Living the Change by freeacre

Charles Hugh Smith writes that cooking food from scratch is a revolutionary act. You wouldn’t think so. After all, people have been cooking and baking their food since the beginning of time. But, in the last twenty years or so, everything changed. The women’s liberation movement, which began with so much promise for women to discover and define themselves based on an exploration of our innate capabilities morphed into the opportunity, then obligation, to be “free” to join the workforce and be exploited like the men. Now we have been “freed” to pay for our children to be raised in daycare, buy our food from agri-business, and depend on the corrupted Food and Drug Administration for our health and welfare. I could go on and on about it, but you know where it has led – the Frankenfood and McWally World rat trap.

Happily, we have been waking up to just how important it is to take back our food supply and localize production of essentials, rather than import them from wage serfs in distant lands. For years we preached about how a collapse was inevitable. Now, it is becoming obvious to all but the most delusional that we need to make alternative arrangements. The members of our little cyber-tribe have been taking matters into their own hands and have been growing vegetables and raising animals, and taking many steps to get out of the matrix. We find ourselves on the vanguard of a movement to grow and cook our own healthy food and to resist the products that poison us, damage our bodies, and program our minds. To that end, we have cut off our cable TV, refused to use a cell phone, stopped using petroleum based fertilizers and insecticides, genetically engineered seeds, and just recently, thrown out the microwave oven. I have to admit that getting rid of the microwave has been more difficult than I would have thought. I find that I need to order a few old-fashioned items to help cope with the realities of warming things up without using a bunch of extra saucepans that then have to be washed. There is a handy little thing in the Vermont Store catalog that is a combination metal measuring cup with a long handle that can be used as a pan to warm things up that I would find useful for melting butter or warming milk to bake bread, or heating up water for a cup of tea.

I have learned to bake my own bread, spring rolls, and bagels. Next, I will learn to produce my own tortillas and noodles. I expect to grow a lot of cucumbers this year and will make more of my own pickles. We are still eating vegetables frozen from last year. We still have garlic hanging in the kitchen to use as needed. I haven’t bought an egg at the store for two years. And, now that I have been eating our own free range eggs, I find that I am no longer allergic to eggs. Since switching back to whole milk from 2%, I am no longer allergic to the protein in milk, either. So, there have been unanticipated rewards.

We have high expectations for the gardening efforts this year, but the warm weather is still a ways off. So, I thought I’d go ahead and share some pictures of last year’s garden harvest, the chickens, and some of the food prepared from the backyard. This will be somewhat redundant for the long term tribe, but might be interesting to the newer participants in the council.

I am still trying to figure out how to get these pictures in the right spot on the page, so bear with me. And, please send me pictures of your gardening or cooking efforts so we can share in your triumphs and inspirations. We are the change. We can do this!

This is my "Boyfriend Catcher Apple Pie."

These are beets from the garden with sour cream and pecans. It's pretty good, but I think I like them with butter and orange marmalade better. Still experimenting.

This is a garden quiche made from our own eggs and lots of veggies like chard and snow peas from the garden. I use creme cheese.

These are just fresh picked snow peas, chard, onions, garlic stir-fried. They are good for you and take almost no time to prepare ... unless you count the time it takes to grow them - ha!

Here are some of the little darlin's relishing some left-over vegetable soup. Note our new rooster, Li'l Red. He gleams in the sunlight.

This is a chicken salad, mostly from the garden. I had to buy the avocado, and I bought the sprouts, too, although I could have sprouted them myself.

But, the point is, although the Murphinator and I live on social security now, we have it set up so that our expenses are minimal, and we are able to eat healthy for less money than others spend on toxic Frankenfood. And, if we can do it here in the high desert, you can do it, too.