Time to start making some decisions…

*sssiiiiiiggggghhhhh*

Just when I thought I’d found a good food company to patronize… I learn that Fresh Direct is the subject of multiple and varied employee complaints, relating to discrimination and union busting.  I had filled up a virtual grocery cart with a couple bags full of goodies (largely veggies and “sports candy” as one annoying kids tv show has taken to calling fresh fruit) to maximize the $25.00 coupon I’d gotten in the mail for ordering from Fresh Direct.  I envisioned myself getting an awesome sweep for a just a few bucks, when I went to check out and *BAM* I found out I had to spend a hundred dollars to make use of that quarter coupon.  So the coupon’s been sitting on my desk, and I had big plans to spend it, when I needed and had room for a hundred dollars worth of new groceries in my pantry (a/k/a kitchen — this is the city where, for most, pantries only exist in the magazines in our cramped bathrooms, our imaginations, or under the sink). Then suddenly, this bad news appeared….

http://www.alternet.org/story/154383/how_freshdirect_delivers_misery_along_with_your_groceries–and_how_workers_and_the_community_are_fighting_back

So I guess I am out of the loop. I did not know all the problems with Fresh Direct, which seemed to be well poised to be a nifty alternative to the megamarkets we’ve been trying to escape.  There’s been controversy brewing over at a little local grocery store, Golden Farms, where word on the street is that management has hired undocumented workers and is paying them well below minimum wage.  The availability of decent channels for food procurement seems to be growing narrower and narrower.

I was at Union Square green market on Wednesday, and up at Grand Army Plaza on Saturday, but it is hard to make it to market a couple times a week.  The allure of Foodtown a block and a half away is hard to resist.  Still, trying to make better choices when it comes to buying food.  Back to the drawing board…

QUESTION:  where do you get the bulk of your food these days?  How much will that change with the warming weather?  Are you availing yourself of the vast increase in farmers markets?  Which is your fave? Go ahead…gimme the dirt!

Thanks for patience and comments and encouragement while I was on hiatus.  My lemon tree seemed to care.  I’ve known her the longest of all my house plants, and she bloomed to cheer me up.  My banana plants still can’t seem to quite get in the groove.  They’re rather fickle but so know how to brighten a room.  Everyone’s itching to get outside…assuming the weather soon will permit them.

Not too long ago, I wrote about being overwhelmed at all the information out there on preparing for the unexpected, and noted that I would consider paying someone for the service of pulling it altogether and giving me one statement of what was needed, where I could get it best/cheapest etc., to prepare my home for the unexpected (earthquakes, floods, terrorist attacks, zombie attacks, etc.).  One fellow reveler, made the following comment, which I applaud and appreciate.  I took his test, and have found that I’m not totally ready for “this,” with the “this” being any unknown number of disasters or difficulties that can strike at any time at all.  In my household, we’re set on water and food but things like batteries and flashlights keep kind of disappearing when a non-urgent need arises.  I’m therefore thinking of designating certain items “emergency only” – not to be used for replacing batteries in the remote control or kids toys.  I also realize that I need to not only have a fire extinguisher but be pretty certain I know how to use it.  Also next on my list of to-dos is to take a CPR/first aid class.  It’s a couple hours out of the day and could save lives.  There’s simply no good excuse for not having done so already.

Here it is — many thanks to Ralph!!

Ralph ⋅

Will return then, still getting back up to speed, and will revel with you then! (The Meyer lemon tree is starting to bloom again, welcoming me back to the world and reminding me of new beginnings). What’s happening in your neck of the garden? Go ahead … Gimme the dirt!

Hi friends and fellow revelers,

I have been out of the loophole a bit lately (tax time appropriate puns permitted?) due to unanticipated medical stuff.  As much s I hate hospitals, I’m sure glad they exist.  Will be posting again soon, with updates on the wild onion party in my front yard, prepping for spring planting, and the latest from my dirt pile which has now outgrown the compost bin out back and has an outpost in a nearby large container bin.  (Does anyone else hide their scrap pile when the exterminator comes around)?  All that and more soonish.  In the meantime, thanks for all your feedback and comments, and words of encouragement.

