I left you hanging on those last words. This is a guideline for "the bare necessities" all of which can be purchased from your local food co-op or buying club. The thing about buying from your local co-op is that you don't have to worry, everything in their is a sustainable choice. You can also pick up an order form from your co-op to buy in bulk directly from the warehouse.
look for the bare necessities:
flour,
rice
sugar
oats
cornmeal
barley
dried fruit
baking powder
cocoa powder
tea
coffee
dried herbs
ground or whole spices
salt
dried beans
dried peas
honey
molasses
popcorn
other grains
nuts
nutritional yeast (just dried fungus, does not contain B12)
farm raised eggs (there is a farmwife in your town who collects those daily)
cream
butter
milk
yogurt (or make your own...it is way yummier)
fresh cheese (make your own with liquid rennet)
aged cheese
olives
oils
soy sauce
fresh meat
dried meat
cured meat
fresh fish
smoked fish
canned fish
tofu
vinegar
seaweed
wine
beer
ginger
mushrooms
vegetables
fruits
ok. there you have it. with those ingredients you can create almost anything!
How to build a meal, even a dessert! (PIE)
foundation = grains (diversify your grains!), legumes (diversify!)
building blocks = vegetables/fruit, eggs, milk (eat seasonally), chiles/spices = flavor!!
garnish = meat, cheese, tofu, olives, oils (moderately), seasoning
some examples of complete meals:
breakfast: quiche: sourdough crust (studded with herbs, spices, ground nuts or seeds) + eggs + milk + sauteed greens, mushrooms, seasonal produce, and cheese/meat
lunch: smorgasbord: sourdough bread + fresh ground nut butter + probiotic rich condiment (saurkraut)
dinner: dahl: dried split peas + vegetables + oil, + spices
treat: crumble bar: wheat flour + sugar + cream + spices + vanilla + fruit + oats
beverage: homemade beer, red wine, ginger ale, coffee, tea
some personal notes: I am 20, female, 5' 5" and weight about 100 lbs. I walk everywhere so I sweat a lot and find that I need to eat a lot of salt. I need to sprinkle un peu plus de sel on everything and like to add a knob of butter or splash of cream to most things. I do not eat red meat or poultry. I occasionally eat local fish and love pickled herring. mmm I love pickled anything. To satisfy hunger pains I will drink a brew of hot water, salt, garlic powder, black pepper, and vinegar. yummy!
My current favorite foods:
I love eggs
sourdough toast
rice of all sorts
kale, cabbage, spinach, onion, garlic, winter squash, carrots, mushrooms, ginger, chiles
butter
soy sauce
honey
fresh, dried, or preserved fruit
sauerkraut
Friday, December 9, 2011
it is crystal clear that a large percentage of Americans are totally delusional when it comes to proper nutrition, basic biology, and a meaningful relationship with the earth. Too often I read "Vegan, raw, gluten free, fake cheese, no cheese, no dairy, no eggs, no meat" as "health foods". Yes, eating restricted diets like that can help detoxify a burdened system, and it is fantastic that people are passionate to learn about alternative foods. However, how about eating REAL food? Food that your grandparents or great grandparents would have grown up eating. Food from the land, food that is defined by the land. Food that takes works to grow, harvest, and prepare. Food that takes time because if we do not have give time for food then we should not be giving time to any other thing. FOod demands precedence in an organism's life. Wild animals spend all their time planning, preparing, hunting, foraging, and feasting. Mother nature provides for all living things in strategic, mystical, and clever ways. We are all capable of adapting to our perfect diet if only we listen to the earth and to our beings.
I cannot tolerate vegans. They don't eat butter. Well, if I only had government subsidized big agrobusiness butter to consume then I would refuse to eat it too. Fortunately, I don't. Fortunately, I can eat real, cultured, and handcrafted butter that is nothing more than cream, salt, and probiotics.
