Change

I hope that I am never too old to learn new things about myself, even if they are uncomfortable to think about.

Had you asked me, 5 or 6 years ago, if I was actively protecting the environment, I would have assured you that yes, indeed, I was. We gardened, we composted, we didn't litter. No fur, no ivory, no teak or mahogany. When we bought new appliances, we got energy saving ones. In the summer we mostly grilled, so as not to turn on the oven, and in the winter we kept the thermostat turned down. I mean, we were old hippies, with subscriptions to Mother Earth News! Of course we were environmental. We were part of the solution.

Then I was introduced to Colin Beavan's blog, No Impact Man, and from that I found Riot 4 Austerity. I began to realize that we were, indeed, part of the problem. Granted, these blogs represent extreme examples of environmentalism, but they gave me a lot to think about. Things that were uncomfortable. I realized that while I was environmental in theory, laziness and ignorance were keeping me from practice. Once I realized I was faking it, I was able to change things so we were making a real difference. I realigned my activism with my core values.

This morning I read a post at The Green Phone Booth that caused me to think about those core values regarding environmentalism The author, known as the Green Raven, ends her post by saying "How about you? How much has "religious" thinking—be it God-centered or non-theistic ethical thought—inspired you to feel responsible for the earth and its inhabitants? Does your spiritual practice reinforce your commitments? How much has it motivated you to act"

Raven's post reminded me of a couple of books that were fundamental in helping me crystallize a plan about how I wanted to live on this earth. Both are cookbooks, commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee.

Years ago, probably 25 or more, I bought a cookbook from a food coop where we chopped. It was called More With Less, and focused on frugal living and whole foods. My copy is battered and worn- I have used it a lot. I bought copies to give to at least two of my sisters.

Even the rabbit enjoyed the cookbook, as evidenced by the missing corners. When we moved here to Central Pennsylvania, I was amused to find contributed recipes from women with familiar names- we live in the midst of a large Plain community and many of the recipes came from towns close by.






More With Less was a good cookbook, but not life changing. However, the sister publications Extending the Table and Simply in Season ARE life changing books. The recipes are good, but for me, the most important part are the comments from recipe contributors. Read for pleasure, these glimpses into other lives illuminate and inform.


For example, on page 166 of Simply In Season, under a recipe for Vegetable Pizza Bites, you find this:
"A crop of healthy children. For us as CSA farmers, having direct contact with our customers is incredibly meaningful and rewarding. We learn so to know many of their favorite vegetables and often have specific people in mind when we are planting or tending a crop.
"It's a pleasant surprise to find that many people, especially those with young children, will spend hours at the farm when they come to pick up their produce. They'll sit in the shade, swing on the rope swing and pick basil until their fingers are pungent.
"From year to year we get to see the children of our returning customers grow up and we have a sense of privilege in knowing that our vegetables are helping their bodies grow strong and healthy. This feeling is especially keen as we watch expectant mothers select their vegetables and know that we are contributing to the health of their growing babies."
Jon and Beth Weaver-Kreider, Goldfinch Farm CSA, York, PA


I was wary at first about Extending The Table- I don't have much use for missionaries. In my mind, missionaries are always dressed in clothing inappropriate to the climate, frowning and insisting that the poor pagans need to adopt modern Western ways. I was so humbled by the stories and descriptions included in this book- it was so respectful of the people and their lives. On page 94, I read this "Mbodangaaku, the tradition of the Wodaabe, is the way we hold hands with one another. This is the way we feel attached to each other.

"Mbodangaaku is the only wealth of the Wodaabe. It is their true wealth. When we go to the villages of the sedantary people, we are hungry and thirsty because no one gives us anything without money. But when we travel in the bush, wherever there is a Wodaabe camp, we are at home.

"When someone comes to your camp, it is because of the tradition of Mbodangaaku that you welcome him. You take a mat for him to the west of your camp. You take him water to drink. You light a fire for him even if it is not cold. You take him food.

