When I was a kid I spent a lot of time with our next door neighbor Mrs. Stemple who was the most wonderful old lady that all the neighborhood kids flocked to.  She would feed me cookies and tea with milk and sugar (something we never did at my house – all herbal tea for us) and we would chatter or watch some tv or just sit around together.  She always had time for me and never told me to stop talking so much.  Every once in a while she would feed me something other than cookies.  One afternoon she fed me a bowl of baked beans from a can.  My mom didn’t buy much canned food so it was pretty novel for me.  Those beans were amazing!  I happily ate that magical dish until I got something in my mouth that was not food.  It was kind of slick and meaty and I reflexively spat it out and asked what else was in the beans.

Pork.  Of course.  This was in the early 1980′s and being a vegetarian wasn’t as mainstream or common as it is today.  Mrs. Stemple knew I didn’t eat meat but like most people back then she didn’t count pieces of pork as “meat”.  The dish was mostly beans so who cares if there’s some funky globules of lard and a bit of flesh or cartilage in it?  It’s not like she gave me a hunk of steak.  I loved the flavor and texture of those little navy beans and the tomato-y sweet and sour sauce they were cooked in.  I wished very much I could have those beans without the pork.

Many years later, I saw canned vegetarian baked beans at Trader Joe’s and bought some.  They were so much like pork and beans but without the meat they became a favorite of mine, so when I opened a can up one day and discovered they tasted different (and not in a pleasant way) I hoped it was just a fluke.  It wasn’t.  Every once in a while I’ve tried another can of them and been disappointed.  I realized that they must have changed something in the recipe.  At last I decided I was going to have to learn to make my own baked beans.  So I’ve been working at making a recipe for baked beans for a couple of years now.

I started with Deborah Madison‘s recipe in “The American Vegetarian Table” because she’s one of my favorite cookbook authors but she used soy beans and chipotle peppers and it was too dark and smokey.  It just wasn’t what I was looking for.  I have looked at many many recipes and most of them depend on some cut of pig for the flavor and the other vegetarian ones generally have too many exotic or weird ingredients that baked beans shouldn’t need.  So I decided to use the ingredient list on the Trader Joe’s can as a starting point.

This version I’m sharing today is really good – but it’s not quite where I want it to be yet.  I decided to put it up here because I lost all my notes on my previous versions – which I wish I could reference.  I won’t lose it here and I can tell you that my mom thinks these beans are perfect as they are.  I want something more from them.  I will post my next good version here too so I can keep track of the development.  If you try this version, please please let me know what you thought of it and what you would change.  This is a food quest and takes time to reach excellence.

Incidentally, David Leite is writing a new cookbook and said he’d consider working on the ultimate vegetarian baked bean recipe but I think I just might beat him to it.  (I am a David Leite fan – he’s really kind and funny and responds to his commenters on his blog which I find charming)

After we moved to Oregon my mom went through a real rough patch while waiting endlessly to get into the surgery queue at Kaiser for her hip which was causing her tremendous pain.  We convinced her to come up to Oregon, at least for long enough to get her surgery, and she ended up staying because she loved Portland so much.  All these years this house on Cherry Street has been rented out.  Now that we’re moving back and need a place to live we get to live in this cool house!  Unfortunately, my aunt recently told my mom that she wants to sell it.  It’s not a great time to sell, though, so she’s decided to wait at least a year before putting it on the market.  I’m not going to lie, I hope she never sells it.  None of us will ever be able to buy a house again unless some miracle happens and I become a best selling author or unless Philip becomes a famous artist selling his pieces for buckets of cash.  We love this house.

I am a practical person though and know that I may have to find another place to live in a year.  In the meantime, I get to live in this house and I am SO excited!  So excited I want to give you the whole tour.  My mom took all these pics when she was still living there and she didn’t have any pictures of the back unit where she has chosen to live (a tiny apartment in the back of the house) so I can’t show you that.  The pictures aren’t all show-stoppers but you’ll get a good idea of what our living space will be like.

