Archive | Darling Homemaking

Week 15 – Cooking Leads to Food Freedom

By Erin Darling on October 15, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

I mentioned in an earlier post that as soon as I started this blog series, a baby started to grow in my womb. To add to the drama in the Wetzel family, the same week we found out that we were pregnant was the same week we found out we were closing on our house. Talk about major life events pouring in all at once!

When I cook, it’s nothing fancy, but I enjoy cooking, and I think I do a pretty good job in the kitchen; however, for my first trimester, I was exhausted, food sounded like the last thing I wanted (unless it was fresh fruit), and my kitchen was a mish-mashed collection of boxes and crowded counter space. I didn’t cook for 2 months. We still needed to eat, so we ate simple meals like crackers, cheese and apples; we ate canned meals, like Trader Joe’s chili; we experimented with take out (the Abella‘s pizza was a bust, due to too much garlic and grease, but the chicken teriyaki from Sapporo‘s was a hit); and we went out to cheap restaurants once or twice a week, mostly to Dukes during happy hour, where they have the best local clam chowder in Pierce county.

What we missed during these months was freedom to eat whatever we wanted. When we were hungry, I did not have the strength to cook, so we were limited by what we could eat raw, order, warm quickly or buy from a restaurant. I gotta tell you: eating out is fun as a break from the norm, but being forced to eat out or eat pre-made meals gets old really fast. Everything always tastes the same, and that homogenization on my taste buds is real palate monotony.

When you learn a few tricks in the kitchen, you can take whatever is in season and whip it up into something fresh, healthy and tasty. You could make a different type of chili each week of the year. You can fry, roast, grill, boil or bake your fresh farm veggies. You can season simply with salt and butter, or you can get a little exotic and try spices like cumin and turmeric. You can learn how to make some simple sauces and add a whole new dynamic to the mealtime experience. If you make your own biscuits or bread (from scratch…everything made with Bisquick tastes the same, after all), then you’ve added another whole level of variety, choice and excitement to the food experience in your home. Each time you add a trick to your food preparation basket, you increase the potential of your eating experiences exponentially.

I’ve felt better this week: I’ve had more energy and the cravings of my palate have been expanding. I made my first casserole dish since the pregnancy, eggplant parmesan, and boy was it good! I’m sick of having no freedom to eat whatever I want. I don’t want to eat off a menu or out of a pantry of canned goods. I want to eat out of my imagination.

By ekwetzel
2010-10-15

WEEK 15:
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs (again, the farm has young hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)
6 Corn on the Cob
Carrots
Green Beans
2 Heads of Cauliflower
Delicata Squash
Cucumber
2 Red Onions
8 Apples
2 Eggplant
Romaine Lettuce
Black Kale
(In the middle)
Sweet Peppers
Tomatillos
Head of Garlic

Week 14 – Real People

By Erin Darling on October 8, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

When I get sick, the only things I can stomach are Ritz crackers, ginger ale and sherbet. That’s right. I don’t eat organic crackers, raw ginger and sugar-free sorbet. The goods I can eat without feeling queasy are three processed foods.

I’ve wondered if there is something special about these foods that makes me able to eat them when all else fails. Is it because they are simple foods that are easy to digest? Is there some magic ingredient that calms my otherwise repulsed stomach? Or, am I able to eat these foods because of tradition? I remember drinking ginger ale and eating Ritz crackers when I was home sick from Elementary school. In fact, the only time we ever bough ginger ale, it seemed, was when someone was sick. That’s the same for the Wetzels today; we only buy ginger ale when there’s a cold keeping someone home.

Frankly, I don’t care if the food literally helps me, or if it’s just placebo food. As long as I believe I can eat it, and it tastes good enough to not make me nauseous, I will continue to patronize these three culinary standbys throughout the years.

