My plan for making Christmas presents this year has been successful, though not without a few major bumps in the road. You’ll recall I bought a “Singer Simple” as a joint household machine with my landlady back in in November. Well, after night after night of problems with it, I finally realized three nights before Christmas that I was in trouble and asked the landlady to come upstairs and see if SHE could sew with it. For me, it had been a constant mess of tangled thread, broken needles, knotting and confusion. I’d managed to get a small fraction of the project done and worse, I’d decided to also make holiday bags to put things in instead of wrapping paper or store bought bags, and hadn’t even started that yet.

A few rice bags, some gift bags

She came up the night before last and spent about an hour, starting with the machine from scratch with a fresh bobbin, threading it anew, and so on. After a seemingly endless stream of vindicating snafus as she muttered to her self “stay calm now, stay calm” she proclaimed that this was one of the most %#@$!’d up machines she’d ever seen and it was clearly defective, though she was unclear where the defect WAS. It just wasn’t ME, this time (gee, thanks).

It had to go back. She suggested I go “the next level up from dirt cheap” and get a different brand for good measure. I quailed at the idea of going near any place of shopping right before Christmas but the alternative was having no presents for anyone in my family.

The following morning – the day before the day before Christmas, I had to return the beast. Before I went out, I did some research online to suss out which machines might be available at the store and in stock, and what their reviews and features were. I identified one that would work and called to confirm they had it and asked one to be put aside. On arrival, I stood in a line of 8 people, 1 customer service person, for 40 minutes, and they told me I had to go GET the new machine to make an exchange or else it would take 3-5 business days to get the money back. I would have preferred to get the new machine elsewhere but expected something like this – or in store credit only. So I snagged the machine they were holding for me, hopped the line amidst grumbles of people who didn’t know I’d already done my time, and walked out with a new machine. This time it was a computerized beast – a Brother – with twice as many stitches and a bunch of interesting features.

I got it home, made a cup of tea, cleared the table of the mounds of dead thread I’d tangled up and ripped out of the other one, and started reading the manual. Nothing much made sense, despite its “easy, out of the box” claims. But they had something the other did not. A big sheet of paper with a giant red “STOP: If you are having any trouble, please call this number.” I called the number. Very quickly, I had a woman on the line who was as sweet and patient as anyone could be, and she walked me through the parts I was not making sense of via diagrams. Truth be told, they’d improved on the usability of basic sewing machine tasks and I just didn’t get the methodology but once I did, I was grateful for how they did things.  I thanked her and then…

Close up of fabric gift bags

I SEWED! (I sew? I sowed? that sound weird, too). The machine just took off, doing what it should do. I finished off all the rice bags that HAD to be done by Christmas – leaving the ones for my sisters family til after) within an hour. And then, since I had no choice but to do it all last night, I banged out three gift bags to put them in. I experimented with styles, what part was hemmed, where the ribbon went and so on – one was drawstring, one had a tie sewn onto the back (too high, so the next was lower) and the last, that I think will be my model for future ones, had better hemming and the tie sewn into the seam, further down so it could be easily given a “neck.” I just made them up as I went, and wished I’d had better material to work from. I definitely want to do more of this – its so much more long lasting than paper (which lives on for 2-3 decades in my family as it is) and I think a wider ribbon would have been better. Amazingly, there were only four seasonal fabrics left at the fabric store the Monday before Christmas. I suspect others had the same idea

All in all, it was a piece of cake. A joy, even, to finally to get it done. By the end of the fifth hour of sewing, the tedium was getting to me and my back and head hurt but I was able to gladly step back knowing I finally had a sewing machine I could grown to love, and I’d met my task.

So (heh), the plan wasn’t quite as I hoped – I ended up in a shopping center despite myself, ended up spending$50 more, but I consider it an investment. I want to learn to sew now, more than straight lines. I have project ideas popping into my head. Each persons gift cost about $2 total, if I don’t count the sewing machine (in which case, add about $12 per person). I’m pleased.

I learned a new word today: culled.

The lesson started yesterday when I was perusing one of my favorite food blogs, Simply Recipes and happened upon this recipe for Roasted Parsnips. Who knows what makes one recipe leap out over another – I could get lost for an hour dream-drooling over these recipes and photos but this one struck my fancy. I’m a fool for roasted roots and I had to get parsnips and try this.

