i hate the word staycation but i guess i love what it means

the summer is in full swing and it seems that everyone i know is traveling or planning on going somewhere. i just came back myself from a lovely long weekend with my family down in spring city. my sister and her 3 kids have been here for nearly two weeks, staying with me part of the time, and having them here made me realize that in many ways there is nothing more fun than being on vacation in your own hometown. there is no packing involved. you get a good nights sleep in your own bed and so do your kids. it is decidedly cheaper than an out of town vacay would be, and definitely my favorite aspect is that you get to escape your daily routine and duties just like you would on a normal vacation. i certainly shrugged off a big portion of my usual to do's while amy was here--no bill paying, much less screen time, more eating out, more swimming, minimal yard work, less worrying, a lot more laughs. it was so much fun to have them here and it gave me a terrific shift in focus and routine that i find very inspiring.

i've always loved having guests stay with me. my time living in tiny new york apartments and having many, many house guests break in my aerobed, taught me a valuable truth, however. apart from my sister and a very select few, i hold a firm belief that one should never stay with anyone longer than 3 days. cracks just start to show on guest and host by then! but back to the point, the reason i love house guests is that they make you do all kinds of things you normally wouldn't, whether it is wiping down the baseboards & cleaning out the cheese drawer, heading to that museum or taking that hike that have been on your list for months. guests are a good way to make you get out and do.

i love being a tourist in my own town. i always have a better time when i try and enjoy salt lake from a fresh perspective, just like you would if you were traveling through instead of permanently living here. i make a point of driving to different neighborhoods and scoping things out. i love heading to salt lake's diverse west side and have decided that redwood road is one million times cooler than state street though at first glance you might not know why. i love the taco carts downtown in the sears parking lot. jaren and i absolutely scored when we discovered the best mom and pop pet store ever to take our kids for a look see (4 different kinds of tortoises! what?!) out in west jordan. since i love food, i am attempting to start a dinner group with some friends to explore some of the ethnic eats my town has to offer. i'm calling it deep end dining and though we've only gone once so far, the night was a success mostly because the place, the neighborhood, and the food were new and different for everyone. it wasn't the same old, same old and it was a side of our city i certainly hadn't seen before.

i guess the epiphany of all this is really that as much as i lust after a trip to the beach, vacationing really is just a state of mind. it's not a place. remind me of that next january when i'm snowed in and so and so is in mexico, okay?

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finding my inner zero waste guru

we've all heard the stories of depression era families who lived on variations of eggs, bread, and milk for a year or made watery stews from the less desirable and far cheaper "parts" of animals. times were hard and the way people ate and lived reflected this. the thought of chucking the half eaten chicken breast left on your plate or throwing away a perfectly good piece of fruit simply because it fell on the floor was unthinkable. the 3 second rule definitely did not apply! i think back then people were in touch with scarcity and the actual fear of going hungry. this forced a mentality of making use of every little scrap in front of you, whether it was food, tinfoil, or a car wheel. gradually as times improved and standards of living in this country rose, i think this mode of zero waste thinking was shoved aside in favor of our current view of unlimited plenty at our disposal 24/7.

reminding myself to "waste not, want not" is probably one of the most basic admonishments i tell myself. not only do i consider it ground zero for frugality, but it is also a good thesis for how to better appreciate the things you already have and have worked hard to attain. if you feel you can waste something, chances are you probably don't value it much. there is very little in my life i want to feel this disposability towards! i'm amazed at how much i have to retrain my brain to think this way though. just this week i noticed that one of my kids wooden blocks had fallen off our deck and was sitting dirty in the garden bed below. my first response was honestly to go and throw it away. i think my reaction was probably a combination of laziness and knowing that my kids have a bin full of 50 other blocks inside, but still, i literally had to catch myself and remember that this little piece of wood could just as easily be washed off and put to use all over again. i find myself doing the same thing for extra food on my kids plates or milk left undrunk. i have to consciously remember that there is nothing wrong with this perfectly edible food simply because it has previously touched a plate! i get a huge sense of satisfaction when i have my macgyver moments in the kitchen and find ways to use those bread heels or speckled bananas, or dice up last night's chicken into a pleasing chef salad. it feels good to make use of something instead of throwing it away.

