Wanderings in the grocery store isles

My grandmother has been ill. She found out in early fall that she had breast cancer. Her journey has been difficult with tests, chemo, and even an infection that brought her to the steps of death's door. However, her strength is amazing and she has taken everything in stride. Her optimism tempered with realism has been quite inspirational. I hope for a speedy recovery, but am comforted by the fact that she will hold her head high no matter the challenges she faces. I digress.

I make it no secret that I attempt in all forms and fashions to avoid conventional grocery stores.

I get my food delivered to me, grow it, or shop at farmer's markets. I do occasionally stop in a store to get a bottle of wine but even then I try to find an independently owned store, and have attempted to teach my palate to appreciate Missouri wines.

However, with grandmother being ill and grandpa still needing to eat, I have had to venture into the dark side of life - conventional grocery stores.

The fact that my grandfather is known for growing all natural beef in a way that most people say it couldn't/ shouldn't be done (more on that in another post), yet eats grocery store beef, my grandmother is one of the most fabulous from scratch bakers yet buys packaged sweets, she can pickle a mean pickle and does... yet gives them away and buys hers from the store, she makes fantastic jam, yet buys more from the store, has bees and fresh honey, yet once again buys honey from the store... well, the irony is not lost on me. I don't attempt to understand it all, and I just go with the flow. Yes, I am a die hard foodie and activist against anything grown, sold and manufactured without a conscience. However, just because I have my own opinions and views of the food world doesn't mean others, including my own family, aren't entitled to theirs. Once again, I digress.

To the point: While wandering around the grocery store looking for things on gma and gpa's list, I have to say I was quite taken aback. First of all, why is honey in the condiments isle? I spent 15 minutes browsing around in the sugar section at a loss. Secondly, while searching for bread I was trying really hard to find a loaf without high fructose corn syrup- it was impossible!!! When I asked to speak to the butcher, I was told they didn't have one. What???? Furthermore, when I told the woman why I wanted to see the butcher (so I could ask who the meat supplier was) she looked at me as though I had fallen and hit my head- was this such a funny question?

Oh, and an entire isle devoted to soft drinks and fruit drinks? Curiosity got the best of me and I started reading labels. I would be surprised if the entire isle contained even 8 0z of actual fruit juice.

How did all of this happen? When did corn and soy dressed up with fancy labels become food? In the summer when I only eat local foods, I commonly get the comment of "I would love to only eat local, but there just isn't enough variety." Huh? I think the summer abundance of produce to be of much more variety versus what I have found in the grocery store.

Cheers and Happy Eats!
Lucinda

Bits and Pieces

From Naturally Local: Life of a Foodie, Farmer, Free-Spirit and Activist

I had a post circulating in my head for two months about World Food Day (October 16th), but two weeks of visitors and a teething 7-month old baby has left my brain better for snippets. Do you ever have days, or perhaps entire weeks like that? You can read about some of the current (tip of the iceberg) issues on Food First's website.

Regarding Pigs
A call from Lucinda one evening, softly telling me on the phone that my pigs were on their way sparked my imagination. I saw darkness, heard the hushed whispers, the soft snorting and treading of pigs...of course, they weren't all my pigs, but as a meat-eater, I felt responsible for honoring all of them. I choose Barbara Kingsolver's term "harvest" when referring to the collection of animals for food. Someone told me that it was disrespectful to compare the sacrifice of animal creatures to eating salad. I disagree, as I have the same level of reverence for any vegetation I consume. That comes from gardening (sometimes fruitlessly!) and the knowledge that we share 40% of our DNA with lettuce, amongst other vegetables. 40%--how can you take a salad lightly after knowing that?

CFAF virus
The other day, I felt really tired. I wanted to eat strawberries. In November. In Missouri...right. And fresh peaches. And blueberries. I am quite sure that I caught the CFAF virus: craving far-away food virus. That is Far as in Distance and Far as in Spring-won't-be-here-for-several-months Far. "Blast this local food organic thing!" I shook my fist at the sky--or rather, my cracked ceiling--blast blast blast! And then I remember how fattening imported and non-organic food is--really, it has more calories! The energy to develop pesticides and fertilizers, create GMOs, ship produce from far off places like California, Ecuador, Hawaii and even South Africa--those strawberries probably have at least 5,000 calories each, if not more. Can you assign a caloric value to the infringement of human rights? I'm thinking the use of illegal immigrants and all its trappings. Methyl Bromide. Fruit bred to look more beautiful than it tastes (this is a reoccurring theme in food, as well as popular culture, no?) I see the face of a worker made ill because of chemicals use in this particular agriculture. I see the chemicals wash into the watershed, past homes with children playing in yards. Into the streams, rivers, aquifers and oceans. Ah, no thank you. I'll just wait. My impatience is gone. I'm cured!