This is the front porch and that door enters into an enclosed porch which will be my “office”.  This house is right down town so there’s a lot of foot traffic on this street.  It’s also spitting distance (literally) from the middle school so there are lots of rowdy teens and parents around during the school year.  It’s not a quiet location and I’m so happy about that because I’ve had six years of complete quiet and I can’t wait to live somewhere where there’s good people watching from the front porch and friendliness.  This street is actually not the safest in the entire city as it has a few halfway houses on it and my old psychologist’s office is just three blocks down.  But who cares?  Makes life interesting.  Right now I am surrounded by adult foster care houses (on three sides) with “interesting” people coming and going all the time and routine ambulance visits (sometimes several times a week) so I’m used to an environment of unstable people but this time there will also be other neighbors and an awesome downtown a very quick walk away.

The back yard is low maintenance and very shady.  I won’t be turning it into a vegetable garden.  I also can’t do funky stuff with this property since we’re only renting it and my aunt will expect it to look nice when she decides to sell.  Mostly it will remain just as you see it.

Another view of the back yard.  This is what’s to the right of the previous picture.  Lots of trees and I can’t deny that the shade will make me happy since I can’t stand all that California sunshine and heat.  I’ll be so thankful to be able to get some fresh air without being beat down by the angry summer sun.  It’s a really pretty yard.  We’ll be putting in a laundry line for sure.

This is the back door that leads into the laundry room and then into the kitchen.  There’s some good sun in this spot so I will definitely be putting some herbs in and maybe a lemon tree.

This is my office.  The tile floor will be nice for keeping my feet cooler in the spring, summer, and fall when it’s always warm warm or HOT.  It’s long and narrow and full of light.  It’s a strange little space but when we decided to move into this house I knew immediately that it was the perfect space for me to work and write in.  I’m really excited to set it up.

This is the dining room which is bigger than the “living room”(below).  We don’t do much dining at a dinner table.  I know we’re freaks but it doesn’t work out for us as a family and it doesn’t mean we don’t spend quality time together or that we don’t make time for great discussions.  We just don’t do it over food.  So we’re most likely going to use this room as our living room and use the little narrow living room as a dining room.  It’s hard to tell until we get all our furniture there.

It’s hard to get an idea of this space from this picture but it’s the best I have.  Those french doors lead into the entry way where the front door is.  This room is rectangular and has so many windows and doors that there’s very little actual wall space.  The same is true of the dining room (above).  While this makes furniture arrangements difficult, it is also why the light in this house is so wonderful.

This is the downstairs bedroom which will be mine and Philip’s.  It’s weirdly shaped but decent sized.

This is the downstairs bathroom which is decently sized but features the smallest claw foot tub I’ve ever seen and my mom says it’s missing a foot and is not super stable.

The kitchen is not particularly exciting but it’s a medium size and has a gas range.  Not a lot of storage but I’ll enjoy it anyway.

BECAUSE IT HAS A GAS RANGE!!!!  Pretty sure that’s not the best gas range or anything but who the hell cares?  It’s not electric and for that I am super excited.  I hate cooking on electric stoves.  They’re stupid.  They’re also dangerous.  I’ve never come so close to burning my house down so many times just because the burners don’t look like they’re still on but they ARE.   If I happen to get to live here for a long time and if I had the money I would redo this kitchen with Ikea cabinetry, marmoleum flooring (or vinyl composite), and granite countertops.  And while I’m dreaming I may as well get my old O’Keeffe and Merritt gas range back from the house on Beaver Street.

This is upstairs.  Upstairs has its own small kitchen, this room which is an open living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom.  This room is going to be Philip’s office/art room.  The light is fantastic and he can do home brew projects in the wee kitchen (not pictured in this tour) and keep an eye on Max who’s bedroom is on the other side of the wall.