As luck would have it, today I was scheduled to work at the food co-op. After doing three hour of shelf stocking, sorting and kerplunking prices on products, I clocked out to do a small amount of shopping, to get a few things for upcoming potlucks and parties. And, of course, parsnips. There were two MASSIVE parsnips out in produce, each big enough alone for me to dine on. The price was $1.99 and I’d estimate this bad boy was at least a pound and a half, possibly more. I could have clubbed someone with it, had I not been in my happy place. While I was meandering through the aisles, I ran into an old friend and dance partner who is often at the co-op and we chatted for a while, with him asking for an update on my job hunting situation. We parted with a big hug and set off on our shopping paths again. A few minutes later, we intersected again and he glanced at my cart and said “Oh, you need to follow me somewhere… I have something to show you.” He told me to leave my cart and follow. We went into the back room of the produce department and up against a wall was a big shelf that said Culled Produce, with a bunch of signs. And in a basket on the second shelf were about 25 small, somewhat gnarly looking parsnips. He explained to me that this was where stuff went that wasn’t pretty enough for the  produce section and it was all .29 cents a pound. I should check here regularly, and take whatever I wanted and one of the member workers in produce would weigh and tag it appropriately for check out. Then he winked and said “You can put that big club back out there for someone else to pay $1.99 a pound, if you want.”

I grinned at him, hardly believing my good fortune, and set about feeling up every parsnip in the culled produce basket. Most were firm with blemished skin, which I knew I’d be peeling off anyway. I might also have to cut out the woody hearts of ‘em but that was okay – the savings was unreal. I walked out of there with $0.59 worth of parsnips and they are roasting up nicely as we speak. Only one had any rot penetrating beyond the skin and that was easily removed.

There were also apples and pears in there today but I had all I need of those. Culled produce will definitely be for the “cook it that day” projects I have, since its already aged. As it is, I notice how quickly co-op produce goes bad over the stuff in the big markets – and I assume that is because its not treated or gassed or whatever they do to ship fruits and veggies. I bought some yams there a few months ago and TWO days later, they were soft, which really startled me. I have some yams from the local super market in my kitchen that must be over a week beyond me bringing them home (which reminds me…).

If I can plan my cooking around periodic raids on that back room at produce, who knows what bargains I might score! I ought to pay more attention to the “old” produce section at the regular supermarkets too, while I’m at it – who knew?

I have a cat, as many of you know, named Oscar. He came to me rather unexpectedly – I wasn’t planning to have a cat, and to be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of felines. He came as an accessory to a boyfriend I had years ago, and ended up living at my apartment after we broke up. The guy had this awesomely cool cat, who happened to be half Persian. He wasn’t taking very good care of him for financial reasons and the cat was horrendously matted with dredlocks. I immediately took him to a groomer for a bath and a hair cut, and at some point, the boyfriend decided the cat was better off living with me because I could afford him, had more room for him, and was working at home so I could give him more attention. When we split, the cat stayed – at that point, I was completely and hopelessly in love. I’ve learned to look at all cats differently as a result, although I still believe I am the luckiest cat owner in the world.

I don’t mind that he needs to go to the groomer 3-4 times a year – it keeps him comfortable and happy, and I know its safer that they give him his bath and hair cut than I try it. Its an expense I budget for like my own hair cut. The only thing that bugs me about having a cat is the litter. The expense and the recycling of it – or not. Were I to get a new kitten right now, I’d very likely try to train him to use the toilet and do away with the whole mess. But Oscar, smart as he is, probably is too old to be trained that way. So, I have to live with the litter and so does he. He is strictly an indoor cat, which (in my opinion) is the only safe and sane way to have a cat in the city. He “escapes” to the second story deck for brief interludes in the summer but very quickly starts pawing on the back door to come in the moment he hears something alarming or thinks I’m not close by.

The problem with litter is that most affordable brands are made from clay. It can’t be disposed of in any way but in the garbage, and the landfill, and it is heavy, dense, nasty stuff when its used. It’s certainly the cheapest solution but it bothered me in so many ways. It was so dusty, and I wondered what he and I were breathing. It tracked all over the place, stuck in his paws.  And it doesn’t break down very well in the landfill, if at all. Add to that, where does it come from? Strip mining is the answer I’ve read.

