Brief update

Can I just say how wonderful it is to wake up in your own bed and having NOTHING scheduled for the day?

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So far today all I've done is read, cleaned the kitchen and made a bunch of stuff using our bi-weekly delivery of organic produce and (best of all!) our own homegrown vegetables from our garden.

It was totally awesome to go out to the garden and pull a head of lettuce to make our lunchtime salads.   It was a gorgeous head of purple lettuce that I combined with the organic red leaf lettuce that was delivered yesterday.   

Earlier today I made fresh mayo-less cole slaw from the cabbage, carrots, garlic, and red onion.   I tweeked the recipe a bit; the dressing tasted yummy!  It's marinating for 4 hours.  Can't wait to taste it.

I'm making my ginger liquor for my homemade ginger ale.

And later today or early tomorrow I will be heading off to our local New Seasons market to grocery shop.  Normally I *hate* grocery shopping, but I *love* New Seasons.  Have to be very careful about the cost as it's high-priced, but the fresh produce and meat departments (and flower department) are wonderful!

Man is it good to get back to a somewhat normal weekend.  The past 4-5 weeks have been a nightmare of over-activity.  75% of it has been wonderful due to multiple graduations and birthdays and other celebrations.   But my project work is overflowing, I'm about 300% booked and drowning in it.   And having my mother injure herself badly in early June significantly impacted all the family member's free time (which translates to no free time).   Good news is that she is recovering pretty quickly, considering.   And is now spending more and more time without someone with her 24x7.

Who knows I might even have the creative energy to go through my 4 weeks worth of backlogged photos.  

Plus I have to get back to going through all my old SPN con photos to pick out what I want folks to sign at Vancon - which is just under 2 months away.   Can't wait!

Ingredients

Bob and I just watched this great film called "Ingredients."  Turns out it's a Portland produced film about the growing movement towards locally grown food.  It features a lot of local Portland farmers and communities and restaurants.  Such as Carafe which is nearby my old workplace and where I've eaten frequently.   

Here's the trailer for the film.   

One of the lines that really stood out for me was when the film stated that the US spends less on food than any other industrialized nation.

Another line was the statement that it is estimated that 1 in 3 kids born in 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes.   

Then there was the image of a skull and cross bones poison sign staked in a field of growing vegetables because of the pesticides being used on the crops.   Really?

On the flip side was all the wonderful footage of local farms in the Portland area (and in NY and Ohio) and interviews with farmers who are going organic, doing CSAs, selling directly to local restaurants, and working with the community and the local school system.   

Since I changed the way I eat about a year ago, I am continually amazed at how many different foods and ways to prepare those foods and such wonderfully tasting food there is out there.   It makes me both very happy and very pissed off at what has happened to the food system in this country.

If you have Netflix, this film is available for streaming.   I loved this.  Watching this film made me love the Portland/Willamette Valley area even more than I already did.

Edit:  Here is the entire film on YouTube:

And from one review:  "I will also say this . . .the images in this film are stunningly beautiful. If you love food, like I love food, you will be blown away by the cinematography in this movie."

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