Well hey there!
I've given this blog address to a few people recently, knowing full well that it hasn't been updated in over a year. So, here's a brief update. And while I can't promise that I'll update more frequently, at this point, I do at least intend to.
So, since my last post, I not only have become vegetarian, I've become vegan. Luke is vegan, too, and Lauren is a lacto-vegetarian, although she will eat eggs as an ingredient. Even Patrick is happily eating vegetarian meals at home. (I stopped cooking meat last summer) We still eat mostly organic, but I didn't make it to the Moore Square Market very often this summer, mainly because I couldn't justify the gasoline to make the trip.
Patrick planted close to 100 fruit trees (mostly apple) at our place in Oriental. There were quite a few baby apples on the trees until Hannah came through and blew most of them off. Hopefully, next year, they will survive hurricane season.
School is going. I almost said it's going well, but I can't go that far. I am very ready to be finished with school! I've done well in my classes and am glad I decided to get my Master's, but it's been 2 years of being way too busy. I'm only taking one class a semester now, so I will be finished in December of 09. Sigh.
Lauren and Luke are still home schooling. This is Luke's senior year, and he's debating whether or not to go to college next year. If he does go, he wants to be in the mountains of NC: Appalachian, UNC- Asheville, or Warren Wilson. We'll be visiting those 3 campuses in October, which will hopefully help him make a decision.
I have a few things I want to tell you about in greater detail, one being the trip to Oregon Luke & I took last month. We built a cob house with about 20 other people while camping for 10 nights and eating delicious food that someone else cooked! It was wonderful!
So, there you have it - a very generic update. If I come back, which I hope I will, I'll try to be at least a bit more insightful.
Thanks for stopping by, and if you're on Facebook, you can find me there (search using my email address jy(last name)@nc.rr.com
love, Jen.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Real Food
Since school got out, I've had some time to educate myself about organic food/nutrition, as I was contemplating in my last post. I bought a few new cookbooks, read "Plenty", a book about eating local, began stocking my pantry with things I had previously never heard of (Bragg liquid aminos, agave nectar, etc.) & started doing weekly grocery shopping at a small farmer's market.
We have the state farmer's market not far from us, but I like the one at Moore Square much better. It's much smaller, for one thing, and they have musicians playing every week. Growers must live within 100 miles of the market in order to participate, and the people selling the produce have to actually work on the farm. The best thing, though, is that almost all of the produce sold there is organic!
Here is what I brought home from Moore Square today:
Green leaf lettuce, arugula, mesclun (2 bags from 2 different growers), zucchini & yellow squash, turnips, beets, snow peas, purple cabbage, scallions, purple scallions, vidalia onions, asparagus, purple asparagus, strawberries, ....
...free range chicken, grass-fed london broil & ground beef, cassat goat cheese, fresh mozzarella, raw milk hickory grove cheese, and mint ice cream. I also bought a small bouquet of fresh flowers.
The meat and dairy is mostly for my boys, who aren't interested in a vegan diet. I'm considering it, but I did eat some of the ice cream. It's made with cream from Maple View Farm, which is local. A few weeks ago, they had a flavor called Claire Innes Fool, which was hands down the best ice cream I have ever had! It was vanilla ice cream stuffed with all sorts of berries! YUM!
The past few weeks, I've returned from the market & feasted on delicious local salads, roast asparagus & fresh ice cream. I've tried new foods, helped my youngest daughter discover that she likes pink radishes, and felt connected with the food I eat, something that just doesn't happen when it comes from a big box grocer. I've talked with the people who grow this food, heard about how they prepare it for their own families, had them tell me they'll bring something next week just for me. It's such a pleasant way to shop!
Here are a few nutrition books I'm either reading or planning to read soon:
"Real Food" by Nina Planck
I just started reading this one. It advocates a return to fresh, 'real' food like our grandparents ate when they were children (not recently, as I happen to know my grandmother was particularly fond of Little Debbie!), food without additives & preservatives: butter instead of margarine, raw milk from grass-fed cows, homemade yeast bread, etc.
