Eating for Two

I admit that I am one of those people who really thought that when I got pregnant I would eat nothing but organic health foods for 9 months, take all of the vitamins possible, and go to the gym every day. Reality check. When you're pregnant, you do not get to make decisions for your own body.  First of all, let's just say that food has made me cry more in the last 4 months than every Pampers, Folgers and  Olympics commercial combined. I may have started crying in Whole Foods just a few weeks ago because I wanted pizza at 10AM and they weren't out of the oven yet and I had to have pizza "right now!!"

My emotions aren't the only thing that baby D has altered. For the first three months,  I was devastatingly (if there is a word that is more dramatic please let me know because this still doesn't seem to quite explain my desperation) hungry, but as soon as food would hit my lips I would want to run to the nearest bathroom. It seemed like a cruel trick from God.

Finally I realized that if I just made myself eat something bland, my nausea would subside a bit and I could make it through the day. Carbs became my new safety blanket. Plain bagel toasted with a dab of butter? Yes please. And so this (or some similar version of it) is what I continued to eat day in and out, for 3 meals a day. Vegetables were out of the question. Meat, especially chicken, might as well have been outlawed in our house for weeks. Watermelon was my only fiber. A lack of fiber-rich foods and iron-loaded prenatal vitamins...I'm sure I don't need to go much further for you to understand that it was a very miserable household.

Let's skip the details of the "dark weeks" as I have come to remember them, in which I was basically a miserable shadow of my former self ... and move on to the second trimester. This is a time of so much promise. Everyone assured me that things would get better. "Just make it to 14 weeks" they said and it will all go away. Through my tears and groaning, I tried to believe them, but I just didn't think there would be an end. But there was!

Miraculously, my "morning" sickness became manageable and I was able to pull myself from my bedcover cave and actually shower, get dressed, and eat real food, like a normal person. I even ventured to the grocery store without needing to make beeline for the restroom at every sight and scent. I actually started wanting more than just plain spaghetti noodles with butter and salt and actually enjoyed the meatsauce on top. I tentatively tried salads, vegetables, and even Chinese food without much incident. However now that I finally have my appetite back, I can confidently say, I HAVE MY APPETITE BACK. (Enter me crying for pizza at the grocery store). I must eat every hour or two. Let me rephrase. I MUST eat every hour or two. I don't eat a huge meal each time, but there better be at least something waiting in the fridge for immediate noshing or else this crazy women appears out of nowhere. I have to bring snacks with me if I leave the house just in case there's a meltdown. It's like I have two personalities. The mommy in me is packing snacks for the toddler in me that will throw a fit if I can't get immediate food gratification.

I have about 22 more weeks to go, so I can only imagine what more is in store for me (and my dear friends and family...so sorry in advance).  I'll tell you what, this was not was I was expecting when I first heard the phrase "eating for two," which sounds just like getting an extra dish of ice cream after dinner. Yeah right!


Thanks for reading my thoughts about food and the destructive behavior that I have succumbed to because of it. 

P.S. No fetus was harmed in process of this turmoil. I maintained contact with my doctor at all times who assured me that the little guy/gal is growing just fine, but did prescribe me special pre-natal vitamins just in case.

Chocolate, Caramel, and Walnut Covered Pretzels

For this Valentine's Day dessert, I used a trial and non-error technique. I call it that because even the batches that I didn't serve on Valentine's Day were so delicious that I made sure to diligently snack on them for the next week. This is how I made them:

First I started with 3 ounces of semi-sweet bakers chocolate.

I didn't want the chocolate to burn, so I fashioned my own double boiler out of small and medium sized saucepans. I boiled the water in the medium one and then put the smaller one with the chocolate inside.

Here's another view with the water boiling and the chocolate melted.

Lobsta' Killa' (take 2)

Want to see what I made for Valentine's Day this year? I had success making lobster in 2010, which was the first Valentine's Day after we got married (picture below) so I gave it another shot this year. This time I decided to make a surf and turf. I bought one lobster and one filet mignon, and Greg and I split them. It ended up being the perfect amount!

