or elegant stays in romantic B&Bs are over-rated.  An amorous evening for us means staying home with a vodka martini in one hand, a plate of grassfed filet mignon in the other, and the romantic crackling fire of a hot grill just outside the kitchen door.

For years, filet mignon was a cut I shied away from.  Since it comes from the muscle on the animal that does the least amount of work, it doesn’t pack the same beefy intensity as a chuck eye steak or London broil.  I dutifully cooked it until it was medium rare, but found myself bored with the flavor by the third bite.

Then I read about the health benefits of raw or super-rare meat, how it is easier for the body to digest.  So I experimented with a piece of filet…and discovered a world of delicate flavor that I’d never before appreciated.  Filet mignon does not have the characteristic intense beef flavor that is so prominent in other cuts, so when left rare, the other two components that mark the distinctive grassfed flavor – the taste of minerals from nutrient-rich soils and the sweet herbaceousness from lush pastures – are much more pronounced.  Compared to a rib eye or sirloin steak, a rare piece of filet mignon tastes almost floral.  The flavor nuances are so delightful and interesting, I myself rhapsodizing about the extraordinary taste to the very last bite.

Admittedly, a piece of filet makes for a pretty pricey dinner.  The tenderloin muscle on a beef makes up less than 2% of the overall carcass weight.  There is not a lot of it to go around.  But even at $28 per pound (our farm market price), the cost of a home-cooked filet mignon dinner is a whole lot cheaper than dinner out.  And since it is best cooked out on the grill (even in the depths of winter on a snowy Valentines’ day), there’s not a lot of prep work in the kitchen (leaving ample time for sipping cocktails), and there are very few dishes to wash up later (leaving ample time for other pursuits).  Here’s how we cook the filet in our house:

Grilled Filet Mignon with Lemon Herb Butter

Serves 2

1 pound filet mignon steaks, 1 1 /2 inches thick (two 8 ounce pieces)

1 tablespoon coarse salt

1 ½ teaspoons fresh ground black pepper

1 recipe Lemon Herb Butter, see below

Sprinkle the steaks on both sides with the salt and pepper.  Set them aside and allow them to come to room temperature while you light one side of your grill.

Allow the grill to heat up.  When you can hold your hand four inches above the grate for no more than 3 or 4 seconds, lay the steaks across the grate and sear them for 2 minutes on each side.

Remove the steaks to the cool side of the grill.  Put the lid on, and allow them to cook indirectly for 4-5 minutes.  Serve immediately, topped with a generous dollop of Lemon Herb Butter.

Lemon Herb Butter

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 tablespoon dried parsley

½ teaspoon granulated garlic

½ teaspoon fine salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Beat the butter until light and fluffy, then blend in the remaining ingredients.  Serve immediately, or cover in an air-tight container and store in refrigerator for up to one month.

Shannon Hayes, host of GrassfedCooking.com, is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers. She works with her family raising grassfed meat on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in upstate New York. Her newest book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September. Copies of her books are available through GrassfedCooking.com at wholesale and retail prices.

Finally!  The snows of winter have begun to fall, the weather is not expected to rise above 15 degrees this coming weekend, and the ground is white.  Now that the holidays are behind us, I thought it might be a good time to talk about that flavorful, frugal repast that nourishes our bodies and souls and warms our kitchens during these cold days:  stew.  Click here to read my article with tips on how to make a perfect stew, including a simple recipe from my forthcoming cookbook, Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously  (due out in September).

For those of you in the area, there will be an open house at Sap Bush Hollow farm this weekend from 1-4pm on Saturday.  For those of you scattered about the country, I hope to see you in the coming weeks as Bob and I pack up and spend a week on a mini-tour with the following stops:

January 28^th:  NOFA-NJ inPrinceton

January 30^th: Media,PA

February 1-4: PASA,State   College,PA

If you are going to be at any of these events, please be sure to stop by and say hello!

