One of the rotations for the workers of the Farmy is the Kitchen Mama day. (Some of the other responsibilities are, Swine Herd, Water Boy, Chicken Handler, Milk Maid, Gardener, etc) With the Kitchen Mama (gender has no influence here, whether woman or man they are Kitchen Mama): for a whole day one worker takes over the kitchen, feeds everyone, cleans, bakes and cooks and I am released to the gardens and the fields. Much thought is put into what they are going to cook and invariably they will call their Mama or Grandma and find the exact recipe for a favourite food the family has been making for years then make it for our big table of hungry people. This is why I LOVE my Kitchen Mamas. I learn all about food.
Last night Sammy made Matzah Balls Soup and Challah bread. In Sammy’s family The Matzah Ball Soup is usually served at Passover and Rosh Hashanah (and for a special treat at the farmy). The Challah bread is divine. Sweet and light. Next time she will make it with raisins. We are so spoiled.
The other thing that often happens is that the mothers and grandmothers are invited into my kitchen via startling advances in technology. With Facetime they can even look at the soup bubbling and give pertinent tips. I remember Inaki and I taking a video of my first croqueta mixture cooking and sending it to his sister in Basque Country via whatsapp (a free app – FREE!) to check for consistency.
And the best bit is that Sammie’s trendy Granny and her Mum took photos of their original recipes with their cameras and sent those to us too.
Matzo balls:
Challah bread:
Spoilt for food we are.
The fields are planted. Soybeans this year. All GM of course. This is why I cannot call myself organic.
But these machines are magnificent in a scary kind of way, if they had brains they would take over the world. No need for people in these fields. The tractors are run by a GPS that tells the driver when to turn and how far. All kinds of fancy-ness.
One perfect peachick has survived the hatching process. I think we have another Geraldine in the making! I am not hatching any more eggs until I can find out what has gone wrong with my incubator. This is twice in a row that we have had massive failures. Can a thermometer be wrong? Such a disappointment. I will think on it.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
36 responses to “The joy of new food”
Challah bread looks delicious. I was just coming right with sourdough bread when the temperature dropped and I’m back to square one … sigh. I am still fascinated by the size and operation of that huge machine, just wish it was planting organic seeds with real compost. Laura
Sometimes I just sit and marvel at the wonders we have inside our phones and computers. You can talk or email or send pictures or just play a game or trade recipe advice with anyone anywhere.
50 years ago my mother would have hesitated to call her mother from Puerto Rico to Wisconsin except for an emergency or major event. Certainly she would not have called for recipe advice.
Now we all share so much. It’s a magic we got used to so easily. Its good to remember sometimes that it’s a wonder.
I have always made the soup from a mix and everyone I serve it to, loves it. I add pieces of chicken, usually some leftover in the freezer and wide egg noodles. And it does cure what ails you. I also load everything with garlic for a little extra zing and health benefit. Even my German mother loved it when I introduced her to it. I have never made the bread but it looks yummy. I haven’t made bread in ages but if someone made it for me, I might be persuaded to partake. 🙂 As for the GM beans. It’s a sad state of affairs but the make enough money to keep the rest of the farm alive. There are not a lot of options out there anymore. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. That’s what we grew on our farm before we sold it. Some years the money just paid the taxes.
This is not my land – we only own 5 acres – the fields you see belong to johns uncle and his mother – if we owned it there would be some incredibly different planting going on!
Ah, now I do understand. I could not convince my last husband to do things differently so I jumped at the chance to sell the farm he never even wanted to visit. It was too hard to not have any say.
Challah is delicious….and Hurray for that Kitchen Mama!
I don’t think I’ve had challah, but I love matzo ball soup! Such a comfort food.
I am of mixed minds about GM but the big equipment brought to mind a neighbor’s comment that made me laugh. Seems his then 16 yr old son was great friends with the 16 yr old son of the dairy farmer down our road. One day we observed the two of them tooling down the road in a giant tractor. That’s when my neighbor commented how he hesitated to let him drive his 30k car and there they go in a 150k tractor!
I love food in general, but matzo ball soup is very good when youcook it right.
I love that one of the duties of workers is kitchen duty for a day. How rewarding that is for all involved and what a great way to blend cultures over food.
I’d love to do all of those jobs but my favourites would be in with the chickens and in the kitchen!
What a lot going on!! And isn’t it amazing the things we can do today with all that ‘new fangled technology’?! I love that you posted both recipes. I’ve always wanted to make Challah bread and it’s great that this recipe doesn’t take as much time as usual!! ; o )
I can’t wait for Rosh Hashanah to eat some Matzah balls! This post reminds me of home