"The Hallelujah Diet" by George Malkmus
I've almost finished this one. It highly recommends eliminating all animal products from your diet, eating mostly raw food and drinking pure, distilled water. (My distiller is on it's way, courtesy of eBay). Following this diet helps the body function the way it was designed to, and virtually eliminates sickness! I'm not sure about the juicing aspect, but I do have a bid in on a Champion juicer - I'm willing to try it!
"The Omnivore's Dilemna" by Michael Pollan
I haven't started this one yet. From comments on the back, it looks 'at the social, ethical, and environmental impact of four different meals,' exploring 'how food gets from its sources to our plates'. It sounds really interesting & I'm looking forward to reading this one!
I haven't ultimately decided on what direction I'm going to take. I know that the year I was a vegan (ages ago!), I was thin, healthy, had lots of energy & felt an inner calm. I've noticed that I feel more aggressive when I've been eating a lot of meat. I also don't generally crave meats, and have already just about given them up, except for the occasional grass-fed beef or free range chicken, when I've fixed it for the boys. I like yogurt, milk on my cereal & most cheeses, so it would be more difficult to give up dairy, but I don't foresee cutting back as a problem. I also like eggs from free range chickens. I have no desire to ever eat battery grown eggs again! I'm leaning toward a flexitarian diet of mostly local, raw food, few animal products, but no set rules.
In other news, Jenika graduated from Ringling with honors & has embarked on a free-lance career. If you know of anyone who might want some anthropomorphic characters drawn, she's your girl (www.jenikaart.com) Rachel will be heading to Europe this weekend, with stops in Paris, London, Rome and Florence. I'm so jealous! Luke recently performed with Stacy Clearman's LittleLand Band at Kidsplosure. That was SO much fun! Stacy has a CD coming out soon, if you have any preschool music lovers, you should definitely check his music out!
That's about all that's going on here. Hope you're doing well!
love, Jen.
We have the state farmer's market not far from us, but I like the one at Moore Square much better. It's much smaller, for one thing, and they have musicians playing every week. Growers must live within 100 miles of the market in order to participate, and the people selling the produce have to actually work on the farm. The best thing, though, is that almost all of the produce sold there is organic!
Here is what I brought home from Moore Square today:
Green leaf lettuce, arugula, mesclun (2 bags from 2 different growers), zucchini & yellow squash, turnips, beets, snow peas, purple cabbage, scallions, purple scallions, vidalia onions, asparagus, purple asparagus, strawberries, ....
...free range chicken, grass-fed london broil & ground beef, cassat goat cheese, fresh mozzarella, raw milk hickory grove cheese, and mint ice cream. I also bought a small bouquet of fresh flowers.The meat and dairy is mostly for my boys, who aren't interested in a vegan diet. I'm considering it, but I did eat some of the ice cream. It's made with cream from Maple View Farm, which is local. A few weeks ago, they had a flavor called Claire Innes Fool, which was hands down the best ice cream I have ever had! It was vanilla ice cream stuffed with all sorts of berries! YUM!
The past few weeks, I've returned from the market & feasted on delicious local salads, roast asparagus & fresh ice cream. I've tried new foods, helped my youngest daughter discover that she likes pink radishes, and felt connected with the food I eat, something that just doesn't happen when it comes from a big box grocer. I've talked with the people who grow this food, heard about how they prepare it for their own families, had them tell me they'll bring something next week just for me. It's such a pleasant way to shop!
Here are a few nutrition books I'm either reading or planning to read soon:
"Real Food" by Nina PlanckI just started reading this one. It advocates a return to fresh, 'real' food like our grandparents ate when they were children (not recently, as I happen to know my grandmother was particularly fond of Little Debbie!), food without additives & preservatives: butter instead of margarine, raw milk from grass-fed cows, homemade yeast bread, etc.