Best wishes for a suitably cold and restful winter,

Shannon Hayes

GrassfedCooking.com

Anyone can make a great stew!

Very often, the simplest dishes I prepare are the ones that receive the most comments.  A friend dropped in the other day to retrieve her daughter from a play date.  She sat down at the kitchen table and as we chattered away, I set a bowl of stew in front of her. She picked up her spoon and began to eat, and between mouthfuls, we talked about schedules,  yoga, neighbors.  Then the room fell silent.

“Are you all right?  Is something wrong with the stew?”  (I test a lot of recipes in my kitchen.  Sometimes things don’t turn out so great…)

“This.  Is.  Amazing.”

“The stew?”  Now, mind you, stew, in my house, is pretty ordinary fare.  I make it when I know we’re going to be busy so that we can simply re-heat it for our meals.

“This isn’t just stew.  This is….this is….an accomplishment.  I cannot cook like this.”

“Sure you can.”

“You have to tell me what’s in here.  There’s something extraordinary in here.  Savory?”

“Nope.”

“Tarragon?”

“I’m out.”

“What is it?”

I could only come up with one single commonly overlooked ingredient that would make this stew taste exceptional: Time.    One cannot be rushed when preparing a good stew.  The steps do not require advanced culinary skills, nor are they labor intensive.  But they do require a willingness to invest time in each of the three phases of preparation.

Phase I:  Broth.   Good broth takes time (but not labor), and the preparation of good broth should simply be part of the home cook’s weekly rhythm.   If you eat meat, and if you eat vegetables, then there should be homemade broth in your kitchen at all times.   It is a way of turning kitchen scraps into terrific, deeply nourishing meals without adding a cent to your food bill.   Save up the bones from any meats you eat – rib bones from your pork chops, steaks and lamb chops; the carcass from your roasted chicken; leg bones from your roasts.  Additionally, save up the skins and roots left over from your onions, the spines of your kale, the heels from your cabbages, stem tips from carrots, the stalks and leaves from your cauliflower and broccoli.  All of this kitchen waste, when blended with water and time in a stockpot, will make the glorious base for any soup or stew.  If you’ve never made your own broth before, this article at GrassfedCooking.com will show you how.

Kitchen scraps and bones lead to great stew.

Remember:  the essential secret ingredient for amazing stew is time.  So don’t start your broth the same  day you plan to make your stew.  Get it going about three days ahead.  I store my leftover bones in my freezer and keep a bag of my vegetable scraps in the fridge and start a new pot of broth on the stove every 10 days, so there is always an abundant supply ready to go.  If you are running shy of bones, I guarantee your local grassfed farmer will have a bountiful supply available at very little cost.  Any bones will work – necks, marrow bones, knuckles, ribs. Any species will work, too.  (As a farmer, one of my pet peeves is the customer who mistakenly insists marrow bones are the only suitable bones for stock.  Argh!  Philistines!)

Phase II:  Browning the meat.  Nothing will make a meat stew more forgettable than a failure to take time to brown the meat before adding the broth.  Contrary to popular belief (which is rumored to have started with Aristotle), searing meat prior to cooking does not “seal in the juices.”  Crusts that form on the surface of meat are not waterproof.   But browned meat does taste better, as a result of the chemical reactions that take place during the process.  To do it successfully, however, requires a commitment of (yes, here’s that wonderful ingredient again) time.  Do not make the mistake of dumping all the stew meat into a hot pan, and expecting it to brown.  With so many pieces close together, the meat will merely steam.  Rather, be patient.  Blot the meat dry.  Heat your stew pot over a medium-high flame, then grease it with a piece of butter, tallow or a piece of rendered lamb fat  (I prefer tallow or rendered lamb fat, as they are more saturated and will smoke less), then add just a few pieces of meat at a time.  Make sure there is at least one inch of space around every piece of meat you put in the pot (see photo).  This will minimize the steam and maximize the browning.  Allow the meat to sear for a minimum of 2 minutes per side before turning it over.  Once it is browned, remove it to a bowl while you brown the next batch.  When all the meat is seared, put it all back into the stew pot, add your broth, and proceed with phase III.

