歸田園兮二十載，跌跌撞撞做農(nóng)人

A Table-to-Farm Pioneer

歸田園兮二十載，跌跌撞撞做農(nóng)人

In the 22 years since Kurt Timmermeister bought four acres of rocky, suspect farmland here for $100,000, he has had his ribs broken by an amorous female cow, lost a lamb to a crow that pecked its eyes out, and recoiled from the cannibalism of his chickens (when they weren’t eating one another, they were picked off by raccoons), among other blood- and mud-flecked dramas.

二十二年前，庫爾特·蒂默梅斯特(Kurt Timmermeister)以10萬美元(約合人民幣60.5萬元)的價格買下4英畝(約合1.62公頃)亂石叢生、勉強(qiáng)稱作“農(nóng)場”的土地。這些年來，他曾被一頭發(fā)情的母牛撞斷肋骨，讓一只小羊羔被烏鴉啄掉了眼睛，還曾經(jīng)被母雞之間的同類相殘行為驚得連連后退(那些母雞不是被對方吃掉，就會被浣熊叼走)，更不用說其它濺滿鮮血與泥點(diǎn)的鬧劇了。

He has learned that polar fleece is a terrible material to wear while working with bees (their feet get tangled in the hooked fabric, causing them to alert their hive mates, who will then divebomb the wearer). And he has also learned that the raw-milk market is a roiling tangle of regulation and zealotry, and the economics of the farmers’ market don’t add up for small growers of commodity crops like beans and carrots.

而現(xiàn)在他學(xué)到了，在照管蜜蜂的時候，穿著搖粒絨是件恐怖的事(蜜蜂的腳會纏在這種鉤狀纖維里，迫使它們對蜂巢里的同伴發(fā)出警告，然后，那些同伴就會對穿著搖粒絨的家伙俯沖而下)。他還了解到，在鮮奶市場里，規(guī)章制度與盲目的行為總是糾纏不清;而農(nóng)貿(mào)市場里的營利準(zhǔn)則并不適用于經(jīng)營大豆、胡蘿卜等經(jīng)濟(jì)作物的小種植者。

Yet Mr. Timmermeister, a 51-year-old recovering restaurateur who arrived on this island without knowing how to operate a car, is now a truck- and tractor-driving dairy farmer and cheese maker. He can shoot a pig, butcher it and make his own bacon.

蒂默梅斯特這位51歲東山再起的餐館老板，剛來到這座島上時甚至連怎么開車都不知道;而如今，他已是一位既會開卡車、也會駕駛拖拉機(jī)的奶農(nóng)兼奶酪制造商了。他可以射殺一頭豬，屠宰完畢，并且自己做成培根。

And finally, after two decades of experimentation and grindingly hard work, his farm, which has grown to nearly 13 acres, is solvent, if not wildly profitable. (He credits this to sales of a Camembert-style blooming rind cheese named for his first cow, a soulful Jersey called Dinah, which is aged in a Hobbit-ish cave in the side of a hill.)

經(jīng)過二十年的嘗試與努力，他那片已經(jīng)擴(kuò)展到近13英畝(約5.26公頃)的農(nóng)場雖說還不太盈利，也總算清償了債務(wù)。(他將此歸功于一款卡芒貝爾式花皮奶酪[Camembert-style blooming rind]的暢銷。他用自己的第一頭奶牛命名這款奶酪，那頭通人性的澤西奶牛名叫黛娜[Dinah]，最后終老在一處山坡上的一個霍比特式的山洞里。)

This farming coming-of-age story is both a cautionary tale and an inspiration to those who aspire to the farm life. His hard-won lessons — how he learned what he and his land had an affinity for (cows, not sheep) and how to profit from that (sell cheese, not vegetables) — were the subject of his first book, “Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land,” out in 2011. It distinguished itself from the multitude of farm memoirs with titles like “Barnheart” and “The Dirty Life” with its scope and vantage point.