A bit wary: 2010

Still wary in 2012

Below is the process from start to finish:

Can You Taste Love Tonight?

 Whenever I have watched any of those cooking shows, I've always been confused when the judges say that they can taste the love/passion/desire (or any other emotion)  in the dish that they're eating. How can you taste love? Or passion? Or desire? Are you sure it just isn't just the combination of flavors that come together to create a perfect symphony of delight? (Or something metaphorical like that). Well, after making this dish last night, I could taste a little something extra. Maybe it was the time I took to season everything just right, or let the apples simmer for the perfect amount of time? I don't know. Maybe it was love, or fun, or excitement, but whatever it was, it was delicious!
 

First I cut up a large crisp Fuji apple (my favorite). In a bowl, I mixed together pinches of brown sugar, white granulated sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon and swirled the apples around in that dry mixture of deliciousness so they were coated on all sides. Meanwhile, I heated a pan with a 1/2 tablespoon of butter. Then I threw the apple slices in. What I wanted was for all of the juices to run out and thicken (I think this is called reducing?) and the apples to tenderize and caramelize. All of those things happened. Hallelujah! Eventually, I noticed that the juice was beginning to evaporate too much, so I added about a 1/4 cup of water, turned the heat down to medium/low and covered the pan to let the magic happen, meaning I let the apples simmer for about 30 mins.

Here are the apples simmering. This is the largest lid I have. Classy, huh?

While the apples were simmering, I seasoned the chops. I sprinkled them with salt, pepper, a teeny tiny bit of cinnamon, and finally, cayenne pepper. Surprised? It was a last second decision that I definitely did not regret. I'll tell you why in a minute

Here are the softening apples in the juice. After they were done cooking, I took out the apple slices and thickened the juice with a tiny bit of flour and heat. I poured the rest of the reduction into a bowl, scraping the edges for any dried bits of apple or leftover spice. I was going to put the chops in this pan next, so I didn't want much liquid or chunks leftover.

Before putting the chops into the pan, I dried them on a paper towel, so they would brown properly.

They browned up nicely. 

I let the meat rest for a few moments after plating them. Then I added some apples and some of the juice on top.

After cooking the pork chops, the drippings from the pan were so flavorful! When I mixed a bit of the drippings with the apple reduction, it was like I hit the jackpot! The combination of salty pork and sweet apples, mixed with a tiny bit of cayenne pepper was to die for. The mashed potatoes would have been insulted to have been called a side dish with that combination of juices drizzled on top.

I am so exited to eat the leftovers! I was sure to save myself a perfect lunch-sized portion. 

This is Day One of my Thanksgiving-themed meals. I hope to show you one or two more before T-Day. Tonight I'm making my special pre-Thanksgiving meal. (The one I've never tried before). Tomorrow, my main focus is making an apple pie. It is my first one of the season, so I hope it turns out alright! Thanks for reading my thoughts about food!



P.S. Here's a random side note that has nothing to do with food, but a lot to do with love and happy Thanksgiving-ish- type feelings...Check out this cute video by a band called Real Estate. I was about 45 seconds in when I realized that the band name is Real Estate and that this is not a commercial for a Realtor or home owners insurance... Dog Lovers Enjoy!

Shopping

Going to the store

I have  few posts that I've been meaning to share this week, but I haven't had a spare moment to sit down and write them. It's been a crazy few weeks at work to say the least. I think a mental health day may be in my future.

Meanwhile, life goes on and I've been cooking up a storm. I baked a pound cake for the first time for my grandmother's birthday last week. It was pretty good, but it's not hard to admit that we would have enjoyed a  super-sweet Entenmann's pound cake just as much. It's the thought that counts, right? Then, last night I made vegetable beef soup because it was cold and nasty out and I'd had a lingering cold for six days. We bought a baguette of crunchy bread to go with it. Yum! And wouldn't you know it, I woke up this morning feeling chipper and having no cold symptoms to speak of. Amen!

