I Appreciate Peas

DAY 125

After my huge score at the Public Market yesterday, I had to do some prep to make it all more edible :) and spent almost three hours cutting, chopping, boiling and blanching my food for the week. My pending road trip will be interesting and I am wondering how it will go when I bring ALL my own food...

As I am working to get my food life in order for the challenge this month, the process of setting my boundaries has also begun. I have decided to "allow" certain luxuries as did my now Local Food Idol, author Barbara Kingsolver. Most known for her novels ("The Poisonwood Bible" and "Prodigal Summer" to name a few), her book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" chronicles a year of "deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water and breathed the air." Barbara (we are on a first name basis now, lol) and her family lived off their own home grown food or food produced only in the vicininty fo their farm in VA. Very inspirational...I highly recommend this read! More info on her website...

http://animalvegetablemiracle.com/

They did allow coffee, olive oil and a few other luxuries, so I will follow suit:

1. Tea - need some caffeine!

2. Olive Oil - I may switch back to butter bc even though butter is a dairy product and I am lactose intolerant, I learned that butter does not have lactose - yay! And I am sure I can get some NY butta.

3. Spices - Especially, pepper, salt, cinnamon...

4. Balsamic vinegar - but maybe I can find cider vinegar made in NY

5. Maybe almonds, walnuts and pecans (oh my) - I'll see how it goes since I am a "fishitarian" working toward vegetarian, I want to be sure I get enough protein - FYI, potatoes have 3g of protein - that's great news :)

6. Maybe rice - see above, maybe I can get some wild rice grown in NY...if I lived in MN, I'd be all set!

I was most excited by the number of peas I found in my garden...check out my Facebook Page for a stunning photo :) In spite of planting my peas way too late, there have been a few pods - with any where from 1-4 peas inside. I had no idea on the timing thing never mind that peas grow on a vine and need a trellis of some sort to keep them organized and off the ground - who knew? The pods yielded only 123 peas (approx 1/4 cup) and it took me almost 10 minutes to shell...I will now look at a bag of frozen peas in a whole new light! The saying, "two peas in a pod" has new relevance for me as well...

The other thing I decided to do to segue into this challenge is to finish up some of the non-NY foods I had in my frig and then figure out an alternative...almond milk, avocado, grape juice...maybe I can find some kind of goats milk here - we have some natural food stores and a co-op or two...

Have a Nothing New Day! Kristin