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How to eat local for free in Chattanooga

June 1, 2011 – 10:26 am

The kids and I visited the Williams Island Farm on Friday and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Williams Island Farm is an organic farm that sits on 20+ of the 450 acres that make up the island. Aside from having a CSA, the Williams Island Farm provides food to local restaurants like 212 Market and Lupi’s. They also sell produce at the Main Street Market on Wednesdays and the Brainerd Market on Saturdays. We were there as part of a work share. We helped them harvest and in return we got a box of food to take home with us.

Up until now, any trips to Williams Island (and Sequatchie Cove) were forbidden by my husband because he was afraid I’d never come back. He knows I’m just a few steps away from full-blown hippie and putting me in a situation where everyone is living together and farming organically might tempt me too much. We made the agreement that this would be a trial run and as long as I didn’t come back smelling like patchouli I might be able to go back.

We made our way to the boat ramp behind Baylor at 8 in the morning and met Richard (or Farmer Richard, as the kids called him).

A short boat ride across the river and we were walking up the path to the farm. Richard made a list of how many bundles of each vegetable we needed to pick and showed us where to go and what to do.

Gracie and I set out to pick carrots, but she quickly decided that Wesley’s job of picking beets looked like more fun. She wandered off to argue beet size with her brother and talk Farmer Richard’s ear off. She was also quick to shed her shoes so she could run through the fields and every mud puddle she could find (takes after her mother).

It was supposed to take around 4 hours, but, with 6 adults and 2 kids, we managed to get it done in around 2 hours. Then we loaded up a box with carrots, kale, chard, beets and turnips, and headed back to the boat.

I feel I must mention that anything that starts with a boat ride, involves mud, and ends up with food counts as a great time as far as the kids are concerned.

Want to give it a try?

  • Find a morning Tuesday through Friday that would work for you.
  • Email them at williamsislandfarm[at]gmail[dot]com or give them a call at 678.876.0130.
  • Show up ready to work.

Sunflower picture via their website. You can see lots of great pictures of the farm here.

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Cooking Family Health Humor

The Pro and Cons of Couponing

January 20, 2011 – 8:00 am

This will be a completely biased post because I never wanted to start couponing in the first place. My wonderful husband was regaled with tales of amazing money-saving by his coworkers. As far as I can tell, he deduced that what I needed more than anything was a hobby that required a lot of time and energy, because, you know, I had those in spades. After a couple of months of couponing, here I am declaring that I’m not going to do it anymore and he can’t make me.

Pro (yes, just one):

Saves money- But not really. See below.

Cons:

Limited selection- The main idea behind couponing is only buying when something is on sale and you have a coupon for it. That limits that number of things that can be purchased and their usability. For instance, rarely are spaghetti sauce and spaghetti noodles on sale at the same time.

Time Suck-This is my biggest complaint. Couponing takes hours a week. There’s clipping the coupons, organizing them so they’re easier to find later, going through the weekly flyers for deals, and then going back and matching coupons to those deals. Also, to get the best deals you must visit 2 or 3 stores, so add driving time to the total.

Waste- If there is a “buy one, get one free” deal on cereal, it will never apply to the family size. I’d get the same amount of cereal for cheaper, but instead of two big boxes, it would be in 4-6 little boxes. Also, the newspapers are wasted. Paul was getting 4 Atlanta newspapers a week and the only parts I was using were the coupon sections. Of course, we compost and recycle so they weren’t going to the landfill, but it was still a big waste. I’ve asked Paul not to order any more newspapers which is wife speak for “bring any more home and I’ll use them to set fire to your Xbox.”

Not food- Most of us know people who post about how they just paid 50 cents for $300 worth of groceries. Sometimes they even post a picture to go with it. I challenge you to find unprocessed food in the whole picture. Good luck. You’ll need it.  There’s never a good sale on fruits and veggies unless those fruits and veggies are 5 minutes from producing mold. I don’t feed my kids canned soup, Doritos, and Poptarts, so I’m not exactly drooling over the prospect of even paying 50 cents for a pile of it.

Doesn’t really save you money- I did the whole list for this week and then I went back over my list to see which of these things I would have bought on my own if I wasn’t couponing. One. One little thing that I actually needed. Everything else was that I was buying was either a treat (English muffins and fruit cups) or crap I buy for Paul that I end up eating myself because he forgets to or doesn’t like it (Weight Watchers meals and Yoplait yogurt). I just saved at least twenty dollars by not bothering to go at all.

