Helpful Real Food Cooking Tips

In the past few months I have been reading more and more cookbooks and books about food in general. Some of these books have been duds (The Taste Thesaurus? Blah) but others have been gems. You might be wondering if I have become obsessed with food and you might be onto something. I do like food, A LOT, but cooking? Not so much. Being on the GAPS diet, also known as the "no processed anything diet" requires me to spend a lot of time cooking. You might think that having been on this diet for 16 months! now I would have acquired a love of cooking given the many hours each day I spend in the kitchen but you would be sadly wrong. If nothing else I probably dislike it more. In my quest to make cooking less painful I have stumbled upon a few very fabulous tips that help me spend less time in the kitchen and help me save money to boot.

The first tip comes from a cookbook that I haven't even read yet and probably won't unless the price goes down:

The author of Well Fed offers a thirty-page teaser preview on her website which was so awesome that I was almost willing to pay $30 for the cookbook; almost. What is magical about this cookbook besides its delicious recipes which include, amongst others, chocolate chili? Melissa Joulwan comes from a family of restauranteurs which means she knows how to cook food FAST. Once a week Joulwan does the majority of her food prep for the week, usually within a day of her shopping trip. In two hours she browns ground beef, cooks chicken breasts and sausages,  roasts sweet potatoes and spaghetti squash, steams broccoli and cabbage, chops up raw veggies for snacks, boils a dozen eggs and much more.

As I read this idea it astounded me. In years past I had subscribed to a menu mailer that advocated such weekly prep as this but it didn't really work for me because I didn't like all the recipes included in each weeks mailers. Joulwan, however, doesn't worry about such things as "recipes". She only makes 2-3 real recipes every week. The rest of the time she makes what she calls "hot plates." Basically, she takes what prepared items she has an assembles them into a meal. She decides what flavor she wants (Mexican, Indian, Asian etc.) and then what protein and throws it all together into a skillet and voila! Dinner. The example she gave for a Mexican dinner was to throw together in a skillet a pound of the precooked ground beef, steamed chopped peppers and cabbage and while that was warming up make some "South Western Cumin Lime Dressing" and she had dinner ready in less than ten minutes. This way you get lots of variety and you aren't stuck with the Chicken curry you had planned to make when what you really crave is Mexican.

I have done this a few times and it has worked famously. I wish I was better at doing it but as with every new skill learned, it takes time to change habits and fit something new into the routine. The chopping and steaming vegetables has been genius. I wash and cut up lettuce as soon as I get it so that I can make an easy salad, grate and steam cauliflower rice, and slice a head of cabbage for "noodles." It is so easy just to steam the already wet from washing sliced vegetables until just soft and put in a container in the fridge until I need it. I also like to make up the week's salad dressing so I have no excuse not to eat my greens.

As for working on those flavor combinations to mix together those hot plates? The Flavor Bible is essential! I cannot say enough about how great this book is. The way it is organized is so perfectly aligned with how my brains works. The only thing that I didn't like about this book is its omission of Sherry for cooking.

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace had such a lovely little gem of a not-quite-cookbook title that I bought it, not even waiting for it to come to the library. I don't exactly regret my purchase but I since I am not eating grains currently, her grain heavy and Italian influenced cooking tips really did not quite hit home with me. She also has a mysterious "thing" with beets which I cannot comprehend. It wasn't that this was a useless books, on the contrary, her tips for stretching your culinary budget are sound and tasty, but Adler definitely needed to endear herself to me with her unflinching praise of fat to keep me reading until the end. The most useful tip that I found in her book was to use EVERY part of the vegetable. The core and leaves of that head of cauliflower? Edible. Yup. Not every part of plant is edible (carrot tops?) but when you are paying for those throwaway bits it is nice to be able to put them to use. I now use the extra leaves and cores of cabbage and cauliflower to make blended French-style potage soups.