As I learned more about industrial food in the past few years and became disgusted with some of the grievous practices of big corporations, especially big meat corporations, I was faced with a dilemma: I knew I could never purchase food the same way, but I also knew I could never super-impose my convictions onto others. I knew I could never be that person who would refuse to eat the main course as a guest “because the chickens never saw the sun” or “because those vegetables were shipped halfway across the world, polluting the environment.” It’s always been more important to me to be open and humble with people. Real food is important, but real people are more important.

So what do you do?

It’s important in life to remember that we all have foods (like Ritz crackers) that we keep around, even if they aren’t the most “real foods” available. What we have to keep in mind is that we can eat better, and eating better is better for us, but purifying our food choices will never purify our souls. We are people. We live with people. And we will eat a myriad of things that each other may not approve of.

My advice? When you pay for the food you eat, eat the best you can. Be generous with your food, as well as your thoughts and feelings about the food you choose to eat. Be open to listening to other people’s thoughts and feelings about their own food; you will learn more about the real people in your life that way.

And, when you’re sick, try the Ritz cracker / ginger ale / sherbet combo. I swear. It’s magic.

By ekwetzel
2010-10-08

WEEK 13
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs
6 Corn on the Cob
2 Beets
6 Pluots
Radishes
Red Onion
Cauliflower
2 Jalapeño Peppers (one green & one red)
6 Red Potatoes
Broccoli (with the greens)
Unidentified greens (I forgot to ask!)
Romaine Lettuce
(In the middle)
2 Eggplants (see the one with the silly looking “nose”!?)
Pumpkin Peppers
Tomatillos
4 Tomatoes
Cucumber
Head of Garlic

*Many thanks to Stephen Proctor for help taking the photo this week. (I really need to figure out which moving box my camera is packed in…or go buy a new one!)

Week 13 – Fight the Smog. Support the Farm.

By Erin Darling on October 1, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

I drive with the windows down. I love the fresh air, the wind in my hair, the sun on my arms. I get a kick out of smelling the changing seasons or feeling the true level of humidity, fog or misting rain in the air.

Now that we moved, I take a 15 minute commute to my job, and I spend most of my drive on the freeway. The worst part of the commute is the “armpit of Tacoma,” on I-5 between the Tacoma dome and Highway 16. Even when the traffic is moving freely, the air on this stretch of freeway gets caught in a little valley, and the smog is unbearable. I roll the windows up and try to have faith in the little air filter in my car.

What aggravates me the most about my commute, however, is there are many large trucks on the freeway, and they expel copious amounts of dark exhaust in to the atmosphere. It makes me gag! I get particularly upset when I see a truck whose exhaust is black and thick. How is it legal for companies to use trucks that pollute the air like this?

When Mr. Wetzel and I used to order groceries though Spud’s delivery service, I always enjoyed being able to see exactly how far each item on my grocery list travelled in order to get to the Spud warehouse. It really helped to put into perspective how great of an impact buying locally can have on the environment. Here are some interesting stats from Spud’s website:

“Each year, over $16 billion is spent across North America just to transport food. Most of this money is spent on 4 million trucks traveling 10 billion miles annually. The average grocery item travels 1500 miles to get from its place of production to where it is sold. All this transportation uses tons of fossil fuel and releases large quantities of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into our air.”

To help you get a clearer picture of what all this food transportation means, take a look at this infografic from Good magazine’s website (Click on the image above for a larger version, or go to Good’s website to see the original post here ). It is a terrific illustration of the impact it could make on the environment if more of us were to buy locally instead of aimlessly picking up whatever has been transported en mass to the local grocery chain.

Trucks stink. Farms don’t. Local food passes my smell test. Hopefully the more we demand local produce and products, the more our economy will shift to steward local economies and environments with greater responsibility and care.

By ekwetzel
2010-10-01

WEEK 13
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs (again, the farm has young hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)
6 Corn on the Cob
2 Bok Choi
6 Apples
Cucumber
Red Onion
Head of Garlic
Green Cauliflower
Radishes
Green Beans
Head of Lettuce
Summer Squash & Zucchini
(In the middle)
Eggplant
Pumpkin Peppers
Tomatillos
4 Tomatoes

Week 12 – Belly Poetry

By Erin Darling on September 24, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

True coincidences are few and far between, and so this coincidence really makes me giggle. Mr. Wetzel and I are pregnant. Of course, being pregnant is enough to keep us giggling for awhile, especially since it’s our first baby. To top it off, however, we are 12 weeks pregnant. And this is week 12 of my CSA blog series. Holy freakin’ cow!

