This morning I went out to do some grocery shopping. First stop was one of the locally owned local food stores. I had hoped to get some decent looking greens, preferably dinosaur or lacinato kale or at least some collards. No luck, even with the relatively mild winter and a number of local market growers having hoop houses, all that was available were some very small bunches of red russian kale, arugula and beet greens, the leaves of which probably did not exceed 4″. I passed on those, then headed to the frozen meat case, wanting to stock up on local pastured no added anything beef and some bison burger. (Another of my 2012 goals is to 100% swear off industrially produced meat, have been about 80% there.) I got a selection of beef stew meat, pastrami, ground 90/10, german bratwurst and liver. These are mostly the less expensive options, I can stretch them into quite a few meals.
The pastrami is amazingly super good, a bit pricey but I consider it a real treat. I guess liver has gotten such a bad name hardly anyone buys it anymore ($2 a lb.) It is, however, one of our favorite meals, served with lots of golden sautéed onions and mashed potatoes, green beans on the side. I also picked up a pound of bison burger, I like to mix it with either lamb or beef burger to make meatloaves, which again, can go a long way.
Growing up one of my favorite meals was “hoppel-poppel”, ground meat or roast leftovers cooked with potatoes, onions and sometimes peppers. It is still on my menu. I was extremely fortunate to spend a good portion of my early years growing up on a traditional diversified farm where we had a house cow for milk, beef cattle, sheep, hogs, a variety of poultry: chicken, ducks, geese. For a while my dad even raised pea fowl and pheasants. We also enjoyed venison, abundant fish from the lakes and fruit and veggies galore! We ate very well.
Polled Herefords
After my folks sold the farm and a brief “retirement” in Florida which they quickly tired of, they bought another smaller farm and soon had a new house cow, sheep, milk goats, chickens, a huge garden and a new orchard planted. They loved that life and worked the farm for another 25 years until both their deaths during a four-month period in 1994, only slowing down the last year or two. As I lived within about 50 miles of them my family & I also benefited from the bounty / surplus. After their deaths I went vegetarian for well over a decade. In the past few years I’ve come back to a more “Nourishing Traditions” style of eating, and have bought local pastured beef, bison, lamb and chicken for several years. The price has slowly crept up, which I can fully understand. The bison burger, however, did include some sticker shock. When I started buying buffalo the burger was $5 / lb. The last time I purchased some at the Farmer’s Market it was $7.95 /lb., today the price was $9.23 / lb.
Second leg of shopping trip: Went to another market, this one more of a “natural” and bulk foods establishment with a dab of local thrown in. I checked the price of bison burger there – $9.63 / lb. My husband told me he’d heard a piece on the radio driving to work about bison ranching being a good gig these days. There are three bison ranches in our region that I know of. More power to them, it takes sturdy infrastructure and a brave soul to raise bison, they earn every penny I’m sure! Also noted that several of the items I buy there regularly had also jumped in cost. I’m quite unhappy that I have felt priced out of the raw pumpkin seed market for a while ($7.95 / lb.)
Next stop: the $ Market (not the real name) , where I bought a couple of cheap dish towels and hot pads (yes indeed, they were $1 a piece and made in China, and I’m feeling somewhat guilty, slave or near slave labor seems the only way that price is possible, another goal: gotta 100% swear off the Chinese made stuff.) The $ Market is located in what is considered the poorer side of town, (where I live.) It had been several months since I had been there, and several changes jumped out: They had never before accepted MasterCard, today there was a large sign on the front door: “We now accept MasterCard!”. Upon entering I saw they had added a new section: cheap wino type wines, Gallo, Boone’s Farm, etc. in a prominent location in the front of the food section. At the check out the woman in back of me was purchasing a gallon of milk and asked the cashier if she could please double bag it as she was riding the bus. The cashier replied, “Sorry, we are not allowed to do that any more.” I did not need the flimsy plastic bag my cheap slave made dish towels were in (should have carried my cloth bag, more guilt) so I gave it to her. To me those changes indicated that the $ Market Corp. was refining its marketing strategy and focusing in on a slowly downward sliding clientele, making it easier for them to purchase (addition of MCard), providing new items that would appeal (cheap wine) and cutting costs (absolutely no more double flimsy plastic bags.)
The take away from my shopping trip was : #1 Motivation for doing a bigger/ better job of gardening. I had been too lazy to go out and pick what was in my own garden, I knew there was some kale & mustard greens still growing under the light fluff of straw mulch, but expected to find something better at the local market. Wrong. #2 Make season extension projects a higher priority. #3 The world is changing, even though it appears some sectors of the economy are perking up, others are definitely sliding south. Things are not as they tell you on TV nightly news. (gasp! imagine that!)
So, I came home, went out and picked kale, which we are having for dinner tonight.
Kale from the Garden
We seem to have come to the same concludions. Brad and I made the decision to go 100% last week. We had let things slide because of the 4 children and food costs, but decided because of the animals are treated and fed that we really needed to commit to local farm-raised, raise our own or go vegetarian! I too love the Nourishing Traditions cookbook/lifestyle. I was vegetarian before I had children and the smell of fried chicken did me in! It took me about 10 more years before I did not feel guilty eating meat and now I am o.k. with supporting the local farmers. We are even thinking about raising our own someday. We have 3 rabbits (which I will not eat), ordering 25 chickens from Sandhill Preservation this week, and 2 baby goats (future milk) coming soon. This is all we can commit to until we find our own land. I was fortunate that I grew up on the farm, as my Grandparents had 200 acres in Ash Grove with cattle, pigs and chickens. We want so much to provide more of our food and garden year round and NO more China! It’s unbelievable how much is made in China!