Vegans. They don't drink milk! It is too ironic. Are they not flapping around making their own diet decisions because of the very fact that they were weaned from their mother's own breast milk? They were milk suckling fiends from the get go. And now they choose to deny their bodies of life giving milk. Well, as it is with butter, I too would boycott all milk, cheese, eggs, and meat products if the ONLY choice I could afford was the cheap, synthetic, artificial, pesticide, hormone growth, disease, pasteurized, adulterated, and disease infested food products that our government makes readily available to us to the benefit of not the consumer but to the shareholders of the big business. Food in a capitalist society is sickening. Please, grow your own in whatever way you can. If you can't purchase grass fed, free range meat products, then sustain your being with the mega life force of free range, cage free, organic chicken eggs (and meat if you are so inclined, though I cannot vouch for that). And if you live near the sea, then by all means, take advantage of your LOCAL fish monger and eat silky smooth, mineral rich, omega fatty acid rich sustainably caught small fish and may your health, skin, hair, and nails redeem your good deeds.
So vegans? tolerable if that is their only choice. In fact, I'd rather have a large population of vegans boycotting factory raised products than people be left in the dark still spreading "I can't believe it's not butter!" (then WTF IS IT???) on their toast which reads 50+ ingredients on the package. Bread is nothing more than flour, yeast, water, salt. Sourdough, or "au levain" is the best for your body to digest as it is pre-fermented.
I tell you what, it is my deepest dream for the future generations to completely eradicate, destroy, abandon factory farms in America. Yes, all of them. Every single one. Factory chickens, factory cows, factory margarine, factory milk, factory cheese, factory FARM. THE FARM IS A LIVING ORGANISM IT WILL NOT BE KEPT IN CAPTIVITY!! Let freedom ring, start your farm today or get out there and support a farm. It's YOUR money folks, choose wisely. You may spend MORE of it, but it's more that goes towards the GRANDEST cause of humanity. There is no humanitarian action more local, sustainable, or positively RIGHT than spending to support local farms and business. thank you, have a good day. Safeway? Keep walking.... food co-op? enter good earthling. enter. oh and avoid any of the packaged stuff at a food co-op and you won't spend $$$, purchase the bare necessities.
I cannot tolerate vegans. They don't eat butter. Well, if I only had government subsidized big agrobusiness butter to consume then I would refuse to eat it too. Fortunately, I don't. Fortunately, I can eat real, cultured, and handcrafted butter that is nothing more than cream, salt, and probiotics.
Vegans. They don't drink milk! It is too ironic. Are they not flapping around making their own diet decisions because of the very fact that they were weaned from their mother's own breast milk? They were milk suckling fiends from the get go. And now they choose to deny their bodies of life giving milk. Well, as it is with butter, I too would boycott all milk, cheese, eggs, and meat products if the ONLY choice I could afford was the cheap, synthetic, artificial, pesticide, hormone growth, disease, pasteurized, adulterated, and disease infested food products that our government makes readily available to us to the benefit of not the consumer but to the shareholders of the big business. Food in a capitalist society is sickening. Please, grow your own in whatever way you can. If you can't purchase grass fed, free range meat products, then sustain your being with the mega life force of free range, cage free, organic chicken eggs (and meat if you are so inclined, though I cannot vouch for that). And if you live near the sea, then by all means, take advantage of your LOCAL fish monger and eat silky smooth, mineral rich, omega fatty acid rich sustainably caught small fish and may your health, skin, hair, and nails redeem your good deeds.
So vegans? tolerable if that is their only choice. In fact, I'd rather have a large population of vegans boycotting factory raised products than people be left in the dark still spreading "I can't believe it's not butter!" (then WTF IS IT???) on their toast which reads 50+ ingredients on the package. Bread is nothing more than flour, yeast, water, salt. Sourdough, or "au levain" is the best for your body to digest as it is pre-fermented.
