strawberry supposings

Today was a beautiful day. Finally, a respite from the humidity came, and I awoke refreshed, not sticky like last week. After eating a ridiculously large breakfast at a local restaurant, I picked strawberries (that weren't sprayed) from a local field. I baked shortcake for dinner using locally grown and ground pastry flour, and made a salad with local lettuce, spinach, cucumber, and cilantro. It was an excellent day, and I basically radiated happiness and pleasure at dinner. I marveled over the beauty of a head of reddish romaine lettuce and the crunchiness of local cucumber. I delighted in fresh strawberries that had traveled a mere three blocks (by bike, no less). And I will admit, I took pride in my actions. To me, local eating is very important. Phil posted this earlier: Everything you know about water conservation is wrong, and it explains just one of the myriad of reasons eating local is important. Beyond the fact that eating local conserves tons of water [doesn't travel far and doesn't use fuel to transport vessels of water (aka fruit and vegetables)], local produce is fresher, tastier, and supports your local economy.

On Sunday, a female member of the congregation gave the sermon on household economics, and made mention of the "more-with-less contest" in which we often find ourselves. Living green means making certain choices, such as local eating, and it can easily turn into a contest, or yet another way of "keeping up with the Joneses." Instead of buying a new car to one-up your neighbor, you recycle more than they do, and transport it to the bins by bike. You shop solely at the co-op while your next door neighbor shops at Meijer. Living green means assigning moral value to certain lifestyle practices, she stated, so how do we avoid comparison to others? This comparing leads to self-righteousness (which I noticed in myself as I gazed into my salad bowl and mentally gave myself a gold star) or feeling like you're not doing enough. Neither is helpful. I often talk to people about my own choices: to eat less meat, to carry reusable bags, to eat local when possible, and often hear that they feel overwhelmed and stuck. By comparing yourself to others, it's easy to cripple yourself and do nothing. So I encourage you: do something small today. Refill your water bottle. Buy a local cucumber. Carry a reusable bag.

As for myself, I will work on my self-righteousness. I will work harder to not feel holier-than-thou while eating my local salad. I will turn towards gratitude for the sun and rain, soil, and people that made this local food possible. I will turn towards gratitude for my neighbors, for those who try and do small things and avoid getting stuck and for those who are stuck. And today, I will eat fresh strawberries and moan with pleasure. As my fellow Assembly-ite stated, I will say, "I have enough, I am enough, Thank You."

This is your moment of Zen

"Save the planet, it's the only one with beer!"
-slogan from the shirt of a male patron at the co-op

Possibly the most anti-green movement but still promotes living eco-friendly shirt I've ever seen. Here's to you, random Maple City Market shopper...

Well, darn.

So I was just about to sit down to write this blog post boasting my culinary prowess when the fire alarm went off. Why, do you ask? Because just before I left the kitchen, I put the wet cast iron skillet on the burner (turned on high, of course) to dry. Normally I am doing other kitchen tasks and then take it off and turn off the burner when it's dry. But today I wandered away, leaving the burner on and causing something underneath the burner to smoke and eventually, flame. Sigh.

Eh, I'll write the blog post anyway. James and I have decided to call it the joy of un-cooking. At the farmer's market today, I fell in love with baby white Japanese turnips with green tops still attached, 10 for $2. We brought them home, sliced them up a bit, and doused them with my very own creation: a combination of about a tablespoon of olive oil, several drizzles of balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon or so of spicy brown mustard, and hefty sprinkles of thyme and pepper, with a tiny bit of salt. We coated them and roasted them at 400 degrees until they were slightly wrinkly and tender when poked with a fork.

My other creation of the evening? Take the remainder of a can of pinto beans from the fridge. Add canned diced tomatoes with green chiles (also found in the fridge) until you are pleased with the concentration of each ingredient. Add a few sloshes of lime juice, and mix coriander and cumin in your hand until it looks like the proper amount and add. Stir, and heat in the microwave. Grate sharp chedder cheese on top. Lament the lack of tortillas in your life. Boyfriend remembers large container of leftover spaghetti. You think it's weird, but he assures you it is not. Serve bean mixture over heated spaghetti with extra grated cheese and little crumbles of tortilla chips from the bottom of the bag. A little cilantro would've been ideal, but the week's grocery shopping still hadn't been done.

After creating this masterpiece from a small conglomeration of random things, I wonder why my high school cafeteria couldn't do a more impressive job on clean out the freezer day.

Gray day thoughts

I have become a dull and uninteresting blogger. I don't know when this happened...I used to think about blogging in my head, deciding on opening sentences for my posts, ending them with funny quotes that people I loved had said in the past few days, wondering how people would react to my more serious topics. But suddenly I'm just not doing it. And it shows. The amount of blogging I've done this year is significantly less than before--and I am certainly less busy than I was when I was in college. What's going on? Does life become an uninteresting blur of sameness after college? Am I just noticing and observing less? Am I stuck in a rut? I'm not sure. (Well, ok, I am here to tell you that life is not an uninteresting blur of sameness--that's just Northern Indiana.)