Another trick that Adler taught is to use the cooking liquid from cooking vegetables as a base for soups. Yes! Duh, I don't know why it took me this long to figure that one out. For a while now I have always saved the drippings from roasts to use for soups and they really amp up the flavor; using the veggie "drippings" is much same. 

My favorite kitchen tip I have actually been doing for years: boil the bones but what I didn't know is that you can boil the snot, erm nutrients, right out of them for a week before throwing them out. Perpetual Broth has become my new best friend and the very best way to stretch that expensive pastured chicken carcass. It is so nice in the winter to be able to have broth for soup available for meals throughout the week and even with a 1/4 tsp. sea salt, a cup of broth is both nourishing, soothing and delicious after a long day. I very highly recommend doing this.

Those are my tips for now. Any that you are willing to share with me?

When It's Time to Change...

Have you ever read something on the internet and thought "Wow. It would have been really nice to have known that a year ago?" Well the last few weeks have been that, over and over again for me. I am still on the GAPS diet, plugging away but I have been making some BIG changes. After 12 months on the GAPS diet I figured that I would be feeling pretty great and that I would be well on my way to recovery. The problem was, however, that I felt terrible. I felt worse. How was this even possible with all the work that I had been doing. So I kept plugging along at it, never understanding why my symptoms never got better and others appeared in their place.

The candida infection never left. It would get worse and then get better but it never totally went away, no matter how low carb I went. I felt tired all the time; depression would creep in at every little disturbance especially foster parenting stress would put me into a tailspin; my appetite disappeared both for food and sex; I got terrible PMS symptoms of incredibly tender breasts, acne and spotting a week before my period; my cycles were irregular;  and I started to put on a lot of weight even though I wasn't eating any more calories. What was going on?

I have been following the Cheeseslave blog for a few years and while I don't always agree with her, I think that I was absolutely meant to read the posts she has been writing recently about what being low carb did to her and it was like reading my own story. I had NO idea that being low carb for too long could be dangerous. Everything I had read, like on Mark's Daily Apple, said that if you stayed between 100-150 carb grams per day, you were golden for life! I was afraid of adding too many carbs for fear of my candida beast and the possible effect on my insulin resistance. It was just easier to restrict my carbs since I had been doing it for so long so I usually stayed somewhere between 50-100 net carbs a day.

Now it is like EVERYBODY, even Paleo/Primal bloggers are coming out with these studies about how being low carb for too long with stress your adrenals. Matt Stone was writing about this long ago but his style can be so abrasive that I generally ignored him. Now, however, I am paying more attention and what he has been saying has been backed up so many times that I think I can say that he knows what he is talking about. 

So now what is my game plan 15 months into the GAPS diet and feeling no better than when I started? Well, number one, I started eating more carbohydrates and more often. To repair adrenals it is best to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day, but it is really hard for me to do that on GAPS without spending my life in the kitchen. To boost my carbohydrate intake, in the last two weeks I have added some GAPS legal legumes (split peas and lentils) and I have also been eating more fruit and honey. While the extra carbs do aggravate the candida, it wasn't going away anyway and it doesn't seem to be getting worse so I will press on. I am supplementing with Adrenal Stress End which is a blend of adrenal cortex and some herbs that was recommended by another GAPS blogger in a similar situation. I do not like that it containes Betaine however since it gives me heartburn. I am also supplementing with Magnesium oil, Magnesium Citrate, B-Complex, Vitamin C and Zinc Piccolinate, all of which are supposed to support the adrenals. In addition I started to brew my own Rooibos Kombucha which helps with detoxification and should help with the candida.

Matt Stone recommends overfeeding and a lot of R&R to repair stressed adrenals, but unfortunately for me as a mom and especially as a foster parent I just don't have that luxury. I have been going to bed earlier; a bedtime between 9-10 pm is recommended as well as naps throughout the day (again, that really wouldn't work for me). Stress reduction is a HUGE but the only way I would see that happening is if our foster baby went home, which would make me sad.