這個在摸索中成長的農(nóng)場經(jīng)營故事，對于那些渴望農(nóng)耕生活的人來說，不但是警世恒言，也是一種鼓舞。他那些來之不易的經(jīng)驗教訓(xùn)包括怎樣發(fā)現(xiàn)自己與這片土地最喜歡什么(牛，而不是羊)，以及怎樣從中盈利(銷售奶酪，而不是蔬菜)——這些，都變成了他于2011年出版的第一本書《一名農(nóng)夫的成長：我怎樣學(xué)會耕耘土地》(Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land)的主題。這本書憑借自身的視野及優(yōu)勢，從眾多名為“糧倉之心”和“泥土生活”之類的農(nóng)場回憶錄中脫穎而出。

Mr. Timmermeister, a sometimes tetchy but always passionate, detail-driven narrator, is now a seasoned professional. And while his first years of farming were colored by his own romantic notions about small-scale agriculture, his prose is never breathless. His new book, “Growing a Feast: The Chronicle of a Farm-to-Table Meal,” out next week from Norton, is the two-year back story of a single meal, an elaborate Sunday dinner for 20 (one of many he used to hold on the farm) that begins with the birth of a calf.

蒂默梅斯特是位偶爾有些急躁，但總是一腔熱忱而又細(xì)致入微的敘述者。現(xiàn)在，他已經(jīng)是一名經(jīng)驗豐富的專家了。雖然在農(nóng)耕生活的最初幾年，他對小規(guī)模農(nóng)場還抱有自己浪漫的想法，但他的文章一點(diǎn)也不華麗。他的新書《舉辦一場盛宴：從農(nóng)田到餐桌的飲食大事記》(Growing a Feast: The Chronicle of a Farm-to-Table Meal)，下周(即2013年12月30日當(dāng)周——譯注)將由諾頓(Norton)出版社推出。這是一個存乎于單單的一頓飯背后長達(dá)兩年的故事。那頓煞費(fèi)苦心的二十人周日家宴(他在農(nóng)場里曾經(jīng)舉辦過的眾多餐會之一)，是從一頭小牛犢的出生開始的。

In 1991, when he bought the land, he wasn’t looking to become a farmer. At the time, Mr. Timmermeister, who trained to be a pastry cook while studying international affairs at the American University of Paris, had a small, thriving cafe in downtown Seattle.

回想1991年，當(dāng)他買下這片土地的時候，并沒有打算成為一名農(nóng)夫。蒂默梅斯特在巴黎美國大學(xué)(American University of Paris)學(xué)習(xí)國際關(guān)系期間，曾參加過面點(diǎn)師培訓(xùn)，購買土地的時候，他在西雅圖(Seattle)市中心擁有一家生意興隆的小咖啡館。

But he knew that he did not want to be the guy who was still living in his studio apartment at 40 because he had squandered his profits partying into the night with his restaurant buddies. He also wanted a break from the city, and although he had never learned to drive, he chose Vashon Island, a rural community of 10,000 that was a two-hour round-trip commute, with a ferry ride, to his business.

但他知道，自己并不想成為一個由于把利潤都揮霍在了與餐館伙伴的派對夜生活中，所以直到40歲還住在單間公寓里的人。他還想暫別城市生活，于是便選擇了瓦遜島(Vashon Island)，一個有一萬名居民的鄉(xiāng)村社區(qū)。從那里搭乘輪渡往返他的咖啡館要兩小時的車程，雖然他從未學(xué)過開車。

The only property he could afford there was a four-acre thicket covered in rocks, agricultural debris and wild blackberries. Buried under all of that was a chicken coop someone had fitted out as human living quarters, along with an above-ground swimming pool and a rotting, rodent- and-insect-infested log cabin built in the 1880s.