A bit of tallow (rendered beef fat) greases the stew pot for browning.

Ample space around each piece of meat allows for successful browning.

Phase III:  Cooking the stew.  Do not make the common mistake of pouring in your broth, tossing in the vegetables at once and walking away.  Respect the individuality your ingredients and allow each of them the proper cooking time to bring out their maximum flavor and ideal texture. Adding all the vegetables at once will result in mush.  Added in the proper order, however, they’re individual flavors and textures will be more pronounced, resulting in a far more flavorful stew.  Start by cooking your meat and broth together for a few hours, until the meat is mostly tender (not quite done).  Then add the tomatoes and any root vegetables.  After simmering for about 30 minutes, you can add the remaining vegetables.  Simmer until they are just cooked through, and your stew will be ready to serve, full of fantastic flavor.

So there it is.  The secret ingredient is time.  Knowing how to use it in your favor in each of the three phases should enable you to make a stew with whatever ingredients you have in your kitchen, without adhering to any specific recipe.  However, if having a recipe on hand boosts your confidence, here’s a basic one to get you started, borrowed from my newest (forthcoming) cookbook:  Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously (due out this September).

Stovetop Stew

From Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously (forthcoming, September, 2012), by Shannon Hayes, host  of grassfedcooking.com.

 Serves 8-10

3 pounds boneless beef, lamb, pork or goat stew meat

3 tablespoons coarse salt, or to taste

1½ tablespoons ground black pepper, or to taste

About 1 tablespoon lard, tallow or butter, or more as needed

2 cups water

2 quarts Meat Broth

2 cups chopped fresh (preferred) or canned tomatoes

6 medium carrots, cut into bite-size chunks

6 medium boiling potatoes, cut into bite-size chunks

5 medium turnips or parsnips, peeled and cut into bite-size chunks

3 ribs celery, chopped

3 medium onions, sliced into wedges

½ medium head cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces

3 cups chopped green beans (or shredded green cabbage)

Dry the meat, arrange it on a large platter, and sprinkle with the salt and pepper.  Heat a large, 8-quart soup pot over a medium-high flame.  Add the fat and swirl to coat. Working in small batches so as not to crowd the meat (crowded meat tends to steam rather than brown), brown it on all sides, (about 2 minutes per side).  Add more fat if needed (I prefer not to, as I think too much fat impedes the browning.).

Once all the meat has browned, return it all to the pot, add the water, and bring it to a simmer, using a wooden spoon to scrape up all the seared-on bits of meat on the bottom of the pan.  Once the bottom of the pan is clean and your water is a rich, dark pan juice, add the broth.  Bring to a simmer and lower the heat. Cook on very low heat for 2-3 hours, until the meat is mostly (but not entirely) tender.  Add the tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and turnips and simmer for 30 minutes longer.  By this point, the meat should be tender.  If not, continue simmering until it the meat is fork-tender before proceeding to the final step.

Add the remaining vegetables and cook until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork and the cauliflower is  cooked to your liking, about 20 minutes longer.  If you prefer a thicker stew, simmer with the lid off to allow the liquid to cook down.

Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate and allow the flavors to meld for a day or two before feasting.

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Black pepper: 6.62 g

Meat stock: 11.2 g*

Tomatoes: 19.20 g

Carrots: 35.04 g

Potatoes: 203.22 g

Turnips: 39.22 g

Celery: 3.57 g

Onions: 30.81 g

Cauliflower: 14.61 g

Green beans: 20.91 g

Total carbohydrates per recipe: 384.4 g

Total carbohydrates per 1/8 recipe: 48.05 g

*Number of carbohydrates in homemade broth will vary.  This figure is calculated using the recipe for Shannon’s Meat Broth.

