Post-structuralist farmers unite!
So here is a conversation that fishwhistle and I actually had while halfway through the dread annual chore of picking the grapes off the trellis:
me: Augh! I got grape juice in my eyebrows!
Fishwhistle: ...
me: It's not funny!
Fishwhistle: well, but it -
me: You know, if we were migrant farm workers we could blame The Man for our sufferings.
Fishwhistle: ...
me: It would be the system keeping us down by forcing us to pick grapes all day long.
Fishwhistle: ...
me: And we could dream that someday Cesar Chavez would come and liberate us from all this.
Fishwhistle: Isn't he -
me: Okay, well, the ghost of Cesar Chavez, all right? Anyway my point is, who is it who forces us to spend hours and hours picking grapes?
Fishwhistle: We do?
me: Exactly! We coerce our own selves!
Fishwhistle, dubiously: So you're saying we're working for Domain Foucault?
me, bitterly: Yes! This is the terroir of Bourdieu!
Fishwhistle: ...
me: Man! It sucks being middle class!
~~~
We had an unusually wet, cold winter - more snow than the previous three winters put together - and we've had the coldest, wettest summer on record too. How wet has it been? Well, Sunday is laundry day, and today I am able to hang out the laundry to dry for the first time since May. Which is to say, there have been a lot of rainy Sundays.
Consequently it's been a great year for strawberries, leafy greens, and raspberries. The weather has been less good to the tomatoes, eggplants, apricots and herbs, which have been large, plentiful, and shiny-looking but not very flavorful. The grapes grew like crazy - they're ripe a bit earlier than last year and, because we culled them carefully in June, they are bigger and healthier than usual. We were actually hoping that culling the grapes would mean we got fewer of them but no such luck.
~~~
And I need some cooking advice:
So, I have here a small basket of peaches (grown locally but not by me) and some backyard raspberries. And soon I will have a metric buttload of grape juice, once I go through the tedious process of making it. I was thinking that I could boil up the peaches and raspberries in the grape juice and it might turn into a nice jam? Do you think that would work?
~~~
me: Augh! I got grape juice in my eyebrows!
Fishwhistle: ...
me: It's not funny!
Fishwhistle: well, but it -
me: You know, if we were migrant farm workers we could blame The Man for our sufferings.
Fishwhistle: ...
me: It would be the system keeping us down by forcing us to pick grapes all day long.
Fishwhistle: ...
me: And we could dream that someday Cesar Chavez would come and liberate us from all this.
Fishwhistle: Isn't he -
me: Okay, well, the ghost of Cesar Chavez, all right? Anyway my point is, who is it who forces us to spend hours and hours picking grapes?
Fishwhistle: We do?
me: Exactly! We coerce our own selves!
Fishwhistle, dubiously: So you're saying we're working for Domain Foucault?
me, bitterly: Yes! This is the terroir of Bourdieu!
Fishwhistle: ...
me: Man! It sucks being middle class!
~~~
We had an unusually wet, cold winter - more snow than the previous three winters put together - and we've had the coldest, wettest summer on record too. How wet has it been? Well, Sunday is laundry day, and today I am able to hang out the laundry to dry for the first time since May. Which is to say, there have been a lot of rainy Sundays.
Consequently it's been a great year for strawberries, leafy greens, and raspberries. The weather has been less good to the tomatoes, eggplants, apricots and herbs, which have been large, plentiful, and shiny-looking but not very flavorful. The grapes grew like crazy - they're ripe a bit earlier than last year and, because we culled them carefully in June, they are bigger and healthier than usual. We were actually hoping that culling the grapes would mean we got fewer of them but no such luck.
~~~
And I need some cooking advice:
So, I have here a small basket of peaches (grown locally but not by me) and some backyard raspberries. And soon I will have a metric buttload of grape juice, once I go through the tedious process of making it. I was thinking that I could boil up the peaches and raspberries in the grape juice and it might turn into a nice jam? Do you think that would work?
~~~