"The Hallelujah Diet" by George Malkmus
I've almost finished this one. It highly recommends eliminating all animal products from your diet, eating mostly raw food and drinking pure, distilled water. (My distiller is on it's way, courtesy of eBay). Following this diet helps the body function the way it was designed to, and virtually eliminates sickness! I'm not sure about the juicing aspect, but I do have a bid in on a Champion juicer - I'm willing to try it!
"The Omnivore's Dilemna" by Michael Pollan
I haven't started this one yet. From comments on the back, it looks 'at the social, ethical, and environmental impact of four different meals,' exploring 'how food gets from its sources to our plates'. It sounds really interesting & I'm looking forward to reading this one!
I haven't ultimately decided on what direction I'm going to take. I know that the year I was a vegan (ages ago!), I was thin, healthy, had lots of energy & felt an inner calm. I've noticed that I feel more aggressive when I've been eating a lot of meat. I also don't generally crave meats, and have already just about given them up, except for the occasional grass-fed beef or free range chicken, when I've fixed it for the boys. I like yogurt, milk on my cereal & most cheeses, so it would be more difficult to give up dairy, but I don't foresee cutting back as a problem. I also like eggs from free range chickens. I have no desire to ever eat battery grown eggs again! I'm leaning toward a flexitarian diet of mostly local, raw food, few animal products, but no set rules.
In other news, Jenika graduated from Ringling with honors & has embarked on a free-lance career. If you know of anyone who might want some anthropomorphic characters drawn, she's your girl (www.jenikaart.com) Rachel will be heading to Europe this weekend, with stops in Paris, London, Rome and Florence. I'm so jealous! Luke recently performed with Stacy Clearman's LittleLand Band at Kidsplosure. That was SO much fun! Stacy has a CD coming out soon, if you have any preschool music lovers, you should definitely check his music out!
That's about all that's going on here. Hope you're doing well!
love, Jen.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Chemical Free
Last time we went to Oriental, we stopped at a little store in New Bern called "Bear Essentials". They sell organic clothes & natural beauty products. One of the owners started telling me about this line of products that cured her rosacea - Dr. Hauschka's line of skin care. Since I have rosacea & the medicine I was using stung my face, I was interested and bought a few samples.
Used to be, if I went a day or two without my Finacea, my skin would break out & get all blotchy. Yuk. So I was a little nervous to stop using it, but I did. The results have been amazing! I haven't used the medicine in almost a month & my skin looks better than I can remember. I've even drunk a little wine & eaten lots of salsa, both of which used to cause outbreaks, and still no problem.
So, what is it about this stuff & why am I writing about it? Because it has really made me think. See, it's not just that my rosacea has gone away, but the dark circles I used to have under my eyes are better, too. My skin tone is better. It just looks healthier. (I'd post a picture, but I just discovered that my camera is broken!) Aside from the Finacea, I rarely put anything on my face before. But when I checked what I WAS using, almost all of it had parabens in it. So, I figure that maybe I am allergic to parabens. But what if I'm not any more allergic to it than anyone else, but my skin reacts to it in ways I can see? Maybe the increase in paraben usage in cosmetics has impacted the rise in skin cancers. What if other cosmetic additives cause problems we don't know about also?
That made me start thinking about food additives. I already knew a little about them because we tried the Feingold diet with Lauren for a while, as a treatment for her ADHD. She's so picky, we couldn't completely stick with it, but while using it, we realized that she's allergic to artificial vanilla (also known as vanillin, and frequently labeled "artificial flavors"). If you haven't been reading your food labels, you may not realize how many products vanillin is found in! Anyway, we have already cut back on additives, but we let some sneak past us fairly regularly.