So that is what I am doing and where I am at. So far I am feeling better and I am no longer constipated which is what always happens whenever I get stressed. I have been waking up less groggy and without arthritic-like pain in my joints. Those are good signs so far and I am hoping for even greater improvements in the next few weeks.

The End

Getting Ready to Make Pesto Before the First Frost

Happy New Year! December 31st was a sunny and warm day so to prepare for the new year I cleaned out my garden. I am still getting Swiss Chard and the carrots still look good but everything else is done. I think it is amazing that my garden was able to keep in production for so long. While we have had a relatively mild Fall/Winter the chard, peas, parsley, thyme, kohlrabi and green onions just kept going. It is hard to believe that I will start planting again in less than four months. Now is the time to start thinking about next years garden. I thought I would share with you a few insights from my gardening experience this year.

When you have a small amount of garden space as I do (120 sq. ft.), planting most Brassicas and winter squash doesn't make any sense because they are so large and take a long time to harvest. It is better to grow a mix of many of the same plants that have a very long productive period (strawberries and green beans), leafy greens with a long harvest (kale, collards, Swiss chard,), plants that grow quickly (radishes, green onions, zucchini), and plants that have high production (tomatoes, summer squash). It also doesn't make sense to plant things that you can buy cheaply. For example: I can buy onions at a local grocery store for .50/lb. If I tried to grow them in my garden I would be wasting valuable space which I would be better put to use growing a valuable crop like Shallots which I can't find for less than $3/lb. Cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes and broccoli are best bought from a local farmer when in season and stored up or frozen, usually in the Fall. Also, use your garden space to grow things that you cannot buy (French Breakfast radishes).

Since I took the time to weigh all of our produce here are our totals and I highlighted the clear winners and added my notes:

• Everbearing Strawberries: 19 lb. 7oz. (Amazing production from May-October)
• French Breakfast Radishes: 4 lb. 5 oz. (I need to grow more of these!)
• Lettuce: 1 lb. 5 oz.
• Bok choi: 9 oz. (This was delicious but start it indoors so it doesn't bolt before harvest)
• Swiss Chard: 23 lbs. 8 oz. (figure out more use for this but definitely my favorite green)
• Kohlrabi: 3 lb. 8oz. (Loved the flavor of these but they took a long time to grow)
• Snow Peas: 2 lb. 8 oz. (PLANT MORE PEAS!)
• Daikon Radish: 11 oz.
• Kale: 5 lb. 4 oz (Bleh. I only have 1 recipe that I like Kale in)
• Green Beans 3 lb. 13 oz.(PLANT MORE GREEN BEANS!)
• Beets: 11 oz.
• Carrots: 3 lb. 14 oz. (Not sure about growing any more since they are so cheap to buy organic)
• Cucumber: 13 lb. 12 oz. (This is from only 1 plant! I also want more pickling cuc's)
• Principe Borghese (drying) Tomato: 17 lb. 1 oz. (So delicious dried on salads and in meatloaf)
• Mortgage Lifter (slicing) Tomato: 1 lb 14 oz. (This was such a disappointment.)
• Sungold (cherry) Tomato:  1 lb 7oz. (Lame, this plant never took off)
• San Marzano & Amish Paste (plum) Tomato: 57 lbs. 6 oz. (From 3 plants)
• Brussels Sprouts: 4 lb. 10 oz. (take up too much space for such a small yield)
• Sweet Peppers: 16 lb. 8 oz. (planted 8 plants and didn't get many that ripened before frost)
• Celery: 2 lbs.(only need two plants, harvest before they get too tall)
• Spaghetti Squash: 16 lbs. 12 oz.(take up a lot of space, maybe Delicatta squash next year?)

From our 120 square feet of garden this year we were able to harvest over 200 lbs. of produce!!!

Aside from just feeding our family daily I was able to can, dry, ferment and freeze greens, tomatoes (diced, paste, and sauce), strawberries (jam and 2 gallons frozen), herbs, cucumbers (pickles), radishes (pickled) and also cure and put by a number of whole spaghetti squash. It is nice to not have to buy so many groceries now that our freezer is filled.