I’ve been excited to break the news to y’all ever since we found out at the beginning of August. When I realized that we were on the same week progression as the blog series, I just about flipped a switch. How cool?! The way “pregnancy weeks” work, we weren’t even pregnant for the first two weeks, so there was no way we could have planned this if we tried (you start counting from the first day of your last period).

I’ve been thrilled that we’re growing the baby on fresh CSA summer fruit. Every week I pick up the regular share of food, and then buy extra apples, grapes, peaches or plums in the farm store at Terry’s Berries. A pregnant appetite is a fickle one, so most of the time fresh fruit is the only thing I can bear to eat. Thank goodness we’re pregnant in the summer months when fruit is so fresh and easy to come by!

I’m also grateful that we’ve been eating organic, unprocessed foods from the farm since last autumn. My body is full of stores of good nutrients and stores for the baby to use while growing in my belly. We have the wonderful farm-fresh eggs, raised full of sunshine and a roaming love of the green farm grass. I like to think that, when I eat the eggs sunny side up on my whole grain toast, a bit of the wild happy animal spirit gets passed through me and on to my baby. The beets and potatoes at the farm are showered with the misty and unpredictable Washington rain, and these vegetables hold onto the root of mysteriousness from their surroundings, only to dissolve into my bloodstream and whisper secrets onto the little person in my belly.

We’re passing through a time that will never come again. We always are. We always take something with us…totems that we consume, that become part of our flesh, our blood, our spirit, our soul. I don’t mean all this in a pantheistic way, but in a poetic way. It is true: an apple is at its best when it’s allowed to just be an apple. But the apple is part of something greater: a worldview, an ethos for living, a pattern that affects not just one farm or one family or one bite and taste. I expect my apple to be local, so I support my local farm. I expect my apple to be grown without pesticides, so my baby is nourished without toxins streaming through my bloodstream. I know my farmer and I talk to the workers who grow my food, so I know they are treated fairly and humanely.

When you allow yourself to touch real people and real food, it opens up a part of you that simply doesn’t surface in a white-washed grocery store with its consumer mentality. We are beings with imaginations and souls. We give birth to babies and dreams. We touch each other through our meals and our imaginations. I am a being of flesh and wind, and I fuel my body with foods from the earth. I fuel my soul with waters that run deep. I fuel my hope with dreams out of time.

If you had the guts to let yourself just sit and be…what kind of poem would be written about you?

By ekwetzel
2010-09-24

WEEK 12
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs (again, the farm has young hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)
Lettuce
6 Corn on the Cob
2 Cucumbers
1 Head of Garlic
Flat Parsley
Curley Parsley
Fennell
Summer Squash
2 Onions
6 Potatoes
(In the middle)
4 Tomatoes
6 Apples
Green Beans

Week 11 – Eating Like a Gamer

By Erin Darling on September 17, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

Yes, this is a blog post about video games and real food. While I am described as “granola” by some, I am called a “gamer” by others. Not all gamers thrive on pizza and energy drinks; some of us love our fresh fruits and veggies! ^_^ I am pleased to bridge divergent worlds to multi-class as a gamer geek and a food geek.

Bethesda Softworks is a game studio that makes two wonderful games with rich stories and detailed game worlds: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion takes place in a fantasy setting full of Elven wizards, Nordic warriors and “Argonian” spies (Argonians are a race of lizard-people); Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of the greater DC Metro area after nuclear war has devastated the entire world, leaving in its wake some human survivors, as well as super-mutants and zombie-like ghouls. In both games, you create a character and roam the world. You are free to find quests and complete them, or you can just run off into the horizon, pick flowers (or drink radiated water) and defend yourself against bandit attacks.