他唯一能買得起的地產(chǎn)，是一片4英畝(約1.62公頃)的灌木叢，其間到處都是巖石、廢農(nóng)田和野黑莓。一處雞舍改造的人類生活區(qū)隱藏在它們當(dāng)中，還帶有一方高出地面的游泳池和一棟建于19世紀(jì)80年代、鼠蟲出沒的腐爛原木小屋。

A friend showed him how to dispose of the moldy wallboard, shag carpet and insulation he pulled out of his new house (the chicken coop) by dousing the rank, sodden pile in gasoline and burning it in one huge toxic bonfire. And even then, he said, “I thought it was really glamorous.”

一個朋友向他展示如何處理他從這棟新房(雞舍)里拖出來的發(fā)霉墻板、殘破地毯和防護(hù)材料，那就是，把這一堆惡臭、潮濕的東西浸在汽油里，讓它們在冒著毒煙的篝火中燒成灰燼。即使在那時候，他說，“我依然覺得這地方魅力十足。”

It took a decade to restore the log cabin, which turned out to be one of the oldest surviving pioneer log houses on the island, possibly built by an itinerant carpenter. Planted on the property line, it was slowly sinking into the soil and “probably should have been bulldozed,” said Mr. Timmermeister, who moved it to the center of the lot and onto a concrete foundation. Much of its timber had to be replaced; the new lumber was milled on the property, worked over with an adze and left outside to cure for a year.

小木屋的整修工作延續(xù)了十年時間。這棟房子最終成為島上保存下來的最古老的拓荒時期木屋之一，其建造者可能是一位做散工的流動木匠。此屋原本位于這片土地的建筑紅線上，地基一直在慢慢沉降，“或許早該被推土機(jī)夷平了，”蒂默梅斯特說，他把房屋挪到了那塊地的中央，置于混凝土地基之上。房屋的大部分木料已被替換過;新木材都是在當(dāng)?shù)卮蚰ィ⒂帽飧庸?，然后在外面放了一年時間以使其干燥。

Along the way, the house earned landmark status and a $25,000 grant from the county. Mr. Timmermeister estimated that he has spent 10 times that on its restoration, which is why it took so long. “I would run out of money and have to stop,” he said.

在此期間，這棟房屋還贏得了“標(biāo)志性建筑”(landmark)的地位，得到國家授予的2.5萬美元(約合人民幣15.1萬元)獎金。蒂默梅斯特估算了一下，他在整修工程上的花費(fèi)要十倍于此，這也是該工程耗時如此之長的原因。“我會把錢花得一文不剩，然后就不得不停工了。”他說。

Though it has no kitchen or bathroom, it is a remarkably elegant structure, a log cabin with airs. Its ceilings are high and its center staircase wide, and flanking the front door are grand, eight-paned single-hung windows (single-hung means the bottom window doesn’t open).

雖然沒有廚房，也沒浴室，這仍是一棟相當(dāng)體面的建筑，一棟像模像樣的木屋。天花板很高，中央樓梯很寬敞，正門兩側(cè)是氣派的八窗格單懸窗(單懸指底部的窗戶不打開)。

On the back porch, there is a bathtub with a view; under the stairs, a room for a toilet and sink, but no tank. (Mr. Timmermeister rigged one above the door outside.)

后門廊處置有一個可看風(fēng)景的浴缸;樓梯下有個裝了馬桶和盥洗臺的房間，但沒有水箱(蒂默梅斯特在這扇門的外側(cè)頂部裝了一個)。

The house is sparsely furnished with beautiful, curious objects: an optometrist’s handmade desk, lamps made from taxidermied deer hooves, artwork by friends. On a Biedermeier table, a copy of Progressive Dairyman.

