Front Yard Sorbet

For the past two years, I've enjoyed the deep red foliage and gorgeous white-pink blossoms of the plum tree in our front yard while merely stepping over the sticky stain blobs of the tiny plums it drops on the sidewalk. Never having an edible fruit tree before, I think we subconsciously assumed the plums were sour, toxic, or bad in some way. But this summer, since we've been in the rhythm of checking our garden for harvest-ready peas and tomatoes each day, I finally looked at the plum tree and really SAW the plums before they made it to the sidewalk and it dawned on me that we had no reason to believe the fruits were bad and had never even tested them.

I plucked just one off a branch, ate it, and waited around for a few hours ready to dial 911 if I started feeling poisoned or something. It was really juicy and sweet and I didn't die, so I commenced with Googling and unofficially identified that we are the owners of a "cherry plum" tree. Several websites dismissed these trees warning that cherry plums are not worth harvesting as they aren't much bigger than a cherry and their fruit clings to the pits. But I couldn't pass up the chance to pick and eat fruit with Turtle in our very own yard!

We got out the 6 foot ladder and took turns climbing up to reach the plums that we could. Unfortunately, many of them were still beyond my reach, so I would need some serious equipment if I ever really wanted to harvest them all. And many of them were already half eaten or fermented, bursting apart as we touched them. But eventually we had 20 or so good ones that we kept.

Since they were all pretty ripe and wouldn't last long and we didn't want to eat 20 plums that day, I decided we should make something out of them. Sorbet seemed summery and easy enough, so we looked at a few online recipes, rinsed the plums, and started to de-pit them.

Perhaps there exists some awesome technique or tool used for pitting cherry plums neatly. If so, please let me know. I just kind of ended up hacking them open with knives and then they'd nearly explode into a pulpy mess all over the cutting board. There was a lot of skin and juice all over the place and not much "meat" and it was really hard to get the meat off the pit. After trying a few different things, the easiest was to just hold a plum over a bowl and use my fingernails to kind of pull the pit out and just drop whatever was left behind into the bowl as juice dribbled down my arms. Very messy business and I was starting to understand the websites that said cherry plums aren't worth putting your energy into!

Here you can see what pitting 20 cherry plums gave us- less than a cup of juice and skins. I can't imagine how much work and mess it would have been to try to make a true quantity of sorbet.
Then we remembered that we had some leftover watermelon in the fridge, so we chopped that up and added it to bulk up our mixture. That went into a blender and then was strained to get the skins and seeds out. After straining, you can see that we only ended up with a little over a cup of stuff.

Meanwhile, I prepared a 1:1 sugar to water syrup on the stove. 1 cup sugar dissolved into 1 cup water allowed to boil for 30 seconds together. We added that directly to the fruit mixture. So, it ended up being 1 cup syrup to 1 cup fruit. Then a squirt of lemon juice, stirred it up, and put it in a container in the freezer. I have never made sorbet before. I have no idea if we needed the lemon juice, but most sorbet recipes had it. I have no idea if my ratio of syrup to fruit was right, because all of the recipes dealt with much larger quantities of fruit, used different ratios than each other, or said add syrup to taste. I had no idea if mixing watermelon and plum was a good idea and if our sorbet would taste any good at all, but we had fun making it, so I was happy with the experience.

The next day, we took out our nearly frozen solid chunk of sorbet and broke it up with a fork to make it fluffy, then put it back in the freezer for a couple hours. It looked gorgeous when we took it out after dinner:

Now, I'm no gourmet. It probably had too many ice crystals and maybe the sugar ratio wasn't quite right and so on and so forth. But it was really really yummy. Seriously yummy! Everyone loved it!

It was a lot of work and mess for a tiny bit of dessert, but it was even sweeter because we had used the fruits from our own tree and made it ourselves!

How My Garden Made Me Sick

Yesterday, I learned what bolting is.

Bolting: What my stomach contents wanted to do all afternoon and last night after eating a big salad for lunch made from the romaine I've been growing the backyard this summer.

