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Vicki keeps an angora bunny for its hair.
Asked why she spins, Vicki Botta invokes Gandhi. In perhaps the most iconic photo of the pioneer of civil disobedience, he is seated on a rug in lotus position, reading. In the foreground is a spinning wheel. Gandhi, who carried his spinning utensils in a box, pulled Indians together by getting them to spin their own cotton instead of buying clothes from the British. In the process, he found that the endlessly revolving whorl replenished his soul.
Vicki gets that feeling of spiritual release pedaling her spinning wheel in her Goshen living room, turning silk, flax, even long dog hair into yarn while her husband watches TV. She gets the feeling when she runs alpaca fleece through the sharp teeth of a comb in her studio upstairs, preparing it for spinning. “There’s something so soothing in washing a fleece,” she says. “It’s the same feeling as hanging washing out on a line. It forces you to do something that gives you time to think – if you want to think. We don’t do mundane tasks today. We pay other people to do them.”
Before she started making pouches, cowls, coats, sweaters, collars, mittens, double-sided blankets and ponchos, Vicki was hustling to meet deadlines at her graphic design job. Trying and failing to get pregnant for five years had left her depressed.
Then, staying at a cousin’s cabin in Maine, Vicki saw a little shuttle on the hearth. She climbed up on a loft, and there was the loom, along with every color of yarn under the rainbow. “This is my next thing,” Vicki knew.
Vicki didn’t realize it yet, but yarn entangles the roots of her family tree. Her great-great-grandmother Antonina, who grew up in Corlione, Italy, passed down a wooden bobbin that Vicki now has in her work room. Vicki’s grandmother worked in the garment industry. Vicki’s mom sewed Vicki’s wedding dress.
Vicki bought a $125 spinning wheel, quit her job, and joined a spinning group at Museum Village, where she met fascinating women like a falconer who had grown up on a dirt floor hut in Ireland. Over the years she acquired three different kinds of looms and 12 angora bunnies that she raised in a hatch in her backyard for their hair.
Her first project? Knitting three midnight blue sweaters, one for her, one for her husband, and one for the baby boy with whom she promptly got pregnant after she started spinning.
Lori Marrie, Warwick
Folks that regularly snub leafy bunches of kale and label them peasant greens are forking over $7.49 for 3.5 ounce tubs of kale chips. Included: half an ounce of crumbs.
Kale, the vegetable routinely mistaken for collards, mustard greens or chard, has finally shed its identity crisis, proudly arriving in gourmet markets, albeit in flavors like mesquite, zesty nacho and Bombay curry. And why not? Kale chips are light, crunchy, and a healthy alternative to the potato variety. Even non-veggie eaters devour handfuls, finding their taste baffling yet strangely addictive.
This verdant, nourishing vegetable has powerful antioxidant properties and is high in calcium, protein, Vitamins K, A, C and beta carotene. An added benefit: kale is available at local farms throughout the year and turns sweeter after the first frost.
Feeling inspired? Experiment with varieties like curly, dinosaur and red Russian to create your own kale chips. Add any combination of flavors, and remember to use a coarse grain salt. Spice it up with a sprinkling of chili powder, or add a spoonful of nutritional yeast for a cheesy zing. Take the time to completely dry the kale, otherwise it will steam and remain soggy. While many entrepreneurs use commercial dehydrators to dry the kale at low temperatures, you can simply roast bite size pieces on baking sheets in a 325 degree oven. Be careful – they turn from crisp to char in seconds. Carefully transfer to a bowl and watch them disappear before they even have a chance to crumble.
Roasted Kale Chips
Ingredients:
1 bunch kale
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt or kosher salt
optional seasonings
Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Wash and thoroughly dry the kale. Remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite-size pieces. Place them in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, evenly coating the leaves. Place kale in a single layer on the cookie sheets. Sprinkle with salt and other seasonings, if using. Bake 10 – 15 minutes, checking often so they don’t burn.
Roslyn Fassett is a white woman from Brooklyn with salt-and-pepper hair and freckles. Somehow, though, she’s always feeling like she should have been African.
