i've been up since five-thirty a.m ; canning since six. i've also tried something new and i've been oven drying the smaller tomatoes and freezing them. it's real easy and all you have to do is cut small tomatoes in half, place them skin side down and in a single layer on baking sheets and heat them in a 200 degree oven for hours. depending on how big they are a few hours to a full day. then i freeze them and put them in freezer bags in the freezer. i love them with goat cheese, olive oil and good black olives, on pizza and in pasta. lots of ways.
sometimes when i post about domestic stuff like this i feel like i give an incorrect impression or at least contribute to the crazy blog alternate reality where everyone has a purist idyllic life. not so. my dear blog readers, how i would love to have a drink with you sometime so we could talk real life.
but it is true that i've been working up to a "food life" that revolves around local and in season since i was a teenager. it started when i collected the "laurel's kitchen" cookbooks in my early 20s. i've been shopping off and on in food cooperatives and whole food stores all my adult life. i was a part time manager in one in my late 20s. i started the local farmers' market in my home town several years ago.
this year i feel a shift happening. my dedication to this cause has become quite solidly a part of who i am. i'm stocking my chest freezer with beef and lamb from a farmer friend, i'm preserving what i can veggie-wise in cans and in the freezer, i'm thinking about how i can minimize my grocery store shopping as much as possible.
but my life is as complicated as anyone's. i will modify this plan if i need to. i will not be a purist if it's not what is best, on balance, with the rest of my life.
anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. just what is on my mind this morning.
and now i need to get into the studio which is in a state of chaos and do some organizing so i can get a load of orders packaged and to the post office.
x
liane
5 comments:
Hats off to you for being committed to changing some of your food habits.
Oh and I do picture you canning tomatoes in the soft light of the New Hampshire dawn, wearing a muted colored linen apron, humming some old folksy tunes while wrens and sparrows flutter around and occasionally perch on your shoulder. So don't you go breaking the blog myth by saying you have a mundane life!
Bless you in sticking to your values. Ever since working on my aunt and uncle's farm in West Virginia and simultaneously devouring (pun intended) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I've been trying to implement real food ethic into my life. I am a perfectionist at heart and have been since I was little, so it's hard not to get down on myself when I can't buy produce exclusively from the farmer's market, or exclusively local (some of the grocers... I'm tellin' ya.) I'm a second year college student with a limited time and financial budget. I'm learning to do as much as I can without stressing, because this whole idea spawns from wanting to treat myself right (as well as the environment and everyone involved in what goes on my plate).
I love reading your entries. I love living vicariously through you and your fresh eggs and lovely stories. Don't stop!
With lots of blogger love,
Zoe
I know what you mean about the "idyllic" facade...so many blogs make living a beautiful life seem unattainable. I guess it just depends on what we find beautiful? Perfection? Or reality? I'm more on the side of reality...and the meesiness that can come with living a good life.
We can strive, no?
Oh, thank you. I cannot tell you how it makes me feel when I glimpse others lives through their blog-lens. I am forever wondering how they manage not only to do it all, but for it to look stunning to boot. I too have reached a point where my 20 years of food & lifestyle choices are truly beginning to gel, and finally I have my chest freezer stocked full with berries, salmon, wild mushrooms, homemade pesto, etc... and I am still canning each week to put up those tasty jewel jars to pull off the shelf later and savor summer all over again. I like your honesty though, because life is still life. We all have our beautiful moments, but that is not all there is. Thanks for your maturity and willingness to burst the blog bubble. We will always be who we are -- not just the pretty pictures we choose to share with the world.
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