Category: Local Food
Thursday, Jan 29, 2009 | Kids, Local Food |
This Blog has the flu. Even though it got its flu shot. Apparently, the strain making the rounds wasn’t included in the mix. Don’t worry about me, however. I am fine. Touch wood and send skyward a hearty prayer.
My children, on the other hand; sigh. One has very nearly recovered the pink of health, and the other, suffering pallidly, is clad in green pajamas, a fuzzy hat with earflaps, and a giant blue blanket. Those affected are school-aged; the other two have thus far escaped. (Touch wood; pray). This morning, things are looking up: the kids are playing together–all four! And I am sneakily watching … as it all falls apart. Hmm. Excuse me, dear Blog, you’ll have to fend for yourself momentarily. Drink your tea.
I’m back. The lull has returned to the living-room. Children quietly reading books and baby happily knocking books off the shelf (his favourite upright occupation).
Last night I went out to shovel snow. That was actually a mental health necessity. I’d been indoors since Sunday; though Sunday we all dragged our post-Robbie Burns selves down to the theatre and while Kevin did clean-up, I played the grand piano on stage, and the kids danced. There are photos on the blog opposite.
My local food round-up evaporated when the Blog lost its appetite. But now that the Blog is cranky and hungry for toast (sure signs of improved health), I can tell you that we’re working with a Vegetarian theme this week. Which means the food is only somewhat local. I made a nice big red sauce from the freezer tomatoes and we’ve had pasta, we’ve had baked mac & cheese, we’ve had chili. The kids have been drinking the homemade grape juice as a special treat during illness. Tonight we’re planning corn bread and honey-baked lentils. And, as our stores dwindle, I am feeling excited about Nina’s buying club starting up again in the spring. Whoo-hoo!!! And an extra whoo-hoo just for the very thought of spring!!!
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2009 | Kids, Local Food, Writing |
This is a January primal scream of self-pity and I apologize in advance, with an extra sorry to my little son who deserves to be picked up, rather than stuck clutching my pant leg and fussing with boredom–okay, he wins. Really, where are my priorities? I’m now typing one-handed.
I’ve been outdoors twice since Saturday–once to pick the kids up from school, and once to entertain those well enough to go outside and play in the snow. Otherwise I’ve been in here, tending to children throwing up and cooking elaborate local meals from our stores (cutting up a chicken is harder than it looks; though that might have been in part because said bird hadn’t fully thawed).
But the biggest primal scream relates to a serious lack of writing time. I’ve had SIX HOURS to write since before Christmas. That’s going on a month. It’s not for lack of trying to schedule time, either; it’s circumstances conspiring against opportunity, the unforeseeables of germs, of sleep deprivation, of dental and medical appointments. Last night, Kevin had a soccer thing and then a hockey game, so I put the kids to bed alone; in the fantasy version of that scenario, I laid CJ down in the crib in our room, and stayed up late writing in the office/baby room. In the actual version of events, I laid CJ down “for the night,” and he woke screaming fifteen minutes later–though in the interim I’d carried Fooey off to a happy sleep; thank you, sweet Fooey–at which point I sat nursing a twitchy CJ for another hour, till finally, finally, he’d fallen into what approximated a deep sleep, at which point, I was glassy-eyed and hungry and resigned, and laid him to sleep in his own bed in the office/baby room.
I admire every parent who works after his or her children are asleep. No matter how hopeful my plans, by the time this blessed state arrives, four times over, my brain has ceased firing on all neurons. So instead, I went looking for a fatty cheese to spread on some crackers, then read in bed (Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri; oh read her, read her, her stories are quietly amazing; she is also the mother of two young children and said in an interview that she’d never write anything were someone else not regularly caring for them).
Okay, we get the life we choose, and I’ve chosen four children, and no nanny. For the record, I get this grim feeling every January. I’m in need of some naturally sourced vitamin D. Or some exercise-induced endorphins. Our bodies crave nutrients. But I’m starting to think–or to be reminded, more accurately–that my fingers crave these keys, and my mind craves a quiet space carved out of the day’s responsible hours.
And, no, CJ is not in my arms anymore. He jumped down and went off to chew on a few crayons, accompanied by the companionable noises of Albus, home from school for one final recuperative day, exploding imaginary ships, and Fooey munching crackers and chatting to herself.
Monday, Jan 12, 2009 | Local Food, Sick |
Yup. I got sick too. So did Fooey.