In her upcoming Chelsea exhibition, Dark & Light, that dichotomy will be writ large on the walls. The show will primarily feature her interpretative landscapes, inspired by walks around the marshes and lakes that charge her artistic batteries. One series comes from a late November stroll around a “very Scorpio” marsh in a bird sanctuary near her home. She takes pictures, traces them onto transparent sheets, projects the sheets onto a canvas, and in fantastic colors, renders the landscape using oil paints thinned out so they resemble watercolors.
Three oversized canvases will be unlike the others. Figures of darkskinned women recline or dance behind curtains of black-and-white patterns that suggest the intertwined woven layers of African mud cloth. Roslyn painstakingly copied some of these symbols out of art journals; others are from textiles she picked up in Mali and Nigeria.
“That’s why I named my exhibit Dark & Light,” says Roslyn, in the two-room studio she rents on the second fl oor of an offi ce building in downtown Warwick. “I thought I could somehow pull it all in.” She shakes her head at the diffi cult task of explaining Pine Island and Mali into a single artistic theme.
Fassett studied at the prestigious Cooper Union, married young, and – aside from freelance textile and wallpaper design – put art on hold. It wasn’t until her kids were on their own that her husband built her a giant easel and she picked up where she’d left off . At 60, she remembered that she was in love with African art.
Fassett got her master’s in nonwestern art history at City College, and has become something of a regional authority on African art. She has taught tribal art history at SUNY Purchase, SUNY New Paltz, and Marist College — but no longer. “Now I want to use my energy for my own work.”
Dark & Light
November 1-26
Prince St. Gallery, 530 West 25 St. New York City
By Lori Marrie, Warwick
Note: This column was written one week before Hurricane Irene tore through the region, destroying property and devastating lives. The impact on the farming community has been profound. Our plates may not be as full this Thanksgiving, but our hearts overflow with love and support for these resilient farmers.
Thanksgiving. It’s everyone’s favorite holiday, especially vegetarians.
After all, the spirit of this holiday is in the harvest and ours is true to the original – a celebration of fruits and vegetables. And unlike carnivores, vegetarians remain awake to enjoy dessert – no L-tryptophan in our tofurky.
Our food has a face. A face we recognize because she’s our local farmer. The vegetables she grows travel directly from her farm to our table. Our hands prepare the food, but her hands, imbedded with black dirt, tell the story.
A story rooted in this fertile soil, about planting and nourishing and feeding a community.
As my family gathers around the table, we give thanks for the bountiful harvest. The black dirt does not disappoint, once again generous with squash, winter greens and the underground gems that are the essence of our holiday dinner: root vegetables.
Roasting turnips, leeks, onions, parsnips, carrots, potatoes and winter squash brings out their natural sweetness and depth of flavor.
A surviving stalk of rosemary from my herb garden adds a fragrant element to the tubers and taproots.
Leftover roasted vegetables present a second opportunity. Puree with homemade stock, swirl in a spoonful of cashew cream and garnish with parsnip chips to create a velvety flavorful soup. The sweet aroma of Thanksgiving fills my house, but I can still smell the earthiness of its roots.
Roasted root vegetables with rosemary oil
Serves 6-8
2 leeks
3 shallots or small onions
4 carrots
2 parsnips
1 sweet potato
6 fingerling potatoes
4 small turnips
2 cups winter squash
3 Tbs. rosemary infused olive oil
1 tsp. dried thyme Spring of fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf
Salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice all vegetables into 1 inch pieces. Place in a large bowl and coat with olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Spread in roasting pan and bake 45 minutes or until tender, stirring once every 15 minutes.
Root vegetable soup with cashew cream
Serves 4-6
Roasted root vegetables
Vegetable stock
Puree leftover roasted vegetables with broth until smooth and desired consistency. Swirl in 1 Tablespoon of cashew cream. (recipe follows)
Cashew cream
1 cup raw unsalted cashews
Rinse cashews with cold water and place in small bowl. Cover with water and refrigerate overnight.
Rinse well, place in blender, cover with water 1 inch above the cashews and puree several minutes until smooth and creamy. Refrigerate, use within 3 days or freeze.