Shannon Hayes, host of GrassfedCooking.com, is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers.  She works with her family raising grassfed meat on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in upstate New York.  Her newest book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion  for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September.  Copies of her books are available through GrassfedCooking.com at wholesale and retail prices. 

The dark days are upon us, and I write with greetings of the season.  Those of us who are looking forward to a little slow time (or perhaps seeking a few gift ideas) might be interested in exploring a little winter reading.  Rather than shamelessly promoting my cookbooks, I thought you might be interested in a few other titles for broadening your mind about grassfed production and lifestyles outside the kitchen.  Below are reviews for three books that I think every pasture-based farmer would love to have in their library.  You can see all the book reviews, along with cover images here.

I received many emails last week from Grassfed Cooking subscribers who were thrilled about the opportunity for farmers to occupy Wall Street.  I also received a few emails from folks who were outraged that I would even consider heading down to NYC for the Farmers Occupy Wall Street march on December 4^th.   I promised a number of you who wrote to me that I would do some follow-up stories covering all that happened. Click here to read about why a grass-based farmer would choose to head down to NY and join this protest that has spread across the nation.  To learn about how the march went, things I saw and learned,  and to explore  the hornets’ nest that my choice stirred up here on Grassfed Cooking.com, check out this story: When A Farmer Hops Off The Fence.

Whether you cheered when you heard grassfed producers were heading to Wall Street, threw an extra hay bale in with the herd and headed down yourself, or whether you fumed at the very thought that members of your agricultural community would consider participating in this movement, I want you all to know how much I have enjoyed your readership and involvement in my life over the past few years.  Writing for Grassfed Cooking and exploring ways our small farm movement will progress in the kitchen and on the pages of history books has been one of my great joys.  I wish all of you a peaceful, happy and healthy holiday season.

Fondly,

Shannon Hayes

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock

By Harvey Ussery

ISBN: 978-1603582902: $39.95

Ussery is a homesteader inVirginiawho has taken his passion for poultry to the written page.  He paired up with Chelsea Green to publish a phenomenal resource that delves into everything from the philosophy of why and how we should be keeping poultry, to housing, starting a flock, feed and water systems, fencing, working with pasture-based and backyard systems, integrating poultry with home and farm enterprises, predator issues, butchering, producing feed, poultry behavior, wintering over, health and disease management, to handling, storage, and marketing.  Ussery doesn’t limit his discussion to one particular breed of chicken, nor does he limit it just to chickens themselves.  He delves deeply into breed considerations, and discusses the needs of waterfowl,Guineasand turkeys as well. The book is even more helpful owing to the extensive color photographs that vividly and fearlessly illustrate all the nitty gritty details of poultry production (including some of the best, most helpful images of butchering I’ve seen).  I recommend this book highly.  It is equally suitable for the potential urban poultry keeper and the large-scale pastured poultry producer, and promises to be the first go-to resource for everything you will need to know about your poultry endeavors.

Permaculture

By Sepp Holzer

ISBN: 978-1603583701: $29.95

Originally published in German, Holzer’s book was translated for American audiences in the past year.  When I first saw the book, I must admit that I didn’t think it held much applicability for the North American pasture-based farmer.  However, as I spent more time with it, discovering the extreme climate and landscape conditions that Holzer confronts daily on his own mountain farm, I became fascinated.  Holzer’s interpretation of permaculture will be mind-candy to the pasture-based farming movement.  We have a tendency to think of ourselves as limited in what and how we produce by our landscape and climate; but Holzer shows how, by simply reconsidering the resources available to us in our natural environments, we can tremendously diversify what we produce, and draw incredible sustenance from even the most seemingly hostile landscapes.  I think this is a mind-expanding book that will lend itself beautifully to inspiring new ingenuity in the pasture-based farming movement.

