(folksy music)
- Welcome to the farm.
Women have always played an important part in agriculture,
and today, we're gonna be celebrating some of those women
with a little bit of bubbly and some Wisconsin caviar.
So first we're gonna head out to River Bend Winery
for some sparkling wine,
and then up to Sturgeon Bay for some Wisconsin caviar.
Gather with us Around the Farm Table .
I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
- [Group] Gather with us Around the Farm Table .
- [Inga] 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,
hitting the road and seeing if I can't satisfy
my epicurious appetite.
That's great.
This is amazing.
- Around the Farm Table is funded in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
Heartland Credit Union,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
(cow moos)
- I'm here with Christian from the Wisconsin DNR,
and who's this girl?
- This is a red-tailed hawk.
This is an adult bird, and in full molt.
It's in rather rough condition because raptors are
molting their feathers this time of year.
The red-tailed hawk is the largest
and most common species of hawk we have in this state.
There may be a pair for every square mile in good habitat.
- Wow.
- Most folks who have a farm
probably know what a red-tail is
because they're very common
in this patchy farmland/forest interface.
It eats anything from a cricket to maybe a woodchuck.
- Oh, wow. - And it's a generalist feeder,
and it's primarily a rodent eater, though.
- Why do we need to have all the different rodents
and bugs and insects?
- Well, if you appreciate wildlife,
then you like to see a good, healthy community,
and basically if you have a good variety of species,
you've got everything that you might like to see
and some things that you might want to
encourage to be elsewhere.
That's the good and the bad of wildlife,
but basically the richer the habitat is
the more variety you see in the species.
- So now we need to kind of have these areas
just to support our ecosystems and these wonderful animals,
because it is nice to have the variety in the species.
I've noticed here on the farm
since I put cows back on this land
and really started using the pastures,
I've seen so many changes over 10 years,
and just being able to see foxes come back to live,
or all the birds, it's just incredible.
- I think that things change all the time.
And I remember times when I couldn't see turkeys
or fishers or trumpeter swans, and things come and they go.
And we've seen as land changes
and plant life starts to evolve into a higher form...
By the way, she just roused.
She just realigned all her feathers.
That tells me she's in good condition.
- Oh, good. (laughs)
- Basically, all different species have different needs,
and if the land is constantly in a state of change
or disturbance, which grazing is a good form of disturbance,
nature turns on the spigots and gets productive again,
and animals respond accordingly.
- And also, you don't have to have cows on your property
to be able to have a system like this.
So if you have a pasture at home and all these beautiful--
the space there, what a great way to bring in wildlife, right?
- And you can still harvest a crop of hay.
If you do it carefully,
then you can still produce an income
and still have wildlife habitat.
- So she's hunting during the daytime
and taking care of all of the field mice
and things like that, but what happens at night?
- She'll go to roost for the night
and another bird will start the night shift,
and that particular bird is the great horned owl.
- Do you think we could have a peek?
- I do have one, and I'll give you a look at it.
- Okay.
(folksy music)
- This is a great horned owl.
This is the largest and most powerful
of the owls in Wisconsin,
one of 12 different species we can see in our state.
- It's amazing to see one up close.
Those eyes are incredible.
- Aren't they?
Large eyes, bigger than yours.
And yet they can only see black, white, and gray.
- No kidding! - No color vision.
And what are they hunting for at night?
- This particular bird can hunt anything
from a cricket to a half-grown raccoon.
They can take about any animal that they can overpower.
- Now we're seeing these predators here today.
What's the importance of predators?
- That's a good question.
As my career goes on,
I hear more and more people continue to say,
"There's too many predators, just too many."
And yet, if you really look at the value of a predator,
there is an economic value.
They're living expressions
of the health and the vigor of our land.
They'll tell us first if there's a problem.
They're also indicators of a complete community of animals
that support a hunter like them.
So if you hear an owl hooting,
that's telling you there's a whole community of animals
out there that supports a hunter like an owl.
- Christian, it's been so interesting
to be able to learn about how
the ecosystem is a lot bigger than I think it is
and how the pasture supports more than just my farm animals.
Sustainable agriculture is so interesting,
and today we're celebrating women in sustainable agriculture
with a party here at the farm.
I thought I'd pick up some Wisconsin caviar
and a little bit of sparkling wine.
