due to circumstances not beyond my control, which i let get beyond my control...i have neglected to blog the past week of thrills and spills in locavore liz's quest. BUT...be not deterred, for i am not, even in these challenging times.
friday, last week i woke to day 12 of locavorism. it was an interesting day and lunch was full of happiness thanks to a cauliflower grown by my friends dad...until the evening when i collapsed and faltered. was this hunger? was it laziness? was it emotional distress? was it realisation of a bar set too high...a finish line too far in the distance? whatever it was, i broke my stream of locavorism and scoffed a plate of imported , affectionately cooked by my housemate, vegetables!
shock!
horror!
despair!
i don't know where these specimens have come from. they very well may have unloaded off the back of any old truck from miles and i-don't-even-want-to-imagaine-how-many-miles away...
and the rain fell saturday morning. i checked the farmers market calender and had faltered once again, misreading the date for this saturday's market. i was down to one egg, one (soft) potato and a few florets of cauliflower. so i made a decision. i crumbled under the pastry of a south melbourne market spinach & cheese surprise and lapsed into a five day hiatus.
yes, i have dearly disappointed myself, yet sense the impending renaissance. i will visit Ceres in brunswick this wednesday. i will! i will embark on this expedition with green bags blazing...it's a new dawn and i will triumph in this resurgance, i will not let five days of wayward feasting destroy my endevours to be the best locavore i can be...that is until i celebrate my 27th year on september 8 and eat a whole cake.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
beautiful simple
two things made me smile today. i explored the farmers market at abbotsford convent. i found a packet of dried apples and loved the ingredient listing:
granny smith apples
lemon juice
honey
rain water
this is like an accidental poem! i love the ingredient 'rain water'. it conjures rain flavours and scents. i love how cleansing and natural it sounds.
i also love the dozen eggs i bought from a farmer from Wandin. they're all shapes and sizes! some are speckled, round, oval, big, small.
simple pleasures.
granny smith apples
lemon juice
honey
rain water
this is like an accidental poem! i love the ingredient 'rain water'. it conjures rain flavours and scents. i love how cleansing and natural it sounds.
i also love the dozen eggs i bought from a farmer from Wandin. they're all shapes and sizes! some are speckled, round, oval, big, small.
simple pleasures.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Day 4 - sugar sugar, honey honey
it's day 4 and i feel amazing. i feel quite pure, drinking all this lemon tea! one thing i'm finding difficult is avoiding sugar. it shocks me to see how sugar is in an ingredient of so many foods. i can't source sugar. i wonder where it all comes from?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Day 2 - the chicken & the egg
today i ate eggs and tomato for breaky, vegies for lunch, pumpkin & potato soup for dinner and snacked on fruits, honey and lemon tea and carrot sticks. i don't own a vegetable peeler so i've been eating carrots and potatoes skin on, dirt and all! i love it!
so, what about eggs? i make a constant effort to eat eggs from happy hens. to me, a happy hen is one with room to roam, a comfy place to sleep and one well fed and looked after. i was fortunate to share the eggs from my brother's hens while we lived together. the hens and i became quite close and i thanked them every morning they laid. we named them: spirit, ghost, hatchett face and juniper. my brother's favourite was a voluptuos isa-brown called chickadillo. but she died and it was very sad.
unfortunatley, not all hens are happy. and i wonder, when we purchase a carton of eggs if we think about the conditions under which the eggs were laid.
it can become confusing, standing there, in the supermarket with egg carton after egg carton staring down at us. organic, free range, caged, battery, 300g, large, duck, emu, elephant - the labels are endless! i always buy free range and depending on the cost, organic free range. but what does free range mean? i will attempt to explain the labels...
free range:
for an egg to be labelled 'free range', it must have been laid under strict conditions. FREPA (Free Range Egg & Poultry Australia) have compiled a set of standards to which farmers must adhere to in order to label their eggs 'free range'. these standards include things like maxium range density of live birds per hectare, lighting and feeding codes and the forbidding of de-snooding (cutting of fleshy appendage that attaches just above the beak) and toe trimming.
so, what about eggs? i make a constant effort to eat eggs from happy hens. to me, a happy hen is one with room to roam, a comfy place to sleep and one well fed and looked after. i was fortunate to share the eggs from my brother's hens while we lived together. the hens and i became quite close and i thanked them every morning they laid. we named them: spirit, ghost, hatchett face and juniper. my brother's favourite was a voluptuos isa-brown called chickadillo. but she died and it was very sad.
unfortunatley, not all hens are happy. and i wonder, when we purchase a carton of eggs if we think about the conditions under which the eggs were laid.