My Oblivion character at a table spread of Real Food: carrots, bread, berries, pumpkin and cheese.

In Oblivion, you find “Old World” food everywhere. These are the foods our ancestors would have eaten, and they include apples, venison, leeks, cabbage, pumpkins, corn, wine, and you even find the occasional sweet roll or shepherd’s pie. Real Food advocates such as Michael Pollan and Nina Planck encourage us to get away from processed foods and fake foods and to return to Old World foods for many reasons. Old World foods have stood the test of time, whereas the fads of processed foods rarely last a decade. Old World foods are whole foods; when foods are processed many of their nutrients are lost. Old World foods make you feel better and healthier, whereas processed foods often leave you unsatisfied and lacking key nutrients while also making you overweight and lethargic.

In Fallout, there are no plants left alive, so the only foods you find are those that survived the nuclear war. That means your character has to eat processed foods, the only foods that would be able to last for decades. Some examples of these food items are potato crisps, pork n’ beans, and junk food. An added twist: everything that is eaten gives your character radiation poisoning. My favorite food item in Fallout is the Nuka-Cola, a soda in a 50’s style glass bottle that gives you 2 points of radiation for each 10 points of health that it grants you. Even cola can’t escape! (A full list of food and consumables in Fallout 3 is available here. Note: While there are fresh fruits listed, they exist in one location in the game: in a secure lab where a team of scientists are trying to figure out how to grow plants again. The only way you can obtain the fresh food is by stealing it, which will make the scientists hostile, and their guards will start shooting at you.)

In Oblivion, there are farms and farmers like this one all over the game world. Your character can "harvest" food from the respective plants, and after a few "game days" the food even grows back!

In Oblivion, the “Old World” foods all give your character healthy benefits. The most common effect is “restore fatigue,” which is game-speak for “you get more energy.” Garlic helps you resist disease; the Crab Meat restores endurance; and Mutton fortifies your health. The only way you can turn one of these common foods into something that could harm you is by making potions through alchemy. What does that mean? In order to get sick from healthy food in Oblivion, first you have to process them! (A full list of “alchemical ingredients” in Oblivion is available here. When your character eats a raw ingredient or food, the only effect she experiences is the primary effect, which is in the leftmost column.)

The concept that processed foods are not as good as fresh foods is such an innate concept, even the game developers at Bethesda Softworks naturally included it in two of their most popular and acclaimed games. They don’t make a big deal about their preconceptions regarding processed and unprocessed foods; the way food works in each game world simply makes sense; and, because it makes sense, it makes the game world feel more real. Incidentally, when my character starts eating cabbage and cheese wedges, I get craving for the same; however when my character needs radiation treatment because she ate another meal of “Cram,” I don’t feel so inclined to dig in.

Next time you pick up a box of Fruit RollUps at the Super-Duper Mart, ask yourself “If these could withstand nuclear fallout, are they really the best choice for my nutritional needs?” You might just reach for a fresh apple instead. Go ahead. The guards won’t bite.

By ekwetzel
2010-09-17

WEEK 11
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs (again, the farm has young hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)
Is this Arugula? Dandelion greens? Other unknown greens? ^_^ I forgot to ask.
2 Beets
2 Onions
Haricot (Green Beans and Yellow Beans)
Raspberries
Carrots
1 Head of Garlic
Summer Squash
2 Cucumbers: 1 is long and green, and the other looks like a pale little lemon!
2 Heads of Lettuce
(In the middle)
6 Pluots on the left (a cross between a plum & an apricot)
4 Tomatoes on the right

Week 10 – Recipes Schmecipes

By Erin Darling on September 10, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

This is not a blog series about how to cook the food you get from the farm. You will not find regular recipes listed that are appropriate for the “exotic” and “unusual” ingredients you get from your local farmer. There are several reasons for this:
(1) The food that is local for me may not be local for you. I live in the Pacific Northwest, but the Internet is world-wide. I want this blog to be applicable emotionally, across the barriers of space and time. (She says, as she gets out of her DeLorean.)
(2) I am not a gourmet chef. Other people with better zeal for ingredients and food combos can let you know interesting dishes in the style of the Food Network or other complex cooking resources.
(3) I don’t think you need fancy recipes to eat local food. For the most part any summer veggie can be diced, salted, tossed with oil, and it’s ready to eat. Winter veggies may need to be diced or chopped; then they can be pan-fried, roasted or grilled; and finally seasoned with salt or other spices (to taste) and they are ready to eat.