So, we set out to find an alternative. Since I am trying to avoid gluten, I skipped right over the wheat based products, figuring having wheat dust in the air wasn’t cool for me. I couldn’t imagine that the litter made from recycled newsprint was going to work so I skipped that brand.  We started with a cheap pine sawdust variety, which had a nice smell and texture when it was fresh out of the bag – and was a nasty wet mess when it was used.  I tried a bag of Feline Pine – this was like rabbit feed pellets when fresh. Oscar didn’t seem too keen on it in pellet form – I think it hurt his paws because he kept shaking them.  The worst part was that the smell was overwhelming as it got wet; it fell apart into the same pee-pine slop with all the urine falling to the bottom, stinking to high heaven. My little guy is love in a fur suit but what comes out his rear parts is toxic at best, so that wasn’t cool.

Then a friend recommended “World’s Best Cat Litter” – a corn litter. I bought a bag of that and never looked back. The corn traps ammonia somehow, which cuts way down on the smell. Wherever he pees, it clumbs into a hard lump that I can easily scoop. Even his poops are almost dehydrated by the corn – everything in there is dry.  It’s 100% biodegradable and can be scooped and flushed after a bit of sitting in toilet water to soften up the lumps. It’s made from a renewable resource, and not mined, which is important.

It also lasts a long time – if I go in there every other day and scoop out the lumps, the remaining litter is still fine and falls through the slotted scoop for further use. This makes up for the price of the litter because it lasts so much longer than the cheap clay stuff.

My only regret is that the Food Co-Op doesn’t carry it for some reason. They carry the cedar and pine brands, but not corn. I’d much rather purchase it there if I could but I’m left to big box and chain grocery stores to get it. It’s not an ideal solution – making my boy use the facilities would be even better – but this feels like a good second place solution.

When I went to college from 1989-1994, I studied graphic design, something which wasn’t available at any state or community college. It was an outrageously expensive program, but I managed between subsidized loans, tuition assistance from my government job and a grant for part time students that helped me as long as I kept my GPA high. What I remember most, though, is how doggone expensive text books were and added to that, graphic design supplies. Every couple months I’d have to shell out $200-$300 for books that I’d never read again, and art supplies that sometimes were only used for one project. I remember one ridiculous assignment where I had to buy 24 different Prismacolor markers at $3.99 each for a single assignment and never use them again. There was no shopping around – either you bought them at the college bookstore or you got them at the one local art supply store.

As of this week, I’ve become a college student again, returning to a non traditional adult program through the state university. Class starts in January but I wanted to see if I could take advantage of this nifty thing that sprung up since my graduation – the web – to save some money. I’m already saving boatloads of money by going to a state school – my tuition is $207 per credit hour, and it has gotten as absurd as $900 per credit hour at my private alma mater.

When I registered, I was shown a list of 8 books I needed to obtain for the two classes I’m currently registered for. I added them to the college bookstore shopping cart and the total was $214, getting them all new. The money isn’t actually coming out of my pocket – my parents were kind enough to offer to pay for my books if I did this but I still want to save them money so they can keep doing it! I went to my favorite used book aggregator, AbeBooks, and entered the ISBN of each book I needed. This is important because you want to get the correct edition. Every single book I needed was available and I built an order based on 1) lowest price for a decent condition book and 2) grouping the books within single independent booksellers whenever possible. For example, if one book is available from multiple sellers and I already had added a book from one of them, I would choose that seller and hopefully combine shipping.

The 8 books ended up coming from 5 sellers but when you consider that some of these books cost me a DOLLAR, its not hard to justify the bucks for shipping. When you’re faced with buying a $68 text book and can get it for $17, it’s a very exciting thing!

My total for purchasing the books this way was $103.26. Score!

I just faced an unexpected, absurd situation that begs telling. It might be a cooking post and it might a survival prep post, depending on how you look at it.

Today was the first snowy cold day we’ve had this winter and I decided that I’d spend it indoors, getting caught up on a whole pile of tasks, rather than head out for the Victorian Stroll that most of my friends were attending. Priorities, I suppose – I had gone out two nights in a row for dancing, swing one night and contra the other, and it was time to be responsible. I got many things done, stayed warm and cozy and decided to cook a big casserole that would last me for a few days, using items that were in my food storage. I try to do that every so often, to rotate what is in there and always pull out the oldest cans to hook up a meal. I was in the mood for Mexican and happened to have some corn tortillas and some cheese on hand, which needed to be used up. From the pantry, I pulled out a can of chicken, a can of tomatoes and chilis and a can of refried beans.

