tomatoes.
Within those projects are more projects. For example, in his
herb garden (where he grows thyme, sage, epazote, tarragon, and
wormwood for making absinthe mead), there’s a jar of liquid.
When I ask about it, he says he’s making nochino, a walnut liqueur
he first tried at a friend’s house in Milan. “It’s a hilarious recipe,”
he tells me. “You have to pick twenty-four walnuts on the
twenty-fourth of June.”
“You didn’t actually do that, did you?”
“Yes, I did,” he says.
Of course he did.
How does Artz do all this? Why does Artz do all this? What’s
the point of doing all this? Should we be doing this ourselves?
The point becomes clearer when we start cooking. Artz heats
milk (high-quality milk that he has delivered from South Mountain
Creamery; see Resources in a pot to which he adds a spoonful of
citric acid. A few moments later, the milk’s coagulated, and, after
straining it, we have homemade ricotta. “It’s that easy,” says
Artz.
With that homemade ricotta, Artz fashions a calzone using his
homemade sourdough, his homemade mozzarella, his homegrown
spinach, garlic, and parsley, and his self-manufactured hot sauce.
The result is a hot, oozing loaf of comfort, remarkable for the fact
that every element was produced right here. Local food doesn’t get
any more local.