This bathroom is impossibly narrow but has a great CLAW FOOT TUB which I intend to use frequently.  On the other end of this room there’s another window and just enough room for a cabinet of some kind which is good because there is no other storage for this bathroom.  I wish the picture showed a better view of the tub.  It’s what I’ve been dreaming of having for the last six years.

Max’s bedroom.  Lucky boy.  It’s a nice sized room with good light which he’ll want to obliterate with dark curtains to get rid of the glare on the TV he uses to play his video games.

Just in case you missed the picture of my office in the beginning – here it is again. I’m going to be writing books in here, working for BlogHer in here, doing urban homesteading projects, and writing the Post Apocalyptic Cookbook in here.

Postage stamp front garden patches.  My aunt love agapanthus.  I know she’s not alone in her appreciation for it but it’s beloved of institutional landscaping and I really dislike it.  I will give these away to someone else and then when the day comes that I have to move out – I’ll put agapanthus back for my aunt if she wants me to.  I see herbs (both culinary and medicinal) and flowers going in these wee patches of soil.

That’s the end of the tour.  Philip took off this morning in his u-haul truck, trailing his car behind it.  It’s not pleasant to have him gone knowing he won’t be back for three weeks.  I miss him already.  He’s moving into the upstairs rooms (the other two units of the house are still occupied by tenants until July 1st).  Tomorrow he has a job interview with a company he really wants to work for.  Keep your fingers crossed for him and send him courage and brilliance at 1pm.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

I really want to love Mary Jane’s Farm magazine.  I love that Mary Jane Butters is a champion of organic farming and growing food and enjoying antiques and doing some stitchery while sipping juleps on the porch swing at the end of another idyllic day on the farm where all the pigs are clean and your back never goes out and every minute of the day is a wonderful new memory being made that you will stitch onto your memory quilt for your family to snuggle und – dammit.  Every time I read her magazine I feel the magnetic pull of the nostalgia it’s drenched with like heavy perfume that stays in your nostrils long after its trails have been cleared away by fresh air.  I get annoyed.  That magazine is painting a rarefied world where everything is in romantic soft focus and wisdom is everywhere to be snatched up and adored and nurtured and I’ll tell you something, if that’s what you’re looking for in life you better brace yourself for disappointment because it doesn’t exist.

I try to remind myself that this is how lots of people feel reading fashion magazines.  I love fashion magazines because I know it’s all about inspiration and design rather than the reality of what most people need from their clothing and what most real bodies look like.  I am unbothered most of the time by the unattractively skinny models because I am not fatter or uglier just because they are showing me their bones, I know this.  I don’t feel pressure to be skinnier because that’s what the fashion designers are showing me – I feel pressure to get skinnier because I’m obese.  True fact.

Mary Jane’s Farm is exactly like a fashion magazine for the homesteading crowd – it’s presenting a fantasy of cozy farm life and romanticizing the “Days of Yore” meant to inspire everyone to slow down and enjoy life more and reconnect with our pasts and get old fashioned.  Get in your pretty lil apron like Gran-maw and make your luv a cup of roasted chicory just like Gran-paw used to enjoy on the back stoop after the early morning tilling was done even though you know your grandma was a shrew and your grandpa still regrets the civil war and the end of slavery and uncle Mike was inappropriate with his daughter but whatevs, that was so much better than the complication of cell phones and fast cars and city life where everyone has lost their wisdom and the good life.

I stopped buying her magazines after the first few because every time I read them I found myself wanting to swear just because the writing was so gentle and cozy and clean.  No hard edges.  All hard knock stories are told in a dear and sweet way with such wholesome nuggets – dammit.  I can’t talk about this publication without slipping into that kind of grating fake nostalgia.  The only reason I’m bringing it up today is because my back is in pain and I was in bed doing nothing this morning so I pulled a stack of magazines from my bookshelf to weed through.  And I found the last copy of Mary Jane’s Farm that I bought a few years ago and I got sucked in by that mesmeric soft focus and then it just made me want to say mother-fucker in rebellion.  I don’t ever use that expression even when I’m swearing in earnest.  So I found myself thinking about why I’m so irritated by that kind of vision of homesteading and it’s because it’s much too idealized and I’m an urban girl with some sophisticated thoughts and tastes and I like the modern world and I like that I have plumbing and running water.