屋里零星擺了幾件漂亮而奇特的家具：一張手工制作的驗光師桌子，兩盞鹿蹄標(biāo)本做的臺燈，以及來自朋友們的藝術(shù)品。在一張畢德麥雅式(Biedermeier，19世紀(jì)早期德國中產(chǎn)階級流行的一種樸實的家具設(shè)計和室內(nèi)裝修風(fēng)格——譯注)書桌上，放著一本《先進(jìn)的奶農(nóng)》(Progressive Dairyman)雜志。

“I don’t need a lot of stuff,” said Mr. Timmermeister, who estimated that he clears about $24,000 a year. His boots are mud-spattered, but his house is clean and spartan. Outside, his raised planting beds are poured concrete, a tidy grid of rectangles more Donald Judd than funky farmer. The cow barn, fastened with pegs instead of nails, looks like a Shaker meeting house. (But his 1990 Toyota pickup, he assured a visitor, is a mess, matted with dog hair, parking tickets and farm receipts, its windows sticky with dog nose: “I promise, it’s disgusting.”)

“我不需要太多東西，”蒂默梅斯特說，他估算自己一年凈賺大約2.4萬美元(約合人民幣14.5萬元)。雖然他的靴子上沾滿污泥，但他的家里卻干凈而簡樸。屋外有幾塊以混凝土澆筑的花壇，是幾個整齊的長方形格子，風(fēng)格更像出自唐納德·賈德(Donald Judd，美國“極簡主義”雕塑家——譯注)而非一位新潮農(nóng)民之手。牛舍是用楔子而不是釘子加固的，看起來就像一間震顫派的禮拜堂(但他對一位來訪者保證，自己那輛1990年的豐田皮卡[Toyota pickup]可是一團(tuán)糟，里面有狗毛，還有停車票和農(nóng)場收據(jù)，車窗上黏乎乎地沾著“狗鼻子[dog nose，一種由啤酒與杜松子酒混合的雞尾酒——譯注]”：“我保證，那很惡心。”)。

As Mr. Timmermeister learned to clear and work his land, hoping, at first, just to grow a few vegetables, he kept his restaurant in the city, shuttling home at night to his tiny chicken coop and its wood-burning stove. In 1994, he traded his cafe for a larger establishment with 120 seats, 25 employees and about $1.5 million in annual sales.

蒂默梅斯特逐漸學(xué)會了清理與耕作他的土地，于是，他起初希望只種上幾種蔬菜，白天他在城里照看餐館，晚上回到有狹小雞舍與燃木爐子的家中。1994年，他把咖啡館換成了一間更大的餐館，有120個座位，25名員工和大約150萬美元(約合人民幣907萬元)的年營業(yè)額。

That shift was a game-changer, he said. Its scale required cooking a tremendous amount of food, industrial-agribusiness products like Cryovac-ed pork loins and cases of pale, slippery chicken breasts. That process, cooking slick and slimy proteins, so revolted Mr. Timmermeister that he found himself unable to eat in his own restaurant. He vowed to not only grow his own food, but make a profit from it.

他說，那次轉(zhuǎn)型改變了一切。新餐館的規(guī)模就必須烹飪大量的食物，也就是那些快爾衛(wèi)(Cryovac)包裝的豬里脊肉，和一箱箱白嫩的雞胸肉之類的工業(yè)化農(nóng)產(chǎn)品。而烹飪又滑又黏的蛋白質(zhì)讓蒂默梅斯特感到十分反感，他發(fā)現(xiàn)他甚至無法在自己的餐館里吃下東西。他發(fā)誓不僅要種出自己的食物，而且要從中獲利。

Paradoxically, it was the restaurant that financed the farm while he found his feet. In 2004, he sold the restaurant, which meant for the next five years, he didn’t have to make any money from the farm. The restaurant was sold on contract, and his netted a $4,000 monthly check.

然而悖論是，在他逐步適應(yīng)新環(huán)境的過程中，正是這家餐館為農(nóng)場提供了資助。2004年，他賣掉了餐館，這意味著在接下來的五年里，他不得不依靠經(jīng)營農(nóng)場來賺錢。餐館簽約售出，他每月4000美元(約合人民幣24183元)的凈收益也到了賬。

“It was an incredibly soft landing,” he said. “I could pay all my bills and experiment. I tried vegetables and apple cider and honey.”