Retracing One Year

It is now just over one year since I went on my grain-free, soy-free, sugar-free, starch-free, preservative-free, processed-free etc. diet in a quest for healing. To recap my year, I started with a very strict diet/supplement regimen and did that for about seven months before switching to the GAPS diet and have been much happier since. When I found Bee's Candida Control diet it sounded like the perfect solution for me, and it may have been at the time, but then she started to change things, becoming more inflexible and wandering into the uncharted territory of what I have since learned is Scientology. The over-reliance on supplements (I was spending $170/month on supplements) and the seemingly random diet altering decisions made by Bee propelled me in the direction of the GAPS diet. GAPS is actually based on science and is a healing program involving certain steps vs. Bee's diet which consists of very strict food restriction based on someones (She never explained how she came to this) ratio of fats/protein/carbs. I did heal on Bee's diet but I also think I went through unnecessary suffering and deprivation as my body struggled with the toxin overload. While the GAPS diet does have supplements (mainly strong probiotics) it isn't necessary to take them if you can't afford it. Food probiotics such as fermented veggies, yogurt, kefir etc. can also give you the same benefits. At this time the only supplements I am taking are Magnesium Citrate, Zing Piccolinate and fermented cod liver oil and my cost is down to less than $35/month.

The GAPS diet has been less challenging in many ways but I have still had my setbacks. In March when I switched to GAPS I decided to add dairy and added it much too quickly which gave me an itchy eczema/detox rash around my eyes and it wasn't until I did the GAPS Introduction diet, removing all dairy, in early September that the bumps went away and I saw very serious improvements in my digestion. The GAPS diet is supposed to take around two years of healing but the second year is supposed to be the best as far as seeing results goes. I am hoping that by June I will have been able to have slowly added dairy again to the point that I can eat cheese. At this point I am only eating ghee with small amounts of butter every so often. Coconut yogurt (homemade) has become a food staple and as soon as I can get a culture I am going to add coconut kefir.

So, how about my symptoms? This last summer was very stressful for me with being a foster parent and I think I suffered some setbacks because of that. In June I think I even had a hysterical pregnancy but that was probably not related to the diet at all so much as the frustrations of having a newborn in my home being raised by a 14 year-old. One thing that has bugged me was that my cycles have been a bit off since June varying between 28 and my usual 33 days with the flow being much heavier. I have also been having really intense PMS symptoms, the most irritating of which is extremely tender breasts for a week or more each cycle. Ugh. BUT the yeastie-beastie's have mostly gone. I get a flare every so often but it goes away in a few days. It seems that my body is switching to detoxing through the skin which I have read is a good sign because the skin is the body's largest detox organ. Once I stop detoxing through my skin so much it should be a sign that my endocrine/lymphatic systems are up to par. 

One of the anecdotal natural healing signs is called "Retracing." This means that your body will "retrace" injuries/illnesses that you have had in an effort to heal itself. For example: If you had a major episode of illness years ago you will have the ilness again sometime during your healing, albeit less severely. I am not sure how much credence I can give to this theory but I was wondering about it this morning. Last week I was horribly sick for over a week with Bronchitis/Sinusitis, which is much longer than I am normally sick, and it really kicked my butt. I had a thought this morning that I could be retracing an episode seven years ago when I had my very first combined Bronchitis/Sinusitis which held me captive for two months and left me with damaged lungs and sinus' prone to infection. Now every time I get a cold I often get both and end up quite miserable. It would be nice if that was a healing episode because if it was it most likely won't happen again (so the theory goes) unless I let my health go. By the way, I treated the infection with raw apple cider vinegar; 2 tbsp. in 6 oz. of water as often as I could stand it. It worked quite well.