I’m interested in urban homesteading not being a farm girl.  I’m interested in keeping old skills alive that are still useful in a modern setting.  I want to dispense with all nostalgia for life that wasn’t romantic or mellow or remotely “simple”.  I don’t value all that gentleness, it just grates on my nerves.  I like people who live loudly and honestly and brazenly and swear when they crush their thumb with a hammer and laugh at themselves when they get out of hand.  It’s what I want to bring to my own site.  It’s what I want from others.

Yet I don’t want to destroy the enjoyment others have of Mary Jane’s vision, her cozy interpretation of life as it could be, or her gentle stories, because it’s just another way to find the same value in life that I am looking for (self sufficiency, organic living, and growing things).  I want it edgy and raw while others really need the quiet and sweet.  Let’s say it’s a case of respecting her gifts and what she’s bringing to a lot of people while knowing that to keep that respect healthy I just need to go my own way and tip my hat to her at the fork in the road.

So what tone am I looking for?  What inspires me and excites me?  Check them out:

Bad Mama Genny – She’s outrageous, funny, takes care of a bunch of cats even though she’s horribly allergic to them, and she makes cheese and booze.  What the hell else do you need to know about her?  I really want to live next door to her.

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook – His writing is rich and poignant and has made me cry.  His posts on foraging are useful and thorough and he is solely responsible for making this vegetarian respect hunting.

The Midcentury Menu – Here’s nostalgia with the proper humor and edge to carry it off.  There is no vintage recipe too disturbing for her to tackle and force her husband to taste.

Hunger and Thirst – I became a fan when I read this blogger’s funny post about the greed of mushroom hunters.  Lots of foraging and written in a very personable way.

Aunt Peaches – Craft and DIY publications can get precious pretty quick.  I love any person who can make anything from anything and not be too cute or too cozy about it.  Aunt Peaches is funny, clever, down to earth, and not afraid of offending.

Thank You for not Being Perky – It’s all right there in the title.  Curmudgeons unite against the eternally happy curs we have to yell at every day!  Minnie swears, she’s honest, she grows vegetables, sews swimsuits, crafts, and is never smug and never precious.  Her stories about parenting are similar to mine and that is a rare thing.  She’s super cool and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in person and spazzing out at her.

Now I have to go ice my back and watch episodes of Futurama with Max.  Philip is moving down to California ahead of us on Sunday and has a job interview on Monday.  Instead of freaking out I am thinking about how I can make good use of my time left in Oregon and the first thing on that list is to go morel hunting this weekend so I can take part in an urban homesteading challenge that Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook is doing with his friends of Sustainable Eats are putting on this month – check it out: Take The 2012 Urban Farm Handbook Challenge*

*Sustainable Eats authors wrote the Urban Farm Handbook and are doing a challenge this whole year, a different challenge every month with prizes for entering contests.  I haven’t been following it because I didn’t know about it until now.

I’ve been out of the habit of making my garden rounds for the last year but I was reminded to go out there yesterday when I found myself hungry at lunch time with two eggs and no will to make something fancy or time consuming.  I realized that dandelion greens will be growing tougher and more bitter soon and I hadn’t eaten any yet this year.  So I took a small bowl and some scissors and did my rounds.