But I've realized that if cutting parabens out of my skin care can have such a revolutionary impact on my skin, perhaps cutting back chemical additives in my food will make equally dramatic impacts in the rest of my body. Having recently read a rather alarming book and watched "The Future of Food", this has made me decide to buy organic food whenever possible. Of course, this means cutting way back on processed food, which is also a good idea! Anyway, it's not a huge drastic step by any means, but it requires a little more thought and planning.
So, going for a little ride on the organic bandwagon.....
Jen.
Used to be, if I went a day or two without my Finacea, my skin would break out & get all blotchy. Yuk. So I was a little nervous to stop using it, but I did. The results have been amazing! I haven't used the medicine in almost a month & my skin looks better than I can remember. I've even drunk a little wine & eaten lots of salsa, both of which used to cause outbreaks, and still no problem.
So, what is it about this stuff & why am I writing about it? Because it has really made me think. See, it's not just that my rosacea has gone away, but the dark circles I used to have under my eyes are better, too. My skin tone is better. It just looks healthier. (I'd post a picture, but I just discovered that my camera is broken!) Aside from the Finacea, I rarely put anything on my face before. But when I checked what I WAS using, almost all of it had parabens in it. So, I figure that maybe I am allergic to parabens. But what if I'm not any more allergic to it than anyone else, but my skin reacts to it in ways I can see? Maybe the increase in paraben usage in cosmetics has impacted the rise in skin cancers. What if other cosmetic additives cause problems we don't know about also?
That made me start thinking about food additives. I already knew a little about them because we tried the Feingold diet with Lauren for a while, as a treatment for her ADHD. She's so picky, we couldn't completely stick with it, but while using it, we realized that she's allergic to artificial vanilla (also known as vanillin, and frequently labeled "artificial flavors"). If you haven't been reading your food labels, you may not realize how many products vanillin is found in! Anyway, we have already cut back on additives, but we let some sneak past us fairly regularly.
But I've realized that if cutting parabens out of my skin care can have such a revolutionary impact on my skin, perhaps cutting back chemical additives in my food will make equally dramatic impacts in the rest of my body. Having recently read a rather alarming book and watched "The Future of Food", this has made me decide to buy organic food whenever possible. Of course, this means cutting way back on processed food, which is also a good idea! Anyway, it's not a huge drastic step by any means, but it requires a little more thought and planning.
So, going for a little ride on the organic bandwagon.....
Jen.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
teaching preschoolers at home
I've spoken with a few moms lately about homeschooling, and just read a comment on one of my favorite blogs, seeking information about unschooling. Since I've been meaning to write more in my blog again, this seemed like a good opportunity to do that.
We have been homeschooling for 8 years now, and don't really unschool, but we aren't school-at-homers, either. We do what works for us at the time. For different ages and different children, different approaches work better.
Knowing what I know now, as the parent of four children (ages 11 to 22), here is what I would do with a 3 or 4 year old:
Science: Grow a garden, show them the insides of the seeds which have started sprouting - or soak a lima bean & cut it open; take nature hikes, go slowly, sit down and look at the variety of plants that are all around you. How many leaves do they have? Are the edges smooth or bumpy?, what's underneath that rock? look what's growing on that log; go to hands-on museums; TOPS science has a great kit (called get a grip) using lentils & various sizes of containers. The containers are labeled with hearts, stars, clouds, etc. How many stars does it take to fill up the cloud container? It is a great kit for learning basic science & math principals, and it's great tactile fun as well! They recommend it for kids from grades K through 6, but we started it when little L was 4 & still pull it out occasionally now that she's 11.
Math: Baking! It's amazing how much kids can learn about fractions, units of measure, etc. from baking and cooking ; Have tea parties with dolls. If we have 12 cookies, how many does each person get? Voila! Your preschooler is now doing division! Play games - Sum Swamp is a lot of fun and teaches addition and subtraction.
Language arts: Read, read , read. There are lots of great blogs these days about children's books. Here is one of of my favorites: 7 impossible things before breakfast . And you can't go wrong looking for Caldecott award winners at your local library. Look for books that are fun to read aloud, because you will probably end up reading some of them at least 50 times! Books from Disney, for example, are really tedious to read once, let alone multiple times.
