Food 19 Jul 2006 08:48 am
What I’m Excited About…..
Taking a slight break from Chicken-Carnage may be a good thing today. I put a crate over them in their nesting box and tied string around the door handles to make sure there was no way to open them. And we surrounded the base of the coop with different objects to thwart digging. My little trio of hens were cooing softly this morning, intact. And so I get an opprotunity to move on a little.
I’ve been reading a FANTASTIC book this week.
Nourishing Traditions is a great companion to The Maker’s Diet, for those of you who’ve read that. It does for food and nutrition what The Total Money Makeover did for finances…it’s practical and inspirational and answers the question, “but how do I do this?”
We’re going to be stepping our nutrition up a much-needed knotch and I’m sooo excited about it! One thing about this book is that it’s not a trendy diet-of-the-moment or into deprivation of taste. A true omnivores bible, it starts by looking at native people, how they ate, and how it affected their health. It questions all the “scientific” stuff currently thrown at us that fragments our eating into unrelated events such as low-fat, low-carb, supplements and presents a more holistic view of our food is designed to work together. It’s absolutely inspiring with how tasty everything sounds, how wholesome, how good. I’m encourged to discover that I can heal, or at least improve, our family’s struggle with mood swings, hyperactivity, fungal issues, chronic and uncontrolled reflux, and maybe prevent cancer and neuro diseases as well. My children can be healthy and pink-cheeked and we can all feel better in general. Anemia is addressed, thyroid issues, memory loss….you name it, so many of what modern America stuggles with can be tied to the foods (and non-foods) we eat.
And so there will be many food adventures in the days to come! I”ve never really done any lacto-fermentation of veggies, made cheese or butter, stocks other than chicken, used whey…..and I”m busting with ideas! I’m going to take them in stages we can handle; we wont’ be going completely organic anytime soon due to cost but I know I’m at the place in my heart and head where I want to place more priority upon this. It’s easy to say “we can’t afford that” and in many cases, and certainly this particular year, that would be the truth. But more often the truth is, “I don’t want to afford this” and that’s what I’m over.
Yesterday I visited a new store (to me) while in the city. It’s an old natural foods co-op that now houses a store. Their prices were MUCH better than the natural, shiny/happy grocery store in another part of town and the environment just a more relaxed, personal, comfortable one. I felt like I could use my cloth grocery bags and be in a skirt with birks and my four kids and fit right in, whereas in the other place, I feel like the staff is bothered by children, they’d frown on my own containers, and natural is good but in that glossy-magazine way. Sure there’s a place for that and I’d still take that version over what the mainstream offers but I just felt more at home and more true-to-myself in the smaller place. And I liked that unlilke the big store’s asphalt parking lot full of SUV’s where the trendy shop, this one had a gravel lot full of cars that had that “paid for” look, if you kwim….
And so I picked up the latest version of Mothering
(which has a great article on why we need a breastfeeding culture and the constant barrage of images of babies being fed with bottles and what effect that has on us )
and some great bottled teas and chatted up the cashier about how to join. I’d rather put my money in a membership there for bulk goodies than at Sam’s and contribute to more asphalt foot-ball fields!!
Two days ago, lost in the chicken drama, was the fact that we ate plates full of our corn harvest!! We boiled it just as soon as it was picked and it was soooo good! Not overly sweet since it’s hadn’t had time for the starch to turn to sugar (or vise versa, however that works), it was just so darned “corny” :-). The ears were small, sometimes even tiny, since I didn’t water enough and their whole month of coming-to-maturity was spent in near drought. But they dripped with salty butter and left us proud of our effort and the delicous pay off.
Over the weekend we ate at a friend’s home and came as close to a “totally local” meal as we ever have! She is the same friend who told me about Nourishing Traditions in the first place and in many ways is a fun kindred spirit. She served produce from the farmer’s market: cabbage, cantelope, squash and onions, and we had lentil quesadillas. Please disregard my earlier lentil experiment; now I know what they are suposed to taste llike I know I was no-where close!!!
She sprouts and cooks hers and then puts a scoopful on a sprouted grain tortilla with some olive oil. Topped with tomatoes and montery jack cheese and cumin, it’s then folded over and grilled on both sides. The result is a meaty, wholesome, filling pocket of wonder. If the bowl of sprouted lentils was maintained in the fridge, it can also be a rather fast meal, helping to eliminate the overuse of fast food we’ve currently been struggling with.
And so, with the exception of the cooking oils, lentils, and tortillas, the meal was all local and seasonal. We had sweet fellowship and watched an awesome sunset and our kids played a version of soccer-basketball amid the fireflies.
Food is awesome, ain’t it? We need it to live and yet it never ceases to be a constant area of discovery and adventure. I’ll be posting about my food-fun and how it affects my menus in the weeks to come. Life is never boring and neither should our food, in my not so humble opinion!