I discovered that my currants are covered in tiny green fruits.  I will be taking these two bushes with me to California if they’re allowed in the state (white pine rust is an issue in some places).  If not, I’ll give them to a friend.  This is the first time they’ve really put out a respectable number of fruits and it made me happy to see the promise of currant sauce.   I noticed that my comfrey has gone to flower – comfrey that I’ve finally got to settle in my yard after several failed attempts in previous years.  Little wild daisies are sprouting in the pathways and I enjoy the scattering of their seeds in random clumps though my neighbors will not appreciate this chaos.  My elderberry is budding out and has so many strong new shoots they are ready to be permanently planted out.  I have one to give a friend and one to take with me to California.  It reminded me that I want to take a cutting of the native elderberries.

There’s a rogue potato plant in my herb bed which reminds me of myself living in McMinnville, out of place and thumbing my nose at the natives who try to muscle me out.  The garlic my mom planted is getting strong and tall  and I wonder if they’ll be close to ready by July though I know they won’t and it bothers me to leave them.  I cut a handful of small dandelion greens, some parsley, thyme, and oregano and head back to the kitchen where I made this two egg omelet with cheese and a half an avocado, a simple fresh light lunch.

However, our morale has been extremely low.  The company Philip works for doesn’t pay him industry standard wages for the work he does and raises have been thin on the ground.  We thought we couldn’t afford to move but it turns out we can’t actually afford to stay either.  The job opportunities in this town are few and are mostly retail or office related with poor pay and little chance for advancement.  (Unless you’re a tattoo artist – there are TONS of opportunities for tattoo artists all over the state of Oregon.)  Jobs in Portland aren’t particularly plentiful in his field either.

I haven’t been this depressed since I was a teen and for the first time in at least ten years the thought of dying started coming back to me as a viable alternative to continuing to live in a town I hate, broke, with a very thin support system and I eat a lot of cheese and drink way too much beer to cope and so I get fatter and fatter which makes the cycle of depression that much more vicious.

It finally became obvious that if I don’t move, I will die in reality just as I’ve been slowly dying inside.  So we decided to figure out a way to move back to Santa Rosa.  If I have to be broke I would like to do it where I have a strong network of friends and family for support.

Yesterday Philip gave notice to his bosses and is going to go to Santa Rosa ahead of us to get a job (he’s been looking for two months but it’s hard to get interviews when potential employers see that you’re out of state).  Luckily I can do my job anywhere.  On July 1st we will move into a house my aunt owns with my mom in Santa Rosa and we’ll be renters for the first time in 12 years.  I’m totally okay with that.  The house has a good sized yard but most of it is in shade so there won’t be a lot of vegetable gardening there.

I will be able to do some gardening at my father in law’s 2 1/2 acre property within easy scootering distance of our house.  He has always been generous about letting me run wild in his orchard of old apples and dig holes and plant things so I will get to do some food growing – it just won’t be on my own property and I’m okay with that too.

This is partly why I chose not to start our dairy free cooking challenge until August.  Starting a whole new way of cooking in the middle of a cross-state move (which we will do ourselves since we can’t afford movers) seemed like a bad idea.

I’m so excited to get out of this place, to move back to a city where most people I know don’t own guns, or if they do, they aren’t cultishly excited about having them.  I’m excited to move back to a place where I’m not insulted constantly and called a child abuser for sending my kid to public school.  I’m so happy to be moving to a place where people mostly share the same liberal ideals as I have and when they have different ones can discuss it without calling Obama “Hitler”.  I’m so excited to get away from all the small mindedness.

I’ve learned a lot about myself living here and the main one is that I’m not a small town gal, I’m a city girl.  A literal urban homesteader and in that sense I’m going to more than ever be embracing the idea of homesteading on a city scale, using other people’s property to garden, foraging where I can – like how I used to pick blackberries in an abandoned parking lot and also next to the coroner’s office.  I’m returning to where my whole urban homesteading adventure began, and it feels good.

]]> http://stitchandboots.com/2012/05/01/putting-the-urban-back-in-my-homesteading/feed/ 6 http://stitchandboots.com/2012/04/24/defining-my-dairy-free-cooking-challenge/ http://stitchandboots.com/2012/04/24/defining-my-dairy-free-cooking-challenge/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:21:55 +0000 angelina http://stitchandboots.com/?p=756

On August 1st, 2012, I plan to stop cooking with dairy for a year.