A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity

By William S. Coperthwaite

ISBN: 978-1933392479: $25.00

Coperthwaite’s book was originally released in 2002, but I stumbled upon my dog-eared copy a few days ago, and thought it was worth mentioning here.  It is not a farmers’ guide by any means, but for those of us who are deeply committed to our agrarian lifestyle, it offers endless food for thought about the whys and hows of our lives.  Coperthwaite’s ideas perpetually inspire me to consider different elements of my life.  I repeatedly re-visit them when my life calls for deeper introspection, or when I simply crave new ideas and fuel for pushing forward.  The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs, and makes a wonderful gift that will not easily be loaned out (as selfish and anti-simplicity as this may seem, I NEVER let anyone borrow my Coperthwaite…I can’t be away from it for that long).

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." - Frederick Douglass

When an email from the group Food Democracy Now! landed in my inbox last week, asking farmers to occupy Wall Street, it seemed only right that I notify the subscribers of GrassfedCooking—a free monthly e-newsletter I run for other farmers of grassfed meats—and ask that they consider joining.

Some farmers, myself included, heeded the call and joined the march. Many who couldn’t make it to the city on short notice wrote to express their support. But a handful of caustic, angry responses showed up in my inbox as well:

“You just lost me as a subscriber.”

“OWS objectives are to destroy our free-choice political system and our free-market economy and replace them with anarcho-socialism. [If they succeed,] your first task of a morning will be to fire up the computer for the latest email from the Agricultural Czar, telling you what to plant in which field, and when…OWS methods are as ugly as the future they envision, including defecating on the American flag and urinating on police cars.”

“What is wrong with you?….These “occupiers” are the ones that want something handed to them for doing nothing.”

“I hate to tell you, but you are part of the 1%…You may not be a millionaire banker, but you do own a business….Folks at OWS believe you should provide for their needs, and that they need to do nothing in return.”

“Occupy Wall Street is EVIL!”

“I wish you had stayed apolitical.”

Maybe I should have deleted the emails and moved on. I get plenty of nasty letters from anonymous folks who don’t like the fact that I eat meat, or that I’ve advocated homemaking as an ecologically and politically powerful vocation. Those letters go into a folder called “Alternative Fan Mail,” where they pretty much get forgotten. I could just do that with these. Or I could write and tell the senders they were being misled by corporations with a vested interest in convincing them that occupiers were bad people, out to ruin their way of life. I could explain they were being manipulated to get their continued compliance with the existing power structure. Chances are, they would tell me I was the one being misled. Our exchanges would zero each other out.

My stomach churned in angst over these notes. It was like getting hate mail from family, from people I deeply respect—people who believed in me and my work long before anyone else did.

I started my writing career publishing recipes for grassfed meat. As a proponent of sustainable agriculture and grass-based ranching, and as a family farmer trying to get the American public to think outside the grocery store, it was the most important place for me to begin. If I wanted Americans to change the way they eat, then they needed recipes.

But for a long time, it was hard to get my work out. Glossy magazines didn’t want to talk to me; big house publishers said my topic wasn’t important. Tips for success were dropped in my lap along the way: “Hire a publicist.” “Go make friends with Rachel Ray.” “Pray that Martha Stewart will discover you, and then you’ll have it made.” “Accentuate your cleavage.” Not very practical tips. About two years after publishing my first cookbook, a well-meaning publishing professional from New York dropped by my farmers’ market booth to pick up a pack of sausages. Seeing my first cookbook on display, he chatted to me about my writing efforts. Before he left he leaned over and whispered his final prognosis for my career: “You’ll never make it. You don’t do lunch in the city.”

No. I didn’t do lunch. We were too busy growing lunch.

I decided that, if no one wanted to pay me to do my work, then I would give it away for free to the folks who valued it: other farmers. I began GrassfedCooking.com, a website devoted to helping pasture-based farmers communicate with their customers. I sent out the e-newsletter, providing recipes or tips for working more effectively with grassfed meats, or else opinion pieces that covered developments that impacted small farmers. The site slowly developed a faithful following of salt-of-the-earth farmers, food activists, and meat lovers. It became a kind of community.