We planted 4 each of romaine and red leaf lettuce from seedlings this spring for the first time and they both did beautifully, continuously producing scrumptuously crisp and tasty leaves for us to eat for the past month or so. Having no real experience with lettuce, I wasn't sure if I should cut a whole head and bring it in to the kitchen- would that kill the plant, would it resprout? So, I would just keep tearing only the leaves I needed for the day off the bottom of the head in the hopes that the center would continue producing. That plan seemed to work and I had fresh lettuce for sandwiches and salad every day for a long time. I signed up for the green salad at all the potlucks and we couldn't even begin to consume all of the lettuce we were producing with our little family of 3, one of whom won't eat lettuce.



Then a couple weeks ago I noticed that the romaine was suddenly growing tall instead of just bushy. It shot up a long stem between each set of leaves and kept stretching out its height. I had no idea what that meant but figured it signaled that the lettuce was moving on to some new phase of life and maybe wouldn't produce much longer. But I kept eating it and it tasted fine. Then the red leaf shot up flowers and when I mentioned it to friends they said "yeah, you can't let the lettuce go to seed". But no one could actually tell me why when I asked. So, I chopped off the flower stalk in the hopes that I could force the lettuce to keep producing leaves and kept eating it.

Yesterday I was thinking about how the lettuce plants were probably ready to reproduce and would soon stop making new leaves and would die, so I should enjoy them while I can, so I made this big salad for lunch from the romaine, which looked closer to death than the red leaf. AFTER I enjoyed my salad, I decided to finally look this up and try to understand more about growing lettuce. It was only after some searching and many more unexplained "you shouldn't let the lettuce go to seed" statements, that I finally found out what was going on.

It turns out that my lettuce has been bolting- that's the name for when it shoots up and puts out flowers to make seed. It's like it's trying to "leave" your garden. And that lettuce will naturally bolt after some time and you can't stop or reverse it, maybe just slow it down a little by cutting off its flowers like I did. And, more importantly, that as it bolts, it will start producing bitter compounds in the leaves and becomes inedible. And that sometimes it will bolt early if it's under stress- if it becomes too hot, too dry, too crowded. And that if you let it go to seed, you'll end up with seeds that you wouldn't want to plant because they have a tendency to bolt early or you'll end up with seeds scattered in your soil that will become lettuce weeds in other areas of your garden plot. And you shouldn't put the seeds in your compost for the same reason. And that people spend a lot of energy cultivating and taking care of strains of lettuce that last as long as possible before bolting and those are the best seeds to buy.

Well, it was nice to learn about how to garden lettuce after I had already gardened it. And really good to know about the bitter compounds after I had that big salad because then when an hour or so later I started feeling nauseated and that went on all day and all night, at least I knew why! I'm pretty sure I toxified myself slightly yesterday with my homegrown bolted romaine lettuce. But that's what I call hands-on learning!

We unceremoniously pulled all the lettuce up last night and plopped it in the compost pile. Moving on to other garden adventures...

Have it Your Way

So we're stooping to McDonald's take-out for dinner tonight and Daddy asked Turtle what he wanted to order and Turtle said:

"I want a cheeseburger with no cheese."

Enjoying Shopping With A Toddler. Really.

As the rice paper wrapper melts in my mouth, I am reliving childhood. The sensations- the texture, the taste, just the look of the box awaken long quiet neural circuits. Botan Rice Candy.

The coolest part is that they are wrapped in rice paper, so you just pop them in your mouth and wait for that to melt before you eat the candy. I remember only getting these candies occasionally as a kid, that I thought they were really special. I feel like that's because my grandparents would bring them to Texas from LA or San Francisco. They certainly weren't stocked at the local Stop 'n Go, where we rode our bikes to get candy cigarettes and talk to teen clerk, Kermit (whom I always associated with the muppet). As Texans 30 years ago, we'd had our share of Chicle, but most things Asian were a novelty.