Have to go run big L to guitar lessons, hopefully, I'll get back to this soon. If you have preschoolers & are reading this, I know that life is tough with those little guys sometimes, but it goes by SO fast! Treasure each moment, give lots and lots of hugs, wake them up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower, be silly with them, pray with them, love, love, love them!
Jen.
We have been homeschooling for 8 years now, and don't really unschool, but we aren't school-at-homers, either. We do what works for us at the time. For different ages and different children, different approaches work better.
Knowing what I know now, as the parent of four children (ages 11 to 22), here is what I would do with a 3 or 4 year old:
Science: Grow a garden, show them the insides of the seeds which have started sprouting - or soak a lima bean & cut it open; take nature hikes, go slowly, sit down and look at the variety of plants that are all around you. How many leaves do they have? Are the edges smooth or bumpy?, what's underneath that rock? look what's growing on that log; go to hands-on museums; TOPS science has a great kit (called get a grip) using lentils & various sizes of containers. The containers are labeled with hearts, stars, clouds, etc. How many stars does it take to fill up the cloud container? It is a great kit for learning basic science & math principals, and it's great tactile fun as well! They recommend it for kids from grades K through 6, but we started it when little L was 4 & still pull it out occasionally now that she's 11.
Math: Baking! It's amazing how much kids can learn about fractions, units of measure, etc. from baking and cooking ; Have tea parties with dolls. If we have 12 cookies, how many does each person get? Voila! Your preschooler is now doing division! Play games - Sum Swamp is a lot of fun and teaches addition and subtraction.
Language arts: Read, read , read. There are lots of great blogs these days about children's books. Here is one of of my favorites: 7 impossible things before breakfast . And you can't go wrong looking for Caldecott award winners at your local library. Look for books that are fun to read aloud, because you will probably end up reading some of them at least 50 times! Books from Disney, for example, are really tedious to read once, let alone multiple times.
Have to go run big L to guitar lessons, hopefully, I'll get back to this soon. If you have preschoolers & are reading this, I know that life is tough with those little guys sometimes, but it goes by SO fast! Treasure each moment, give lots and lots of hugs, wake them up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower, be silly with them, pray with them, love, love, love them!
Jen.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Blogslacker
Again, I apologize for being such a blogslacker! The most recent post (Green Christians Unite) was written the day after Christmas. I think I didn't post it because I wanted to include a link to the article I mentioned.
So - I have found in the past month since I wrote the last post that there are more Green Christians than I had thought, which is so reassuring! One of the ways I found that out is through Sara's blog, which I refered to earlier.
What else? I've discovered that once you start (or commit to) this green living journey, it gets so much easier to carry out. For instance, I wanted some little pita pockets today, but at Whole Foods, the only little ones came with a hard plastic liner inside the bag. Well, in our county, they won't recycle plastic unless the opening is smaller than the bottom of the container. (Does anyone know why??). So, I got the regular sized pita bread instead. No plastic. Not long ago, I would have bought that and thrown away the extra packaging without a second thought. Also, once I decided not to buy anything new (except books, as a future librarian, I'm making an exception for printed information), amazingly, I stopped wanting so much. So far, so good - I'm into week 4!
So, now I need to go finish my paper on "The Organization of Information". I visited the greatest yarn shop for this assignment. Oh my goodness! The textures & colors were so gorgeous! I'm definitely going to take up crochet sometime soon!
OK, I'm really going to finish my paper while my boys are out enjoying Gnarls Barkley and the Red Hot Chili Peppers! (whining is definitely called for!) Will try to post again soon!
love, Jen.
So - I have found in the past month since I wrote the last post that there are more Green Christians than I had thought, which is so reassuring! One of the ways I found that out is through Sara's blog, which I refered to earlier.
