Improvisational Ingredient based cooking
Introduction:
There are so many cookbooks available and so many different regimens to choose from that you may wonder; what is so different about this one?
worthwhile ideals.
Introduction:
There are so many cookbooks available and so many different regimens to choose from that you may wonder; what is so different about this one?
worthwhile ideals.
I have led a rather a very chaotic and eventful life including numerous career, dwelling and partner changes. (I resemble Neal Cassidy in some respects, I ruefully admit) I raised 4 absolutely astonishing and delightful sons and through all the changes we went through I made sure they were well nourished physically, mentally and spiritually. For years my mental image of myself was of a circus performer keeping a row of plates spinning while simultaneously juggling an assortment of strange objects.
I am a hard core idealist (dreamer, head-in-clouds, airy-fairy type) so it was essential that I practice the following ideals. I think they are really good ones inasmuch as they produce inner peace as a byproduct.
•1.Spend less money
•2.Eat the most life-giving foods
•3Easily incorporate healthful exercise into your daily life
•4.Have beneficial environmental impact
•5.Fight globalization by patronizing local sources
•6.Practice mindfulness in daily routines
•Become more involved in your world
Using what is available , fresh, vital, local, in season (CSA)
No real recipes, only blueprints for improv
Slow foods movement: Time, environmental concerns,
Macrobiotic principles
Weston Price Principles
Chinese and Ayurveda
In the trenches with the whole foods movement.
I spent my early childhood on an estate in lower Putnam County, NY. My father was the caretaker of this estate (supplementing his 'day job' as director of rehabilitation at a nearby Veterans hospital). I took great delight in helping him work on the gardens, which were the pride of the owners . It seems to me they were organic gardeners although I can't verify this, but I remember working on the huge compost bins, dumping leaves, lawn clippings and garden waste and turning the piles. There were other 'gentlemen farmers in the neighborhood who raised Black Angus cattle and some of their by-products also went into the mix. I loved spending time in the muslin tents that covered the blueberry bushes and sampling fresh tomatoes, peas, sweet corn, strawberries and string beans from the garden rows. This was my Eden, a child's garden of Earthly Delights and my blueprint for paradise ever since.
When I was older I discovered the “Little House” series by Laura Ingles Wilder. I thrilled to the pioneers life and solidly admired their ability to provide a living for themselves far from the trappings of civilization. (I guess I was a strange child?) One of the things that impressed me the most was how the family used every part of the animals they slaughtered for food, even saving the hides for an itinerant cobbler to fashion into their shoes . A pig's bladder was inflated to use as a foot ball.
After high school ended I went into a period of profound confusion about which direction to take in life. Influenced by the confusion and strife of the 1960's many young people, including myself, opted to “get back to the land and set their soul free” There was a certain amount of guilt over consumerism and greed and the soul longed for voluntary simplicity and to be more compassionate, more spiritual. less “materialistic” . And so we headed off, armed with Whole Earth Catalogs and visions of righteousness, to forge new lives for ourselves away from the 'evils' of modern life.
I ended up , with then my partner, Steve S. (good natured soul that he is, bless him!) on Prince Edward Island, in the Canadian Maritimes. It is a gentle, simple place; primarily a farming and fishing economy, which basically means “depressed economy.” Progress had apparently passed by this place without a second glance. But this is just what we were looking for . Because it is an island, at that time it was very costly to import goods so the attitude of “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” was prevalent. (I had at that time a great admiration for thrift, hard work and common sense; qualities which I myself seemed to be sorely lacking.)
\ Most Island communities at that time had no electricity , including the one in which we made our home (a ramshackle old house on 70 acres ) and many farmers still used horses to work their land. It was still the era of subsistence farming, which is what we wanted to learn. The Islanders were, of course, used to this way of life and were by and large very good at it. Most people had a garden and almost everyone at that time did their own baking and canned their own food or stored it in root cellars for the winters (which were long and devoid of employment) Many Islanders had no idea where New York was except for a vague notion that it was 'handy Boston', (which had been a popular destination for Maritimers during the Depression).
It seemed to me that the beauty of this life was that the farmers apparently had no notion of agribusiness. They relied on “organic”farming methods because that was the only option. The thrifty farmers spread manure on their fields, used green manures, and products from the surrounding seas, such as seaweed and mussel mud (a odoriferous and highly effective fertilizer composed of rotted mollusks and seaweeds. One splash of the stuff on a lawn or field would produce a lush green patch for years to come.)