Then I asked them to join a protest, and stepped in a hornet’s nest.

How to respond? To dismiss the opposing views would mean dismissing our relationship. That doesn’t help the Occupy movement, and it doesn’t help the grassfed farming movement. In the end, I did my best to have a dialogue, to point out our common interests, to respectfully explain that I was moving forward with my choice to march on Sunday. Not all farmers think of our work as political, but I do; it’s hard not to notice the role that corporate power plays in distorting our food system, from prices to farming practices.

I know I lost a few readers. But I think I managed to convince a few of them that, while they may not agree with all of the folks who have chosen to occupy Wall Street, there were at least a few people down in New York on Sunday who didn’t fit the profile that the news had told them to expect.

In truth, nobody fit the profile. My experience at the Sunday rally was one of the most moving four hours of my life, surrounded by hundreds of people who cared about the same issues I do: food sovereignty, the need for city people to start building soil and growing their own food, the need for rural and urban folks to build better relationships with each other to sidestep the corporate food system. I met dairy farmers, meat producers, seed producers, vegetable growers….even some friendly vegetarians. I met food activists, senior citizens concerned about the quality of food for their grandchildren, community gardeners, college students who were trying to learn how to feed themselves ethically and healthfully. We saw American flags, held up high. One of them led our march. And I saw a side of New York City that I’d never seen before. New Yorkers hung out their apartment windows, came to sit on their steps, sat out at cafes and stood in front of their small grocery stores and food stands. They cheered and clapped as we marched by. They sang and chanted with us. We marched through community gardens reclaimed from abandoned lots. I stepped on ground that was as lush and beautiful as any earth I tread upon here upstate.

The most poignant moment for me, however, was when our march passed through a community garden and I heard cheers from up above me. I looked up and saw four urban teenagers standing in a tree house. They waved and smiled, then held up a giant sign for us to read: This land will live again.

This land will live again. It will live in America’s countryside, in her mountains and rivers, as well as in her cities. To me, that’s what the Occupy movement is all about—finding ways for all living things to thrive. And for those of us in the grassfed farming community, that’s what we’re all about too, even if we don’t all agree with protests.

Shannon Hayes wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Shannon is the author of Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, The Grassfed Gourmet and The Farmer and the Grill. She is the host of Grassfedcooking.com and RadicalHomemakers.com. Hayes works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Upstate New York.

Every week during the growing season my husband and I cart our family’s grassfed meats to market, priced at $11/lb for pork chops, $7.50/lb for ground beef.  Every week we meet someone who tells us the prices are too high.

And yet, at those prices, the average net income for our family members has maxed out at $10 per hour.   

But part of our job is to hold our chins up and accept weekly admonishment for our inability to produce food as cheaply as it can be found in the grocery store.

The food in the grocery store is not cheap.  It has been paid for in advance through tax dollars for farm subsidies that go to support an ecologically problematic industrialized food system.  The prices only look cheap because we are paying for them someplace else: through our taxes, and via the destruction of our soil, water and natural resources through irresponsible farming practices.

The viability of a small farm is contingent not just on garnering a living wage, but on our ability to steward our land in a way that enables future generations to live off it.  The ability for industrial food production to stay in business is contingent upon these farm subsidies, and a license to deplete the soils and pollute the water for immediate profit with no regard for what happens tomorrow.  This is our nation’s cheap food policy:  Make the food in the grocery store as inexpensive as possible, so that we can justify lower working wages for Americans. 

With policies like this, we are losing our farmers, and we are poisoning our public with toxic food.  Between 1999 and 2006 alone, the CDC estimated that 45% of American adults were suffering from chronic illness.  You can’t tell me that has no connection to the food supply. 