I can’t get enough of winter squash. Vibrant yellows, deep greens, scarred and lumpy, they line up on my kitchen counter ready for culinary battle. One rises fearlessly above the rest. Don’t let its thin pale skin fool you; the butternut’s firm texture and nuttiness stand up to any ingredient and complement both savory and sweet dishes.
These bell-shaped beauties have evolved from their traditional role as the token veggie side dish on Thanksgiving. Roasted, steamed, grilled or pureed, they’re now featured on gourmet menus in delicate ravioli, creamy risottos and elegant soups. So why not put butternut to the real test: homemade, rustic chili made with local ingredients. Even the secret ingredient is local – farm fresh apple cider.
Most squash are tough to peel, but not butternut. The thin skin slithers off easily with a vegetable peeler. Scoop out the seeds and save them to toast and snack on later. Roast the cubes of squash first for a firm texture. Simmer black beans with the roasted nuggets; add jalapenos to create a chili that satisfies the craving for sweet and heat.
Pour a handcrafted lager from one of our area breweries, ladle up a bowl of steaming chili and enjoy dinner, locavore style.
– Lori Marrie, Warwick
Butternut squash and black bean chili
Vegan, serves 6
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large or 2 small jalapenos, seeded and chopped
¼ cup tomato paste
3 large plum tomatoes, chopped
1 cup apple cider
1 cup water
1 tsp. cumin
3 Tbs. chili powder
1 tsp. salt
1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
3 cups cooked black beans
¼ cup chopped cilantro
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spread the butternut squash cubes on a lightly oiled cookie sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes. Remove and set aside.
Heat the oil in a large pot. Add the onion, garlic and jalapenos, cover and cook about 5 minutes.
Add tomato paste, tomatoes, apple cider, water, spices and squash. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until squash is tender, about 20 minutes. Add beans and simmer, uncovered, for an additional 20 minutes. Garnish with cilantro.
Donna used local tomatoes in her Jersey Girl soap. She's looking for a source of local goat's milk.
Donna Puizina holds a bar to her nose. “Ocean rain,” she says. “Lavender, rosemary, spearmint, lemon grass. And French green clay, Australian blue clay, and kelp powder. I usually put seaweed in there but I forgot.”
It’s Friday afternoon, and a couple hundred bars of homemade soap are lined up on a work table in the basement of Donna’s house in Lafayette. They await the paper sleeves and ribbons that will transform them into favors for a wedding on Sunday.
Across the table, a pot cools. Its contents – tea tree, eucalyptus, peppermint and lavender oils – are half of the soap equation. When the oil mixture reaches the right temperature, Donna puts an apron on over her white t-shirt. She mixes in French green clay for color and pumice powder for exfoliation, and combines the oil with its other half: sodium hydroxide, the manufactured version of lye. She holds an electric stick blender in the pot until the mixture traces like batter, then pours the stuff into a silicon lined wooden mold.
She lays the lid on the mold and stands back. It’ll sit for 24 hours, and then it will be green clay & tea tree soap, which is good for acne. That’s it?! It looks about as hard as making a pot of tea. The art, it turns out, is in the ingredient selection.
Coconut oil, for instance, produces lots of lather. Olive oil is moisturizing. Palm oil gives the soap hardness. Clay removes impurities from the skin. Certain fragrances can cause a soap to seize, so that the only remedy is to grate it for use as laundry detergent.
Donna picked up soap making in Puerto Rico, where she and her family lived for nine years. She turned it into a little business, manning a table in Old San Juan where cruise ships come to port. Her soap graced the shelves of ten shops. Mostly she targeted tourists, but she found a niche amongst Puerto Rican men, who liked her honey almond soap for shaving.
The family moved back to Donna’s native New Jersey two years ago. These days, Donna makes money substitute teaching and freelance writing, and a little from her soap. You can find it at Prim Pantry in Lafayette Village and Sweet Pea’s in Lafayette Mill.