In Season

Brussels sprouts were instant love for me. Or so I thought. I am a massive greens eater. If there are massive amounts of greens around, well...you get the picture. Have you ever had a chat with someone and found something somewhat familiar and thought you knew everything thing about it, come to find you were totally off? It's very human, and how we make connections, and why we have the ability (if we choose) to say, "Oh, I was soooo wrong about THAT! Excuse me! I thought I knew." Well, that is what I did to Mr. B. Sprouts.

I thought I knew Brussels Sprouts. What's not to recognize? They look like tiny cabbages--how hard can they be to cook? Not hard at all, provided that you don't treat them like a cabbage. That thing with apples and vinegar--not so good with brussels sprouts. Asian stir-fry? Possible, but not optimal. Now, a simple treatment where they are sliced in half and drizzled with oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper...roasted for 25-35 minutes or until as tender as you like (I tend towards less rather than more time).

If you enjoy greens, these are better than french fries. Really!

"If they don't want to get on the bus, they don't have too."

If I were forced to shop at a conventional grocery store, I would be a vegan.

In case you are currently tearing into a fecal matter laced, cancer laden, and inhumane piece of mystery meat from Walmart right now- I will spare you the gory details, but when you finish you can check out the following link for more information on why http://www.mercyforanimals.org/factory_farming.asp

If, after you have read the above link, you are wanting to know how I can be a self described, animal rights activist carnivore, here goes. (Beware- the sad realities of how we get our meat even in a humane way can still leave you a little shaken).

My mother raises hogs, they are raised on pasture and fed corn or milo depending on her crop rotation (she plants her own row crops to feed them). They are left on their mother until they are ready to be moved to the “fat hog” pen. They are never given any types of hormones, so they grow at varying rates. Thus, when it comes time for slaughter you have to sort out the ones of the right size. This is done by opening and closing certain gates to create a path to the hog cart, and then standing in strategic places so that the hogs see the opening you want them to go through. There is no stress for gatherer or hog in this method. In fact, my mother has the saying that “If they don’t want to get on the bus, they don’t have too.” If the hog of the right size doesn’t want to go- it doesn’t. At first, this didn’t make since to me. Wouldn’t she end up with a pen full of really really big hogs that never wanted to go? The answer is no, somehow it works out and the ones that didn’t go this time go the next time.

The next step is that the hog cart, hooked onto the tractor, is driven 1 mile to the local locker. Since the animals haven’t been stressed for a difficult loading or a long journey, they are free of stress hormones that some vegetarians will swear makes people a little edgy after eating a big hunk of meat.

The locker is owned by a local family, Elvin is responsible for the killing and cutting up of the animals, and Barb does the scheduling. They are always busy and normally you have to get on the schedule a few months in advance. They are always open for inspection, will answer any question you have, and will even show you the meat locker if you want. This is a definite change from the cloud of secrecy large processing plants hide behind!

One would wonder, why, if they are always busy and do such a great job, they wouldn’t expand. The answer is quite simple (I asked them the same question), because they only process a few animals a day they don’t ever become numb to the fact that they are actually killing another creature. Since they aren’t numb, they are able to kill the animal swiftly & efficiently - they don’t them to suffer anymore than the rest of us do. Also, because they only kill a few per day they are not under the stress that a traditional meat packing worker is under to keep the assembly line moving quickly. Therefore, they are able to make sure each animal is “tended to” properly before moving to the next one.

All in all, the eating of meat is a personal choice, but if one is to eat meat, it should be the norm that it has been raised by people who take the care of their animals seriously, and processed in a way that honors that animal’s sacrifice.

Here's to real Autumn weather and real food!

I remember feeling cheated by fall as a kid. School was in full session, the city pools closed for the season, and paper pumpkins and autumn leaves adorned the open windows and doors of my classroom--doors and windows open because it was 93 degrees outside. It wasn't enough that the discord between the visual cues of decorative hay bales and swimming weather felt deceptive to my 8-year-old little brain, but that clothing stores also seemed to follow that same crazy logic. Gray wool trousers and button-down-shirts deemed as "in season clothing" didn't cut it in ice cream and watermelon weather, no matter what reality manufacturing and sales tried to apply.

In college, I had the same disappointing realization about food. Food, as I knew it at the time, was not what it seemed. To make a very long story short, an affair with A Tomato is what tipped me off. And who here hasn't experienced the disappointment of a supermarket tomato? Even worse, who here has but didn't know at the time to be disappointed? Always available, beautiful in the market with its shiny, taut skin and bright red color--what's not to love? Oh, the flavor. Does bland and grainy count as a flavor? But the store was selling the tomato. The signs said "delicious, vine-ripened tomatoes!" Nothing indicated that the tomato was bred to withstand shipping, rather than bred to taste delicious. Oh, but wait, it was suppose to be delicious. Delicious can be a relative term, but I think you have to draw the line at some point. Point being when the tomato doesn't taste like a tomato. And then there's the tomato's long drive across the country (California tomatoes in Missouri, in August!!). What was I paying for, really, and did any of it make sense?