QUESTION:  What are you all doing to get ready for spring?  Any upturned dirt yet?  Any seedlings started inside?  How are your indoor plants holding up?  (My banana plants were looking a little ragged a couple weeks ago but seem to be recovering this dry indoor weather slowly.  I’m thinking they are just happier outside, and will perk up when I’m able to get them out there again.)  Go ahead … gimme the dirt!

Ta-da! My Rival crock pot of umpteen years did not conk out on me despite some low rattling protest when I retrieved it from the dungeon thus morning. And it worked away all day for me making a lovely doro wat. Recipe to follow…

Here we go … First attempt at doro wat in a crock-pot so old I don’t remember when, where or how I got it. After today, I am hoping to remember the why.

Our friend over at Red Garden Clogs recently went to a rally organize by Occupy Big Food and Food Democracy Now, and has the lowdown here. I wasn’t able to make it, but I’m glad we got the report from RGC, as well as some powerful snapshots of signs of the timeline of Monsanto, beginning with its founding in 1901 by a 30-year pharm veteran (yes, that’s pharmaceutical, NOT farm), to the development of Agent Orange (manufactured primarily by Monsanto) in the years 1939-45, which was used from 1961-1971 during the Vietnam War as part of Operation Ranch Hand, to today, when 81 transgenic crops have been approved by the FDA without a single request denied.

I have a friend, Larry (Sarge) Forrest who was the first African-American to serve in the elite Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (his story is only partly told in the book Six Silent Men) and, he tells me, an invitee to the Tuskegee Airmen Society, recently featured in George Lucas’s Red Tails (I saw it recently and highly recommend everyone reading this does too) since there was really no other place to put him and his friend who trained the mechanics who took care of the red tail planes that these honorable pilots flew. A skilled sniper, he was also a victim of Agent Orange and suffers its effects to this day.

There are so many reasons to be aware of what’s going on with food production today, from the obvious alarming ecological impact to honoring people who have fought the effects of irresponsible food production historically, and of course to try to reduce the number of people who suffer illness and death so that Big Food producers can increase their bottom line.

QUESTION: what are you doing to help bring attention to these issues or raise your own awareness of them?  Have your eating and buying habits changed in response to awareness of the issues surrounding Big Food production?  Do you have any recommendations how others can do the same?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt!

Here is my adaptation of a lovely recipe on cookistry.

I just got an email from Google telling me they revised their privacy policy to make it shorter and easier to read. They say…

“Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

“We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read ….”

If Google really believed this “stuff” mattered, why do they bother calling it “stuff” as opposed to “privacy”? Was this a way to try to relate to the average Google user? Aren’t Google users a group too diverse to even have a meaningful average? And how long did someone look at that email, considering whether to use the word “stuff,” and how many meetings were had over every word in that email? Who decided to try to temper the jargon-y, typical corporate speak with the carefully contrived use of a casual word such as “stuff,” and did Google ever consider that it might come across a tad (or more) condescending, trite, and offensive?

Google, and other similar companies such as Facebook, Apple, et al: please stop trying to sound hip.

The rest of us have grown up. No matter how many knit caps you may see bobbing on countless heads of too many 30+ year olds, underneath the hipster paraphernalia, many not so longer young minds are setting their wheels turning on how to save their own jobs, or supplement their income with a side trade or homemade product with the secret dream of sidestepping the dismal and abysmal and ever decreasing regular job prospects. Many are now thinking seriously about how scary old age looks in these shaky times, even while posting carefully crafted FB reports or blog posts proclaiming to be living a life driven by lackadaisical whimsy, struggling to convince all their “friends” how not worried they are.

But the truth is, as much as so many of us hate to admit it, we are growing up and we have grown up. It’s a necessary, if not always fun, thing to do. Now, Google, why don’t you?