Posts Tagged ‘People’
Vegetables on the Hill
The weather outside may be frightful, but on a sunny day the temperatures in the greenhouses on the hill can be absolutely delightful. Young salad greens, fennel bulbs, green beans, baby bok choi, and other treats grow in the beds, which are kept productive even in cold weather by the warm water that circulates in pipes set beneath the soil. The denizens of the hooped gardens, Kendell and her team (Betty Lou, Lottie, Susie, Sadie, and the girls), use whatever organic means they can think of to make sure the succulent greens are harvested for the inn, and not eaten by the many wild things who may have just that in mind.
Beer, for example, is a slug deterrent. And, Kendell tells me, slugs do have their preferences. She recently put out an assortment of beer for the greenhouse slugs to sample (and subsequently drown in) and found that they prefer Samuel Adams to either Yuengling or Budweiser. Sam Adams on tap, that is. One never knows when this bit of trivia might come in handy.
The team I spoke of earlier is ever vigilant for stealthy critters who may have a penchant for vegetables, or chickens. Lottie is in charge of groundhogs; Betty Lou keeps the mice from eating seeds and seedlings; Susie stands guard at the gate just in case a stray visitor from the inn strolls by so she can give them a friendly wagging; the girls (of the hen variety) peck at insect larvae and slugs in the empty greenhouse and fertilize it for spring. Sadie keeps one eagle eye on her hens, the other in the sky where there is invariably a hawk circling. If you get too close to her girls she will act ferociously protective … it is, I can assure you, an act.
Yes, it’s a winning team up there on the hill. Just ask Chef Stephen Browning.
The Herdsman
- Jason and Shelby are a herding team!
Jason Angstadt had just returned from cattle school when I caught up to him. He was muddy (and I don’t even want to get into the constituents of said mud) from the knees down so I climbed into his 4-wheeler with him and Shelby, his rambunctious Australian cattle dog puppy, and said, “Take me to your favorite spot on the farm.” Up we went to the new dairy barn. Oh those lucky cows! You will be hearing more about the dairy barn as the operations there get into full swing. Jason showed me the milking stations and schooled me in basic cattle language, so that we could talk about what he learned in cattle school, namely, the ins and outs of “AI.” That’s Artificial Insemination in cattle talk. I will avoid the indelicate details and focus instead on why a herdsman on a hundred-acre property of an inn and restaurant needs to know how to “AI.”
First the basics:
A heifer is a female who has not yet had a calf.
A cow is a female who has had a calf.
A steer is a castrated male.
A bull is, well, you know.
Jason introduces new bloodlines to make better heifers, steers, and cows. Maybe an occasional bull—a single bull is able to service the Glasbern’s herd of 70 beef cattle and 13 milking cows (think about this) so steers are much more useful than bulls if your aim is producing grass-fed beef. And what does “better” mean in cow talk? Simply put, better is a heavier weaning weight, a shorter time to market, more milk. You guessed it: It’s all about the food.
You will see, if you wander around the farm, Jason’s carefully selected mix of breeds and hybrid crosses. There are russet-colored milking Devons, Devon-Highland crosses, assorted calves, and the photogenic Scottish Highland steers and heifers—they’re the ones with flowing hair and horns. You’ll see them “mob grazing,” that is, all together in the same fenced area. This is good for the soil, the grass, and the wildlife … and it means Jason has to move the entire herd to a new pasture every day. It’s a big job, he says, but help is on the way. Shelby is in training. Before long Jason will be putting his feet up in the 4-wheeler and watching her work.
Right, Jason?
Cattle in motion on the Glasbern farm
Meet Chef Stephen Browning
Browning does broccoli.
Last week chef Stephen Browning attended a seminar; he was the lone chef in a roomful of rangers. The farmers, herdsmen, butchers, slaughterhouse owners—and Stephen—learned about marketing their grass-fed meats, which is not as simple as it might seem. The demand is there—consumers are learning that when cattle graze on grass their meat contains more healthful lipids and antioxidants than their mass-produced counterparts—but slaughterhouses are often not equipped to give the meat the special treatment it requires. The beef grown and served at the inn is slaughtered at an off-site USDA approved abattoir, then delivered right to the Glasbern’s own butcher to be cut, trimmed, and shaped to Browning’s specifications. “Well, what did you learn?” I asked him. “That we’re doing it right,” he replied. “The Glasbern now has a cutting room, a butcher, and a cooler. People can buy our meats right from the source.”
Browning came to the inn a couple of months ago from Flatbush Farm, a Brooklyn restaurant known for farm-to-table eating. What lured him to the Glasbern was the opportunity to cook with the livestock that graze on the hill above the restaurant, to hand pick herbs, to get up close and personal with greens and broccoli and beans. When he’s not in the kitchen you might find him tasting sheep sorrel or purslane that grow wild on the property, or foraging for chanterelle and chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms. Cooking is an adventure to Stephen Browning. As his passion for different kinds of food preparation meanders, he learns new sets of skills. Besides whipping up wonderful meals with freshly harvested real food, Browning cures meats, he smokes meats, he cans vegetables. He uses the whole cow. This, he tells me, is not the usual way in the chef business.
Now that you have a cutting room, fresh herbs, a farmer who grows your vegetables, and a forest to forage in, is there anything left on your wish list? I asked Browning. He thought for a moment, and replied, “I’d like a smokehouse.” Then he added, “and I’d like to do some gardening.”
That one, Stephen, I can help you with. I just happen to know of a garden bed full of garlic mustard (which makes good pesto!) and sheep sorrel. A chef who experiments with edible weeds and a time-strapped gardener—sounds like a match made in heaven to me!
Home on the Range
This is a cowboy's smile
Not everybody gets to be a cowboy.
But when Al Granger, the owner of the Glasbern Inn and farm, gets an idea into his head there’s no stopping him. It was in 2003 that Al decided the inn could use a few Scottish Highland cattle—nobody who knew him was even slightly surprised to see them out on the range within weeks. Now, six years later, Al has learned a thing or two about raising grass, which, as it happens, is the key to raising cattle. Ask him what gives him the most satisfaction about the multifaceted inn/farm/wedding venue/restaurant that he built and his answer is decisive. “I’ve loved watching the land come back.”
Back in 1985, when the inn consisted of a farmhouse, a barn, and a few dilapidated outbuildings, the land was chemically farmed. By spreading compost and loads of aragonite, a soil conditioner made from seashells, thus making conditions right for growing vigorous grasses, Al has literally brought the fields back to life. Successions of Katahdin sheep and Devon-Highland cattle now graze the pastures. Hens follow the cattle rotation, foraging for insect larvae that hatch in cow patties, and redistributing the nitrogen. Like a giant game of musical chairs, animals are moved daily from pasture to pasture. And who knew that in the world of grazers, a revolution is happening—Al is looking ahead to having his cattle forage the little mini solar collectors we know as blades of grass year-round to produce meat you can feel really good about eating. But I’ll leave the details of how he keeps track of all that motion, and the question of how a cow can nibble grass through snow, for another time. The subject at hand is a boy named Albert and his cowboy fantasy turned reality.
What’s your dream?