Winterizing Your Home: Plugging Up the Small Holes

Posted by on January 18, 2012 Leave a Comment

Our farmhouse is over a hundred years old and consequently it has many funky charms such as several non-standard door sizes (tall people sustain more surprise head injuries in our house than anyone else) and windows installed at floor level upstairs.  We love it.  What’s less charming about a house this old is that it’s had plenty of time to be worked on by all kinds of unskilled people who have made a bungle of things.  This dryer vent is a perfect illustration.  Clearly the house wasn’t originally built to accommodate an automatic washer and dryer.  Some clever jerk decided that this wasn’t a problem.  To install dryer vent: sledgehammer a hole into the outside wall the approximate size of a dryer vent et voila!  All set.  Don’t mind the big gaping corner through which light and air travel freely – this allows you to breath fresh air even in mid winter.

WRONG.  Anyone living in an old house knows that one of the biggest problems is paying to heat them.  They are famous for these “creative” bits of crappy handiwork that let the heat drain out.  You don’t even need gaping holes like this one, there are so many ways the heat gets out.  So this weekend, because we got a really high heating bill we couldn’t afford, we set about identifying some problems and fixing them.  One problem is that we didn’t put all our storm windows down.  Duh.  Let’s not talk about how dumb that was.  All the functioning ones are now in place.  This hole in the laundry room is something I was vaguely aware of but didn’t think too much about until we got our highest ever electric bill.

You probably don’t have this exact problem in your house.  So I’m not offering this up as a tutorial on how to fix the hole around your dryer vent.  You might, however, have some other little gap letting heat out of your house.  If you have the money (or ACTUAL skills to fix holes properly) you will obviously do it the professional way.  We have no money.  We are so strapped for money at this moment I’m stressed out that I’m going to have to buy cat food today*.  So how do you go about plugging up holes in your house with zero money and no professional house-fixing skills?  You get creative is what you do.  Some day I’ll have that gap fixed with plaster or something but this weekend I came up with a good workable solution:

My main concern was that a dryer vent could potentially get hot.  I know it isn’t likely, especially if you dry all your clothes on low heat – but I’ve had a house fire and I’m paranoid about creating flammable situations.  At first I was going to make a cotton tube and fill it with dryer lint.  We thought that had a kind of poetry to it.  However, cotton is quite flammable as far as fibers go.  So is lint, for that matter.  Wool is not very flammable.  You can burn it but the fire goes out very quickly.

Philip told me this and I didn’t actually believe him.  In an effort to locate a piece of 100% wool in my craft room I did burn tests on swatches of what I thought was wool.  I discovered two things, a) most of my wool fabrics are not 100% wool but are wool and synthetic blends and b) real wool doesn’t burn easily.  The real wool I found was a pant leg from an old vintage pair of army pants.  I trimmed it and sewed it into a tube and stuffed it (loosely) with cotton batting.  Then Philip stuffed it around the dryer vent like a collar – pushing it into the gaps.  It worked perfectly.  No more air flow at all and no more light.

So how can you use my solution to help you come up with your own?  If you have the money or skills, fix your holes professionally.  If you are in a similar situation as I am then think about how you might fill small (or big) holes or cracks to stop drafts.  Some ideas to consider:

  • Fabric scraps can be very useful in plugging up holes.  The more dense the fabric, the more effective.  Tight weave fabrics are your best bet.  Wool is a fantastic insulation fiber so if you have any wool scraps on hand, consider them as a great material.  As long as the hole you’re filling isn’t near a heat source (like a heater vent or a fireplace or a stove) cotton is perfectly good too.
  • Another way to stop drafts from coming through doors is to sew tubes of fabric the length of the door and fill it with rice.  You place this along the bottom of the door and it will block drafts.  This will also work for drafts coming through windows.
  • Caulking.  If you find really small holes in your house letting the heat out you may be able to caulk them.  This is cheap and doesn’t take great skill to do.  As you can see, my hole was much too big to fill with caulking and we also needed to be able to take the vent out if necessary.  But there may be other small holes or gaps that can be closed with caulking.