"Even if you yourself do not like your guest, when his foot comes to your camp, you go to welcome him as if he were your God. The proverb says "Your guest is your God!" Bodaado man of the nomadic Wodaabe tribe of Niger.

As much as that subscription to Mother Earth News, these cookbooks affected the way I see and interact with the world. This time, instead of buying copies for my sisters, I bought them for my children and their families. I hope they find as much benefit as I did.

Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge, The Final Day

Baby grape leaves on the vine

I think I am going to write a new diet book; I'll call it Eat Local, Feel Better, Help the Earth, and Lose More than Weight. Too long a title? Yeah, well, maybe.


I don't actually know if I lost weight during my local eating week, but I feel as if I ate this way all the time, I would. Whether this is due to what I was eating this week, or to the pressure of reporting what I was eating to the world, I don't know.

We have been trying to eat as locally as possible for a year or so now, so I didn't expect to have any major revelations during our experiment. And, in fact, the focus of our meals is usually local. What I realized was that the extras usually weren't. My granola, for example- even though I make it myself, from ingredients purchased from the Mennonite store, I felt it had too many non-local ingredients to include it even as an exemption. Tortilla and potato chips come from the grocery store. (There are local chips around, but we don't like them as well.) Same thing with ice cream. Mayonnaise, mustard, catsup. And this is probably why I feel like the week was a slimming one- with the exception of the mustard, all of these foods are calorie dense, and for the most part, highly processed; things I shouldn't be eating anyway.

For our last day on the challenge, I tried something I have been wanting to do for a while- make my own tofu. I'll talk about the process more at another time, but I did it because I realized I had no idea where my tofu as made, how far it travelled, anything. Soybeans do grow in the field down the road from my house, but since they are a commodity, I have no idea if the ones I bought at my local bulk store grew here or in Missouri. We also toasted the end of our week with the MOST local item since the dandelion soup- Chuck's Devil Dog 50-50 Wine. Using our own Concord grapes, Chuck has made wine for the past 4 years. He thinks the 2006 vintage is the best- I think it surpasses Koolaid in sweetness. I generally pass it up.

The Menu:
Breakfast: The last of the cherry zucchini muffins. Thank goodness!
Lunch: Chuck had the last of the chicken corn soup, I had a peanutbutter whoopie pie bought at the Mennonite greenhouse when we purchased some pansies for the garden.
Dinner: Stir fried spinach, green onion and mushroom over brown rice with tofu
Snack: Yes, yogurt. With peaches. And Chuck had Devil Dog Wine.

Local Items:
Muffins already included in weekly total
Whoopie Pie- $0.79
Spinach: $0.50
Onion $0.50
Mushroom $0.50
Yogurt- $0.24
Peaches $0.25
Wine: Priceless. The grapevines came with the house, all we do is pick them and wash them. I guess there is a yeast cost, but it would be in the fractions of a cent.

Semi-Local:
Tofu: Also Priceless. OK, OK, $0.25 for the soy beans, ($1.00/pound, we used 1/4 pound) $0.10 for the solidifier ($9.95 for a quart bag full, we used 2 teaspoons)
Brown Rice: $0.25 ($0.55/pound)

Total: $7.88. Total for the week- $81.88 with Wednesday's lunch out, $58.25 without the lunch out. I'm pleased that we came in well under the $144.00. We ate pretty much the same way we always eat, I didn't find it too dull. I did find it hard to keep from looking in the freezer or the cupboard for things to toss into the soups or the stir-fries- I'm sort of a seat-of-the-pants cook.

Caveats: I came into this with a lot of preserved food from last summer. It's a lot of work, but worth it. There were days when I came home from work and thought if I never saw another peach or tomato I would die a happy woman, but it sure tastes good now.

Purchasing meat as whole animals does take an outlay of money at the time of purchase, but is very cost effective over all. And I like having everything I need here, so that at anytime I can say let's have "X" and go get it out of the freezer.