So, why don't we take off and gather the ingredients.
(folksy music)
I'm here in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin at River Bend Winery.
I wanted to meet up with Donna
and find out how she grows these beautiful grapes
for her sparkling wine, and then
I plan on taking some sparkling wine back to the ladies.
Let's go find Donna.
Hello, Donna. - [Donna] Hi, Inga.
- How are you doing today? - Very good, how are you?
- Good, what a lovely day to be on a vineyard. - Beautiful day.
- So tell me a little bit about growing wine grapes
here in Wisconsin.
I never think about Wisconsin as a wine state.
- No, and a lot of people don't.
It's kind of interesting now.
We've been at this for about 10 years.
So we get up in the morning,
we come out and work in the vineyard, and it's very normal.
And then people drive in here and they're like,
"Wow, this feels like I'm in California.
This isn't what I was expecting to see."
So it's kind of unusual for this area.
- How did you get interested in pursuing a project like this?
- We started the way a lot of people in the Midwest start.
We were amateur winemakers
starting in the basement at home.
We decided we wanted to take it up a notch,
and for my husband and I, it was very important that
not only did we have a winery, but we also had a vineyard.
So the vineyard came first.
Planted the first vines about 10 years ago.
- So you're growing your own grapes
and you're making your own wine.
So all the wine that you drink from here is really from here.
- Right, yep.
- That's pretty unique, isn't it? - Yep, yeah.
And sometimes people call and ask
if they can buy fruit from us,
and, no, we use everything
that we grow here in our own production,
and then we work with other Wisconsin growers, too.
- That's fantastic.
So how did you decide what varieties
that you're gonna do?
- You know, around here
the climate pretty much decided that for us.
So this climate is not conducive
to growing something like a Merlot.
You need more heating degree days,
you need a much longer season,
and you can't be so cold in the winter.
So the varieties we grow here are all from
the University of Minnesota's fruit breeding program.
It's a program similar to what gave us Honeycrisp apples.
And they have taken grapes that grow here native
and they have crossed them
with grapes that have wine characteristics,
and that's the only reason that wine grapes
are grown in this area.
- Yeah, because what a short season we have here.
Late frost in May, early frost in September.
Yeah, it's pretty short.
- So you know you're doing something that's very unique
is you're doing a sparkling wine here in Wisconsin.
Is this the climate for it?
- You know, it is.
You need really a warm climate and a long season
to grow something like Merlot or Cabernet.
This is not the greatest red wine growing area,
but it's the perfect area
to grow grapes for sparkling wine.
We want high acidity, we want low sugar.
That's exactly what we get here.
- Ooh, that's great, yeah.
Well, when life gives you short growing seasons,
make sparkling wine, right? - Absolutely.
- So I'm just looking over it.
How many acres of grapes do you have here?
- We only have about five, which is relatively small,
but it's 3,000 plants. - That's a lot of plants.
- Yeah, and it's a lot of work, yeah.
- Is there a certain time of the year when
you're pruning the grape vines,
or is it just you're out here all the time?
- Yeah, we could be out here all the time,
from taking off the dead wood from the winter,
pruning in the spring, taking off extra foliage.
It takes us a day-and-a-half just to mow.
- Wow, yeah. - So, yeah,
we could be out here all the time, yep, all the time.
- How do you harvest all these grapes?
- Everybody around here harvests by hand, but we're lucky.
We have customers who love to come and help,
so we put the word out of when we're gonna pick,
and we'll get 30 or 40 people a day
who will come out on a Saturday morning.
We'll pick for a few hours, be done by noon,
and they love it,
'cause then they get to really feel like
they're a part of the wine that we're producing,
'cause they got to help pick the grapes.
- Sure, what a great experience for folks.
- Yeah, they love it.
- Well I'm not gonna help you pick any wine grapes,
but I'd love to taste some sparkling wine, if that's okay.
- We should go do that. - Okay.
(folksy music)
(cork pops)
Cheers. - Cheers.
- Well, I'm gonna finish up my glass of bubbly,
and then why don't you meet me up in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin,
where we'll find out about Wisconsin caviar from Charlie.
(folksy music)
Hey Charlie! - Hey Inga, how are you?
- Good! - It's always good to see you.