It's not that things aren't happening to me. Today I woke naturally without an alarm intruding on my dreams. I biked downtown when it was sunny this morning to run errands. A book I've been wanting to read for awhile (Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo) was innocently waiting on the new books shelf for me at the library. Organic strawberries, bulk walnuts, and free expired hummus awaited me at the co-op. I returned home and whipped up some killer chocolate chip and walnut banana bread in honour of my lovely housemate Kirsten's day of birth. I biked down the mill race a bit for a picnic with James under a bland, gray sky. He pointed out birds that I could not see without my glasses. We consumed an entire carton of organic strawberries, the last of a bar of quality dark chocolate, and homemade bread with smoked gouda cheese. We saw our cousins who go to Bethany walking on the millrace with their biology class--they are freshmen in high school mind you--and both acknowledged our presence, one yelling hello to James and one waving with quite large hand motions. This is big news, my friends, publicly demonstrative freshmen boys are few and hard to find. We came home and drank tea while completing crossword puzzles as housemate Kimberly groaned at our obsession, but still pitched in to complete a few clues. An afternoon of errand running turned nostalgic when I bought the children's book George and Martha at the library for 25 cents. I eagerly anticipate a homemade dinner by Alana, and The Office season finale on NBC this evening.

Earlier this week I played fashion consultant with two other women in order to clothe my clothing-challenged boyfriend in suitable clothes for wearing outside the Goshen world. I often regret that this Goshen world is not universal. Today I went out to run errands in my Merry Lea pants, a pair covered with mysterious stains gained from a worm classification/soil research project and a stream classification/identification project two May terms ago, and didn't even blink an eye. A wedding etiquette book told us (The Spain) today that it is a faux pas to spend less than $50 for a wedding gift. For all the weddings of friends that I have attended, I have split a $50 gift between several people. Goshen culture is good, but not readily accepted in all parts of our society. Thus, I own "professional" or "teacher" clothes for work that I rarely wear outside of that setting. These clothes are often a little less "me" than I would like. So I take my current opportunities to look grungy seriously.

Hm. Perhaps my problem is that I do not allow myself the time to sit down and ramble in text in the new post box. It reminds me of a chain of stream of consciousness emails that Veloris, Drew Herstam, and I sent to each other during my second year of college. Giving yourself the space and time to ramble allows you to end up with surprising things.

5 things about today (or yesterday)

1. I finally saw the pictures of my poor sad little blue car (which got in an accident on a quick trip to Columbus that I was not a part of). Luckily, no one got hurt, it was the other driver's fault (and she had insurance), and did I mention that no one got hurt?

2. It is rainy. The sky is gray. But Tuesday, Tuesday was glorious. So spring really is here, it's just that these two dismally gray days have not done much for my spirits.

3. I started working on a new recipe project...aka transforming all the tiny random slips of paper with recipes tried and untried on them into a shiny new binder of easy to use-ness (decidedly not a word).

4. The Office and 30 Rock are on tonight. Yeah, Thursday night pretty much rocks my world.

5. Alana is making supper right now. She's definitely using sesame oil, which makes me happy.

6. (oops, I cheated) A group of housemates and other friends are doing a mix CD exchange in which we all made a CD and are passing it around to all members of the group. A pretty sweet way to hear some new music, if you ask me.

7. (yeah, really cheated) I think you, my dedicated readers, may now subscribe to my blog so that it will send you an email when I have posted. Quite helpful for all you busy May Termers out there (check out the right side bar to subscribe).

Hospitalidad

When I came home for dinner this evening, I was pleasantly surprised to find some additional dinner guests in the kitchen. I had already invited one friend, and now two more were at the table, meaning we had to pull our table away from the wall and squeeze 8 chairs around it (basically, every chair we have in the house). We ate green bean, tomato, and mushroom egg casserole, fruit salad, and fresh homemade bread, and there was enough for everyone. I don't want to lose this casual, last minute sense of hospitality college has fostered for me. Just ran into a friend that you haven't seen in awhile? Bring them home for dinner. There will be enough places at the table and enough food for all. Don't clean, don't bother with fancy dishes (or even more than one utensil per person), it's the fellowship and the people that are important. I love that I can pretty much count on someone dropping by each evening during the week, a steady source of entertainment based on the fact that friends know it's ok (bordering on required) for them to drop by when they want to, without calling ahead. Don't get me wrong, fancy dinners are nice, and have their place, since I love to cook, but impromptu large group meals are my favorite. Just because I am coming to the end of my time of living with/near college students doesn't mean that I need to change my methods of hosting people in my home. Come for dinner. There will always be enough.

Kimberly: "Milk has fat and orange has lemon."
Matthew: "You are science."

Thursday Thoughts

An older Spanish-speaking gentleman came into the co-op to buy eggs today. He handed me two dollars when I told him the price in English ($3.39), so I started talking in Spanish. He told me he'd be back with more money and left me with the eggs and the 2 bucks. Later he came back and told me he didn't have the money, I gave him his $2, and he left. And after he walked out, I thought, Why didn't I just tell him that it was ok, take his 2 dollars, give him the eggs, and then pay the remainder myself? or give him my discount?
I say that I'm for social activism, but what do I actually do? How do I actually serve people each day? And why did I only think of helping out that man after he left? Sigh.

A pretty awful day today. I never quite woke up, things seemed stressful at work. The promise of sweet coffee bliss and time with James at the Brew somehow helped me make it through. Conquering the crossword puzzle and keeping Alzheimer's at bay never hurts either. Things are feeling a little better now. I was able to deal with the strawberry juices spilled all over my messenger bag without any cursing. That's pretty impressive for a person like me. :) Here's to the weekend, and tomorrow being Friday. I will now leave you to snuggle up and read Everything is Illuminated until the new episode of The Office this evening!