On the other hand, I do have to have 2 freezers- one for meat and one for vegetables and fruit. I had the equipment and expertise I needed- I have always canned fruits and dried things. I've made my own yogurt for years, off and on. I like the feeling of self sufficiency I get from knowing how to do stuff like that. It's the same reason I spin yarn and weave. I'm not going to clothe myself with my output, but I could if I had to.

Some might say it was easier because I do live in the country, sort of. I would have thought that, too, except I keep an eye on the local food available where my children live- Kansas City and St. Louis, and let me tell you, KC has WAY more opportunities to eat local than I do. Not only are there a lot of small farmers, but the artisan products in the city are more plentiful, too.

Devil Dog 50-50 label

Chuck enjoying his wine

Day 6 Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge

It was a tough day today in the real-life arena, and that bled a little bit over into the local eating thing too. Tomorrow is our final day; it will be nice to be released from the obligation to calculate costs, but I have learned a lot this week.

Tonight's dinner contains one of the "local-est" ingredients. Um, maybe I am over exaggerating there, but I bet I'm the only person in the challenge eating this tonight!

Years ago, when I was still in high school, the daughter of an old family friend was getting married. For whatever reason, there was going to be a goat roast to celebrate the wedding. My parents friend felt like it would be cheaper for him to buy the goats young and raise them up for the feast. When we arrived at the wedding there was indeed roast goat, but there were also two pet goats wandering around. When it came time to slaughter, come to find out it was easier to go buy two unknown goats than to slaughter Patsy and Daisy. I have always worried that if we tried raising meat animals we would end up the same way.

The goat we had for dinner tonight was one that didn't get sold at the 4-H auction last year.My friend, who raises meat goats, called to ask if we were interested in buying it.

I have bought goats from Sandy in the past. The first one we bought was very small. We took it with us on our trip home to visit our son in St. Louis and it fit nicely in our larger cooler. My son used to work with a number of recent immigrants from Bosnia, who tantalized him with tales of the deliciousness of roast goat. When I called him to let him know we were bringing a goat, he floored me by asking if I could get the head and bring it too. I was taken aback by the request. Turns out his friend, Patrick, the one getting an MFA in sculpture, had a hankering to make something out of animal bones. With great trepidation I asked Sandy if I could have the head; to my great surprise she said that many of her Muslim customers find the head to be a great delicacy, and of course I could have it. She would even show me how to roast it if I wanted. I passed on that, and called Bart to tell him the head was coming too. "Cool, can you get a bunch of heads?" was his reply. Yeah, like I am going to drive half way across the country with a cooler full of goat heads. "Well, you see, Officer, we are just taking them to my son so his friend can make a sculpture out of them..."

We roasted the little goat in a pan made for cooking a Thanksgiving turkey; stuffed with apples, onions and garlic, it was wonderful. The head went to Patrick's house, where he put it in the freezer section of the refrigerator WITHOUT telling his mother, (who actually owns the refrigerator) first. She was thrilled, as any mother would be.

This goat was a little larger; approximately 40 pounds dressed weight. We told the butcher that we wanted it left whole, thinking of that first tiny goat. We picked it up just before my son's wedding, when I was anxiously filling the freezer with muffins. Just in case I didn't have room for it in my freezer, I had asked a friend if we could keep the goat in her freezer until after the wedding, she agreed, adding "As long as there are no heads involved". I assured her there would be no heads.

Chuck and I went out to pick up the goat, armed with our large cooler. On the way I told him that I thought I might be getting to the point where I could raise my own meat animals without becoming too attached. He snorted.

Wrapped up in plastic, the goat was a little larger than I expected. Chuck went over to pick it up to put it in the cooler, and as he turned to walk towards me, I saw a goatish grin sticking out from the layers of plastic. Not only was there still a head on the goat, but the teeth had cut through the plastic and were grinning at me. At that moment I knew I wasn't yet ready to raise my own.