So when you’re looking around at the many ways heat is escaping your old home, consider what materials you have on hand and be creative in thinking about how they might be used.

*Don’t worry, I can cover the cat food.  It’s just THAT tight that it stresses me out every time I see we need something.  If it came down to having to borrow money from a friend to feed my cats I would have no shame in asking for help.

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The Best Beginning

Posted by on January 11, 2012 7 Comments

We just found out on Monday that we were approved for the HAMP loan modification that we applied for so that we won’t lose our house.  This is the best possible way to start the new year.  I don’t deal well with uncertainty and we’ve been going through this for two years now.  Well, truly, almost from the day we first moved in here four years ago.  If you want more of the details and thoughts that go along with this news you can read about it here.  So I’m feeling deeply relieved and deeply thankful for this news.

In the past couple of years I have been more focused on just coping with stress from day to day, trying to help my kid with his challenges, and I have retreated into my writing – all of which was good and necessary but leaving my garden to do its thing has resulted in a giant mess.  A colossal mess.  Now that we get to stay we have some real things to face.  The first is much more extreme budgeting.  This is not going to be easy but it is necessary in order to make this work.  (No, the bank didn’t reduce our loan by much money – they fixed some other things that would have forced us to move soon, such as the adjustable rate and other things I can’t be bothered to go into.)

The important thing is that now that we’ve been approved for this adjustment we know the bank isn’t going to kick us out and as long as we can make our payments, we’re here for good.  I have to admit that there have been times when I fantasized about getting kicked out because then we could move to Portland out of this god-forsaken little town of ours… but truly, I love my weird house and I’ve become accustomed to being a freak in the Oregon bible belt and we know most of the cool people here.  Plus, it’s pretty around here.

So here are a few things I want to work on around here as time allows:

Budgeting:

  • Soft spendy cheeses for special occasions only.
  • No beer except for very rare occasions (cheap wine instead, but only a few days a week, not every day).
  • No second pots of coffee.  When first pot runs out, make tea.
  • Cut Kung Fu classes.  (We can still practice the Kung Fu we already know)
  • Meal planning.  (I have the toughest time with this but every time I do it, I spend less money on grocery shopping.)

In the Garden:

  • Continue to cut back and uproot all the blackberries.  Huge job.  Long-term.
  • Prune the roses so we have a great crop of them this year for filling vases and cheering our poor asses up.
  • Have Philip relocate a couple of the roses that are too close together.
  • Clear out the two empty square beds in preparation for spring planting.
  • Plan the spring garden.  Just list the things you really want to grow, all your priorities, and roughly plan where you want to put them.  The more food we grow, the less we have to buy.
  • Prune the fruit trees by the end of February and apply dormant oil if you can find some that isn’t petroleum based.

Inside the house:

  • Get on a regular cleaning routine.  Starting this Saturday.  Just concentrate on: washing and changing sheets, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, mopping kitchen floor.
  • Apply diatomaceous earth to all floors in the house.  (This was a tip from my friend Ann that our vet agreed was an effective and non-toxic flea control.  Pippa, it turns out, is very allergic to fleas so we need to be on top of this)
  • Curtains on Max’s bedroom window.
  • Wash and sew new covers on all his comforters that have become gross and ratty and depressing.
  • Continue to work on the home-made lotion trials.

That’s plenty to focus on.  It’s important not to overwhelm myself before I even get out the gate.  I have writing to do as well, but these other things need to be given more priority than they have been.  Such improvements will help ease my overall depression which has been so bad lately that I literally want to sleep all the time.   While that’s a classic symptom for many people with clinical depression, that’s not been one of mine.  I don’t sleep well at night, ever, and then I just want to stay in bed all day.  Anyway, fixing up some of the things that depress me that I see every day is a step in the right direction.