We picked up the rice candy today at Daiso, a Japanese everything store that's a couple of steps up from a 99 cents store, but cheaper and more fun to look around in than Target. Having Turtle home sick for the day, we browsed around just to entertain ourselves. He played with cutesy keychains, ceramic figurines, and wooden trains while I looked at garden supplies, stationery, and arts & crafts stuff. Then we each picked out a treat. I got the rice candy and he got Yan Yan.

Which took effort for me to cheerfully and without comment buy him. It is biscuit-like stick things that you dip in liquid vanilla "cream" which is actually, uh, ? I don't even want to read the fine print. The label does reassuringly say, though, that it "does not contain pig fat". I'm sure people all over the world enjoy Yan Yan all the time. It's just that I didn't even let him have so much as a single M&M until a few months ago and only then because they were already mixed into the trail mix.

We also scored some cat deterrents for the garden we prepped this morning. A couple of weeks ago we started some seeds in peat pots indoors and they are ready for transplanting. This morning we turned the soil in a small portion of the two as of yet unused by us raised beds in my backyard. But that was after we had to scoop out all the cat poop that had accumulated from neighborhood cats helping themselves to our giant litter boxes. We added compost, watered, and then set off on our errands.

We were happy to discover these plastic sheets of spikes that you cover your soil with and the plants can grow right through them. They had Japanese labels that were awkwardly translated to "Don't Cat!" Turtle expressed mixed feelings: "Mom, but then the cats will be hurt" but also "Yeah! Then those cats will not crap in OUR garden!" Which qualified as his first use of the word crap. Gotta note that in the baby book.

After Daiso, we wandered over to the German Bakery. Turtle selected a frosted shark shaped cookie and I enjoyed a slice of coffee cake so brimming with poppy seeds that I'm glad teachers don't get drug tested.

There's so many days when I have to squeeze in a trip to the store after an already long day to pick up something necessary and Turtle is whining and dragging his feet, arguing with me in the store, running away from me, or making us cross the store over and over for false alarm potty trips. Or days when you have multiple errands and every buckle and unbuckle of the carseat feels so tedious and you know everything it taking you three times as long as it would if you could just do it alone.

But today was really nice. We accomplished several necessary errands, he cheerfully walked along beside me, waited in line with me, browsed on his own without knocking things over and making a mess, let me take my sweet time looking at stuff by keeping himself occupied with something else down the aisle, and we talked and laughed together and pointed out funny or cute things to each other. Then we had ourselves a nice time at the bakery and Japanese treats to look forward to for later. It was the closest thing I've had to spending the morning shopping with a girlfriend in a long time. I'll take what I can get these days...

I'm so excited about our "Don't Cat!".

Complete Kitchen Remodel - Fast! and Free!

In a fit of annoyance earlier this year, I put our microwave on the floor in order to reclaim some precious counter space in our tiny galley kitchen.  It was kind of weird, but you know how you just get used to things.  We just bent down and put stuff in the microwave.  The bonus was the Turtle could reach it himself and got to have the official job of pressing the buttons.  When other people came over, they didn't quite know what to make of it, but whatever.  

I finally purchased this kitchen island and put it in the dining area to extend our kitchen counter.   

So now the microwave has a home along with the fruit bowls and cookbooks and I've got my workspace cleared.   I was so happy about this that I never even bothered to put anything inside the island yet.  When I went to open it to decide how to finally organize it, I found that Turtle had co-opted it and had been placing various toys in it.  (Oh, so that's where THAT's been!)  I had no idea.  

But yesterday I set about claiming my island, happily filling and organizing it, and then looked over and decided that Turtle's kitchen needed upgrading, too.  

First, I fashioned some stove-side utensil holders out of toilet paper rolls.  

Next, the oven was given a red-hot burner.  

I reused a gift bag decoration to add a vase of flowers above the sink, which is a giant lettuce container set into a cardboard box.  A small plastic bin is attached on the left to hold a sponge.  I can put a little water in this sink and it holds without leaking so Turtle can actually wash dishes in it.  The salad container pulls right up and out for dumping out.   

