locavorism

Perhaps you have heard about the term locavorism, buying your groceries from within a 50 miles radius of where you live and in season in order to cut down on your carbon footprint (another one of those "green" terms).   Buying produce locally is a challenge when you live where the growing season stops for several months (more on that in Barbara Kingsolver's delectable book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). What I have been able to buy locally year round for years now are honey, eggs, milk and meat.  So many people in our area are keeping chickens that I am able to buy my eggs from a friend down the road and a nearby farm.

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Same for honey (when we are not keeping bees, which is a whole other story).  I get it in 5lb jars from a local beekeeper, who processes it minimally.  With all the well publicized bee problems his bees have remained healthy without much interference and "bee management."  We use a lot of honey as a substitute for sugar - in the hot chocolate I make for the kids in the morning, in cooking and baking, also drizzled over yogurt, pancakes, fruit salad or ice cream. 

Our raw milk comes from one of the two approved farms in our county.  Several families have gotten together and we take turns picking the milk up each week for the group.

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Finally, the meat - I buy almost all our meat in bulk from two local farmers and keep it in our large chest freezer in the basement. 

Bulk purchases require different storage strategies than weekly small scale supermarket shopping - you need pantry and freezer space.  It also requires a cash outlay.  In addition, I had to learn to plan ahead.  My chicken farmer for example asks me in the spring how many chickens I want to pick up in June to last me through the summer, and they ask me in June how many I would like in September to last me through the spring.  With regard to the milk I drop my empty jars off each week for the following week's order, so I have to plan a week ahead for the family's milk needs (it doesn't always work out if I decide to make ice cream or panna cotta or something else that requires lots of milk).

Something to consider.  Also look at a previous post on bulk produce shopping.

spice up your life

Spices have healing powers besides making food so much more interesting.  During the Middle Ages, when spices first made it to Europe from the spice islands, they were rare, exotic, cherished and very expensive.  Thus they were surrounded by an aura of far-away-lands and saved for special occasions. It's been said that people who like hot and spicy foods have a zest for life, and that people who prefer bland foods prefer a more unexciting life.  The Indian cuisine has perfected the use of spices and developed world famous spice mixtures such as curry and garam masala.  The North African spice mixture harissa is another example of a widely known spice mixture.  Usually each cook blends her own so that no two curry or harissa mixtures are alike.

Spices such as cinnamon, cloves, cumin, especially in combination with garlic and onions, also all chili powders, are known to kill bacteria and are commonly eaten in warm climates to safeguard against the possibility of potentially slightly spoiled foods.  In Indian cuisine the spices are sautéed in oil or ghee to develop their flavors before vegetables or meats are added.

I buy spices in bulk, 1lb bags of organic spices from the food coop, and keep surplus in the freezer or share it with other coop members.  Why not spice up your life?

heart stuff

"All spirituality is is the path of the heart," says Marianne Williamson. On this Valentine's Day, day of love and day of hearts, let's remember that no amount of material things (diamonds, chocolates, flowers) can replace true expressions of love.

What might those be?  Expressions of love come from an open heart.  A few examples are speaking kind words you really mean ("You always look so pretty,"  "I couldn't have done a better job."), empathetic gestures (a slight touch on the arm, a sweet kiss, a long warm look), encouragement ("I knew you could do this"), true compassion (being a good Samaritan), wanting to be of service ("May I show you how to do this?" or "Is there any way I can help?").

Opening your heart opens your mind and opens your life.  So let's try to be a little spiritual today.

creating meaning

We live in a lopsidely material-scientific culture, in which much of the qualitative, spiritual-philosophical, unseen aspect of life gets shoved under the rug, at least most of the time.

So much of our life seems to revolve around rushing from one place to another, buying stuff and more stuff (more than we need), keeping up with the Joneses on techno gadgets and what not,  stuffing our children's schedules with all sorts of activities in hopes of some advantage or other over all the other children running in the same direction of seemingly limited college spots, job spots, life spots, and spending a lot of time idling around on screened devices by ourselves, alone.

Stop!  We try to stuff the gaping spiritual hole in our lives too often with money.  But meaning does not come from stuff and money.  The reason that no amount of money can ever be enough is that we use it to fulfill needs that money cannot actually buy.   We try to buy excitement, pampering and love, recognition, validation, and - yes - meaning.

