snowwwwwwwwwwww

It's been snowing here for over 50 hours straight. itty bitty stinging snow, big fat snowflakes, super wet snow/rain/sleet snow, you name it. That has driven loads of people into Canto for our hot chocolate. We hear all kinds of excuses: "We just read about it on boston.com" (this is true: http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/family/gallery/boston_hot_chocolate?pg=6) or "I just spent 2 hours shoveling, I earned myself some hot chocolate".

I'm getting to like seeing all the regulars. from the guys up the street who come in and announce "I have 15,000 games on my computer" to the 4:30 order of "Two large medium roast coffees with 2 shots of espresso each (on rough days, it's three shots each), and a large hot chocolate with whole milk". This one gets a tray, hot chocolate in the middle do distinguish it, and tape over all the mouth holes so it doesn't spill on the way up the stairs. The mailwoman comes in for hot chocolate on cold days in the middle of her route, and another guy comes for a sandwich at 5pm - his own special alteration of a sandwich on the menu. There are the folks who live down the block, the guys from the bike place a block over and the policemen from across the street, all mixing here.

This is what a bakery is. In the book I read this fall by Helen Nearing, she describes how she needs a coffeeshop or library or someplace for “fellowship”. It’s what community means to me: a place where, despite the cheesiness, “everyone knows your name”. I feel like it’s harder to create in the city. It’s what I had at the food project, and it makes it harder and harder to leave Boston again. From the bakery I go home to my roommates on Elm, where I know not only my apartment but everyone in the whole house. We borrow food and movies from apartment 2, we have potlucks and barbecues and play scattergories and set. We know an apartment in the next building over in one direction (where we went for new years last year), and now the family on the other side (the mom came over to help us stop a fire alarm, stayed an hour for some wine, finally brought her 5-year-old over so he could meet us and have a safe place to come if he ever got locked out).

Last night I had a dream about the old house in Gaithersburg. I ran up the stairs, jumped up and touched the light in the hallway, impressing my mom. I woke up in a panic because I couldn’t remember where we kept the plates. But I could still remember where the snacks were (in the dream, i found the cabinet stocked with oreo pudding – I don’t think I’ve ever had that). It made me really excited to see my family for Christmas!

Essex Farm

I spent the last week up at Essex Farm on Lake Champlain in New York. it's gotten totally under my skin and i'm heading up there to work in February. This past week I have run like crazy after a heifer on a lead rope (somehow managed to hold onto her. Matt wasn't as lucky: his cow Fox freaked out and started to run, pulling him until he wiped out on ice. she dragged him along as if he were waterskiing until he hit the end of the ice patch, at which point he popped back up and kept running until he faceplanted and lost her). I have never eaten as many pork chops in one week, never cooked as many pork chops (spontaneous dinner we cooked after the bonfire for 14 middlebury rugby players), and haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Essex is an amazing farm because they make just about everything themselves. they raise pigs, cows and chickens like caretaker - but they do all the slaughtering and butchering themselves. they milk 6 cows for their CSA, render the fatback into lard and make soap. They use draft horses - huge belgians - to work the vegetable land. They're on about 500 acres, and if you walk up to the top of the hill you can look down and see lake champlain.

Saturday I was planning to head down to Hawthorne Valley for a workshop but they got loads of ice and lost electricity, so they cancelled the workshop. that was fine by me - i headed over the Dogwood Cafe in Wadhams (also a "rustic style bakery", somewhat reminiscent of Canto). Susie, one of the girls who works on the farm walked in so we went on a quest to find the town of Lake Placid with her new puppy Oliver. Alas, two missed turns and about an hour later, we decided our mission would be left unaccomplished and we settled for buying beer and smore supplies in Elizabethtown. Sam and Matt had spent the morning building up the bonfire with a bunch of the Middlebury rugby team, so we went to the bonfire for a bit and then made our spontaneous dinner at Susie's - pork chops from the 3 pigs Sam slaughtered this week (3 pigs = a boatload of porkchops), leek-y mashed potatoes, celeriac, green beans, hard boiled eggs, olive bread from Dogwood cafe, and of course plenty of red wine and dark beer to round it out.