The sink itself was given a facelift.  Previously just a cardboard front, I cut cupboards in it for increased storage and covered it in reused wrapping paper.  

This up-ended diaper box had been divided with a shelf to make a crude pantry but never decorated.  I added a door to the bottom with rope handle, made from one side of a gift bag, to make a mini fridge and covered the wrest with leftover holiday wrapping paper.  

Turtle's kitchen is adjacent to mine, so he gets to use the hooks on my island for his canvas shopping bag, apron and pot holders.  The apron set was sewn by my sister and given as a xmas gift this year- cute, huh?  

Here's the "after" picture.  Turtle's kitchen is much brighter and cheerier now with all the colored wrapping paper and the flowers than the plain cardboard look it had before.  He has more storage with the utensil holders and under the sink cupboard and he gained a new appliance with the mini fridge.  All in all, not a bad remodel for 90 minutes of my time, a bunch of reused stuff that was lying around the house, and a lot of packing tape!  

He was so inspired that he set about making us a scrumptious meal.  Each person was served a variety of whole produce, eggs, and rigatoni.  Mmmm. Mmmm.  

This morning, Turtle told me he needed a kitchen timer.  So, now we have a play doh container decorated on the sides and with a printout of a real kitchen timer taped to the lid (Thank you, Google image search) and a large jingle bell inside so that when you shake it, the timer rings. As I write this, he is making me coffee with "spices and honey and milk and eggs".  This is his specialty, served in a reused fruit cup cup with half a plastic Easter egg sitting in it.  And muffins, which are play doh blobs in each hole of a mini muffin tin.  I am told that right now they are in the oven and we are waiting for them to "poof up".  

I love that he is working in his kitchen, using his imagination and creativity to prepare meals for us.  And I love that I get to use my imagination and creativity to make and improve his kitchen so that he can engage in this kind of play.  And I really love that I didn't buy and won't be someday getting rid of a $200 plastic play kitchen.  

Put Down That Knife

No, you only have to build a complex machine to cut the tops off, house it in a climate controlled factory, filled with other machines that dice them, soak them in preservative, mix them with peeled and diced oranges, drop them into a blend of juices, fraction the mix into machine extruded plastic bottles, cap them, label them, transport them to a retail grocer, purchase a bottle of it, drive it home, and unscrew a cap to eat them.    

Way easier.  

Now that people are recognizing that whole natural produce is and always was healthier than processed produce and even less recognizable foods created by food scientists, the poor processed food companies are left to craft strange marketing campaigns such as this one and this one in order to compete against regular old food.  

It's pretty pathetic.  

Apples' Brand Management

I know how to punctuate.  I'm not talking about the computer company.  I'm talking about the fruit.  I didn't think that apples needed brand management, but clearly I am behind the times.  Can you believe these ads I recently ripped out of magazines?  

It's definitely cooler to remove the healthy fiber from the apple, add preservatives, burn a ton of fossil fuels to process and package it, and then toss the packaging into a landfill.  Yup.  Way cooler than crunchy biodegradable old school apples.  And totally equivalent "servings" of fruit. Totally.  

Oh, yes, the "after" is definitely better on this makeover.  Makes the apples appear to be fried in trans fat.  Plus they must douse them in some awesome chemical to keep them from turning brown like old school apples do.  That's what makes them "fresh", because, you know, regular apples aren't "fresh".  

I understand that Capri Sun and BK are employing the best strategies they can to compete with readily available inexpensive healthy apples.  After all, you have to have a compelling reason to buy an apple from these corporations when you can get one from a backyard tree, farmer's market, or grocery store.  So, they've added value by making their form of apples seem "cooler" than the real ones.  

Just what we need is kids who expect and only enjoy apples that have been relieved of their peels, natural texture, and taste (since they are served with caramel dipping sauce).  Or that can be sucked through a straw from a shiny package.  