I suppose being successful at couponing really requires some sort of drive that I just don’t have. All in all, there may be a benefit to families with 18 children that exclusively eat high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil, but there was no benefit to our family.

Thanks to Jenn for the flowchart:

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Cooking Family Health Humor

Just Desserts

November 24, 2010 – 7:39 am

Ah, the holidays, a time to show off your cooking prowess to people you rarely see. Since there isn’t a big market for vegetables that aren’t deep-fried or cooked with fat back (they call it that because that’s what it gives you), I stay away from making side dishes and just stick with desserts.

Here’s a list of what I’m making for Thanksgiving (or, as I like to call it, Diabetes Day):

  • Lemon Ice Box Pie- Celestial mentioned it so I decided to give it a try. I had never heard of it before, but it was an easy, no bake pie.
  • Chess Bars- Paul’s favorite
  • Oreo Truffles-These will soon be regulated by the FDA once they realize how crazy good they are. Pictured above.
  • Fudge- I doubled the recipe. I now have 4 pounds of it in my fridge waiting to be cut into slabs. If your dessert doesn’t come in slabs, you’re doing something wrong.

Paul would like to point that there are other options for your Thanksgiving celebration. For instance, TurBacon (a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig):

One commenter described it as “The Passion of the Christ for vegans.” I don’t know what Paul found more amusing, the concept in general or my reaction to it (much retching and gasps of horror).

If you like seeing food do what no food should ever do, check out their YouTube channel: Epic Meal Time

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

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Cooking Family

Something’s Fishy Here

July 6, 2010 – 1:57 am

My mother never cooked fish, so I never learned how to as I was growing up. It has always been something that has intimidated me. I didn’t know how fish was supposed to look or taste, I didn’t know how to pick out a good cut. Paul loves fish and all kinds of seafood. This has caused some trouble in our relationship.

When we were dating, we visited New Orleans and ate at a restaurant with tiny tables and I took issue with his food’s antennae touching my plate; my plate, containing food that used to walk on solid ground and never had a questionable number of legs (more than four).

On our honeymoon, I was raving over a delicious, tender chicken in a cream sauce and Paul made sure I was halfway through my third helping before he informed me that my chicken was really fish.

When we lived in Germany, we visited a little restaurant that always had interesting food. We had eaten bison and ostrich there before and enjoyed it immensely. While not fluent in German, we did know our way around a menu, which I see as a requirement in a foreign country, that and numbers. I saw the word for goose and picked that while Paul saw the word for fish and ordered it. My food came out respectably covered in a delicious sauce, but Paul’s appeared and was not what we expected. It consisted of ten to fifteen small fish that had been fried with their heads on. Paul, being the sensitive, caring husband that he is, ate each fish and then set the head on the edge of his plate so its tiny little eyes could watch me attempt to eat my food.

All that to say I’ve had my ups and downs where seafood is concerned.

Strolling through the grocery store the other day some tuna steaks caught my eye. Maybe it was because they were so red and I’m more used to red meat, but I grabbed them and decided to give it a shot. I found a recipe for Seared Ahi Tuna Steaks that worked out really well. I tweaked it a bit so that our steaks would be more towards medium-well and found a recipe for Blue Cheese Butter that is so good I would eat it on dirt.

With any new food or dish, I always make sure to include the kids. They are far less likely to turn their noses up at food they help prepare. (Not that they refuse food much at all. I can count the foods they won’t eat on one hand.) Gracie threw in the peppercorns for the tuna and Wesley stirred up the blue cheese and butter.

The steaks turned out perfectly and both of the kids raved about them, very proud of what they had made. I was pretty proud, myself, and enjoyed surprising Paul when he got home. I haven’t upped the level of arsenic in his food, lately, so it didn’t affect the flavor and he really liked it.

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Adults Birds Books Children's books Cooking Crafts Gardening Library books

What We’re Reading

June 26, 2010 – 1:12 am

Book of the Week:
The Family Kitchen GardenThe Family Kitchen Garden: How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together, by Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, and Annette Wendland           

This book has all the information you need to start or expand a family garden. The first section is an introduction to gardening that lays out the basic necessities for a garden the whole family can enjoy. The next section has a chapter for each month and lists what to plant, what to harvest, and what get ready. Nearly every month has a recipe for what’s in season and a craft. My favorites are the recipe for do-it-yourself fruit roll-ups and the instructions for building a ladybug/lacewing nesting house.

Other books we’ve enjoyed this week…

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