The goat, roughly the same size as our Labrador Retriever, did not fit in the cooler. When we got home, it didn't fit in the freezer either, but I hated to impose on my friend. We decided to butcher it ourselves. We laid it out on the kitchen table, and managed to cut it into 2 pieces- a front half and 2 back quarters. That did fit in the freezer. However, this past winter we bought a lamb, and when we took it to the butcher, we also took the goat parts and had him cut them into chops and roasts. Tonight we had a small roast, roughly the size of your two fists together.

The Menu:

Breakfast: Why, Yes! It is indeed the zucchini cherry muffin!
Lunch: Chile Relleno Casserole
Dinner: Goat flatbread sandwiches with spinach, green onion and cup cheese. (Cup cheese is apparently a Pennsylvania Dutch treat- it comes in a tub and is supposed to taste like brie. Let me tell you, this is some funky stuff! Ours came from Lancaster.)
Snack: that same yogurt and peaches (I've gotten so it is almost as satisfying as ice cream!)

Local Items:
Eggs: costed them yesterday
Anaheim chilies: costed them yesterday
Cheddar Cheese: costed it yesterday
Green onion: $0.25
goat: $4.00 (The goat cost, all told, $80.00 and weighed 40 pounds, this was about a 2 pound roast)

Cup cheese: $0.34 ($3.38 for the tub- believe me, we didn't use a lot!)

yogurt $0.24

Peaches $0.25

Semi-Local

flat bread: costed yesterday

Not local

Spinach: $0.29

Total: $5.13; 74.00 with Wednesday's lunch, $50.37 otherwise

Top picture is The goat . Bottom picture is the cup cheese- See what I mean about it being funky stuff? A really unfortunate color and texture...And you should SMELL it!

Day 5 Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge

The list of bloggers participating in the Penny-Wise Challenge is posted over at the Eat Local Challenge blog. I'm anxious to read what others are eating, and how they are doing.

I read this over on Jamie's blog, 10 signs like this "It's all too tempting to say a lot of what we eat is "free"--after all, we produce our own eggs and most of our own vegetables. But we know better than anyone that it's not free! We'll charge ourselves fair market value, i.e., what we'd charge for it at the farmers' market."

I'd like to know how other people have chosen to cost their home grown produce. Personally, I have a garden for 2 reasons; taste and cost. Jamie is making a living from her produce, so that puts her in a different place than I am. I don't grow to sell to others, I garden so that I can afford to eat the way I want to eat. That's the same reason I can and freeze and dry so much during the harvest season. I am most comfortable costing out the price of the seeds and calling it even. I guess that probably doesn't help the person reading who doesn't have a garden, or isn't able to "put by" things for the winter, to get an idea of the costs of eating local. But I am curious as to how others have solved this dilemma.

Today is my Mother's birthday- I made a special dinner in honor of her. (Too bad she lives half way across the country and can't come eat it with me!) When I was growing up, I thought my mother was a wonderful cook. She made several things that were among my favorites, one was chile rellenos. Tonight I made a chile relleno casserole. I was too lazy to go downstairs and get the camera, so once again this is a cell phone picture, sorry for the less than sterling quality*

Also, I forgot to cost out the flatbread when it first appeared on the menu on Monday. Yikes! The cost tonight is the cost of all 8 flatbbreads I made on Sunday, so I won't count them again this week.

Day 5- The Menu
Breakfast: the ubiquitous cherry zucchini muffin (Costed out on Monday)
Lunch: flatbread with cheddar cheese and green onion
Dinner: Relleno casserole with salsa
Snack: yogurt with cherries

Local:
yogurt (in flatbread): $0.36
yogurt (snack): $0.24
green onion (4): $1.00
eggs (6): $0.60
Anaheim peppers $0.10 (from our garden)
cherries: $0.50
cheddar cheese: $0.80
salsa: $0.25 (from our garden last year)

Semi-local:
flour: $1.10 ($0.55 per pound, used 2 pounds)
rice: $0.55 ($0.55 per pound)

Total: $5.50 for the day, 68.87 if we include yesterday's lunch, 45.24 if we don't.

*What a strange world we live in where I am apologizing for the poor quality of a picture taken with a PHONE for gosh sakes!