Before I could cook, I needed to clean up the mess I made making an apple crisp and a few other meals in the last 2 days, and started that process. I recall, without a doubt, seeing my white handled can opener on the counter and leaving it there rather than returning it to the drawer, because I’d need it shortly. I’m pretty organized – everything has a place and I make a point, unconsciously habitual, for putting things back in their places as I find them. And something like the can opener is always where I need it, either the counter top or the second drawer next to the sink. Same with scissors, knives, all manner of stuff – it has a place, and it is where I need it when I want it. Not having what I need to do things makes me cranky so I have systems, you know?

So, I washed and dried dishes, and cleaned up and checked email and returned back to start dinner. I sauteed some onions and peppers, and wanted to add the chicken with a variety of dried herbs from the garden, and reached for the can opener. It was not on the counter. Huh, I thought, maybe I did put it away. I looked in the drawer next to the sink. It wasn’t there. I looked at the counter again, which was mostly empty and it was definitely not there. I looked in every other drawer in the kitchen.  What the heck? Now I started thinking I must have somehow mindlessly put it down somewhere wrong – maybe in the fridge? The pantry? Under the sink? It wasn’t anywhere. Weird! I started looking on every other surface of the house, thinking I put it down by accident but nope, it wasn’t there.

No matter – I’ll just borrow one from downstairs. My friend that rents to me is used to this – we act more like roommates with two separate big rooms and routinely share stuff. I went downstairs,  and knocked on the door but no one was answering. I let myself in and looked around for a can opener to borrow. Nothing. I heard a TV and realized her roommate was home and watching football and tapped on his door and asked if he knew where her can opener was. He said “Man, something crazy is going on around here – we had TWO of them and now they are both missing. I just torn up a tin can with a knife.”

We have can opener fairies? What is the chance of three can openers disappearing from one house at once? I feel like I should call the neighbors but I’m a little bit afraid to ask!

So now we get to the survival preparation segment. I rarely eat canned food but lets face it, some of the stuff will last through a nuclear winter and its a very cost effective way to stockpile. I have always meant to buy more than one manual can opener and have them on hand but never got around to it. And with my one and only abducted out of the kitchen, I was in a bind. How do you open a can without a can opener???

I started out trying to do it with a beer bottle opener, puncturing holes in the lid. That was painful and altogether inefficient, since I could not get it to affix to the rim of two of the cans and on the one that would, it just gave me a whole lot of drain holes. I thought about using a knife like the guy downstairs but hated to ruin my knives like that. What ultimately worked was puncturing holes with the bottle thing and using a pair of heavy duty metal cutters from my tool box to tear it open. It wasn’t easy and I was in danger of being a bloody mess at all times, but I managed to mangle open all three cans in the end. I would not want to have to do this every day – it took me longer to open the cans than it did to cook the assemble the meal.

Tomorrow, I will go out and buy a new can opener. Or two, one to store for the future. Unless, of course, I get a ransom note from the can opener fairies.

Is anyone else missing their can opener? Are you sure?

Those who know me probably know I relish a good computer challenge, and will throw down my might against a tricky PC in a heartbeat. But I’m finding my battle prowess leaves a little to be desired when it comes to mechanical things.

That sewing machine that is now in residence has been proving to be a bit more of a learning curve than I expected. I figured that if I could sew nifty things as a 12 year Girl Scout and have my badge to prove it, I could let loose like Martha up in here. Not happening. In fact, I’ve had to walk away a few times just to keep from sending it sailing out the back window into my next door neighbors yard.

It’s just a basic Singer, a mechanical thing with all the usual features. Yet, so far, I’ve managed to have just about everything go wrong that could possibly go wrong with a sewing machine. The manual is a bit less than optimal – it tells you, with less than stellar drawings, how to thread it and then it says, quite simply, lower the foot down and sew. Well, what it fails to mention (this was battle #1 the first night) is that if the factory default setting for stitch length is 0, the needle will just go up and down and it advances NOWHERE. Okay, I’m a doofus for spending a half hour trying to figure out that part, but why didn’t they just say so?