Corbett Hoffman may have found the raw materials for these paintings in your garbage
You may have seen Corbett Hoffman, 30, with her year-old son Shepherd, rummaging through your trash on bulk pickup day, struggling to squeeze a plywood board into the trunk of her hatchback. “It’s kind of a comedy show, us trying to get a piece in the car, in the rain,” she laughs.
Hoffman, who hails from a long line of artists, is not your typical dumpster diver. A year and a half ago, she was selling clothes at Bergdorf Goodman to celebrity clients in the city. Now she’s married to a urologist at Crystal Run, and jokes that if there were a show called Real Housewives of Orange County, she and the other doctors’ wives would be on it. But she’s a veteran at scouring trash heaps.
It started when Hoffman was a fine arts major at the University of South Florida (double check). She was dropping $100 a week on canvases and stretchers, which was more than she could afford. Epiphany came in the form of a “moldy, funky piece of wood” leaning against the wall outside the art supply shop. Hoffman cleaned it up, painted it, and was $100 richer.
“From then on, every place I’d look, I’d see wood. I never painted a canvas again.” Instead of the art supply store, she started making trips to the local furniture store. She’d flirt with the employees and coax them into letting her pick over the scrap heap for leftover walnut and cherry paneling. She would study the wood’s natural markings, pick colors, and essentially paint by numbers.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m cheating a little. It’s like coloring. Even if I don’t have an idea, it’s inspiring. A blank canvas can be intimidating. Even if I had all the money in the world, I wouldn’t go back to that.” A few pieces she found so beautiful that she couldn’t bear to paint them at all.
After college, Hoffman’s working life was fast-paced. She stopped painting. It was Shepherd who, well, shepherded in the next chapter. Looking for art to put up in her infant son’s nursery, Hoffman couldn’t find anything that wasn’t made in China. That was important to her, both because of the carbon footprint created when an object travels across the world, and because she wants to support people doing things locally.
About six months ago, the thought she’d had outside the art supply store a decade earlier resurfaced: why buy what you can get for free? Her first two “canvases” – now brightening Shepherd’s nursery – came from the shoulder of 17A. She found the next two on Pulaski Highway, near Madura Lane, when she pulled over to give Shepherd a bottle.
Hoffman looks for wood with lots of knots, which is funny, she says, “because builders and furniture makers look for wood without knots. The knot is a weakness.”
In college, Hoffman painted with transparent wood stain. You had to look closely to see that the wood was painted. Now she’s all about bright colors. At the moment she’s on “this orange kick.”
She’s been eyeing a construction site on Houston Rd. She keeps reminding herself that she can’t raid the piles of plywood until after they’re done building.
Pieces of worthless driftwood become animae, take over Dan Mack's life
“For a full-grown man to be carving these things,” Daniel Mack reflects. “I don’t quite understand. But I don’t have to.”
Mack, a Warwick artist, writer and philosopher, was trying to fulfill his “big boy” duties of procuring unique types of wood for architectural projects like staircases and pillars in 2004. He was in Newburgh, scouring the western shore of the Hudson for quality driftwood. All he was finding was little bits of worthless bark, and it was messing with his zen.
So he took a deep breath and told himself, if you can’t be with the one you love…
Now, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of hand-height figurines populating the shelves of his studio, all carved from bits of drift bark that are valueless as lumber. Mack calls them “anima” – a Jungian term describing female or late-life energy. Some are voluptuous in personalized wooden frames; some congregate on a stump, leaning in or standing aloof; some are bejeweled and some painted; one wears a crown of a golden twig, another of a dead honeybee.
“The mites are going to eat it,” says Mack, of the bee. “That’s the fragility. People are so interested in avoiding the decay of living. This almost celebrates it.”
Photo by Michael Bloom
“Do I smell…bacon?” asked my husband incredulously.
The aroma in the kitchen was smoky, one that Tom was familiar with. He recently admitted frequenting a bagel shop for an occasional bacon fix. I was determined to create a healthy and tasty alternative. Tempeh, a dense cake of soybeans and grains, was a natural pick.