Day 3 Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge

Hellebore, or Lenten Rose

I love my garden. It's the best part of living in this house. About 6 years ago we put in a pond, and constructed a man-made creek that falls from a waterfall at the edge of the backyard.

Chuck ran a hose under the creek to pump water from the pond up to the waterfall; with the flip of a switch we can have moving water. When I got home from work tonight, Juniper and I went out to sit in the yard and watch the birds bathe in the creek. The hostas and Solomon's Seal are poking their noses up, the Lilies of the Valley will be blooming soon. Bleeding Hearts bend over the creek, and the Lenten Rose is in full bloom. My favorite? Tonight it was the tiny flower of the wild ginger, unobtrusive and unseen. The picture was taken with my cell phone- sorry it is a little blurry. I didn't crop out my thumb so you could get an idea of scale.)

Eat Local:

One thing I have noticed already, I feel like this is more meat than I usually eat. Ordinarily, I will eat hummus and pita for lunch, or a pita covered with spinach and cheese melted over it. But since the hummus and spinach aren't local, I have skipped them this week.

OK, on with Day 3

The Menu:

Breakfast: Muffin, just like yesterday (And I just realized I included the cost of the whole muffin batch in yesterday's total, so I guess they are free the rest of the week!)

Lunch: pork roast sandwich with jalapeno jack cheese, (Chuck had cheddar), root beer

Dinner: Pasta with beef, onions and mushrooms in a roasted tomato sauce

Snack: Yogurt with cherries

The Local Items:

Pork roast $3.06 (About 1/4 of what was left over from Sunday)

cheese $1.23 ($4.33 for the total chunk of Jack, used about 1/10th of it, $8.00 for the chunk of cheddar, we used about 1/10 of it)

beef- $3.32; ($5.00 for the total, we ate about 2/3 the amount prepared)

Pasta- $0.76 ($1.15 for the total used, we ate about 2/3 the amount prepared)

Mushrooms- $0.33 ($0.50 for two, we ate about 2/3 the amount prepared)

green onion $0.33 ($0.50 for two, we ate about 2/3 the amount prepared)

Roasted tomato sauce-$0.10; made last August and frozen

Yogurt $0.24

Cherries $0.50; (Picked and canned last summer)

Sadly, not local

Hanks Root Beer, $1.00; made in Philadelphia- misses being in my foodshed by about 45 miles. Price is an estimate- I need to go do a price check tomorrow. We do have a local root beer, made by the Appalachian Brewing Company. It's pretty tasty.

Bread $0.52; I'm really bummed about this- I thought it was a local bread made in Lancaster PA. Turns out the bakery is about 45 miles out of my foodshed, but also is a subsidiary of G. W. Weston, which owns the companies that make Thomas Bagels and English muffins, Boboli, and Entenmanns.

Total for the day: $11.39

Day Two- Penny-wise Eat Local Challenge

You know, I think I committed a cardinal sin yesterday, and didn't post the link to get to the Eat Local Challenge. I'll correct that now.

I also forgot to link to an article on that blog by Heather C, Eating the Lawn, who used a different part of the dandelion for part of her first Eat Local day.

Now, on to Day 2.
Since the Attack of the Muffin Woman back in September, I have been trying to keep muffins on hand for us to eat for breakfast. So after dinner last night I whipped up a dozen cherry zucchini muffins for this week. Alas, I burnt the bottoms. But we ate them anyway. I also baked some flatbreads for lunches this week. They turned out great, but sweeter than I would have liked. Everything I did yesterday was just a little bit off- not bad, just not quite as good as I had hoped.

The Menu:
Breakfast: Cherry Zucchini muffin
Lunch: Flatbread with pork roast, green onion, provolone and hot pepper goat cheese
Dinner: Chicken Corn soup with chard and black eyed peas.