So that has been my year. It hasn't been very exciting or fun but I am glad that I am doing something to try to get my health where it needs to be so that I can conceive and carry another pregnancy. It is nice that I feel much better most of the time and as an added bonus, the food is seriously so good.

Farming in September

The Monster Carrot! 1 Pound!

September was wet and nasty. We had massive flooding in our area but luckily, being that we live on a hill, we were spared. Unfortunately the wet weather has made my strawberries go to rot inviting a fruit fly infestation. I would have much higher yields and BEAUTIFUL large berries if it weren't for these horrible beasts who eat the ripe berries from the inside out. I can't find anything on the interwebs about how to get rid of them.

Meat: 4; We have decided to be done with the bird business; we didn't have the time anymore to dedicate to caring for them. We sold the other 5 birds to friends of ours who are happily enjoying their new pets.
Eggs: 70; Equivalent to just over 1 dozen large chicken eggs.
Produce: Food prices courtesy of a food co-op in New York State.

• Cucumber: 2 lb. 1oz.@ 2.49/lb= $5.13
• Chard: 2 lb. 5 oz. @ 3.74/lb =$8.65
• Radish: 2 oz. @ 2.31/lb= .29
• Paste Tomato: 18 lb. 6 oz.@ 1.02/lb= $18.74
• Strawberries: 3 lb. 9 oz. @ 4.70/lb= $16.74
• Green Beans: 1 lb. @1.44/lb= $1.44
• Sweet Pepper: 1 lb. @2.28/lb= $2.28
• Sungold Tomato: 13 oz.@1.51/lb= $1.23
• Principe Borghese Tomato: 7 lb. 5 oz. @1.51/lb= $11.04
• Spaghetti Squash: 15 lb. 7 oz. @1.07/lb= $16.52
• Brussels Sprouts: 5 oz. @ 2.13/lb= .67
• Carrots: 2 lb.@1.61/lb= $3.22
• Kale: 13 oz.@3.74/lb= $3.04
• Kohlrabi: 8 oz. @1.00/lb (local farmers market price) = .50

Grand Total: $89.49

Farming in August

This is what happens when you ignore your green onions.

 August came and went in a blur of frenzied activity. In the garden the tomatoes started producing in abundance which meant evenings spent preserving that harvest. I fear the coming of winter like the apocalypse and with that same determined self-preservation I will not waste a single tomato. Today I ended up giving some away because, let's face it, 48 pints of diced tomatoes, two quarts dried, and 10 quarter pints of paste is enough. Well, maybe not enough paste. Speaking of paste...

Oh! Squeezo! How I love thee! Best Thrift Store Find EVER!

 Praise the Squeezo food mill! This puppy made making paste uber easy. I used it tonight to get the skins off of steamed sugar pumpkins. In a few weeks it will make canning 48 quarts of apple sauce a relative cinch. Yes, it is a God-send, but a pain to clean the screens.

An August Day's haul: Chard, Kale, Tomatoes, Green Beans, Strawberries, & Zinnia.

I have also been busy blanching greens, freezing berries, making jam and fruit leather and just plain tearing-up the kitchen, homesteading style. Now for the talleys:

Meat: 2; Let this be a lesson to you all: Sometimes a female is actually a male. A poor, picked on, male. We did him a favor. Another female was the favorite and in quail circles that really isn't a good thing.
Eggs: 147 or the equivalent of 2.5 dozen large chicken eggs. I have actually been baking with these as an added deterrent to not eat sweets.
Produce: Once again, I am getting my prices from an organic food co-op in New York state.

