Farmgirl Power!

If you enjoy any traditional domestic arts like cooking, needle work, gardening, or keeping farm animals, you will probably enjoy this Mary Jane's Farm book of ideas. There's a lot of farmgirl philosophy in it such as the importance of community and the importance of using what you have on hand. I love this book!

However, I must say that it's a bit overly gentle to completely satisfy me. It's incredibly spunky of Mary Jane Butters to drive a pink Mercedes which she runs on home grown fuel, and I can't even tell you how gorgeous and stylish this woman is and how I wish I looked like her...there's plenty of personality in Mary Jane Butters' every endeavor, but it's just so gentle it occasionally gets under my skin.

Someday I'd like to write a book for urban homesteaders, farmgirls and farmguys who don't necessarily have access to twenty-or even two-acres of land. A book for edgier sharp witted people who like a little dark humor with their stitching lessons. A book with projects as much for the new housewife looking to keep house stylishly in suburbia as for people in cities, towns, or rural areas who are learning to homestead without acres.

I wouldn't write a book with the idea of replacing Mary Jane's Farm book, because I love her work, it would be to compliment her books on the bookshelf. She's an inspiration to me.

I was rereading her book from cover to cover the other evening because I really needed to dive into a gentler world for a while. I needed to be coddled a little in clean cotton, sweet people and a wholesome atmosphere to take the edge off of my own toxic thoughts and feelings. The most valuable thing I got from it was something I missed the last time I was going through it.

Mary Jane talks about her farm and her company (she produces all kinds of organic food mixes and other cool farmy products) and how it has evolved over the years. She talks about how many times her whole endeavor has nearly sunk, and then been saved with the help of others and with the tweaking of her focus. The end result is that there is no static idea of what Mary Jane's Farm is going to be, because it keeps changing according to circumstances and need. The way she talks about it is as though her business is a flexible living organism that has become successful because she's been willing to let it become what it needs to become.

This is good to hear for a person redefining my own business. What Dustpan Alley is right now, and what it might become, is not something I can completely know. What I do know is that if I hold onto one notion of what it should be, if I am adamant about sticking to one single vision, Dustpan Alley will not make it. Obviously. If I thought that the only thing I wanted for my company was to be a retail store, I'd be beat, right now.

So even though I think Mary Jane's use of gelatin-style deserts paired with chocolate shavings sounds about as good as pairing okra with creme anglaise, she's imparted something much more important to me right now: the courage to let life unfold in surprising ways, to let my future be flexible and to be willing to let change in.


Food Note: As a matter of fact, I have to admit that there aren't very many recipes in this book that tempt me at all. The food style is much different than mine. I am not a fan of sprouting every bean and seed on the planet, this is something my mother did that I didn't much appreciate, something that Mary Jane seems just as keen about. Also-I don't hate chilled jello-type deserts either, but only if they are clean and fruity...jello salads mixed with any dairy, chocolate, vegetables, meat, crusts, or cookies are very retro in a 1930's way, very kitschy and interesting, but not meant for me to eat. Ever.

The other food I'm very skeptical of is the concept of her bakeOvers. It's like a savory tarte tatin that you make for dinner. She says you can use almost any vegetables and such but I'm suspicious of the cooking times. Three to five minutes of sauteing vegetables followed by twenty minutes in an oven at 425 degrees is not enough time in my experience to really cook most vegetables to a pleasing texture. I'm not a fan of al dente potatoes.

The idea seems pretty cool but I'm a very experienced cook and unless you parboil vegetables, they don't usually cook that fast in the oven. Unlike the jello-style deserts in the book which I will not be trying, I think these bakeovers deserve a test run. If I do one, I'll report back. If you have made one to her instructions or using one of her mixes, please share with me what you thought about the results! But you better tell me if you're one of those people who like their vegetables to remain crunchy.