I will say that threading the bobbin was a piece of cake. But getting the bobbin IN the machine was not so simple. The diagram was useless again, and left out the bit about where the thread came out of the bobbin (wrapping around this little slice of metal thingy). I called the beasts co-owner who has owned a machine in more recent days, and she showed me, at which point the memory of it returned from the deepest recesses. But, again, hello – I could draw a better diagram.

My first night with the machine was a bit of a bust – I lost the thread (forgot to hold on to the tails of it) a few times, then got it all tangled up in the bobbin (no idea why) and had to get the hang of a touchy foot pedal. I called it quits and waited a few days. This weekend I returned, certain it would all fall into place. But not so fast! I was making a simple thing, stitching a straight line with a straight stitch but it was a good thing I wasn’t being tested for sobriety because I would have failed. My goodness. Then, without any reason that I can figure, I jammed up and the needle snapped in half. Are you kidding me?!

I opened the manual again to figure out how to get the needle out – looked simple enough, there was a little thing to turn and it would fall out. Except whether the needle was raised up or down, the turning thing was in a virtually inaccessible place for my hand to turn it – and it was frozen in place. It hurt my hand, so I ended up attacking it with heavy duty pliers, to un-jam it, and then going from the front of the machine to the back to torque it a tiny bit each way til it was loose enough to hand-turn. I hope that it won’t be so difficult the next time and was glad Singer gave me a few extras in the accessory pack. I have no idea what made it snap, so it will probably happen again.

Re-threaded the needle, and away we went. I actually started to get the hang of it – still no idea why it was such a pain in the rear end at first because suddenly, wheee, I’m sewing and everything is pleasant. I stitched up two bags in flannel, one small rectangle and one long skinny one, filled them with a mix of rice and herbs (sage and lavendar, smell yummy when warm) and stitched the open ends. Voila, two Christmas gifts done, seven more people to go. I can do this!

What’s amusing about all this is that it reminded me about a gift I gave everyone in my family a long time ago. We lived on a piece of family land next door to my Granny – my dad’s grandmother. She was a bit, er, rough around the edges, shall we say? That’s the nice way to put it. Anyway, she crocheted a lot, and I was her willing student. Back then, all the yarn was that 100% acrylic stuff, in colors no one would be caught dead in today. One year, inspired by the bitter cold weather, living in a mobile home and the energy crisis of the 70s, I got my hands on a skein of scarlet red acrylic yarn. I had learned to turn a crochet chain into a hat – and it occurred to me that I could make very small hats, attach two long red chains on either side, and make a NOSE WARMER! I kid you not. A nose warmer. It made so much sense at the time.

So, with homespun ingenuity, I made bright red nose warmers for every member of the family for Christmas one year. And, as any good family would, they wore them. We looked like a whole herd of Rudolphs – it was hilarious!

With that, I suppose that giving people microwaveable rice bags they can warm their colds toes with will not surprise anyone. And it will not surprise me in the least if my previous endeavor comes up. In fact, I can almost guarantee that my father will reach deep into the archives and pull out a nose warmer.

When I made pumpkin cheesecake squares as my dessert contribution to the communal Thanksgiving dinner, I was left with about half of a 30 oz can of pumpkin to spare. I thought I’d turn it into pumpkin bread with a recipe my sister aces on a regular basis, but realized this morning that I don’t have any orange juice in the house. So I scanned the gluten free pumpkin recipes I have in Living Cookbook, the AMAZING recipe software I’ve used for many years now. And from that, I was able to cobble together a cobbler!

My first attempt at a cobbler

I halved the recipe, something Living Cookbook makes a snap, since I only had 1/2 a can of pumpkin to use, but the recipe I used is written for twice that. And, of course, its gluten free since I used Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Baking Mix.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Cobbler

Serving Size  : 8
Ingredients

1                    stick butter (1/2 cup)
1      cup      Bob’s Red Mill GF baking mix *
1      cup      sugar
1      cup      whole or low-fat milk
1      tsp       vanilla GF extract
2                   eggs, beaten
1                    small can (5 oz.) evaporated milk
1                    30 oz can pure pumpkin pie filling
1/2 tsp       cinnamon
1/2 tsp       nutmeg

* If you’re not making it gluten free, then 1 cup of regular flour, 1.25 tsp baking powder and a dash of salt. If you are making it gluten free but don’t have Bob’s, then its your favorite GF flour mix, 1.25 tsp baking powder, a dash of salt and a tsp of xanthan gum