All meals I make at home for me and Philip (and my mom) will be dairy free for one year.  Philip and I aren’t going dairy free, just our meals at home.  He’s still going to put half and half in his coffee.  We’ll still eat dairy at freinds’ houses and out at restaurants.  We’re still going to eat eggs (which are not dairy).  I’m still baking with dairy.  I don’t intend to become vegan and I don’t intend to ever give dairy up completely.  What I want (and won’t do unless I make a real commitment to myself) is to reduce my dairy consumption by 75%.

I want to learn to cook and enjoy eating food that does not have cheese, butter, or milk in it.  It’s that simple.

I eat “too much” cheese.  I am very fond of saying that there is no such thing as too much cheese but that’s a lie.  I know that for my best health I need to eat a lot less cheese.  Cheese needs to become an occasional treat.  Something I eat with reverence rather than a favorite food I eat at nearly every meal.

I refuse to disclose how much cheese I currently eat a week.

It’s not just about my figure and my arteries either.  In thinking about this whole cooking challenge I talked with a vegan friend and did some online reading about the carbon footprint of dairy products.  Of meat.  Of poultry.  I thought that by eating local dairy I was doing really well as far as sustainable eating was concerned.  I was incorrect.  I was concerned that not eating dairy would result in a less sustainable diet because I know that for me I would need to increase the tropical fruits and nuts in my diet to be satisfied.  (To replace the deliciousness of cheese and yogurt and butter.  Not because it is necessary for nutrition.  It’s not.)

I have often said that a life without cheese is not worth living.

I’ve said the exact same thing about beer.

But I wouldn’t miss cheese half so much if I could make a lot of coconut milk curries.  If I could eat even more avocados than I do.  If I could buy bananas and fresh pineapples.  If I could make sauces using cashews.  Avocados are my only constant tropical splurge.  I only allow myself to buy coconut milk once in a while.  Pineapples and bananas and cashews – never.  I haven’t bought a cashew in many years.  And I LOVE them!  Oh!  And dates.  I haven’t bought dates in years.  I love those too!

I read a lot of vegan food blogs and I’ve got to tell you that the vegan sites that don’t use tropicals do not entice me.  The most enticing vegan recipes feature avocados or coconut milk or cashew sauces.  I could give up cheese for a while for those things.  But then the food I eat will all have traveled more than I ever will and that’s kind of galling.

It turns out that all dairy (local or not) has a substantially higher carbon footprint than any imported produce does.  Did you know that?  It’s a question of how much energy it takes to raise the animals (to feed them, house them, pasture them – if they’re lucky enough to get any pasture time) and then how much more energy it takes to process them and store them.  Animals that are as big or bigger than human beings eat a shit-ton of grain.  That grain has to be grown for them.  There are often lots of pesticides involved.  It’s difficult to measure and compare the carbon footprints of different foods so there are definitely varying reported numbers but one thing is consistent among all the estimates: meat and dairy have a considerably higher carbon footprint than any imported or domestic produce.  Period.

So what I’m beginning to discover is that eating sustainably isn’t just a question of where it was grown or how much poison was used to grow it or how many miles it had to travel but also how much energy it takes to feed your food and then process it in factories.  It’s complicated.

Here’s my new model of sustainable eating practices prioritized:

• Non-GMO foods – these are just as devastating for the earth’s diversity as directly poisoning ourselves and the soil is.  This is bad-ass evil shit.  If you don’t care about anything else, you should care about this.