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The Handmade Lotion Trials: First Batch

Posted by on January 3, 2012 10 Comments

I ran out of my usual lotion last week.  I have been using St. Ives for years.  I’ve enjoyed various formulas they’ve come out with.  Generally speaking they use very mild scents and they’ve always been affordable.  All natural they are NOT.  I have branched out time and time again to find an all natural replacement for it but no formula has met my needs.  My skin is sensitive and very dry.  I use hand lotion obsessively.  I am very picky about what it should feel like and how it should perform.  I think everyone’s skin responds differently to moisturizers and so what works for me will not necessarily work for others.

When I got down to scraping the bottle of my St. Ives lotion I bought a replacement for it, once again telling myself that some day I would just try to make my own lotion.  I had a neighbor once who said she and her mom make their own lotion every year and said it’s really easy.  However, needing lotion RIGHT NOW TODAY THIS MINUTE I brought home a familiar formula of St. Ives called “Intensive Healing” and opened it up and slathered it on my dry legs and was instantly overwhelmed by the most potent fragrance – perfumey and strong enough to knock a horse out.  This was new.  They don’t usually have such obnoxious fragrances and usually the fragrances smell pretty natural.  This scent that accosted me from my own skin reminded me of a certain cologne-stinking produce man I have a secret and strong dislike for.

Not okay.  Not only that, even if I could stomach such a strong scent on myself, I am not okay with accosting other people with chemical fragrances that may give them headaches or worse – make them sick.  So I hit the lotion isle at Rite Aid hoping to find one last bottle of my tried and true lotion.  They didn’t have any.  I read every lotion bottle on the shelf.  Every damn one.  I’m pretty sure I made the Rite Aid employees very nervous.  The ingredients lists, even on the “natural” bottles, read like foreign languages.  Partly this is due to the fact that most of the companies list ingredients like vitamin E in fancy-pants science lingo.  Still, do I need all that crap in my lotion?

Remember: skin is the largest organ of your body and what you put ON it goes IN in it.  Into to your system.  Toxins enter your system easily through skin.

I complained about my lotion problem to my mom and she got all excited to try making our own.  I love this about my mom.  She is the greatest inspiration to me to make my own medicines and go the natural route.  She brought me up that way.  So we consulted our Rosemary Gladstar herbal recipes book and found she has a “perfect” lotion in it.  Last night we made it.

What it has in it: Coconut oil, sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, 8 vitamin E capsules (emptied), linseed oil (a tiny bit), beeswax (we used 1/2 ounce for this batch, the recipe says 1/2 to 1 ounce), filtered water, aloe vera gel, and some essential oil (grapefruit).

How did it turn out?  It’s thick, which is what I like in a lotion.  It smells like coconut, which I don’t like (though it’s a huge improvement on the nasty loud smelling bottle I have to ditch on someone who likes that kind of thing).  It has a greasy feeling finish, which I don’t like at all.

How hard was it to make?  Easy!  It worked really well following Gladstar’s directions.  It didn’t separate on us and it didn’t require any special equipment.  Cleaning my blender and the bowl we used may require a trip through the scouring hot dishwasher to remove all trace of the beeswax but that’s a small price to pay.

Is it less expensive to make your own than to buy it?  That is highly dependent on what oils you choose to use.  It is also difficult to cost because this recipe called for a tsp of lanolin but we had to fork out $11 for a whole bottle of it.  Stored properly the lanolin will last a very long time and we can use it for many batches (maybe as many as 10) which makes the cost difficult to determine.  We also had to buy vitamin E in capsules, we only needed 8 of them but had to buy a whole bottle.  That was another $10.  I think if you use inexpensive oils you can make a very cheap lotion.  While cheap is good when on a budget like we are, I insist on good quality so I’m willing to spend more for sweet almond oil.  Buying bulk oils online is probably the best way to reduce the cost of making it.

How much does one batch make?  We got a total of about 16 ounces of lotion.