it can become confusing, standing there, in the supermarket with egg carton after egg carton staring down at us. organic, free range, caged, battery, 300g, large, duck, emu, elephant - the labels are endless! i always buy free range and depending on the cost, organic free range. but what does free range mean? i will attempt to explain the labels...
free range:
for an egg to be labelled 'free range', it must have been laid under strict conditions. FREPA (Free Range Egg & Poultry Australia) have compiled a set of standards to which farmers must adhere to in order to label their eggs 'free range'. these standards include things like maxium range density of live birds per hectare, lighting and feeding codes and the forbidding of de-snooding (cutting of fleshy appendage that attaches just above the beak) and toe trimming.
eat my questions
throughout my voyage into locavorism, i hope to discover answers or information about a few ideas i feel curious about...
how is an apple a day possible?
should we sacrifice variety for simplicity?
how do our choices impact?
why should i care?
i'm thinking these four questions will guide me through my work.
but here are more wonderings i will use to guide my research...
how is an apple a day possible?
should we sacrifice variety for simplicity?
how do our choices impact?
why should i care?
i'm thinking these four questions will guide me through my work.
but here are more wonderings i will use to guide my research...
are we really what we eat?
what is eating?
where does our food come from?
how far has it travelled?
what's in season?
why is food so accessible?
how do we eat differently from 100 years ago?
what does 'fresh' mean?
what is a supermarket? are they necessary?
what is the cost?
Monday, August 17, 2009
Day 1
August 17 2009
Today is my first day as a locavore. For breakfast, I ate apples, pears and yoghurt - all purchased from the Mornington Peninsula. I drank honey and lemon tea. The lemons came from a backyard in Williamstown. I ate vegetables all day long! I have a caffiene headache, so I'm considering allowing myself one coffee each day. This may be a nice avenue for me to explore fair trade too. I question the ethics surrounding supporting coffee farmers in third world countries vs living local and avoiding all of the exportation costs and environmental impacts...something to consider.
Amyway, I'm alive! I feel healthy and am looking forward to tomorrow's eggs and tomato breaky!
Today is my first day as a locavore. For breakfast, I ate apples, pears and yoghurt - all purchased from the Mornington Peninsula. I drank honey and lemon tea. The lemons came from a backyard in Williamstown. I ate vegetables all day long! I have a caffiene headache, so I'm considering allowing myself one coffee each day. This may be a nice avenue for me to explore fair trade too. I question the ethics surrounding supporting coffee farmers in third world countries vs living local and avoiding all of the exportation costs and environmental impacts...something to consider.
Amyway, I'm alive! I feel healthy and am looking forward to tomorrow's eggs and tomato breaky!
Preparation
August 15 2009
Today i visited the Mornington Peninsula. Currently, I reside in St. Kilda but grew up on the Mornington Peninsula. My family live there so spend lots of weekends visiting. I decided to explore the local produce on the peninsula and set out to purchase the bulk of my food for the week. I spent $40 and met some interesting characters along the way.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Things do not change; we change.
To begin this adventure I quote Henry David Thoreau...'Things do not change; we change.'
I learn and I change. I evolve, I grow, I somewhat understand and more than ever, I question. Curiosity drives me.
Now, I am wondering about food. It is essential to our existence, eating is something all living creatures must partake in to survive. I have been eating and drinking all my life (sometimes to shameful excesses) and often wonder...am i really what i eat?
Our society seems so accustomed to the ease and accessibility of visiting a supermarket to get food but I want to know how did that food get to the supermarket? How did its journey to the shelf impact the earth and the people?
These questions - among others - have inspired me to experiment with locavorism. A locavore is someone who only consumes food sourced from a 100 mile radius of their home. I will make an effort to live as a locavore for 30 days. During this time, I hope to exlpore and discover if an apple a day is really possible and how?
Please follow me on my adventure!
I learn and I change. I evolve, I grow, I somewhat understand and more than ever, I question. Curiosity drives me.
Now, I am wondering about food. It is essential to our existence, eating is something all living creatures must partake in to survive. I have been eating and drinking all my life (sometimes to shameful excesses) and often wonder...am i really what i eat?
Our society seems so accustomed to the ease and accessibility of visiting a supermarket to get food but I want to know how did that food get to the supermarket? How did its journey to the shelf impact the earth and the people?
These questions - among others - have inspired me to experiment with locavorism. A locavore is someone who only consumes food sourced from a 100 mile radius of their home. I will make an effort to live as a locavore for 30 days. During this time, I hope to exlpore and discover if an apple a day is really possible and how?
Please follow me on my adventure!
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