Quotes

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

Wednesday is the day I pick up my raw milk from a local urban drop point and it is also Real Food Wednesdays over at Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s blog. She has a great round-up of all kinds of real food related posts and recipes every Wednesday from the realfood blogosphere. I have come to really look forward to this day, I really like having a day of the week dedicated to Real Food like this. I also meet interesting people on my bus ride to get the milk. One morning it was an elder indigenous woman who was heading home to can freshly caught salmon, another time it was an old man asking about the wild fennel I had just foraged from the alley, sticking out of the back of my blue hand-cart, another time I met another cowshare member who was growing her own mushrooms on a bag of straw. The cycles of relationship created by getting involved with real, living food are very grounding and healing.

We also get real pastured eggs through our local cowshare. In October, I was also really lucky to get a loan of the book The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer by Joel Salatin from a cowshare member when we were at the Contempt of Court trial against our local community dairy, which is now being run by Michael Schmidt.

A Culture Without Self-Correction

A Culture Without Self-Correction

When I read, I like to collect my favorite quotes and passages. I have been doing this since I was in high-school so some of my quotes I have lost the references for. I was just looking though my old archives and found this series of quotes and excerpts. With all the info that Wikileaks has finally ...

Use Butter Generously

Use Butter Generously

I recently found this in a cookbook compilation from my mother-in-law. I like to collect old community cookbooks from around the turn of the century and my mother-in-law loves to hang out in thrift shops looking for forgotten goodies, so she often finds me great stuff. I usually find really nour ...

Taking Shelter Under a Nuclear Umbrella

Taking Shelter Under a Nuclear Umbrella

I have been reading The One-Straw Revolutionby Masanobu Fukuoka over the last year. It is a small book, but each essay/teaching/experience/chapter packs a powerful punch and I have taken my time, savoring each section. Usually I am quite greedy when I read a book and devour it too quickly, but this ...

Kitchen Education Manifesto

Kitchen Education Manifesto

I discovered this, written by a Shaker while I was studying at the Culinary Institute of America. One of the most fantastic aspects of that school is the huge library they have of culinary works from across the centuries. I was writing a paper on the Shakers. When I first read this I got goose bum ...

Three Forms of Knowledge

Three Forms of Knowledge

I would like to offer you all this to ponder upon in apology for my long absence... Ibn El-Arabi of Spain instructed his followers in this most ancient dictum: There are three forms of knowledge. The first is intellectual knowledge, which is in fact only information and the collection of facts ...

The Roar of Awakening

The Roar of Awakening

The Chinese Year of the Tiger begins on Valentines day this year, making it extra special in my book... 14/2/2010. I was born in the year of the tiger so I confess to being prejudiced in this area ;-). In honor of the upcoming New Year and because I was just going through an old folder full of some ...

Dr Paul Farmer on Haiti

Dr Paul Farmer on Haiti

Paul Farmer has worked in rural Haiti for more than twenty years. He is a doctor and anthropologist and has written several books on health inequalities. Known as Dokte Paul throughout Haiti, he has improved rural health by teaching basic health practices as the best preventive medicine. He has also ...

Biodynamic Vitamins

Biodynamic Vitamins

The word "biodynamic" seems to be all the rage these days, so I thought it appropriate to attach it to Rudolf Hauschka's perspective on Vitamins :-). I am one of those people who personally believes that nature got it right the first time...in other words a spoonful of home-made rose-hip syrup p ...

Mens Sana In Corpore Sano

Mens Sana In Corpore Sano

A Healthy Mind in A Healthy Body Quotes in this post are from Nutrition: A Holistic Approach by Rudolf Hauschka. "We have made use of our thoughts to develop techniques which aim to build a civilization based on comfort. Those who notice how narrow and egotistical this self-serving use of ...