So anyways, I have been busy, even though I haven't been posting that often. I've been thinking for a few weeks about posting an update about my dreaded grocery shopping adventures. (If I haven't mentioned it before, I hate grocery shopping with a passion). I thought I'd share a little bit about my weekly shopping experience and how it's evolved a bit since this post.  Another year has passed and I have modified my shopping rituals to make them a bit less painless. Maybe this can help you if you also dread the grocery store like I do. Or maybe you have a better method that you could share. Oh - and I'm also going to share a picture-iffic post showing a normal week of meals here at the Davis casa.

Planning the Meals:

For me the hardest part of shopping is the first step, figuring out what we want to make the following week. This was the most stressful part of the whole weekend for me. Last year I would spend an hour looking through cookbooks and racking my brain to come up with the perfect menu.

Let's just say I've let that go. To plan more efficiently, I came up with an at-home menu of all of the meals that I have cooked and had success with. Much of that list was compiled by looking back at the blog and remembering what I had cooked, and what actually tasted good when I cooked it. I used to try to cook at least one or two new recipes a week. I have gotten to the point now that I will only cook a brand-spanking-new recipe if:  a). It's a special occasion b). I see or hear about a recipe that I am really excited to try or c.) I'm super bored of everything on my menu and I feel like digging out a cookbook and trying something new. I have enough guilt in my life that I don't need to add one more thing to the list. (Abbreviated guilt list: not sweeping the floors enough, not taking my dogs to the park enough, not grading papers fast enough, not calling my family enough, not working out enough, not changing my pillow cases enough...need I go on?) Not on the guilt list? Cooking the same meals again and again. I started this blog as a food journal of sorts and I'm not going to let it guilt me into anything, dammit. 

If you don't blog, this might not be a problem for you, but you may still feel like you have to "keep it fresh"  by trying new things so your family doesn't complain or so you don't feel like you're cooking the same thing every night.

The menu has helped me because it is a quick reference that I can use every week to make choosing meals utterly painless. I have it broken up into categories by main entree.

For example, here is my "chicken" category:

Chicken:
Creamy Chicken
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Tenders
Barbecue Chicken
Baked Chicken Breast (breaded or non-breaded)
Tandoori Style Chicken
Honey-mustard Glazed Chicken Thighs (or other)
Garlic Chicken Stir-fry
Chicken Tacos
Chicken Curry (Indian)
Chicken Fried-Rice
Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce
Pan-seared Chicken Breast with Balsamic and Garlic
Baked Chicken over Portobello Mushrooms
Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Chicken Noodle Soup (also in soup section)

I usually select at least one item out of this category because we always have left-over chicken from the week before. For example, last week I made Chicken Noodle Soup and Chicken Parmesan. Other items that we make frequently (usually just because I have the recipes memorized and don't have to look anything up) are:

Homemade Pizza - with sausage, green pepper, and onion
Pan-seared Pork Chops - with a veggie and a side
Chili - in the fall and winter I make this about once a week
Spaghetti - or some form of pasta
Creamy Chicken- with tons of mushrooms
Chicken Parmesan - I can usually get Greg to make this, which is a huge bonus


 Making the List:

After selecting the menu, we make the list. This is also something that I have finally gotten smart about. I typed up a pre-made list of things that we get every week like deli items, onions, mushrooms, fruit, veggies, chicken, granola bars, and juice. Each week I just print out the list, add what I call the "week-specific items" and head out the door.  

I also split the list into two sides because we shop at two different stores each week. Okay, side note: We are a tiny bit crazy (we call it cost-efficient) because every weekend we go to Whole Foods and Target for our shopping. We go to Target for the boxed stuff like granola bars (they have Kashi for about $2 less per box than W.F.!) and paper and cleaning products like t.p., paper towels, Windex, etc. At Whole Foods we shop the perimeter of the store. We get fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, bread, cheese, and deli items. It would be way too expensive for us to buy all of our food and other supplies there, so luckily there is a Target in the same shopping center and we can get a lot of the items on our list for a discounted price.