Your farm is not exotic. It is not unusual. It is right around the corner. The sooner we stop thinking of cooking vegetables as this enormous and daunting task, the sooner we’ll all eat a lot more vegetables.

A few basic principles with vegetable preparation are:
– Add salt. Veggies are often bland. They need salt.
– Add a fat. Cook in lard or butter. Coconut oil is also good. Toss raw veggies in olive oil. The nutrients from the veggies will better be absorbed into your system in you eat them with fats. (Author Nina Planck is a big resource for this wisdom.)
– Use the internet; there are a lot of good recipe ideas out there if you get stumped, and you can always alter them to make them simpler. For instance, I found a fancy recipe that included roasted beets and a homemade honey mustard dressing. Before I found it, I never knew how to eat all the beets we got from the farm (and, boy, do we get a LOT!). Now, I know if I roast them and include honey or honey-mustard, they taste delicious.
– Go by the tips of your taste buds! Trust your gut, be bold, and if you screw up a dish, don’t fret. The more you prep veggies, the better you’ll become, and the more you’ll trust yourself.

Sometimes it’s nice to combine vegetables that are in season together, and sometimes it’s nice to just eat certain veggies by themselves. For instance, I like to chop up my white kohlrabi, boil it, and do the same to a couple potatoes, and then mash them up together for a mashed potato-kohlrabi side. It has a hint of a mashed cauliflower taste, in my opinion.

To illustrate how easy it is to prepare in season foods, I will share with you a recipe for my favorite salad: Shopska salad. Below is my take on this traditional Bulgarian salad. You can omit or add ingredients depending on what you have available, or what your tastes are. The core of the salad in the cucumbers, tomatoes, salt, and oil (I always have at least these four, but the proportions fluctuate depending on what’s in my kitchen and what taste I’m feeling like having more of); a simpler version of this recipe would be to say, “Chop tomatoes and cucumbers. Add salt and olive oil. Enjoy!”

SHOPKSA SALAD

Prepare the following ingredients, and put them in a medium bowl:
– 1 cucumber, chopped
– 2 medium tomatoes, diced OR 1-2 cups of cherry tomatoes, split in half
– ½ sweet pepper, chopped (I prefer orange or red peppers)
– 1 or 2 whole scallions (the green + white parts), diced

Salt liberally.

Add 1 cap of red wine vinegar (about 1 teaspoon).

Liberally pour extra virgin olive oil over the salad (I never measure, but I probably pour between ¼ and ½ cup, depending on the amount of veggies).

Toss!

You can dish it up right away, but if you let it sit on the counter for at least 30 minutes, with a dishcloth covering it, the oils will make a nice “sauce” for dipping fresh, sliced bread into. When serving, I always add crumbled or shredded feta on top of each salad bowl, at least an ounce per person. I don’t buy it pre-crumbled, I do that myself (it tastes better). The salty and creamy cheese really helps to round off this light and delicious summery treat!

Enjoy!

By ekwetzel
2010-09-10

WEEK 10
We received 2 tomatoes in the share, but I forgot to include tem in the “group picture,” so they are featured separately, above.
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs (again, the farm has young hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)
Arugula
2 Onions
2 Beets
Summer Squash
4 Red Potatoes
Haricot (Green Beans and Purple Beans)
4 Ears of Corn
Head of Garlic
Cucumber
2 Heads of Lettuce
(In the middle, from the left)
Carrots
Broccoli
Apples

Week 9 – Real Health

By Erin Darling on September 3, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

Real food is good for the body and makes us healthy. That is one reason why I become more dedicated to real food the more I learn about it and experience it.