What else? I've discovered that once you start (or commit to) this green living journey, it gets so much easier to carry out. For instance, I wanted some little pita pockets today, but at Whole Foods, the only little ones came with a hard plastic liner inside the bag. Well, in our county, they won't recycle plastic unless the opening is smaller than the bottom of the container. (Does anyone know why??). So, I got the regular sized pita bread instead. No plastic. Not long ago, I would have bought that and thrown away the extra packaging without a second thought. Also, once I decided not to buy anything new (except books, as a future librarian, I'm making an exception for printed information), amazingly, I stopped wanting so much. So far, so good - I'm into week 4!
So, now I need to go finish my paper on "The Organization of Information". I visited the greatest yarn shop for this assignment. Oh my goodness! The textures & colors were so gorgeous! I'm definitely going to take up crochet sometime soon!
OK, I'm really going to finish my paper while my boys are out enjoying Gnarls Barkley and the Red Hot Chili Peppers! (whining is definitely called for!) Will try to post again soon!
love, Jen.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Green Christians Unite!
Well, I just discovered that not only am I in a minority, being a green Christian, but that my motives and effectiveness are in question because I don't believe in evolution.
It was a bumpy road for me to arrive at this position, since I have a degree in biology from a public university, but it's true - I'm a Creationist.
I never questioned evolution until the year we started homeschooling and attending a Southern Baptist Church. In a Sunday School class, we were discussing Genesis. Well, they were, I was being pretty quiet, since I was quite Biblically illiterate at the time. A young man made the comment "If you can't believe God about where you came from, how can you believe Him about where you're going?" That got me thinking, and my struggle began.
That same year, even though we were using a Christian curriculum in our home school, I decided to tell the kids, then 2nd and 3rd graders, about evolution. When I explained it to them in simple terms, my 3rd grader started laughing, and said, "how can anyone believe that?!", as if it were the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.
Over the course of several years, I have come to believe in Creation, although I still haven't embraced the whole 'young earth' thing. I've realized that a lot of what was presented to me as fact isn't fact. A lot of evolutionary 'evidence' has been fabricated. And I've realized that it takes as much faith to believe in evolution as it does to believe in Creation. And frankly, I'd rather put my faith in God than in accidents.
But I was doing a technorati search to see if I could find some other Green Christians, and ran across a blog in which a fellow was vehemently espousing the inconsistency, indeed the impossibility of a Christian, specifically a Creationist, being an environmentalist. He said, "Our “interconnectedness” with the rest of the earth is rooted in our shared evolutionary history and ecological relationships with every aspect of every ecosystem across the planet." In other words, he is right, and anyone who doesn't line up with his thinking is wrong. The statement he made is not a "fact", but he treats it as one, and makes his judments against us from that viewpoint.
I am discovering that there aren't many green Christians, but I don't think that has anything to do with our beliefs about evolution, but more about a feeling that God will provide and we don't need to worry. However, I think it is our place as Christians to be good stewards of everything He has given us, and that includes the planet upon which He placed us.
So, I am recycling everything I can. I'm buying local when possible, avoiding chain restaurants, using my own bags at the grocery store, replacing burned out light bulbs with compact flourescents, and shopping at used clothing places before looking at the mall. But I still believe that life is too complex to have just 'happened', and that we were created by a loving God who came to earth as a baby 2000 years ago so we wouldn't have to always be separate from Him.
How is it that the people who complain that Christians are ignorant and closed minded are apparently incapable of seeing things from our perspective, of being open-minded towards us, and are instead openly hostile towards our beliefs. Maybe they're Christophobic?
It was a bumpy road for me to arrive at this position, since I have a degree in biology from a public university, but it's true - I'm a Creationist.
