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Warm Weather Memories from Steph	March 23, 2006
I woke up this morning, looked outside and found winter teasing me again. Two days ago I woke up to 30 degree weather (in March, at 5am in Northern Minnesota, it's something to get excited about!) I went to a mini Pow Wow where we danced for the beautiful weather, then went home jumped on my motorcycle and went for a ride. Today doesn't look all that promising for good weather and outside activities. So, what else do you do but eat? For breakfast I broke out some raspberries and cream. The delicious juice running down my throat brought back memories of the wonderful warm summer day full of the mouth watering aroma of ripening raspberries. It was the usual harvest of one in the bucket, two in the mouth. We laughed, told stories and painted our knees, hands and lips red. For lunch I decided a nice warm tomato soup sounded good. Making tomato soup from frozen tomatoes is easier than opening a can of store bought soup. The skin of the tomato falls off in one piece. You throw the meat of the tomato (compost the skins) in a pan with some onion, garlic, a few sprigs of parsley and one thin slice of habanera pepper. Let it simmer for approximately 15 minutes and then enjoy. I like to throw the soup in a blender for a smoother soup. If you like a creamier taste, just add milk. As I sipped the soup, memories of planting my tomatoes rushed back to me. My tomato planting ended up being a bit on the late side, it was the end of June. The transplants that I had were not the prettiest looking plants, their root systems growing every which way from the bottom of their pots, the leaves and stems looking a bit stressed and gangly looking from outgrowing their containers. To top it off, I slipped and broke one of the stems while I was putting the plant in the ground. Like any good mother, I put a band-aid on my tomato plant to make it all better. My family and friends laughed at me, telling me that I was wasting my time. "Those sorry looking plants will never grow, and who ever heard of putting a band-aid on a plant?" I would smile and say, "I see them differently. Just wait and see." In September we harvested about 40 lbs of fruit from each of the tomato plants. Five months later, I sit here feeling nourished and warm remembering the lessons that were offered to me that day. For dinner I used the left over chicken from yesterday to make a wild rice hot dish. I threw the chicken, the broth and some dehydrated wild plants into the crock pot before I left for work. It took me about five minutes to throw it all together. It is nice knowing that dinner will be waiting for me when I walk in the door. My plans are to play with my grandson until he puts me to sleep:) Today turned out to be a good day. Leave it to food!
posted by geldert
Six Months! By:Sunny	March 07, 2006
Well here I sit, over six months into our Local Food Challenge. What a delicious and fun ride it’s been! These past six months have brought my awareness about food into a whole different realm, a look at the whole enchilada so to speak. I grew up with back-to-the-land parents. We grew our own food, built our own house and attempted many other self-sustaining endeavors. But as life has it, you move away from your parents and begin to make your own decisions. Slipping into modern conveniences, even if it was tofu hotdogs and organic pizza, didn’t quite fill a void I was feeling around food. I finally feel at peace with the food I’m eating. It tastes good, makes my body feel good, I know who grew it or where I gathered it, who touched it, am helping to support local farmers, and have decreased my own environmental impact (less food packaging, no more driving to the grocery store, no contributing to agribiz, etc). God that feels good! It feels exceptionally good!! Am sitting here looking back to the first entry I was supposed to make for this blog, back in September. Jerusalem artichokes; a delicious, nutritious, perennial, traditional Native American farming favorite that I was harvesting at the time. I think these semi-cultivated plants offer me a great reminder of the beginning of this experience, but are also key to what I see for the future of food with a planet housing over 6 billion people. Wild and semi-cultivated plants in combination with cultivated plants seem to be a logical direction to me. The pesky dandelions that you just can’t get rid of. The pigweed and lambsquarters taking over your garden. These and other weeds sitting out your front and back door are some of the most nutritious foods on the planet. Each year people spend time and money battling these plants. Instead of fighting I say, …recycle your mowers, dispose of the round-up! I have an Aunt and Uncle who can’t even plant fruit trees in their own yard because the sub-division of their suburb has them regulated! They would probably be hauled directly to jail for letting their dandelions grow. Mother Earth certainly provides for us in abundance. We are obviously the ones who haven’t quite figured out how to abundantly provide for her or the shameful number of US citizens who go hungry every day, let alone those in poverty-stricken nations around the world. A global re-think of how food is thought of, nurtured, harvested and processed is definitely in order. The Local Food Challenge has not only brought my thoughts, but also the experiences of my body and spirit together through food. These experiences of harvesting wild foods, processing foods with my friends, and chatting with farmers about the weather are ingrained to the core of my being. I feel nourished. Eat your weeds, ~sunny
posted by geldert
Appearing Soon!	March 03, 2006
Blog postings from participants will be coming soon!
posted by geldert