I have two other books with lotion recipes in it and I also have a friend who makes lotion professionally who has offered to let me make some with her.  My plan is to devise a master formula to meet my personal preferences and learn enough about how to adjust it so that I can make suggestions to others who want to try their hand at this but who may want a different sort of performance from their lotion.

Biggest question I need answered: what controls how greasy a lotion feels?  The main ingredient in lotion is oil and obviously oil is grease – is it the amount of water that tempers the greasy feel?  Or does the beeswax also temper it?  Are there certain kinds of oils that are more or less greasy feeling?

I’ll report back when I’ve made my second batch.

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Vegetarian Split Pea Soup Recipe

Posted by on December 30, 2011 4 Comments

This soup post is dedicated to the three animals that make our every day life incredibly rich and funny: Pippa, Penny, and Chick.  We love all three of them in spite of the fact that they wake us up in the wee hours for various reasons, they shed, they get fleas, they create enormous inconveniences… and yet:  every single day we have them in our lives they make us laugh, they repay us in kind for the things we do for them, they curl up and keep us warm on cold winter nights, they cheer us up when we’re depressed for no reason.   And Pippa, most especially our funny bow-legged, silly, sweet Pippa who helps Max get to sleep every night and suffers our stifling affections for her and her antics which we know she can’t help, being a little weird in the head from being abandoned at 4 weeks old by her mother and suffering malnutrition (also the cause of the bow legs).  Without Pippa we would be so much less than we are.

I’m linking this post to Branny Boils Over‘s ASPCA donation challenge (for every soup post that’s linked up to theirs dedicated to a loved pet they will donate $1 to the ASPCA).  The deadline to participate is January 31st so there’s plenty of time for you all to join in and raise some money for the care of animals!  Please note that you don’t even have to have a blog (or if you have a blog but it’s not a food blog – no problem) please go over to Branny Boils Over to read how you can be part of this too.

Most people know split pea soup as a smooth porky flavored comfort food.  Not in my house.  Being brought up vegetarian, my mom had veg versions of most of the classics and this is roughly based on the version she made for me growing up.  It’s the first soup I ever mastered on my own.  It has chunky vegetables in it but the peas become smooth as it cooks for a long time.  I prefer to use fresh dill whenever possible but I’ve failed to get it established in my current garden and no one local sells it here.  So I use dry these days.  If you’re looking for something that mimics the taste of ham-hock, this is not the soup for you.  But for everyone else – this is an amazing split pea soup!

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Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

8 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 3 carrots, chopped
  • 3 stalks celery, chopped
  • 3 quarts stock (or water)
  • 2 1/2 cups split peas
  • 2 potatoes, diced
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
  • 2 tsp dill (or one whole bunch fresh, minced)
  • 2 tsp salt
  • pepper to taste
  • 1 head cauliflower, cut in small florets

Instructions

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot and once it is hot add the onion, celery, and carrots. Saute them until the onions are translucent and the edges starting to brown.
  2. Add the stock and stir in the split peas. Bring the stock to a boil and then turn it down a little to med/high heat. Add the potatoes, garlic, dill, salt and pepper.
  3. Cook the soup for a long time, stirring every five minutes. When the peas begin to break down you need to pay more attention, stir more frequently to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat down to med/low. It usually takes a minimum of an hour for the peas to start breaking down. It will take a minimum of a half an hour after that for them to get silky and fully cooked.
  4. Once the split peas are completely soft add the cauliflower. This will not take long to cook. When the cauliflower is just tender the soup is done.

Notes

It is very important to note that you must be intuitive about the amount of water/stock needed. I've given the minimum amount that I find I need every time I make this. Depending on how quickly the peas break down you may need to add more water. You add more water when it becomes thick and the peas aren't yet done cooking (that means they need to absorb more water to be done or they'll stubbornly adhere to the bottom of your pot) and you add more water if the soup is thicker than you like it once the peas are done cooking.

