Today is one of my favorite days, bookclub day. We read “The Dirty Life,” by Kristin Kimball, which made me appreciate how hard organic farming is, and also made me glad that I am not a farmer. At the same time, it reminded me of conversations Mr. Sweetcakes and I have had about how, when we were kids, vegetables came home from the grocery store needing a thorough washing. Sometims you had to pick out a bug or two.
Nowadays, we have over-sanitized our vegetables, and we’ve lost something for it. I do like the idea of buying into sustainable farms shares, if nothing more than to get back to that personal connection to our food source. To honor the toil of an individual farmer working with his/her hands, day in and out. To know there are limited chemicals altering my food. I do this in a small way in planting a garden every year, but I don’t truly rely on what is found there. I would live on a paltry amount of shallots, if that were the case, and fortunately, the grocery store has them in good quantity. Buying organic and at stores focused on better forms of growing is good, but there's still a disconnect fro the source. There's something to the warmness of stopping at the little farm on the way home from errands on Sunday to buy eggs, the way my grandparents did. To the visceral connection to place when washing the dirt out of my heads of lettuce. Any Tasters belong to a food coop? Or know of Utah ones? Please share.
Somewhat recently (okay, back in December), I hosted a cookie exchange for the lovely ladies of bookclub. The finery included Mexican wedding cookies, chocolate chow mein noodle cookies, molasses spice cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, creamy fast fudge, and other deliciousness.
I made orange poppyseed cookies which I also took to work for Cakemas.
These were fun holiday traditions that I would love to keep.
It’s snowing again, on this day of bookclub. And I’ve had a good week of tracking my food intake, and eating a reasonable, healthful diet. Tricky, though, is holding the reins when dining out, or when mimosas at bookclub are the tradition. I do feel I’ve been following my commitment to better eating overall, and working out more consistently again, so these are wins. Figuring out how to enjoy social occasions and keep true to the effort is my challenge this week. How do you tow the line, Tasters?