The last thing that I did to simplify my life was to put the list in order of the store's layout. For example, in Whole Foods,  the first stop is the fruit area. So, the first thing on my list is fruit. The vegetables are behind that, followed by the seafood and then meat counter and so on. Therefore, as we are walking around the store, we can just go down the list and easily cross things off instead of searching for them.

 Liking my Weekends:

You may think I sound OCD or crazy for putting this much effort into a few stupid lists, but what I have realized is that taking about an hour or two of time once to make my menu and organize a pre-made grocery list has saved me about an hour and a half of time every weekend. (Remember, I was spending almost an hour each week just looking through cookbooks before writing my list). That makes my monthly allotment of fun-weekend-time about six hours longer. And life is good.


Thanks for reading my very wordy thoughts about food and being only slightly OCD. Stop by in a day or so to see my photo tribute to a week in the life of the Davis meals. (AKA: The product that comes out of this crazy planning stuff).

My First Blogiversary

Today is my last day of summer vacation and also one year since I started recording my thoughts about food and other ramblings. So, because after today I'll be busy getting back into the swing of things at work, I have a couple of posts that I'd love to share. I've been cooking, baking, and decorating up a storm, snapping pictures along the way. I hope you find some of the stuff cool, cute, or maybe even mildly inspirational.

The first thing I'd like to share is the cake (and other fun stuff) I made for my sister's going away to college party.  She's the baby (9 years younger than me) and is the one that keeps things lively around here. So when she decided to go to college 10 hours way, I thought she definitely deserved a special sendoff. I used some things I'd seen on Pinterest as inspiration. (It's awesome and totally addictive btw).

 I started two days before the party by making an 8" round chocolate layer, which I wrapped in plastic and put in the fridge. With the remaining batter, I made chocolate cupcakes. The next day I used vanilla cake batter to make one vanilla and one strawberry layer. I added a tiny bit of pink food coloring gel and some pureed strawberries to make the last layer pink and add some strawberry flavor and texture. I skinned the strawberries first, so the cake wasn't full of seeds.

Then, I had to level and stack all of the layers. This was really nerve racking, because for two days,  I'd been preparing three cake layers with only one 8" pan, so I had to keep juggling the cakes, swapping out, cleaning, and re-greasing the pan once each layer had cooled. The last thing I wanted to do was repeat that whole process again.

By the way, here's where I get the depth and breadth of my baking knowledge. It's cutting edge.

Google says there is a contraption out there that levels cakes easily, but I of course don't have that equipment. So after clicking the next clink, I used the advice from a very smart sounding person (in the ways of cake leveling), which was sliding the knife around the circumference of the cake cutting out even rings until you got to the center. But it didn't come out perfectly.  Finally, I just went for it, (a la what I've seen on the cake boss) sticking my bread knife in the cake horizontally and sawing across the diameter hoping that it turned out even. That worked just as well. Better actually, much easier than the ring method.  I guess I didn't need Chef Google after all.

The top

Oh, and before I forget, before the leveling, there was this small snafu. Come on, you didn't think I'd get away accident-free on my first time, did you?

I (while subduing my inner freak-out-attack) mixed up a "patch" icing and used my finger to coat the inside of the hole and then slid the missing chunk back in (luckily it was already cool and not too crumbly). Then I cement it shut with the patch icing.

After all of that, here are the three layers together ready to be iced and put on my new cake platter $14 at Home Goods. Whoop whoop!

I crumb coated each layer with my homemade strawberry icing, again flavored with juice from pulverized fresh strawberries. No artificial flavor comes close.  I also added just a hint of pink food coloring gel. Insert super smiley proud moment below.

Then, I refrigerated it overnight. I imagined that I was going to do something super cool when I frosted up the final layer, but I just couldn't bring myself to mess with it too much. The super cool (in my world)  surprise was on the inside.

The day of the party, I topped the leftover-batter cupcakes with raspberries and stuck them on my Home Goods platter ($6!). I also set out the cake and a few other sparkly and pink decorations.