“這是一次不可思議的軟著陸，”他說，“我可以支付所有賬單及實驗的成本。我試過種蔬菜、做蘋果酒和蜂蜜。”

He moved quickly from sheep, which he disliked, to pigs and dairy cows. His two seasons selling at the farmers’ market cost him $17,500. He spent a few years selling raw milk, until all the regulations and the worry about sickening a customer wore him out.

他不太喜歡羊，于是很快就轉(zhuǎn)而飼養(yǎng)起豬和奶牛。他在農(nóng)貿(mào)市場里兩個季度的銷售成本就花掉17500美元(約合人民幣105804元)。他有幾年時間是在銷售生牛奶，直到一切規(guī)章制度和唯恐讓哪位消費(fèi)者吃壞肚子的憂慮讓他筋疲力盡。

Finally, he learned to make cheese, and built an impressive cave to age his product, excavating a hill and implanting it with a concrete barrel-vaulted bunker fitted with two beautifully carved doors made by a neighbor.

最終，他學(xué)會了做奶酪，還建了一個令人嘆為觀止的山洞來發(fā)酵他的產(chǎn)品。他挖開一處山坡，將里面做成一個桶形穹頂?shù)幕炷恋亟?，還為之配上一位鄰居制作的雕工精美的雙開大門。

As the cheese business was growing, he began hosting Sunday dinners, extravagant four-hour, eight-course meals that he and various Seattle chefs cooked using ingredients produced on his land, which he named Kurtwood Farms (Mr. Timmermeister named the farm the year he tried the farmers’ market; he hoped the plural “farms” would give a gloss to his produce.)

隨著奶酪的生意越做越大，他開始舉辦周日餐會，也就是他和西雅圖市各位大廚一起烹飪出的一頓有八道菜、長達(dá)四小時的奢侈大餐，用的都是被他命名為“科特伍德莊園”(蒂默梅斯特在農(nóng)貿(mào)市場試水那年，為自己的農(nóng)場取了這個名字;他希望“莊園”一詞能讓他的產(chǎn)品很有光彩)的自家土地上出產(chǎn)的原料。

These dinners, made and served in the concrete cookhouse he built on the footprint of his old chicken coop, quickly acquired a cult following. Foodies fell all over themselves to snag a seat. Even at $100 a head, they were so oversubscribed that Mr. Timmermeister started asking would-be diners to answer essay questions, in an attempt to winnow down their numbers.

這些餐會的烹制和用餐環(huán)節(jié)，都在他于雞舍舊址上建造的混凝土戶外廚房中進(jìn)行，迅速吸引了一大批狂熱的追隨者。美食家們爭先恐后地為一席之地展開搶奪，即使要收取每人100美元(約合人民幣605元)的費(fèi)用，訂座者也依然爆滿，以至于蒂默梅斯特已開始要求申請者回答一些簡單的問題，以期精簡就餐的人數(shù)。

“I got a lot of hate mail,” he said. “But some rose to the challenge. Of course, I didn’t realize how much work it would be to read 200 essays about corn on the cob and then prioritize them. Even then, I had to tell people, ‘You spent an hour writing and I still don’t have a seat for you.’ ”

“我收到了很多恐嚇信，”他說，“但也有些人迎難而上。當(dāng)然，我沒意識到閱讀200篇關(guān)于玉米棒的文章、并將作者排出優(yōu)先級別會是多么大的工作量。即使那樣，我也得對人們說，‘雖然你花了一個小時來寫，但我還是沒有座位給你。’”

The dinners ended three years ago. Now he concentrates on writing and cheese making, selling 400 Dinah’s Cheeses a week to more than 30 restaurants and 30 stores. (He makes the deliveries himself, on Mondays and Wednesdays.) “I’m wildly proud of its success,” he said. The farm has seven employees, and romance has blossomed: Kelsey Kozak, 24, is engaged to Benjamin Scott-Killian, 26.

