holy hard & worth it!

The list of 'what-abouts' and 'yeah-buts' is slowly growing.  We have 'local' peanut butter, peanuts grown where (?) company located here & sold at the Food Co-op, where you can get oranges, lemons, bananas... I have to remember that our goal is to shop from specific location who mainly support local growers & vendors, such as food co-ops, farm stands & markets, locally produced &/or recycled goods etc no big grocery chains or restaurants.  What about ginger root?  What about a basic cooking oil?  I didn't clear out the house when we made this pledge (as it were), we simply began.  So there is a lot of, let's call them Big Brands around.  But a week or so later there are less of them. I keep a list in the kitchen & as I think of or use an item I don't know where it really comes from or how to get it or if we even need it I write it down for discussion & research.

Right now I am trying to decide the 'value' of cold cereal (Willy Wonka: Do you have any idea what breakfast cereal's made of? It's those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners.).  As a Diabetic, it has very little value to me personally & if you uncover the origins of it all you will see how cold cereal is an American-ish twist totally in the wrong direction of what was a rather good idea before we got to it: mixed grains, fruit, & a protein.  'Yeah-but', emotionally I love cereal, so do the kids, and my homemade ginger snap granola (which is very good) is not a substitute for Frosted Mini Wheat's.  Here is the thing, if you get rid of say delicious Frosted Mini Wheat's you open your mornings to creative alternatives like zucchini muffins, cornmeal pancakes, homemade sweet rolls...  It isn't about what you are giving up, it is about what you are making room for: a rather indulgent restriction if I may... 

Take potato chips for example, when I made elk burger sliders I usually would pair it with a good bbq chip and a salad but this time armed with co-op produce I sliced vegetables to go with it.  No one missed the chips. Next time I might make potato wedges or sweet potato fries anything but a bag of greasy potato chips.  Is this making sense?  Without getting too hung up on one item or another the bigger picture is already paying off.  We see our food very differently.  We are more careful & thoughtful.  We eat less because the quality of food is higher in just about every way you could count. 

       

This answers the cereal question, yes we can walk away from prepared cereal BUT not from ginger root.  In fact we could leave almost any finished products behind (glad we aren't) but we want/need some basic 'exotic' ingredients.  And that is my line, any basic I need to cook &/or bake with (which I can't find at supports local market) goes on the Costco/NPS List and I'm not going to worry about it.

This is actually the best home school project I never planned.  Each food choice is researched, examined, evaluated, and then sent to family trial. Next on the docket: snow cones...is a snow shack a local business?  and no, I am not buying a snoopy snow cone maker if it's not. 

local love from the kitchen

So how is this whole plan to eat from 'closer to home' sources going?

Pretty well.  Beach and I had a long talk about some of the changes in our own pantry.  She was great.  I offered her the same thing we are giving ourselves a few items we feel we need but can't obtain from one of our designated shopping stops. She declined saying she wanted to try it first.  If she couldn't live without an item she would let me know later.  Here are a few dinners from the week, all of the ingredients are from the Food Co-op (or our greenhouse).

Mashed potatoes topped with mushrooms, leek, red peppers, & garlic

Green chili & chicken tamales with spout, cucumber, spinach, & grape tomatoes

BLT on sourdough with cucumbers
(this one was mine so it was open face to cut down on the bread comma later)

Oh, this one is great.  This was a lunch. 

Beach at the park dissecting a corn dog from Millie's,

a family owned & run burger joint.

So loving this!!!!

salt of the earth, shopping local

When I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I was intrigued.  We were settled down on our little farm and I was wondering about what it would be like to do this... "Year of Food Life ...tells the story of how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where we live."

A few summer's ago we made a deal: eat all summer long from only the food co-op & the farmer's markets minus a Costco list of dog food, coffee, flour, sugar, and a few other items we couldn't afford to buy locally.  We did okay but it was far from perfect.  Part of it was us, part of it was a financial issue (suppose that is us too), & part was a timing issue with getting enough food from the markets and having it last (the cheaper & more variety at the co-op 1x a month: the more pricey & hit-or-miss farmer's markets 1-2x a week).

But guess what? Yep, we are going to try it again.  The changes in the local food co-op offering an open market 2x a week makes this not only possible to do, it makes it wonderful to do!!!!

Our goals are these (some we already do):

1. Create a master Costco list of items we can't (for one  reason or another) buy from the local markets and stick to it.  That is the easiest part, Colby is our Costco man, I've been to Costco maybe 3 times & one of those was for Alexis's eye exam.  Colby never buys extras & he always says NO, hence me not going to Costco with him.          

2.  Buy all our bread from local bakeries or at market or bake it ourselves. (a bit redundant but bread matters a lot around here)

3.  Purchase 90% of household groceries from the local markets, street vendors, or farm stands. I realize I can't stop Colby from shopping at NPS (a store that sales over-runs, over-stocks, & out-of-date products) but we can cut out all of those trips to Smiths, Fresh Markets, & other such chains.

4.  Eat from our own farm & garden (another easy thing to do).

5.  Bake it and make it ourselves.  I already do a great deal of cooking and baking but if you take away all those funny little grocery store items I am going to have to fill in the gaps with homemade goods :)

6.  Purchase our beer from local brewers. Oh-yeah!!!!

7.  Eat out only at local businesses- no chains. Okay, nobody panic, Crown Burger is locally owned & operated (by our friend's family!), so are just about a thousand other fine joints around town.

Let the fun start now!