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Left: Ancient bottle of Tabasco found in the back of the cabinet.
Right: Brand-new bottle of Tabasco.
Who'da thunk Tabasco had a shelf life? Clearly not me! (Speaking of which, what's with the expiration date on vinegar? What's going to happen to it?)
Until such time as I can get my act together and grow my own, I am very fortunate to live across the street from Madeline and Cosmo, our very generous green-thumb neighbors.
These days Whole Foods sells heirloom tomatoes that are as lumpy and misshapen as this and taste (almost) as heavenly, and yet I still see people choosing the perfectly spherical, perfectly red, perfectly tasteless imported variety. HUH?
I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
To recap: Kingsolver and her family—biology-professor husband Steven Hopp and daughters Camille and Lily—leave Tucson, where almost nothing edible grows anymore, and move to a farm in Virginia. They embark on a year-long experiment in living off the land (their own and their community's), eating only locally raised food. They make certain exceptions—for instance, Hopp won't even consider the move unless he can have coffee, which must be brought in, but at least they do their research and find a source of fair-trade coffee; Kingsolver herself knows she'd never be able to cook without olive oil, so they find a good source for that; and so on. To no one's great surprise, this "experiment" turns out to become a way of life. They enjoy eating the fruits (literally!) of their own labor, buying from their neighbors at the farmers' market, supporting the community, ridding their bodies of pesticides and hormones and God-knows-what-else, and even saving money in the process.
I learned so much from this book, I barely know where to begin. For one thing, I hadn't realized that the U.S. agribusiness machine was so powerful and out of control. For instance, did you know that we export 1.1 million tons of potatoes while we also import 1.4 million tons of potatoes? What's wrong with this picture? We could instead be supporting our own farms—and eating fresh potatoes! I also learned about the atrocities of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), where chickens and cows are forced to live in darkness, standing in mountains of their own excrement, eating foods they were never meant to eat (including body parts of their own kind—turning them into cannibals). Do you want to eat the meat of an animal that has spent its entire miserable little life exuding stress hormones? (And, speaking of eating meat, Kingsolver does an admirable job of "justifying" her reasons for not being a vegetarian.)
Why is it that food, of all things, is the area in which we are most likely to shop by price? We do it all the time—saving a buck here and there on trucked-in produce regardless of the fact that it's less fresh and tasty than the local variety and has lost many of its nutrients in transit (and I'm not even addressing the use of fuel required to get it here). No one I know can afford to completely disregard price when choosing food, but shouldn't we first consider the health benefits and the flavor, even if we don't think we can afford to care about supporting our local farmers and reducing our dependence on petroleum? Let's say someone presented you with two tomatoes that were the same price. One was mushy and flavorless, had already lost most of its antioxidants, and probably still contained residue from pesticides; the other was bursting with flavor, had been picked the previous day, and had been grown without the use of any pesticides. Everyone would choose the second one, right? Well, what if it cost one nickel more? One dime? How much is it worth to feed your family food that tastes better and is more healthy for them? How much more can you spend on milk that comes from cows that never had estrogen injections or on blackberries that weren't sprayed with toxic chemicals? These are some of the questions we need to start asking ourselves. I know I can find other places to trim my budget, and I intend to.
I want you all to read this book! Borrow a copy from a friend and use the money you saved to buy eggs from chickens given free range on grass—and did you know that those eggs have more omega-3s than factory-farmed eggs and only about half the cholesterol, and it's mostly LDL (the good kind)? I promise you that despite how preachy I might come across here, Kingsolver manages to escape that tone entirely. She's so smart and funny that I ended up just wishing I could be friends with her. She doesn't expect us to make 180° conversions, or even to do what she has done; I for one know I'll never give up bananas and orange juice just because they can't be grown locally. But there are plenty of other things I can do. I'll leave you with Kingsolver's own words:
I share with almost every adult I know this crazy quilt of optimism and worries, feeling locked into certain habits but keen to change them in the right direction. And the tendency to feel like a jerk for falling short of absolute conversion. I'm not sure why. If a friend had a coronary scare and finally started exercising three days a week, who would hound him about the other four days? It's the worst of bad manners—and self-protection, I think, in a nervously cynical society—to ridicule the small gesture. These earnest efforts might just get us past the train-wreck of the daily news, or the anguish of standing behind a child, looking with her at the road ahead, searching out redemption where we can find it: recycling or carpooling or growing a garden or saving a species or something. Small, stepwise changes in personal habits aren't trivial. Ultimately they will, or won't, add up to having been the thing that mattered.
Today was the day we wait for all year, the Lancaster County Fair. The weather was just perfect: sunny and warm, with a nice breeze. We sat on tractors, we fed baby goats, we marveled at the huge Belgian horses, we ate altogether too much fried food, we rode rickety rides, we were cheated out of our money by one carny after another, we devoured the always-amazing Robillard apple crisp, and ... lessee ... what else? Ah yes, I got my annual run at the quarters machines, which have a positively hypnotic effect on me. If I had one of those at home, I'd never shower or get dressed or leave the house at all. 
(That's Julie's head in the Sox hat; she's scooping up all Mama's winnings.)