i try not to be a maniac and ultra annoying, but now that i'm more conscious of wanting to appreciate more and waste less, i have a zillion little moments just like this each day. do i really need to give my child yet another ziploc bag for that snack? wouldn't a washable bowl work just as well? why throw my food scraps in the garbage when they beautify my garden via my compost pile? i firmly believe the logic of making ultra use of what we have is under all our skins and hard wired in our brains...somewhere. i mean those eons of struggling to survive as hunter gatherers can't just have disappeared right? we just have to find those wires again and reconnect them. definitely my self imposed "scarcity" of last winter is what helped reconnect mine...and i feel a bit like this current economic climate is helping reconnect a lot more wires out there.

looking around in my yard i've found another small area to make use of. for years i've grown lavender because i love the smell of it. it is one of those godly smells that i just cannot imagine living without. i smell it and i literally feel better. and yet in all the years i've had lavender bloom, i've never done more than snip the spent blossoms and throw them away. i wanted to share the above photos because this year i decided to chalk one up for zero waste, and along with my lovely nieces who are in town, i'm working on harvesting all that spent lavender this year. i plan to make some lovely suitcase and linen closet sachets with the dried blooms. final result photos soon to follow....

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licorice

i had a funny conversation with my 5 year old yesterday. we were in the car and i happened to have a few little cherry licorice bits and was sharing them with the kiddos. cleo said "licorice is a funny name, why do they call it that?" i am typically way too long winded and informative in my answers so i think i launched right into something about there actually being a licorice root and then quickly realized the girl has never had black licorice and so wouldn't have a reference point for that little factoid. so i cut myself short and said "this licorice you are eating is just candy its made from a bunch of sugar and then they flavor it to taste like a fake cherry." the look on cleo's face was so funny. she was wide eyed and doubtful and said "fake cherry? why don't they just make it taste like real cherries?" out of the mouth of babes!! she is so right.

why is there food that approximates other food (and doesn't do a very good job of it.) why can't they flavor licorice with the essence of true summertime cherries? why does lemonade out of can taste nothing like actual tart lemons sweetened with sugar? why does processed cheese make me think more of the plastic it is wrapped in then the cow it once came from? our palettes are used to this kind of food mockery but maybe we shouldn't let them be. i get worried that eventually children won't want to eat a real cherry but instead will want the little cherry like pellet that comes out of a wrapper i have now honest to god seen at costco. having a relationship with the food and the tastes we encounter is important. i hope to build that kind of culinary knowledge and legacy in my kids. i don't think i can ever swear off candy and junk completely in my house, i am american after all, but i want to be sure my kids actually know what a real lemon, orange, strawberry, and cherry taste and look like before they go thinking starbusts have got nature all figured out.

in defense of kids and their eating, i also wanted to share a very cool program just launched by Slow Food USA called Time for Lunch which is a campaign to change upcoming legislation to provide more than the shocking $1 a day/per student food allowance currently in public school cafeterias. this increase in funding will help provide america's school children with REAL food at school. think how impossible the idea of fresh fruits and vegetables (especially organic ones) on a plate is for only $1. i would recommend watching the short little video about the program on the link above and then signing the petition. even if you don't have school aged kids, this is a national issue we should all be concerned about. how can we have a healthy nation if we don't feed it good food?

Becoming Homemade

It is funny the way seriously small choices can dictate much larger paths in life. Back in December when I started this blog and my project to spend only $15/ week, I had no end destination; it was much more about a process. I think this is still true but through the last months, I have felt a shift in my lifestyle goals and it is a direct correlation to my quest to get back to basics, the likes of which started here.