I tell you what, it is my deepest dream for the future generations to completely eradicate, destroy, abandon factory farms in America. Yes, all of them. Every single one. Factory chickens, factory cows, factory margarine, factory milk, factory cheese, factory FARM. THE FARM IS A LIVING ORGANISM IT WILL NOT BE KEPT IN CAPTIVITY!! Let freedom ring, start your farm today or get out there and support a farm. It's YOUR money folks, choose wisely. You may spend MORE of it, but it's more that goes towards the GRANDEST cause of humanity. There is no humanitarian action more local, sustainable, or positively RIGHT than spending to support local farms and business. thank you, have a good day. Safeway? Keep walking.... food co-op? enter good earthling. enter. oh and avoid any of the packaged stuff at a food co-op and you won't spend $$$, purchase the bare necessities.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
I am most taken by the oldest of the old ways. My purpose in this lifetime is to preserve and pass on human heritage mostly in the forms of our most ancient and steadfast food traditions. I am most taken by the oldest ways because they the most deeply rooted. Have you ever tasted a walnut or a pear from an ancient tree? Then you know that it has the most complex and deeply rooted flavor. Maybe it is because I am an old soul, maybe it is purely a matter of genetics and proteins, but the more a thing has endured, the more fond I am of it. So hurt, love, live, and age your spirit and body. It will shine through in a wise and worn way, like a worn woolen scarf... which found me today... after I had lost my FAVORITE life partner of a scarf back in July in the San Francisco International Airport's trendiest "T2" ...damn you T2! I was distracted by all the innovative, trendy newness... totally suckered in... and I carelessly boarded my plane without scooping up my scarf, my best friend, that had been my blanket when I shivered and my shawl when I needed a light cover-all. I loved that midnight blue pashmina scarf... but now I have been given a new one that is actually very old. It is the color of my father's eyes, soft baby blue with foggy periwinkle cast to it... it is a good gift for Port Townsend to bid me off with. Yes, I am leaving Port Townsend after a year of happy residence. I fly to my mother's home in Connecticut this Sunday and will bip and bop around the state visiting family and friends until January 9th when I will fly back to school in San Francisco. Dearest San Francisco where I may resume my studies and complete a degree. I will be so proud!!!! And so will my father. Never could I commit myself to a person whom my father detested with such deep scorn.
So perhaps the cabbage and porkchops fantasy may be possible for a brief while with the boy from my past. Maybe.
I'd like to list a few of the oldest of old traditions which I am passionate about. I learn more EVERYday, so this is only a modest list, a sampling;
sauerkraut: vegetables + bacteria
beer: grains + yeast
gruit: grains + yeast + herbs
cheese: milk + enzymes + mold
yogurt: milk + enzymes
wine: grapes + enzymes + yeast
mead: honey + yeast + herbs
melomel: honey + fruit + yeast
charcuterie: meat + time + spices + salt
sourdough: flour + yeast
soy sauce: soy + bacteria
all of these things require proper environment and time to succeed. the results of being a food steward are incomparable to anything off the shelf. pffft.
So perhaps the cabbage and porkchops fantasy may be possible for a brief while with the boy from my past. Maybe.
I'd like to list a few of the oldest of old traditions which I am passionate about. I learn more EVERYday, so this is only a modest list, a sampling;
sauerkraut: vegetables + bacteria
beer: grains + yeast
gruit: grains + yeast + herbs
cheese: milk + enzymes + mold
yogurt: milk + enzymes
wine: grapes + enzymes + yeast
mead: honey + yeast + herbs
melomel: honey + fruit + yeast
charcuterie: meat + time + spices + salt
sourdough: flour + yeast
soy sauce: soy + bacteria
all of these things require proper environment and time to succeed. the results of being a food steward are incomparable to anything off the shelf. pffft.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Enjoy,
the more you live with somebody the more they irritate you. everything he does now irritates me. even his smell doesn't smell right anymore. when the pheremones aren't even working, you know there is a morphilogical problem and thus psychological disalignment. Yep, it's all over now, baby blue time for me to leave this cold climate and head home to San Francisco. I will finish up my degrees in Theology and French. I might even study abroad in Ho Chi Minh City and travel SE Asia a bit from there. I'm not sure. I have been enjoying two blogs today.