這樣的餐會活動在三年前終結(jié)了?，F(xiàn)在，他專注于寫作和制奶酪，每周，他會將400塊“黛娜奶酪”(Dinah’s Cheeses)售往超過30家餐館和30家商店(他親自送貨，時間安排在周一和周三)。“我對奶酪生意的成功感到十分驕傲，”他說。這座農(nóng)場已經(jīng)有了七名雇員，還綻放出了愛情之花：24歲的凱爾西·科扎克(Kelsey Kozak)與26歲的本杰明·斯科特-基利安(Benjamin Scott-Killian)已經(jīng)訂婚了。

On a recent stormy Thursday, Mr. Timmermeister served a visitor tomato soup and macaroni-and-cheese in the cookhouse, its windows steamed up from the pot of pork stock simmering on the stove. Ms. Kozak, on a break from cheese making, wandered in to ask Mr. Timmermeister if he could spare a calf for her wedding. “As a flower girl,” Ms. Kozak said.

不久前，在一個狂風(fēng)大作的周四，蒂默梅斯特正在廚房里用西紅柿湯與奶酪通心粉(macaroni-and-cheese)款待一位來客，廚房窗戶上蒙了一層從爐子上沸騰的豬肉湯鍋中冒出的水氣。這時候，在制作奶酪的間歇，科扎克走了進(jìn)來，問蒂默梅斯特是否可以騰出一頭小牛犢來參加她的婚禮。“作為一名花童，”科扎克說。

The rain was coming down in sheets and Mr. Timmermeister handed a visitor a broken umbrella he extracted from the debris in his truck. Bareheaded, he led a squelchy tour through the mud: into the “make room,” where the cheeses are created; past the cow barn, where the cows stood in the rain with their doleful stares; into the tangy funk of the cheese cave; and then back into the warm cookhouse again.

大雨傾盆而下。蒂默梅斯特給來訪者遞了一把破雨傘，這是他從卡車中那堆破爛里揀出來的。而他則什么都沒戴，就帶領(lǐng)客人嘎吱嘎吱地穿過泥地，走入“制酪房”，也就是初制奶酪的地方;他們又路過牛舍，那些奶牛站在雨里，睜著它們憂郁的大眼睛;接著走進(jìn)散發(fā)著刺鼻味道的奶酪洞穴中;然后再次回到溫暖的廚房里。

These days, Mr. Timmermeister said, he does more managing and cheese selling than farming. And he takes only two of the 14 milking shifts; squatting under a cow to attach the milking device makes his knees ache.

近些日子，蒂默梅斯特說，他做得更多的是農(nóng)場管理和奶酪銷售的活兒，而不是農(nóng)務(wù)。輪班擠奶的14頭奶牛中，他只用到兩頭;蹲在奶牛身下接擠奶器令他膝蓋疼。

He also avoids the tractor, because his depth perception is shot. A detached retina he suffered from the flick of a cow’s tail never properly healed, and not being able to gauge the distance between the tractor’s front bucket and anything else means he has crashed into the barn too many times.

他也不再開拖拉機(jī)，因為他的視覺受到了深度創(chuàng)傷。他的眼睛曾被牛尾抽打到，導(dǎo)致視網(wǎng)膜脫落，一直沒有痊愈。由于不能目測拖拉機(jī)前方的鏟斗與其它物體間的距離，他已經(jīng)無數(shù)次撞進(jìn)了牛舍里了。

Still, he considers himself a lucky guy, privileged, he said, with “a grand life that many envy.”

不過，他仍然認(rèn)為自己是個幸運(yùn)的人，享有“許多人都艷羨的美好生活，”他說。

There’s just one thing: Farm work and island living have been a barrier to romance. Not to sound ungrateful, he added, but the single part is getting old.

只有一件事例外：農(nóng)場的工作和島上的生活成為了愛情的屏障。倒不是有怨言，他補(bǔ)充說，只是，這位單身漢正在逐漸老去。