Even with chronic illness rampant in our culture, our current government oversight policies for food safety favor the production practices of corporate food.  My family farm shoulders a disproportionate burden of expense to meet regulations that prove the safety of our products, which are easily traced, more cleanly produced, and which have been proven to be far safer for consumption.  This adds to our prices and makes it difficult for many of our fellow farmers to stay in business. 

My family wants to nourish our local community.  We want to sell pork chops from real pigs, ground beef  from real cattle.  I’ve been criticized by some for coming down here, because there are media reports suggesting that “Occupy Wall Street” is about a bunch of losers who want to sit around and collect hand-outs for doing nothing.  I am in no need of a hand-out.  I want to conduct my family’s business honestly, and I want to see my fellow Americans compensated fairly for their contributions, so that we can all earn a decent living.   I want to see the handouts from our government policies that support an ecologically rapacious, gastronomically toxic food system brought to an end.  I want to go to my weekly market with my head held high, carrying wholesome food that my neighbors can afford.

Shannon Hayes works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm raising grassfed meat in Upstate New York.  She is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers.  Her newest book, Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September 2012.  To be notified of the book’s release, or to receive her Grassfed Cooking articles, sign up for the Grassfed Cooking Newsletter, a free service for grassfed farmers and meat lovers.  Copies of her books can be purchased through grassfedcooking.com at both retail and wholesale prices.

 Chelsea Green Press, ISBN: 978-1603582902 ; $39.95

Ussery is a homesteader inVirginiawho has taken his passion for poultry to the written page.  He paired up with Chelsea Green to publish a phenomenal resource that delves into everything from the philosophy of why and how we should be keeping poultry, to housing, starting a flock, feed and water systems, fencing, working with pasture-based and backyard systems, integrating poultry with home and farm enterprises, predator issues, butchering, producing feed, poultry behavior, wintering over, health and disease management, to handling, storage, and marketing.  Ussery doesn’t limit his discussion to one particular breed of chicken, nor does he limit it just to chickens themselves.  He delves deeply into breed considerations, and discusses the needs of waterfowl,Guineasand turkeys as well. The book is even more helpful owing to the extensive color photographs that vividly and fearlessly illustrate all the nitty gritty details of poultry production (including some of the best, most helpful images of butchering I’ve seen).  I recommend this book highly.  It is equally suitable for the potential urban poultry keeper and the large-scale pastured poultry producer, and promises to be the first go-to resource for everything you will need to know about your poultry endeavors.

 Chelsea Green Press, ISBN: 978-1603583701 , $29.95

Originally published in German, Holzer’s book was translated for American audiences in the past year.  When I first saw the book, I must admit that I didn’t think it held much applicability for the North American pasture-based farmer.  However, as I spent more time with it, discovering the extreme climate and landscape conditions that Holzer confronts daily on his own mountain farm, I became fascinated.  Holzer’s interpretation of permaculture will be mind-candy to the pasture-based farming movement.  We have a tendency to think of ourselves as limited in what and how we produce by our landscape and climate; but Holzer shows how, by simply reconsidering the resources available to us in our natural environments, we can tremendously diversify what we produce, and draw incredible sustenance from even the most seemingly hostile landscapes.  I think this is a mind-expanding book that will lend itself beautifully to inspiring new ingenuity in the pasture-based farming movement.

ISBN: 978-1933392479 , Chelsea Green, $25.00

Coperthwaite’s book was originally released in 2002, but I stumbled upon my dog-eared copy a few days ago, and thought it was worth mentioning here.  It is not a farmers’ guide by any means, but for those of us who are deeply committed to our agrarian lifestyle, it offers endless food for thought about the whys and hows of our lives.  Coperthwaite’s ideas perpetually inspire me to consider different elements of my life.  I repeatedly re-visit them when my life calls for deeper introspection, or when I simply crave new ideas and fuel for pushing forward.  The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs, and makes a wonderful gift that will not easily be loaned out (as selfish and anti-simplicity as this may seem, I NEVER let anyone borrow my Coperthwaite…I can’t be away from it for that long).