• Major reduction in meat and dairy consumption (including eggs) – because having to grow food for your food takes an extravagant amount of energy.  Produce crops need water, light, and compost but compost is naturally produced by the scraps of other produce.  It’s also free if people (farmers and individuals) are doing it right.  Plus there’s the whole animal treatment issue.  If you are a person who really needs to eat meat then just consider eating smaller portions of it at meals and maybe eating a few more meat free meals a week and buy your meat/eggs/dairy from local and sustainably raised sources.  It really does matter.  Every little bit matters.  You’ll make a difference just within these parameters.  If you can afford organically and sustainably and ethically raised meat then you’re probably rich but you’ve got my automatic admiration for making such awesome choices.

• Local – this is still important but more flexible than I realized in comparison with the dairy/meat/eggs group.  Every one of us needs to support our local farmers as much as possible so that when China decides to declare war on us we are still capable of feeding ourselves.  Support local SMALL organic farms first, then local small non-organic, then support the big local organic farms, but never support the corporate non-organic ones.  There’s nothing in it for anyone.  Do this: locate all your local farmer’s markets, before you plan your weekly menus or shop anywhere else, go to your weekly farmer’s market every single week it’s open and base as many meals a week as you can on what is available there.  Buy all the produce and other locally produced foods you can from your local farmer’s markets.  That means you’re supporting your local economy FIRST and helping local farmers and food producers to thrive in a tough economy and that means they’ll consider selling to you (a familiar weekly face) before strangers in a post apocalyptic event.

• Organic – because poison is just killing everything and everyone and everyone’s fertility.  Except for the Duggars.  Yes, organic can sometimes be cost prohibitive.  So pay attention to the dirty dozen list when you can’t buy all organic.  I’m not going to judge you.  I can’t buy all organic either.

• Cheapness – we spend a larger proportion of our income on our grocery budget than we do on transportation.  We don’t have much money and we have a lot less because we choose to eat good quality food and support local farmers and food producers and we also don’t buy a lot of processed food (except for Max’s stuff).  It is our belief that the most important thing you can spend money on is the food you put into your body.  Food and water are the most necessary resources humans consume.  Without them we die.  Without a car?  You only think you’d die without a car.  But since we’re pretty broke most of the time we try to buy things in bulk, we grow some of our own food, we pick large quantities of produce at u-pick farms to preserve.

 I will include links to some of the reading I’ve been doing.  I will be doing some more reading.  I’m not starting this challenge to myself right away because I’m maximally stressed out trying to find Max a new doctor on his new lousy insurance so I can get him tested before the end of the school year.  I also need to research vegan cookbooks and find a couple that will be inspiring to me (must have tons of delicious inspiring photographs – why are so may vegan cookbooks skimpy on the photos or have depressing looking photos?) and I need to get my house in better order.

I’m looking forward to expanding my cooking skills and broadening my repertoire.

Maybe in my next post I’ll talk about all the jerks out there who are sick and tired of everyone getting all worried about the earth.  But only if you’re in the mood for a fight.

The Carbon Footprint of Food (Graphic)

A Vegetarian Diet Reduces the Diner’s Carbon Footprint

Food’s Carbon Footprint

The Most Harmful Foods for the Environment

And if you’re interested here’s a link to my previous post on this subject:

Vegan Versus Local and Spring Cleaning

So I’ve been thinking a lot about that.  My mom is talking about wanting to go vegan for a year.  I thought about joining her in this challenge.  Except that I don’t believe in giving up honey and I can’t see myself insisting on eating vegan out or at friends’ houses where they aren’t also vegan.  So right off the bat I’d be doing a bastardization of a vegan challenge.  I haven’t decided how I feel about it.  I plan to check out some vegan cookbooks for inspiration and to help make up my mind.

In other news around the farm house…spring cleaning took a break for the dread tax season.  We’ve  been done with taxes for two weeks but had to recover from the horrible discovery that we both need part time second jobs to pay our taxes off.  Nice.  But now that it’s well into April it’s time to pick up momentum in the spring cleaning department.  I should probably get some actual cleaning done too.  I’ve been concentrating on getting rid of stuff.  I’m about 15 boxes lighter of stuff than I was in February when this all began.  Not bad.  It’s time for the next sweep.