We were heading to Sullivan County for live music and a picnic, so I spent the morning selecting ingredients for dinner. First stop, W. Rogowski Farm, to pick up our weekly farm share, a variety of greens and heirloom tomatoes. Back home I chose the peppery arugula and juicy, green tomatoes to complement the smokiness of the tempeh. I’d been wary of that bottle of Wright’s Concentrated All Natural Hickory Seasoning Liquid Smoke, stashed away in my pantry, but extensive research convinced me it was vegan and harmless. A few drops and the flavor was spot-on.
I layered the savory tempeh, mounds of arugula and green tomatoes, now encrusted in corn-meal, between slices of country bread from Janet’s Baked Goods in Florida. A side of slaw and a garlic pickle and presto: perfect picnic dinner. – Lori Marrie, Warwick
Tempeh, Arugula and Green Tomato Sandwich
Ingredients
6 slices country style bread, toasted
Smoky tempeh
Fried green tomatoes
1 ½ cups arugula
¼ cup vegan mayo
Smoky tempeh
1 8 oz. pkg. tempeh,
sliced into ¼ inch pieces
1 Tbs. canola oil
Marinade
2 Tbs. Tamari or Soy Sauce
1 Tbs. maple syrup
1 Tbs. tomato paste
1Tbs. apple cider vinegar
1 Tbs. canola oil
¼ cup vegetable broth
1 clove garlic, crushed
¼ tsp. chili powder
1 Tbs. liquid smoke
Fried green tomatoes
2 green tomatoes
½ cup cornmeal
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup soy or rice milk
Salt and Pepper
2 Tbs. canola oil
vegan, serves 3
Lay tempeh slices in a shallow baking dish. Combine marinade ingredients in a bowl and pour over the tempeh. Marinate for one hour. Preheat large pan over medium heat. Brown the tempeh slices in canola oil, turning a few times until crisp, about 5 to 7 minutes. These can also be baked for 10 minutes on each side in a 325 degree oven.
Cut the tomatoes into ¼ slices. Coat in flour, dip in soymilk, coat in cornmeal seasoned with salt and pepper.
Preheat large pan over medium heat. Brown tomato slices in oil until brown, about 3 minutes.
To assemble sandwich spread slices of bread with vegan mayo and layer tomatoes, tempeh and arugula.
By Lori Marrie
I can’t claim it was the moral high ground that got me off meat. No, my own journey towards a plant based, conscious diet began at age seven, with an unforgettable outing to the Kingsbridge, Bronx neighborhood delicatessen with my grandpa.
Number 15’s order: “a halfa pound of tongue please.” Coming face to face with that formidable elongated, bristly stump. That terrifying organ would play the leading role in ensuing nightmares: raging bovines, tongues in hand chasing me mercilessly through Poe Park. It was enough, in due course, to turn me vegetarian.
Old habits die hard, of course – and in fact, 10 years of haunting farmers markets and experimenting in the kitchen have taught me that they don’t have to die at all. Eating more consciously doesn’t have to mean giving up your favorite comfort food. I can imitate just about all my grandmother’s familiar recipes with the artful use of fresh herbs, spices, local produce, a dash of lemon.
Exhibit A: a satisfying but light risotto.
Asparagus, Shitake Mushroom, Quinoa Risotto
Start to Finish 30 minutes Vegan
Serves 3 to 4
Ingredients
½ pound asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons Earth Balance Margarine
6 ounce shitake mushrooms, sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly milled pepper
1/3 cup finely minced shallot
1 cup quinoa
½ cup white wine
3 cups homemade vegetable stock, heated
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/8 cup chopped parsley
Method
Blanch asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces and set aside.
In a small skillet heat 1 tablespoon each of Earth Balance and olive oil.
Add the mushrooms and sauté until browned around the edges, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper, turn off the heat and set aside.
Heat the remaining Earth Balance and olive oil in a large skillet. Add the shallots and cook on medium heat to soften. Add the quinoa, stir to coat and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine and simmer until completely absorbed. Add 1 cup of stock, cover and simmer until absorbed.
Uncover and begin adding stock ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly until each addition is absorbed. About halfway through, add the mushrooms and asparagus. When the quinoa is nearly finished cooking, stir in the lemon zest, parsley and season with salt and pepper.
dirt 