It's been a long time since I updated this blog and I am sorry. Not for you, whoever you are, since I don't know if anyone is even reading this. But I am sorry for myself, because this blog is about a subject I feel rather passionately about, and I want to think these thoughts and have these ideas and this is my place for that.
But the thoughts are, nonetheless, still here in my head, so let me share a bit.
Since my last update I have read Michael Pollan's Food Rules, Lou Bendrick's Eat Where you Live, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Alisa Smith and JB Makinnon's Plenty, and Nick Rosen's Off the Grid (among other reads, of course. These are just the one's most relevant to this blog.) We grew, ahrvested, and eventually (accidentally) killed several cucumber and cherry tomato plants. But the worm bin has been thriving and the compost mixer is, well, composting (though we haven't harvested the compost since we're using more as a waste management system than as a tool for the final product so we're still regularly adding more "garbage" to it).
I still haven't perfected all my advanced planning and occasionally find myself making unexpected trips to the supermarket and stuck either using plastic or buying new reusable bags each time (thus our huge collected of cloth bags at home). But I went to the store yesterday and remembered to bring the cotton mesh produce bags for the first time.
We're still cloth diapering, of course, though we need to expand our stash since we find ourselves running through all the diapers within three days then stuck with disposables for one day while the diapers are getting washed and dried (we sun-dry which saves energy but takes longer than a dryer. But the best part is that, as a result of all the sun bleaching, there is not a single stain on any of our diapers. Nearly two years of two babies in cloth with no stains, not bad I think!)
But all of the above has pretty much become second nature to us now. our biggest challenge is to keep up with our interest in buying only blue and white, ie, local. We are defining local not bu how long it takes to drive (not that we have a car anyways) nor by mile radius (since that would include a fair bit of Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea), rather by the borders of Israel.
So what is grown here? The answer is, a lot. The problem is, a lot of it is grown for export. And some staples just aren't grown here at all. We're not going to be as strict as they are about it in Plenty, but I'd like to at least do the research and see what is available. Rumor has it there are places in the country where they grow wheat and produce flour locally. The best part is due to our overall mild climate there are very often fresh produce year-round. Even tomatoes! Yes, you can buy the supermarket version, picked green and gassed to ripen after long storage. But we get ours farm fresh.
Our other big consideration now is to face the ethical dilemma. Dairy, poultry and fish (the only "meat" my husband eats, but both my kids and I are vegetarians, though not vegans), end eggs. We must research how they are raised, which/what we choose to buy, where we will get it from, etc. It's not a step I look forward to but, like when I gave up fish (the only thing I missed as a vegetarian, but knew I had to give up eating if I really did choose vegetarianism for moral purposes), I know it's necessary.
There's more I want to say about vegetarianism, especially after reading Kingsolver's book, but that will have to wait till my next update. For now I am going to pout my computer aside, open my book and finish my (delicious sweet potato, black lentil and goat cheese) salad that I bought as a treat to celebrate the first time in months that I am taking an hour to sit by myself at a cafe and eat a leisurely lunch.
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