Synergy Chicken Dinner

Shannon's home!!!!! After running my errands on Monday, I headed over to Shannon and Adams to cook dinner. She had brought a chicken from the farm for a celebration dinner. It was a second, meaning that it had some sort of tear on it's body from the processing. She asked Susan for a double second, a chicken that had been in some way mutilated during processing, but Susan had refused. She gave Shannon a fantastic chicken, there was one small cut in it's skin but, seriously, it was perfect. And huge!

There were also some fantastic farm veggies, like these carrots who had several feet. 

Also plenty of cat snuggling.... 

Shannon made bread, strange round bread, in the bread maker. It was so good! And the easiest thing ever. Just dump the stuff in, push the button, and wait for the beep. Awesome.

 

Baby carrot!

Fantastic meal, great game of farkel, all in all a good welcome home dinner party. I ended up sleeping on their couch, waking super early to head over to Salt, Fire and Time for my first volunteer shift!

It was great. We made sauerkraut, but a mexican version with red onions, carrots, chili flakes, cumin seed, fresh oregano, and bay leaves. And, of course, green cabbage and salt. 

This is it in the giant crock we put it in. It will sit for a month before being used. It was so easy and awesome, we just mixed the veggies with salt and seasonings, ran them in batches in the mixer and dumped them into the crock. When it was full, we squished it down, placed the weights on top, burped it,  and put the top on. Presto, sauerkraut!

Her kitchen is nice and big, sunny, and clean. She was an absolute well of information, I asked questions non stop and she had great answers. I learned more in the three hours I was there about fermenting than I have ever known from reading books. It was a fantastic dose of positive energy, I am looking forward to spending more time here, and eating more of the food!

Sorry, not such a great pic, this is the dining room where she holds Friday night dinners when the weather is chilly. The back patio is great for the summer dinners. 

All in all, a great experience. I am happy to be involved in what she is doing. I hope to be able to buy a weekly share soon, and just use the volunteer hour credits for extra stuff like coconut kefir and local chocolate truffles and Fressen bakery pretzels and kombucha. We shall see...

I left and headed to Oregon City to buy my books for fall quarter. I am getting off easy this quarter for sure, with books anyway. Tonia and I were meeting for lunch since I was in town. She wanted to go to West Linn and, since I had yet to visit downtown West Linn, I was in. It was a slightly ill fated trip, for reasons I could not begin to explain, but we found a great little mexican place to eat. While waiting for them to open, ( 10 minutes!) we walked down to the river park. the hill was steeeeep! The park was beautiful, though, it was the first time I had been to the river shore on that side. It was funny to look across and see my town! Funny, like backwards land.

Tacos + margaritas = nap!!!!