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Cut the butter into 4 pieces and put them into a 9″ x 12″glass baking dish. Put the dish in the preheating oven to melt butter.
2. In a medium bowl mix baking mix, milk (not the evaporated milk), and vanilla.
3. Remove baking pan from the oven and pour flour mixture on top of the melted butter (DO NOT STIR), and set the mixture aside.
4. Break the eggs into a 2-quart bowl and whisk them together.
5. Add the evaporated milk and pumpkin filling and spices, and mix well.
6. Slowly pour or spoon the pumpkin mixture on top of the crust batter in the baking pan (DO NOT STIR).
7. The crust batter should rise to cover the pumpkin as it bakes. Bake until the crust is dark golden brown on top, about 50-60 minutes.
8. Let the cobbler rest for at least 20 minutes. before serving. Best served warm or room temperature. Optional: vanilla ice cream or other whipped cream topping.

I guess the crust was supposed to cover the whole pumpkin mixture but mine stopped where you see it. OMG, what a butter goodness that crust is, though – it is delicious!

What else can I cobble, I wonder? Blueberry, next… I bet that would be good. Oh, now I have a half a can of evaporated milk in the fridge. This baking spree might not ever end

All of my efforts to remain flu-free until such time as I could get the H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines seem to have paid off. The county held a clinic last weekend and I was able to get the swine flu shot without a hitch.

As luck would have it, I found myself right smack in the middle of a flu household the next day. I had been planning to visit my sister and her kids and less than a half hour before I arrived, she called to tell me one of the boys had woke with a high temperature, sneezing and coughing, body aches and the whole business. I had the option to turn tail and run home – which I briefly considered since I would not have had time to build immunity for the flu yet. But she needed me and promised the little guy would be quarantined while she went out to do some things while I was there to watch the kids.

That lasted all of a half hour – once she was on her way, the sneezing and coughing one was off the sofa and wanting to be close to his aunt. I felt bad – we’d not seen each other for months and usually I do a lot of activities with them when I visit. This particular nephew is very artistically inclined and to have me there and NOT have an art lesson was more than he could bear. His little sister was also a sneezy, sloppy mess and though she’d been recovering from the flu for over a week, I wasn’t sure she was all that safe to be climbing all over me. Add to that an exuberant new puppy who ran from his sick boy to me a thousand times and I knew i might as well go swim in the flu for all the germs I was getting on me.

I cut my visit shorter than planned, and came home to hit myself with every imaginable precaution – Neti pot, thieves oil, elderberry syrup, vitamin D, you name it. I needed 8-10 days to build immunity for H1N1 but if the kids had seasonal flu, I should be okay. And I think its safe to say I was – for the next 3 days, I felt absolutely fine and I was able to go to Thanksgiving dinner without worries.

Except that I woke up the day after Thanksgiving feeling pretty darn sick. No flu – this is just one miserable lousy head cold. I’m still doing all the same remedies, and it seems to be staying in my head at the moment. Except for a good dose of Nyquil at night to help me sleep, I’m trying to beat it with just the Neti pot, lots of herbal tea and the essential oils. I’ve had swollen glands in my neck and rubbing them with the oils seems to knock them right back.

Flu had me worried, but this I can handle if it just stays above my neckline!

One of the most wonderful additions to my life in the past five years is the potluck. It started with the re-addition of contra dancing to my life, lead to the folk music community, which lead to other social circles that potluck on a regular. It’s amazing to me that prior to the first dance I went to, there were no potlucks in my life, ever. I hardly see a week go by without at least 1, if not two, on my schedule, and there are often more but I can’t get to them all.

Contra dancers, who are really just an extension of the folk community, often meet an hour before a dance to eat together. Most every a capella Sing I attend starts with a hearty potluck. And my friends gather weekly on Sundays for one, and monthly on a Friday, for another.  Its a natural way to build a community, and I think that the ones I belong to are truly stronger for it. The few friends I have who aren’t part of any of these potlucky circles aren’t even quite sure what a potluck is – and I can relate because that was me, once. I had some vague concept of it – maybe from Little House on the Prairie – but it seemed like an old fashioned concept, something that happened in days gone by. I wish more people knew the value of shared meals in building and cementing a community.