The local items:
cherries- $0.50-picked and dried myself-
Zucchini- $0.01- from our garden last year, frozen
honey- $0.84; I used 1.5 cups, $4.50 per quart
Eggs- $0.40
Yogurt- $0.24
pork roast- $3.06 (approximately 1/4 what was left over from last night)
green onion- $0.50, we used 2 at $0.25 each
goat cheese- $2.14; used about 1/4 of the chunk we bought, and it cost $8.55.
I have to figure the soup separately, because it will be 2 meals (And it was REALLY good, BTW)-
Chicken- $1.00 (The chicken cost $4.00, this was 1 cup of chicken, about 1/4 of the total)
Corn- $0.75- I used the frozen kernels of 3 ears, usually $3.00 per dozen ears during the summer here.
Chard- $0.01- from our garden and frozen last fall
Black Eyed Peas- $0.56- canned by a processor about 25 miles from here. I dither about including these in the Local category. Local they may be, but who knows where those peas were grown.
$5.32 total for the soup, $2.66 for the portion we ate tonight


Semi-local ingredients:
Flour $ 0.55, used 4 cups total $0.55 a pound.

Not At All Local:
Chicken Broth $3.00- used 1.5 quarts, $2.00 per quart. This is Industrial Organic, and I guess I need to start making my own broth. (This is figured into the cost of the soup above)
Provolone $1.86, used approximately 1/4 pound, $7.45 a pound.

Day 2 total- $12.76.

Day One, Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge

Ingredients for the Cream of Dandelion Soup

The first day of our week long Challenge is under our belt, and it was harder than I anticipated. Not the food part- we ate just as we eat every Sunday. What was hard is figuring out the costs of things- I know, for example, how much I spent on a pound of oatmeal, but breaking it down to get the cost of 2 cups of oatmeal is trickier. Some foods I had in the house, and don't know how much I spent on them. But I will do the best I can...

There are two of us eating for this challenge.

The Menu-
Sunday, April 22
Brunch- Hearty Oatmeal Pancakes with Apple Slices, Peanut Butter and Maple Syrup
Dinner- Pork Roast, Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Cream of Dandelion Soup

Dinner picture from the cell phone

Pancakes on the grill

The costs:

The local ingredients;

3 cups of yogurt (made it myself), $0.72

apple slices- (canned them myself) $0.25
Butter $0.66 ( $5.25/pound, we used about 2 oz through out the day
Pennsylvania Maple Syrup- $17.10 per quart; used approximately 1/2 cup- $2.13
Eggs- $0.20 ($0.10 each)
Pork Roast- just over 4.5 pounds at $4.00 per pound, $18.40 total, we will make 3 meals out of it so tonight's cost is $6.14
Dandelions from the backyard- free, but a lot of work!
leeks from the garden last year- $0.01



The Semi-Local ingredients (These are not grown or produced in our area, but were purchased from local businesses- a farmers market and a natural foods store that sells bulk items- rather than a chain- best I could do)
rolled oats- $0.55 per pound; $0.10
peanut butter- $1.99/pound, we used approximately 1 oz- $0.12
Sweet potatoes- 2 at $0.65 each; $1.30
carrot; $0.05

Grand total, $11.68

Critique- I'm not thinking we'll be having the Cream of Dandelion soup anytime soon, but I am glad I made it. The recipe, from A Veggie Venture called for Dijon mustard- and that was the taste I objected to, not the slight bitterness of the dandelions. But it was fun to make a soup from something that is not only free, but all over the yard. Our yard is chemical free, about the most noxious thing that might be on the dandelions would be dog urine, and I washed them 4 times...If you aren't sure of your dandelion source, don't gather them.

How's That Local Eating Thing Going?

My email yesterday brought me some thoughts from the Eat Local Challenge blog. VI gives a report card of sorts on how the Eating Local thing is going at his house here at the end of winter. I decided I'd take stock as well, and found we are doing OK, but not as well as I thought we were.