I never questioned evolution until the year we started homeschooling and attending a Southern Baptist Church. In a Sunday School class, we were discussing Genesis. Well, they were, I was being pretty quiet, since I was quite Biblically illiterate at the time. A young man made the comment "If you can't believe God about where you came from, how can you believe Him about where you're going?" That got me thinking, and my struggle began.
That same year, even though we were using a Christian curriculum in our home school, I decided to tell the kids, then 2nd and 3rd graders, about evolution. When I explained it to them in simple terms, my 3rd grader started laughing, and said, "how can anyone believe that?!", as if it were the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.
Over the course of several years, I have come to believe in Creation, although I still haven't embraced the whole 'young earth' thing. I've realized that a lot of what was presented to me as fact isn't fact. A lot of evolutionary 'evidence' has been fabricated. And I've realized that it takes as much faith to believe in evolution as it does to believe in Creation. And frankly, I'd rather put my faith in God than in accidents.
But I was doing a technorati search to see if I could find some other Green Christians, and ran across a blog in which a fellow was vehemently espousing the inconsistency, indeed the impossibility of a Christian, specifically a Creationist, being an environmentalist. He said, "Our “interconnectedness” with the rest of the earth is rooted in our shared evolutionary history and ecological relationships with every aspect of every ecosystem across the planet." In other words, he is right, and anyone who doesn't line up with his thinking is wrong. The statement he made is not a "fact", but he treats it as one, and makes his judments against us from that viewpoint.
I am discovering that there aren't many green Christians, but I don't think that has anything to do with our beliefs about evolution, but more about a feeling that God will provide and we don't need to worry. However, I think it is our place as Christians to be good stewards of everything He has given us, and that includes the planet upon which He placed us.
So, I am recycling everything I can. I'm buying local when possible, avoiding chain restaurants, using my own bags at the grocery store, replacing burned out light bulbs with compact flourescents, and shopping at used clothing places before looking at the mall. But I still believe that life is too complex to have just 'happened', and that we were created by a loving God who came to earth as a baby 2000 years ago so we wouldn't have to always be separate from Him.
How is it that the people who complain that Christians are ignorant and closed minded are apparently incapable of seeing things from our perspective, of being open-minded towards us, and are instead openly hostile towards our beliefs. Maybe they're Christophobic?
Friday, November 17, 2006
Adventures in Buying Local
I tried buying from a local organic farm today. Problem was, I guess, that they really aren't local enough. I ended up driving for almost an hour, then waiting for another hour for the delivery. Then I paid a small fortune for a few stewing hens. The sweet potatoes they were supposed to have didn't arrive. It's probably a good thing, though, since the hens about broke me, and sweet potatoes are pretty easy to come by this week.
The good things about buying this way were:
I could meet the people who had grown the food.
I knew they put a lot of care into what they do (one of the turkeys someone drove off with had a name!)
I'm sure the flavor will be wonderful!
There were some interesting conversations while waiting in line to pick up the hens. (Most people were there for turkeys. Interestingly, of the 5 people immediately around me, three, who didn't know each other, were from NYC. Another was from Portland via Boston. I guess true local people don't buy local?)
I found out about a fairly new resaturant in town that uses only locally grown, organic food. One of those places (like Alfalfa's) with a rotating menu. I may try that one our for my birthday!
So, I guess I haven't completely given up on this farm. In my recent couponing endeavors, I've saved more than enough money to offset the higher costs of buying some organic meat & produce locally. But I think more trips to the farmers market would be simpler & more economical, both in terms of money for food and fuel (the state farmers market is only about 10 miles away), and in terms of time. The produce may not all be organic, but I can probably talk with the growers & find some that minimize pesticides, etc. if they don't eliminate them altogether.
Sometimes, our Whole Foods will sell locally grown produce & I almost always choose that over the imported. But meeting the grower & buying directly from them somehow just makes you feel better about what you're eating.
Tomorrow, after class, I'm making chicken broth & home-made noodle soup. If I get really ambitious, I'm going to try making some sweet potato biscuits to go along with it! Yum!
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