This week I'm doing a total of five posts, to introduce the curriculum my fellow co-creators and I are learning out here in Montrose. Last time, I talked about food, the first icon in the Transition Lab logo. In summary, we're trying to find ways to meet our food needs as a group by relying on a community, work-based economy, rather than the traditional dollar economy. This allows us to eat local, organic food without spending a single dollar, but more importantly, it puts us in tune with the needs of the community at large, and how we can meet those needs in exchange for what we need: food. We gift our time and labor to local farmers, and they reciprocate by gifting us with abundant, varied, and unbeatably fresh food.
We follow the same model with our approach to housing. Each of the students here lives in a spare bedroom in or around downtown Montrose, and each of us pays exactly $0 rent. Instead, we participate in what's called the Skilled Resident Program, which allows us to make up for our rent by working for our hosts, or in the community at large, for 10 hours per week. If you think about it in terms of dollars, assuming we'd be paid $10 an hour for the work we're doing, that's $400 dollars per month - which really is about equivalent to rent. Nobody's taking a loss here. Our hosts receive $400 dollars worth of work in their homes, gardens, and community, and we students get to pursue interesting, community-oriented work that interests us. The other students are doing things like designing gardens and compost systems for their hosts, and I'm doing projects with LiveWell Montrose Olathe (part of a larger initiative to improve healthful lifestyles in Colorado) and the Valley Food Partnership (a group dedicated to improving food education, infrastructure, and policy here in the Uncomphagre Valley). It's unbelievably rewarding to see my work translating directly into meeting one of my most basic needs - shelter. More rewarding, certainly, than living off my parents generosity - no matter how appreciated - or even than working for dollars which I then use to pay rent.
Plus, it's really fun to live with new people in a new place, especially the kind of people who are willing to open up their spare bedroom to a dirty hippy like me. (Full disclosure: I'm trying to cut shampoo and conditioner out of my life in favor of more natural alternatives, so, for the time being, while my hair adjusts to the change, I've actually got the full greasy, unwashed hippy look going. To clarify - it's clean...just greasy. For now.)
I'm being hosted by a couple, Dan and Karla, who have not one but three spare bedrooms, which they have allowed many people to use over the years, particularly interns for their church leadership program. They've been extremely generous and welcoming, treating me essentially as one of their daughters. I've really enjoyed getting to know them and their three dogs: Riley, Rowan, and the new puppy, Luna (who is just about too cute to handle). Dan and Karla place a high value on community, participating themselves in local events like the Adventure Film Festival which took place this April here in Montrose. I'm eternally grateful to them for understanding the value of the work I'm doing in the community and the skills I'm learning with Transition Lab, and for their decision to open their home to me.
I'll talk more about the projects we students are doing for our hosts as the blog progresses, but for now I just wanted to leave you all with a basic understanding of how the Skilled Resident model has allowed us to meet another of our fundamental needs in an unconventional way. It's been amazing to observe the effects of these partnerships within the community. Great friendships develop between hosts and residents, as well as among hosts, who come together for a monthly potluck hosted by Transition Lab. Great projects occur in peoples' homes and yards without hosts having to pay a stranger to do the landscaping. And great projects develop in the community, because residents are free to follow their passion and volition.
Tomorrow or the next day I'll cover the next aspect of our curriculum - entrepreneurship - and later this week, I'll post on community and knowledge of self. Thanks for sticking with me! As a reward, here's a recipe you'll definitely want to try. I cooked this for Russell and his wife, and it was, to say the least, a huge success. Don't be intimidated! You too can make crepes. I promise. The pictures I'm posting were of my first ever attempt. I think they turned out more than okay. Bon appetit!
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| Oh. Yeah. |
Start by making the caramel sauce. This is edited from an Emeril Legasse recipe for the most amazing salad dressing ever (Basil Caramel Vinaigrette from his Emeril's Kitchens cookbook) but it's edited pretty substantially. You can scale it up or down however you like. I like to make a ton because it's really versatile and you can put it on so many things.