So yesterday I wasn’t thinking much about meal planning for the week. Frankly, I wasn’t thinking much about food, period. But here’s my plan …
Meat item thawing in fridge: a five-pound whole chicken. I plan to cut it up, marinate it, and bake it. Serve it with baked rice and a sauce made with one of my cans of tomatoes. If it turns out well, I’ll post the recipe. Discovered when digging out the chicken that there are no roasts left in the freezer. Also, I think I’m giving up on the frozen homemade ketchup. I’m going to chuck it all. Must face reality: the kids don’t like it. Silver lining: having it around has cut down on our ketchup consumption.
My base meal for the week is black beans and rice. Must remember to get beans soaking after this blip of a writing morning expires. I’m writing right now (no really, I am; I should get a clone or two to live out some parallel lives beside me). Kev’s home this morning. But no extra babysitting because Fooey’s sick. Maybe by Wednesday we’ll get back to some kind of regular schedule.
Question: Is there such a thing as a regular schedule?
Thursday, Jan 8, 2009 | Kids, Local Food, Sleep |
Well, that was short-lived. CJ spent at least half the night in our bed. I’m not sure whether this was because I was too tired to move him out, or because everytime I did move him out he seemed to reappear again. I went to bed at the same time he did last night. 9:30. I’m pretty sure Apple-Apple was still awake (she has these torturous prolonged bedtimes, seemingly endless cries for water bottle or kleenex or jammies are too itchy or she’s too hot or too cold or she just can’t fall asleep.) Lucky for us all, once asleep she’s as sound as they come.
In any case, I was grouchy. Bed seemed the best option. The serenity following our holiday, which I’d optimistically planned to keep, uh, forever, has dissipated ever so fractionally amidst the hairiness of schedule, of having to be somewhere at a particular time. Mostly, it’s dragging children to events in which they have no stake that’s hardest. Fooey and CJ bundled up and tossed in the stroller to take the big kids to school. I’d complain too. CJ woken out of a nap and dragged along to Fooey’s music class, where for entertainment he has his mother, a banana, and an empty hallway. Et cetera. No matter how organized, how much time I’ve left, there comes a moment when I’m shouting, “Put on your snowpants, now!” and then regretting it instantly (Fooey hates shouting). Or worse, “We’re leaving without you!” Never true, and rarely motivating, as the kid has no interest in coming anyway. But I’ve been doing some deep breathing and back-tracking and attempting to focus on the larger picture: does it matter if we’re five minutes late for Fooey’s music class? Or for anything? I don’t want to become cavalier about responsibility, just realize that rushing accomplishes little except to put everyone in a lousy mood.
It’s interesting how my mood really affects the mood of the household.
It’s also interesting, if unrelated, that our family ate an entire loaf of homemade bread for breakfast yesterday morning–and CJ and I ate oatmeal instead. That’s slightly alarming when contemplating future appetites, and my own plans to bake all of our bread from scratch. Because I’d gone to bed early last night, I woke up early and started a fresh batch of bread. My life revolves around food.
So far, so good, in the eating out of our stores experiment. I’m planning to do a regular Sunday update and round-up on food.
Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 | Local Food |
January. Time to start eating out of our stores, in earnest. Don’t want to come to spring and discover some cache of forgotten and uneaten beets. Here’s what’s in our black freezer: a few roasts and steaks, hamburger, pork and turkey sausage, a whole chicken, turkey parts, and a lot of chopped red peppers. In the white freezer: big bags of tomatoes, strawberry jam, strawberries, frozen pear and applesauce cubes for school lunches, homemade ketchup, raspberries. In the fridge freezer: dill, parsley, basil cubes, more pearsauce cubes, poultry gizzards and livers, cookie dough, peas, bread. In the cold cellar: two butternut squash, loads of potatoes (storing well in their paper sacs), garlic (also storing well, loose on wire shelves), one pumpkin, four cabbages, a handful of yams. In another cupboard upstairs: what’s left of the onions (note: my pantyhose storage method in our over-warm basement was a recipe for rotting onions suspended in nylon. Not pretty. A few survived to tell the tale and be made into onion soup). In jars: grape juice, pearsauce, grape jelly, and tomatoes. Plus we’ve got lots of local oats, flour, cornmeal, honey, maple syrup, and vinegar. We also have lots of local canola oil, but I find the taste too strong, overwhelming even in baking, and am unlikely to use it up.