 I twisted glimmery silver ribbon around some candles that I had leftover from my wedding and plucked a couple rosebuds from the garden out back. The mini-vase was also left over from my wedding.

 I made these for Sarah's dorm room out of some flat canvases that she can probably hang with command strips. To make them, I placed painters tape in a diagonal pattern and mixed up a shade of pink I thought she might like using acrylic paint.Then I just painted away and pulled off the tape after the two layers were just beginning to dry.

Towards the end of her party, we cut the cake so fast that I didn't get time to snap a good-lighting/crumb-free picture. That's ok, I was just happy it turned out just as I planned. We served up some Neapolitan ice cream on the side. Yummy!

 It was so...darn...good.  I had to use every ounce of decorum in my soul not to grab this slab with my hands and eat it like a ravenous wolf. So moist and melt in your mouth with all of the different flavors. Uh! - Sorry, I just needed a little satisfaction-grunt. 

Anyways, all grunting aside, I hope you like the cake idea. I wish it was mine, but it was something that I tagged on Pinterest a few weeks ago. It did work out well though (besides the small snafu) and I'm notorious for royally messing stuff up the first time. (I confess I deleted the pictures of the first homemade brownies I made from my camera earlier this summer. It was just too humiliating to have to re-live).

I'm not yet ready to start my fall pie-making just yet. I'm still clinging on to the last few weeks of summer! I'm making hamburgers and slicing up watermelon to the very end!! Thanks for still reading my thoughts about food- even one whole year later!

Stay tuned for some before and after pictures of the house in a bit!

Vermont Maple Syrup

 
Greg and I went to Vermont last weekend and had a great outdoorsy vacation. We hiked, saw some beautiful lakes, streams and waterfalls, and on the last day we went to a beautiful golf course with mountains and lakes all around. We had high expectations about dining out, but we realized once getting into the town, that our selection was limited. It was a one horse town. And that one horse was actually more like a reindeer who only came around between October and April. Yes, a ski town in July definitely has a deserted feeling. All of the ski shops were closed down for the summer. There were no chain stores or restaurants - not a Target or Home Depot for miles. There were family owned hardware stores and antique shops run out of old barns. It was very picturesque. On our first night, we went to a restaurant that kind of reminded me of a Ruby Tuesday. It was dark inside with a not-been-renovated-since- it-opened-in-1982 look. The waitress actually leaned the whiteboard with the specials against the booth next to us that another couple was sitting in, so we had to inconspicuously try to look over so they didn't get super uncomfortable at us staring them down. I had shrimp baked with crab "crumbles" and Greg had fried clams. Both were too rich, but tolerable.


Seeing as this restaurant was the one that came recommended by our hotel (and seemed to be the most popular hangout in town) I was a bit concerned about feeding ourselves for the rest of the week. By chance, we walked past a tiny shop that caught my eye. It was called the Downtown Grocery. I was surprised that a grocery store could fit into such a small space, but then I realized that it is actually a brand new casual fine dining restaurant in the town.  It ended up being a lovely meal. They served seasonal local food, so their menu changes daily. I had Gnocchi and Greg had Chicken Confit. We ordered a side of brocolini, which had a vinegary dressing with Parmesan on top. The best part, though, was the homemade warm pound cake with strawberries, which was one of the best things I've ever tasted in my life. The bottom had a bit of a crunchy crust like it had just been baked and the inside melted in our mouths. I also had their raspberry ice cream which had fresh raspberries in it. Delicious!

Photo Source

(BTW: I hate taking a camera into a restaurant to take pictures because I feel uber tacky but afterward I'm always disappointed that I didn't. Therefore, I stole this picture from the internet)

I did however, have my phone out snapping a few shots of this "breakfast shop." It was absolutely delicious, but it was actually built out of of someone's house which is why, as you'll see in the pictures, it looks like we're in someones living room. (With the kids' school pictures and all).

 I had spinach quiche and cornbread.

  Greg had apple cinnamon pancakes with Vermont maple syrup.