This reminds me of those anal-leakage inducing Olestra chips they used to have and all of the diet snacks that look and taste like candy bars.  Not to mention diet soda and such.  Way to train the brain to appreciate healthy food!  Eat chocolate bar looking things and chips and drink sweet tasting soda all day so that the only tastes and textures you enjoy are chocolate bars and chips and sweet tasting soda.  That will certainly go a long way toward helping you reduce inappropriate food cravings!  You never learn how to appreciate, enjoy, and even crave fresh veggies and fruits and less sweet foods because you never give body a chance to adjust to them.  It's all ridiculous!

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.  Especially considering I polished off a diet soda earlier and I just blogged about my recent fast food "binge".  But, please, apples?  Aren't they already pretty cool the way that they are?  

Would You Like Guilt With That?

(I wish it was this kind I was talking about...)

"Hey, Mommy, there's Jack" Turtle yelled during a superbowl commercial today.  Backtire looked at me, "Um, how does he know that?"  "Remember, a few weeks ago when we ate at Jack In The Box and you met us there?  There were pictures of Jack all over the wall and he wanted to know who it was, so..." I explained, feeling crappy that my not quite 3-year old son knew who Jack was.  We returned our attention to the TV only to then witness Jack get run over by a bus.   Turtle had a very concerned and confused look on his face as his newfound loveable character friend was just squashed.  Oh Great!  It was bad enough that we had sunk to Jack In The Box for dinner level.  Now he's been traumatized to top it off!  

After inquiring after Turtle's interpretation of the commercial, I agreed that Jack "fell down because that bus came" and that he simply needed to get up and brush himself off and he would be fine.  All was well with the world, Turtle went back to playing with trains, and I avoided having to talk about the realities of being hit by vehicles.  

The part I didn't mention to Backtire was that the two of us had eaten at McDonald's today for lunch. And another time when we were on our own for dinner a few weeks back.  Oh yeah, and all three of us stopped for fast food over the holidays on a long drive home one night, too. That's at least four times in the past couple months.  

And if I hadn't have blogged previously about eating locally and avoiding sugary birthday celebrations at daycare and generally professed to people my organic-whole-foods-well-balanced-non-processed-water-down-the-juice-he's-never-eaten-candy-we-don't-do-fastfood-except-when-forced-to-on-long-roadtrips-a-few-times-a-year values, I might not feel quite so hypocritical right now.  

On the other hand, I'm sure I'm holding myself to higher standards than anyone else is.  And the plus is that at least I've started to find more balance in terms of not killing myself to try to live up to my crazy high standards without fail.  I've opted for the fast food so that we can stay out and get all the errands I want done and have some fun together instead of feeling housebound, stuck in the kitchen, and frustrated that the to do list is growing.  

Hopefully, I won't resort to fast food often enough for Turtle to start begging for it or refusing to eat other things.  He has always been a great eater, willing to try anything new, and happy to eat raw vegetables and all manner of things good for you. To make myself feel better, though, each time we've done this I've snuck the toy out of the kids' meal and into my purse before he could see it.  I don't need the promise of a new toy each time you eat a meal to hold sway over him.  The food itself is supposed to be the incentive for eating.  

I love that my almost 3-year old son doesn't know what candy is and doesn't expect that you should end up with a toy each time you go out.  Today while grocery shopping he saw a shelf of Valentines Day teddy bears and simply asked if he could hug a few of them.  So, we stopped and took turns hugging a few of them and put them all back on the shelf.  I've never set that precedent that we would actually take toys we see in stores home with us.  I love that when I pour a little juice in the bottom of his cup, he says to me "Mom, now add the water to make it into juice" because that's how he thinks it works.  

I'm going to keep it like this for as long as I can.  But I'll also continue to keep in mind the best advice I've ever been given:  Everything in moderation, including moderation.  

Delocating

The other day I enjoyed a rarity- coffee with two girlfriends, no husbands, and no kids at an actual coffee shop for a couple of hours!  There's a Starbucks I can walk to from home and one right by work, so I do end up there all the time.  But, I wanted to try to break out of that and go somewhere interesting and different.  Somewhere local and unique.  I suggested "Let's NOT go to Starbucks."  Everyone wracked their brains and we ended up at... Peet's.  I guess it was a step in the right direction, but still not what I was looking for.  