- Nice to see you, too. - Welcome Aboard!
(laughing)
- Charlie, tell me a little bit about your business.
- Well, we're commercial fishermen,
but one of the important parts of what we do
is that we're food producers.
So we have some products we export.
We have a lot of local fish
that we prepare for restaurants and fish houses.
Some of them smoke it.
Some of them do other things with it.
But one interesting part of our business that we do
is we actually produce caviar.
- That's so exciting.
I never thought of Wisconsin as being a place to find caviar.
- Any kind of fish egg can be made into caviar
by processing it and have it ready to eat.
- So what type of fish do you use for your caviar?
- Well, we do whitefish,
and that makes a product called Löjrom
that we sell to people in Sweden,
and we also make Sikrom, which is also sold in Sweden.
- You're not just selling this that the local farmer's markets?
- No, you know, amazingly enough
there's not a huge domestic demand for it,
so most of our caviar
goes either to a company in Canada that then exports it,
or we export it directly.
- That's amazing.
- We're a pretty neat little niche here,
and it goes back 100 years in the lakes here.
- Wow.
Now whenever I think of Wisconsin,
I always just think of cows and corn
and everything like that.
How did you get into the fishing business?
- Well, I moved to Door County, Wisconsin,
which is surrounded by water,
and I love being here, because I was a water person.
And I had some local commercial fishermen
ask me to start helping 'em 45 years ago,
and one thing led to another, and here I am.
- Is this a seven day a week job?
- Not all the time.
I mean there's some times in the spring or in the fall
we're at it steady.
Sometimes you need that catch-up day,
if you're fishing six days a week.
But with our trap nets, with the live entrapment,
we can produce our fish in four or five days,
and then schedule our processing
so we have it when people want it.
- That's nice.
Do you have to think about the environment at all
when you're doing your fishing?
Do you have to make sure you're not taking too much fish?
or making sure--
- Absolutely.
The water quality is improving, but some of the improvements
have made some changes that have affected us.
Because of the zebra mussel and quagga mussel
the waters got clearer,
but what that's caused is the Cladophora,
and the other plant life in the water, to grow faster,
so that's changed some stuff.
And the clear water has changed
how the fish act in the lake.
So we actually do better in lower Green Bay
where the fish are more plentiful,
but the water has, you know, it's not as clear.
It's clean, but it's not as clear.
You know, there was a huge population
of fishermen in Door County.
Now there's many less of us now. - Why is that?
- Well, partly regulation,
partly just the economy of scale.
- Right. - It's very difficult
to be just a small, little farmer, you know,
and a small little fisherman. - I hear you, yeah.
- So having a big enough operation
where you can keep it rolling makes it easy.
- And is that why you wanted to diversify
into doing the caviar?
- Absolutely, every chance we get, we try to diversify.
If we could fish a different species or a different area,
or create a different product,
we've always tried to do that.
- Well, I would love to have a little sample of the caviar.
And I tell you what: I'm more of a land creature,
and all this shaking, it's making me wheezy. (laughs)
- [Charlie] All right.
(folksy music)
- [Inga] I love aquavit.
- [Charlie] Oh, it's a great drink.
- I think it's underrated.
- It's been a family tradition
with my Danish relatives my whole life,
and they would regularly have a shot or two
and had special glasses for it,
and would, at every family celebration,
at least have a toast.
- Yeah, yeah. When I was a kid growing up,
once a year, my parents would invite over
my dad's Danish relatives and have aquavit.
- I think my relatives did it more than once a year, but...
- What do you guys say?
Do you say, "Skål?"
- Skål, skal.
And we have-- Löjrom is the Swedish word for it.
- All right, and is that because it's a specific variety?
- It's a specific variety.
It comes from our freshwater chub,
which is a pretty unique thing.
It's similar to herring caviar,
but it's got its own little niche in Scandinavian countries.
- What flavors are you tasting for when you're--
- Well, what you really want
is you want a fairly firm egg.
You don't want it hard, but you want it fairly firm,
and it has a very light salt.
There's a little bit of preservative in it.
And then,you want the egg taste. - Right.
I imagine it's healthy for you. - It is.
There's a lot of protein in it,
and you know, it's good stuff.
- Well, I'm gonna take another swig before I have a...
- You gotta get yourself ready for this.