The kitchen was up the stairs from the split foyer. It was hilarious to me, although no one else seemed to notice or care. It was really quaint, and the food was literally homemade and incredible.

We had a couple other awkward moments at restaurants, like on Sunday night when the restaurant we went to was closed, so we went to the only other restaurant in town and they sat us in this TINY room with one other family and no music on.  The other family kept making comments about not being able to talk about some big family issue because we were sitting there. So awkward!!! Finally they left and our food came. Greg had the "Vermonter Burger" brushed with maple syrup, which was his favorite meal of the trip. A cheeseburger with maple syrup - of course that was his favorite. That's all I would ever have to make to satisfy his taste buds, apparently.

I thought that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Mrs. Butterworth's syrup and the "real stuff," but I definitely could. We bought some to bring home and I made pancakes last night for dinner.  Yum!

The Nightly Ritual

 Meet our live-in dish washer. Her name is Camden.

  She is thorough.

 She is diligent. 

She is fastidious.

 She is invested in her job.

 She never asks for smoke breaks.  

 She is conscientious.

 

She is detail oriented.



Anyone hiring a crumb-licking dog? Please send all inquiries to Food For Thought Inc.

10 Things You May Not Know about Me and Food

1. I will try (almost) anything once. I have eaten  kangaroo steak on a stick and once I ate a baby octopus whole.

2. I would love to have a vegetable garden, but I know everything would die. The only things that I've been able to keep alive are two dogs and a fish....and a husband.


3. Even though I try to eat healthy, comfort food is my wheelhouse. My favorite foods are: chocolate cake  macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, chocolate mousse, and homemade cookies.

4. In college we had a dining hall kitchen that made pretty decent food (which I totally miss!) but no one liked it except me. All my friends would have Lucky Charms or salad for dinner and I'd be eating roasted stuffed peppers and Eggplant Parmesan.


5. I mess up nearly all of the recipes I try for the first time. After half-whisking in an incorrect ingredient I will usually look up and say in all seriousness, "do you think I can get that back out?"

6. I CRAVE corn flakes with sugary hot milk from the summers I spent on mission trips to Honduras. I also crave the frozen chocolate covered bananas from those trips.

7. The best tamale I ever had was at an orphanage in Mexico.   To. die. for.

8. When I was a baby, apparently, I ate dog food out of my grandparent's golden retriever's dish. They would have to put it on the counter when I came over.

9. I hate olives and I don't really like bacon. Both are too salty.

10. The worst cooking mistake I ever made was putting broccoli in a slow cooker for an entire day. Horrible outcome.

10b.Scratch that, the worst cooking mistake I ever made was buying fish that still had the scales on one side, and then trying to get them off with a spoon...then a knife...then a cheese grater... then just calling my grandmother...then Greg coming home and almost throwing up seeing me wrestling a half mutilated fish over the kitchen sink Golom-style.

Food Dilemmas

I recently finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I really enjoyed the book. A lot of what he said resonated with me. I had been thinking about how to eat healthier, but that seemingly simple  idea becomes convoluted relatively quickly. What is healthy eating? Is it low-fat, low-calorie? Does it mean avoiding sugar and complex carbohydrates? If you're trying to be heart healthy, you might try to cut back on sodium and cholesterol. Then there's organic food. Ultimately, I would love to be eating all organic food, but what does that really mean anyways? What are the federal regulations that make a food able to be deemed organic? If I decide that eating healthier can't be achieved unless I also support concientious farming and care of the environment then I might want to consider eating locally, buying free-range or cage free, bringing my own reusable bags, shopping at the farmer's market, or even growing my own produce. As you can see, "healthy" isn't such a simple a term.