- 2 parts sugar
- 2 parts apple cider vinegar
- 1 part heavy cream AT ROOM TEMPERATURE
In a saucepan, cook equal parts sugar and apple cider vinegar over medium to medium high heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Swirl the pan to stir, rather than using a spoon. A spoon sometimes causes the sugar to crystallize rather than form into smooth caramel. Continue to cook, swirling the pan occasionally, until the mixture darkens to a rich medium brown - not burned at all. This can be somewhat difficult - my advice is to keep the heat just below medium your first time, because things happen quickly. Swirling the pan will help you keep control of the temperature, and will prevent the caramel at the bottom from cooking faster. Don't worry about the strong vinegar smell - the caramel doesn't taste anything like vinegar. When you're happy with the color, turn the heat down to the lowest low and add the cream, swirling to incorporate. The mixture will foam, so be ready. It's very important to use cream at room temperature, because adding cold cream causes the caramel to harden. At this point, you can use a spoon to stir the mixture until it's homogeneous. If some small lumps of caramel formed, some of them may loosen up if you continue cooking over low heat. Or else you'll just have to eat them. Pour the mixture into another container (like a gravy boat or something that can pour) and let it cool. You can add salt and pepper to taste if you want.
Next start the crepes. I use Alton Brown's recipe for basic crepes, but I skip some steps. For enough crepes to feed 2-3 hungry people, you'll need:
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup flour
- 3 Tbsp melted butter + more butter to coat the pan
I pretty much just whisked all the ingredients together. Alton says to use a food processor, but I'll do almost anything to avoid cleaning food processors, so I said, "Screw that." Alton also recommends refrigerating the batter for at least an hour, which "allows the bubbles to subside" or whatever. I popped the mix in the fridge while I lightly sauteed:
- However much swiss chard you and your fellow feasters think you can cram down your gullets. Remember it cooks down, so...GO BIG.
Cook the chard with oil or butter over medium heat until it's wilted, then transfer it to a serving bowl or plate and cover to keep it warm.
Then I pulled out that crepe batter (after like 4 minutes of refrigeration...shhhh). The way to do this is to heat up a small non-stick pan with butter in it over medium to medium high heat. Not too much, or the crepes get soggy - you want just enough to coat the pan, with no pooling. The exact heat isn't a science - be flexible and watchful. The butter should be hot enough that when you add the batter, it sizzles a little, but definitely not so hot that the butter burns. (If it does burn, start over with fresh butter in a clean pan. Not the end of the world.) Maintaining the correct amount of heat was the hardest part of the whole process - but you can do it.
Pour the batter into the pan, about 1/8 to 1/4 cup at a time. This is based on preference as well as the size of your pan - I like my crepes a bit on the beefy side, plus, they're easier to flip that way. But if you truly want the paper-thin, melt-in-your-mouth experience, try to use as little batter as you can. Swirl the pan to spread the batter evenly. Cook it on this side for about 30-45 seconds. Again, this is somewhat flexible depending on how hot the pan is and how thick your batter is. A good indicator that the crepe is ready to flip is to watch the bubbles forming in the batter. The crepe is ready to flip when the bubbles stop filling themselves in with more batter when they pop. The second side is even quicker - more like 10-20 seconds.
Lay the crepes out flat to cool (not stacked), and continue until all batter is gone. Add more butter to the pan if it gets to dry or if they start to stick. Once the crepes are cool, you can stack them. They shouldn't stick to each other, but if you're worried, by all means layer wax paper between them.
Now to assemble the crepes! Lay a crepe out on your plate, pile it high with swiss chard and
- Brie. However much you can eat. Or "should" eat. Your call. Again, I went big.
Then drizzle the whole thing with the apple-cider caramel sauce. Prepare to have your world rocked.
I repeated this recipe a few weeks later with some friends. We didn't make the caramel sauce because we were...not sober...yeah...but we scrambled some eggs instead. Delicious. And yeah, we totally succeeded at making crepes. I'm serious, you can do this.
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