• Strawberries: 1 lb. 4 oz@ 4.86/lb= $6.08
• Brussels sprouts: 6 oz
• Paste-type tomatoes: 23 lbs. 3 oz @ 1.02/lb=  $23.65
• Principe Borghese Tomato: 6 lb. 7 oz.@1.51/lb= $9.72
• Mortgage lifter tomato: 1 lb. 9oz. @ 2.50/lb= $3.91
• Cucumber: 4 lbs. 11oz. @1.50/lb= $7.03
• Sweet Pepper: 1 lb. 12 oz. @ 2.02/lb= $3.53
• Bunching onion: 1 lb. @ 1.93/bunch(1/4lb)= $7.72
• Kohlrabi: 3 oz. @2.86/lb= .54
• Green Beans: 2 lb @ 1.80/lb= $3.60
• Chard: 3 lbs @ 1.67/bunch(1/2 lb)= $10.02
• Kale: 2 lb. 10 oz@ 1.77/bunch (1/2lb)= $9.29
• Celery: 7 oz@ 1.27/head= $1.27

Estimated value of August produce harvest: $90.27!!!

Holy Cow! 9 Months!

Just a little update because I have some fabulous news and you probably won't even believe me. The GAPS diet is steadily moving forward. I am ever so slowly healing and learning the rhythms of how my body heals. Bodies are weird. When I started GAPS I developed a new symptom: tiny little painful pustules around my eyes accompanied by eczema. I had never had either of these before so I felt like my diet was a lost cause. Thanks to the Interwebs I discovered that for some reason or another (detox?) the pustules commonly appear with the addition of dairy to the diet after a long hiatus. Aha! Eventually they just go away but in the meantime I am treating them with a healthy dose of topical coconut oil.

And now for the fabulousness: I healed a cavity! You heard me right! In December I had a cavity that my dentist wanted to fill right away because it was pretty bad. It was way back on one of my last molars in between the teeth where food has a tendency to get caught. Well, aside from the fact that I didn't like the guy in the first place, I strongly believed that my dietary changes would allow my teeth to heal themselves and refused the filling despite dire warnings against my choice and guess what? The cavity is gone! Hurray!

I am starting to feel like this diet is going to be something I stick with for the long haul. The more time I spend eating this way, the easier it gets. All the food prep can be daunting and having a teenage foster daughter who refused to eat anything not heavily processed made things even harder but now that she is gone my time in the kitchen feels easy peasy.  I still can't eat most fruits without a bad reaction, but berries don't seem to bother me at all. I also recently added dairy kefir and raw honey and I am okay with them in small doses.

Healing is wonderful! Today I learned that my mom was just diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and my first thought was "I will not follow suit." With all the healing that I have felt so far on this diet, I really believe that I won't. Right now I am feeling so grateful that I have had all these health problems at such a young age when change doesn't seem insurmountable and infertility is a HUGE motivator. I never thought I would say that I am grateful for my various maladies but with this diet and the healing I am experiencing the future seems so much brighter! 

Is It Supposed to Feel Like This? Month 6

I feel really great! Well, most days are good and that is a serious improvement! This last month has been tricky trying to adjust to being on GAPS/SCD instead of Bee's diet. I went a bit crazy at first jumping into all the things that I hadn't been allowed before like yogurt, cheese, berries, honey and nuts. Too much, too fast. Now I have slowed down and am working on phase 3/4 of the GAPS Introduction Diet. I keep getting stalled on the dairy and nut flours but I have found that I can tolerate soured raw cream very well and the introduction pancakes. The key is going slowly, adding a little bit more every 2-3 days and paying attention to what my body is telling me.  Healing the gut takes a lot of time and energy on the part of the body and I have to keep reminding myself of that when I get impatient to add another food that I miss.

Adding fermented veggies to every meal makes a HUGE difference and I love them.. I am loving daikon pickles and kimchi especially. As far as fruit goes I am only eating cooked berries at this point because they are easier to digest and don't seem to give me any negative reactions. The only thing I will never add to my version of the GAPS diet is the juicing (because of the candida) and the probiotic BIO-KULT (because it is expensive).

I continue to do weekly enemas which are very helpful along with dry skin brushing. What it comes down to is that I feel really great. I am getting so much done! Every day I am so grateful and full of awe when I think "Oh! So this is how everyone else can do so much!" I feel like every minute of my day is filled to the brim and I am happy. I am no longer looking for excuses not to do things because I feel so tired and achy. Every day is different, and I still get bad days, but they are getting fewer and farther between. Food heals!

