>> Funding for
Around the Farm Table
is provided in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
a member driven organization
for family farmers, rural
communities and all people.
Wisconsin Farmers Union, united
to grow family agriculture.
Information at
WisconsinFarmersUnion.com.
[moo]
[bell jingles]
>> It's the day after Christmas
and here in the barn my cow,
Abby, slipped and did
herself harm.
That's okay though, because I'm
going to get Dr. Julie who's a
cow chiropractor to come out and
do a little bit of work on her.
After we get done with Abby,
we're going to go out and get a
Christmas tree, and then it's
off to the cider farm in
Mineral Point, Wisconsin for
some Wisconsin grown
apple brandy.
Then it's Boxing Day, so I'm
having a Boxing Day celebration
with some friends of mine that
had to work on Christmas Day.
And I'm making figgy pudding.
Gather with us,
Around the Farm Table.
I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
[moo]
>> All: Gather with us,
Around the Farm Table.
>> A few years ago,
I moved up to Wisconsin.
I started an organic dairy farm
at St. Isidore's Mead.
That's when I discovered
the abundance of Midwestern
local food
and small-scale farmers
growing everything
from green zebra tomatoes
to pasture pork.
I'm taking a break
from the cows,
hittin' the road
and seein' if I can't satisfy
my epicurious appetite.
* *
Hi, Julie.
>> Hi, Inga.
>> Thanks for coming.
>> Absolutely.
>> Well, this is Abby and she's
in bad shape.
Can you help me?
>> Oh, I'm glad to.
I'm just going to go get some
things from me car, and I'll be
right back to fix her up.
>> Great, thanks
So this is Abby.
She had a little slip on the ice
yesterday.
I didn't want to call you down
because it was Christmas Day
yesterday.
I just wanted to find out what
we could do for her and just
make her feel a little
bit better.
>> Yeah, good, it's a good thing
you called.
That's really something that
they can suffer with.
>> What are some of the benefits
for doing chiropractic work
on cows?
>> Oh, gosh, it's really similar
to people.
Just what you said, falling on
the ice is a very common
problem.
It really benefits them, gets
them out of pain, helps them to
move better and just
feel better.
>> Talk to me a little bit about
what the process is for
adjusting a cow.
>> Sure.
What we're going to do is we're
going to do an evaluation on
Abby as we just did.
We looked at her to see where
things aren't moving properly.
We're going to watch her walk
and then we're going to adjust
her very, very gently and
non-violently.
It really doesn't take very much
force at all to get the joints
moving properly again.
Then we're going to let her
heal, and come back for second
adjustment in three of four
weeks and see how she's doing.
>> Okay.
Now she's a dry cow.
I can feel her calf kicking
around at me right now.
She's okay to be adjusted at
this stage of pregnancy?
>> Absolutely.
Now, if we were using a lot of
force or a high-force technique,
then I wouldn't recommend it.
But it's so gentle that it's
great for any stage of life.
>> Okay.
>> If you want to put your hand
here and kind of rock back and
forth, you can feel how this is
stuck toward me.
>> Yeah.
>> It doesn't move as much.
We're going to come in and just
very gently challenge her pelvis
here too.
Now feel on your side, if you
push straight down lightly.
There you go.
And then feel this one.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Do you feel how hard this
is here?
What we're going to do is
increase that range of motion so
she can be comfortable.
>> Okay.
>> So we're going to fix this,
we're going to come in an
readjust the pelvis here.
Her hips, which are actually
right here.
This is the hip joint here.
You can feel on this side, this
is the side she must have
fallen on.
Do you feel how hard that is?
>> Yeah, yeah!
>> It's very different from side
to side.
So we're going to help her hip
move, her pelvis move and her
tail head.
Now as we move up here along her
spine, do you see how she starts
to crawl here?
We're going to do some joint
adjusting, and then I'll come
back and do some muscle
adjusting as well.
We're going to come in very
gently here and just begin
working with some of
these areas.
>> That's very gentle.
>> It's extremely.
And you would think with a cow
that you would need to take a
running start.
>> Yeah.
>> But that's a misconception.
I'm going to move up her spine,
and then recheck.
We're going to get up into this
area where she's uncomfortable
and really get this released.