The smaller you chop your vegetables the more quickly they'll break down and blend with the split peas. If you want to have chunks of vegetables when the soup is done, cut them into larger pieces. This soup usually takes 2 hours to make. I realize that's hard to fathom in this day of FAST recipes. It isn't fast and it's completely worth the time it takes to cook. You can, of course, cook this in a slow cooker but I'll be honest - I've done that and I hated it. So I obviously can't personally recommend that you do that. I add the cauliflower last because it doesn't take long to cook and I like to have whole cauliflower pieces in the soup.

If you want to make a cauliflower garnish as I've done for the picture - cut a 1/4" cross section from the middle of the whole head of cauliflower before cutting it into florets. Brush the cross section with olive oil and broil it in the oven on both sides until browned.

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Rosemary Polenta Recipe

Posted by on December 9, 2011 3 Comments
I have made this dish for over 20 years. I never had a recipe to start with. I was inspired to make this by the amazing bowl of rosemary polenta I once had at Kuletto’s Italian restaurant (on Powell Street in San Francisco) back when I was still a fashion design student. It is almost single-handedly responsible for making me get into the kitchen at a time when most of my friends and myself subsisted off of cheap diner food and boxed pasta. This is the perfect warm sustaining dish to eat on cold fall and winter nights. Served with a big pile of sauteed greens or a salad it is absolutely perfect. Obviously, for those of you who eat meat, it can be a great side to a meat dish as well.
Ingredients

  • Print
    Rosemary Polenta Recipe

    6 servings

    Ingredients

    • 1 1/2 cups polenta (I use a fine grind)
    • 6 cups water
    • 3 Tbsp olive oil (or butter)
    • 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
    • 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
    • 1 tsp salt
    • freshly ground pepper to taste
    • 1/2 cup Parmesan, grated (optional)

    Instructions

    1. Mix the polenta with 2 cups of the (cool) water.
    2. Bring the rest of the water to a boil, then turn down to low and add the polenta, whisking it as you pour it in.
    3. Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well.
    4. Cook on low for 20 minutes (if you're using a coarse grind you'll need to cook it for at least 45).
    5. Serve hot in bowls.
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Hundred Dollar Vanilla Cookie Recipe

Posted by on December 9, 2011 4 Comments

The quest to make Max things he’ll like that have less sugar and more protein in them continues.  This cookie used to be a sugar cookie.  But then I halved the sugar in the recipe.  I added quite a bit of almond flour (Ca-Ching!) to it which lends this cookie a subtle almond flavor.  Alas, it did not meet with Max’s approval but the rest of us loved this cookie enough for me to offer the recipe up for you to try.  I don’t have a big sweet tooth.  I don’t really love cookies, in general.  But this one, well, it’s pretty much perfect.

Print
Hundred Dollar Vanilla Cookie Recipe

Makes 12 cookies.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 3/4 cup almond flour
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 7 oz butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
    • For the glaze:
  • 2 cups confectioner's sugar
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. In a medium sized bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
  2. In another medium bowl beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until fully combined.
  3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well.
  4. Chill the dough while the oven preheats to 350°.
  5. Make balls of dough using a heaping tablespoon and flatten slightly.
  6. Bake for 12 minutes (or until the bottoms are golden, the tops will remain very pale).
  7. Put 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar into a small bowl and add 2 tablespoons of milk, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and stir vigorously until the sugar is completely dissolved, . If it gets too thin, add a little more sugar, if it’s too thick add small amount of milk to thin it.
  8. When the cookies have cooled, drizzle the glaze over them generously.

Notes

This recipe started off as a sugar cookie that I adapted from America's Test Kitchen (Family Baking Book) but it now bears no resemblance to it at all. You can easily double the recipe, I don't like having lots of cookies sitting around so I made it a one cookie sheet recipe. I called these "hundred dollar vanilla cookies" because almond flour costs almost as much as gold teeth.