One by one I'm trying to reconnect with the lost arts of homemaking. I've crossed wheat grinding and bread making off the list. I am attempting to grow more and more of what my family eats. We are attempting to get egg laying chickens this summer and Jaren and I just signed up for a bee keeping class! I love taking back the control over my own food chain and the strength I feel having dominion over my land and my house. There is so much in today's world that is out of our hands and so much that is out of control, out of whack, and out of step with what is good for our bodies, souls, and earth. I've found such simple peace and a surprising amount of subversiveness in going against the grain of the prevailing culture and trying to slow down, spend less, and be more in tune with what it takes to produce the smallest things like a head of lettuce or a loaf of bread.

When I go to the library to check out books on chicken raising or preserving and canning, I'm always like #7 on the hold list. When I registered for the bee keeping class we were the last spots filled. A gardening site I subscribe to is counting all the backyard vegetable gardens started this year and I watched the number grow to over 24,000 in under two months. This all shows me that I'm not alone in wanting to reconnect with these past arts forgotten on the wayside of convenience and commerce. I think its part of a much larger movement to reclaim self sufficiency and be more mindful of our abundance. I'm so proud of this emerging strain of American culture and very proud to be a part of it.

I do a lot of blog reading and scoping and I often see on people's sites buyhandmade.org's pledge badge featured above which basically says that you want to buy only handmade things for yourself and for others and hope they will do the same for you. To date, 43,087 people have taken the pledge. I love this idea and I myself love to support the little guy. The pledge got me thinking about making an honest to god pledge of my own and I think I'm going to term it the BECOME HOMEMADE pledge. Pledge to make your home your own by doing more basics yourself. Build your home one small choice, one small act at a time. Pass up the Bisquick and Pace Picante and make more food from scratch. Grow your favorite kind of produce from seed. Make your grandma's bread and butter pickles and can them. Dry the heels of your bread for croutons. Scrub your tub with baking soda instead of Comet. Do more with what you already have available at your fingertips, don't be so quick to rush out and buy something. These are just a few of the ideas that came to me in a flurry but there are millions more I'm sure. If you think of any good ones, please share! Remember: Become Homemade!

little touches

i like having time for the small touches of domesticity. well watered, happy plants, ball jars and budvases filled with freshly clipped herbs sitting at the ready on the counter. i like snipped flowers from the garden on the dining room table. the hidden accomplishment of a well organized cutlery drawer. fresh votive candles with the wicks up, ready to be lit. one of the reasons i'm in love with baking my own bread is because i know it means i basically have to be home for the 3-4 hours it takes to mix, rise, and bake the loaves. it is an endeavor you can only accomplish if you slow down and allow yourself the time to do it. i've found there are so many little tasks and embellishments to be done around the house that make me feel good, useful, and in better control of my life when i complete them.

i'm not afraid to admit that i love martha stewart and her entire empire, but i usually am bothered by the absolute set decorated perfection of her homes and all that she seems to so efficiently accomplish. that being said, all the things i mentioned above are things you might find on martha's monthly calendar which they show each month in her magazine. her calendar always says amazingly specific things like from this month's issue "raise lawn mower blade as the grass growth slows as season gets drier" or " give bolted lettuce and scraps to chickens", "dust ceiling fans". i love to ridicule that calendar and adore the artist ida applebrog's droll interpretation of it in a series of her paintings which contain to do's: design aprons for nuthouse, plan cure for ugliness, change god's phone number, etc. but i must confess to loving the way martha gives pride of place to those little tasks and home management chores. sure, if you have 4 homes you would need to be quite organized to keep them all functioning and lovely, but even with 1, i think i could use a little reminder to turn the compost bin or clip the mint patch for july mojitos. why not elevate those little household moments to something you can check off and accomplish in your daily life? something that makes your individual and family's surroundings more beautiful and inspired?

i think we set a nice tone to our day today by making time for one of those little touches i'm talking about....we took the time to pick cherries. yep. my neighbors have a tree that is drooping with the weight of the little ruby beauties and i have been feeling a bit jealous watching the birds devour them. my neighbors were kind enough to offer as many as we wanted to pick , so we walked next door in our pjs this morning and picked a colander full. cleo loved the act of picking and choosing and finding the sweetest, darkest ones she could reach. i loved watching the morning sun dapple in the leaves and light flynn's blonde head as he strained to reach a limb. it was a really nice, fulfilling experience and the colander full of beautiful, ripe cherries is the perfect, nearly "set decorated", touch of summer on my kitchen counter.

viva the little things!