She says, yeah.
>> Take a nice, deep breath.
>> There we go.
>> You're just running your
hands up to just feel
any tension.
>> Yeah, so what I'm feeling for
is motion.
I want to restore the normal
range of motion in all of
her joints.
She's obviously relaxed and
accepting that.
>> Good girl.
Thank you so much for coming
out today.
I know Abby's feeling so
much better.
I really appreciate it.
>> Oh, sure.
>> Hey, I had to work on
Christmas Day, I know that you
did too.
I'm inviting some other people
over that had to work
Christmas Day as well to come
celebrate our Christmas, and
have some dessert and have
some fun.
Can you stick around?
>> That would be great, yeah.
I've got another farm down the
road, then I'll be right back.
>> Great! Okay.
I'm going to get my snowshoes
on, head out to get a Christmas
tree, because of course I forgot
to get one before Christmas.
Then we're going to head on out
to the cider farm in
Mineral Point, Wisconsin to get
some Wisconsin apple brandy.
* Oh yeah *
* It's Christmastime *
* *
[knocking]
I don't think he's home.
Let me just give him a call.
[touchtone dial chimes]
[ringing]
Hi Henry, it's Inga.
Merry Christmas to you.
Oh, well, I'm actually standing
in front of your house.
I came over to get a Christmas
tree.
I know it's the day after
Christmas, but I though, well,
better late than never.
Well, I'm having some people
over and I wanted to make it a
little bit more festive at
my place.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
I can just go out there and
get one.
That's fine.
Yeah?
All righty, well, you just keep
celebrating.
I'll be fine.
Okay then, Merry Christmas
to you.
All righty, bye.
He said we could just go
get one.
* Oh yeah *
* It's Christmastime *
* *
This looks like a perfect
Inga tree.
I'm going to take the tree back
to the farm, and then I'll meet
you down at the cider farm where
we'll pick up our brandy.
* *
* Oh yeah *
* Uh-huh *
* Whoo *
* *
Hi there!
>> Hey, Inga!
>> Merry Christmas
>> Let me get this branch out
of the way.
>> Nice to see you.
>> Great to see you.
>> Did you guys have a
good holiday?
>> Very good, very good.
Took a break from some of the
orchard work.
>> And back out today.
Deirdre, what are you looking
for when you're pruning your
apple trees?
What's kind of--
How do you go about it?
>> Well, one thing about growing
apples is that your farming
the sun.
So you want to let light down
all the way through the tree to
your lower branches.
We want to prune out any of the
oversized branches that are way
up high that might be
blocking that.
Also, we're not growing wood,
we're growing fruit, so we want
to get out some of the big, long
branches that are not as
productive and allow some
younger branches to grow that in
two years would start
barring fruit.
>> Okay.
>> And then also, for disease
management.
You need air to move through
the trees.
>> Or else you can get those
molds and things?
>> Yes, you can get all kinds
of things.
There's three major diseases
apples can get, plus some other
ones as the end of the season.
But when you have that air
moving through then you're
allowing the tree to dry faster.
That way you get less
disease-causing organisms
thriving in orchard in a
wet environment.
We have some trees that are kind
of the wine grapes of apple.
They're grown more for those
purposes than they would ever be
for eating.
Some you would never want
to eat.
One of my workers last year,
I saw her making a funny face.
I asked her what was wrong.
She said, oh I just bit into
Tremletts Bitter.
She thought that was
appropriately named.
>> I came her for two reasons.
One is to get some brandy, but
the other one is, my husband and
I put in some apples trees
last year.
I would just love it if you
could just a tiny show of how I
should be pruning and what I
should be--
What branches I should be
looking at and things like that?
>> Yeah, okay.
We want to let light into
the tree.
We also want to keep branches
from rubbing against each other,
because that's where you can
have some diseases pop up.
And branches that are growing
straight up usually don't
produce fruit.
>> I feel like I should take
this one, but I feel like I'm
cutting someone else's hair.
[laughter]
>> Don't worry about it.
The tree is not going to die.
And that a thing to remember
with pruning your young trees,
is that you're really not going
to hurt it.
>> You can't over prune it.
>> Yes, you can do some summer
pruning, and when you get those
straight-up growths, called
water sprouts.