Our last couple of trips to the grocery store I had to buy garlic and onions, spinach and kale. Two sweet potatoes each week. Once the bounty of Texas Ruby Red grapefruits sent each year by my parents ran out, Chuck has been buying Clementines (are they oranges or tangerines?), and he has been purchasing some nasty, hard pears since we ate up our supply of local apples. I bought a parsnip and a bunch of celery to make some vegetable stock. Bleu Cheese and Feta, and the plastic American he insists on eating found it's way into the cart as well. Stonyfield Farm yogurt and shredded cheese in bags, a loaf of nut and flax bread round out the purchases, along with some brown rice rice cakes and a half dozen organic avocados from the local natural food market.

I guess that's not too bad, although I am embarrassed about the cheese. Good local artisan cheese isn't a problem around here- I get marvelous sheep's milk Romano Peccorino from the same guy I buy my lamb and pork from. His cheddar and gouda are pretty good, as well, but somehow I can't bring myself to shred them up and put them in things. Hence the bags. Another local dairy, Keswick Creamery has a nice selection of cheese, but are a little more difficult to find.
I used to always make my own yogurt, but I used non fat dry milk to save money. No way that's stuff is local, or even organic or sustainably produced. I did purchase a half gallon of good local milk this week, from Trickling Springs Creamery, and I will have to decide which is more important to me- the fat-free aspect or the local aspect. I struggle with the Stonyfield Farms piece of this- they look good, I haven't heard anything bad about them, but they aren't local.

In my freezer I have a ton of fruit- peaches, cherries, black raspberries, strawberries. Last year when we were feeding 4 people, every Sunday morning Chuck made a huge fruit salad for breakfast, supplementing whatever fruit was in season here with tropicals and out-of-season grocery store fruit. When we started really watching where our food came from, I froze or canned a LOT of the summer fruits I love so that we could have the good stuff all year round. I didn't think about the fact that 2 of our four Sunday morning breakfasters wouldn't be with us this year. Now that we are only 2 people eating, we quickly discovered a fruit dichotomy. I love the summer fruits in my salads; berries, cherries, peaches, while he prefers melons, kiwi and the fall fruits- apples and pears. Sunday morning fruit salads became a point of mild contention, and sort of fell by the wayside.

However, I have another theory about the demise of the fruit breakfast salad. Eating locally is by necessity eating within season. More and more I find that I don't want to eat things that are not in season; in the summer I have to have a salad every day, but in December, salads are not appealing. January sees me making pots of soup that cook for days in the crock pot, August has us eating vats of gazpacho. I know that fruit will taste good, but it just isn't what my body wants right now.

Vegetables- I have winter and summer squash in the freezer- I have been using them to make our breakfast muffin. I still have quite a few tomatoes; frozen, canned and dried. I have a couple heads of escarole; I need to find a recipe other than soup with white beans and escarole. The frozen leeks are about gone, but I still have several cups of dried. I have a lot of frozen roasted Anaheim peppers- perhaps Chile rellenos for this Sunday's breakfast. Chard and turnip greens are lurking in the corners of the freezer, maybe some corn.

I have to fight my tendency to hoard food and get that freezer cleaned out. I'm not too worried about the fruit- as the new fruit comes in, I can make jam with whatever is still frozen. (Of course, then we have the problem of who will eat all that jam! Christmas presents for everyone next year, I guess!) Chuck made a tasty fruit milkshake the other day, and that's a possibility. But I've been eating a really tasty ice cream substitute lately; a serving size container of fruit or vanilla yogurt, a half cup or so of frozen or partially thawed fruit, a tablespoon of Sucanat or home made peach jam. Put all that into a bowl, stir it up and pop it into the freezer for an hour or two. Be sure and get it out before ice crystals form. The yogurt thickens enough that it can pass as ice cream, almost. If I forget about it and let it freeze solid, I just let it thaw a bit, stir and it's good to go. Does the nice creaminess come from the inulin in the Stonyfield Farms yogurt? Guess I will have to try making my own again.

I already have some changes I need to make in mind. Unless I stumble into a new one, we won't have a CSA, so I have planned out a less haphazard garden, using the Square Foot Gardening idea. I've already got my leeks started- they look like tiny green threads in the picture below. We do have a lot of local produce stands where I can get the regular vegetables, but they don't usually offer anything out of the norm.

