Omnivore’s Dilemma, Day 3

Take kids to sitters, drink a smoothie (Georgia peaches, grapes, flax seed, ice) while working, take a shower, work work work, listening to new Depeche Mode Remixes: 81-11, drink lunch smoothie (bag of spinach, local tomatoes, celery, carrot, apple, agave nectar, ice), work work work, making cookies and Epic Failing, work work, Pick Up Babies!!!!,  play and have fun, work on dinner, flirt with Kevin, dinner dinner dinner, make fun of Kevin for still working, convince Kevin to start cleaning and stop working, cook, watch babies, cook, watch babies, Friends Arrive!!! Dinner Party!!! Grown Up Conversation!!!! Laugh at the antics of children!!! Drink wine and converse!!! Friends leave, work as a team to put babies to bed while cleaning up, house in order and babies asleep, sit and finish wine and talk, Kevin to bed, write this blog….

Tonight was "local Indian" night, if you can believe it. Made naan from scratch, and it was pretty darn good. Made brown rice, and hope to tomorrow make the leftovers into rice milk – reviews to follow. Also made a vegetable daal with GA potatoes, FL squash, Vidalia Onions,  local carrots, FL peppers, spices and broth and lentils. Totally yummy. Kalie and Jeremy brought wine from San Sebastian winery in St Augustine, which was very good and is now gone, and some Mash #1 – not as delicious, but an awesome experience when mixed with Florida watermelon juice. 

Several years ago, Kevin and I tried San Sebastian wine, and absolutely hated it. Then we went to the rooftop patio one date night, and it was super slammed, had crappy live music, and we sat for 15 minutes and no server came to our table, so we left without any wine. Then we bought some just this week for our local challenge, and it was really good! And the wine that Kalie brought tonight was also great! What the what!? Did our tastes change or is the wine suddenly different? (obviously, our taste changed…) 

Our local experiment continues to be fun, and to be challenging. We went shopping at Whole Foods last night for tonights ingredients, and it was incredibly difficult to find anything that was grown outside of California or Mexico. Sure, the random banana from Honduras made it’s appearance, but that is not quite what I was looking for.  Don’t things grow in Florida? I know it’s mostly sand around the coasts, but the entire middle part of the state is farmland. Goodness knows I’ve handled enough claims there to know that there is N.O.T.H.I.N.G. but farms in large swatches across the state.  Where does all of this produce go? And is it produce at all, or just large fields of corn/soy/peanuts? 

Omnivore’s Challenge, Day 2

Today was a fairly normal day. Kevin and I worked all morning and afternoon, barely taking time to eat. We had a fruit smoothie for breakfast, and another egg sandwich for lunch. Coffee all morning, until lunch time. Kevin has gotten to where he can drink his coffee “black as night and sweet as sin,” but I still need some cream in mine. 

Dinner, on the other hand, came together quite nicely. And I even took photos for you guys! A simple black bean soup, with local tomatoes, green peppers,  and Vidalia onions. The beans we bought dried from Whole Foods and prepared on Sunday, and the rest of the ingredients we had in the house from before the challenge shopping. The little kids did not like the soup, and so we broke open a package of uncured, nitrate/nitrite free range chicken hotdogs – even hippies love hot dogs, and these I can eat! 

While making dinner, I had a familiar dilemma within myself – should I include this ingredient? It’s not strictly local, but it IS healthy… should I include this one? It’s local but not the option that’s the most sustainable… and on and on and on. These are the questions that burnt Kevin and I out before, that made us too tired to pay close attention to our shopping and our cooking. Sometimes it is a cycle health vs. environment vs. pocketbook vs. organic vs. too delicious to pass up when you are in the grocery store or market. 

In the end, I figured that the fresh produce we had from this weekend, and the fresh cheese and open wine HAD to be used. Otherwise, it’s pure waste. So I poured a glass of non-local wine (TOO DELICIOUS TO PASS UP) and, after giving myself permission, threw a can of fire-roasted tomatoes in the soup. Seriously, if you had tasted it, you would have allowed me to add those too. 

Below the break are the pictures for the soup – everything was eyeballed and the only measurements were based on the bowls that the ingredients were put in. So if you would like to replicate the recipe, get yourself some square cereal bowls from Target on clearance, and make the magic happen.

Omnivores Challenge, Day 1

I recommended The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan to a friend recently, but didn’t imagine that a simple book rec would somehow result in me participating in a food challenge for two weeks. As a former-vegan, former-vegetarian, former-OrganicsOnlyPsychoMom, I have experience with food restrictions and rules. However, most of them have been health based, and the ideology followed. In this instance, the ideology is primary, and has been brought to the forefront of my attention by my friend Kalie, who has refreshed my memory with the reasons why we “used” to do all kinds of things (food-wise).

Her take on things is here:
http://kaliesawesomeblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/omnivores-challenge.html
This is more eloquent than I have time to be right now – part of the challenge is to post every day, and in my normal fashion I have waited until 11:30 to begin writing.

Kalie hosted our first communal dinner tonight. Community, Kevin and I have found in the past, is absolutely vital to any lasting human endeavor. We enjoyed fresh-caught tilapia, local green beans, rice, and strawberry pie. All of it was awesome, fresh and vital, and we enjoyed the conscious hedonism, if you will, of a group of people coming together and breaking bread, enjoying the simple pleasures of food and knowing that we were all eating that particular food in that time and place for a reason.

The rest of my day was less focused. Busy with work, busy with kids, busy busy busy and necessary life got in the way of planned life. So it is most days, but all we can do is try harder, make habits, shop smart and plan.

Todays introduction to this challenge was really fun. It was great all day to be anticipating dinner, to look forward to the food instead of dreading 5pm when the kids start getting whiny and I’m forced to look up and ponder what to make for them? For me? The kids were excited to see friends, go to a new house, and even though they didn’t eat much food at their age being in an environment is just as important as partaking in the event – those toddlers are experience-sponges and will remember dinner for a long time.

Wednesday night is my night to host, and I already have plans brewing. In the meantime, tomorrow is another “normal” day: work from home, babies at mom’s house for a few hours, smoothies and sandwiches and salads and dinner crunch. However, in every way possible, we will follow the rules and spirit of the challenge, and push ourselves farther. Hopefully, by the end of the challenge, we will have developed a conscious again regarding our food, and remember that what we eat does matter, our buying power does mean something, and that if we are the only ones to keep this up after the two week challenge is over? Then that is also great, and will suffice.