Mr. Wetzel and I eat farm veggies, fruit and eggs from our CSA, Terries Berries. We buy milk from another CSA, Meadowwood Farm. When we eat meat, we try to buy from a local, Washington farm, like Sea Breeze Farm, and if we don’t have the time or money to do that, we’ll at least get organic, grass-fed, or pastured meat. When we buy bread, we like to get it from Great Harvest or The Essential Baking Company, local bakeries that use whole grains and high quality ingredients. For other food stuffs, we avoid processed and industrial foods. For example, we make our grilled cheese sandwiches with mozzarella, not American cheese slices.

This is not how we always used to eat. When we met in 2006, we’d eat at a fast food joint on average once a day. Our favorites were Taco Del Mar or Subway. I used to survive on Hamburger Helper, boxed mixes for muffins and brownies, and frozen quick-to-stir-fry meals. And, boy, did I ever have the health problems to go along with that food lifestyle! I used to have severe acid reflux. I was also lactose intolerant. To this day, I am still dealing with being insulin resistant.

We used to pour so much money into different medications to treat the symptoms of our bad food choices, instead of diverting our funds to fix the problem at the source. I took both prescription and over-the-counter medicines to help with the acid reflux and lactose intolerance. They were expensive and they elped, but they only curbed the issues I had. At least every couple months, I used to wake up in the middle of the night with terrible burning in my esophagus, and then I’d have to puke up everything in my system before I’d feel any better. No doctor was ever able to diagnose this problem; it was simply something I lived with.

My health issues are one of the first things that lit a fire under me and spurred on my interest in better foods and real foods. I started drinking raw milk, and my lactose intolerance went away entirely. We stopped eating processed foods and industrial foods, and I no longer suffer from acid reflux. I can eat a meal and not be in pain an hour later. Is that a miracle? No. I believe that’s how we were created. We were meant for healthy foods and healthy food experiences, and when foods make us sick, it’s a sign that there is something wrong with the food. Sickness should not be a way of life.

I still feel like a real food rookie, but I do know one thing: if what we’re doing is working, I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on.

By ekwetzel
2010-09-03

WEEK 9
(Clockwise, from the eggs)
Eggs (again, the farm has young hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)
Cucumber
Bok Choi
Romaine lettuce
6 Ears of Corn!!!
Summer Squash
5 Peaches
6 Potatoes
Red Chard
Carrots

(In the middle, from the left)
4 Tomatoes
Yellow Green Beans
1 Head of Garlic
1 Onion

Week 8 – Secular Calling

By Erin Darling on August 27, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

I believe the world is rich with value. You don’t have to be a lay person to glorify God in your labor. A farmer can do so by growing good food; an artist, by creating beautiful works; a writer, by delving deep and being unwilling to settle for trite tropes when there are deeper and more meaningful matters at hand. Some are called to be teachers and preachers. Some are called to be artists and farmers. We are all called to glorify the Creator in our own ways.

What does it mean to glorify the Creator? This is a simplified vision of how I see it:

(1) The world was created by a good God to be a good creation. This “good” aspect of the creation is a reflection of the Creator. The creation is meant for goodness.
(2) There is hardship in life. These are the “not good” or “evil” forces at work. They tend to make amuck of things or simply make it more difficult to find or preserve the good things in life.
(3) aWhen we choose to overcome the hardships and fight to preserve the good things, we are choosing the side of Creation and Creator. If you work hard and the fruits of your labor are of great quality, this is a way to glorify God because it reveals that your vision for the world is one as a good world, a vision that is shared with the Creator God. Being constructive (as opposed to destructive or lame and neutral) in our labor can be an act of secular worship.

I choose good food because I want the best for my family and our health. This does not mean that I think I’m better than anyone who doesn’t choose local, organic foods. In truth, I believe we all deserve good food. My choice to eat locally grown, sustainably farmed foods is one way that I practice my expectation for good things for a good earth.