1) GRRRL Traveler
2) Jeffrey Alford
I really admire Mr. Alford for his various fantastic cookbooks, the fact that he is a pioneer of heritage food preservation and the fact that he currently lives on a farm in eastern Thailand. His blog is delightful to read as his truly remarkable, candid, funny, and open spirit transmits to careful readers.
A man from my past has been haunting me again. It's gone on this way for three years now. His spirit and love for me never dies and he pops back into my life out of the blue mist and says he's changed, he owes me an apology, I'm often on his mind, there's been no other gal for him... sigh So we get on a bit and my fantasies run rampant as I dream of living on his family's farm, reviving it to a lush New England garden of Eden with goats, ducks, pigs, cabbages, onions, carrots, potato, pumpkins, strawberries, rhubarb, peppers, tomatoes, apple and peach trees... cooking for him and teaching him how to make his own beer... and then he flat lines again. pffffffff goes my balloon of romance. If we're going to happen then I suppose we'll happen, when it comes to him, things are out of my control and the harder I try the more damage I do.
When I'm not fantasizing about him and our garden of Eden I am dreaming of my future time in San Francisco. Semester begins Jan 23rd but I think I will be there a few weeks earlier. I'd like to start up a small cooking business to provide affordable, wholesome, hot meals for fellow dorm dwellers. The food in the campus cafe SUCKS and is hardly open. They don't even sell rice. Thus, it is my duty to provide fresh rice, dahl, and simple stir fries at first for affordable price. If this goes well then I can start offering scrambles, dumplings, wraps, and other whole grains like kasha, polenta, and so much more that I have not yet discovered. I just spent today cooking 3 different batches of white rice. 1) soak rice for an hour in warm water and vinegar, lots of garlic, jalapenos, salt, butter, curry powder, white wine, more vinegar, cream. steam for 18 minutes, add yogurt and more salt. 2) rice, vinegar, cream, garlic, peppers, onion, pumpkin, salt, lamb fat, sesame seeds, curry powder, white wine, soy sauce, butter. steam for 18 minutes, add more butter and salt. 3) rice, vinegar, white wine, soy sauce, garlic, chiles, chipotle spice, curry, pumpkin, hot sesame oil, lamb fat, butter, cream. cook for 18 minutes. the first two were very similar, creamy, delicious! I love the addition of cubed pumpkin to the raw rice. The third was less creamy but more hearty with the addition of lamb fat and sesame oil. I love to cook rice creatively and hope to share it with others someday. it wouldn't hurt to make a few bucks off it either and I have a feeling that students are going to be willing to exchange a few dollar bills that would otherwise get eaten by the defunct vending machine for a fresh hot wholesome bowl of rice. Provided that they bring their own bowls of course! I'd also like to hold "sushi making" classes and other fun cooking classes. It would also be fun to bake a ton of pies and sell slices. I have a lot of good food ideas, I hope I can actualise some of them. ... another is dumplings. I am so crazy about dumplings from every single corner of the world. Manti, pierogi, momo, har gow, potsticker, gyoza, dim sum, ravioli whatever you want to call it, I love it. Today I whipped up a dumpling filling of onion, garlic, chiles, pumpkin, cabbage, and kale that I will stuff into wheat dough. Ah but first I just needed to write, I needed to talk to somebody. I think Jeffrey Alford writes his blog for the very same reason. There he is in the middle of rural Thailand with nobody to speak openly in English with. He's sacrificing a lot, but he says he lives there because it is simpler, so much simpler than life in North America. I couldn't agree more. Once somebody is successful and wants to keep their freelance writer ball rolling things get so complicated; tweeting, facebooking, blogging, stalking, hipping and hopping just to keep up and compete. Yep, I don't blame ye Mr. Alford. Signing off now, going to read a bit more before I get up and start smacking together some dumplings for supper. Cheers.
the more you live with somebody the more they irritate you. everything he does now irritates me. even his smell doesn't smell right anymore. when the pheremones aren't even working, you know there is a morphilogical problem and thus psychological disalignment. Yep, it's all over now, baby blue time for me to leave this cold climate and head home to San Francisco. I will finish up my degrees in Theology and French. I might even study abroad in Ho Chi Minh City and travel SE Asia a bit from there. I'm not sure. I have been enjoying two blogs today.