After reading this book, and doing some research, I have a new perspective, but there is still a lot of gray area. I think a lot of American's feel similarly frustrated. Food is obviously an integral part of our culture, but as Pollan says, "as a relatively new nation drawn from many different immigrant populations, each with its own culture of food, Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us" (5). Without these traditions to guide our national eating habits, I believe we tend to swing on a giant pendulum, some of us depriving our bodies of perfectly normal foods like bread, meat, and sugar, while others binge, not knowing how to balance the pleasure of food with the restraint of overindulgence. We don't have customs that tell us to take time out of our days to leave work, go home, and prepare a meal, and then to actually sit down and enjoy it. Savior it! If we had these specific food customs, our impulsive and hectic meals would become nonexistent due to social traditions and taboos, not our unhealthy obsession with the online calorie counter. In another interesting observation, Pollan mentions the "French paradox" in which French women can seemingly live off of loaves of French bread, cheese, wine, and fois gras, and maintain more slender figures than us! Pollan says, "Yet I wonder if it doesn't make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox - that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily."

  While eating "local" is routine for a family in living in Italy or Mexico, who can (in some cases) walk to the market to purchase fresh produce from their local farmers, I could (an often do) plan my weekly meals like a glutton at Disney's Epcot Center. I might eat Chinese, Italian, Indian, Thai, and French food all in the span of just one week. Meanwhile, the Thai curry sauce has been shipped halfway across the world, and the hormone and antibiotic-filled chicken from my Moo Goo Gai Pan had lived its pitiful life in a filthy cage neurotically trying to peck at itself with its clipped beak.

 In his book, Pollan mentions a farm in Virginia called Polyface. In one funny anecdote, the author asks Joel Salitan, the owner of this progressive farm, to fed-ex a chicken to the West coast so he can see the difference real "free-range" farming makes. Salitan declines his request. His farm is completely local, and he intends to keep it that way. To him, flying a chicken across the country is an irresponsible waist of fossil fuel. His Virginia farm is a "beyond organic" local-market dedicated to "healing the land" that industrial farming has left behind. After reading about their humane and brilliant farming techniques, I checked them out online. As their quite family-run website suggests, they truly practice what they preach. Amazingly, they have a buyers club that covers about a dozen cities in Maryland and Virginia, the farthest reaching being Annapolis, Maryland!

As I tried to order some eggs and chicken of my very own for a May 14th drop off date at local person's home (yes, he puts his home address on the website and lets strangers come to pick up their purchases) I was immediately disappointed that they were sold out of many of the items I wanted. However, after scrolling down the webpage I saw a quote stating "remember, we are a farm, not a factory."

The problem is that at the grocery store, I can get anything I want. I don't have to wait for Spring to get fresh strawberries. I don't have to go to Central America to get a pineapple. The products I want are sitting right there for me whenever I want them. So why should I choose not to eat them? It's because of what I don't see when walking into the grocery store. I can't see the barrels of petroleum wasted on shipping items across the world. They're not sitting on the shelf next to the the bananas from Honduras. I can't see the squalor that the chicken lives in. I don't see the unnatural and antibiotic-filled corn feed that the cows eat, while their bodies, grass-eating machines, have never seen a blade of grass in their short lives. I don't see these things, so it doesn't make an impact. But that doesn't mean those things do not happen. They do, and on a massive scale. Does a plucked and cleaned chicken breast looks the same, no matter the source? Of course. So why should I choose to pay $2 more a pound?

My answer? Because it's only $2. If you were buying a car seat for your baby, would you buy the cheaper model, or the one that was slightly more expensive, but guaranteed safety? Then why will we fill our bodies with chemicals and anything that endured suffering, just to make chicken nuggets as cheap as possible? Don't we normally want to pay a little more for a higher quality product? Then why do we resist when it comes to food? I'm not saying that I don't have a budget at the grocery store. I definitely do, and I stick to it. I will also probably run to a McDonalds on a hectic day some time, and buy a pineapple too. I can't live up to the expectations of perfect eating. If so, I would spend each day obsessed with every morsel, which is just as unhealthy as every other binging or malnourished person. But I will try to strive for balance, a natural thought process to eating, and above all a conscientious and responsible attitude when purchasing the food I will nourish my body with.  To me,  if you are what you eat, I want to fill my body (and soul) with the most clean food that I reasonably can.