In the summer, like middle of
the summer, July, maybe early
August is a very good time.
If you can get in there.
Now with all the--
That's one reason we prune in
the winter, is that you can see
the structure of the tree
very well.
There's no leaves involved.
>> That makes sense.
>> But when you see those in the
summer, that's an excellent time
to prune those out.
>> Well, Deirdre, now that I
know about pruning, how about we
learn a little bit more about
brandy drinking.
>> Yes.
Thanks for your help here, and
I'd love to tell you more about
brandy.
* *
This is our very first release
of our own apple brandy, all
state-grown.
All the apples are from our
orchard.
It aged for two years in charred
oak bourbon barrel.
We also added some of our own
wild apple wood to it.
>> Okay.
I know you're certified organic.
Was that a conscious decision,
that you wanted to make sure
that you were adding value to
your farm by being certified
organic?
Or was that just something that
you knew you wanted to have
those practices anyway, so you
just wanted to take it one step
further?
>> Well, wherever we did we were
going to be doing it
organically.
I was the kid in high school who
took two years of biology
instead of just the
required one.
I really like biology.
So basically, when you're
managing organically it's in a
biological way.
I really enjoy understanding how
the tree is functioning, the
dynamics of the ecosystem we're
trying to build in the orchard.
Also we have planted quite a bit
of prairie.
We've taken some of the crop
ground that was being rented and
converted that to prairie.
So we have over 30 acres of
prairie on the land now.
>> Speaking of that natural
habitat for the good bugs, what
are some of the things that I
should be planting around my
garden to increase those
beneficial insects on my land?
>> Black-eyes Susans and wild
bergamot.
There's some echinacea and the
goldenrods that are growing in
our orchard rows now.
Our real workhorses are the wild
bees that are out there.
So having habitat for them is
very important.
We're even putting in what they
call habitat strips, or
basically, strips of prairie
planting around the orchard so
that habitat is close by.
The pollinators are there as
well as some of the
beneficial insects.
>> You have to walk the orchard
every day just checking
on things?
>> Yeah, I'm checking on things
every day.
Now that we have about 2,400
tree, and eventually 10,000 or
so trees, we won't be able to
walk every tree every day, but
when this disease first showed
up when we had our first
blossom, then I was walking
every tree and examining every
tree every three to five days
all summer.
>> Wow.
>> And into the fall.
I became intimately acquainted--
[laughter]
with my trees.
And it's paying off.
The diligence is paying off
because we're seeing less and
less of this disease showing up
every year.
But we have had to cut down and
burn a number of trees as well.
You know, it's always kind of
two steps forward, one back.
Blossom time is very, very
critical for us.
Then sometime some of those
trees will just produce what
they call rat-tail blossoms.
Just some stragglers blossoms at
the end that if you have one
little infection and it can kill
the tree.
In the winter, I'm not just
pruning out branches, I'm also
looking for cankers, or little
places that were infected by
that bacterium.
I'm just cutting those out with
my grafting knife.
>> What was your process from
the start of the idea to the
finished product?
>> I started out by growing
primarily English cider apples
with funny names like Ellis
Bitter and Summerset Red Streak.
Those apples are not
commercially available.
We couldn't go out and buy those
apple trees.
So we learned to hand graft and
started out by growing primarily
English cider apples.
After getting those to survive
in the tree nursery and planting
them out, we did our first
planting in 2006.
We had out first actual harvest
of any size in 2011.
When we brought in the apple
juice our distiller said that he
has never smelled apples in his
facility like when I brought in
that load of apple juice.
He's making apple brandy every
year, all the time.
So he's had thousands of gallons
of apple juice in there, and yet
the load from 2012, he said just
permeated the place.
I'm so glad you came by to hare
this brandy with me.
>> I am too.
There's nothing like stopping in
the middle of the day just to
have a nice, wonderful sip of
something delicious.
If you ever want to trade caw
manure for brandy, let me know.
I would definitely trade.
This is so delicious.
>> The soil is that important to
us, so we may be talkin' there.
* *
>> Well, for me figgy pudding
means Christmas, it means
actually, the day after
Christmas.
Because as dairy farmers, we
were never really able to gather
with our neighbors and our
friends before the holidays
because it's hard to get milker.