Microfarming etc.

This last week has been a busy one for us. Spring (is it really spring?) this week meant tomato and pepper seedlings being coddled, a composter to build, MORE seeds to plant, birds to be ahem "processed", eggs to be collected, cages to be cleaned...Oh, did I forget to mention that we got birds? Introducing our Japanese Coturnix!

The birds are taking a bit getting used to but they are sweet and so fun to watch! I am loving this new way of living but I have no idea under what Eco-friendly term it fits under: Suburban sustainability? Micro farming? Urban Homesteading? In any case, our family is loving being able to produce more of our own food. This year is still a learning and growing year so I am not sure about how much we will produce but we have big dreams! Just this last week we put in more everbearing strawberry plants and we have blueberry, currant and American hazelnut bushes on their way. The front bed is just sprouting some radishes, spinach, bok choi, and swiss chard and I am hoping and praying for peas to come up any day now in the back. And we can't forget our friends the worms and bacteria: the worms are working hard turning our kitchen scraps into fertilizer and the bacteria are turning our veggies into probiotic food powerhouses. Life, living, is just so good!

Inspiration!

"When we would talk about our future in private, I would ask Mark if he really thought we had a chance. Of course we had a chance, he'd say, and anyway, it didn't matter if this venture failed. In his view, we were already a success, because we were doing something hard and it was something that mattered to us. You don't measure things like that with words like success or failure, he said. Satisfaction comes from trying hard things and then going on to the next hard thing, regardless of the outcome. What mattered was whether or not you were moving in a direction you thought was right. This sounded extremely fishy to me."

-Kristin Kimball in The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love

I love reading memoirs and recently have been delving into the agricultural. In addition to The Dirty Life I have been absolutely inspired by Novella Carpenter's Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. While the journeys of these two women couldn't be more different given the comparative size of their farms, they both show that it is possible to raise food for your family (or 100 families!) despite your comparative lack of experience; you don't need to be born a farmer to become a farmer. All you need to do is research, plan and DO. If you start small, you will be amazed at how much food you can grow for your family.

Here is a video of Novella's farm in Oakland, California. Check it out!

Controversial Monday: Nutritional Dogma

Dear Readers,

Today I felt affronted. Today I felt attacked. It was all because of Facebook. I feel that people should be respectful of every one's beliefs despite how damaging (or what I perceive as damaging) they might be. That doesn't mean that I don't feel like I can't throw information out there when I feel like it so long as I am respectful. Unfortunately not everyone feels that way. It makes me not want to be an active part of the Internet because at this moment while I write this post that maybe two people will read, I could be reading a book instead, or knitting or forcing my husband to listen to my nutritional dogma of the importance of fat and cooking ones vegetables! But noooooo, I am too keyed up.

Here is another beef: Moderation. I am so SICK of that word. What is moderation? Is it what a government body decides is moderate? How about a scientist? Blogger? Television show? I guess it all depends on whose definition you trust. Moderation in my estimation as pertains to nutrition has to do with NOT eating things we know to be bad for us except in VERY rare circumstances. By rare I mean a few times a year, not every day or even once a month. But then again, what foods are really bad for us?

So, I am irritated. I am annoyed not because people disagree with me but because they chose to do so by putting me into a box of tyranny that makes any statement that comes out of my mouth tantamount to the dithering of an idiot with a large stick. All I want is to enjoy REAL food and for others to do the same. A propos: I have decided that I will no longer comment on anyone's facebook posting if it has anything to do with food because I am a Real Food Tyrant who believes everyone should be forced to eat saturated fat (gasp!), properly prepared grains (the horror!), and pasture raised meats (No!). Yes, you can just call me by my acronym RFT (pronounced Rufft) and if you eat sugar or uncooked cruciferous vegetables this dithering idiot will beat you with the aforementioned stick on thine head.