I'll freeze less fruit, no matter how my hoarding gene nags me. But I will purchase lots more of the Gold Rush apples we bought this fall. A Golden Delicious cross, man, these were maybe the best apple I have ever eaten; I hear they store very well too. I live in an area thick with orchards, and fruit is easy to come by. Toigo, one of the larger local orchards carries a tremendous variety of apples and Asian pears, and does sell in the markets in DC and Maryland.

If I had to grade our effort, I guess I would give us a C+. We'll see what my grade is next year at this time.

We're being Cheated!

When you go to the grocery store, how many kinds of eggplant can you find? There's the deep purple one that everyone recognizes, perhaps the long, thin lighter purple asian eggplants. If you are really lucky, and shop at a "fancy" store, you might find white eggplants, smaller than the "regular" kind. At a farmers market during growing season, especially in an upscale area, you might be able to find Rosa Bianco, with lovely lavender swirls on a white background. But that's about it, at least in the places where I shop.

Well, if this what you know of eggplants, let me tell you, you don't know nothin'!

I just got my hard copy of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds 2007 catalog, and I am in awe. Jere Gettle, Baker Creek's founder, lists 39 kinds of eggplant. Thirty Nine! Seven pages of different kind of melons, not including watermelons, and 25 varieties of cucumbers! Not to mention the six pages of winter squash, and the tomatoes broken down in to color categories- green, orange, pink, purple, red, striped, yellow and even white.

My jaw dropped; I was amazed. And as I thought about the variety of foods available at my local grocery store, the main thought running through my mind was "I've been cheated!" (Or maybe it was "I'm BEING Cheated!") Even in the best, fanciest, yuppiest grocery store you don't find this sort of variety in the produce section. So here we sit, eating the same 5 or 6 vegetables- corn, green beans, broccoli, lettuce. Wow, I'm hard pressed to think of others. Spinach, maybe? Carrots? This sparsity of veggies is perpetuated; we end up feeding our children the same few things. Why, when there are so many lovely things to eat in the world?

Transportation, for the most part, is the culprit. We get to eat those things that tranport well. The average dinner travels over 1500 miles "from field to fork" , so we are limited to eating things that can be picked green and travel well. By and large, being picked green and transporting well doesn't equal tasting good.

Fear is another reason- we are afraid we won't like the taste of something, or that we won't know how to prepare it. We pass that on to our kids too, feeding them special "kid friendly foods" and teaching them that they really shouldn't be expected to like anything they have never had before.

How can we fix it? First, by eating local. If you can't garden, join a CSA (Community Sposored Agriculture). Find one near you at Local Harvest or The Eat Well Guide or The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service. If there are no CSA's near you, try a farmers market. It's a fun Saturday trip.

Second, be willing to experiment. I had collards and kale for the first time this year, because they were in my CSA share- I LOVED them! We tried celeriac for the first time, too, same reason. If it's in your CSA box and you have already paid for it, what a great incentive to try it at least once. At the farmers market, ask the farmer, chances are she will have some recipes or cooking suggestions. Or use the Force, er, the Internet. You can find a recipe for anything there. Of course, if you are reading food blogs, you are probably already an adventerous eater, and I'm preaching to the choir here!

By the way, there are places in your grocery store where you can find diversity- among the processed foods. The cereal aisle, the chip aisle, the soda aisle. Isn't it pitiful that we have so much choice amongst the manufactured food (Typically made from corn and wheat, plus a big slug of preservatives and artificial colors) and so little choice amongst the real foods?

Well, I've placed my seed order. I did have a problem related to the number of varieties available, though- I had a hard time choosing only the amount I can fit in my garden. Oh, well, I have long tried to convince my husband that the front lawn is wasted space- perhaps this is the year I'll put a new garden in out there. Then you'll be able to identify my house- I'll be the one with 39 eggplants instead of bluegrass.