(you can imagine the why for. this is the how to.)

nance klehm

procure roughly one quart of raw milk if possible from any healthy lactating animal. if you don’t have connection to an animal, grocery store vitamin d wholemilk (unfortunately homogenized and pasteurized) will do. it’ll need to do. you will need no more than a quart’s worth as a larger amount will make the process less comfortable. you will also need to have a spoonful of room temperature yogurt saved from your last batch or some beautiful homemade yogurt from a wonderful armenian/egyptian/iraqi/greek/bulgarian, etc. grocer or neighbor. this is essential.

one half hour or so before going to bed, pour the milk into a saucepan and heat it gently and slowly, stirring all the while until it reaches 110 degrees. you do not want it forming a skin.

pull the pan off the heat and gently and slowly cool the milk to 90 degrees by just allowing it to lose heat.

drop your spoonful of room temperature yogurt into a jar and pour in the warm milk. screw on the lid and shake the jar once. wrap the jar tightly into a soft wool sweater and climb into bed alone or with animal or human companion. tuck jar against your skin. keep it as close as possible. hug or snuggle the jar. body heat is what allows the culture to educate the milk to become yogurt, bacteria colonize in the constant heat of your body/ies

come morning, you should have a quart of human-incubated yogurt.

A recipe from Tree:

In the fall giant puffball mushrooms seem to be everywhere ... forests, roadsides, city parks and empty lots. Safe to eat (as long as they are still fresh and white inside), hard to mistake for anything dangerous, but honestly pretty bland.

Generally, I think they work well as a tofu replacement in most recipes. Puffball bacon is my favorite:

Cut the mushroom into thin bacon like strips

Marinate the strips for several hours in tamari or soy sauce with a touch of maple syrup and a bit of nutritional yeast

Heat a lightly oiled pan (an iron skillet works best) over high heat.

When the pan is hot, fry the mushroom bacon until it is almost crispy.

Flip the bacon multiple times while you are frying. It's inevitable that some will stick to the pan, but the burned bacon bits are pretty tasty anyway.

Let the bacon cool in the pan, and it will continue to crisp a little bit.

I love to use the mushroom bacon to make BLTs, but it works great crumpled over salads, or in any recipe that one might use bacon as an accent.

Enjoy.

from Lynn

I like to think that this dessert is something similar to what Midwesterners were making 100 years ago with the rich fruit of the native persimmon. You are especially likely to find persimmon trees in Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, and Illinois in the woods next to old farms. Ask a farmer friend if he or she has any on their property.

The Native American Persimmon is quite small and seedy. They usually get no bigger than the size of a golf ball. The golden, amber fruit ripen mid-autumn and achieve their wonderful sticky sweetness after a few frosts and they start falling from the tree.

You can eat the persimmons just the way they are or, to use in a recipe, you will need to extract the pulp from the skin and seeds. In order to do this, rinse the fruit in water, and mash through a sieve or food mill. A good harvest of about 3-5 pounds of persimmons should yields about 2-3 cups of pulp.

Old Timer’s Persimmon Pudding

This is a really unusual recipe I adapted from the Bear Wallow book on persimmons. They produce a lot of cookbooks of American folk recipes. What makes this recipe unusual is that the pudding is stirred while it is being baked, making the finished version, a dense, chewy, caramelized masterpiece.

2 cups persimmon pulp
1 cup half and half
½ cup melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp grated nutmeg
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In large bowl, mix together wet ingredients: pulp, half and half, melted butter, eggs, and sugar. Mix dry ingredients separately: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Mix dry mixture into wet mixture. Stir well. Pour into a greased 9” x 13” pan and bake for one hour. Stir several times while pudding is baking, making sure to fold the crispy edges into the center of the pudding.

early to mid spring is a time of intense stimulation. the earth is wet and muddy and seeds and animals are energing. our bodies need to let our internal rivers move too. a lot of the naturalized plants aka weeds in this city are really good for our digestive organs. here are two simple recipies to get our inner juices going.

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'liver lover' dandelion tincture

1. on or around a new moon go to a place with healthy soil and dandelions.
2. thank the dandelions and gently remove them from the soil digging deeply to extract roots completely.
3. brush and rub soil off the roots but do not wash. (healthy soil has minerals - yum!) the rest of the plant can be part of the tincture or you can remove them and use them in a soup or salad.
4. put dandelion roots in a small jar and pour in clean spirits like vodka or untainted brandy (or some homemade brew) and top off until roots are completely submerged.
5. wait 6 weeks or more (at least two full moons) and strain out dandelion. put dandelion in the compost. the tincture is ready. take a small amount in water or red clover tea several times a day to help your liver.

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'jump start digestion' wild green miso

forage tender wild greens from healthy soil, tear with hands (don’t cut) and toss into miso broth:

• chickweed
• lambsquarters (iron and calcium)
• nettles (iron and calcium) located in moister areas - wear gloves
• dock (potassium) - any of them
• purslane (omega-3)
• garlic mustard
• wild onion - namesake of this town