Well, this morning I stumbled upon an awesome resource- the Starbucks Delocator.  

Christine Hanson has set up this site where you can type in your zipcode and find out all the local, non-corporate owned coffee shops, bookstores, and movie theatres in your area so you can patronize them.  And the site depends on public contributions.  Check it out to find out cool places near you to try and add if the cool places you already know about aren't on there, add them!  People like me, who are newer to your area will appreciate it. You can even use this service from your cell phone.  When you are out and about it can look up places for you and text back the info.  

This is a great way to have some varied experiences, build community by getting to know local shop owners and workers, and put your dollars into your community's economy.  See you at the coffee shop!  

Trying to Eat Locally

(Image Credit)

Since I posted my initial thoughts on eating locally and slowly, I have:

•finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
•visited 4 different local farmer's markets and actually asked questions regarding the locations of the farms and the farming practices instead of just shoving money in people's hands and walking away
•purchased almost solely organic produce
•slowed down in the supermarket thinking of the "Vegetannual" and considering which of the items for sale were actually in season locally before I purchased them, looked at the stickers and labels on produce and chose only those grown in my home state California, which I decided is my beginner's definition of "local". Mind you, I do understand that it being summer right now and California, it has been super easy for me to eat in season and locally. We'll see how winter goes...
•switched my family from processed high sugar flavored yogurt to plain organic yogurt and started a new breakfast habit of plain yogurt with fresh berries and organic granola. Everyone loves it!
•bought some grass fed steaks and grilled 'em
•got a haircut and a pedicure (OK, this has nothing to do with food, but Yay!, right?)
•bought a grass fed pork shank
•used my aging cookbooks and Google to try to determine what a shank is and how to cook one
•called my mom halfway through the cooking of the shank for emergency troubleshooting
•ruined the pork shank but cheerily attempted to masticate some of it with my family before tossing the rest, Omega 3's and grass fed premium down the drain
•bought cuts of meat from the meat counter in the supermarket for maybe the 7th time in my life
•attempted to have a conversation with the butcher about the geographic origins of the chicken I wanted to purchase
•realized the "butcher" was actually some college aged dude who didn't know anything:

Me: Hi! Do you know where this chicken comes from?
Butcher: Uh...I think all of our chicken is from Foster Farms
Me: So, where is Foster Farms? I mean, I know they are a huge national company, but where do they actually raise the chickens?
Butcher: I don't know.
(Then he walked out from behind the meat counter to the pre-packaged chicken area and started trying to read the Foster Farms labels, so I did, too, until he found one and shared with me that)
Butcher: Hey, here you go, it says "California Grown"

I'm pretty proud of myself for beginning to take seriously the quest for at least KNOWING where our food comes from and how its been treated before it gets to us. And for making the effort to discuss all of these ideas and issues about food with my husband, convincing a man who mostly views food as fuel and would rather not have to eat as it interrupts his day, to change his eating habits.

Now, I've also gotten busy and resorted to last minute processed foods and had a hard time keeping up with the frequent shopping that organic produce necessitates. But, at least we're giving it a go.

Next on my plate? I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma now. So, we'll see where that leads...

What's In Season?

(You can buy this vegetannual poster here.) 

The Vegetannual

I am currently relishing in reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Today I sat in the park at toddler hour (10 am) without my toddler, drinking my chai, and reading about the mythical, metaphorical plant Kingsolver invented, the vegetannual. She invented this plant to help the horticulturally challenged have a handy dandy way of understanding which produce is in season throughout the year and why.

Somehow I have gained the knowledge that cherries and peaches are summer fruits and cranberries are in season in winter, I think? Winter is definitely squash, or is that fall? and a mango in January isn't normal. But I'm kind of shaky on the whole thing because for as long as I have been in charge of grocery shopping, I have gone to supermarkets that feature all produce almost all year round. I haven't gardened much, but I've tried a couple of times and remember that seed packets have maps and charts on the back telling you where things will grow and when to plant them. I know my old neighbors cucumbers were out last July. But, uh...okay that's about it for me.