Since I try to eat gluten free, potluck can be a tricky affair for me sometimes, but not always. I’m blessed with friends who usually think of me and plan food I can eat. But if its not that particular group,  I need to bring something I can eat – there is nothing worse than showing up for pre-dance meal and finding out everyone brought pasta!  A lot of the potluck dishes tend towards vegetarian, which is fine by me but I like a little protein when I can find it. I’m pretty much an opportunivore, though, and can barely afford meat myself so I’m learning more and more about vegetarian cooking.

Which brings up the only side of potlucks that is tricky for me right now. Sometimes I really want to go but don’t have the ingredients to cook a a dish for 12 or more people. I could swing a meal for myself out of what is at home, but the ingredient costs can add up. So I’m always on the look out for super cheap and reasonably yummy potluck dishes, and I’ve accumulated quite a collection of favorites that bear repeating. The best I’ve come up with in terms of popularity AND cost was the African plaintain dish I took to potluck last Friday. As I’m checking over the recipe, I realize I left out a crucial ingredient (CURRY) in the telling of it to those who thought it was great – so here is the link to it:

Plantains and Coconut Milk

This dish comes from Zanzibar, where plantains are called “ndizi.” The nice thing about plantains is that they look like bananas but they are most ripe and ready to eat when the skin is rotten black looking. So, unless you know that, it looks pretty nasty and one is not inclined to buy them.  I found 8 plantains for 4/$1, almost as black as they needed to be. And I had two cans of coconut milk from a dollar store or Ocean State Job Lots, for about $1 each. The spices are things I have on hand. So, while I wish I had made more since the stuff was inhaled so quickly, it was a $4 potluck dish, more or less. Got to love that! Best of all, the particular potluck I took it to coincidentally leaned towards ethnic cuisine and it fit right in. Its one of my favorite dishes to make at home – super easy and so delicious.

Ah, potlucks. I like to think that the first Thanksgiving was a potluck. And I suppose that is why I am so looking forward to tomorrows meal, since it involves the coming together of many related and beloved families from my folk music community, coming to one home, each contributing parts of mostly traditional meal.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of local food lately. Probably because my family of choice, the folks I hope to have Thanksgiving with, usually prepare a meal that is locally sourced. I realize that its a bit of a shame that I only think about this in November, with any regularity, and I know a lot of you make a regular effort to buy local and consume within a 100 mile radius of where you live. I’ve not come to that point yet. I’m intrigued by it, and understand many of the reasons for it but I feel a conflict with it. Let me explain.

When I think about it, everything is local to someone. And we’re all part of the same web of life, so when I think “Oh, that citrus is not local” my next thought is “but if I were to stop buying citrus, the citrus farmers in Florida would be in trouble.” I tend to think about things more globally and inter-connectively than I do locally. That is not to say that I am not enamored with many of the items that are local to me – oh my goodness, the cheese, the apples, the maple syrup, the sweet corn, the root vegetables… there are so many things I am completely crazy about which are produced here.

So, what if the rest of the world were to say “sorry, we’re not buying apples because they aren’t grown in a 100 miles of here”? Wouldn’t that have a tremendous impact on Upstate New York’s economy? I would think so.

I know… transportation costs… shipping… fuel… peak oil… I know, I’ve read you. But, I can’t help thinking we should always try to find things sourced locally first – and if its not available, support the economies where it is. Feel free to argue with me.

Does this extend to the whole world, this ideal of mine? (I guess the question then is “where do bananas come from?” )

Seriously, I  think it does. But should it? That is where I am conflicted. I realize that transporting of food to my community, from some tropical island, is probably not good for the planet.  I also realize that not allowing that far away land to export its funny looking fruit might hurt the economy of its people.

Then my mind goes to work and the global marketplace. Being unemployed – and knowing that much of the work at my former company was being outsourced to China – leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I applied this week for a super job that happens to involve managing a team in India. On one hand, I think – they need to work too, its a free market. And then I remember that I could have answered the emails that said “We are a group of programmers in New Delhi who can do your web database development for only $15/hr USD” and saved my own business. But I was too stubborn – I insisted on hiring US developers, some here and some downstate. I was fighting my own private war for the US economy. And I lost.

So is that another side of the local food argument I have with myself? I think not. There were perfectly good programmers and developers here, in my local economy – and I hired them for my clients work. There are no oranges here. Do I look for food that is local, first – and then buy other things periodically that are not? Yes. And I probably will until that is not an option any more.

Thoughts?