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Potato Leek Soup Recipe

Posted by on December 7, 2011 Leave a Comment

 

Potato leek soup is wholesome good cheap food.  It also happens to be easy and pretty fast to make.  Everyone has their version.  Most versions are ultimately the same.  Variations include whether or not you use butter, olive oil, or a combination of the two.  What type of potato you use and whether or not you put cream or milk in it are other variations.  Proportions of leeks to potatoes as well as thickness and choice of garnishes (if any) are just about the only other variations I can think of.

I didn’t plan on putting my version on this site until I started thinking about the price of food and how useful it is to show people what home cooking really costs.  It is ridiculous (but widely believed) that eating fast food is cheaper than eating home cooked food.  Obviously, if the food you’re cooking at home is lobster and steak all week, and if you garnish your food with gold, that might be true.  But then you have to compare eating at a pricey restaurant to your cooking.  Fast food is basic food.  There is nothing fancy (or healthy) about it.  It’s frozen beef patties, cheap cheese, out of season never really ripe vegetables, and the cheapest kind of bread imaginable.  Still, you generally pay $3 to $7 for those meals, right?  Can people really suppose that simple home cooking costs more per serving than fast food?

A while ago I priced out one of my favorite bean and vegetable soups to see what it cost me per serving to make.  The Tenement Stew was .53 cents per big bowl.  With some toast it is easily as filling as a flimsy fast food burger and regular order of fries.  Two slices of toast might add about .50 to your meal.  Plus a pat of butter would add .10 cents (or let’s be generous and say you need two whole pats of butter) so for one wholesome and filling meal of homemade soup and toast you spend $1.23.  That’s a cheap meal.  Considering how much better it is for you than fast food your money is going a lot further nutritionally.

I’ve  been seeing more food writers costing out their recipes and I really like that, I find it useful, especially for people who are just learning to cook from scratch.  It’s also great for making comparisons like these – to show people that if you want to eat fast food, that’s your business, but don’t say it’s because it’s cheaper than cooking from scratch.

Potato Leek Soup Recipe:

Serves 4 generously ($1.84 per serving)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

3 leeks, sliced thin (the white and pale green parts)

8 round potatoes, cut in half then sliced thin

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Method:

Heat olive oil in a soup pot and add the leeks.  Saute the leeks for a few minutes by themselves, just until they are slightly browned.  Add the potatoes and saute for a few more minutes.  Add 2 quarts of water and bring to a boil.

Add the salt and pepper.  Turn heat down to medium and cook until the potatoes are falling apart (about 30 minutes).  Take off the heat and puree with an immersion blender (or you can blend it in an actual blender).

Recipe notes:

In the past I used to add a little cream at the end to finish this off but I haven’t done that in ages.  I love to eat this soup with buttered toast.  I suggest, if you aren’t already a master with your own potato leek soup recipe, that you play around with the salt and pepper.  It’s the only seasoning in this soup and it matters.  Sometimes I use butter instead of olive oil, and sometimes I even use a combination but it’s always a quarter cup of whatever fat I’m using to saute.

 

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McMinnville Saturday Market: Late Fall

Posted by on December 4, 2011 2 Comments

This is Tara from Denison Farms weighing my ENORMOUS sweet potatos.

I go to the McMinnville Saturday Market every weekend to buy my produce for the week.  There are two produce vendors there: Growing Wild Farm and Denison Farms.  Growing Wild sells out early so I often don’t get much from them.  I have a horrible tendency to sleep in on Saturdays.  Between the two farms (both certified organic) I manage to buy about 90% of the produce I use each week.  When I talk to people about eating locally and seasonally people ask about both the expense of it and the difficulty of cooking with so few ingredients.  Few ingredients?!  Check out what I find just at Denison Farms alone!

Please do not buy out of season tomatoes.  Look at all the other amazing things they have to offer that ARE in season!