Yet, meaning is something we create from nothing.  Meaning is the qualitative aspect of life.  We can find it in and with the people we surround ourselves with and in the activities we chose to do with them (volunteer work, meals and get togethers, church, our work, sports), we can find it in the activities we do on our own (our work, our hobbies, even our chores).  Often we find it more when we give than when we receive.  So teaching, volunteering, inviting, helping, putting yourself out there, giving - those are meaningful and deeply satisfying activities, and they are free!

spiritual cats

Would you believe that I communicated with our three cats (two alive, one dead) telepathically through an intermediary?  Some people, and a few family members are among them, will say that this is a bunch of hogwash.  But I live my life on the spiritual side (with a good dose of critical-analytical thinking!) and I am always looking for deeper ways to understand and connect with the world.  So I am open to something like this and don't dismiss it simply because it goes beyond the present scientific-material paradigm. Among other questions we had been curious about the premature (in our view) death of our beloved first cat Snowball and the jumpiness of our third cat Peter Pepper.  I had recently read that it is possibly to communicate with animals telepathically (see my earlier blog post on this).  So when a friend told me about someone right in town (though distance is irrelevant) who has this ability (take a look at her website) I jumped at the opportunity.

I was amazed how much these animals understand (be careful how you treat them and what you say in front of them!) and at the depth of their spirituality.    Snowball responded to our question about his early death at age five that a life ought not to be judged by how short or long it was but by what was accomplished, and that it was an immense privilege for him to have opened the whole family's awareness to the animal kingdom, and that his five years with us were very meaningful for him.

Peter Pepper, another little sage, communicated that he was aware of his eye condition, which I had asked about, that he resonates with the sound of Tibetan prayer bowls (boy where did that come from?) and that that would help him heal his condition.  This was quite coincidental as I had become aware of a Tibetan prayer bowl iPhone meditation app just a week or so earlier. Hmmm...

Make of it what you wish, but the answers of our three cats had enormous meaning for us.

healthy cooking 101

You may have read food critic Michael Pollan's famous food slogans to  "eat food, not too much, mostly plants," and to eat only "what your great-grandmother would have recognized as food."  This excludes of course all the processed bad-for-you convenience foods, and basically recommends making your own out of a few good base ingredients.   Some people really don't like to cook, the way I don't really like to garden.   They don't connect with the creative act of manipulating raw ingredients and making magic out of it, although they may be creative elsewhere in life.

So for all of you who don't like to cook, here are some really simple tricks to make something delicious out of nothing much in mere minutes.    Some of the simplest and most wholesome homemade foods are of the dippy kind - the stuff you can scoop up with chips, raw or semi-cooked vegetables (crudités in French), a piece of toasted bread or pita or toasted tortilla.  They don't even require cooking.

• Hummus and bean dips - put cooked chickpeas or beans into your food processor  with some tahini (sesame seed paste), lemon juice, garlic and salt, a bit of olive oil if you like, and some water for thinning.  Voilà - hummus, the Middle Eastern specialty.  You could omit the tahini and add rosemary or oven roasted garlic to cooked beans or lentils, you could add sun dried tomatoes or roasted peppers to the hummus, or anything else that strikes your creative fancy (perhaps herbs, cumin, or chili to add heat).

• Guacamole is mushed up ripe avocado with some lemon juice, salt and a bit of chopped tomato, nothing more. 

• Pesto is simply a whole lot of basil leaves processed in the food processor over a base of a bit of cheese (parmesan or pecorino), a few nuts (the traditional pine nuts are expensive; walnuts work fine, I often use sunflower seeds), a bit of garlic and salt, and then enough olive oil to bind it all together.  That's it.  Delicious on pasta, a sandwich, pizza, a slice of toasted bread, a raw sliced tomato, keep on dreaming.....

• Liptauer is an easy spread I remember from my German childhood.  It is simply Greek yogurt (now that it's so easily available) or fresh farmer cheese with some paprika (smoked is yummy), caraway seeds and salt folded in.  So easy.  Great as a spread on some crisp bread (quick and healthy snack), a dip for raw vegetables or chips, or just as is by the spoonful (for breakfast or snack).

way too much waste

 

Have you ever thought about what happens with your waste once the garbage truck pulls away from your curb?  Out of sight, out of mind? The garbage statistics in this country are staggering even if we only consider residential garbage (a mere 2% of the total garbage output, which includes industrial, commercial and construction garbage).  San Francisco has striven for many years to become a zero waste city, trying to either recycle or compost most waste.

I do want to make you feel guilty in order to make you more aware.  After all, toxic landfill juice leaks into our groundwater (which we drink), and toxic landfill breath evaporates into our air (which we breathe in).

