Farm Fresh

Source: Pinterest

While eating my breakfast this morning, I started thinking about the eggs I was eating. Not brought home from a store, but eggs bought at a farm close to where one of my colleagues lives. Eggs from chickens who live the old style country way - they simply taste that much better!!

From age 7 to 18, I lived in the country side and we had a huge garden with every type of berries and vegetables that can grow in our climate, the land was a former apple plantation - where the apple trees were still producing loads of various types of apples - adding to that trees with nuts, plums, cherries, pears etc. I never get tired of apples and vegetables are so much better homegrown or farm fresh compared to the produce grown in masses to go to supermarkets. We had everything canned, made into fruit syrup, frozen down or put into storage. I miss that place since my parents are no longer living there as they moved to a smaller house when my dad retired from work.

Eggs were purchased at the next door neighbor, and meat (from cows, pigs or chickens) was purchased once a year making our kitchen look like a semi-slaughter house while my mum and dad prepared the right cuts etc of the meat and then freezing it down. Not only did we save a lot of money, but got food with a much fresher/richer taste. Need I say, that we actually traded apples for the yearly Christmas tree with one of the next door neighbors?

One of my colleagues passes farms along her route to work and after-work activities and are keeping me and some other colleagues informed about current produce available - so this week I have fresh apples, corn an eggs. If I had a car, I think I would take a scenic drive during the weekends and make sure to locate farms that sell produce at the road or at their barn. I like to support local produce.

You might wonder: Why doesn't she just go to a farmers market? Well there is not any close to where I live - if there was I would go to them as often as I could.

In the meantime I will fetch an apple and enjoy the richness of flavour.

There Is Pumpkin In My Risotto

Sometimes a little push is needed when you want to break out of your comfort zone - I have wanted to cook with pumpkins for a long time but Sandra Juto's blogpost persuaded me to take that jump. The risotto is actually the 4th dish I have made now using pumpkins and the recipe comes from here. Risotto have always been one of my favourite dishes and I am happy that I used longer time than usual on a meal, as this is by far the best risotto that I have ever tasted.

 

The dish deserves a place next to my candle pumpkin Jack (made of clay) as a reminder of what happened when I bought an orange pumpkin at a local supermarket. A little boy came up to me and asked "Are you also going to make a Pumpkin Man?" with me replying "No I am going to eat it". Two seconds later the boy ran screaming to his mum "She's gonna eat the Pumpkin Man!!" with disbelief all over his face and tears running down the cheeks.

The mum got busy telling the boy, that one is actually playing with food when carving a pumpkin Man - See what I told him, was in his world just as bad finding out that Santa Clause does not exist (wait he does not??!! LOL ;o) ) as we have in the past been primary a potato nation and Halloween is something imported from the US.

 

Whenever I make that dish in the future, I think that the incident with the little boy will jump into my head and make me smile.

 

Organic

Just love this packaging of organic eggs - seems so creative, alternative and reminds me of childhoold drawings and advertising - homemade style. Also reminds me when we could go to the farm "next door" and buy fresh eggs by the stable door - often cheaper than the stores and natural (before we started using the word organic) - no additives and only natural food.

Now the natural thing is the most expensive, outprices by the cheap and often with additives (monitored though) or socalled fresh vegetables and fruit, that is actually not ripe when being shipped off, but ripens during the transport from other countries.

Money talks, so it has become more about the profit than producing the real stuff: organic food. Growing organic food requires more land, man hours etc.

I grew up with a huge vegetable garden and a lot fruit trees, so we were more or less self sufficient through the year depending on the fruits/vegetables/berries of the season, jarred items and the big freezer, and was in for quite an eye opener when moving away from home: those vegetables and fruit that I could afford did not have much taste/flavour compared to the homegrown stuff.

 

The UK has no tax on healthy food, which can encourage more to buy organic..... China has experienced quite an explosive tendency, as more and more Chinese now want to buy organic food. Is this tendency spurred by some of the food scandals that they have had? But what about the poor - they can not afford the more expensive organic stuff.... Buying organic in some countries are still regarded as alternative way of living.

 

So for me less has now become more - I may not be able to buy as much when using organic food, but the taste does all the difference and one can enjoy the food more, so I do not mind. Then again I am also the type of person that tries to recycle as much as possible to save ressources.

Reuse. Is that a better word than recycle...?

Nahhh... more people should live more by those words....

I made up a list on how I can contribute:

1. Preferably buy things in glass bottles rather than the plastic one - we have a special container for recycling glas.
2. Always bring a tote (either cutton or from recycled materials) when shopping groceries and other items - thus refusing the free plastic bag that usually come with the purchase = saving a lot of unessesary plastic bags
3. Replace old fashioned lightbulps with the new energy efficient ones - the old fashing lightbulps are going to be banned anyway
4. Recycle paper, cardboard, electrical equipment etc....
5. Turn of electrical appliances instead of using the standby function
6. Give clothes - that I have stopped using - to the charity second hand shops - provided of course that they are not torn etc.
7. When buying beverages in plastic bottles - make sure that they are part of the deposit system.

Maybe it is small steps - but we dont have unlimited ressources - and recycling also makes the need for bigger and bigger wastedumps smaller..

Everytime I fly on my own account, I always make sure that I pay to carbon offset my flights - the flights paid by my job, well it is their obligation to think of the environment. Actually the company do a lot of stuff for the environment .....

So did I do anything today from my list? Yep - my cooking today involved organic milk+butter+oliveoil+flour+apples - have engergy efficient lightbulps everywhere in my appartment, the electricity in my area comes from large windmills, I use my bicycle when I go to/from work.... and I could actually continue... normally I dont think about the environmently friendly things in my daily life, because now they are just integrated as normal parts of my day......

When I was a child, my parents did not have a lot of money - but I was not missing anything - and the huge vegetable garden provided for 80% of the vegetable that we consumed every year, and was taught how to use things and take care of them so they could last longer...

Back in 1990 my parents went to a conference about the environment - they allowed me to go with them, and that was my first encounter to the challenges we face today regarding the environment - I am not active in any movement but is just contributing with small steps in my everyday life..........