1) GRRRL Traveler
2) Jeffrey Alford
I really admire Mr. Alford for his various fantastic cookbooks, the fact that he is a pioneer of heritage food preservation and the fact that he currently lives on a farm in eastern Thailand. His blog is delightful to read as his truly remarkable, candid, funny, and open spirit transmits to careful readers.
A man from my past has been haunting me again. It's gone on this way for three years now. His spirit and love for me never dies and he pops back into my life out of the blue mist and says he's changed, he owes me an apology, I'm often on his mind, there's been no other gal for him... sigh So we get on a bit and my fantasies run rampant as I dream of living on his family's farm, reviving it to a lush New England garden of Eden with goats, ducks, pigs, cabbages, onions, carrots, potato, pumpkins, strawberries, rhubarb, peppers, tomatoes, apple and peach trees... cooking for him and teaching him how to make his own beer... and then he flat lines again. pffffffff goes my balloon of romance. If we're going to happen then I suppose we'll happen, when it comes to him, things are out of my control and the harder I try the more damage I do.
When I'm not fantasizing about him and our garden of Eden I am dreaming of my future time in San Francisco. Semester begins Jan 23rd but I think I will be there a few weeks earlier. I'd like to start up a small cooking business to provide affordable, wholesome, hot meals for fellow dorm dwellers. The food in the campus cafe SUCKS and is hardly open. They don't even sell rice. Thus, it is my duty to provide fresh rice, dahl, and simple stir fries at first for affordable price. If this goes well then I can start offering scrambles, dumplings, wraps, and other whole grains like kasha, polenta, and so much more that I have not yet discovered. I just spent today cooking 3 different batches of white rice. 1) soak rice for an hour in warm water and vinegar, lots of garlic, jalapenos, salt, butter, curry powder, white wine, more vinegar, cream. steam for 18 minutes, add yogurt and more salt. 2) rice, vinegar, cream, garlic, peppers, onion, pumpkin, salt, lamb fat, sesame seeds, curry powder, white wine, soy sauce, butter. steam for 18 minutes, add more butter and salt. 3) rice, vinegar, white wine, soy sauce, garlic, chiles, chipotle spice, curry, pumpkin, hot sesame oil, lamb fat, butter, cream. cook for 18 minutes. the first two were very similar, creamy, delicious! I love the addition of cubed pumpkin to the raw rice. The third was less creamy but more hearty with the addition of lamb fat and sesame oil. I love to cook rice creatively and hope to share it with others someday. it wouldn't hurt to make a few bucks off it either and I have a feeling that students are going to be willing to exchange a few dollar bills that would otherwise get eaten by the defunct vending machine for a fresh hot wholesome bowl of rice. Provided that they bring their own bowls of course! I'd also like to hold "sushi making" classes and other fun cooking classes. It would also be fun to bake a ton of pies and sell slices. I have a lot of good food ideas, I hope I can actualise some of them. ... another is dumplings. I am so crazy about dumplings from every single corner of the world. Manti, pierogi, momo, har gow, potsticker, gyoza, dim sum, ravioli whatever you want to call it, I love it. Today I whipped up a dumpling filling of onion, garlic, chiles, pumpkin, cabbage, and kale that I will stuff into wheat dough. Ah but first I just needed to write, I needed to talk to somebody. I think Jeffrey Alford writes his blog for the very same reason. There he is in the middle of rural Thailand with nobody to speak openly in English with. He's sacrificing a lot, but he says he lives there because it is simpler, so much simpler than life in North America. I couldn't agree more. Once somebody is successful and wants to keep their freelance writer ball rolling things get so complicated; tweeting, facebooking, blogging, stalking, hipping and hopping just to keep up and compete. Yep, I don't blame ye Mr. Alford. Signing off now, going to read a bit more before I get up and start smacking together some dumplings for supper. Cheers.
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