Everybody was always busy.
We always gathered the day
after, on Boxing Day and
celebrated with our friends and
family by having our inaugural
plum pudding or figgy pudding
and light it on fire, and it was
a wonderful thing.
I wanted to recreate that for
being here in Wisconsin with the
friends and family that I
have here.
So I thought, why not kind of
take that original figgy pudding
recipe that my mother always
used, but kind of tailor it a
little bit more so we can use
more Wisconsin products.
And if there's anywhere that
would be perfect to make this
figgy pudding with local
ingredients, it's right here
in the Midwest.
What we have here is
cranberries--
Right?
Wisconsin's the cranberry
growing state.
But what you may not know is
we're also growing a lot of
currents here.
We use dried currents, dried
cranberries, and of course,
Door County cherries in
this recipe.
Now when you do
your fruitcakes--
I know some of you might be
thinking, I'm not going to do
a fruitcake.
I don't want to do a figgy
pudding.
They're actually quite good I
know they've gotten a bad rap,
but they're actually quite good.
There's a couple of things that
you want to make sure when
you're doing your figgy pudding.
You want it boozy, spicy and a
little bit fruity.
I think that's probably what you
also want in a good friend.
At least most of my friends have
all those qualities too.
Let's get started right away.
My tip for making any holiday
meal is always to top yourself
off with a little apple brandy,
if you have that opportunity,
which I think all of us should.
That way you get into the spirit
of things and you get warmed up
from the cold days of winter.
I think it makes dealing with
the holidays a little
bit easier.
Now, you know I never measure
anything, but I've got
everything down to somewhat of a
science here.
I've got about a half a pound of
a white, country style bread
that I've just put through the
food processor to make these
lovely little bread crumbs.
And if you wanted to get
technical I suppose you could
measure out three cups.
To my bread crumbs, I'm going to
add my spices.
My spices today are a little bit
of cloves, we have some ginger,
we have a little bit of
cinnamon.
We're just going to put that in.
It's going to be starting to
smell like Christmas in our
kitchen.
My favorite Christmastime, or
even Thanksgiving spice is
nutmeg.
I always do fresh nutmeg.
It just has a nicer flavor
to it.
Oh, it's starting to smell
really good.
As farm kids, instead of putting
out cookies and milk for Santa,
which we weren't really that
interested in Santa, we were
kind of more like, he's probably
covered with as many houses as
he's hitting.
So wanted to do something for
the reindeer.
Since we lived on a farm and we
had hay my brothers and I would
go out to the hay barn and bring
back alfalfa that we'd set in
the snow by the chimney so that
when Santa was inside the
reindeer could come down and
nibble the alfalfa.
Every morning on Christmas
morning when we'd wake up, all
that alfalfa would be gone.
I was just a magical time
for us.
Just add the fruit.
And again, I like to use
Wisconsin fruit.
Why not?
If we're here, this is another
way that we can eat locally when
maybe the grass isn't growing
and it's not warm outside to say
the least.
But we can also use those
wonderful fruits that were ripe
last year.
I've got the currents in there.
I love dried cherries.
I think they're so wonderful to
add to so many things to get
nice tartness but sweet, little
plumpy yummy.
So there you go, that's my
description of cherries.
Now just add the cranberries,
because what would we be without
cranberries here in Wisconsin.
They're delicious.
I'll just give these babies a
little bit of toss here, and
then have a little tipple
in between
to keep the spirits up.
Then to my mixture put those
eggs right into our mixture,
and give it a toss.
A few more ingredients left
and then we're done.
All right, sugar, about a cup,
right on there.
You know, this recipe was
originally made with suet,
which is beef fat.
I don't know that I'm going to
be able to go there.
I can do lard, no problem, but
I just haven't crossed the
border yet into suet.
I'm going to use butter instead.
Plus, I'm a dairy farmer.
Wouldn't you rather use butter?
All right, we've got the butter,
let's just stir it up again.
Oh, and my favorite ingredient
that we're going to add--
Well, one of my favorites.
How can none of these
ingredients be your favorite?
I mean, they're all wonderful
ingredients put together.
But one thing that I love to be
able to add, because I love to
add a little bit of--
I don't know, a little bit of
memories, I guess, while I cook.
