Personal Project Update

Lest you were worried after reading my previous  update that I would have to survive on only onions all winter long, I’ve spend the last month blanching and freezing kale, squash, eggplant, and okra. Now that it is actually starting to feel like winter and the semester is winding to a close, I’m realizing that it is probably time to start eating some of my preserved food rather than just stockpiling it. However, the winter continues after the semester ends (and this project is technically finished), so my real goal is to be able to continue eating local produce through March or so. We’ll see how long my stores last—one of the more difficult things for me has been to judge how much I should be preserving to get me through until the next growing season.

I don’t have my own garden now, obviously, but I’ve realized through the course of this process that I have this underlying assumption/dream that I’ll be using the skills I’m acquiring (canning, blanching and freezing, cooking produce-based meals) to preserve my own harvest in the coming years. I shared a picture of my tiny little summer garden in a previous post—over the past couple of years it has been constrained by time (because I was only living there in the summers, I couldn’t plant until late May and I could only harvest through early August) and the fact that I only planted what I thought I could eat when it ripened. I didn’t think about storing excess produce for the winter months. But I have big ideas for the next spring—lots of new things to plant for bumper crops! I love going to the farmer’s market and supporting local growers, and I will continue to do this in the future. But I also can’t wait to be able to augment my diet year-round with things I’ve grown myself.

I’m still trying to figure out how to shift my whole diet to be more local—I’ve got the produce thing down, but what about things like dried beans, rice, nuts, flour, cheese, etc.? One answer is to try and buy those things at local stores rather than at chain groceries. To this end, I’ve been shopping at Bloomingfoods and Sahara Mart more often. (Although that wasn’t hard to do, as I hadn’t stepped foot inside of their doors before this semester.) While some things are prohibitively (for me) more expensive than they would be at Kroger, others are comparable. Also the selection is different, which I appreciate. And the dry goods/bulk sections are amazing –delicious food + minimal waste!

Speaking of prices, on a recent weekend I shopped at the farmer’s market and then stopped by Kroger to compare prices. It wasn’t an exactly scientific comparison, but I tried my best to compare my farmer’s market produce to organic Kroger produce of approximately the same quantity. As you can see below, kale was the most drastic price difference. In the case of eggplant, Kroger was actually more expensive!

Apples: about 2 more apples at Kroger for the same price

Kale: much cheaper at Kroger ($0.99 vs. $2.50)

Pumpkin: about the same

Eggplant: $1 cheaper at farmer's market

Tomatoes: about the same

Winter squash: cheaper at Kroger ($0.99 per pound vs. $1.50 per pound)

A few weekends ago a good friend from Georgia, Hunter, visited me. How better to introduce him to Bloomington than by showing off our local brewery and winery? It was a great opportunity to do ‘homework’ and have a wonderful weekend enjoying good company, good football (How ‘bout them Dawgs?!), and good drinks.

                      

                           These are for gifts! Promise!

Yum. Upland's Bad Elmer's.

We also went to the farmer’s market together, and made this delicious butternut squash pasta for dinner. Another of my favorite recipe finds for all the locally-grown spaghetti squash I’ve been eating is this: the tomatoes, basil, and feta make a great flavor combination, and somehow the squash makes it perfect.

                 

                    image from recipe site

image from recipe site

The final piece of my project is the reading/research that I was so excited about at the beginning of the semester. Then schoolwork hit, and although I’m really interested in the local food reading lineup I put together, there just isn’t time right now. Enter: the brilliant invention of audiobooks. I had to travel to Cleveland for a wedding last weekend, which means 12 hours of prime listening time. The books on my original list weren’t available at the library at the time (I put them on hold and am saving them for Thanksgiving travels!) so I did some searching and landed on The Dirty Life, by Kristin Kimball and American Grown, by Michelle Obama.

The Dirty Life chronicles the experiences of a young couple as they work to establish a horse-powered farm that will provide CSA subscribers with a complete diet—meat, dairy, grains, sugars (honey and maple syrup), fruits, and vegetables. Their creation, Essex Farm, is hailed by Bill McKibben as “one of the most interesting farms in the country,” and is now thriving thanks to their hard work, sweat, tears, and entrepreneurial spirit. Mark, Kristen’s husband who originally dreamed up the farm, was inspired to do this because of a deep-rooted feeling that the system was broken—too many machines, too much consumption, too much pollution. Growing or raising everything that was required for survival in a sustainable, minimally-impactful way was his answer to the concerns that many of us have but tend to brush aside. It is seriously cool—go check it out.

Three main things stood out to me as I listened to Kristin tell her story.

1)  Wow. I should be more convicted like these people are. Or, maybe more realistically, I want to be a member of a farm like that!

2) Farming is HARD WORK, especially nonmechanized, organic, small-scale farming. Farmers don’t get vacations, and they take on a lot of risks to bring us organic, locally grown food. I’m willing to pay more for food grown by people like this.

3) Food can be so spiritual. It is often the foundation of connections between people. It is what we go to for comfort for ourselves, or to show someone else we care about them. To be engaged in the production of food for so many people, reconnecting with the earth, can be a profoundly spiritual experience.

Ms. Obama’s book was also enjoyable, but in a different way. It didn’t open my eyes to a new way of living, but through its discussion of the White House kitchen garden and the ways the presence of this garden touches people from Primer Ministers to DC elementary school children, it is a powerful statement about the values and ideals of the First Family.