- I gotta get myself ready for it.
I'm not as adventurous as one might think
when it comes to eating.
- Oh, well, you try this and you're gonna like it.
You just kinda roll it on your tongue and taste it.
- Is that an appropriate amount? - That can be.
You know, some people eat caviar very daintily with a spoon.
- Should I put my pinky? - No-- well, you could.
I don't think I can get mine held up there.
I'll hit myself in the forehead,
but my good friend from Lobster Seafood tells me that you should
pile it on your crackers so it gets in your mustache.
That's how he likes to eat it.
- I'll have to work up to that and grow a mustache
before I get there.
- [Charlie] Yeah, you're not gonna be able to do that.
- It tastes wonderful.
I get that little bit of salt, but it's a nice salt.
- It's a very nice salt, yeah. Yeah, yeah, a very nice salt.
- When you have it at home, what do you do with it?
- I usually just put it on crackers.
Once in a while, for the holiday, we'll make a dip
with some cream cheese and some onion and some garlic,
because then people who won't even try the eggs
will eat it and go, "Wow, that's really good,"
but you got the other stuff with it.
But we eat it like this. - Well, good.
I'm gonna finish up my aquavit here with Charlie
and then I'll meet you back at the farm
to get ready for the party.
(folksy music)
Today we're celebrating women in sustainable agriculture,
and I thought a fun way to do that
is with a little bit of bubbly and some Wisconsin caviar.
The first thing that I wanted to do
is make a buckwheat Bellini.
I think it's a classic way to serve caviar,
and I think the ladies will love it.
The first ingredient is buckwheat flour.
Buckwheat is a nice cover crop to grow in your garden,
because it attracts bees
and the honey from it tastes amazing.
And now some all-purpose flour,
little bit of sugar,
some yeast,
and a pinch of salt.
Whisk all the ingredients together,
and for the liquid, it's warm milk
with some melted butter added.
Once this is all whisked together,
I'm gonna let it sit for a half-an-hour so it can rest
and the yeast can do its work,
and everything can come together.
Now that the batter has had a chance to rest,
I'm gonna add two eggs
before I grill it up on my griddle here.
And of course, for these ladies
I'm using my sustainably raised chicken eggs.
Okay.
Now just whisk these in.
Get 'em on in, come on guys.
It's kind of like making pancakes.
It's very, very similar.
Now that the eggs are mixed in,
I'm gonna cover my griddle with some melted butter
so that these don't stick.
Let's see, get it all over the place.
And then, since these are gonna be hors d'oeuvres,
finger foods, I wanted to make sure
that I don't pour too much batter,
so I'm gonna use a tablespoon to measure out
the size of the Bellinis.
Now those will cook for about two minutes on each side
and then they'll be ready to go.
I'm gonna finish up frying these
and then we'll get ready for our next hors d'oeuvre.
(folksy music)
Next, I wanted to make my mother's deviled eggs.
I think it'll be really nice to have a little caviar
on some deviled eggs.
So one thing that my cousin, Cece, taught me,
just to stick it into the yolk
and then move the egg around the knife.
"It'll make it a nice cleaner cut," she says,
and I believe everything she says.
Pop this out,
and it kind of worked.
And then we'll just discard our yolks here.
One thing I found when I'm using fresh eggs off the farm
is that the fresher the eggs, the harder they are to peel.
So I like to use eggs that have been sitting in the fridge
for about a week for my deviled eggs.
They just peel a lot nicer.
Also, you can add a little bit of vinegar to the water
when you're boiling it to help the shells come off faster.
Once you have all your yolks out, go and give 'em a mash.
I just use a regular old fork.
And the thing about deviled eggs
is you can be as creative as you want with 'em.
I think that's what's fun is
everyone has their own version,
and depending on what's in season
you can add different seasonal herbs
or even a little bit of spice.
But I'm gonna keep these a little bit basic,
'cause I wanna show off the caviar.
I want that to be the flavor that really comes through.
To my eggs yolks, I'm gonna add a little bit of vinegar,
some Dijon mustard,
and, of course, some mayonnaise.
When you're doing a recipe like deviled eggs,
you can go ahead and taste as you go.
So if you need to add a little bit more vinegar, go ahead,
or maybe you want a little bit stronger flavor
with that mustard.