Kingsolver reminds us that most of the produce we enjoy are annual crops of flowering plants. All flowering plants share a life cycle abbreviated as: winter seeds lying in ground waiting, spring sprout, shoots, leaves, buds, flowers, pollinate, fruits, store extra energy as tuber, root, or bulb, seeds lie dormant until it starts over again next spring. All of the annual plants are growing roughly across the same growing season between frosts, but since we eat different parts of different plants, different produce items will be in season at different times. So, depending of course on latitude and climate and length of season for the particulars, the basic sequence of produce that is in season in any given place will follow that life cycle. Think about it this way: lettuces are leaves, peaches are fruit, beets are tubers. Meaning, lettuce will be in season first in the spring, peaches next in the summer, and beets toward the very end of the growing season in late fall. Isn't this brilliant?! Something I can understand and easily remember.

Kingsolver's explanation is much more award winning author than mine, so I invite you to read an article adapted from her book called "Stalking the Vegetannual".

Think Globally, Eat Locally

Now all this talk of in season, out of season is related, of course, to the travels of our food. You can't eat an out of season cherry unless it is in season somewhere else in the world at that moment, which means that someone is shipping it across great distances to you.

Some years ago, I became more aware of the distances that foods travel and the ecological impact that has and I began to read the signs and stickers at the grocery store that told me where my grapes and bananas were coming from. A handful of times I even decided not to buy something because it came from too far away and lately I've tried looking for locally produced labels when I have a choice. But most of the time, I just buy what we're in the mood for, the recipe calls for, or what strikes my fancy when I see it. And although I've been to the farmer's market on and off over the years, it has been more of a fun weekend outing than a serious way of providing food for my household. For sure we are snacking on out of season crude oil dependent tropical transports most of the time and giving it no regard.

Kingsolver's book asks the reader to give some regard to this. I will probably look further into the Slow Food Movement and groups like Locavores. I might revisit the idea of joining a local CSA. I've looked into it several times, but never taken the step. I might at the very least try to frequent the farmer's market more often. I might stop buying out of season foods and try to find recipes for the in season ones. But, herein lies the rub for me...

I believe in this issue and agree with it, but being non passionate about gardening, food shopping, meal planning, cooking, and all things related, I'm not finding an inner fire to get me actually making big changes on this one. And I fear that plus becoming used to being able to get all produce all the time is going to make it hard for a lot of us to do the right thing when it comes to sticking with local food.

Change takes time, though. So, at least understanding the vegetannual and thinking about it when I shop is a good first step!

Further Food For Thought

If our historical relationship to food and the ecological impact of agriculture interest you, I also recommend reading anything written by Michael Pollan or Vandana Shiva.

Icky Rice

(photo credit)

I am no Julia Child.  But last summer I finally learned how to easily make consistently good sticky rice for dinner.  

In the 3 weeks we've lived in the new house, I've tried 3 times, unsuccessfully, to make sticky rice. I did what I always do and ended up with rice almost too sticky starchy on the outside but still crunchy and inedible on the inside.  

I've tried adding more water and adding more heat during the simmering phase, but twice more gotten the same result.  The only thing I can figure is that I'm working with a new stove in this kitchen.  Every other variable is the same.  

 

Help!  I don't know enough food science to figure this out.  If it's overcooked on the outside of the grain and undercooked on the inside, what does that mean?  Do I need more or less water?  More or less heat?  More time?  

Maybe I'll take the America's Test Kitchen route and devote my week off to cooking batch after batch of rice, each time changing only one variable until I figure it out.  That approach certainly led them to developing the best margarita I've ever had.  

Or maybe I'll drive to the local Hawaiian take out place and give them 50 cents per scoop of sticky rice whenever I need it.   

Or maybe I'll just serve margaritas and hope no one misses the rice!