I choose to write these words because they are honest, earnest and come from the heart. Not writing them would to omit part of the mystery that I see in life. . Not writing them would lead to some trite, cute blog. There is no room for secret convictions in good writing. You need to be willing to lay your soul on the table.

And, in an effort to have better pictures once again on my blog, I will try to find my lost digital camera. It got packed last week as Mr. Wetzel and I moved into a new home, and I have missed having crisp photos on my blog ever since. Fuzzy photos are just not a reflection of the glory that I hope to reveal in my work!

By ekwetzel
2010-08-27

WEEK 8
(Clockwise, from bottom left)
Yellow potatoes
Onions
Carrots
2 Heads of Lettuce
Tokio Bekana
Garlic
Summer Squash
Yellow Chard
Beets
(In the middle)
4 Apples
2 Cucumbers
4 Tomatoes
Eggs (again, the farm has new hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)

Week 7 – Let’s Talk About Poop

By Erin Darling on August 20, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

When you select food to go in your mouth, you typically aren’t thinking about how that food will leave your body. When it comes to eating, the taste experience is only one facet if how the food makes you feel; the journey that food takes through your body has an impact that lasts much longer than the course of one meal. This “food journey” is just as important as the taste experience that you start from.

This week, in particular, Mr. Wetzel and I have been feeling the difference between eating fresh food and eating fast food. We’re moving into a new house and fixing the place up all week, and we haven’t had the time to cook fresh meals like we normally would. We’ve been eating a lot of ready-made meals: pizza, Subway, Quizinos, Starbucks. While a tasty and quick solution, these foods are not as kind to our stomachs or digestive systems as the fresh farm food that we are used to.

We love how farm food tastes. Because it is high quality and fresh food, no flavors or preservatives provide a manufactured taste. Nature has many different, unusual and subtle flavors available in its many plants. I remember when I used to think that chives, scallions, leeks, shallots and onions all had basically the same look and taste. Experience and some amusing cooking experiments have taught me otherwise.

We love how farm food fills us up. When food is processed, a lot of its fiber is lost. Fiber is one of the main things that triggers the “full response” in your belly. If you eat more plants, not only are you getting great nutrients from them, but you are also getting a lot of fiber that will help you feel fuller faster. As a result, you’ll not overeat as much.

We love the energy we get from farm food. I used to think that the “Thanksgiving coma” was a model for how you were supposed to feel after every meal. Finish everything on your plate. Stuff yourself to the nines. Unbutton your pants, and lay around groaning after each main meal. That is ridiculous. We are not meant to eat until we’re stuffed, but until we are fed. Michael Pollan suggests in his book, In Defense of Food, that we eat slowly (to give our stomachs a chance to tell our brains that we’re full), and that we stop eating when we’re about 80% full. That’s easy to do when the food we are eating is packed with the fuel that our bodies need. If we aren’t eating lots of excess garbage, we can eat less, feel fuller, and get better energy from the food on our plates.

We love farm food from our guts. I know that it’s gross to talk about all things poop related, but this is another major aspect of how different fast food make us feel, compared to farm food. The fabulous fiber in fresh vegetables keeps us regular. When we avoid things like preservatives, greasy foods, and artificial flavors, we get less constipated. Farm food is gentler on our systems, and works well with our entire digestive experience. From plate to poop, farm food is better for us.

By ekwetzel
2010-08-19

WEEK 7 (We’re moving into a new house this week, and the camera was packed in an unknown box, so we had to take the picture with our cell phone. I bemoan the low pixel quality.)
(Clockwise, from bottom left)
Lettuce
Beets
Radishes
Onions
Summer Squash (yellow & speckled green variety)
Arugula
Cucumbers
Scallions
Red Potatoes
Head of Garlic
(In the Center)
Cherry Tomatoes: Sungold, heirloom variety
4 Peaches
Carrots
Eggs (again, the farm has new hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)

Week 6 – Say grace. Eat well.

