Soil to Story

We grow things. We make things. Sometimes we even finish them.

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Welcome to our little slice of not-quite-a-farm.

We left Seattle and settled on a couple acres in Tacoma: enough room for a big garden, a workshop big enough for any fantasy, and a future full of slow-made things.

Right now, we’re digging up rocks (so many rocks), planting beds where there used to be lawn, cooking with what we grow, and building things.

The “back 40” might hold sunflowers, or corn, chickens, or goats someday, but for now, it’s just holding possibilities.

Soil to Story is where it all comes together: the garden, the workshop, the kitchen, and Paper Trail, my custom memory book studio. This is a work-in-progress kind of life, shared one dirty, delicious, half-baked story at a time.

  • Gumbo, but make it lazy

    Gumbo, but make it lazy

    There are so many reasons I have no business writing a recipe blog.

    I have nothing poetic to say about steam rising from a bowl at dusk. I can’t style food for shit. My photography skills are nil. And I do not have the patience for the “every Sunday, growing up, my grandmother…” preamble when the reality is that I was hungry, and there was a bell pepper in the fridge.

    Oh, and I don’t measure things when I cook.

    Which makes this whole blog endeavor feel slightly fraudulent any time there’s food involved.

    But I got in a gumbo mood the other day. We had andouille. We had chicken. We had homemade chicken broth. That’s enough to start trouble.

    And I was feeling lazy. So I made food-processor gumbo.

    I like my andouille diced fine… almost ground. I’m sure that’s heresy somewhere, and I apologize to whichever region would like to revoke my cooking privileges. But when it’s chopped that small, the flavor spreads and seeps into everything. Every bite tastes smoky instead of just the bites with sausage in them.

    I started with a caramel roux: oil and flour. Then in went the finely diced andouille to sizzle and render. The vegetables (onion, bell pepper, celery) got the lazy treatment in the food processor.

    Garlic. Spices. Stock. The whole thing simmered until it smelled like I had tried much harder than I did.

    I poached a chicken breast in the pot, shredded it, and tossed it back in. Normally I’d add okra but we didn’t have any. Or parsley. Or scallions.

    It was good!

    The Very Approximate Recipe

    • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
    • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
    • 2 andouille sausages, diced fine
    • 1 yellow onion, diced fine
    • 1/4 red onion, diced fine
    • 1 yellow bell pepper, diced fine
    • 4 stalks celery, diced fine
    • 5 cups homemade chicken stock
    • 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
    • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
    • 2 tsp red pepper flakes
    • 2 tsp black pepper
    • 2 tsp dried thyme
    • 2 tsp dried oregano
    • 1 tsp dried rosemary
    • 1 tablespoon paprika
    • 2 tsp garlic powder
    • 2 tsp salt

    Method, roughly:

    1. Make a roux with oil and flour over medium heat, stirring constantly until deep caramel brown.
    2. Add andouille and cook a few minutes to render flavor.
    3. Add finely chopped vegetables and cook until softened.
    4. Stir in garlic and spices, ground in a spice grinder.
    5. Add stock and bring to a simmer.
    6. Poach chicken in the gumbo until cooked through. Remove, shred, and return to pot.
    7. Simmer until it tastes right. Serve with rice.

    I have no business writing a recipe blog. But I do know how to feed my people.