That reality of not even knowing what we deserve from our food with regards to quality, source and safety is most disturbing to me. Our odds as informed and deserving consumers have improved over the past few years because of the recent surge of interest in the environment, obesity and food safety, but there is still that discrepancy between what authorities say our food is (safe? organic?) and our expectations (how safe is they're definition of safe? what does it mean to be labeled organic?) . This is why Lucinda, and farmers/food suppliers like Lucinda, are so important. They are the people who are there loading hogs at 3am for processing and can explain why happy pigs are so important just before they are harvested. They are the experts on the phone, constantly trying to find us a good deal with organic produce, and who can tell us "Hey, that peach, it's not so organic and here's why." Sometimes, they are the people who give us the answers to questions we never knew to ask. For them, transparency in growing practices is the rule, not the exception.

So, here I am. And who am I, you might ask? No one in particular, really. I was a customer of Clark's Organic Market for over a year before Lucinda "Went Farm." Like you, I'm here because I support Lucinda and her purpose, as well as enjoy the food she once distributed, and now grows. I thought it would be interesting to bring a consumer perspective, and admittedly, have my vicarious yearnings for my own farm (currently not a practical endeavor) addressed through real news and real experiences from the Clark Farm.

Here's to Autumn weather and real food! No fake tomatoes allowed!
Jennifer Basuel

No rest for the weary in Farm Town.

When I gave up my “busy” lifestyle in the outskirts of Kansas City to live in a town of 600 hundred and be a full time farmer, I had visions of long expanses of time that I would be able to read, play and relax. In fact, I was slightly concerned about boredom. (All farmers giggle now)

To give a taste of farm life, I am going to give you a rundown of the last 24 hours of my life.
A week ago I started to get a slight cold brought on by ragweed, not enough rest, and probably a host of other variables. By yesterday when I finally went to the doctor it had become full blown pneumonia, requiring a steroid shot and antibiotics (I declined the antibiotics out of stupidity or the very real fear that I may someday become immune to them if I take them to often – I am not sure which).
At any rate, this morning I was up at the crack of dawn to milk my cow. After I milked her, I brought the milk back to the house, strained it, and put it in the refrigerator. I left a note for the hubby on what to feed Fiona for breakfast and was off to pick corn. One might wonder why my husband was sleeping in, while I was up and at it with pneumonia, but for those of you that know him you will understand that milking a cow is not his forte. Furthermore, Fiona was starting to feel under the weather and does much better with co-sleeping than she does in her own bed, so I wanted to make sure she got plenty of rest.

I didn’t buy my own land until later in the summer so I planted 5 acres of sweet corn at my sister’s house 5 miles up the road from us. Since I had an order of over 300 ears of corn to fill for FreshConnectKC, I had to get to picking. What I was not prepared for was the amount of dew I was going to encounter, and therefore became soaked to the bone by the end of my little corn adventure.
I borrowed some dry clothes from my sister and headed to grandma’s house to pick pears, once again for FreshConnect, 100lbs of pears and a few lbs of tomatoes later I was ready for the next part of my morning.

I headed to my mother’s house to shuck my corn. I did this for a few reasons-
1. The hogs love the husks so there was no sense in chancing that a family without a compost pile would end up with them.
2. I am proud of the corn I raised, and wanted to make sure that I checked every ear of corn for quality.
3. We didn’t use any chemicals on the corn so a few worms had their fun with the tops of them. I don’t mind it, because I prefer to share a bit rather than poison the poor creatures. However, I understand that most people don’t want a creepy crawly on the top of their ear. So, better me to clean them up than send them to an unforgiving customer.

After the corn was shucked, cleaned, and packed it was time to get Scott (my dear husband) on his way to Kansas City to deliver the produce and head to work.
I headed back to the house, had a quick bite to eat, did a bit of paperwork and put Fiona down for a nap. After she got up we headed to mom’s farm to check the daily family report, have supper and then off to our own farm to check on our cows.

Thankfully, we have an adopted bottle calf so I only milk once a day giving the calf fee access the rest of the time.
Although we do use rain barrels, we don’t yet have a pond so we are currently hauling water from my brother’s house to the cows. The process is quite an art form as the water barrels are heavy, and you have to tip them over into the water trough. Since it is my brother’s 21st birthday I decided to take the nightshift solo. I tipped one over, and was ready to start on the second one, when it fell out of the truck. I got out to try and lift it (not sure why I thought I would be strong enough to do this), and the new mama cow (just had her baby today) decided to let me know she wasn’t that into me tonight.
Unable to pick the barrel up and not wanting to test my running ability on bad lungs against a new mama cow, I opted to head back to Cole’s and fill up an additional barrel of water to bring back. I did, and when I got back, it was dark, and I am deathly afraid of the dark. So, I climbed from the cab of the truck into the bed, and tipped the barrel over. Finally, the chores were done!

I headed back home, got Fiona into the bath, myself into the shower, and am finally ready to get some long overdue rest!
What I am finally starting to realize is that being a farmer is like being a parent. It doesn’t matter how tired/sick you are, you can’t call in!