Farm Stories
Unique and charming stories about Lynn growing up on a farm. What inspires his meal planning and recipes.
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Chilling Out with Blueberries
Back on the farm in the 1950s, I knew what the arrival of blueberries in the local store meant: my grandmother’s blueberry pie. Like many families, our blueberry expectations were centered around desserts. Occasionally, we had blueberry pancakes, and someone…
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A Meditation on Farm Foods of My Youth
During these dog days of summer, I’m having a hard time gaining any enthusiasm for cooking a meal. Instead, I find myself musing upon the favorite foods of my youth. Food nostalgia is built into our DNA early in life,…
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The Inexplicable Joys of Beach Pizza
Who doesn’t like pizza? Pizza is a one-dish meal that is just so versatile and so satisfying. Everybody has their own favorite style and ingredients, and everybody seems to have their own memory of their first pizza, not to mention…
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How Do Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow?
Here’s some unsolicited advice. Begin to seriously practice being a locavore – and encourage your friends to do the same. The reason: Our global food system faces grave challenges, both near-term and long-term. Since the last time I wrote about…
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It’s Spring, and Planting Season for Our Wheat
WARNING: This blog contains gluten. We’re on the cusp of spring growing season. The snow has melted, and the frozen ground below is thawing. It’s the time of year when the farmers I knew as a youth were itching to…
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Dispatch from the Cabbage Patch
My friend Tom suggested I was missing an opportunity to extol the glories of cabbage, especially during the week of St. Patrick’s Day when boiled cabbage and corned beef reigned. As for cabbage, we’re talking about a vegetable that, to…
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Meditation on Meatloaf
One universal meal on the farm was meatloaf. Every farmhouse had a freezer with plenty of ground beef, and meatloaf was a great mainstay to feed a crowd of hungry people. Each farm cook had their own recipe that varied…
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Scandinavian Christmas Traditions
In mid-December Scandinavia, it’s dark – just six hours of light each day. The sun rises in Oslo at around 9:20 a.m. and sets at about 3:15 in the afternoon. Winter is setting in now, and the locals are happy…
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The Future of Farming
When you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner, I hope you will consider saying a big “thank you” to the farmers and ranchers responsible for your meal. As Americans, we have a huge gap in understanding what’s happening out there…
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Future Food Sources: Reaping What We Sow
Here north of Boston, July was not a good month for vegetable gardens. Record rainfall. Cold temperatures. And a bumper crop of weeds. As for the vegetables, the tomatoes were not ripening as they should, and others were slow to…