This week I spent $43 dollars and this is what I got: 4 enormous sweet potatoes, 2 giant leeks, 2 heads of cauliflower, big bag of potatoes, 2 bags of prewashed lettuce mix, 1 bunch cilantro, 4 heads of garlic, 2 bunches of collards, 1 bunch of celery, and 2 yellow onions.  That will get us through a week of excellent vegetable eating.  When I got home I made potato leek soup and a pan of roasted sweet potatoes, fennel (from last week’s purchase), garlic, tofu, and potatoes.  That was dinner and it was amazing!

How I shop: most people I know decide what food they’re going to make and then go to the store to buy the things they need.  When you shop farmer’s markets you need to do the opposite; go to the market to see what’s available that looks good to you and then figure out what you will do with it.  You don’t need to know the exact amounts needed for recipes ahead of time.  Generally speaking you won’t need more than one head of cauliflower per cauliflower recipe.  One bunch of collards is generally enough for anything it’s going into.

If you’re not used to shopping this way it may take a little getting used to, but I’m the queen of anxiety (I have trouble with changes in routine and I get very set in my way of doing things) and even I hardly needed to adjust to this.  It’s actually a much more pleasant way of shopping and planning meals.  It’s also the way people have been doing it for thousands of years up until after World War ll.  You cooked what what was available and in season or in your pantry – no one decided ahead of time what they would be cooking because they didn’t have access to whatever they wanted all year long in a store.  Food stores were a lot less stable.

Please consider getting one of these gorgeous cutting boards from Growing Wild Farm!  I have two of them and they are well made by farmer Andre from white oak fallen on his own property as well as walnut and other woods from his friends.  The rustic board in this picture is new and Andre says it’s not suitable as a cutting board but is meant to be a serving board for things like cheeses.  I covet it!

There are a lot of other things at our Saturday Market: duck eggs, chicken eggs, meat, teas, spices, some packaged spreads, honey, bread and pastries, sometimes wild mushroom vendors, chocolates, hand made soaps, used books, art, crafts, vintage clothes, jewelry, knitted goods, sometimes flowers and hand carved spoons.  It’s becoming better and better all the time and I want my community to support it more strongly.  It’s such a pleasant way to do some of your food shopping every week.  It goes all year round and has made my town so much better.

If you have a similar market, especially one that goes all year round, be sure to support it.  Even if you can’t afford to buy all your produce, meat, and eggs from local sources, set aside a small portion of your budget to spend on at the local market.  Every dollar you spend locally makes your community economy stronger, your local food security stronger, and you are directly supporting your neighbors.

Most of my readers here at Stitch and Boots already support their local food producers as much as they can.  I am writing these things because if there’s even one person who comes along who doesn’t already shop their local farmer’s market that can be inspired to?  WIN.  Coming up soon – I’ve got a couple of recipes and will start costing out some of them to show what the food I eat actually costs.

Have a lovely weekend!

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GMO Foods: JUST LABEL IT

Posted by on December 3, 2011 6 Comments

If I put two heads of broccoli in front of you and I told you that one of them was from GMO seed and the other wasn’t, which would you choose?  Given a choice, would you actually pick the one that is a genetically modified organism with pesticides built into its dna that can’t be washed off?  This head of broccoli is NOT grown from genetically engineered seed.  How do I know?  Because my mom grew it herself in our garden using seeds from a company that has taken the Safe Seed Pledge.

Having a choice is the quintessential American way.  Having a choice in religion, politics, how you deal with your own body, what state you live in, what job you have, and who you marry.  I am aware that a couple of those issues are things we’re still grappling with as a country.  My point is that Americans, when they’re feeling most prideful, love to boast about how our country is so FREE.

So why is it so hard to convince the FDA that we should have a choice in whether or not we consume GMO foods?  All foods should be clearly labeled.  Labeling is how we already choose whether or not to consume foods that have been sprayed with the nasty pesticides that are currently killing off all the fertility in the land.  It’s how we decide whether or not we eat red dye #40, monosodium glutamate, high fructose corn syrup, or propylene glycol (used in both food and antifreeze).  It is vital that all produce and foods that contain GMOs be labeled too.