What to focus on:

• The scary garage.  We’ve got office stuff out there, tools, junk with no name, junk I’m too embarrassed to name, old bottles of garden sprays probably 3 years past expiration, and random crap.  The garage is the one place I haven’t made a first pass at yet.  I’m scared.  May require beer.

• Second sweep through my closet.  I got rid of two boxes of stuff but I think I can fill one more box before I’m done with it.

• Magazines.  I have a few to get rid of.  I don’t buy mags much these days but I have accumulated a number of them.

• Plastics in the kitchen.  We have been slowly accumulating all glass containers for left overs and lunches.  I haven’t yet cleaned out the plastics no longer in use.

• Random other kitchen stuff.  There are some baking dishes I just never use.  Some utensils and various other random things.  Parts to equipment I no longer have.  An old salad spinner without a lid.  I know these things are in there.  Why are they still in there?

Anyone else doing some spring cleaning?  What are you clearing out?  Any thoughts on vegan versus local eating?  Please share!

Suddenly the sun was shining again, Americans began to enjoy  breakfast again!  There is nothing you can bake that wouldn’t be made better with a little cookie spread!  Picky Palate  has been the leading Biscoff trendsetter and moms across the country are thanking her for breaking the myth that cookies are “dessert”:

But just when you thought life, and by that I mean breakfast, couldn’t get better, Buns In My Oven has gone and brought the concept of cookies for EVERY meal to a whole new level.  Meet the Oreo Spread:

It’s like black gold.  It shimmers on your toast like the most expensive caviar.  It positively sets your body up with the proper energy to face the most exhaustive day.  No one will ever be able to say you don’t eat “right” in the morning again!  All you have to do is hand them this miracle of macerated cookies* on a wholesome slice of bread and they will never argue with you again.

I can’t wait to see which iconic cookie will next succumb to spreadable glory!

*After all, it really is a lot of work having to chew cookies yourself, with cookie spreads you get all the great flavor of the cookies without the irritation of having to chew them.

It’s so easy to be defeatist and assume that if you can’t grow lots of food or make lots of your own preserves that you shouldn’t bother growing or preserving anything.  My neighbor taught me that the important thing is to be doing whatever you can for yourself, that growing your own food, even if it’s a few heads of garlic and some salad greens, is an act of freedom and of self sufficiency.  It’s about keeping your connection strong between yourself and the soil that nourishes you.  It’s a little bit like a prayer or a meditation and it’s a lot like feeding yourself the highest quality nourishment you can even on a micro-scale.  Learning how to grow things and preserve food is tapping into knowledge that is at the core of the success of human beings as a species.

In a more pessimistic view it’s also what’s allowed us to overpopulate the earth and conquer nations and fight wars.  Growing things allowed humans to settle down and stay put through the seasons.  Agriculture allowed us to stop roaming.  The evolution of food preservation is what allowed humans to cross oceans and to cross masses of land to attack other people.  Without drying and salting foods armies couldn’t go far.  So in a weird way, while I’m eulogizing the wonderfulness of growing and preserving foods I’m also celebrating what has made humans the most terrible virus on earth.

Still, those humans who know how to grow their own food and how to preserve it for later use have truly valuable knowledge and in times of war or natural disasters this kind of knowledge gives you better chances of survival.  Plus, everyone will want to be friends with the person who knows how to make alcohol from apples and who can make sources of protein rise from the ground in plant form when there’s no meat to be had.  The person who knows how to pull wild yeast from the air and mix it with flour to make bread is like a magician when there is no bread and no packaged yeast in the stores.

I am happy every time I see evidence of humans getting into the soil to grow their own food.  City gardens are hopeful and resourceful.  I always stop to enjoy them whenever I see them.  This garden has some really big beets that are ready to pick.

It’s time for some lemony beet salad!