When I first embarked on this new way of life I wanted to steer as clear as possible from the evils of Mammon. (I have since changed my mind and revel in them to a certain degree. One changes as one matures, it seems.) I figured that the only things one might need to buy were toilet paper, feminine products, matches and lamp oil.( I toyed with the idea of using the reindeer moss that grew on our trees as replacement for those first two items.) Some of the most useful resources we had were the marvelous books on foraging wild food by Euell Gibbons “Stalking the Wild Asparagus”, “Stalking the Healthful Herbs”etc. , “Living the Good Life” by Helen and Scott Nearing
When we first arrived in our new home, we had almost no money and a newish baby, Sam (our first). We had a Corona hand mill, a set of cast iron pots and immense enthusiasm for this new project. The countryside proved to be immensely bountiful in foraged foods and we ate clams, mussels (which the natives claimed were poison!) mackerel, cattail shoots, day lily buds, amaranth, lambs quarters, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, apples and dulse.
Local farmers had no problem with us going behind the diggers to pick up carrots, potatoes, turnips and such. Occasionally they'd toss us a bag of vegs off the truck to save us the trouble of gleaning. My taste for edible flowers proved a source of amused anecdotes among the locals who never thought of munching on nasturtiums, violets or calendula, or to make a tea of the chamomile which was a common ground cover in local driveways.
We purchased wheat in 50 lb sacks from a local farmer and I got a good upper body workout grinding it into flour to bake our bread in the antique Belanger cast iron wood-burning stove I used to cook on.
A local farm woman also provided us with an inexpensive source of fresh raw milk. I made yogurt several times a week from this delicious beverage. Another source of cheap nutrition was the free buttermilk one could pick up at the local creamery. (Which by the was made the best butter I have ever tasted before or since that time. You could taste the green grass and the sunshine and the fresh air in every bite!) I used the buttermilk as a beverage and in baking We also fed it to our chickens along with cooked potato peelings and grains.
All in all this life was very pleasant and satisfying at least to me, but the addition of several more sons, (three, to be precise; Ben, Theo and Charlie) and the loss of my partner to greener pastures (California-can you blame him? I can't and he has been an excellent friend and a big blessing in our lives in countless ways) made this way increasingly difficult (although I continued until the boys were grown to bake all our bread, cakes, cookies, and to make granola, yogurt, sauerkraut and all sorts of goodies.
I am a hard core idealist (dreamer, head-in-clouds, airy-fairy type) so it was essential that I practice the following ideals. I think they are really good ones inasmuch as they produce inner peace as a byproduct.
•1.Spend less money
•2.Eat the most life-giving foods
•3Easily incorporate healthful exercise into your daily life
•4.Have beneficial environmental impact
•5.Fight globalization by patronizing local sources
•6.Practice mindfulness in daily routines
•Become more involved in your world
Using what is available , fresh, vital, local, in season (CSA)
No real recipes, only blueprints for improv
Slow foods movement: Time, environmental concerns,
Macrobiotic principles
Weston Price Principles
Chinese and Ayurveda
In the trenches with the whole foods movement.
I spent my early childhood on an estate in lower Putnam County, NY. My father was the caretaker of this estate (supplementing his 'day job' as director of rehabilitation at a nearby Veterans hospital). I took great delight in helping him work on the gardens, which were the pride of the owners . It seems to me they were organic gardeners although I can't verify this, but I remember working on the huge compost bins, dumping leaves, lawn clippings and garden waste and turning the piles. There were other 'gentlemen farmers in the neighborhood who raised Black Angus cattle and some of their by-products also went into the mix. I loved spending time in the muslin tents that covered the blueberry bushes and sampling fresh tomatoes, peas, sweet corn, strawberries and string beans from the garden rows. This was my Eden, a child's garden of Earthly Delights and my blueprint for paradise ever since.
When I was older I discovered the “Little House” series by Laura Ingles Wilder. I thrilled to the pioneers life and solidly admired their ability to provide a living for themselves far from the trappings of civilization. (I guess I was a strange child?) One of the things that impressed me the most was how the family used every part of the animals they slaughtered for food, even saving the hides for an itinerant cobbler to fashion into their shoes . A pig's bladder was inflated to use as a foot ball.