It's my mother's marmalade.
My mother-in-law goes to Florida
during the wintertime so she
sends up a crate full of oranges
to my mom, and then my mom will
make marmalade.
It's my favorite kind of jam.
I'm going to add that right to
the mix here.
It's nice, especially if you
can't be with your mothers or
your mother-in-law on Christmas.
You have a little bit of them
with you right here.
Get that mixed in.
And my favorite part, maybe this
is the part that my children or
nephews will add to remember me
by, is about a half cup
of brandy.
I'm just going to pour that
right in.
You don't need to measure this.
You just eyeball this.
That looks good,
and a good stir.
Okay, here's something else that
you need to know about making
figgy pudding.
It's a tradition, when you're
stirring your figgy pudding, you
ask everybody in the house to
come in and give it a good stir.
While they're stirring they can
sit there and they can think
about what they want to wish for
the next year.
As they stir they put a wish
into your figgy pudding.
As you eat it, your wishes all
come true.
I can't tell you what I'm going
to wish for I suppose, because
then it won't come true.
So you all have to wish with me
right now.
Okay, now we're ready.
This doesn't get baked,
it gets steamed.
If you're not like me where you
do things at the least minute,
you really want to plan to do
this sometime after
Thanksgiving.
So maybe on Black Friday instead
of going shopping this year,
make your pudding.
We're going to steam it for
about two to four hours.
After it's steamed you can wrap
it up and put it in the freezer,
or even put it in a cabinet, as
long as it's wrapped up
well enough.
Then when you get ready to serve
it on Christmas Eve or
Boxing Day, you just take it
back out and you can steam it
for a little bit longer
and it's ready to go.
Traditionally, you would serve
it with a hard sauce, but I love
whipped cream.
I'm going to serve mine with a
fresh whipped cream later
on today.
All righty, I'm just going to
put this in my bunt pan.
If you find some beautiful
pudding molds, and they're out
there at antique stores,
grab one for this.
It would be gorgeous.
I have not found one, so I'm
using a mini bunt pan.
* *
The final step of figgy puffing
is just sealing it in with
some foil.
Get a good wrap around on there.
Then what I do is I put a little
bit of old foil in my pan that
I'm going to steam it in to keep
it off of the burner.
Probably, if you cook a lot, you
probably have some sort of tool
that's specifically for that.
I don't.
One day maybe I will, but I
don't know.
I have to kind of improvise.
Then just top it off some
boiling water.
That boiling water's going to
come up about halfway on our
little pudding here.
Now the lid goes back on my pot,
and that pot's going to go back
on the stove where it will
simmer for about two to
three hours.
Which is the perfect amount of
time for me to get outside and
finish with my outdoor chores,
and get cleaned up for
the party.
* Oh Yeah *
* It's Christmas time *
* *
Since I'm allergic to Christmas
trees I usually only bring them
in for special occasions, like
Boxing Day.
Invite you guests to bring their
favorite Christmastime
desserts.
Served chilled champagne, and
don't forget about the
apple brandy.
Slice your figgy pudding thin.
That way the guests can get the
wonderful flavors of the fruit
and spices without being
overwhelmed.
Homemade jam thumbprint cookies
go well with a dessert buffet.
Also lovely, are little
tea cookies.
* *
A traditional British dessert
is a trifle.
This trifle has layers of
chocolate, vanilla and
homemade jam.
Children love it.
* *
Make sure to offer a
non-alcoholic punch for guests
who are coming from a ways away.
[bells jingle]
* *
* Oh, bring us *
* Some figgy pudding *
* Oh bring us *
* Some figgy pudding *
[conversations]
* Oh bring us *
* Some figgy pudding *
* Oh, bring us *
* Some figgy pudding *
* Oh, bring us *
* Some figgy pudding *
* And bring it right here *
* We won't go *
* Until we get some *
>> Gather with us next time.
>> All: Around the Farm Table.
* *
[moo]
* *
>> Funding for
Around the Farm Table
is provided in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
a member driven organization
for family farmers, rural
communities and all people.
Wisconsin Farmers Union, united
to grow family agriculture.
Information at
WisconsinFarmersUnion.com.