And mix and match, taste test as you go along,
and find out what works for you.
I'm gonna add a little bit of salt and pepper here.
Mix that in.
It looks good.
Summertime eggs are the best eggs.
My chickens are out eating grass right now,
and it just really makes the color of the eggs so vibrant
and pops.
Okay, once that's mixed up and you've taste tested it
and you've got it to where you want it to be,
add it right back into the egg.
And once your eggs are all filled, now the fun part begins.
Now we can do a little decorating.
I think it's exciting being in Wisconsin
where we have such a diversity of ingredients to use.
And when you're using an ingredient
like this beautiful caviar,
you don't want to use too much,
and you want the flavor of that saltiness,
that nice little oceany flavor to come through.
So I'm just gonna do a dollop on top.
The spoon I'm using here for the caviar
is actually made out of bone.
I didn't want to use anything
that would leave a metallic taste on this delicate caviar.
Lovely.
I just wanna add a touch of color.
I think a lot of times we eat with our eyes
as well as our stomachs,
so I wanted to add a touch of green,
just to make it look very delicate and hopefully stylish.
Okay, they look pretty.
Now let's plate the Bellinis.
And these are another simple plating scheme,
because, like I said before,
we just wanna really showcase the caviar.
So I'm just gonna use a little bit of sour cream here,
a little bit more there,
and just kind of move it around a bit.
And I could've almost made these Bellinis
just a little bit smaller, but this will be fine.
Now they don't have to stop for lunch on the way home.
And again, to these, I'm gonna add a little bit of green
to make it look beautiful.
And I thought this time I would do some dill.
I think that'll be a nice addition.
This looks pretty.
And I'm not gonna skimp on the dill, either.
It'll add a nice little flavor to it.
And now another dollop of caviar.
See how it looks nice on that bed of green.
Instead of putting the dill on top,
it's a nice little bed for the caviar.
Well, the wine is chilled and the hors d'oeuvres are set,
so let's go out on the pasture
and do a little cheers to women in sustainable agriculture.
(folksy music)
(cork pops) (cheering and laughing)
Ladies, to us! - Cheers!
- Women in sustainable agriculture.
Lisa, you were the one that spearheaded
the whole "Women in Sustainable Agriculture Week."
Why was it important to do that?
- Sure, well women farmers in Wisconsin
have increased over 25% in the last 15 years,
and are leading the Midwest in those numbers,
so it's time to celebrate-- - That's exciting.
- And really showcase what we're doing.
- So what resources are there for women
who maybe don't have a generational farm,
or they're coming in for a fresh career start?
- Sure, and that would've been me 20 years ago, you bet.
So we're real fortunate here in the Midwest to have MOSES,
the Midwest Organic Sustainable Education Service,
and I have the honor of working with them
and directing their "Women Farmer Training Program,"
so we have "In Her Boots" workshops on farms
and resources and events going on
throughout the Midwest all year long.
So it's particularly a warm invitation
for women who harbored those farm dreams
and haven't told anybody yet, come on out.
And then on a local level,
it's really getting together with other women
with sustainable agriculture as a priority and meet regularly.
So down in my farm hood in Green County,
we have a group of over 120 women,
the Green County Area Women in Sustainable Ag
that have been meeting regularly now,
and actually have a whole weekend called "Soil Sisters,
A Celebration of Wisconsin Farms and Rural Life,"
where we go public, open up our barn doors,
do farm tours, culinary events, on-farm workshops,
but it all happens, because as you all know,
women get a lot of things done
when we meet regularly for potlucks
over good food and wine, so just get that going.
- Well this is fantastic, ladies,
and I'm so glad to be able to be
with such a wonderful group of women in agriculture.
Cheers to women in sustainable agriculture.
- Cheers! - Cheers!
- [Inga] Pop a bottle of Wisconsin bubbly
to celebrate women in agriculture,
a different Door County twist on deviled eggs,
buckwheat Bellinis with crème fraîche
and a dab of Wisconsin caviar.
Roasted potatoes with a touch of caviar.
- Well I hope this has inspired you
to celebrate all the women in sustainable agriculture,
and I hope you'll gather with us next time...
- Around the Farm Table !
- I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
- Cheers! - Cheers!
- Around the Farm Table is funded in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
Heartland Credit Union,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.