The challenge: To eat as exclusively as possible from these stores till it’s all gone.
The method: Thaw at least one big meat item per week and plan at least one meal around that. Remind myself about the potatoes … to that end, look up some hearty winter recipes. Sunday evening advance planning.
Today’s Recipe of the Week: Tomato Sauce. Saute chopped onions and garlic in olive oil till soft, add some chopped red peppers if desired (frozen fine). Toss in a bag of frozen tomatoes (3.7 litre capacity). Add a can of tomato paste. Season with frozen basil cubes, parsley, 1 to 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon each of thyme and oregano. Pepper to taste. When cooked down to desired consistency, stir in a dollop of vinegar.
Suggested uses: We ate this for supper, as is, over spaghetti with parmesan and feta, and a cabbage salad on the side. Tomorrow it might be resurrected with fried hamburger and some cumin and ground coriander over brown rice. Leftovers might also find their way on to homemade pizzas later in the week.
This week’s meat: smoked turkey sausage, currently thawing in our fridge. I’d planned to use it in a split pea soup, but just noticed there are no potatoes on this week’s menu, which makes me think … smoked sausage baked over potatoes and yams? Suddenly, I’m yearning for a little after-dinner nap. Full disclosure: I prefer vegetarian fare, but beans and legumes are hard to come by, locally. Meat, however, is everywhere.
Most surprising storage discovery: The red peppers are amazing. I’d run out patience by the time I put them up, so literally chopped and seeded them and chucked them into yogurt containers. But they’re easy to remove piece by piece, the flavour is amazing, and the kids eat them like popsicles.
One last note: For anyone missing Nina’s buying club, I’ve tried out and can recommend Oakridge Acres (http://www.oakridgeacres.ca/), a farm family from near Ayr who raise Black Angus cattle, and also source and sell a variety of local products, including cheeses, and who deliver to the Waterloo region.
Saturday, Jan 3, 2009 | Local Food, Writing |
Haven’t stopped thinking about the New Year, and inevitably that means self-improvement. Right? It’s funny how at the stroke of midnight on the 365th day of the year, we pretend collectively that the slate has been wiped clean and we can Be Better. Except we’re just ourselves. Except that shouldn’t be an except or a just, because we’ve earned all of that grime and all of those scratches, and who would want to be wiped clean, really? That would be a recipe for unchecked narcisism.
Some thoughts on our family’s carbon footprint. Last year we went down to one vehicle, I started hanging laundry even off-season, did some canning, and attempted to source and eat local food. We also managed to lower our water consumption, but that was probably the new efficient toilets. Our electricity bill continues to climb; we moved in five and a half years ago, and every year we’ve consumed more electricity, not less. We have added family members during that time, but it’s no excuse. So this year, I’d like to do an energy audit, figure out where we’re leaking electricity and staunch the flow, train the kids to turn out the lights every time they leave a room, and continue to do many of the things we’ve started: walk as much as possible; hang the laundry; do more canning and preserving this coming summer; continue to buy local and cook from scratch. There must be other actions we could take, too, that I’m not thinking of right this second.
To add to that, here is a fantasy goal: I’d love to rid my cupboards of any prepared food that I could actually make myself. ie. no more boxed cereal, only homemade granola. Crackers? Bread, of course. Cookies, yes. Butter? Not unless we source our milk off-grid. Will it happen? Unlikely. But it’s a dream.
Some other random things I’ve been contemplating doing …
Smugness, begone! (Have I become a “Smug Married”? This thought has plagued me, slightly, over the holidays. All the things we consume, how full our house is of comfortable objects, how satiated we are. How much I don’t want to give up these comfortable things …).
Childcare … I’ve been thinking that I might enjoy caring for other people’s children during the day, or exchanging childcare. This is less fully-formed-thought than persistent notion. It would also be a good goal to have one day per week with nothing extra in it, one day just to hang out at home, read, play, nap, bake (with children, I mean). On the other hand, accepting that there is no Normal, that the day is bound to be broken in many ways by many unexpected occurrences, is really good for the sanity. You can’t have a household of six people and expect even one day to run according to Plan. So–flexibility. Going with the flow.
Embracing cliches.
Continuing to write. Think about how to get back to Nicaragua again–and for how long? Maintain and nurture the good things we’ve got going, but stay critical. Not complacent.
And next post, tell a good story rather than preach.