After high school ended I went into a period of profound confusion about which direction to take in life. Influenced by the confusion and strife of the 1960's many young people, including myself, opted to “get back to the land and set their soul free” There was a certain amount of guilt over consumerism and greed and the soul longed for voluntary simplicity and to be more compassionate, more spiritual. less “materialistic” . And so we headed off, armed with Whole Earth Catalogs and visions of righteousness, to forge new lives for ourselves away from the 'evils' of modern life.
I ended up , with then my partner, Steve S. (good natured soul that he is, bless him!) on Prince Edward Island, in the Canadian Maritimes. It is a gentle, simple place; primarily a farming and fishing economy, which basically means “depressed economy.” Progress had apparently passed by this place without a second glance. But this is just what we were looking for . Because it is an island, at that time it was very costly to import goods so the attitude of “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” was prevalent. (I had at that time a great admiration for thrift, hard work and common sense; qualities which I myself seemed to be sorely lacking.)
\ Most Island communities at that time had no electricity , including the one in which we made our home (a ramshackle old house on 70 acres ) and many farmers still used horses to work their land. It was still the era of subsistence farming, which is what we wanted to learn. The Islanders were, of course, used to this way of life and were by and large very good at it. Most people had a garden and almost everyone at that time did their own baking and canned their own food or stored it in root cellars for the winters (which were long and devoid of employment) Many Islanders had no idea where New York was except for a vague notion that it was 'handy Boston', (which had been a popular destination for Maritimers during the Depression).
It seemed to me that the beauty of this life was that the farmers apparently had no notion of agribusiness. They relied on “organic”farming methods because that was the only option. The thrifty farmers spread manure on their fields, used green manures, and products from the surrounding seas, such as seaweed and mussel mud (a odoriferous and highly effective fertilizer composed of rotted mollusks and seaweeds. One splash of the stuff on a lawn or field would produce a lush green patch for years to come.)
When I first embarked on this new way of life I wanted to steer as clear as possible from the evils of Mammon. (I have since changed my mind and revel in them to a certain degree. One changes as one matures, it seems.) I figured that the only things one might need to buy were toilet paper, feminine products, matches and lamp oil.( I toyed with the idea of using the reindeer moss that grew on our trees as replacement for those first two items.) Some of the most useful resources we had were the marvelous books on foraging wild food by Euell Gibbons “Stalking the Wild Asparagus”, “Stalking the Healthful Herbs”etc. , “Living the Good Life” by Helen and Scott Nearing
When we first arrived in our new home, we had almost no money and a newish baby, Sam (our first). We had a Corona hand mill, a set of cast iron pots and immense enthusiasm for this new project. The countryside proved to be immensely bountiful in foraged foods and we ate clams, mussels (which the natives claimed were poison!) mackerel, cattail shoots, day lily buds, amaranth, lambs quarters, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, apples and dulse.
Local farmers had no problem with us going behind the diggers to pick up carrots, potatoes, turnips and such. Occasionally they'd toss us a bag of vegs off the truck to save us the trouble of gleaning. My taste for edible flowers proved a source of amused anecdotes among the locals who never thought of munching on nasturtiums, violets or calendula, or to make a tea of the chamomile which was a common ground cover in local driveways.
We purchased wheat in 50 lb sacks from a local farmer and I got a good upper body workout grinding it into flour to bake our bread in the antique Belanger cast iron wood-burning stove I used to cook on.
A local farm woman also provided us with an inexpensive source of fresh raw milk. I made yogurt several times a week from this delicious beverage. Another source of cheap nutrition was the free buttermilk one could pick up at the local creamery. (Which by the was made the best butter I have ever tasted before or since that time. You could taste the green grass and the sunshine and the fresh air in every bite!) I used the buttermilk as a beverage and in baking We also fed it to our chickens along with cooked potato peelings and grains.
All in all this life was very pleasant and satisfying at least to me, but the addition of several more sons, (three, to be precise; Ben, Theo and Charlie) and the loss of my partner to greener pastures (California-can you blame him? I can't and he has been an excellent friend and a big blessing in our lives in countless ways) made this way increasingly difficult (although I continued until the boys were grown to bake all our bread, cakes, cookies, and to make granola, yogurt, sauerkraut and all sorts of goodies.
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