What can you do to help?  Many things.  First, recycle, recycle, recycle.  Get the biggest residential recycling can from your recycling company, and the smallest available garbage can from your garbage company (and save a few dollars a year).  Recycle all your paper products, from cereal boxes to newspapers to gift wrap.  If you get your eggs from a farm return your egg cartons to them for reuse.  If you do some home printing print on both sides of the paper.  Recycle all your plastics (the recycling company does not take bags in our area, but the local supermarkets collect them for recycling) and glass containers (I actually save a lot of my wide mouth glass jars to store home made hummus or bulk items I get from the coop).

Bring your own canvas shopping bags when you go shopping.  Start a composting bin if you have a garden and compost all produce waste (see an earlier post), coffee filters and tea leaves/bags, egg shells, stale bread (although I'd rather make bread pudding or a breakfast strata with it).  If you eat a lot of produce like we do, that should cut your kitchen garbage output by about half!

You might also consider buying clothes at second hand shops (I am always amazed what great things in superb condition I find at a fraction of the cost of new clothing), and give your used clothing (that is still in good condition) to a local shelter or bring it to the many clothing donation bins that abound.  And do buy compostable garbage bags since standard plastics can take up to 1000 years (!!!) to decompose.

Most of all, buy less stuff (stuff does not make you happy, inner peace does) and produce less garbage.  Please reread an earlier related post,

it's your choice

Whether you look at your teacup half full or half empty, whether you react to the grumpy cashier at the check-out line with compassion (she is having a bad day, who knows what happened at home), or send her angry signal right back to her with an irritated reaction - the choice is always your's.    Your reactions come from  your beliefs.  Every thought in your mind is a cause to an effect down the road. I mentioned in a recent related post that researchers found that depressed people are depressed because they have negative thoughts; they do not have negative thoughts because they are depressed.  That difference is crucial!   Why?  Because you can change your thoughts - once you are aware of them.

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Once we accept the responsibility of our thoughts, and that they create our reality, we are no longer at their mercy.  Telling your mind what to think or not to think is one of the things that meditation teaches.  If you do not rein your mind in it gallops away with whatever comes along - and that can create a reality that is out of your control and not to your liking.  Or you can dig deeper into yourself and become aware of what you are actually thinking.

Think about it.

it's happening

In a way I'm an unscientific trend tracker and I think it's happening.  The NY Times declared on its front page today that "Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change."   Why is this headline a good thing?  Climate change is real, climate change is happening faster than we anticipated, climate change will have huge impacts worldwide on all fronts and for each of us personally (and moreso for our children), and the faster we jointly act on reversing the causes the less painful the effects will be in the long run (although all that carbon we are spewing into the atmosphere will stay around for at least 1000 years even if we reverse its continuous increase now).

Waking up and acting is what's required NOW.  And while we as individuals can make a big difference by opting for renewable electric energy sources, switching to LED lamps, putting solar panels on our houses, insulating our houses the most most most we possibly can, opting for double and triple pane windows, buying local and working local, just to name a few actions that have impact if practiced by lots of people (the effect is cumulative) - the real difference is when this thinking finally  bleeds into the commercial-industrial sector.  And that's what's happening - finally.  Read the article.  It is encouraging, even though the commercial-industrial sector is coming at it from the perspective of the bottom line as opposed to the eco perspective.  It's a start.

Also take a look at earlier related posts  "divorce is not an option" and  "The Great Transformation."

on happiness

"Happiness comes from your perspective," says Marianne Williamson.    A recent study showed, to the astonishment of the researchers, that depressed people were depressed because they had negative thoughts, not that they had negative thoughts because they were depressed.  This goes to show that you can train yourself to think more positive thoughts in order to change your outlook on life. But your government's priorities sure help.  One country that has made happiness its national business is Bhutan.   Bhutan has created the GNH Index and studies how happy its people are and what can be made to improve the situation of those who are not.  Bhutan's search for happiness is not a recent endeavor since its 1729 legal code already stated "if the Government cannot create happiness for its [people, there is no purpose for the Government to exist."   What a country!

And Denmark was crowned the world's happiest country in the 2013 World Happiness Report (not sure why Bhutan does not appear in the report), figuring at the top with the other Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and Canada.  Social support, gender equality, a culture of generosity, freedom to make life choices, good life expectancy, lack of corruption at the leadership level and a large GDP all contribute to making for a happy country.

Priorities, priorities!