By Erin Darling on August 13, 2010 in Darling Homemaking

People who always have something to complain about annoy the crap out of me. The reason they are continually annoyed at life is not because they have a particularly annoying life, but because they are encountering their lives through a faulty paradigm. Sometimes I wish I could transfer telepathic understanding to them: “The root of the problem is not all of your problems, but you.”

I’m not talking about people who have bad days. Everyone has bad days. I’m talking about people who always have bad days. I think part of the faulty paradigm is an expectation for a “perfect” reality that no real person ever experiences on a consistent basis. This “perfect” reality is by nature intangible, unobtainable, unchangeable. In lay man’s terms, these are the “grass is always greener on the other side” folks.

If you expect reality to conform to an idea that it can never aspire to, you will always see life fall short and be depressed about the life that is dealt you. If you expect life to be what it is, however, you can come to appreciate it for what it truly is: an ever-changing, ever maturing, vibrant, vivacious and cosmic thing that we are blessed enough to be part of and privy to. Here are a few truths about life:

(1) Things are “born” in some fashion. “Planted” suffices for, well, the plants.
(2) Things mature and change, according to the seasons. These seasons could refer to Autumn and Spring, adolescence and middle age, or business and serenity.
(3) Things come and go. Nothing is ever present all the time.
(4) Things die. Sometimes things are simply not around anymore.
(5) Things come back. Plants, and people, have offspring. There is also hope for a new creation where we will be resurrected.

So, what does this have to do with food?

People who complain about their food annoy the crap out of me. Food is good! It is delicious! Is it perfect? No. Does it have to look perfect? No. Sometimes the food that is the best for you looks weird or is prepared in an odd fashion. If you are eating real food but still finding things to complain about, the problem is not the food, but your expectations of the food.

Food is dynamic and alive. It grows, matures and dies. It comes in and out of season. If you don’t understand these fundamental things about the nature of food, you don’t really understand how food is supposed to work. “Real Food” acts like food in all these ways. In order for food to go against this vibrant, dynamic nature, it has to be altered, and much is lost in the process.

Case in point: the twinkie. Where does it come from? Don’t want to know. There never is a “twinkie season.” It never matures, dies or goes stale, like real food would. It also lacks the taste, nutrition and earthiness of real food. What does the twinkie have going for it? Great advertising which promotes a feeling about twinkies that leads the eater to expect a sort of fulfillment beyond the natural purveyances of food. But I’m left wondering: where’s the cream filling?

Think about food commercials. They aren’t really selling food most of the time. They’re selling an experience, a brand or an identity.

Real food is silent. Real food is just food. But, somehow, there is something entirely more spiritual about real food. I think this is it: if you are able to see food for what it is supposed to be—raw, earthy, fragile, bold—then you can let it remain its tangible, silent self, and move on to understand things about your own nature and how you fit in with the world. If, however, you are chasing something through your food consumption that you can never obtain, you are stuck in a hamster wheel, and you will never learn or gain anything but frustration and discontent.

Here are some principles towards a better food paradigm:
(1) If it can’t go bad, it was never good in the first place.
(2) If it is claiming to do something for you other than feed you, get a reality check.
(3) Eat what’s in season. It will taste better.
(4) There is more variety in food tastes than “sweet,” “salty,” and “greasy.”
(5) If you don’t want to eat it slowly and savor it, you don’t want to eat it. Period.
(6) Expect the unexpected. And expect to change.
(7) There is always something to be thankful for. Say grace. Eat well.

WEEK 6
(Clockwise, from bottom left)
3 Beets
3 Onions
Season’s 1st Celery!
Garlic
Summer Squash
Radishes
Season’s 1st Peaches!
Broccoli
Season’s 1st Cucumber (It’s really hard to see in the shadow)
Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Napa Cabbage
(Also)
Carrots & Purple Potatoes in the bowl
Eggs (again, the farm has new hens, and they are laying smaller eggs this week, so we received 18 eggs instead of the normal dozen)

By ekwetzel
2010-08-13

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