IKEA through the eyes of an 87 year old

i had a really interesting afternoon. i took my 87 year old grandmother to IKEA for the very first time. i got her there by bribing her with the promise of decent swedish meatballs (her mother came to America from Sweden in the early 1900s) and lots of eye candy. let me back up first by saying that my grandmother is in a monogomous relationship with Sears and has been for 60+ years. i think the only thing she doesn't buy there are groceries and she would do that if they sold them. shopping at Sears in fashion place mall has been part of her life my entire life. she goes there to use her 20% discount card, but i think it is more about her knowing the store, knowing the products that they sell and feeling comfortable with that as a customer. she genuinely has a relationship with the brands and even the employees at her sears store. i went there with her a couple weeks ago to buy an iron and both the manager and the woman at the counter knew her name. isn't that crazy?

so today's exposure to the universe that is ikea was especially foreign to her. i don't think she was at all prepared for the scope and breadth of what they sell. i don't know if i'm really prepared for it! the amount of physical stuff to look at is boggling and definitely over-stimulating. modern day consumerism is its own unique thing. it is like shopping on steroids. and i think we've all gotten a bit used to it. row after row of plenty.

today's visit to ikea highlighted to me just how far we've gone beyond the kind of shopping my grandmother does. for one, i don't think anyone is brand loyal enough to make a store their one and only, despite the fact that more than ever individual stores like Target and Walmart carry everything one could possibly need under one roof. and being unaware of what exactly the inventory inside the 4 walls of a store is, is part of the madness and/or charm of the modern day shopping experience. we don't want to already know everything they have, we like to round that corner and see the new, new thing, don't we? i haven't known the person selling me something (other than insurance or a house) on a first name basis maybe ever. it just isn't part of the way it works anymore.

we certainly have become very savvy at shopping as a people. we can hang with a zillion end cap displays and we can discern the subtle difference between being identified as a walmart or a target shopper. the whole consumer experience is much more varied and takes up a lot more time, but since shopping has become an actual past time in our country, that is something we have all accepted, which is ironic since the demise of the mom and pop stores, and the rise of things like ikea, really happened because of the allure of convenience. getting everything all in one place, or increasingly all in one store has become more of the norm than going to separate little storefronts for everything on your list. but it is sad to think what is lost without the small shops...the relationships with the people who own and run the store, and the expertise it takes to run a store with a limited inventory of a certain thing. if you sell knives and nothing else, i imagine you really get to know your knives. and what's more, your store has an actual point of view. the owner has chosen to sell these certain things most likely because they think they are good, quality products. i don't know if i can be so sure that my chain grocery store or the franchise at the mall is so conscious of why and what they sell.

getting back to ikea, despite these musings, i would say my grandmother's feeling abut ikea was really positive. she enjoyed the "modern" "substantial" stylings (her words) and seemed genuinely to enjoy herself. but buy something? no way. she wasn't the least bit interested in taking anything home with her. she even tried to talk me out of the $1 ice cream cone for cleo at the end of our trip, saying it was just too expensive for plain old vanilla. when is the last time you went into a store and walked out with nothing?

p.s. i can't resist giving a plug for something ikea related but with a definite twist towards the subversive. check out http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/ the entire blog is dedicated to the ways people have reconfigured products ikea sells for their own uses. some are ingenious, some are downright hilarious, but mostly i love the way people have found ways to personalize something as mass produced as a piece of ikea furniture. i find that very inspiring. enjoy.