Here’s a petition to the FDA that you can sign in 15 seconds that demands that all foods containing GMOs be labeled so that Americans can make a choice to eat them or not.

LABEL MY FOOD

Please sign it today.

Thank you.

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Fill Your Pantry Event: making local grains available

Posted by on December 2, 2011 4 Comments

A few weeks ago my friend Nicole and I went to an event called “Fill Your Pantry” in Shedd, Oregon, hosted by  Greenwillow Grains and Willamette Seed and Grain.  The event brings local farmers together directly with buyers to strengthen our region’s foodshed.   The event especially highlights the availability of grains grown in Oregon which it’s difficult for consumers to buy directly from farmers.  In fact, the majority of grain grown in Oregon is soft wheat which is exported.  People who want local sources for soft wheat, hard wheat, rye, barley, and oats don’t often have access to such products in retail outlets.  Like most events in Oregon it was earthy, funky (held in an old restored church), full of vibrant people, and fiddle music filled the air.  I couldn’t have been more at home.  A building full of bulk grains, legumes in brown bags, garlic, pressed cider, and a truck full of winter squash for 19¢ a pound?  Count me in!  I was in food heaven.  The event was well attended and the energy was great.  Nicole bought a bucket of wheat berries from Lonesome Whistle Farm and I bought a small bag of milled dark rye from them.

Open Oak Farm‘s table of goods.

I bought 20 lbs of milled (organic!) hard wheat from Greenwillow Grains for $15 which is an amazing price.  I bought several winter squash (I’m sorry to say I didn’t note the farm that was selling those), a small package of fresh milled corn flour, and some apple cider.

Nicole browsing the goods at the Lonesome Whistle Farm table.

I couldn’t afford to buy any of the beans as they were much too expensive per pound for my budget but I was happy to read in an article by Spencer Masterson that there were some people there making connections between local food and low income families.  Linn County Gleaners volunteered at the event in exchange for donations from some of the venders.

I’m painfully aware of how many people have yet to understand how important it is to support your local food producers to create a sustainable and solid food system.  People in our country have become so used to the convenience and luxury of buying whatever food they need whenever they want from all over the world.  It’s been a long time since this country has had a war on its own shore.  It’s been a long time since you had to depend on your local growers to supply your most basic pantry needs.  I know that many people can’t imagine anything preventing them from continuing on exactly as they are.

All over the world people understand the importance of maintaining a strong connection with their local growers and producers because they have longer memories than we do and because they have had more wars and natural disasters to teach them this lesson.  I read about the shortage of produce in the areas of Japan directly affected by the earthquake of 2011 and it reminded me of the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco.  The San San francisco earthquake was obviously minor in comparison with the Tohoku quake of earlier this year but I was reminded of the most surreal and profound experience during that disaster: grocery shopping.  My apartment was a wreckage of broken cabinet glass, broken everything, no water for at least a day, spotty phone line access, and two freaked out kittens.  I lived on 27th and Geary right across the street from a Cala Foods grocery store.  I didn’t have much food in my pantry so I ventured to the grocery store the day after the quake and discovered shelves stripped nearly bare of canned foods and bottled water.  I knew I wasn’t in grave danger of starving but it struck me, for the first time in my young adult life, that even in cosmopolitan cities absolutely full of giant grocery stores things other than poverty can happen to disconnect people from sources of food and water.  I remember all the news stories about the fires, the power outages, the destroyed roads with trapped people, the downtown looting, and the fears that food supplies might be cut off from the city for several days and what that would mean.

The farther your food has to travel to get to you and the fewer resources you have in your own back yard the more vulnerable your community is to starvation during natural disasters and human disasters like war.

Nicole, who started the Yamhill County Slow Food Chapter, is as passionate as I am about supporting as many local food growers and producers as we can.  This event was fun and it was productive.  If your own community doesn’t have anything like this, consider starting your own Fill Your Pantry event.

 

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