seasonality

i don't want to fixate on the book animal vegetable miracle, well maybe i do, but i can't resist bringing up one more topic. one of the aspects of the book i found most provocative is how natural the notion of eating seasonally is when you produce your own food, and how unnatural it is when you stroll the aisles of any modern supermarket. with the rise of global trade, food of all types is now available to us year round. we can get apples in june, blueberries in january, citrus in september, lettuce in december, watermelons in april....there is no order to the offerings in the produce section. the selection available feels random, or more appropriately, it feels full all the time.

most of us lost the ability to know when and where things grow a generation or more ago. i think the only vegetable the average person is even conscious of when the true growing season is, is the tomato. and this is because it seems to be universally acknowledged that home grown, height of summer, garden tomatoes are a completely other species (and a far superior one) to the lowly, pale, mushy creation we have available for purchase in the stores all winter and spring. the funny part is that i think the same comparison could be made for most produce and food we eat. it will taste better if it is picked when ripe and ready. and this means that to eat something ripe and ready you need to live where it was grown. connect these dots and you realize if you live in most parts of north america, you probably don't live where a lot of what you eat even grows. seen any banana trees on your street recently?

now i'm not a proponent of swearing off everything in your diet that isn't native to your area, but i think one of the most salient points kingsolver makes in animal vegetable miracle is that if we want to start eating more responsibly in the modern food chain, we all need to better embrace seasonality. eat things when they are at their prime, whether at a restaruant or at home, not when they have been trucked or flown in from half way across the world. this way we not only support our local growers and farmers, we are helping to limit the amount of fossil fuels it takes to produce and deliver food out of season.

so how are we supposed to know when something is in season? kingsolver came up with a cliff notes way to do this for all the non gardeners of the world--picture a season of foods coming from one single, imaginary plant. she calls it the vegetannual. i can't possibly explain it as eloquently as she, so here is the description lifted straight from page 64 of animal vegetable miracle:

"Take a minute to study this creation--an imaginary plant that bears over the course of one growing season a cornucopia of all the different vegetable products we can harvest. Picture its life passing before your eyes like a time-lapse film: first, in the cool early spring, shoots poke up out of the ground. small leaves appear, then bigger leaves. As the plant grows up into the sunshine and the days grow longer, flower buds appear, followed by small green fruits. Under midsummer's warm sun, the fruits grow riper, and more colorful. As days shorten into the autumn, these mature into hard-shelled fruits with appreciable seeds inside. Finally as the days grow cool, the vegetannual may hoard the sugars its leaves have made, pulling them down into a storage unit of some kind: a tuber, bulb, or root.

So goes the year: First the leaves: spinach, kale, lettuce, chard. (Here that is April and May.) Then mature heads of leaves and flower heads: cabbage, romaine, broccoli, and cauliflower (May-June). Then tender young fruit set: snow peas, baby squash, cucumbers (June) followed by green beans, green peppers, and small tomatoes July). Then more mature, colorfully ripened fruits: beefsteak tomatoes, eggplants, red and yellow peppers (late July-August). Then the large, hard shelled fruits with developed seeds inside: cantaloupes, honeydews, watermelons, pumpkins, winter squash (August-September). Last come the root crops, and so ends the produce parade."

i'm seeing the early spring vegetannual erupt in my own garden. i am knee deep in it with the shoots and leaves stage--lettuce, chard, spinach, arugula are all looking lovely (though my spinach has already gone to bolt) and have been delicious. i'm still waiting for the small green fruits to come on--the peas and the cauliflower specifically, but until then, i am going to try and focus in on these lovely leafy things and try to just exhale and wait for the next batch of things to come on. i think that in respect to food, the adage "all good things come to those who wait" really rings true.

Above images are of my water logged leafy green garden patch and image of the Vegetannual courtesy of animalvegetablemiracle.com